victormakesart | (no subject)

(no subject)

"How're you feeling, sweetie?" Victor is talking to her phone. Not that she thinks her phone is a sweetie, but she's talking to a voice on her phone, and it is on speaker. She is in a field, sprawled on her stomach on an ugly mustard-colored blanket.

"Good! I finished a few logic puzzles, and spent some time playing with my sisters on the computer. Anya is hilarious when you play peekaboo. 'Thena had me read stories over and over." It's a young voice, male, exuberent, and Vic's smiling this big proud smile and sipping at her coffee through a straw.

"I'm glad," she says. "Guess what Friday's gonna be?"

"Is it my birthday?"

"Absolutely. You nervous?"

"No way! This is going to rock!"

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"No no no no no!" He dashed around the console, tugging desperately on levers as the TARDIS shuddered and groaned. He'd put the correct coordinates in. He knew he had. Something was buffeting them from the vortex. He couldn't get a fix on it. The only thing to be done was to try to break free of it. It was dangerous, but his old girl never let him down, and he wasn't about to do the so to her.

He didn't have time to plot coordinates. He threw switches frantically, halting their progress and taking them out of the vortex. He gave a sigh of relief as the old girl gave her wheezing vworp vworp of reentry. The landing wasn't smooth; he found himself flung to the floor as she skidded to a halt. "Ow," he muttered, pulling himself to his feet.

Better check where they'd landed; he could look for damage from the rough landing after he'd determined that the location was safe. He strolled over to the doors and peered out.

The TARDIS landed partly on her little blanket, and she scootched back a little but once she realized that the TARDIS wasn't going to land on her she relaxed considerably. "Hey, Judey? IIIIII'm gonna have to call you back."

"Was that a TARDIS landing?"

"Yessiree it was."

"Love you, dad!"

"Love you too, kiddo." She hangs up her phone, wiggles her fingers in a hello, then scrambles up to stand, leaning heavily on her cane (dark glossy wood painted with Starry Night swirls).

"Oh, dear," he said, noticing the young lady. "I do beg your pardon. I seem to have ruined your blanket." He stepped out of the TARDIS and carefully shut the door behind himself. She didn't seem too alarmed by his presence, which was a good sign. Usually he tried to land out of sight of the inhabitants.

He sniffed carefully. Earth, most likely. That should be safe enough. Late twentieth century or early twenty first, based on her apparel, but he couldn't be certain.

"It's okay," she says, easily. "It was an ugly blanket anyway. Is... is there a reason you're here, any invading thingies I should be worrying about, or is it just tourism, 'cause that's totally okay, but if things are going down I wanna get my family to a safehouse. Saferhouse. The house is pretty safe."

"Oh, no no no," he said easily. "There was a bit of trouble, but it doesn't seem to have followed me. I'd have thought it was a herd of vortisaurs, but it wasn't consistent with their mode of attack." He paused and looked at her. "I'm sorry, have we met before?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. She seemed familiar with his lifestyle, in any case.

"Yes and no, but for you, mostly no. I'm Victor. Victor Allen," she says, extending her hand to him, scarred large and pink along the palm. "Pleased to meet you."

He shook the offered hand with a smile. "Yes and no? Sounds intriguing," he said with a grin. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Victor. May I ask where we are? And I apologize again for interrupting your picnic."

"We're in East Texas. And, no worries. I just come here sometimes when I want a little bit of pastoral goodness, to recharge, you know?" She has a nice, firm handshake and a ready smile.

"Texas? I can't say I've ever been to Texas. Amazing. I'll have to take a look around." He grinned widely and released her hand.

"Great place. You'll meet friendlier folks in the 'verse, but you'll meet unfriendlier ones, too, and more often than not folks're pretty neato."

He chuckled softly. "I'm sure you'll find that that describes the universe on the whole, my friend," he said. It was one of the best things about the universe. You could meet any sort of people, and more often than not they were 'pretty neato.'

"I'd have to concur. The universe is full of an infinite propensity for kindness." She pockets her cell phone, a Frankenphone, patched up with duct tape and a black box the size of a largeish matchbox on the back of it so she can talk multiversally.

He wasn't much of one for mobile phones, himself, but they were all the rage in this era, so he wasn't surprised to see her with one, though it was one of the most dilapidated examples he'd ever seen. "Well," he said cheerfully, "I think I'll have a look around. Would you care to join me?"

"I'd like that very much, sir," she says, offering him her elbow so that they can walk along properly, moving her cane (this one painted all over with fish... orange, and white, and with blue swirls all over) to her other hand.

He took her arm as was acceptable, not registering the anachronistic properties of the gesture. "Your walking stick is lovely," he said, gazing down at it. "A masterpiece of art. May I ask where you got it?" he asked with a smile.

"Thanks! Oh, gosh, it's not that great. I painted it myself. I figured, if I'm gonna need to walk with a cane, I might as well make 'em pretty." She walks pretty smoothly with it now. It functions like a third leg, and she doesn't lose her rhythm with it anymore the way that she did when she first started.

"Did you really? Amazing. May I look more closely?" Without waiting for an answer, he crouched down, not wanting to interrupt the flow of her walk. "You have excellent brushwork, my dear," he went on. "I agree that the practical can also be beautiful. You must love it."

"Oh, you flatter an old lady," she says, smiling at him, face pinkening along her cheeks. She is proud of her work, and she loves to create. "You sound like an artist, yourself."

He straightened and looked at her. "Oh, you've a few years on you yet," he said, patting her arm. "No, I don't have much talents in that direction, but I do admire it greatly. My friend Leonardo tried to teach me a bit at times, but I usually got distracted before too long."

"I love Leonardo," Victor says quietly, reverently, with so much oomph behind her words that she might be saying 'I love breathing' or 'I love my access to clean water.'

"He was brilliant," he said, smiling. "A bit argumentative at times, but that's genius for you." He occasionally thought of visiting him again, but obviously he wouldn't recognize him like this. Better to just move on.

"He's fabulous. I wanna be like him when I grow up. But... with a family, too." Of course, she's twenty-three, but she's oh so far from being an adult. She's still thinking in terms of adulthood being ages away.

He smiled encouragingly at her. "I'm absolutely certain that you'll achieve everything you wish to," he said. Humans were so creative. She'd be amazing. He patted her arm gently.

Doesn't she just flush, turning heated and pinkish and terribly shy. "Gosh, you're a really sweet fellow, aren't you?"

"Well, that depends on whom you ask," he said with a wry smile. He was admittedly not very nice to some people. However, those people generally brought it on themselves.

"I s'pose that just might be true of anyone," she says, wisely, and then she smiles, and then she winks. She's a classy gent.

He smiled back widely. She was a delightful young woman. "Well, Victor," he said, "this is your habitat. What do you suggest we explore first?"

"Oh, gosh, I dunno. I only really come here to play in the fields. I'm a city girl, grew up in Houston. And now I live in California, in a whole different 'verse." She doesn't mean that metaphorically, although California is a whole other universe than Texas.

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