Fic Commentary: The Wolf and the Phoenix (1/3)
As requested by jadesfire2808 and aeron_lanart, fic commentary for The Wolf and the Phoenix. First time I'm doing this, so be nice, please?
Title: The Wolf and the Phoenix
[The title took quite long to decide upon ('Desert Rose' being the more obvious choice, but the implication of Rose being involved made me chose another title), and was in the end inspired by a Russian fable called 'Ivan Tsarevitch, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf' - which has nothing to do at all with the story, but got me the idea of Wolf vs. Phoenix]
Summary: The beginning of a beautiful friendship
[I have a thing for sneaking in Casablanca references, most of my fics hide at least one if I can manage, although no one but me ever notices *g*]
Characters: Jack/TARDIS
Spoilers: Utopia for Who and vague mentions of Torchwood season 1
Rating: None
Word count: 1289
Notes: Thanks go to xwingace for her excellent job as beta.
Fic Masterlist: Here, uncommented version of this fic here.
[So, here we are then. Where did this come from?
This idea came to me first when I cleaned some of the desert roses that were haphazardly cluttered outside in the rain. Knowing a bit about minerals and fossils I went "Eeek!" when I found out, rescued the poor thing and spend the next hours trying first to clean and then to dry them.
They have such intricate shapes that it got my mind going: And what if those beautiful fractal crystallisations in fact hid a consciousness? What if I'd really rescued it from destruction? Would I've heard it call me had I found it in a shop? What kind of creature could possibly look so alien and yet so familiar? TARDISes, maybe. They're grown like crystals do, the Doctor said, and Jack's broken one apparently looks like a coral. But whose TARDIS would be left after-- wait a moment!
This was the exact moment that my muse hit me over the head with a very large and heavy object, which always leads to me dropping whatever I'm doing to run to my laptop to write the idea down before it vanishes again. Music keeps it in my head longer (as it blocks out all the other distractions) so the defining song of this would be Sting's 'Desert Rose' on repeat.]
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.
- Nikos Kazantzakis
[I love starting with a defining quote, and it's usually the last edit I do before posting. And Katzantzakis has some remarkably awesome things to say about life. Must've been the Greek wine.]
Her Master sets her free as her Chameleon Arch takes its toll, destroying the only Time Lord left in existence, thereby stranding the resulting human on a barren rock at the end of Time.
She's tired and injured beyond repair after her last battle; she has seen the end of everything she knew. She doesn't resist her Master's last order. She departs to search for a place in space and time that she deems appropriate as her deathbed.
[Because the Master thought it was the ultimate end. No tricks, no back up. And if he's going down, he'd take everything he owns with him, just so noone else will have his things. That's my explanation why Yana didn't have his own TARDIS with him and had to steal the Doctor's in Utopia. Even in human form I don't think a Time Lord could leave his vessel behind in any other way.]
In the end, she can't even follow that last order. She doesn't die with dignity, but tumbles towards some primitive rock and cries out in terror and pain as she crashes. She's still there, she realizes once the pain fades. Her body is destroyed but her very core, her mind, is still functioning.
She tries to listen to the sound of the universe, the quiet songs of her Masters, but there's only absolute silence.
She's the last of her kind. She's alone, blind and unable to move. She has no purpose. She screams, but no one answers.
[Feels a lot like Van Statten's Dalek, doesn't it? Good little soldiers, both of them, always so eager to fulfil the purpose they were build for.]
Desert sand creeps through the debris of her hull, the transcendental parts of her innards forever lost in the dimensional displacement during her crash. She weeps in tune with the sandstorms whining past her destroyed shell for a very long time, unable to see, to feel time itself. She's lost everything she ever was, all she ever could be.
[Yes, I have a thing for deserts, and as this started out as a fic about something resembling a desert rose, it was natural to let her crash there.]
