Right now.

[A terse Doctor is not a happy Doctor. A terse Doctor also is lucky when his socks even match each other. The TARDIS is worse than dryers for eating them.]

[When Braxiatel arrives, the Doctor opens the door quickly. Looks out one way? Then the other? And with little more greeting than a quickly raised hat reaches out to snag Brax's coat lapels and drag him in.

His insanity has rather forceful direction today.]

You recall the conversation we were having about Rassilon? [He says once the door is closed. He goes over to his counter to retrieve a pitcher of rum and coke that he's mixed for himself, making a gesture at Braxiatel with his free hand.]

The voice is for more than politics. [The Lord President wants my no-no spot! He pours a glass, leaves it, and drinks directly out of the pitcher.]

[Watch the lapels! He has heartsease there. Likewise the flowers he is carrying the replica of an Etruscan basket. He sets this basket down, responding to the Doctor's disarray by being calm and detached.] Really? Well, I suppose he might do an adequate job singing.

[He may be trying to torment the Doctor into spelling it out. It's equally possible that he entirely missed the implication of the Doctor's words.]

[He has to side-eye Brax. Not out of too much notable spite, but rather because he's chugging. And he's chugging. Oh, Benny would be so proud of him.

He puts down the pitcher and clears his throat. Licks his lips.] Yes, well, I've heard he's a competent musician. It wouldn't surprise me. He certainly has stage presence. Considering how many impressive performers had the habit of disrobing before their audience through the duration of their show.

[...Oh look! Braxiatel has a basket that he's put down! He's going to go investigate that.]

[What Braxiatel says next should be blamed entirely on Jason-Bloody-Kane:] He doesn't really seem to have the sense of rhythm for a strip-tease.

I wouldn't know. I'm not at the receiving end of them often. [Everyone would be left saner and happier if they ignore the implication that he has any experience with the other end.]

I would shove him whole-heartedly at a more intimate friendship with your dear warden, but while love alone can change a man he can revert back to the terror he once was should something happen to it. And frankly... if what I've heard is true I wouldn't wish this Rassilon as he is on anyone. What did you bring?

[At least the terse and blurting had stopped so he could be his curious catlike self and prowl through new and interesting things.]

I'm celebrating Anthesphoria, even if I'm a little off in my dates. [Dry academia is far less psychologically damaging than sex, isn't it, Thete? So they can talk about that instead.]

[Except no, no they can't.] I really must applaud you, though. It takes formidable will to be able to tolerate him long enough for him to attempt seduction. Part of how Omega's lasted so long, no doubt. If you look under the flowers in that basket, there are a few fresh fruits you can have.

My inmate has quite the talent for creation when she wishes it. [He does steal a fruit, drop it into his pocket, and go to love on that pitcher of his a little more.]

I would greatly appreciate it if you contributed to... giving him distractions. To work around. [He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, before pointing off at a chess set in the corner.

A chess set, with the black half of the pieces all broken and taped back together. Narvin's magic chess set didn't take to threatening manoeuvres well, in fact sharing the patience of their keeper.] And also if you would tell me what precisely he will do. I'm hazy on the subject and I doubt I'm going to find out specifics conversationally. Omega forbid me from speaking about Zagreus with him even before I had the opportunity.

Edited 2011-03-10 06:59 am (UTC)

[He glances over at the set, taking a moment to just... look at the poor, battle-weary half of the chess set. Then he brushes that away.] Sorry, I must have misunderstood the question. What, precisely, will he be doing about which you are hazy?

There's a large expanse between still reasonable and madman I have not yet been privy to. And something involving Zagreus, a girl named Charlie, and a myriad of other troubling, confusing elements that he currently has the upper hand on me at the moment. [Besides the whole lip-licking suggestive thing.]

Surely you are not asking me to disclose information on your relative future. That would be completely illegal.

There's two of my relative future here already. My relative future walks by every day.... [He makes a dismissive gesture, giving those "relatives" a good treatment.]

Besides, I'm either cursed to non-existence if I don't graduate someone, or if I do I become my own man separate from that. That was my deal, while I was regenerating.

Still, we must be careful in dealing with Time. Speak to past and future versions of yourself, or [a brushing-away of his hand, he's picking this one completely randomly] save a young woman who ought to have died, and all sorts of bad things slip out from the end of days to eat you when you're sleeping.

Could we, ah... [He tilts his head towards the Doctor's TARDIS.] I'm still getting used to being without mine.

[He nods in agreement, leaving his pitcher to open the TARDIS door and let Braxiatel in.] Ah, so it ate this hero's hearts. [To think, one human could make all the difference. It still astounded him.]

