A myth amongst kin

-o0O0o-

If you ever meet a Time Lord in time of your greatest triumph, they always either run, help because its just an illusion or kill you, for your triumph is in truth your greatest failure.

-o0O0o-

She was there, again. Just a reflection in a window, a shadow in the corner of his eyes.

Humanity's first Time Traveler Davis Godwin pulled his hood deeper and dogged into the doorway leading down to the workshop of the TSTA he had spent half his life in.
Fifteen-hundredth years ago.
The door unlocked without a hitch and he stepped into the giant hall full of prototypes and grinned at the sight of Mizuno wiping down the new visors of his finest creation.

"Please tell me that one won't explode the moment I slow down," he joked.
Norelem patted the hull of the Time travel capsule with xis claws. "At least more stable as whatever that was you came up with."
"The Du'roon, not we," Davis corrected and starred at the white matte surface. "I finished the central circuits an hour ago, printing is ongoing."
"We can't install the drive until tomorrow, there was a problem with the fumes," Mizuno corrected.
Norelem flawed apologizing. "It seems Janett needs to wait a day longer."
"It's a time machine," Davis deadpanned, knocked on the panel and left.

It was not his daughter he wanted to return to. It was this goddam time, this unrealistic utopia he wanted to leave.
Once he realized how much he actually had been blown of course by the Impact of the time tunnel, he expected something more resembling the Time Machine than Star Trek.
But when the world, earth, was burnt out and devastated by greed, humanity had just packed their things and wandered the stars, for a second earth, a second chance not to fuck up again, and they took it. Despite all their efforts, they had not been able to save it, simply discarded it like an old car or rotten building.
The wars, the hunger, the genocides and unethically genetic experiments to at least preserve some species- in the end nothing had mattered.
It was sickening.

Then again, his whole life purpose had been to better humanity, that was why he joined the TSTA in the first place, why he build the time capsule with the Professor under the enigmatic guidance of the Du'roon, the first alien species to contact humanity peacefully and stayed that way.
Except, in this time everybody believed him to be dead, and the experiment failed, thus time travel forever abandoned.
Well, it wasn't just the two weeks jump forward he had planned, similar to the jumps the test chimpanzee had accomplished.
But now, he was here, 15 centuries later and proof that it had worked. And for Humanity, it was a new possibility, a new project the species could obsess over, the only thing they hadn't accomplished yet.
He was an event, a celebrity, an oddity, and he hated it. There had been a goddamn lottery for who would be allowed to nurse him back to health.
Not to mention the interviews.

"You need somebody to drive you," Mizuno offered, but Davis waved dismissive. "I'll walk."
"Still the… hallucinations?"
He but bis lips to not sound like a lunatic by denying she was no hallucination and nodded shortly. "Burn trauma."
It was true in a way, if he had stranded in another time, he would probably still be a crisp burnt potato.
"You know, you can sit in, for a check, anytime," Norelem, patted the capsule once more. Davis nodded with a smile, despite knowing that it didn't work that way.

-o0O0o-

Zess was a not a very bright child but adorable in her naiveite. Her biggest dream was to become an Extra-terrestrial taxonomist, cataloguing all the alien species in the known universe. It was weird, the universe had become so much bigger than in his time, and yet dreams like this still existed. Even if he wasn't sure that was the real name of that profession.
The problem was that while the child of his landlord had already memorized all current known alien sentient species on earth, she didn't differentiate between myths and actual existing ones, believing in dragons, fae and goblins as faithfully as Zygons and the beheaded monks.

So, when she asked him about Time Lords, and her mother shushed her down with an eyeroll, he knew it was just another myth.
"Time Lords? I've never heard of them."
"But you're a time traveler, you must have met one at least once. They always come to the important history places."
"Historical." He rubbed his chin, indulging her. "Perhaps? How do they look?"
"Nobody knows, that's the fun in it, you only know afterwards. They can look like everyone and everything and change their faces as soon as they die, to get a new life. If you recognize one, they either run, help you or kill you."
"That doesn't sound inviting."
"They aren't. They rule time, that makes them kind of cold. They outlive everyone and make everyone dead in the end."
That sounded a lot more like a mixture of the fates of ancient geek mythology and the irish fae.
"I thought the Time Agency controls time," Davis smiled.
"They control time travel. The Time Lords control time. They make everything happen and are careful that nothing changes. Otherwise, they correct it. All the laws how time behaves? Written by them."

