Doctor Who: The Bright Asylum

Snow Dance of taikomochi

In the dark of the secret little room, Benjamin Pond’s hand is snowy trace on glass. He squirms, back-brain processes driving him toward some desperate need, a need the usual place in his conscious is not yet aware of.

A shining man smelling of rough gold and sex is above him, the dimple-chinned face hovering like a dangling leaf about to leap from a high branch. One arm is wrapped in a … cuff of leather, with a ticking thing on it.

Pond grabs the face in one hand, shoving straight out easily with his elbow. The shiny man arcs back, his head spearing the wall. He will not trouble anyone, for a while.

His body twists up, the power in his abdominals hurting his guts as he strains them loose from sleep- or tries to anyway.

He –is- still asleep. Part of him.

The part that is not, however, the deep part, oh that is very awake, and rumbling.

Rumbling with the need to shove something out.

The space between his legs envelops his senses.

Bits of flesh feel numb; they hang from him, hot, cold, dripping the wet of his body.

Below his stomach lies the problem.

He grabs his bulging belly in wonder, feeling the muscles squeeze.

More pain.

Below his stomach lies the solution.

As above, so below.

Or not.

His bare feet fly out, landing on cold floor.

His body has bled beneath his toes- he squishes them in and out of the mess, squirming himself in it. Writhing his long toes in his own thick juices.

Grapes… somewhere, a piece of him floats to the surface… a man in a tub, stomping little red fruit.

Grape juice.


He remembers the sweetness of juice; it spurs a recognition of immediate deficiency, the need for sugar, and a memory of what’s happening now. He needs to get above ground, needs to give birth, but not here. Above ground. Above… in the light.

The little room smells of recent exit.

Pond scents the egress easily, there are many smelly footsteps there, leading away.

Leading –him- away.

He follows, clutching his side at the sudden sharpness rampaging through his guts.

A big thing is tossing inside him, ready to be released.

But there is a string of web trickling outside, a glowing blue line of Time like the spindly wet gleam off a dolphin’s back.

Doll. Fin.

More useless words.

He is leaking fluid.

Time to run, on wobbly, distracted legs. There is a place he must reach… part of him is almost there… far away, in the place with rocks and upside-down things. Shiny trees, too.

Rassilon… that bubbles up from the cauldron of his memory like bones from an old pool of tar- he must reach Rassilon… yes. Rassilon is the man he must… reach.

Panting through the hot ice chipping at his spine and lower torso, he plants feet forward, on and on, slipping here and there on a wall, bloodying things- a table here, a person there, with a couple of wet handprints.

His toes baste the floor as his body drains still more blood down his legs, leaving a grisly thick, clot-strewn trail in his wake, like bread crumbs.





So much water along with all that blood… what the hell?

Swaying, he grabs a blank-faced woman in grey and throws her down to keep his balance, then ambles farther through the march of white hallways, stopping to rest against the silvery frame of a door only when his brainstem instinct buzzes –safe-. Something spurs him to raise his head, so he does.

There is a sign above some up-down stairs which reads:




It is the ascending stair he wants, so he ascends, weaving his slow way to the Teleporter Bay, bannister by blood-slick bannister.

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