From This Day Forward - Chapter Four [4/9]

[erthechilde]

“If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?”

DISCLAIMER & OTHER WARNINGS

Rose dove to one side, feeling the rush of displaced air as the beast careened into the space she had occupied moments before.

She didn’t wait to see if it recovered its balance, instead taking off in the direction it had come from. That seemed to be the only place where there was any sort of path out of the clearing.

She needed to find somewhere to hide until the Doctor got the TARDIS down here. As the angry growls became closer and a hiding spot failed to appear, though, she decided she was more worried about outrunning the beast than the Doctor saving her.

Rose found her saving grace when she spotted a low hanging vine in the distance.

‘Oh, please let this work,’ she gasped and took a running jump towards it.

For a half-second she sailed through the air, her hands grasping at nothing, and then just as quickly her fingers wrapped around the thick plant. Even more importantly, despite pulling taut with her weight, it held.

She didn’t let herself relax, though, instead shimmying up as far as she was able.

It was just in time, too.

The creature had caught up to her and was now jumping and swiping at her, like a huge and sinister cat trying to get at a bird.

A snapping noise from above caught her attention, and she saw with horror that even with the different gravity, the vine wouldn’t hold her weight for long. Especially not with the creature worrying at it from below.

I’m going to be eaten, she realised with a sinking sensation. Forget dying in a basement in Cardiff, this is definitely worse!

The creature swiped at her again, and she felt one of its claws graze her thigh, making her clench her eyes and grunt in pain.

Rose waited for the next blow to connect more lethally.

Thwack!

The beast let out a sudden snarl and reared back.

Thwack! Thwack!

Rose cracked one eye open, watching in amazement as a shadowy figure on the lowest nearby tree branch hurled rocks or perhaps pinecones down at the beast.

‘Oi! Alien-person!’ a trilling voice shouted at her. ‘Can you swing over here?’

‘I-I think so,’ Rose called back.

Several other missiles landed below her as the beast tried to get close, kept at bay by whoever hid in the overhang.

‘Then do it, fast! That vine won’t hold long!’

With a set goal in mind, Rose moved her body side to side, desperately trying to gain the momentum to bring her closer to the low-lying branch. Her thighs and upper arms burned as she sought to bring herself as high as possible before the vine snapped. All the while, the mysterious stranger kept the creature distracted.

There was a sudden give in the vine as Rose reached the highest point of her arc. With no other recourse, she threw herself into the air.

Emptiness swallowed her, and her legs flailed uselessly. Her hands gripped the air, clawing through it in search of something solid -

Two feathered, webbed hands reached out, one grabbing her by the arm and the other trying to steady her by grasping the back of her shirt. Between her mystery rescuer and herself, she managed to haul herself up and across the rough bark of the lowest branch.

She didn’t even have time catch her breath before she was being dragged away from the ledge.

‘Come on, we need to hurry, that won’t stop it long!’ her rescuer said, letting go of Rose and taking off at a run. ‘They can still move around here on the lower levels - the higher we get, the more likely it is to get stuck somewhere!’

They wasted no time running up the difficult terrain of the huge branch, reaching a curtain of vines that her rescuer climbed at once. Rose followed suit, glad to find that these lianas were stronger and easier to scramble up than the last one was.

There was discontented grunting and yowling behind them, suggesting the creature was still trying to get to them, but the higher they climbed the less intent the sound got.

Alternately clambering up vines and hiking through the thickly overgrown branches, Rose and her rescuer made it several more levels up in the tree before they slowed. Finally, they came to a stop.

‘I think we lost it,’ the alien told her.

‘Yeah,’ Rose panted, bending over her knees as she tried to catch her breath. For the first time, she got a good look at her rescuer.

The native (for lack of a better term) was humanoid, but that was the only thing it seemed to have in common with Rose. Instead of skin, it was covered from head to toe in feathers. Even its hair - or whatever those protrusions coming from its scalp were - was feathery. It didn’t appear to have a nose, but some kind of horned protrusion above its nostrils and tiny mouth.

Whatever it is, it’s female, she decided, taking in the familiar anatomy and the way she was dressed in a breast band and loincloth. She also carried a sling bag. Barely more than a girl, judging by that figure. Unless they’re all shaped like that?

