Theta is handed a cup of some beverage he can't name, and heartily decides it doesn't matter anyways. "Why is this being held at 2300 hours?" he groans, for once thankful of his immaturity so he can get away with sitting before everyone else. "And why am I here anyways?"

Innocet flops in the chair beside him, holding her own cup of something-or-other a great deal more alert than Theta. "I thought you might appreciate a touch of culture."

Theta adjusts the midriff of his robe for the tenth time, refraining from grumbling about how he was jammed into a six-year-old's size at fourteen. "Nobody likes culture at 23:00. It doesn't even make sense."

Innocet contemplates the hundred lights strung on poles around them, mostly white with a few gold thrown in. Two sets of cousins mill around the grounds, all in stuffy robes and small groups. "Time Lord weddings have been much the same since Rassilon and Omega were around."

Theta notices she skipped the Other, which must mean he's waking up.

"You're officially wed at the stroke of tomorrow, symbolic of a new day and a new part of life." She doesn't make eye contact but continues looking around at everyone else, about as social as them all.

"But isn't marriage sort of… arbitrary? Since we can't, y'know. Reproduce?"

"Oh, they keep it around for a few reasons. Diplomacy, position, getting on with the right people." She leans a bit towards Theta. "That and some people actually enjoy it."

Theta nods, trying to remember the definition of diplomacy and only coming up with an incorrect test answer. "Where were you before now? Quences had to wake me up, which is as bad as it sounds…" he tries sipping the drink, which has a startling lack of taste and far too many bubbles.

"I was helping Rynde get dressed and stuff." She sighs, turning to look at a lit window of the House behind them. "She's a lot older, but we're probably friends…" she trails off as a robed foreigner at least three times her age approaches them.

"And who might you be?" he asks with a smile, confusing Theta, as Innocet somehow views this as cause to frown.

"My name's Innocet. I'm a good friend of Rynde." Or maybe he imagined the frown? Theta sits up a little straighter once he comprehends exactly why his robes are white and fancier than everyone else's.

"Theta Sigma," he squeaks, voice conspicuously higher than the rich baritone in front of him.

"Prydonian, eh?" The man turns a chair of the row in front around, sitting down in a way that somehow let his ceremonial robes fall perfectly. "I thought Prydonians hated those Greek names."

"Well… I can't really pronounce my actual name, so…" The man throws his head back and laughs, which has most certainly woken up Theta and silenced everyone in a seven-metre radius.

Innocet rolls her eyes, shakes her head, looks impatient. "Anyways, we're looking forward to having you at Lungbarrow, Rannex."

She really has nailed talking like a grown-up.

The man looks puzzled after an abrupt second of decreased laughter, regaining his uppity posture. By the look on Innocet's face, he should maybe stop trying to act so mighty. "Actually, there's been a change of plans. A smaller, satellite House has been recently vacated not far off Jurisprudence, and would be the utmost convenience to accommodate Rynde and I. Our Housekeeper thought it would be beneficial to participate in the alternative Housing system trials."

Theta blinks. "Could you use smaller words?"

"Mother of Rassilon," Innocet hisses, head turning back and forth in panic.

"That's not exactly what I—"

Innocet runs off so fast Theta doesn't even register being flung to one side and the knocked-over chair until she begins sprinting full-tilt at Lungbarrow.

The regards Theta like he's telling a joke, looking as if Innocet didn't just run away swearing. Theta has not learnt yet how to properly exit conversations with a cousin's just-about-husband, and Innocet for once hasn't given him a trustworthy example of how to do so.

"So where are you from?" The man asks, posture relaxing into something of a tired bug, speech patterns still matching that adult-ish demeanour.

"I'm from Lungbarrow."

"Really? Only, you don't look much like your cousins." Theta can see Glospin talking to the youngest Jurisprudence cousin he can find, probably acting far too grown up for his body.

"I'm from Lungbarrow, sir," he mumbles somewhere at the ground, cursing his glow in the dark skin and hair and just sort of self in general.

