Wolf Moon: Chapter Forty

[amberfocus]

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Initiating Communication

The TARDIS upped the power to her telepathic field and sent out a low level amount of electricity to reinforce her personal shielding. It wouldn’t be enough to hurt the alien creatures battering themselves against her hull but it should be enough to get them to back off to avoid the discomfort they should now be feeling. It wasn’t as if they could really hurt her, but she didn’t particularly like the annoyance of being rammed against, either and the things could breathe fire. She was not having scorch marks on her shell even if she could disguise them to make it look like they weren’t there.

She turned on her external visuals and saw the drayguins begin to move away from her, leaving a circle around her and settling about fifteen feet away from her. The animals were still keening so she began to send out waves of comfort, surprised at how quickly they reacted to her and calmed. The keening turned into an excited humming noise.

She sighed and turned her attention back to her Rose and to…well, she supposed he was going to be her Doctor now, too. Strange thought, that. After all these years, another Time Lord to call her own. It still felt odd even thinking it. Odd, but she had to admit, strangely exciting.

With a careful recalibration of the venting system, the TARDIS scrubbed out the air in the ship, pumping it full of low level stimulants instead. The Doctor began to stir first as his system recovered. As soon as he realized where he was he looked around in panic.

“Rose?” he asked.

“She’s here,” the ship said. “She’s on the other side of the console. I couldn’t risk materializing around you with her any closer to your body.”

The Doctor scrambled to his knees and crawled over to the prone body of his bondmate. “Rose,” he said again reaching out and touching her face with the backs of his fingers. He brushed against her temple, found her mind touch firm and strong as she struggled for consciousness. He held out a mental hand and she grasped it, rushing to the surface. Her eyes flew open and looked up at him.

“Thank you,” he told the TARDIS.

“I said I would come if the need was true,” she told him a bit acerbically, noting the slight wonder in his voice as he’d said the two words.

“I know you did. I never should have doubted.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” she said but without her usual petulance. “Is she okay?”

Rose blinked her eyes. “You okay, Rose?” the Doctor asked.

“Yeah, I’m--.” Rose sat bolt upright. “They’re trying to communicate, Doctor.”

“What? Who?” he said in surprise.

“The drayguins. They’re trying to communicate with us. Or at least the one’s who took me were trying to communicate with me. Some kind of body language or sign language, I think.”

“They’re not sentient, Rose. That’s impossible,” he said.

“Oh, now, I don’t happen to like that word at all,” Rose said a bit sharply before cutting her tone down to speak more respectfully. “I’ve come to the conclusion in my short little life, that nothing is impossible. And those…aliens were trying to communicate with me. They kept using repetitive movements and they weren’t actually trying to hurt me, just separate us.”

“Just separate us? Rose, they found a way to cut off the telepathic link between us! That’s harmful for you and me if it lasts too long,” he informed her.

“They were reacting to our use of telepathy, Doctor. Especially the transmission of emotions. Every time I tried to send comfort or reassurance to you they’d buzz and hum. It was like…I don’t know…” Rose trailed off.

The Doctor frowned. “They shouldn’t be able to. They’re just animals.”

“But what if they’re not? Did you have a chance to look at that behavioral modification field generator at all while I was recovering?” Rose asked.

“Yeah, I did. Come to think of it, it was extremely complex to just be dampening down the ferocity factor of the male drayguins. I found some things that seemed to indicate intelligence dampening of both the males and to a certain extent, the females,” the Doctor admitted.

“So what if it was working on the communication centers of their brains?” Rose asked.

The Doctor stared at her in silence for a long moment and then his mouth curved up. “They’re telepaths, Rose! Suppressed telepaths! Oh, I should have seen it. They were reacting to the field we carry between us now from the bonding link. That must be why the cornered us against the pinnacle.”

“But why were they trying to separate us?”

“Well, they’re a segregated culture…”

“No, it was more than that. Way more than that, Doctor. My drayguin tried to tell me something. She was wiggling her forearm at me and touching her snout to her shoulder. She did it over and over again. Did any of them do anything like that with you?” she asked.

“One of him kept putting his snout against my chest, right over my hearts. I thought he was just pushing me backwards but…” He shook his head. “Are they telepathic?” he asked the TARDIS.

“Yes, they are but it feels very rudimentary. Like it’s been stilted somehow.” Rose’s hand flew to her head.

“I heard that!” she said. “And it didn’t hurt!”

“Your links were opened today when you started talking with the Doctor. The bonding with him has made it possible for you to hear me. I know you don’t like it so I will try to stay out of your head as much as possible,” the TARDIS informed her.

“If it’s not going to hurt, I don’t mind hearing you,” Rose said. “For conversations like this, I think it’s essential. As long as you don’t poke around without permission, I’m fine with it.”

