prompt: badcompany_muse; 36. poverty
The Master's reign has proven to be the great equaliser; nobody has more than anybody else. They've been forced to leave their homes and huddle in makeshift dormitories near the work camps. Belongings are communal, and each person only has what the Master allows them to have. It is, Martha thinks dryly, socialism at its finest; Marx would be proud. (Well, except that socialism, in theory, doesn't have a not-so-benevolent leader ruling over all - in practice, of course, it usually does.) Everybody is clad in the same rags, everybody clamours for the same scraps of food. All around the world, conditions are the same. In some places, the countries where they didn't have anything to start with, the Master is regarded as a saviour, enabling the equal distribution of wealth to everybody.
It's enough to make Martha sick.
Her hope lies in the people who have nothing, but readily share what they do have with her, giving her a portion of their food, letting her squeeze into a corner of their house and huddle by their single heater. They're the ones who listen to whatever news of the rest of the world she can tell them, they're the ones who crowd around to hear her stories and her songs. They hide her whenever patrols come by, they do whatever they can to help her get to the next camp. They tell her the best ways to sneak through the deserted cities and hike across the plains. When she's gone, they keep her story alive, spreading it to whoever they can, repeating it in the dark of night, when they have no hope, or during the day, when they stumble and falter at their work, and the thought of salvation is the only thing that can keep them going.
She doesn't know what happens to the people she leaves behind. Each day brings a new start, another chance to carry out her duty. She can't focus on what came before. She made the mistake of doing that at the beginning, and then she heard about a community that had sheltered her being slaughtered by the Toclafane for sharing what they had with her. So now she keeps looking forward. Every time she sees humanity stoop to a new low, it breaks her heart a little. She's had to harden herself against the levels of deprivation and poverty; it can only get worse as time goes on. She can't help individuals because she's busy helping all of them - or that's what she tells herself, anyway.
It never quite works. Martha's instinct is to make things better, to help people and heal them, to save them from their problems, or save them from themselves. She cries herself to sleep almost every night, mourning the people she wasn't able to save, the latest victims of the Master's reign. When she wakes up in the morning, she starts walking again, never stumbling or faltering, not even when she wants to, because she can't. Even if the rest of the human race gives up - and she's meant to keep that from happening - she has to go on.
Character: Martha Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who
Words: 525
It's enough to make Martha sick.
Her hope lies in the people who have nothing, but readily share what they do have with her, giving her a portion of their food, letting her squeeze into a corner of their house and huddle by their single heater. They're the ones who listen to whatever news of the rest of the world she can tell them, they're the ones who crowd around to hear her stories and her songs. They hide her whenever patrols come by, they do whatever they can to help her get to the next camp. They tell her the best ways to sneak through the deserted cities and hike across the plains. When she's gone, they keep her story alive, spreading it to whoever they can, repeating it in the dark of night, when they have no hope, or during the day, when they stumble and falter at their work, and the thought of salvation is the only thing that can keep them going.
She doesn't know what happens to the people she leaves behind. Each day brings a new start, another chance to carry out her duty. She can't focus on what came before. She made the mistake of doing that at the beginning, and then she heard about a community that had sheltered her being slaughtered by the Toclafane for sharing what they had with her. So now she keeps looking forward. Every time she sees humanity stoop to a new low, it breaks her heart a little. She's had to harden herself against the levels of deprivation and poverty; it can only get worse as time goes on. She can't help individuals because she's busy helping all of them - or that's what she tells herself, anyway.
It never quite works. Martha's instinct is to make things better, to help people and heal them, to save them from their problems, or save them from themselves. She cries herself to sleep almost every night, mourning the people she wasn't able to save, the latest victims of the Master's reign. When she wakes up in the morning, she starts walking again, never stumbling or faltering, not even when she wants to, because she can't. Even if the rest of the human race gives up - and she's meant to keep that from happening - she has to go on.
Character: Martha Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who
Words: 525