Zepheera-Vision — What of Rose?

Weeks passed, and Zepheera settled down in
her own little corner of the TARDIS. Months passed, and the Doctor showed
Zepheera wonders in the universe that she could never have imagined.

Years flew by, and the borrower and the Time
Lord traveled through time and space rescuing civilizations both alien and
ancient, saving planets from utter destruction, and running an awful lot.

On Zepheera’s 85th birthday, the Doctor
whisked her away for a well-deserved day out. He took her to a planet where a
six-foot-tall man could walk around with his four and a half inch tall
companion without fuss, and together they attended a play. A stirring dramedy,
the context for which was a little lost on Zepheera, but the Doctor quietly
explained any references she was bound to miss. Afterwards, he treated her to a
hearty meal out in a fancy restaurant.
Zepheera felt a little odd eating in full view of dozens of people who
were so much larger than her, but it got easier as the Doctor advised her to
ignore them and the night went on.

Just before the dessert course, Zepheera
cleared her throat. Something had been on her mind lately, something that she
doubted was far from the Doctor’s thoughts.

“Doctor?”

“Yeah?” The Doctor looked up from
the pheasant bones he was pushing around his plate.

Zepheera took a steadying breath and folded
her hands in her lap. “I… Today was fantastic, and I can’t thank you
enough.”

The Doctor’s head tilted a little and his
brow pinched. “But?”

Feeling her neck heat up, Zepheera stared at
her twisting fingers. “It’s not a but, it’s just…I think we should
talk about Rose.”

There was an immediate shift in the air, but
Zepheera was nervous to look. Neither of them had even spoken Rose Tyler’s name
in ages. Zepheera brought up the fact that she’d lived in her flat since the
human girl was a child, but when ever she mentioned it the Doctor’s eyes would
grow distant. Then she would remember how he had offered Rose the same
opportunity he’d given Zepheera, and Rose turned it down. He wouldn’t say so,
but Zepheera could tell that after all this time, that moment still affected
him.

“What of Rose?”

Zepheera looked up. The Doctor’s lips were
tightly pursed, and his bright blue eyes refused to meet the borrower’s gaze.
But he was listening.

“I know you miss her. You close off when
you hear her name, and you certainly discuss her at length with yourself when
you think I can’t hear.”

The Doctor gave a dry chuckle. “Right
little eavesdropper, aren’t ya.”

“It’s hard to ignore when you’re my
size,” Zepheera smirked. “But… Y’know, people change their minds all
the time. I dunno why she said no, but take it from me, Rose would want to be
here, traveling with you. She needs it.”

The Time Lord regarded his tiny companion
carefully, glancing away as he considered her words. “How can you be
sure?”

Zepheera smiled at the mite of hope leaking
through her friend’s voice. “I watched her grow up, remember?”

Dessert finally arrived, and the subject was
dropped. By the time they got back to the TARDIS, Zepheera was sure her
suggestion would go unremarked upon. That was, until the Doctor piloted the
blue box faster than he’d ever dared with Zepheera, and quickly rushed to the
door.

Zepheera’s heart warmed when she saw a flash
of blonde outside the door and heard the Doctor say, “By the way, did I
mention it also travels in time?”

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

September — 9 To The Nines

~~It’s a little late because school and classes and bleh but~~

For the month of September, we shall be exploring an AU in which Nine finds Zepheera first!

I’ll be taking prompts and questions along this vein, and ~~I promise I’ll try to be more on top of things~~ I think this is gonna be fun!

Zepheera-Vision — The Vanishing Box

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Her heart raced as she contemplated her next
move. The man frightened her at the deepest of levels based on his size alone.
This place was certainly large enough for her to find a place to make a home
for herself without his knowledge, but was she prepared for the consequences if
he found her out? And what if she just introduced herself right how? Would he
be angry with her for stowing away?

Her questions were answered soon enough. The
man fiddled with a few controls and the room felt like someone picked it up and
shook it like a snow globe. Zepheera cried out on surprise as her feet slipped
through the grating of the floor, but she managed to catch herself before she
fell through. The movement stopped and she was able to pull herself up to hang
from her underarms.

Her panic rose when the floor vibrated around
her. She scrambled to get up and away, but something snagged her by the waist.
A scream caught in her throat as she was lifted swiftly into the air, dangling
in front of a striking blue frown.

