bakerstreet | Daemon Meme

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[meme] au

Daemon Meme

In the universe of the His Dark Materials trilogy (or the movie The Golden Compass), every person has a creature called a dæmon that accompanies them all their lives, and is emotionally and metaphysically a part of them. Dæmons are often described as sort of external souls (while the part of the personality in a human's body is the spirit).

Basic Dæmon Facts:

- They take the shape of animals
- They can talk, no matter what their shape
- Children's dæmons can change form at will; around puberty they 'settle' and become one animal permanently
- Neither the person or the dæmon chooses the final settled form, but it always reflects their personality (although not necessarily in obvious or simple ways)
- They are almost always the opposite sex as their human
- If a dæmon feels pain, so will their person, and vice versa
- Being physically apart from one's dæmon causes horrible emotional and physical pain
- Dæmons frequently talk to and touch each other, in ways that reflect or complement their persons' interactions, but dæmons talking to humans other than their own is considered strange, and touching humans not their own is extremely taboo; it generally occurs only between long-time lovers. Touching someone else's dæmon without permission is a terrible violation.

How it works:

Just design a dæmon for your muse and put as little or as much information as you like about them (shape, name, link to a picture or species wiki if you are so inclined) in a comment, with your muse's name and series in the subject. Check out other people's dæmons and let your dæmons interact too.

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[Martha's daemon is a gangly, spotted African wild dog named Anton - although he insists on going by Ant. He's as fiercely loyal as she is, and he has a wicked sense of humour, particularly when she's being too serious. He's a bit thinner since her travels with the Doctor, missing a notch out of one ear, and if you look closely, you might be able to make out the fine lines of scarring under his fur.]

((mid-regeneration, EoT AU? Who cares about Mickey and WOW Gallifrey was totally just in the sky?? You can smack me it's totally okay.))

[Coronella "Coro" pre-Time War used to change every regeneration. After, she was always a grey-headed flying fox. Following some... well... complications, a very long period of traveling alone, and being chock-full of regenerative energies, her form resettled into a tern--Time Lords break rules even when they're not even trying to.]

Martha, Martha! Ant!

[Even flying overhead in the still-chaotic crowd, Coro can spot Martha and her daemon. She lands on Martha's shoulder, wings fluttering excitedly despite the utter dread coming from the Doctor, who's still stuck in the crowd, albeit nearby.

The bird's sure this is completely a-ok, forgetting that she... wasn't a bird the last time she saw the two.]

Ant rears up on his hind paws and pretends to snap at the daemon with the gall to land on his human. "Get off of there," he huffs quietly. She still smells the same - despite being a different species entirely - and so Ant knows perfectly well who she is while Martha's still gaping with shock. "Don't be an idiot."

"Where is he?" Martha glances around with concern, finally registering that Something Is Very Wrong. "Coro, where's the Doctor?" She steps out of the flow of traffic - or, more accurately, away from the people who are swearing at the idiot who's just stopped in the middle of the sidewalk - and turns her attention to the bird on her shoulder. "What's going on?"

Ruining his life, that's what's going on. This was not the plan, Coro. The plan was to drop Wilf off, then just stop by the streets to check on the aftermath. Not... not find someone he knows. Not in this timeline, anyway, and certainly not getting up close.

It's hard to miss Martha though, and Coro isn't simply going to let them leave. Honestly he wouldn't be surprised if she flew high into the sky and hurt both of them in retaliation for him avoiding Martha.

Well. It's fine. Everything's fine. A quick glance at his skin and he knows the regenerative energy is still making its languid tour of his bloodstream, snacking away at the massive radiation. No external signs.

Coro's left Martha's shoulder and fluttering side by side around the two when the Doctor approaches, hands in pockets, playing for casual even though there's still blood and glass shards sticking to his outfit, head to toe.

"I'm here," he says, expression solemn.