It's only when human hands close around her diminished coral-like shape that she finds the strength to look into her grave robber's mind, to find out where serendipity has led her. She giggles in despair at how alien her discoverer's mind is, only silence responding to her telepathic questions. She pries at the sparse surface thoughts and find something of an answer without this human's help: Earth, Egypt, 1798. The numbers and names mean nothing to her. There are no coordinates, no hope.
[Because that's what happens with treasures from early Egypt, isn't it? There's this one story where a German family handed down an authentical mummy through the generations (and it stood in their living room most of the time - bah) because some ancestor thought it was nifty to buy something off a grave robber in an Egyptian bazaar. Incidentally 1798 is the year that Napoleon conquered Egypt. See, I'm not always using random numbers *g*]
Her Discoverer takes her home, keeps her on a shelf, dusts her off once in a while and then sells her one day for a reason she doesn't understand.
[I like how this shows her complete separation from humans, not knowing what's going on in their tiny little brains. I see even the Doctor's TARDIS mostly guessing what will make her human occupants happy… but that's a question for another fic.]
The faces handling her flit past, the human life so fleeting that it fills her with sorrow to see her caretakers wither and die. She knows it'll be like this forever, a never-ending succession of faces (that aren't hiding the same spirit), the sound of her Masters' demise still echoing through a universe which hosts no one but her able to hear it anymore.
[Now, TARDIS senses are obviously quite inhuman. Most of my ideas for her have sprung directly from science (because I see them still as very obviously mechanic, contrary to Leviathans of Farscape fandom, that - at least in my mind - see, smell and hear like a creature), her senses in human words a conversion of scientific facts. Still being able to hear her Master's demise actually is a lot like still hearing the residue of the Big Bang when you're adjusting radio telescopes, and I tried to stay with that feeling of 'interpreting readouts' when it comes to her senses.]
Time flicks past, horribly out of tune and rhythm. She is alone and she weeps for her loss.
[Our life cycle must feel like trying to measure the age of the universe with a stopwatch: Does not compute.]
In the distance she can feel time churn around a Rift in the universe, and she decides that's the place she has to go, where she'll finally be able to die.
[Because what is a machine when it has no purpose, no functioning senses, can't be repaired? Junk, mostly, and how horrible it must be to realise how totally she failed her Master.]
Weak as she is, she can invoke ideas in these primitive apes, and so she slowly travels north, in suitcases and crates, a mere trinket. Deserts give way to forests, which give way to beaches and the sea, the whole route interrupted by terribly primitive wars (she's glad they are). After crossing the water she rediscovers rain, falling from the sky annoyingly often. She misses the heat of the desert sometimes, and she dreams of it in her new glass showcase.
[I'm not very good at describing long voyages as I get lost in unnecessary details, so I tend to use as few words as possible to make the biggest steps that still make sense… Egypt - Cardiff: 3700 km in roughly 50 years (in my mind at least) wrapped up in 3 sentences. Heh. And I still manage to sneak WWI in there as well as the TARDIS sorrow about the Time War, but keeping it so vague that everyone will create his/her own image of this voyage.]
The universe hasn't reformed again; it is still a churning torment to her senses. It's painful to watch and she yearns for death. Here, right above a whirlpool swirling around a Rift in space-time and draining her of life, it might finally come. She goes to sleep, concealing herself as ordinary, boring. No human will ever notice her again.
[I think in the first draft it wasn't clearly stated that she travelled to Cardiff, but just meeting Jack by chance was a bit too much of a coincidence. But we all know that the Rift attracts the flotsam of the universe, so there, perfect explanation. And it fits perfectly with the 'no function, no reason to live' theme.]
When new hands stroke her jagged outlines, she yelps, taken by surprise and instinctively recoiling in horror.
This one is different, his presence grating like nothing before.
[Because we know all about how a startled TARDIS would try to flee from him, this had to happen. And like the Doctor, she knows instinctively just what's wrong with him. Story of Jack's life that the answer was practically in front of him all the time, but he's still too young to understand her.]
