Both Vairë and Koschei both felt a thrill of anticipation as they prepared to launch the Looms. They’d spent weeks combing over the genetic information, making tweaks that would bring the Galliterrans closer in line to humanity. The planet itself was more than ready for them. Even Maggie hummed with excited anticipation. Vairë threw the switch and the genetic information was sent to the Looms. It would take a week for the Galliterrans to be “born.” After that, they would implant the information the people would need to survive. Both siblings planned to live amongst the newly-created Galliterrans for a year or two, helping them to survive the harsh life ahead of them. Then they would start skipping ahead, appearing periodically in Galliterran history to ensure that the civilization matured along the best course. Once the populace had advanced far enough, they would build Koschei’s home and then go retrieve Lucy.
The two wandered down the pathway in front of the caves. Plenty of wildlife and game lurked in the nearby forests. The river meandered just a short distance away, providing water and fish. They had hunted and laid in stocks of meat, vegetables, fruits, and furs for the newborns. And on the distant island to the west, the TARDISes were already growing. Koschei could stretch out his mind and feel the Untempered Schism. It would be fully formed in a millennium or two. Already it was great enough that the Galliterrans would be sensitive to it. They would evolve the same senses that the Time Lords of old had.
“Just think,” Koschei said brightly, grinning at Vairë. “Once this is over, we’ll build my home and then go get my wife. I can’t wait to see her again. It’s been ages!”
“But for her, only a week,” Vairë replied.
“Of course, we’ll go get the Doctor first,” he remembered. “I’m sure that he’ll be happy to see you again. Me, I’m not so certain about.”
“Koschei, my brother. I’ll make certain he understands. If he even thinks about hitting you, I’ll slap him so that he won’t forget. I may not be Rose Tyler anymore but I still have the Tyler Slap. That’s genetic, it is.”
“I still can’t believe your mother slapped a Time Lord,” Koschei chuckled.
“Oi. Mum would slap anyone. Time Lord. God. Random bloke who’d pissed her off. I’ll never forget the look on his face after she slapped him, either. The police thought he’d lured me off the Internet for sex or something. She slapped him and he just looked shocked. Later on, he told me that he’d traveled for 900 years and had never been slapped by somebody’s mother.”
“Well, he hadn’t. His previous companions and assistants…he never met their families. I think you would probably be the first one he ever had where he met your mother. After his wife announced her intention to retire from their marriage, he never really bothered with domestics. Not that he had been domestic before then, mind. He did the bare minimum expected of him. I don’t blame him, though. His wife was…well…she was very…proper. And he…wasn’t.”
“What do you mean he wasn’t? Wasn’t what?”
“Theta was always a bit of a rebel. He didn’t want to just watch the younger races. He wanted to teach them. To live among them. To understand them. His wife – they Loomed several children. He did his duty to them but he was obsessed with humanity. Eventually, he stole a TARDIS and he and his granddaughter ran off to Earth. His wife…well, I guess ‘divorce’ is the closest term…she dissolved their marriage. Then, when the Moment arrived, she and their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren died. Theta may not have loved his wife but he did care for his children and their children. I think that, if the Time Lords had allowed it, he would have found and married a human woman and been happy.”
“Well, he did find one. Madame du Pompadour. I wonder if she gave him children.”
“She was not worthy of him,” Koschei scoffed. “Do you think that she could have given him a world? A society? A place to call home? If any child of Terra is worthy of a Time Lord, it’s you, my precious little sister.”
“He’s as interested in me as an amoeba is in temporal mechanics.”
“You know, once upon a time, I wished that Theta would marry my sister. That he and I would be brothers. We were such good friends before our initiation. Even after, we remained friends though there was the strain between us. Then he married as his family wanted. He Loomed his children. He did exactly what was expected of him. But, if we rescue him from France and he asks me for your hand, with your consent, I’ll give it gladly.”
“Well, since that will never happen…” Vairë sighed. “Can we talk about something else? Talking about Theta – the Doctor – hurts too much. It brings up too many memories. Yes, big bro, I love him. Once upon a time I dreamed of being his wife. Of having children with him. But those were just girlish fantasies. Right now, I want to focus on Galliterra and the Galliterrans. I want to make a home of my own. In time, perhaps, I’ll find the Doctor and bring him back here. And after he’s done mourning the love of his life, he might find a good Galliterran woman to settle with. For me…I’ll be on the Lonely Isle. I’ll have my sister, Maggie, with me. And my memories. No matter what happens, I’ll always have those.”
“Very well, Vairë. I will respect your wishes. Now, once we have the Galliterrans ready to face their trials…do you think we should make ourselves religious figures? It would help to keep them in line.”
“No. It will be enough for us to be legends and myth. I want them to question. I want them to wonder. I want them to demand evidence. Yes, we’ll be far more advanced than they are. But I want us to be careful to leave a place where we can dwell amongst them. Perhaps a bit removed – after all, we’ll be in their histories. But for them to accept us as mortals like themselves.”