Ok, that was enough. "Those are natural laws, defined by physics and how the universe was created."
"What do you know, everybody knows people in the 22nd century believed gravity effected the speed of light when in truth every child knows-"
"Zess," her mother interrupted, "no, scientific breakthroughs after the 21-40'ties!"
"Sorry."

What the-? Right. He took a sip of his drink to lessen the awkward tension. Maybe she was a bit more intelligent than he gave her credit?
"No changes, hm," he muttered, glancing out of the window.
Directly into her eyes.

For the first time, she was standing directly visible outside on the opposite side of the street, wearing the rather timelessly elegant outfit of a cream-coloured blouse, black trousers and black heels, her brown wavy hair cut short to a bit under her chin, her hands folded before her belly, her face blank of emotions. Not waiting, merely observing. Without judgement. Fo the first time Davis experienced a being in a true neutral state.
First him, then her eyes wandered down to Zess, and a moment later she turned and disappeared, just like that into thin air. Logically he knew she could have been teleported away, but it didn't look like that.
At all.

He gulped, then leant closer to the little girl.
"Tell me more about those Lords of Time."

-o0O0o-

He flopped down on the bench next to her with a provoking "Hi!"
She looked up startled and snapped her book shut.
"Interesting. You should not be able to see me."
"That makes your little stalking act even more creepy, you know."
"Pardon?"

"There's nothing to justify myself for. If you want to talk, contact my assistant. Otherwise leave me alone. I'm glad you're interested in humanity's ability to time travel, and if you have problems with it, I'm very sorry but that's how it is now, I'm sure you'll get used to it. If you now excuse me, I have a tight schedule to keep."
He rose and stretched his arms, enjoying the guarded look on her face. "Have a nice day, and fare well to never see you again. Bye!"

He saluted and left, smugly strolling back to the waiting taxi he had jumped out after he had spotted her again.
Was it respectless? Probably, but she didn't do anything to deserve his respect.
And now, that he officially warned her off, if she turned up again, he was able to finally send the police- or whatever counted as it in this time- after her.
Mythical alien or not.
And to be honest, a lot of what Zess had told her sounded more like the imagination of cheap scriptwriters from the middle of the 20th century.
And even if it was true, He did not fear her.
He had seen time itself, nothing topped that.

Prof Dog watched him slumping into the seat. "Who was that?"
"Time Lord apparently."
The furless wolf-like creature's ears twitched. "Fascinating. They usually either run, kill or help you. Congratulations, then."
Davis hummed only, already back to skipping though the script for the coming presentation.
Out of the circus made around his person, the scientific panels were the only one he truly enjoyed.

And yet, that sentence burned himself into his subconscious, intruding his thoughts at the oddest times in the following week. Hadn't Zess said those exact words, too?
She did not run, she did not kill, but with what would she help?

This life was as close to perfect as humanly possible, and yes there were cracks. But they were minor.
While humanity had bettered their care for their environment -after wasting a whole planet for it-and found a somewhat social equality with itself, there were still skirmishes with other species, a slight trace of the group thinking left, just this time targeted outwards.
Davis doubted that would be ever gone, it was part of the definition. And yet, they had evolved enough to carry out those fights with words, not weapons.
For the most part. The scientific breakthrough he was able to observe and know of, were astonishing.

And yet, something was wrong.
He noticed the longer he stayed, even after the time machine was fully repaired, and the phantom pain of the burns keeping him from climbing in again.
The too polite smiles whenever he spoke of the Du'roon, a small laughter when he recalled an event. He had a four-hour discussion about the anti-ach protest and how the history of that genetic mutation project went down, until he blurred out that he was marching from the vey first moment with them and shut the noisy belittling interviewers up with it.
And after that, the inconsistencies pilled up. Small things, a wrong date, an odd sentence in a historical speech, a painting no one remembered, a famous person he never had heard of.
And the minor cracks grew bigger.
And two and a half weeks later after seeing her for the first time, there was a soft, high but velvety voice behind him. "Good day, Mr. Godwin."

