[ For timeforamy ; Air-Paris ]

[mmkaternater]

[ OOC: Follows this ]

There are approximately 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. A respectable number, for any galaxy. But that's small potatoes when compared to the number of stars found in the entire universe -- something like ten to the power of twenty-four -- which is a very pragmatic, comfortingly mathematical way of saying that space is big.

Really big.

Bigger than your whole town, much bigger than the little flat you have in the city, with the leaky shower head and the upstairs neighbors who like to stomp around wearing wellies filled with bricks. Space is bigger than your township, your borough, bigger than all the places you have ever been, combined and multiplied by themselves until the math makes you dizzy and you have to lie down for a while. Big. Ten to the power of twenty-four. Countless suns, all burning out in the black. Of those, maybe a little more than half have planets. Of those, approximately half have some form of life. Of those, approximately sixteen-million-five-hundred-and-forty-seven-thousand-one-hundred-and-eighty-six have intelligent life, or some variation of it. Comparatively speaking, that is a depressingly small percentage. But, then again, "intelligence" is relative, especially across star systems.

The Doctor is in the TARDIS's control room, hunched over the console, his nose inches away from a chronofribrilator feed that, apparently, requires up close and personal inspection in order for it to function properly. He's muttering to himself, soft space-themed mutter. Once in a while his eyebrows will jump, as if he's just thought of something, but then he will return to his work, subdued. He left Amy in his bed down the corridor, asleep. He does not quite know what to think about that.

He does know that he needs to take her somewhere -- somewhere spectacular -- and he needs to do it right away. What are you doing, old man? You can't honestly expect to carry this off. Not when you're not even being entirely honest with her. Not when she's only just lost her --

He hears bare feet on the catwalk above his head. "Pond!" he announces, "glad you're finally awake. Listen, we're just about to make landfall. Oh, er', well, spacefall, I suppose you could say. Air-Paris: the entire City of Lights, replicated perfectly, floating in the Sunset Constellation of Ursa Minor Minor. Sort of like Starship U.K., but with much more wine and cheese."

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[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Behind them, the dragon gives a dyspeptic growl and lashes its tail around the monument. The Doctor senses that he and Amy are running on a tight sort of schedule. He sort of hops around on the balls of his feet, eager and squirmy, and fishes his fingers at the nape of his neck.

"I'm not particularly eager to see you rolling 'round between old Smog's molars, no."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

That's good enough. At least, it is for now, and Amy feels a hot, rough surge of something in her chest. It's a feeling that makes her palms tingle and a heartbeat move faster in her pulse points.

There isn't a lot of time, though, and Amy doesn't have any to waste. She casts a glance across her shoulder - yep, the dragon hasn't exactly gone anywhere far - then whirls back to meet the Doctor's face. He's still with a few streaks of soot across his face from where ashes decided to make their mark. Amy pays them no mind, even as she brings her hands promptly to either side of his face. The nails are manicured and stand out as coloured points near his pale complexion.

Her eyes search his, hard and fast, and then she says one, very simple word -

"Charmer."

- before, rather promptly and forcefully, bringing her mouth to his.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Even the man-eating dragon looks surprised.

The Doctor -- usually the sort who's very good about not panicking -- spends a few seconds waffling between panic, surprise and, well, your plain old garden variety whoa-ness. When they break, he's dazed. "Yes," he says quietly, running his tongue over the impression left by her lips, "I get that a lot." Now he's sort of smiling (dragon be damned), the way that only a good kiss can make you smile.

He claps his hands together once and does a quick on-the-spot turn. "Right. What do you say, Pond? Shall we save Air-Paris for future generations or what?"

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"Yes we shall!" Amy is grinning, even though there is still a twist of fear in her stomach. This will be okay, she trusts the Doctor, and -

- well, no one said things would always be easy.

Amy gives him a devilish grin, then charges off at a run towards the dragon. Her arms lift to wave, to get his attention.

"Hey! Over here! Looking for a damsel? Well, you've got one!"

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor can't help but think that there was an ulterior motive to laying a good one on him: in the seconds that followed, he was too dazed to stop her from going off and -- Hey! Over here! Looking for a damsel? Well, you've got one! -- well, that, pretty much.

He sweeps his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and flourishes it at the dragon. "All right," he murmurs, "what are you?" As the device whirrs to life, the dragon gives out a tremendous, earth-shaking roar. Right, the Doctor thinks, that's enough of that.

"Amy! Get out of there!"

