Application: The Rani (Doctor Who)

[markoftherani]

The inside of the Rani's TARDIS was an unholy mess.

The Tetraps had done plenty of damage to begin with (and they'd left a fair amount of their effluvia behind, disgusting), and trying to get them out had done even more. An entire century's worth of experiments in wreckage on the floor, the contents of the greenhouse half-eaten, –and where in the universe was she going to get another Katraxian sunflower?– five hundred years' worth of notes in disarray, the neutron accelerator completely trashed, to say nothing of the hypersonic regulators -- and all of this on top of the fact that she'd never had a chance to repair the damage that unmitigated –here was a curse that couldn't quite be spoken with normal humanoid vocal chords– did when he separated the secondary console room and left her with that damn Tyrannosaurus...

Time to find somewhere quiet to settle down and fix the poor thing. She patted the console soothingly –there there, my love, it'll be all right, we'll get you back in order soon enough; that nice little planet in the Argos system should do nicely– flicked a few switches and adjusted one of the sliders—

The floor tilted wildly and she fell, catching hold of the edge of the console by her fingernails. Alarm klaxons screaming –Rassilon's arse, was that the cloister bell?– an awful groaning noise from somewhere down the corridors. She slammed her hand down on the emergency stabiliser and after one more stomach-jolting shake, everything was still.

She leaned against the console, taking stock. Her TARDIS was queasy and drowsy at the same time, and it made the Rani's stomach turn just a little as well. She checked her instruments and frowned. That time reading couldn't possibly be right, could it? And those spatial readings—what did those coordinates even mean?

Only one way to find out.

She pushed the door open and blinked in the bright sunlight. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that the chameleon circuit was working properly; to any other viewer, it would seem that the entrance plaza had sprouted an extra ticketing booth. She looked up at the sky and frowned. –Looks and smells like a bog-standard carbon-based-life-supporting planet orbiting a G-class star, but the time flow is all wonky, and dear Rassilon what is that?–

***

She takes a step towards the curious two-dimensional mouse, tries to walk around it, and when it talks, it has to be admitted that she jumps a little.

Mickey coughs theatrically. "'What is your name?'"

"Who's asking?" she retorts. When no response seems forthcoming, she says, "I am called the Rani."

"What is your quest?" asks the Cat. It's perched, suddenly, on the roof of one of the gate-stiles.

Talking cats. Two-dimensional talking cartoon mice –wasn't this one from that planet the Doctor loves so much, that little third-rate watery rock with the unfortunately all-too-useful natives– and the flow or not-flow of time creating a feeling of pressure behind her eyes... She feels she's entirely justified in snapping, "None of your business."

"'What is the average w..?'" Mickey frowns down at the notebook. "You know, I don't really see why that's important." He flips a page. "'If you could be granted three wishes, what would they be?'"

She rolls her eyes. "As if wishes have any consequence in reality. Very well, if I must—I'd wish for my TARDIS to be repaired, for a fully-outfitted laboratory, and a planet where I can work in peace." She'd had Miasimia Gloria, of course, until everything there had dissolved into chaos. No thanks to the Doctor, as far as she was concerned.

"Or," the Cat says, examining its tail with interest, "if you were a genie and someone you were trying to give three wishes to was trying to trick you into giving him more, what would you say?"

"Is shooting the fool allowed?"

Mickey looks rather nonplused at the next, but reads, "'When the revolution comes, what skills will you be able to barter for food?'"

"Are you expecting a revolution? There are things that can be done, you know, to prevent such inconveniences from happening, but -- you were asking about skills. I am a scientist. I could engineer troops to handle the anarchy effectively. Were a food shortage to become an issue, I've no doubt I would be able to help find a resolution. I expect I could be of considerable use."

Of course, it's possible that her methods would have certain detrimental (and potentially lethal) effects on the subjects during the experimentation and refinement processes, but that was the cost of doing business, as it were.

The Cat rolls its eyes in a friendly (and rather disconcertingly out-of-sync) way, and asks, "Milk, dark, or white chocolate?"

She takes a deep breath, straining to keep her temper in check. This is becoming most wearisome. "Chocolate." Oh, yes, the plant-derived theobromine-and-vegetable-fat compound from that stupid backwater planet. "None. I can't stand the stuff."

"'Choose the two coolest: robots, pirates, fairies, bears, ninjas, monkeys, vampires, or humans,'" says Mickey, giggling a bit as he goes through the list. "'Explain.'"

–This is the biggest pile of nonsense I've had to sit through since that time at the Academy when bloody damn Mortimus decided– Not something she wants to think about right now. "I cannot believe I'm answering this infantile question, but if you've got to have one, very well -- robots and monkeys. Robots make reliable servants and monkeys uncomplaining test subjects." She shoots a look at the Cat that suggests it'd make a good one itself, if not for the whole talking thing. Talking test subjects are an annoyance.

"Great!" Mickey flips through the blank pages of the notebook at top, cartoon-y speed. "Well, I think that's just about it! Oh, and I'm supposed to ask, 'for your safety: are you carrying anything sharp?'"