"Hey, don't feel bad about it, kid." Theta looks up if only to search for a level of authenticity in his words. "We're all a bit different. Look at my feet."

Theta has gone from feeling uncomfortable to somewhat outcast to both confused and uncomfortable and verging on scared because Innocet's gone and he's stuck looking at a stranger's feet.

"Big, aren't they?" He doesn't wait for a reply. "It's my curse. Much like your blond hair. We'll stick it out together, eh?" He stands up while patting Theta on the back, walking away without another word.

###

Innocet is refusing to tell Theta what's going on, claiming everything to be perfectly normal, despite the fact she has spent the entire reception so far with Rynde. Theta hasn't been to a wedding before, but he knows this can't be very normal. He's also picked up on the presence of alcohol in some drink or another just by how civilised all the cousins above forty are acting. This is exactly why he is now trying to find Glospin in a crowd, dehydrated and overtired.

Jurisprudence has ever so kindly lent the occasion their TARDIS, trapping anyone who doesn't know how to find the front door inside with the cousins. The lighting is impractically low, the music is far too loud, and the food must be from the other side of the planet. Theta is jostled in every direction, unseen by most (because Jurisprudence cousins just had to be taller), and probably only walks in circles trying to navigate the sea of limbs and body heat. The too-tight robe has started getting very stuffy and very uncomfortable with a lack of fresh air to offset the heat.

If this is the kind of headache plaguing Koschei, Theta's sympathy has increased tenfold.

He can see Innocet's dark auburn braid escape through the doors after what looks like white robes. Yeah, right, nothing's going on. Normally, Theta wouldn't dare leave the room for fear of tripping down one stair and ending up infinitely far from the door, but the air has gotten suffocating and Innocet's there and it can't all be that bad and maybe they're just looking for fresh air too, and—

"I bet they're having an affair." Theta both jumps and is not surprised to see Glospin behind him, smug as ever, with a robe that actually fits.

Theta tries talking like a grown-up, too. "I highly doubt that, what with Rynde being a hundred and Innocet only thirty-nine."

Glospin shrugs. "That's nothing to a Time Lord. And she's not very fond of Rannex."

Theta decides to pick breathable air over Glospin making noise. Walking out of a conversation in the middle of somebody speaking isn't technically very grown up, but neither is Glospin. "I wouldn't go out there if I were—" the rest of Glospin's warning is drowned out by the senseless music.

Theta's still technically indoors, but he might as well be in the middle of a mountain range in spring for the difference in air quality. The door cancels out most noise, too, allowing for the sound of feet and voices to carry down the oddly metallic hall. Fresh air notwithstanding, Theta is suddenly very aware of his small age.

His robes don't quite touch the floor, leaving only his feet to make noise, instinct to run towards the voices before they fade out only withheld by the desire to not make noise. Which he thinks for a second is odd, if he doesn't think there's anything his presence might disrupt.

There's something eerie about the comparatively cold blue light, near-silent hallway, and feeling like he's in the wrong. But if someone had only told him what was going on, seeing as everyone else seems to know…

"You have to help me." Rynde's voice reaches him clearly now, wobbly from something. They must have stopped.

"I can't! Not now… I thought he was coming here—"

"How? How did you not know!?"

"I'm so sorry."

Rynde starts crying, in a soft sort of way. Theta can only hear the hitches in her breath and rattly inhales.

"There's nothing we can do to keep you here, but you have to make the best of it."

"There is no best!" Theta peeks around the corner, seeing the back of Rynde as she leans against Innocet's shoulder. It makes Innocet look a whole lot older.

"Try giving Rannex a chance. It'll be a hundred times easier if you become friends."

Rynde sniffs. "It's not the same."

Is Glospin right?

"You said Morissa'a married, too?"

"She wanted to be."

