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Predictable as ever, Doctor.

[His eyes narrow for a moment, but no matter what body, no matter what form, there's something in the eyes that give it away sooner or later.]

Hmph. Given that you invariably choose to show up, cause trouble, and say that, I should think you're rather complaining about the kettle being black too much, old pot.

[She'd prefer to be acknowledged by name, of course, but sometimes it's enough to be recognised. Her lips curl in a brief, sinister smirk. On this face, her expressions tend to skew sinister regardless of intent.]

It is a tired old song and dance, but we both must play our parts until the curtain comes down. Besides, it'd be a waste of my progidious talents if I didn't cause any trouble. And you'd be disappointed, secretly, wouldn't you? If I weren't here, saving this world would be too easy for you.

[He gives her a look that is, in the end, a mixture of pity and exhaustion.]

I see this incarnation is vastly more deluded than the past ones I've met. Hmph. Play our parts, indeed. We are not actors playing out a script, we're living, thinking beings. You could break out of your 'role' whenever you like. And I'd be happy. So very happy - because then, maybe, you'd stop filling graveyards.

But imagine it. The Master, so-called genius, so deluded that she can't even figure out she still has agency.

You've fallen so far.

[There is the slightest pause.]

I do believe I pity you, just a little.

Well, I don't deny being delusional. I'm broadly more eccentric than you're used to. [She waves a hand, vague and dismissive, as though there's nothing to be done and it's immaterial to the discussion.]

This incarnation is no more tractable than the ones you've met, in spite of what you may hope. What if it's my choice, and I know so, and I still choose death and destruction? That's the likeliest outcome, you realise. It always is.

[But she still can't get the whole way through his moralising without an eyeroll.]

You were almost compelling, until you started in on that pity nonsense. You know how that aggravates me.

[He sighs.]

I suspected that would be the case. It seems that each defeat and regeneration makes you all the madder.

I'm surprised anything still reaches you. I thought after Darkheart and Ailla that nothing could. And that was a long time ago for me, to say nothing about you.

Koschei was a good person, if misguided. You...yes, you will have my pity. Because you're just a shell of who you were. And I won't save you, come your 'final curtain'. I don't think there's any way I could.

[Not that he won't try. But the Master herself defined the rules - the same, stupid, endless pattern. Right until the finale.]

[Whatever else she is, she's a deeply nostalgic incarnation. She regenerated with a long memory. She stares at him, unblinking, in the watchful attitude of an ambush predator. She doesn't want him to know whether any of this is sinking in. And then, the audacity of him, invoking that hypocorism. Koschei. She squeezes her eyes shut a moment and barely suppresses a flinch.

It feels to her as though their friendship was the one good fruit in an otherwise bitter crop. It would be easier to thrive in her anger and hate without that one bright spot in her past. She almost resents it, but never quite.]

Missy. You call this version Missy.

[She doesn't want to be saved if her salvation comes on his terms. It's a lesson she'll try and try again to teach him.]

Why do I have to compromise? Why can't you? It wouldn't kill you to do things my way for a while. You'd be so good at ruling the stars. You already think you know what's best for all your little friends. Why not make it official? Why don't you direct that paternalism at the whole universe?

You see my potential, Doctor. I see yours.

Not like you to accept a diminutive. But very well, Missy it is.

[He can, at least, grant her that.]

And I ask you to compromise because your ways are uncompromising. Our wisdom, our strength - these are not things to be inflicted on the universe. And yes, I think I know what's best. But I'm often wrong, d'you see, and that's what they remind me of, time and again. A lesson you forgot.

I don't want to be a ruler. I want to help. That was the idea for us both, wasn't it, once? But you...you fell in love with order. Control. Domination.

That's the thing. It would kill me, on the inside. I wouldn't be the friend you knew. I'd be a monster, like the Daleks. But with such limitless power. No. Not to be.

[She's never minded playful variations on the theme, but it's true: it isn't like her to accept a diminutive. In this small respect, maybe she has changed. Her past and future selves find her aberrant and vaguely horrifying. She's a crisis to be averted, if possible.

