Lighthearted, non-serious and for a friend's birthday present, this was my first venture into Doctor Who fanfiction.
I hope it's enjoyed by all readers! :)
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| Tenth Doctor | |
Sixth Generation Biscuit by Ehnel [Reviews - 3]  Author's Notes: | |
“Still feeling 'all right'?” asked the Doctor, an unusually soft tone to his voice. He tossed his coat over the railings and wandered towards Donna: she was staring into the distance, one hand absently stroking the handle of the vortex manipulator.
“Yeah,” she said, bringing her gaze back to focus and turning to him with a faint smile. “Funny, isn't it? I only REALLY knew him for about an hour, but that little girl — or was it Doctor Moon? well, both of them — made me think it was years. And the kids, too.” She laughed, in a small unamused way. “Hah! Me, a mum. As if.”
“Oh, I think you'd make a great mum, Donna Noble,” the Doctor said, touching her shoulder. “The kids would love you and be terrified at the same time. Great combination.”
She swatted him: but it was only halfhearted. The Doctor perceived that his companion was in dire need of cheering up, and acted accordingly. “Right then!” he announced, beginning to push buttons and yank levers. “I know JUST the place to take you. No libraries in sight!”
“Where's that then?”
He grinned and slammed down a final handle. “That would spoil the surprise!” The TARDIS lurched and its occupants fell over. “It'll be worth the bruises!”
“Oh really?” Donna shouted, already feeling much happier.
-
“There we go. Charming!”
“I'm wearing a TINFOIL HAT.” She gave the Doctor her best glare.
“I know!” he said happily. “You'd be surprised how brilliant they are, especially when designed by me! They interrupt the normonic/chronon flow and, assisted by the TARDIS, cause an altertonic field to appear around you - ”
“Drop the Martian, spaceman. In my language?”
“It'll camouflage you. It'll look like you're wearing a dress, to this planet's inhabitants.”
Donna pointed. “And,” she said pleasantly, “you're going to wear only a tinfoil EARRING? Why do I have to be the one to look the fool?”
“Time Lords need less camouflaging, and anyway, males don't wear dresses here ... ” He pulled on his coat, and made a grand gesture to the door. “Donna Noble, my lady, would you do me the honour of opening the door and stepping onto the ground outside? For then it would be blessed ground, and each ray of sun which touched it would be sanctified.”
“What?!”
“Just going local ... oh, you'll see. Open the door, there's a good Donna.”
“Watch your lip or I'll leave you behind,” she warned, bouncing over to the door. One tug and it was open. A really terrible smell hit her nostrils. She clapped a hand to her mouth and nose, and through watering eyes saw that they were in a ...
“A stable?” she shouted over her shoulder. “This better be the birth of Jesus, you pillock!”
“No, it's not!” he said indignantly, coming to stand behind her. “Look, it's cows! Not horses!”
“So?” she demanded.
“So it's a BYRE, not a STABLE, honestly, Donna! What am I going to do with you?” He grinned, in that lolling happy way, and gripped her hand. “Come ON.” He tugged her out into the manure-laden straw. Squelch, went their feet. Only Donna's shoes got dirty. “Dirt-repelling fabric from the third Vanbollen moon,” said the Doctor, cheerfully waving a foot. He did not notice Donna's deep glare, instead pulled her in the direction of the byre's doors. Cows mooed uneasily at their passage. Donna kept her face puckered in rejection of the smell.
“Where is this, then?” she demanded.
He opened the doors with a creak, allowing sunlight to pour into the byre. Donna peeked out, a familiar but never-boring flood of excitement in her heart.
“Welcome to the one, the only, CAMELOT!” announced the Doctor in great glee, expectantly looking at her face.
Donna stared. “Camelot?” she said. “As in, King Arthur? Merlin? Guinevere?”
“Rescuing damsels and fighting dragons,” the Doctor said happily. “Helmets and swords and - ”
“Spaceships?”
“Of course they didn't have SPACESHIPS, Donna!” the Doctor said exasperatedly. “It's the ninth century!” He paused. “Well, sort of, anyway - ”
Donna interrupted him by seizing his head and turning it to look out the doors. “Spaceships, spaceman,” she said. “Big shiny spaceships. On top of the castle.”
