Prompt: Blood

EEEEVIIIIIL ;o; Why can’t you people just let my characters be happy??

Oh, who am I kidding, they were always meant to be like this ;w;

This is another insight to an otherwise unseen character in my main story. Not an excerpt, just a sneak peek into the tortured past of my OC.

In reference to this list of one-word prompts. Feel free to send me one!

16. Blood

“Come on, slowpoke!” Zepheera hissed over her shoulder. “You almost caught me that time!”

“Sissy-y-y!” whined Kernel as he ran after his big sister, whose name was too complex for the four-year-old to pronounce.

Zepheera simply giggled and carried on jogging through the underbelly of the house. She and her brother played this chasing game almost every time they snuck out of their little home in the walls. And every time Kernel would claim that Zepheera had the unfair
advantage, being much older than him at the age of eleven. But she knew that being able to run well was an important skill for a growing borrower to develop, so she insisted upon the game.

She did, however, try to make it easier for him until he got big enough to be able to contest with her. She ran slower so he could catch her, as well as to give him a fair chance at running away from her. She would dodge and weave around the piles of brick and sawdust left over from when the building was made to improve his motor skills and reflexes.

He’ll be a great borrower someday, she’d think at the end of their games. And I’ll have helped.

A cry of distress behind Zepheera made her skid to a stop and whirl around. Kernel had tripped and fallen hard on the dirty concrete, and his shoulders shook with stifled sobs. Even he, who had been babied by their mother, knew how important it was to keep as quiet as possible, no matter what.

Zepheera rushed to his side and helped him sit up. He had dust all in his strawberry-blond mop, and his buttery eyes shone with tears. His right forearm had been scraped from the elbow to halfway up, seemingly from a sharp rock. Crimson blood stood out starkly against the boy’s fair skin.

Kernel whimpered when Zepheera tried to wipe the blood away without so much as a blink. Her heart hurt when it heard his pain.

“It’s okay, Kern,” she whispered reassuringly, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “It’s only a scrape.”

“S-s-stings,” Kernel sniffled burying his face in his sister’s shirt.

Zepheera wrapped a comforting arm around Kernel’s shoulders, but it took her a minute to figure out why he was so upset. Could it really be that this was his first time getting hurt? Looking back, i wasn’t that impossible. Their mother had made certain that Kernel was safe inside their home. Zepheera supposed that now was as good a time as any to
teach her little brother how to handle pain.

“Well, it won’t for long,” she promised. “Know why?”

Kernel shook his head no.

Zepheera covered the scrape with her hand, eliciting a wince from the boy. “Because in a few seconds, it’ll be gone.”

The boy’s eyes grew large at his sister’s confident assertion. “R-really?”

“You bet,” Zepheera gave him her biggest smile. “Ready? One…two…three!”

The sight of the intact scrape wiped the smile from Zepheera’s face and the wonder from Kernel’s. His shoulders started shaking again, and Zepheera hugged him tighter.

“I-it’s okay,” she insisted. Why didn’t it work? “That’s…that’s normal. I promise.”

Is it just me?

All her life, Zepheera’s wounds would always disappear. Bruises faded within hours, if they ever formed at all, and cuts and scrapes like this were easy-peasy. No one had ever explained to her that that was out of the ordinary. She’d never seen her uncle get hurt, nor her mother, but her mother had certainly seen her heal.

Her mother had been the cause of all her pain in the past.

But for now, Zepheera had to push that aside and get help for her brother.

“C’mon, Kernel,” she cooed, lifting him into her arms as she stood. “Let’s go find Uncle Boston. He’ll know what to do.”

She felt his head shake no against her shoulder. “M-mummy… I want mummy,” he moaned pitifully.

Zepheera let out a long sigh. She’d hoped to delay confronting her mother and stepfather about this for as long as possible. But she couldn’t find it in her heart to say no to Kernel, so she started home.

For a moment, she thought about what she might say to her mother about what happened. ‘It was an accident’, ‘I should have been watching him’; but she quickly realized that it didn’t matter what she said. Nothing would alleviate whatever punishment their mother chose for her. Ever since Kernel had been born, Zepheera’s mother had never laid a hand on her in anger. But now Zepheera was responsible for her baby boy being hurt.

