Commission for @borrowedtimeandspace of her characters Zepheera and Quaxo. I adore their outfits, they were such fun to draw. ^^
Only one day left for the Flash Sale! Get yours before it’s too late!
Look at my sons!
Edit: This is a sneak peek of a fantasy-style story I have planned further along the line in BTaS, in which Zepheera not only gets a new outfit, but she also gets a companion of her own!
((aka Happy Belated Hug A Tiny Day!))
Prompt from @neonthebright: The Doctor drops/misplaces his sonic somewhere he can’t reach and Zepheera goes on a mini-adventure to retrieve it for him.
BTaS Canon: No – DonnaAU
Timeline: Post-Midnight, Pre-Turn Left
The Doctor couldn’t keep still as he waited for Zepheera. She was so close to retrieving his sonic screwdriver from the underbelly of his TARDIS, something he would never have been able to do without either an unthinkable amount of effort or a four-and-a-half inch tall companion.
“How’s it coming?” he called down the gap, excited and impatient in equal measure. He hadn’t heard her voice in a little over two minutes, and he was eager to know the current state of his beloved screwdriver. He wished he could see into the hole he’d dropped the device into in the first place.
A small grunt echoed down from the shadows, a little closer than the last time Zepheera had filled him in. “Had to dislodge it from between two…I don’t even know. Things. Then I had to push it up a slope – this thing is harder to roll than it looks!”
“Do you think you can manage it?” asked the Doctor, a little worry leaking through his voice. He hadn’t thought about how the borrower would be able to retrieve his sonic, a device almost longer than she was tall.
After a pause, she replied, “Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea. Give me a moment, and keep an ear out.”
The Doctor sat back and placed his chin on his folded arms, drumming his fingers restlessly. He hummed quietly to stop himself from actually counting the seconds until he heard Zepheera’s voice again. “Okay, I’ve got it attached to my rope! I’m gonna need you to ease us up!”
“Right! Gotcha!” The Doctor shot up, nearly bumping his head on the underside of the floor. He pinched the tiny rope, the size of a thread to him, in two fingers and tugged. Hearing
Zepheera’s surprised cry, he halted.
“I said ease, not wrench!” she chastised.
“Sorry,” mumbled the Doctor, this time drawing the rope back slowly. He was extra careful when Zepheera and the screwdriver were almost out; she needed to align the probe so it would come out cleanly without crashing into the sides of the long, narrow gap. Once that was achieved, it emerged easily and the Doctor slipped his free hand underneath it.
After his companion dismounted the device, he scooped it up into his right hand, ignoring the rope still attached to it. He adjusted his grip and gave it a buzz. It was music to his ears.
“At last! My arm is complete again!” he exulted.
Zepheera’s fatigued mind had only begun to wonder if that was a reference to something when she found herself being lifted quickly to the Doctor’s face. To her chagrin, he planted an overjoyed kiss to the top of her head.
“You’re the best!” he proclaimed, beaming gratefully even as Zepheera ran her fingers through her dark bob to brush off the feeling his lips left behind.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she emphasized, scowling halfheartedly up at his stupid face. Little did she know the Doctor had only begun to display his gratitude toward his companion, and he drew her close once again.
At first, she worried that he was disregarding her wishes, so she threw her arms up to fend off another peck.
Instead, he pressed her to his cheek and thanked her over and over. Once the shock had worn off, she realized that what she’d done meant a lot more to the Doctor than she realized. She smiled and patted his cheek fondly.
“You’re welcome, big fella,” she murmured.
They stayed like this for a good while, until Zepheera broke the contented silence between them: “Now, I believe you owe me a cuppa.”
“I’m fine,” Zepheera insisted.
John raised an eyebrow at her, kneeling by
the kitchen counter for a closer look at the tiny woman. “Are you sure? No
offense, but if Sherlock wasn’t careful, he could have easily hurt you–”
“I was careful!” Sherlock
contended, still pouting in the corner while trying not to seem like it. John
rolled his eyes, but looked back at Zepheera for confirmation.
