The Princess and the Pirate
The Master was desperate, the plea was real. Leela’s arms were pinned to her sides and the beast’s fingers were long and strong enough to keep Leela against Firsha’s loathsome flesh. Jamie was now being held in one of Glax’s arms whilst gripping onto Ace’s hair with the other.
“They are feisty these humans, are they not?” Glax slurped. “I must admit I likes this one!” he yanked Ace’s hair harsh as he pulled her to his side. “Something different about this one that is not quite Human!”
The Time Pirate glared down at the Master who was visibly quivering with fear: “You are pathetic!” he said plainly.
With a sigh, the Time Pirate closed his eyes. Concentrating but with little effort the leaves flew in the air despite there not being a breeze. Everyone watched in awe as Nyssa rose from the ground her feet dangling six feet above the ground and the Time Pirate opened his eyes and used his finger to beckon her over to his side and made her land on the beach on her knees. Before she had a chance to tighten the knot of her scarf he twiddled his fingers in an untying motion and the scarf flew off and Nyssa glanced up as he caught the scarf in his hand.
Using her hand as a shield against the harsh sun all she could deduce was that the Time Pirate was a tall man and he stood in front of her - darkened against the sun. Gently he picked her up. Jamie and The Master noticed Nyssa wore her hair completely down and the sea breeze whipped it up and, in what she was wearing she looked like an exact copy of a Desert Queen.
“Here we have a maiden from Traken, to all men’s hearts should hearken, she can beguile with a sweet and sad smile, who’s beauty should always be remarked on!”
Firsha gazed down on the ground. Glax was right, it was her feeling all in her heart - never in his! She pushed her anger onto Leela by pinching into her skin. Causing Leela to scream in agony. The Time Pirate glanced at Firsha and, without pity, remorse or any kind of flicker of emotion he got Jamie’s knife out of the tree using his power and, even to the Master’s shock, the Time Pirate dug the knife into Firsha’s gullet: “You have always been an annoyance,” he stated, “do you want to join her, Glax?”
Firsha’s brother watched in horror as he saw his sister kneel down and die in front of him. Leela took the opportunity to dash to Nyssa’s aid but the Time Pirate stopped her with just a slight amount of willpower alone! The Master closed his eyes and tried to counter it but the effort knocked him on his back and the Time Pirate shook his head as he gazed back at Glax: “You can do what you want with that human girl,” he said. “She is your reward for staying loyal to me.”
Nyssa still could not get a good look at the Time Lord before her: “What of the human male?”
“Leave him,” the Time Pirate smiled. “After all, the Master has got to talk to someone - we cannot have him go completely mad, now, can we?”
Glax pushed Jamie to the ground and angrily stepped on his back and pushed him into the sand! He picked Ace up and tipped his head to the Time Pirate. Truth be told, he was getting fed up with his bossy and stupid sister! He liked it here and now he had a slave he was going to enjoy it even more!
The Time Pirate watched them go and then turned his attention back towards Nyssa, with his hand he reached out for a rope and tied it around them and swung them both up on the ship, once on wooden flooring he released Leela from her entrapment with a flick of his fingers. He then took Nyssa to his Private Quarters!
Leela shook her head and decided to help Jamie up first and they both helped revive the Master: “Didn’t she fight?” he asked.
“She did not say anything!” Leela replied, “or do anything!”
“This is what I feared, that limerick served to charm. In another manner!”
“I thought there was no such thing as magic?” Leela asked.
“No, there is not, just words. Words are magic in themselves. He chose his very carefully. They were meant to stun her mind.”
“Wha’ stopped him from taking her completely?” Jamie asked.
“A distraction!”
“Is tha’ why he killed that beastie?” Jamie nodded to Firsha.
“That was cruel and cowardly act!” Leela said with tears in her throat, “she should have had a chance to fight!”
The Master got up with Jamie’s help and dusted himself down then gazed up at the ship in front of him. Imposing and evil. More evil in its sentient mind than his own TARDIS. “We cannot be sentimental over an enemy!” the Master said to Jamie and Leela. “Come on,” he sighed turning on his heel.
“We can’t jus’ le’ Nyssa stay there we have to go and get her?”
“How do you propose we do so, Mr McCrimmon?” The Master marched back to the impulsive man.
“We could climb up the ladders and …”
“The Time Pirate would anticipate such a move. If you want Nyssa to remain safe we had best think up of something very devious indeed!”
“What of Ace?” Leela asked.
