013. Gallifrey
The Doctor
He remembers being nine rather than nine hundred.
He remembers whip wire limbs, and energy incidental to youth spent out in silvery trees and ruby red fields. He remembers breathing in fresh mountain air, and marveling over the the sultry hum of Time against his skin.
He remembers the hermit under the tree in the woods. The other man was old – so very old, with eyes a shade of winter ice and hair the color of virgin snow. Before the man laid a pool of shifting glass, and upon seeing him, he reached down and plucked up a small globe to give to the youngster.
"Your Time," the man whispered in a voice made up of grave winds and the howlings inside of a seashell.
He remembers looking into the globe, and seeing flames. Flames everywhere. He saw a planet gone, and the last one left. The last one, the last one, the last one . . . He saw a man, embittered, alone. So alone, always alone . . .
He remembers smashing the glass in his hand until the pain drove away the images.