MISSION: THE SLEEPER

[ximilian]

● ● ● M I S S I O N   3 . 1

INTRO • MAY ALL YOUR BACON BURN • IF YOU HAVE A DREAM DON'T WAIT • FYI

// INTRO. beam us down!  

It’ll be during the early hours in the morning when the communications device pings the Orbers in the midst of whatever you may be doing: whether it’s sleeping in, having a leisurely breakfast, or being deep into whatever task it is you’ve planned for the day. Viveca’s familiar voice filters through, a cheerful interruption.

// VIVECA.AI

Hi everyone. We’ve got your next mission ready, but I was asked to give you the file a little bit in advance so you could prepare better… so here it is. I don’t think I can delay the teleportation machine more than a day, so early tomorrow morning it’ll be time to go. The situation in Kilnan is a little strange, so I’ve prepared an antidote for you just in case. Pick yours up from the infirmary before you get going. It’ll only work once, so be careful. The orb is somewhere in the castle… I trust you’ll find it. Good luck.

Without any further fanfare, the comms go silent and you’re left with a new mission file and some rather concerning information within the report about a sleeping sickness. But instead of the immediate departure like you might be used to, you’ve been given the day to rest up and prepare for the trip down. So pack your things, grab the antidote, maybe enjoy a hot shower and a good night’s sleep … or if you’re not the sleeping kind, find a good song to jam to and get you motivated for what’s to come.

The next morning before most of your alarms will go off, the teleportation machine will hum to life, crackling with stored energy. Those who have been here for longer might notice this difference and what Viveca had meant when she said she didn’t think she “could delay it for more than a day”. As soon as you’ve been gathered together, you’ll feel the pull — and a tug that removes you from the station.

For what might seem like an agonizingly long moment, you simply hang there in stasis, white light surrounding you accompanied by a strange, ethereal chorus that whispers in your ear, informing you of the goal currently set before you and the cost to achieve it, as well as the exchange for its power —

But before you can venture to open your mouth and respond, the light around you materializes into a fog of cool, damp cloud cover. The moment your feet touch solid ground and the fog parts as you move through it, you’ll see a marble road ahead.

Welcome to the country of Kilnan, Orbers.

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// PART I.MAY ALL YOUR BACON BURN  

Around you, the courtyard of the Crystalline Palace opens up — white marble pavement, extravagant sculptures half-covered in moss, and fountains that have long since dried up — its splendor abandoned and left for time to neglect like a long forgotten secret.

If you look behind you, you’ll see nothing but clouds; and underneath you is mostly open sky. Faintly (if you really squint), you might be able to make out the grassy earth somewhere below the clouds but the distance seems a little treacherous to even consider taking your chance to get there. As such, the only way is forward — up the wide steps and through the imposing, but majestic, double doors of the castle.

1.0   Once inside, a seemingly empty castle greets you. There are no servants rushing to greet you, no hustle and bustle that you'd expect from a castle this size... just silence.

You’ll find yourself standing in the middle of a grand foyer. Daylight filters in through tall windows framed with long flowing curtains that seem to sway just a little, even though the casements are clearly shut. Further in, you’ll notice multiple staircases leading you to the upper floors, some of them straight, and some of them curved, while others wind upwards in a seemingly endless direction towards one of the towers. Most of these stairways will appear to be your regular run-of-the-mill means of egress, but the moment you turn away and look back to where you’d just come from, you might notice that the stairs have disappeared … only to be right in front of you when you glance back. Another set of stairs may take you in one direction, but try and retread your path and you’ll find the very same staircase you’d just used will take you somewhere completely different.

These stairs might be playing tricks on you, or maybe you need to get your eyes checked.

From the foyer, hallways appear to sprawl in all directions of the wind, some of them lined with paintings from a very deft hand (or hands). Walk along and peer at one of these incredibly detailed depictions of vibrant rich cities, lush idyllic countrysides, alluring, well-manicured gardens and find that all of them seem so incredibly lifelike — almost uncannily so. If you study one for too long, you’ll find yourself losing focus of the world around you, only seeing the painting that beckons you forward … and helpless to resist, you take a step forward and wind up within the world of the painting. Is it as beautiful as it seemed from its frame? Of course it is. Just look at that colour! Feel that breeze! Take a deep breath of the air around you. But remember that you probably can’t stay here forever; you have to get back. And the way to the castle is … somewhere here. You just have to find it.

2.0   Inside the castle, your task is clear: find the orb.. and for some of you, perhaps try and look for the people sent to the castle before you. To do that, you’ll need to search through the different rooms and accompanying towers… but the moment that you try to, it becomes apparent that this is no ordinary castle and the rooms are not exactly just rooms either. Some have stark differences in scale: in one room you enter, all the furniture within appears to be made for giants; while in another room, everything has been shrunk down to its miniature.

Further still, another room will appear to be deceptively normal… but the moment you step past the threshold, the door will lock shut behind you and then fade into the wall like it’d never been there at all. You only have one clear objective then: search through the room for a way to get out… or make yourself a way out.

