The First Lesson
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The Doctor swept around the dais of the console, his hands flashing over buttons and switches and twisting dials. Azkineet watched in absolute fascination.
"And so, well, how did you like your room?" The Doctor asked as he flashed a smile at Azkineet.
"It's a bit smaller than I'm used to." Azkineet replied as he stepped up onto the dais.
"Small?" The Doctor stopped on a pin. The TARDIS seemed to sputter as the Doctor simply looked at him in shock.
"Well, my room at home is almost twice the size, and only has one bed…" Azkineet said sheepishly as he swallowed at the Doctor's flummoxed shock.
"Ah…yes…well, I only suggested it because it was the one Nyssa had taken with Tegan, and Romana had mentioned you were very scientifically minded. There are, of course, plenty of other rooms to stay in." The Doctor said quietly, turning his attention back to the TARDIS console.
"I rather liked the one next to the console room." Azkineet suggested quietly. "The one with the grafting charts and the geometric diagrams, mathematics is one of the areas I do have to get better at; I rely far too much on machines…"
"Ah, well, no, that one is…" The Doctor paused what he was doing and his face slightly fell, he flashed a brief conciliatory look too Azkineet. "That one is not for occupancy."
"It has a bed, and dressers. What else would it be used for?" Azkineet asked.
"Memories." The Doctor said quietly and flicked a red-lit switch and then briskly walked passed Azkineet without elaborating further. The TARDIS engines flared to life again and the trumpeting wheeze of the old machine droned for a few seconds before coming to a stop, terminating with a soft bump and a ding.
"Where are we?" Azkineet asked quietly.
"First lesson!" The Doctor said as he pulled a lever and the door swept open.
The pair of them walked out onto a brand new world, in the middle of a forest. Azkineet's entire life had been on the outer edges of the citadel, under the glass dome. There was no wilderness there, even what had passed as 'parks' and 'gardens' were so mindfully manicured and managed as to remove any concept of wilderness from them. Here, however, things grew as they wont, creatures called and flew and ran and climbed where they would, and not anywhere else. Azkineet walked out, wading through the verdancy. A small path seemed to emerge, a place where creatures had found least resistance and in their usage had widened it. The Doctor joined him.
"I do not understand." Azkineet said as he looked back to the Doctor. "You said there was a lesson."
"Well, yes." The Doctor said as he walked past and continued down the path. "It's nothing academic in its way, more of an observation." The Doctor took a deep breath. "An opportunity extended to you, that you would likely not have gotten on Gallifrey."
"What opportunity?" Azkineet furrowed his brows.
"Why are Time Lords the most privileged race in the universe?" The Doctor asked turning and leaning down ever so slightly to come to Azkineet's eye level.
"Well, umm, Mother and Father say it's because we're the most ancient, with the most robust technology in the universe." Azkineet replied, tilting his head. "The teachers say it is because we possess the perfect energy production, the power beneath the Panopticon; that we have the ability to regenerate and the ability to control and travel both in time and space."
"Those are very good answers." The Doctor said; his face rather solemn. He stood up and turned. "But they are wrong."
"I don't understand…" Azkineet said quietly. "Gallifreyan technology is beyond the concept of all but a few other races and even those races lack the capacity to match-"
"Az, Az, shh, shh, that's not the point." The Doctor said with a bemused smile on his face.
"Then what's the point?" Azkineet asked with a slightly frustrated tone, tilting his head slightly.
"What's the purpose of the Time Lords?" The Doctor replied, not answering but continuing to question.
"To observe history, and in the observation maintain causality, sustaining order in the winds of chaos…" Azkineet recited smiling, almost from rote.
The Doctor smirked. "I ask again; why are the Time Lords the most privileged race in the universe?"
Azkineet furrowed his brow, shook his head, but then brought forth a tentative answer. "Because we are able to obtain mastery over our observable reality and maintain stability on a cosmic scale?"
