Walk Through the Dust

[clocketpatch]

So, I present you with... fic! Very un-beta'd half-edited fic which needs an awful lot of clean up before it goes public, but who knows how long that will take. It started as a series of drabbles, but I kind of abandoned that format somewhere towards the end. It's Romana in E-Space, and an attempt at figuring out her change in demeanor towards the Doctor during the audio adventures (not the Gallifrey audios, since I haven't heard those, but just the regular line) as opposed to during the show, and also a bit of Time War speculation.

Length: 990 words
Rating: PG, I guess, for some implied stuff

EDITED: the fic has now been re-writ, and edited, and stuff. Yay!

 

Walk Through the Dust

 

1 — Regret

The déjà vu never ends.
E-Space is essentially the same as N-space; it occupies the same co-ordinates sliced through a shattered looking-glass.

She’s got word from Biroc; there’s a slave camp 20 clicks to the west.
Romana shields her vision against the sun and examines the mist-hung hills.

She picnicked on those green slopes in that other lost existence; when she was the Doctor’s apprentice/lover/friend and they travelled by magic, dodging responsibility, and consequence. But in this universe the spare, sublime Yorkshire dales are choked by jungle, and the heat is tight enough that she can attribute any tears to sweat.



2 — Naivety

She tries, first, to change this universe by changing minds. She talks, as the Doctor would, but the citizens of E-space cover their ears. She tries to impress upon them the value of freedom and the horrors of bondage; the wrongs which they are committing, but, more often than not, their reply is:

“They’re only Tharils”

or,

“Judgemental bitch. How could an outsider understand our ways?”

The Doctor was repelled by violence, and Romana took that value from him, but, when the choice is a thousand sleeping slaves or one cruel, ignorance-loving trader, she tells K-9 to open fire.



3 — Inadequacy

The Tharils’ methods of time travel are very different from the refined technology Romana is used to; Gallifrey mastered time with metal and silicon circuits, but the Tharils never needed any such aids:

They are time.

They become the wind howling in the vortex. They wander without shells, guarded only by their strength of will, and the hardness of their hearts.
Biroc tries to explain, and Romana grasps the concepts, can perform the most basic manoeuvres, but she lacks the patterns of temporal energy woven into the Tharils’ mitochondrial strands.
Still, she tries; to build a TARDIS, or to travel naked —



4 — Subjectivity

Granting freedom isn’t all she expected.

When Romana danced with the Doctor adventures ended succinctly, always with the assumption that they had done good, always with his confident smile —

Not all of the Tharils enjoy the freedom she fights to give; others enjoy it too much. The majority of the emancipated have no sense of how to live unshackled. Romana and Biroc give charismatic speeches, but still, too many die. Some, seeing their brothers laid waste by liberty, abandon Romana’s gift and submit themselves back into bondage, while others repay their lives of captivity by acquiring slaves of their own.



5 — Betrayal

Biroc puts his paw on her bare arm. He hugs her, and his dusky mane blends with her blonde hair. His breath is hot and smells of the wilderness, of slave-grown spices, and time. “We will succeed,” he tells her. “We will, we have, we are.”

Romana wonders what the xenophobic prattlers in the Citadel would think of this union; those people who had been her professors, her elders, her silly know-it-all friends. She wonders what the Doctor would think, and then she pulls away, leaving Biroc confused.
She feels cold without his fur against her skin; colder without his scarf.



6 — Fear

When she choose to stay, there were reasons: to escape Gallifrey’s summons and the Black Guardian’s vengeance; to break from the Doctor’s shadow, and from unrequited love; to help Biroc with his noble dream —

She realizes, too late, how selfish her desires were.
She shouldn’t have turned her condescending glare when those slavers questioned her understanding.
Not that they were any better, not that they were in any way right, but she is a Time Lady, however far she runs. There were rules on Gallifrey against meddling; rules she ignored for a moment of happiness.
Now she pays.



7 — Failure

"You can't fight Time Lords, Romana."
"You did, once."
"And lost." 
 

