bakerstreet | Daemon Meme

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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 isn't used to this face yet, but she can still tell that he's not as cheerful as he's pretending to be. Maybe it's just because of long association with the Doctor, or maybe it's something else. Regardless, she puts a hand on his arm to reassure him.

"Are you all right? From the regeneration? Do you need to lie down or something?"

She doesn't realize it--and he hopes she never does--but she's given him an out.

Coro's staring at him, eyes boring through him. He understands it as no one will know it was Gallifrey if you don't tell anyone.

He doesn't tell Martha and he doesn't know if it's a good thing that Coro lets it go.

"I'll be fine," he says, smiling. "Little bit odd. Organs shifting around, energy still eating the rest of the radiation. Honestly! How long does that take?"

He paces around the console, both hands moving as he mows right over the radiation talk. It's not important, just a mild irritation.

"There's a planet that floods once every decade. The whole planet! Something to do with multiple moons coming into one particular rare alignment. So the inhabitants take an entire month to prepare, wait for the worst to happen, and then celebrate after its all settled. It wasn't so pretty the first few times it happened, but after, they got really good at dealing with it. Especially since it took some time for the planet to go back to normal."

He skims a hand over the controls.

"They celebrate with themes of life and rebirth. Fitting, right?"

"How do they deal with it?" She tilts her head with interest while Ant watches the Doctor surreptitiously. It's easier to gauge his emotions by watching Coro, but he'd have to put his paws up on the console, and then it would be too obvious.

"Floating houses? That doesn't seem like it would be very stable the rest of the time, though. And how deep is it?" She furrows her brow thoughtfully, but really, this sort of thing isn't her strong point. Instead, she focuses on something more medically relevant.

"Did you say your organs are still shifting? Seriously?"

"Very deep. Like..." He thinks, trying to remember.

"About one story," Coro pipes in, breaking her long silence.

"Right! Thank you." His cheer is actually real now. He thinks he's gotten away from the topic he didn't want to discuss, and he does always like talking about other planets and how they function. "They have it designed so that every building for the rest of the time is set into the ground normally, but when the Flood comes, every single location rises up on very strong supports. And for structures that don't become elevated, well. They just... build things that are water resistant, or things that they can be sort of..." He cups his hands together, fishing for words. "Bubbled. Protected."

It makes sense for him, but he's been there before, once or twice. It's a great party.

And as though the words summon it, he jerks forward in pain, arms wrapping around his side. Coro jumps into the air a moment, her wings mantling.

He laughs nervously. "Yeah. Shifting. Sorta feels like being kicked in the gut. It's fine, I promise, it'll pass."

Martha isn't convinced, and she glances nervously down at Ant for a moment. He just tilts his head sideways in a sort of shrug.

"Why would your organs even need to shift? I mean, it's the same anatomy, more or less-" She's overthinking this, probably. Weird Time Lord things.

"Are you sure you aren't still radioactive?" Which is probably a question she should have asked about a half-hour ago, and now she feels the need to run a Geiger counter over herself. Ant knows what she's thinking, and gives her what she thinks of as his judgmental look. "Maybe I ought to check you over."

"No it's not," he argues. "It's all... all different! Nothing the same, Martha. Nothing. It's all rewritten! Coronella's got feathers and I've got new lungs. It's really not that odd when you've done it again and again."

He's just going to press his hands into his gut though.

"You both are fine," Coro answers. "The TARDIS would be causing a ruckus if there were any harmful levels. At least this time we're not unconscious. Already better than the last."

"Oh, well, that's reassuring." A slightly manic laugh bubbles up from Martha's throat, one that makes Ant rise to his feet and press protectively against her legs. "As long as your new lungs don't end up where your new spleen ought to be."

She grips the console harder than is strictly necessary; there's something like a punch rolling through her own stomach. "If it's new, why isn't it in the proper place to begin with?" The fact that he isn't unconscious isn't entirely comforting.

"I don't know!" he squeaks, temporarily forgetting he's supposed to be the calm, rational one right now.

(Who is he kidding, he hasn't been that since he took on this face.)

"It's just..."

He pulls away his hands and holds them, palms up. There's a sheen of regenerative energy there, glistening like sweat. "I'm just not done," he admits.

"You did take awhile to go into the regeneration," Coro says. "Maybe that's why it's taking so long to come out on the other end."

