RP Log: "The Boy (and Girl) Who Lived," for tingle_of_life

[watch_is_me]

The Doctor grins across the console at Ting as the TARDIS hums and shudders to a halt. Hair wild, and eyes bright, he sparks with enthusiasm like static electricity—it's almost a force, snapping in his expression and body language, eager, alive, ready to jump to anyone near him.

"So, Ting. First trip on the TARDIS, and it's on random. Well, it was on random, now it's not on anything, baseline, does that when it comes to a halt. But! Random! Universal shuffle, could be on any track in all of time and space." He swings away from the console, springs across to the front door, and stands by it, still grinning, a showman about to pull aside the curtain and reveal the Greatest Wonder This World Has Ever Known. "Where d'you reckon we are?"

He pushes the door open the tiniest crack, but doesn't yet look through himself. This is all for her, her first trip in the TARDIS, and the honor of making the discovery, seeing where exactly they've come to rest, is hers. This time.

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[tingle-of-life.livejournal.com]

She's still wondering exactly what she's done. What she's gotten herself into, with this guy she doesn't know--not really, not really, just bits and snippets and god what was she thinking.

And then the shaking slows, the wrenches of motion that threw her hair into her eyes, her hips against the pointy edge of the console. Ting stares at him, his manic delight, listens with a sort of dull nervousness and almost, almost laughs at the thought of iUniverse rolling them through timespace tracks in impartial boutade.

He pauses by the door, asks his question with the drama of a ring master cracking his whip against the lion's cage, and she realizes, with a paralytic shock of nerves, that she has no idea where she is. Two hundred years of retracing familiar paths, or forming new paths between familiar destinations. The occasional discovery of some city unexplored. But everything recognizable, everything variations on a single theme--one track played over and over, at different times by different bands, the song always the same.

She can't quite get the words out: I don't know.

Ting puts her hands on either side of the crack and peers through. Green. A field. Innocuous.

Familiar.

She closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath. Shoves the TARDIS doors open wide.

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

"Oh." He peers out from behind her, leaning on the door frame, taking in the view she's revealed. "OH, Chimeranch! Hm...those look like late strains, fifteenth generation...? That puts it at...232nd century. Earth Gregorian calendar, 'course."

He smiles at her, sideways, and it's odd for him, not having to look down at all, only over—she's as tall as he is, or almost, and he hadn't realized how accustomed he's become, to being the tall one, to having that implicit reminder of the hierarchy between himself and human beings. Except, of course, she's not a human being. No more than he is, and perhaps this reminder is for the best.

"Go on. They won't bite." He points with his chin, out into the green fields rolling out from the TARDIS' open doors, the clear sky above deep and hazy-warm with late afternoon sun, cloudless expanse lilac instead of blue, shading to amethyst near the horizon. Far in the distance, the waves of grass break against a cluster of buildings, stone and sturdy, something ancient and agricultural in their practical angles, their lack of embellishment, the way they seem as much a part of the landscape as the sky and the hills. Farm buildings. Home, for someone. Home for centuries, a family living and growing and handing its name and work on and on and on, never doubting its place in the universe, never doubting the worth of its work.

But it's the nearer distance the Doctor indicates—where, ten or so feet from the TARDIS, several large animals have gathered, watching the TARDIS and the two travelers curiously. They stand as tall as draft horses, great heads like eagles, long curved beaks and golden eyes and feathers ruckled up slightly in surprise on throats and deep, curving chests. Their front legs are clawed and scaled, birds' legs; their haunches and back legs are echoes of big cats', though feathered instead of furred—tiny, thin, slender feathers, easy to mistake for fur except for their sheen and the way they lift and resettle as the animals startle. Long, broad tails lash behind them, sturdy brooms of feathers fanning out from the supple core of panthers' tails. The creatures range in color—here, one in blue, rings of yellow around its eyes, garish as a macaw; there, one all gray and white and black, monochrome and Arctic and out-of-place in this color-saturated landscape. Browns and golds and blacks and reds and the slate gray of herons.

Over their backs and buckled under their breastbones, each one wears something like a saddleblanket, covering the bulges of restless, imprisoned wings.

[tingle-of-life.livejournal.com]

She laughs. "All the way across the universe, across time, and we're in a field full of griffins."

Not that she doesn't love griffins. She's only seen one, before, in one an abandoned shadow-city in Russia. And she was a bit busy at the time.

She stepped out onto the grass. "Where are we? Earth? The walls came down?"

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

And...that is really not the reaction he was expecting.

He follows her out into the field, snapping his fingers reflexively to close the TARDIS doors as he does so. "What? You've seen them before? You can't have done, they only started engineering them in the..."

Ah, right. "Oh. Your universe, comes with griffins in?"

