imperiiatrix-blog

[imperiiatrix-blog]

leelaofthesevateem:

“If you liked the way you were in my eyes, why would you change to be more like everyone else wished, and expect that to please me?”

Leela tied the sash around her waist and let Romana lead her by the hand.  “You would have needed to change time, for that,” she said.  “If you had found me on my planet–before ever I knew the Doctor–then you might have twisted me to your whim, I think.  I killed so easily then, with even a kind of joy in it.  I was not cruel even then, but it pleased me to know that my body was a weapon with a well-honed edge.  You could do that still, I suppose.  Break the universe, make a paradox of me–two Leelas for the two women in your head.  Let her be the Leela for you to pet and pamper, and me be your scourge, for you to scourge in turn.”

They passed through the doors of the big house, all grand and shining.  The rooms Leela remembered from their first trip to Davidia she had not seen for many years; that complex was on the other side of the planet.  For all that Leela knew, Romana had torn it down.  This was a house of air, of light-colored stone and vast, tall, open spaces, beautiful enough in its way.  

Pandora had taken Leela to Braxiatel’s planet, once, to gloat before she burned it–Leela remembered the fiddly golden grandeur of that palace.  She wished it had not been destroyed, but it had not been her kind of beauty.  She had to admit that the cleaner, warmer lines of this place were something she could like, if it were not all so tainted.  Very much, Leela thought, like the mind that had planned it.

“How long are you going to stay?” Leela asked.

“I suppose, in the end, I wasn’t trying to please you.” 

Standing in the place she’d built and tamed- everything open and large, every ceiling tall, since neither of them liked confined spaces- rather than the wilder fens Leela preferred, she was more Pandora than anything, with only the colder, sharper parts of Romana bleeding through. “Oh, I do like that idea. Time is mine to break, and the Doctor never did deserve you. You had to stow aboard, like some common thing, I’d never have made you do that. She’d be my favourite weapon.”  

She smiled, amused. “Long ago, when I was nothing more than a President, the rest of them thought you were nothing more than a knife aimed at my enemies, fanatical in your loyalty, with no ideas of your own beyond instinct and savagery, but they were always missing the truth of it. Instinct has nothing to do with knowing where to stick a blade, so that it’ll hurt and maim, yet not kill quickly. Can you really claim to have never been cruel?” 

She relinquished her hand to sit on one of the chairs. It was too stiff and ornate to be comfortable, but it was more like a throne than anything softer would have been. 

“Do you want me to leave?” She asked, with a hint of real curiosity. She’d gone to great lengths to leave Leela with nothing to live for but her visits, her only reprieves from never-ending solitary confinement. A prison was a prison, even when it was the size of a planet. “Do you truly prefer all this silence and solitude?” 

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leelaofthesevateem:

“Pandora has always been a monster.  I have hoped that Romana was not, until you two joined as one.  But if you say that you were taught so by the Daleks, then I was too late ever to save you.  I have only loved a shadow–and in this, I am as ambitious as you are.  I would rather love the sun, my Romana as I knew her, burning so bright and so fiercely.”

“So you will do nothing,” Leela said.  “Give neither of us what we want��or, in truth, give yourself all that you want.  You do not want to be loved by half of me.”  She stopped, and turned, and caught Romana’s cheeks in her hands.  “I only wish you would understand that it is not enough either, for me, to be loved by only half of you.”

She passes over the threshold into her little house by the sea.  It is much more modest than Romana would like, without even walls inside: the bed is on a loft above the tiny kitchen, the bathtub outside on the beach.  There is another house further inland, grander, Romana’s place, but Leela goes there by herself only to use the library.  This is where she would rather be.

Leela rummages in her chest of drawers for clothes.  She chooses and dons not another set of skins, but a dress, simple and flowing and comfortable, of thin linen that does little to hide the shape of her body.  From whom here should she wish to hide?

“You will wish us to eat in the big house, will you not?” she asks.  “Waited on by the metal men, all the food complicated and fine?”

“You were the only one who ever compared me to fire.” She said, for a moment, longing to be more than half of a whole. “I liked it better. To everyone else, I was the Ice Maiden, and that’s all Pandora is, isn’t she? Ice and ambition.” 

She watched Leela dress, finding her choice acceptable, and considered finding something clean and dry for herself, but there was little point in keeping up appearances with the only person left who could see through them. “Of course.” She said, and took her hand, as if they were still friends or lovers, not a President and her prisoner. 

Her mind was still disjointed as they made their way up the beaten path to the grander house, embroiled in her private war, one that she tried so hard to hide from everyone else. 

