Stargazer
The ship fell like a burning star from the sky, sending sparkles of red light through the clouds. Ilyana shuddered as she watched it fall, her robes swayed around her thin ankles; the air was hot, already burning, transient with the heat of the falling vessel. Ilyana watched, her young fingers scrabbling nervously at the stone shelf that pressed against the graceful curve of her spine. "Sisters," she called, half-hearted. They already knew. She watched the way their shadows leapt into animation, tasted their excited sweat in the sultry air.
It hit the planet surface like an egg, denting a great canyon into the rock, splashing copper innards onto the oxidised stone. They were dead amid the wreckage, but she had learned that, to the Sisterhood, death was just a temporary inconvenience.
But that man, strewn like a sack of rotting meat among the white-hot, twisted metal lumps; that man was supposed to end the war. That runaway Time Lord, a dashing, smiling boy playing in the middle of a battlefield. Playing with people and time like beads in a rattle. And they were going to bring him back to life. When you kill a Time Lord, you celebrate. That's the reaction they have earned. She could feel his death seeping through his timeline, but on this planet she could sense more than just his end. The space around him shivered and convulsed with potential energy.
"Ilyana!" one of the girls hollered and the sound chimed through the narrow passage, fragments escaping through cracks and peep holes, but it was still discernable when it reached her ears. "Come quickly," the demand followed. Ilyana lingered for a moment, scanning the blackened horizon. Her sisters, several clumps of dusty brown and red-robed figures, streamed out into the rugged planet surface and Ilyana felt the Matron standing in the strip of rock that served as the entrance to their cavern, watching as the girls dug the bodies out of the wreckage.
Ilyana meandered down into the chamber where the smoking goblets stood, waiting for the monster to arrive. To think that Time Lords had once been little more than dusty politicians, terrified of change. They'd finally given up and plunged the universe into a war to end all wars. Each battle swallowed up whole galaxies; planets full of people were caught between the two warring parties.
Blown out of the sky, swallowed to fuel the creaking gears of time.
Still, if there was even the slightest chance that he might be the one to end it, then they had to take that risk. In any case, one monster in an army of them wouldn't make much of a difference. The end was coming, one way or another, be it through mutually assured destruction or him, the man they called The Doctor.
Either way, time was, literally, running out.
"Ilyana," the Matron hissed, though the room was empty, her hands beckoned furtively, wrinkled skin shining sickly in the torchlight. The Matron favoured an older form. Ilyana wanted to remind her of that universe-old saying, a saying whose origin she could guess, "Age does not equal wisdom."
They carried him in with haste born of ailing strength, each clutching a limb. His pale face hung, a ghostly lantern, his mouth gaping black and red. His curly head of hair trailed greasily along the stones, leaving an almost imperceptible line of soot and oil along the passage. The Matron watched gravely as they set him down on the indented stone table, a miniature, porous batholith born from the bowels of their lonely planet.
"Ilyana," she repeated, in tones now painstakingly measured. Ilyana edged closer to the table, trying to appear incurious, detached, but he was a Time Lord. It was impossible to stop her fingers from trembling as she positioned her palms above his two cold, dead hearts. The Matron took hold of them and looked into her eyes, "This is the right thing," she said.
"You really think so?" Ilyana stared at the dead Time Lord. In death, he looked oddly peaceful, childlike. Exactly like all the children he's murdered, she thought, venom surging suddenly in her stomach.
"I realise that it may seem like an impossibility," the Matron said, reading the indecision in her eyes, "but this is a good man."
"'Time Lord' and 'good man' seems like a pretty big contradiction," Ilyana said, eyeing the man sprawled like a five-year-old boy after a day spend playing hide-and-seek, exhausted, hair stuck up in tufts, gangly limbs strewn carelessly.
"Look at him," the Matron said, gesturing to the man lying still and dead beneath Ilyana's palms, "And tell me I'm lying."
The Doctor didn't dress like the rest of his kind. His outfit betrayed an aura that was distinctly un-regal. He's like a pirate, Ilyana found herself remarking; ruddy-faced, unshaven, with cracked fingernails, his boots worn from running. She reached tentatively into his timeline, and flinched at the death, her death, the girl they were dragging out of the wreckage. Beyond that she saw, hazy, numerous deaths and lives, and so much running. An awful lot of running. The Matron dropped her hands and Ilyana swayed, her eyes wide, still seeing his life passing like flurries of snow before her.