The dragon pumps its six wings and detaches from the side of the monument, rearing back its long neck. Bright, sulphur-smelling sparks appear on either side of the reptilian jaw. "Amy! Run!"

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy has a wild surge of adrenaline that flares up her spine, twisting through her blood stream and touching the edges of her mind. If she stops running, she'll be the dragon's next snack, and that isn't something she wants to do. So she keeps running, though it isn't likely the way the Doctor would want her to.

See, Amy is antagonizing the dragon.

"Come on!" Her voice is a bright sound in the chaotic air around them. "Come on, I'm what you want, yeah? Leave them alone, then, come on!"

And she takes off running.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor claps his palm to his forehead and sort of deflates from the shoulders down. "Blimey, Amy --" as she tears off down the boulevard, red hair going like a banner behind her, taunting the big, meat-eating alien hellbeast with a very coordinated spaz attack.

OId Smog chooses that moment to send a jet of fire into the air and leap off the monument, giving chase. The Doctor curses and picks up after them -- a wacky parade of who's-chasing-whom -- all the while trying to scan the creature using the sonic.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

But Amy has a plan, whether it looks as if she does or not. She isn't blindly running to coax the dragon after her, she has a destination in mind. Because dragons, for all their size and intimidation, are rather clumsy creatures. They aren't exactly well versed in snatching things out of small spaces.

And Amy remembers an alleyway during their walk in.

She rounds the corner and wedges herself in the small space between two buildings. The dragon takes a few moments to follow her, then bellows out a roar of agitation when realizing she is beyond his reach. Its great head snaps with silvery teeth exposed, but it can't reach her.

And it is very much staying still while focused on the impossible task of getting to Amy.

"Think you can get what you need now? Doctor?"

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The dragon, foiled in its pursuit, claps its heavy wings against the air and launches itself backward to perch on the edge of the building across the street. Hunched over the old facade, it looks very much like one of the stone gargoyles on either side of it. Except, you know, much, much scarier.

The Doctor wedges himself into the alley behind Amy, flashing the sonic screwdriver over his shoulder. "Much better," he says, a bit out of breath but still managing the dry acerbity, "backed into a corner, but beyond chomping range. I can work with this." He flicks the side of the screwdriver and calibrates some readings. "Oh dear. Oh no. That is..." he glances at the dragon "...oh, you big, bad beastie. You are very far from home."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy takes this as a relative compliment, and vows to give him a fairly scathing look if he says anything to negate it. They are in a fairly good position, though she hasn't quite worked out how they'll escape from this corner.

But that can be worked out, more or less.

The Doctor's words take Amy by surprise and she lifts her head to look at his face. He seems concerned, a great deal more so than normal. What is this dragon? What makes it so -

"What is it? Doctor? What's the matter?"

Forget that Air-Paris doesn't seem to have a large dragon population, that's irrelevant right now.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor shows her the side of the screwdriver where a small yellow light is pulsing erratically. Now, for those of us in the audience who can't read sonic screwdriver, the little yellow light amounts to a big helping of trouble. With a capital 'T' that rhymes with 'D' that stands for dragon.

He whips the sonic screwdriver back into his pocket and watches as the beast sends a plume of blue-black smoke curling from its nostrils. "Draco draconis lifeform, very dangerous, very cranky, and very far from home. How it wound up here, I have no idea." He bites his lower lip. "But it doesn't look very happy to be sunning in Paris, does it?"

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy shakes her head and looks up to the dragon again. It's really a beautiful creature, more so than she realized before. There's a majesty there, in seeing something which belongs only in fantasy walking - or in this case, hovering, flying and spitting fire - before your own eyes.

"How far from home?" She asks the Doctor this with a hint of sadness in her voice, because she is moved by this creature's loss and desolation. It hurts her to think of how lost it must feel.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"Oh, about fifty-six billion light years." The Doctor gets that Amy's sympathetic to the displaced citizen idea, really does, but he's just a bit less eager to share the same sentiment while the dragon's burping fire up and down the Place de la Concorde.

He turns to her. "No matter what happens -- Amy, listen to me --" he takes her by the shoulders and gets very close "-- do not follow me out there. Do you understand. I'll be fine. But, just in case, if anything happens." He reaches into his jacket and pulls out the TARDIS key. 'Presses it into her hand. "You take this and run back to the TARDIS. The controls are pre-locked for Earth, your time. You won't have missed more than a few minutes."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Her fingers fold around the key, metal warming to the temperature of her skin and the grooves making indentations on her palm. Amy curls her hand up and against her chest, protecting the key with both her touch and her own ferocity, but that is where her agreement ends. Because it would be Amelia Jessica Pond who would adamantly face a fire-breathing, very angry dragon in the name of - well, that.

