Outside a labyrinth - Open

[dangers_untold]

Sarah awakes from a very sore and very involuntary nap, the sort that results from hitting one's head, to find herself lying in the grass. Strange, because she could have sworn she had been in her bedroom. She sits up to gauge her surrounds, eyes fixing on a tall stone wall covered in decaying vines. Actually, it looks sort of like she's just

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[brazen_hearts]

He isn't quite sure how he got here himself, really. He remembers being in the process of repairing a transudcer cell in the laboratory, when apparently the TARDIS hit a rough spot, and... well... here he is, scratching at the fading wounds in his hands from the damage of the shattering cell

[dangers_untold]

Sarah lets out a strangled cry, startled at first by his sudden appearance. Her arms are raised halfway, ready to defend herself when the onslaught of beige and pleasant greeting make her realize she's not, in fact, being accosted by a goblin, king or otherwise. He would've arrived with a lot more stealth, for starters. She tugs at her sleeve, embarrassed, shifting her feet.

"Sarah. And I thought I knew where I was but-" she takes another look around "-this isn't the place at all."

[brazen_hearts]

He looks worried at first, taking off his hat and raising his own hands in surrender to counter her defensive stance. He's about to try and soothe her skittish reaction when she speaks, and he listens a moment with a look of deep thought.

"A-ha!" comes the somewhat incongruous exclamation. "I knew I wasn't going mad. Bit more cheeky than the Dark Tower, this place. Come along, then. D'you know which way you came from? I could probably feel my way to the TARDIS, in a certain respect, but it wouldn't do to leave you stranded, would it? We'll find you a way out to the gardens proper, and you can run along home from there, I suggest- you look absolutely peaked, poor thing."

As he speaks, he's turned on his heel to have a good look at the wall one way and another, approaching it at either side of the opening to lay his cheek against it for a moment, before striding into the opening without looking behind to see if she'll follow. Odd man, he.

[dangers_untold]

She blinks after him, a good ten seconds ticking by before she can even begin to think of what to respond to first. Her mouth drops open wordlessly a few times before finally shouting, "But I'm not from around here!" and jogging after him into the maze.

"Hey- hey wait up! Look, I can't go home from here. I'm not even sure I'm in the same..." reality? "...world." She tries to capture his attention when she catches up, taking in the interrior of the maze as an afterthought. It doesn't look exactly the same as she remembers, but it had been three years previous and she'd spent half that time thinking it had been some kind of dream or hallucination; none of her friends had returned to take her back, after all. Maybe it still is a dream. She rubs her head, looking for a bump, and mutters more to herself and the maze than to him, "This has got to be a dream."

[brazen_hearts]

He's already a ways down and about to turn at an intersection. When he stops, it doesn't seem that he's stopping so much to wait for her as out of mere indecision. He strides off to the right for three steps, spins on his heel, looks up to the sky for a moment... and then goes left instead, sweeping her along with a hand at her back in lieu of bumping into her again.

"What d'you mean you can't go home?" he admonishes briskly. "You've come from there, haven't you? There's always a way." And then the rest of what she said registers. He stops again, falling behind her this time. "Same world? Have you come in a ship of your own, then? Is that what you mean when you say you can't go home, your ship's been damaged? Oh, I can help you to fix it, I'm sure."

[dangers_untold]

Oh alright, so she's to be shunted along, is she? Sarah makes only the smallest sound of protest before allowing the Doctor to shepherd her. He doesn't seem to know where he's going any more than she does, but she falls under the spell of his determination and air of authority, bizarre though his methods may be.

But clearly his listening skills need a bit of work, and she wonders vaguely if she's used some odd British slang to make him so confused. "No, I don't have a ship! What I mean is one minute I was in my bedroom and the next minute I was sitting in front of a labyrinth. It happened just the same way the last time."

[brazen_hearts]

He stares incredulously a moment, absently furling his hat and tucking it into his pocket, where it seems to disappear all too smoothly.

"... The last time?" he repeated. "The last time?" Now he's beginning to sound a bit like he shouldn't be sounding for quite a while yet. "So you know this place! Er, well, places like it- why didn't you say so before? You ought to speak up! Sarah, was it? Are we going in an arguably sensible direction, at least?"

[dangers_untold]

"I did try to explain, you know. If you just listen to-" She huffs, noticing he's moved ahead a few yards now, and she takes her time catching up, arms crossed.

"If this is anything at all like the last time, then the only sensible direction is back the way we came and out of here, Doctor...what was it, exactly?"

[brazen_hearts]

He does stop now and, as he seems to be getting well versed in doing, looks at her as if a stoat has quite suddenly sprouted from the middle of her forehead.

