Just Another Shop Girl (5/18)

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                                                     Chapter Five:  Tirawls

“Interesting creatures, the Tirawls,” Jack said dropping into the tone of voice Rose recognized as his story-telling mode. “In my century they are extremely intelligent beings. They’re telepathic and telekinetic, but most of all empathic. Abilities like these are a very useful adaptation for creatures that don’t have fingers or toes on their limbs or even suckers to help them pick things up. It’s what helped them develop a written culture even though they don’t speak. Although most traditions are passed on through dreamsong.”

 

 

“Dreamsong?” asked Rose.

 

“From what I’ve been told if you ever are trusted enough to experience a Tirawlian dreamsong it stays with you for life,” Jack explained.

 

“I’ve never met one before,” the Doctor said watching the animal move with fascination. “It isn’t often I encounter a completely new experience.”

 

“Are you saying that in the infinite vastness of space, you’ve done it all?” Tessa asked.

 

“Most of it. I’m a nine hundred year old Time Lord. I get around,” he told her.

 

Tessa stopped walking and turned to face him. “Nine hundred? You’re nine hundred years old?”

 

“Give or take a few years, yeah,” the Doctor answered.

 

“Don’t look it,” she said. “You look pretty good.” The Doctor didn’t answer that, but he looked pleased until she added, “You know, except for the ears and all.”

 

“Oi,” Rose said defensively. “There’s nothing wrong with his ears.”

 

“Give him a feather and he’d be able to fly,” Tessa replied with a smirk.

 

“Well, I like them,” Rose said loyally. “They’re endearing.”

 

“The Oncoming Storm, me, and I’m reduced to an endearing pachyderm by a couple of teenage girls,” the Doctor muttered under his breath.

 

“If the nose fits!” Jack tossed back over his shoulder.

 

Rose frowned and dropped back beside the Doctor. She slipped her hand into his. “I think your nose gives you character,” she says.

 

“Cartoon character, apparently,” he said sourly.

 

“Not at all. You’re very handsome.”

 

“Not like Jack,” he says.

 

“Ain’t holding hands in the middle of a jungle with Jack, now am I, Doctor?” she said with a reassuring squeeze. “I like the way you look. Wouldn’t want you to change it even if you could.”

 

"Rose, I think it's time I told you--."  Whatever the Doctor was about to say was halted when the Tirawl that they’d been following suddenly veered off the main path and into the jungle. Fortunately he was good at breaking a path because they would have needed axes or machetes to follow him otherwise.

 

“So telepaths, you said,” Tessa piped up picking up the previous thread of conversation. “These animals are telepathic?”

 

“Yes. At least at a very rudimentary level. More like strong empaths right now, but they’ve stepped over the line towards sentience. I can almost hear their thoughts. It’s a sort of quiet background hum in my head.”

 

“So you’re a telepath, too?” Tessa asked.

 

“Sort of,” the Doctor replied a little shortly. He was still smarting from her remarks about his looks, but being the Doctor he was unable to ignore her questions when it gave him the opportunity to lecture.

 

“Is that why that one on Earth followed you into the shop? It sensed you were telepathic?” she asked.

 

“Might be, though I’d think they’d be more attracted to the TARDIS than to me. She’s very telepathic,” said the Doctor.

 

“Your machine is telepathic?”

 

“She’s a living creature and yes, she is.”

 

“Wait a minute, Doctor,” Rose said suddenly tugging slightly on his arm to bring his attention back to her. “Before, when I thought the ship was being attacked by a Tirawl and you said it wasn’t, that it was likely trying to mate with her because she’s so big, blue and yellow…well, what if it wasn’t? What if it was asking the TARDIS for help? First to find its mate and second to bring us here and help them?”

 

“Well, that is precisely what the old girl might do if she got it into her head to help,” the Doctor said. “Wish she would have clued me in to it first, though.”

 

As they finally stepped into a clearing and looked around Jack gave a low whistle. “No wonder the TARDIS didn’t want to stop and take the time to deliver Tessa to her home.”