The TARDIS felt her emotions bubble up and carefully tamped them back down. Now was not the time. “Thank you, Rose,” she said softly. “Now, something has been interfering with their ability to use telepathy but I think they recognized it in the two of you. It’s like you’re their key.”

“If we go out there again, can you generate some kind of force field around us to keep them from separating us again?” Rose asked.

“Are you crazy, Rose? I’m not letting you anywhere near them again!” the Doctor burst out.

“You’re not letting me?” Rose asked her eyebrows rising in annoyance.

The Doctor’s face closed off. “They’re dangerous, Rose.”

“Hello, Doctor, that’s why I asked about a force field,” she said somewhat sarcastically. “The old TARDIS was able to generate a force field around herself that extended several feet. This one’s a newer model; she ought to be able to do the same. If we stay inside the force field we’ll be fine.” She turned her attention to the ship. “Can you do it?” she asked.

“It’s done,” the TARDIS told her.

“Rose, I don’t feel good about this. What if something goes wrong?” the Doctor asked his voice filled with worry.

“What if something goes right?” she challenged back.

He stared at her wordlessly for a long moment. “I’m right, Doctor. I know I am. Someone’s been suppressing their sentience, Doctor,” and there was horror in her tone. “They need our help. Somehow, they do. Trust me.” Finally he nodded and offered her his hand. Together they stepped through the TARDIS doors and out onto the surface of the planet.



The drayguins hummed excitedly at their appearance and made to move forward but were rather politely bounced off the TARDIS’ force field. “So how do we do this? How do we approach them?” Rose asked the Doctor.

“Together. I think it has to be together. They took us apart and it didn’t work, whatever they were trying to do,” said the Doctor.

“Ambigere said we’d have to work as a team,” Rose said thoughtfully. She scanned the creature before her. They looked almost expectant. They were still segregated but she noticed that the males and females were looking at each other with curiosity and…was it possible? Longing?

Her mind made one of those huge, intuitive leaps that sometimes came to her in a glimmer of gold and she gasped out, “They can’t talk to each other!”

The Doctor looked at her startled at the flecks in her eyes and then dawning horror blossomed over his face as he took in the true impact of her words. He closed his eyes, let his mind range out and touch, just touch the edges of the nearest drayguin mind. He was overwhelmed for a moment and then he felt Rose’s steadying presence snapping into place beside him mentally.

“We have to show them how it’s done, Rose,” he said. He tugged her closer to them and in sync they each reached one hand through the force field. Rose’s hand came into contact with what she was sure was the head of the red female from before and the Doctor’s rested on the head of the grey muzzled blue. Colors swirled through their minds and then…history.



So very long ago it was, when the darkness came. It settled over us like a blanket of silence, breaking our ability to think together, or in many cases to think at all. It fell to me, the biggest and the smartest, and now the eldest save my mate, to remember. It confined us to one planet and took away our movement through the dark places, between one here and any other here. But worse than that, it changed our language. We adapted as best we could, developing sign language, body language, but it forced us, the females, away from the males, except to mate because we could not understand each other.

Our signals devolved to the point where we did not have the same ones except for mating and we lost all understanding of everything else between us. And so it has been for 3000 years. Until you came. We saw you but we did not understand. We watched the female climb the pinnacle and defeat the not Queen. We watched you take away the not Egg that brought us into darkness. And the males started to think and we had our own veil lifted.

But though the ability to move through the dark places between here and other heres has come back to us and we can once again easily move between spaces, we cannot talk to each other in our minds. We can feel the need and the desire to do it coming from our males and from their actions we know that they can feel it from us. We do not know how to reestablish the link. But you are like us, like we were. You think together. You can fix our people. You can fix my mate and me.

Rose and the Doctor reeled backwards as they were released from the mind of the big female drayguin. Tears fell down Rose’s face. “How?” she asked. “How do we help them?”

“The Doctor must link minds with the female, Rose,” said the TARDIS gently. “And you must link minds with the male. Then grasp hands and initiate your bonding link.”

“We’re not having sex in front of the drayguins,” Rose said tartly.

The amused chiming laughter of the TARDIS sprinkled itself through her mind. “I should say not. I meant search for the silver web that is Doctor in your mind. And Doctor, find the golden web that is Rose. And bring your thoughts together, your love for each other and your utmost desire to be one cohesive whole and show it to them. It should be enough.”

“You’re sure?” the Doctor asked.

“I am sure. I could fix them myself if I had a male of my kind with me and we put out our vines. But I cannot. And it must be both male and female opposites for them to respond, to. Do it.” Her tone was just this side of an order. “Please,” she added. “Please. They need you to. I need you to.” An underlying hint of desperation colored the TARDIS’ mind touch.

“I think we have to, Doctor. I can feel their anguish seeping into my bones. I think this is one of the things I was meant to help fix.”