“You could have made yourself cruel.” There were limits to what even the mindprobe could do. It could break a person, but it couldn’t reshape them. “You could have ruled by my side, bloodied your blade with the life of our enemies, and you’d have had all the freedom we could give you. Both of us, all of us, would have had what we wanted.”

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[imperiiatrix-blog]

leelaofthesevateem:

There was always some new way to hurt her.  Every time, Leela thought Romana had found the last one, and every time, Romana found some way more.

“You were stolen by monsters,” she agreed, her sorrow heavy on her face as she turned away.  “But if that is how you became one, then I never knew Romana at all.  She died before we ever met.”

She walked away, through the breakers and over the stony beach.  “Yes,” she said.  “I would play your game.  Gladly, for the chance to do one more good thing before I die.”  She lifted her clothes from where they had dropped, kept walking towards the glass box that would never be her home, perched up on the cliffside.  “And if I were to lose,” her heart ached, “you would have your puppet at last.  Your empty suit of Leela-skin, to say nothing but ‘yes, Imperiatrix,’ to have no heart left to break.  I wish you joy of her.  You would have given me my death after all.  Either way, I would gain something I have asked.”

“I’ve never been a monster.” 

It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To have Leela cowed, to come to Davidia and find only her warmth waiting for her, with none of her hurtful words, no thorns to prick her conscience. 

She would never be able think of Andred again, or the Doctor, or K-9, or of anyone else but her, and this half-Leela, who existed only in her head but could so easily become reality, would never kill her, would never finish acting out the legend they were echoing, would never even be able to imagine breaking the centre of her world. Somehow, it still wasn’t a simple choice. 

And if she did what Leela asked? It wouldn’t be enough. Even if she somehow managed to rid herself of Pandora, no one would ever forgive her; she’d still be everything Pandora had made her, a murderer, a tyrant, Imperiatrix. That treasonous thought was enough to send her mind into turmoil, the part of her that was nothing but bitter ambition, obsessed with ancient feuds and forever chasing a future that could never satisfy her, rebelling against even the notion. She had more freedom than any one of her kin, had the Web of Time at her disposal, thousands of subjects who would bend their knees at her very presence, and yet, no matter what Leela said, she didn’t have any choice that really mattered.

“It wouldn’t be death.” She said, once the broken halves of her had made themselves back into something whole enough to talk, as she followed Leela over beach and bracken. Her formerly immaculate white gown was wet and sea-changed, clinging to her calves, and her golden hair had been tussled by the wind, bent out of perfection, leaving her like Titannia in disarray, a Queen mad and moonstruck. Leela always managed to strip some of her illusions away, somehow, but never for long enough. “Not a true death, one that gives you nothing but oblivion. I would never do that to you. Just a different kind of life.” 

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Found on the net, pretty sure these photos are either outtakes or just not so popular parts of Big Finish shoot

[imperiiatrix-blog]

leelaofthesevateem:

“You know that it would,” Leela said, stepping away at the question, her expression darkening.  “You have tried it, often enough.  Hurting the innocent to hurt me.”

“No one person can live only for another.  You were dearer than anything, but you could not be the only thing I stayed for.”  She closed her eyes.  “That is why keeping me here will always be a lie you tell yourself.  You think you have made me a thing that belongs only to you, but you have not.  Even if the only others I have loved are nothing but memories now, they are my memories.  You cannot take my love for them.  You cannot take me from myself.  Did you hate yourself so much, Romana,” she opened her eyes again, “to think that you must take yourself from yourself, if you wished to have me?”

“I would believe you.  You do not wish to lie to me.  You wish me to love you for all that you are, for the truth of what you are.”

“The Daleks did that.” She said, suddenly. “When I wouldn’t fix their toys for them. Killed the less important slaves, the ones that could do nothing but work and bleed and die, right in front of me until I behaved. It was illogical, they’d all have died anyway, just slowly and more painfully. Extermination hurts, but not for long, the screams never lasted more than three nano-spans, I counted. If anything, it was a kindness, yet still, it worked. That should have taught me caring was a weakness, long before I met you.”

She ignored Leela’s question, it was painful, and what was the point of power if you didn’t use it to avoid painful things? “I could. The mindprobe could cut them all out of you, or lock them away, like Braxiatel did to me. Even if it left you as only half a person, half a Leela, I could. That’s the cruellest thing I could ever do to you.” She stepped closer. “And I suppose breaking the time loop is the kindest thing I would do for you. Would you rather I do one, not knowing which I’d choose, or neither?” She paused, casting about for the right Earth idiom. “Like playing Russian roulette with your memories.”

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coordinatrix:

“The short straw, my Lady?  Establishing relations with new Gallifreys, organizing an exchange of scientific ideas, being away from the politics of my own Capital for a time?  I assure you, I consider this a plum assignment.  Besides, we would never wish to insult your government by sending a lackey.  My own Lady President only regrets that she could not come herself.”

