“An old Unix System hard drive; a zebra; a customizable flavor update to the custard cream dispenser; exactly three bobby pins; a giant rubber band ball … .”
“ … . and a person-sized laundry chute, at the end of which, there lies a bathtub of baby scorpions.
For science.”
ah fuck @honourablebravery I did the dumbass thing again of posting to the wrong blog so here, had you given that book to the Master and not the Doctor, this would have been the post:
The Master chirps in quiet delight at the presentation of the Kerblam box–he trusts, without bubble wrap.
“Why, Twirly,” he croons, “what a lovely gesture? Is this for the integration of your circuitry into the TARDIS matrix, or were you made aware that my birthday by earth’s calendar is in a couple of wee–?”
Having opened the box during this smugly oozing chatter, he’s discovered what’s inside.
A single, exceedingly ugly, purple argyle trouser sock.
“ … Okay! So! Your default programming is still a work in progress. Duly noted.”
He’s so full of fury that he must expel it. It comes with the unstoppable force of a pressure cooker boiling over, leaking scalding liquid, staining the steel, causing the reek of burning. The Master’s eyes reek with burning.
“This is why humans aren’t worth the investment! I don’t care, alright? I DON’T CARE if your pets hear me! All it took was a dash of ignorance and a STENCH of fear and off they went in a state of mass hysteria! Murdering each other, murdering friends, neighbors, FAMILY! Women, murdering their own,scared to miss out on their QUAINT idea of Paradise, desperate to PROVE themselves WORTHY! SELFISH! Killing, killing, killing, killing!”
He stalks around their bedroom, furiously cleaning, tidying, filing, organizing, providing himself the illusion of order and control, but the compulsive action, the ritual, of self-soothing doesn’t cut it this time. After a moment he flings a pillow off the bed and stomps on it, and clutches his temples.
One two three four one two three four. Not there anymore, it’s in your mind, in your mind, breathe, it’s not real.
“Why’d you condemn me for so long for being a killer, but them? THEY get a free pass. What, BECAUSE they’re ignorant? Because they’re weak? So you pity them? Is that it?”
This is why I preyed on the humans in Utopia, at the edge of the universe. This is why I made their last survivors into the Toclafane. Because I have read their hearts, I have KNOWN these “mysteries” of the heart, and I have found the answers LACKING.
I really hope someone gives Thirteen a hug after the events of this last episode, I feel she needs it
“I’ll give her a hug. I’ll bring her the severed fingers pointed at her. I’ll bring her a listening ear, for the rest of our lives. I’ll even love the undeserving disgraceful apes who so inexplicably fascinate and endear her. If it helps her, I’ll do it.”
Koschei’s After-Episode Summary
“THIS! THIS is why!”
He’s so full of fury that he must expel it. It comes with the unstoppable force of a pressure cooker boiling over, leaking scalding liquid, staining the steel, causing the reek of burning. The Master’s eyes reek with burning.
“This is why humans aren’t worth the investment! I don’t care, alright? I DON’T CARE if your pets hear me! All it took was a dash of ignorance and a STENCH of fear and off they went in a state of mass hysteria! Murdering each other, murdering friends, neighbors, FAMILY! Women, murdering their own,scared to miss out on their QUAINT idea of Paradise, desperate to PROVE themselves WORTHY! SELFISH! Killing, killing, killing, killing!”
He stalks around their bedroom, furiously cleaning, tidying, filing, organizing, providing himself the illusion of order and control, but the compulsive action, the ritual, of self-soothing doesn’t cut it this time. After a moment he flings a pillow off the bed and stomps on it, and clutches his temples.
One two three four one two three four. Not there anymore, it’s in your mind, in your mind, breathe, it’s not real.
“Why’d you condemn me for so long for being a killer, but them? THEY get a free pass. What, BECAUSE they’re ignorant? Because they’re weak? So you pity them? Is that it?”
This is why I preyed on the humans in Utopia, at the edge of the universe. This is why I made their last survivors into the Toclafane. Because I have read their hearts, I have KNOWN these “mysteries” of the heart, and I have found the answers LACKING.
Her voice echoes for miles, the chatter of bystanders fading into a stunned silence. They may have not been part of it before, but all eyes were on the small blonde woman who shook with rage.
Her entire being bristles with power and commanding energy, far larger than life or even her current, unfortunately petite body.
Hazel eyes pin the offender with blazing fury.
“I said NO! You have no right! No right to harm these people! This planet is protected by the Doctor, and if you know what’s good for yourself, you’ll take a moment to think about EXACTLY what that means before you take another step.”
The Master’s whole body electrifies. Nipples harden, hair pricks, goosebumps surface. Fight or flight, the struggle between sane survivalism and the mad, abject, sublime desire to run toward the tornado, to pitch over the edge of the waterfall, to stand screaming and beating one’s chest in the hurricane. To be saturated wholly with the violence and the fury contained within the being he unthinkingly adores.
And he does. He runs toward the conflict, straight out of the TARDIS he’s strictly ordered not to leave, for fear of the disruption of TARDIS energy healing his back. He forgets himself when eclipsed in her shadow. He always has. Always will.
He catches her ‘round the waist and spins her out of the way of the people she’s antagonizing.
“Thete, STOP, they’re armed–!”
A musket fires, and grazes the Doctor’s bondmate in the side. A superficial wound, nowhere near the fatal shot inflicted by Chan-Tho, or Lucy, or by a random insignificant Mondasian gunman on Bill Potts. But Koschei goes down just the same, with a startled grunt, and cups his left side, and falters down onto the wound, trembling.