He looks like he's been in a trainwreck, is her first thought. His clothes are ragged tatters, and he's bleeding from small cuts everywhere, and - is there glass stuck here and there? She doesn't even want to know what he's been up to.

"You're a mess," she says flatly. She doesn't ask what's wrong - if he wants to tell her, he will, and if he doesn't, then...she should probably let well enough alone, but that's not really in her nature. "You've been in the thick of things up there, I reckon." Martha jerks her chin up to the now-clear sky. "UNIT's been scrambling like hell to figure out what's going on." She's become a freelancer now, but she still keeps an eye on things and an ear to the ground.

"You aren't all right," Ant adds, because if Martha's blunt, he's even blunter. "At all. You come looking for a doctor, or..." He trails off. Neither of them know how to finish that sentence, because they don't want to think it.

Coro lands on the sidewalk and ruffles her feathers, suddenly not looking at any of them, and the Doctor senses the trouble--for him. He tries not to think about it and power on.

"I've been better," he says, looking down at himself. Coro flicks a wing. She looks nearly pristine, which is a far cry from how she was barely half an hour ago. She only changed faster than he has. "I was just in the neighborhood," he laughs, but it's not funny.

"Ah... the sky..." It actually bothers him to look at, remembering Gallifrey screaming into the atmosphere so recently. "Well, UNIT doesn't have to worry. It's all better now. You can tell 'em the Doctor told you that."

He tries to smile, but it comes off as a grimace. "I--"

He's going to argue with Ant and say he's really going to be fine, but Coro's doing that thing she does. That tic in no matter what form that's a sign that he's about to lie about something big, something she doesn't agree with. To any outside, it just looks like she's preening.

"Don't lie," is all she says to him.

He closes his mouth.

"I think they can work that one out for themselves," she remarks dryly. "Even UNIT isn't that thick." Most of the time, anyway. "I've moved on, anyway. Got tired of being expected to be a soldier." Martha gives him a soft smile. "Disabled the Osterhagen Device before I left, though. They weren't too happy when they found out about that."

In fact, she'd received a very cross phone call about it, which she'd more or less ignored. Needless to say, UNIT isn't going to be giving her a favourable reference. Not that they're the sort of employer you can exactly ask for a reference anyway.

Martha bites her lip, glancing down at the pavement. She always knew this day would come - had to come. She'd hoped (selfishly) that it wouldn't be within her lifetime, that she wouldn't be there to see it. She knows he'll still be the same man afterwards, but...well, he's her Doctor. It's totally daft, but she can't help it.

"Is there anything we can do?" she asks.

That bird of his is such a traitor, but it's out there now. And really... he's accepted it. ...For the moment, anyway.

Still, his gaze doesn't meet Martha's when he talks.

"No. It's too late for... for anything. It was always going to happen. Always gonna be the way it happened." Coro squawks quietly in annoyance. He shrugs a shoulder. "I'm okay with that."

He thinks about the Master and the complete wreck that had become of the hyena, Hilde, after the botched resurrection. About Hilde's claw to Coro's neck, holding her down while the Doctor was contained.

Thinks about Rassilon. About being saved.

"It's not how I thought things were going to go down," he says, sounding surprisingly relieved.

It's probably best not to mention that to Martha, all things considered. It's likely that she might get a little touchy if she found out the Master had returned, and this isn't a moment that needs to be spoiled by her perfectly rational hatred of the other Time Lord.

"Did you expect a cave of giant spiders?" she teases lightly. "Or falling off a radio tower? Or maybe a botched surgery?" Those are the only regenerations UNIT has definite records on; she doesn't know about the rest. Probably doesn't want to know. "Because this seems a lot calmer than the rest combined."

She seems a little calmer now, though still sorrowful. The only outward sign of tension is her fingers tightly gripping the ruff of fur at Ant's neck.

He wants to mention it, so badly. He wants someone else who knows how awful the Master is to understand the weight of what happened in that room, but she won't see it the same. No one will see it the same. No one's ever seen the Master the same.