She wondered if, for the first time in three years, she would see blood tonight.

Prompt: Evanesce

Hope you were expecting angst! (though honestly, how could you not with a word like ‘evanesce’ xD)

This is actually a bit of a sneak peek into a future plot point for my main story. It’s not an excerpt, but it’s a little look into an otherwise unseen character whose story will be told soon.

In reference to this list of one-word prompts. Feel free to send me one!

It was the cold that drew Orrick Shelf from sleep. The bed he shared with his wife was always warm when he woke up. If she was awake before him, she waited for him so they could make, or in some cases find breakfast together.

So he was confused when he groggily reached a hand to her side of the bed to find it empty.

He sat up in bed, wrapping the blanket tightly around himself as his head cleared of the fog of sleep. Rubbing his bright blue eyes, he distantly wondered where his wife could be. A quick look around the room told him it was empty. Just like the bed.

With the blanket still draped over his shoulders, he got up and checked the storeroom just adjacent to the bedroom. Still there was no sign of his wife. None of the food had even been touched.

The kitchen and sitting rooms turned up empty as well. By then Orrick was fully awake and worried.

Then he remembered. His wife would sometimes go borrowing on her own. She’d never done it this early in the morning, but on many occasions Orrick would wake up from a nap to a note on her pillow explaining where she’d gone. Maybe she had done the same here. After all, if she was out in the humans’ territory of the house, she must be dead-set on getting something.

A wave of relief swept over Orrick when he returned to the bedroom and saw a slip of paper on the pillow. He sighed heavily, shaking his head at his own inattention. It was with a smile that he picked up and unfolded the note, a little excited to hear about what was so important as to warrant such an early borrowing.

His smile melted and ice shot through his gut as he read the mere two words scratched onto the scrap of paper.

I’m sorry

He frowned, rereading and turning the note over to ensure she’d left him nothing else. What the hell does that mean?

Orrick’s heart was racing, blood roaring in his ears. She couldn’t… She wouldn’t! He simply could not conceive a plausible reason for the love of his life to vanish into thin air!

He ran from room to room, this time calling her name almost nonstop. He got dressed and spent the entire day checking every safe square inch of the house, and all night he searched the humans’ rooms, hoping beyond hope.

In the end, he returned to the home that now only belonged to him. Exhausted, but he couldn’t bear to sleep. Hungry, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat. He dropped his gear off near the door and sat wearily in the nearest chair.

Running his hands through his sharp red hair, he willed himself to pull it together. He couldn’t afford to wallow in misery over his wife’s disappearance. He could almost hear her now, repeating the words she would always say when they went through rough times. It’s okay. We can survive this.

Surviving was a far cry from understanding. It just didn’t make sense. They were happy, always had been. He hadn’t been treating her any differently recently than he had in all the time he knew her – and even if he had without realizing it, she would let him know in no uncertain terms. In hindsight, his wife had seemed a bit distracted the last few days, but nothing she’d said or done even remotely hinted at her intentions to leave.

Orrick let out a long breath and hugged his knees close to his chest. None of that mattered. Looking into the past would do nothing to change the fact that his wife was gone. And she seemed to have done so willingly, leaving no hint as to a reason why or an intention to ever come back.

Zepheera may have disappeared, but his love for her would never evanesce.

Prompt: Shoulder Angel

As you can tell by the icon, this was prompted about a month ago ^^; Sorry for how late this is, but I finally got around to it! Hope you enjoy! (I assume you meant the episode with van Gogh, cuz I don’t remember an episode with da Vinci)

BTaS Canon: No
Episode: Vincent and the Doctor
Doctor(s): Eleventh Doctor
Companion(s): Zepheera, Amy Pond, Vincent Van Gogh

A shriek split the quiet of the night.

“Amy!” The Doctor jumped up out of his chair and ran out back, Vincent following closely behind.

