This idea struck me while listening to the commentary of “The Satan Pit.” Apparently at this point in production, the studio ran out of money before the beast was actually animated. This led to several panicked meetings of the writers trying to come up with an alternative to a big expensive monster. One idea was a little girl. I heard it, and it wouldn’t leave me alone. So, hear it is: my version of “The Satan Pit.”
Oh, and in case you don’t already know this, I claim ownership to nothing! I don’t even have my own sonic screwdriver! Oh, how deprived I am!
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| Tenth Doctor | |
The Nature of the Beast by cordelialear [Reviews - 5]  Author's Notes: | |
The Doctor crept to the edge of the expansive cavern. There, in the midst of the room before him stood a child. A little girl, of no more of about six or seven with blonde curls falling about her shoulders, smiled back at him.
“Hello, who are you then?” The Doctor asked kindly bending down on one knee to achieve eye-level with the small child. The girl didn’t reply.
“What are you doing down here?” Still no reply.
The Doctor glanced around the room in front of him. It was enormous, carved out of the rocky interior of the planet. The only thing separating him from the room before him were two vases sitting on parallel pedestals. He remembered the cave painting. A thought began to take shape. The painting on the wall told the story of capturing and detaining the beast, the two vases were featured prominently... So, if the vases were there, then the beast should be...
The Doctor looked at the small child. She stared back at him with eyes as wide as saucers, innocence dripping from every pore. All the same, there was something— off about her. Something unsettling about her sweet smile. The Doctor laughed out loud.
“Oh, come on! ‘S a bit anti-climactic, isn’t it?” The Doctor shouted. “A little girl? The great beast, the prince of darkness, a little girl? Oh, and not just that— a little girl with blonde curls? Fantastic!”
The child before him twirled a curl around her finger and pursed her lips.
“Oh-oh, but wait.” The Doctor put his hand out in font of him as if to shush the child. “You’re not just a little blonde girl, you’re a little blonde human girl.”
The little girl dropped to her knees, and carefully straightened out her dress.
“You’re human— or at least you appear human... but the painting, the painting is definitely not. And why’s that, then?” He paused as if to allow her to answer. “Seems to me the ancients were pretty literal beings: two vases here, two vases there,” he gestured towards the cave wall. “So it seems to me,” he folded his hands behind his back, “that you are not what you appear to be.”
The small child rose and walked to the corner of the room towards a doll house. She bent over and picked up doll. She began to carefully comb its hair as the Doctor continued.
“Psychic, then. But, if that is the case, why choose this form, hmm? You have all of time and space to pick through in my head. It doesn’t make sense. You play off fear, and I can think of a few things a bit more terrifying than this.”
The Doctor glanced down at the doll she held. It wore a pink jacket, jeans, and had blonde hair... Suddenly realization hit him and his eyes snapped up and met the beast’s. A sickening smile played across the form’s mouth. It continued to tenderly brush the doll’s hair. Desperation began to peek in the Doctor’s eyes. The child giggled at this. The haunting sound echoed throughout the cave and seemed to envelop the Doctor in its madness. He was beginning to panic. He clenched his fists and took a slow shaky breath.
“Oh, you’re good. I’ll give you that,” he glanced back at the doll, “but that still doesn’t answer my question. Why a human child? Why a little girl?” The Doctor surveyed her frame once more: she wore a white dress with an indistinct pattern on it. It almost seemed to change every time he looked at it. It remained unfocused and uncertain, like a distant memory.
“Wait, wait. Psychic?” The Doctor laughed out loud, confident and merry, in stark contrast with the child’s. “The things you’ve picked out so far have only been surface fears: things that linger on the tip top of the brain where they grow and fester. Fears we dwell on: like losing Rose...”
The child stroked the doll’s head ominously. The Doctor ignored her.
“This form, well, it’s seen better days, hasn’t it? This came from deep within... An old thought or emotion, buried. The details aren’t clear, but the heart of it is. You favor Toby.”
The child jumped, as if startled.
“What are you then? Younger sister? Long dead by the looks of it. The memory’s faded.”
The small girl held up the Rose doll as if threatening the Doctor.
“I’m guessing that if you could do anything with that, you would have already. So, back to the question at hand: How did you get inside Toby’s mind, hmm?” The Doctor walked lazily around taking in the cave paintings as he spoke. He came to an inscription written in the ancient language the Tardis had been unable to translate. That’s when it hit him.
“The writing! Toby’s been cooped up for hours at a time, poking and prodding, desperately trying to translate this. Guess he made some headway, eh?” He turned to face the beast.
“So, Toby’s head explains this form, but what I don’t understand is why I’m here. What do you need me for, hmm? Am I supposed to release you? Is there some sort of ritual? An incantation? What?”
