The Doctor's Daughter (Doctor Who Fanfiction)

Chapter Five - The Bestiolae

The Doctor and I climb through the thick jungle, following the directions King Potens had given us.

Soon we reach the place where the Bestiolae were camped out. The Doctor comes to a stop at the top of a hill, looking down at the soldiers with a strange expression on his face.

"So how are we going to do this?" I ask, fighting through a thick tangle of weeds to reach him.

"The way I always do, of course." And with that, he winks and runs down into the camp, yelling and waving his arms like a lunatic.

"He's lost his bloody mind," I mutter to myself, but grin as I follow him, doing the same thing.

We don't get far into the camp before five Bestiolae guards circle around us. I take in their appearances: hard, black, glossy shells; bugged out eyes; pincer-hands. The worst part was that they were about seven feet tall, and carrying alarmingly large guns.

"Right," the Doctor says, unfazed by the grotesque creatures. "I love saying this: take us to your leader."

The soldiers look at each other and start making terrible clicking noises. Finally, one of them leads us to the largest tent in the camp, with the other four surrounding the Doctor and I so we wouldn't try anything.

A smallish, beetle-like Bestiolae sits at a makeshift desk, bent over a piece of parchment. It turns around as one of our guards starts clicking again.

They have a short conversation before the chief dismisses his guards. "Now," it says so the Doctor and I can understand. "What are you doing in my camp? And how did you get here? And what are you?"

"Well, in order that you asked, we're here to get you to leave the Florsentia alone; we got here by distracting your guards with wacky antics; and what we are is not important at the moment," I answer because the Doctor has wandered to the desk to look over the papers there.

The chief squints at me, taken aback at my brashness. "And how exactly do you expect to do the tasks you have just described?"

"By talking to you of course!" the Doctor laughs good-naturedly, coming over to pat the chief's shoulder. Or where his shoulder should have been. "It would be easier if we got your name though."

The bug straightens up proudly. "I am General Timuit, full blooded Bestiolae. I come to this planet to feast before continuing with my troops back to our planet Terracimices, to be showered with glory and riches at the tales of my brave leadership."

"Well...good for you. But why is it necessary to destroy a peaceful race with whom you have no conflict?" I ask slowly.

General Timuit hesitates for a moment. "I...I do not understand," he says dumbly.

"Aha!" the Doctor exclaims so suddenly that I jump.

The Doctor doesn't notice, and just stares at the general with such intensity that he cringes away.

"'Aha' what?" I ask.

"'Aha' I understand what our friend is really doing here," the Doctor explains without looking away from the bug.

"Would you mind explaining it for me?"

"Oh, yes, of course." The Doctor walks past the chief and sits down at his desk, propping his feet on it as he begins talking. "You see, these"---he holds up a few of the papers from the desk---"are messages from Terracimices's black market."

General Timuit looks down at the floor intently, wringing his pincers.

"And why does he have them?"

"That's the question, isn't it? Why does he have them? Well, I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that he's brought his troops here, telling them that they're to kill all the Flosentia in revenge for an old, false legend of their planet. And you know it's false, don't you, Timuit? In reality, you want all the Flosentia dead because when they die, their petals grow more valuable. That's what you've been doing. As your men destroy these peoples' lives and homes, you sneak along behind them, picking the petals to sell on the black market. And then when everything's destroyed, right before you all scurry back to Terracimices, you're going to kill all your own men. No witnesses, no problem. You can say they all died in battle, that you yourself just barely escaped. It's a very clever idea, but unfortunately for you, it's not going to work. Do you know why?" Here the Doctor springs back up, quivering with rage. "Because I'm here. And I'd die a million times before I let you commit genocide and get away with it."

 I close my mouth and tear my eyes away from the Doctor to stare at Timuit, who's breathing very heavy and quickly and wringing his pincers faster than ever.

"Do you deny these claims?" the Doctor continues loudly.

"No," Timuit whispers, looking quite deranged. "But what does it matter? Now I'll just have you killed." With a snap of his pincers, the five soldiers who escorted us here come back through the tent flap.

I laugh at this. "You've caught on, have you, Jenny?" the Doctor asks. I nod. "Would you like to explain?"

I nod again and look again at Timuit. "You see, my dad here speaks a lot of different languages. Including yours, apparently. And before we came in here, he made sure that these lovely Bestiolae here would hear everything you said because I suppose he heard them discussing their distrust of you. All he needed to do was show them what you were up to, and he has. Excuse my pun, but he bugged your tent."

With this, two of the Bestiolae spring forward to grab Timuit. He struggles madly as they lead him away, but in vain.

One of the remaining Bestiolae turns to the Doctor and me. "Thank you," he says. "We will take our leave now."

He bows us out of the tent, and the we head back up the hill, back to King Poten's kingdom to give him some much-needed good news.

A/N: Hope you liked it! Let me know if you did, and if not what I should start doing or stop doing to improve! Thanks for reading :3