Meeting Vincent van Gogh had been a bizarre experience, for Zepheera especially. Unlike the Doctor and Amy, she wasn’t allowed to interact with him. The Doctor had insisted on taking precaution when traveling back in time to meet the renowned painter, who had the potential to be unstable or volatile, a potential threat to the four and a half inch tall woman.

She had already been wearing a perception filter attached to a TARDIS key on their visit to the Musée d’Orsay to avoid being seen by the humans there, so she kept it on for their journey back in time. The borrower kept to the Doctor’s shoulder, observing and occasionally whispering in the Doctor’s ear when she couldn’t keep a comment or suggestion to herself. While this allowed her to see the living legend of van Gogh up close and almost personal, it did mean she had to silently endure endless van Gogh puns and flirtatious conversations between the present humans that consisted primarily of remarks about their hair color.

At first, Zepheera wondered if this precaution had been an overreaction. Vincent seemed quite level-headed, albeit eccentric. Once or twice during the initial conversation with her companions and Vincent, the borrower almost thought Vincent was looking right at her. But a second later he’d be looking elsewhere, and Zepheera reminded herself that that was impossible. He was nervous, meeting new people and used to people mocking him. His eyes shifted and jumped around whenever he wasn’t talking to Amy.

On the other hand, after the painter had his evening coffee, he became nearly manic. Not violent necessarily, but he lost all sense of volume control and said whatever came to mind. He had been ranting about colors speaking to him when they all heard Amy scream.

Zepheera flattened herself against the Doctor’s tweed jacket as he rushed into the garden out back, calling Amy’s name repeatedly. They found her in a heap on the ground, breathing hard and looking around frantically.

“What happened?” asked the Doctor, following his human companion’s gaze.

“I dunno, I didn’t see it,” Amy gasped. “I was just having a look at some of the paintings out here when something hit me from behind.”

The Doctor nodded. “It’s okay, it’s gone now. We’re here.”

Suddenly Vincent gave a shout that made Zepheera jump. The Doctor tried to calm him down, raising his own voice to be heard over Vincent’s continued cries. All the noise overwhelmed Zepheera, and she clapped her hands over her ears. This succeeded in dampening the volume a little, but also eliminated any coherency in the massive speech. So she scanned the area to try and figure out what was going on through observation.

Vincent’s eyes were wide, utterly terrified, and he held a defensive hand between him and the Doctor. But he was looking past the Doctor, Zepheera realized. She whirled around, and the sight made her heart race.

“Doctor!” she called desperately as the enormous, horrifying creature before her crept toward the Doctor and Amy. A warning about the monster caught in her throat as the Doctor moved sharply aside, and her hands flew from her ears to grip the jacket again. Her eyes widened even more when she saw that Vincent was charging the beast with some kind of pitchfork.

“Doctor, what’s happening?” Amy demanded.

“I don’t know,” said the Doctor, perplexed and concerned.

Vincent swung the pitchfork toward the creature until it backed into a wall, then bounded off into a more shadowy area of the garden. “Run!” he urged, waving for Amy and the Doctor to get away.

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea,” muttered the Doctor as he carefully approached Vincent. “Amy, get back! He’s having some kind of fit!”

Zepheera, who had lost sight of the creature at the same time as Vincent, stopped searching for it to frown at the Doctor. Had he not seen the monstrous being?

Unless he couldn’t. Borrowers like Zepheera had developed heightened senses of perception over the years; she had seen things that even the Doctor was unable to in the past. For whatever reason, Vincent had to be an exception because he definitely saw the creature.

The Doctor tried to talk Vincent down when the painter held his weapon at the ready, awaiting the creature’s next move. A growl to the right caught Zepheera’s ear, and she turned to find a massive tail preparing to strike the Doctor from behind.

“Doctor, duck left!” The Time Lord glanced to the right, confused when he saw nothing, but he followed Zepheera’s instructions and dodged to the left. He moved about a half second too late and got clipped on his right arm as the tail swung at him, and he was still knocked off-balance. But now he could no longer deny that there was something there.

The Doctor brandished a stick of his own and, with Zepheera’s help, he and Vincent managed to drive the creature away.

“It’s gone, Vincent confirmed.