He is a Fact, she realizes aghast. Infinity looked into him and made him a constant. In her old life, she'd have fled as fast as she possibly could, but she lost her ability to run long ago.
[So what do you do when you can't run? You try to push it away.]
She wants him to put her down, dislike her. She tries to shove him away, but finds him open, his mind the first one to answer her song in so long.
He knows how to listen.
[Because we all know Jack loved flirting with the TARDIS and getting his hands on her during maintenance repairs - it's just a small step to assume that they also shared a slight telepathic bond, as Jack's one of the few companions who could actually understand and be aware of the ship's presence in his mind beyond the Universal Translator functions (and let's be honest, she must be deep in a human's cortex on a regular basis to pull that off anyway). Part of my personal canon.]
This One is wrong, unending and wrong. But who is she to judge? She, a remnant of a race that was obliterated from the timeline, she, reduced to a skeletal piece of coral.
She is as wrong as he is.
[Again with the odd vibes from Van Statten's Dalek stating "We are the same". It's clearly her desperation for a purpose that makes her even consider liking Jack. Be glad that this isn't an in-vision commentary, I'm wracking my brain trying to remember if I'd planned this of if it was something that just happened. I think the latter, as the Dalek/Doctor dynamic from season 1 was the most intense thing on TV for me since Scorpy/Crichton. Two sides of the same coin, you know? I love that.]
He is confused, obviously surprised to find something like her in a place that sells ancient, dead things.
[Because eventually, everything turns up in antique shops. It's a universal law or something.]
She unfolds in his mind, discovers those that taught him how to hear her.
The last of the Time Lords travelling with the Last of her kind, and she suddenly sees that she isn't what she was. She is not alone, but she’s just a fragment, weak and abandoned.
She weeps. The Constant pets her gently, crooning, understanding.
[I think Jack's pain of abandonment plays into the TARDIS pain, too, but maybe that's just me.]
She feels loss in this one, deeper than any other creature she's encountered since her Master died. They're the same, she realizes, clinging to this human as hard as she can.
[They're both alone and battling abandonment issues, which makes them perfect mates. And for me, those two are a better OTP than any Jack/mortal!character could ever be.]
He buys her without haggling and she purrs with delight when he installs a heat lamp over her new resting place, right next to him on a table.
[The Desert Rose crystals ended up on my aquarium cover to dry because it was the warmest spot in my room. Makes sense for something from the desert to enjoy the warmth, right? I'm cold very easily, so I practically purred when someone at work installed a heat lamp over my desk, that's probably where this is coming from. Maybe that's why I enjoy writing about deserts so much?]
His presence is soothing the turmoil of her uprooted universe.
[Ah, crux of everything, and a question I've asked myself ever since the Doctor said that Time Lords despised facts: Why are facts bad? Because they are unchanging. Now, for a race like the Gallifreyans who can see whole eras of space and time in all directions it must be indeed terrible to see something standing still in the cosmic dance, the chaos that is change. But what about us lesser species? Our entire existence is based on facts - where would we be without facts? The only reason why our ancestors with their limited senses and wit (compared to Time Lords, at least) were able to cross the oceans, for example, was because of the (for us ephemerals) never changing paths of stars and the sun, so shouldn't someone like Jack be like a beacon of hope to something as lost as a broken TARDIS? Jack as a guiding star - I quite liked that idea and it wormed its way into this fic.]
He won't ever wither and die, will never flit past.
[And isn't that soothing to know for two beings that lost everything that ever mattered to them and watched the world flit past and leave them behind? I SHIP IT! ]
She hums when he pets her, and he smiles when he notices the sound in his head. It feels familiar, like a TARDIS should, he thinks. That makes her happy. His touch is invigorating, whispering of infinity and freedom.
[Imagine the scientific power of infinity. Because he's full with the power of the Vortex - a TARDIS' natural habitat - it must feel like getting a tiny piece of home back once you've gotten over the feeling of dread.]
