| Date: 27 December 2007
Characters: Koschei, The Apprentice, The Tenth Doctor Location: outside Link to IJ: thread #20383 |
 This...wasn't Gallifrey. This wasn't the banks of the Lethe. This was the middle of a street in...Rassilon only knows where. Glancing left and right in confusion, Koschei bunched his hands at his sides, gritting his teeth together as his hearts pounded in his chest. This wasn't right. This wasn't where he was supposed to be. How'd he get here? It didn't make any sense. How'd he... Where was Theta?
He'd had been right behind him. He'd been RIGHT BEHIND HIM! There wasn't any way that they could have gotten separated with barely three feet of leeway. Koschei raised his hands, pressing them against his temples to try and calm the pounding that had been provoked by his confusion, "Theta?" Koschei called weakly at first. That was, until the anger set in. "Theta! Where are you? You said you wouldn't leave! You said you wouldn't leave me alone! YOU PROMISED!" But he was clearly alone. Alone and lost. Alone, lost, and confused. Three feelings that he absolutely hated. |
 "You're lost, aren't you?" The Apprentice had stopped when he saw the boy appear in the middle of the street, tilting his head curiously. "You came out of nowhere. Well, not nowhere, you were somewhere else, and now you're here. Like the rest of us." |
| The unfamiliar voice startled Koschei. He'd expected someone to answer (few people could ignore screaming, after all), but he'd figured it would be Borusa or Sendok snapping at him to hush it, and that they were just playing a trick on him and Theta to get them to behave. For once.
Shame that wasn't the case. Koschei nodded slowly as he raised one of his balled fists to rub at his eyes. He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't. Crying was what Time Tots did. And he was a Novice now. "I was supposed to be near the Lethe," Koschei said, looking around. There wasn't a river in sight. "And Theta's gone. Where am I? I don't like it here." |
| "Outside of time. There's no song here." The Apprentice crouched down, so he was on eye level with the boy. He remembered the river. "You were on Gallifrey before you came here. I used to live there. Before..." He trailed off, scrubbing at his face with one hand. "It doesn't matter what before. I don't remember your face, you had to have been before I was at the Acadamy, what's your name?" |
| "I'm Koschei," He said, frowning softly at the older man as his arms fell limply at his side, tilting his head to the side as he studied him. Out of time. Well, from the way his fellow Gallifreyan was talking, he'd clearly slipped out of his own time stream.
"My friend's gone," Koschei said with a soft frown. "I promised him I wouldn't go anywhere. He's going to think I'm a liar now." |
| "He won't. Time doesn't change here. Never changes. Doesn't sing her lullaby. No one will notice you've gone." The Apprentice reached out to touch Koschei's shoulder gently. "You sound like drums, you know." He tapped his forehead. "Up here." |
| Gaze narrowing dangerously, Koschei shrugged the hand off of his shoulder. "I know," He practically spat as he raised a hand to press against his temple. "I know."
And it was a fact that he hated. It just wouldn't stop. "I want to go home." |
| The Apprentice withdrew his hand when Koschei shtugged it off, hunching his shoulders forward, and scrubbing at his face. "Don't know how to go home. Can't go home, me. Too late, they're all quiet, all gone." He shook his head, staring at the boy, not understanding why he'd regected the effort to reach out.
"You don't like me, I'm damaged, get lost so easily." He looked away a moment, eyes focused inward. "Maybe your friend is here, just lost. My teacher got lost from me when we came here. Maybe we can find him. Your friend. My teacher will find me if I need finding. She's good at that." He met Koschei's eyes, looking for a moment like he was little older than the boy he crouched in front of. "What's it like, to have a friend? I don't remember ever having a friend." |
| All gone? Koschei really didn't like the sound of that, the worry etching itself clearly on his face before the man's next statement replaced that worry with confusion. Didn't like him? He didn't even know him. There wasn't any way for him not to... Oh.