3.0   When you enter this next room, you find yourself having to pause to take it all in, it’s so incredible that you can barely believe your eyes: whatever this room holds within seems to cater specifically to your individual interests and desires like it sees into your soul. It might offer rare books to those interested in knowledge, the best entertainment for those who seek self-indulgence, decadent foods you’ve always wanted to try for those with a discerning palate. What a wonderful time! So wonderful, in fact, that it’s too easy for you to forget the passing of time … what was it you were doing before? Nothing important, surely. Right?

4.0   There are rooms that don’t even seem like rooms at all once you’ve entered them: you open a green painted door and instead of the marble floors, you step right into a hedge maze. When you turn to glance over your shoulder, you’ll find that the door has vanished, and your hand lingering on the door knob is now clutching at a cluster of prickly foliage. With nowhere else to go but to brave the labyrinth, you move forward. The path you take will twist and wind until you realize that the best-case scenario here is coming face-to-face with a deadend rather than the other delights that the maze holds in store. One end greets you with a particularly angry tree, hell-bent on wiping you off the face of this plane; at another turn, a creature that looks suspiciously like a Sphinx, sitting on her hind legs and blocking the way, might ask you a riddle in exchange for passage; and there is always a chance that the right-hook you take will pull you through a cloud of deceptively beautiful fluttering dots of lights that whisper to you with the voices of people long-dead before you.

5.0   Another room will pull you — quite literally — into the eye of a storm. Hail and rain pours down, drenching you immediately, while lightning flashes in the open sky — it almost looks like the countryside you saw beneath the castle, but that couldn’t be, right? You don’t remember leaving the castle… And more importantly — the rain really is coming down, and that lightning is striking dangerously close. It might be wise to find some temporary shelter, perhaps a little cottage to hide in, or at the very least, get to that overturned hay cart and hide beneath it — and wait for a chance to find your way back to the exit door … wherever (or whenever) it may appear.

6.0   Not all of the castle will be entirely strange, however; there, too, are regular, non-eventful rooms scattered within. A large dining room with the table set for one, a thin layer of dust collecting over the silverware, for instance; a library filled with old tomes and scrolls that don’t appear to have been touched in years; a storage room full of strange items; and, if you make it into the cellar, you’ll find the kitchen, its food storage still robust despite the fact that some of the meat has begun to gather mold, and some of the vegetables have darkened and gone a little mushy. On the layer of dust settled over the floor, there is exactly one set of footprints, perhaps smaller than you’d think, but even those seem at least a number of weeks old.

TOP

// PART II.IF YOU HAVE A DREAM DON'T WAIT  

It’s almost too easy to become distracted by all of the strange happenings within the castle, easy enough to forget about the sickness you’ve been warned about — and perhaps, with so far there having been no sight of anyone actually affected by it, it’s easy enough to think that there might have been a mistake or a misunderstanding. But the longer you spend within these beautiful white stone walls, you become aware of a whisper: quiet at first, the barely-there breath of a language you know you understand and yet you still can’t quite grasp it, the meaning frustratingly close to the edge of your consciousness. And the more you try to touch those not-words and too-light-whispers, you feel a little dizzy before the world around you suddenly changes.

7.0   At first you think you’ve simply fallen into another room, just another hidden trap-door or painting you’d stepped into. So perhaps you don’t even realize that you’ve fallen under a spell at all when everything around you is just … dark. Beneath your feet, if you focus your gaze, is a still surface of a black lake glinting — and yet you are not sinking. Every step that you take forward creates a little ripple across the glassy surface. As your eyes adjust, so do your surroundings begin to take shape. It will be different for everyone, this dreamscape morphing and melding into a scene (an island, a meadow, a small patch of forest, or will it remain the lake?) or setting that reflects you — it’s where your soul feels most at ease … for now.

8.0   As expected, the dreamscape does not stay still for long. The more time you spend here, the more it seems to draw inspiration from your memories. Suddenly you find everything around you materializing into solid form, the experience being dragged from the depths of your mind into manifesting a vivid study in touch and sight and smell and sound. It’s something you’ve already been through before, but whether you like it or not, this memory is being replayed around you and now you’re the observer … you and the lucky (or unlucky) person who has entered this memory with you.

Do you stay, or do you try to run from it?

9.0   The stronger the memory, the stronger its effect on you: the heaviest memories, whether they’re happy ones or sad ones, may latch onto your subconscious so tightly that it pulls you right into the memory itself.

Just as these dreams often do, it’s hard to tell whether this is made up or reality itself — perhaps you remember that this has happened before and you’ll try to change the course of events. Or perhaps you think you’re living this memory for the first time. Whatever it might be, you find yourself fully convinced of its authenticity … but the power of belief is a dangerous thing. Beware that the injuries sustained in this state will become real, visible to those who might be observing this — and observing you — from the outside. (You know the line: if you die in the game, you die in real life.)

NOTE: These strong memories might also draw you into them as yourself from that time, so someone wandering into this re-lived memory might find you there as a child, a teenager, a young adult, or perhaps someone with the same or a different face — whatever you were at the time of the memory.

10.0   Once you become aware of these memories, you may push them away or will them to stop. The moment that you do, the dreamscape will immediately shift to become its unaltered state once more. The other way to escape these memories is to leave. At the edge of your dreamscape, you will find that the air shifts and shimmers just a little differently than the rest of this space … and once you get close enough, the doorway will open to let you out of your dreamscape and into someone else’s like a chain of several small links. If your dreams are more akin to nightmares, perhaps you enter the door willingly. But just as likely, you might simply get too close and are sucked into the passageway.

