He was my best friend, my brother, the only person ever trusted completely. His name is Koschei, but he doesn't call himself that anymore, he calls himself the Master. He's still Koschei to me.
Growing up we would run through fields of waist high red grass, playing hide and seek and tackling each other. He always won the wrestling matches we had because he was bigger and more lean where I was skinny and feather light, but he never hurt me. He stood up for me at the academy when people tried to take advantage of the size difference. When we became teenagers we spied on girls together and would talk for hours on top of the red snowcapped mountains, sitting high up in the silver trees. We were joined at the hip. He would hold me close if I was intensely upset and then he would tell me a joke to make me forget.
Yes, we did all of these things together. But after we turned eight it was different. They say he stared straight into the Untempered Schism. They say he went mad as a hatter. I didn't believe a word they said. He was still just plain old Koschei to me. The older we got the weirder he acted. His warm, comforting smile wasn't always on his face like it used to be. He laughed less and stopped confiding in me. Wrestling matches got rough and I often ended up with bruises. Teasing our friends like always he went from light hearted and friendly to downright malicious in seconds. His deep amethyst eyes raged with fury.
One day when I was about 24 and he was nearly 27, during one of the many periods of time where he didn't speak to me, I asked him about it, "Koschei, what happened to you? What happened to us?"
"Call me the Master," he replied coldy and not a single word was spoken on the subject again.
When the Time War came into its final hours I yelled at him for the first time, "Damn it Koschei." He glared at me. "Master get your ass over here you're going to get yourself killed!"
He stood and enjoyed the chaos, smiling when the silver spires of the citadel fell. He grabbed my arm in a vice like grip and I whimpered from the pain. "Isn't it wonderful Theta? To watch Gallifrey burn? Listen, listen. Hear the screams? Don't they sound beautiful," he hissed hotly in my ear. I whimpered again and tried to squirm out of his grasp, all the while fighting tears.
Koschei was scaring me, badly, too. Then I accepted it. My best friend had gone insane. He let go of me suddenly and I lurched back, landing on my backside. He looked down at me, his eyes glinting evilly, and I ran.
I ran away from the snowcapped mountains with their silver trees, their burning trees. I ran away from the citadel that fell as another Dalek fleet landed. I ran through the waist high grass as ash fell on it like snow. I ran away from Gallifrey. But worst of all, I ran away from my best friend and I heard him laughing behind me.
For many years I did not hear anything from Koschei, nor did I expect to. Gallifrey had burned and there were no survivors, except me, the runner. I mourned the loss of my planet for a short time and moved on, there was no use becoming depressed and lying on a couch until I died. I travelled with companions to try and fill the hole that was left from losing my planet and best friend, but they too died, or left and I was alone again, and the hole grew bigger instead of shutting like it should've. I was digging myself into a hole and soon I would not be able to pull myself out.
And then I found myself at the end of the universe with a man called Professor Yana who was trying to get to a place called Utopia. A last resort, a land with skies made of diamonds, where the human race could reproduce. And then the watch was opened, and my friend returned.