Koschei cast a brief glance at the older man's hand, a slightly sheepish expression coming across his face as he reached out tentatively and took it in his own, "Sorry. I didn't mean to be mean. But I do it anyway. Theta says that I get cranky whenever I get my headaches," He said, a smile spreading across his face at the suggestion that Theta was there, too. It made sense. They weren't that far apart, after all. "I bet that's it. He promised he wouldn't leave me alone. I bet he's here, too, somewhere. Probably just as confused as I am," Koschei said before the question sent his mind down a complete other track. "It's nice. Much better than having to deal with all of this on my own. The Academy would be unbearable if I had to. It's so boring. Theta makes it fun. Even if we usually break a few rules in the process." |
| The Apprentice gave Koschei a brilliant smile when he took him hand, curling his fingers around the boy's smaller ones. "Drums make my head hurt too. Someone else here sounds like drums too. But those drums sound scary, yours don't sound scary."
He stood, tilting his head as if to listen better to the faint strains in the back of his head that were people. "Maybe the Doctor can find your friend. My teacher's good at finding me, but she can't always find other people, wouldn't want to ask her to find your friend. Theta? It's a nice name, that. So's Koschei. And the Acadamy was boring, I didn't want to stay there, I wanted to help." He looked down at Koschei with a faintly confused frown. "But that's later, later, after you. You've already left the Acadamy, because I don't remember your name. I shouldn't tell you, then. Don't like making people scared, even if they think I'm damaged." |
| "Doctor?" Koschei asked vaguely, squeezing the other man's hand as he looked around the road before picking a random directly and tugging gently on the man's hand to lead him that way. "Theta always wanted me to call him that. I thought it was silly. Who's your teacher? Borusa is going to be so angry when I get back. He doesn't like it when Theta and I wander off." |
| "My teacher is the Bad Wolf. It's not her name, but I don't always remember her name, just what she is." The Apprentice shrugged. "She's the only one who can hear me, only one who knows what Time is, where I fell to."
He tilted his head, looking down at Koschei with a bright smile. "Your friend wants to be called the Doctor? Maybe he'd sound like the Doctor too, all rain and thunder and lightning and sometimes sunlight too, and fire and ice, and sometimes there are shadows, but not always all of it, sometimes only parts of that, but always the thunder, somewhere. "My teacher doesn't mind when I wander off, unless I'm all alone. She says I get lost too easily when I'm by myself." |
| "I know what Time is. Who doesn't know what Time is?" Koschei asked, looking a little confused at the Apprentice's first statements. "Is she Gallifreyan, too?"
"And I don't think Theta sounds like a storm. He's too nice to be a storm. Storms are dangerous," Koschei said with a slight bounce in his step. "He's chaotic, but it's a good kind of chaos." |
| "No..." The Apprentice's brow furrowed a moment. "She used to be human. She's not anymore. She's something different. Only one like her, where I fell. Maybe she's not different where she comes from, but she's not from the universe I fell into.
"There's a Doctor who doesn't sound a lot like a storm. He's sunlight and rain, and clouds in the distance. The storm is there, it just didn't scare me. Storms aren't always scary. One of them showed me how to make walls around my mind, I've never done that before. It's nice, makes everyone quieter in my head. He sounded like a storm all wrapped up around itself, and he was scary a little, but he helped. "Maybe the storm is like chaos? Scary sometimes, but not always? But all loud and bright and dark and changing all the time." The Apprentice looked at Koschei with a hopeful expression, as if looking for someone to tell him he'd gotten an answer right, or at least not all wrong. |
| "Human," Koschei repeated, pondering for a moment before a look of realization crossed his face. "Oh! Human! From Sol 3. But... That's just a Type 5 planet, Type 1 specie. They shouldn't even know we exist," Koschei said, glancing up at the Apprentice curiously.