It's a funny middling place to occupy. She's not won over by the Doctor, nor would she want to live a similar life to her immediate predecessors. She talks a big game about not being tractable, and yet she listens too well for someone who's meant to be deaf to him.]

I think you like to be wrong. At least, you like the discovery and the learning waiting for you on the other side of being wrong. You enjoy your fallibility. I'm not sure I ever could.

[The Master felt order and control gradually slipping through his fingers. It felt denied to him internally, so he thought to impose it upon the universe. Missy wouldn't personally characterise it as a falling in love, but she's not here to quibble with his phrasing. Deep down in her hearts, she's not so sure she wants to be a ruler either. Not this time. The hunt is better than the kill. It's more fun to conquer than to rule.]

Believe it or not, I do want you to be yourself. Sometimes I want you dead, or under my thumb. But if you're not you, that might be too high a price to pay. A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.

Edited 2020-06-28 04:14 (UTC)

Hmph. A lovely sentiment. If only you didn't keep trying to kill me, I might believe it.

[He just shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck.]

Fallibility makes us real, makes us whole. We are not gods, Missy, no matter how much our fellows might want to believe otherwise. Their stagnation, their belief that their order was perfect? It's why we left.

You've become merely a more active version of what you hated. I'm still me, somehow. Because of the little people you so denigrate.

Oh, don't be like that. What's a little murder between friends? Let it go, already.

[Her Glaswegian accent strengthens when she's being ridiculous. Her constant jokes are for nobody's benefit but her own. The rest of what he's got to say doesn't precisely put her in a joking mood. Her disposition sours quickly.]

There you go, underestimating me again. I said I can't enjoy my fallibility. I never said I couldn't admit it.

I'd have to be stupid to look back over our history and see no flaws in my reasoning or my methods. I know better than to think it's all your fault when my scheming comes to nothing. Only idiots think they have no room for improvement.

[And his pets have their uses too. Although, acknowledging the influence his humans have on him would spoil some later sport of hers. She knows too well how much of his personhood he owes to his companions. She stands straighter, with her mouth set in a hard line and a menacing brightness behind her eyes.]

Don't say I'm just like them. The Time Lords. After everything. You have no idea. I'm only a fraction more like them than you are.

[Or so she's currently able to believe. This unique renegade identity (or the illusion of one, the illusion of some commonality between them) is the only thing protecting her from a new and lonelier madness. It would only hurt them both to know that the gulf between them is impassable.]

[And it certainly did not land well, judging by the look on his face.]

It's easy to underestimate someone who jokes about killing. A category reserved for the dregs of history.

So no, you're not like them.

[He pauses, and his eyes do not flinch when they meet hers.]

You're worse.

Edited 2020-06-28 16:11 (UTC)

[He's done it now. She's insulted. There's wounded rage in the artron energy blue of her eyes. In that moment, she looks ready to lash out at him physically.

She goes through phases of blaming stuffy, esoteric old Gallifrey for all her ills and misfortunes. It's irrational, reductive and immature—she knows that in this face, if not always. Missy's capable of taking some accountability for who and what she is.

Her rage simmers and, just as rapidly, cools.]

I'm sorry.

[Her voice sounds achingly sincere. She's trying to have a moment of clarity with him, perhaps. She swallows tightly, as though her respiratory bypass can't do anything for the emotion stuck in her throat. It doesn't last, whatever this is.]

I'm sorry you feel that way.

[This second apology is far less sincere. It's more of a devil-may-care, over a lopsided shrug.]

The fact is, I'm not diminished. I'm not a shell of myself. I am, more than ever.

[That seems like as good a note as any to go back to her plan. Missy pointedly redirects her attention to the—suspected, probable—doomsday weapon in the middle of the room.

She looks at the nebulous device, then deflates a bit with disappointment. It's now non-operable, and that's taken the wind out of her sails and the drama out of her proclamation.]

Oh, right. I forgot you were tampering with this when I came in. You're such a nuisance.