She starts harvesting minerals from the salty air, carefully adding them to her outer shell.
[Because in my mind TARDISes are indeed made of the same stuff as corals, but babbling about calcium carbonate didn't sound right.]
For the first time since she fell to Earth, death can wait. Instead she wants to grow again.
He's a constant, and suddenly time ticks in its usual rhythm again.
She sees the universe swirl around him, his permanence like a beacon in an ever-changing universe she forgot how to handle a long time ago.
With his presence, her mind can reach out again, see all of time and space. She's baffled when she realizes that she needs him to navigate, her fixed point in the universe offering all the coherent data she needs for her calculations.
[Guiding star, you see? Just takes you some time to realise that you've found your way again when the world has turned upside down.]
Her senses grow again, and she's not surprised to find the Other she saw in her Keeper's mind, the last of her kind travelling with the last Time Lord in existence.
[The Doctor = The Other. Of course a TARDIS would know. Aren't I clever? ;-)]
She used to chase those two, and she greets her old adversary like a friend, because in an universe of loneliness there's no point in hate anymore.
[I can't see TARDISes as good or evil depending on their pilots, I don't imagine there ever being any great misgivings between the two. It's like two war horses watching while their riders try to bash each other's brains out.]
Their thought patterns are familiar, even from so far away, but it isn't as reassuring as she remembers.
[Once again with the senses resembling that of a machine… at least for me it invokes the picture of some readout instead of a sense.]
This Time Lord is not hers, she realizes, and she's not His. She can never go back to the life she left behind. She can never be what she was, not even with the help of her former masters.
She refuses her sister's offer to make the Time Lord help her (she's feisty, her sister, wouldn't even ask for permission to travel), to help her out of her misery.
[Because we all know it's the TARDIS' fault when the Doctor gets into trouble again. She's sure he likes it. And he quite obviously enjoys the unpredictability of their lives. ]
She chooses her own ways now. She'll grow as she desires, die when she deems it necessary.
[Different points of views are tricky, most times you can't change them back, and they change you. Different beliefs, different destinations (that might sound wise, but it's stolen) is one of my favourite red threads for fic.]
She'll stay with her Keeper; this one won't abandon her. He's a constant, and she needs this more than her sister could ever understand.
She purrs, nuzzling into the warm feeling (companionship, affection) in his single heart, revelling in the simple human mind, bathing in the permanence of his existence.
She's not a Time Lord's vessel anymore. She chose not to be.
One day, she'll travel again, and she'll heal that ache inside her Keeper's heart.
[He's healing her, she's promising to heal him. Symbiosis, just like TARDIS/Time Lord should be - I didn't really plan to tell this story in three parts, but it was this sentence that got me writing the next chapter.]
She's new. She's free.
[That last line is stolen from somewhere, but I can't remember from where. I like upbeat endings like these that are not really 'happy' ends, but 'good' ends that tell of stories still to come.
This was the point at which I let out a massive "Oof" and had a coffee. Ideas like these get practically written down in one long session, because if I get up and do something else the inspiration is gone and I'll never finish the fic. Don't ask me how many half finished texts hide on my harddrive…
I let it sit in a separate text document, didn't think of it for at least a day and then decided after reading it again to send it off to xwingace. I like to let them ripen a bit before I show them to someone, just to make sure it's still making sense long after the muse is hiding in the shadows again.
I'm sorry I can't quite remember the beta process anymore, but I think this was one of the easier jobs for her (meaning the thing didn't change very much itself, not that she had nothing to do - english will never be my native language, so mistakes are always abundant), or was it? Speak up, I'd be happy if you could add some interesting tidbits about this.]
[Well, that was that, I hope you enjoyed it a bit, although I'm not too sure my brain is terribly interesting… most of the time I don't understand it myself, telling others how it works is very strange. Please feel free to come visit me in my brain again whenever you like. I have my own very special world in here, obviously ;-)]
So... was that in any way worth reading? I honestly can't say.