She used to be human. Maybe she was from a universe where humans were on the cusp of evolution? Maybe she was actually a Type 2 or Type 3 specie there when back where he was from, she would have just been bacteria on the petri disk of the universe. "Chaos is a good thing," Koschei said with a smile, nodding. "Changing and evolving. It keeps things from stagnating. Stagnation means death. And the storm is the same way...really. It gives things life by providing them with rain. Everything needs water. Even if it causes destruction while doing so... I don't. Does that make any sense?" Koschei asked sheepishly as he realized how convoluted that sounded. |
| The Apprentice nodded with a grin. "Yes." Because in his mind, it made perfect sense, even if he was aware some people wouldn't make sense of it at all. Or take a while to figure out how to make it make sense, in terms they understood.
"My teacher doesn't always understand, but she's not the same. She understands better than humans, but she doesn't always understand me. She used to travel with the Doctor, though; she told me she did. He likes Earth and humans, I think, because she says he's their defender." |
| "Travel with?" Koschei asked softly. "But we're not supposed to let anyone on our TTCs that aren't certified Time Lords as well. Especially not Type 1 specie." |
| The Apprentice shrugged. "My teacher is different," he repeated, not able to figure out why she'd traveled with the Doctor before, or traveled with him beyond the fact she wasn't the same as other humans he'd met. "Maybe we should ask the Doctor why he let her travel with him." |
| Koschei nodded with a smile, "That sounds like a plan. Always a better idea to get information directly from the source rather than to just theorize. Even if theorizing is fun," He said, pausing in the road as he looked around slowly, furrowing his brow.
"Now, where would we find this Doctor?" |
| "I found the Doctor at the library once. And when I came, he sat down next to me, while I was outside, near the park." The Apprentice tilted his head as if listening to something a moment. "There's the place everyone comes through, with comfy chairs and food. They have everything."
He smiled. "There's lots of people there. Some of them sound interesting, too. There's more than one of the Doctor, too. More than one of many people. Some of them are scary. One of them sounds like Cloister bells." He shivered. "He's not here right now." He brightened a moment later. "But the Doctor is. The one with lots of shadows and the one with fire and ice and another one who's the same as that one, but not and one who's sunlight and rain. He's the one I found in the library. Maybe not him? "The one who's all fire and ice was with the scary drums earlier, maybe he can tell us where to find your friend Theta." The Apprentice nodded to himself, and started towards the hotel. "I like this. Helping people find people. It's fun." |
| Koschei smiled up at the Apprentice, "Thank you. I really appreciate this," He said before tilting his head to the side slightly, a curious expression crossing his face. "What House are you from? I'm an Oakdown." |
| "Blyledge." The Apprentice shrugged one shoulder. "It's not important to me anymore." He scrubbed at his face nervously with his free hand, shaking his head. "Don't want to talk about Gallifrey, about home, about it all. Can't. Shouldn't." He looked down at Koschei a moment. "Change history, maybe, if I tell you. Change it, and maybe I won't fall, maybe everyone will still be there, maybe we'll be saved, and it won't all burn." |
| Koschei stared at the Apprentice for a long moment, trying to piece together everything that he had said. It wasn't hard to understand, but it left his mind begging questions, questions that he knew shouldn't be asked. Some things were better left alone.
It was ashame that Koschei wasn't the type to leave them alone. Koschei gently squeezed the older man's hand, raising his other to settle lightly on his arm, "Maybe when we find the Doctor," He said softly, reassuringly. "You can both explain, and I could go make sure the Council is prepared?" Whatever could make Gallifrey burn would definitely need plenty of preparation. |
| The Apprentice nodded. "He was supposed to save us, the Doctor. Save everyone. Couldn't. Save us, or save the universe." He nodded again, reaching out to poke at the sensation that he identified as the Doctor, the one he'd decided he wanted to meet now. Poked hard, like he had when he'd heard the howling the first time, when he'd drawn his teacher to him, helped her to find him. |
 All things being what they were, being poked in the brain by something that felt vaguely like an unknown Time Lord wasn't exactly his idea of a good time. Had worse, of course, he mused.