And you never know just whose dream you end up in next …

The only way to leave the dreamscape is by being woken up by someone administering the antidote to you, and it will only work once. So if you fall back asleep, remember — if it takes you in again, you will remain under this sleeping spell, unable to wake … at least until the cause of the sickness has been found.

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F Y I

• The events in this log take place during the month of November.

• If you have questions about any of the prompts or the mission in general, please direct them HERE.

• To submit a search request regarding exploring a specific place during any of the prompts, please do so HERE.

• Voting for how the characters will get the orb will go up November 22. Though voting will be done in an OOC post, it is an IC vote in the sense that you should pick a choice your character would ICly make. What the characters choose to do will determine the conclusion of the mission.

• And finally, have a soundtrack for this log! ♪ ♪ ♪

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the doctor (11) | doctor who

[lateness]

closed to any planned cr —

[lateness]

●●● PART I, 6.0 — wherein we acquire a hat!;

[ The excitement of a real-life painting and a hedge-maze really couldn’t compare to a regular old investigation of the castle they’ve actually found themselves in. Yes, it’s all a bit dusty and he doesn’t know if one dusty room might lead to a far less … pleasant space (please no room full of sharp pointy things), but that’s all a part of the fun, he supposes.

Besides, this is an attempt to really get a good sense of the motivations, the habits, and the lifestyle of the wizard who commands this castle. And if luck is on his side, the orb might just be knocking about it in one of these rooms. That would be lovely, wouldn’t it?

Worse comes to worse — ]

Oh, a closet! Don’t know why I’m surprised to see one here; whole big room for a fancy wizard. Let’s take a look, shall we?

[ Does the Doctor have intentions on perhaps doing a thorough inventory of the inhabitants’ hat collection? Maybe. Oh, he’ll leave something behind as a trade, don’t you worry.

Maybe the orb is in a hat box! ]

Come along, then.

●●● PART II, 7.0 — inside the TARDIS ;

[ The Doctor opens his eyes, one after the other, slowly, a bit dramatically, hands clenched to his sides in fists, as though he’d been expecting something much much worse to happen. But then he’s just … standing on nothing, and this isn’t the first time he’s stood on nothing, there was the Nothing Planet which is a bit of an oxymoron in itself, isn’t it — but ah, another time for that monologue. Right. The thing is, he remembers taking a step forward, because that’s what one does on any sort of planet, nothing or not, and in that instant, everything comes together. Like someone putting a very, very large brush to the scenery around him, shapes and colour and light replaces the darkness, and the Doctor hops forward to catch it in action as it materializes. Large discs bubble up the sides of the walls and fill with light, the floor beneath his feet solidify to glass, and below that, more floor and wires—so many wires. A staircase stretches past the limits of this space, and then another pops up to mirror the other. Both lead to other rooms, though what those rooms might be now are a mystery. Always were.

The light takes on a deep, warm glow contrasted with the sudden green light in the centre of the room. Just a few steps forward, an elaborate console begins to take shape stretching up towards the ceiling with the old familiar wooshing sound that he hasn’t heard for some months now. ]

Oh, I’ve missed you. [ The console beeps and hums with the all familiar sounds of home. This is the TARDIS, the Doctor’s spaceship and, really, his very first companion.

It chimes this time and the Doctor’s expression, wistful and just a little sad, suddenly brightens with laughter. This is all in his head and he knows that, but it still feels so real. Points to his subconscious, then. ] Oy! Not in front of company, eh?

[ Turning back, he offers you an expectant look, like he's absolutely waiting for something. ]

So! What do you think?

●●● PART II, 9.0 — fantastic! ;

[ With every regeneration, the Doctor collects the memories and the lives of his past. Not that he could ever forget a single moment of each regeneration, even if he tried to, but more than that he never wants to. All those lives he touched, all the people who have become an imprint on his hearts, why would he ever want to forget a single second of any of that?

He glances down at his hands, and then down at his front — oh. Oh. Yes, he remembers this. The maroon jumper, the leather coat. The leather coat is so cool. Fantastic. Oh, that tastes nice on his tongue, too. Familiar, that.

He sees you; he remembers this day. Remembers this moment; remembers Rose Tyler, and he watches it all start to take on very vivid detail, about as clear as the (big) ears on his head. Better than the chin, he supposes, though it’s certainly no bowtie, now is it?

Taking your hand, he leans in and utters a warning, his voice firm. His accent sounds a little like he’s from the North. ]

Run.

7.0 new phone who (tar)dis?

[droide]

[ Sleeping is... odd. Dreaming is even more odd. Watching some man she doesn't know caress a control panel and whisper sweet nothings to it might be the oddest thing Elthree has ever seen. ]

What do I think...?

[ She's seen ships. She started life as an astromech, ships are where she belongs. This... This weird, amber-lit, spaceous room doesn't look like any ship she's ever been in. So much so, in fact, that she doesn't even clock it as one. ]

I think that's a strange place for a dashboard.

heheh good joke 👍

[lateness]

[ Well.

