The year's grandest gala for those who have slipped in the spaces that stand between stories...
Some time in the evening, a musical chiming starts in the atrium. A soft grumble, and then a roar, and one entire wall descends slowly on gears into the floor. Beyond it lies a resplendent marble plaza, walled on its remaining three sides in glass
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The next thing he notices is that the room suddenly feels much cooler than it did before. Except he knows, instinctively, that it's not the room that's changed temperature - it's his own core temperature that just skyrocketed, far too warm for a Time Lord, but perfectly normal for a-
"Oh, that is rubbish!"
Yes, that was loud. And very noticeable. He doesn't care. He's been human before, and he wasn't particularly looking to repeat the experience.
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Yes, Doctor, that would be Tempest at your shoulder, which makes the rest of your table rise to their feet and bow or curtsy. Or... bend, in the case of the very tree-like personage at the opposite end. Tempest waves a dismissive hand, before sinking into a deep bow of her own. "No, friends. This night is yours. If you will excuse us both."
She taps the Doctor once on his shoulder and starts to drift back toward the guests' atrium.
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Well, that and a bit of slightly psychic paper.
"It seems a bit impolite not to warn someone before you go changing their basic biology, don't you think?"
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She nods to a servant, who taps on the wall of the atrium. A door opens soundlessly in the stone, this one revealing a winding staircase going in both directions, lit by multicolored torches. Tempest starts to climb without waiting to see if he follows.
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I'm the winner, comes the memory, unbidden. The Time Lord Victorious...
He shudders a little, glad she's not watching him as he does, and starts to climb the stairs after her. Maybe he should ask where they're going, but for the moment, he's a little distracted just by the sound of the heartbeat in his ears, the way the rhythm is all wrong. "It's the principle of the thing, that's all."
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She stops so abruptly that he's bound to almost walk into her, and turns to look straight into his eyes. "What now do you see?"
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"I take it you're not immune. But why? What's the point of all this?" It's not demanding, or accusatory; he really does just want to know.
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She lets go. "Existence is a gift so many take for granted. Power, a tool so few can truly wield. This night exists so the powerful might feel the fear of the weak, and the weak might know what they face, and for a moment what life without that fear is. A painful gift for both, perhaps, but a valuable one."
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"So some of you do have reasons other than your own amusement," he murmurs with a faint smile. "No offense; Kitsune and her friends just set a terrible example." Tempest is different, but he's still working out if she's the exception when it comes to fairies, or if they are.
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Around a final curve of the stair, a metal door without a handle blocks the way. There's a soft, rhythmic thudding from beyond it. Tempest brightens and rests her hand against the door.
"As you shall see."
The metal melts back and into the walls, seamless, revealing an open pavilion constructed of the same metal as the walls of the stairway, though now it's clear that the multicolored iridescence of the walls didn't come from the torches, but the metal itself.
Tempest steps out, shivering slightly. Braziers full of glowing stones light and warm the space despite the constant wind whipping over the metal rails. Overhead, giant gears rotate with steady thuds. What they're rotating becomes immediately obvious as Tempest is carried several steps left of the door.
Outside of the pavilion, once their human eyes adjust, are the tops of the mountains. It shouldn't be possible, high as they are, but then what has been entirely possible in the Wood?
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He gives every appearance of not minding though, bounding immediately to the railing, leaning out over the edge and then looking up toward the mechanism turning the platform. Finally, he swings back toward Tempest, grinning broadly.
"Did you build this? And the... clockwork creatures?"
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"Not alone. The animals, yes, but not this." She closes her eyes, smiling. "Once, I dreamt of a city like this tower, fashioned by the hands of those men and women of science who chose to stay here. A place of safety for all, the collective strength of whom would keep it secure without warfare, without malice."
Tempest sighs and crosses her arms, resting them on the railing. The metal feels warm despite the chill. "How slowly do the dreams of childhood die."
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He still doesn't step back from the railing.
"No reason they have to," he murmurs, gaze tracing the slope of the mountains. You're talking to Peter Pan incarnate here, Tempest - the Doctor doesn't believe in growing up.
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She squeezes the Doctor's shoulder and moves to one of the braziers. "I've no time for dreaming any more."
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He breaks off whatever he was about to say, frowning to himself a little - and then a gust of wind from off the mountaintops hits him, carrying snow with him, and that convinces him that he'd like to move away from the edge now. He doesn't like being cold. Stupid, poorly-designed, fragile human bodies...
"Actually, I suppose I wouldn't know about any of that. I don't tend to stick around for... this part." The hard part, the day to day, the slow path... That's not the part he's any good at.
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