"Maybe we shouldn't be going to a party just yet, then." She doesn't look down at her knuckles, doesn't see the glimmer of glowing energy under her own skin. Ant can't see it either, not from his vantage point.

"What do you normally do after you regenerate?" Probably not anything that a sane person recovering from dying ought to be doing.

Coro, in a rare moment of displaying some of the Doctor's excitement over danger, flaps her wings and exclaims, "Last time we were asleep for awhile! And then we were in a swordfight! For the fate of the planet!"

Before that, well, there was the Time War. And that... he... well he... made himself a warrior.

Before that--

You know, maybe Martha has a point.

"Each circumstance is different," he says.

Martha just stares at Coro. She can't really be surprised by it, but it's one of those moments where she desperately wants to facepalm. Especially because now even Coro is getting excited, which is not a particularly good sign. She's usually the more reasonable one of the pair.

"You might want to consider resting," she offers politely.

"I did consider it," he admits, a bit of a mad glee creeping into his voice as he smiles. "And then I stopped considering it."

He's his own worst enemy. He probably beats the Master out on enemy-ing by far.

"Trust me, I don't need rest. I need to keep the energy flowing. Get it to where it needs to go."

The worst.

"I don't think that's how that works." Not that she knows a damn thing about regeneration energy, but it seems awfully sketchy. "Resting means the energy focuses on where it needs to go, rather than diverting it to running around like a chicken with its head cut off."

Martha gives Coro a pleading look. She'd rather have the logical half of the pair agreeing with her. "At the very least, I think you need to stay on the TARDIS till everything calms down."

"I don't run around like a chicken with its head cut off!"

Who knows, maybe he does. He could be that kind of person.

Oh, he hopes he's not that kind of person.

Coro's only so helpful at this venture. She doesn't really want to rest either. She knows what will happen if they rest. He'll dream of Gallifrey. She'll dream of Hilde. Raw and fresh in their minds.

They don't want to rest in the slightest. That's their logic, but neither of them are about to tell Martha that. Even Coro lies to companions sometimes.

"That's a compromise I can work with," he relents with a sigh. "I need a bite to eat though, which means tearing through the kitchens a bit."

"You used to." And she doubts that aspect of the Doctor has changed, although it could just be the extra regeneration energy.

"I'll keep you company," she offers. She wouldn't even want to leave him alone if he went to sleep - she feels like someone needs to keep an eye on him right now, and she and Ant are the only options available. "Ant needs something to eat anyway." And she feels a strange gnawing hunger, too. Hopefully he's actually got the kitchens stocked; that's questionable if he's been travelling on his own for any length of time.

He didn't used to, she doesn't know what she's talking about, and he's sure not going to do it now.

He feels like this is a trap, but he heads in the direction of the kitchen anyway, Coro leaving her perch and flying ahead of them.

He's craving something, which is weird, but he doesn't know what and... and he realizes when he gets there that there isn't a whole lot available. Certainly not a lot that's still good. Time ship or not, there's only so long that even the TARDIS will preserve food.

Picking through the fridge, he calls over his shoulder, "Are you sure we can't just take even a quick trip somewhere?"

He pulls something out that he thinks used to be a vegetable, and then it became alive, and then died.

"Don't you dare eat that," Coro says.

"Are there temporal drive-throughs?" she asks, largely rhetorically. "Or delivery boys with vortex manipulators?" Something where they don't have to leave the TARDIS. Although she's not sure how he'd pay for it anyway. Come to think of it-

"How do you get groceries if you never have any money?" She can't imagine the Doctor just popping into Tesco and picking up a few things, either. For one thing, he wouldn't have anything remotely resembling vegetables - or ex-vegetables - on the ship if he did. Or...well, it would be a lot like letting a five-year-old pick out food, except without as many dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.

His mind wanders while he moves onto the freezer, pulling out objects that have a heavy crusting of frostburn to them and dumping them to the floor. He pictures Jack having his vortex manipulator back, running a service as Martha described, but then likely taking on some...... seedier dealings and...

No.

"I appreciate your imagination, Martha," he says instead. He reaches back into the abysmal corner of the freezer, pulls something out, and starts hacking off frost and ice with heel of his palm. This is the worst kind of mystery game. "Money isn't the only currency in the universe."

Hack, hack, hack.