Like the creature, the girl didn’t actually have wings, although her fingers were webbed and ended in black talons.

‘Thanks,’ Rose offered once she caught her breath. ‘For the whole… life-saving thing.’

The feathered girl looked her over sharply with yellow-orange eyes. ‘You’re a girl.’

‘Er… yeah?’ Rose said, somewhat caught off-guard. She glanced down at her hoodie and baggy jeans; there was a bloody scratch in the side of the latter. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘No. You just don’t dress like one,’ the girl said, still sounding suspicious. She talked strangely around a mouth with no teeth. ‘I can never tell with you aliens.’

Rose chuckled nervously at that. She wasn’t used to being considered the alien one. ‘I suppose you’re at least used to it. Lots of aliens come here, I guess?’

‘Enough,’ the girl answered. ‘Lots of off-planet workers.’ She considered Rose again. ‘I thought you were one of the alien boys they sometimes hire to work in the mines. It would have explained why you were alone on the ground. And without a chaperone. You shouldn’t do that, you know. It’s dangerous for females to walk around here alone, even without the Okpulonashoba.’

‘The what?’

‘The creature that was about to make you into dinner.’

‘Oh. Right. Well… thanks again for that,’ Rose said, disliking the girl’s standoffish attitude. Even if she had saved her life, she decided she didn’t really want to hang around with her. ‘Anyhow, I’ve got to get back to… where I was before. Got separated from my friend - er, chaperone - and he’ll be looking for me.’

‘Was he back there?’ the girl glanced back the direction they had come from, looking suddenly uncertain.

‘Well, no, last I spoke to him he was calling down from one of those branches up there,’ Rose pointed. ‘I sort of… fell off it and we were separated.’

‘You’re lucky you fell off this side then; the other side faces the rock quarry. It’s not nearly as soft a landing.’

Rose shivered. ‘Right.’

‘You can’t go back down there,’ the girl told her with a frown. ‘The beasts hunt in packs. We had enough trouble getting away from that stray, it’s a miracle the rest of them didn’t show up.’

‘But I have to! The Doctor told me to stay put so he could come get me. If it hadn’t been for that Ok… Oka-thing, I’d still be there. He’s my ride home!’ A pang of worry hit Rose at that - the Doctor would be looking for her. He might end up surrounded by a pack of those… whatever they were. ‘What if he goes looking for me and he gets attacked?’

‘He’ll be fine, if the males of his species are easily identifiable,’ the girl answered. ‘The Okpulonashoba do not attack males. It is why our men work the mines. If he does venture there, your friend will be safe.’

‘But he might still be trying to find me down there! If he doesn’t, he might think I’m dead or lost and take off without me!’

The girl shook her head vehemently. ‘It’s not safe down there for us. We would be killed and eaten as soon as they smell us. If you are absolutely insistent on returning, we need to have some protection at least. I will bring you to my home, and my father and brothers will return to find your friend. It is the safest choice.’

‘If I cared about safe, I wouldn’t be travelling with the Doctor!’

The girl cocked her head to one side. ‘Would your friend rather you be alive or stumble upon your disembowelled corpse?’

Rose felt the colour drain from her face. ‘All right. Guess you’ve got a point.’

The girl nodded approvingly. ‘I knew you would see reason. Come, if we hurry we can get home by sunset and my family will be able to search all the sooner.’

‘I guess…’

‘Chi’Ko’Ba, by the way.’

‘What?’

‘My name. I am Chi’Ko’Ba,’ her rescuer said with a wan smile. At least, that was the approximation that Rose could make of the chirping, trilling syllables the girl offered her. As though sensing her thoughts, the feathered girl went on, ‘But you can call me Chi. I know some species have trouble with our names.’

The statement was blunt, but with truth and not intentional rudeness.

‘Rose,’ she said wearily.

‘Nice to meet you, Rose.’

Run for your life, Rose thought dejectedly as she followed Chi once more.

· ΘΣ ·

The TARDIS wouldn’t move.

Whether it was from mechanical malfunction or a fit of pique at his having almost left Rose behind, the Doctor didn’t know. What he did know was that every second he delayed was time that she might be in danger, especially given he had no idea what planet they had landed on.

