Chapter 2: When the men came
The Bearer stared at the Doctor, who was grinning inanely. The villagers were murmuring to each other but he couldn't make out what they were saying.
"Hello," the Doctor said waving at the crowd in front of him.
The Bearer climbed off the stage and walked through the crowd towards the Doctor who was still grinning and waving with Rose standing next to him with the sort of expression on her face which said "He's not with me, honest!"
"Welcome stranger," the Bearer said, "I am Bearer Upa, the leader of the people of this village."
"Nice to meet you, I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said sticking his hand out in front of him which the Bearer shook.
"Well that's good for a start," the Doctor commented, "Most non-human civilisations wouldn't understand that."
"We have had our encounters with the humans of Earth," the Bearer replied.
"Well since I'm here you've had another one," Rose said.
"I suppose so," the Bearer said, "So who are you then?"
"I'm Rose," Rose replied as the Bearer shook her hand as well.
"Well it's nice to be here, where ever here is," the Doctor said, "Despite the cold, though I'm not complaining. I like snow; it's excellent when you cook chicken in it."
"Okay," Rose said slowly to this latest bizarre remark from the Doctor.
"I'll show how it's done if you like," the Doctor said.
"Thanks Doctor but I think I'll stick to throwing it at people," Rose chuckled.
"What do you mean by that?" The Bearer asked.
"Oh kids from Earth like having snowball fights," The Doctor explained.
"What exactly is a snowball?" the Bearer asked.
"Well its…" the Doctor started but stopped as a large amount of snow hit him in the side of the face, everybody laughed, "One of those I think," the Doctor said as another one hit him, Rose will you cut that out," he added as a third snowball hit him.
The Bearer scooped up some snow in his had and hurled it at Rose and got a direct hit, and so did she and then a mass snowball fight broke out resulting with the whole village joining in.
The villagers looked up as to the red glow in the sky which had appeared earlier that day, it been growing for a few hours since. The Bearer, Bearer Toit looked up at it with the rest of the villagers, wondering what it was. And when it finally arrived it turned out to be a space ship. The crew disembarked and were greeted by the villagers, and stayed in the village for two months. During that time the captain fell in love with and married one of the villagers and so elected to stay behind when the space ship left. A year later they had a daughter, the captain chose to give her an Earth name, Melanie.
"The day of remembrance takes place once every year," the Bearer explained.
The Doctor and Rose were now inside his house and were sitting at a rough wooden table; the Bearer was sitting opposite them while Laria was preparing a meal for them.
"What is it remembering," the Doctor asked.
"An event that happened five hundred years ago," the Bearer explained, "When Bandits came to our town and stole many things, including the daughter of our only human inhabitant."
"How long had the human been there for?" the Doctor asked.
"About sixteen years," the Bearer explained, "He had been recommended for the next Bearer when the current one stood down. He was all for it until his daughter was kidnapped."
"So what happened to his daughter?" Rose asked.
"His daughter, Melanie, was the victim of an evil creature," Laria said, "Hear we call that creature the Witch of the Cave."
Melanie spotted a covered sledge approaching the village. The sledge was being pulled by a Gaprelia, a creature that levitated about two feet above the ground but it's long hair gave it the appearance that it actually moved along the surface beneath it, it also had two long curved horns and a short tail. The Gaprelia was being steered by reins which were being held by an armoured man sitting at the front of the sledge. Melanie rushed back into her own house to find her father, he wasn't there. She went back outside to see men disembarking from the sledge, everybody who was outside was running as the men approached, all of them carrying a long knife weapon. Melanie rushed back inside and bared the door before going to hide underneath her bed. She could hear the men smashing down doors outside and people screaming as the men attacked them, cutting their heads off. Then Melanie heard the door she barred break open and then the men entered the house. She could hear them rummaging among her father's possessions, some wood carvings he'd made himself and the only reminders that he'd come from a culture with advanced technology, including his energy pistol and a medical scanner as he'd called them. She didn't know what they were for but she knew that they were prized by her father. Then without warning she was dragged backwards from under the bed, one of the men had found her. He pulled Melanie to her feet and leered at her.
"So much for hiding," he cackled at her, and then she was dragged outside by the men, tied up and dumped on their sledge with everything else they'd stolen.
The men got in the back with her except for the one that was controlling the Gaprelia. She heard him spur the creature into action and the sledge sped off into away from the village. The men looked hungrily at her, as though they had something that they would find extremely satisfying planned for her. The sledge continued on across the snow covered terrain, the Gaprelia even managed to haul it right over a wide canyon, the ride was rough but Melanie hoped it wouldn't end, because if it did she didn't know what the men would do with her then.