The Doctor nodded, tossing aside his stick. “Excellent. Good work, Vincent.”

With an eyebrow raised at the Doctor, Vincent said, “You couldn’t see it, could you Doctor?”

“Yes! …Well, okay, no, but–” the Doctor sputtered.

“It’s alright,” Vincent assured, setting down his pitchfork. They started toward Amy, intent on going back inside. “In any case, you’re a lucky man. You might have been hurt were it not for your shoulder angel protecting you.”

The Doctor froze and Zepheera stiffened. “My what?” asked the Doctor.

“Your shoulder angel,” Vincent repeated, smiling at Zepheera. “I’ve been watching her guide you all night.”

Zepheera flushed. He could see me the entire time.

Vincent continued as they walked. “To be honest, she was quite a shock to see. But since I’ve never seen anything like her on the shoulders of the people in this town, and you offered to help me, I chose to take it as a sign. Perhaps your visit will do me some good after all.”

Thanks for the prompt @elitefourstevonnie!

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

Zepheera-Vision — I Know That Face

Previously: [1] [2]

After reuniting with Clara, Zepheera opted to ride on her shoulder to avoid further conflict with her Doctors. Her shoulder was slimmer than either of theirs, but as long as she kept still and steady it wasn’t so bad. If she ever moved around too much, there was plenty of Clara’s hair within Zepheera’s reach. A little yank would do Clara less harm than a fall would do the borrower.

It was bizarre for Zepheera to bear witness to the wedding of the Tenth Doctor and Queen Elizabeth I, but it wasn’t nearly as awkward for her as it was for his other incarnations. Clara was enthusiastically supportive, a feeling that Zepheera just couldn’t replicate. She didn’t know that version of the Doctor like Zepheera did.

The second it was over, Ten rushed to his TARDIS and the others followed suit. Zepheera was hit with a pang of nostalgia at the sight of his desktop theme, but with three Doctors in one TARDIS, it didn’t last. The theme kept glitching between their personal versions, finally settling on Eleven’s.

“Right then!” he clapped his hands together. “London Tower, here we come!”

“No!” Clara interjected, making Zepheera flinch in surprise. She tugged on one of Clara’s brown locks to remind the human of her proximity to the noise she made. Biting back a wince, Clara continued in a lower tone.

“UNIT HQ,” she insisted. She’d been there with the Zygons as they took over the facility, using an old Vortex Manipulator to travel back in time to meet up with the Doctors. “They followed us there in the Black Archive.”

All three Doctors stopped what they were doing to turn toward Clara with grave expressions.

“Uh-oh,” Zepheera murmured. “I know that face. Triple that face can’t be good.”

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Stuck in the Middle

BTaS Canon: No
Episode: Day of the Doctor
Doctor(s): Tenth, Eleventh, and War Doctors
Companions: Zepheera

Previously

Zepheera had resigned herself to keep quiet while the two most recent incarnations of the Doctor rode out the novelty of being together with their four and a half inch tall companion. Ten, who hadn’t met Zepheera yet in his timeline, kept trying to surreptitiously learn about what was in store for him and the borrower. She or Eleven, depending on who spoke first, would always answer these types of questions with the word “Spoilers,” and Ten would moan about how the timelines were “too wibbly and I won’t remember anyway!” This only earned him a shrug and elicited a short-lived pout.

Zepheera hadn’t realized how much she had missed that pout.

Eventually the youngest incarnation of the Doctor insisted that they should be making some progress with the whole Zygon-invasion-and-painting-of-Gallifrey problem. The other two conceded and stood in unison. Zepheera got to her feet as well, throwing her single-strapped rucksack over her shoulder.

She turned to find two upturned hands in front of her, both acting as platform for her to climb on. When she looked up, the Doctors were staring each other down.

“Back off, Sandshoes!” hissed the Eleventh Doctor, nudging his counterpart away. “She’s not your companion yet!”

“Exactly! You can spend all the time you like with her, and I wanna know what I have to look forward to! I’m dying for a sneak peek.” Ten exclaimed.

Zepheera bit back a cringe at his phrasing.