That's not the reaction he'd been expecting or hoping for, and for one brief moment the Doctor is giving his dreamscape another quick study for the small details his subconscious might have foolishly left out.

No. Nothing. He remembers everything, has spent years and years in this space, knows every single nook and cranny. It's brilliant. It's perfect.

And now he's crossing his arms, trying to resist being offended. The TARDIS beeps on the Doctor's behalf. What do robots know anyway? Handles never was very good at any of this either. ]

Yes, yes, we're all so used to standard-issue dashboards and their windows, aren't we, but look, look — [ A quick hop towards his console, and he spins the monitor around, hitting a switch to show where they are. Obviously this is a dream, so the 'where' is a little nebulous (no pun intended?), but. ] — this is the window, and we've got a view of everything going on around us. No funny business.

[droide]

[ Elthree scoffs. Or, one might get the impression that she intends to. Droids aren't exactly capable of scoffing. ]

Some viewscreen. I know datapads larger than that.

[ She steps forward, taking a hold of the monitor and beginning to press buttons on the control panel to try to bring up a map of their surroundings. ]

Where even are we, anyway?

6.0

[catchatting]

[ Zari can honestly use a break from the hailstones and the hedge mazes, so the idea of searching a closet sounds great and though she's not entirely sure that she's the one being addressed in the hallway, there's no one else she can see, so she just sort of shrugs and follows him through the door with confidence.

She walks right up behind him in front of the closet, stopping a little too close because she doesn't want to miss anything. ]

Ohhhh are we being nosy? Love it. People always hide the weird stuff in closets!

[ A little smile. ​]

Hi. I'm Zari.

[lateness]

[ Over his shoulder, he speaks: ] Yes! We are absolutely being nosy; being nosy's my very favourite thing. You always do discover the most interesting things when you're being nosy, eh?

[ The Doctor spins around to properly face his new companion to this closet adventure, clapping his hands together. ]

Ah! Good — hello, Zari. Wonderful to meet you, I'm the Doctor.

[ And like they're about to uncover some great secret of an ancient tomb, the Doctor prolongs the anticipation with a question. ]

Now what do you suppose this wizard keeps in his closets?

[catchatting]

Well, I hope it's something actually cool and not a bunch of Harry Potter cosplay. I mean, at least cosplay from something fashionable, right?

[ She shifts her posture like a cat preparing to pounce. ]

I'm hoping for a nice hat, maybe something with feathers. But not like... pirate-y. More like a vintage ladies who lunch. I think I might be hoping he's a cross-dresser, but a girl can dream.

[ If it's all men's clothes, The Doctor had better be ready to play dress up for her. ]

7.0

[shadysided]

[Ziggy's a little lost, but that's what happens when you're in a magical castle that launches you into a strange sleep; the upside to sleep, of course, is that the weakness she'd had from her long, annoying recovery is gone, and she feels like she could probably run a marathon. It beats walking down a hallway and getting fatigued.

But also: what the hell is going on here?

Wandering through the TARDIS, Ziggy looks somewhat mystified, eyes jumping from strange knob to odd lever to weird buttons... It's an interesting feeling, to know you should be excited to see something like this. To know that you should feel a sort of girlish glee that makes you bounce around, because this is like the Ximilia: impossible, reeking of something adventurous, and yet-]

It's... okay.

[Which isn't wholly true. It's amazing and interesting and prompts so many questions. Ziggy's still trying to unbury herself from the hole her world left her in, and so it's almost guarded in the way she delivers the response, like she has to be on guard for the idea of any sort of fun happening to her right now. Should she trust such a concept? Light-hearted fun? Does that even exist these days?

... But then, as she looks to the ceiling with all those holes and yellow hues, she says with a bit more give:]

Kinda feels like I'm a mouse in a block of cheese.

[lateness]

Okay! Okay, she says.

[ The Doctor gives the TARDIS a gentle pat with his hand, making it clear that the Doctor probably has an especially unique relationship with his spaceship. It isn't just a vehicle getting him from place to place, she's become a friend he thinks of quite a bit. He'd described her once like a cat, and honestly, he still stands by it. She's a fussy, fantastic cat, and he misses it very much.

Misses this particular iteration too, it seems. ]

Don't listen to her, dear. [ But he goes quiet, watching the girl with the red hair who reminds him so much of — well, never mind that, not going to think about that. He studies her and then approaches, hands in his pockets. Or maybe they're out of them now. It doesn't matter.

His expression softens and he follows her gaze to the holes in the ceiling. ]

Always did like the round things. Not sure what they do, though. Sometimes they look like big buttons.

[shadysided]

[She crosses her arms firmly over her chest, quick to reply:]

Yeah! Okay! Since when is being okay such a bad thing?

Better than being totally garbage. If you stop talking to your big weird science room like it's listening to us, I promise I'll say something better than 'okay'.

[But the somewhat goofy energy he's putting out helps to lower her guard a touch. She drops her hands, moves toward the panel, and seems to deeply consider pushing some of those buttons.]

Maybe you should mess with them. The round things.

You won't know what they're for until you poke at 'em.

7.0

[spacedisaster]

[ Peter is not strange to ships. He's been living in them since he was 8 years old, and can pilot practically anything that flies in the galaxy. The Tardis is an unfamiliar sight, not surprised given how it doesn't belong to his own universe. He also has no idea how he ended in someone else's dreamscape again but at least there's no murder or death involved in this one (yet).

