I had dared to lock my room, although I knew that Ms. Reprics had threatened to break my spine the next time I'd do so.

But I was convinced that being with Koschei right now was much worse.

I wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone.

I felt like dying; I felt hollow.

I was hurt. I was deeply hurt.

Somehow Koschei had managed to hurt me more than ever before.

And maybe it was because I was shocked of how he'd treated me the night before. Of how he'd had me at his disposal.

He'd decided on me.

He'd made the decisions for me; he'd decided that it was best for me to keep my legs spread and let him come between them whenever he felt like doing so.

I sobbed and crawled under my bed.

I felt hurt. I felt deeply ashamed.

But I didn't know why. I just didn't know why and I knew that I didn't want to know.
I didn't want to know what he'd done to me, how he'd embarrassed, defiled, dishonoured or abused me.

I just felt so ashamed of myself.

And I knew that Koschei enjoyed misusing and taking advantage of me because he knew that I was too innocent to even understand what he did to me.

He was delighted knowing that I wouldn't ask, knowing that I wouldn't struggle against him and we both knew that it was only a matter of time until I would resign myself.

But it felt wrong nonetheless.

It felt wrong and shameful.

Somehow I knew that he'd devaluated and debased me...

Innocence was purity and ignorance.

Experience was impurity and knowledge.

But the very reverse of innocence was knowledge.

And being innocent meant being inferior to Koschei's knowledge.

It was always about control. With Koschei it was always about control.

He'd been there for me, all these years.

He'd protected me at any time.

He'd had control over me.

Koschei had protected me and I had allowed him to guard and patronize me.

Koschei had struggled for control from the very beginning. He'd wanted it so badly that I doubt that he wouldn't have known what to do it if he'd achieved actual control over me.

But back then I'd thought that he'd won; and that I'd lost myself.

I found comfort in searching through Dr. Neakahla's book of collected wisdom. Koschei hadn't been able to change me, I'd reassured myself, and I read the book with the same open-minded and intrigued eyes.

Ms. Reprics had wanted to suit the word to the action and actually break my spine, but she hadn't been allowed to do so, which was, she felt, a pity.

Nobody would amount to anything unless they'd know the advantages of being corporally punished, she used to say.

Ms. Reprics age was a mystery, but due to the records it was known that she'd been working in the academy for at least 970 years. She belonged there. She lived there. And every new Headmaster would inherit her, for some reason. She was some kind of primeval exponent from a previous century; furthermore she was an ancient relic, living in a world she didn't belong to anymore, she wouldn't know what to do with the world and neither did the world know what to do with her.

For some reason no one had ever dared to make her redundant; though Ms Reprics seemed as useful to the academy as the old trees on the outside facilities, which no one dared to touch because they might fall on top of them.

And yet she was worse than the trees.

The trees died away slowly – but they died. And somehow Ms. Reprics didn't even think of dying away.

Persistent rumours indicated that Ms. Reprics had been on the academy since its foundation.

Seriously, I doubt that; but you never know.

Ms. Reprics had already been working in the academy when the first general educational methods had been established. And since then she was unwilling to budge from her position, I guess.

She'd ignored several new and adapted education systems and standards.

Her opinion on giving someone the strap had never changed.

That's the trouble with being a Time Lord. You grow older. But that doesn't mean that you'll change all your life. You don't change at all, if you don't want to. Sometimes you just stand there where you always stood and watch the world pass by and change over the centuries.

I guess this wouldn't be an alternative for me. I never could stand still.

Always running.

But in the end it didn't matter. Some tried to evolve; others wouldn't change.

And both of them thought that they were right.

Ms. Reprics was convinced that she'd been right. And if she'd managed to live centuries believing that, why should it change all of a sudden?

But, deep down, I envied her. She had managed to live throughout centuries and had remained stubborn and steady while everything was changing and in process. And I was not even eighteen and felt like dying already.

I don't know if it would have been wrong to say that I'd envied her. I didn't like Ms. Reprics. I mean I was scared of her, like everybody else. And I'd always watch out for her cane.
Her days had been the days of corporal punishment, and still she was worse; she was the one who'd invented psychological torture supplementary to physical torture.

And she was an expert on both of them.

But back then I was lucky that I hadn't experienced it myself.

But everything at the proper time, I guess.

I had tried to keep Koschei away from my room. I had locked my room as often as I'd left it. And I didn't care if he groped around in his belongings in my room as long as I wasn't forced to see him. But the window was a problem, though... I didn't know what to do to prevent him from entering by window.

I didn't want to see him.

He'd scared me. And I felt too weak to face him again.

I wanted him to keep away from me.

I wanted to be alone.
To me loneliness was privateness. And I was in dire need for a moment of tranquillity; I needed a place to embrace my solitude.
Back home I'd had my room. Here it seemed as if nothing could be safe from Koschei, not even I.

Koschei had left the rope in my room. And throughout the next nights I didn't even dare to touch it, due to the things he'd done with it.
He'd tied me down; he'd tried to hold me captive and truss me up. Koschei had tried to re-educate me.
That I'd always spread my legs for him... That I'd always stay quiet and bow to the inevitable...

But I hadn't slept. I hadn't found rest due to the fact that my legs weren't tied and because I feared he'd enter by window during the nights.
After a night or two I figured that it was more important to lock yourself up than to learn how to sleep with untied legs. And I managed to tie the rope around the window catch in way that I was sure that no one would be able to get it open, especially not from the outside.

And I tried to sleep during the nights.

And I tried not to think during the days.

And at any time I tried not to cry.

I felt as I'd been incomplete. Or if someone had managed to tear me apart.

I hated Koschei.

I hated him for hurting me.

I hated him for taking advantage of me.

I hated him for frightening me.

I hated him for abusing me even when I didn't even know wherefore he'd misused me.

And most of all...

...I hated myself for missing him.

I'd always thought that it would be hard to run with tied legs.

But in the end it didn't matter, anyway.

You can run but you can't hide.

At least not from Koschei.