“Precisely, Leela,” The Master turned to Jamie. “We have two to rescue - Glax is a beastie, as you call them, but he is still a male beastie and Ace is not entirely human!”
“Wha’ do you mean she’s no’ entirely human?”
Shaking his head The Master just walked on ahead back to the TARDIS. Leela took Jamie’s knife out of Firsha’s throat and patted her frozen head. “Meet you on the great Battle one day my foe!”
The Master clicked his fingers and the TARDIS doors opened, immediately he pressed in the code so that he could update the Doctor. Commander Maxill was on the other end.
“Commander Maxill, I need to talk to The Doctor!”
“Who is this speaking?”
“It’s the Master you feather hatted moron!”
“I am the Commander of the Gallifreyan Elite I do not take kindly to being spoken to with such insolence!”
“Either you get the Doctor, Maxill, or you wish you never regenerated!”
A huge sigh and moments later the Doctor turned up: “What’s wrong?”
“Oh nothing wrong, Doctor!” the Master sneered, “the Time Pirate showed up that is all. Because you all seemed to forget that the Time Pirate STEALS CO-ORDINATES JUST BY POWER OF THOUGHT!”
“So?”
“By beaming the Scottish Pup into Nyssa’s bedroom The Time Pirate now knows her - not only that; he chose a limerick to charm her, literally. Now she is in his private quarters and his henchthing has taken Ace!”
“You still have Jamie and Leela?”
“Yes, but Nyssa is… “
“The reason you are there, Master, is to use your energies to connive and plot against Time Lords like him!”
“He is too strong for me!” The Master sighed. “If he can knock me out, Doctor, just think what he could be doing to Nyssa’s EMPATH mind?”
The Doctor sighed: “The Consulate provided five bedrooms for a reason and I cannot send in any more help!”
“But, Doctor, this is Nyssa!”
“I KNOW!” The Doctor roared. “I HAVE SEEN NYSSA BEATEN UP BY THUGS. I HAVE SEEN NYSSA ALMOST TURNED INTO A CYBERMAN. I HAVE SEEN NYSSA FAINT INEXPLICABLY AND I HAVE SEEN NYSSA BROKEN DOWN AND IN TEARS! DO YOU THINK I DO NOT CARE FOR HER?”
Silence rang around the room and the Master rubbed his face: “I tried, Doctor, I tried to hide her but someone gave her a bottle of perfume made from Gallifreyan fruits and spices and the wind blew the scent in his direction!”
“Can you remember the Limerick?”
“Why?”
“It might have words that can counter it!”
Jamie and Leela looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. “Can you, Master?” Leela asked.
“No, not yet!” he sighed. “I need to go to my room and meditate on what exactly happened and try and remember.”
“I think it started with …” Jamie said but suddenly stopped.
“It sounds like you have come to like Nyssa,” the Doctor said.
The Master snarled back: “Who wouldn’t!” he snapped before switching off the communication hub.
“We’ll ge’ her back!” Jamie said, “we will figh’ this cove!”
“How?” Leela asked walking close to Jamie taking his hand. “He is strong!”
The Master turned both his hands into fists and thumped the TARDIS walls and kicked his shoes against the panels. “I am going to my room!” he snarled, “you two amuse yourselves whilst I’m gone!”
With that he left the Control Room and to his bedchamber, leaving a very bemused Jamie and Leela glancing at each other: “Well, he did say to amuse ourselves?” Jamie winked.
“I am engaged to be married!” Leela said.
“Aye, can’t blame a guy for askin’!” Jamie smirked.
Leela blushed and shook her head. “Besides,” she sighed when he had left the room, “I know you would have preferred me to be with that vagrant than the Lady Nyssa!”
Leela also decided to regroup - to do that she thought to practice her knife throwing skills. That ship had plenty of wood to dig them into. Then she thought of how they had lost two. The Master may not care about her but the Doctor did. For once she chose to stay inside and went to her room and sat on her bed. One glance was all it took to convince Leela that this Time Pirate had less than honorable intentions. This one would not let anything get in his way. After all, if he was more than a millennia in this Universe then Nyssa’s innocence was only going to encourage him in his litigatious intentions than stop him. Morals do not apply to those sorts of Time Lords she had learned from her teachings in the Academy.
Why was he not mentioned in any of the books and tomes she had read? this thought crossed her mind as she passed the Master’s bedchamber. Tentatively she knocked on the door and the Master gave her permission to enter.
It was a mess!
“You were releasing frustrations rather than meditating, were you not?” she asked.
“Maybe I prefer chaos?”