“Shit,” he snarls, trying in vain to stand.
In films, moments such as these are shown in slow motion, as if the heroes have ample time to recognize what is happening in the moment and be quietly horrified in convenient pacing for the plot. But that is not how it happens in reality.
The Master yanks her aside at the same moment a musket fires, and he collapses in the same instant. It’s over before she can even realize it happened, and her husband is struggling to stand. Red is soaking through her favorite soft cotton tee of his, the one that somehow has made it through spit up stains and grease spots and still always just smells like HIM.
It is here that the world slows down.
It slows down, because for just a fraction of a second, the timelines are splayed out in front of her, a Lord of Time, each a new path she can choose. Her husband is wounded, likely having saved her life in the process, and the people responsible will likely fire again if given the chance.
Her decision is made, and just as quickly, Time catches up.
They would have been luckier if Time had remained still.
There is a flash, and the Doctor spins, sonic screwdriver wielded as a weapon, not a tool. The gunpowder in the muskets ignites, a small explosion in the hands of each and every one of them threatening the Doctor and her family. Though it disarms every one of them, it is not enough to kill anyone, though a few cry out in pain from burns or mangled fingers. The Doctor looks on with cold disinterest.
“YAZ! Graham! Get Koschei back to the TARDIS.”
Her voice rings with authority and a cold, merciless determination as she stalks forward, her eyes blazing. Several innocent bystanders take a step back, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire of this fierce woman who reeks of fury.
“It’s people like you,” she spits, squaring her shoulders and addressing the leader, who clutches his hand with a pained grimace, “that make this world worse.”
“You claim what you do is for the greater good, but it’s not. It’s done out of hate and anger, and a selfish desire for power and glory. You’d do anything for it, right or wrong. But it ends here.”
The man stares at her… and whatever he sees staring back at him is more terrifying than whatever threat he imagined he would find in this place. The Doctor’s eyes hold billions of years of memory.
Death, destruction, pain, rage…
She’s seen things that would drive any one of these people mad, and it shows in the cold glare that she pins him with.
“Go. No second chances. I think it’s time to bring that rule back.”
Koschei’s never been cognizant of sluggish time; it’s more the sudden SILENCE of these horrific moments that he can feel. The relentless memory of Drums long purged, even that, violently ceases to be, in moments like this.
He continues to stagger, striving to stand, because he knows. He knows what is about to happen is the equivalent of barometric pressure plummeting. He knows these men will leave with their lives, because the Doctor claims to abhor murder, but there is not necessarily anything merciful about that choice.
And while the Master is enchanted, dazed, aroused, by the fury of his best friend, every time he sees her light eclipsed by her countless millennia of grief and loneliness and rage, he knows there is a chance that shadow will never pass.
So even as Graham stammers something about one two three up, and even as Yaz bodily shields Koschei, he reaches past their stricken forms for Her. Even as he is lifted off his feet and carried, even as the gunmen shriek and cower and run, he stretches his mind to breaking, to tickle, to brush, Hers.
{ Don’t leave me. You promised: you said never. You promised. }
Beaches and babies and psychic ice cream; dolphins and Twirlies and mile long conveyers and dinner under the holo-stars by Our Tree; fencing matches and snuggles and good books and great tea and very long showers; come back to me, Goose.
But then Koschei blacks out.
When he’s conscious again, it’s hours later. Nobody’s in the room but his wife.
On dear, his wife.
His beautiful littleVengeful Pixie.
His Sunbeam of Doom.
Oh, look at her. Brilliant. Eccentric. Fearless. Effervescent. Breathtaking.
“Thete … Thete … Thete … I cann’feel my … .face. Hoo! Hooha! Hee. I can’t feel ANYthing. I didn’t die, though, that’s encouraging.”
Conversationally, idly, he glances at the bandage over his left side, and then, at the IV in his wrist.
Her voice echoes for miles, the chatter of bystanders fading into a stunned silence. They may have not been part of it before, but all eyes were on the small blonde woman who shook with rage.
Her entire being bristles with power and commanding energy, far larger than life or even her current, unfortunately petite body.
Hazel eyes pin the offender with blazing fury.
“I said NO! You have no right! No right to harm these people! This planet is protected by the Doctor, and if you know what’s good for yourself, you’ll take a moment to think about EXACTLY what that means before you take another step.”
The Master’s whole body electrifies. Nipples harden, hair pricks, goosebumps surface. Fight or flight, the struggle between sane survivalism and the mad, abject, sublime desire to run toward the tornado, to pitch over the edge of the waterfall, to stand screaming and beating one’s chest in the hurricane. To be saturated wholly with the violence and the fury contained within the being he unthinkingly adores.
And he does. He runs toward the conflict, straight out of the TARDIS he’s strictly ordered not to leave, for fear of the disruption of TARDIS energy healing his back. He forgets himself when eclipsed in her shadow. He always has. Always will.
He catches her ‘round the waist and spins her out of the way of the people she’s antagonizing.
“Thete, STOP, they’re armed–!”
A musket fires, and grazes the Doctor’s bondmate in the side. A superficial wound, nowhere near the fatal shot inflicted by Chan-Tho, or Lucy, or by a random insignificant Mondasian gunman on Bill Potts. But Koschei goes down just the same, with a startled grunt, and cups his left side, and falters down onto the wound, trembling.
Icarus 