Daphnie_1 : Doctor Who - Romana.
Title: Time
Author: Daphnie_1 (me)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slight AU for Canon events, possible spoiler for the third season of Doctor Who.
Prompt: I64) A whisper can be stronger, as an atom is stronger, than a whole mountain. -- Louise Nevelson.
Summary: Romana thinks about the nature of time and about what it means to be a Timelord. It follows her from the academy, through meeting the Doctor, and the Timewar afterwards.
Author’s Note: Thanks to magie_05 for Beta-ing.
I have a mod question: Am I allowed to post more than one story in regards to the prompt?
I64) A whisper can be stronger, as an atom is stronger, than a whole mountain. -- Louise Nevelson.
Romana has never really gone by another name. She’s had variants; she’s had it shortened, but essentially it’s always meant the same thing.
All through the Academy people changed their names like putting on a new set of clothes. She just never saw the point in it.
Time Lords are almost as obsessed with names as they are with history. She spent most of her time at the Academy being told stories of the people in her chapter. Sometimes in warning, sometimes in praise. Theta, Koschei and Ushas - everybody knew their names.
Some of the students talked about them in hushed whispers - like they where something to be feared, to be respected. Romana paid no attention to the stories; she just wanted to get through the Academy.
She couldn’t avoid the whispers all the time, though. Then one day this student came up with a theory: what if they actually interfered with time, meddled? Went about changing things like a few Time Lords had done before?
She would come to learn that Humans call it chaos theory: that the slightest change can alter the entire course of history. Even a word whispered at the wrong time can potentially change - potentially destroy - everything. That’s why they didn’t interfere. What they didn’t really appreciate, though, was one single fact: by merely observing, the Time Lords changed events.
She accepted the non-interference rule all through the Academy - graduated first in her class - and a long time after that. It wasn’t until she got out into the universe for herself, met the Doctor, saw things, that she started to challenge what she’d been taught.
It was only then that she really started to understand time. She had been taught to see it as something abstract, something malleable that she was above and beyond. What changed all that was falling in love with a human - just before she met the Doctor.
She started to realise how important time is, how quickly it passes. Romana realises what it must be like to live as one of them after he dies. To be constantly obsessed with the passing of time, to effectively let it run you.
It did not make her more sympathetic, more understanding; if anything, it only made her more contemptuous. Humans lived less of a life because they spent so much energy worrying over time when they should be doing other things, more important and more exciting things. Life does not mean more - in her mind, anyway - just because it ends.
Then she met the Doctor a short while after that. The ever-famous Theta who’d changed his name more times than he’d changed his face - he was so careless with those regenerations.
Now the Doctor did interfere in the universe, change things. She hadn’t liked him to start with - thought far too much of himself. After she regenerated, though, a little of the Doctor had rubbed off on her. Whether that was good or not she could never quite decide.
They went separate ways a little after that - each having learnt a fair amount from the other. How they parted, though, is extremely significant. She ends up staying on some stupid backwater planet in E-Space trying to save the inhabitants. She didn’t have to stay; she chose to stay, because she’d come to understand something.
The Time Lords needed to do more than watch and record. The entire society was built around observation and not action. Yes, acting had the potential to harm, but wasn’t inaction worse? Just standing by and letting things happen because that’s how it’d always been done? The Doctor had rubbed off on her more than she was willing to let on.
She returns from E-Space and the entire universe is quiet, so quiet that she actually thinks she’s going to go mad. She’s so used to being able to sense the others, to hearing a clamouring of voices in her head. Not a single Time Lord, not one. They’re just gone. Along with Gallifrey, everything is just...gone. She can’t even begin to imagine what could have happened.
She turns herself human - building a chameleon arc from scratch - just to escape the quiet in her head. She lives a normal life after that, nothing out of the ordinary. Only the dimmest of dim recollections of her other life. Weird thoughts, dreams at night in which she travels stars, almost like it’s her, but not.
There’s this one dream that haunts her - she can’t quite chase it away. She’s standing on the surface of a planet she doesn’t know, the sky alight with fire and the trees littered with silver leaves. She walks - the person in her dream looks nothing like her but somehow she knows it is her. The person is tall, and dark haired, and walks with such authority.
Then there’s the machine that seems to be hidden in the landscape - the inside is huge, almost like it’s alive. She hits the switches and flicks levers, the machine making the most unholy noises - like it’s in pain, like it’s screaming. She usually wakes at this point.
Romana - Annie now - watches Harold Saxon on the TV and something is familiar about him. It nags and nags at her but she just can’t quite place it. She doesn’t care, though, because there’s something about him that’s calm, reassuring, his voice filled with hope and promise. She might even vote for him.
She passes the Doctor in the street - although she doesn’t know it’s him - and he looks at her. For a split second he looks at her as if he’s figured it out. As if he knows exactly who she is, but it passes and he’s gone.
Then there’s that necklace. The one that just showed up from no-where that she just can’t leave alone. She wears it all the time, can’t stop fiddling with it when she’s meant to be doing filing.
Everything she was is trapped inside a necklace draped around her neck.
Authors note: Theta, Koschei, and Ushas are the ‘academy’ names of the Doctor, the Master, and The Rani in that order.
