| Date: 16 December 2007
Characters: Leela, The Apprentice Location: outside Link to IJ: thread #10854 |
 Leela had thought she was in the bowels of the TARDIS looking for something-or-other at the Doctor's request when she found herself in town. Arriving on a planet in any way was still new and unexpected, although so far that had generally involved the front door of the TARDIS. She set about looking for the Doctor or, if it turned out that way, whoever had detained him, knife at the ready, staying in the shadows of the buildings with a keen hunter's silence. |
 "You sound like a cat, all hissing and growling." The Apprentice had wandered away from his teacher again, settling into an out-of-the-way spot to watch people again, and match them to the faint sounds in the back of his head. He watched the woman with the knife, his head tilted to one side. |
| Leela turned to regard the stranger, half-quizzical and half-angry. "Who are you and where is the Doctor?" she asked, knife held close and ready but not, as yet, aimed at him. |
| "Which one?" The Apprentice blinked at her, a small frown of confusion appearing on his face. "There's more than one. One of them showed me how to make walls around my mind." His frown melted into a cheerful smile. "All storm and thunder and rain, the Doctor."
He tilted his head again in the other direction. "Oh, you wanted to know who I am too. My teacher calls me the Apprentice. She's somewhere here too. There are lots of people here, and so many alike, but not. Storms and wolves and wind and laughter." |
| "There's only one Doctor. Other people may call themselves doctors, but he is the only Doctor." Leela sounded very confident in contradicting the Apprentice. "I need to find my way back to the TARDIS. Who is your teacher?"
She had not lowered the knife just yet. |
| "She's the Bad Wolf." The Apprentice used the wall behind him to help him to his feet, still watching the woman in front of him. "And you're a hunting cat, all hissing at the front of the storm, sharp claws threatening everything that threatens. I don't know where to find your TARDIS, don't know where the storm settled. Somewhere," he gestured around them, before scrubbing at his face. "No Time, not in space. Nowhere and everywhere. Somewhere here. All the buildings, and two boxes bigger inside than out. Dimensions trapped inside another, lost." |
| Leela eyed him dubiously as he pulled himself to his feet.
"You're ill. But you know something about the TARDIS. Come with me, and the Doctor will help you when we find him. Or if you wish, we can find your Bad Wolf." The part where Leela was going to make the Bad Wolf help her find the Doctor was unspoken, but obvious. |
| "No." The Apprentice's gaze sharpened, and some of the genial confusion faded behind a sudden sharp clarity. "She doesn't know how to find your Doctor, she doesn't hear them. No chorus." He tapped the side of his head. "Nothing but silence in here for her." He paused, taking a breath, and his hand started towards his face before he remembered, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"I'm not ill, I just get lost. Very lost, sometimes. I can find the Doctor, though. I think. At least, I can find three of them. One's all dark clouds and flashes of lightning contained in them, one's more like rain-showers with sunlight and thunder in the distance, and one's thunder and lightning and ice and fire all rolled up in one." |
| The dubious expression didn't waver. "Lost from where?" |
| "Everything." He shrugged. "Everywhere. Trying to remember home, pretend I'm still there. That I've not lost time, and I'm still a student at the Acadamy. That the Time War hasn't happened, isn't happening, won't happen. That the Doctor really is as brilliant as everyone thinks he should be, and will come up with something to save the universe and all of us before the Daleks reach Gallifrey." |
| "You do need to talk to the Doctor."
Leela assessed him again, and apparently decided he wasn't terribly dangerous, because she sheathed her knife. "Show me the way to the Doctors you can find." |
| "Which one do you want to go find first?" He looked over at her with a bright smile. "There are three of them. And they're all different. One's with the drums, though. I don't want to meet the drums. Drums make my head hurt. The one that's all contradictions, that's the one with the drums. And the dark one's the one who taught me how to make the walls in my mind, but he's not always nice to talk to. Maybe the one who's all rain and distant thunder?"
He started towards the hotel, looking at Leela every few steps, not at all certain of this leading concept. He usually was the one following behind. |
| "The one with rain and distant thunder, then."
She followed him steadily, watching him warily as he hesitated and looked back at her. "Is it hard to tell the way?" |
| "No... no." He puled a hand out of his pocket, scrubbing at his face. "I'm just.. other people don't follow me. I follow them. Because if I follow someone, it's harder to get lost. Unless they get lost." He kept going, hunching his shoulders a little. "It's hard to get unlost again." |
| "Then it is good that you have a teacher to follow." Leela nodded, satisfied. "You should find her after we find the Doctor." |
| "She'll find me." He shrugged, reaching out to look for the one he was trying to find. "When she needs to find me. Or I need her to find me. She found me before, when I was lost for a long time." |
| "Perhaps needing to let her find you is the mark of a student. When you are no longer an apprentice, you can find what you need on your own." Leela's hand dropped to her knife, although it didn't seem to be a direct response to anything the Apprentice had said or done, but more of a reflex. |
| "Perhaps." The Apprentice paused at a doorway, looking back at Leela. "He's somewhere here. You go in first?" He was really uncomfortable with the thought of leading someone, anyone, anywhere. |
| Leela drew her knife then, and gestured the Apprentice back from the door. Once she was satisfied that he was out of the way, she flattened herself against the building and pushed the door open, peeking in to get a look for the Doctor.
"I don't see him," she told the Apprentice. "He must be further in." |
| "I think so." The Apprentice poked his head in, looking around curiously. "It's a little fuzzy, trying to see through the walls. It's better, because they're not all loud and don't make my head hurt and make me get lost because I don't like it loud, but it's harder if I want to find someone. Or if I want someone to find me. My teacher can always find me, though. She has a computer that tells her where I am. It's nice." |