Rory is pretty sure he'll never ride a horse ever again, both because it's not a thing they need to do in Leadworth and because he'll just need to think back to this experience to know why he shouldn't.
"I think my bottom fell asleep. Or something," he grumbles under his breath, and the Doctor, riding in front of him, snorts in amusement.
They woke up at the crack of dawn and got some breakfast consisting of nuts and cheese and fruits, but unfortunately, no coffee. They had been mostly quiet, lost in their own thoughts, with even the Doctor looking somber despite the previous day's cheerfulness and confidence on his knowledge.
Rory would have taken it as a premonition of sorts, if not because he was too busy trying to wake himself up without the aid of some coffee to think past grab food, eat food. One never knows what he has until he loses it, and Rory promised himself he would never take coffee for granted again. Even tea would be better at this point, despite the fact Rory prefers coffee in the mornings and tea any other time.
He never knew he could miss home so much until that moment, sitting at an Ancient Greek table. The mystique was lost. Woe was Rory, coffee-less and about to face alien sea monsters. Without coffee.
Things had improved when they got ready to leave, though, with one of the other polis women showing up to their door with two horses. She was a noblewoman whose husband had stayed at Cumae to oversee the trade, and she had moved to Zancle to start their own trading post here, taking their two boys with her.
"It is one thing to fight for honor and the polis, but to fight for a fake cause? I will not have my heirs waste their time playing soldier when they could be learning the trading arts," she had sniffed, nose in the air, and Helene had smiled in amusement but also grateful.
Eusthatios had taken one of the horses, with Amy sitting at his back, while the Doctor had taken the second with Rory as his 'package'. Rory had thought about protesting at first, but since neither he nor Amy know how to ride a horse, hadn't bothered with it.
The first half hour had been quiet, but now that Rory is finally more awake, thanks to all the bouncing atop the horse and the sun shining on his head—and feeling grateful for the wide-brimmed straw hats he and Amy are wearing—he can give voice to his thoughts.
"So, what's the plan?" he asks, deciding to go for something simple, and sees both Eusthatios and Amy turn to them from atop their own horse, interested.
"According to the fishermen, there are either one sea monster or many, depending on if all the heads belong to the same beast or each of it is their own creature," the Doctor explains without turning back, and Rory realizes this is the first time he hears anything about what the monsters are like.
"How many heads are we talking about?" he asks warily, gripping the Doctor's tunic tighter in unease.
"Anything between four and eight, but I'm pretty sure it's actually six."
"The monsters are mostly around the strait, using the whirlpool to force the ships to angle towards them. The number of heads change according to how big the boats are," Eusthatios explains, and, at his back, Amy's eyes go wide as she tightens her grip around him. "Everything alright?"
"There's a whirlpool? You said nothing about a whirlpool before," she points out, and there's something in her eyes that makes Rory wish he knew more about Greek mythology.
"It is the result of the monsters escaping their prison. The sea rushes into the Tartarus, and is expelled not long after," Eusthatios answers with a shrug, but Rory tries to look at the Doctor to see if he shares his opinion.
Unfortunately, sitting at his back as he is, he doesn't manage to see anything of use.
"Anyway, we're talking about the Lady Lamia, her daughter, and the boys they took from the polis. So, one monster with many heads, but maybe two," the Doctor adds, tilting his head in a way that Rory suspects is a result of him rolling his eyes. "I've seen creatures like those before. Only one of the heads is an actual head, the rest are appendages, like arms, which look like the head to distract predators but can act like claws to catch prey. That's why people who know no better think they're heads."
"Are we talking about a Hydra here? You know, cut one head and two more grow in its place?" Amy asks with a frown, and Eusthatios' incredulity turns, just for an instant, to dread.
"No, nothing like that," the Doctor answers with a dismissing wave, and Eusthatios deflates in relief. "They can regrow the fake heads, but they don't get any extra ones, and it takes them time."
"And you think there is just one of them?" Rory asks, trying to make sure of that while attempting to figure out which part the Lady plays in all of this.
Are these monsters her pets? Weapons? Lackeys?
"Maybe two, didn't you listen? The Lady Lamia and her daughter," the Doctor tells him with a scoff, going so far as to twist around to deliver a deadpan look.
Rory glares back, insulted – before his words finally make it through his head.
"Wait, the Lady is the monster?"
"What nonsense are you talking about now?" Eusthatios protests at almost the same time, but the Doctor glares them both down.
"I said maybe! Learn to pay attention," he scolds them, and, knowing better than to anger the alien, Rory shuts up, though Eusthatios keeps glaring. "I don't think the Lady is the monster, though she may have something to do with it. As I said, Laestrygonian revere the snake, so it could be that the monsters didn't break free, but were brought here by the Lady when she arrived."
"Her ship was destroyed by the monsters! The Lady Lamia is fighting them back to protect her daughter," Eusthatios scowls, looking about ready to turn the horse around, and Amy and Rory exchange a look.
How do you explain aliens to someone from Ancient Greece?
"Have you ever seen that daughter of hers?"
And Eusthatios opens his mouth – and stops, hesitating.
The Doctor smirks.
"Thought so."