The Doctor's eyes went wide, then narrow, then wide again. “But those look like — those ARE — Capsilon ships!”
“I'll capsize YOU if you don't - ”
But at that moment, a blue streak of paragunfire came at them from the ships, and unconsciousness followed ...
-
When Donna awakened, she was bereft of tinfoil hat, dressed in a fluttery white thing that exposed knees and shoulders, and chained to a large rock that was balanced just a few inches from the edge of a canyon. “What the HELL is this?” she shouted, tugging fruitlessly at the chains. “DOCTOR!”
The word echoed back at her.
“You PILLOCK,” she announced, realising that she was on her own. “All right, Donna,” she then muttered to herself. “Keep calm.” She tugged at her chains, which bound her at wrist and ankle. They clanked uncompromisingly. Right, so she couldn't get free that way. She looked around for options of escape that didn't involve brute pulling strength, but saw only a wooded green landscape on either side of the gorge — a landscape devoid of any other person.
Donna swore a bit, tried not to get vertigo from her proximity to the edge, and then swore some more.
-
Meanwhile, the Doctor was waking up to a blazing headache and a tendency to nausea. “Blergh,” he managed to say. “Ugh.”
“He's awake!” said a female voice — in the Doctor's opinion, with unnecessary loudness.
“Ellibalotoxinaphyll,” he muttered. “In the paragunfire. Bad reaction. Allergic. Rassilon curse it all ... ” He moaned, pitifully, his sinuses shutting down and glands swelling.
“He speaks in tongues,” said a male voice. “Is Ellibalotoxinaphyll your god, stranger?”
“Oh, drop it.” The Doctor opened his eyes with some effort and beheld an angelically lovely lady gazing down at him. “I know who you are.”
“Shh,” she hissed. “That is taboo. Are you well?”
“ No.” He sat up, dizzy, and aware that his face was drooping in woebegone lines. “I hate feeling ill.” He looked around the room, seeing stone walls, rich tapestries, glowing wood and golden trimmings. “You ARE looking after me. Why? I'm a stranger.”
The man by the bed looked at the golden-haired lady. He had black hair and beard, and was dressed all in armour. On his head was a solid golden crown. “All those wounded on our lands,” he said carefully, “unless an outright villain, are subject to the laws of hospitality.”
The Doctor's face brightened. “Ooh, I can work this one out!” he said. “You don't like the Capsilonis, you saved me, they're doing bad things to you, and hospitality dictates that I'm courteous enough to save you in return! I'm right, aren't it?” He sneezed.
Both man and woman had flinched palpably at the word “Capsilonis”, but now nodded. “You have the right of it, good sir,” said the woman, laying her hands in the lap of her blue brocade dress. “We have — we — recognised that you are not from this kingdom,” she said delicately. “As such we believe you may have the skills to save us from the shining sky monsters.”
“Shining sky monsters. Right. Well, from I know of the Capsilonis, and it's not much, just what a highly intelligent semi-expert would know, they are a group of historians, aren't they? With a bent for reenactment. Descended from a 61st century hybrid of Slitheen, humans and Gorraworrablingles. Completely obsessed with history. They've scared the heck out of this Time Lord before, I'll tell you!” He ran out of breath with a gasp. “Damn allergy!”
Flinch, flinch. The lady and gentleman were both looking embarrasedly miserable every time he said a futuristic word.
“Sooo,” said the Doctor thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “Capsilonis discover you lot and ... well ... I expect they thought you were, er, incorrect?”
“They sent us a warning message,” said the lady glumly. “They wrote it on the walls in glowing golden letters. It said, FOURTEENTH CENTURY SOCIAL VALUES, LIFESTYLE AND ECONOMIC SYSTEM NOT COMPATIBLE WITH NINTH CENTURY MYTHOHISTORICAL BASIS. PLEASE CORRECT. CORRECT. CORRECT.”
“Two days later, the shining sky monsters descended,” the gentleman said.
