Chapter Text
At first, there was only darkness…
In a deep slumber, she dragged through the haze, like boots trudging through mud. Some part of her fighting to awake from the murky night.
Then something clicked and she became aware of the throbbing pain that seared in her head. It felt like an open wound in her mind, slowly oozing.
She wanted…
No, needed to get away from it.
In her desperation, she did something new. She moved.
It was just the tiniest bit, a muscle straining in her neck, but it was enough. Enough that she noticed the feel of the floor, rough beneath her back. It was cold and hard and grid-like, and not at all comfortable.
Though she didn’t have long to consider what that meant before she felt a sharp and bruising pain jab at her side. This wasn’t like the deep-rooted pain in her head. No, this came from somewhere else, someone else. Her body reacted for her to the feeling; her reflexes kicking in. Weary, her eyes cracked open as she folded, groaning, towards where the pain in her side was.
The room was too bright and it hurt her eyes. She flinched and shut them again for just a moment before forcing them open once more. It was then she saw him. There was a man standing over her. He seemed older, maybe mid-40s? Did he kick her? He might have been saying something but she couldn’t process it, not when her thoughts were racing a mile a minute.
She didn’t recognize the man. He had silvery salt and pepper speckled hair and a goatee to match. He seemed annoyed, maybe a little confused, and a touch angry. The woman forced herself to push through the ache in her side and lift her upper body off the ground.
“Wha-…?” She began to ask what it was that he was saying before being cut off by him. She startled when he quickly crouched down and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt.
“I said, who are you and what are you doing on my ship?” There was annoyance in his tone and when she met his eyes she found that something about how he glared at her unnerved her deeply.
She went to respond. Her mouth opened and she took a breath as though about to speak, but she quickly realized that there was nothing there. No name, no idea of how she wound up… wherever she now is, and no clue whatsoever as to why she had seemingly passed out on this guy’s floor. This all occurs to her in a matter of seconds. So she sits there uncomfortably for a moment in his aggressive hold as her mouth closes and reopens, gaping like a fish, with no answer.
He shakes her slightly then to snap her out of her thoughts.
“Well!?” He grunts, this time with even more anger in his tone. It’s clear he’s getting more and more impatient by the second.
“…I’m… I am…” she begins apprehensively before trailing off. No matter how hard she tries to remember it she can’t. In fact, the more she tries to think about details like that the more that deep ache in her head hurts. “…I… can’t remember…” she continues, worry slowly starting to spread over her expression at the revelation. This can’t be good. Surely not. Everyone knows their name right? Or how old they are? Or where they’re from? Anything?
The man regards her for a moment, eyeing her with suspicion. He almost looks like he’s debating something before suddenly, and with inhuman strength, pulling them both to stand.
“Well, can’t say I’ve heard that one before.” He scoffs briefly amused before continuing to glare at her, although maybe there’s slightly less venom in it now.
“And who are you…?” She asks a question of her own. There’s more assertiveness in her tone than she would have expected from herself, almost a sassiness. Although she wouldn’t consider herself scared by any means, this situation is definitely unusual, or she’s pretty sure it is. So, she thinks her reaction must be at least a bit odd.
Her suspicions are confirmed when his expression shifts to hold the tiniest bit of surprised confusion for a moment. He looks at her as if it’s absurd that she doesn’t know who he is. There’s a pause as he considers this, perhaps he thought she was lying about the memory loss thing?
“…You don’t know who I am?” He asks with a mix of suspicion and confusion in his voice.
“No clue.” She replies bluntly.
He is frozen in thought a moment longer before he finally lets go of her shirt collar. He takes a step back and a sinister grin envelopes his face. She stumbles over her feet for a second as she gets her bearings, unsteady from the sudden shift of weight. When she looks back up, from the ground, at him she notices that he’s bent down slightly to meet her eye level. He brings a hand up to cup his mouth as he pretends to whisper,
“You can call me, Master.” He speaks with a certain mischievousness, like he’s sharing a naughty secret.
It seems as though he’s waiting for her to react. Like he wants her to have some kind of realization of who he is or at least some kind of outrage over his name, but she doesn’t respond that way. Instead, she continues to look at him with that same confused and lost expression. If anything she does pause for a moment to consider the name, but it doesn’t ring any bells. And although she gets the sense that maybe it’s a bit of a strange name, she can’t seem to think of any others she could compare it to.
So, she just stares at the Master and says, “Okay…?” His mischievous grin slowly drops when he realizes she’s not giving him the reaction he wants. He drops his hand and his shoulders sag with a dramatic exasperated sigh. He rolls his eyes for a moment as a grumpy scowl overtakes his features and he straightens back to his full height.
“Ugh…You’re no fun.” He groans.
And just like that as if he’s decided he’s bored with her, he reaches into his coat to grab something from his pocket. She watches him with curiosity as he takes out some kind of silver pen thing.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” She asks with a bit of growing concern as she watches him fiddle with it for a few seconds.
“The perfect way to spice up a dull moment, and get rid of unwanted house guests.” He responds in a snarky tone with a malicious fake smile.
“Bye bye.” He gives a little wave with his off hand and just like that his politician like grin drops. It settles into scowl as he aims the thing at her with bored uncaring eyes.
She goes wide eyed she as realizes what he means. She freezes, concerned panic now clear on her face, but doesn’t even have time to start running before he presses a button on its side.
She squeezes her eyes shut and braces for impact. Not quite sure what exactly is about to happen but entirely sure it’ll hurt.
The anticipation fills her stomach with dread and the seconds that tick by feel like hours.