"After everything you two went through?" Innocet only starts Rynde crying again. "Visit her. And visit all your friends, too. Don't feel stuck because you're married. You're a Time Lord! You can travel anywhere in the universe!"

"No. It's… it's alright."

"It's not alright, Rynde! You can't just give up! You have a whole life ahead of you to—"

Rynde stands up all of a sudden, and Theta begins creeping back down the hall. "Is that a lie, too?" Her crying has stopped, replaced with hollow-sounding defeat and an impossibly correct posture.

"Rynde, you know it's—"

"Thanks, Innocet. But I'm fine. I need to get back to my… husband."

Theta, in all his fascination, forgot the practicality of his position. Before he can turn around, Rynde just about runs into him. She barely looks at him. "Get out of here."

Theta is left with his mouth open, a half-formed reply waiting to be spoken. Innocet slams him into the wall before he can think to tell her.

"You little— Theta what the hell are you doing?" she hisses, only slightly loosening her grip.

"I was just… and Glospin said—"

Innocet drops her arm, almost sending Theta to his knees from the sudden lack of support. "It's not true."

"I didn't think it was." Theta coughs into his sleeve, throat complaining. Innocet normally doesn't hurt a fly, so she never seems that strong…

"Sorry." She looks down the hall at the retreating form of Rynde, swallowing hard. "You should go back in."

Theta doesn't complain.

###

It's the sun that wakes Theta up the next morning, piercing through his eyelids until his brain tricks him into thinking it's time to wake up. He's only been asleep two and a half hours. Innocet sits curled up on the windowsill, body compacted to look so much smaller than it should be. Her robes are discarded on the bedroom floor, old shorts and a big shirt decidedly more comfortable. The propped open window lets the smallest of breezes inside, blowing the sloppy hairs outside Innocet's braid about her head. The feeling of utter wrongness drenches the entire room, like the road you've gone down a hundred times is now barely recognisable for a thick fog.

"She's gone now," Innocet tells the air around her, not moving her eyes from the outside world. Theta would be less concerned for Innocet's safety if they weren't on the third floor. "Never went back inside the reception…"

Theta sits up in bed, should be tired but really isn't. His mouth has gone dry, every swallow now suddenly very conscious. "You mean she's…"

Innocet's face says enough: red eyes that have seen no sleep and too much salt, nose and upper lip a mess of mucus, hair pulled and bent into tortured angles.

"Why didn't she regenerate?" The words stumble and trip out of his mouth, coated in naïveté, trying to skirt around the truth.

Innocet shakes her head. "It doesn't work like that."

Theta never really knew Rynde. He wishes he had. But if circumstance allowed him to now, he wouldn't have any motivation, because the only thing making her special now is the fact she doesn't breathe.

"It doesn't seem real enough yet," Innocet says. "Like she'll still be there at breakfast, or sitting outside with a book…" The words trail off with a hitch. It must be real enough, then. "I tried helping her. It didn't work."

Innocet favours staring at her knees instead of outside, leaving Theta's brain to think a hundred thoughts at once.

"What did Glospin tell you?"

Theta, now somehow sat up in bed, doesn't know if he should speak the truth, or make something up, or change the topic completely, or—

"I won't be offended, Theta, I just want to know."

It's in times of importance he comprehends how small he really is. "He said… he thinks you two were 'having an affair', but Satthaltrope probably made that up."

Innocet doesn't respond, leaving Theta to wonder if Satthaltrope was true over everything else whizzing through his head. He needs a drink of water, but can't bring himself to leave Innocet.

"We'll have a new cousin in a couple years," she mumbles, trying to hold back well-worn tears and trying to pull herself out of the trance of the window. "Soon as we get all the legal stuff through…"

"Do you want something?" The words are clearer than the last ones, and probably more helpful. "Breakfast?"

Innocet smiles faintly, only the corner of her lip visible to Theta. "Just water, thanks."

Theta silently wonders if the dead are ever regretful when people grieve, wasting so much of their lives. Or do the dead grieve their lack of existence in the living world, needing time to properly adjust to a place without everyone?