The Doctor seemed to defeatedly lower his head. He took a deep breath and looked up.
"No, Az, no. Our duty and our power, provide us with a unique ability to see the universe." The Doctor replied, standing to his full height turning. "Properly observe it. Boots on the ground, in the wild, see its width and breadth, its beauty, its majesty, its everything." The Doctor wheeled around his green jacket swirling with him as his hands were oustretched to the sky as creatures twisted in the air on updrafts of warm air. "To experience alien birds, on alien wings, gliding on alien winds above alien sands of alien beaches, to see the universe." The Doctor swept up close leaning slightly to bring himself ever so slightly to Azkineet's eye level. "Just see it. No sense of ownership, not as an overlord, not as a master of a domain but just to see it. That alone and nothing more."
"But, we're at war?" Azkineet said quietly. "We cannot just observe…"
"Well, yes, it gets complicat-" The Doctor started before being interrupted by a terrible screech.
The Doctor and Azkineet looked up to see a winged creature being pursued by a larger winged creature. The smaller creature soon found itself pinned against a tree trunk by the larger creature's talons. The smaller creature was screaming and calling, and struggling against the might of the larger. Azkineet's eyes widened, he felt its fear and anger and pain deeply in his body. He grabbed a large, fallen branch and ran towards the scene, hefting the branch up as to swat at the larger creature.
He did not get far. The Doctor in quick order had tackled him to the ground and disarmed him of the branch.
"But it's going to kill the little one!" Azkineet shouted angrily.
"I know!" The Doctor breathed.
"It's not right!" Azkineet yelped.
"That's not our judgment to make." The Doctor said almost apologetically.
The larger creature did in fact kill the smaller one, and carried it off into the distance.
"Is this the observations you were talking about?" Azkineet asked, venomously as he stood up, dusting himself off.
"The universe is cruel, sometimes, out of necessity." The Doctor replied, quietly, looking off into the distance in the direction the larger creature had flown with its prize. He turned looked to Azkineet. "Predators must predate on prey, if we save all the prey, the predators starve."
"So Time Lords just sit back and watch the predators massacre the prey?" Azkineet asked, glaring in the same direction the Doctor had been looking.
"Sometimes, when it's necessary. Time has its needed sacrifices…" The Doctor said with an uncomfortable tone as if he didn't completely believe the words he was saying. He shifted slightly to stand in Azkineet's view, looking him eye to eye. "But there are a lot of times when the universe need not be so cruel. And at those moments, we should act. We should never be cruel, or cowardly, never give up in the face of adversity."
"Except for when it's necessary?" Azkineet said, looking up at the Doctor almost with an air of defiance in his stance.
"Well, as I said, it's complicated." The Doctor replied, rubbing the back of his head, breaking the eye contact as he did. "To be quite honest, I was never very good at quite discerning necessity of cruelty. I won't lie, part of me wanted to run in and interfere, too."
"Why didn't you?" Azkineet asked.
"Because somewhere in that direction is a nest, filled with young, starving for food, and that parent is only doing what it has to, to help those young survive." The Doctor said quietly. He looked at Azkineet, frowning. "It's an imperfect answer, unsatisfying, I know, but it's those lessons that are the kind of lessons you cannot learn in the citadel."
"Did I fail the lesson?" Azkineet asked quietly, looking off in the distance.
"The lesson really never ends, so…I can't very well say you failed or passed, because I don't know if I have yet…" the Doctor said, reaching over and ruffling Azkineet's hair. "And in many ways that's another, better lesson to learn overall…that the lesson never really ends, we are always learning and in learning we grow, as people, as a society, as a civilization."
The Doctor looked back at Azkineet who was still frowning at the sky, eyes narrowed as if trying to see the alleged nest with alleged young. The Doctor gently put his hand on Azkineet's shoulder. The boy looked up at him.
"I think, I want to learn." Azkineet said quietly.
The Doctor smiled.