And the power of the people shall come to believe they do rule

[mickey-cops.livejournal.com]

((Continuing from this post.))

In the passageways beneath the park, where a group had gathered to break down a long-closed door, a laser beam was widening, and a broad circle began to blacken the surface of the wood, the locks melting and streaming down in shining rivulets, to puddle at the doorstep. The room was getting hot, now.

Outside, all at once, the rides all stopped. Animatronic figures jolted still; boats bumped each other confusedly; rollercoasters fell to the bottom of their tracks and did not continue up. The lights inside the buildings flickered off; the perpetual background noise of music and soundeffects went silent.

Below, the hole in the door began to crackle and spark around the edges, and for just a moment all the eyes trained on the door could see through it a fathomless darkness. An odd, organic silence filled the air; everyone's breathing and small movements were audible, but so too was a new absence of sound, as though the walls were all holding their breath.

And then the air around the door began to shimmer.

Comments

[iron-and-latin.livejournal.com]

"Maybe big SIS just got annoyed with us and left," Sam continued, almost not heeding anything Una had just said. "That would be pretty typical of this place, with its brother from the past who you have to tell that his dad's dead, and its demon played by Johnny Depp who looks like the demon who killed your mom, but oh whoops, he's actually kind of a nice guy, even though he's a damn demon, and it turns out that Holy Water in his Universe is much more powerful so you just crippled him for life- or existence- or whatever, and you better feel guilty about that for a good long time, you stupid kid, and its romances with TV characters, and its, whoops, now your brother's gone and we think he might have turned into a duck of all things, and its actors who are going play Cylons someday and doesn't that just fuck everything all to hell, and its damned homicidal wack-job of a psychic alien whose idea of an interesting afternoon is stealing your blood and then making you relive the worst moments of your life over and over and over while you're still awake, and if this whole thing goes post-apocalyptic and we start eating each other, the llama's going to be the first to go, and I don't want to die a camelid!"

His voice as he spoke got more and more rushed and panicked, and by the end he was practically hyperventilating. There was a sense he would have gone on if he'd had enough breath to keep speaking. And what made it worse, really, was the vaguest sense that if that watchful element of the park was still there somewhere, it was probably just amused at the sight of a llama having a full-blown panic attack.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

Una was so lost in thought that Sam's rant didn't quite register at first, but she started paying attention at demon—

"Sam?"

—and then actors who are going to play Cylons someday—

"Sam..." and a question was forming in her head to which she wasn't sure she wanted an answer, although she could guess—

—and at homicidal wack-job of a psychic alien, the question about Cylons was blown to smithereens, and she reeled as if she'd been slapped across the face.

(As a result, she didn't really hear I don't want to die a camelid, and that was probably just as well; probably one of the last things Sam needed at this point was for her inappropriate-humour instinct to kick in and to have her collapse into a fit of giggles.)

"Sam!" She took a few steps toward him and put her trembling hands on either side of his head. "Sam ... It'll be all right. Somehow. I don't know how, but ... this can't be it. I'm sure of it." At some point she'd started stroking his long neck, just as one would trying to calm an ordinary animal, and it was a sign of how rattled she was that she didn't seem to find anything odd or inappropriate about it at all. She took a deep breath to try and steady herself and said, "What was that you said there? Psychic ... psychic alien?"

As she repeated the phrase, she knew.

[iron-and-latin.livejournal.com]

Sam tossed his head and shied a little as she reached for him, but let himself be caught and petted. It actually felt… wonderful. No wonder animals liked this so much.

"That guy the Master," he admitted, arching his neck and dipping his head a little, half for better placement of her hands, and half so he wasn't quite looking her in the eye. "He thinks I'm scientifically interesting. Or something. I… I know that you and…. I had a vision. About him."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

Una's hands couldn't seem to stop shaking. All the same, she didn't stop petting Sam; it seemed to be keeping her calm as well, and he didn't seem to mind.

She swallowed hard and found she couldn't quite look him in the eye either. "And he ... found out, somehow? Hence the interest?"

She wondered what Sam had seen in his vision. That unfinished I know that you and gave her an good idea, and she felt her ears grow hot. Granted, he was close to Starbuck and she knew ... actually, either possibility (seen it or heard from her) was slightly embarrassing. Not that her own pride even mattered.

