Here we go again.
Hello, everyone. If you're new, welcome. If you're old, welcome back. I'm pleased to tell you that the second installment of what someone once referred to as the Luna!verse will be filled with even more Luna, original plot, and even a few old friends.
A quick note for the new ones: I recommend going back to Moonrise and starting there, because otherwise the tale of Time Lady Luna and her adopted dad will probably make little sense to you.
There's more to say, but I'll save it for the end. In the meantime, here's a prologue, if you will, a re-introduction.
(Also, Starlight is mostly a working title and I will let you all know if that changes. If you have any ideas please, please let me know. Thanks.)
Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Doctor Who.
The first time it happened they were in Pompeii.
There was ash and smoke and blind panic when the sky fell. Terrified men and women and children ran through the streets towards the water, away from the mountain of fire above them, but few would find safety there. Among them were three travelers: one human and angry, who begged them to find safety in the hills, one ancient and alien, who sought to escape the damage he had wrought, and one half-young and half-human, who followed the other two.
This was Luna.
She was not talking to the people. She was not ignoring them. She was watching, watching everything: the Doctor's stiff shoulders and guilty anger, Donna's tears and useless advice, the screaming men and women, the burning sky. It was not the first massacre she had seen. It was, however, the first she had seen her father cause, and although she knew about the Doctor's darker side she had never seen it personally. He did a good job acting the protective father. Especially when it included protecting her from himself.
She had been gone, though, and in that time he had become harsher, rougher around the edges. She had become rougher too, but that was because of captivity not separation: that was Janice's fault; Janice and her tricks and all the games the spider-woman had played with her mind. Now she was different, she was cracked and off-balance. Now the dark and powerful and inhuman parts of her existed together in a single cohesive subconscious that Luna liked to call the not-Luna, because that part of her had all her skills and knowledge with none of her morals or ethics. That part was something she liked to keep hidden away.
She liked to keep it hidden away. But that didn't mean she always could.
The trio of travelers reached a building, a house inside which the TARDIS was parked – their way out. Cowering against the wall were the home's inhabitants: Caecilius, Metella, Quintus, Evelina. All hoping for salvation. Caecilius calling out on behalf of his family. Gods save us, Doctor.
The Doctor was ready to leave them.
Donna was not.
Luna was conflicted, and out of the conflict, out of her father's guilt and Donna's sorrow, rose the warped moralities of the not-Luna, coming together to create a Luna that was powerful and didn't care about the consequences and wanted to end the suffering.
"I could do it," she said softly.
They heard her.
Donna was confused for a moment. "Do what?"
The Doctor understood. "No."
Donna looked between them, standing still in the middle of the collapsing room, Caecilius' family pressed against the wall. "You mean you could stop this? You could save them?"
"Luna you can't."
She stood tall. Challenging. "I can. You know I can; I have that power."
"Power, yes but not the right. It's a fixed point. You can't change it."
"So says a society of old, dead men who never participated in the universe but still claimed the right to shape it. They are dead; we are all that remains. We could stop it all, could save everyone and destroy the Pyroviles. We can help. I can help. Why shouldn't I?"
"Because there are laws of time and space we cannot break. We have to uphold these laws for exactly that reason: because the rest of the Time Lords are not here to. That job falls to us now, and the moment we disregard that and start playing with time is the moment we give up on everything we have upheld for millennia. We become the biggest hypocrites of them all."
"But I could save them, Dad. Look at all this, all this destruction. I could save people. That's what you do, save people!"
She expected him to be angry, but his eyes were just sad. "I know, Lunette, but we can't. Think of the consequences. Reapers and chaos, fractures through time, ripples and fissures that would destroy thousands more. That's far more dangerous than letting the timelines run their course. You can see that. You know I'm right."
She seemed to sag a little into herself, and when she spoke her voice was small. "I know. But can't we save at least some of them? Please?"
