He claimed that his life was difficult. That he had to stand up and make the hard choices because no one else would.
Maybe that fact in itself was true…He was the one who had to make the worst sort of decisions. He chose who was cursed and who was saved, who was granted resources or a home and who went without, who lived and who died…
But his decisions were quick. The choices were terrible, but they took a few minutes. There was running, shouting, there was a struggle, and the sentence was carried out. And then it was over.
And he left.
But it was never over. Every choice he made caused repercussions – began new ages that would require the rise of something different to take the place of what he had overthrown. Those repercussions took months, years, centuries. He would hear of them from time to time, in whispers down the timeline, but he was never involved. He moved on – on to the next planet, or year, or civilisation.
He claimed that his life was difficult, but his task was the easy one. One decision, a few minutes of mental struggle, a few hours of physical struggle, and dynasties fell. Malevolent creatures were vanquished, people were freed, civilisations were given a new lease on life. He could destroy the bonds that kept people in fear or ignorance, he could end an oppressive regime, and he could kill an alien menace.
But the difficult lives belonged to those he had freed or saved or delivered safely to their destinations. They were burdened with the tasks of rebuilding their governments or economies, of reforming a system that had been in place for hundreds of years, of making peace with enemies that stretched back generations. They were charged with repairing ships and buildings, of caring for the wounded and burying the dead, of trying to cope with the loss of loved ones while trying to comfort others with similar losses. He turned their lives upside-down, and while it would result in an ultimately better future, they were the ones that had to make that future a reality.
It took a long time to realise a better life, or a better world. It always took time to create. People spent years setting up a new system of laws or a new business plan, sculpting a new piece of art, raising a new generation into a new world. He came, swiftly demolished the established, and vanished again in his magic box.
It was always easier to devastate what was already made. An artist might spend months at a canvas painting a beautiful masterpiece, but after a few minutes in a fire, that same masterpiece would be ruined beyond all recognition. A potter might spend hours at the wheel sculpting a lovely vase, but the vase could be easily smashed to pieces in seconds. While others were saddled with the work of creating a new life, a work that could take centuries, he ran and moved on.
He told himself that he didn't have the patience to stick around and watch every detail of the rebuilding, that he didn't have time to linger in one spot while there were so many other places and eras and people that needed saving.
What a rubbish excuse, not having the time, Time Lord.
He claimed that his life was difficult, but it took more energy than he cared to admit to ignore the little voice in the back of his mind that hissed at him for his hypocrisy. When it boiled down to the core of things, he was the demolitions expert.
And it was always easiest to destroy.