“I suppose,” the Doctor mused, “that Donna and I were not CORRECT enough for them and that's why they shot us ... ” He sneezed, then frowned. “Hang on — you saved her too, right? You did, didn't you? Oh no ... ”
-
“Well, this takes the BLOODY BISCUIT!” shouted Donna, defiant to the last, and shut her eyes tightly.
The dragon, unexpectedly, understood her. It stopped its swoop upon her rock, shut its slavering jaws, and frowned. “Are you a biscuit?” it asked anxiously. “I don't like biscuits.”
Donna, incredulous, opened her eyes once more. It was a very vicious-looking dragon, red-eyed and spiky-backed. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I'm a biscuit. A ginger biscuit.”
“A gingerbreadwoman?” the dragon inquired in a huge rumbling voice.
“A gingerbreadwoman. Yeah. That's me. See? Ginger.” Donna gasped as the dragon stuck its head closer for a better look. “Really untasty!” she gabbled.
The dragon sighed. A great cloud of smoke billowed out and momentarily smothered Donna. “I never get to eat anything but cows and deer,” it said sadly. “I thought, when Bokizaplotarankjoo was killed, and I took over her patch, that I'd finally get to try human.” He flapped his wings sadly and actually sniffed.
“Oh, you wouldn't want to eat human,” Donna said hastily. “Too many bones. Too much hair.” She paused. “What do you mean, KILLED?” She could not imagine anything killing something this enormous.
“By the human knights.”
“Oh, my GOD, it really IS Camelot!” She laughed hysterically. “Camelot with spaceships and talking dragons!”
He huffed. “Of COURSE I can talk. I'm a sixth-generation Dracosaurus mendaxa mendaxa. Called a dragon by COMMONERS.” He huffed again and Donna began coughing on the acrid smoke. With air-shaking flaps, the dragon came closer. “I didn't know biscuits coughed,” he said suspiciously.
“Sixth-generation biscuit,” she gasped. “New model.” She coughed one last time and then looked up at the dragon's face, now perilously close to her. There were those bright eyes, those dripping jaws, that ... horn jutting from where the nose should have been ... “Ooh,” she said calculatingly. “Listen — you — what's your name?”
“Ommayaxacakacalofil.”
“Right, Ommy, I've a deal for you.” She clanked her chains demonstratively. “If you use that nice horn of yours to slice through these chains, and then give me a ride back to — um — Camelot, I'll show you BETTER things to hunt and eat than humans!” She hoped very much that there WERE Capsilons in those spaceships and that there were up to defending themselves.
“Are they juicy?”
“Dripping!”
The dragon rolled its long neck, and then, with a rapid motion, sliced straight through Donna's chains. She shrieked, since the horn came so close that she swore she could feel it brush the hairs on her arms. But she was free. The cuffs of the chains were still on her wrists and ankles but that no longer mattered. “Bloody brilliant!” she enthused.
“Get on my back,” the dragon instructed. “You'll have to climb the scales ... ooh, ooh, that tickles!” It emitted a high-pitched smoky noise, which Donna took to be a giggle, and wriggled.
“Don't do that! I'll fall off!” shouted Donna, clinging on desperately. She flung herself over the ridge of the dragon's back, and wrapped her hands tightly around a spinal ridge. “All right, buster, you fly as gently as possible, you hear me? No big flaps or swoops!”
“I'll do my best,” the dragon said dubiously. It hurled itself into the sky. Donna pressed her face against her hands, squinted sideways at the angled world, gripped tight with her knees, and grinned.
-
The Doctor blew his nose deep into a borrowed handkerchief, and yelled up at the biggest Capsilon ship, “THEY'RE NOT TRYING TO BE AUTHENTIC, YOU KNOW!”
“THEY ARE NOT CORRECT,” came crackling from an external speaker.
“But they're not TRYING to be,” the Doctor explained, and sneezed sharply. “Therefore they don't need to be corrected.”
“THEY ARE EXPLICITLY BASING THEIR SOCIETY ON A MYTHOHISTORICAL CONSTRUCT AND ON REAL MEDIAEVAL - ”
“Yes yes, you said that already - ”
“THE TWO ARE NOT COMPATIBLE.”
The Doctor was taken by a sneezing fit and it was nearly a minute before he was able to respond. “But they've been made compatible.”
