Hello! I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it. This is my first work in the DW fandom.
If you would like to get a visual sense of "House of Eternal Return" while/before reading this, feel free to look up photos of it.
All characters and references from the interactive art experience "House of Eternal Return" in Santa Fe, New Mexico belong to the artists at Meow Wolf. I'm just borrowing their awesome material and mixing it timey-wimey style with Doctor Who.
***THERE WILL BE A LOT OF SPOILERS FOR THE HOUSE OF ETERNAL RETURN EXHIBIT IN THIS FIC! My only intention is to write this fic for personal enjoyment, not to ruin anyone's experience of Meow Wolf's installation in Santa Fe. Luckily, The House of Eternal Return exhibit changes so much and so often that a single visit at any point in time simply isn't long enough to find all of the rooms, or to discover all the mind-bending 'lore' surrounding them.***
Chapter 1: The Stuff of Legend, or To Whom It May Concern
From: Charter Agent 35
Reporting From: The Doctor's TARDIS
Local Time: —/—/—
Subject: The Truth
To Whom It May Concern:
I plan to hide this letter somewhere in the Selig family's house— currently kept under temporal stasis in Santa Fe, New Mexico— so that recent events can be recorded truthfully. I'm doing this in case my upcoming actions result in my demise, indefinite exile to the robot pits, or any other sort of failure to complete my mission. I should specify that by mission, I mean my personal mission, not the one assigned to me by the Charter.
Whoever finds this, you should know that I have seen the stuff of legend with my own eyes, and now I know the truth.
The Charter is wrong. They are trying to fight something that cannot be fought, should not be fought, and I'm not afraid to say it anymore. The Charter is wrong about the entity known as the Anomaly.
I know now that She (the Anomaly) is far greater and far more beautiful than anyone in the Charter could have imagined.
Throughout the Charter's existence, we have archived many legends from planets influenced by the Anomaly. All the legends, every single one, state in some way or another that She is the beginning and end of all things, the universal creative and destructive force. She is part of what humans on Earth call the Big Bang and the End of Days. She is the Howling Wolf and the Endless Song of Time. Many stories even go as far as to say She created Herself.
She is a paradox. The ultimate paradox, because you cannot create yourself.
She can.
She has, and She will. To my knowledge, the Anomaly is the only "stable paradox" in this or any universe. Most importantly, She is not the threat the Charter insists She is.
As you may already know (and if you're a member of the Charter, consider this my formal resignation) the Charter was born out of an ancient coalition of planets that united to contain and control the chaotic power of the Anomaly. The coalition was terrified that because She could create anything and everything in existence, She would continue to create in excess so rapidly that all of Time and Space would be thrown out of balance.
While the Anomaly does create immeasurable new things, She also destroys the old to keep the Multiverse in balance. I do not believe She would senselessly destroy everything She had worked to create, nor do I think She will let it all be controlled by the Charter's need for perfect, lawful Order.
"Order Perfects Creation", that's our motto. (Ha! If only it were that simple.)
I remember the first time I was shown the Anomaly in Her most primal form. Every new cohort of cadets is taken to an observation platform at headquarters on their first day of training to view the Anomaly up close. It's hard to describe the experience. She terrifies you, ignites you, inspires you, makes your hair (if you have it) stand on end, and leaves you feeling vast and tiny all at once. The air resonates with Her song, crackling and churning with unstoppable force.
There's nothing else like it in all the worlds, standing on the literal precipice of infinite possibility, and impossibility.
As new cadets stand before the Anomaly, in the presence of that conscious, glowing, nebulous sphere of pure energy contained within a huge, transparent dome, they are told the story of the Charter's founding. A few decades after the Anomaly formed in a star system located within one of the oldest galaxies in our primary universe, our great founders trapped Her inside an impenetrable force field and built our headquarters within direct sight of it. Once subdued, the Anomaly was forced to agree to their terms.
New cadets are told from the start that She is our greatest adversary, and it is our duty to stop Her from escaping from Her prison at all costs.
I believed all of that until now.
This brings me to another thing the Charter is wrong about. We trapped what we thought was the only "true" physical manifestation of the Anomaly in our universe. That couldn't be further from the truth. The primal, nebulous manifestation of the Anomaly at the Charter headquarters is simply Her most powerfully creative form. There are others out there.