Zepheera sighed. If she had been hurt
by Sherlock, even just slightly bruised, any damage done would have healed by
now. But she dared not tell John that, a medical man who had already proclaimed
that she was an impossibility.
“Look, I’m okay, really. See?” She
prodded at her ribs, which had been the most vulnerable in Sherlock’s grip, and
moved on to the rest of her undamaged limbs. “No bruised or broken ribs,
arms and legs intact, joints unstrained. I’m fit as a fiddle. No need
for…”
She trailed off and gestured vaguely to the
human’s hands, hovering nearby in preparation to help. John looked down at
them, realizing how large they looked to her, and self-consciously pulled them
back to his middle. “Right. Sorry…”
Zepheera wrung her hands, glancing between
John and Sherlock. “So. You’re a doctor?” she asked John. Of all
the cruel coincidences in the universe…
John blinked at her question. “Uh, yeah.
Yes, I am Doctor John Watson.”
She regretted asking as her heart ached,
desperate once again to get back to her own Doctor. And while she thought this
Watson chap would probably help her if she asked, she still advised herself
against jumping into that too quickly. The look in his eyes told her that he
was just as curious as Sherlock. He just hid it better.
“I’m Zepheera,” she replied.
A whole new level of awe leaked through in
John’s expression, and he stared at her for a moment as his perception of
reality was twisted. Somehow, putting a name to the impossibly tiny person made
her all too real. He stood with a sharp intake of breath and wandered away from
her, toward the living room. He paced back and forth for a bit, running his
hands down his face and scratching the back of his head, until his gaze fell
back on Zepheera who was staring up at him with concern.
“Are you okay?” she asked at
length.
John froze, the shock hitting him all over
again. Then he chuckled, forcing a smile as he swung his arms back and forth to
release some of the confused tension in his shoulders.
“Just trying not to lose my mind,”
he admitted, glancing at Sherlock for some level of sanity.
Now there was a troubling thought.
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“What. Are. You?”
Zepheera narrowed her eyes at her captor and
took a long sip of tea, setting her tinfoil cup pointedly on the small coin she
was using as a saucer. She sat to lean back on the cold tile of the kitchen
wall and crossed her arms, steadily meeting the gaze of the man leaning on the
counter to loom over her. She’d lost count of how many times he’d asked that
question in the last five minutes, or asked something similar, but she stubbornly
refused to speak until he talked to her like an equal.
Clearly he wasn’t catching the hint. The
longer she kept quiet, the more determined he seemed. His frown deepened and he
let out a crisp sigh, unintentionally billowing Zepheera’s short dark hair with
his breath. Then he reached behind him and dragged over a chair to sit across
from her, slouching to achieve an angle somewhat closer to the four-and-a-half
inch tall woman’s eye level.
“You’re not clever for remaining silent,
you know,” he pronounced emphatically, his tone dangerously quiet.
“It’s obvious you understand me and that you’re intelligent enough to have
at least some form of communication with which to express thought and
response. Even if that’s not English, even if you’re a mute, I demand
you to tell me what you are.”
Zepheera quirked an eyebrow at him, but
didn’t otherwise move a muscle. She was hardly in a position to bend to his
threats now, he’d have hurt her already if that was his plan for getting the
information from her. As if to prove her point, he huffed again and leaned back
in the chair, crossing his own arms to mirror his miniature captive. The
tiniest smirk tugged at her lips as she smugly lifted her cup for another sip.
Before it could reach her mouth, a sound
echoed from downstairs, one that sent Zepheera’s instincts running high. The
main door of the flat opened and closed, and the stairs began to creak with the
weight of the approaching human.
“Sherlock!”
This voice was all Zepheera had to go by to
determine the temperament of the human drawing near. It was a man, his tone
kind but more than a little annoyed. That was understandable since, given the
brief glance he spared to the kitchen entrance, her captor knew this man.
She took this moment of distraction to make
her move. Tossing her cup aside, she shot to her feet and took off for the side
of the counter closest to the door, slipping behind every instrument she could
until she reached the edge.