[tingle-of-life.livejournal.com]

She approaches the nearest one, the blue, humming under her breath. "Only ever seen one, in Russia. But yeah."

The griffin stretched its head out toward her and she cautiously stroked its beak. "Hello, beautiful. So we are on Earth, then?"

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

The Doctor leans against the TARDIS, watching Ting thoughtfully. She comes from a universe he's never seen, perhaps wouldn't understand, and that's both a discomfiting and an intriguing thought. She could show him things, surprise him, in her own universe. Hm.

He kicks off from the TARDIS and walks over to join her by the macaw-griffin, reaching out to rest a hand on its neck, the smooth, strong, supple feathers, catches the dusty smell of birds and cat combined.

"Nope. This," he waves an arm, taking in the landscape, the lilac sky and soft breeze and the scent of grass and warm earth, "is the Chimeranch. Wordplay, chimera," he pats the griffin, "plus ranch, equals. Chimeranch! It's an entire planet, dedicated to the breeding and raising of chimera. These chaps here. Griffins, hippogriffs, itsy little dragons, unicorns, I think they have, bit cliche, never went in for unicorns, pegasi. Loch Nessies. Oh, kelpies, got a temper, but beautiful, kelpies. World turtles, toy-sized, of course. All the most whirligig, genetics-in-a-blender, impractical dreams of humankind. Right here. Alive, in the 23,200s."

While he's talking, another of the griffins has been picking its way up behind him, an inquisitive, slight-bodied fellow, bright yellow, with the black cap of a goldfinch, black ear tufts pricked up high. As he finishes his speech, it stretches its neck out and begins nibbling gently at his hair.

[tingle-of-life.livejournal.com]

Ting, for her part, is oblivious to the look, caught as she is in enjoying the friendly presence of the animals surrounding her. The macaw bobs its head and she laughs, rubbing gently behind the ear-tufts. "Yes, he does chatter on, doesn't he?"

"A whole planet." She grins. "God, humans. Saj would hate the idea of 'itsy little dragons.' Not respectful at all."

When Ting looks up, it's to see the goldfinch griffin combing its beak through the Doctor's vanity. She bites her tongue between her teeth for a moment, fighting back a laugh. "Are the saddle blankets for show, or can you actually ride these fellows?"

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

"Saj?"

The Doctor brushes a hand back through his hair, puzzled—it feels like there's something in it. Oh, hello, there is—a griffin. "Oi, no building a nest, there, I can't stand around all spring." He turns, quirking an eyebrow and a smile at the curious animal, which proceeds to click its beak contentedly through his forelock. He lets it, chucking it under the chin as it does so.

"Oh, yes, they're bred for it. 'S not exactly the smoothest ride in the universe, but the thrill makes up for it. Man and beast, leaping off into the sky. Perseus and Pegasus. Such an old dream, humanity's dream of flight. They still dream it, even when they're flying through the stars."

[tingle-of-life.livejournal.com]

"Saj. She's..." A surprised pause while she considers it. "She's my oldest friend, actually, in every sense of the phrase. A dragon--told me what I was. Explained, at least."

The macaw rests its head against her shoulder, and in return Ting hums to it, settling her cheek against its neck feathers. "Freedom. It's humanity's obsession. Flight is just another expression of that... lust. Longing. Whatever."

She stroked the macaw. "Can we ride them? I suppose that's up to their owners, isn't it beauty?" She directed the last comment to the creature, which chirruped throatily, the feel of its voice humming in its throat making Ting laugh.

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

"A dragon?" He quirks an eyebrow at her, from under the griffin's beak. "Dragons and griffins and...whatever you turn out to be, oh my. Have you got wizards?"

The Doctor burrows his face into his griffin's neck feathers and blows into them—fuff! The griffin clicks and chews down through one of his sideburns to his ear, and gives that a tug, prompting the Doctor to dance back from it a few steps. "Oi, careful!"

Rubbing his ear ruefully, he looks over to Ting and her much less...mouthy griffin. "Well, I'm a friend of the family. Helped them out...was it this generation? I hope it was this generation. They ought to let us take these lovely ladies for a flyaround. It's a bit of a walk. C'mon." And he starts off through the grass towards the buildings in the distance, tweaking his griffin's ear tuft as he walks past, looking over at Ting to see if she's coming with him.

[tingle-of-life.livejournal.com]

She makes a face at him. "We've got magicians, naturals, fey and elementals. Wizards are fairy tales."

She gave her griffin a farewell pat and trailed after him, hands in her pockets as she looked at the sky. "Is the sky always like this, or are we just here at the right time?" She wished Marian could see it, wondered briefly what she would tell the other woman when she went home.

"How can you tell what generation it is, anyway? And how did you help them, exactly?"