Yes.  Yes, Narvin saw that look.  She knows that no Braxiatel would go away voluntarily with either Pandora or Romana in charge.  Damn, damn, Narvin has enough on her plate without drawing the attention of a Pandora–a fully actualized Pandora, not the nebulous threat on her own world–on her already-overworked world.  What can she say that will sound plausible, but make Pandora not want to come knocking?

“Our universe?  Oh, a fairly standard Gallifrey in some ways, I’m led to understand.  The same familiar faces at or near the top.  We have the benefit of living a little temporally ‘behind’ many others, however.  Which has given us a wonderful chance to prepare for what may be coming.  The conflict that damaged both of our universes… Let’s just say that the chance to stockpile arms, hone our technology and train additional troops ahead of that potential conflict has not been squandered.  We take that threat very seriously.”

“I suppose I’ve been trapped in enough other dimensions to see it as little more than a risk.” She knew Romana had, at some point, been outside the Universe, but the details were vague and fleeting in her head, since she’d never considered them important. The Matrix was enough like it’s own pocket Universe that as far as she was concerned, she knew more than enough about them already.  

“An interesting advantage.” Pandora said, studying her. The guards they were passing all but cringed away from them, and the game had to be close to up, or already over, but she was hard to read. Unsurprising, considering she was CIA, but annoying all the same. “Yours is perhaps not so dissimilar to my own. We’ve made some wonderful developments in weapon technology, particularly temporal and biochemical, necessitated by certain recent events. I even had to reverse the bans on the mindprobe and the use of dispersal, but I’m sure you’d approve of that. Assuming, of course, my counterpart is as idealistic and naive as I was, when I was younger, and is still busy meddling with your organisation.” 

[imperiiatrix-blog]

leelaofthesevateem:

“You say that you are all-powerful.  I do not call anyone a hero.  But if you could rescue her but choose not–her and all the innocents of her world besides–the blame is yours as much as theirs.”

She tilted her head.  “You wish me to ask you for something that you can do?” she asked.  “Do that.  Save her world.  I do not say save her, if you will not.  Save the rest of her people, trapped with her for no crime of their own.  Would you do that, Romana?  For me?” 

She leaned her head against Romana’s, nuzzling her cheek.  “I loved you,” she said.  “But I could not be there, anymore, on your world full of lies.  That did not make you less than everything, to me.”

“She deserved it. I suppose the others didn’t, but their suffering made hers all the worse, and that’s a good enough reason as any. Wouldn’t that break your heart too, savage, to have your people die for you, even if they hadn’t been yours for so long?” 

“If that were true, the lies wouldn’t have mattered. K-9 wouldn’t have mattered.” She finally touched Leela, her fingers digging through her hair. “I tried to make my world hospitable for you, you know I tried, why wasn’t that enough?”  

She stilled, weighing Leela’s words. “I could. Time Loops are easy to break, for someone like me, but no one ever bothered. It was all myth and legend, after all. But would you believe me?” She asked. “If I returned to say I pardoned them, and could offer no proof but my words?”

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[imperiiatrix-blog]

leelaofthesevateem:

“The other Pandora froze her love in a moment of time.  What else but that have you now done to me?  I have had her punishment, and though it came before the crime, I do not say I have not earned it.  What I cannot do in truth, I have a hundred times done in my mind.” She traced her fingers over Pandora’s cheekbone, down along the line of her neck.  “Do you think of her, monster?” she asked.  “Your own bodyguard?  Do you ache for her, in the dark times of the night?  Does it hurt you when you look on me, and do not see her face?  And is she still out waiting, somewhere?  You, who tell yourself you can have anything, everything–do you wail still in misery, in whatever remains of your soul, that she alone of all things is denied you?”

Leela laughed at Romana’s quoting.  “Unmovable,” she said.  “Yes.  Oh, yes you are.  That is not Pandora, who will lie, and lie, and say anything to have what she wants.  That is my own stubborn Romana.”  Leela’s mouth twisted in pain.  “My Romana, too set on her wrong course to hear me when I said she had my one too-human heart, and she need not do this thing.  Too constant to heed me when I begged her to stop.  Too true-fixed to admit even now that she has any choice but this.”  She rested her forehead against Romana’s.  “Yours is not the name they will say,” she sighed.   “Not when they speak of power.  It will only be ‘Pandora’.  Everyone who cared for Romana now is dead and gone, except for me.  It is why you do not kill me, though you threaten.  I am alive to be your memory.”