Eleven shot back, “You haven’t met her yet. She hasn’t had time to properly train you up.”

“Oh, come on, you know she’s not the first life form her size I’ve encountered!”

“Well it’s different when you live with one, and take it from me who took it from her, you are a shrugger!”

This took the Tenth Doctor aback. He glanced between his future self and his future companion. “I am?” he asked, sounding subdued.

Eleven nodded emphatically. “And a fidgeter.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” sighed the War Doctor, waiting semi-patiently as the other two squabbled. “You fools are arguing over the lady as though she isn’t here! If anyone’s going to decide who she goes along with, it should be her.”

Ten and Eleven shared a sheepish look and nodded, mumbling apologies to Zepheera. They stood quietly, waiting for the borrower to make her choice.

Zepheera smiled gratefully at the War Doctor, who nodded once in return. He was an enigmatic one, that much was certain, but he seemed just as sweet and caring as the Doctors she knew and loved. She made a mental note to find some time alone with him later, sit down and get to know the Doctor before she knew him.

But for now, she had a decision to make. After a short moment of deliberation, she took a deep breath and approached Eleven. He clapped his hands triumphantly before offering her one to climb onto. Ten sighed but accepted Zepheera’s choice. As Eleven lifted her to his shoulder, she shot Ten an apologetic look.

“You are fidgety. And a shrugger,” she admitted. Ten nodded, barely suppressing a pout at Eleven’s smug look.

A small smirk tugged at Zepheera’s lip. “To your credit, though, you did train up faster than this one.”

Ten snorted and Eleven’s jaw dropped in indignation. “Oh, thanks a lot there, pipsqueak! Let’s just go already.”

“Finally,” muttered the War Doctor.

As they were leaving, Ten crept up behind Eleven and softly asked Zepheera, “How on Earth do you even stay up there with, y’know…” He rubbed his chin, raising a questioning eyebrow at the small woman.

“He slouches,” hissed Zepheera in reply, twisting around to wink conspiratorially at Ten.

“Oh, leave off, you two!” grumbled Eleven.

Ten smirked. “I have a feeling I like you, Zepheera.”

“I should hope so,” she said, facing front again before he could catch the hint of sadness that made it into her smile and eyes.

I’ve missed you.

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Zepheera-Vision — Time and a Crayon

Preface

Zepheera clung to the tweed of the Doctor’s jacket as he fell down a stranger’s chimney. As if to distract herself from the utter terror of free-falling inside a giant man’s pocket, a stray thought floated through the back of the borrower’s mind – At least it’s warm…

And seconds before the Doctor landed, it got very warm indeed. His intrusive body knocked a load of soot loose from the chimney’s shaft, and it all came down on top of the quaint fire burning in the fireplace, quenching it just as the Doctor rolled out and jumped to his feet, coughing and patting away at the black soot that covered him from head to toe.

Somewhere in the landing, Zepheera got dislodged from the Doctor’s coat, and with the security of his hand against her suddenly lost, she flew right out of his pocket onto the newly-blackened floor. She lay there dazed as the Doctor addressed the small crowd of humans – or at least, human-like people. If there was one thing traveling through time and space with an alien taught Zepheera, it was to never make assumptions.

“Ah. Yes! Blimey.” The Doctor’s hand went instantly to his pocket to check on his companion. When there was a distinct lack of a borrower there, he scoured the floor until he found her a few feet to his right. She was just recovering, pulling herself to stand. Satisfied that she was alright, he turned back to the other people in the room. “Sorry. Christmas Eve on a rooftop, saw a chimney, my whole brain just went ‘What the hell’!”

While the Doctor carried on rambling about Father Christmas and Frank Sinatra, Zepheera shook the soot out of her clothes and short, dark hair and assessed the room. There was an old, grouchy-looking man with two men standing behind him; Zepheera guessed they were guards, servants, or both. Then there stood a poor family consisting of what looked like a grandmother, a father, and two children. At least some of them were human, this she knew thanks to the slight ache in the joints of her elbows and ankles that always flared up around when humans were around. In any case, she was much too greatly outnumbered by people who were more than a dozen times her own height.