“HELP! I’VE BEEN KIDNAPPED BY A
MADMAN–!” she shrieked, cupping her hands into a megaphone to help her
small voice carry, but a pale hand wrapping around her cut her off. Her head,
shoulders, and arms were free of the measured grip surrounding the rest of her,
lifting her away from the ground.
“What–who is that??” Concern
filled the man’s voice as he hurried up the stairs and rounded the corner.
Zepheera’s captor, Sherlock, froze halfway through lifting her to eye level
when the new man came into view.
“What the hell’s going…” The
newcomer trailed off when he noticed what Sherlock had in his grip, and he
stopped to stare. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, it had to be a trick.
But that notion went flying out the door when the little being spoke.
“Please, I haven’t done anything
wrong!” she implored, relying on the man’s pity much to her distaste.
“Oh, don’t play innocent,” Sherlock
spat, finally losing patience and
bringing her up to his eyes. “I knew you could speak, but you had
to play your games–!”
“Sherlock, that’s enough!”
The borrower and the human turned to stare at
the other man. His look had hardened, trained only on Sherlock.
“John,” said Sherlock steadily.
“You don’t understand–”
“Sod that!” shot back the blond.
“I’m a doctor, you don’t think I understand how incredibly impossible
she is? Believe me, I get it. And what I also get is that she is clearly a
sentient person, and you should not be handling her that way.”
A tense silence hung in the air between the
humans, and Zepheera held her breath as her fate was decided for her.
“What would you have me do then,
John?” Sherlock asked quietly, his voice more subdued than his expression.
John sighed, possibly in relief. “Put
her down. Let me see if I can have a look at her, make sure she’s not
hurt.”
With reluctance, Sherlock lowered her back to
the counter, grumpily stomping off to the far corner of the kitchen.
Newly freed, Zepheera looked up at John. Now
she was right back where she started, though hopefully in hands that were more
aware of her, concerned for her.
“Th-thank you,” she stammered,
nodding gratefully up at John.
The human’s mouth twitched briefly, still unsure of what to make of this situation. “Ah. Don’t mention it.”
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Prompt from @neonthebright: The Doctor drops/misplaces his sonic somewhere he can’t reach and Zepheera goes on a mini-adventure to retrieve it for him.
BTaS Canon: No – DonnaAU
Timeline: Post-Midnight, Pre-Turn Left
If anyone had told Zepheera decades ago that one day she’d be able to sit comfortably in a human hand, she’d have told them to bugger off. And yet there she was, leaning tiredly against a human look-alike’s fingers as he sauntered off toward the console room. Completely at his mercy, yet with complete trust in him.
She straightened when he entered the dome-shaped room, peering over the edge of the Doctor’s hand curiously. Indeed, one of the floor panels was pulled up and set aside, leaving a gaping hole in the floor. Those compartments were still a bit of a mystery to Zepheera, even after all this time. She’d observed that a few of them were used for storage, filled with old trunks and boxes and the like, but most seemed to be dark mazes of machinery that Zepheera would rather not get lost in.
And now she was about to crawl willingly into one. Spectacular.
The Doctor climbed slowly into the hole, careful to jostle the borrower as little as possible. Crouching, he took up less than half of the space inside, but once Zepheera found herself lowered below the floor level, she saw that there was more room than the size of the panel would suggest.
“Where did it fall through?” she asked, stifling a yawn.
“Down here.” The Doctor leaned down and reached in to lay his hand next to a slight slope. Just big enough for the sonic screwdriver, and too small to fit his hand through. Zepheera slid off the Doctor’s palm at the top of the slope to carefully examine her surroundings.
Nothing in this place was smooth or flat, not even the slope. It all seemed to be made of wire or hose or angular mechanisms and couplings that Zepheera could never begin to understand. She didn’t need to, though. All she needed was a secure place to attach her hook.
The ground shook the moment she reached for the grapple hanging from her shoulder; in her fatigued state, she hadn’t thought to expect movement from the Doctor, so she stumbled a bit before she felt steady enough to shoot a glare over her shoulder. Her silent scolding had no effect, the Doctor was shifting to lay on his back and wasn’t even looking her way.
