atardisofourown | VIP Flood for Bianca (but open)

VIP Flood for Bianca (but open)

[Amata takes a few minutes to digest the Barge Facts 101 the Admiral seems to have helpfully dumped into her head. Fortunately, while no telepath herself, she's no stranger to telepathy, or transdimensional ships, although the Barge may actually top the TARDIS for strange and fantastic.

She looks around the suite she arrived in, without poking around, even though she knows that if this is indeed Koschei's quarters, he'd shrug and say she'd be within her rights to do so.

Then she flips on the communicator. People from all over the cosmos all on one ship, huh? No way she's wasting much time making her presence known. If Koschei is remotely typical for the passengers, the next few days will be far from boring.]

Hello, Barge. I'm one of the guests for this flood. My name is Amata, and I'm human, but not Earth born and raised. I'm originally from a pretty backwater colony called Kaitos, late 34th century. The last few years I've been traveling, mostly, some of it time travel. As far as Earth goes, early 21st century is the era I've spent the most time in. [There's no accounting for the taste of renegade Time Lords, as favorite time periods go, apparently, but she elects not to say that out loud.]

How are all of you this morning?

***

Amata is cheerfully wandering around everywhere on the ship she can reach that isn't obviously private quarters, and not shying from making use of Koschei's warden item (21st-century British passport, really, Koschei? See above: no accounting for taste). She'll talk to anyone who seems to welcome company, with open curiosity and warmth. Perhaps notably, once she works out what the Enclosure does, she's not very interested in it for itself, although she doesn't mind accompanying people who want to make use of it.

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Hip-deep in strangers, apparently.

[ If it's occurred to Bianca that this is probably a friend of Koschei's, she's clearly missed the corollary that she ought to be polite. Or is wilfully ignoring it, because you're not my real mom, strange girl. ]

Did he not think to leave you a note, at all? An appointment diary, perhaps? I've been waiting outside the spa for nearly twenty minutes.

[She nods sympathetically at the comment about strangers. If she lived here regular inundation with strangers and flood variants might get tiresome at points, and she's pretty social.]

Any inefficiency is probably my fault, not his. Just a moment-[Koschei is pretty obsessive about writing things down, though, so he probably has general instructions for events like this somewhere. Hopefully in something she can read, not Gallifreyan. Where's his journal? She carries the communicator around while she does that poking she didn't do earlier. When she finds said journal, she puts the communicator down while she thumbs through it for a minute. When she picks it back up-]

You're Bianca?

I am. My file's in his desk drawer, if you're curious. But come and let me into the sauna first, please.

You're a friend of Koschei's?

[Time Lady. Inmate. Hmmm.] I am, and of course, I'll do my best to meet his duties in his absence. [Although anyone who needs the engineer and mechanic is out of luck. She's barely more fluent in High Science-ese than Gallifreyan.]

I'd take it as a personal favor if you didn't kill me off the bat, to make a point or something. He's not here to dress me down for throwing myself into the fray without all the intel on hand, but it'd be playing out in my head anyway when I woke up. [She makes an exaggerated chagrined face. Death is one thing, but you wouldn't embarrass her like that, would you, Bianca? She glances back at the journal.]

Oh, look, all the levels labeled. I'll be right along. But if you want to chat, I should probably swing by the wardrobe for swim wear, shouldn't I?

Bianca smiles, a little toothy but genuine.

"I wouldn't dream of it. I try not to disappoint Koschei. He makes that sad face, and it's utterly intolerable. Like a beaten Borzoi. I should love for you to join me."

What the fuck is a Borzoi? She adds it to the mental list of things to look up when she has a spare moment, which she is already in the habit of keeping while bouncing around time and space. She's picturing something with a long, regal face anyway, so she'll be delighted later to see she's on target.

"Oh, good. I really wanted to check out the sauna, either way." Well, she did.

Not wanting to immediately trample Koschei's privacy was all well and good, but in this context stupid, she decides. She goes through his closets and pulls out a messenger bag to pack away the journal and Bianca's file and rummages another moment before coming up with a baton with a stun setting. Of course he'd have something stashed away to loan people less keen on lethal weapons. She wouldn't be surprised if he handed them out like to newbies like candy, offer of self defense lessons included.

That goes in her jacket pocket with the passport. She heads to the wardrobe, finds a red bathing suit that fits well enough to toss into her bag, and still turns up in what she thinks in pretty good time to let Bianca in.

"I brought your file to look over later, when we're not sitting in steam," she informs Bianca. "So I guess giving you first crack at questions would be, as my great uncle would say, the sporting thing to do."

Oh, you know, getting by. Same as pretty much anyone else here.

[There's an easy shrug to go with Xigbar's words, one that suggests that he doesn't really mind just kind of hanging around on the Barge. Admittedly, it also doesn't do much to explain whether he's a long-term passenger or simply stopping by, but given that he's already giving off some pretty decent friendly-chill vibes, it's entirely reasonable to assume that he wouldn't object to any more direct questions on that front.]

Edited 2019-02-14 04:01 (UTC)

[Hard to tell if that's more deliberate obfuscation or effortlessly laconic. She's amused but rolling with it.]

There are worse places to be, right?

You're anther time traveler, than?

[Fitz isn't only responding because she's an attractive woman. He has perfectly reasonable and well-thought-out reasons to be interested in other other time travelers. If they happen to also be attractive women who've given him a good first line - that's just a burden he'll manage to bear.]

That's right. Mostly courtesy of my friend who has been living in this cabin but is, of course, absent at the moment.

[And yes, technically courtesy of the Doctor for some of it. But she still thinks of that as really being at Koschei's behest. Maybe in some universe, if the Doctor had stumbled across her during her relatively carefree days at university, she'd have ditched everything to run with him. But she'd been the very opposite of carefree when they did meet, and he wasn't likely to intentionally come back when the timing was better, was he? Not without prompting.]