The Doctor looked over her head at Donna, who was staring at him with a strange mix of sorrow and expectancy. And then, just once, she tilted her head towards the family staring at them with wide eyes.
"I think," he said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, "that we can manage that."
And so everyone piled into the TARDIS, heading for the safety of the hills, where Cacelius and Metella and Quintus and Evelina watched their city drown in ash. The Doctor and Donna joined them. Luna did not. She instead meditated, calming her mind and untangling the mix of Luna and not-Luna, like she had done before. It was harder this time though, to sequester her dark side away.
The second time it happened they were dealing with a slave trade.
They were reaching the part of their visit when everything descended into chaos. The executives were searching for them, the Ood were rebelling, there was strange chanting, and Luna was running through the compound dodging bullets and rabid Ood alike.
In short, things were progressing as normal.
Luna ducked behind a corner and paused to catch her breath. Travels with her dad were generally far more conflict-ridden than one would have expected, but a compound full of rabid Ood was pushing it even for him. She was going to give him a stern talking to.
After she found him, of course. He and Donna had been separated from her when they slipped off to have a look at the Ood and Luna had hung back to talk to one of the visiting executives who had mentioned the 2238 Warlock's Accord. (It turned out he was talking about the Warlock Clan from Agamemnon VI and not the Earth-based warlock but it was an interesting conversation nonetheless.) So when the conference room was overrun by mad Ood Luna had been alone.
Much like now.
Mostly rested, Luna poked her head back around the corner, and recoiled a second before a gun spat rounds in her direction.
She poked her head back around to tell the goon to be careful, he might take someone's eye out, but she caught sight of the head of the business and one of the high-up scientists sneaking into a building, so she settled for waving a spell in the direction of the gunman, leaving him hanging from the nearest roof. With another flick of her wand slipped into warehouse fifteen after the sneaking duo. It could be interesting.
Warehouse fifteen, unlike the others (she assumed) held no Ood. Instead the door opened to a hallway, which led to some stairs, which led to a red-lit room underground. There was machinery, and a large cabinet, and a metal catwalk that ran lengthwise across the room, high above the floor. The businessman (What was his name? Hapvin? No, Halpen.) was ordering the scientist around, monologuing all the while. A sign of someone who was going to hurt people. Janice had done it, when they fought and the blood and hate and not-Luna had rushed around her head.
(That blood and hate and not-Luna simmered now, and Luna half-realized that and was half-afraid.)
"We should evacuate," the scientist was saying. His name was Dr. Ryder. "If we can get back to the rocket-"
Halpen scoffed, opening a cabinet. "No need. We've got this." He pulled something out of the cabinet – a detonation pack. "Always been an option. The advantage of a family-run business; my grandfather drew up the plans." He handed two to Ryder. "Place these along the outside. We're gonna blow it up. This thing dies, so do the Ood."
Ryder hesitated for a moment, then followed Halpen around the railing to blow up whatever was below. Luna, every curious, stepped forwards to see.
It was a brain. The Ood's brain, she assumed, a telepathic center of some sort to connect them. It was surrounded by ring of energy, a blue current enclosing it. And Halpen was going to blow it up.
No. She would not let him.
"Girl!" From across the room, Halpen caught sight of her. "What are you doing? How did you get in here?"
"Through the door, of course. I'm very interested in your plan to blow up the Ood brain."
He strode across the room. "First that Doctor, now you. How many times must I tell you people: I don't care what the Friends of the Ood have to say. This is my business and I'm running it how I see fit."
"You don't have the right to destroy their lives and home."
"They're mindless animals," Halpen waved off. "We're helping them; we're teaching them things. They didn't mind!"
"They've lived here all their lives; they don't know what a human is. How much of a monster a human is."
"That's a hefty accusation coming from you, girl. Are you so disapproving of your own race?"
Her voice was laced with something dark and alien. "You make the mistake of thinking me human."
Halpen regarded her for a moment. "Have it your way. Child or not, human or not, I won't mind shooting you." He pulled a gun from his jacket. "I've never shot anyone before. Can't say I'll like it. But then, today's not exactly a normal day. Who knows?"