“There are days I have trouble believing that you’re just another mortal,” he snorted. “You’ve done so much to make me think you’re Time itself. I still can’t believe you survived having the Time Vortex running through you. That would kill a Time Lord in just a few minutes but you survived it long enough to pilot the TARDIS to the Doctor and turn the Daleks into dust.”
“Can we not talk about that? Look, we have a week for the Looms to be finished…Looming. Why don’t we scout out the area more? Maybe get some more meat and furs ready for them. After all, the first few years will be the most difficult. They’ll have all the knowledge of the Time Lords on the Last Day but will not have the tools and luxuries they expect. They won’t even have the tools to make the tools to make…you get the drift. We’ll have to do our best to help them adjust, to help them understand why they must start completely over again like this.”
Koschei backed off. He had begun to see that Vairë would never see herself as she truly was. She would always compare herself – unfavorably so – to Madame du Pompadour. Still, as he watched his sister continue on with their plans, he vowed to find the Doctor and to take him aside. If the other Time Lord had indeed chosen a French courtesan over Vairë, Koschei would do his best to show him how foolish that was.
But that day lay yet far in the future. For now, he needed to focus on Galliterra and its people.
~*~*~*~
“They went straight to the Agricultural Revolution,” Vairë laughed as she and Koschei got back in the TARDIS. “I’d have thought that would take longer.”
“They’re impatient. All that knowledge and they can’t do anything with it until they build up their technology. It will still take them generations because it’s not like you can have a Time Lord society until you have a few billion more people. Still, there is something satisfying about seeing that Rassilon-look-alike pushing a wooden plow and trying to tame horses.” Vairë giggled and soon both she and Koschei were rolling on the metal grill-work floor, laughing. It had been a funny sight, seeing all of those Time Lords and Ladies reduced to working with their hands. With all of the back-breaking labor they’d have to do in order to build even a primitive city, they wouldn’t have the time or energy to get back to where they had been on Gallifrey. And the newly-Loomed regular citizens weren’t exactly eager to bow and scrape for the Time Lords again. Since none of them could regenerate yet – that would come much later – everyone was pretty much equal. At first, the ones with the knowledge of the Time Lords had tried to hold it over the others but, after a few months of ostracism, they’d been forced to back off and begin working with the others.
“That was a nice little festival they held a few days ago,” Vairë grinned. “Harvest Home.”
“I wonder if they’ll do a fertility festival in the spring,” Koschei quipped. “I’d almost like to stick around to see that if they do. I mean, Rassilon behind a plow was funny. Rassilon dancing under the moon would be hilarious.”
“I don’t think I could take that,” Vairë chuckled. “So, skip ahead what, a thousand years?”
“Sounds right. By then, they should be well into the Industrial era.”
“Then let’s get going. Next stop, Industrial era. After that, Space Age. Then we find a nice time to settle in and start living our lives on Galliterra.”
“I am so looking forward to that.”
“I’ll bet you are, Master,” she quipped.
“Don’t call me that,” he sighed. “As of this moment, I am casting the title ‘Master’ away and taking up a new name. You will always call me Koschei as did my friends of old. But the name I take for myself here and now is the Protector. I will spend the rest of my life doing my best to protect Galliterra and its people.”
“The Protector,” Vairë said, nodding. “Think I’ll call you ‘Prot’ for short. Now, let’s roll!”
~*~*~*~
The two sighed happily as they finished building the house where Koschei and Lucy would live. After several hops forward with a few stops to do things like prevent a war, keep despotism from setting in, and then ensure that the society as a whole stayed fairly free and open. They would sometimes spend only a few days in a given era, sometimes a few weeks, and had twice spent several years. Vairë was uncomfortable with the fact that she and her brother were so deeply woven into the Galliterrans’ mythos. Still, at least being viewed as something akin to angels meant that their words carried a lot of weight.
Vairë had planned to wait to build her own home out on the Lonely Isle but the last time she’d visited it, she’d found it already built and waiting for her to move in. She’d asked about that and heard from the Galliterrans that it was done as a gift to the Lady Who Watches, she who was yet to come. That made the hair on the back of Vairë’s neck stand on end. Another thing that amazed her was that the house was bigger on the inside and that the rooms could change in dimensions. Koschei credited that to the house being so close to the TARDIS nursery. The island itself was altered. A perception filter seemed to cover it, cloaking it from view unless Vairë was on it and wished for it to be seen. A long talk with her sister later and she understood that since all of the TARDISes descended from Maggie, they shared some of her memories and feelings. Vairë had said she wanted solitude and peace on the island and thus the TARDISes had ensured that she would have exactly that.
“So,” Koschei said as he walked back into the console room. “Everything is ready. Let’s go pick up the Doctor and then get Lucy and then we can rest for a while.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Vairë said without any enthusiasm.
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you looking forward to seeing him again?”
“Well…yes and no,” she sighed. “I want to see him again. I just…it’s going to be really difficult watching him mourn Reinette. But, at least now he’ll have people like him he can be among. And I’m not sure what he’s going to think of me. You know, now that I’m…half-TARDIS. Maggie thinks he’s going to kill her for what she did to save me.”