"The dead don't have consciousness, Theta. They're just dead."

Theta freezes in the doorway, choking out the words "How did you know what I was thinking?"

Innocet sighs. "I wanted to be a psychologist." She doesn't speak further and Theta doesn't press her for more, blissfully unaware of how loud he's speaking his thoughts.

###

"You two are late again!?" Ushas hisses under her breath, still manging to inflict a great deal of irritation at their loose behaviour.

"Yeah, well, there was an incident." Koschei brushes what looks like ashes off his robes into the general atmosphere of the classroom, Theta brushing more out of his hair. How he can see it on top of the already black, Ushas doesn't quite know.

"It's Gallifreyan History anyways," Theta adds in a whisper, ignoring the stern look the professor gives them for very obviously slipping in the back late. "Nobody likes this class."

"Aren't you always complaining about how we aren't allowed to know anything about the origin of our species?"

"Is there something you would like to share with the class?" The professor asks across the room, giving cause for only half of the class who care to turn around and stare at Theta and Ushas talking. Ushas gives them all a grow up stare.

"I was telling Theta Sigma what he missed," Ushas replies, turning back to her slate.

The professor returns to the board, pointing to some note or another.

"Yeah, origin. Not whatever politics happened after then."

Ushas pretends to not hear him, taking notes on whatever's in front of her.

It takes a few seconds — until she's absolutely sure the professor is talking too loud to hear anything — for her to turn back with what Theta would call a conspiratorial grin if he didn't know any better. "You're in luck, then. Here's something like origins." Because according to their education thus far, Rassilon did a Thing and they all sort of appeared.

Theta taps Koschei already ploughing away at algebra homework he neglected to do last night. "Ushas says it's something interesting," he whispers.

Koschei somewhat hesitantly closes the algebra, knowing very well Ushas only calls something interesting if it's advanced biochemistry or, well, something interesting.

A title on the board is underlined. "Pythias," The professor announces to the class. "We're not spending much time on this topic, but it'll be on the exam. So take notes." That Kid Who Keeps Thinking He Can Get Away Without Doing Anything reluctantly drags out his slate two rows in front of them.

"I think I've heard of this before," Theta whispers to Koschei, who only shrugs. "Those of you who are taking Local Sociology might have already learnt what the Pythia was. Anybody?"

A kid shorter than everybody and at least two years younger than the rest of the class raises his hand. "'Pythia' was the title given to the matriarchal governmental head of Gallifrey preceding 'President', as was instituted at the beginning of the Rassilonian Era."

Koschei rolls his eyes. "He looked that up."

Ushas whispers to Theta "He can't do science for the life of him, but he knows everything about politics already."

Theta leans over to Koschei "He's really a moron."

"Thank you, Rho Lambda."

Theta writes down what the apparent moron said anyhow. "I thought you said this was interesting," he hisses to Ushas.

"Just hold on." Ushas sits up straighter, easily looking the part of a Participating Member of Class. She raises her hand.

"Anything you'd like to add, Delta Psi?"

"Can you tell us about the Pythia's Curse? I'm interested to know what—"

"This is actually a phenomenon studied in Local Evolution, so I would ask professor—"

"Just a summary?" The Very Studious Ushas speaking out of turn and the word 'curse' itself has captivated everyone's attention, something that cannot be said for the professor's teaching. She frankly must give in, and she knows it.

"I suppose it's relevant enough for this class," the professor sighs, not bothering to write any notes on the board, which she leans against, arms crossed. "Seeing as nobody has bothered to tell you why we're all born from machines.