"I think we need more explanation than that, Raggedy Man," Amy points out after a moment of silence, while Eusthatios tries to wrap his mind around the Doctor's theory and Rory tries not to think about how a human-looking alien could be related to a multi-headed sea monster.
"Family is not made exclusively of blood. If you take someone in, under your protection, they can become family, regardless of species," the Doctor explains softly, and there's a tension in his body that wasn't there before when he meets Amy's eyes for a brief moment before turning away. "The Lady wants to protect her daughter, that much is true. But if her daughter was not human, how could she do so without someone else killing her first? So, she took in anyone who could pose a threat to her, all of the strong young men of the polis, and fashioned them into her 'army'. The monsters pulled back after that, showing that what she was doing was working, so who would doubt her? And what you said to Helene, about the boys always being at the cliffs when you deliver the goods… When was the last time you saw any of them?" he asks Eusthatios, firmer and more composed, but the Greek doesn't meet his eyes, clenching the reins in his hand and grimacing at the horse's mane. "Antiphates too. He may not have been a soldier, but he was big. If the boys spend all their time with the Lady's daughter, that could very well mean—"
"Don't say it," Eusthatios cuts, scowling but not as uneasy as Amy and Rory look. "I can figure that one out myself."
And, without another word, he ushers the horse past them, taking the lead.
Rory stays quiet after that, processing the fact that all of those kids, young men, from the polis might have been fed to a sea monster, and grimaces. It is one thing to die protecting their people, like the noblewoman had said, but to be sacrificed like lambs?
"Do you really believe that?" he asks the Doctor softly, despite the distance between the two horses making it hard for Eusthatios and Amy to hear them anyway.
"Everything points to it. It would be stupid to dismiss something just because I don't… Just because I don't like it," he hisses, tense once more, and Rory deflates.
"Just what, exactly, are we up against?" he finally asks, knowing from the conversation with Amy that it doesn't matter how much Rory wishes they could just leave and let history run its course, the Doctor can't allow anything alien to interfere with it.
"Laestrygonian. They're a race of reptiles from the planet Laestrygon, with four eyes, five head-like arms, and tentacles making up their lower bodies. They look a bit like snakes, if you don't mind the extra bits, and are amphibious. Their planet is half desert and half ocean, and they are completely at ease in both. The Lady's house looks just like one of their spaceships, half buried in the soil, so I'm guessing a party crash-landed here about a year ago, probably killed everyone but the Lady and her daughter. By the time they had taken the lay of the land, the Lady put on a perception filter and showed herself to the natives, appearing like a benevolent entity here to defeat the monsters. Young Laestrygonian are ravenous, the daughter wouldn't have survived long if restricted by a human lifestyle. As a sea monster, however, she can hunt her own food, but she needs Mommy Dearest to protect her. According to the number of heads the fishermen reported, the Lady might have hunted with her too, at the beginning, or there might have been a third Laestrygonian, but if we believe the latest sights, there's just the one now. Seeing how the Lady is mostly in human guise, my bet is on two in total."
Rory takes that in, musing over the species' requirements and the mention of a crash-land, and tries to push wariness down.
"So, if they came here by accident, you could just fly them back to their planet in the TARDIS, right?"
"I could," the Doctor answers simply, but Rory tenses, dreading the answer to his next question.
"But what about… What about all the people they killed? The men they took from the polis?"
"… That's why we're going to talk first. Earth is a Level 1 planet right now. Depending on the state of their ship, they could have found an alternative. If they sent an SOS, their laws will protect them, so it will be up to the Laestrygonian authorities to deal with them. If they could but they didn't… Well, that changes things. And if they didn't crash-land, but chose to turn Sicily into their breeding grounds – not unheard of when a planet gets too crowded or caught in some kind of conflict – they will have to pay the price for their transgression."
"And what price is that?" Rory asks before he can think better of it, but this time, the Doctor doesn't answer.
Right. Judging by the Atraxi's reaction to the Doctor, Rory is pretty sure he doesn't want to know, anyway.
He can only hope they don't need to figure that one out. Crash-landing, broken transmissions, anything of the like, he's sure they can deal with. If it goes beyond that…
Yeah, well. Rory doesn't want to know.
Which is why he decides to stay silent until they get to the strait, musing over how his life has turned to this, and finally admiring the landscape now that he's not forced to walk under the scorching sun.
The Lady's house is still as alien and foreboding as the first time he saw it, though. He still notices what the Doctor pointed out the day before, about the lush herb garden and the grass growing taller inside the fence. The sheep, however, are nowhere to be seen, and Rory feels the Doctor tense when he too notices that, pulling the reins to stop the horse where they are, atop the hill.
"Eusthatios. There's something wrong," he calls, voice carrying without the need to shout, but the Greek has also halted his horse, who, still ahead of theirs, is puffing nervously, ears swiveling.
"The monsters must be closer to the strait," Eusthatios comments as he turns the horse back to their side, and Amy and Rory exchange a look. "I knew the Lady would have foreseen this. Her visions, if anything, have always been true."
"Always?" the Doctor asks, voice piercing, and Eusthatios grimaces.
"Mostly. You can't expect a Seer to be always certain, not when the messages from the Gods are vague and difficult to understand."
