Life advice: cosplay your OC*. It's so gratifying and worth the effort. I had a blast putting together this Zepheera getup, and I'll definitely be doing this again for future cons! I'll probably do a deep dive on all the props and craft work that went into this at a later date, but for now I have a con to do!
Getting very excited to meet Chris Eccleston tomorrow 🤩
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I mean, it seems that no matter what time it is in his life, Oscar always gives off that intense “adopt me” vibe. Who are the Doctor and Zepheera to deny it?
They’d adore the mousey lil guy. He’s timid, but he’s no coward when it counts. Practically raised himself since he was a kiddo and everything! They can’t help admiring tenacity like that.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Oops my hand slipped and now it's an AU. Yippeee
One touch from an impossible statue sends Zepheera, a very unfortunate borrower, back in time to 1969. She's quickly found by two individuals in the same boat, with a completely mad story about how they can get back to the future.
While Zepheera can't be sure if she trusts the pair, especially that Doctor, she has very little choice but to play along if she wants to get as far away from 1969 as possible. And she desperately does.
Oh, time goes by and I lose perspective / Yeah hope only hurts, so I just forget it...
Visual representation of the sound of my heart shattering by the lovely @bonkalore, big thanks for indulging my brainrot!
And now for something completely different...
Yes indeed, Kpop Demon Hunters has taken over my whole brain same as the rest of the world.
Does demon!Zepheera make any sense at all? Not even a little. Does my brain do big hurty things when This Scene comes up and Those Lines are uttered? Absolutely.
Just to be clear, this is not a viable AU to me, but it scratches a brain itch and makes me happy. And by happy, I mean cry. Nothing more will probably come of it, so enjoy my own personal sads!
The doors of the TARDIS opened to indeed reveal a shadowy back alley, rather than the street corner it had been on when last they entered. The Doctor only needed to walk behind a few buildings before he reached the launderette and found a back door. Double checking that the alley was empty, he traced the outline of the door with his sonic to check for alarms or traps before letting it buzz against the lock.
A distinct click later, and the Doctor strode right inside.
The office wasn't difficult to find, or break into in a similar manner. Nothing in particular stood out at first, other than a mess of papers across the desk. After a quick sweep with the sonic to scan for hidden tech, the Doctor's eyes lit right up.
“Ohh, you are kidding me,” he breathed, unable to keep a wide, childish grin from splitting his features. He stepped around the desk and right up to a bookshelf against one wall. “That is brilliant. Classic!”
“Time crunch?” Zepheera urged in his ear.
The Doctor scoffed but began pawing at the books, lightly tugging on their spines. “Come on, how often am I gonna get to find a spooky castle secret passage–?”
Before he could finish his sentence, he tweaked just the right book, and he and the borrowers felt a sudden, slow drop. Their corner of the room sank lower and lower into the floor.
“See?” said the Doctor with a glance toward his occupied shoulder. “Spooky secret lift!”
Well… that would explain why I couldn't find this basement. Oliver watched with interest as the floor slowly became the walls the more they descended downwards.
Eventually the hidden elevator came to a stop, the soft buzzing sound of the lights hanging overhead echoing in the otherwise silent space. The cool white light gave the large entryway a colder atmosphere as their dim surroundings came into view.
The walls were bare concrete, the floor composed of solid square-shaped tiles that made a distracting clacking sound when stepped upon; like heels on stone. The entryway held two coats hung up on the wall; one of which was a clean lab coat and the other being a regular overcoat with what appeared to be dried blood on the sleeves. Oliver's nose wrinkled as he noticed the stains. For as much blood and gore as he had seen in his life so far, blood without much explanation in such an unsettling setting just felt like a bad omen.
Further down, the entryway led into a large and mostly empty room with a table in the center. The Doctor cautiously approached it and inspected the small stack of papers there which, under his and Oliver’s scrutinizing gaze seemed to be files full of personal information… One person in particular Oliver recognized immediately. The name on the file had been crossed out with red ink, and there was a list lying just beside the stack that had the same names written down. The names were written in either red or black, and the red names seemed to correspond with the names that were crossed out.
