| Date: 7 January 2008
Characters: Koschei, Kurt Harding Location: park Link to IJ: thread #27464 |
 Exploring was always fun, even when he was doing it alone. Koschei had been crawling through the bushes and grass all morning, pouncing on any bugs that he would find and studying them thoroughly before letting them go again. He'd suppressed the urge to rip them in half more than he'd like to admit in the last few hours. It was an odd feeling, the drums taking over his mind and pushing him to do something. It gave him a terrible headache when he pushed back. Which was why one side of his head was throbbing constantly right now.
But Koschei was ignoring it. He hadn't finished exploring yet. |
 Kurt was patrolling the town trying to find someone - Jack or any one of the Doctors - who might be considered even a little bit in charge here to warn them that the Master was here. He really, really didn't want anyone getting hurt.
He really wasn't expecting to meet the Master himself first. Not that he had the faintest idea, of course, that the little kid crawling through the bushes would become the Master one day. To Kurt, this was just a kid, and automatically he went over to make sure he was all right. He hadn't been expecting to find any children here. Hell, Brant had been young enough to take the wrench of finding himself here! What was a little kid going to make of it? "You all right?" he asked casually, squinting down at the dark mop of hair that was all he could see of the kid, who was bent over, studying something on the ground. |
| Koschei lifted his head at the sound of a voice, beaming in response to the inquiry, "Fantastic, thanks for asking!" He said, scooping up the bug that he'd been looking at and holding it up to Kurt. "Nicrophorus americanus. Never thought I'd actually see one up close. They went extinct around the tail end of the 21st century." |
| "Really?" Kurt drawled, amused, accepting the bug and giving it a brief once-over before handing it back again. He'd never been that interested in bugs himself. "Well, seems like this place is set a bit before that, so that makes sense. Means they're paying attention to detail, though. I'm not sure if that's comforting or disturbing." |
| "Actually, it's not consistent," Koschei said, setting the bug back in the soil and nudging it a bit so that it would go on its way. "I've found specie that are usually spread across a bunch of different continents all dropped here together. It's interesting, if not a little off putting. Still, it's a bit brilliant, isn't it? Put together a bunch of things that aren't supposed to be together. Leads to confusion when people try and pinpoint their place."
Koschei had ducked back down in the dirt by now, "I mean, even these plants don't all match." |
| Kurt's dark brows drew together. "Okay, I'm going to go with disturbing, then."
He crouched down near the kid, forearms resting on his thighs. "You're a bit of a scientist, then, are you?" he asked indulgently. |
| "I just like to read," Koschei said, smiling over at Kurt as he gently plucked up a centipede from the path of potential trampling and settled it well outside of their danger zone. The second he did, though, he winced, raising a hand to rub at he side of his head.
"Stupid... Why won't they just... Stop it," Koschei muttered to himself, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment until the angry drums had settled back down, waiting for their next opportunity. "Sorry," He whispered, hanging his head a bit to hide the blush as he poked at the dirt. |
| "Hey, nothing to be sorry for," Kurt said gently, reaching out a hand to rub the kid's shoulder soothingly. "What's up? Headache?" |
| "Yeah. Something like that," Koschei said, his tone very noncommittal as he shrugged. "They come and go."
He poked at the dirt a bit more, mostly since that seemed to be one of the few things he could do without upsetting them. Dirt didn't have feelings, after all. It didn't feel pain, so they had no concern with what he did with it. "I'd rather they just went and never came back." |
| "What is it if it's not a headache?"
Kurt leaned forwards and felt the boy's forehead. It felt cold and clammy. He moved his hand to the kid's hair and stroked gently. "You don't feel that great," he said, concerned. "You're very cold." |
| "It's...complicated," Koschei said with a soft frown, shifting and sitting down, crossing his legs and folding in on himself. What was he supposed to say? I've got really loud drums inside my head that want me to hurt things and get angry when I don't. Yeah, that wouldn't sound crazy at all.
"It'll pass. It always does," Koschei said with a sigh. |
| "Okay." He was still worried, but he let it go, for the moment. He sat down in front of the boy, flipping his coat out behind him and crossing his own legs, then leaned forwards again and smiled. "I'm Captain Kurt Harding. What's your name?" |
| He was smiling. That was a good sign. At least he wasn't going to dwell on the issue. "Koschei," He said with a grin as he scooped up a rock and tossed it back and forth in his hands, testing the weight and balance of the stone. "I wish there was some water around here. I haven't had the chance to skip rocks in forever. And I was up to six. I've been working on getting them to do ten. Almost there." |
| Kurt went very, very still. "Koschei?" he repeated, rather numbly. He swallowed. "Is that a popular name, where you come from?"