So he shrugs a shoulder and Coro let's this slip, because she understands the same way he does.

"Those all sound pretty awful, actually. Nah," he smiles over at her, and it's genuine, "saved Donna's granddad. It's a nice feeling." And it didn't actually hurt for too long. He thinks the regeneration is numbing the rest of the pain.

"Good." She nods. Saving people is what he's meant to do, what they're meant to do, all four of them. She doesn't need to know how it happened; obviously it's something internal, something that left him outwardly unscathed (relatively, anyway). It doesn't make a difference, not anymore.

"Do you want me to stay with you till it happens?" Ant shifts his weight from side to side, betraying the apprehension they both feel. "I just- I don't want you to be alone." It won't be the first time she's stayed with a dying person, though it'll be the first time she's stayed with someone who immediately got better.

He wants to be alone, he thinks, but Coro flies up to him and lands on his shoulder, hunkering down. He doesn't think he'll be the best company, once the rush catches up to him, but the offer's there and he can't bring himself to say no. Doesn't think Coro would let him, either.

"I just..." he hesitates, looking around them. He still hears some quick whispers about red planets in the skies but they're settling, little by little, putting their panic into their phones instead of around each other. He wonders how many pictures of Gallifrey there are on the internet, no one able to name it.

"I have to do some things, first." He holds up his hand and looks it over. He's shaking, some, but nothing too terrible. "Make some rounds, for once. I have time. I can meet you somewhere?"

"We'll come back," Coro chirps. "Promise!"

If he'd said it, she wouldn't believe him - but she knows Coro means it, and that she'll make him. She might have changed her shape, but she's still the same old Coro underneath, and that's what she's got to remember about regeneration, too.

"My flat," she tells him. They need someplace private, anyway. She doesn't know precisely what it looks like, but it's the last thing they need someone filming and putting on Youtube. "I'll make tea," she offers wryly. She doesn't think he'll drink it - doesn't know if he can drink it - but she's English, and it's sort of an instinct.

He nods. "We'll be there." He takes one last look to the people in the streets, smiles, and then spins away.

"See you soon!" Coro calls back, waving a wing.

By the time he's "made his rounds" through time and space, checking in on his friends--Martha excluded--he's covered in a sheen layer of sweat and having trouble staying upright. Coronella's in a constant state of worry, hopping circles around him, feeling some of his agony, but thankfully not all of it.

Orange ripples under his skin and he hisses in pain, hand clenched to the frame of the TARDIS and somewhere Rose is behind him in 2005 with her mum, and he's already stubbornly realizing how much he doesn't want to do this.

"Coro, we shouldn't go back," he says. "It's too risky. I can't... what if the radiation gets her?"

"Your body's not about to release any radiation and you know it." Coro just ruffles her feathers. "We're going or you're going to make me cry."

He can't have that.

His hands trip over the console and in second he's at Martha's flat.

Right smack in the living room.

"Sorry for the parking job," he calls when he steps out, leaning against the blue and really not looking so great.

Martha glances at the splintered wreck that was once her coffee table, and then up at the Doctor and Coro. Ant's next to her on the sofa, and she's cradling a cup of tea in her hands.

"I was going to replace it soon anyway."

His tea had been on the table, but she's not going to mention that.

Ant gets up first, stretching stiff legs, pretending to be casual as he sniffs at the Doctor - not touching him, of course, keeping his muzzle well away - then sits down next to him, tail wrapped around his haunches. He almost looks like a statue until he sneezes at - well, something.

Martha puts her tea on an endtable, then picks her way through the splinters and pieces of wood. "How's it work?" Her eyes are wide with concern. It's obvious he's dying, and there's nothing she can bloody do about it. Instinctively, her hand finds the top of Ant's head, stroking the coarse fur for reassurance.

Painfully, he thinks.

He slides a bit down his TARDIS and sits besides Ant, and if he flinches every so often than really, nothing to worry about, everything's fine.