“As you can see, I was working like this, on that stuff up there,” he explained, pointing out a few wires and plugs dangling from the underside of the console. “It’s all kinda technical, and actually quite volatile without the right tools–”
“Then I guess I’d better not delay,” Zepheera snipped, securing her hook around a black cord near the top of the slope and disappeared through the gap. “Really don’t need the graphic details.”
The Doctor cocked an eyebrow at the gap. “Well, someone’s grumpy.”
“Someone is owed a cup of tea after this.”
She slid slowly down her rope at first; even knowing how quickly it would heal, she’d rather not sprain anything by jumping in too fast and hitting the floor too hard. She couldn’t even see the bottom through the shadows, much less the Doctor’s precious probe.
“A torch would be much appreciated if you’ve got one!” she called up.
“Ah! Right, yes.” Zepheera halted her descent when she felt a few vibrations through her rope indicating the Doctor was moving. Then a pale yellow light washed over her and illuminated her destination perfectly. “Better?”
“Much, thanks.” Now that a floor was in plain sight, a little less than a foot away, Zepheera dropped easily down. She frowned when she didn’t see the sonic anywhere. The immediate area was cavernous and irregular, and a glance upward told her she was about a foot and a half down from the Doctor’s level.
A massive tangle of wired machinery stood behind her, a few outlines of passageways before her.
While she took a moment to choose a direction, the Doctor’s voice echoed down to her. “See it yet?”
Zepheera rolled her eyes. “Not yet. Give me a minute.” She almost asked him to angle the torch to a better angle, but given how narrow the opening was, she doubted that would be easy. Instead, she started toward the passage right in front of her. It seemed to be wide enough to accommodate a falling screwdriver and was the only logical place for it to go. She proceeded cautiously, trailing her rope along in her hand so she wouldn’t get lost or fall down a hole with no way back. “How’d you even manage to drop it down here?”
“I dunno, it’s never really happened before. Guess I just…got lost in thought or something, and it slipped.”
“You? Lost in thought? Shock and surprise,” Zepheera murmured, a twinge of humor teasing at her lips.
“Oi! Heard that.”
This actually brought a chuckle out of Zepheera, who turned to call over her shoulder. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re starting to sound like DonNA-A-A!”
Her foot caught on something she couldn’t see even if she were watching where she was going, and she tumbled down a low slope of hard metal things until something cylindrical broke her fall. It buzzed briefly as she landed on it.
“Zepheera! What happened, are you alright?”
Slightly dazed from the impact, Zepheera shook her head and breathed deeply. “I’m okay!” she assured. As she got to her feet, she realized exactly what she was leaning on for support.
“I found it!”
“Brilliant!” the Doctor exulted. “Can you get it up?”
Zepheera regarded the probe at her feet. It was taller than she was, but she was stronger than she looked. “Hang on! I’ll see what I can do.”
Zepheera gasped sharply as the fist around
her opened and exposed her to fresh air for the first time in five minutes. She
scrambled away from the giant unknown hand, tripping over the edge of a saucer.
She was wedged awkwardly between the lip of the small plate and the cold
porcelain curve of the cup, but still she maintained eye contact with her
captor.
His lips pursed as he observed her behavior,
then reached toward her again. She threw her hands up in futile defense, but
they weren’t needed. Rather than grabbing her, those long fingers curled around
the handle of the teacup and lifted it away. Zepheera fell back in its absence,
catching herself on her elbows as she watched the man sidestep far enough away
that he no longer filled her vision, but he could easily glance over to check
on her.
Zepheera stood and seized the opportunity to
take in her surroundings. There was a large coffee maker to her right and some
other machine she didn’t recognize to her left. She was on the kitchen counter
in the human’s small flat. The dining table across from her was filled with odd
instruments and glass containers that sent an ominous chill down her spine.
She had a bad feeling about this human.
Another hand approaching broke Zepheera out
of her thoughts, and she did her best to not flinch. Again it didn’t touch her,
only hovered expectantly nearby. She glanced up at the man’s face and realized
that he wanted the saucer. As she hopped off and pressed her back against the
wall, she wondered about this sudden concern of his for her consent. He had
kidnapped her, after all.
