(Author's Note at the bottom) Disclaimer:
We were sitting on the grass on the planet Meruseta, gazing out into the perfect wilderness of it. The planet was completely uninhabited, due to political reasons in the 37th century. It would be a perfect place for humans to settle, but… well, it was a long day which ended in a very rich but fair-minded man buying from the Viridisos (who had no use for it but were stubborn in believing that humans should pay to colonise) and decided to keep it as new and natural as possible. Amy and Rory had disappeared off to look at whatever they thought was interesting. I'd chosen a spot which was on the edge of a cliff, and the view was like no other in the entire universe. You could see down into the sheer beauty of a wild planet, all the plants growing there were unspoiled and… perfect. The sky above the view was itself completely and utterly outstanding; the stars looked as though they'd been placed in the universe for the just this very planet to admire them.
I glanced over at River sitting next to me. She was being unusually quiet, just staring at the wonders before her, silenced by the beauty around her. I watched her face light up and her eyes shine like a new companion of mine's does on their very first trip. Her usual matter-of-fact manner and air of knowing everything around her had disappeared. I can't really talk though.
"What was that you said?"
River tilted her head towards me. I was surprised, I didn't realise that I'd spoken aloud.
"Oh… nothing…"
She smiled and her eyes darted back to look out at the stars again.
"You're being unusually quiet, normally you talk on and on about the things we see."
"Well," I smiled. "It speaks for itself."
I lifted my hand to trace the positions of all the stars, naming each one to myself, their entire history of them and the planets orbiting them came surging to my mind. This reminded me so much of being a child back on Gallifrey, when Koschei and I would run for miles, staring up at the stars, hearing their history call to us and we'd answer back, shouting at the sky. Those times never last. I lowered my hand and sighed.
"So, come on, Doctor, tell me what you're thinking."
She had tilted her head towards me again. I looked out at the planet that looked so brand new and the stars burning and only one story came to mind.
"River… have I ever told you about the Ancient Lights of Aphratis?"
She shook her head. "Tell me… Time Lord."
I leaned back and started.
"Some would just call them 'the Ancient Lights', they were like a myth, a ghost story to them. But in reality, they were called 'the Ancient Lights of Aphratis'. Aphratis was… well… if you think of this universe, the one we're in right now, from when it was born until it dies, as a box on a strip of paper. Now on either side of the box that is our universe, our reality, draw an infinite number of more boxes and that is how everything is. It's hard to explain, we're so contained inside this reality that it's hard to see clearly. But if you can also think of the universe as a living thing and you take on the idea of when a creature dies a new one is born, then you can see that when the universe dies it isn't the end of everything and life, but it's the start of a new cycle, a new universe, the different boxes on either side of our universe. Now, Aphratis was the universe that existed before ours, and the Lights were one of the many life forms that existed in Aphratis. They were a noble and ancient race, they ruled over Aphratis for many years, kept everything running smooth… a little like the Shadow Proclamation but without the hired thugs… and a bit more… Roman…
But at the height of their empire, Aphratis began to die. The Lights knew that everything around them was dying, but they knew that after everything dies, new life is born, so they were prepared and they waited for the universe to die and somehow… I don't know how… but they survived the end of the Aphratis, and they came and witnessed our universe being born.
Not all of them came through though. Many of the Lights died with Aphratis, not wanting to stay alive to see new things, because they didn't know for sure if there would be new life. But some had faith and clung on.
They didn't survive the end and start of everything to come and conquer our new, vulnerable universe. They only came to see new life, to see that there was new life at the end of everything, to come and help protect and guide the new beings, if they could. But they had a problem… the Lights weren't physical forms; they needed to change and adapt if they wanted to survive properly. And of course, they changed into the optimum condition, which was of course… humanoid, like us.
But when they changed into physical forms and began to take a place in the universe, they began to turn on each other. Some of them disagreed with others and instead of observing the universe and guiding it they wanted to conquer, to enslave everything; they were by far the most advanced beings in existence. But the majority of them knew that this could never happen, so they summoned all the powers they had and punished them. They gave them great assets which became great curses. Every time a living thing saw them, they would freeze into stone, which meant they could never die, but they could never look at each other and as the years drew on, they became lonely. A soft touch of theirs would hurtle creatures through time randomly, they could get rid of their enemies so easily, but they could never touch anyone… they could break a man's neck but any act of non-violence and they would be lost through time. And nothing could ever hold their image without becoming one in the process; people couldn't look them in the eye without creating one and dying in the process."
River stared at me, her face in a state of utter shock. I smiled at her weakly.
"We've met them before… now we call them 'Weeping Angels' but they are more accurately called 'the Lonely Assassins'. The idea was to make sure that they could conquer the universe, but they'd do it alone.
Of course, the Lights were now panicked about what would happen if their ancestors realised the power that they had, so they made themselves forget, they turned their entire life's work and origins into a story, to be passed down the generations, a story so their origins would not be lost but so no one would take it too seriously."
"Where did you hear this story?" River asked me, leaning back casually, her blonde curls hanging down as she half glanced towards me but still made sure she could enjoy the view.
I took a deep breathe.
"From my father."
River stiffened and she looked over at me, her face searching for the answer she was looking for.