“I think you are not used to caring,” Leela said, “and, somehow, despite your history with her - you care for Nyssa!”
“I kissed her earlier. I cannot remember the last time I was swept up in that sort of … feeling!”
“How did the Time Pirate freeze Nyssa like that, surely words are not that powerful?”
“Has the Doctor never told you that the pen is mightier than the sword?”
“He may have done at some point, it sounds like something he would say!”
“The meaning is that you may be able to kill a man’s body with a sword - but with a pen you can write lies, create scandals and; if enough people believe them, that man may start out being respected, but will end up being despised and hated. It would seem like you have killed what was most important to them!”
“Which is?”
“Their reputation,” the Master sighed.
“Can we not ruin this Time Lord’s reputation?”
“You forget,” the Master sighed, “the Time Pirate has become his reputation!”
“We can destroy it still, can we not?”
“How did you ever manage to travel with the Doctor?”
“He landed amongst the lands of my tribe and offered me a jelly baby,” Leela said, “his face was carved into a mountain. He explained that the TESCH were actually Technological Experts and my tribe name, Sevateem, was mashed up with two words - Survey Team. The tribe had killed my father and I was outcast as a blasphemer.”
“So, the Doctor sorted out your little tribal dispute and invited you on board?”
“Not quite,” Leela blushed, “he was about to say goodbye but I did not want to live amongst them anymore,” she smiled, “the Doctor was brilliant. I wanted to learn Science - not live in superstitious fears anymore. The Doctor showed me a better way!”
“Superstition is due to the power of words, Leela!” The Master tilted his head, “on Earth a black cat is unlucky. So is the number 13, as are left handed people, men seeing women the night before they get married, stepping on cracks in the pavements, walking under ladders ... “
“Why?”
“The power of words,” the Master sighed sitting on his bed, “tales told by grandmothers of grandmothers of grandmothers generations back - each new generation passes these myths on!”
“So, the Time Pirate has harnessed the power of words?”
“What worried me was, how did he know where she was from?” The Master frowned, that was the only part he could remember.
“Are you sure Nyssa was not just playing along?”
The Master gazed up at Leela and shook his head despondently: “There is nothing mischievous, playful or deceitful within Nyssa, she would not know how to lie. Stealing is foreign nature to her and deception completely against every fibre of her being. She has barely started to hate!”
“Ace and I tried to explain the science and biology of manhood but…”
“I destroyed her planet and even I could not destroy that part of her innocence,” the Master said, “she was so beautiful in that oasis,” he looked at Leela, “so much like … like …”
Leela walked up to the Master: “I am supposed to hate you,” she said sitting next to him and put a hand to his knee, “you hate the Doctor and wish to kill him. For that I despise you!” the Master wondered where she was going with this, “but you are genuinely scared for Nyssa and wish to gain her back innocence intact! For that, you have my sympathies!”
“I need the words of his little dittie more than your sympathy!”
Nodding Leela patted the Master’s knee once more and got up. “Do they need to be the exact words!”
“Exact inflection of words including the right pauses!”
“Thank you!” Leela said, “just need to make sure,” suddenly she dashed to the Master and opened his hand: “a janus thorn,” she explained, “they are extremely poisonous. Get close to his hearts he won’t have time to regenerate!”
“Shame Nyssa does not have one!”
“We have to trust that Nyssa is safe!”
The Master watched Leela depart from his room and decided to have a very strong word with the Doctor about his companions in the future. If one of them is as pretty as Nyssa then KISS HER FOR GOODNESS SAKES, he heard the yell in his own head. His own private communications systems buzzed and the Master hit the response button.
“Yes!” he exclaimed.
“Look,” it was the Doctor, “I am sorry for yelling earlier!”
“This is not like you!” the Master said, he was too exhausted to sum up sarcasm. “What do you want!”
“What do you mean if they are as pretty as her, kiss them for goodness sake?”
“You heard my own private thoughts?”
“It woke me up!”
“You slept with the knowledge Nyssa is in his clutches!”
“If I could turn up I would but the Time Lords won’t allow me to work with you on this, I stood aside believing, for once, you were the better Time Lord for the job.”
“Do you know that Nyssa is not even aware of the fact that she is a woman?”
“So?”
“I would have thought even you would have noticed that about her?”
“I have but we are too busy righting wrongs and…”
“Spare me the justification for your ignorance, Doctor!” the Master sighed, “you should have at least told her that she was beautiful!”
“Nyssa does not think of that as important?”