“NO, THEY HAVE NOT. THE PEASANTS, SERFS AND MERCHANTS ARE BIOCYBER-DRONES. ONLY THE UPPER
CLASSES ARE REAL HUMANS, ENJOYING THE LUXURY OF A FANTASY LIFESTYLE WITH TOURNAMENTS, DRAGONS, AND EVERY INDULGENCE.” The voice from the loudspeaker sounded rather disapproving. “IT IS NOT ACCURATE.”
“I suspect this may become a circular argument,” the Doctor sighed. He turned back to his companions. The lady and gentleman were standing nervously back under the gateway out of the castle. “Oh, come on, stop pretending to be scared. I'm sure you've both seen spaceships before,” he said crabbily. “You're first generation settlers, aren't you?”
The man stood up a little straighter and left his shelter. “If you MUST talk so,” he responded with equal crabbiness, “yes. My name is Arthur Pendragon and this is my fiancee Guinevere de Leodegrance. We put up the money for settling this planet like this OURSELVES.”
“Jolly good stuff.” The Doctor's gazed fixed on something beyond Arthur's left shoulder. “Oh, good, she's all right,” he said, expression warming. “But why's she bringing a dragon with her?”
Arthur spun around. His eyes widened. “Guards, to me!” he bellowed. “We are under attack! Dragon! Dragon! Bring me my sword, Excalibur!”
“I expect it's made from Rygonian steel and infused with healing nanobots?” the Doctor enquired, eliciting an unanticipated snort of laughter from Guinevere. He gave her an encouraging grin. “Look, Arthur, I really don't recommend you attacking that dragon — if for no other reason than it has a gently-born — er — lady on its back - ” His mouth twitched briefly. “ - a gently-born lady whom I've sworn to protect. And you wouldn't want to be a lady-slayer.”
“No, indeed.” A horde of knights were spilling from the castle, weapons in hand, and one of them knelt down and reverentially offered a gleaming specimen of a sword to Arthur. It had jewels encrusted on the handle, and was gilded.
“Ooh, flashy,” said the Doctor.
Arthur took the sword with great solemnity. “Your words, Doctor, are not reverential. But your representation of a damsel in distress is moving.” His eyes were as gleaming as his sword. “We shall sally forth to rescue her from this dragon!”
The Doctor dabbed his nose doubtfully. “Look, Arthur, it does occur to me, and I thought it might to you as well, since you're a king and thus presumably intelligent, although ... maybe not ... what was I going to say?” He frowned. “Oh yes. It does occur to me that perhaps Donna doesn't need rescuing from a dragon she's RIDING.”
It was just then that the dragon dropped out of the sky and landed in a whoosh of dust in the courtyard. All the knights let out a rather nervous roar of enthusiasm, brandishing their swords wildly.
“Honestly,” sighed the Doctor, striding forward to stand between dragon and knights. “Donna! Glad to see you're alive!” he shouted.
The dragon swung its head around to stare at the Doctor. “Are you one of the things I can eat?” it asked plaintively.
“No, sorry. Time Lords are nasty and chewy,” the Doctor said apologetically. “You'd be sick. Donna! What did you promise him to eat?”
“The Capsilons. His name's Ommy, by the way.” She leaned down to wave at him. “What's wrong with your nose? It's all red.”
“Not now, Donna, where's your sense of timing?” He bowed slightly to the dragon. “I perceive that you're a sixth generation Dracosaurus mendaxa — let's see — mendaxa, yes?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The Capsilons could take you to your home planet.”
The dragon's eyes went misty. “That wonderful misty place of endless deer and deep rivers?” he said. “That my mother told me about before I slept?”
“Yes. I'm fairly sure you've been illegally settled here — these hedonistic intergalactic multitrillionaires, you know,” and he pointed over his shoulder in the direction of Arthur.
“They just want everything. It's not enough to be king of their own planet, they have to have dragons to kill ... tsh.”
Thoughtfully, the dragon blew out smoke, wreathing the Doctor in white haze. The Time Lord succumbed to a sneezing fit, and staggered backwards in search of fresh air, wheezing. “I'd like to go home,” said the dragon.
