Waiting to go nova
Title: Waiting to go nova.
Author: fate_incomplete
Rating: PG
Warnings: Angst
Spoilers: None
Characters: The Doctor
Word Count: 500
A/N: Written for the who_contest prompt - Star
Summary: Billions of stars shine bright, but it is the light of his companions he craves, that keeps the darkness at bay...
.......................
The light of billions upon billions of stars radiated across the vastness of the universe, emanating from shifting molten tapestries that burned and sparked, before all eventually dying. They shed their light across empty spaces, across civilisations young, old and yet to be, countless lifetimes lived and forgotten between the birth of that light, and its silent, booming last gasp.
Drifting, raging storms of energy barely controlled. Giving life, taking it, bequeathing meaning to the cold, dark spaces in-between.
Maybe once, long ago, he burned bright like the stars, now? Now he was lost, filled only with the ghost of that star. Light no longer given, only absorbed, destroyed. No escape from the black hole left behind. He was death, darkness.
In Them, he saw the possibility of rebirth, but the potential for more destruction as well. Saviour or destroyer? The line between the two, so blurred as to be almost nonexistent.
Creation, destruction.
Life, death.
Light, dark.
The war between one and the other eternal, with no chance of triumph. Victory would erase defeated and conqueror alike.
That war raged within him, showing itself in the littered ruins of friend and foe alike, left in his wake. Each lost battle threatening that sputtering spark that never quite died. A spark of light birthed by a better side of him that refused to let the dark, boiling rage win. Seething self loathing that burned as hot as any star, writhing like tendrils of solar flares heaving from a molten sea. An internal war he tried to hide away, from himself, from Them.
For Them. In the end it always came back to Them.
The darkness within would find its way out in uncontrolled moments, when emotion burned hot. He let it loose when They were threatened, each time wondering if this would be it, if this time he would be unable to draw it all back in. If this time it would consume and burn everything else away.
All of Them, his Companions, each filled with light brighter than any star. He held Them at arm's length, filled with paralysing fear he would destroy Them, would let the darkness within extinguish all that They were.
They fuelled the fires within, kept the darkness at bay, even as They drew it out, a heady contradiction impossible to resist. He had tried, and failed. Alone there was nowhere to hide from the inner turmoil. It ate at him until he let it loose, let in run rampant with no innocent bystanders to be caught in it.
That was the problem. He was worse without Them. Alone he blazed out of control, a nova that burned unchecked.
He was a coward, a fool, more villain than he ever was heroic. One day They'd figure that out. One day They would let him burn, let the nova meet its searing end.
They'd be better off without him.
One day, They would see it, and look to stars better, brighter than he ever could be.
.......................
Author: fate_incomplete
Rating: PG
Warnings: Angst
Spoilers: None
Characters: The Doctor
Word Count: 500
A/N: Written for the who_contest prompt - Star
Summary: Billions of stars shine bright, but it is the light of his companions he craves, that keeps the darkness at bay...
.......................
The light of billions upon billions of stars radiated across the vastness of the universe, emanating from shifting molten tapestries that burned and sparked, before all eventually dying. They shed their light across empty spaces, across civilisations young, old and yet to be, countless lifetimes lived and forgotten between the birth of that light, and its silent, booming last gasp.
Drifting, raging storms of energy barely controlled. Giving life, taking it, bequeathing meaning to the cold, dark spaces in-between.
Maybe once, long ago, he burned bright like the stars, now? Now he was lost, filled only with the ghost of that star. Light no longer given, only absorbed, destroyed. No escape from the black hole left behind. He was death, darkness.
In Them, he saw the possibility of rebirth, but the potential for more destruction as well. Saviour or destroyer? The line between the two, so blurred as to be almost nonexistent.
Creation, destruction.
Life, death.
Light, dark.
The war between one and the other eternal, with no chance of triumph. Victory would erase defeated and conqueror alike.
That war raged within him, showing itself in the littered ruins of friend and foe alike, left in his wake. Each lost battle threatening that sputtering spark that never quite died. A spark of light birthed by a better side of him that refused to let the dark, boiling rage win. Seething self loathing that burned as hot as any star, writhing like tendrils of solar flares heaving from a molten sea. An internal war he tried to hide away, from himself, from Them.
For Them. In the end it always came back to Them.
The darkness within would find its way out in uncontrolled moments, when emotion burned hot. He let it loose when They were threatened, each time wondering if this would be it, if this time he would be unable to draw it all back in. If this time it would consume and burn everything else away.
All of Them, his Companions, each filled with light brighter than any star. He held Them at arm's length, filled with paralysing fear he would destroy Them, would let the darkness within extinguish all that They were.
They fuelled the fires within, kept the darkness at bay, even as They drew it out, a heady contradiction impossible to resist. He had tried, and failed. Alone there was nowhere to hide from the inner turmoil. It ate at him until he let it loose, let in run rampant with no innocent bystanders to be caught in it.
That was the problem. He was worse without Them. Alone he blazed out of control, a nova that burned unchecked.
He was a coward, a fool, more villain than he ever was heroic. One day They'd figure that out. One day They would let him burn, let the nova meet its searing end.
They'd be better off without him.
One day, They would see it, and look to stars better, brighter than he ever could be.
.......................