“Very well.” The Doctor and Rose switched places and changed hands. They approached the field together and reached out for the drayguins. Though the aliens shied away from them at first they kept their hands held out steadily through the force field and emanated compassion and trust until the blue muzzle was against Rose and the red dome pressed against the Doctor.

“Ready?” asked the Doctor.

“I just think of how much I love you?” Rose double checked.

“Yes, and of what we mean to each other.”

“I can do that.” Rose closed her eyes and sought out the silver webbing in her head, the flare of a beacon behind it that meant Doctor. She found it, knew he found her, and suddenly want, need, desire, lust, compassion, trust, loyalty, faith, belief, love washed through her. She knew the emotions were ricocheting through the Doctor as well, reflected and refracted back at her in a many-sided prism of light and feelings.

“Now we give it to them,” said the Doctor aloud though the words echoed in her mind as well. Rose funneled the emotions through her mind and body and out into the drayguin beneath her hand, willing him to understand, to make the connection, to link with his own mate, to show him the way to her.

And then she saw it, as real as if it were appearing visually in front of her and not on the landscape of her own mind. A wave of searing red light shot from the blue drayguin to his mate and was met by the same searing light only blue, from the red drayguin. The two lights shifted into a searing flame, the two colors entwining along their full lengths and the rope of emotion was thick between the two creatures. The light burned strong, turned white and the dam between the two aliens cracked long and wide, straight down and burst, communication suddenly flowing like water between them.

Rose felt a sharp stab of wonder and amazement and then the Doctor was tugging her backwards and urging her to break her link with the drayguins. With much effort she did so. She staggered backwards, completely inside the force field and realized that the light she had seen in her mind was now manifesting physically between the red and blue drayguins. And then it shot from them to the others, suddenly interconnecting an entire race that had been shut away from communicating with itself and its opposite sex for millennia.

The lights lit up the night. When had it become night? How long had they been within the minds of the drayguins? It seemed only a few minutes should have past but she saw the moon and stars high above them and her body’s exhaustion and hunger told her hours must have passed.

“They’ll be all right now, I think,” the Doctor said slowly, but this has taken much from us today. We need to eat and drink and then sleep.”

“You, too?” Rose asked surprised.

“Yes. I feel a most definite need to sleep. I’m drained mentally and physically. They don’t need us anymore. Let’s get back in the ship and take care of ourselves,” he replied.

“You’ve done it,” said the TARDIS and her mind tone was almost tearful. “You’ve restored them to what they are supposed to be. They’re more fully sentient than I imagined. Oh, the thoughts and emotions they’re projecting are amazing. It’s almost like being amongst my own kind.”

“They’re that intelligent?” the Doctor asked in stunned amazement.

“Very close. Whatever evil did this to them, Doctor, they knew this potential existed. They had to. What other reason could they have for stopping the drayguins?” she asked. “Someone didn’t want them getting too smart. They’re teleports, you know. That’s what she meant when she talked about moving about the dark spaces between the here and the other heres. I almost sense the edge of…temporal abilities.”

“Bad Wolf knew this,” said the Doctor in a voice that was full of awe.

“She laid down a loophole and buried within it the chance to fix what she could along the way,” said Rose. “I can see it.” The Doctor’s eyes widened as he looked between the console and Rose. “The best laid plans of wolves and Time Lords.”

“Indeed.” The soft pert voice of Romana was completely unexpected. The pink adorned hologram of the tiny Time Lady had appeared on the far side of the console and the Doctor and Rose stared at her in shock. “If this program has activated it means you have succeeded in freeing the drayguins from their enslavement. They are, as you may or may not have surmised, the precursors to the next form of TARDIS. To replace what was lost, you see. They have millennia yet to evolve but they will arrive there now, thanks to you.”

“But they’re animals, not plants,” Rose protested.

The hologram flickered and turned to Rose. “This statement fits recorded parameters. They are a hybridized species that look and act much like animals but do have their origins firmly rooted,” and the hint of a smile flickered across Romana’s face, “in the ground. They procreate and move about like animals but in many other aspects they are plants. A very distant cousin to the TARDIS, who drops eggs instead of seeds.”

The hologram flickered again and her gaze shifted to the Doctor. “Tomorrow you must leave here. Do not dally long. Ambigere is waiting for the Quyenseg. You must return it to her and receive your next task. The fate of the universe, Rose, Doctor, my beloved ship, is in your hands and vines. And perhaps…the fate of reality itself.”

Chapter 41: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/23883.html 

 

Comments

[fishface44.livejournal.com]

You have always been ready to take us on the roller coaster! It is one of the things that keeps you stories fresh. I think it works so well for you because you are so good at the structure of the story! It never seems like surprises just for the sake of surprise, but always like an essential plot point!

Glad to hear about more Repercussions! Thanks!!

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks, I definitely strive to make all my surprises be plot points and with maybe a bit of a clue somewhere in the previous chapters that could hint at it on a reread but never give it away.