“That’s… I used to live in the house of that human. His name was Felix Mercer…the one I mentioned went missing and was later found shot dead. Dumped in the river.” Oliver's voice reduced to almost a mutter as his brows furrowed at the image. He had always considered what happened to Felix as some kind of karmic retribution after what he did to his uncle, and presumably did with his missing aunt and cousins.
Oliver looked everywhere he could, but with no bodies found and no living family found either, he was forced to consider the possibility that they had died and he would never find out how or why. Every time he heard about potential borrower hunters or captured borrowers his heart would skip a beat in the hopes that it might be them— or maybe they would at least know what happened to them. But after all these years he had found nothing, so the one thing he could find was peace in the fact that Felix could not hurt anyone else.
But this…this is concerning. More notable than the files themselves was the handgun laying beside them. It didn't take a genius to make the connection.
While the Doctor leaned down slightly to look over the files, Zepheera glanced between them and Oliver. Her heart sank as she recalled the little details he'd mentioned in passing conversation. Living alone in that big tree, having lived indoors previously…knowing a family of borrowers went missing right around the same time as a human, in whose house Oliver had lived… She couldn't know for sure what it all meant, but Zepheera could make guesses. None of them were pleasant.
Oh, Oliver…
“Makes no sense,” muttered the Doctor, wrinkling his nose at the information before him as much as the handgun nearby. “Why go to the trouble of manifesting incredible, unknowable power in secret, only to have a hit list? Can't be worth the risk, can it? Unless…some sort of vendetta? A rival?”
Shaking his head, the Doctor stepped back. “Focus,” he emphasized, mainly to himself. Looking around, he found there were more rooms that led further into the laboratory and began to wander around. “Keep your eyes peeled. Something giving off energy so powerful should be obvious. A control center, or a matrix, or a great big generator, we can't possibly miss it!”
The lab was built almost like a maze. All of the rooms looked almost identical, shelves lining the chipped grey walls, filled with notes and books and the occasional dead plant on whatever surface was free. So far there had been no sign of any generator or control center; only a library’s worth of vague indiscernible rambles.
One of the furthest rooms looked more like a medical examination room, with sterile tools set out across the open counter space. The tools seemed smaller— more like the kind a vet would use rather than a human doctor. On one of the clear countertops was an empty glass vial set next to a microscope, as well as some incomprehensible scribbles that looked very similar to the note that Oliver had read aloud earlier; handwriting panicked and rushed.
The final room was plain too; simply having a desk set up in the corner with a computer and multiple connected monitors arranged neatly on the surface. There was a dead blue flower preserved in resin like some kind of paperweight and resting on top of more notes. Beside the flower was an open and half-eaten bar of chocolate, still wrapped up in the torn packaging. Once again disorganised papers and notes or books were scattered all over the shelves in no recognizable order.
The monitor screens woke up as they all entered, illuminating the dim room more than the lights overhead were. Oliver's gaze was drawn to the ghoulish light immediately, squinting to make out the words on screen that he thought he had seen. Borrowers. He tapped the Doctor lightly on the neck and pointed to the desk.
“I'd like to read what's on the screen— you can continue looking, though I don't think the source of energy is as obvious as you said before,” he spoke, trying to keep his composure for as long as possible even if a lot of very painful memories were suddenly being forced to the forefront of his mind. He clasped his hands together to get rid of the nervous energy, disguising the gesture as simply folding his arms behind his back.
The Doctor had to begrudgingly agree with Oliver's assessment, as frustrating a truth as it was. He was reluctant to waste time looking into even more ramblings of a potential madman, but then he caught sight of the same word Oliver saw. Noticed the slightest edge in his voice, which hadn't even been present when the borrower had confronted the Doctor as a stranger on the street.
So he obliged, lifting a hand to ferry Oliver– and Zepheera as she hurried to hop on after him– to the desk.
“But it has to be here,” the Doctor insisted under his breath, skimming the text across the monitors with a frown. “Maybe there's something in here that'll finally give us answers. Is there a sub-basement? A cloaking device? Could be–”
“Ah…guys?” Zepheera piped up. She'd let her gaze wander, feeling quite vulnerable at the end of the line with everyone's focus in one spot. Then violet eyes landed on something in the corner that made her olive skin pale.