A beat or two pass and…
nothing happens. Until she hears the Master curse out something frustratedly, though she can’t quite understand the musical lilt of his words, maybe it’s another language? She cracks her eyes open to peek at him, wondering why she’s not dead yet, and sees him hitting the side of his weapon with his palm. Smoke and sparks fly off of it,
“Argh- stupid thing!” He cries out angrily when one of the small sparks lands on his hand.
He quickly pulls it away from his skin and shoves it back in his coat. He shakes the hand in a subtle gesture as if to shake off the sting of the heat. When she speaks it pulls him away from his distraction.
“So…uh, seems like it might need some work….” She tries to halfheartedly joke to calm her nerves and ease the tension. But, he doesn’t seem to think it’s very funny. No, not at all.
His eyes snap up from his hand back to her, and they aren’t happy. If looks could kill she thinks she’d be dead on the ground by now. His gaze burns with something ancient and decidedly very annoyed. It flickers away from her for just a moment to glance behind her. When it comes back to meet her’s, the Master looks as if he’s just come up with a wonderfully evil idea
“No matter we’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way.” he grabs her again, this time by the wrist, and pulls her roughly across the room. She startles and tries to pull herself free of his chilly grip but he ignores her and only tightens it with an almost bruising strength.
“Hey, what’re you doing!?… Stop it, let go of me!” He glances at her with an annoyed look but overall ignores her pleas. She looks behind her to see where he’s taking her, that’s when she spots what he was looking at.
The doors.
But by then it’s too late.
“Wait! Before you throw me out, at least tell me where we a-“ She tries to ask what’s out there, but as if on cue the double doors swing open with a loud creak. She snaps her head back to get a look and what she finds takes her breath away.
It’s beautiful and… big.
Outside the doors of the Master’s ship sits the vastness of space. There’s nothing in the void except a million little points of light. Stars, her mind supplies. And for just a moment she forgets about their struggle entirely. That is until a hand comes to grab at the collar of her shirt. The force pulls her closer to the abyss and just like that her mind catches up with the present.
With some effort she manages to tear her eyes away from the outside to look back at her aggressor. Her eyes go wide in fear as she realizes his intentions, and suddenly the beauty of this place transforms into terror.
“You can’t do this” She pleads with fear in her voice. Maybe it’s the shock of it all, but she can’t seem to get it to come out as anything more than a whisper.
He leans in with a malicious grin and pretends to think about what he’s doing for a second. His breath fanning across her face from his proximity. Then he whispers back,
“No, no I think I can.”
His words make her body jump to fight back one last time, more instinct than real thought. One last attempt to save herself.
Her hands fly wildly around as she fights his hold on her. Though she’s shorter than him, his insistence on invading her personal space comes back to bite him when her thrashing causes the two to butt heads. It wasn’t really intentional but at least it worked. Kind of…
“Arghh!” The pain causes him to groan out, though maybe it’s more from the suddenness of her resistance. She can’t really tell because her forehead is equally in pain from the clash. Okay, this wasn’t the most well-thought-out defense, she’ll admit. She reels away in pain and shuffles on her feet as she tries to push through it.
“Gahhh!” She grumbles out as she places her free hand on her forehead in an attempt to soothe the ache that’s sure to bruise, if she lives to see tomorrow that is.
She can’t get very far she realizes as she feels his grip still holding strong against her. Trying to get her guard back up she looks back up at the Master. And after a moment or two she realizes he isn’t even trying to push her out of the doors anymore. No, he’s staring at something. The floor? He looks like he’s seen a ghost.
His face is pure shock for just a moment then in the blink of an eye it shifts to confusion. When he blinks up at her, his gaze is analyzing. Like he’s searching for something in her eyes. When she glances down to where he was looking she notices a flower resting on the floor. It seems to have six petals, each one a golden yellow color that shimmers in the dim glow of the ship.
She’s never seen a flower that looks like that before, though to be fair she can’t recall having ever seen flowers, but still it seems unique that’s for sure.
His eyes snap back down to the ground. Then, she watches them track their way back up to her side, like he’s solving some kind of puzzle. She looks down with confusion, and there plain as day sit a few golden petals sticking out of her pocket.
“Where did you get those?” He asks with an intrigued curiosity, though there’s something darker in his tone that she can’t quite explain. When she looks back up to answer him she realizes he was already watching her. The way he stares at her feels like he’s trying to dissect her with his eyes alone.
“I… uh, didn’t even realize I had them… What kind of flowers are they?” She asks in a confused but truthful voice.
“Flowers of Remembrance…” his voice trails off and for a moment she thinks his mind might be somewhere else, but in seconds he regains his scrutinizing facade.
“Bit ironic then.” She jokes in an attempt to lighten the strange mood they’ve quickly settled into. This time it seems to work, at least a little.
The Master’s lips tilt up slightly into a smirk and he lets out a begrudging huff of a laugh. The Master stares her down a moment more before releasing his hold on her and giving her a bit of space.
“Hmm, well this is quite the little mystery. No name, no memory, and pockets full of flowers for a funeral.” He speaks more to himself than to her as he glances up and around the room in thought. She jars a little when he divulges the flowers’ use.
Now that she’s free of his hold, and he’s somewhat distracted, she slowly inches away from the doors. As she walks, she glances at the fallen flower once more. She reaches down and gently scoops it up into her palm. She examines it, its petals soft in her hand, before tearing her eyes away to look back at the strange man before her.
He notices that she’s distanced herself from the danger of the void and it causes him to grin. This could be fun, a little puzzle to solve, and he does love a good game.
“Looks like it’s your lucky day, dear. You’ve piqued my interest, which mind you is no small feat, so I won’t kill you, for now.“