(Forcefully trying to stave off a regeneration really isn't healthy, probably, but he just... he just wants to hold on... a bit longer. That's okay, right?)

He thinks about what he told Wilf, about regenerating. Coro burrows into his lap and he gets his fingers lost in her feathers while he thinks.

"Martha, do you remember when Ant settled on the form he has now?" It's stranger for humans, he thinks. Only having that one time, usually, that a daemon changes. While for him, depending on his regeneration, she changed with him.

"Your... soul, still trying to sort itself out." He smiles up at her. "Not quite sure what it's gonna be yet. Think about doing that... again and again, completely redoing that uncertainty. Never knowing."

"You don't really know much of anything about yourself when you're a teenager," she points out wryly. Except she had known quite a lot about herself; Martha's always been one of those self-confident, composed people with a plan for everything. She'd always envisioned her daemon being something small and neat, something elegant. She'd tried to talk him into being a sparrowhawk, or a fox, or-

Well, none of it had worked. Ant had always been obstinate; she knew her mind, and he knew his (and hers into the bargain). One day, she'd woken up with a long-legged, spotty dog with enormous ears on her bed, gaping a grin at her and wagging his tail.

"I wanted something cooler," she admits, scratching behind Ant's ears. "Something that didn't make me stand out so much, something that seemed like a doctor would have."

Ant just grins that doggy smile at her again, flopping his tail against the floor. "Stoker had a bat," he points out. "Your mum just made you think you needed an elegant daemon." Not that her meerkat is especially elegant, but he's small and portable. Not like Ant.

"Well, you don't really think anything when you're a speck of a Time Lord, either," he admits. There's a long quiet moment where he listens to her speak and his skin is radiant and he's clutching at his arms, but then the energy swims back out of sight and he laughs it off.

Maybe he should have tried harder at convincing Coro that they shouldn't come.

"I wanted to be ginger. Do you think I could manage it, this time?" He chokes down a gasp of pain. "You know," he forces out, "if you have any valuables in here, you might want to move them. No promises this isn't going to be... be... damaging. Powerful thing, rewriting your body."

"You're going to wreck another flat?" Martha sighs. "I'm never going to get another security deposit back ever. Least insurance covered the last one, I dunno what I'm going to tell anyone this time." Ant gives her a look, like insurance claims are the least of her problems right now.

She goes to her mantel, picks up a few trinkets - a couple souvenirs from travelling, a picture of her family, one of her and Adeola smiling into the camera, showing off their fresh tattoos - and takes them into the TARDIS, generally assuming that it's the safest place to keep anything she doesn't want destroyed.

"Are you always white?" she asks idly. "Well. No. I know you're always white, I've seen the pictures. Always white, always a bloke. Doesn't it get boring? I mean, if I could change, I reckon I might give something else a shot."

Ant snorts and rolls his eyes. "Of all the times to ask."

"Look, he's the one who asked about being ginger!" she defends herself. Besides, joking about it is better than crying.

"I might? It isn't like I'm going to try to?"

He quite suddenly surges to his feet, knocking Coro away from him by mistake and almost stepping on Ant.

"I like that you make it sound as though I actually have a choice!" he says, very high pitched and very loud, and it's obvious that he's in massive amounts of pain, no longer able to hide it.

Coro makes a loud, long, grating sound, hopping in the direction of Martha and making herself look smaller.

"I'll give it a shot, really, I swear," he laughs, because if he laughs, he won't start crying. "Maybe grow some extra arms. That'd be nice, yeah? Useful."

"Don't be stupid," and now she's crying without quite realising it, and even Ant hunkers down and makes himself smaller, a quiet whine starting in his throat.

As if by instinct, she stumbles forward, wrapping her arms around him to soothe him. It doesn't matter that there's golden light rippling over his skin, he's scared and hurt and she can't just stand there. (Some part of her mind rationalises that it's like being in the eye of a hurricane; if he destroys the rest of her flat, she's less likely to get hurt if she's close to him. It's probably very dumb logic.)

