Soul's Shadow (Doctor Who - SI)

Part IX (V)

They are in a market on Hjorongaja. A nice place, admittedly. So many exotic things to look at or to taste. They both have different opinions on what corners might be interesting, so they split up. The Doctor is certain the cuff will do its job.

The Master, for once, isn't even out for trouble. It's just nice to have the drums drowned out by all the noise around. And without his dungeon keeper he can freely hypnotise merchants when they belong to a susceptible species. He wants to try the street foot, mostly. This time around he seems to have quite the sensitive taste buds.

As he munches on something without a name he gets aware of staring eyes and turns around. There is a small, bipedal species, an eralomea, judging by the fluff of feathers that grow out of the collar and up to the pointy ears. The small hands have only three wrinkled fingers that end in yet soft claws. It's small, maybe seven or eight years old, not much more than a child, even though their kind matures quickly.

Hungrily it looks at the piece of meat on a stick the Master holds.

"What?" he spits. "Get your own food."

The creature keeps staring. And it's annoying the Master in a way it shouldn't. He turns away and walks down a road with fewer booths, gnawing the meat from his sticks. When he reaches the last he sees movement out of the corner of an eye and frowns.

"Get lost," he grumbles.

But the kid doesn't. It comes closer, hesitantly, stands in front of the Master and just glares up. He sighs and tosses the last meat stick to the ground, watching as the child reaches for it quickly to swallow it down without even removing the dirt. It does look rather malnourished.

"No mom, eh?" he concludes, remembering that their species are raised by the mothers alone.

The child stares, wipes its mouth and smiles. It hadn't heard anything, too occupied by maybe the first food in who knows how long.

The Master shrugs and walks away. The market is huge and he intends to find at least something useful here. Maybe a weapon, although they are banned from selling in this sector.

He nicks some small trinkets. A small figurine of a flying fox-like creature he finds pretty, a crystal in the shape of a flower, a few microchips that are hard to get anywhere else. A few times he uses hypnotism to get parts that are too big to steal.

Good thing he has modified his coat pockets.

In the end he finds more street food and can't resist trying some more things, even though one or two of them look rather disgusting. He decides to try them out in a corner without people, some back of a building. He likes the noises, but after a while even they start to irritate him.

Some distance away he gets aware of a ruckus, people are shouting and containers get thrown over. He sees a small figure running away, followed by two heavily armed men in brown, tattered coats. Humans by the looks of it, maybe tzorelians. They aren't better.

The small thing seems to be the child from before. With a nasty smirk the Master assumes it has annoyed those men and begged for food. None of his business.

Except when it is. The feathered child runs straight towards him. In his direction, at least. And the men are shooting at it now.

For some reason this pisses him off.

The Master starts to walk towards the group, let's the kid run past him and smashes his fist right into the first man's nose. He stumbles backwards, in shock and pain and only manages to let out an indignant grunt before he crashes to the ground. The Master swiftly drops to his haunches, rips the gun out of the other one's hand and shoots a bullet right into the second man's shoulder. That one hadn't even noticed a thing before the pain - or the shock? - hit him.