She smiled blankly at him. The Doctor began to lose his patience.
“Speak to me!”
She played with her curls, swinging the Rose doll by its arm.
The Doctor knit his brow. “You won’t talk— or you can’t talk...”
“But you did, I heard you, back in the station. You were intelligent, no more than that, brilliant!”
The child sat down on the stone floor walking the doll along the ground in front of her.
The cavern began to tremble and a faint roar could be heard from above. The doctor’s eyes widened. He made eye contact with the beast, “The rocket,” he said.
“What have you done to them?!” the Doctor demanded.
No response.
“Why am I here?!”
The child continued to ignore the Doctor’s desperate cries, as she played with the Rose doll.
Taking fist fulls of his own hair, the Doctor concentrated on slowing his rapidly beating hearts. The rocket was leaving the planet, taking Rose with it. He knew this instinctually, the familiar warmth and calm growing smaller, being dragged away from him. He knew that they took her against her will. Even now he could feel her struggling, desperate. He drew in a slow breath. Panicking would not help anyone, especially not Rose.
“So, you won’t answer me, which I’m guessing means that you can’t. So what I’m dealing with here is only half of you— just the physical form. Where’s that intelligence gone, hm? Where’s your mind?”
Inspiration struck the Doctor. The paintings, the obvious tie to Toby’s mind, the Rose doll... The beast was on the Rocket.
“Oh, oh now that is clever!” The Doctor exclaimed. “Mental link to Toby. Starts out with short term possession, almost like a psycho-graft. Similar consequences, too. Stay too long, and you’ve worn out your welcome. You run the risk of compressing your host to death. Without the brain, the body dies. Toby’s just about run his course, hasn’t he? We can’t have your glorious escape mucked up by that pesky human habit of dying, now can we? Rose is next in line.”
The little girl smiled sweetly. The Doctor felt the sickening burn of bile rising in his throat.
“You won’t touch her,” the Doctor said quietly, “because, without the body, the brain dies. It’s a two way street, isn’t it?”
A look of worry passed over the girl’s face, briefly. She carefully resumed combing the doll’s hair.
“You didn’t bring me down here, did you? No, no your captors did.” He glanced back at the painting on the cave wall. “They needed me to stop you. Break the gravity field that hold’s this god-forsaken planet up, and I break you, and your mental connection.”
The Doctor grabbed a large rock, and raising high above his head, made ready to break one of the vases. Just before he brought it down with full force, he hesitated, realization breaking across his face.
“But, if I break the gravity field, I break the gravity funnel, the rocket’s protection, Rose. I condemn you, and I condemn her.”
The child let loose a fit of giggles. She rolled about on the floor, eyes watering as if she had just won the most spectacular game. The Doctor felt rage rise within him: a darkness he hadn’t indulged in since his last form.
But, instead of lashing out, he chuckled.
The beast paused, and looked up at him warily.
“Except, that implies, in this big grand scheme of gods and devils, that she’s just victim. But, I’ve seen a lot of this universe. I’ve seen fake gods, bad gods, demi-gods, would-be gods, and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon— if I believe in one thing, just one thing: I believe in her!” And with that, the Doctor raised the rock once more, and broke the vase in front of him, shattering the gravity field.
“This is your freedom: free to die! Your going into that black hole, and I’m riding with you!”
The child screamed fiercely, beating her fists against the stone floor. Slowly the facade of the blonde human girl melted away. There before him stood the embodiment of evil, screaming and cursing. Flames began to lick the form, dragging the creature further into the pit.
The Doctor, ran away instinctually dodging the heat, ash, and flame as it leapt from the cavern. The planet gave a mighty lurch, knocking the Doctor from his feet, and into a familiar blue box. The Doctor laughed joyously.
He quickly boarded his beloved ship, and set the coordinates. Seconds later, the Tardis materialized next to the unconscious body of Ida Scott. He darted out of the Tardis doors, carried her inside, and left the planet. For a few agonizing seconds, he feared he would be too late to save the rocket, that is until he felt the warm calm of Rose in his subconscious. Rerouting energy to lock the rocket under the Tardis’ control, he let out a sigh of relief before switching on a comm link.
“Sorry about the hi-jack captain, this is the good ship Tardis!” He proclaimed grinning from ear to ear. “Now, first things first, have you got a Rose Tyler on board?”
“I’m here, it’s me!” His hearts skipped a beat at the sound of her voice. “Where are you?”
“I’m just towing you home,” he said, his smile growing wider by the second.
Minutes later she was in his arms, safe. Still, he couldn’t help the itch at the back of his mind. If that creature was psychic, perhaps it caught a glimpse of a future possibility from him. The valiant child who would die in battle... He shook the thought from his head, and concentrated on the woman in his arms: his love. The beast fed off fear. He was lying, he had to be.
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