“Really?” the Master sneered, “then how come when my eyes bulged out at an outfit she was wearing she thought that something was wrong with it. Or with her? How come she thought she had done something bad?”
The Doctor sighed down the communice and the Master heard his fingers tapping on the side: “I assumed it was not important to her!” he conceded.
“Now you know it is, IF you get her back treat her with the attention she deserves!”
“What would the Time Pirate do to her exactly?”
“It would be easier to ask what he wouldn’t do to her!” the Master sighed, “this is a Time Lord that managed to knock me out with the power of his mind whilst he had Miss Leela in a state of paralysis. He had killed a hench Alien. Nyssa did not even bother to put up a fight,” the Master sighed, “she fought against me to begin with. I did not shut her mind down. I let her yell at me!”
“Just because of a limerick?” the Doctor scoffed.
“I did not think I had to explain the power of words to you, Doctor!”
“How are you getting on with the others?”
“Miss McShane is captured and she hates me too but she adores Nyssa,” the Master sighed, “Mr McCrimmon is a puppy!” the Doctor was about to say something, “but I like Miss Leela, she has something bordering on intelligence.”
“What else is worrying you?” the Doctor asked.
“The Time Pirate knew where she came from. She did not even have to introduce herself!”
The Doctor continued tapping his fingers: “All right, I will see what I can come up with that rhymes with Traken,” he sighed, “I care about her, have done since the moment I met her as well you know!”
“She refuses to hate me, Doctor, she is angry but she refuses to hate me! She even said that she would be my friend if I meant an apology,” the Master rushed his hands through his hair, “nobody can be that forgiving!”
“She is,” the Doctor said, “that is her wonder!”
“It is what makes her beautiful,” the Master sighed. “She reminds me of Jo in lots of ways. If your third self actually acted on those feelings with her - Nyssa would have been the result!”
“Jo did not think of me like that.”
“Really?” the Master scoffed. “And you are going to tell me next that Nyssa only sees you as this lonely traveller?”
“Yes, though lately not too lonely!”
“She described to me her type of man,” the Master smiled. “Well, when you worked out a limerick and I have, Leela is working on it too,” the Master felt the janus thorn by the side of the communice, “I am sure the three of us can come up with its approximation and we will go on from there!”
“Over and out!” the Doctor said switching off his end, the Master reminded himself not to shout at himself in the future. He forgot that the Doctor could sometimes pick these things up quickly.
A chilling thought crossed his mind, if the Doctor could hear his thoughts and he was on Gallifrey then The Time Pirate most certainly could. It was not from Nyssa he got the information from. By not being able to shut down his feelings the Time Pirate got it from him.
The Time Pirate saw that Nyssa was another young woman that he cared for. It was his fault! He had forgotten what it was to be the Master and had reverted to being whom he once was. The one time Nyssa needed him to be The Master and he failed. Failed because the Time Pirate made the Master feel like a tiny ant inside. Failed because he was scared! Scared, again, for another person and not for his own flesh.
“I will get you back, sweet Nyssa, and I will be your friend who shall always be watching you. Keeping your memory alive and, if I can, I will marry you!”
Little did he know that Jamie was sitting on his own bed: “I go’ the message!” he said aloud. “I will destroy the TARDIS!” Jamie blinked and shook his head. “Strange position to be dreamin’ in,” he said. “Am a bit trauchled. Ah me heid!” with that he took off his shoes and lifted the blankets up, snuggled in and rested his head and slept on.
♣♣♣♣♣♣♣
The Time Pirate watched her as she bent her knees to the floor giving him a good view of what was to come, he laid his fingers to her and observed her as she tenderly filed his nails, blowing the debris off the flesh and making sure that one was done perfectly before moving onto the next one. The Traken Maid was still silent. He wished it so, when he felt like hearing her voice he would kiss her mouth free, but only her mouth.
“You know,” he whispered to her, “your friends are going to come to rescue you,” he leaned over to smell her again, “but I am not going to let them.”
Nyssa looked up and tilted her head to one side and smiled: “You know why I am not going to?”
The Pirate waited for her to finish shaping his nails then he took her hand in his and walked her through the wardrobe and showed her the TARDIS interior.
“Do you know what this is?”
Nyssa shook her head. “This can take us to any place, any time, how about - my sweet Princess Nyssa - we find a nice spot. Secretive, private, the only place no one can find us!”
The Time Lords won’t be able to find him where he was about to go. A place of his own dimension. A place where he was cloaked away from the Universe!