-o0O0o-

He halfheartedly nipped on his iced coffee, while the Time Lord finished her almond nut sundae.
"I never thought there would be a gelateria in the thirty-sixth century."
"It is gelato. As timeless as books. Remember that weird time in the beginning of the twenty-first century, when everybody thought e-books to replace them? Joke on them. Yes, the extinction of cows had been a problem for the time, but it got solved, obviously."
"Please not with the arc- project."
"Spoilers." She elegantly dipped the corners of her mouth with the napkin, and then steepled her hands on the table, watching him.

There it was again, this weird ability of waiting without judgement or expectation. Just waiting.
He had no idea what to say. Him actually following her here spoke volumes, and yet.

"What is happening."
"Humanity discovered and moreover executed a time travel."
"Yes, but the timeline is changing."
"As always."
"No, not like, history is remembered different than it is, but the actual events."
"Yes. Time is not a static concept."

He knocked his fingernails on the table. "I know, I know. I've seen the time tunnel-"
"Time Vortex."
"Time Vortex, whatever. This is more than just time looping in on itself and changing. Something is wrong."
"Not in the way you think. Which is very interesting, indeed."
"What do you mean."
"Well, your whole survival is obviously wrong, as you might have noticed. The Du'roon never helped, you are blown into atoms forever lost in the Vortex. You enter, but you never leave."

Davis choked, but she mercilessly continued. "What you are referring to are time splits. You are experiencing more than one closely related Timeline simultaneously. Which is a thing Humans don't do, so your brain choses one of them to cope. Undoubtedly caused by your raw exposure to the vortex. That is how you saw me, despite me hiding in a less probable moment, by the way."

Davis placed his hands flat on the table, concentrating on the perfectly flat, nonporous surface and breathed slowly.
In through the nose, hold, out through the mouth. There was so much wrong with everything she just said.

"Sometimes you can do nothing but accept it and move on," the Time Lord smiled. "Well, then again, who am I to condemn curiosity? So. Which topic first. The fact that you should be dead, or you hallucinating timelines?"

Davis slowly opened his eyes, still shaking, still not able to speak.
"Death, then it is," she nodded.

They usually either run, kill or help you. Davis laughed bitterly. "I certainly won't simply let you kill me."
"Why do you humans always say that in that weird confidence of being able to stop your opponent?"
Davis blinked, glancing down on the drink she had just bought him, with a bad feeling. "Defiance, I guess?"
She chuckled and thoughtlessly traced the rim of the ice cream bowl before her. "I have no intent to kill you, the mere assumption of your death will suffice."

"They'll declare me missing and shelve the project until I turn up fifteen hundred years later. That's what all that fuss is really about."
"Has humanity ever let go of something, they have not found a better replacement for?"
"And now they finally will."
"No, they will not. They will probably never travel though time with their own devices, except you. It is not your nature."
He rose from his chair. "Yeah, right. No. I will leave. Today, I waited long enough."

"And then you will bring down hell on the universe."
He snorted. "Hell."
But her earnest, melancholic look prompted him to stay.

"Your failed jump is a fix point for not only a timeline, but a whole string. A central point in human history, like an early death of Genghis Khan or Napoleon never conquering Europe. So central, people can only imagine history after it up to a certain point because it changes everything. Where are you from?"
"New Zealand. What does it have to do with that?"
"You are from earth," the Time Lord corrected.

"As long as humanity has yet to find its identity as a species from one planet on which political borders does not matter in its definition, its greed and inward competition will only destroy. Look at your time. You are battling the consequences of human caused climate change for three generations now, and still there are people negating it. Sixty seven percent of all farm animals known a century ago alone are now extinct, and do not let me start on plant life. Moreover, in your arrogance and greed, you invented time travel to simply change your past as often as you like."

"Because it seemed to be our only chance. We need to make it right. Look at them. Humanity left earth behind like that, just gave her up. You have no Idea of the hopelessness, of the anger on former generations who believed they own the earth instead of borrowing it from future generations. Have you ever been there? I still regulate my water intake on instinct. Do you know how weird it is to have a choice in your food? This? I've never had ice cream before, and I did have a very privileged live!"

