damned_institute | Day 40: Lunch

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Day 40: Lunch

*hobble wobble*

"Damn that SCOURGE!" Starscream cried out, the slowly-filling cafeteria producing a jarring echo of his raspy voice. His limping, already bad enough from not knowing how to properly use his crutches, was now exacerbated from the injuries he'd received the shift prior. Despite the gauges in his non-casted leg so lovingly provided by the aforementioned 'patient', Starscream could still put some weight on it, but not so much that he could really stop and rest; relieving the soreness under his arms was out of the question. The nurse that walked behind him with his tray, already upset at having to deal with yet another troublesome inmate, was growing rather impatient as his charge slowly made his way down the food line.

"Just...give me a standard serving of the aquatic creature's flesh, some of those fried potato slices, two bananas, and three bottles of juice," Starscream sighed, his anger from just a moment ago assuaged by the physical exertion needed to move the way he did. "I'm going to sit down here...bring it to me when you're done."

He was hardly surprised to find that one of the bananas was completely bruised along its inner curve, or that the handful of 'chips' on his plate were all on the small side. Tired and frustrated as he was, however, he could barely muster a 'damned flesh-creature' before moving his fingers to the plate, picking one of the longer 'chips' and shoving it into his mouth listlessly.

There was an unusually high concentration of sodium chloride crystals on it. Of COURSE.

[For Tony Stark]

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Keman looked up. "Only if you try to read my mind or ask me about draconic mating practices," he said, only half-jokingly. But the poor man probably had no idea what he was talking about, and he really didn't want to be rude.

Sighing, Keman gestured vaguely at the empty seat. "Sorry, I've had a bit of a rough morning. You're more than welcome to have a seat, if you like." The boy went back to picking at his food, experimenting with various sauces. He found that he wasn't very fond of the white, goopy stuff that appeared to have little bits of pickle stuck in it. It was too oily and heavy on the tongue to be very good. The fish was a little plain on its own, though, so he tried squirting some of the yellow sauce on it. Also not a very good combination, though more palatable than the first. He was certainly getting somewhere.

"Oh, I'm Keman, by the way," he said, just a few moments too late. "Nice to meet you."

"I'll do my best not to do either," the Doctor said, setting his tray down on the table and sitting down.

The boy was going about his meal again, the Doctor took the opportunity to try a few of the chips. They weren't bad; not bad at all. At least that was nice; the staff could have served awful chips, or none at all!

"I'm John Smith," he said, giving the alias he'd taken to after Keman introduced himself. "Good to meet you, Keman."

His curiosity was quickly growing. He wasn't going to ask about draconic mating practices (he'd said he wouldn't, after all), but he was curious about what species he'd meant. "I'm sorry, but by 'draconic,' do you mean dragons or Draconians?"

He paused and then quickly added, "I'm not— I'm not asking about their mating practices, I'm just—... I'm clarifying."

"Draconians?" Keman blinked. "Huh, I've never heard of Draconians. No, I was talking about dragons. I--" He broke off when a girl he didn't know leapt up onto a table and started shouting. She was acting like a general rallying the troops for battle, complete with over exaggerated movements and 'inspiring' words. Startled into a laugh, he watched her little speech with a mixture of amusement and admiration, completely forgetting that he he was supposed to be in a bad mood right now. He was rather disappointed when the nurses started circling like hawks (as he'd known they would) and tried to put a stop to it.

They always spoiled the fun.

The dragon turned back to John Smith. "Sorry. Where were we? Oh, right. The Kin. I know quite a bit about dragons, but that's the first I've heard of 'Draconians.' What are they, if you don't mind me asking?"

The Doctor's attention was drawn to the girl as well, and he smiled. That was quite a refreshing sight to see (and hear)! He made a note of the girl's face, deciding to speak with her if he had the opportunity.

He was still grinning when Keman turned back towards him and asked about Draconians. "Oh, the Draconians? They're a bipedal reptilian species from the planet Draconia. Got a bit of thing for rules..." His face scrunched up as he thought on them, and the peace they'd attained with the Earth Empire that the Master had nearly destroy. Messy business that had been, what with the Daleks around.

Edited 2009-04-07 01:47 (UTC)

Bipedal reptiles from another planet, huh? Keman grinned. Sounded a bit like him, only he preferred walking on all fours, thanks. What would a Draconian look like, anyway? Keman envisioned an unholy mixture of Kin and two-legger and shuddered slightly. Not a pretty picture. "Sound a bit like the Kin, though," he mused out loud. "What with the rules and all. These Draconians weren't horribly paranoid about the outside world, were they?"

