Priorities, Chapter One - Rose
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is the property of the BBC. His Dark Materials is the property of Phillip Pullman.
Title: Priorities
Rating: K+
Summary: The Doctor and Rose Tyler with their daemons in the TARDIS. As it should be.
A/N: If you are unfamiliar with the His Dark Materials trilogy, comprised of The Golden Compass (also called Northern Lights), The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, I highly recommend that you drop whatever you are doing and go read it. The worldbuilding alone is to die for, never mind the plot and the characters and the symbolism and everything else that is wonderful. Essentially, it is a girl's coming-of-age story as she defies the ruling church/government to save her friends in a world very similar to ours but just a little bit sideways. One of those little differences (and the greatest bit of worldbuilding) is that people's souls are semi-independent entities called daemons. I advise brushing up on the basics of daemons on the Wikipedia page (link is here.).
The idea for a fic series like this has been kicking around in my head for a while. I envision having (eventually) one snippet/drabble per episode of the new series, with a few detours now and then. I won't be rehashing the plot of every single adventure, merely reexamining some bits under a different light - namely, how would your life be different if your soul lived outside of your body?
Also available on FF.net.
Rose
Dog daemons were unassuming. It was the sort of daemon people expected a simple shop girl to have. If a noble, silvery greyhound was a little more striking than most, well, that just meant that Rose Tyler was unique enough to be noticeable if not necessarily memorable.
Dumalis was also very, very fast.
He could have caught up the panther daemon slipping in and out of the shadows ahead of him. But Rose was too far behind, holding hands and grinning wildly with the stranger who called himself the Doctor. Her presence bound him more securely than any physical tether. He couldn't stray too far from her, but she was running side by side with the man who claimed to be an alien and it was only right that their daemons did the same. Except, his daemon - the velvety black panther who had only smirked and nodded when he told her his name and hadn't offered her own in return - didn't seem to feel the same way. Dumalis gave a soft whine of frustration.
The panther seemed to be wholly focused on the London Eye but she shortened her strides and the greyhound lengthened his with a sort of twisting lunge as if to shake off the discomfort. They drew even with one another.
She glanced over at him and Dumalis nearly stumbled in surprise at the look on her face. It was an expression of fierce, almost manic, delight. She was enjoying every second of the mad chase. It wasn't the focused, somewhat cruel thrill of the hunt he had expected but a wild, terrifyingly playful joy of discovery. She wasn't happy to be running because she couldn't wait to catch her quarry. She was so excited about finding something interesting that she couldn't wait to go check it out. It wasn't exactly what he had expected from a feline daemon. He grinned back at her in equal delight as something about those photographs Clive had showed them suddenly clicked in his mind.
Side by side, they raced on through the night.
ooo
"I know your secret," he whispered.
The panther glanced around although there was no one else in the strange timeship except their respective alien and human. She then leaned in close to him. "I highly doubt that," she whispered back.
Dumalis smiled as mysteriously as he was able - that is to say, not very much; dogs have very honest faces. But he made a valiant effort of it, so much so that a flicker of doubt entered the panther's eyes.
"And what secret is that?" she said with the faintly exasperated air of one humoring a friend who is doing a bad job of telling a worse joke.
He sauntered closer - he was very good at sauntering; it came with the legs - and put his nose almost in her ear. "You're like me," he breathed.
She opened her mouth to disagree with him. He could practically see her compiling a long, long list of the ways in which they were not alike. But then he changed. She shut her mouth with a click.
The greyhound became a skink became a warthog became an albatross became a panther to mirror the one before him. Most daemons his age had settled years ago but Dumalis had never felt the urge to do so. He was fond of the greyhound form, even if it didn't fit him quite right, and he wore it often enough that strangers took it for granted that it was his only form. It was pretty much an open secret on the Estate, a source of much exasperation for Jackie and Trumble but one of a sort of resigned defiance for Rose and Dumalis. There was nothing wrong with them. They could settle whenever they wanted to but right now they just didn't want to, thank you very much. They weren't brazen about it and it wasn't very often that they got the pleasure of rendering someone completely gobsmacked.
Especially someone like the Doctor and his smug daemon.
There was a long moment of silence. Then, suddenly, the alien daemon barked a harsh laugh. Just as suddenly, she was no longer a panther but a lemur, then a hedgehog, then something that looked like a cross between a crocodile and a penguin, then something utterly unidentifiable that was turquoise and purple - she was shifting forms so fast that just looking at her made Dumalis feel a bit queasy. Then she became a secretary bird and fluttered up to perch on one of the tree-like struts.
"Pleasure to meet you, Dumalis," she said. "My name is Senia."
Because I spent too much time looking up names:
Dumalis (from Rosa dumalis - the glaucous dog rose; the most likely translation that I can find is "thorny")
Senia (from Ksenia/Xenia, a Russian name for "wanderer")