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clocketpatch) wrote2009-09-17 12:31 am
Beware the Jaberwock...
A few uncomfortable hours later, the door opened. Donna had been trying to resume her lay-in on the cold, packed dirt floor, rather unsuccessfully. Her attempts were completely dashed by the creak of the cellar door and the reappearance of light into her world.
The guard responsible was a reedish man with unkempt brown hair who looked frightening like the Doctor on an off-day, but shorter, stouter, and with a far less expressive face. He came down the stairs bearing a torch and a tray. Balanced on it were two bowls of greasy looking grey muck, and a pair of thin paper contracts covered in fine, calligraphic script. The guard handed them their bowls. There were no spoons.
The Doctor dug into his enthusiastically with his fingers and his tongue, smiling and nodding at Donna to do the same. His headache had passed, apparently, or at least he’d got better at hiding it.
Donna wagered it was probably the latter knowing him. She looked at the glop the guard was offering and involuntarily inhaled. It smelled like rotten fish porridge. She shoved the bowl to the side, muttering that she wasn’t hungry.
“Aw, Donna,” said the Doctor, “it’s better than you’d think from the smell.”
“It might be, but it still looks like something a cat upchucked in Grandpa’s shed. Anyway, you’re stuffing your face, what’s these papers about?”
“They’re confessions and consents to punishment,” said the Doctor.
“Wait, no judge, no jury, they just shove us down a hole for the night and then make us write down that we’re guilty? Well isn’t that wizard. You take me the loveliest places Doctor.”
“We are guilty Donna,” the Doctor said. “We were caught red-handed.”
“This is all your fault, I hope you know.”
The Doctor put down his bowl, and contemplated it for a moment.
“I know,” he said.
He turned to the guard and started rattling and hooting away in the native language. The guard looked initially surprised, but seemed to carry the conversation on with the Doctor. The Doctor got shouty a few times, and Donna had some idea of what he was saying even with the language barrier.
The discussion ended with the guard ripping up one of the contracts and then handing the remaining one, and a glass-tube fountain pen, to the Doctor. The Doctor quickly scrawled a mass of symbols across the blank line at the bottom. Donna assumed that was his name and leaned close to see, but the paper was snatched away and rolled up before she could even try to decipher the hieroglyph-like writing.
The guard seemed uncertain. The Doctor was all smiles.
“What did you just do?” Donna asked.
“Got you off without charge,” said the Doctor. “Well, sort of, it still needs to be confirmed by the Council, and Garuut will do that now –”
As the Doctor spoke the guard nodded curtly at them, picked up the tray and walked back up the stairs He shut the door, taking the light with him.
“After all, it wasn’t your fault,” the Doctor continued, far too quickly for Donna’s liking; she knew trying-to-hide-something when she saw it. “And, like I said, the Calloo’s aren’t a violent people, they understand mistakes. They’re bringing the TARDIS out of the temple too, and she’ll be returned to us. You can go wait there while I take care of things.”
“And what things are those?” she asked.
Consent to punishment, Donna thought. What the hell had the idiot gone and signed himself up for? He swallowed under her steady glare, and Donna started to get some very nasty suspicions.
“Weeelll,” the Doctor said, drawing out the word. “Nothing for you to be worried about. By the Calloo’s law someone has to be punished for speaking in the temple or else the gods will wreck vengeance, but it’s all just ceremonial. I go in front of the head priest, he tells me I’ve been a naughty Time Lord, I promise not to do it again…”
“If it’s so ceremonial, why’d you do all that arguing to get me out of it?” asked Donna, not fooled for a moment by the Doctor’s fake cavalier.
“That was mostly to get the TARDIS out of the priest’s custody,” he said in a rush. “And a bit because I want you to make sure she’s safe afterwards; she’s not going to be feeling well after sitting next to that disruptor half the night.”
“And what about you?” Donna asked. “How are you going to be feeling after, whatever this ceremony thing is. Don’t think you’re fooling me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said the Doctor, flashing her one of his cocky disarmament smiles.
Donna was not so easily put at ease, and the Doctor’s obvious-as-obvious moon boy attempts weren’t helping her temper. She was tired, and sore, and had dirt in her hair, and she was damned worried about him. Maybe he was just a skinny streak of alien nothing, and maybe he could at least pretend at being able to take care of himself, but sometimes Donna caught herself feeling unforgivable maternal towards him.
The cellar door creaked open again, bringing back light and the briefly gone guard – Garuut, did the Doctor say his name was? Something like that.
“It was accepted,” Garuut said, in plain English, or at least, in plainly translated English. His mouth didn’t move to fit the words as normally happened, and everything seemed a bit stilted; like a phone conversation with a delay on one end.
“Ooo, what did I tell you Donna?” said the Doctor, fairly beaming. “Good old girl, get her away from the damper emissions and she’s right back on track. Mostly anyways. Should get better the further she is from the source. I can’t quite hear her yet. I’d say she’s still in transit… ooo… bumpy ride.”