He ignored the talk about skipping stones. That just went right by him. He hadn't even really heard it. He was stuck on the name. |
| "No, not really," Koschei said with a smile. "They do try and give us unique names, just to try and prevent confusion. My name is quite a bit longer than Koschei, but it's my preferred shortening. The name is only going to get longer, after all, once I start getting merits."
Koschei tossed the rock up into the air, catching it before he lifted his eyes to Kurt, and his grip tightened on the rock. His eyes squeezed shut again before he flailed and tossed the rock away from him, turning his body as far away from Kurt as he could to do it. |
| "Hey - you all right?" Kurt asked quickly, automatically moving forwards onto his knees and reaching for Koschei again. Whoever the kid was, or would be, he was really worried about him.
He held Koschei gently by the shoulders and tried to see his face. Took a deep breath and said, in a low, hollow voice, "Is it the drums?" |
| The tension that gripped Koschei's body doubled at Kurt's last question, his eyes, rimmed with tears and filled with fear, shot open and up at the unfamiliar face. Confusion flooded him before he shook it off. This guy knew, and whoever he was, it was something. He didn't have to pretend.
"Make them stop..." Koschei choked out, squeezing his eyes shut once more against the tears that wanted to fall. |
| "Oh, fuck - " He scooped Koschei up and into his lap, and held him close, rocking and cradling him and stroking his hair. "Come on, just let it out," he murmured, against Koschei's hair, and if his face was showing just a little bit of incredulous amusement at the idea of the man who had been Jack Harkness sitting there cuddling the boy who would become the Master, none of it showed in the warm, comforting embrace of his body. |
| Koschei let himself cling, the drums still raging in the back of his head, demanding blood, demanding pain, demanding death, demanding everything that he didn't want to give them.
"I thought I'd get used to it," Koschei sobbed softly. "When they started. I thought I could just ignore it. But they're getting worse. The more I ignore them, the more I fight... They just keep getting worse." |
| "I know, I'm sorry," Kurt murmured, rubbing Koschei's back slowly, his other arm holding him tight. "Did it get worse when I came over? Some Time Lords have a bit of a reaction to me."
Well, one in particular, and that hadn't been the Master. The Master Kurt had known had actually relished his uniqueness, enjoyed it. But this was just a boy. Maybe the kid was finding his 'wrongness' was hard to bear. |
| "No... No," Koschei said softly, looking up at Kurt, raising a hand to scrub at his eyes. "I mean, it's different. You don't usually feel the Time Vortex radiating out of a person who clearly isn't about to crumble into cosmic dust. But it's not bad or anything. Just curious."
Of course, Koschei had never had the desire to run away from it. "It's just... They want me to hurt you. And I don't want to. And they don't like when I don't listen." |
| "Yeah, I'm one of a kind, all right," Kurt grinned, kind of relieved that at least he wasn't causing the boy pain.
Except that that second statement made it sound like perhaps he was. "Make you want to hurt me, in particular?" he asked, a little shiver travelling down his spine. "Or just anyone?" |
| "Whoever's closest. Whoever they take a fancy to. Just whoever... Or whatever," Koschei said, looking down at the ground. "They've been trying to get me to squash the bugs all morning." |
| "Poor bugs," Kurt said lightly. "I'm sure they're glad you resisted, though. At least, I assume you resisted - I didn't notice a trail of dead bugs up the path!" |
| "That's just it. I don't want to hurt anything," Koschei said softly, squeezing his eyes shut again as the drums seethed in his head. "I don't want to. So why do they keep trying to make me?" |
| "I don't know, Koschei, I don't know."
Kurt was aching for the kid and he honestly couldn't think of anything he could do to help. He had a bit of psychic training but nothing like what would be required to even try to help with this. And if the Doctor had never managed it, there was no way Kurt was going to be able to. Finally he said, frowning a little, "Do the drums get better if you do hurt something?" |
| Koschei hung his head at the question. If it could have been possible for him to make himself any smaller, he would have. The guilt that crossed his face was unmistakable as he nodded slowly, "Yes," He confirmed, his voice barely a whisper before his gaze turned back up and he amended, his voice coming at a frantic pace.
"But I only did it once! And it was an accident. I didn't want to, but I was just so angry. I couldn't help it. I really couldn't." |
| "Koschei," he said gently, reaching out to take the boy's hands in his. "It's all right. It's not your fault. You didn't mean to. And we all hurt other people sometimes, whether on purpose or not. It's not something you have to be ashamed of."