"I know of the mercy of the star whales, and I know the pain of loosing a planet and not being able to do anything against it, despite having the power to do so. I know exactly what I am asking you to do."
"Yes? Because you want me to let my planet die!"

Her hand wandered to her collar. "I do."

He threw his hands the air and stood up. "Why am I even having this conversation. No."
"Mr. Goodwin-"
"No," he shot back and left.
She didn't follow him or cried after him, but he felt her eyes on his back long after he had turned around the next corner.

-o0O0o-

Davis stayed the whole night at the lab, after he had broken one of the tablets for diagnostics out of frustration over his inability to get into the cockpit without getting a panic attack. They had redesigned it thrice now, but he begun to suspect it wasn't the small space itself that triggered it, but the fact that he had to go back in there.

The hungry maw of time itself. The time vortex.
The very much thing that stupid alien had control over that tried to keep him here.

And now he grew even more paranoid. He needed answers. He needed information.

And the only way to get them, was a nine year old child. He was truly desperate, wasn't he?
But Zess only laughed as he asked her if Time Lords controlled the Time Vortex and shook her shoulders. "I have no Idea what that is?"

"My worst nightmare and the reason I can get into that time capsule without a breakdown," Davis mumbled sarcastically.
"Why haven't you got it fixed?"
"It's Trauma? PTSD? You don't simply fix it. It needs years of therapy."
"Brain surgery wasn't a thing, yet in your time?"

Davis furrowed his eyebrows. "What? Of course, but- ok. How much technology have I actually seen here of what's possible? You're hiding things. That's not just my paranoia, you're hiding things."
Zess looked away. "I mean, we had to take the things down in the flat to pre second enlightenment era, so-"

" Second enlightenment?!"
"The 23th century? Like, all big inventions happened there."
"If you say second enlightenment, you mean that the technology, society of today is like the digitalization to the 16th century."
Zess ginned and nodded, then her eyes grew big. "Don't tell mom I told you?"

In through the nose, hold, out through the mouth. "Ok, ok?"
His voice was one octave higher than usually.
"Eh, aaand that's why we shouldn't tell you."

In through the nose, hold, out through the mouth. He rubbed his head. "When you say, you dream of cataloguing every species in the known universe, that's actually a thing that's possible. Despite it needing way too long for one human lifetime."
"Well, I definitely need to get a certificate of the ethics commission to prolong my life over the 100 year mark, but yeah."

"Oh, ok. How long. How long can you-" he gestured in search for words.
"Prolong? As long as necessary. Or your license allows. Death is part of the definition of what makes a human. You need a very good reason. But science always is, right?"
"Right. Yeah," he smiled faintly. "Look, I need a little bit of air. I had an Ice cream, and I'm not sure if I ate it to fast?"

"Sure, of course." Zess jumped up, then poked at her smartwatch. That was why she was wearing that old thing. "If you don't call in twenty minutes, I get an ambulance."

He nodded absentmendtly, grabbed tis keys, and went out.
He sat down on the nearest bench and stared ahead, everything in a haze.
The cracks hadn't just been those alternative timelines. There was a literal facade, a curtain, a puppet play for him.

The sundown was so clear, the stars so alien and visible. Wait. Stars?
Stars!
He jumped up in panic and froze at the soft voice. "I allowed myself to inform your young ward that you are fine once the deadline she sat expired."

And that broke the rest of his sanity.
It was too much, simply too much.
And while he broke down in hysterical half sobs half laughs, he felt a single warm steady hand on his shoulder and that soothing voice whispering words he ignored or wasn't able do distinguish because-
because-
because-

The lullaby he always sung and played on the guitar for Janet finally grounded him and brought him back enough for him to grab the handkerchief she offered- really?- and calm down enough to stare up to the stars.
"The second enlightenment. It starts with her death, earths death, I mean. Because we need an alternative. All this here is possible because we never found time travel. When they say humanity discovered everything except time travel, they meant that. Literally."