The TARDIS was mum on that too.

‘You and I are going to have a chat about this when I get back,’ he snapped, pointing an imperious finger at the Time Rotor, before striding out the door.

After seeking a safe way down and finding none, he realised that Rose must have fallen off the tree the way he nearly had after he left the console room. When she had called out to him, there had been no pain in her voice, so she wasn’t hurt - lower gravity density, probably - but that could change.

‘Rose? I’m coming down,’ he shouted through the greenery. The height wouldn’t be a problem for him under normal circumstances, least of all with less of a gravitational pull to worry about. ‘Best move away from anywhere you might be landed on!’

There was no response from the clearing down below, and where before he had made out the pinprick of pink and yellow, now he saw nothing.

‘Rose? ROSE!’

Without wasting another moment, he stepped off the branch and into thin air. The fall was a lazy one, and he landed with little difficulty in a crouch. Upon recovering his bearings, however, he found his suspicions to be confirmed.

The teenager was nowhere in sight.

‘Rose!’ he called, examining the clearing for clues as to where she may have gone.

The ground beneath his feet was firm but loamy, with a consistency like viscoelastic polyurethane foam. It made it almost impossible for the mud to hold footprints. The damp air had also effectively eliminated any trace of human scent, masking it with the smell of rain and foliage. If it hadn’t been for the broken branches and debris leading in an easterly direction, the Doctor wouldn’t have known where Rose had gone.

There was some broken shrubbery nearby, which he followed for several minutes to a different copse than the one where he had landed. The closely grown trees inhibited sound, and he understood now why he and Rose hadn’t been able to hear each other well -

A familiar scent caught his nose, and the Doctor bent down, examining the disturbed ground. He pressed his fingers to the moss; a sticky red substance tinted his fingertips, and he grimaced.

Blood.

Human, by the look and texture of it. The odds of it not belonging to Rose were low.

‘Fantastic,’ he rasped, regret and pain lacing the word.

He’d gotten her hurt - killed, most like - all because of his recklessness and his temper. She hadn’t wanted to leave, and he’d pushed her away - pushed her out of the safety of the TARDIS and into the danger of some unknown planet.

Now he would have to return to London and track down her family, tell them what had happened. Her mother and the idiot boyfriend.

He clenched his fist, and for a moment wondered if it might not be better not to. He never would have in the past. Companions of his had died before, and he hadn’t gone looking for their families to give them any kind of answers.

Rose’s game smile flashed in his face and he shook his head, resolved.

No.

Rose Tyler deserved better.

Even in their brief acquaintance, she had shown herself to be brilliant and kind-hearted, the kind of person who the universe was a little less bright for not having. Her family was owed an explanation if only to give them a chance to move on. It’s what she would have wanted, he knew.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, staring up into the towering fauna, when something caught his eye. A small something, looking very fabric-like and very out of place in the plant-rich environment, snagged on the uneven surface of a vine.

Grabbing hold of one of the neighbouring ones, he hauled himself upward and looked fervently. His eyes settled on one of the lower branches where the moss and bark had been disturbed and scraped. Once he hoisted himself over there as well, he saw that there were indications of footprints leading higher into the tree forest.

Rose had gotten away.

‘She’s got the bronze,’ he declared proudly. She’d gone and gotten herself out of trouble, of course. Why he should have thought any different was beyond him.

He beamed for a moment, before realisation hit him, and his face morphed back into a scowl.

‘Rassilon save me from temperamental females!’ he groused, glaring into the underbrush and telling himself that it was anger coursing through him and not an overwhelming sense of relief. ‘Don’t wander off! How bloody difficult a concept is that to understand?’

The forest didn’t have any answer for him and he snorted to himself.

‘Least she isn’t Karkinian,’ he muttered, as he headed off in the direction Rose seemed to have disappeared in. He recalled how his last companion had terrified the Babylonians so thoroughly that she was still talked about thousands of years afterward. ‘Can’t possibly do that much damage…’

Almost the moment the words escaped him, he rethought them.

This was, after all, the girl that had taken out the Nestene Consciousness with nothing but desperate intentions and dumb luck.

He had no doubt that Rose Tyler could be just as dangerous as a giant scorpion with a hair-trigger temper.

· ΔΩ ·

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