"That's better. I'd actually worry more if she was always right," the Doctor huffs before getting off the horse. "Come on. Let's see what she's going to do now."
"Hold it right there!" Amy calls as she hops off the horse before Eusthatios can, quickly moving to where the Doctor is tying their mount to the trunk of a nearby pine tree. "We can't just walk up to her when she knows we're here. She could let that monster loose on us!"
"But if she's actually a refugee, we can't not give her a chance," Rory points out, getting off the horse and turning to the Doctor, who gives him a nod.
"But the boys—"
"One chance," the Doctor interrupts Eusthatios, who is glaring at him from the tree he's tying his own horse to. "We give her one chance to explain what is going on here. And then, if she is not lying, we deal with it."
"And how, exactly, do you plan to do so?" the Greek asks, scowling, but the Doctor ignores him, turning around and walking towards the house.
Rory steps next to Amy, and, squeezing her hand, they follow.
A moment later, growling under his breath, Eusthatios grabs the short sword he'd strapped to the saddle and follows, awkwardly tying it around his waist with his one hand.
"You should have left that," Amy rebukes once he finally gets to their side, frowning disapprovingly. "Ulysses can deal with it without any weapons involved."
"I don't trust your friend's methods, Lady Amy. A man's words are nothing without actions to back them, and monsters won't killed by words alone," he huffs, glaring at the back of the Doctor's head but going ignored.
"Maybe we don't want to kill this monster," Rory points out, remembering the comment about the crash-landing and hoping it is thus.
"Wise words from a wise man," the Lady's voice cuts through any rebuke Eusthatios could offer, and they freeze just before the fence's door. "Love shall bring you past the evils that would break a warrior's resolve," she adds, stepping out of the house, but unlike the day before, she's not alone.
There's another woman with her, head and upper face hidden behind a white shawl, but what little skin is visible is the same caramel gold as the Lady's, and with no wrinkles. The daughter, likely.
The reason Rory gulps is the large armored figure who follows them, clad in off-white leathery armor, Roman style, over cracked pale skin, as if covered by some kind of dried mud, and with the face completely hidden behind a blank faceplate with only slits for eyes.
"Antiphates," Eusthatios whispers, and Rory chances a quick look to see him scowl with disappointment in his eyes. "Even when he tries to be a warrior, there's not even a knife on him."
More figures follow, all of them men and clad in the same kind of pale armor and faceless helmets, but of a more normal size. They fan to the sides while Antiphates stands by the Lady, but as Eusthatios pointed out, none of them carry weapons. By the time the curtain falls down to block the entrance to the house once more, there's a dozen of armored men flanking the Lady, her daughter and Antiphates, and Rory swallows nervously.
"Lady Lamia. We're here to talk," the Doctor calls, calm and collected, and the Lady smiles magnanimously.
"If so, then be welcome. Please, come in," she tells them calmly, gesturing with one hand, blind eyes never leaving them.
Without a second of hesitation, the Doctor opens the fence door and walks inside, with the other three following nervously, Eusthatios keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword.
"You are a long way from Laestrygon, Sisters of the Snake. And while the waters are salty, the land is far too cold. Why would you come to this place? Why would you stay?" the Doctor asks as soon as he stops inside the semicircle of pale warriors, unbothered by all the eyeless stares or the Lady's own piercing blind gaze.
"For the same reason you are here, Lord of Time. Because there's nowhere else," she answers solemnly, and both Amy and Rory exchange startled looks. "Laestrygon is gone. It slipped through the cracks in the universe, to silence and the end of all things. For my family, I took a ship and ran, but we fell through another crack, to this simple world, and became stranded here. The ship will not sail again, and no aid will come to us."
"The cracks? Is she talking about the same cracks we saw in the Byzantium? The crack in my bedroom wall?" Amy asks the Doctor, worried, and Rory tenses.
The crack in Amy's bedroom had led to the Atraxi prison. He's not sure what this Byzantium is, he'll have to ask Amy later, but if the Lady's cracks are the same, he has a pretty good idea about what it means.
"Is the planet gone then? Not just far away, but actually destroyed?" Rory asks, trying to figure that detail out.
If they became stranded after the crack closed behind them, the Doctor can return the Lady and her daughter to Laestrygon. If the planet was destroyed, their actions were those of refugees striving for survival. One way or another, he could simply relocate them somewhere more fitting without any issues.
Besides, the men from Zancle are all alive and accounted for, if hidden behind the faceless helmets, so that can only be good.
Right?
"Laestrygon is no more," the Lady answers, blind eyes closing in pain, and both her and her daughter lower their heads in mourning.
"What are you all talking about? By the Gods, speak plainly! You make no sense," Eusthatios hisses, though he no longer has his hand on his sword when Rory looks at him.
"The Lady's home is lost. She and her daughter have nowhere to go," Amy explains simply, but Eusthatios gives her a deadpan look, having figured that much out himself.
"You are refugees then. I can take you to the Shadow Proclamation, so you can relocate to a better suited world. But first, you have to free these men from your control," the Doctor tells the Lady, gesturing with one hand at the statuesque warriors around them.
The Lady turns to him, serious but with her blind eyes ablaze, and Rory's stomach drops.
"I cannot do that."