"No you don't." Her voice is hard and fierce, as are her eyes on his and the shake of her wildfire red hair. "I'm not running anywhere unless it's right on out there with you. So whatever plan you have worked out in that Time Lord brain of yours had better well work, else that dragon's going to get a two for one snack deal."

Amy brings up her free hand to grasp at one tweed lapel, insisting on another half inch of closeness of his face to hers, so her point is clear. "I'm going with you. So tell me what to do to help."

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

"Nonsense, I'll be fine. 'Bit of a dragon problem. Nothing I haven't faced before." A pause. "Well, actually, I haven't faced down a dragon before. But I assume that all of the old fairy tales and legends got it wrong, which is why there is such a large survivor-to-dinner ratio among knights."

He brings his hand up to wrap around the backs of her knuckles. "Listen. Amy, really listen. The best thing you can do, the absolute best thing you can do to help me, is to stay right here. I'm just going to talk to it, one creature to another. I'm just going to talk to it and, you know, politely ask it to...leave."

He sounds less confident about that last bit. Nevertheless, he wrests her hand from his lapel, holds it up, and plants a big kiss on the backs of her knuckles. "Won't be a tick."

And he dashes out into the open.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Oh, she doesn't like this one bit. Less than a child would like brussels sprouts, and double when they're being forced onto a close-lipped mouth. But his lips are there and gone on the back of her hand before she can protest, and he's out into the open as her lips are parting to voice, rather insistently, why she doesn't think this is a very good -

- oh, great.

Amy, for once, stays still. Well, relatively still - she does nudge herself forward a bit more for wagering a better look. But she keeps back for the time being, and fixes her eyes on the Doctor and the great beast hovering above.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

Above him, the dragon adjusts its great big claws on the edge of the building and peers down, black lips curled back to reveal at least four rows of very sharp-looking teeth. If the Doctor didn't know any better, he could have sworn that the creature was grinning.

"Hallo!" he chirps brightly. "I say, hallo up there! Yes, that's right, I'm talking to you! If I could have your attention for a moment, please, I know you can understand me and I want you to know that I can understand you, too. 'Just thought I'd pop out and have a bit of a chat with you, you know, in between all the fire and whatnot."

The dragon growls and sends a round puff of fire into the air.

"Yes, that's terrifically impressive. Hydrogen-based carbon lifeform, right? From very very far away. Listen, I only want to talk to you, one alien to another. Do you think you can do that?"

The Doctor gets another shrewd look, but doesn't get roasted in the process. Well, that's a start.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Amy isn't quite sure what to do other than whisper a desperate prayer to whatever deity might be listening that the Doctor comes on out of this unscathed. Dragons don't seem to be the most pleasant of creatures, and if this one is having a bad day she doesn't want to busy herself too much with thinking of the consequences. She isn't convinced, either, that her staying behind is going to be a good idea, but for right now she'll let the Doctor do the talking and see what happens.

She's holding her breath without realizing it, and her heart is beating a rapid pace in her throat. But, for now, she stays still and out of the way.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor holds up his hands, palms facing outward, trying to affect the appearance of placation. "Look, I know what it's like. Big universe, strange, new place. I've been traveling for an awfully long time, too. 'Never feeling like you know exactly where home is, always running. Sometimes the running's good...sometimes it's not so good. But you," he takes a step forward, squinting up at the beast, "you've been running for quite a while, haven't you? How did you end up here?"

From above, a series of low, rumbly pulses burp from the dragon's throat. The Doctor listens, then turns a half look over his shoulder at Amy. "Sounds like indigestion," he remarks, "but that's dragon language. He says he came here through a crack in the wall of the universe --" this strikes him, and he refocuses on the dragon:

"A crack in the wall of the universe? How's that possible?"

More dyspeptic grunts, and the Doctor's face turns ashen. He shakes his head slowly. "I'm sorry. I really am. But you can't stay here. This whole...burning down the city business, well, it's just not done these days." The dragon growls and raises up on its haunches. "Listen to me, listen. I can get you home. I can send you back where you belong and nobody else has to get hurt. If you let me help you, I can fix this. What do you say?"