Tearing her deep violet gaze away from the gathering of giants, Zepheera’s attention was drawn to a large, almost organ-like machine in the corner. She made straight for it, digging her hook and line out of her trusty rucksack. With practiced motion, she tossed it high up and it caught on one of the many flashing buttons. She made short work of climbing up the homemade rope, risking a look over her shoulder halfway up.

The Doctor was doing what he did best, distracting and confounding the humans in the room. Only the children seemed unfazed by his antics, even amused by them. And it didn’t take them long to notice the four and a half inch tall woman dashing across the floor and climbing onto the console. But they kept quiet about her, and Zepheera had to commend them for that.

She hauled herself up and made straight for the center of the console. Some of the buttons and switches were labelled, but nothing directly indicated which one would either shut the whole thing down or coax the skies into saving the ship that Amy and Rory were crashing in. She made an educated guess and pushed down on one of the buttons.

It gave a non-committal buzz, but nothing happened otherwise. She tried again, to no avail.

“Doctor!” she called, hoping he could make sense of this baffling machine.

The Time Lord whirled around and gravitated toward the controls immediately. “Ooh! Now, what’s this then? I love this! Big flashy lighty thing, that’s what brought me here!” He ran his fingers along the buttons around and above Zepheera, teeming with excitement. “Big flashy lighty things have got me written all over them! Not actually. Give me time and a crayon.”

“Do not give him a crayon!” Zepheerea emphasized as the Doctor sat down in the nearby chair and spun it around until his back was facing her. She took the opportunity to jump back onto his shoulder, feeling slightly more confident now that she was in her usual place. Here, the Doctor would make sure that no harm came to her.

As it turned out, the controls reacted to the Doctor in the exact same way. No amount of sonicing the interface would change the fact that Zepheera and the Doctor’s only hope of saving the Ponds was for a very bad man, the only person who could manipulate the controls and the clouds, to suddenly turn nice just in time for Christmas day.

This was all sounding a little…familiar to Zepheera.

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Zepheera-Vision — A Tight Fit

“See anything yet, Zepheera?”

The borrower in question rolled her eyes as the felt a series of rumbles through the hardwood floor that seemed to indicate the Doctor was crouching down to check on her already. It had only been a few seconds since she’d been sent down into this small gap to investigate for clues. A glance over her shoulder gave her a narrow view of her Time Lord flattened on the ground with one eye shut tight and the opposite eyebrow raised high, as though it would give him a greater insight on Zepheera’s perspective.

“Doctor, we’ve been over this, you can’t fit down here.”

“Yeah, but I can’t help being curious!” he declared defensively. “Last place anybody sees the big old mysterious being is disappearing through this tiny little gap, which should be impossible given its size!”

Depending on how it had been done, such a change might have left behind some sort of residue that would assist the pair of time travelers in knowing what exactly they were up against. On the other hand, if the person or creature had simply made themselves smaller, then Zepheera could be at risk where she now stood.

Well, more like crouched. Even for her, standing at four and a half inches tall, it was a bit of a tight fit. In any case, the Doctor had to be ready to help her despite the fact that his hand wouldn’t be able to reach more than a few inches into such a small space.

Zepheera bit back a huff, placing her hands on her hips as she backed away from the Doctor. They’d been together for months doing this exact kind of thing on a near daily basis, and she’d thought the Doctor trusted her more than what he seemed to be demonstrating. But just as she was about to tell him exactly what she thought, she felt and heard her foot sink into some gelatinous mystery fluid with a sickening squelch. She jumped away from it with a cry of disgust, shaking as much of it off her foot as possible.

“Found something,” she muttered to the Doctor through a clenched jaw.

Zepheera-Vision — Her Business

“But what is she?” asked one of the scientists to the Doctor in an aside.

The Time Lord looked up from the sample he was examining through a microscope at the woman in a white coat addressing him, glancing at the shelf on the other side of the room where his four-inch-tall companion stood scrutinizing racks of test tubes. They knew one of them was wrong, and she volunteered to find out which out of the 75 tubes it was since her eyes wouldn’t tire as easily as any of the human scientists’ would looking at the miniscule labels.