"What have you done to them?" Eusthatios growls, once more grabbing his sword, and both Amy and Rory hurry to wave him down.
"I need these boys to save my daughter. I won't let you take them," she hisses, ignoring them, and the Doctor tilts his head with a confused frown.
"Your daughter is almost mature; she has no need for additional protein she could not take from sea life. What are these humans for, Lamia?" he asks, looking at the girl by the Lady's side, whose lips are pressed into a thin line, hands clenched tightly in front of her.
The Lady snarls, and, despite her human appearance, there's something in her blind eyes that makes Rory shiver and take a step back.
"They will save my daughter's life. I will not let her die! Now, leave! Or I will use you too."
And, at those words, the pale warriors spread further, almost blocking their way out as they turn the semicircle into a full ring.
"Uh, was that part of the plan?" Rory asks in a squeaky voice, turning so his back is pressed against the others' as they all move into a circle.
"Do not make me raise my sword against you! You know me, children, and you know I will not hesitate to cut you down shall you threaten our lives! The Lady has recruited you to a false cause, listen to reason!" Eusthatios threatens, but Rory can feel his hesitation in the way he doesn't draw his sword, and how he presses his back against theirs rather than stepping up to the warriors.
They are his people, after all, even if his only blood relative is standing guard over the Lady and her daughter, unmovable.
"Raggedy Man, what do we do?" Amy hisses, grabbing onto Rory's forearm tightly enough to bruise.
"Keep calm," the Doctor tells them before breaking the circle, moving closer to the Lady while the other three turn to him with dread and disbelief. "Talk to me, Lamia. If you know what I am, you know I understand what you're going through. Your home is lost, your people gone. But there's nothing to be done about that, you can't go back and change time. I would know, I've tried. You can only mourn and move on, even if… But that doesn't matter, does it?" the Doctor asks, shaking his head to clear his mind of whatever he was going to say before cutting himself. "Your daughter is here. And there's nothing you wouldn't do for her, no star you wouldn't pluck from the sky, no monster you wouldn't face to keep her safe, even at the price of your own life. For that little bundle of drool, those tiny fingers wrapping around your own, those huge eyes looking at you as if you're their whole world… There is not a parent out there who would not give their life for their child's, no matter how grown up they are or how many Daleks stand in their way," he whispers, looking down at his hand without seeing it, lost in his thoughts, before clenching it and focusing back on the immutable Lady. "I can help. But these men, these boys are someone else's children. Release them, and I'll get you and your daughter to safety."
The Lady doesn't react, still as unbending as a mountain and with her blind eyes alight, but her daughter shifts at her side, the shawl pulling back just enough for Rory to see her eyes.
All four eyes, one pair on top of the other, are just human enough despite being a solid silver color that Rory manages to identify hope in the way they crease, set on the Doctor and with her mouth open just a sliver.
Rory's first thought is that the Lady isn't blind, that her eyes are, as her daughter's, simply not human. The second is that the daughter believes the Doctor, that she wants to take his offer, so they might have a chance at a peaceful resolution to this mess.
But the Lady doesn't share her daughter's opinion.
"If you really wish to help, you will give me the two men with you and be on your way. I have no need for the empty promises of the Destroyer of Worlds."
… Well. That explains the Atraxi fleet running away.
Eusthatios is confused, but there's wariness in his eyes as he looks at the Doctor. Amy's startled, but rather than fear Rory sees worry on her face, and remembers her words about how the Doctor looks like he wants to burn the world down when he snaps.
And Rory finds himself apprehensive but not scared, somehow, even though he only realizes why when he sees the tense line of the Doctor's shoulders.
One chance. This is still within the limits of that 'one chance' he's giving Lamia, before he goes all 'Terminator' on her, or whatever he did to earn the moniker 'Destroyer of Worlds'.
Because that's what it is, a name like 'Doctor' but not like the fake 'Ulysses' Rory can't bring himself to use, even if Amy seems more practiced in using fake names for the alien. It's not an insult or a taunt, but a name, something the Raggedy Doctor is known as because everyone recognizes him as thus, he has earned it.
Rory very much agrees with Amy right now. They need 'the Doctor' back, instead of 'the Destroyer of Worlds' or whatever else he might be known as. If this is their one chance to remind him of who he is, Rory very much prefers the first. Doctors don't hurt people – though they know how to do so effectively.
He remembers that night with his friends in university, when they got drunk and decided to see if, like in the movies, they really knew what would hurt the most while leaving the least damage behind with what they learnt in their lessons. The paper he'd found in the morning, covered in wobbly script written by different hands, had made him sicker than the alcohol rolling in his stomach.
"That is not my name," the Doctor tells Lamia in a soft but dark voice that somehow manages to carry effortlessly around the circle of warriors, and the three humans in the middle shiver before they can stop themselves.
"It is written in the Medusa Cascade," the Lady retorts calmly, not unsettled in the slightest, though her daughter spares her a quick uneasy look.
"I didn't put it there. The Doctor didn't put it there."
"Of course not," the Lady agrees with a nod that should feel condescending but is actually sincere – and her calm expression turns to the most disgusted grimace Rory has ever seen, making him feel like the muck at the bottom of a forgotten trash can even though it is not directed at him. "Your victims did."