On a table in the darkest corner of the room there was a glass enclosure, like the kind people used for small reptiles. Over the top was positioned a heat lamp, barely illuminating the contents. The bottom of the enclosure seemed lined with a blanket, with some random piles of fabric in the corners; set up like tiny nests. Nothing was immediately visible inside at first, but amongst the plain white sheets was a girl.
She had a dark complexion, with brown-almost-black hair hanging choppily around her ears. It looked like it had only just been cut, and it had definitely not been done by anyone who knew what they were doing with hair. She was dressed in what looked to be a tiny hospital gown, staring in the Doctor's direction silently as she pressed herself into the corner of the cold glass walls entrapping her.
Oliver had only gotten to read a few words on the screen before he heard Zepheera and looked over at the glass enclosure. For a moment he thought nothing of it. But then he saw her.
Her.
His breath hitched and his limbs froze all at once at the sight as a sudden nauseating dread filled his body. Hands trembling and twitching with unease, he stared, too shocked to form even a single structured thought. His mouth opened and closed but no sound escaped as he realized he hadn't inhaled for several seconds.
The Doctor’s gaze soon followed, and when he realized what he was looking at, all the confused tension in his expression gave way to shock.
“What…?” he breathed, slowly rising to stand straight again. Now he was really confused, and his twisting brow reflected that as he echoed with more intensity, “What??”
Before he could think better of it, the Doctor stepped up to the glass enclosure and locked the girl inside in a hard stare. Right away he noticed the scars all but covering her body, and the sight of them on top of how young she looked made him seethe.
His jaw clenched furiously as he reached up to grasp the top of the enclosure, prepared to rip it off and set the poor girl free.
The moment that the Doctor had suddenly started approaching the enclosure, the girl jolted and scrambled back— pressing herself further into the glass in a fruitless attempt to evade him. She shut her eyes and covered her head as she heard the familiar sound of a hand resting on the lid, waiting for it to be lifted and to get grabbed up.
“WAIT!”
Zepheera's cry from the other desk made the Doctor pause just as his hands settled on top of the box, drawing his attention immediately back to her.
For her part, Zepheera had been caught between two extremes. She was worried to see Oliver completely freeze in place at the sight of the trapped girl, and as much as the righteous fury was appreciated, the Doctor's immediate jump into action was overeager. Not wanting to leave anyone behind, she grabbed Oliver by the crook of his elbow and dragged him along to the edge of the desk, closer to the situation unfolding.
“She's scared,” Zepheera emphasized, heart bleeding just as much for the poor thing. “Don’t make it worse.”
The Doctor blinked, his senses finally catching up to him through his blind rage. Shaking his head at himself, he lowered himself to crouch next to the container.
“Sorry,” he whispered, knowing that whatever battle he was about to fight to earn the girl’s trust was now so far uphill it was practically vertical. But he had to try. “I'm not gonna hurt you. We're here to help. Okay?”
Body trembling and chest heaving from the panic of the sudden approach, the tiny girl looked like a cornered animal. She flinched back and met the gaze of the human who was now crouched down to look at her with not a hint of belief or trust. If she wasn't so terrified she might have laughed at his words— empty, no doubt. She had heard the same sentence many times before, usually followed by amusement and pain when she kept believing it was true.
I'm not stupid… People like that don’t just help. Not for long… Her mind flashed with images; memories of when Ryker had promised practically the same thing only to later shut her and her brother in this cage once he changed his mind.
From his position on the desk, Oliver finally managed to breathe.
“Sammy…” Oliver murmured after a sharp intake of air, so quiet and stiff that only Zepheera could hear his disbelieving words. He took a small robotic step forward, then another, a hand clasping over his chest as he tried to control his breathing and calm his racing heart. He was still tense, shell-shocked as he stared towards the girl, his cousin, and came to a stand just beside Zepheera.
His eyes watered but he swallowed the emotions bubbling up inside him, her words echoing in his mind as he remained frozen. She's scared. She's scared but she's alive, but scared. I…I need to get over there. Where are…? No. No I can't, I need to focus.
