Walk Through the Dust
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clocketpatchSo, 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.
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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...
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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!
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Arrghh - random plotbunny attack! Howsabouts - K-9Mk1/K-9Mk2??
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http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=6380
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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...
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