"Daleks are not victims!" the Doctor roars, taking a step forward while slashing a hand, and the whole circle of warriors falls into a defensive stance in unison, lifting an arm as if they had actual shields strapped to them.
Seeing how they are wearing what Rory assumes to be alien armor, he won't discard that thought.
Lamia straightens with a threatening hiss while her daughter flinches back from the Raggedy Doctor, and Antiphates immediately takes a step forward to hide the daughter's almost delicate form behind his comparatively bulkier one.
The Doctor takes a couple deep breaths, and Rory can literally see how he forces himself to straighten into a less threatening stance, though the figure he cuts is no less fearsome for it.
"And apparently, neither are you. One chance, Lamia. Let the kids go," he tells her, voice even darker than before, and Rory actually grabs Amy's hand this time around.
The Lady stands tall, looking down at the Doctor, and doesn't even lose a second to elaborate her answer.
"No."
Instead of opening his mouth again, the Doctor shifts faster than Rory can fully register, drawing the screwdriver from the pouch tied to his tunic's belt—
Antiphates is suddenly on top of him, smashing his head into the ground, before lifting him up like he's nothing more than a ragdoll and throwing him away—
And, with a muted scream, the Doctor falls off the cliff.
"Doctor!" Amy and Rory shout in unison just before Eusthatios pushes them behind him, drawing his sword to point the tip menacingly at Antiphates' chest, though the giant doesn't even flinch.
"Stand down, you spoilt brat!" the Greek shouts, but there's fear in his wide eyes despite the steadiness with which he holds his sword. "I don't know what that sorceress has done to grant you such speed and strength, but I will not hesitate to cut you down where your stand, no matter how much your mother will hate me for it!"
Holding Amy back from trying to rush to the warriors blocking their way to the cliff, Rory still manages to notice the way Antiphates' head tilts at Eusthatios' words.
He's more focused on the sea, though, and how what little they can see seems to be spiking impossibly fast, the sound of rushing water filling the air—
"Is that—?" Amy starts, stilling in her efforts to break free of Rory's grasp, and Rory blanches when he realizes what she's thinking.
"That can't be the Doctor, can it?"
"It is not," Eusthatios hisses behind them, sparing them a pitying look before returning his attention to the immobile Antiphates. "It's the whirlpool."
And the rushing sound breaks into a roar, so sudden and intense as if the sea monster the fishermen were talking about had just burst out of the waves, out of the spiky white-crested water churning so high and strongly that it can be seen from their position over the small cliff.
Rory feels himself go cold even as Amy's weight grows heavier in his arms, her litany of no, no, no almost drowned by the roar of the sea.
"No man can escape that," the Lady tells them not unkindly, attracting their attention and extending a hand towards them when they meet her white eyes. "My condolences about your friend. But now… Eusthatios, Rory, won't you help me save my daughter?"
"You just killed the Doctor!" Rory squeaks in disbelief gesturing at the churning sea with one hand before Amy recovers and pushes away from him.
"He's not dead! He'll come back and you'll be sorry you didn't take the chance he was offering you! He just wanted to help!" Amy shouts at the Lady, who answers with an oddly sincere sadness.
"I know. But in this instance, the only help he could provide was in his death. I am truly sorry it came to this, but if the universe is to live, the Doctor must die. Silence will fall," she answers kindly while her daughter bows her head behind her, sad and mournful. "But my daughter may yet live. I just need your lives in exchange," she tells Rory and Eusthatios, and the Greek takes a step to the side so that he's hiding the time travelers behind him, sword held at the ready.
"Your daughter is at your side, hale and whole! You will claim no more men with your lies, vile siren, for I will smite you for the sake of Sicily and Zancle!" Eusthatios proclaims, though he takes a step back when Antiphates moves closer, and Rory grabs Amy's hand even as he looks at the unmovable warriors blocking their way out.
"I knew I liked you for a reason. So strong of spirit, even after loss of love and life, stubbornly clinging to a dream that, sadly, will never come to be. I can give you your arm back, Eusthatios, as I have given Antiphates health. Will you truly not help me save my daughter, even if I help you in turn?"
Eusthatios hesitates. Rory can see it clearly in the line of his shoulders, the twitch of the one where the missing arm was attached, how he shifts his grip on his sword.
If he turns against them… Well, they are screwed one way or another, but Rory thinks that maybe this will be the time when he figures out just how far he can really go to protect Amy.
The Lady asked Eusthatios and Rory to surrender, and all the people she has taken are men. This means she will brainwash them and do who knows what, turning them into her puppets… But she hasn't said anything about Amy. Somehow, Rory doubts she'll let Amy go, especially after seeing what she did to the Doctor.
Rory might not know if they'll make it out, or if they will ever go home now, but he knows he'll die before anything happens to Amy. The question is if he'll take any of them down with him – if he even can, of course, because he holds no illusions after Antiphates' display in getting rid of the Doctor.
But Eusthatios takes in a deep breath and his stance becomes firmer, his back still to Amy and Rory, and the grip on his sword is strong once more.