He dragged the saucer about an inch closer to
himself and carefully set the filled teacup onto it. Automatically, he popped
two blocks of sugar into it and began stirring. After a moment, he glanced at
Zepheera again and frowned to himself. He opened a drawer out of her sight and
rummaged through it. Then he slid the cup and saucer toward Zepheera,
not-so-surreptitiously placing a few items next to it.
She hesitated before peeling herself from the
wall. The cup was now filled with what looked like tea, and by her feet lay a
package of creamer, a paper clip, a length of string, a coin, and a sizeable
torn-off corner of tinfoil. Her violet eyes flicked up to suspiciously meet the
icy blues staring down at her. Noting her trepidation, the man rolled his eyes
and picked up the teacup, taking a small sip for himself.
“Good for the nerves,” he muttered,
his deep baritone rolling over Zepheera like thunder. “And definitely not
poisoned. How dull would that be.”
With that, he replaced the teacup and
observed her closely to gauge Zepheera’s reaction. She wondered if he thought
she could even understand him; clearly he was testing her intelligence and
civility, if the materials he gave her were any indication. As much as it sickened her to play into this
game of his, she was quite thirsty. The salt from the chips she’d eaten with
the Doctor had really dried her out.
The thought of the Doctor drove her to step
forward at last. She needed to get back to him by any means necessary, and if
that meant playing along for a while…
She picked up the tinfoil, tearing off the
excess. She didn’t need much to mold into a makeshift cup. Once that was done
and she’d checked it for weak spots, she went straight to the tea. She inspected
it for a moment, inhaling its fumes. Earl gray. Not her favorite but tolerable
enough, especially with a little sugar. She leaned down with her foil cup to
retrieve some.
“Bit hot,” said the man under his
breath, giving Zepheera pause. Indeed, warmth wafted up from the liquid. It
wasn’t steaming, but it was as hot as could be expected on such short notice.
Hot enough to sting, that was for sure. Perhaps the kettle had still been
lukewarm from that morning.
Zepheera carefully lowered her cup into the
drink, ignoring the man as he observed her reaction to his warning. Despite how
much she wanted to dunk her whole hand in and give him something to observe,
she knew that having him know about her healing ability would be counter-productive.
His curiosity would only grow. So she settled on a half-filled cup and took a
measured sip.
For the Doctor.
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John Watson didn’t stop to think. The fact that he and Sherlock were already late to meet Lestrade at a fresh, new, and conveniently nearby crime scene completely left his mind. He saw a man get blindsided by some punk kid on a skateboard and fall hard on the ground while the assailant rode on. John immediately rushed to his side.
He shoved his way through the small crowd gathering to gawk at the man with morbid curiosity. It was easy to see why; on top of the spectacle, the man was rather odd-looking in general. Mid-thirties, early forties but with a forward-sweeping spike to his hair, a brown pinstriped suit paired with white Converse of all things, and a long, tan overcoat to put it all together. It was a wonder how this strange person had escaped the skater’s notice. Luckily the chap didn’t seem too badly hurt, but he was groaning something terrible and clutching his head.
“Steady on, mate. I’m a doctor, and you’ve been hit hard.” John spoke evenly and kindly as he knelt by the man and moved his hands away from his face so he could check for signs of concussion. “Do you remember what happened?”
The chocolate-brown eye John was holding open zeroed in on him, and the brow above it furrowed. Then his hand shot to his right shoulder and scrambled around, as though he were looking for something.
He started to sit up quickly, but John stopped him with a hand to the chest.
“No, no, don’t get up too fast–”
“Get off!”
The man shoved John roughly away, knocking him on his arse. Then he got on his hands and knees, calling out some strange word that John didn’t recognize. It almost sounded like a rejected spell from Harry Potter.
Regardless, John stood and made one last attempt to calm the man down.
“Sir, you need medical attention,” John insisted.
The man shook off the hand John laid on his shoulder, then jumped up to his full height. John blinked as the man loomed over him, despite only being about half a foot taller than him. His eyes, while clear, were crazed and deadly.
“I don’t need a doctor. I am the Doctor. Now go. Away.”
