While the Mistress sleeps, Chip examines her brain in its jar. It's a beautiful thing, breathtaking, and he gazes at it with eyes wide and lips half-parted. Sitting cross-legged on the cold floor with a stolen blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he can press fingertips to the glass of its jar. He traces patterns on the glass, follows the whorls, the wrinkles and creases and furrows in the surface of the organ.
The Mistress tried to explain it to him, once, on one of their quiet days. Convolutions was the word she used for those furrows, sulci and gyri. He can't remember now the precise words she'd used, but those convolutions, she'd said, that's why the Mistress is so clever. Thoughts run along them, little sparks of electricity, neurons and synapses jumping on cue, all the quicker for their presence, and keep the Mistress vibrant and beautiful and sharp.
Chip hadn't understood, then, when she'd explained it to him, and the Mistress had laughed, crisp and amused, at that.
'Of course you don't, darling, you haven't got them. Well,' pretty red lips had pursed as she corrected herself absently, 'Not all of them, anyway; I didn't grow you to be a rocket scientist, and brain tissue is valuable, after all.'
'Oh,' Chip had said, only partially understanding, and the Mistress had given him a little smile and a lift of where one eyebrow ought to be.
'Don't worry your head about it, Chip; it's not built for it.'
He thinks about it sometimes, times like now, looking at the Mistress's brain. It's only right that she should have more than him; she's beautiful and clever, magnificent. She's bested the years that ought to have cut her down long ago. So it's right, surely, that she's better than Chip. He is lucky to have her. He'd be nothing without her, just a snatch of skin somewhere on a petri dish (he can't really conceive of that either, but the Mistress has told him it's true, and he trusts that it is).
Sometimes, though, he wonders if he ought to miss those sulci and gyri in his brain. Should he want to have as many as the Mistress has? If it meant he'd be as clever as she...
Cassandra/Chip
The Mistress tried to explain it to him, once, on one of their quiet days. Convolutions was the word she used for those furrows, sulci and gyri. He can't remember now the precise words she'd used, but those convolutions, she'd said, that's why the Mistress is so clever. Thoughts run along them, little sparks of electricity, neurons and synapses jumping on cue, all the quicker for their presence, and keep the Mistress vibrant and beautiful and sharp.
Chip hadn't understood, then, when she'd explained it to him, and the Mistress had laughed, crisp and amused, at that.
'Of course you don't, darling, you haven't got them. Well,' pretty red lips had pursed as she corrected herself absently, 'Not all of them, anyway; I didn't grow you to be a rocket scientist, and brain tissue is valuable, after all.'
'Oh,' Chip had said, only partially understanding, and the Mistress had given him a little smile and a lift of where one eyebrow ought to be.
'Don't worry your head about it, Chip; it's not built for it.'
He thinks about it sometimes, times like now, looking at the Mistress's brain. It's only right that she should have more than him; she's beautiful and clever, magnificent. She's bested the years that ought to have cut her down long ago. So it's right, surely, that she's better than Chip. He is lucky to have her. He'd be nothing without her, just a snatch of skin somewhere on a petri dish (he can't really conceive of that either, but the Mistress has told him it's true, and he trusts that it is).
Sometimes, though, he wonders if he ought to miss those sulci and gyri in his brain. Should he want to have as many as the Mistress has? If it meant he'd be as clever as she...
But he never seems quite able to decide.
Pairings: Delgado!Master/Queen Galleia, Delgado!Master/Jo Grant, Tenth Doctor/Novice Hame