He traded the poke for a solid smack, kind of like you'd give a toddler for reaching for something hot, hard enough to sting but not damage, and headed off to track down the source. |
| Save us or save the universe. That wasn't a very hard decision to make, was it? If the sacrifice had to be made, any Time Lord... No. Koschei amended that thought quickly. There were several Time Lords and Time Lords in training that he'd come across who would have happily sacrificed the whole of the universe in order to preserve themselves.
But any Time Lord with a grip on proper logic would know that the universe was worth much more than the Time Lords were as a collective. Besides, without a universe, what good would they be? "Maybe we can stop it before it reaches that point," Koschei said softly. "Before it reaches such a critical mass." |
| "Maybe. I hope so. Falling hurts." The Apprentice paused, wincing and letting out a soft yelp. "I don't think he liked being poked." |
| "He really doesn't," the Doctor said, as he turned the corner to find them. Then he stopped his wariness dead in his tracks, the question about who the hell this random man thought they were and what the hell he thought he was doing died unasked. Because he'd spotted a very familiar eight or nine year ol. "Koschei?"
He'd get back to those other questions, shortly. |
| Koschei glanced up at the sound of nice name, unable to smother the smile that it blossomed. Someone who knew him! That was a relief even if he didn't recognize the man that was standing there.
"You must be the Doctor," Koschei said with a broad grin. "Do you think you could help me find my friend? Theta and I were on our way to the Lethe. And I ended up here. We thought...maybe, he ended up here, too?" Koschei suggested, glancing between the Apprentice and the Doctor with large, hopeful eyes. |
| The Apprentice nodded. "And I can't help him find him, 'cause he doesn't know what Theta would sound like, and I don't either. My teacher and I were seperated when we came, so maybe so were Koschei and his friend. And my teacher says you help people." He scrubbed at his face a little. "Wanted to find you, or you find us, faster. Just did what I did to help my teacher find me the first time." |
| That was way, way too much information for even him to take onboard at once, from knowing essentially nothing, so he simply plucked the relevant bits and left the rest alone for now. "Don't mess around my brain," he said, simply. "It's not safe." He didn't elaborate as to why it wasn't safe, and looked from The Apprentice to the tiny time lord. "Ah, right. Hello there! Been a while!" Complete tone and demeanor change, from darkness to light. |
| Koschei tilted his head to the side curiously at that greeting. Been awhile?
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I don't know you," Koschei said. |
| The Apprentice's brow furrowed. The other Doctor had said the same thing, and now he wondered why. "Storms aren't always scary, though. Just chaos and change." He beamed slightly. "Koschei said that." He paused, the bright smile fading a little. "And you're strange. All contradictions." |
| "A while," he repeated. "A really long while. Hundreds of years, and." He counted. "Ten regenerations."
He stopped and looked at the Apprentice. "You - I have no idea what you're talking about, but standing in the path of a storm, scary or not, really isn't what I'm concerned about. I don't want you there. Don't." |
| Slipping his hand from the Apprentice's, Koschei stepped forward and toward the Doctor, reaching up and grabbing his arm, tugging at it lightly to try and bring the Doctor down to his own leave so he could get a better look at him.
"Ten regenerations," Koschei repeated, a curious expression crossing his face. "Who uses up ten regenerations after only hundreds of years? Each is supposed to last at least 1,000." |
| "Oh." The Apprentice sat down after Koschei pulled away, picking at his shoes absently as he thought about that, not particularly paying attention to the conversation going on a few feet away. |
| He crouched down when he was pulled, having no trouble at all getting low enough to be looked in the eye. "Been a busy few hundred years!" he protested, glance to the Apprentice and back. "What's wrong there?" |
| "Must have been...if you've gotten yourself killed nine times," Koschei said, frowning as he briefly studied the Doctor's features before raising his eyes to look into the older Time Lord's.
There was so much there, it was almost frightening. All of the memories that came from centuries of life, centuries of experience, centuries of... There was definitely more there than noninterference and observation from the Capital. "Who are you?" |
| He grinned and winked, somehow without looking away from Koschei's eyes, or the grin even coming near to approaching his.