[In some ways, many ways, he wishes she would. Perhaps in the crisis something could shake loose - but it appears in this incarnation as well, the control is still equal to the passion and the rage that seem to drive his old friend now. But seeing even a moment of...whatever that was. That is new, and he hasn't the foggiest idea what to do with it.]

Yes, I am, aren't I? [There's a brief surge of the pride there, but it subsides rapidly, the smile draining from his face.]

Not your best work. Quite a bit of flash but no real thunder to it. Not by your standards. [How quickly they revert to old patterns - himself included. He sighs, shaking his head.]

You didn't make this to win, did you. You wanted me here. Why? A trap for a future version of me, perhaps? [If so, he's royally scotched that plan. She can't really do much to him without irrevocably damaging both their timelines. But, just perhaps...]

Or is it something else?

[His commentary on the weapon elicits a shrill knee-jerk response.]

It was a rush job!

[She's not seriously defending the quality of her work to him. She's only taking the bait, in fun, because it's typical of her blasé sense of humour. He hasn't landed a real blow. Her arrogance is unassailable, hence a comeback better suited to a child who's built a fort from pillows and blankets.]

In my defence, you're very difficult to get a hold of. If you made more of an effort to stay in touch, maybe I wouldn't have to go to these lengths.

[That sounds like another unfunny joke on the surface, but there is a specific magnitude of threat that's almost guaranteed to require the Doctor's presence. She's calculated it.

They'll have to preserve their timelines, which is a fly in the ointment, yet he's not unwelcome. He could never be. They're not contemporaneous, but he's no less the Doctor.]

You're right about one thing. [She drums her fingers on the device.] This isn't how I win.

I'm really more of a long-term strategist. You'd have to hang around for ages to see where this is going. Why do you even ask?

[That is new. Definitely new, and worrisome. There's an edge to this one, which was harder to detect before. The madness was always there, but it seems more vibrant now. But it would have to be, wouldn't it? For all the difficulties he's encountered, he knows that each regeneration the Master has had have been harder, and much worse - and at a far quicker rate than his. He wonders, idly if this is even her first set anymore...which raises more questions than he can possibly answer.]

You could always ask politely. No threat, no impending doom. It'd be a change of pace, eh? And imagine my face.

[He's starting to worry about that, too. There's often another layer, and she's never this easy to beat. If it's a larger plan then he's in it now. But there was a moment, there, where he'd gotten through. Perhaps, maybe - he'd bungled it regardless. But perhaps it could be gotten back.]

[But it would take a sharp enough shock.]

But I've got a better idea, you know. Let's throw it all out. The plan, the violence, all of it. Let's just go for a walk, eh? If we're playing out parts, let's choose new ones. For a while.

[She did not expect this. She's especially intrigued by "for a while", because it means he's not just trying to talk her back from the ledge of some horrible act. It's not an appeal to morality or decency. As far as she can tell, it's a plain offer.

She didn't foresee this, so hot on the heels of telling her she's worse than the rest of them. She eyes him warily. It's annoying, too. It gets under her skin, how fast he catches on. She wouldn't have it any other way, but it's sometimes frustrating how smart he is. It's just grating to think that the Doctor might see straight through to what she really wants, without her even having to tell him. There are things she'd ultimately like him to understand, but, so soon?

She's more openly vulnerable as a woman—her performative femininity and her own internalised misogyny allow her to be—but she doesn't like to think she's so obvious that he's figured her out already. (Now, why in the hell she ever bothers being prejudiced against women when such prejudices are beneath their civilisation is a separate question. It's probably just an outlet for a larger misanthrophy.)

There's a disbelieving shake of her head, punctuated by a short exhale. In passing, she looks every bit as exhausted with him as he is with her.]

Oh, Doctor, you do pick your moments.

[She tents her hands and taps them against her forehead in consideration, weighing up the options. She has to think about it, then the answer's out in a spontaneous burst:]

Yes, why not? If you like. [Her tone tries to downplay the significance, without much success. They both know ceasefires are significant.]