“That was the Council. Punished by her supposed allies, for doing what they begged her to do- how do they get to be the heroes of the tale, and I the villain?” She asked, the hint of a snarl in her voice. “She deserved no less, for betraying me. Why would I ache for her? I always knew her life would be fleeting, transient, I simply forgot that made her more worthy of distrust, not less.” 

She stiffened at Leela’s words, at all her talk of choices. “You’re lying. I didn’t have it. You were going to leave, even before you saw Antimon’s tape.” She hissed, her gaze turning accusatory. “You were going to leave, and Darkel was going to win the election, what choice did I have? I walked off the edge, but you all drove me to it.” 

“The name doesn’t matter, Imperiatrix will do. Who else would take a tainted title? It’ll be ours, and only ours, for all eternity.” She shut her eyes for a moment, not pulling away. “That’s worth more than any memory.” 

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leelaofthesevateem:

Leela laughed softly.  “That is another great poem of my people,” she said.  “The lovely prince who stole the king’ s wife who was willing to be stolen.  He too had a goddess to aid him.  And yet the prince’s city fell.  His people burned.  We are nothing, you and I, but song yet to be written.  Nothing happens that has not happened before.  We are not special, you and I.”

It has taken her so long to understand how to fight with words.  To wield them now even better than Romana is its own sad victory.  She always wished, when she was old, to become a singer of tales–and she has always been a thorn to prick the conscience of the powerful. 

The sea is not the way that Leela will choose.  It will be in a moment when they are happy side-by-side.  She will wrap her hands around Romana’s beautiful throat, and steal the breath that is her last one with a kiss to her mouth.  And after that, Leela will build the greatest pyre ever known, and burn beside her love.

She steps close a second time and kisses Romana’s lips.  It is not that last kiss, yet.  But she thinks about that one as she does.

“Andred is dead.  Brax is dead.  They were your people.  You should not have killed them, if you would have me believe that you will cheat death of his due.”

"Pandora’s death was as true as any I've dealt, yet she haunts me easily enough. That’s it’s own kind of immortality.”

This time, the kiss brought power back into her limbs and she pressed into it, to better to control it, and then stopped, to whisper into Leela’s ear. “Our story is already written, is it not? An echo of a path already walked, the Imperiatrix and the alien, always dancing ever closer to the inevitable conspiracy.” She pulled back, gripping Leela’s shoulders. She couldn’t freeze her with her words, as Leela had to her, but she could force her stillness. “But I know the ending. I could refuse it and give you what you beg me for.”

She made no move to. Without Leela, she’d be unmoored, a ruler of subjects infected by a virus that did its best to eradicate independent thought, living in a world of nothing but echoes, and having the choice would have to be enough.

“I know the plays and poetry of Earth well enough. How could I not?” She didn’t dare to say the Doctor’s name, in case uttering it could somehow summon him back from his world of anti-time, and bring his terrible chaos with him. “There’s one more apt, I think, one about imperators, not kings, and betrayal, not hubris.”

"If I could pray to move, prayers would move me, but I am constant as the northern star,” she said, with the cadence Time Lords usually reserved for their own history, “of whose true-fixed and resting quality, there is no fellow in the firmament."

“And even if you fell me, they will say,” she began, though her next words felt hollow even in her mind, compared to the memory of when they’d once been spoken to her with sincerity, “this was the noblest Romana of them all.”

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leelaofthesevateem:

That name did hurt.  Of course it did.  But it did not hurt the way Romana wanted it to hurt.  For Romana to speak of Andred was always a last resort, an act of desperation.  How sharp was Romana’s need for Leela now, that she should conjure up that ghost?

Leela stepped through the waves, slowed by the pressure of the water.  She put her hand to Romana’s cheek, and kissed her, so gently, on the corner of her mouth.

Leela had always liked to learn.  She preferred to be taught, to learn from someone, but no someones were allowed her now.  Romana let her have books, if she thought they were harmless books, and reading was the closest thing to conversation Leela could have when Romana was away.  Leela had read a great deal, in all these years.  And she had had always liked old stories, the ones that were songs trapped between paper covers.  They stayed in her head as she read them, those words that had that music inside them.

“And it came to pass in an eveningtide,” she murmured, “that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself,” she slid her hand, still damp with sea-water, to the back of Romana’s neck, “and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.”

She kissed the other corner of Romana’s mouth.  “There is another one, too,” she went on.  “A play about a man who would be king, for love both of power and of the old king’s queen.  Two of the greatest poems to come from the homeworld of my people, both about those who would rule, and their temptation to steal the wives of other men.”  She paused.  “It does not end well for those kings.”