Hearing Oliver finally speak, however softly, made Zepheera whirl around. Something inside her clenched to see his usually unflappable composure start to shatter. Her hands moved to hover near his arm, unsure if he might crumble if she made contact or if she didn't. “Oliver?”
Then his single, softly uttered word sank in, and Zepheera turned back to the glass cage. “Do you…know her?” she blurted.
Oliver didn't respond to Zepheera for a few moments, still collecting himself and trying to push everything back down for the sake of his cousin. He nodded slowly, swallowing thickly once more as if that would also swallow down the emotions threatening to break free. He continued to stare in Sammy’s direction, and after another couple seconds he took a deep breath. She's been here this whole time. I've been here before— I've been right above her this whole time.
Closing his eyes briefly, he took in another shaky breath of the stale basement air. When he opened his eyes again he was starting to regain control over his body and mind slowly but surely, clenching his hands into fists and then relaxing them to try to stop the shaking.
“She's…my cousin. She's been missing for about three years now. I-I have to…” He spoke hoarsely from the effort and paused as his voice cracked, quickly composing himself again. “I need to get over there. But I feel like I.. can't move…”
That caught the Doctor’s ear, and he spared the other borrowers a glance as he sensed the potential ‘in’ with the kid. Now that he looked at her, there did seem to be a slight…resemblance between this new one and the last one he'd met.
“We only want to get you out of there,” he promised with a soft smile. “Got some friends here, they're more the experts than I am. Zepheera there, she's my best friend, she'd take good care of you. And Oliver’s a new friend, but he's very nice, too.” Then, without thinking it through, he gently introduced himself as well. “And I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?”
Sammy bristled as she heard the familiar name, although she didn't want to get her hopes up that it was him. Not to mention, if her Oliver was here that meant he had been captured too. And if he had been captured…well their family tree was definitely doomed for extinction. Flinching as the Doctor announced himself, the familiar title had her mind running wild with possibilities.
Is he a replacement for Wells? Is he going to cut me open? Why didn't Ryker warn me? Did he sell me..? Why did I believe him that he wouldn’t let anyone else touch me again?
Her panic was only growing; visible in how her breathing came short and quick, scratching at the back of her hands nervously as she tried not to completely break down, not wanting to cry in front of this strange new man. They always seemed to like it if she did, and Sammy simply wouldn't give this Doctor that satisfaction. But as much as she tried not to, the tears threatened to spill over.
“I-I'm not hurt, I don't need a doctor to cut me open or poke and prod at me…just…just leave me alone—” She cut herself off as she glanced towards Zepheera and Oliver, going rigid once she took in the shocked expression of her older cousin. No…no no no. Her breathing staggered briefly, then quickened as she covered her mouth and a stifled sob escaped her lips, staring down at her feet as her knees pulled into her chest. Her nails dug at the back of her hand as the scratching intensified. He can't be here. He can't be here.
The Doctor's face fell to see the instant reaction from Sammy, and he realized his mistake. He should have known better, after seeing her scars and passing by all those surgical tools on the way in– meant for delicate, precise procedures. Why would she think anything different of a strange ‘doctor’ swanning in with seemingly nothing but sweet words and more borrowers?
“Oh, no,” he murmured. “No no, I didn't mean it like–”
“Doctor.” Zepheera's firm voice cut him off and pulled his focus once again. When he looked, she had one arm wrapped around an extremely tense Oliver's back to supportively squeeze his shoulder, while the other clutched the opposite sleeve of his green sweater. The Doctor finally noticed that, though he was desperately clawing back his composure, this was the most high strung Oliver had been all day. He wouldn't be surprised if Zepheera was partly responsible for holding him upright, despite being nearly a head shorter than him.
“Lift. Now,” Zepheera commanded.
The Doctor's weight immediately shifted closer to them as he held out a hand for them. Once Zepheera helped Oliver climb on, he carefully carried them closer to the enclosure. He hesitated only briefly before letting the back of his hand settle on the surface of the desk right next to the glass.
With his hand freed, he ran it anxiously through his messy hair as though it would comb away the itchy feeling of helplessness creeping over him. He glanced between the borrowers, free and caged alike, uncertain of what he could do that wouldn't make the situation worse. He had to do something; Oliver and Zepheera would have an incredibly difficult time breaking the girl out of her cage on their own.