Ryder interrupted then. "The pylons-" He coughed. Luna turned to him.
"The pylons?" she prompted, far lighter than her previous comment. He nodded.
"I'm one too, you see. FOTO. The pylons are what's keeping the Ood docile, keeping them enslaved. If we can free the telepathic center..."
"The Ood will be free," Luna concluded. "Can you turn it off?"
"No, I don't know the codes. I've lowered the barrier to the minimum though." He turned to Halpen. "You never should have given me access."
"Dr. Ryder," Halpen said, lowering the gun momentarily. "You disappoint me." Then he turned and picked Ryder up, forcing him over the railing. Ryder flailed for a moment and tumbled over the side, falling into the brain, which slowly absorbed him. His screaming became muffled as he disappeared. Halpen turned back to Luna as Ryder disappeared. "Where were we?"
"You killed him," she said, blank.
"Yes. I'll kill you next. Dreadfully sorry, but you should have kept out of it."
That was, of course, when Donna and the Doctor entered, led by Halpen's personal Ood. Three things happened in quick succession.
First, Halpen, in his surprise, set off his gun. Second, the Doctor and Donna dropped to the floor to avoid the ricocheting bullet. Third, Luna lunged forward to grab the gun. They wrestled for a moment, until Luna wrenched the gun from his hand and turned it on him. Halpen backed away.
"Alright then. You can go." He smiled nervously. "I won't tell anyone. Go ahead. Tell your activist friends everything. Oh wait. This compound is brimming with rabid Ood, and I have this entire building ready to blow. I admit, it'll be a loss, but at this point I'm willing to risk it."
"We're not here to threaten you," the Doctor said from behind picking himself up off the floor. "Just to stop this. Luna, put the gun down."
Luna hesitated. But shooting him would get them nothing (except maybe some personal satisfaction). So she carefully put the gun down and slid it away from all of them.
But the warehouse was still prepared to detonate and the pylons were still blocking off the Ood and turning them crazy, and both they and Halpen needed to be taken out no matter what her dad said, so Luna (and perhaps a little more than just Luna) made a split second decision. She lunged forward and grabbed him.
"Luna, Luna no," the Doctor said behind her, but Halpen was already following Ryder over the side. Luna, unlike Halpen himself, had better aim, and instead of the brain he crashed into one of the pylons. The thing sparked and the circle of energy dissipated. The detonators beeped. Luna drew her wand and waved them off.
Everything was quiet for a moment. Luna stood at the railing. Donna and the Doctor stood behind her. The Ood brain pulsed, free. The detonators clicked off.
Below them, Halpen groaned.
"See? He's alive." And just like that she was fine again, the darker side of her slipping away as if she hadn't just thrown a man halfway across a room to what might have been his death.
Afterwards the Ood spoke of the Doctor-Donna, and praise, and the end of the Doctor's song. They did not promise to sing Luna's praise. They spoke in fear of the dark inside her.
Luna shared that fear quietly. She pushed the darkness further away. That would not help, though. It was becoming part of her.
The third time it happened was when the Doctor was kidnapped by a Wirrn hive.
The first hint that something wasn't right was that he was late. Not that in and of itself that occurrence was particularly problematic – the Doctor followed plans like his companions followed directions (which is to say, not at all). So Luna and Donna shrugged and settled down to wait.
Four hours later, it was obvious something was more than just a little wrong.
"He did say to stay put," Donna said when Luna prompted an expedition to find him.
The Time Lady raised an eyebrow in response. "What sort of companion are you? Martha was ready to run off all the time. Sarah too; she told me all sorts of stories about it."
Donna scowled. "I hate bugs."
Luna just shook her head and dragged her out of the cupboard they were hiding in. Outside 14th century Prague was overrun by giant bugs (and the Plague, but that was a different matter). As luck would have it, the two wasted no time running into them. Literally.