He smiles at how fondly the Doctor greets his ship and how it chimes back at him. Oh, this one is alive, Pete realizes, looking far less surprise than any person has the right to be after that revelation. Truth be told, he's seen alive ships before. ]

It's, very pretty, I like the colors. I have never seen the interior of a Leviathan before, though. What's its name? All good ships deserve a good name, it's a law of the universe.

[lateness]

A what?

[ What did Peter just call her? A Leviathan? That's new.

But oh he beams at Peter's reaction, and practically preens at the compliments. You get people coming and going through the years, and half of them will look mistakenly unimpressed, some might even say the wrong things, but Peter? It's clear from the Doctor's pleased expression that Peter's passed the test. ]

She's called the TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimension In Space for the full name, but you're quite right. She does deserve a good name, and she's got one.

[ The Doctor pats her console fondly. ]

Couple nicknames too, but — ah, that's between me and the old girl.

[ It is perfectly normal for a Doctor to call his ship 'Sexy' in private, thank you very much. ]

closed to close cr —

[lateness]

●●● PART II, 8.0 — the angels take manhattan ;

[ A graveyard, just outside of Manhattan, New York City, 2012.

Of course it would be the one memory, the most recent memory that he can’t stop thinking about, can’t stop agonizing over, can’t figure out how to undo … and so it’s the strongest one too, replayed in his mind over and over, each detail so unbelievably vivid it’s almost too easy to recreate in a dream.

The Doctor sees himself from a distance, walking over to Amy and Rory, to gather them both in his arms and hold them close. “Oh. I could have lost you both.” His best friends, his family, one of them the first face this face saw. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Rory jokingly bewildered: “What did we do? We fixed it. We solved the problem.”

The Doctor nods. Of course. Of course. “I was talking to myself.” He kisses both their foreheads. He remembers this.

Then he and River are wiping down the TARDIS. Everything feels all right. The sky is blue and specked with fluffy clouds, and they can see the skyline of Manhattan just in the distance. This beautiful, chaotic American city.

“Doctor!”

Buoyed by the close call, and getting his best friends back, he lifts both arms into the air, rag in one hand. “Hah!” Present!

“Next time can we just go to the pub?”

Well, yes, all right. They could have landed in a much more cheerful place than an old graveyard, it’s true. And that niggling feeling in his mind, the reason why the TARDIS might have brought them here instead of Central Park like they’d started … it’s something he can’t quite figure out, but that’s a problem for a future Doctor. “I want to go to the pub right now. Ah, are there video games there? I love video games.” (He wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. Get back to ‘normal’ as it were.)

River seems on board with it all, bless her heart. “Right!” she says. “Family outing, then.” And oh, the Doctor does like the sound of that. A family outing. Yes. Outing. Slipping into the TARDIS after River, they wait until they’re all inside, when —

“Doctor!”

It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound okay. The Doctor rushes out, notes that Rory’s gone … it’s just Amy. It’s just—

“Where the hell did that come from?” River asks.

The angel is standing in front of Amy, and her back is to him. Oh no, no, no. “It’s a survivor,” he says, “very weak but keep your eyes on it.” He’s fiddling with his screwdriver. He remembers this part all too well, can already feel something building up in his throat, tightening.

Amy’s voice is soft and unsure. “Where’s Rory?”

The Doctor wonders that too, flicks his eyes around their immediate surroundings, takes a step forward, and … ah. Just over his shoulder … a gravestone with Rory’s name on it. It clicks, what this means. It all clicks together. It had been too easy. He should have known, truly he’d thought maybe they could just chalk this one up to luck and their cleverness, but things don’t work out that way, do they?

He turns back to Amy. “Sorry.” His voice breaks. “Amelia, I’m so, so sorry.”

She shakes her head, tells him they can just get him, that it’s fine, it’ll be all right, there’s room for one more name on Rory’s tombstone, and the Doctor knows what this means. Immediately, he can hear it in his voice, see it in his own face crumpled where Amy can't see.

“What are you talking about? Back away from the angel, come back to the TARDIS — we’ll — we’ll figure something out —”

He can’t see her face but her voice is clear as she makes up her mind. The Doctor can feel nothing but pain in his chest, that helplessness that he so hates. He can’t do anything here, not this time. “It’ll be fine. I know it will. I’ll — I’ll be with him. Like I should be. Me and Rory, together.”

A last ditch attempt: “Stop it! Just — just stop it.”

Amy reaches for River’s hand, and River takes it in both of hers.

He’s desperate. “You are creating a fixed time, I will never be able to see you again.” Think of what this means, he wants to tell her. They’ve been through worse, they can figure this out, he’ll do anything to figure this out.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be with him.”

“Come on, Pond, please.”

“Raggedy Man — ” She turns around, meets his eyes for one last second, “— goodbye.”

She disappears. ]

No, no, no, no, no! [ This Doctor cries, drowning out his dream-self so the two of him are in pain, lived and re-lived. ] Not again!