He hated that all he could do for the moment was sit back on his haunches and try to come up with a solution.
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Writing is coming slowly because of reasons. Some of which are too real to talk about on my silly writing blog.
The big fun reason is: I've been harboring a secret project. Specifically a story collab with @t3a-tan!
I'm very excited to blend our worlds together for a new adventure! Tea was kind enough to put together a cover piece for the new story, and we really hope you enjoy it when we start posting next week!
A g/t crossover of @t3a-tan's borrower au and my Doctor Who fic Borrowed Time and Space. Featuring original characters that belong to Tea and myself, and the Tenth Doctor who belongs to the BBC. Cover art and chapter illustrations by @t3a-tan !
Summary: Oliver Oakwood's yearly routine is abruptly interrupted when he encounters a strange borrower and her even stranger and much larger companion. Caught up in their bizarre investigation, he quickly finds himself on an adventure he won't soon forget.
Disclaimer: Intimate knowledge of Doctor Who is by no means a prerequisite to enjoying this story! The lore expressed does not run deep, and necessary information is explained <3
Story is now complete! Masterpost of chapters below the cut:
The street was quiet. A brisk winter breeze whispered through the tops of trees in the distant forest, carrying the chill that kept most of the neighbourhood snug in their homes.
Along came the stranger to break up the peaceful silence. He confidently hopped up to somebody's porch and gave the door a series of sharp raps to the rhythm of ‘Shave and a Haircut’ punctuated by a ring of the doorbell for good measure. After about a minute, a rather confused resident answered the door to find a tall, thin man with wildly spiked-up hair and a cheery grin that spread from ear to ear.
“Afternoon!” he greeted them. In a blink, he reached into the pocket of his tan overcoat and flashed open a small, thin wallet with an ID of some sort in it that certainly looked professional. “John Smith, here with the electric. Had some calls about surges in the area, just checking in to make sure all's on the up and up.”
With the homeowner thrown for a loop, the man stowed the wallet and slipped casually through the threshold to have a look about. Something about that John Smith completely disarmed them, so they answered all his strange questions and allowed him to come in and scrutinize the electronics. He seemed harmless enough, and somewhat official-looking in his blue suit (though the bright red Converse high tops did give them pause).
Half an hour passed quickly, and Smith admitted that all seemed up to code and he'd found nothing out of the ordinary. With an unceremonious, “Ah well. Bye, then!” he sauntered back out the way he'd come.
The resident was left slightly reeling from the unexpected, yet strangely unobtrusive interruption to their day.
When he reached the pavement out front, the man who actually called himself the Doctor rather than John Smith paused. He turned to give a long stare up and down the space between two houses, his gaze sharp and almost expectant. Then he shrugged and strode right up to the next house over.
He introduced himself similarly to the next neighbour, but got caught up chatting in the doorway with them. No matter how hard he tried to steer the questioning toward any bizarre sightings or unexplained surges and outages, the woman found a way to swing the conversation back to busybody gossip about various people up the street. That took up about twenty minutes before he managed to come up with an excuse to end the conversation and got her to close the door.
With an exasperated sigh, the Doctor once again glanced down the walkway between the two houses. Nothing there.
The next two houses down the line yielded nothing; one shut the door in his face before he could even finish his spiel, and the other didn't answer at all. He didn't bother to wait for more than five minutes before circling back around to the first house. This time he was tense from head to toe, growing agitated each time he looked in the same spot and found nothing.
Brow furrowed deeply, he glanced up and down the street before reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket to pull out a small silver tube with a blue bulb at the end. He cupped a hand over the bulb to hide the way it glowed when he pressed a button on the side. It gave a strange warbling buzz as he slowly panned it along the street before him.
His left eyebrow arched as he somehow derived meaning from the sound, only for the other to quickly join it when a few short whistles rang out from behind him.
The Doctor quickly put away his device and straightened his coat, looking down at himself to regard his right shoe. On the off chance that someone noticed him through a window, he made a point of ‘noticing’ his shoe had gotten untied and crouching down to do it up again.