If they did, they'd be a little too similar for comfort.

The girl on the table seemed to be getting more and more trouble from the various and sundry nurses and orderlies that had gathered around her. Sad, that. The needle was probably going to be produced very, very soon.

"Not terribly, no. Not like some are," the Doctor replied, glancing towards where the girl on the table was. She was still raising a bit of a fuss, it seemed, despite the staff gathered around her. If nothing else, at least she had persistence!

"Very formal, though, and traditional..." In that sense, they were a bit like his own people when it came down to it. "Are the 'Kin' as well? I don't know much about dragons, I'm afraid; never met one. Well— not a real one." If there were real ones, which the boy seemed to think there were. And perhaps in a different universe...

Keman laughed. "By saying 'not a real one' do you mean that you've met a fake dragon?" he teased lightly. "Or do those Draconians count? But that's not true, you know. About you not meeting a dragon." He'd decided that he liked this John Smith. He felt comfortable around him, comfortable enough to tell him right away what he was.

Plus, it wasn't exactly like he was keeping it a secret anymore. He'd written about it often enough on the bulletin board, and he'd told enough people, that by now he figured the damage was already pretty well done.

"You've met me, I mean. I'm a dragon. Not right now, of course--we're shapeshifters, and our lovely host here at Landel's Institute has seen fit to take away my means of shifting back to my natural form. Not the end of the world, of course; I'm pretty fond of you lot. Still, I miss flying."

"Well, I can't say I actually had a chat with it, but I once encountered into a 'dragon' made from nanotechnology. Met a semi-organic vertebrate that was called 'the dragon,' as well... But no, no real ones... Not until now," the Doctor said.

A grin spread across his face. "So you're a dragon? Brilliant! Are you from Earth, or some other planet? Most of what I know about dragons is from Earth stories and other mythologies, but, well... Legends do tend to have some measure of truth to them, but there's no telling how much is fact and how much is fiction unless you know the source."

Edited 2009-04-08 23:27 (UTC)

"Sounds like you've met a lot of unusual...creatures," Keman said, impressed. He hoped that 'semi-organic vertibrates' counted as creatures, at least. "How'd you learn so much about them, if you don't mind me asking?" Keman was genuinely curious. He had grown up surrounded by his own unusual little menagerie of pets, and he'd always loved learning about them. He'd never quite forgiven himself for setting them all free when he ran away that first time, but he knew it had to be done. Without him there, they would've just ended up as somebody's supper. Having the opportunity to meet someone who knew about different, stranger beasts than the goats and odd coyotes he'd tended as a child definitely piqued his interest.

"Different world, I think," he mused. "Hasn't really got a name, actually. I think the humans used to call it something a long time ago, but then another race, the elves, crossed over from another world and enslaved them all. They don't even remember the names of their old gods, much less their world. So I can't say for sure. I do know that dragons aren't native, though. My ancestors also came over from a different world, using one of the pathways that the elves created when they conquered the humans. We've been living in secret, well away from the two-leggers, ever since." Well, until the War started and he was forced to show the halfbloods what he really was. But he wasn't going to get into that.

"I can tell you for a fact, though, that most of the legends aren't true. We don't breathe fire, for one thing. I've never known a dragon who could. Seems like it'd be really uncomfortable, if you ask me."

"Through travelling, mostly," the Doctor answered. "I've seen a lot. Not everything— there's so much out there that I'd need much more time than I've had— but a lot of it. And there's always something to learn, no matter where or when you find yourself. Keep an open eye and an open ear and have a mind that's eager to learn; that's the thing."

And speaking of learning, he was interested in learning more about Keman's dragons— "the Kin," he'd called them? "It sounds like your people have quite the history; I'd love to hear whatever you'd be willing to tell."

He also quite agreed with Keman's assessment of fire breathing. "I'd say you have a point; breathing fire always does seem a bit... uncomfortable, yes."

[I...think I've got a semi-stable connection right now. Probably don't. We'll see.]