"Everything they can discover with what's biologically possible. An enhanced human will see another spectrum of light or can move and think exceptionally faster, but there is a line about hat makes a human, and all through they can, they decided not to overstep it."
"Anybody in my Time never would," Davis rubbed his temples. "They would never stop. It takes us loosing our home to realize that."
The Time Lord smiles. "Home. Yes."

They were silent for a while, hers just the breeze and a few voices from a nearby garden. Davis stares at his still shaking hands. "What do I need to do?"
"Whatever is necessary."
"And my daughter?"
"You fund closure with the possibility of never seeing her again the moment you climbed in that capsule."
She was right. And yet. And yet-
He stared up to the stars. "Whatever is necessary."

-o0O0o-

The signal to close the entry hatch of the capsule sounded.
Davis fingers few over the controls, the shields flaring up around him and he tapped his helmet once more. There was only a weird giddiness as the Time Vortex started to glimmer up around the hull, stretching out tendrils like a small aurora borealis, ready to grab and swallow up the capsule.

Davis took a breath, his hand on the exit button, then counted down.
In the last possible moment, he jumped out of the still open hatch, while pressing down, causing the rotors to screech in protest, as the tendrils hungrily preyed upon the weakness and snaped the capsule into atoms, splattering them through all of time and space.
The explosion carried Davis far enough to not getting sucked in himself and as he crashed down against the wall the fire emergency started to ring.
Argon started to flood the hall.
He coughed and bit his lips. He pulled down his broken helmet and carefully crawled back on his feet.
No protection, no air supplies now. His only chance at not suffocating were the entrance doors, and those sealed in less than- as fast as possible he sprinted to the doors.

There already was a crowd of people holding them open, despite it being long after midnight, but then again, this was a University.
He squeezed himself trough the small opening left, and the hall sealed down right behind him. Davis sat down against the wall, breathless, massaging his shoulder.

Mizuno shouldered himself to the front. "Godwin, what happened!"
"He blew the ship up!" somebody in the crowd cursed, other following the statements with affirmatives.
"You what? Why!"
Davis blinked up with a dozy smile. Damn, there was definitely something broken.
"It's better that way. Right?"

For a second there was surprised silence, then people stared ginning and laugh approvingly and strangely enough the crowd dispersed as quick as it had assembled. What a strange reaction. What strange times.

Prof Dog, no, Prof Ghrombkwhah,-he needed to learn to pronounce that damn name and not call him nicknames now- patted his head while checking his injury.
"Welcome to the Thirty-sixth century, Mr. Godwin."
"I might have had a little help."

"The Storyteller, I assume?"
"If that's her name?"

"Considering she's the only one able to convince somebody to nearly explode themselves to preserve time, I'm pretty sure it was her, yes. Also, the description of her eight regeneration fits."
Right. He had seen her, seen them talk as he made himself a fool for the first time.

"Well, as you said. They either, run, help or kill you." He smiled weakly.
The Storyteller smiled back, nodded, and was around the corner before the Prof could turn and see whom he looked at.


AN: Hey,
another of Tella's typical workdays. If she notices a mayor change in time, she goes and deals with it accordingly. I admit, I did plan for her to get his daughter in the end as a reward, however he was pretty rude, so Tella kind of said no to that. That's also why she just bulldozed over him with that info drop, she now has the social competence to be at least a bit more sensitive. If she wishes.
As for Davis, it's always interesting to write characters who are not that sympatic. I'm not talking about the way he handles a stalker, he as every right to call her out.
Aaand and and….
Next one, we run into an old friend. Literally.

Oh, and this story features now in a collection, and I'm really honored. Thank you!
Also thanks to Snapdragon 418 and Sea16 for following and Redjani for favoring.
You guys make me always want to continue writing for this project! Even more encouraging are reviews, tho.

Stay save!
Greetings

alkatie

PS: Also, go to Big Finish and get The Lone Centurion, now. I don't, care if you don't follow the Doctor Who Audiobooks, there is a completely new one that follows Rory on the 2000 Years of him guarding Amy in the Pandorica. Spoken by Arthur Darvil himself. Go, order now!

KD 09042021
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