 

“No, oh, no,” Rose said looking at the devastation around her. Eight skinned Tirawls lay in various states of death and decay, every one of them missing their horns. Blood was everywhere, some of it fresh, some of it days old. Rose thought she might vomit and had to turn into the Doctor, burying her face in his leather jacket as she forced down her bile and got her emotions under control. His tight grip, fisted in the back of her shirt told her he was not unaffected.

 

Tessa put her hand over her mouth in horror. “They’re defenseless.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“We have to stop this. Please,” she looked up at the Doctor, “tell me you can stop this.”

 

“If it’s in my power, I’ll do it,” the Doctor murmured a catch in his voice.

 

The living Tirawl they’d been following gave a haunting wail and Tessa grasped at her temples a moment before striding forward and putting her hand on the creature’s head. “This ends now,” Tessa told it. “I promise you. We’re going to find a way to save your herd if it’s the last thing we do.”

 

“Agreed,” said Jack moving forward to rest his hand on the beast as well. Soon the four of them were gathered around the beast in some kind of strange communion with it.

 

Rose’s eyes met the Doctor’s. She could see that he was very angry and when he found out who was responsible for this reprehensible act they were going to learn the true meaning of the Oncoming Storm.

 

Eventually the Tirawl pulled away and led them further on until the slaughter field was far downwind and they came upon the rest of the survivors. They rested that night amongst the herd. Tessa stayed near the one who had been their guide. She had named it Retu. When Rose asked her why all she could say was that it was the name that had come into her head when she touched him. “Besides, I’m tired of calling him it all the time.”

 

The herd sang a strange song made up of little trilling noises. Pictures began to play in their heads as if they were watching a movie, pictures that went with the music, as near to dreaming as a person could get who was still awake. It told the story of a bolt of lightning coming down from the sky then opening into the shape of a diamond still crackling with electricity. It showed a couple of men stumbling through it from nowhere and onto their planet of Tir.

 

These men had brought more men, with shiny metal that cut and hurt and loud noises that came from long sticks and made the Tirawls bleed. It was not enough to kill them but it was enough to incapacitate them. While incapacitated the hunters would saw off their horns and then skin them alive. The death cries of the creatures rattled through the heads of the listeners and filled them full of horror.

 

The dreamsong showed the slaughter of entire herds and that the remaining Tirawls were just a small group of survivors, remnants from many herds that had once roamed freely, hundreds strong. They huddled together afraid for their lives every time the sun rose in the sky.

 

Along with the images they could hear the sounds of death and smell the stench of blood and guts and excrement as the creatures fouled themselves in death. Their hearts grew very heavy at the murder of their people and their hopes were crushed to nothing. By the end of the song Rose and Tessa were crying, Jack had bitten through his bottom lip and the Doctor was wearing an expression Rose had only seen once before and didn’t particularly care to see now even if the situation warranted it because it scared her. It was one of vengeance and rage; the one that had been on his face when they’d met the last Dalek survivor of the Time War in that Utah basement just a few short months ago.

 

The trilling changed into something more soothing and lost its violent intensity. The images that appeared now in their heads were calming and peaceful. They showed sun-dappled glades filled with grazing Tirawls, vast herds roaming the savannahs and the jungle pathways, and a large group swimming in the sea. The strongest emotion that passed into the three humans and the single Time Lord was that of contentment and joy. This had been their lives up until halfway through the last orbit of their sun.

 

The beauty of this idyll helped them slip into a non-horrified sleep, Rose resting in the cradle of the Doctor’s arm as even he drifted off from the emotional resonance of the last few hours of dreamsong.

 

In the morning after they had broken their fast, Retu walked to another path and bleated at them to get up and come along with him. He took them to the edge of the human encampment then withdrew, leaving them there. They observed the goings on for over an hour.

 

“We can’t just walk in there,” the Doctor finally said. “We need a plan, a reason to explain our presence here.”

 

“Yeah, I think it’s a little late for that, Doc,” Jack said in a warning voice.

 

“What? Why?”

 

“Because we’re surrounded.”