He knew. She sees that now; he knew, but, wise-cruel teacher, he left her to learn on her own. Or —
She hurts to wonder; was he too much of a coward to admit his own mistake? was he so much of a fool that he thought she might do better?

"You were the noblest Romana of them all."

 

*

Biroc is killed by his own people for trying to teach forgiveness. Those who sided with him are given the choice: enslavement or death?
Romana forgets her vow to stay and help. She doesn’t see the rebels' decision.
She runs. She runs, and barely escapes with her life.

She knows that, once, the Tharils commanded the gate between universes. She knows what they might do now that dominion has been restored to them. The cold metal of Gallifrey ticks in her mind, the memories of Biroc transmute themselves into her blood, the Doctor whispers his hypocritical warning;

She knows what she must do.



8 — Desperation

The gate opens. Her finger falls.
Time is sliced backwards through a shattered looking-glass,

and every single creature dies.



9 — Duty

When she returns to N-space Romana flings herself to her home world’s laws and judgement, expecting the harshest of punishments. Instead, the secret councils laud her coldness. When she meets the Doctor next that frigidness has seeped into her hearts. She holds his hand and pretends to laugh as they run from her office.

They travel again, but the magic has gone out of it, the consequences loom heavy, and responsibility always baits her back to her icy Presidential cell.

She thinks:
I knew you once. I loved you once.

She thinks:
You deserved better.

She never tells him, but, even through the laughter and the chaos, it is impossible to mistake the judgement in his eye.

She thinks:
You could not possibly understand.



10 — Truth

It is a lie.

Romana knows that those words, no matter their speaker, have always been only an excuse. He does understand, and so does she, and that is why she must force him now as the last Watch falls and the hourglass cracks;

to unleash this fire,

to damn them all.


 

Comments

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

I liked this; I liked this a lot, and I don't just say that in a back-slapping fic reviewing sense. It ties in brilliantly with the harshness and sophistication of the worldview presented in Warriors' Gate, where, sure, the Tharils deserved our sympathy because they were slaves and slavery is wrong, but where it was also made perfectly clear (well, as clear as anything in that story) that in their own day they had been as bad, and that their current bondage came as a result of their overthrow by those they had themselves bound.

It also explains pretty well the harder, perhaps less likeable, Romana III of the novels and audios; not only has she been calloused and brutalised by her experiences in E-Space, but in a very real sense she has grown up and made realisations about herself. I like that you get a dig in at Gallifrey, once again; truly those Time Lords (excluding the Doctor and Romana, obviously) are the scum of the universe...

I'd say this could do with being expanded into an epic, tragic tale of rise and fall, but one of the things I like best about your fic is the way you hint at things, very subtly, yet at the same time letting us know all of the horrible stuff we need to know. Perhaps that would be lost in a longer work. Personally, I think I have a tendency to spell things out where maybe I should hint.

In a sense, this is the story I wanted to write when I wrote about Romana and the Time War in that fic "Gaze into the Abyss", but I think I chickened out to some extent. I deliberately ignored Romana III in the spinoff media and made believe that No. II had somehow carried on forever. I'll admit that I don't care for Romana III; I'd prefer the character's general admirableness and her love for the Doctor to continue forever, but at the same time I recognise that from a storytelling point of view, that is maybe the soft option, that the harsher, less loveable Romana of the later media is perhaps a more realistic response to the Time War etc. Also, my original intention was that the Time War and the downfall of Gallifrey would end up being all Romana's fault, brought on by her overweaning ambition and interventionist streak. That got lost somewhere in the course of actually writing the story; all of the bad stuff that goes down is the fault of Davros or stuffy old Time Lords, and any tension in the Doctor/Romana relationship comes from the Doctor's side, particularly from Seven. So, while that fic was generally well-received, I'd identify these as weak areas from my point of view.