"If you suddenly appeared here in a senseless manner, then a sensible egress is hardly going to make sense. Think with your mind, Sarah, not your brain. I'm going to study the place a bit more and go back to my ship, which happens to be in there somewhere. I'm fairly certain I can deliver you home if you haven't found your way by more conventional means, of course, but if you need the opportunity, you must keep up and leave sense to the ways- pardon, what was what?"

[dangers_untold]

"I'm thinking from experience," she mutters, reconsidering that notion about sophistocated Brits and mentally moving this doctor into the 'wealthy eccentric' category in her mind. The celery should've been her first clue. He probably didn't even have a PhD.

If she is where she thinks she is - and when her finger comes away from the wall dusted with glitter her stomach sinks a little - then he's definitely in over his head, and she resolves to at least follow him as far as his ship, if there's any chance of a lift home. Though he doesn't look much like a sailor and she doesn't remember seeing a lake.

"Look," she continues reasonably, keeping pace with him now, "you've no idea what you're getting into here. I might be able to help. And I was asking your name. I'm not just going to call you 'Doctor'."

[brazen_hearts]

"I often have no idea what I'm getting into," he points out just as reasonably, "and I've come out well enough in the end, nearly every time. I don't see why this ought to be any worse. If one simply expects things not to go as planned..." He trails off, confronted with a sudden wall. Frowning, he puts his cheek against it again, looking this way and that... and steps cautiously to one side, reaching into a trick niche.

"Splendid. We've come to Escher's opium dream. Now, Doctor is very well a suitable name for me, unless I'm allowed to call you something else as well. I could easily mix you up with someone I knew once, if we aren't careful."

[dangers_untold]

"It only gets worse, believe me," she sighs, picking her way over a dead vine and following him through. This latest path seems a bit cleaner, the walls lighter - a hopeful sign that they've entered the maze proper and are on the right path to...well, somewhere, at least. Despite his attentiveness to their surroundings, she keeps a watchful eye on every shadow for signs of activity.

"But 'Doctor' isn't really a name, though. Lots of people are called 'Sarah,' but it's a real name. Unless it is - I mean, I know you British have weird names, but I was expecting something more like Nigel or...or Alistair. You sort of look like an Alistair."

[brazen_hearts]

"If I must choose between those," he sighs, picking a path among the debris, "I'd vastly prefer Nigel. More dignified. That's the single thing that puzzles me most about humanity, at least for the moment- why must you name and label everything, as if the Universe were some great insect display case? Ah, here we... wait a moment."

He steps back from the archway he was about to lead them through, frowning. Spinning slowly on his heels, the Doctor mutters to himself and glances upward again before shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"She's moving, and not of her own accord- oh, she isn't at all pleased. What in Rass...". Again, he trails off, his mouth becoming a thin line, and with another gauging spin, sets off determinedly in a seemingly arbitrary direction. "I won't stand for some brute absconding with my ship."

[dangers_untold]

"I'd rather call you by your real name if you'd just- Oof, sorry." Her cheek collides with his shoulder, not expecting him to whirl away so suddenly. He ought to come with bumpers attached, the way he flits around like an aimless, hyperactive hummingbird.

"Maybe we should just pick a direction and stick- What d'you mean, 'she'?" She jogs to keep pace with him again, nearly losing him if not for the flapping of his coat as he breezes around a corner. "What kind of ship is it anyway?"

[brazen_hearts]

"My ship," comes the terse reply when Sarah finally catches him up. He's reached a dead end, but something tells him it isn't- the fact that he knows it wasn't one before is part of the telling. He feels across the wall, his expression grim and determined.

"The TARDIS is a vessel that travels within, without and through space and time, happens to be my dearest friend- and she isn't happy at all. Has it occurred to you," he continues, fixating on a slightly loose brick and prying at it, "that the Doctor might be my name? Smith, Gardener, Carpenter, all names and professions- if it bothers you so, call me Smith. Now, this wasn't here when I came round the first time, and this is where I must go... how peculiar."

[dangers_untold]

Sarah is on the verge of laughing incredulously at his claim - a spaceship? really? - but leaning against the wall of a labyrinth she knows firsthand to be capable of defying the laws of physics, having just appeared without reasonable explanation within said labyrinth and found herself talking to an Englishman without a name...well, being informed of the existence of a spaceship/time machine should be the least surprising part of her day. She nods instead, folding her arms and savouring the temporary respite from chasing after his coattails.

"Don't you ever get tired of explaining that? It seems like it would be easier to have a name to go with the 'doctor' bit instead of having everyone ask 'doctor who?' ...Hey, y'know that sort of suits you. Doctor Wh-"

She cuts herself off and comes to peer around him and the brick he's prying at. The long-forgotten tingle of instinct bubbles through her veins. "I really don't think you should be doing that."