"Not on me, no," she snaps. What's on board her TARDIS isn't up for discussion. "Now I've got a question of my own: where in the name of the Pythia am I?"


((Say hello to the Rani, mad scientist and villainess extraordinaire from classic Doctor Who. She's taken from a point after the end of Time and the Rani. Note that for the sake of my brain, she currently looks more like she does in Mark of the Rani -- long straight hair, fitted jacket, leather trousers, boots with wicked heels. No poofy 1980s hair and space-cadet getup. Here's a screencap gallery. Check out her userinfo for background tl;dr, video links, and other fun and games. The muns for the Doctor and the Master have given their enthusiastic permission to torture their characters even more.))

Comments

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

It's a mark of how deeply disturbed the Master is that he doesn't even hold out his hands to halt the Doctor and prevent himself from being bowled over. He still has his fingers fixed to the doors behind him, still appears a little hypnotised. –oh haha, very funny–

Finally, he straightens imperceptibly. "First thing," he tells the Doctor, straighting his own tie in an attempt to normalise, "you're going to calm down. Because if you honestly think it's a good idea to be acting like this," and he waves a hand up and down to indicate the Doctor, "when you talk to her, you've got a lot of things coming, and all of them likely involve partial dissection, painful examinations and time bunking in a cage next to a particularly rowdy Schlessivnix."

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

“But... but,” the Doctor swallows, tries to collect himself, and mostly fails. “But she can’t be. She...” –is dead. She’s dead Master. I killed her.–

His eyes widen a little.

“I don’t want to be dissected.”

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He shoots the other a fierce look because he knows exactly what the Doctor is thinking of, and he really, really doesn't want to hear it right now. –enough with the dead people, give it a rest–

The next vocal response is more or less on par with what he thinks he should be hearing and he nods emphatically. "And I don't want to be raped by cold medical instruments on a lab table with electrodes attached to my head. So shape up." He fiddles with his cuffs, then turns sharply and starts heading in the direction of the main entrance.

Then pauses. –Oh, it's too obvious– "She's not going to recognize us, you realise. I mean...." His eyes light up gradually, like flames gathering oxygen. "We could be anyone, Doctor."

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor quails slightly under that look, and then winces dramatically at the rather vivid mental image the Master so easily conjures up. He goes to tug at his own tie and belatedly realizes he isn’t wearing one, –hadn’t exactly been planning to leave the TARDIS today. oh well. ‘the best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men (or Time Lords) gang aft agley…’ and all that. at least he’d been wearing shoes– so he settles for doing up a button so that only his top collar button is undone and then buttons his jacket as well, tugging it into place.

“That… that is just cruel,” he says to the Master’s comment, as he follows, but it’s not a rebuke. To someone who knows him well enough –and face it, there is no one who knows you better– it’s easy to catch the appreciation and answering enthusiasm in his voice.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"Well, if you'd rather go right on up and tell the truth..." The Master is smirking, which the Doctor can't exactly see from behind him, and he continues. "Oh hey, Rani, it's the Doctor, I've been meaning to ask, there's no hard feelings here, is there? I mean, I know our last encounters haven't been all sunshine and daisies and rainbows, but I do want you to know that I have nothing but the utmost respect for the compassion you bear toward your fellow living creatures. Come shake hands with me."

He looked back over his shoulder. "Is that how it's going to go, then? Or do we do it my way?"

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor nods along to the proposed scenario, eyebrows arching and eyes overly wide.

“Yes, and then there’s Schlessivnixes and electrodes,” he says in a bright, almost childish voice. “She is going to be scary enough as it is, given-” a one-handed shrug, to indicate the obvious.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He cringes in spite of himself. "That-time-of-the-month ahoy." And then the Master realises that he's just attributed normal, healthy female bodily functions to the Rani and that's almost more disturbing.

"You can't blanch or stammer or do that... thing you do, if we're gong to pull it off," he points out.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor’s face as he stares at the Master suggests that he finds it quite disturbing indeed.

“I won’t!” he protests, sounding insulted, and then adds, a bit sulkily. “What ‘thing’?”

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"That thing," the Master insists more vehemently, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "That you do. Just don't do it."

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor gives him a skeptical look.

“Alright…” he agrees.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"Marvelous." He picks up his pace. "And don't give her a lot to work with either. She'll figure it out if we do that."

The first thing he notices at the main entrance is an extra ticket booth –which likely means... oh well, isn't that convenient–, but he shows no sign of surprise at that.

Not looking surprised when he sets eyes on the Rani is considerably more difficult. Possibly because it is one thing to hear a disembodied voice from the past, but it is quite another to see the face up close. For all they know, it could have been only a day for her since he.... Well, it will make things interesting at any rate.

"Ah," he says with a dry and authoritative air, adopting a rigid, formal posture. "There you are. I must say, it took you longer than we expected."

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor does a fair job of adopting a similar stance, a little less authoritative perhaps, as he stands just behind the Master’s shoulder. Let the Master run the show for a bit, he thinks, since he can already feel a bit of hysterical laughter starting in the pit of his stomach and they’ve just got here.

