taxonomites | 2 [Accidental Visual | Location: Mount Perdition]

[ooc: Backdated to be after this, feel free to ask the Doctor wtf he is doing or poke/laugh at/check on the Master.]

When the tablet flickered on it was obvious that something was amiss. The Doctor and the Master were both in the frame, though the tablet itself seemed to be in the hands of a third, unseen person who hadn’t realised it was active, as there was quite a bit of floor in the shot as well. Both Time Lords were close together, their foreheads touching, and it was apparent that the Doctor had been part of the way through saying something when the tablet was activated.

“—sorry.”

Then the Master screamed like someone in agony, reeling back from the Doctor like he’d been burned, arms flailing wildly as though he was trying to fend off an invisible attack. The building they were in shuddered and whoever was holding the tablet dropped it, throwing the image into a disarray of walls, floor, and ceiling before it stopped, showing the Doctor. He rose slowly, his face an almost cold and distant mask as the Master continued to sob and scream, shouting the word ‘no’ more than once among the other sounds of his distress.

The room shuddered again and the Doctor was moving, picking up the tablet – his hand filling the screen for a moment – and running from the room, leaving the Master behind. Though the screams could still be heard as he raced through the building, the tablet broadcasting a confusing jumble of running feet, half-seen glimpses of ornate furniture and architecture, and the Doctor’s face.

It was difficult to tell, but there was something else strange in the way the building shook, doors banging open and closed like the place was home to a very upset poltergeist , and at least once the Doctor ducked as an unseen object flew across the room towards him.

A shot of a door loomed out of nowhere and there was a bang as he burst through it, yelping in pain as a flying object caught the side of his head. The sound of the Master’s tortured yelling finally stopping as the gloom of the building gave way to too-bright sunlight. The Doctor must have tripped then, as the sky suddenly became red grass, then sky, then grass, over and over as he rolled a distance and finally stopped, the tablet showing his slightly-bruised profile as he lay sprawled on his back staring at the sky and breathing hard.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She bared her teeth - unusually white against the red of her lips - at the Doctor, thinking of the double pulse beneath his skin and how sweet it would taste running down her throat. He was old and powerful, but he'd die as easily as anyone else.

"You'll worry," she taunted, "You'd be lost without him. Without the other part of you."

"I think I'd manage well enough," the Doctor answered. He knew from experience, after all. Not that he wouldn't try and save the Master from his eventual fate, given the chance. Returning to the Time War was something he wouldn't wish on anyone, and if there was a way to save the Master without threatening his own time line, then the Doctor would do everything in his power to take it.

"It's not as though it would be the first time we were apart, Drusilla. Or the first time that I've thought him unlikely to return." He could admit that, on one level, he always half-expected the Master to return, but the Doctor had to admit that it wasn't looking very likely after the last time he'd seen the other Time Lord. "If it happened then I'd... keep going. Move on. Live. It's all anyone can ever do."

"No, you wouldn't."

It wasn't a taunt, it was a fact. She'd tasted tears she'd never had a chance to see. The cold, hollow desperation of the Doctor's loss. The pain of being the last and of being alone. He tried to fill the hole in his chest with humans - just like Spike had tried to do when he'd lost Drusilla - but it would never be enough.

She revelled in his pain - his potential pain, his past pain, his future pain - with bright eyes and a hungry expression.

"Hmm." It was a soft noise of contemplation in his throat, but the Doctor already knew the answer to Drusilla's insistent comment.

"I'm sorry, but it's not the first time I've ever lost anyone, Drusilla," he said quietly. "If you know anything about me, you know that. It's not the first time I've lost people I know, people I care about. It's not the first time I've lost him and others. And it won't be the last. Nothing lasts forever."

He laughed, an old, tired man who'd seen too much, lost so much, and sometimes had to wonder if it was all worth it in the end. "But that's the way of everything, isn't it? And he's still here and he'll recover well enough from what I did, so you needn't worry too much about him."

"Oh, I know you have," said Drusilla, cooing like a dove. She remembered the empty spaces in the Time Lord's head. Too many to count. Most of all, she remembered the way he'd looked at her when he'd been searching for anything that reminded him of Romana. "But he always comes back. Death doesn't stop him."

It hadn't stopped her, either. Losing her life - losing her soul - had set her free.

"There are worse things than death, I'm afraid." And the Time War was full of them. Yes, it was possible for things to leave the time lock which had sealed it all away, but the price was high and he wasn't sure the Master had anyone who could pay it for him. Davros had escaped at the cost of Dalek Cann's mind, and the Time Lords had needed a link.

While he couldn't (didn't want to) dismiss the chance that the Master would somehow escape, the Doctor also knew what the chances of it actually happening were. If the Master died in the War and stayed dead, it would probably be a blessing in disguise considering what waited for him there.

"Like me," said Drusilla. She'd pay it for him. She'd pay it for him, even if she didn't really understand what she'd be doing or why. After all, she was already dead and she was already mad. What else could they take from her?

The Doctor laughed at that, sprawled in the red grass on the side of Mount Perdition, his back in particular a throbbing mass of pain, with an unfortunately unstable (or maybe manipulated or both) girl talking to him. "Like you?"

"Like me," she repeated. She allowed him to laugh, because, sooner or later, he'd lose his throat. Even if she didn't take it, someone else would. A man like the Doctor made a lot of enemies.

"We'll have to see about that, won't we?" he said evenly, slowly getting to his feet and dusting the bits of grass and dirt off his jacket. "You might find you're in for a bit of a surprise, Drusilla."

"I like surprises," she purred. Surprises - the best kind - ended in blood and slaughter and sadness. Taxon could be terribly dull at times. A few screams would lighten - no, no darken - the air.

With one last smile - white teeth gleaming against scarlet lips - Drusilla turned off the tablet and went to find Miss Edith and tell her of this interesting turn of events.

2 [Accidental Visual | Location: Mount Perdition]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]