But if you tell me to stop and smell the roses, spinning it into some silly speech about the beauty of the universe, I'll be very cross with you. Very. [And her bad moods have a death toll.]

[She casts her gaze around, to be sure that she's not leaving any of the components of her plan in a volatile state. That done, she steps clear of the weapon and moves nearer him, infringing somewhat on his personal space. She stops with her hands clasped primly behind her back, looking expectant.]

Are we really walking? I think of you as more of a runner.

[They always are significant - the first step back from the precipice, and the hardest one. How many wars carried on just because the people running the war machines became too addicted to retaliation? To the horrible cause and effect? Events, history - they had momentum that became hard to alter. To step back was to consciously break a pattern.]

[He sighs, partly in relief and partly in disbelief. It had been a gamble, a long shot, and he'd known it. It wouldn't have worked on the Master he'd known - there would have been too many variables. Either UNIT would have been around to foul the plan at the outset, even unwittingly, or the Master's own suspicion would have scotched it. No, she represented a break in the pattern from what he'd seen - a whole new set of variables. Perhaps she was right - she was more herself now than she had been. Perhaps more than she knew.]

Those never worked even when we were children.

[His hands go into his velvet pockets, thumbs out, and he rocks back and forth on his heels a bit, trying to exude much more nonchalance than he is feeling.]

And why not? We're both breaking habits today. It's only fair I make some breaks too, eh?

[For old times' sake, she has the physicality of a stage hypnotist. She circles around him once, sizing him up, as if she can tell by looking whether he's trying to trick her somehow. Satisfied, she gestures for him to lead the way.

If ever there were a moment for smalltalk, it would be during a walk. The trouble is, they're not small people. It's hard to talk small.]

How are things? How's Miss Grant? Tell her I said hi.

['Our Jo,' she almost said, in the style of 'our Clara', except she knows it wouldn't make sense to him, hearing her claim partial custody like that. It's terrible when she ignores the company he keeps. Somehow it's even worse when she expresses an interest in them. Though the words are benign, there's a monstrous superiority lurking in her voice. It's how a hungry snake might ask about a mouse.]

[She was always so very good at it, even in times where it wasn't strictly necessary. Theater for the sake of theater, on occasion. But it serves a purpose - the foolish will underestimate her. For him, a seasoned eye, it is one part theater and the other a tiger circling potential prey.]

Oh, bit behind the times while being ahead of them all at once, but I'll pass on your regards. She's grown on and left, of course.

[A subtle reminder that change happens, of course. But it is much worse. There's always an implied threat, there. It keeps him guessing, paying attention. And it can be misdirection, too - he can't be everywhere at once. But he starts to move, looking out at the planet around her little emplacement.]

Purple and orange sky, very nice. [His speech pauses a moment, the only sound his feet crunching bits of gravel underfoot.] Susan missed you, did you know that? She would talk about you, now and again. How her dear Uncle - Aunt, now - would bounce her on their knee when she was small.

She never forgot. I've never gotten to tell you that.

[The Doctor has chosen a more cunning tact than he could possibly know. It's hard for Missy to maintain her lofty, sneering opinion of the human race when she's reminded of Susan's life and choices and eventual marriage. Susan does a better job of humbling her than the Doctor ever could.

There's always a ‘fun’ relative or family friend who goes over the top on presents. That's how the Masters style themselves. They have an irresponsible taste in toys. And Missy does terms of endearment, now. The Doctor is "honey" and "dearest" and Susan is "sunshine" and "princess". He could be forgiven for thinking it's a form of mockery, and maybe it started that way, but she's so relentless with it that, in the end, it seems like more.]

Ah. I see. [Her voice pitches strangely. She doesn't completely avoid eye contact, though she does divide her attention by smoothing the wrinkles out of her clothes, trying again to downplay what this means.] Well, isn't that nice?

[She doesn't know what to do with the feelings this stirs up for her, other than awkwardly and avoidantly push them around. She doesn't have the same range of emotion that the Doctor does. She usually has a far lower tolerance for this stuff. There's a long pause, before she decides to contribute something too. She inclines her head in a nod that concedes something to him.]