Turning back to the scientist, he gave a sniff and replied, “I rather think that’s her business to share, not mine. Although,” he added as he focused back on the microscope, “to be fair, if you asked she probably wouldn’t tell you.”

“And why’s that?” the scientist hissed, sounding affronted.

“Cause you’re human!” exclaimed the Doctor, not bothering to look up from the microscope this time. “Would you trust somebody who looks as big as you do to her right off?”

Her gaze wandered over to the impossibly tiny woman still searching tirelessly through the test tubes, and she heaved a resigned sigh. She supposed she wouldn’t. Rather than admit that, however, she pressed on. “But she trusts you, and you’re taller than I am!”

“Well, you’ve got me there.” The Doctor straightened to his full height–a full head taller than the female scientist–adjusting his crisp royal blue suit. “Little over sixteen times her height, I’m surely terrifying. In’t that right, Zepheera?”

His tiny companion’s head snapped up at the mention of her name, only to find the Doctor crossing the room right toward the shelf she was standing on. After all this time, it still blew her mind how fast someone so large could move.

“I’m just as scary as any mean ol’ human, eh?” he smirked, pulling a teasingly startling ‘rawr’ face close to the eye-level shelf as he passed the borrower and moved on to fetch whatever he was after.

Zepheera flinched at the sudden lack of space, but shot an exasperated look through the back of her friend’s head. She went about her business, muttering about what a giant ten-year-old her Time Lord was as she worked.

Zepheera-Vision — Backseat Driver

“Must you drive with your feet?” complained Zepheera as she clung to a hopefully useless doodad on the console, eyeing the red Chuck Taylor that had landed a little too close for comfort. “Not to be rude or anything, I just can’t help but feel slightly at risk here!”

“Oh, always the backseat drivers…” the Doctor muttered through clenched teeth. But he peered through the loops of cable at Zepheera, careful to know where she was at all times in order to avoid…incidents, he thought with a glance at his shoe. “For your information, it takes six pilots to fly this ship properly, and considering I failed my test, I think I manage quite well, thanks very–!”

He was cut off when a rumble of turbulence shook the TARDIS. With the extra leverage of his propped-up foot, the Doctor managed to keep his balance. Zepheera was not quite so lucky, as the tremor was much greater to her. Her feet were thrown out from under her and she slipped over the edge of the raised section of the console that she had thought for sure would be safer. As her grip tightened on her handhold to prevent her from being thrown off the console altogether, she reconsidered her chain of logic.

“Zepheera?” called the Doctor after losing sight of his four-inch-tall companion. He hurried around to the panel where he’d last seen her, letting out a relieved breath when she appeared unhurt. Even so, while his left hand turned a crank and several dials, his right scooped up Zepheera and lifted her to his shoulder. “How ‘bout we try this?” It was still early days for the pair of them, and neither had ever lived so closely with someone of such a dramatic size difference before.

But they were learning. Zepheera didn’t have time to be cross about being picked up without warning because the Doctor was already on the move. She clung to his collar as the Time Lord dashed about, and through trial and error she found a stable position in shoving her legs under his lapel and anchoring her feet against his neck.

Once she felt secure, Zepheera actually thought this wasn’t so bad. Sure, riding on a giant’s shoulder was nerve-wracking, not to mention he moved at a borderline dizzying rate. But at least up here, she wouldn’t have to worry about any flying converse.

Zepheera-Vision — Cats (4/4)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

In the depths of the TARDIS, a black and white tuxedo cat lounged on a table. It had just woken up from a three-hour nap and thoroughly groomed itself when a small grey tabby kitten appeared in front of it, drawing its attention. The kitten mewed at the cat, crying for help as it was lifted even higher. The cat watched lazily as the man underneath the kitten slowly straightened and removed the kitten from his head, staring at the cat owlishly as he did so.

This room, as well as several others throughout the TARDIS, was crawling with cats of varying ages and breeds, the younger ones nipping at the Doctor’s ankles while the older ones kept a nonchalant eye on the Time Lord. Such had been the state of the TARDIS for about a week.