Keman was impressed. "You must travel a lot, to know so much. Do you go to different worlds often? I spoke to a man here before who has a ship that can travel between the stars. Have you got something like that, or do you just use Gates?" After talking with Wash, he'd come to have a slightly better understanding of different planets in the same reality versus different worlds in alternate ones. Hell, maybe Home and Evalon were different planets themselves, and the Gates just circumvented any space travel! That kind of hurt to think about, but it made a degree of sense. Sort of.

"Well..." the young dragon started, a little embarrassed. "I don't know as much as I ought to," he admitted. "My mother's been training me to take over for her as the shaman of our Lair--meaning I've really got to know all of this stuff--but I ran away from home last year and sort of...interrupted the lessons. I'll try to tell you what I know.

"Long ago, the dragons lived in a world that we called--" he made a strange, slightly guttural sound, like he was clearing his throat but with a lot more vowels. "Or 'Home,' in your language. We call it Home because that's where we came from, but we have no particular attachment to the place. The world was horrible, all fire and ice, and creatures even larger than a full-grown dragon snatched up any who ventured too far away from the caves where we tried to eke out a living. They say that life was short and brutal, and we evolved the ability to shapeshift just to survive. In Home, the Kin lived only a few decades, not centuries. Then, one day, a young dragon found a strange portal in the rocks that looked into another place entirely. He gathered together everyone who would come with him and settled in this new world, which he called 'Peace.' Life there was good. The dragons thrived, but they soon got bored. The Kin are curious and rather meddlesome by nature, you see. When another Gate was found, this time leading to the world where I was born, a few more dragons broke off from the main Lair and established themselves there. That was still a very long time ago, though. Father Dragon, the oldest shaman in the whole world, is almost three thousand years old, and he was born on my homeworld. Still, it wasn't as pleasant a place as Peace. The elves had come right before the Kin did and brutally enslaved all the humans. We were forced to hide in the mountains and the deserts, only coming out in shifted form." Keman suddenly ducked his head, flushing slightly. Quickly, he mumbled an apology. "And there's more, of course, but I've probably prattled on long enough. I'm sorry if I've been boring you. Shana's always telling me I talk too much."

"I've got a—a ship. The TARDIS, it's called; looks like a big, blue box. Might even be around here, somewhere, with a bit of luck…" the Doctor said, thinking on the police box. He hadn't caught so much as a glimpse of it since he'd found himself here, but there were still many more places here to look… Spending his nights doing nothing but searching for the TARDIS weren't as productive as he'd hoped, however. He'd knew he needed to start investigating this place properly, but the loss of his ship was disconcerting, to say the least. It was all he had left of Gallifrey, and he needed it.

He grinned at Keman, shoving all disquieting thoughts to the back of his mind; he could dwell on them later, when he didn't have such good company. The tale about the history of the dragons was much more interesting at the moment, and most fascinating was the fact that he had never heard the language which Keman had spoken the name of his home in.

"Not at all! It's very interesting; I rather like the sound of your Kin. The universe could certainly do with more curious creatures. After all, there's little that's more dull than sitting back to observe and never going forth to experience," he said. "It's a shame that you're unable to change your shape here, though; I would have loved to see your natural form…" He trailed off for a moment and then abruptly added, "Well, maybe I'll wind up on your homeworld some day and will have the chance see it then!"

The Doctor shifted gears then, asking, "So, Keman, why did you run away?" Maybe it was too personal of a question to ask so suddenly, but the thought hadn't crossed the Doctor's mind.

"A blue box?" Keman asked, raising an eyebrow. "How does it fly? Magic?" Boxes weren't the most aerodynamic things he'd ever seen, and as someone who had wings himself, he thought he knew aerodynamics pretty well. But if John said a box flew, he supposed it flew. He had no reason to doubt him, after all.

He snorted humorlessly into his food. An image of Myre had come into his mind's eye, and he couldn't help rolling his eyes a bit. Curious. Right. "Most of the dragons in the Lair are stupid and lazy. They don't go any further than they absolutely need to to hunt. If they didn't need to eat, I don't imagine that they'd ever leave their houses at all! But a few of us are. My mother, for instance, loves to go out among the two-leggers." Keman grinned, suddenly excited. "I'd like that, I really would. Our world isn't the greatest place, but it's home. I'd like to show it to you."

Why had he run away? It felt so long ago, but it had only been a year or so, hadn't it? It felt like so much had happened since then. Spending all those months looking for Shana, finding her, traveling with Valyn and Shadow...he sighed, missing them more than ever. He'd never gotten to say goodbye to his sister, and he was pretty sure that Shadow had gone now, too. Valyn was still here, but even he was more absent these days. Maybe he hadn't really gotten over his fight after all.