Donna patted his shoulder. “And you shall!”
The Doctor, dragging in a huge breath, agreed. “These Capsilons, they think there's a place for everything and everything in its place!”
He felt a polite tap on his shoulder. “Please move out of the way so that we can kill the beast,” Arthur ordered.
“Sorry — no can do,” the Doctor replied breezily. “Do you have another hankie I could borrow, by the way? This one's rather damp and - ”
“Don't be so revolting!” Donna snapped. She swung one leg over the dragon and slid haphazardly to the ground.
“Is that rude?”
“Bodily fluids generally are.”
“You are both demented,” Arthur said wearily. “Knights! Remove the lunatic and the poor afflicted lady so that we may attack this senile beast!” There was a general clatter of armour as the knights moved forward.
Donna put up her fists. “Just you try, busters!” The knights faltered, looking for direction to their king. But their king was being distracted and discomposed by the dragon, who had thrust its head forward violently over the heads of Donna and the Doctor, to glare at Arthur right in his face. “They're nice! If you hurt them I'll kill you!”
The would-be King of Camelot went rather pale. He licked his lips nervously. “Ah - ”
“Come on, Arthur, be brave and noble. Donna,” the Doctor added, “why did I bring you here? No one's as nice I as thought they would be.”
“We're going somewhere I choose, next.”
The dragon extended a long, forked tongue and snatched the crown from Arthur's head. “Hey!” spluttered Arthur, and lifted Excalibur threateningly. “Give that back!”
“Children, children!” The Doctor nimbly removed the crown from the dragon's tongue, and wiped the dragon saliva from it on his sleeve.
“Give that back!” Arthur grabbed for the crown, but the Doctor tossed it merrily from hand to hand: Arthur nearly seized it once, so he threw it sideways and Donna neatly caught it.
“Um — sir - ” One of the knights, rousing from the astonished spectator's silence of the others, coughed deferentially in Arthur's general direction. “I know you said to take them away, but, um ... What — what do you want us to do?”
Donna marched forward and rapped the knight on the breastplate. “What's your name?”
“Zallok — er, I mean, Gawain.”
“Right.” Donna hefted the crown in one hand. “This is a bit heavy but your helmet looks like it can bear the weight.” So saying she thumped the golden crown down over the helmet, with a ringing noise. Zallok's mouth dropped open.
“Oh, nice idea, Donna,” the Doctor exclaimed approvingly, then sneezed violently. He leaned limply back against the dragon's neck which was conveniently placed for such lounging.
“I crown you King Zallok of New Camelot,” Donna declared.
“WHAT!” shouted Arthur, leaping towards them. “I am King Arthur of Camelot, wench! Under what authority do you - ”
Donna drew herself very upright and glared at him. “Under MY authority.”
“You have none here, you stupid - ”
“Now, Donna, DON'T hit him ... oh, you hit him.” The Doctor hid his face briefly in his hand.
Arthur lay on his back in the ground blinking stupidly. Guinevere dashed towards him in a flurry of brocade. It was very picturesque. “Oh, you idiot,” she sighed, then turned to the new king. “Well: we shall have to married instead, I think.”
Zallok's mouth, still wide in shock from the crowning, dropped even more. “Uh?”
“If I, Guinevere, marry Gawain,” she said, “and Arthur becomes a farmer — don't say anything, Arthur, you idiot — and they take all those nasty stupid dragons away, then the Capsilons can't complain about us living in pseudomediaevality. We'll just explain that we're living an ALTERNATE myth with no attempt to base it in reality ... ” She tucked her arm into Zallok's and led him away.
“Give the lady a star,” said Donna cheerfully. “Well, Doctor, I think that's our work done ... ”
“You can't — you - ” Arthur staggered to his feet. “Really! This isn't fair!”
“Spoiled multitrillionaires, they're all the same.” The Doctor patted him on the back. “Farming's fun, you know. Very rewarding. Carrots are especially tasty. Come on, Donna, let's go talk to the Capsilons. You wait here, Ommy.”
They left Arthur gaping, with the dragon looming interestedly over him, and strolled off towards the nearest Capsilon ship.
THE END
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