She pressed herself against Romana’s body, nose against the side of her neck.  “I would not kill you for Andred’s sake,” she whispered, turning her lips up toward Romana’s ear.  “He loved me enough that he would spare me that misery if he could.  When I kill you it will not be for him, or for me.  It will be because it is right, and the doing of it will kill all that is left of me along with you.”

She froze. It wasn’t fair, that Leela could make her feel a thousand things at once, and leave her to tear herself apart with all the contradictions, but she had nothing left to take in retribution.  

“I am not a king,” she breathed, as if the distinction would save her, “and if I stole you, you were willing to be stolen.” 

Her words were strangely muted, and she was still rigid and unmoving, caught in the conflicting impulses of wanting to live and wanting to die. That was all her mind was now- a conflict between two things that didn’t quite fit together, even if she’d once been made to be the perfect match, because a person was more than their biodata, more than their genes and their imprimaturs. 

If she could have killed Braxiatel again, she would have, for reasons that were all her own, not Pandora’s. If he hadn’t intervened, if he hadn’t let her be her own person for so many years, only for that freedom to be taken away again, it wouldn’t have hurt. Pandora would have completed her, not twisted her, and nothing she’d done would have ever felt wrong. If she’d never really known what it was like to be Romana, she wouldn’t have loved Leela for her treason, even as she hated her for it. 

Leela would drown her, if she let her. She could feel it in her bones. A knife would be more appropriate, but the sea would do, and the waves would take her life with every second until she ran out of time to give. She’d die far away from the APC net, the Matrix, and all their other forms of immortality, with no other life for Pandora to corrupt, just sea-foam and sky. 

She shoved Leela away, hard, like a cornered wild animal finally lashing out in its defence. “You’ll never get to kill me.” She said, with all the certainty of someone who, with the entire Web of Time at her disposal, had never dared to look into her future. “We’re the people who conquered death.”   

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coordinatrix:

“On the contrary–pragmatic, as I’ve said.  This damage to us both came from outside.  Walls work both ways, and damage to yours could mean trouble to us.  One of those rare and happy occasions when doing the smart thing means benefit to everyone.”

“Thank you, Madam President.  I would appreciate that.  I’m certain some member of your government will know.  Our own Capital connection to the Academies and their scholars is Cardinal Braxiatel–have you one of those?”

A test.  If there is anyone Narvin would expect a Pandora to despise, it is Braxiatel.  She watches Romana’s reaction closely, if subtly.

“And you get to be the one risking travel to other Universes. How does the Coordinator of her own organisation draw the short straw?” Pandora smiled. “I understand the difficulty of delegation, but surely you could have sent a trusted lackey in your place.” 

She stiffened. Time Lord deaths were rare enough that she couldn't dismiss everyone as dead without using the war as justification, and she wasn’t sure she could bear feigning grief over his. "He's not around at present, I hear he’s building an art collection.” She said, carefully. “That role is currently being fulfilled by Valyes. I can, of course, call him for you instead.” 

With how close her guards were, she had no problem in pushing slightly. “And I would love to hear more about your Universe.” 

[imperiiatrix-blog]

leelaofthesevateem:

“I know the name Romanadvoratrelundar,” Leela replies, calmly.  “I did not love her, the heir to her house, the Time Lady with too many names.  I loved Romana.  I loved the brave, just, rebellious girl who ran away to see the stars.  She did not understand that I never loved her office, or her robes, or her titles.  She never understood me at all, if she thought that more power was the way to keep my heart.”

Leela dives under the waves for a moment.  Pandora will hate to be ignored, even that long, but the embrace of the water is one of the only good things left to her.  Leela surfaces, and floats on her back.

“You do not need to lie to me,” she says.  “You would never have let Braxiatel live, not for a moment longer than you could help.  He was the one who fought you for Romana’s life.  He was the one who gave her the years when she was mine.  He was too dangerous for you to only lock inside a cell.  Is it guilt, that you would keep speaking of him?”

Isn’t that enough.  It hurts that Romana even thinks it a right question.  It hurts that the part that is asking is Romana.

“You can hypnotize me,” she says.  “If you need to hear me say what you want me to say, as though I meant it.  You do not like it when I try to lie for you.  I have never had falsehood enough in my bones to make you believe what I do not.”

“I know you’d have loved her more if she’d ran away again.” she said, bitterly. “I didn’t want to. This was the only way to keep everything.” 

Leela’s words hurt and she was furious that they did. Worse, they didn’t stop hurting until she buried herself under harsher things, the parts of her that could pretend her decisions had nothing to do with Leela’s love, repeating lies until they sounded true. 

Her rebellious little dive only infuriates her further, and she wants to punish her for it, to grab her hard enough to bruise, but something stops her. Leela had wounded her with words; she deserved the same in return. “He died, yes. That doesn’t mean he died quickly. The years he gave, he stole from me, do you think I’d forgive that?” 