"I may have lost an arm and a brother, and I may not be a soldier anymore. But if you think I will not protect my sister and my polis despite all of my faults, then you are sorely mistaken! I will find a way, no matter how long it takes, and I will not surrender to a life of fallacy, no matter how much prettier it may be! This life hurts, and it's hard, and I may not be the man my sister and nephew need nor deserve, but I'll be damned if I ever stop trying!" Eusthatios tells the Lady and, this time, Antiphates is the one to step back when the Greek settles into a bristling stance, dangerous despite the lack of armor or his one lonely arm and short sword. "Release the boys! Give me my nephew back!"
"Or face the ire of a mother!"
They all turn around sharply at the new voice, and Rory feels his jaw drop.
Atop the hill, royally sliding off a donkey's back, Helene stands with a bloody spear in her right hand, two meters long, with a leaf-shaped copper spearhead and a spike at the other end. She also carries a large round copper-rimmed wooden shield in her left hand, and, with her hair blowing in the wind, Helene looks like someone straight out of a movie. At her sides and back, more women and a couple of old fishermen straighten too, carrying farming implements and even one or two short swords like Eusthatios' in their hands.
They look like nothing next to Lamia's perfectly organized and armored soldiers, but damn if Rory isn't more scared of Helene right now than he is of the alien snake from outer space.
Don't mess with a doctor, because they know how to break you.
But never mess with a mother, because they won't surrender.
"And what makes you think that this mother won't fight for her daughter?" Lamia calls back, snarling with suddenly sharp teeth, as all her soldiers move like a well-oiled machine to stand behind the fence, leaving Amy, Rory and Eusthatios at their back, though Antiphates still stands menacingly over them. "I will not give up on her!"
"And I will not give up on my son!" Helene shouts back, barely heard over the roar of the whirlpool, suddenly louder, which forces her to step down the hill so she can be heard, moving slowly but surely despite how much the huge shield must weight. "Release our children, sorceress, and you and your daughter will yet live to see another day!" she orders as she stops in front of the fence, lowering her spear threateningly.
"So be it. My apologies, people of Zancle. I liked you well enough. But my family comes first," Lamia hisses, and her form wavers like paper in the wind, the thick braids on her back lifting as if they had a life of their own—
"And what have your daughters to say about that?"
Rory doesn't know when it happened, but the roar of the whirlpool is gone now, the sea still restless but no longer spiked, and so the new voice carries as easily as Lamia's hiss had a moment ago.
He can't help the smile on his face or the relief making his knees weaken as he turns around, though they immediately turn to surprise and worry, a hand once more reaching for the kit he no longer carries in the non-existent pockets of his tunic.
Because there he is, the Doctor, standing on the cliff, completely soaked and breathing heavily, but with no blood on his person and with determination in his eyes and every line of his body. But there are dark bruises quickly blooming over his arms and legs, rips all over the tunic that, as Rory noticed the day before, is quite hard to damage. And, well…
"You were supposed to be dead," Lamia whispers, eyes wide and braids falling at her back, her shape solidifying once more into that of a human woman, and the Doctor snorts.
"I get that a lot," he answers with a nonchalant shrug, unbothered by his bruises, as he approaches.
Closer up, the pallor of his skin and the dark bags under his eyes are even more horrifying than they were from afar.
And the fact that Amy is sad but not surprised doesn't make it any better.
"Are you alright?" she calls, relieved but also nervous, and the Doctor gives her and Rory a quick grin before lifting his screwdriver.
"Never better! Now, Lady Lamia, what about asking Charybdis' opinion about this whole mess?" he asks, smile slipping away, and both the Lady and her daughter jerk back in surprise and disbelief.
Without waiting for an answer, the Doctor grins and the screwdriver lights up.
"Mother, Sister. Please, stop," a woman's voice calls from somewhere behind the Doctor, clearly heard even over the screwdriver's whir, and Rory is not the only one to jump in surprise.
The Lady's daughter covers her mouth with her hands, as if startled, but the Lady herself bristles.
"How dare you—"
"Mother, it's me!" the woman's voice interrupts, angry this time, but Lamia hisses in answer. "You stubborn—I was the one who broke grandmother's vase!" she shouts, and that seems to startle the Lady, regardless of how confused everyone else looks like right now, the Doctor included. "I was so angry with you, and I just knocked it over and decided I didn't care. I wanted you to find it and shout at me, so I could shout back, but when you actually saw it… When you found it, Scylla told you it had been her."
"Scylla. Scylla and Charybdis," Amy repeats under her breath, looking both startled and elated at whatever realization she has arrived to. "Scylla was a monster with many heads and Charybdis was another who created whirlpools. They stood at either side of a strait and the ships had to choose which monster they wanted to deal with if they were to cross. Ulysses chose Scylla but fell into Charybdis' whirlpool," she explains, and Rory lets out a soft 'oh' when he realizes she's talking about the Odyssey, while Eusthatios gawks at her. "I can't remember how it ended, though."
"By the Gods, are you a Seer too?" Eusthatios asks, and, after exchanging a startled look, Amy answers with a sheepish smile while Rory grimaces. "And I thought you couldn't become any stranger. How did he even survive the whirlpool?"