"No one you want to know. What's going on with your friend?" |
| There was something familiar, but it was overpowered by the shadows there. Glancing over his shoulder, Koschei slipped away from the Doctor, crossing back over to the Apprentice and settling a reassuring hand on his arm before turning back to this Doctor.
"We weren't that far apart," Koschei said softly. "Maybe when I got pulled here, he did, too? Maybe? I've got to find him. I promised him I wouldn't leave him alone. I don't want him thinking I'm a liar. I promised." |
| He let Koschei go, and braced his arm across his upraised knee while he watched him. "I promise, if I find him I'll bring him right to you, but you know? I think this place doesn't count so much, and when you get back he won't even know you've been gone." |
| "But I'd know," Koschei protested. "And that's worse, you know. Because I'd know that I'd broken my promise, but I wouldn't have to suffer the consequences. It wouldn't feel right." |
| "You could always tell him," the Doctor said, patiently and a little thoughtfully. "But he shouldn't be worried about you, if he's never noticed you've gone." |
| "I suppose..." Koschei said after a moment, looking up at the Doctor curiously.
There was definitely something there, something familiar. But the more he seemed to try to sort out just how this older Time Lord knew him, the more the noise in the back of his head protested that train of thought. Soon enough, Koschei's eyes had slid closed against the pain, and he'd sat to keep from falling over. |
| He didn't move, didn't reach out. He didn't even try to. "What's wrong?" He asked, firm but quiet. |
| "Headache. They don't like me thinking about what I was thinking about," Koschei said softly as he struggled but managed to blink open his eyes, looking up at the Doctor through the haze that had settled over them. "It'll pass. It always does." |
| He carefully sat down, his knee still up. "The drums?" |
| Koschei started, surprise blossoming on his face before it was replaced instantly with another surge of pain as the pieces started to fall into place. There was only one person who knew, one that he'd bothered to tell about why he had headaches, what caused them. And even after centuries, Koschei couldn't think of any reason that he would have told anyone else.
Squeezing his eyes shut tight, struggling to push the tangle of thoughts out of his mind, to clear it and calm it, Koschei managed to nod, "Uh-huh." |
| "Want me to go?" He asked, and yeah, he was guessing at the cause, but it wasn't all that hard to guess. |
| "No. Please," Koschei said, the distress in his tone clear as he looked back up at this Doctor, the haze clearing slightly from his eyes. He'd been able to empty his mind well enough. They weren't gone but at least they didn't hurt right now.
Standing and dusting himself off, Koschei took a soft and slow breath in, focusing himself before he turned his gaze back up at the Doctor with a ever so slight grin, "I still say it's a stupid title." |
| The Doctor settled himself completely down on the floor, because he wasn't towering over the kid if he could help it. For one thing it was weird. For another it was patronizing and, he thought, increased his odds of being bitten in the crotch.
"Oh, you're one to talk!" |
| Koschei just beamed at the Doctor. He wasn't sure exactly what the older Time Lord was referencing, but Koschei was sure that he had the upperhand in this argument, "I don't see the point. It's pompous and hubristic and unnecessary. And all because you don't like your given name. It's just silly," Koschei said, raising a finger and waggling it in the Doctor's face. "And obviously, no matter how many times I gave you this lecture, it didn't sink in, so why am I bothering now?" |
| "Oh, you just wait and see what you end up calling yourself!" He argued, good naturedly enough. He grinned, a little. "How old are you, again?" |
| "Nope. I like my name. Never going to change it," Koschei said with a beaming grin before tilting his head to the side. "Eight. Well, eight and a half." |
| "And a half!" He was not going to laugh. "Well, that makes all the difference! Why were you looking for me? Me, me, not eight year old me." |
| Koschei glanced back at the Apprentice with a worried look before turning to the Doctor with a soft gaze, "Is Gallifrey really gone?" He asked, his voice slightly disbelieving. |
| He rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortably. "Yes." |
| "What happened?" Koschei asked, a sufficient amount of horror crossing his face at the idea of Gallifrey being gone. Completely gone. How was that even possible? |
| "Not sure I should tell you that." |
| "But... But I can help!" Koschei protested. "I can go back to tell someone. Make sure we're sufficiently prepared this time. I can." |
| "Can you?" he asked, suddenly serious. "Should you? What if they already know?" |
| Koschei frowned softly to himself, "Well. I mean... I know it's against the rules. But... But... But the rules are stupid," Koschei pronounced emphatically, his tiny little fists balling at his sides as he squeezed his eyes closed.