Title: The Wolf and the Phoenix
[The title took quite long to decide upon ('Desert Rose' being the more obvious choice, but the implication of Rose being involved made me chose another title), and was in the end inspired by a Russian fable called 'Ivan Tsarevitch, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf' - which has nothing to do at all with the story, but got me the idea of Wolf vs. Phoenix]
Summary: The beginning of a beautiful friendship
[I have a thing for sneaking in Casablanca references, most of my fics hide at least one if I can manage, although no one but me ever notices *g*]
Characters: Jack/TARDIS
Spoilers: Utopia for Who and vague mentions of Torchwood season 1
Rating: None
Word count: 1289
Notes: Thanks go to xwingace for her excellent job as beta.
Fic Masterlist: Here, uncommented version of this fic here.
[So, here we are then. Where did this come from?
This idea came to me first when I cleaned some of the desert roses that were haphazardly cluttered outside in the rain. Knowing a bit about minerals and fossils I went "Eeek!" when I found out, rescued the poor thing and spend the next hours trying first to clean and then to dry them.
They have such intricate shapes that it got my mind going: And what if those beautiful fractal crystallisations in fact hid a consciousness? What if I'd really rescued it from destruction? Would I've heard it call me had I found it in a shop? What kind of creature could possibly look so alien and yet so familiar? TARDISes, maybe. They're grown like crystals do, the Doctor said, and Jack's broken one apparently looks like a coral. But whose TARDIS would be left after-- wait a moment!
This was the exact moment that my muse hit me over the head with a very large and heavy object, which always leads to me dropping whatever I'm doing to run to my laptop to write the idea down before it vanishes again. Music keeps it in my head longer (as it blocks out all the other distractions) so the defining song of this would be Sting's 'Desert Rose' on repeat.]
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.
- Nikos Kazantzakis
[I love starting with a defining quote, and it's usually the last edit I do before posting. And Katzantzakis has some remarkably awesome things to say about life. Must've been the Greek wine.]
Her Master sets her free as her Chameleon Arch takes its toll, destroying the only Time Lord left in existence, thereby stranding the resulting human on a barren rock at the end of Time.
She's tired and injured beyond repair after her last battle; she has seen the end of everything she knew. She doesn't resist her Master's last order. She departs to search for a place in space and time that she deems appropriate as her deathbed.
[Because the Master thought it was the ultimate end. No tricks, no back up. And if he's going down, he'd take everything he owns with him, just so noone else will have his things. That's my explanation why Yana didn't have his own TARDIS with him and had to steal the Doctor's in Utopia. Even in human form I don't think a Time Lord could leave his vessel behind in any other way.]
In the end, she can't even follow that last order. She doesn't die with dignity, but tumbles towards some primitive rock and cries out in terror and pain as she crashes. She's still there, she realizes once the pain fades. Her body is destroyed but her very core, her mind, is still functioning.
She tries to listen to the sound of the universe, the quiet songs of her Masters, but there's only absolute silence.
She's the last of her kind. She's alone, blind and unable to move. She has no purpose. She screams, but no one answers.
[Feels a lot like Van Statten's Dalek, doesn't it? Good little soldiers, both of them, always so eager to fulfil the purpose they were build for.]
Desert sand creeps through the debris of her hull, the transcendental parts of her innards forever lost in the dimensional displacement during her crash. She weeps in tune with the sandstorms whining past her destroyed shell for a very long time, unable to see, to feel time itself. She's lost everything she ever was, all she ever could be.
[Yes, I have a thing for deserts, and as this started out as a fic about something resembling a desert rose, it was natural to let her crash there.]
It's only when human hands close around her diminished coral-like shape that she finds the strength to look into her grave robber's mind, to find out where serendipity has led her. She giggles in despair at how alien her discoverer's mind is, only silence responding to her telepathic questions. She pries at the sparse surface thoughts and find something of an answer without this human's help: Earth, Egypt, 1798. The numbers and names mean nothing to her. There are no coordinates, no hope.