"I grabbed onto a branch and held my breath," the Doctor answers despite the distance, grinning widely and still keeping the screwdriver active. "Do you believe her now, Lamia?" he asks the Lady, who has turned to stare at her daughter—Scylla, the monster with many heads—in disbelief.
"It is true, Mother," she answers with a tinkling voice, totally not what Rory was expecting, before she takes her shawl off to reveal her four eyes and the tendrils that extend from her head like the braids do Lamia's, but looking far more confident now despite all the gasps at her appearance than she did when she was hidden from human eyes. "You and Charybdis are so alike… I knew that if I let you know the truth, your fight would break you apart. And I… I couldn't let that happen," she explains, voice breaking with the tears she's struggling to hold back, and Lamia…
Lamia deflates, hugging her close, before turning to the Doctor.
"Charybdis? My hatchling, my love, worry not. Neither of these men have been a match, but I'll—"
"You will stop, Mother. It is too late now. You can't heal me," Charybdis cuts once more, though this time she sounds rueful. "Please, let me go."
"No!" Lamia wails, letting Scylla go as she slithers—almost literally, with how smooth her steps are and how the tunic trails after her, and Rory remembers the Doctor saying their species had tentacles for legs—up to the Doctor, reaching for him but freezing when he takes a step back and points the screwdriver at her like a gun. "No, I won't let you die!"
"What is she talking about?" Amy asks, hesitating between moving closer or staying where she is, and Rory looks around to see everyone, villagers and soldiers alike, are staring at Lamia and the Doctor with the same intensity.
"Charybdis is dying. It's an autoimmune disease, her own body is destroying itself. She is losing her form, unable to do anything by herself anymore, and her brain will soon follow. In no time, she'll fall asleep and never wake up again, her body living but her mind dead. She will breathe, and anything caught in the whirlpool of her breath will be swallowed and consumed, but she will essentially be dead. An eternal sleep," the Doctor explains, plain yet concise enough, and Rory grimaces before taking a step closer.
"Is there anything we can do to help?" he asks, looking between the devastated look on Lamia's face, Scylla's hunched shoulders and the Doctor's blankness.
"Human men are the closest to female Laestrygonian. That's why Lamia took them, why she turned them partially Laestrygonian using whatever her ship was equipped with, trying to find someone compatible enough to cure Charybdis. But it's too late now. Even if she were to find a donor, Charybdis is too far gone for it to make a difference," the Doctor explains calmly, not even reacting when Lamia roars right in his face.
"It is not too late! I will save her! I will save my daughter!"
"I don't want you to!" Charybdis shouts right back, and Lamia jerks away from the Doctor. "Mother, please. Even if you could stop it, my body is… I would be trapped in a broken body. You can't hear me anymore, not without his device to translate my thoughts. And with Laestrygon gone, there are no healers to fix me. You would be condemning me to a fate worse than death," she whispers, and Lamia wails and falls to her knees, with Scylla immediately slithering to her side far more obviously than Lamia did before. "Mother, Sister. Please, let me go."
"I can't! I can't, not my daughters, I can't…" Lamia sobs, hands covering her face, while Scylla curls against her side, though she looks up when the Doctor kneels in front of them. "How can you ask me to leave her? To let her die?"
"I'm not," he answers calmly, resting the hand not holding the screwdriver on her free shoulder. "Charybdis is asking you to let her live her life as she chooses. And that includes letting her go. Not that I'm the right person to talk about that," he tells her, though his last words are accompanied by a humorless smile as he looks away.
"You are," Charybdis whispers, making them all look at the screwdriver in surprise. "You know the pain of saying goodbye to someone you love."
"Do I?" the Doctor asks brokenly, and Rory feels like he shouldn't be watching this, turning to meet Amy's teary gaze.
"My Sight is not as good as my mother's, but there was a graveyard, and an Angel," Charybdis answers, and the Doctor snorts and rubs his eyes, sitting back on his heels far more tired than before yet with some humor in his lopsided smirk.
"Oh, you are exactly like your mother, Charybdis. Predicting the past," he chuckles, but quickly lets the smile drop as he looks up at Lamia and Scylla. "Well? What will it be?"
"I… I can't reverse what I did to those boys. I don't know how, I barely knew how to turn them Laestrygonian to begin with, I…" Lamia manages to say between sobs, cradling Scylla in her arms.
"What does that mean? What have you done to my son?" Helene asks, awkwardly trying to open the gate before she drops the shield to do so, quickly stepping to Eusthatios' side to look up at Antiphates with mounting fear.
"She did what had to be done," a young voice says from the Doctor's vicinity, and everyone turns to look at him, at his still lit screwdriver, before looking wide-eyed up at Antiphates. "To save people from the monsters, she would turn us into something else. She told all of us. And all of us agreed."
And, with those last words, he pulls his helmet off.
His face is young despite his large body, and it's more than a little disturbing to see that his skin actually is white and crackly instead of being covered by mud. Only, now that Rory focuses, it's more like a reptile shedding skin, especially on some of the other boys, all of them slowly taking off their helmets too to look at the distressed villagers slowly approaching the fence. All their eyes are a solid color, mostly in shades of brown, though Antiphates' own are the same olive as Helene's.
Antiphates hisses softly as he kneels down, and his voice echoes closer this time as the Doctor approaches them, screwdriver still in hand. Behind him, Lamia and Scylla hug each other and observe in silence.
