His Favorite Place to Be
He used to love sitting in the temple of the Other. It was always inviting and warm (at least by Gallifreyan standards) and was always full of streams of endless light, no matter if it was noon or midnight. Wonderful smells coasted through at random, catching one's tongue and nose and occasionally making one sneeze.
Exotic flowers bloomed in the doorways, silver trees glittered here and there, and through the wide windows, the mountains of Wild Endeavour glowed with scarlet grass under the orange sky.
As a student at the Academy and even after he had graduated and moved on to other things, the Temple was where he fled for refuge when on Gallifrey.
He had come there after realizing that Koschei loved him, and let the lights play on his face and hands as he marveled that he was wanted by someone. He had come there when Koschei had pushed him away, saying he never wanted to see him again…and wondered then why he had been so deluded as to believe someone could want him.
Even after having run away from home with Susan in tow, the Temple was always a place he visited (if he wasn't escaping obligations.)
The last time he'd been there, he'd been avoiding Romana and her preparations for war. He was of a negative view on the subject, and sensed that the rest of the Council and even Romana herself were only creating stop-gap measures to slow the inevitable.
He had lain on the floor of that old Temple, his beloved place to disappear to, and had let the light in the windows crawl over his prone form and those smells make him sneeze all over again.