[Because that's what happens with treasures from early Egypt, isn't it? There's this one story where a German family handed down an authentical mummy through the generations (and it stood in their living room most of the time - bah) because some ancestor thought it was nifty to buy something off a grave robber in an Egyptian bazaar. Incidentally 1798 is the year that Napoleon conquered Egypt. See, I'm not always using random numbers *g*]
Her Discoverer takes her home, keeps her on a shelf, dusts her off once in a while and then sells her one day for a reason she doesn't understand.
[I like how this shows her complete separation from humans, not knowing what's going on in their tiny little brains. I see even the Doctor's TARDIS mostly guessing what will make her human occupants happy… but that's a question for another fic.]
The faces handling her flit past, the human life so fleeting that it fills her with sorrow to see her caretakers wither and die. She knows it'll be like this forever, a never-ending succession of faces (that aren't hiding the same spirit), the sound of her Masters' demise still echoing through a universe which hosts no one but her able to hear it anymore.
[Now, TARDIS senses are obviously quite inhuman. Most of my ideas for her have sprung directly from science (because I see them still as very obviously mechanic, contrary to Leviathans of Farscape fandom, that - at least in my mind - see, smell and hear like a creature), her senses in human words a conversion of scientific facts. Still being able to hear her Master's demise actually is a lot like still hearing the residue of the Big Bang when you're adjusting radio telescopes, and I tried to stay with that feeling of 'interpreting readouts' when it comes to her senses.]
Time flicks past, horribly out of tune and rhythm. She is alone and she weeps for her loss.
[Our life cycle must feel like trying to measure the age of the universe with a stopwatch: Does not compute.]
In the distance she can feel time churn around a Rift in the universe, and she decides that's the place she has to go, where she'll finally be able to die.
[Because what is a machine when it has no purpose, no functioning senses, can't be repaired? Junk, mostly, and how horrible it must be to realise how totally she failed her Master.]
Weak as she is, she can invoke ideas in these primitive apes, and so she slowly travels north, in suitcases and crates, a mere trinket. Deserts give way to forests, which give way to beaches and the sea, the whole route interrupted by terribly primitive wars (she's glad they are). After crossing the water she rediscovers rain, falling from the sky annoyingly often. She misses the heat of the desert sometimes, and she dreams of it in her new glass showcase.
[I'm not very good at describing long voyages as I get lost in unnecessary details, so I tend to use as few words as possible to make the biggest steps that still make sense… Egypt - Cardiff: 3700 km in roughly 50 years (in my mind at least) wrapped up in 3 sentences. Heh. And I still manage to sneak WWI in there as well as the TARDIS sorrow about the Time War, but keeping it so vague that everyone will create his/her own image of this voyage.]
The universe hasn't reformed again; it is still a churning torment to her senses. It's painful to watch and she yearns for death. Here, right above a whirlpool swirling around a Rift in space-time and draining her of life, it might finally come. She goes to sleep, concealing herself as ordinary, boring. No human will ever notice her again.
[I think in the first draft it wasn't clearly stated that she travelled to Cardiff, but just meeting Jack by chance was a bit too much of a coincidence. But we all know that the Rift attracts the flotsam of the universe, so there, perfect explanation. And it fits perfectly with the 'no function, no reason to live' theme.]
When new hands stroke her jagged outlines, she yelps, taken by surprise and instinctively recoiling in horror.
This one is different, his presence grating like nothing before.
[Because we know all about how a startled TARDIS would try to flee from him, this had to happen. And like the Doctor, she knows instinctively just what's wrong with him. Story of Jack's life that the answer was practically in front of him all the time, but he's still too young to understand her.]