“Thought you were in trouble,” he murmured under his breath as he pantomimed tying his shoe.
Well hidden behind his hunched frame, a small figure jogged out of the shadows alongside the first house and sidled right up to his shoe. An extremely small, young-looking woman who stood only a few inches high. Having just burst out into the cold again, she frantically tied up the fastenings of her dark, fitted coat and adjusted the single strap of her knapsack to a more secure position than being hastily thrown over one shoulder.
“Got tied up with the locals, sorry!” she called up to him as she clambered onto the back of his hand in a well-practiced motion.
His shoulders slumped in a huff to feel her slight weight start to hike up his forearm. He did his best to keep still otherwise, but as he glanced toward her to make absolutely sure that she was alright, his eyes narrowed.
“Your pack is more full,” he pointed out the noticeable extra heft she seemed to be carrying in her knapsack. Her climb up the fabric of his coat sleeve stuttered briefly as tiny violet eyes cut in his direction. He continued, growing a little more indignant with each question. “Is that what took you so long? Did you go borrowing in there, Zepheera?”
“No!” she insisted, full of indignation to be accused of wasting time. One miniscule hand let go of his coat sleeve so she could brush back her short brown hair and look him in the eye as she informed him, “The family was just…hospitable, that's all. Of course I look like a kid out on my own to them, so they refused to let me leave without giving me something. I took some granola to be polite, alright?”
He couldn't argue with that, so Zepheera carried on with her climb. “Find anything?” he asked.
“Nah, nothing unusual,” she shook her head as she pulled herself up onto his shoulder. “You?”
“Not a blip.” The Doctor reached up to adjust his collar to stick out a little more from his coat and jacket. “Can't even pick up anything on the sonic.”
Zepheera was quick to duck underneath the collar once his hands fell away; though she had on extra layers to stave off the cold, she'd never complain about having a warm hiding spot. Being smaller than a finger made it quite easy for her to crouch low enough to remain perfectly out of sight, without even a wrinkle to give the borrower away.
“Think we need a new approach,” she commented, clinging to the fabric beneath her as the Doctor rose to his feet.
“Yeah, I agree.” Tugging thoughtfully at his earlobe, the Doctor glanced around and found the road as empty as it had been all day. “Let's try the next street over. Stick together this time?”
“Definitely. Dunno if my pack can handle any more hospitality.” Though she rarely had cause to use it for its intended purpose whilst traveling with the Doctor, Zepheera felt naked without a bag to carry out and about. Hers was relatively compact compared to what other borrowers would carry; she mainly needed it to hold her climbing supplies. Even while traveling with a Time Lord out in the wide universe, there was always something that required climbing for a person who barely stood over 3 inches tall.
With that decided, the Doctor shoved his hands into his coat pockets and made his way to the other side of the neighbourhood. He passed by a police box standing on the street corner that did not belong there, running an almost affectionate hand along its blue wooden finish as he sauntered down the road.
~~~
Unbeknownst to them a tiny pair of green eyes peered down from above, watching from the old outstretched branches of an ancient oak tree. He was sat up on the mossy bark, one leg dangling over the edge whilst the other was propped up on it, clutching a mini pair of crudely-made binoculars in leather-gloved hands.
The outdoor borrower’s skin was a warm shade of almond, his dark brown hair slicked back smartly to frame his sharp features. He wore a pair of rectangular glasses crafted from thin wire that held two concave lenses in place to correct his near-sighted vision. The forest green collar of his undershirt peeked over the neckline of the lighter-colored green sweater, a fur cloak hanging over his shoulders to keep him warm in the frigid air.
“Hmm… I don't recall there being a police box there… Aren't there only 15 left in the UK?” He lowered the binoculars, turning his gaze upwards and meeting the intense golden gaze of the common buzzard perched beside him. She let out an agreeable croon, narrowing her eyes at the blue box as if she too had been reading up on the topic.
“Peculiar… Well, I cannot deny that it is there now. I will have to add it to my maps once I have finished these rounds.” With a hum, Oliver looked back down towards the newest odd addition to the landscape. Recently in order to make the city feel less dull there had been a lot of changes; signposts, lampposts and letterboxes being painted with colourful flowery patterns by artists all over the area. Ornate graffiti coated the sides of large buildings, and Oliver had to agree that it gave the city a much more lively atmosphere.