Something was sharp and cold was coiling in her stomach and she didn't like the feel of it.

[iron-and-latin.livejournal.com]

A huff of air out his nostrils.

"I'm sorry. I should have warned you. But… you see at home, my visions… they let me see bad things before they happen. So I can stop them. I didn't tell him why I was there, and I guess he just got annoyed and did that, that thing he does, where he gets into your mind and makes you do stuff? To make me go away. And I didn't respond right, so he got curious." He gave her shrug of sorts- the best he could manage in his current… form. "I… I'm a little out of my depth here," he confessed. "I wasn't sure…"

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

That thin, humourless smile was back, and she stared at some point slightly past Sam's ears with a gaze that was disturbingly blank.

"I made him curious, once," Una said, her tone quiet and abstracted. "That's how we met. He got curious and he decided he just had to have a look around..." She raised one hand to her temple; the other rested still against Sam's neck.

She blinked, and when she looked back at Sam, the blankness was gone, replaced now by something a little too much like grief. "I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry it happened to you. I thought—"

"It won’t happen again," he'd said. "I promise. Not to anyone else, and not to you. I won’t let him."

She shook her head to clear it. "Never mind what I thought." The cold sharp feeling was worse now. Then: "...warned me?"

[iron-and-latin.livejournal.com]

Sam shook his head, which came off looking rather like he was trying to rid himself of flies. One good thing, he supposed, about being a llama in Disneyland; he'd never have to worry about pests. Like fleas.

"The guy's a monster," he said, voice slightly strained. "He's a killer and a psycho who likes to torture people. How could you possibly…" He broke off suddenly, and changed to softer, slightly apologetic tone. "I'm… I'm sorry. I shouldn't… I mean, if there's one thing I should know by now, it's that these things are never that simple. And that I usually don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It just... seems like it's pretty easy, in a situation like... yours..." he swallowed. "for something to go wrong."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

She gave Sam a very rueful, sad smile and patted his neck. "Oh yes. Very easy indeed. It's an endless gamble, and while I could claim I did it because I thought it might ... keep him under control, I—well. I'm afraid I'm just a little too addicted to the taste of adrenaline. And that's the simple explanation." The full one, she reflected, would take a lifetime.

"You take so much time to wonder about defences and don't seem to be considering the possibility that I might just snap—" a click of the fingers to illustrate "—one day."

"So that's what you saw, then," she said aloud; then added for clarity: "You saw him ... snap."

[iron-and-latin.livejournal.com]

Sam shrugged again.

"I'm not… trying to say anything specific, or anything. Heck, you're a woman of the multiverse, and I'm just a little llama from Kansas." Llamas can't smile, exactly, but there was a little bit of one in his eyes, just then. It fell away again at her question.

"Yeah, I guess so. It wasn't pretty. But I think me showing up on his doorstep must have done something, since obviously it didn't happen. Unless the park…." he left it open-ended if she wanted to answer that or not.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"Troublemaker of the multiverse, you mean," matching the smile in his eyes with one of her own. A little self-deprecation in there too.

She sobered at his account. Memory now of a hard hand on her throat, her own sharp desperate intake of breath, and suddenly she was deeply angry, all the pieces falling in place: anger at all of them, the Doctor, the Master, and not least at herself.

"Has he harassed you since then?" she asked. Hoping for a no, hoping it was only the once, however terrible it may have been.

[iron-and-latin.livejournal.com]

Llamas, Sam discovered just then, can't shrug.

"He couldn't figure me out that quick," he admitted, glancing away. "It's..." He couldn't quite get himself to tell her that it wasn't a big deal. "I'm sure he's going to have better things to do after all this."

He glanced in the direction of Club 33. "I should go find someone to, um... fix me."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

The better things comment elicited a little snort of laughter. "Sorry," she said quickly. "It isn't funny, it simply—" She sighed. Well, there was the answer she'd been afraid of. She wasn't sure exactly what she meant to do about it, but clearly words were going to need to be exchanged with at least two time travellers.

She gave him a worried look. "You sure you'll be all right? That you'll be able to find someone to ... to help?"