“Come here,” he beckoned with his finger. Nyssa walked up to him, “let us become,” his eyes glowed, “more acquainted with each other, shall we?”
They walked through the door straight into a bedroom: “Ya see, my Princess,” the Time Pirate unbuttoned his shirt, then tilted her chin up. “I need you - right now!” he kissed her sweet lips and Nyssa felt like she had been given life.
“What do you need me to do?” she said.
The Time Pirate used his telekinetic touch to unpick the front fastenings of her corset. With no will power, Nyssa swooned and he caught her in his arm: “I need us to sway to the rhythm of the time winds and dance together to the beating of our own passionate hearts!”
Nyssa smiled as the Time Pirate kissed her passionately over and over again, “Oh my, Captain!” she murmured breathlessly. “I am yours, Captain, to do with what you will!”
The Time Pirate picked her up and laid her on the bed. He kissed down her arm and then he sauntered to the end of the bed, knelt on the floor and started kissing her toes and massaging her legs: “Believe me, Nyssa,” the Pirate grinned to himself when he was petting one leg with his lips: “that’s what I intend to do!”
♣♣♣♣♣♣♣
The Master was tired, so exhausted his eyes looked red. Could he go back and save Tremas? He was the only person Nyssa could trust, the only person to bring her back to herself? But how would that work? If he stopped Tremas from touching that clock, he would not be here and that would cause a whole other conundrum!
All he had of Nyssa now was that memory of her perching on a tree, looking like a Fey Gypsy and adoring the beauty of the secluded pool. “Oh, Nyssa!” the Master sobbed, he felt both his hearts twinge in a cosmic energy that almost knocked him out, “it has happened, I know it has!” he continued crying, “just like it did with ... “ even now he could not utter it. The word that could help him and give him the confidence and the strength he needed to face the Time Pirate. One thing he could do though was wipe the tears away and stand up: “One thing is for certain!” he growled. “If I find her in exactly the same state as I found …” he squared his shoulders, “there. will. be. a. reckoning!” The Master narrowed his eyes, “when I find her, she had better be alive!”
Images haunted his mind. Images of her mangled corpse. A once ethereal beauty trashed to unrecognisable state of ugliness. A face left in such twisted agonies that he could not even comprehend what she had suffered. What she had seen before she drew her last breath, the only vital clue left to indicate whom she was, was a pendant he had given her for her 200th birthday, gleaming amongst the blackened flesh of her chest.
He could never forget how no one had bothered to find her for him. How he was let down by his best friend. Eyes stared wide open as the image of the Skull and Crossbones left imprinted on her irises. The pupils became the shape of the heart shaped beard!
“We do have a score to settle,” the Master muttered, “and if you so much as pinch Nyssa I shall visit the upon you all the seven secrets of the tortures of hell!” The Master glanced in the mirror, “she was my trusting, gorgeous sister and you callously spit her out! Now it is time I do what I am really best at!”
He stormed out of his bedchamber to the Control Unit and typed in his own co ordinates: “It is time,” he swung down the lever that jump started the TARDIS into action, “that I broke the rules!” he connected with Ace’s mind and managed to find out where she was. “Some music!” with the loud tune in the background The Master danced, in time to the melody, around the Unit, pressing in more buttons to the beat, “Time I took control!” he pressed down another lever to activate the materialisation circuits the TARDIS vworped in time to the chorus, “Time I actually lived up to my name!” he punched in the last button as the TARDIS apparated out of the jungle. Only to appear on a darkened beach where Ace stood looking with fear over her shoulder. Relieved to find it was the TARDIS, Ace smiled. The Master beckoned her to hurry and pushed her in gently with his hand. Questions could be asked later how she managed to escape Glax.
“What’s going on?” she shouted, she thought she had her music loud.
“It is time. my dear Miss McShane,” the Master’s eyes twinkled with plots and intrigues that made Ace breathless with excitement, “that I become the Master!”
With that he plotted another course and Ace helped him by following his commands.
“Where are we going?” she yelled over the noise of the Master’s music.
The Master’s smile spread chillingly across his features: “To a place where there will always be a yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” he said, “we are going to Jamaica 1760 - the place and time where Piracy was at its height of popularity!”
“Will Nyssa be okay?” the music woke up Leela and Jamie and they appeared in the control unit, rumpled from sleep, immediately both hugged Ace.
“Let’s just say that if she is not,” the Master turned the volume up making Jamie and Leela cover their ears and scowl with the pain as the heavy bass beat into them, “it will literally be his pain and my thrill!”
End of Part One
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