"I was never good enough to help you, Mother. But the Lady Lamia gave me a chance. She said I could help her daughter, she said I could protect all of you. And I accepted," Antiphates explains softly, reaching for one of Helene's hands but hesitating before touching it with his white one. "I was always a monster anyway."
Helene completely bypasses his hand, dropping to her knees and hugging him tightly instead, to his obvious surprise.
"Never. You were never a monster, Antiphates. Never! Don't say such a thing ever again," she scolds fiercely, but when she pulls back to meet her son's eyes, she's smiling. "You were always my son. My brave boy, so caring and strong, trying so hard no matter how many times you failed. How could you ever think otherwise?"
Even with solid olive eyes, it's obvious when Antiphates tries to glance furtively at his uncle, and so Eusthatios deflates with a sigh, sheathing his sword.
"And of course you would believe a stupid cripple so busy feeling sorry for himself that he could only feel better by belittling others. I was never a good example, child," Eusthatios tells him both with remorse and pain, flinching at the glare Helene sends him.
"By the Gods, if that speech you delivered when we arrived is not true, we will have words," she tells him, and both Eusthatios and Rory have to frown for a moment to remember what she's talking about, after which Rory exchanges a surprised grin with Amy while Eusthatios tries to wipe a hand across his strangely moist eyes without looking like he's doing so. "But first, let us go home."
"I cannot do that," Antiphates tells Helene, standing up when she does but taking a step away, breaking the grip she has on his hand. "Mother, I am needed here. We all are. Lady Lamia and Lady Scylla are alone in a world not their own, with no protection or guidance. I can help them. We can help them," he explains, taking yet another step back, and, when he looks around Rory sees that all of the soldiers are doing the same, moving away from their families to slowly approach the kneeling figures of the Laestrygonian. "We are no longer men, or even human. If we were to stay, other polis would send in their warriors to kill us, endangering all of you. We cannot do that to you."
"But—"
"And they need us. Lady Scylla's illusion is faulty, has always been, and Lady Lamia cannot protect her without revealing herself. However, if we were to leave, to settle a polis of our own somewhere no one would ever find us, they would be safe," he tells them, looking at where a couple of the other warriors are gently helping the startled Laestrygonian to their feet.
"No, Antiphates, no. You don't have to, you don't…" Helene stutters, reaching for her son again, but Eusthatios grabs her arm with a grim face but understanding in his eyes. "What are you doing? Let me go! Antiphates, you can't!"
"He is asking you to let him live his life as he chooses. All of them are. And that includes letting him go," Eusthatios tells Helene, quoting the Doctor's previous words, and the way Helene's face crumbles lets them know that she understands.
It doesn't mean she accepts, though, and, for a moment, Rory can only stand there, holding onto Amy's hand, knowing by the look on the Doctor's face and his silence that there really is nothing they can do but let this happen.
And, finally, Helene nods, even if she throws herself at Antiphates to give him as tight a hug as she can.
The Doctor turns the screwdriver off and steps away from the scene, from the families conversing as best as they can with their transformed kids, from Lamia's tears and the way Helene hugs her tightly, and Amy and Rory follow him to the hut.
"So, is that it? Lamia, Scylla and the soldiers leave Sicily, and Zancle just goes on without them?" Amy asks him as he pulls away the curtain and walks into the 'house'.
The place is even more alien than the TARDIS, with the strangely sinuous shapes of everything, but the Doctor doesn't seem to have any problem deciphering the controls, pressing buttons and tapping holographic screens as they pop up.
"Yup. I'm going to lower the ship on Charybdis, to mute the whirlpools, and, someday, it will be the ship's position between two currents which will cause them instead. Lamia and the new Laestrygonian will relocate to Sardinia, where they will establish a new 'polis' of human and Laestrygonian culture, away from 'monster hunters' and the Shadow Proclamation. The statues they will erect will be thought of as the inspiration for the cyclops in the Odyssey, and, with no one there to remember the truth, the mystery will just fade away. Zancle will grow, accepting new settlers now that there are no sea monsters to destroy the ships, and become Messina. And, well," he explains, shrugging before turning to them with a rueful smile. "Life just goes on."
"And everybody lives," Rory muses to himself as he pulls the curtain and looks outside, at the group of people who are arguing among themselves but who will, in due time, move on with their lives, shaking his head as he tries to process what just happened. "One way or another, everyone will live the way they chose to. And here I thought this would end in a bloodbath," he huffs, turning around to see Amy smile at him in joy and relief, while the Doctor blinks slowly, dumbstruck. "Huh, everything alright?"
"Everybody lives?" he repeats in a croak, frozen at the controls, almost as if talking to himself—before, slowly, a disbelieving smile splits his face, brightening him up despite the bruises and overall exhausted appearance. "Everybody… I kind of saved them, didn't I? Everyone, even Charybdis… I saved them?" he asks, actually asks, turning to them and waiting for their confirmation, as if he can't really believe it.
Amy grabs his hands and smiles at him, and Rory carefully moves to her side to rest a hand on his shoulder, grinning when he looks between them.
"Yes, Raggedy Man. You saved everyone."