He hesitated, because a crazy idea was forming in the back of his mind and he really didn't think that putting into action would actually be any help whatsoever in the long run. It would only bring temporary relief, and it might just make things worse. But the kid was in such pain... He said slowly, feeling his way, "Just how much does it hurt right now? Is it - is it more than you can bear?" Because it was certainly looking that way. |
| More than he could bear? He could bear a lot. He'd done it before. But...then, he'd always had Theta with him to make sure that it didn't get out of hand, to make sure he didn't give in and do something stupid just to make the pain stop.
"It's not as bad as it has been before," Koschei said truthfully after a moment, lifting his eyes to look at Kurt. "Why?" |
| "I just - " Kurt closed his eyes briefly because this was quite possibly the most stupid thing he'd ever done. If he did it. "There's a way I think I can... give you some relief, for a while, if it was more than you could stand. But... it's pretty extreme and I'm not letting you do it unless I really have to.
"So if it's not that bad..." He gave Koschei a warm smile. "You're a brave boy, Koschei." |
| "I usually have help, when it gets really bad," Koschei said softly. "But he's not here right now. Well, I mean. He is, kinda. But it's not the same. He's a bit big." |
| That would have made absolutely no sense to Kurt if it hadn't been for his conversation with Susan. As it was... "You mean the Doctor?" |
| Koschei heaved a heavy sigh, "Stupid title," He mumbled mostly to himself before nodding. "Yeah. Whenever it would it get really bad, I'd ask him to watch me, make sure I didn't do something I'd regret." |
| Kurt tried very hard not to laugh. "I don't think keeping people out of trouble is exactly his strong point. However much he goes on about people being his responsibility." Yeah, that one still stung a bit, even after all these years. "I bet he offered to help, though, didn't he? Didn't he say to go to him if things got really bad?" |
| Koschei chuckled softly to himself, "It's not, usually, no. He gets me into trouble a lot more than keeps me out of it. But we promised we'd watch out for each other. It's what best friends do, you know," Koschei said, a hint of pride in those last words. |
| Kurt smiled softly. "Yeah. I know. And I know it's not the same here. But we'll watch out for you, him and me, if you want us to. And, you know, if it gets really bad, there's that other thing too."
He paused a moment, and then asked, "Which version of him have you met here? I gather there's more than one around." |
| "More than one?" Koschei asked, blinking a bit. "Well, that's certainly interesting. Doesn't happen often, that. More than one regeneration in a place at a time. But I met the tall, skinny hair, brown hair, suit jacket, holds him like he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders no matter how many jokes he tells to make it seem like he isn't." |
| Kurt inclined his head, impressed. "You're a very observant kid, aren't you? Yeah, that's the one I know best. Comes and visits me every hundred years or so. I've known him a very long time." He smiled. "It's nice to know he's here, actually. He's a later regeneration than the other one I know is here, so he should be more useful in dealing with... another matter I need to talk to him about, when I find him."
Another, not exactly unconnected, matter but he wasn't about to tell Koschei what he'd turn out to be. |
| "I know how my best friend carries himself, sir," Koschei said softly. "And it's not like that."
Folding his hands together, Koschei wrung his hands before shifting and leaning against Kurt with a sigh, "I'm worried about him. He just looks...so lonely." |
| Kurt wriggled round till he was sitting next to Koschei so he could put his arm round the boy's shoulders and give him a comforting squeeze.
"Koschei, he's 900 years old. He can take care of himself. You've got enough to worry about, without worrying about him too." Mind you... he wondered just when the Doctor had jumped here from. There had been times when maybe he did need some looking after. |
| "900 is really rather young to a Time Lord, sir," Koschei said softly. "It's would be equal to, well... maybe mid-twenties for humans. We're still just kids at 200. Most don't even graduate the Academy until 250." |
| Kurt raised his eyebrows. "Well, that explains rather a lot," he acknowledged, grinning.
"But anyway, he's still a lot older than you are. I get that he's your friend, but he's my friend too and I'll look out for the both of you. Okay?" |
| Koschei tilted his head at Kurt curiously, "You mean he didn't mention that?" He asked before grinning. "I suppose he wouldn't. Does make 900 sound a bit more impressive when you don't know that bit, doesn't it?"
After a moment of consideration, Koschei nodded in agreement, "Okay. I think I can work with that." |
| "The Doctor is not a great one for sharing personal information," Kurt said, with a wicked twinkle in his eye. "It's an effort to drag even the tiniest detail out of him. I think I learned more from his grandaughter yesterday than I've learned in over 3,000 years of knowing him."