“Who the hell are you?” he
demanded, dropping Zepheera into his other palm. “How long have you been
on my ship? This is not an intergalactic taxi service, you know!”

Zepheera scrambled to her feet, clutching her
bag tightly against her stomach. Despite the scare and his indignant tone, he
wasn’t angry enough to do away with her and be done with it. He was listening,
perhaps on some level curious. Taking a deep breath between short, panicked
ones, she hoped he would hear her out.

“I h-haven’t been here long, I just
s-saw your box disappear and–”

“You’ve packed,” he observed, his
frown deepening as his eyes softened the tiniest fraction.

Zepheera looked down at her overflowing
messenger bag, feeling her neck heating up in embarrassment. She’d filled with
everything that mattered to her in the world, all on a stupid whim. But a
glance up at the man told her he expected an answer. “I thought…maybe I
could disappear, too.”

“…Do you not know who I am? Or where you
are?”

She studied her shoes and shook her head no.

He was quiet for a moment. Once Zepheera
broke eye contact, she was hesitant to make it again. Then the man was on the
move, the sudden motion knocking her to her knees. When everything settled down
again, his hand was hovering above the strange-looking surface of the center
structure. Taking this as a good sign, she hopped right off, glad to be on
solid ground again.

“Let’s talk,” said the man as he
took an old seat across from Zepheera. “I reckon we got off on the wrong foot.
I’m the Doctor. And you are?”

His more casual position helped Zepheera
relax a tad, and she released her iron grip on her bag. “Zepheera,”
she replied

The borrower and the Time Lord had a good
long talk. The Doctor explained that he was an alien and this place was a ship
that could travel through time and space. Zepheera told him about her father,
her brother, her husband; as much as she felt comfortable revealing to a total
stranger, which wasn’t much. The unspoken conclusion they both drew at the end
was the undoubted loneliness of the other.

“Do you want to come with me?” The Doctor blurted when Zepheera had
finished.

She stared at him in shock for a moment. She
hadn’t expected to be invited along, but if he was seriously
offering…

“What, run around the universe
throughout time and space with a strange alien in leather?” She smirked.
“Why the hell not.”

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

Zepheera-Vision Prologue 2/2 — The Vanishing Box

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Wandering London for hours had been nerve-wracking enough. Then the shop-window dummies came to life and wreaked havoc upon the pedestrians of London and began destroying everything. It was all a blur to Zepheera, who managed to find safety in an alley. She huddled against a brick wall, waiting for the minor burns on her arms to heal. By that time, much of the noise in the distance had died down, replaced by ambulance and police sirens. Was it over?

Then another noise filled the air, a wheezing groan that inexplicably lifted Zepheera’s heart with hope. A breeze that hadn’t been there before billowed the borrower’s short, dark hair as she watched the same blue box from before appear. Her eyes were wide as the doors creaked open and Mickey stumbled out, followed by Rose Tyler herself calmly exiting and phoning someone.

The opportunity was there, and Zepheera took it. Clutching her messenger bag, she ran full tilt for the open door and slipped past the approaching feet with ease.

Her heart nearly stopped at the sight of the inside of the box. It was much too large for an ordinary police box, and much too…amazing. Zepheera had never seen anything like it in her 78 years.

She hardly acknowledged the mystery man standing in the doorway as she ascended the slight ramp up to the center structure of the room. It glowed with a warm blue-green light that made Zepheera forget about her troubles. She couldn’t explain it, but something about this place felt right. Like home.

The slam of the shut door broke her out of her thoughts, and she turned to find herself face-to-face with the man’s approaching foot. Quickly dodging out of the way, Zepheera took shelter against the nearest coral-like support and pressed her back to it, staring up at the man’s towering form.

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Zepheera-Vision Prologue — The Vanishing Box

((Bit of a detour. ~~Since yesterday was 9/9 and I meant to do this earlier but move-in and school and aahhhh.~~ Anyway, here’s the beginning of something new))

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

London, 2005

For the most part, Zepheera loved living in
the Tyler household. Only two humans, aside from the mother Jackie’s occasional
gentleman caller. She was much more energetic than her daughter, Rose, who
spent most of the day at her job in a shop in town. It was relatively quiet,
the humans were predictable and often distracted. No better place for a
borrower.