Ant scoots farther away from the ex-vegetable, his sense of smell keener than anyone else's in the kitchen, and so he doesn't notice Martha tuck her hands into her pockets as her fingers feel chilly. She feels like she ought to be helping, but instead leans against a counter awkwardly.

"It might help if you ran hot water over it," she says. Maybe it's ice cream. She could really do with some ice cream right now. (Actually, if it's ice cream, hot water would be a bad idea.)

"Uh-huh. So how do you get a pizza on a Friday night, go to Italy and save da Vinci and hope someone offers to feed you in return? 'Cos I feel like just getting takeaway is a hell of a lot easier and quicker." It's probably one of those defects of being human.

"There's always barter and trade!" he says. He has enough stuff accumulated on the TARDIS that he can get way with that quite often. "Festivals with free food!" He sounds like a vagrant. "Catching up with old friends--watch your ears--" He slams the ice block down on a countertop, wincing a bit as he nicks at a finger coolly, but it doesn't bleed thankfully.

He doesn't mention how much food companions usually bring aboard themselves or how sometimes he may or may not get money in... not the most approved ways.

"Ha!" The ice cracks and the rest of the frost flakes away, revealing a dark green packaging. He makes a skeptical face, but breaks into it even as Coro is almost bracing for the worst, and he starts to eat one of the pickle pops.

"Not bad," he decides, and holds out one to Martha.

"You sound like a uni student," she tells him. "Although you actually look like one this time 'round, so I suppose you can get away with it." Martha still isn't used to how incredibly young he looks. It's one thing to look thirty-something and actually be nine hundred (or older), but drop another ten years, and it's just a little weird.

Ant flattens his ears at the noise, grumbling something under his breath about how he ought to have more sensitive hearing himself after this regeneration. Yes, it's basically the pot calling the kettle black, but he doesn't care.

She stares at the box, then up at him. "Are you serious? I'm not even sure that's food. It looks like frozen pickle juice." Which is definitely gross enough without being frozen that she's not going to eat it, thank you very much. She peers into the freezer and pulls out another box, using a knife to chip away at the ice. At least she's smart enough to not use her fingers, thank you very much.

"Maybe I should do that. Become a uni student. Whaddaya think, Coronella?"

She looks as affronted as a bird could be. Neither daemon are impressed right now. She turns her head away, ducking her beak against a wing and grumbling, "Why do you keep calling me that?" only likely to be heard by Ant's ears.

"I could do it," he continues, looking very amused. "Drive my professors mad. Good bit of fun."

He eats another one of his pickle pops while watching her hack at the ice.

Ant has nothing but sympathy for Coro; if the Doctor actually starts calling him Anton, he might very well bite his leg. Or at least think about it very hard.

"How are you eating those things?" She can smell the pickle pop, practically taste it in the back of her mouth. "They're disgusting." Martha finally chips off enough ice to get at the box, revealing..."Blueberry pancakes wrapped around sausages?"

Still more appetising than pickle pops. She unwraps a pair and sticks them in the microwave, ignoring the growling sound coming from her stomach. (She's pretty sure it's her stomach, and not Ant.)

"Nooo they're not, they're delicious. Kind of addicting, really." He peers at Martha's find, imagining in his mind combining his pickle pops with her blueberry pancakes wrapped around sausages.

It also sounds delicious and it makes him realize if he was still his other self he'd probably be gagging, so he doesn't ask Martha for some of her food to try the mixed combo out.

"I have a plan," he says, waving a half-eaten pickle pop in Ant's general direction, and then to Martha. "We finish eating, and then we take the TARDIS to find a supernova or something, and we watch from the TARDIS. Because then we're still in the TARDIS, and keeping calm. Ha!"

Loopholes.

He's so stupidly proud of himself right now, Martha.

Ant wrinkles his nose at the smell of pickle juice wafted in his direction. This is, he decides, possibly one of Martha's worst ideas ever, although he doesn't share that opinion with her. Can't share that opinion with her in front of the Doctor, because it would just be rude.

Not that she'll listen anyway.

"That doesn't sound calm." She gives the Doctor a dubious look, though what she really wants to do is give Coro a please-help-me look. The microwave dings, and she pulls her pair of sausages on a stick out. They're still icy on the outside, and molten hot on the inside, but she shoves half of one into her mouth before she's even quite realised it, and sticks a third in the microwave. "I think supernovas are practically the opposite of calm."

Daemon Meme

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