Chapter Two

Not too long after, Naomi found herself comforting the young girl covered in scars. She held a cup of tea in her hands, shivering from cold that Naomi couldn't feel. The Doctor was pacing, deep in thought, anxiously waiting for the young girl to finally compose herself to speak some sense. Fierceness had risen in him, Naomi had noticed; a fierceness that a father would have if his child were in danger.

"Can you at least tell me your name?" The Doctor asked sharply. The girl cringed, but spoke quietly.

"My name is Sirah. I'm a warrior… I was a warrior. From the planet Fior." The Doctor smiled.

"Beautiful planet, that one is. People there are fierce and very protective. They believe in freedom; they were slaves once upon a time for the Ocali. Yes, very beautiful planet indeed. Lots of different kinds of flowers, some of them even made of fire. I remember watching a child try to smell one," he told Naomi, and she smiled too, but only for a brief moment.

"Was." Said Sirah sadly. "It was a beautiful planet." She didn't give time for the Doctor to question it. "It was destroyed by the Ocali perhaps a year ago now. We wouldn't let them take over again, so they killed us instead." She sighed and took a sip of tea. Naomi watched the Doctor with the hope that he would have something to say, something to give Sirah hope. He had nothing.

"And the witches I suppose…"

"Before the planet was destroyed, a small group of us were sent out to hunt down the leader of the Ocali and to kill him. Anything for freedom. I found him, and I killed him, no questions asked. You learn to kill without thought when my people teach you. But he was married to a witch, and she was the one who ordered the destruction of my planet, and she was also the one who cursed me." She pulled back her sleeves to reveal scars all up her arms. The Doctor gasped and knelt before her. "The last thoughts of those whom I care about are etched onto my skin permanently. A reminder of what happens when one dies. Punishment for my actions."

"You poor, poor beautiful thing." He said, tracing the scars lightly. But his eyes suddenly widened, as though he noticed or remembered something terrible, and pulled away to begin pacing again.

"Now you know why I am here, Doctor." Naomi, in confusion, looked at Sirah's arms. Layered in scars were the words Help us Doctor! Help us! Naomi looked between Sirah and the Doctor several times before slumping back in her chair, defeated.

"How do they know who I am?" The Doctor asked, not looking at Sirah. She took another long drink before explaining.

"There's this story we have for children. The story of the Doctor who saved a young Fior in a forest on a far away planet; you saved her from something terrible. Something horrible. You saved her life. You are a warrior and a hero on our planet, and we use your name to teach bravery to warriors as they come up through the ranks. You're a legend to us, Doctor. Of course they would think of you to save them when there was no other hope." She stood and touched the Doctor's shoulder. "And you're real! I thought I was chasing a story. But you're real!"

"Of course I'm real," he said, looking over his shoulder slightly. "All legends come from somewhere."

"Yes, but sometimes they come from the imagination, Doctor, and that's what most of us assumed. But here you are; real as ever, and I need your help. There aren't many of us left, Doctor, and we need you to save us. We need you to stop this stupid war so that we can live in peace."

The Doctor paced for a while and Sirah watched him with a hopeful gaze that slowly faded. When she was looking at the floor, Naomi decided that she would try to convince to Doctor to help. But he stopped her requests and raised another important issue.

"I'll help, but we still need to find out what those shadows were and why they were hunting you. They aren't Vashta Nerada, so what are they?" He turned away, tapping at his head as though it would wake up something from inside his mind and would give in an answer. Sirah's head snapped up and she looked right at Naomi with worried eyes.

"There are shadows hunting you?" She asked. Naomi nodded.

"That's how I ended up here with the Doctor in the first place, I suppose," she said. Sirah stood and rushed over to Naomi, and seemed to be searching her eyes for something. Naomi just stood still, trying not to freak out about it all.

"The witches sometimes take the form of a shadow. I thought they were only hunting us." She snatched up Naomi's wrist and then looked at the Doctor. "We should check that she doesn't have a small drop of our DNA in her; it's possible. We have mixed with humans before." The Doctor whirled around and pulled Sirah away.

"I'll check. I don't like your methods," he said darkly, and Naomi didn't even want to imagine what those methods were if the Doctor didn't approve of them. He scanned her with the strange sonic screwdriver, and paused with shock. His eyes were wide only for a moment before he composed himself and smiled. "She's completely human," he said, although Sirah wasn't entirely convinced.

"They were also hunting you, Doctor. They don't want you to intervene."

"That's probably why they were at Naomi's house; they were waiting for me." Sirah sighed with exasperation and decided that sitting back in her chair was the best way to avoid an argument.

There was a commanding and strange knock at the TARDIS door, the kind of knock that immediately makes one think of either danger or authority. A chorus of voices said from the other side, "Let us in, Doctor, and we will spare you." The voices sounded like a whisper, or like the wind, and Naomi backed away as far as she could to try and protect herself.

"The witches – they've found you." Sirah said, wide-eyed. "You can't really go far from this point, Doctor."

The Doctor flashed her a mischievous smile and said, without missing a beat, "We're in a TARDIS, Sirah; we can go anywhere," and he pulled one of the levers with a smug look on his face, and the TARDIS began to fly away, although Naomi wasn't too sure where exactly. She was simply glad it was away from the shadows.