So anyway, hats off to you for such a good fic and for having a little of the moral and storytelling courage I maybe lacked. God, I've gone on longer than the actual fic I think (not to mention spending most of it egotistically talking about my own fic!), so I will get while the getting is good; see you around.

[clocketpatch]

You know, all while writing this I kept thinking "JJ could do such a better job on this story." Mostly because, from the Romana adventures you've written, I've received the impression that you really understand the character and her motives. If nothing else, I think you probably understand Warrior's Gate better, it being one of your favourite eppies and all (I was having to look up every second thing on the BBC website, being all, did this really happen? what was that character's name? is Tharils spelled with one or two r's??) But, over all *preens a bit* I'm rather pleased with how it turned out considering that it was written at two in the morning and posted during a fit of sleep-deprived grandiose. There are a few things I'd like to work on it it to make it all tie together better and I felt like I was laying it on a bit thick at some points with the moralizing. Personally, I think you're right in saying that this would maybe work better as an epic rise and fall tale. I don't find that make something longer necessarily takes all of the subtlety out of it; rather, it gives a chance for more subtly to be added in.

Oh, and on the note of Romana III; I have had NO experience with her outside of fic. Romana II is a bit different in the audios, even in the Shada remake (have you seen?). It's just... you can tell that the relationship has changed.

Anyway, thanks for the long and wonderful review!

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Hey, my critiquing abilities ought to be taken with a pinch of salt; if you want to expand it, please do, and I will look forward to reading it; I think you've sketched out a great tale here, and I'd like to see more! See, if I'd written Romana in E-Space, I would have had her going around being all Doctorly and heroic and doing good; I think your more pessimistic take is a much more intriguing direction for the character. Also good to see K-9 hinted at as being the terrible tin god of war we secretly know him to be. :)

Sorry, my brain wasn't working last night; it's the ale, it kills neurons. I didn't know whether you were referring to Romana III in your introduction. Romana III for me is one of the arguments (like John Peel's Dalek novels or the Master's origin story) for being able to pick and choose which of the novels and audios are canon, as I was arguing with Magnus on DbyA a couple of weeks ago. Not because the character or the stories she was in were bad, quite the opposite, but because they go against my fuzzy, sentimental view of Romana. It's what I meant when I said I thought I chickened out a bit in my Time War fic by trying to keep the character just the same as she was on TV. But yes, even the older Romana II portrayed by Lalla in the audios (and I love the Shada remake, although it does make me mourn for the TV story that might have been) has that growth and their relationship has changed (it had changed too in my fic, but as I say, because the Doctor had regenerated, not because of Romana). So, yeah, I write all of this stuff about future wars and planets exploding and Daleks genociding people, but I'm a bit of a softie when it comes to Romana as a character :).

Argh, just spent about a page talking about me again :(. Anyway, hope you do expand on these themes, and glad to know I'm not the only Romana/Biroc shipper around; sure, Doc/Romana is the OTP, but he wasn't monogamous either, was he, and a girl gets lonely shut in the Exo-universe with only a tin dog for company (and please god let there not be anyone out there sick enough to have written K-9/anyone fic!).

Oh, and I used my Sutekh piccie just because whenever I see the words "dust" and "walk" in the same sentence, I naturally think of him...

[clocketpatch]

"Argh, just spent about a page talking about me again"

Ah, don't mind that; that's what lj's for after all, isn't it? Anyway, it's very interesting self-proselytizing and I do enjoy reading it.

I know what you mean about some characters being sacred, even if they clearly change in other media. Sarah-Jane, for example, I will never accept that she spent 30 years 'pining'.

Oh, and speaking of K-9 fic... well, I shall hold my peace for fear of scarring you, but I've come across that, yes, and it was written skillfully enough to be funny as a barrel of demented stoats!

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Hm, K-9/??? Scary yet intriguing... I know I will end up locating this somehow via the dark arts of Google, however much I tell myself I won't.

Arrghh - random plotbunny attack! Howsabouts - K-9Mk1/K-9Mk2??

