for magicalskeptic: A trip to the ocean

[rude_not_ginger]

"You wanted an ocean, have I got an ocean for you."

The Doctor darted around the console and scooped his jacket up from where it hung on one of the TARDIS pillars. He absolutely loved this bit. The first trip to an alien world with someone who didn't even believe in other worlds until now. Very little was more exciting.

"Now! We've got breathable atmosphere, low radiation, and a beautiful summer day. The waters of the Greeio Malgoon are purple in the summer, which is when they're the warmest and the safest. I'd have taken you to them in the winter when they're blue, but the water's acid content gets a bit high and ends up spewing out strange creatures with eyes that shoot lasers. Green lasers, they disintegrate you without much warning. Very technicolor world, the Greeo Malgoon."

He shrugged. "Still! In the summer, peak of tourist season, it's the most brilliant place for a visit."

Comments

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"And it's inside," the Doctor says, restating the obvious. He pulls out the sonic and points it to the ceiling, but the readouts aren't clear enough for him to make any sort of judgment.

A tinny music begins to play and he spins around, but a tiny ballerina music box on the side table has opened without warning, and a little robotic ballerina does a dance on the center of it while a tune the Doctor doesn't recognize plays around her.

It's not often the Doctor is chilled to his bone, but this place downright scares him.

"I think we should leave this room," he says, taking a cautious step back.

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

There is something under the bed -- a small book, pink with a silver lock on it, that Morgana reaches for when the music box starts playing. She only knows what it is because she was shown one elsewhere.

She grabs onto the book, and then looks at the Doctor, she's only ever seen him look frightened once before, when she was uncertain if he was mad, so his fear now is even more disturbing.

The snow under her knees chills her, and when she stands, the reddish colour left on the floor from the stains on her gown makes it look like something was slaughtered.

"Doctor, what is it?" The decor is horrific -- granted, she is used to tapestries and stone, but she needs to establish what exactly is so wrong that causes him to look scared.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Can't you feel it?" he asks, pacing the room. "Not just the atmosphere, not just the snow, something is wrong in this room, something is wrong in this place."

He reaches out to the robotic ballerina, but as his hand nears it, the music box stops playing. He looks back to the dolls. Did their heads move to look towards him.

"I know evil, Morgana. It's in this place."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Taking in the pink frills, and girlishness of the room, Morgana can admit to feeling uncomfortable with the pristine nature of a room filled with snow, but the evil of which the Doctor speaks is escaping her.

That is, until she's certain the dolls moved and the music stops.

She takes a step closer to him, and thus, closer to the exit. "This was under the bed." She holds out the small pink book with the lock. She would be unfamiliar as to what it might be. "Everything else is out in the open, so why try to hide this?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He looks at the book, then at her, surprised.

"What made you think to look under the bed?"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

When he does not take the book, she fiddles with the lock. At first, Morgana debates using her might-be-a-screwdriver, but the lock is so flimsy, it gives ways, with a slight tug.

"This is a child's room. Did you not ever hide things, or even yourself under a bed as a child?" Morgana, for her time, was lucky enough to always have a bed, but knows that is not the case for everyone. "That is, unless you did not have a bed." Sometimes the realities of her rank make her sound a bit unintentionally pompous.

As she speaks, she's flipping through the pages, only to find a messy child-like scrawl, riddled with spelling errors, on each of the pages. Only about a dozen pages are written upon, but the last entry is interesting.

"What do you think this means?" This time, she expects him take it.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"No, I hid other places," he says, taking the book from her. "Don't sleep all that much, my people."

He slips on his glasses. Snow falls on the page, but the writing doesn't smudge. It's been here a while.

"G.M. Better take it with us, have the TARDIS translate it," he says. Anything to get out of this room. He turns to leave and starts.

"The door." It's gone.

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

"What do you mean your people do not sleep much?" Morgana's slowly picking up on the differences between Time Lords and humans, so she tends to focus on the few facts he does drop.

"And would G.M. not be --" she is about to say something when the lack of the door is pointed out.

This does not go over well. There are very few things Morgana is irrational over. In fact, they are limited to 3 things: her nightmares, her relationships with those closest to her, and being locked in. She steps around the Doctor and stands where the door should have been.

She is not going to panic, she tells herself.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I knew it," he hisses. "I knew we should've gotten out of here."

He pulls out the sonic and gives the door a quick once-over. "Solid wall, all the way through. No hallway, no way out, and is it getting colder to you?"

He looks at the wall. Ice begins solidifying overtop of the pictures, and long icicles

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

She hisses back. "Well, we did not, so pointing out the obvious does nothing," save make her resolve not to panic that much weaker.

Morgana, who is dressed only in a summer gown, did not notice the temperature difference, simply because she's been cold the entire time in the room, but watching the ice creep down the walls, and the small area that melted where she knelt for a moment freeze over into a small patch of ice, makes her colder. The still damp areas on her skirts also freeze. She wraps her arms around herself.

There is not an anteroom, or closet, but there is a small window. "Does that open?" The Doctor is closer, she is not panicking, thank you very much.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"It might."

