"Romana, do tell me, what exactly
is it about human nature you find to be so horrific?"
"Oh, everything, I should say. No priorities, irrationalities of emotions, constant need for attention, constant need for validation, incessant curiosity---"
"No, no, that's all right, if you have to list everything it will take far too long. Forget I asked."The conversation replays itself in his mind over and over, on a loop very like a broken record. It was his fourth incarnation, and her in her second. Odd, she was so very young in comparison to him. But then again, they always are, aren't they?
His fingertips brush across the frame of the picture in his hand. 13th century bronze, finely worked into leaves and roses. Thick wedges of grayish dust have implanted themselves between the creases of the leaves and along the innerworkings of the vines. An hour or two ago, he'd managed to memorize where every speck was on that frame, where every imperfection and dent sat looking at him in all their bronze glory. He'd paid too much for that frame—and it wasn't as nice, upon reflection—as he'd thought it was. But it was a birthday gift for a friend, and Gallifreyan birthdays don't come quite as often as Earth ones.
For a moment he tries to remember what year it would be on that planet, and what age she would be today.
It is the remembering, he figures, that make his eyes slip from the frame and onto the picture. The photograph itself is Gallifreyan material - thin, yet durable; supposedly it could survive any travesties that could possibly overtake a photograph. Naturally, however, it is age that has become its downfall, and the edges are curling up in the frame. A pair of old-looking blue eyes look back at him from her smiling face. A bit like swirling through the vastness of the void, or the ever-present wells of Tainoma—depths that one could easily fall into.
( It's just an object. )Muse: The Doctor (Ten)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 2,221