[clocketpatch]

hmmm, Tindog vs. Tindog? I smell a tin bunny lurking about somewhere... oh! and for your cringing pleasure, I quite unexpectedly stumbled back upon that story I was referencing. It to is tindog/tindog... but in the most disturbing way imaginable!

http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=6380

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

AARRGGHH!!! No, actually, it's kind of sweet; Mickey deserves it, in some weird way. Poor K-9, though...

I'm thinking K-9/K-9 with a bit of Romana/Leela thrown in, although as a heterosexual male, I'm a bit leery of writing femslash for fear of people being suspicious of my motives, if you know what I mean. :) So many bunnies about lately, and so few words actually typed out...

[clocketpatch]

Eh? If that's what turns your crank (or doesn't, as the case may be) go for it. I wrote up an essay on fanfic last year (which is in the archives here by the way) and you know, I think that you're the main demographic group creating that sort of fic. Or, at the least, you're somewhat entitled to do so given all of the heterosexual women out there writing slash.

[stellastars]

Despite the fact that I don't have full knowledge Romana's episodes, I still thought this was lovely. The parts that really captured my attention were the references to Doctor/Romana, like this line She feels cold without his fur against her skin; colder without his scarf. as just one example.

I also loved the overall mood of the piece. It just feels... weighty? (If that makes any sense!) Sobering, might be a better word for it. One of those stories that just sort of settles against your chest and takes your breath away.

This is going to be a fic that I bookmark, so when I have more knowledge of the episodes it's related to, I can come back and marvel anew at its brilliance.

[clocketpatch]

I'm still not done with it yet - hence the friend's lock -
but I'm glad you enjoyed, especially that line you quoted, because I really struggled with that one; trying to make it fit within the drabble conventions without being completely vague.

The orignal was something along the lines of: 'She feels cold without the warmth of fur; colder parted from rough wool.'

Anyway, I'm pecking away at finalizing it all now, and the finished version will probably go on the good ol' [url=http://www.whofic.com/viewuser.php?uid=2344] teaspoon [/url]

As for the mood, the episode it's based on is very much like that, and I think it would be hard to write ANYTHING based around Warrior's Gate without some of it wearing off.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Wow. I agree with Stella here, 'sobering' is a proper and fitting summing up of the mood this imbues. I haven't had the chance to add the audio world to my visual world yet, so I only know hints and bits and snatches of what you are referring to, but that doesn't lessen the impact as much as a person might expect. Poetic and strong and sorrowful.

[clocketpatch]

I highly recomend the audios if ever you get the chance. There's a bit of a sample of there awesomeness on the BBC website with Shada and Real Time (and Shalka, which is something completely different really, but I'm still in love with it and REG!9)

Eight's Big Finish line is probably my favourite though, just because of Zagreus. Crack supreme!

er, yes... I rant. Thanks for all of the kind words on the fic!

[larielromeniel.livejournal.com]

"Warrior's Gate" is probably the oldest classic Who episode I still have on videotape, and it's the first one I ever really watched intently. Now I have to go back and see it again!

You've done a wonderful job with this, and I especially love the description of how the Tharils are able to manage time. I had forgotten they had that particular skill. It's been that long since I've seen "Warrior's Gate."

Really a wonderful job!

[clocketpatch]

Nothing is better than accidently (or on-purposely) inspiring the watching of Classic Who! *dances*

I'd actually forgot that particular skill myself and needed to re-learn about it (and most of the episode) via the BBC's great Classic episode guide.

[(Anonymous)]

What's funny to me is that a few years ago I had created an original character who could "walk through time" and other dimensions without a machine.

I have to go digging through my VHS tapes.

[nyaaaaaauuuuuuu.livejournal.com]

This is beautifully poignant. You can just see Romana being forced to her crisis, as it were. I really like the style as well. Sucks you in. :)

[clocketpatch]

Glad you enjoyed! Poor Romana, she just gets shuffled from one bum situation to the next in this, and is force to make the best of it. I think she's more than a little warped by the end