He gives the Rani a faintly appraising look and hopes the swirl of emotions he’s feeling doesn’t show in his eyes. –she looks… young, somehow. which is ridiculous because she can’t be that much younger than him. she could even be a bit older. maybe he’s just projecting because he feels like he was so much younger back then himself.–

[markoftherani]

She feels it before she sees them, the little ruffle at the edge of consciousness and then that feeling as if someone's standing quietly just behind your shoulder. Two someones. She deduces quickly that the temporal anomalousness of the place probably prevented her from noticing it before, and that still point with wings hadn't helped either.

–what are two Time Lords doing in this place; and more importantly, who? something familiar about their imprint, but it could be anyone, and there's almost no good scenario. oh by the Pythia's dry c–

And there they are. The shorter one wears his air of authority as sleekly as his trim black suit. The taller one, a rail-thin, wild-haired stoat in a blue suit, seems perhaps a little less sure of himself, but even so, there's no mistaking that solidity, that supreme self-confidence that marks almost every Time Lord of any accomplishment at all. They both have that in spades.

The fact that they're both wearing human clothes—Earth clothes—is something of a relief. She'd have been much more alarmed if they were in those damn stupid robes, or any kind of usual Gallifreyan garb, for that matter.

She draws herself up as they approach, spine straight, hands on hips. The question takes her entirely by surprise, but she doesn't show it.

"To do what? And who are you?"

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"To arrive, of course," the Master snaps, ignoring the second question with all the arrogance typical of high officials among their people. "We've been waiting here for months; we had been sure that the High Council would send someone earlier. Did it really take you that long to find the place? We would have thought that was easy, given the temporal anomalies and the quantum flux."

He had almost forgotten to speak in Gallifreyan when he walked up. And it feels so strange now, like swallowing something with a familiar yet uncomfortable taste. He and the Doctor hadn't been using it at all, of course, though they hadn't discussed it. Simply left it off, one less thing to worry over, since the Doctor's TARDIS no longer translated it. –no reason to translate a dead language–

It's fine, though. They can pull this off. He doesn't even look back to check on the Doctor, lest it set him off.

[markoftherani]

"I am here under my own recognisance," she replies, equally haughty. That sort of thing always did come easily to her. She's not sure what these two mystery Time Lords are on about, but she'll play along. Particularly if it'll stave off their recognition that she's a notorious exile and known criminal. "The High Council still hasn't worked out what to do; surely you're aware of how long it takes them to make a decision to act."

–that nagging feeling still at the back of her brain. did she know them from the Academy? cross paths with them at some point during that period of politicking and intrigue?—

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor is fairly certain he’s staring at the Rani, and he does his level best to keep his gaze from being too piercing, to keep his face looking bored and faintly impatient. It’s harder than he thought it would be, not helped by the fact that this body’s response to stress –its instinct to hide his true intentions– has always been to play the noisy fool, and that is the opposite of what is required here.

He resists the urge to cover his ears. The last time he heard anyone speak this language… –it had been in fear, and rage, and pain, the screams of the maimed and the reports of the dead. when he’d woken to the irrefutable silence of the aftermath, for a moment he’d almost thought it was better. but, oh, it’s beautiful–

He does manage to look singularly unimpressed at her words, and he gives her a slow once over.

“And why are you here, then?” he asks, sliding his gaze to the Master with the suggestion on his face that if she’s not here by the Council then they are wasting their time.

[markoftherani]

"I might as well ask the same of you," she says. Dodging the question? Whyever would you think that? "How did you come to be stranded in this forsaken place, anyway?"

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"You hear that?" he says to the Doctor, looking consummately ruffled. "She thinks she deserves to know our purposes before we have any indication of hers. Unbelievable. At least we were designated to the area." He shifts his gaze back to her, glaring appropriately. "You appear to have arrived here on a whim."

[markoftherani]

"I took it upon myself to examine the anomaly," she says, as if the word whim is an insult par excellence. Which, for the Rani, it really rather is. "I told you, the Council was doing nothing. Someone had to investigate it." –not thinking about her TARDIS's continued queasiness, nor the horror that she felt at the sound of the cloister bell–

She folds her arms and gives them a look of practised contempt. "Had I known that you two obvious incompetents had become trapped here, I might have saved myself the effort. And you still haven't identified yourself."

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

“We’re not incompetent!” the Doctor exclaims. “I’d love to see you do better.” He leans a bit on the ‘you.’

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

The Master's eyes widen a bit and he turns slowly on the Doctor, looking like he might well murder him in a moment or two. "Oh, well done. Anything else you'd like to add to that high-minded retort?"

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

“No,” the Doctor answers, without looking at him. “That’s it.”

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"You sure?"

[markoftherani]

She frowns. And not just because of the provocation and the weird little dialogue that followed.

–why does this sound so damn familiar?–

And then something she hasn't thought about in a very, very long time –a girl and two boys squaring off over a laboratory table, a shambles of some polytrope model between them; and the shorter boy snapping As if you could do better than that, Ushas; and she says Watch me; and then the taller boy, bored as hell, mutters She's going to wipe the floor with you, Theta, just give up–

Oh no. Can't be. Absolutely positively cannot possibly be—

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor rolls his eyes at the Master.

“Yes,” he lilts.