He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't going to cry. Dammit, he was crying. |
| He sighed softly. "C'mere." |
| Koschei didn't cry often. When he did, it was usually over little things like homesickness and because the drums were being both persistent and LOUD. But this wasn't a small thing by any means. This was a very, very large thing that he could do absolutely nothing about, apparently.
Stumbling forward, Koschei clung to Theta -- The Doctor -- and just sobbed, trying his best to ignore how awkward this felt to him, to someone who was only used to hugging and being hugged by someone his own height, who was only used to someone his own size and age caring. "It's just not fair," Koschei spat venomously. "It's not." |
| It felt pretty strange to the Doctor, too. Still, he wrapped his arms around the much smaller Not-Master-Yet, and held onto him. "I know it's not," he agreed wearily. "It's really, really not." |
| Koschei sniffled, trying to stem the flood of tears. If there wasn't anything he could do, there was no reason to cry over it. He had to be strong. He had to be tough. He had to prepare himself to fight whatever it was.
The drums surged in his head briefly, causing Koschei to cling tighter with a soft whimper before they flooded away. "How many of us got away?" Koschei asked after a moment. With Gallifrey gone, where would the Time Lords go? |
| He wrapped his arms tighter around Koschei when he whimpered. "I don't really know," he admitted. He'd thought he had. He probably did. He was not telling this kid that. He was an ass, but he wasn't that bad. |
| Koschei frowned softly, looking up at him with a worried gaze before curling his arms around the Doctor a bit tighter. He wasn't sure whether he should voice the words that were lingering in the back of his mind, but in the end, the urge won out over the fears that were nagging at his stomach.
"I've got to be somewhere," Koschei said after a moment. "I said I wouldn't leave you alone. I promised." |
| He smiled, because he couldn't not. There was so much earnest truth there, that if he'd been less broken, damaged, and burned, he would have teared up. Instead, he just said, "You didn't," he promised. "Had a bit of trouble finding you, but you're out there." |
| Koschei smiled, hugging the Doctor again before sniffling and raising a hand to wipe at his eyes. He hadn't broken his promise, no matter what odds they had faced. That was something that made Koschei's childish heart happy.
"So, you're OK?" Koschei asked, sincerely concerned as he peered up at the Doctor. |
| He wiped Koshchedi's face off with his thumbs. "I'm okay," he said, with all the conviction he could muster. |
| He should probably question that statement. It sounded almost half-hearted, but Koschei figured that half-hearted was probably the best that he himself could muster, knowing that their home was gone for good.
"Good," He said after a moment, leaning back over to hug the Doctor again before rocking back on the balls of his feet and tucking his hands behind his back, studying the older Theta for a long moment. "This is weird." |
| He looked down at Koschei with his eyebrows lifted. "You're not kidding!" He said, with a half-grin that at least made it all the way to his eyes. "I don't know what to do with you." |
| "Me? You don't have to do anything with me!" Koschei said with a broad grin. "I can take care of myself, thanks," He said, rocking on the bals of his feet as he reached out and poked the older Theta in the chest.
"But what about you? I'm willing to bet that you've still got a bad habit of getting yourself in over your head. Am I right? You always did need someone to watch you." |
| He deliberately toppled over backwards when he was poked, so he hit the ground with his ass and caught himself with on his palms.
"Me? Me?!," He huffed. "I'm just fine." He was so not upset. |
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