"The Pythia had the ability of foresight. Actually, write that part down. The last Pythia had something of an issue with that nearing the end of her rule. She employed the help of a 'psychic' named Vael to help her spy on Rassilon. Vael eventually betrayed the Pythia, presumably after Rassilon discovered her plans, and was not heard from again. The Pythia then fled to Karn with a bit of a cult following and cursed Gallifrey with sterility. This is referred to as the 'Pythia's curse'. To prevent our species from extinction, Rassilon aided in the invention of the Looms. The next generation of Time Lords were to all be produced from the them, creating a genetically controlled race far less susceptible to disease and unable to be born with abnormalities and deficiencies." Everyone remains in some part existentially interested, an ironic sure sign for the professor to continue on the material she is not supposed to be teaching. It's always exciting when someone tries smacking Rassilon.

Theta feels like he's definitely heard bits of this somewhere before, but doesn't know where.

"Does that answer your question, Delta Psi?"

"Okay, but there had to be anomalies. There always are." She'd love some statistics to go along with it, if only to calculate the number of people in the room currently outside the bounds of normalcy.

One ringlet of the professor's hair falls out of its bun on her shoulder in such a way it makes your neck itch to look at it. She starts talking faster. "Those not on Gallifrey were not affected by this 'curse' and were still able to reproduce. These children, like all those before them, had an unpredictable number of regenerations and a great deal of problems that could cause civil unrest for a number of reasons. Take History of Local Sociology for more detail on that, because I'm not spending nine hours on this. To prevent any kind of uprising or foreign disease or racial mutation, Rassilon ordered a decree to eliminate the few biologically conceived children." Theta has definitely heard this before.

"This process stirred some controversy that we are not discussing in this class," it seems this topic has been touched on before, "but was decided ethical as the genetically superior species. Any attempt to conceal a biologically born child was met with long-term imprisonment and execution of the child. It is likely this goal was accomplished, according to records and the like."

"How could they tell?" Ushas asks, pushing her luck and 's palms have become irrationally almost sweaty. There's something here about being carried and run and a forest and thrown in the dark. But he doesn't get how it ties in.

"Tell what, exactly?"

His hands grip his knees under the desk because he's only paranoid, obviously, he can't possibly

"The only reliable physical indicator was a naval cavity where an umbilical cord once attached the child to the mother." Without hesitating, she returns to the board, done with answering questions. "That's the Pythia's curse in a nutshell. You may learn more in other classes, but I am unfortunately only registered to teach objective history and level one and two social science. May I continue?" She seems very impatient for someone who hasn't just granted twenty-odd adolescents some great big explanation of their existence.

Ushas looks very satisfied in receiving a miniature science lesson, and logically not even close to the level of nauseous Theta does.

"Are you quite alright, Theta Sigma?"

Theta nods, trying to form words under the stare of everyone in the ringing silence. "Just… tired."

"You look ill."

"Professor, I think we're all a bit put off at the idea of a cord connecting an unborn child to another person," Koschei chips in, tapping Theta in the side of the foot. A primitive attempt to communicate with another being nonverbally, which is frankly useless. Theta can't tell if he's telling him to snap out of it or if Koschei's figured it out.

Koschei nearly breaks down the door in the record time of class ended three seconds ago, which isn't much compared to Theta's thirty minute "I need to use the washroom". For the first while, he can't see Theta under the bed. In an ideal world, he would not be able to break down the door because he wouldn't know the bloody password AND he wouldn't see him under the bed. Which is naturally the first place he checks.

Theta hides his face with a slate, full of the most basic of information about Time Lord biology. There was nothing he could get on pre-Rassilonian versions within the firewalls of school accounts. He's trying to match all the things and kid himself into thinking there isn't a navel cavity in his navel, because really if everything else is the same…

Koschei is smiling. It scares Theta more than much else. He closed the door so he's either keeping Theta hidden or doesn't want people to see. "You genetic anomaly, you."

Theta scooches back further into the corner under the bed, inhaling more dust than he thought was under there. His robe is somewhere in the open on the floor, sitting in dull light coming through the curtains, fabric more worthy of illumination than he. Just pants and a white t-shirt is more comfortable anyways so joke's on the robe haha.