“Guilt?” she scoffs, because it can’t be guilt, that’d be admitting there was anything wrong with the path she’d chosen, after it was far too late to turn back. “I simply don’t know who else would interest you. Should I speak of Narvin, the fool who forgot he was meant to be a coward? Valyes, who dealt you so many insults, when I didn’t have spine enough to snap his for it?” Her tone turns dangerous. “Andred?”

She takes a step into the water. The cold doesn’t hurt like expected, only numbs her further, and she grabs Leela between her shoulders, forcing her to look at her, and only her. 

“Would you rather hear how Romana, your bright and brave Romana, murdered him, in the dark of night, because she wanted to?” 

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leelaofthesevateem:

Leela knows what she wants to say.  You can do anything.  You can command death itself, with your Matrix and your looms.  You want to give me something?  Give me Andred. Give me the husband you killed.

That is too much.  Leela knows it.  She does not fear pain, and she does not fear death–she longs for death–but Romana, Pandora, they will not punish Leela for Leela’s misdeeds.  They will punish someone else.  They will find someone, some innocent, and make Leela watch as they suffer and die.  And that, Leela still does fear.

“Give me my Romana,” she says, because this much is allowed.  “My Romana, who I love, and who is still somewhere trapped in your maw.  Give me my freedom.  Give me a friend, someone for whom I can care, who in your jealousy you would not tear from me again.  And if you will not give me those, give me my death.  You have the power to give me any of those.”

Leela closes her eyes.  “Yes,” she says, with no feeling but misery.  “You love me best.  And so you hurt me deliberately, and I, fool that I am, still cannot help but love the part of you that is still my Romana.”

Leela stands and strips off her clothes.  Pandora likes to see Leela bare, though her body, Romana’s body, does not hunger for Leela’s touch–only to touch, to control Leela’s body, to make her weak.  Leela naked is a sight only those eyes are allowed to see, and Pandora likes to do what only she can do.  Leela swings down from her rocky perch to the pebbled beach, then steps into the water, all the way up to her shoulders, enjoying the cold sting of it.  It will be good, to let it make her numb.

“She’s not trapped anywhere.” she hisses, and for a moment there’s some of her old fire there but then, even that cools to ice. Her voice turns scornful. “I’ve had so many people thinking they could get me to change, just by asking, or just by using my true name. This isn't a fairy-tale; my name was never even really Romana. Can't you get your mouth around all the syllables?"

She likes to think the condescension was Pandora slipping out, but it could just have easily been the ghost of her first self, rising up and rattling its bones, all because she’d killed her years ago, in a world so far away. It would be easier, she sometimes thinks, to be like Pandora, robbed of a past and present, with only a future to live for.

She frowns, frustrated. She couldn’t give Leela someone else, she’d have no reason left to love her, and the very thought sickens her with jealousy. Instead, she chides, "You have more freedom than any citizen of Gallifrey. I’ve given you the whole of Davidia, all four of its moons, the sea and the sky. All Braxiatel got was a cell.”

She watches Leela undress intently, without making any move to copy her. She didn't like to be touched, even more than most Time Lords, whereas Romana had been unusually tactile. Her own body felt foreign, not quite hers- though she wasn't wholly Pandora, she hadn't been wholly Romana for a long, long time. Her mind wasn't the same as the one that had been loomed to occupy her body, and there was a disconnect between them.

The elements are one thing she can’t tame, the sea will freeze her the same as anyone else, so she stays in the shallows, where the water can only reach her shoes. She rests a hand on Leela’s shoulder, the touch soft but possessive, and says, in a tone that’s the closest the Imperiatrix of Gallifrey will ever get to pleading, “Isn’t that enough?”

@imperiiatrix

[imperiiatrix-blog]

coordinatrix:

And if Narvin’s hackles were not up already, that would be more than enough.

Narvins don’t die.  Narvin herself, more than anyone, finds this baffling, but it appears to be the truth.  Her collection of acquaintances from other universes grows by the day, it sometimes feels.  All of them seem to have known her  counterparts, and only Vansell ever lost his Narvin–and only then when his whole universe died.  Andreds die, and Wynters die, and Vansells die themselves.  Whereas Romanas and Braxes last longer than they wish they would, survivors beyond every loss they could ever take and more.

But, though those survivors don’t say so, Narvin knows in her marrow that Narvins go down with their planet.  There are Time Wars, and, so far as Narvin has seen, no Narvins living after them.  Even if that is the multiverse being kinder to Narvin than she will ever merit, giving her exactly the death she would choose, she understands that this is true.  Narvins die when Gallifrey dies.  That is how it is supposed to be.  And even if this timeline had diverged in some coincidental way instead of reverting as usual to an established time track–if this universe’s Narvin died in a freak accident, a momentary causal blip–Narvin has never met a Romana any later than her second self who would fail to be sorry for that fact.

