theoldgirl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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applesaucedream2014-03-05 06:35 pm
theoldgirl) wrote in applesaucedream2014-03-05 06:35 pm
built with a heart broken from the start [open to multiple]
The TARDIS is feeling her insides burst. Something has grabbed hold of her, pulling at her with a force as violent and unpredictable as a torrent, and for some reason that she can't quite remember all her shields are offline. She is vulnerable and she is being gutted. Corridors are on fire, rooms are filling with toxic fumes, fuel is running out and choking and burning her like blood-filled lungs. As she writhes in agony, the flow of time and her dimensions twist with her, and suddenly there are creatures in her that don't belong, pained, furious things, but she has no thought to waste on them. They roam her halls unchecked, skulking in the dark and the debris and the unsteady flashes of emergency lighting, taking their clue from the destruction they were born into.
Her only thought now is to keep the Doctor safe. So she struggles to control her panic and the chaos, to hold herself together, to hold onto... something, yes, there's something she mustn't let go of, but her memory is failing her again and everything hurts. The Doctor is back now, she pushed him away but he came back to her, of course he wouldn't let her die alone. He brought someone with him and she hates them immediately, smells the greed in their minds, like scavengers eager to tear apart their prey while she's still alive. She wants them out, but the Doctor isn't listening to her and maybe that's why she pushed him away, because he can't bear to listen to her cries and she didn't want him to hear. He's talking about the girl instead, another thing she can't quite remember, though hardly surprising; there's always a girl. A hot flash of bitterness is cut short by a hotter explosion as the last fuel cell tears up her interior, and her tenuous control wavers.
She knows she's clinging to something so important, but it feels like pressing down on glass splinters, piercing and ripping her hold. She's screaming, and her screams turn into the reverberating voice of a heavy grim bell, tolling doom throughout her structures and into the void.
Her only thought now is to keep the Doctor safe. So she struggles to control her panic and the chaos, to hold herself together, to hold onto... something, yes, there's something she mustn't let go of, but her memory is failing her again and everything hurts. The Doctor is back now, she pushed him away but he came back to her, of course he wouldn't let her die alone. He brought someone with him and she hates them immediately, smells the greed in their minds, like scavengers eager to tear apart their prey while she's still alive. She wants them out, but the Doctor isn't listening to her and maybe that's why she pushed him away, because he can't bear to listen to her cries and she didn't want him to hear. He's talking about the girl instead, another thing she can't quite remember, though hardly surprising; there's always a girl. A hot flash of bitterness is cut short by a hotter explosion as the last fuel cell tears up her interior, and her tenuous control wavers.
She knows she's clinging to something so important, but it feels like pressing down on glass splinters, piercing and ripping her hold. She's screaming, and her screams turn into the reverberating voice of a heavy grim bell, tolling doom throughout her structures and into the void.
no subject
That, however, is easier thought than done. A corner of the library is in flames, the hearth exploded and set fire to the bench in front of it, and from there it spread to the unique and flammable collection, eating away at the pillars that support the upper levels. And then the doors open and a terrified, scrawny boy runs in, pauses to catch his breath, and is attacked by a grotesquely burnt figure. As they struggle, the image suddenly flickers out of existence, then repeats itself. It's a temporal mirage, a past or future echo that doesn't even belong to this particular library, but time and space are as unstable as the ship herself, bending all wrong like broken bones.
no subject
There: a staircase along the back wall. Daine hurries down, lurching into the banister as the floor shudders beneath her. "How can I help?" she calls as she propels herself between the stacks toward the exploded hearth. "TARDIS--"
A young man - a familiar young man - comes staggering into the room, passing a few feet in front of her without seeming to see her. Is that--? But what follows him is a form so terrifying that Daine's arms jerk instinctively, an aborted grasp for a bow she no longer carries. She jerks back against a bookshelf even as the figures flicker and vanish. "What…" she says quietly as the figures reappear again, and then again. "What's happening?"
no subject
The cavernous room groans and then a second door appears on the other side, though it's partially obscured by collapsing shelves and it's not enough; the girl is too distracted by the temporal anomaly. Resolving to do whatever she can for her, the TARDIS expends the effort to project a hologram of her human form by the exit, flickering and pale and waving frantically to her. "This way! Hurry!"
no subject
"What's wrong?" she asks instead, brow furrowed, wincing as something crashes behind her.
no subject
"I will take you to the console room. That is the most stable place left. And perhaps you can escape." She's having trouble discerning why the doors to the outside are locked, if it was the Doctor or safety protocols or her own pain clamping them shut, but she'll do what she can to get everyone out. If they make it to the console room in the first place.
no subject