It's the hug that does him in, that starts him crying freely. He wraps himself around her tightly with all his remaining strength and ducks his head into her shoulder. "I don't want to do this," he says through hitching breath.

"Let go!" Coro yells at him, stirring through his emotions. "You'll hurt her!"

Just barely he jerks away from Martha on time. He's still pressed closely to her, but his arms drop away and he explodes into thousands of fiery particles.

Coro thinks it might be fine. They could get through this without him damaging anything.

And then the energy ripples outward from his head and hands, burning through her walls. Burning through everything, but not her, not the TARDIS, not the daemons.

She clings even after he lets go, ignoring Coro's warning. Except suddenly there's nothing to cling to for a moment as everything reforms, the particles crawl onto her arms and body as his body ripples and changes underneath her.

She is so not getting her security deposit back, she thinks, just before she's knocked out entirely, flopping bonelessly to the floor. Ant is just as unconscious; they're both breathing normally, but they just. Aren't conscious.

He's got to hand it to regeneration: there's a thrill to being in a huge magnitude of horribly agonizing pain, to feeling perfectly fine. Really gives a rush, so much that he's disoriented for a good few moments, pressing palms--hands!--into his eyes and letting out a loud whoop of excitement.

"That's better now, isn't it, Coronella dear?" He shakes out limbs cheerfully.

"Everything's. On. FIRE!" the bird screeches at him.

He rubs at an ear. "Come on, no need to be so loud, it's really not so b--"

"DOCTOR!" the bird yells, just at loudly, flying up into his face and even going so far as to pull at his hair, which is awfully long and very very strange. "Pay attention!"

His eyes fall onto Martha and Ant. "What's that? Why's she on the floor? Martha! Martha now's not the time to be sleeping, your flat is on fire!"

"They're not sleeping!" Coro says, panicked and landing on one of Martha's arms, holding out her wings as though she can shield the human from any falling debris.

"Oh my god," the Doctor says, voice rising high and cracking, "I killed them. I killed them! I told you we should have never come here, Coronella!"

"They're not dead either! Ant would be gone if they were dead!"

"...Oh." He breathes and relaxes, really not seeming to take in the mass amount of chaos going on around them. "Well, that's good. We should get them out of here." He steps over the broken coffee table and scoops Martha up into his arms shakily, and then starts for the flaming doorway.

Coro hates everything. Why can't he ever regenerate in a way that doesn't cause her trouble? She lands besides Ant, but she isn't strong enough to lift the daemon with her feet.

"Where are you going?" she says to the Doctor. "The TARDIS is right there?"

"What?" he blinks blearily around him, then stares down at Martha with a frown, like he isn't even sure why she's in his arms. That's weird. "Right..." He turns 'round, sidesteps a chunk of falling ceiling, and walks into the TARDIS. He gingerly lays her down, then goes back to fetch Ant and bring him in too. He stands in the doorway of the TARDIS with Coro on his shoulder and Martha's flat burning down around them. "...Maybe we should call someone? She'd want us to call someone, right?"

He looks back over at Martha. "Martha?" he hollers at her, as though maybe she'd wake up and give him the answer.

He's really trying to be a good friend.

"Take off, you idiot!" That's from Ant, not Martha, who's still in a heap on the TARDIS floor. He's got his forepaws resting over her, and he's licking her cheek to try and wake her up.

"Coro," he barks, "tell him!" At least one of them seems to be making sense right now - granted, Coro is pretty much always the one making sense. "We can't stay in a burning flat!" Ant is momentarily unconcerned about letting the authorities - or Martha's family - know about the situation; he'd really rather save them first. Besides, the TARDIS is a bloody time machine, although he doubts the Doctor's ability to pilot it with any sort of accuracy at the moment.

Martha Jones | Doctor Who

hello I'm awful

hi awful I'm dad

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