Which means that this is not Romana, and that coming here was a stupid, stupid idea.

“Oh, very well,” Narvin says, lightly.  “This visit is in the nature of a… goodwill mission.  You see, we’ve developed a method of healing the cracks in our own universe, the ones that permitted me to visit here.”  Only nearly true, but Narvin knows, oh, she remembers the feeling of possession, she knows better than show weakness to a suspected Pandora.  “We didn’t cause them, by the way–that was another of our mutual neighbors.  Before the sealing process is complete, however, we thought it would be a responsible gesture to share that cure with other affected universes.  Stop the cracks reopening and re-infecting us, and do you a good turn in the meanwhile.  And if you have any likely scientists who could help us tweak and perfect our cure, well, that would be mutually beneficial too.  Experts, particularly, on Vortisaur genetics.”

She doesn’t answer the question about her own Lady President.  The less solid information she can share about her own universe, the better.

Pandora wasn’t used to having any question of hers ignored, however small, and if she hadn’t already disliked this Narvin on the principle of having murdered a different one, that would have been enough. “How charitable.” she said, without feeling. 

“We have a number of excellent biologists.” she said, truthfully enough. She’d focused on replenishing the field almost as soon as the civil war had finished- her dogma virus had sorely needed refining. Thanks to that, pigrat genetics was a more common speciality. “I wouldn’t know offhand if any of them have an interest in Vortisaurs, I do have better things to wonder about, but we’ll see.” 

She led the way to the Capitol’s entrance and touched the gate, letting it read her biodata. That in itself was a security flaw, now that she knew it was entirely possible for Romanas to fall from the sky and she’d have to add something they didn’t share to the security systems. 

It swung open, and though it was customary for her to go first, she still didn’t want to turn her back on the intruder. “After you.” she said, with what might pass for a pleasant smile. 

[imperiiatrix-blog]

leelaofthesevateem:

“If I asked you for a palace, you would build it,” Leela says, without expression.  “If I asked you for silks and furs and shiny stones, you would give them.  If I asked you for every pretty thing you took from Braxiatel when you burned his world, I could make his work my own work, make this world like his.  You do not want me to ask you for the things that I want.  You want me to ask you for the things you want to give me, and to call that love.”

They have spoken these words before.  One time, when Leela still had more fight left in her, she mocked the person Romana wanted her to be.  Oh, Romana, you are so sweet to me, breathless and high-pitched.  Oh, Romana, how you spoil me.  You take such fine care of me, Romana.  How could a simple Savage like me have dreamed of any life like this one?  I am so lucky in your love. 

The other thing in Romana’s skin does not like to be mocked.  Romana’s hands had been rough on her that day, her wanting a hard fury in her eyes.  Leela had liked that better, in some ways.  It was honest.

“We get along fine, now,” she said, about the servitors.  “I know that they will stick me with needles, if I do not eat.  I know that they will pull me from the water, if I am drowning.  I know that they will force air into my lungs, if I do not breathe, and bandage my skin, if I cut myself, and hold me down if I try to take those bandages away.  You have always been cleverer than I am, Romana.  There is no way I can think of to end this that they have not thought on first.  They are kind in every other way, now that I have stopped trying.”

And now, the worst part.  Leela closes her eyes, and leans back against Romana, instead of leaning away.

She loved this woman so much.  And her ghost is here, and no one else is, and if Leela wishes ever, ever to be touched again, there are no hands but these hands.

“You don’t like to come here like that,” she whispers, pretending, oh, pretending that Romana is here with her.  “You are afraid that she will hurt me.  But I like her hurting better than your kindness.”

“Isn’t it?” She frowns, the expression exaggerated in a calculated effort to look innocent. “I wouldn’t do that for anyone else. I’d disperse them into tiny little pieces just for asking. If you’d ask me for something I can give, we’d both feel better. I’m the stubborn one, remember?” 

She smiles and the grin looks foreign on her face, like she’s forgotten how to smile and mean it. “I never did any of that for Braxiatel. I knew him for so much longer than I’ve known you; he was there when I was a tiny, stupid little thing. Isn’t that proof I love you best?” 

“Good,” she says. “I’d rather they not hurt you at all, but they have to protect you from yourself.” Nothing on Davidia would protect Leela from her, whichever name she wore, but it hardly needed to be said. 

At Leela’s whisper, her hand clenches into a fist around Leela’s hair, knotting it, and for a moment, she thinks she might pull it, with the kind of violence that would make them both bleed. The moment passes and her hand drops to her side.