Author: Daphnie_1 (me)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slight AU for Canon events, possible spoiler for the third season of Doctor Who.
Prompt: I64) A whisper can be stronger, as an atom is stronger, than a whole mountain. -- Louise Nevelson.
Summary: Romana thinks about the nature of time and about what it means to be a Timelord. It follows her from the academy, through meeting the Doctor, and the Timewar afterwards.
Author’s Note: Thanks to magie_05 for Beta-ing.
I have a mod question: Am I allowed to post more than one story in regards to the prompt?
I64) A whisper can be stronger, as an atom is stronger, than a whole mountain. -- Louise Nevelson.
Romana has never really gone by another name. She’s had variants; she’s had it shortened, but essentially it’s always meant the same thing.
All through the Academy people changed their names like putting on a new set of clothes. She just never saw the point in it.
Time Lords are almost as obsessed with names as they are with history. She spent most of her time at the Academy being told stories of the people in her chapter. Sometimes in warning, sometimes in praise. Theta, Koschei and Ushas - everybody knew their names.
Some of the students talked about them in hushed whispers - like they where something to be feared, to be respected. Romana paid no attention to the stories; she just wanted to get through the Academy.
She couldn’t avoid the whispers all the time, though. Then one day this student came up with a theory: what if they actually interfered with time, meddled? Went about changing things like a few Time Lords had done before?
She would come to learn that Humans call it chaos theory: that the slightest change can alter the entire course of history. Even a word whispered at the wrong time can potentially change - potentially destroy - everything. That’s why they didn’t interfere. What they didn’t really appreciate, though, was one single fact: by merely observing, the Time Lords changed events.
She accepted the non-interference rule all through the Academy - graduated first in her class - and a long time after that. It wasn’t until she got out into the universe for herself, met the Doctor, saw things, that she started to challenge what she’d been taught.
It was only then that she really started to understand time. She had been taught to see it as something abstract, something malleable that she was above and beyond. What changed all that was falling in love with a human - just before she met the Doctor.
She started to realise how important time is, how quickly it passes. Romana realises what it must be like to live as one of them after he dies. To be constantly obsessed with the passing of time, to effectively let it run you.
It did not make her more sympathetic, more understanding; if anything, it only made her more contemptuous. Humans lived less of a life because they spent so much energy worrying over time when they should be doing other things, more important and more exciting things. Life does not mean more - in her mind, anyway - just because it ends.
Then she met the Doctor a short while after that. The ever-famous Theta who’d changed his name more times than he’d changed his face - he was so careless with those regenerations.
Now the Doctor did interfere in the universe, change things. She hadn’t liked him to start with - thought far too much of himself. After she regenerated, though, a little of the Doctor had rubbed off on her. Whether that was good or not she could never quite decide.
They went separate ways a little after that - each having learnt a fair amount from the other. How they parted, though, is extremely significant. She ends up staying on some stupid backwater planet in E-Space trying to save the inhabitants. She didn’t have to stay; she chose to stay, because she’d come to understand something.
The Time Lords needed to do more than watch and record. The entire society was built around observation and not action. Yes, acting had the potential to harm, but wasn’t inaction worse? Just standing by and letting things happen because that’s how it’d always been done? The Doctor had rubbed off on her more than she was willing to let on.
She returns from E-Space and the entire universe is quiet, so quiet that she actually thinks she’s going to go mad. She’s so used to being able to sense the others, to hearing a clamouring of voices in her head. Not a single Time Lord, not one. They’re just gone. Along with Gallifrey, everything is just...gone. She can’t even begin to imagine what could have happened.
She turns herself human - building a chameleon arc from scratch - just to escape the quiet in her head. She lives a normal life after that, nothing out of the ordinary. Only the dimmest of dim recollections of her other life. Weird thoughts, dreams at night in which she travels stars, almost like it’s her, but not.
There’s this one dream that haunts her - she can’t quite chase it away. She’s standing on the surface of a planet she doesn’t know, the sky alight with fire and the trees littered with silver leaves. She walks - the person in her dream looks nothing like her but somehow she knows it is her. The person is tall, and dark haired, and walks with such authority.
Then there’s the machine that seems to be hidden in the landscape - the inside is huge, almost like it’s alive. She hits the switches and flicks levers, the machine making the most unholy noises - like it’s in pain, like it’s screaming. She usually wakes at this point.
Romana - Annie now - watches Harold Saxon on the TV and something is familiar about him. It nags and nags at her but she just can’t quite place it. She doesn’t care, though, because there’s something about him that’s calm, reassuring, his voice filled with hope and promise. She might even vote for him.
She passes the Doctor in the street - although she doesn’t know it’s him - and he looks at her. For a split second he looks at her as if he’s figured it out. As if he knows exactly who she is, but it passes and he’s gone.
Then there’s that necklace. The one that just showed up from no-where that she just can’t leave alone. She wears it all the time, can’t stop fiddling with it when she’s meant to be doing filing.
Everything she was is trapped inside a necklace draped around her neck.
Authors note: Theta, Koschei, and Ushas are the ‘academy’ names of the Doctor, the Master, and The Rani in that order.