| Date: 5 January 2008
Characters: Rosa Caiman, The Ninth Doctor Location: outside Link to IJ: thread #24911 |
 "Grandpa? You know the thing that went on last week, with Yerpie-boy an' the loups-garoux and all? Well, here's me thinking that it might just be over and I could get back to becoming Head Man, an' then this goes and happens.
"You ever tried to walk into a room and find yourself out on the street, Grandpa? Not just out like being thrown out or nothing, either, really in a different place. Cuz I've walked through a door and been inside a miracle, but this ain't no miracle." Perhaps it wasn't a normal immediate reaction, speaking to one's purse-comm immediately after finding one's self in a completely new place, but Rosa Caiman had never been normal, she'd always maintained. (Besides, talking to her Grandpa had always stopped her from freaking out, even with the lobo-king on her tail, so it had been a calculated risk. Calm down and have people think she was crazy for talking to her wrist, or panic. She'd take being thought crazy any day.) She didn't think it was Rio, and Rio summed up her entire experience with towns; they didn't have buildings like this back home, and she'd been about to enter a roadside diner before she'd ended up here. |
 People talking to themselves oddly comforted the Doctor. He liked crazy people. They were, generally, the ones who were creative and spoke his language. So he stepped into pace with her, coming out of a store behind her with a bag of jelly babies. He offered her the bag, "Lost?" |
| She looked askance at him, lifting a shoulder in a lopsided shrug.
"Maybe. A little. You the welcoming committee?" He didn't raise her hackles like the lobo-king did, and oddly enough he made her think, just a little, of Turlough. |
| "I hope not," he said thoughtfully, "I don't have a colorful hat. Now. You just get here?" |
| "Yup. Walked through a door, but this ain't where I was heading," she said matter-of-factly. There was no point in lying; either he'd believe her or he wouldn't. |
| "That's how it goes," he said sympathetically but briskly, taking a jelly baby. 'Hotel has rooms for people what got stuck here." |
| "Happen to many people?" She shrugged again, looking around. "I've been in worse. Least there's trees here, and the air don't taste of dust." |
| "Pretty much everyone here, far as I know," he nodded, "Where are you from?" |
| "Bit of a weird town," she noted. "I'm from the Amazon desert. My tribe's been there for longer'n anyone can remember, least until they all left for Rio." |
| "Earth?" he checked. Like he knew geography. |
| She gave him a Look.
"Yeah, Earth. You ain't from round there?" |
| "The Amazon? Oh no." |
| "I figured that. I meant Earth. Seein' as most people from Earth would ask 'America?' if they weren't sure where the Amazon desert was." |
| "Not from Earth, no," he admitted, studying her a bit now that she hadn't freaked out at the idea. |
| She looked up at him curiously.
"Huh. You look human, but the lobos looked human too, so maybe that ain't such a good indicator. Well, y'ain't the first I met who wasn't from Earth." |
| "Lobos?" He frowned, drawing a v in his forehead and making his ears look bigger, "Wolves?" |
| "Yeah," she said sourly, making a face. "Great big werewolves. You ain't one of them, though. You don't act like they do." |
| "How do they act?" |
| "Like wolves," she said, as though that should be obvious. "Always lookin' at you like you're a meal, or like you're less than they are." |
| "Sorta like people too then." |
| Rosa shook her head.
"Most people don't look at you like they really wonder what you taste like. An' there's somethin' in the eyes. Hard to explain." |
| "Most people you know." |
| "You're bein' difficult on purpose, ain't you?" |
| He held his fingers a little apart. |
| "Figured," she said, looking amused. "Get whisked away t'some weird place an' I run into the first guy who likes to play. Could've done worse, though. Nice t'meet you." |
| "Nice to meet you too," he said promptly and a bit automatically, "I'm the Doctor." |
| Well, that was unexpected. She looked hard at him, tilting her head as she studiedhim.
"...never had a Yerpie friend called Turlough, did you?" she asked finally. |
| "..Yerpie?" he asked curiously, obviously recognizing the name though. |
| She waved a hand vaguely.
"Euro. You know, from across the ocean? He said he was adopted British." |
| "Ginger hair?" he double checked. |
| "An' pale eyes like the moon." She grinned. "I knew you knew him! Gotta say, though, you're lookin' a bit different to what I remember." |