"That's another long story, I'm afraid. You see, elves and humans are cross-fertile, and their offspring are more powerful than either parent. They present the only real threat to the elves' power. Two thousand years ago, the halfbloods rebelled and nearly wiped out the elven lords. Ever since then, the elves have been terrified of halfbloods. They sterilize their concubines, and any halfbloods that are conceived are killed on sight. The mother too, usually. Still, some get away. Sixteen years ago, my mother was out in the desert when she found a heavily pregnant human woman, a concubine who had managed to escape before she could be killed. The woman was really bad off and she died in childbirth, but the baby lived. Mother took her back to the lair and raised us together, even though she's not Kin." He smiled. "Her name's Lashana. I named her. She's my foster sister, and I would die for her. But the other dragons in the Lair were afraid of her, and how powerful she was getting. Last year, they banished her. I ran away to be with her. It took me half a year to find her, but now that I have, I've been living like this," he gestured vaguely down to his very non-dragony body "pretty much ever since. As her halfblood brother. So it wasn't too much of a shock when I woke up here like this."

"For a ship, the TARDIS actually doesn't do much flying," the Doctor admitted. And even when it did fly, it was a rough ride… Part of the disadvantage of piloting it alone when it was meant for a team of six, he supposed. "It moves through the Time Vortex, dematerializing in one location and rematerializing at the destination. …Well, usually."

Perhaps the Kin weren't nearly as curious as he'd imagined from Keman's explanation. That was a shame, but at least those like Keman had curiosity. The Doctor couldn't help but share the boy's grin. "Well, I'll find it. Somehow or another, I'll come visit," he decided. He hoped it wouldn't require popping over to a different universe, but if the walls between were weakened, maybe it wouldn't hurt to make a quick stop before patching them up… again.

As for Keman's reason for running away, the Doctor wholeheartedly approved. "Good man! I'm glad to hear you found her… You know, I'm a bit of a runaway myself."

As something of an afterthought, he added, "These elves of yours sound rather… vicious."

Did John just say that his 'TARDIS' flew through time? Keman was having an even harder time believing that than he was imagining that a box could fly in the first place. The fact that it could disappear in one place and reappear in another was much more believable. That was just a simple transportation spell, after all. Magically noisy (especially in Shana's case), yes, but unheard of.

"Call me skeptical, but how does it move through time? Not even the strongest magic can alter time." The best you could do was suspend an object in a certain point of time so that it never needed dusting or repairing. And that was more a spell for dust than a spell for time.

"I hope you can visit someday. I'd like to introduce you to Shana and my mother. And Father Dragon--if you're interested in history, he's probably the one to hear it from. Dragons have long memories anyway, and he's got about a thousand years of memories on everybody else. Give or take a couple centuries."

Keman arched an eyebrow. "Oh? You ran away too?" He knew that lots of people ran away, but he hadn't quite made the connection. Before coming to this place, the only other runaways Keman knew were Shandow and Valyn.

"Oh, definitely vicious," he said with a shrug. "Vicious, traitorous, hedonistic, bloodthirsty...I've only known one good elf. The rest are vicious and terrible people who horribly mistreat their human slaves and brainwashing them into thinking that they enjoy the work."

"It's not 'magic,'" the Doctor explained. "It's science. And the act of travelling through time doesn't alter it... Time isn't a linear progression of cause and effect; it just appears that way when you're looking at a viewpoint from within time. But from an outside viewpoint, it's more like a... a ball." He really needed to figure out a better way to explain that. "Some points, events, are fixed and cannot— should not— be changed, but a lot of it is flexible. And unless you tamper with something that's fixed, any other changes are like throwing a pebble into a river: it'll have a brief, immediate effect where it hits, but it won't change the overall flow."

With his explanation of time and the effects of time travel finished, he smiled at Keman. "I ran away a long time ago... A few times, actually!" Even when he'd been forced to go back or requested to go back or needed to go back, it had never been long before he left again. He'd preferred it, really... "I was never content to stay and observe when I could go out and explore."

Although he was looking forward to visiting the dragons, the elves were another matter. They were the sorts of people that needed to be stopped.

[Continued here]

Edited 2009-04-10 22:46 (UTC)

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Day 40: Lunch

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