He is a Fact, she realizes aghast. Infinity looked into him and made him a constant. In her old life, she'd have fled as fast as she possibly could, but she lost her ability to run long ago.
[So what do you do when you can't run? You try to push it away.]
She wants him to put her down, dislike her. She tries to shove him away, but finds him open, his mind the first one to answer her song in so long.
He knows how to listen.
[Because we all know Jack loved flirting with the TARDIS and getting his hands on her during maintenance repairs - it's just a small step to assume that they also shared a slight telepathic bond, as Jack's one of the few companions who could actually understand and be aware of the ship's presence in his mind beyond the Universal Translator functions (and let's be honest, she must be deep in a human's cortex on a regular basis to pull that off anyway). Part of my personal canon.]
This One is wrong, unending and wrong. But who is she to judge? She, a remnant of a race that was obliterated from the timeline, she, reduced to a skeletal piece of coral.
She is as wrong as he is.
[Again with the odd vibes from Van Statten's Dalek stating "We are the same". It's clearly her desperation for a purpose that makes her even consider liking Jack. Be glad that this isn't an in-vision commentary, I'm wracking my brain trying to remember if I'd planned this of if it was something that just happened. I think the latter, as the Dalek/Doctor dynamic from season 1 was the most intense thing on TV for me since Scorpy/Crichton. Two sides of the same coin, you know? I love that.]
He is confused, obviously surprised to find something like her in a place that sells ancient, dead things.
[Because eventually, everything turns up in antique shops. It's a universal law or something.]
She unfolds in his mind, discovers those that taught him how to hear her.
The last of the Time Lords travelling with the Last of her kind, and she suddenly sees that she isn't what she was. She is not alone, but she’s just a fragment, weak and abandoned.
She weeps. The Constant pets her gently, crooning, understanding.
[I think Jack's pain of abandonment plays into the TARDIS pain, too, but maybe that's just me.]
She feels loss in this one, deeper than any other creature she's encountered since her Master died. They're the same, she realizes, clinging to this human as hard as she can.
[They're both alone and battling abandonment issues, which makes them perfect mates. And for me, those two are a better OTP than any Jack/mortal!character could ever be.]
He buys her without haggling and she purrs with delight when he installs a heat lamp over her new resting place, right next to him on a table.
[The Desert Rose crystals ended up on my aquarium cover to dry because it was the warmest spot in my room. Makes sense for something from the desert to enjoy the warmth, right? I'm cold very easily, so I practically purred when someone at work installed a heat lamp over my desk, that's probably where this is coming from. Maybe that's why I enjoy writing about deserts so much?]
His presence is soothing the turmoil of her uprooted universe.
[Ah, crux of everything, and a question I've asked myself ever since the Doctor said that Time Lords despised facts: Why are facts bad? Because they are unchanging. Now, for a race like the Gallifreyans who can see whole eras of space and time in all directions it must be indeed terrible to see something standing still in the cosmic dance, the chaos that is change. But what about us lesser species? Our entire existence is based on facts - where would we be without facts? The only reason why our ancestors with their limited senses and wit (compared to Time Lords, at least) were able to cross the oceans, for example, was because of the (for us ephemerals) never changing paths of stars and the sun, so shouldn't someone like Jack be like a beacon of hope to something as lost as a broken TARDIS? Jack as a guiding star - I quite liked that idea and it wormed its way into this fic.]
He won't ever wither and die, will never flit past.
[And isn't that soothing to know for two beings that lost everything that ever mattered to them and watched the world flit past and leave them behind? I SHIP IT! ]
She hums when he pets her, and he smiles when he notices the sound in his head. It feels familiar, like a TARDIS should, he thinks. That makes her happy. His touch is invigorating, whispering of infinity and freedom.
[Imagine the scientific power of infinity. Because he's full with the power of the Vortex - a TARDIS' natural habitat - it must feel like getting a tiny piece of home back once you've gotten over the feeling of dread.]
She starts harvesting minerals from the salty air, carefully adding them to her outer shell.