[ He goes quiet, sniffling, back turned on whoever might have been a part of one of the worst days of his lives. He’d lost so many over the years and each one hurts. Each one cuts deep into his hearts. But this one …

He rubs at his nose and takes a deliberate moment to steel himself from his vulnerability. There it is, for anyone to see, and he bloody hates it. ]

I hate endings.

[bossily]

[Clara feels like seeing this is prying. That he's going to close himself off to her even more if he knows she's seen it. But he's hurting, having to relive this. She can't turn away and leave him to face it alone. She steps over to him, hand slipping into his.

Whatever pain and heartache he faces here, they can do it together.

He doesn't have to be afraid of her seeing him like this. She's seen him at his best and his worst, across his entire timeline. There isn't anything he needs to hide.]

We could keep running. No one says we have to face endings. Not until we're ready.

[lateness]

[ It's the Doctor's first instinct to pull away, yes; and then he'll go ahead and make some silly quip and pretend that everything's all right even when it very much isn't. But right now, seeing this awful memory vividly play out before him (and Clara), he simply doesn't have the heart(s) to do anything.

Well, except have a good cry, maybe, but. That's absolutely not an option.

His hand squeezes Clara's instead, but he doesn't have it in him to turn around and face her. His nose is all runny and his eyes are all watery, and it's all very frustratingly humany-wumany, but he's doing that now, he's developed some humany habits, and — ]

I keep running. I run and I run, and I can't outrun this. I can't outrun what happened, what I've — [ He takes a breath. ] What I've done.

[attackbrows]

[Not too far from the Doctor is his future standing behind him. Hands tucked inside his pockets as he witnesses the loss of his beloved companions once more. He can feel the same pangs of pain in his hearts. The Doctor looks at his early regeneration with sombre eyes, witnessing the mask slip off.

There is no other person in the universe he can be cross towards than himself. Seeing the younger Doctor crumble again at the loss of Amy & Rory. He can feel the same sorrow, frustration, and guilt coursing through his veins. The Doctor said goodbye to the precious girl who waited. And yet…]

An ending to this chapter. I’m afraid our little tale continues further.

[He understands.]

[lateness]

[ The Doctor recognizes the sound of his own voice, well — his future's voice — but he can't even turn to face him, shame and sadness and guilt coursing rendering him frozen to the spot. It'd be like looking at yourself and confronting all of those things, and right now, in this moment, the Doctor (this one) is a coward.

To the slowly blurring scene, his voice is low. ]

It doesn't stop, does it?

[ The Doctor — that is, the older one — is right. This chapter might have ended, but like he'd said, it isn't the end of the tale. As the dreamscape shifts from the anguish and agony, it's a dark cloudless sky that spills into the space, and everything goes ... well, Victorian. Ish.

He remembers this very well. These were dark days. ]

No matter how many years we travel, how many faces we go through ... we just keep losing people.

closed threads —

[lateness]

●●● PART II, 8.0 — closed to kovacs ;

[ The Last Day of the Time War.

Arcadia, Gallifrey’s second city (and supposed safest place to be during the Time War) is on the brink of collapse. The 400 sky trenches that were supposed to protect the city have been breached, and an additional fleet of Daleks (which might have resembled great, almost silly vacuum cleaners but were not to be underestimated) moves in to destroy whatever is left of his homeworld. Hundreds of thousands of innocents would die — the women and children, the elderly; no one is safe. The scene is a horrifying one. Screams tear through the air as gunfire and lasers shatter what few pauses lie between the shouts and crying. Families search desperately for shelter but the Daleks won’t have any survivors.

Gallifreyan soldiers, what few ranks they have left, go down almost too easily. They’ve been fighting this war for so long now and their energies have been depleted. What had been a very narrow victory for Gallifrey is suddenly dashed with the renewed Dalek fleet. Hearts sink as the inevitable loss of the Time War looms in the near future, all of their options now run out. The War Doctor, in his brown coat and weathered countenance, would have enough tonight.

If Kovacs continues to walk past the wreckage, eventually he might find a wall with large letters being crudely carved into the stone, made there by a man that he might be familiar with, though not with the face he had during this time—

NO MORE

The Doctor, handling a gun like it’s nothing more than an extension of his arm, finishes the message. (No, no, that isn’t the Doctor, it isn’t him.) Surrounding soldiers look to him, and then look between themselves, but the War Doctor ignores them all. He is done, and he is tired but there’s one last thing he can do to defeat the Daleks, once and for all.

The Doctor (this one) knows full well what that is, feeling it like a heavy weight in his chest, that knowledge. They’ll watch as the War Doctor walks towards his TARDIS like a man on death row. The fading sounds of that beautiful blue ship echo into the air as this Doctor stands where he is in his tweed and bowtie, here in the middle of the wreckage on the last day of the Time War. He only knows this is a dream because he’s watching it all unfold like a horrible film, and he suspects he’ll have to watch it until the end or until he finds a way out of it.

He also knows he isn’t the only one here as a tall and looming presence stands next to him, familiar in a way that assures him now that he isn’t that other man. Not anymore. ]

Ah. You shouldn’t be here. [ It’s said solemnly, and almost too quietly to be heard in the pause between the gunshots and the wreckage, and the mechanical threat from the Daleks repeatedly screeching, ‘Exterminate!’

The Doctor turns to Kovacs now, hands folded behind his back. ] You’ve met me and my future self. That man there — he’s me too. But he isn’t the Doctor.