Pushing himself up to a stand, the man brushed off his green sweater and straightened his collar. He readjusted his wired glasses before taking hold of the reins attached to the bird of prey and pulling himself elegantly and effortlessly up onto her brown speckled back with a low but short whistle.
“Come on then, girl.” He received an affirmative squawk in response and pressed his body down against her feathers to avoid being dismounted by the wind, a hint of a smile playing on his lips as he kept a tight grip on the reins, waiting for the feeling of rushing air to hit him. The buzzard flapped her wings experimentally before diving off of the tree branch, two broad wings each far longer than Oliver was tall snapping outwards a moment later as she soared over the pavement, heading straight for one of the few semi-detached terrace houses with a tree in the fenced-in garden.
Landing smoothly on the dormant grass after circling to check for humans that may be watching, she leaned down to allow her fragile passenger to climb from her back onto the ground waiting below. The man obliged, and once he was off of her back he leaned his forehead against her beak affectionately, cradling the sharp appendage in his gloved palms and closing his eyes.
“Thank you, Gail. I will call for you when I need you. You know the drill, my friend.” He pulled back after a moment only to chuckle as the bird leaned in and pruned at his already mussed up hair as a goodbye. He backed away whilst trying his best to straighten his wind-swept hair and waved, one hand holding the strap of his pack which was full to the brim with supplies— not to mention the ones on his back that were previously strapped to Gail’s sides.
Cupping one hand over his eyebrows to block out the low winter sun, he watched as Gail ascended and flew off into the empty blue sky. Once she was out of sight he turned and began approaching the same crack in the wall he had used every year to start off his rounds.
“Alright, Oliver… This year should be relatively smooth,” he muttered to himself determinedly, pulling out a notebook sewn together at the spine with golden thread and labeled as ‘Inspection Ten’, flipping it open to page one. The notebook was empty so far but with hundreds of pages to fill, not to mention an extra notebook just in case that wasn’t enough.
“If there are no changes, move on. This city keeps expanding, and I do not have time to do thorough checks of places that do not need it anymore…” he reminded himself, pulling out a tiny lantern he had made using wires and a small LED connected to a battery slung over his back. It was still a pretty clunky device, but it made travelling in the dark much easier.
He hummed as he inspected the derelict state of the tunnels, holding the handle of the lantern between his teeth as he pulled out a piece of lead and began to take notes.
“First Zone, House One, still uninhabited by borrowers… Due to the toys in the garden I am led to believe this is because of the young children in the house, same as last year. No changes.” He underlined the last line before closing the notebook, putting it back in his pack and continuing along the tunnels with a healthy level of caution; wary of any potential predatory bug infestations that may have developed due to the lack of borrower habitation.
He held the lantern out in front of himself, knowing the route to the next house by heart at this point due to this being his tenth year of doing this exact thing. He always started at the same house and followed the same path every year in order to keep track of the borrowers and humans in the area, trading along the way. It was now simply another part of his routine, and though he took the time to make note of any potential damages to the structure of the house, or suspected critters living in other parts of the walls, he continued along his route without much fuss.
Usually there wasn't much to report during his rounds, but he still believed it was necessary in order to make the city safer for borrowers. Sure, it wasn't the biggest city in England, not even close, but it was expanding year by year, and with cameras becoming much more common in human homes Oliver just wanted to check in with his fellow borrowers to make them aware of whether the house they were residing in was no longer safe to borrow in.
It was cameras that got his cousins caught after all. He had never found them since then; just left with the remains of the den he was raised in and a lot of unanswered questions that still burned in his mind to this day.
At this point, almost every borrower along his route knew who he was and didn't mind what he was doing; rarely did his people ever turn down the company of another of their kind. The first few houses never had much to report on due to being uninhabited by borrowers— but Oliver always checked, just in case a new family had moved in and wanted help settling or making sure the tunnels didn’t hide any nasty surprises.