"He's good," she breathed, disbelief colouring her tone.
The Matron smiled, nodded, "He's everything we've got left."
Ilyana spread her fingers and took a deep breath, "You can do this, " the Matron urged, something curiously like regret in her eyes, "The prophecy-" Her words were lost as light exploded from Ilyana's palms, falling like molten gold in rivulets onto his chest. Ilyana stood still as tremors wracked The Doctor's body. He absorbed the light hungrily and the sisters who had gathered around her watched as life moved blearily beneath his eyelids. As the last tendrils of light struck him, he jolted and fell onto the cavern floor. The sisters swarmed around him as Ilyana took a few halting steps back. They propped him up against the stone and retrieved the goblets, standing like sentinels looking over his slumped form. The Matron looked at Ilyana and a strange smile creased her weather cheeks. Sister Madeline placed her hands on Ilyana's shoulders and led her away. Ilyana caught one last glimpse of the Time Lord before she was borne away.
Her heart fluttered weakly and she knew then what she had done. I hope you make good use of it, pirate man.
They kept walking, silent, listening to the wind whistling through the stones and the distant crackling of the smouldering ship. Sister Madeline tried to hold her aloft, but Ilyana felt herself falling. The rock hit her and she felt something crack within her. Even her bones were breaking down. "Ilyana," her sister mumbled, "what have you done?"
Ilyana shut her eyes against the pain, and found that when it passed she could not summon the strength to open them again, "I'm dying," she said, her voice as faint as the muted wind, "I gave him all, I gave him everything. I had to."
Sister Madeline was composed, remarkably so. Perhaps they had all known. Perhaps, in her heart, she had too. What it would take to save the Doctor. And he must never know.
"Addy?" Ilyana gasped, speaking with her last breath of air.
"Yes Illy?"
"Sing me to sleep."
And so Sister Madeline sang.
When you were just a child
They told me
He wrote your name in the stars
Dressed it up in stardust
Black and gold and white
I carried you beneath them, dear
So one day you'd believe
You are special
You are important
It's written in the stars
One day you'll meet a prince
All wreathed in shining gold
He'll fall to you when worlds burn
And galaxies cry
Like an angel, light in the dark
He's a special kind of man
You'll help him make the wrong choice
For the right reasons
Breathe life into him
That dusty clockwork knight
Give him all of time and space
Oh saviour made of cosmic dust
Stargazer
My precious child
Born to save him
Ilyana lay still, and Sister Madeline allowed a single tear to fall as she watched the light of the reborn Time Lord spiral along the passage, caressing her dead sister's dirt-caked toes. Slowly, Ilyana's leg began to shine, and the sparkle spread along her hairless legs. The air around her grew hot. Sister Madeline felt the dead weight lift from her arms as Ilyana's frame became utterly enwreathed in light and dissolved into a shimmering, spectrum light, casting blues and greens onto the crusty red walls. It drifted for a moment before shooting away. The red-robed youth followed its winding course along the passage and watched it squirm through a fissure. She pressed her eye to a peephole and watched it whiz toward the ruins of the ship.
A strange whooshing sound swept through the air and Sister Madeline frowned.
Inside the Tardis the light swirled tentatively around the console, prodding at the levers, the pedals, the sheer bizarre range of instruments. It rose and hovered indecisively around the core, shining gently blue, humming. It fell suddenly into the glowing core, and was gone.
Ilyana felt incredibly dizzy, an effect which was not assuaged by the void stretching down beneath her bare feet. She raised her head and saw a woman-shaped form observing her curiously. The strange creature began to move toward her, gliding through the dark. It stooped before her, but even basking in its light she felt neither warm nor cold.
"I died," Ilyana ventured, "I was there and remember. Is this the afterlife?"
"Not quite," there was an edge of amusement to the voice that spoke inside her mind, "The Doctor owes you a great debt for saving him. I have seen inside your young mind, full of nooks amid all the empty space. Ever since you were a child you dreamed of seeing the universe. A universe that wasn't burning."
"Yes," Ilyana said.
The shape held out a glowing hand, "I'm the Tardis, and I have a little Time Lord who might be able to show it to you."