“Don’t say that.” she says, fighting the urge to snap the words. Her hand goes back to Leela’s hair, her touch soft again, and she says, more gently, “Please don’t say that. You hurt her deliberately, I know you do, and you mustn’t.” 

There’s no one else in the multiverse who the Imperiatrix of Gallifrey would say please to. She knows Leela doesn’t appreciate it, she can’t, and the thought makes her want to scream, why won’t you be what I need you to be? But there are still words she doesn’t say, even as she lets every other urge out, unchecked. “I won’t lose you, Leela.” 

@imperiiatrix

[imperiiatrix-blog]

coordinatrix: 

“Of course, My Lady,” said Narvin, with a little bow.  “May I ask whether your Coordinator is another version of myself, as my universe and yours seem to correspond as far as Presidents?  If not in regard to bodies–mine is in her second.”

Narvin still didn’t trust this Romana, entirely.  She was more than glad she’d secreted a Time Ring in her pockets.  Otherwise, being out of easy reach of  her TARDIS would make her very uneasy.

Pandora fell in to step beside Narvin, leading the way, but not trusting her nearly enough to have her back turned on her. “I’m afraid,” she said, trying to sound solemn,” your counterpart died. I suspect we’re a little further along than you are.” 

“Before, I was a little disconcerted by the idea of a Gallifrey so like my own meeting mine, I’ll admit, but now I see it’s intriguing. You’re all well, I hope?” she asked, while she still had a chance of getting an honest answer. The Capitol wasn’t far and not even a CIA lackey could miss everyone addressing her by her proper title. “Has my counterpart made her Academy reforms yet?” 

[imperiiatrix-blog]

She sometimes thinks of herself as Romana, sometimes as Pandora, and sometimes as neither, which makes for a rather terrible identity crisis. She’s tried asking which one her underlings think fits her better but no one would admit to calling of her anything other than Madam Imperiatrix, even in the privacy of their own heads which was probably wise, if annoying at the time. 

Sometimes, she never wants to leave Davidia, where she has space to breathe, where she has Leela. On Davidia, she doesn’t have an entire planet to control, a whole planet of people that need to be told what to do and what to think. Other times, she’s consumed with paranoia, sure that all Leela can give her is her doom and seeing her as nothing more than the second incarnation of the original Pandora’s bodyguard, a betrayal waiting to happen. 

A few times, she’s wondered if it would really be so bad, to watch the only alien she’s ever loved stab her in both hearts. She tries not to linger on those. It’s not a healthy fantasy. 

Even in her darkest moods, she’s never once tried to kill her. She’s either still in love with her, or with the idea of her own destruction. Even she doesn’t have a hope of telling which, anymore. 

“Leela,” she says, chidingly, “Why would I ever do that?” 

She strokes Leela’s hair absently, peering over her shoulder, as if they’re watching the sunset together. “Are they treating you well?” She’d written every line of the servitor’s code, unwilling to trust even the most mindless of technicians with the task, but still, one wonders. 

She’s feeling enough like Romana that it hurts, seeing Leela broken and hollow, a bird denied the freedom to stretch her wings, but caged things can’t leave her, however much they want to.  

“It’s been a while, I know, I’m sorry.” she says and her words are genuine enough, she’d felt too much like something ancient and angry to visit. Pandora fears Leela. Pandora fears death; Romana courts it. “I’ve been in the blackest mood for months and I know you don’t like it when I come here like that.” 

@imperiiatrix

Leela, who spent her first twenty-two years penned in a cage so small that she knew every leaf of it, had never known that a planet–a whole planet, all to herself–could feel so much like a prison.

She sat on the edge of an outcropping of rock, her feet in the tumultuous ocean. It was a good word, tumultuous.  Melyin had taught it her, before Romana had Melyin’s tongue cut out for daring to speak to Leela.  Leela did not want to know what had happened to Melyin later, for the crime of continuing to look when she could no longer speak.  Leela’s minders are all robots, now.

Davidia was the most beautiful world Leela had ever seen, once.

Romana was the most beautiful person Leela had ever known, once.

Leela hears the TARDIS materializing before her ears should even be able to notice the sound.  She never listens for anything else.  She has been whittled slowly away to this.  She is no longer the Savage of Gallifrey, no longer Leela of the Sevateem, no longer storyteller or bodyguard or tutor.  She is certainly no longer any man’s lioness.  She is beloved to the beautiful monster who ate the woman Leela once loved, who is the woman Leela once loved.  That is all she is allowed to be, anymore.

The TARDIS door opens.  Leela stares into the sea.

“Will you let me die, now?” Leela asks, without turning.  It is the only thing she ever asks.