●●● PART II, 9.0 — closed to daisy ;

[ The Doctor looks much younger, but he’s still got the same face Daisy would surely recognize without trouble. Same eyes, same nose, same — ah, chin. His hair’s a lot more unkempt and he’s wearing a striped shirt, deep red bow-tie and matching red suspenders to match.

The cavernous temple (known as the Maze of the Dead, aptly called for the numerous tombs it holds in its twists and turns) is dark and damp and very much on another planet. Alfava Metraxis, to be exact, home of the former Aplan species before the Weeping Angels had wiped them out, using their energy to feed themselves, keep themselves alive.

He remembers this memory even if it hurts to think about it; these had been the early days of this face, one of the first adventures he’d shared with Amy Pond and River Song. The group meanders through the bends in the cavern, dimly illuminated by the gravity orb, until they’ve come across a cluster of statues with single heads.

This is concerning, of course, because Aplans famously have two heads, and River (clever girl that she is) points that out. So it seems that this needle in the haystack is not so much a needle, but a whole sewing kit to boot, just one of too many dangers, and the answer to how this planet’s previous civilizations had gone extinct.

The Doctor manages to corral the group to one side, all of their collective eyes and lights aimed at the row of angels ahead. “I want you all to switch off your torches.”

“Sir?” Father Octavian hasn’t been too keen to trust him all this time, but the confusion in his voice is more curiosity than skepticism.

“Just do it.” They do, until the only torchlight left comes from the one in his hand. “I’m going to turn this one off too, just for a moment.”

From over his shoulder, River asks, “Are you sure about this?”

The Doctor’s mouth quirks. “No.” With the briefest flick of the light, the Doctor illuminates their dark corner of the cave, and notes that the statues had, indeed, moved, thus confirming his suspicions.

They’re surrounded by the Angels, and without an escape route, this is going to go badly. ]

Clerics, keep your lights and your eyes on them at all times.

[ The Doctor reaches down blindly feeling for Daisy's hand and grasps it in his own. There’s a strange feeling of familiarity there, though that’s really no surprise given how often he’ll link hands with his Companions. He remembers this too, but right now he’s taking the lead in his own dream. ] Right. Come with me.

[ It might not be real, but something about it still doesn’t feel quite right. The Weeping Angels have always had a way of … moving in and out of consciousness, they’d managed to nestle themselves into Amy’s mind after all, and there really is no telling whether something really, really bad could happen now. In this very space.

So! Best to exercise caution and all that. ]

We’ll be fine. I know how this one goes.

●●● wildcard — ;

[ ooc: here for anything else, either last minute plans or starters i’ve left to you c’: if we haven’t spoken but you’d like something new as well, hit me up over on plurk (thwip) or PM me to discuss! ]

[morethan084]

[Daisy’s seen a lot of things, but actual moving statues? That’s a new one for her. She wasn’t even sure it was a cause for concern, even with their creepy faces, but the panic in the Doctor’s voice made it clear that maybe she should be. Looking down when his hand wraps around her own, Daisy looks towards the others who don’t seem to notice her.]

What? Where are we going?

[She allows him to pull her along, because this is clearly some memory of his. Being mindful of the rocky floor, Daisy looks behind her towards the rest of the group who doesn’t seem to move from their spots. Eyes and lights on the statues.]

What are those things?

[lateness]

We need to find out how many more of them there are.

[ The Doctor guides her forward, down another path along the route of this labyrinthian space. The moment they've passed this area, the rest of the entourage seem to disappear, like they only exist so far as the Doctor can sense and see. After that they have nothing to sustain their dreamlike state, not at all like the saying about the falling log in a forest. ]

They're angels. Well — statues of angels, and they're not to be underestimated, even in this dream. Don't look at any of them, and don't blink if you do. The moment things go dark, that's when they move. And when they get to you, they'll feed off your energy like a battery. I don't know if they've found this place or if this is just a memory, but it's better to be safe than sorry, eh?

[ He pauses for long enough to offer her a reassuring smile. ]

Don't worry — as long as you're with me, you'll be fine.

[kovach]

[ he's seen plenty of war, plenty of battles, but it's been some time since he's seen it like this, drenched with the blood of the innocent, with the pained cries echoing around him without end. his breath shakes, seeing the fallen ash from nearby explosions, and if he didn't know any better with the sight of the unfamiliar city around him, he might have momentarily thought himself to be back in stronghold.

for a man who's seen so much of this already, his face goes pale, fingers shaking, taken only away from the impending overdrive of his panic when he sees the man with a gun in hand, shooting with careful precision on a stone wall to spell out two words.

those are words he understands well. he feels them every single day.

when the man steps into a blue box and disappears suddenly, kovacs turns and sees another that is familiar this time, an understanding stitching through his mind as he comes to terms where this dream construct might have been stitched from. everyone has a war inside, likely with a memory of one, and for all that the doctor has been cheery conversations and bubbly curiosity, it doesn't surprise kovacs that there might be something darker within.

he stands with him, tall but feeling small in the middle of the wreckage, arms loose at his sides. the idea that the man with the gun is the same as the one standing with him now doesn't surprise him, not when he knows all about what it is to experience life in different bodies. ]

Because he fought a war? [ not that there aren't doctors in war. but in these kinds of situations, people tend to harm more than heal. ] What happened here?