It's a retirement of sorts. Second career? Maybe third is more accurate. Just don't ask me how the time travel actually works, so on reflection that firmly puts me back at hobby status. [She grins self-deprecatingly.]

So what should I call you, and where do you fall on the dabbler to very serious professional scale?

A lot of that about.

[He's not entirely sure what to think of his own continued presence. Not that there's any pattern in who's effected by the floods (according to the sort of people who'd probably be able to know), but it still feels like it could mean something. There's also some stuff he'd rather anyone likely to replace him not find out about, which he should probably get on, just in case. That can wait for later.]

Name's Fitz Kreiner, call me Fitz. [He returns the smile.] I'm at 'knowing when to nod when people who know about it start going on'. I travel with a friend, too. I don't think I've been a professional anything, and I'm not sure about him, either.

[She nods sagely, grin still tugging on her lips.]

Ah, I think that puts us on approximately the same level, then, Fitz. Nodding along to analogies of variable helpfulness from the nerds and occasionally questioning wonderfully fun to say but otherwise probably bullshit neologisms like'timey-whimey'.

[Seriously, she loves slang, and sometimes the Doctor's simplifications are gorgeous word paintings. But it's nice when Koschei's in the same room and she can at least glance over at his expression as a way to fact check.]

Is your friend the mathy sort at least? I'm told there's all kinds of math involved in proper temporal navigation. And while I know a lot of people consider it just another language - the base language of the cosmos even, and I'm pretty good with languages - I just never got past calculus.

The analogies can be pretty good. Mostly it's just because he sulks terribly if you don't provide the cue. Me and Sam - she used to travel with us - would flip a coin on who had to say 'what does that mean' or 'what's going to happen'.

[He shrugs.] I don't think so, but he's sort of every sort. I'm not sure I ever saw calculus.

[It's no one thing that he's said so far, that makes her pause, more the shape of all of it together ringing bells.]

Wait, wait, wait. A Doctor of every sort, by chance?

[He laughs. They've run into plenty of time travelers over the last couple - whatever unit of time, and the barge crosses it's own universes, so he hadn't assumed anything. But he can easily believe it.]

The type of Doctor who manages to get away with being called that even in places where people should really raise an eyebrow at it?

I did raise an eyebrow, but Kaitos has its own history of being very serious about titles, so I was polite enough not to laugh at him. Or the Master.

[Growing up steeped in a flavor of neo-feudalism means Master does not strike her as inherently more ridiculous than Doctor, as titles go. But she knows academic hierarchy is palatable in a number of societies that are otherwise big on egalitarianism.]

[Could be either, could be both. But whichever it is, he wears it casually enough; effortlessly unconcerned about what anyone might happen to think about him.]

Got that right in one. Especially given that at least they give you somewhere to stay, here, instead of just leaving everyone to have to fend for themselves.

1963, London. Two doctors about and he's the one who always wins the name game.

[His affection for the Doctor is almost at it's most evident when he's semi-complaining about him.]

It's been long enough I have to remember to occasionally be surprised that people just accept it. [He reflects on this a moment.] Of course, he's usually accused of something and there's tossing in cells, and once he's out they're usually too distracted to get into it.

[The Doctor does seem to inspire that sort of griping. The warmth in Fitz's tone isn't far off from what she's heard in Koschei's many times, even when Koschei's complaining can be more pointed.]

I think there's slightly less tossing in cells in the time I've known him, but then diplomacy is my wheelhouse, and he occasionally listens to Koschei where manners are concerned. [The Doctor never being able to completely predict the level of violence Koschei will use when he decides the Doctor needs rescuing might have something to do with it.]

And London - I'm not surprised. I haven't gotten around to that decade yet.

There's probably more threats of cells, than actual throwing. But the number of threats still means one of us gets locked up far more than average. or almost shot. He's still probably better at diplomacy than I am.

[The Doctor at his very worst is still far, far better at Fitz at diplomacy. On the other hand, Fitz is better at shutting up in the face of threats. Usually.]

Sometimes it seems he never leave. London, not the '60s. lot off time dropping in on the late 20th and 21st century. Usually still feels like London, except shinier. And you can't smoke inside.

True. I've been lucky. That's not something I've really had to worry about much in my life. One only one period it was an extended problem, and even then I lucked out on the company I kept.

But I could do without ever pitching camp in a cave again.

That tracks. [London is certainly the closest thing to a home to the two Time Lords she knows.]

2010s is when I first visited and have spent the most time. What stood out most to me was how many large green spaces were in the city. Where I'm from - well, there was some real terraforming in the works by the time I left last, but Kaitos is on the dry, rocky, marginally habitable side. There's some cultivated gardens and lots of greenhouses, agricultural fields in the few flood plains with low enough salinity. Nothing like Richmond Park.

I've been to some places like that. Usually just before disaster strikes or terraforming goes wrong or the planet decides to eat us, but sometimes there's a bit of sight seeing first.

I didn't make it to the park that often, not really my scene. I used to work in a florist shop, before I met the Doctor. 'Course, that was just a day job.

Let's just say it's not exactly a pretty sight.

[One that he's come out of alright, assuming it's something that he'd been personally involved with, but - as before - he's not really directly confirming that he has. Just sort of implying it.]

And caves aren't all that bad. Provided you don't mind having to deal with the local wildlife, sometimes.

[A florist shop. She's far too well traveled to show much reaction at this point, but in her formative years the idea would have been startling. People grew decorative plants, of course, for themselves, or devoted a part of community space for it. The royal gardens were famously extravagant, although as she'd just said, relatively tiny.

But you wouldn't just sell flowers as part of an impersonal transaction.]

Oh? A vocation, then?

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