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]

"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.

[markoftherani]

"Still waiting on the identification, gentlemen," she says, looking and sounding much, much calmer than she actually feels; because if her hunch is correct, that would very much explain the familiarity of their presences in her mind.

And it will also mean that there are some scores that might finally get settled.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"It's a wonder you manage to tie your own shoes in the morning..." the Master grumbles at the sky, and then the Rani is addressing them again, and he's sure this jig is up, so his gaze slides sideways and a quirking of his lips turns his expression for the worst--

There may have been different shapes to it over the centuries, but that smile always spread across his face in exactly the same way.

[markoftherani]

Oh yes. Yes, she knows that smile.

"It's you, isn't it," she says flatly. "Both of you."

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor offers her a –slightly pained– smile of his own, raises a hand and gives her a little finger-wiggle of a wave.

“Surprise!” he sing-songs.

[markoftherani]

She considers them both in silence, sizing them up, simmering too, thinking of all the tick marks against their names in her head –can't decide who you're angrier at: the one for sabotaging the TARDIS and dumping you with the Tetraps later; or the other for taking off and leaving you with that–

And then she bursts out with the first thing that comes to her mind, which is:

"What in the name of Rassilon's privy happened to you two?"

Which is a stupid question; the answer, obviously, is regeneration; but wasn't the Master in that borrowed human body last time, and she'd only just left the Doctor, and—

Oh, this is a timeline tangle and no mistake.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"The parades are sadly timed, so we couldn't get one for your arrival," the Master says, holding off the inevitable for a few more seconds. "But then, you probably wouldn't have liked it much anyway. I seem to recall that fireworks were never your thing unless you were causing the explosions yourself."

He stops for a moment, considering how best to continue.

"Well, I'm on a new regeneration cycle," he starts smugly, "and he's just naturally that dim-looking. You must remember."

[markoftherani]

"The last time I saw him, he was short," she snaps. "Short and ridiculous-looking. Making up for something, Doctor? And you. How did you bribe the High Council into giving you a new regeneration cycle? Did you threaten to assassinate the Lord President again?"

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor drags his hand through his hair and tries not to sigh.

“‘S my ninth regeneration,” he explains. “And he’s just snippy because I’m taller than him again now.” He’d accuse her of being jealous because he’s pretty, but it isn’t really the appropriate time for more insults.

He doesn’t say anything to her question to the Master, but he he’s pretty sure he stopped his face from giving anything away just then.

[markoftherani]

"Isn't that a pretty knot in the timeline," she says. "Last time I saw you, you'd just undergone your sixth regeneration. Do I want to know how far into my future you are?" –reckless, always so damn reckless; shouldn't surprise me that he just goes through bodies like that. the only one who was worse was Kos—the Master and look what's happened to him–

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"I'm snippy because you're an idiot, not because of a minor height difference," he retorts. "And anyway, isn't half of the difference made up by your hair? You must work so hard on it in the morning."

As for the question... "Oh, far enough. But I don't think that's a good story to tell while your still standing. And, more importantly, sober."

[markoftherani]

She really doesn't like the sound of that.

There's something else she doesn't like either.

"What's going on here?" she says. "Shouldn't you," the Master, "be trying to destroy him," the Doctor, "or have you reformed as well as regenerated?"

Because they are being far, far too—well, chummy would be overstating it, but the last time the three of them were all in one place, they certainly didn't waste much time standing around bantering.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

It’s been several lifetimes but only around a hundred years, though it feels so much longer. The Doctor wonders if it’s because of how many bodies he’s gone through, or because he’s come to think of any part of his past before the War as long ago.

“Oh he still does that,” the Doctor assures her breezily. “His ways have just grown subtler and more elegant. It’s quite impressive really. And it’s been about a hundred years for me,” he adds. “Nothing terribly upsetting.” –well, as long as certain truths never come to light–

And is the Master really offering to get her drunk? That is quite a few levels of disturbing.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

He didn't offer; he was merely pointing it out.

"To be fair, it's not so much destroying him these days as it is humiliating him and making him feel worthless. Which was working quite well, until we ended up here."

He doesn't say a word about the Doctor's insistence that it was 'nothing terribly upsetting'. But honestly. How long does he think he can get away with that? The Rani is all sorts of unflattering things, but 'stupid' has never been one of them.