Amazing, how one life can impact the quality of Time... and the absence of a whole world can go unnoticed. It's not fair.

I'm not quite sure what you might be referring to. [He steps in, taking a moment, once he's in, to simply enjoy being there. He walks around, glancing over the console, without looking back at the Doctor.]

But on an unrelated subject, you'll be very pleased to hear that Romana's Presidency involved the banning of a number of dangerous CIA tools. The most loathsome of them was undoubtedly the Oubliette of Eternity. I'd have been more horrified to learn of its existence if I hadn't been quite so occupied with some purely rhetorical and rather controversial physics. Another one of life's little ironies: Time Lords working opposite time.

[She's agitated today. She has been for a bit, though. Unsettled. And while she's usually eager to jump on any mind that comes in, she's almost sulking when Brax does. Though this is quickly countered when a tiny, fuzzy body hops up on the console Brax is looking at, and a mongoose skitters across it over to Brax.]

The CIA has no shortage of maddening plans. I hope she cancelled their program to overly "lesser" races with the minds of TARDISes. I would hate to have seen a repeat of that.

[He goes over to the console himself and flicks some switches.] Purely rhetorical does keep rather controversial things from being dangerously disruptive, doesn't it? Working opposite of Time? [Most people had a point. Brax was like a porcupine with his. You had to get around all the others to get the one you wanted.]

[Braxiatel observes the mongoose for a moment, and then carries on his way.] Yes. Working anti-time, if you will. That sort of thing brings about divergences. [This is, for him, a middle ground between transparent and entirely opaque.] Romana, Leela, I, K-9, and Narvin devoted much work to stopping a terrorist organisation known as Free Time. They tried to prevent the historical death of the sister of Charlotte Pollard, to prove that Romana would risk the universe for certain, special exemptions to the Laws of Time.

The supposed companion that I allowed to live, only to be brutalized by after she damage the timeline. [He raises a blocky brow, standing up straight and crossing his arms. This seems like a good cue for the mongoose to run over, pant it's paws against his chest, and look up attentively at him.]

And the Oubliette of Eternity relates to Anti-Time how? [Because there is no reason this random thing would be mentioned if it didn't relate in some way, at least in the Doctor's mind. SQUIRMY THING YOU MAKE IT HARD TO LOOK SERIOUS! He shoos at it, before actually picking it up and letting it vanish into the depths of his coat pocket.

He really ought to return that at some point.]

[He takes a moment to be aghast at this.] Did I say it did? [Now that he's done being aghast, he sort of wants to pet the mongoose. But alas, it is exploring pocket oceans.] Anti-Time, anyway, is about as real as Zagreus. An unfact, if you'll allow Newspeak, like an unperson.

No, but you unsaid it did so I'm inclined to ask what it undoes. And now that you've mentioned Anti-Time it's either unreal or it creates nothing out of something. [So pensive and thoughtful, his face wound up seriously.

The mongoose's head pops out, before a little paw and it half dangles, as if checking to see why this pocket is so big on the inside or small on the outside. Or just to make sure the room is still in existence out there.]

[HI MONGOOSE! Braxiatel waves at it.] You can't really create nothing out of something. The balance is kept, in this universe or another.

[The Doctor is utterly serious as the mongoose dangles, lowering itself before making an ungainly topple to the floor. And then goes skittering over the Doctors- then to Brax's shoes.]

No, so the Oubliette of Eternity [Time Lords make the best names, don't they?] leads to a different universe. [His thoughts went to Omega in his universe, and he rubs his mouth.

His little brain's compiling and assembling and rearranging from what he, Narvin, and Rassilon had told him. It's hard work. He needs a moment.]

I didn't say that, either. Oh, but I was thinking of it browsing the library today: when I was younger, I used to ponder a games of infinity. Given an infinite number of infinite universes, all things happen eventually. Not only that, but they happen in all different ways. Causality is infinite in its varieties. It would follow that the way we order time is but one way of ordering it. In our universe, the winning way. But all those divergent ways have a chance at winning too, and all our work is just the desperate order to keep those alternate orders out and hold to ours, to the one that benefits us, the battle we have been fighting since our great species took its name as Lords of Time.

[And if you extrapolate that theory to say that time travel is just a matter of how you order things, you might even learn to talk to yourself using mirrors. But that part of the idea just doesn't seem like it needs to come up.]

Oh, absolutely! Where would you like to meet?

The 2nd Level Common Room would suffice. I'll introduce you to the old girl some other time. She's not feeling well.

Sounds good to me!