[Because in my mind TARDISes are indeed made of the same stuff as corals, but babbling about calcium carbonate didn't sound right.]
For the first time since she fell to Earth, death can wait. Instead she wants to grow again.
He's a constant, and suddenly time ticks in its usual rhythm again.
She sees the universe swirl around him, his permanence like a beacon in an ever-changing universe she forgot how to handle a long time ago.
With his presence, her mind can reach out again, see all of time and space. She's baffled when she realizes that she needs him to navigate, her fixed point in the universe offering all the coherent data she needs for her calculations.
[Guiding star, you see? Just takes you some time to realise that you've found your way again when the world has turned upside down.]
Her senses grow again, and she's not surprised to find the Other she saw in her Keeper's mind, the last of her kind travelling with the last Time Lord in existence.
[The Doctor = The Other. Of course a TARDIS would know. Aren't I clever? ;-)]
She used to chase those two, and she greets her old adversary like a friend, because in an universe of loneliness there's no point in hate anymore.
[I can't see TARDISes as good or evil depending on their pilots, I don't imagine there ever being any great misgivings between the two. It's like two war horses watching while their riders try to bash each other's brains out.]
Their thought patterns are familiar, even from so far away, but it isn't as reassuring as she remembers.
[Once again with the senses resembling that of a machine… at least for me it invokes the picture of some readout instead of a sense.]
This Time Lord is not hers, she realizes, and she's not His. She can never go back to the life she left behind. She can never be what she was, not even with the help of her former masters.
She refuses her sister's offer to make the Time Lord help her (she's feisty, her sister, wouldn't even ask for permission to travel), to help her out of her misery.
[Because we all know it's the TARDIS' fault when the Doctor gets into trouble again. She's sure he likes it. And he quite obviously enjoys the unpredictability of their lives. ]
She chooses her own ways now. She'll grow as she desires, die when she deems it necessary.
[Different points of views are tricky, most times you can't change them back, and they change you. Different beliefs, different destinations (that might sound wise, but it's stolen) is one of my favourite red threads for fic.]
She'll stay with her Keeper; this one won't abandon her. He's a constant, and she needs this more than her sister could ever understand.
She purrs, nuzzling into the warm feeling (companionship, affection) in his single heart, revelling in the simple human mind, bathing in the permanence of his existence.
She's not a Time Lord's vessel anymore. She chose not to be.
One day, she'll travel again, and she'll heal that ache inside her Keeper's heart.
[He's healing her, she's promising to heal him. Symbiosis, just like TARDIS/Time Lord should be - I didn't really plan to tell this story in three parts, but it was this sentence that got me writing the next chapter.]
She's new. She's free.
[That last line is stolen from somewhere, but I can't remember from where. I like upbeat endings like these that are not really 'happy' ends, but 'good' ends that tell of stories still to come.
This was the point at which I let out a massive "Oof" and had a coffee. Ideas like these get practically written down in one long session, because if I get up and do something else the inspiration is gone and I'll never finish the fic. Don't ask me how many half finished texts hide on my harddrive…
I let it sit in a separate text document, didn't think of it for at least a day and then decided after reading it again to send it off to xwingace. I like to let them ripen a bit before I show them to someone, just to make sure it's still making sense long after the muse is hiding in the shadows again.
I'm sorry I can't quite remember the beta process anymore, but I think this was one of the easier jobs for her (meaning the thing didn't change very much itself, not that she had nothing to do - english will never be my native language, so mistakes are always abundant), or was it? Speak up, I'd be happy if you could add some interesting tidbits about this.]
[Well, that was that, I hope you enjoyed it a bit, although I'm not too sure my brain is terribly interesting… most of the time I don't understand it myself, telling others how it works is very strange. Please feel free to come visit me in my brain again whenever you like. I have my own very special world in here, obviously ;-)]
So... was that in any way worth reading? I honestly can't say.