You were right to take her.

[There's no love lost between Missy and Earth, but Gallifrey has only sunk lower and lower in her estimation. He should know that she understands what he wanted for his granddaughter. And she forgives him for prioritising that, over any plans of theirs. They shouldn't resent each other for casting aside their childhood dreams. It's what all grown-ups do, sooner or later. And importantly, it wasn't too late for Susan.]

[That's what she did. It's why it had been so important to let her live her life - as far as he's concerned, she's the best of them all. Not innocent, perhaps, but the kindest. The most flexible. The one who, chameleon like, bridged the gap between worlds and ways of living. And the one, salamander like, who survived the fires no matter what came. Yes, she was the best of them.]

[In his way, in his hearts of hearts, he knows he's as unchanging as the Master. He can, aside from the more aberrant quirks of regeneration, only be who he is. Susan...Susan could always be something else.]

It was. Kept some of the gifts you gave her when we left, too. Even growing up, she cherished them. [He chuckles a bit, remembering it.] Like those blasted booster skates you got her. Goodness me, she wouldn't part with those for love nor money.

[But then she speaks that other note, and he sighs.]

I suppose I was, though I had some doubts at first, I'll admit. Hiding on Earth, like we were...but she was so enthusiastic. She wanted to experience, not just learn. The Academy...it would've crushed her down. She's not like us, after all. We survived it. Her empathy...I'm glad it wasn't tarnished, pushed down into the mud.

[Probably the first time he's used that word 'us' in many, many years and at least two lives.]

Edited 2020-06-29 22:05 (UTC)

[Missy smiles unevenly and produces a short laugh, visualising Susan on booster skates and an exasperated Doctor. Her reasons for laughing are a little less kind than his. It's funny to her, imagining him annoyed. All things considered, it's a far lesser evil than gloating over the Doctor's pain or demise.

She recalls that Nyssa found one of these toys once. It caused problems, since it was never intended for anyone but Susan. It also goes both ways, this generosity.]

I used to wear that dark star alloy brooch you gave me, but I don't have it anymore. [Not since a surprise trip to Skaro.]

['Us' is all she wants to hear. She wants them to be alike again, one way or the other. She is sick of the Doctor's specialness. She's sick of her own, which is a lesser and objectively worse kind of specialness. It's very isolating to have victims instead of friends.]

—I know. You don't have to tell me. I may not value empathy like you do, but trust me, I know what Susan might have lost by going through the Academy. What she might've lost after, too. Let's not mince words, honey. Any society that could produce me has gone horribly wrong somewhere.

[It's wry yet she sounds proud too, the same way he's proud of being a nuisance. She shrugs.]

Oh, that old thing? Why, how sentimental of you.

[And aren't all trips to Skaro just the most fun ever? It's the worst place in the known universe, to his mind. But his statement was said with only the gentlest of teasing. If anything, it's the sort of thing he'd have said a long, long time ago.]

It produced you by lying to you. A fact I still hold the Celestial Intervention Agency accountable for. You made your choices, yes, but they manufactured a potential outcome. I wonder, sometimes, if they didn't do more. Them and their blasted secrets.

[But then a spark of memory is there, remembering that smile - and wanting, for once, to produce it again.]

Yes, she still wore the things in the TARDIS. I'd ask her to go and fetch something from the deeper levels and she'd jet off on them to save time. Zoom all about the place with that and her transistor radio on, with headphones, spend an hour or two wandering before she came back. She loved those skates. They're probably still on board, somewhere.

[He pauses, then, debating whether or not to say the next thought that occurs to him.]

I never thanked you enough for how much you looked out for her. She loves you, still.

[Sarcastically:] Yep, that's me. Sentiment oozing out of every pore.

[Skaro's the worst place to abandon someone who only came along to help. She had it coming, but still. The Doctor and his future incarnations aren't always kind to her. She's still not okay with what happened on Sarn either, come to think of it. She wants to be friends, but she could capriciously change her mind. Hate is a choice. Love is a promise.