“You’re not changing the subject,” Donna snapped.
Garuut cocked his head to the side, obviously confused.
“I did not realise the woman spoke our language,” he said.
“The woman’s words are being translated by my ship now that it has been removed from the sacred boundaries of your temple,” said the Doctor.
“The woman’s name is Donna and she’s not very happy at the moment.” Donna put her hand on her hips.
“Ah, Donna,” said Garuut, bowing slightly. “You are Noble in your land, are you not?”
Donna looked at the Doctor. He was giving her a goofy smile. Donna rolled her eyes. She could only imagine what he’d said to the guard when he knew she couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“Donna Noble, that’s me.”
“You will come with me Donna to your noble ship,” said Garuut. He put a hand on Donna’s arm which she roughly shoved off.
“And what about the Doctor?”
“The Doctor must stay here until his punishment has been affected,” said Garuut. “This should be briefly. Already the square is being prepared and word has been sent among the council and the citizens. When the gods have been sated he will be returned to you and you will both be advised to leave.”
“Not good enough,” said Donna. “I’m staying here with him. I’ve got to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.”
“The punishment is not meant to be lethal,” said Garuut.
“What do you mean ‘not meant to be’?” asked Donna. She looked at the Doctor. He was looking very studiously at the floor. “You know don’t you? What’s going to happen? What are you going to do to him?”
“Donna…” the Doctor said, his voice low and pleading. “Please go.”
“I’m not –”
Garuut’s hand returned to her arm, far firmer in its grip than before.
“You are innocent,” he said. “By our laws you can not be held with the condemned.”
“He’s condemned now?” said Donna. “What does that mean?”
“Only a turn of phrase,” said the Doctor. “Donna, please…”
Garuut’s grip was beginning to bruise. Height-wise, he was shorter than Donna, but his hands were calloused from manual labour, and it was obvious that he was stronger than he looked.
“Oi,” said Donna, as she was guided towards the stairs. “I’ll come back for you Doctor. I’ll help you escape.”
He stared at his feet, apparently not listening.
Donna was tugged up the stairs, still shouting her ignored proclamations of rescue. When they reached the top Garrut shut the door behind and locked it. Donna fixed him with a strong glare.
“I will take you to your ship now Noble,” he said, releasing his grip on her arm.
“And what if I refuse?”
“Then I will not; you are not our prisoner any longer. Your servant cares much for your reputation Noble, that he would take all of your blame upon himself. He is very loyal.”
“He – my what?”
Donna boggled at Garuut, her mind whirling. If the situation were different she’d get some mileage out of this. She still remembered ‘show me some plucky’ in the 1920s.
Garuut started walking along the corridor away from the cellar, and despite her staunch commitment to stay with the Doctor, Donna found herself following him; after all, he had the key.
“He requested that you do not attend the punishment ceremony; that you wait with your ship. Of course, since you are not in our custody any longer, I cannot force you to obey these instructions. Given your servant’s loyalty to your, however, I would lose much opinion of you if you were to ignore them.”
Donna frowned.
“Space Man has another thing coming if he thinks I’m just going to stand by and – ” She cut off mid-thought as something else occurred to her; “Garuut, when will his punishment happen?”
“In three tenths of a turn. The water runs quickly.”
Great, alien time. Usually the TARDIS translated that as well, either into hours or some things called Rels that Donna wasn’t entirely sure of. Still better than bloody cryptic “the water runs quickly”.
“Is that soon or what?”
“The sun is now low, when it is higher there will be justice.”
Still being all cryptic. Right. The corridors inside the building were lit with candles set into wall mounts. The light was dull and flickering, and gave no indication of the time of day. It could be night for all Donna knew.
They turned a corner and came to a door. On the other side was the dirt street they’d been roughly marched up the night before. There were people walking back and forth along the narrow throughway, some with small hand-drawn carts filled with strange-looking produce. A few led animals that resembled purple splotched donkeys. Donna stood in the threshold and squinted up at the sky. It was very blue, but blue covered with white gauze from the sea mists. And the sun was low.
She turned back to look at Garuut who was still standing silently behind her. A solid presence between herself and the Doctor.
“You were going to show me back to the TARDIS?”
“Your ship, yes.”
“Could you do that now then?”
Garuut’s face creased with a smile.
“Noble, you do kindly to listen to your servant’s request.”
“Not for a second,” said Donna. “I just want to make sure the TARDIS is alright and not too far off, seeing as how I’m probably going to have to drag the Doctor’s skinny hide back there whenever you lot get through with him.”
The speed with which Garuut’s smile disappeared confirmed more than a few of Donna’s fears, as did his next words:
“Very wise Noble; very wise.”
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I like this chapter a lot! I especially like how it is developing. You have me wondering if Donna is going to cause more trouble, if she'll try and safe the Doctor or if there will simply be consequences to the Doctor being hurt.
Keep it coming please! :D
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