The Master's Game (Doctor Who)

Small changes

After this adventure the Doctor changed his mind about the Master. Maybe not completely, but enough to at least let him have a bit more freedom. The first thing he did, was letting him have another room.

This lead to Roka wandering through the corridors with the Master for hours, simply because he was so picky.

"It's not as if we will stay forever," she giggled, when he wrinkled his nose, peeking inside another door.

"When I have to stay here for even one more second, I can at least have the best room of all." He opened the next door, which lead to a small patch of forest. A moonlit pond was there and around it flew some tiny lights. Almost like fairies. "Look," he nodded inside.

"Oh, that's cool! Are those...?" She got torn back with a chuckle. "Och, come on. Let me at least take some pictures!" she whined.

It reminded her of the time, so long ago, she had been allowed to pick a room for herself. There were so many strange and wonderful things inside the TARDIS, so even as she had chosen one, she had still wandered around for hours, looking inside every door to unveil their countless secrets.

"How does that even fit inside here?" she wondered, as they left the crumbling sandstone ruins of a gigantic temple, inside a patch of desert.

"Far beyond your brain capacity," the Master teased and chuckled when Roka nudged him.

There was one room that reminded her of an ordinary earthen garage. Full with car parts and all sorts of gadgets and tools to tinker with vehicles. Even an old-schoolish looking radio blared some ancient songs tinny into the room.

Another one was an actual cave with a bonfire burning at its entrance. The view outside was that of thick purple trees and tall yellow grass. Roka wondered if this really was only a room, or if there might also be actual people or animals in here somewhere.

One room looked as if it was made for a toddler. Noisy and colourful toys lay strewn around. There also was a bed that looked like a sports car, painted in flashy colours. For some unknown reason the Master's eyes were fixated on a Teletubby plush for quite a while, before he wordlessly left.

"But that one looked perfect for you," Roka mocked and quickly ran ahead a few steps, as he wanted to grab her.

Another door lead to a whole one-storey house, complete with a front yard and even a swing on a tree branch. She sat on the bench on the porch, folded her hands behind her head and looked over the forest that surrounded them.

"What a peaceful place," she mumbled smiling.

"Yeah... It is." The Master leaned at the wood next to her and also took a long look around. "Absolutely... boring."

There were rooms as big as mansions, filled with shelves full of blank paged books, others stuffed to the top with broken vases, and one that resembled a wide ball room, illuminated by millions of candles and only a solitude piano in its centre. The Master sat down on the stool and started to play some random tones, then decided otherwise and coaxed a woeful melody from the instrument, ancient and wistful, making Roka's heart ache. For a moment it seemed as if the room was fading, the candles flickered, their light dwindled, as the tones drowned out time itself.