He's right to wonder whether there was more. There was. She really, really doesn't want to unpack it. They can't go down that path. She lifts a hand, palm flat, signalling that he should stop talking.

It's good he pulls the conversation back around to Susan when he does. She listens without breaking her stride beside him.]

And you don't have to thank me, not for that.

[If anything, she wishes she'd done more for Susan. It's only when he goes on that she finally sighs at him, discomfited. Her eyes narrow.]

That's enough said about it, don't you think? I can only stomach so much. Love. Yuck. How much of a girl do you think I am, precisely?

[He laughs briefly at that, shaking his head.]

I've no idea, I've never met you as one before. I'm used to Nehru jackets and beards still.

[In turn, he realizes, she's probably used to versions of him much further down the line - versions he doesn't know and can't guess how they'll turn out. The water under the bridge between them might be a raging torrent by her time, for all he knows. And it almost undoubtedly is.]

And yes, I suppose it is. But you had a right to know.

[She smiles again, a quick flash like a glint of a blade, rare and short-lived because it was genuine. It wasn't to answer his laugh or because of any mental image now. She's just pleased to be in the company of a Doctor who can still lower his guard, if only a little.]

It's my first time.

[Deliberately, humorously phrased to imply things she doesn't really mean, like 'Be gentle with me.'

It's true that she is, to the best of her recollection, her only female incarnation so far. She can't remember the lead-up or the circumstances around her latest death, but otherwise there aren't many gaps in her history. She gets inklings about the gap, sometimes. Her best theory seems too far-fetched. Oh, well. At their age, they don't need to fill in every blank.]

Is that what you believe? That people have the right to know things. I think each of us deserves only as much information as we're able to scrap and claw for.

[It's why she makes him work for it whenever she knows something he doesn't. It's why she lies and withholds as easily as breathes. It's never painless to find anything out from her. She's truly asking his opinion, though, and his reasoning doesn't go in one ear and out the other with this Master. She tucks the Doctor's opinions safely away in her mind, even if she doesn't agree with them.]

[He rubs the back of his neck, thoughtfully, considering that. And he caught the moment, though he makes nothing of it. This all hangs on eggshells - one wrong push and it all falls apart.]

I hope to get around to it, one of these days. That and being ginger, too. I mean, fifty percent odds. [He shrugs, making a face.] Can't be that long, I expect.

[Then he considers what she said, and he has to think about it for the first time in a very long time indeed.]

Some of it, I think you're right. High science, history, philosophy - those should come of achievement and study and hard work. Teaches a bit of wisdom along the way. Just handing people the knowledge they need to advance as a culture or a planet...no, that way disaster lies.

But other things, yes. Why should anyone have to beg and scrape and scrabble to know someone cares? Or to hear a perfect piece of music? No, moments of perfection like that should be open to everyone. That's where epiphany lies, I think. In the moment, one unlooked for and uncultivated.

[Thanks to some mixed-up temporal nonsense like this, Missy can confirm that there'll be a female incarnation of the Doctor. It may not happen quite as soon as the Doctor seems to think, though. She shrugs.]

Neither of us have got any better at steering the great cellular catastrophe, if that's your hope.

[Ginger is an awfully specific thing to request of himself. He might never have as controlled a regeneration as, say, Romana.]

You'll be young later on, I don't mind telling you.

[Best not to specify how much later on, lest she influences him by prophesying.]

I'd put music in the same category as science and history, and take philosophy right the hell out of it, but that's me.

Sort of depends on whether your music study has numerical properties. [Or maybe she simply hasn't listened to music in quite the same way he has.]

[He smiles at that first part.]

Well, good. I rather enjoy the thrill and surprise of it. Still not sure how you stood shaving the same face for as long as you did. Was it habit, or did you just really like that one?

[He'd certainly gotten used to seeing it.]

Well, young I can go either way on. And hang on just a minute - are you trying to tell me that music only has value if it's numerically important?