[lateness]

[ There is a pause of silence in the midst of explosions and gunfire when the Doctor continues to stand where he is, so still like Kovacs might not be so used to in the short time they've known each other. (And for men like them who live for centuries, this is especially true.) He watches the destruction with a deepness in his expression, eyes going just a little glassy from the memory being replayed in such vivid detail. Too real, too much like what he remembers.

He exhales, closing his eyes before he responds to Kovacs' question. ]

Because he was the one who broke the promise, the one promise we made when we chose this name so long ago.

[ The Doctor's voice holds anger, frustration, guilt, shame — all of it rolled into one solemn tone of voice as he explains the identity of that man and how he disappeared into wherever it is he's gone off to. ]

This is — was — my home. Once, long ago. [ In the same breath, he opens his eyes again, tilting his head upwards past the smoke and debris. ] And we are not going to be following that man, hey? [ He raises his voice to shout into the sky, to whatever entity is controlling this dreamscape, pulling the memory out from his mind and displaying it around them like a very personalized torture device. He would really rather not relive anything past this horrid part of the nightmare; he isn't even sure he could when that man is him ... but not.

He continues: ] You can stop this any time now!

finally does the thing!

[starer]

[There's the sounds of screaming in the background. It's the first thing that hits. Only unlike his usual dreams, these aren't screams of pain. The laughs don't have the sadistic edge to them that they'd otherwise hold. There isn't the scent of copper in the air, no sweat, no burnt flesh.

No, this is a dream filled with joy rather than fear. With happiness rather than pain. This, is Coney Island, and home to some of the happiest memories from Bucky's over-extended life.

There's a small group of people walking down the boardwalk; two men, a woman, and three children. He doesn't need to see them to know who they are. Becca's laughter is ringing in the air. A sound he's missed more than anything. Stood off to the side, Bucky can only watch as his younger self tries to help his mother wrangle his siblings. Steve is there too, of course. Much smaller than the man who turned up on Ximilia a few months ago. Even from this distance, Bucky catches sight of him shivering, no matter how much he tries to hide it. But he already knows that there's a playful argument to follow as James tries to force his best friend to take his coat. A decision that's taken out of both of their hands when his mom steps in tucks the coat around Steve's shoulders.

You don't say no to mama Barnes.

Time skips a little, and this time, his mother and Steve are off with his brother and one of his sisters. The youngest is sitting up on James' shoulders, her eyes wide as she's given a birds eye view of the park. Her excitement is clear as James starts making his way over to a concessions stand, a few coins being pulled out of his pocket so he can pick her up a stick of cotton candy, despite already knowing that he's going to end up with clumps of sugar in his hair. The things he does for family.

Bucky meanwhile is caught between staying away and heading over. He wants to see his family. Wants to get one last look at them all. But knowing that this is the only way he's ever going to see them again- He isn't strong enough to lose them a second time.

Time passes once more, and the sun is starting to go down. His family have all claimed a space at the edge of the boardwalk, his siblings already starting to drift off. He knows they'll be leaving soon. That both he and his mother will end up carrying his sisters home. That Steve will try to offer to help, but will ultimately be turned down as his shivering starts back up again. But that isn't the way the memory goes. Not yet.

Instead, he and Steve are waiting in the line for the Cyclone, laughing over whatever dumb thing James has said to get a reaction out of him. Its become a ritual each time they come here. The final send off for a trip to Colney Island, and the only escape they have from life back in Brooklyn. Even if he does already know just how badly this is going to end for one of them.]

Don't know why he always agreed to ride it. Guy hurled every time.

[Because yes, he knows that the Doctor is there. Doesn't matter how many people were milling about in his dream, being aware of his surroundings is a skill that was forcibly drilled in to him barely a decade after this trip took place.]

im full of emotion

[lateness]

[ The Doctor finds it quicker now to get a sense for his surroundings, the shock of winding up in a new dreamscape slowly beginning to wear off. Not wholly, of course, each dream he's seen (including his own) are so different from each other, but he can better understand a dream and know where it comes from now. So it isn't a surprise when he spots the young Bucky and follows the narrative to the recognizable man he knows on the Ximilia standing by, a watchful tourist in his own memory.

His mouth curves into a small smile, eventually turning away from visions of Bucky's family to join him at his side. He shoves his hands into his pockets and dips his head, smile widening. Yes. Memories of family like this one are officially his favourites, because they're warm and safe and they make the dreamer feel that way too. It isn't hard to see how much something like this means to him, and he's honoured, really, to be able to share even a glimpse of it. ]

It is still my hope to one day visit Coney Island. I hear a lot about it.

[ Not that he couldn't visit it any time he liked, or find a particularly exciting year to do so; it's just one quick hope into the TARDIS and off he goes. But it's something to ease him into pointing out the smaller of the two boys, the blond one laughing at Bucky's joke.

A shame he never did get to meet the much buffer grown-up version of him when he'd briefly been on the Ximilia, but it doesn't take any particular sort of time-traveling clever alien to see how close they are. ]

That young man — he's like a brother to you.

[ A question, but not a question. ]