Not that he was exactly known for sharing himself, but that wasn't the point. |
| Koschei just blinked for a moment, "Granddaughter?" |
| Kurt chuckled. "Bet that sounds weird to you, doesn't it? But yeah, apparently he has a grandaughter. I didn't know about her till yesterday either. Gorgeous little thing called Susan. You'd like her." |
| "Yeah, it really does sound weird," Koschei said, chuckling. It wasn't hard to believe, though, with 900 years to his credit. |
| Kurt quirked a humorous eyebrow. "What do you want to be when you grow up, Koschei?"
Apart from the Master of everything? |
| Koschei blinked. He hadn't really thought about that. It seemed so far off, after all. But it seemed an easy enough question to answer, "A professor," He said, nodding with a soft smile on his face. "I don't think there's any more noble job to do on Gallifrey than passing on the knowledge that you've acquired over the millenia to the next generation." |
| The boy's answer both amused and saddened Kurt. He felt a desperate urge to try and make it happen, to do whatever he could to stop the drums taking over this mild little boy and making him into the monster Kurt had known. He knew it was probably a hopeless task; he knew that messing with time and destiny was unspeakably stupid. He still resolved to try.
"That's a wonderful ambition," he said gently and added, with an absolutely straight face, "I'm sure you'll be a great professor one day." |
| Koschei grinned, "I bet my professors would disagree. They keep on me about wasting my potential. They're brilliant men, really. But they don't see the big picture, that there's more to life than just learning," Koschei said, tilting his head back to look up at the sky. "I didn't get it at first, either. But once you start to see... The universe is so much more than what can be indexed on the pages of an anthology. |
| Kurt's arm tightened around Koschei's shoulders as he smiled. "You sound like someone else I know." They really had been two of a kind, the Doctor and the Master, hadn't they?
How had it all gone so wrong? |
| "It's our experiences that really matters," Koschei said, grinning up at Kurt. "And with apparently 3,000 years to your credit, you must have quite a few to count," He said, tilting his head to the side, his eyes wide, innocent, and curious. |
| "Oh yeah, just a few." Kurt winked down at Koschei. "Though probably not as exciting as you're thinking. I've been stuck on earth living linearly for nearly all that time. Not as much swanning about the universe as there might have been." |
| "What's wrong with that?" Koschei asked, looking up at Kurt. "I've read all about Earth. It seems absolutely brilliant!" |
| "Yeah, Earth probably sounds as interesting to you as Gallifrey does to me." He frowned a bit, though. "I thought it was the Doctor who had the obsession with Earth, not you." |
| Koschei just grinned, "Oh, there's a few of us that are rather interested in the workings of Sol 3. Ruath is fascinated with all of the specie that we've lost that are still alive on Earth. And Drax is next to obsessed with their ingenuity." |
| "Do they teach you about Earth in school?" Kurt asked, intrigued. "They teach next to nothing about Gallifrey in human schools. It's little more than a legend where I come from. Mind you," he added, realising he didn't really want to get into the subject of why Gallifrey was little more than a legend, "I learned about Earth at school too. Didn't actually go there till I was a lot older than you are." |
| "Oh, no. Nothing more than the basics, at least. It's only a Type Five planet with a Type One specie, after all," Koschei said, shaking his head. "Barely more than a speck as far as most of Gallifrey is concerned. But we're children. We can't help but be curious about things that adults find to be pointless."
Leaning back a bit to look up at Kurt curiously, Koschei tilted his head to the side, "Where are you from? I mean, humans did spread out pretty far. All corners of the galaxy and far beyond." |
| "You wouldn't have heard of it," Kurt replied, with absolute conviction. "Tiny place on a tiny planet on the outskirts of civilisation. You cannot believe how excited I was to finally see Earth. The first time was on a field-trip in my second year at the Time Academy. It was incredible. Everything I'd ever heard about"
It had been just as incredible watching Brant experience it recently. More, possibly, knowing what he knew now, about just how long he would spend there in his future. |
| "I can't help but be jealous," Koschei said, grinning. "But I'm sure I'll see it someday. It's gonna be one of the first places I go, as soon as I pass all my exams. I really hope I'm not an old fuddy-duddy by then. The Academy does that to people, sucks all the life out of them if they let it. But I'm not going to let that happen to me. Nope."