[He's deliberately trying to start a harmless argument. They'd done this, once upon a time. They could go for hours and it would never end up anywhere near where it began.]

I still look in the mirror and pine for that one, sometimes. So handsome. And it was never a hardship to maintain. There's nothing more distinguished than a well-groomed beard. I'd probably wear one now if I could get it to grow.

[He can criticise her for a million things, but never for failing to dress the part. The small heels on her boots sink slightly into the gravel beneath them with every step.

Nothing comes roaring back as quickly as an old habit.]

You bet your frills, I am. How else would we assess value? I think you're about to laud a subjective quality.

[It doesn't help that she still sometimes catches herself knocking four times or tapping four-beat rhythms with her fingernails.]

Debonair, is the word I'd use. Where did you get the suits? I know you've always been a bespoke person, but the cut was unusually good despite that. Really, I'm just curious if the Master had a regular tailor.

[It's one of her qualities across all the incarnations he's met, at least.]

Quite right I am. It can't all be Bach cantatas, every note slotted into place like pieces of an engine. Music lives in inspiration, the numeracy of it is just...measure. There are two very different meanings to value, after all.

You seldom get results like that without enslaving somebody. [She slings an arm over his shoulders, cosying up to him in a conspiratorial fashion. Her other hand pats him on the chest.] But why wait til I'm me to ask these questions? You can flatter Junior all you like. Just because he already feels debonair, doesn't mean he wouldn't like to hear it. From you especially.

[None of this touching involves a hold or a grip on him. He could escape easily. The intensity in her eyes could be trouble, or it could be nothing. She likes hearing him talk about herself; that is, Junior, or the ex.]

And when you have a stroke of inspiration, how are you meant to express it to others without a firm grasp on the elements of music? Won't you need measurements then? Or should we all carry instruments around, plinking and strumming until something makes sense?

Because I'm usually up to my ears in Autons at the time.

[And she could well be trying to pick a pocket, but this whole thing has to hinge on not making assumptions.]

Well of course you need it for the elements in composition - but after that you need the emotional. It's the difference between a computer playing the violin and Isaac Stern.

Oh yeah, I totally do that. [Her arms fall back to her sides, distancing herself by a half-step. She hasn't done any sleight of hand, but she wouldn't fault him for checking.]

Yes, fine, all right, I have a tailor. [Such a hard-won admission. She just doesn't want to give away things the ex wouldn't want the Doctor to know.

As for the fun little low-stakes argument, she might be baiting him:]

Is there a difference? Aside from the possibility of human error.

Hmph. I thought as much. To think the chap doesn't know they're doing custom work for one of the most notorious rogues in history. It'd probably be in the advertisements if he did.

[And no, his hands just rest in his pockets. He very, very carefully gives no sign that such a possibility was on his mind at any point.]

Well, yes, there is. It's one life's intangibles. There's passion, and experience, and personal flair - which cannot be quantified by mere numerals.

[She waves a hand vaguely at his suit.] You should make a similar investment in yourself, Doctor. [He won't, she already knows.] But, I s'pose it's only right you look like the magician you are. [The Doctor she's contemporaneous with has a similar vibe.] And so tall.

[She's not really sure if that's a complaint or an observation. The height difference bothers her less now that she can blame sexual dimorphism.]

I call dibs on "notorious rogues" for a band name. [She shrugs.] Error, flair. Flair, error. Tomato, tomahto. [The intangibles are lost on her too often.]

Heh, well, it started as just stealing clothes from a hospital. But I'm afraid the style has rather grown on me. And, d'you know, that's the hardest thing to get used to - seeing from higher up. Spent quite a while a good deal lower down before I got here.

And I think it would suite quite well - so long as they didn't have a computer on the guitar. Honestly, now, put a computer - the finest you can imagine - up against an organic, living player, and even with errors, without a care for numerical value, the organic being will produce something better every time.

I mean, honestly, has no music ever moved you to tears? Or caused you to fly up out of your seat to applaud?