“He won’t. I won’t let him. Speaking as one of the last Time Lords, I hereby pardon this TARDIS for altering another being. The act was done not out of power or malice but out of love and a desire to save a worthy young woman’s life,” he said formally. “And the alteration has led to the creation of a new home world and a new people to rise up and take the place of the lost Time Lords of Gallifrey. Now, if the Doctor tries to do anything about that, I’ll stop him. But I truly don’t think he’ll mind that much, Vairë. I think he’ll be happy.”
“Maybe,” she said, gnawing her lower lip. “Let’s get going. No time like the present and all that.”
~*~*~*~
Lucy hurried to the TARDIS when she heard the engines roaring in the distance. Harry and Vairë said that they would be returning today. She knew it had been much longer for them than it had been for her but even then, she missed them both. Harry had sent her some photographs of their time away and she couldn’t wait to hear the stories of everything she had missed. She tried to picture the two of them living like cavemen but couldn’t. And then there was this Doctor she was eager to meet. The last message she’d had from them had been that they were going to go get him and then come pick her up.
She stopped when the TARDIS came into view. Harry and his sister were leaning against it, looking tired and frustrated. “What happened?” she asked as she hurried up to them. Harry bent down and gave her a quick but thorough kiss that promised more once they were properly alone. “Where’s the Doctor? I thought you were going to go get him.”
“I have a new motto for the House of Oakdown,” Harry groaned. “We can go where ever we damned well like unless it’s 18th century France.”
“I’ll have it sewn into our house emblems,” Vairë grimaced.
“How’s the shoulder?” he asked.
“I feel like I got into a fight with an 18-wheeler and lost. Where was it we wound up that last time? Proximitora VI in 42k 578?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Last time?’” Lucy asked, confused.
“Yep,” Vairë winced. “So far, I have made fifty-three attempts to go to 18th century France and collect the Doctor. I’m 0 for 53 on that errand.”
“It’s like there’s some kind of temporal barrier around that time frame,” Harry muttered. “Something that keeps flinging the TARDIS away from there. And it’s not her acting up. She’s just as determined to go there as we are.”
“Well, I’m going to give it up for now,” Vairë sighed. “I am tired. I’ve spent centuries trying to get back to him and failing. I’ll just have to wait until he can get to me.”
“Going to set up shop on Earth then? That would be the first place he’d look for you.”
“Eventually, maybe,” Vairë replied. “For now, I want to live on Galliterra. I want to go home.”
“What’s it like?” Lucy asked excitedly.
“It’s perfect,” Harry told her. “You’ll love it. Now, where are your packages?”
“Back at the hotel. It’s just a few blocks away. Not too far for you to carry them though we may want to hire porters.”
“No need,” Vairë said. “Once we’re in your hotel room, I can just ask the TARDIS to join us there. It’s a bit of a cheat but who cares? The sooner we can get this done, the sooner we can all go home.”
“You will be staying with us, won’t you, Vairë?” Lucy asked.
“In a few months, yeah,” she replied. “For now, I just…need some solitude. I need some time.”
Lucy nodded, not understanding, but willing to accept it for now. When they finished loading the TARDIS a short time later and then opened the doors so she could step out on Galliterra, she was amazed.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. The yellow sun was just beginning to set in the west and another sun was setting in the north. The grass was deep red and the trees reflected the evening light, their leaves sparkling and glinting. Cobblestone streets ran at regular intervals and people walked calmly but with purpose. A gentle din filled the air as they spoke, laughed, and sang. The air was also filled with wonderful smells – baking bread, flowers, and fruits. The house behind her was exactly as she had imagined it. Harry scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the threshold before setting her on her feet. He laughed with delight as the Galliterrans he’d hired to help them set up the furniture greeted Lucy and then began getting to work.
Vairë watched from the doorway and gave her brother a tight-lipped smile. As soon as everything is unloaded, I’ll have her brought over to you, he said, speaking telepathically through the familial bond they’d formed.
Sure thing, big bro. I’ll take some time to set my place up properly. And to check out that new building I saw. Now that they’ve rebuilt the Academy of Time, I imagine I’ll have plenty of people to look after.
Probably, he grinned. Maybe we should call you the Doctor.
Please, don’t.
Just think. Soon a whole new order of Time Lords will take to the skies.
I don’t think they’ll be called Time Lords, though. That’s one change we need to make. “Lord” implies rulership and mastery over something. Time is too vast to be ruled. I’m thinking two orders: Time Wardens and Time Watchers. Could get more into that but I need time to think it all over myself, to compare Gallifreyan and Terran history and see which path I think would be best so I can present it to you and have you show me the flaws in it.
As long as it doesn’t take too much time from my family, I’m willing to hear you out. Are you going to teach at the Academy? They did ask you about that right before we left on our final attempt.
I’ll think it over. I could do history and Terran literature. For now, big bro…I need the silence…and the solitude.
Koschei nodded imperceptibly to his sister as she turned quietly and headed for the shore. A white boat built to look like an oversized Terran swan awaited her. As soon as she climbed in, it began moving out towards the island, pulled by the TARDISes who sensed one of their own longing to return to them. The gentle sea breeze ruffled her blonde hair. Home, she thought to herself. She was finally going home.