He slips his jacket off and places it on her shoulders as he heads towards it. This was supposed to be a trip to the beach. It was supposed to be quick and fun and warm. Now, they're freezing, trapped in a room that radiates evil and wrongness and without much of a way out.

He grips the sides of it and tries to give it a tug up.

"Frozen solid," he says. "There must be something we can smash it with."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Holding the jacket tight about her, Morgana is trying to keep her teeth from chattering. "Can you not use your sonic?" It does everything else, so why not that? Not that Morgana would truly know, hers only opens, and locks, doors.

To keep her mind occupied, she's looking for something good for breaking glass. The delicate nature of all the pink frilly toys makes it difficult.

Usually, she would never invade someone's privacy, but she starts going through the drawers of the dresser, looking for something. All she finds are a child's summer clothes.

And then, her brain, finally kicks in. She pulls out the drawer. The wood is solid, "What about this?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I can't, the panel is wood," he says.

He takes the drawer from Morgana and swings it towards the window. It shatters spectacularly, ice and glass raining towards him. To his dismay, though, the only thing on the other side is a brick wall.

"No, no, no!" he says. "No, there has to be a way out, there's always a way out!"

He hops up and looks down. "There's a space here, we might be able to move through the walls!"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Small spaces do not bother Morgana, it is the inability to escape that is distressing, so she moves beside him to examine the space. The glass and ice crunch under her feet. It is tight, but she knows she'll fit but, "Are you sure you will fit?"

The air from the passage is much warmer.

Grabbing one of the pillows off the bed, she knocks at the remnants of glass around the edges, to avoid injuries.

"Who should go first?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He looks down at her, then down at himself.

"I didn't have that large a lunch, Morgana," he says, sounding a bit offended.

"And I'll go first. If there's something in there, I don't want you having to find out first."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Morgana, being naturally small, was not implying anything more than that, but if he chooses to be offended, so will she.

"You do realize I am quite capable of dealing with most things," She snaps. "But I would be better at it if I had my dagger."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"And how, exactly, is a weapon going to pit you against anything this place has to offer?" he demands, irritated. "You're in the middle of a room that shouldn't be freezing in a building that shouldn't be standing in a city that shouldn't be empty. A dagger is not going to make anything better, all right?"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

"It might have helped downstairs," She reminds him.

Glaring at him, for a second, Morgana does not await permission, and hops onto the ledge and swings her legs over into the tight passageway. She looks both ways -- each has a faint light at the end.

The glass from the window crunches beneath her feet, but there is an immediate problem, after a couple of steps, there is no longer a floor. There is a gasp when she falls; there isn't time for anything else. It is only about six feet, but not expecting it, she hits the floor below, hard, and lets out a yelp of pain.

"Doctor?!" When Morgana looks up at the new space she is in, she immediately spots something that makes her far more sad than frightened.

It's a skeleton, a small one, and all Morgana can think is that it's the former occupant of the room.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Morgana!" the Doctor cries as she leaps down. Stupid, stupid woman. Aggravating and frustrating woman! She's going to get herself killed!

He swings his legs over the edge and follows after, very nearly landing on the small skeleton hiding away by the wall. His anger at Morgana's actions evaporates immediately.

He kneels down. "Must've hidden away here from whatever was scaring her in the house," he says.

To the skeleton, he adds: "I'm so sorry."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Morgana's stubbornness has often caused her to blunder ahead, getting into trouble, but that's not something she's going to discuss with him, right now, or ever, if she has her way.

"She would have been better under the bed." The thought of the wasted life makes her angry. "Why would no one notice she was missing? Who was watching her and where did they go?" The anger might be accidentally redirected towards the Doctor, though it isn't him she's angry at.

She rubs her arms. She's going to have bruises from the fall.

Although, this does prove one thing. "Whatever happened here, happened a long time ago." Morgana's been around death; she knows it's smell. Not only is this child a skeleton, but there was no lingering odour of decay.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Or it started a long time ago," the Doctor replies. "I don't think it's finished."

If it was, the traps laid out so carefully for them wouldn't still be in place.

He nods ahead of her. "Go on," he says. "Let's find the heart of this maze, shall we?"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Taking a moment to stand, Morgana has to pick up his jacked off the floor. It fell off when she fell, and she folds it over her arm.

She looks up from where she fell. "We need to get back up first." This would be a bad time to point out she is the reason they're stuck here in the first place.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"No way out that way," he says. "We'll try moving through the walls. Bit stronger than she is, and I might be able to loosen a few screws with the sonic if we end up stuck."

He places his hand on her shoulder. "Don't fancy tight spaces myself, but we're running out of options."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

That look the Doctor is receiving, might be a bit of disbelief, but as they have no other options, "Perhaps, this time, you might lead the way."

Not that she's wishing him to fall down holes, or run into phantoms, it's more, her luck in the matter has been atrocious.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He nods. He'd be smug, he'd be pleased to be in the lead, but there's a little girl's skeleton near them and the unending feeling of wrong about this place. This is far too serious.

"Just stay close," he says.

The corridor is filthy and tight, with thick purple dust and strange cobwebs lining the sides. The Doctor pushes through them without concern.