Koschei grinned a bit at the mention of the Time Academy, his eyes brightening, "So, you're an agent, then? Not had any trouble with the CIA, have you? I know they tend to get a little uppity when Type 3's start messing in what they consider their jurisdiction." |
| Kurt laughed, warm and rich. "Koschei, there's virtually no-one I haven't been in trouble with at some point. Including the Agency themselves. I wasn't an Agent for very long, really."
He smiled down at the little boy snuggled against him, still finding it hard to believe he would become the Master. "And I'm absolutely sure you'll never be an old fuddy-duddy, any more than the Doctor is." |
| "Ahhhh. So you were one of those kind of agents, then? The ones that didn't exactly follow the rules? Best kind! Even if they do tend to pay for it eventually," Koschei said with a thoughtful expression.
That was hopeful. "Do you know me, then?" Koschei asked. "When I'm older? I mean, you know the Doctor. It goes to reason that you would know me, too." |
| Kurt was thrown for a moment. Hard not to think of Koschei as just a kid. Hard to remember he was a very, very bright boy.
He dropped his arm and wriggled round so he could look Koschei in the eye. "Koschei, I'm not going to lie to you. I have met you in your future. But it's a dodgy thing, finding out too much about your own future. Things don't always turn out the way you expect them to, and really, it's a lot better if you don't know. However tempting it is to find out." |
| Now, that was worrying. Frowning softly at Kurt, Koschei lifted an eyebrow at him curiously before shift back on his hands. "Is it bad? You'd tell me if it wasn't bad." |
| "I wouldn't be telling you anything whichever way it went," Kurt said straightly, and not completely truthfully, because he'd love to be able to reassure the kid, if he could. But he hadn't spent 3,000 years acting a part for nothing.
"I'm sorry, Koschei. But I'm not going to go messing about with time like that, not just to reassure you. You'll just have to take my word for it." He smiled, gently. "I'm sorry. You don't know how many times I've had to resist the temptation to try and find out about my own future." |
| "Which, if going to be a long one, if my assumptions are correct," Koschei said, reaching out and poking at Kurt's chest. "How did that happen, then?" |
| "Longer than it's really possible to imagine, yeah." He sighed. "It's a bit of a long story, but as I understand it a friend of mine looked into the heart of the TARDIS and used the Time Vortex to take out the Daleks and then to bring me back to life. Only she couldn't control it very well. She brought me back forever." |
| Koschei stared at Kurt in slight horror, "I'm so sorry," He said after a moment before lowering his eyes to the floor. "Nobody is supposed to do that. Nobody.... If a Time Lord did it... It would be disastrous if they didn't fight the influence. I think... Vengeful God is the term the books actually used for what they would become." |
| Kurt grinned. "Yeah, I heard that." He shrugged, slightly. "It's OK. I've had time to get used to the idea now. Though really, 3,000 years is nothing to what I've got left." |
| Koschei smiled softly at he peered up at Kurt curiously before the drums surged again, causing him to raise a hand and smack himself against the head, "NO," He said in a very forceful tone. "And you stop it. Don't make me come in there," He hissed, clearly talking to himself.
At least they weren't being insistent on the point, so Koschei felt free to ask the question that had popped into his mind and prompted the drums. "When you get hurt...does it take? Ever? I mean, you're practically a flesh and blood embodiment of an eternal cosmic force. I would think that would have to get... Well, you look to be in one relatively good piece." |
| "Hey, don't hit yourself like that!" Kurt exclaimed, automatically reaching out for the boy's wrist and holding his arm gently away from his head. "Not good for the brain," he grinned, trying to make light of it, but he couldn't help noticing the resurgence of the drums combined with such a question.
He said carefully, "Did thinking that question make the drums come back, or did the drums coming back make you ask the question?" |
| "Thinking the questions brought them out," Koschei said. "Any thoughts about harm, injuries, or destruction they tend to jump on, see if they can push them."
Koschei shook his head slowly to himself. He had a bad feeling that one of these days, he was going to run up against a problem that had to be solved with something like that, and he wouldn't be able to keep them from... He shook his head again, a bit more violently this time, "I'll be fine. They always go away." |
| "So it's like a sort of vicious circle, then?" he asked. "You think about violence, or whatever, the drums get worse, and you get more violent, the drums get louder, and so on." |
| Koschei nodded slowly, "Or I get in a situation that could call for violence, and they demand it. And I fight it, and end up with a throbbing headache for my trouble," Koschei said before sighing and flopping back in the dirt, staring at the sky.
"I don't even know where they came from," Koschei said. "They just...appeared a few days after my initiation. I couldn't even get out of the bed when they did. They were just so loud." |
| Next |