Chapter Three
They ran through the field, trying to catch each other, laughing. At forty years old, the boys would look no more than thirteen to a human. Koschei tackled Theta and they rolled through the grass until they tired out.
"Kos?" Theta asked as they lay on the ground, staring up at the sky, "What's your true name?"
"I can't tell you that!" he said shocked. "You know that."
"You can say it under special circumstances," said Theta.
"Yeah, if you're about to die. Our names have power. There's a reason we can't say them."
"I heard that you can say them if you get married sometimes."
"But we're not married."
"But we could be. Someday. I wouldn't want to spend my lives with anyone else."
Koschei blushed. "Boys can't marry each other. You have to marry the mate selected for you by your house, so you can loom a well bred baby."
"But why?" asked Theta. "On other planets they marry because they love each other. I love you, Koschei."
Koschei flushed even hotter and sat up. "Why would you say something like that?"
Theta sat up and looked at him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you loved me too."
"Well, I…" he looked away. "I do. …but you can't just say it."
"Why?"
"Because it's not proper."
Theta laughed. "When have we ever cared about being proper?"
"Well, yeah but… Just don't say it again, okay?"
Theta was hurt. Why not say it if you feel it? "Okay," he agreed.
"What do you have planned this year?" asked Drax when he caught up to them in the halls.
"What do you mean?" asked Koschei.
"Well, you guys always pull something at the end of the school year," he said as if it were obvious.
"How do you know it's us?" asked Theta.
Drax scoffed. "Oh come on, everyone knows it's you."
"No one ever has any proof," said Koschei calmly.
"Yeah," said Drax. "But it is you right?"
"Who knows," said Koschei. "All I can say is that this year, something more epic than last year is going to happen."
"Alright!" squealed Drax and he ran to tell his friends.
"Hey Kos?" whispered Theta, "What are we going to do this year?"
Koschei just smiled.
"Hurry," whispered Koschei.
"I am," hissed Theta. "This…jiggery pokery is not as easy as I make it look." He touched two more wires together and heard a click. "Got it!"
"Get in! Get in!"
They hurried through the door to the office of the Interplanetary Animal Preserve and closed it behind them.
"Let's let the Aranosaur out first," said Koschei. "That'll freak out those stuffy councilmen."
Theta looked out the window that overlooked the preserve. All those animals from all those times and places fidgeting in their cages in captivity. "Let's let them all out," he said.
"Oh, yeah that's a great idea!" said Koschei thinking of all those people running and screaming.
Theta ran over to the control console and helped Koschei push all the buttons. There were screeches and roars as the animals ran out of the preserve. The boys laughed and ran out of the office.
"You've pulled some stunts before, but this? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? People could have been killed."
"Where's Koschei?" Theta asked the Dean of Prydonian Academy.
"His father is dealing with him," answered the Dean.
Theta felt a pit of dread in his stomach. He knew how Kos's father was when he embarrassed him. He should dread for himself as well. The Dean had never liked him. In fact, Theta suspected he hated him.
"You should be expelled for this," he said.
"Sir, I-"
"Silence! I never should have accepted you into the academy to begin with, considering your breeding. You're lucky your uncle is a powerful man."
Theta was puzzled. His breeding? Lungbarrow house was one of the two most prestigious families on Gallifrey along with Oakdown.
"Excuse me, sir, what do you mean by that?"
"Of course," he said with a sick delight in his voice, "You don't know. How much do you know about your father?"
"Just that he and my mother died in a TARDIS accident."
The Dean chuckled darkly. "Your father did not die."
"What?" Theta was shocked.
"Well, he might be dead by now. Not many can survive out there."
"Out where? What are you talking about?"
"Your father was banished."
"You're lying," said Theta, feeling like he was ready to cry.
"Oh, am I? Ask your uncle."
"What was he banished for?"
"He was banished because of your mother. Because of you."
"No," tears were starting to sting his eyes.
"Your deviant father fornicated with a lower lifeform, with a human woman. Then of course we had to bring her to Gallifrey. We couldn't let the bastard child of a formerly respected Time Lord go un-dealt with. They decided to genetically alter the fetus so there was no more human DNA in it. Of couse, the procedure caused complications with the birth. The woman did not survive. But you did. You were born and continue to be a stain on Time Lord society."
"You're lying!" shouted Theta through his tears. "That can't be true! It can't be!"
"Really? Haven't you always felt different? Haven't you always known, deep down, that you didn't belong here?"
"Someone would have told me."
"Why would they? It's the greatest shame your family has ever faced. Why wouldn't they just try to forget it? Besides, only a handful of your aunts and uncles know."
"How do you know then?"
"I wasn't always a dean. I used to be a doctor. I helped deliver you."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because maybe if you know where your bad behavior comes from, you can control it. See, I think there's still human in you. I think all your troublemaking comes from the savagery of Earth still in your bones."
Just then, his uncle Modrem came in. "What is this?" he said. "What are these tears for?"
"Is it true?" asked Theta. "Am I half human?"
Modrem glared at the Dean fiercely. "You told him?"
"So it is true!"
"Go wait for me in the auto," said his uncle without looking at him.
"But-"
"Go!"
Theta ran out of the building and into the garage. He sat in the auto crying. All his life, the way people looked at him, why his cousins wouldn't play with him, why he never felt like he belonged anywhere… this was why. He didn't know what to do with himself. The Dean was sending him home with his uncle until he decided if he could return to the academy, but could he really go home? Could he really stay in that house with uncles and aunts who had lied to him all his life? He didn't belong anywhere. If he could fly a TARDIS he could go to Earth and see if he fit in better there, but he wasn't human either. They'd probably reject him too. He could try to find his father, if he was still alive. They could live in the forests of Mount Perdition. His uncle got into the auto next to him. "Uncle, I-"
"We will not speak of this again," he said tersely.
Theta held in his tears all the way back to Lungbarrow house.