04 - Getting to know you

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[The chaos of the lost languages behind them, it is time to know this place better. There are too many people, possibilities for something like uncertainty. People with their own words are far more likely to be themselves with them, in whatever form that might take. Reinette needs to watch. To see and to know.

It is time she took full stock of this place people called the Astral Plane.

A settee arrives with her, on which Reinette reclines. On a small table nearby there are two glasses, and a fine bottle of bordeaux.

This might take some time.]

Comments

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she can feel him, reaching for when she was unkind. Cruel. It is not as if those moments do not exist. And she refuses to hide them from him. If a point is made either way, well. She is hardly going to color her past for him in pastels instead of oils when she refuses to do so for herself. She is the one that must live there.

Charles, the child. Her husband. He wished for nothing of her, was bribe to agree to the contract but of course he had to fall in love. Their daughter in the next room, her future at hand and memories of the Yew Tree Ball lingering? Reinette informed him there time was done. Brought him to her knees without ever leaving her chair.

He had to be bribed.

She never forgets.

She watches him dance for a while, listening to the drumming all the while. So many lives and it is remarkable how much is the same. Her fingers grasp at the handle to the door that contains the black hole, as if she might force it back open. Finish the story. But she stops.

Is that respect?]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't, my lady. It was very painful.

[but still, he unlocks the door for her]

You may choose.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

I am no stranger to pain.

[she is curious, almost nakedly so. The door is unlocked and waiting and already she can hears the prelude to the rustle her skirts will make when she enters]

It can wait. [does it suggest a longer acquaintance] You can tell me of it some time.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I know you are not. But very well.

[he gives her this: standing alone before the leader of his species; the feeling of the TARDIS link being ripped from his mind; the agony of Daleks executing him; the force of will that kept him living, seeking out another chance.]

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she reels from it, images ice and heat in rapid succession as they both burn her skin]

[a breath]

[the screaming of her mind as the Clockwork men scan it, blood seeping from her wrists, elsewhere with miscarriage after miscarriage, a father banished to Germany, beginning anew]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[he catches hold of the memories and slows them, so he may better remove himself from the pain.]

[a planet, young, and lush and green, and the feel of the morphogenetic field of it, still untouched and vulnerable.

Daleks left to die across the planet; Sontaran and Rutan, crashed there and trapped in combat; a prison ship left there, criminals banding together and forming a space craft to set them free. And with each memory, the feel of the morphogenetic field twists.

Then, millions of years later, a civillisation built, a war-hungry, hate-mongering, ambitious population, with an empire stretching through the galaxy]

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[for a moment she resists him, she is more than accustomed to her own memories, to the size and shape and scope of them and the emotions they bring -- but watching them with someone else, at the pace they chose? Makes the pain especially fresh and she reacts in turn]

[not her features of course, she is too practiced for that]

[some of the features of the creatures are familiar, and others are not. Those that are echo the dreams that followed the Doctor's departure, places and things that were beyond her own scope of knowledge, yet lingered all the same. Like a flat painting by a fledgling artist, they were ideas not fully realized. These images now add fresh dimension, and she all but devours them]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[he pauses, then reshuffles the door, trying to keep his habitual fear away from any place where she could sense it as he presents himself, the same face as the one that battled Axons, negotiated war between the Draconian and Earth empires - and, most importantly, showing her the Daleks he had allied himself with, the practices of the species which he had observed in his time with them.]

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[the rooms are changing, that much she senses -- but hers never do, and has no knowledge of what they were before to sort out precisely what is different.

These Daleks seem so different from the ones within the Doctor's mind, and the endless fire that followed. The shells and shapes and capabilities are they same, so surely it is the beholder is what is altered. She touches one, still pressing to know, to understand.

There is a city that all but despises her, a country that thinks their king should want for something more common than herself. Slurs are made, witty twists and turns of her given name, and a carriage often assaulted. Objects thrown at it from the street.

But then she is standing on the stage she herself created, withing the kings most private chambers. The nobility battle themselves for invitations to her theatrical seasons, the intimate dinners with Louis that follow. They do not like her, but they need her. And she stands before them in breeches, to play the role of Prince Charming. Louis appears on stage then, kisses her, declares her the most delicious woman in all of France. Triumph sings in her veins.]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I think I could quite agree with the King. Perhaps one more memory before we end this, my lady?

[behind the nearest door is the brilliance of a star collapsing in on itself, then bursting out in one final, dying breath, turning into a pulsing orb, immortal in its death, illuminating the many-coloured ashes it leaves behind]

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[it is like nothing she has ever experienced before ---

She has no memory to offer in response because nothing can compare, and though until now her eyes were wide and alert, drinking in every detail of her companion's features as memories are exchanged? Now she closes them, compelled to keep every detain, every image, within her. All of them painfully beautiful. It fills her. Soot stings her eyes and she can taste the ash in her mouth. That is the strength of the memory, and in turn the strength of her reachtion]

Yes.

[the one to pull away, break the connection, hand pressed to her abdomen as she fights for breath]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[he beams, leaning back into the settee and picking up his drink for a sip]

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she might be glaring at him, for even this one moment holding the upper hand --only she is too taken with the memories and the sensations they invoke]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Beautiful universe, isn't it? Sick, but beautiful.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[thoughtful, does not reach for her wine]

Why was that the last memory you chose?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I do generally like to have things end with a bang. Can't let the last scene fall through, or the whole thing's rubbish, no matter how good it was up to then.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[the actress smiles as the woman recovers]

We are all cast in your personal play then?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

God, no! Really, you've seen people. Surely you must realise that a fair number aren't fit at all to be in any sort of play? They do tend to make good props, though.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

So you are casting nonetheless.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

If you mean I judge, then yes, I do. Of course I do.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

You have seen a great many things.

I imagine it is interesting how you come to judge worth.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I think I'll say 'thank you' to that.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Thank you?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Well, I suppose it's a sort of compliment to have an assessment of your judgement of others to come out as 'interesting.' Though it didn't quite - the 'imagine' sort of threw it off - but, really, 'thank you' is probably the best answer.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Well, I imagine the process, because I cannot think I can fathom it. Certainly not yet, and perhaps ever. And interesting is a compliment, not sort of one.