The dragon appears to consider the Doctor's proposal -- long neck curved, head tilted -- and the Doctor waits with his hearts in his throat for an answer. After a few seconds, the dragon gives a shriek, pumps its six wings in the air and lunges off the edge of the building -- straight for the Doctor.

The Doctor doubles back on his heels and turns around. "Diplomacy's rubbish! Run!" Just as the dragon's claws close around his middle and lift him up off the ground and into the air.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

Many a human would break into a run simply on cue like that, because dragons and danger are bad things and running away from bad things falls into the category of simple human nature actions. But Amy is too preoccupied, too busy being concerned about the Doctor - and that this dragon has come through the crack in her bedroom wall.

Well, the crack in the universe that just happens to be in her bedroom wall, but to Amy it will always be the crack in her bedroom wall. Growing up with something alongside you, whispering strange things through your life, it becomes a part of you.

"Put him down!" Amy shouts, running from her own place of cover and into the open. The TARDIS key is safely in a pocket of her jacket, zippered up where it won't fall loose and be lost, but her own safety is a blatant disregard right now. Especially with the Doctor being tossed about like some kind of doll, far out of reach of her grasping hands and any kind of safety.

"Stop that, he's trying to help you! You can understand him just fine, he's trying to help you get out of here!" Her arms are waving their outrage in the air and there is anger, fierce exasperation on her pretty, flushed face.

Leave it to Amelia Pond to yell at a dragon.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor is jostled about like an old mop head, trying to tell 'up' from 'down' while the dragon tightens its claws around his middle. "Ack! --" he coughs "-- not so tight there, you! What are you trying to do, crush me?" He's able to draw breath and it's then that he sees Amy run into the courtyard. "Amy! What did I tell you? Get out of here!" He makes a sweeping gesture toward her route of exit.

The dragon's wings beat wind in great sweeping gusts, flashing Amy's red hair over her shoulders. It hisses loudly and curls its tail upward, lashing out like a whip. It does not seem particularly concerned about the small little Scottish girl shouting at it.

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

"And I told you I'm not leaving you!" Amy is as stubborn as he can be, but she has a whole world of human emotion bottled up inside of her. She might be a small, little Scottish girl in the scheme of many things, but right now she isn't in the slightest bit perturbed by that.

What matters is her raggedy Doctor, beloved as he is, being jostled about as though he's nothing more than one of the plush creatures she's crafted over time.

"Let him go! The crack isn't his fault, you let him go!"

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The Doctor looks up at the snarling maw. "I'd listen to her, if I were you." He means it. Not just because his internal organs are currently being rendered into jelly, but because he's seen good old Amy Pond take on bigger and badder opponents than this, and when she doesn't get her way things tend to, well degenerate fairly quickly.

A growl from above. Then, slowly, the Doctor feels the claws starting to unclench from around his middle. He realizes what's happening a second before it's too late -- the dragon lets go and the Doctor plummets like any good old object with its own mass -- right into a tarpaulin slung between two market stalls. He bounces once. Twice. 'Rolls off the back of the canopy and into a large box of nectarines.

"Oof!" as the round little fruits go rolling everywhere. "Excellent plan, Pond," he says hoarsely, hoisting himself out of the rubble. He crosses the square (a little shaky) and stands beside Amy, addressing the dragon:

"Listen, that was very rude and I don't appreciate it at all." He dusts his lapels. "I'm going to give you one last chance: let me help you, or I am going to have to do something that I won't like very much at all."

[timeforamy.livejournal.com]

That was - slightly - unexpected, if Amy is completely honest with herself. Her anger was great enough to merit taking down the dragon with her bare hands - at least in her mind, sure - but she wasn't entirely sure she had expected the creature to be agreeable in this. At least, not without some sort of fight put forth.

But she wasn't about to question it right now.

Amy runs to the Doctor's side, not touching him but close enough to feel the rapid in and out of his breath. He was shaken and would have been a fool not to, dragons don't seem quite willing to discriminate towards anything, including Time Lords. Even if they are the last of their race.

She doesn't speak, instead just stays near his side.

[goodwithtime.livejournal.com]

The dragon growls, but otherwise gives no indication that it is making plans to roast and eat our heroes. Which is a very good thing, because when it came to contingency plans, the Doctor -- well, he didn't exactly have one. (Short of calling the dragon out on not being a very good sport.)

He glances at Amy, then takes another step toward the dragon. "Just let me help you," he says, trying on his best soothing voice, "you can trust me, I promise. I'm just like you." Well, except for the scales.