“Doctor!” a hushed voice rang out somewhere above his head. His eyes darted around looking for the source, ending the staring contest between him and the cat–which he rather resembled in his black suit and white button-down.

“Up here!” the voice hissed again, leading him to look up at the air vent high up in the wall above the table. Seeing who was calling him, the Doctor grinned without reaching his eyes.

“Zepheera!” exclaimed the Time Lord, shifting the kitten in his hands to a shoulder as he climbed up onto the table. This put him at perfect eye level with the vent.

“I haven’t seen you in days!” he remarked, seemingly emotionally unaffected by this fact. “How’ve you been? Are you eating well?” He stuck his fingers through the slats, as though trying to reach the very small woman inside the vent, but they were too big to make it past their second joints. But the borrower, all four and a half inches of her, would make quick work of the small space, he thought absently.

Zepheera scrambled back a few inches deeper into the vent at the approach of his digits. “Don’t do that!” she scolded, masking her fear.

The Doctor blinked slowly, a slight frown pinching just above glazed eyes. The fingers withdrew until their tips rested at the bottom of the vent’s opening, allowing him a place to rest his chin as he peered into the vent. “Zepheera, what’s the matter?”

She had to bite back a scoff at that. It should’ve been rather obvious to him why she was so wary, why she had spent the last few days hiding out in the depths of a ship she’d come to call home, sneaking food from the kitchens the few chances she got. If she were honest, a small part of her had missed living like this, like a proper borrower; but the illusion was broken by the need to hide from her best friend and the legion of cats he’d brought on board.

“I’ve contacted Torchwood,” she informed him rather than answering his question. “Captain Jack Harkness, you once told me he could be trusted. The TARDIS is set to pilot itself to their headquarters as soon as it receives their signal.”

“What’d you do that for?” asked the Doctor, more curious than concerned.

“Because I can’t very well fly this hunk of metal myself, can I?” Zepheera snapped, crossing her arms. “I’ve half a mind to make you teach me, once you’ve got half a mind.”

The Doctor tilted his head, clearly confused, and the little grey tabby mewed and crossed to his other shoulder.

“Look…You’re not yourself, Doctor,” she explained, placing her hands on her hips. “I don’t know if it’s the cats or the planet we were on or something else, but this isn’t you. And I just. Can’t. Handle this. Not on my own.”

For all her efforts to make him understand, she received a pair of big brown puppy-dog eyes in return. “No no, but the cats are friendly!” he insisted, breaking her heart a little more with each word. “I’m sure they’d be friends with you, too, if you’d just–”

He was cut off by the borrower suddenly lunging forward until her little fists slammed into the metal slats of the vent. The Doctor flinched back in surprise, blinking at her sudden outburst. Zepheera forced herself to slow her breathing, calm herself down, remind herself that it wasn’t the Doctor talking–not really.

“I would never befriend a cat!” she practically spat, venom coloring each word. “Not after what happened to Kernel…” Her voice trailed off at the mention of his name, and she squeezed her eyes shut to push back the memories and tears. He had only been ten years old…

“Your brother,” the Doctor replied at length.

Zepheera’s head snapped up. “Yes. You remember him, you remember me telling you about that!” Despite the grisly memories this situation had roused, Zepheera smiled for the first time in a week. “It’s still you.”

The Doctor didn’t respond; his brow was knit tightly together, as though he were trying to remember how exactly he knew what he’d said. Before he could even think about answering the borrower, the TARDIS rumbled and the familiar sound of the engines in flight rang throughout the beautiful machine.

“That’ll be Jack,” she remarked, backing away from the vent slowly. “I have to go. We’ll be there soon, and I’ve got to show them where you are.” Having warned him fairly, she turned to go.

“Wait!” the Doctor called after her. “Why won’t you come out? It’s all they want, and it’s all I want, so would you just…come out? Please? You don’t have to hide.”

Zepheera kept walking despite the chillingly familiar words, never once breaking her stride. “I’ll stop hiding once you understand why I have to.”

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