Koschei also lies on the floor, outside underneath the bed and not pushing his head under, still smiling sort of at Theta but it's less of a smile really and more of a face is not relaxed. He keeps his robe on obviously, red blending with the parted black hair better than Theta's gross yellowish. Never matched the cousins. Obviously. Very very very obviously Innocet was so wrong they probably all know and Glospin is older he probably knows times ten wow.

Koschei just lies with his head on his hands pressed against the floor, watching Theta acting like a scared kitten. Difference being nobody wants to kill kittens.

"Are you gonna kill me?"

Koschei stands up without words which is scarier because Theta can't see what he's doing and he could be going to the door and he's going to tell and maybe if he runs out once Koschei leaves he could escape out the doors but they'll come after him like in the first forest and then was carried and thrown into the dark and

Koschei's robe is also tossed across the room, body in bluish just pants and a t-shirt, lying on the ground and coming towards Theta. Koschei killed Torvic so he might be able to kill Theta, but then what was the throwing his robe into the dark supposed to be then?

"Who needs Prydonians?" Koschei is smiling but Theta can barely see it, illuminated only by the slate telling of viral immunity. It is the only thing separating them, one cycling through lines and lines of things he could say and one pressed against the wall. Theta can hear Koschei's breathing overscoring the murmurs of life forms resonating to his patch of floor. He can hear a lot, soaking in the amazingness of reality in anticipation of it all being the last. "And you've outlived Rassilon."

Theta tries shaking his head, inhaling the smell of ignored synthetic maybe-wood and dust. Scent is infinitely complex and observable and variable and vast when it might all be over too soon to see it all. "He's not dead. He's achieved superior immortality."

"So immortal he's lying stone dead in a tomb."

Theta attempts to reconcile the image he's always had of Koschei with one of murder and it's not working. Try desperately as he might, it is not working.

Theta clamps down on his bottom lip, trying to force bubbling panic back into its mental jar again. Pain. Pain means life. Life is good. "Don't tell. They'll kill me."

Koschei exhales as if to give a tiny butterfly safe passage out of his mouth. "They can't kill you here. Rassilon's decree ended with his death."

"But somebody will." He can't see his skin colour under the bed. Nobody can see him at all, except Koschei.

"Then they'll have to get past me, and I'm not moving until you do." The slate decides there has been quite enough stagnant display of viral immunity, snuffing all light except the crack of a curtained window Theta can't quite see. The underneath of beds are like TARDISes, horribly cramped and stuffy from the outside, but a whole room inside. If you just hold still.

Theta passes from hyperventilating and choking on panicked emotion to a numb kind of desperation, physicality primitively conforming to the brain's message of impending threat to survival. But he's surviving now, so the fused hinges start to drift apart and leave him floating. Koschei takes the slate and places on his opposite side, and for no good reason, he changes the topic entirely.

"So once we leave Gallifrey, where do you want to go?"

Theta decides to go with it. "They Eye of Orion."

"Hmm. No idea. Enlighten me."

"One of the calmest places in the universe. An excess of positive ions and no evolved fauna."

Koschei's mouth twists up, not that Theta can see it. "I can see how a lack of fauna might help."

Theta lets his head move away from the wall. "And only fauna are able to appreciate it."

A/N: Hello there. I originally said hello in chapter 1 before I discovered the italics (obviously) don't carry over when you delete all formatting to prevent funky font issues and I italicized 3 chapters. Long story.

Things I'd like to mention:
1. I produced this bugger as a novel. So it's 100% completed and edited, and unless I'm without Wifi, this will update every day. Which means the majority of you reading this note are not concerned. Hello from the past.
2. There are a lot of EU characters and plot threads and such I stuck in here with no actual experience with the original things, I found inspiration on the wiki, EU fans may be confused, I'm not apologizing.
3. There are also some Classic Who memes.
4. Shoutout to the first person who favourited this, you're awesome.

Also if you're from New Who don't fret it'll still make sense.
Many thanks.