He took off his backpack and pushed it through first to get through the next crack, shimmying though the tight space after it without much issue due to his lean figure. He threw it back over his shoulder as he walked across the uneven dirt ground between the first house and the next. He was wrapped up well for the weather so the winter air didn't bother him too much, although the cold nipped at his hooked nose. He let out a small sigh which turned to steam as it made contact with the frigid air, looking up, up, up at the brick foundation ahead.
“128 new houses…I have a long couple of months ahead of me…”
~~~
“How can nobody be affected?” groused the Doctor, shaking out his fingers from the light shock he'd received from the wiring he was poking at.
Zepheera, sat more openly on his shoulder now that they were alone in someone's basement, sighed and offered, “Maybe it's a good thing? Y'know, if people aren't seeing any effects, then it could just be harmless.”
“I don't see how it could be,” the Doctor insisted. “A signature potent enough to trip an alert on the TARDIS should have some kind of effect! And even if it were benign, I would still rather know than leave it to chance. Or else it's gonna bug me for the rest of time.”
“I see that.”
Despite her patient approach to the Doctor's gripes, Zepheera was beginning to feel just as restless. Sticking to his shoulder while he asked around the last handful of houses hadn't been any more rewarding than when they decided to split up. It had seemed like a good idea to check in with the local borrowers before, since there were certain things that humans could overlook. Small signs or changes in the air, anything that might occur outside of the notice of human beings.
Zepheera had very few opportunities to chat with other borrowers face to face. Not just because she spent all her time with a human look-alike of an alien, zipping around time and space. Even before then she'd been more of a recluse and found it difficult to relate to others of her kind, let alone grow close to them.
Traveling with the Doctor sparked something new in her, however. His inability to pass by anyone he could help was starting to rub off on her, and she found that all the traveling allowed her to feel a certain degree of separation in these situations. The likelihood that they would run into the people they helped again was incredibly slim, all but eliminating the chance of forming any lasting connections. Somehow that made it much easier for Zepheera to throw herself into helping out any way she could.
She felt a bit bad about lying to the locals earlier, even if it was to earn their trust. They couldn't know she was involved with the Doctor, or they'd assume that it was a trick or a trap. Being just about twenty times bigger than borrowers, it was all too easy for humans to take advantage of the smaller folk. Zepheera still had a healthy caution toward any new humans and people of a similar scale out in the universe, but she knew that most borrowers went so far as to keep up a fearful mythos of humanity. It was better to be vague when interacting with her people than to cause unnecessary panic.
Thankfully, it was easy for borrowers to accept one of their own simply passing through, and wouldn't be too thrown by a curious question or two. Though she had to admit, people in this area seemed particularly receptive. Expectant of it, even.
“Should've built a detector from the start,” grumbled the Doctor, interrupting Zepheera’s thoughts. “Soon as this is done, I'm going back to the TARDIS and doing just that!”
“Sounds good,” Zepheera said as she pushed herself up to stand at the edge of the Doctor’s shoulder. Even though she knew very little about wiring, she could tell he was nowhere near done, so she took a running start with what room she had, and leapt to a nearby shelf. “I'm gonna try another look around, just in case.”
The Doctor squawked indignantly. “What? You're gonna leave me alone with this??” He gave a nod toward his hands, and the aftermath of a battle between his fingers and a roll of electrical tape.
“Well, I'm hardly of help just sitting here,” Zepheera pointed out, tossing her hands up. “And I'm not the one who promised that bloke I'd fix his flickering lights.”
When he didn't have an argument against that point, Zepheera gave a sharp nod and began climbing down the side of the adjustable metal shelf.
“Don’t stay for tea this time,” he pressed, wrestling one hand free from the tangle of tape with a painted grunt. “I want to start on that detector right away.”
Zepheera rolled her eyes and assured him, “I won't. Meet you outside!” With that, she slipped into the shadows.
“What makes you think there's gonna be people here, anyway?” the Doctor called after her.
A slight pause came before she answered. Zepheera hadn't been in a position to notice any glaring signs of habitation from her perch on his shoulder, but given the way the previous family of borrowers not only expected company but assumed she was with someone who often came around this time of year…
“Call it a hunch!” rang out from the darkness out of the Doctor's sight.
