Oliviana cocked her head to the side in amusement as she stood in front of the large door through which Koschei's room was accessible from the seemingly endless corridor. While every other door in the hallway was made of elegantly carved arboreal materials, Koschei's was constructed from adamantine metals, the planetary origin of which she could only speculate.

Normally, Oliviana didn't find herself tiptoeing through halls and pressing her ear against doors, but on this particular sunny morning, Oliviana made an exception to the rule. Either she could announce her presence by knocking on the door, or she could wait for a few more moments, trying to hold back her mirth as she listened to Koschei's frustrated muttering on account of his latest project.

After graduation from the Academy, Koschei had indeed did minor jobs for the High Council; however, in less than one year, the Council promoted him straight to Chief Engineer once they learned of his accomplishments in the exigent field of excitronics. The concurrent discovery that Koschei had created an avant-garde laser device, the exact specifications of which were still unknown to everyone but its creator, only bolstered his appointment.

After a few more moments, Oliviana felt satisfied with her eavesdropping enough to rap her knuckles briskly against the door. The metal was cold and impossibly smooth, and the knocks echoed through the multi-layered metal sheets that made up the door. There was an indistinct grating racket and the rustle of parchment, followed by the creak of the door opening part-way.

Oliviana cocked an eyebrow as she beheld Koschei's unkempt appearance. Grimy oil streaked across his disheveled shirt and trousers, his dark hair was tousled, sticking up every which way, and his face held the suggestion of frenzied work.

"Are you quite near done?" she asked with an amused lilt, attempting to peer around his frame, but he shifted to block the contents of the room from her sight.

"Would you be upset if I ask for some more time alone?" Koschei asked, his eyes quickly shifting from Oliviana's, to the hallway behind her, and back to hers once more. "I'm almost done."

Oliviana smiled fondly, shaking her head. "I'll make it up to you when I'm done," Koschei grinned, briskly pressing his lips against hers before shutting the door as he retreated into his room.

Having attempted her mission, Oliviana walked back down the hall toward the stairway. She had only come to brief Koschei on the headway she was achieving with Lady Oakdown's lessons in telepathic communication. While Oliviana had learned the fundamentals of extrasensory perception at the Academy, she wished to become proficient at the art, and it just so happened that Lady Oakdown was incredibly talented with telepathy and psychometrics.

Joining Lady Oakdown on the shaded veranda once more, Oliviana inhaled the sweet spring air and smiled at the warmth of the bright sun.

"And how did he react?" Lady Oakdown inquired with a playful smirk on her lips. Oliviana opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted. "No, use your mind to tell me."

Furrowing her eyebrows in concentration, Oliviana focused on relaying her thoughts to Lady Oakdown. While it didn't take hours as it had the previous lesson, it nevertheless took her a while. Finally, Lady Oakdown chuckled as she witnessed her son's antics. "What could he conceivably be working on this time?" she mused.

Oliviana shrugged. "Couldn't say; it genuinely could be anything when it comes to his experiments."

Lady Oakdown agreed and wrote a brief report on Oliviana's progress in her notes. She flipped the page, scanning it briefly with her weight blue eyes, before addressing her pupil once more. "I want you to try something moderately more difficult now. You can do short-term recall, which is what you just showed me, relatively effortlessly because the memory is recent in your mind. You are aware, then, that the next stage is to convey emotions in the company of images and sounds. I want you to re-convey to me the prior memory, but this time, involve your emotional reactions."

Oliviana reddened at the notion of revealing the intimate emotions she felt for Koschei to none other than his mother, but she knew that the Time Lay anticipated it anyway.

Not having to concentrate or struggle as much on the task, Oliviana felt it much easier to communicate telepathically when she incorporated her emotions.

Lady Oakdown beamed, both at how well her pupil was doing, and also at the warm feelings of the memory. "Very well done, Oliviana! Now, for your last exercise of today, I want you to show me a memory from your past that will astonish me."

Oliviana paled and Lady Oliviana quickly added, "A happy memory will do. But still, astonish me."

It was the night of the graduation ball. Inside the stately manor, newly graduated Time Lords and Ladies danced and laughed, reveling in the final time their class would be together under one roof.

Oliviana and Koschei, however, were sitting outside the manor in a secluded part of the garden, perched on a stone bench alongside an ostentatious fountain that glistened under the light of the moon above.

Koschei caressed Oliviana's hand as he gazed adoringly into her eyes. "What if we tell your mother how we feel?" he murmured sweetly.

Oliviana shook her head. Her mother was under a lot of pressure from Lord Everton lately and Oliviana wasn't sure how much longer her mother's mental state would hold up. "What if we tell your parents first?"

"You know my father has already denied giving me consent to select my wife," he replied dejectedly. Oliviana's head bowed and her shoulders sunk. "Please don't be upset, Liviana," Koschei breathed raggedly, drawing her into his embrace completely. "This just means that we will have to get… creative."

She furrowed her eyebrows and peered up at him. "Creative?"

Koschei paused in contemplation for a moment. Without warning, his face lit up with animation. "Let's run away and have someone from one of the colonies to wed us. We can return to Gallifrey once the war is over and our parents are no longer infuriated with us."

Oliviana pressed her lips against his passionately, adrenaline pumping through her veins at the plan. "That better not be your way of proposing to me, Master," she teased.

Koschei lowered himself before her, taking her hands into his. "Lady Oliviana, heiress to the House of Everton, and my Lady Duchess, for you I would do anything. I would rage a war across all of time and space, never ceasing, never questioning, if you asked me to do so. I would burn civilizations, implode galaxies, and tear apart the very fabric of the universe just to keep you by my side. You're the one who not only can hear the drums, but you want to hear them, just because it eases my pain. You gave me the title, 'Master,' and with it, you gave me my life's purpose. You told me once that I was too special to bow down to anyone, yet that's not entirely true; I will always bow down to you. Liviana, will you let me conquer the stars for you? Will you stand by my side, not only as my Duchess, but, more importantly, as my wife?"

Taken aback by his unrestrained sentimentality, tears welled in Oliviana's eyes as her chest constricted. "Yes," she cried in elation, "Yes!"

Koschei sat next to Oliviana once more and cupped her face in both of his hands, brushing away at the tears with his thumbs. "Are you absolutely sure?" he asked, his eyes searching hers for any hint of reservation.

Forsaking any verbal response, Oliviana's hands firmly wrapped around Koschei's neck and pulled her body into his, heatedly pressing their lips together. "I want to leave tonight," she breathed heavily, yearning for the time when they could be alone together.

Koschei's hearts thundered in his chest at the suggestion. "Let's go to our manors, pack what we need, and we can meet up in the special place in your forest. I'll bring my father's TARDIS."

Oliviana struggled to end the memory after Koschei's proposal, unwilling for Koschei's mother to witness the passionate embrace, but she was too caught up in reliving the memory that she was unable to.

Lady Oakdown was indeed stunned. She had no idea that was the reason for the fallout that occurred when Koschei entered the manor that night and had come face to face with Rysra's parents.