"Yes, the Ancient Lights of Aphratis evolved into Time Lords. My people are descended from beings who survived the end of everything they knew, giving the ultimate sacrifice just to be sure that life always exists…"
"And the Weeping Angels?"
My smile twisted.
"They were always known to have fled from us; I guess they never found out that we'd forgotten everything… we always knew that near the beginning our ancestors had defeated them in a battle of some sort, and we were related, but the idea that we created what they are was always a fairy tale… until… well, until we discovered it was all true. They were always a bit of a joke, the ones we fought and won easily. The Time Lords never forgot that, even at the very end, it was a piece of pride they cherished…"
My thoughts wandered to when I last saw them, I saw Rassilon standing with his guard and forcing the only who dared to speak against him to bow their heads and cover their eyes, "like the Weeping Angels of old" a monument to what they'd achieved as a race and a standard illumining what was to come.
River seemed confused by all that I'd told her.
"How do you know it's all real? How do you know it's not all just a fairy tale?"
"Aren't we all fairy tales in the end?" I answered her.
She looked at me, her expression wasn't amused. "Doctor... tell me, please?"
I turned back towards the stars.
"When I was growing up, everyone thought of the story as a fairytale, no one took it seriously… well, no one normal did. There were the few at the Academy, who would study the 'Mythology and Origins' of our people, but they were always the…" I gestured with my hand to my head in swirling movements. "No one paid any attention to it properly, well I didn't know of anyone anyway… but then…"
My mind scattered as I felt the sharp stab of loss shoot through my entire body. I gathered myself up quickly, hoping River hadn't noticed.
"… then my daughter studied it at the Academy. She decided it herself, I was surprised by her choice… she was a smart girl so I wasn't sure why she'd want to do it, but I didn't try and stop her. She always seemed to have a knack for predicting things and getting odd sort of feelings around certain people and things… an uncommon trait in Time Lords, but I don't think it was nonsense. I asked her once or twice while she was studying it why she picked it. I always got the same answer: 'It just feels right.' I probably should have guessed then, that it was important, but I just brushed it away from my thoughts, I did read up a little more on it then, just out of a nosey parent's habit.
Then the years passed and I forgot. I went travelling and pushed the memories of Gallifrey out of my head as much as I could. But then the Time War started. And the war changed the Time Lords, it turned them inwards and drove them mad, not all of them, but enough. There were plenty that were so desperate they would take anything seriously, so the story became solid fact. Some of them had tried so hard to bury beneath themselves to find to answer of how they banished the Lonely Assassins and how they cursed them. It was madness, the Time War, the things that were born then were enough to turn anyone insane. None of the Time Lords knew how we'd survive and Rassilon, oh, Rassilon was desperate to survive. And then one Time Lord managed to break the genetic lock and they knew all of it was true, the whole story, the whole fairytale: it was true. And Rassilon had the plan then. They called it the 'Ultimate Sanction'. They planned to ascend to creatures of pure consciousness alone once more. But they would no longer be the noble race of Aphratis, they would be monsters. Because when they initiated the Ultimate Sanction, all of creation would be destroyed."
My hands were clenched and my jaw was tightened.
"And I stopped them."
River leant towards me then, her eyes filled with pity and sorrow and the tale I had told.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered in my ear.
I shook my head. "Don't be. The story of the Ancient Lights of Aphratis is beautiful, so inspiring and to have so much faith that life will always go on… it's only the end that makes it hard to tell."
We sat in silence again. I was staring at the stars, attempting to shove the memories of the war into the back of my mind while River sat close to me: a quiet companion. Eventually I managed to control my thoughts again and I looked at River again to see her staring wide eyed at the view again.
"I don't care how the story ends," she whispered. "It's no wonder why they survived the end of everything, just to see this…"
She leaned against my shoulder, taking in all the beauty and thinking of the Lights in their brightest hour. And we sat for hours together in silence.
"Why did you tell me this?" River murmured, breaking the enchanting spell that had engulfed us.
"Because I trust you… and no one except me knows the story… and that's not what the Lights wanted…"
"What did they want?"
"They wanted everyone to know that at the end of everything… there's always life."
Hi everyone,I've had the story that the Doctor told brewing in my for a while now, but I wasn't completely sure how I would be able to write it out. Originally, I planned to have a different Time Lord/Lady explain the story to Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and Rani because of their association with the 'Ancient Lights' which they believed to come from the previous universe, but I decided that the idea of introducing a new Time Lord/Lady or bringing one in would complicate the plotline and overshadow the story itself. So after deciding to use the Doctor I made him tell the story to River. It's a little bit of a flip on one of my other works "River's Story" but not entirely, I just think that the 11th Doctor and River work well as a narration. I decided to write this from the Doctor's viewpoint because I find writing emotions into a story while writing in a third person a bit tricky, but I wasn't sure if taking it from the Doctor's view worked.
So basically I took some ideas from Sarah Jane Adventures (Secrets of the Stars) and the End of Time/Blink/Time of Angels + Flesh and Stone/all of the other references to the Time Lords and the Doctor having a family on Gallifrey and the Academy Doctor Who stories to try and make something that would explain how they are all linked and made sense of it all. So please tell me if it worked and if you enjoyed it. And thanks just for getting this far down the bottom of the page, and reading it! Peace and Run amigo! (Sorry for the really long author's note)