You're way up there. You can reach high places that you couldn't before. Sure that takes some getting used to, but come on. I win.

[It shouldn't be a competition. She just can't help playing the hand she's dealt, while they're on the subject of regenerations that come with big adjustments.]

This body has an overzealous lacrimal apparatus. I cry all the time. It just goes, like a burst pipe. But no, I can honestly say I've never cried over music. [Not yet.] Because I'm not a weirdo with more sentimentality than sense. You're too emotional for your own good sometimes. It does cloud your judgement.

[She likes Erik Satie enough to play the Gnossiennes even when the Doctor's not around to hear it, but she's not about to undermine her own silly position in this trivial debate.]

Edited 2020-07-21 05:23 (UTC)

[He chuckles at that.]

Well, yes, I'll give you that one. Besides which, I looked a bit of a hobo, didn't I, the last time 'round? Granted, it got me underestimated more often than not, so it had its uses. Not that I'd ever admit as much to that version of me.

[Time and space cause weird occurrences that way.]

Some of them do that. It's only vaguely tied to emotion too. Well, specific ones at any rate. But your time will come. Snuck up on me the first time. I was stopping off in 1977, to see Star Wars premiere again - jolly fun - but ended up seeing the inaugural performance of Pärt's Fratres. At first, well, I thought it would be just some post-modern nonsense, but...well. It's never happened since when I listened to it, but hearing it the first time just reached in and found emotions I didn't even know I had.

[He smiles.] So I'll take the sentimentality, for moments such as that.

[It makes her grimace, thinking of his style in the face before this face. As usual, her reaction's hyperbole.]

I wish I could forget! You were a hobo in the worst way. That hair was atrocious. I don't think it's a fair trade for the meagre advantage of being underestimated by your opponents. Having a tiny bit of self-respect would surely give you more of an advantage than that.

Not your best look by far.

[It isn't easy to hurt the Doctor's feelings, and he started it, so she isn't holding back on the criticism. It's only superficial stuff anyway. It ultimately doesn't matter what either of them look like, not ever. She absolves him with a loose, dismissive hand gesture.]

It's all right. We've all been things we're not proud of. In my case, Deathworm Morphant or the unimaginable horror, a hoodie and jeans.

[She's more embarrassed by casual clothes than by any of the dirty tricks she's ever used to perpetuate herself. And after all the difficult transitions, many of which this Doctor hasn't seen yet, maybe she thinks it's funny to emphasise a hoodie as a low point.

The Doctor is watched sidelong while he recounts the experience he had of being moved to tears by music. If Missy can help it, her time won't come.]

And if you didn't feel anything like it when you listened again, that means something too. You shouldn't believe in results you can't replicate. It's bad practice.

[He does catch that. The Master is about taking everything they possibly can to the extreme, as needed. And he's got a low opinion of that regeneration, in this form.]

Jeans and a hoodie? I can imagine the Morphant, but that... [He shakes his head.]

[But he chuckles at the last bit. That's also the Master, to the core. And one reason he's been able to triumph, all these years, though he won't say a word about that.]

It's not proving a scientific theory, you know. Double-blind studies and placebo groups aren't a requirement. Sometimes a moment is just...a moment.

Try to steer clear of him. The hoodie. He's going through it.

[She won't specify what 'it' is, but she does whistle expressively. A whistle to describe the sheer scale of everything that was wrong with herself then. What a doozy. This advice to steer clear is another aberration of hers, another break from the pattern. The Doctor might even get the sense that she wants to spare him in some way from herself.

Missy stops in her tracks, pausing to take his words in and apply them to what's happening now. Going for a walk, having a chat. Indeed, they may not be able to replicate it, yet it's worthwhile. She cants her head a fraction.]

A moment... Like this one, dear?

[He nods, just taking that on board. He'll do his best, frankly.]

[Then there's that second bit. He pauses, turning towards her, hands in his pockets, thumbs twiddling.]

Well. That's a question, isn't it. There'll never be another quite like it, of course. But some form of replication, perhaps, could be possible. What do you think?