At this very moment, I'm in the Doctor's TARDIS with another form of Her, this one in a human body. The Charter knows her as Bad Wolf.
The form of the Anomaly at the Charter headquarters occasionally sends bursts of energy to distant corners of the universe. This energy has the power to create new life, new ideas, and new beginnings far beyond anyone's ability to stop them. The prime directive of every Charter member is to monitor and contain these rogue energy bursts before they can take hold anywhere in problematic ways.
The Charter does not (and often cannot) always act fast enough to prevent this from happening. Sometimes She turns uninhabitable planets into lush, live-giving sanctuaries overnight. Other times, an individual chosen by the Anomaly will suddenly find themselves with creative abilities and/or sensitivities incited by Her power. In the Charter, we call these individuals "Children of the Anomaly".
Imagine a 39-year-old woman, born with the ability to perceive every possible timeline of even the simplest objects. She paints what she sees, and every painting looks like an abstract jumble of colors unless you see it the way she does: like a million-faceted diamond, thousands of universes and timelines intersecting around a single still-life of a fruit bowl.
Imagine that this painter's twin brother gained the ability as a child to create whole new universes by imagining them and willing them into being. As this boy grew up, his powers grew with him, and he wreaked havoc on the fabric of the cosmos with each new universe he created, stole, or dissolved.
Imagine that this man and his sister had a father, a veteran who happened to meet a fellow child of the Anomaly in the war. This child of the Anomaly taught the father how to harness sonic energy to heal the wounded. After the war, the father used what he'd learned to secretly communicate with other children of the Anomaly on Earth. Imagine that this was how he met his wife.
Now imagine that the veteran's wife had no known background, no birth record, no known family heritage. And when she died, she left her family only with the mystery of her birth and the knowledge that they were given their special abilities for a greater reason. Where did this remarkable woman come from? The Anomaly, most likely.
Imagine that the painter who could see the Multiverse married a man with an extremely unique way of perceiving sound.
As a child, he discovered his Anomaly-given abilities after storming away from a fight with his mother. He played a loud, ugly note on his viola out of anger, and his bedroom door slammed shut from the burst of sonic energy that inadvertently triggered. The energy came from his emotions being channeled into sound, and sound into kinetic energy. Imagine that by adulthood, this man has learned to produce music from anything, even light itself. He plucks at the strings of the cosmos, searching for the right harmonies that will reveal the hidden structures of the universe.
Now imagine that the painter who could see the Multiverse and the musician who could make music out of light had twins, a son and daughter.
Imagine that by the age of 10, their daughter could sense others' emotions so strongly that she learned to project her form through dreams into other dimensions to aid those she heard crying out for help.
Imagine that at the same age, their son could perform detailed scientific experiments far beyond the abilities of other children his age. He experimented with things that should have been left alone, prodding at the nature of reality until, inevitably, an accident occurred. An accident so disastrous that it caused him to fade out of existence from every known universe.
Imagine that his family became so desperate to save him that they were willing to risk destroying all of Space and Time to bring their little boy home.
All of these people exist. They are the Selig/Pastore family, and they are part of what led me to make the decisions I have today.
The Charter is not wrong about the misuse of Anomaly abilities being incredibly dangerous. Such power can be highly volatile, even causing whole universes to collapse when the beings wielding them don't know how to do so without harming anyone. The Charter is wrong in their assumption that the Anomaly and Her children are always a threat to the Multiverse. It's not that simple.
I would not be in my current situation if the Charter had chosen to teach beings like the Selig/Pastore family to use their Anomaly abilities wisely instead of punishing them, imprisoning them, or killing them. Even the greatest of the Anomaly's powers, and those of Her children, can be used for good. They can coexist within the already established, natural balance of Space and Time.
After tonight, I hope nothing will be the same again. The children of the Anomaly have been hunted down across the Multiverse by the Charter, but no longer!
Tonight I am going to help my new friends set the Children of the Anomaly free from Charter control. Together we are going to bring back the boy known as Lex Pastore from the dead space between worlds, and save the last Time Lord.
It's almost time to go. I hope I have explained things well enough here. Whoever you are, know that I am no longer a willing agent of the Charter. I am part of something far greater, and I don't regret it.
I can hear Her song calling out to me from across the universe. Tonight, I will answer Her call. I'm going—