John stared as the man went back to searching the ground. By then the thin crowd had been scared off by the man’s apparent madness. “Alright, man, suit yourself,” the doctor muttered as he backed off. Clearly the matter was out of his hands, and he was on his way to see Lestrade anyhow. Perhaps he could tip the detective inspector off, and send someone over to deal with the situation.
“Well, I tried,” sighed John as he approached Sherlock, who had waited for him. “Let’s go, I guess.”
“Actually, John, you go on ahead,” said Sherlock.
John frowned. “But Lestrade–”
“Something’s come up. Besides, I highly doubt he has anything you can’t handle on your own. Meet back at the flat.”
And that was it. Sherlock walked off without another word, leaving John confused and more than a little annoyed.
Zepheera wears form-fitting shirts and/or a vest of some kind to eliminate her chances of being picked up by the back of her shirt by the bigger folk. Past experiences fuel this decision, ones ranging from bad to fairly embarrassing.
Zepheera’s heart pounded, threatening to climb straight out of her throat.
This was no dumbstruck human she was facing. No, that would give her an opportunity to dash away. His countenance was perfectly calm with a touch of contemplation, his eyes cold and calculating. He wasn’t just staring at Zepheera, he was studying her. Memories of that same look from scientists peppered over the course of her long life came clawing to the forefront of her mind, and she had to actively push past them. She needed to find a way out of this, escape the man’s reach somehow and find the Doctor fast.
Before she could even glance away from him, his hand was upon her. His palm filled her vision and his fingers, each almost as long as her entire body, were curling over her head. In a split second, she was snatched up in a loose fist, her four-and-a-half-inch-tall body squished into a ball.
Humans were fast, she lamented belatedly.
Zepheera felt the movement as the hand was lowered and what little light that peeked in through the cracks between the fingers disappeared. With no warning, the pressure around her loosened and she dropped into a dark pocket. She had no time to protest; the man was immediately on the move.
He’d placed her into the outside pocket of his wool coat and it flapped with each and every step the man took, making it nearly impossible for Zepheera to climb out. To avoid hurting herself and lessen the motion sickness, she tucked herself into a corner and breathed as deeply as she could in the cramped, stuffy space. Panic threatened to overcome her, but she refused to let it. She would need a clear mind in order to find the Doctor after she got out of this.
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After well over a year of traveling together, defeating monsters and rescuing alien civilizations, the Doctor and Zepheera decided to take it easy for a day. Nothing fancy, just a few hours spent in 21st century London, eating chips and seeing the sights.
Then a kid on a skateboard came speeding past the Doctor while he wasn’t paying attention and clipped him, knocking the Time Lord flat on is back in the middle of the sidewalk.
Zepheera flew off the Doctor’s shoulder. Ordinarily she would be hanging out near the edge of one of his pockets with this many people around, or at the very least under his collar, but she wanted a proper view of the city she’d spent so many years hiding underneath. So she sat tucked against his neck with a small perception filter attached to a TARDIS key in her lap. But after the fall, two things became apparent once she’d come out of her daze. One: The key was nowhere in sight, making her perfectly visible to anybody who bothered to look down. More importantly, two: she’d been thrown several feet away from the Doctor.
She tried to hurry back to him, but a few kind souls in the vicinity flocked to his side to offer help. That meant dozens of feet crashing down around her, some coming within inches and centimeters of crushing her. Instinct kicked in and she ran; logic inserted itself to insist that she’d need to get to safety first, then she could reunite with the Doctor.
Meanwhile, pedestrian feet were corralling Zepheera further away from her giant friend.
By the time she reached relative safety against the wall of a building, she’d lost track of her Time Lord. She could hear him calling, but it was muffled in the layers upon layers of people between them and the incessant rumble of footsteps. Zepheera was forced to climb rough brick wall behind her in search of higher ground. She was all too aware of the enormous risk she was taking, but at the moment she didn’t care about being seen as long as she could find the Doctor.
But when she reached a windowsill to look out from and she immediately met a humongous someone’s icy-blue gaze, she suddenly cared a lot.
Part 2
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Borrowed Time and Space 