Yet, deep down, Zepheera longed for the days
of her youth. Not being able to physically age certainly did not mean she
didn’t feel old every now and then, though nowadays it was
quite a common feeling for her. She missed being nineteen with a boyfriend, not
knowing what the future would hold and frankly not caring. It seemed to her
that Rose Tyler had settled on the life that Zepheera would give anything to
have back. And here they were: both stuck in the Powell Estate with no
prospects whatsoever.

Zepheera supposed, if she were human-sized
rather than four and a half inches tall (or vice versa), she and Rose Tyler
might be kindred spirits. But for now, neither Tyler knew of Zepheera’s
existence and it was going to stay that way.

Then one night, her sleep was disturbed by an
unusual commotion out in the humans’ part if the house. Lots of loud talking,
telly blaring something awful, and constant vibrations betraying the giant
being’s every movement. As her head cleared, Zepheera decided that something
important and worth checking out was going on. So she trudged through her many
passages and lifts through the walls until she could enter a small vent high up
the wall in the main area of the house. She could see everything and nobody
could see her.

Rose was sitting numbly on the couch while
her mother paced the room with the telephone, calling each and every one of her
friends about what had happened to her daughter. According to her and the
television, Rose’s shop had exploded. Police were investigating and Jackie was
raving about demands for compensation.

When Rose’s boyfriend Mickey showed up,
Zepheera gathered that the worst was over. She’d heard enough to know what to
expect in the morning. Rose wouldn’t be going out tomorrow, but she might mope
around enough for Zepheera to make a short supply run. She had enough food to
last her a while if worst came to worst.

The last thing she saw or heard as she turned
to go back to bed was Rose sending Mickey off with a plastic arm.

She spent the next morning determining which
foods in her meager pantry would go bad sooner if she didn’t eat them right
away when a new male voice rang through the house. She couldn’t hear what he
was saying from inside the walls, but she immediately abandoned her chore to
investigate this newcomer, grabbing her
borrowing equipment on the way out. She’d need to know if this man was going to
be around often or not.

He was very odd to watch, she found as she
peered down from her usual vent. While Rose made him coffee, he wandered the
entire room touching everything: he commented on a tabloid, flipped through a
book and declared it had a sad ending, and made a mess of a deck of playing
cards. Zepheera pitied Rose, who was trying to make conversation with this man
who was clearly not paying much attention to her.

Then talk of the police arose, at least from
Rose’s end, and Zepheera honed in on her speech. It was hard to tell, but it
seemed like Rose knew that the man was somehow involved with
the destruction of her job.

Everything happened so fast after that. The
mystery man was attacked by the plastic arm from then night before, and then it
turned on Rose. The man disabled it with some kind of device, a tube-like thing
with a glowing blue light on the end, and before anyone knew it, he was off.

Zepheera raced down the wall to her entrance
to the room as fast as she could. Jackie was busy blowing her hair and getting
ready for the day, so the borrower had an ever-shortening window of time to
make it to the window. By the time she’d climbed up, Rose and the man were
walking swiftly away. She lost them behind the garages for a few minutes, but
she watched the man stride away from Rose toward a blue box. Zepheera
recognized it as a police public call box, but she hadn’t seen one since the
sixties.

Before she could even wonder about it, the
man shut the door and the box disappeared. Vanished into thin air. Zepheera
stood gaping open-mouthed at the empty spot where it used to be until she saw
Rose returning to the Powell Estate and she knew her time was up.

Zepheera high-tailed it back to her humble
home in the walls and immediately began packing. For years she’d dreamed of
something different, something to take her away from everything that reminded
her of her mistakes and regrets. She never belonged, she only stayed. Maybe the
mysterious man could be the answer to the prayers she never dared to say.

Things didn’t just vanish into thin air, so
that man and his vanishing box had to be somewhere. And if it was the last
thing she ever did, if it took a hundred years, Zepheera was going to find it.

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

Commissioned Art

creatorofuniverses:

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!

Ao3 | Tumblr | Ask me questions! Send me prompts!

Helping Hands — Part 3/3

((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

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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.”

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Zepheera-Vision — Watson

Prologue

“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.

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

Helping Hands — Part 2/3

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

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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.”

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Zepheera-Vision — Bit Hot

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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