Which was probably the quickest way to find the Doctor.
"Luna! Donna!" His hands were tied up, and he was grinning like a child. "There you are! What took so long?"
"Donna doesn't like bugs."
"Technically they're extra-terrestrial arthropods."
"They've got six legs and an exoskeleton," Donna said. "That's a bug in my book, Spaceman."
"You humans and your quaint labels," a Wirrn clicked at them, and for the first time Luna looked at the six-foot insectoid aliens scattered around the room. The one who spoke stood in the middle as the other Wirrn moved around him. "We will broaden your minds."
The Doctor's grin slipped away. "I told you," he said, suddenly solemn, "you can't just hatch larvae in living human beings. This is a class five planet, and is protected by the Shadow Proclamation. I'll help you find another world to colonize, one that will sustain you, but you can't stay here."
"We have already begun our colonization, Doctor. It is too late to end it." He hesitated. "I am sorry."
"Call back your troops, take the ones you've infected and leave. I'll help, I promise."
"It is too late," the Wirrn repeated. He assessed them for a moment. Then: "Take the adults to be fertilized. Leave the girl-woman."
"What?" Donna demanded. "Sorry, sunshine, but I am not going to be your living incubator."
Luna spoke over her. "No, you're not taking him away. Not again!" She wrenched herself free from the alien holding her, struggling to reach the Doctor.
"Take them out of here," the Wirrn ordered to the others sharply. "Let me deal with the girl-child."
Luna could faintly hear her father's voice over the scuttling of feet and the Wirrn's clicking speech as they gave each other orders, but the words weren't clear. Then they were gone, and Luna was alone with the Wirrn. She turned back to him slowly.
"Don't you dare hurt him. Either of them." Underneath her anger, taking advantage of her panic, the dark bloomed. She barely noticed. She barely minded.
"They are participants in the creation of a new world. I do not think your Doctor will contest that. Even in the stories, he is one who grants the gift of life."
"Have you heard the other stories? About the time he destroyed his own people, about the time he drowned the last Racnoss? Have you heard the Dalek's stories? Do you know what they call him?" Her smile was predatory. "They call him the Oncoming Storm. The Destroyer of Worlds. You are threatening the only home he has left. The only family. Tell me you're not just a little frightened."
The Wirrn clicked at her. "He is indisposed. By the time he can do any of the things you threaten, he will be useless. An empty vessel. We have nothing to fear."
"I'm his daughter," Luna told the Wirrn. "Perhaps you should reconsider."
The Wirrn clicked twice, and told the others around him, "I've changed my mind. Get rid of the girl-woman."
Luna smiled, vacant and hard, and drew her wand. "Too late."
The Doctor and Donna escaped fifteen minutes later when their guard kneeled over and died. The Wirrn-infected humans around the city were dead as well. In fact, every Wirrn who had come to Earth, egg, larvae or adult, was lying somewhere, dead.
Luna sat in the middle of the dead, in the middle of the room, tiny and fragile. The Doctor knelt next to her, silent. Donna looked away.
"I didn't mean to," she said quietly. "I just didn't stop."
Outside that room, the unsuspecting citizens of Prague burned the remains of the Wirrn with the rest of the wasted, unwanted, Plague-infested corpses.
By then, Luna realised this was not something she could hide away. By then, Luna understood that Janice would not just go away, that it would continue to haunt her.
By then, Luna knew she needed help.
This is definitely a little less happy than Moonrise. Janice is gone, but the repercussions will be hanging around. Luna's going to have a hard time growing up. And the Doctor's song is growing closer and closer to ending in the meantime.
I have to warn you, I'm pretty busy and still getting back into the swing of things, so don't expect too much too quickly. I'll update when I can, but this is a work in progress and it'll take a while. Rest assured, though: this is my baby, and I will not abandon it.
But chaos and scheduling aside, it's great to be back. This is going to be a fun ride. I hope you'll stick around for it.
Reviews, as always, are welcome.