Fic: A Step out of Sequence

[splinteredstar]

Bravely Default, DeRosso/Yulyana

Doctor/Companion AU

AKA dr who fic written by someone who has never watched Dr Who AKA that thing that spun way out of control AKA "i researched 12 century cathedrals for one detail in one scene"

Spoilers for Vampire Subquest in Bravely Default

The Doctor always works to protect humanity - but every now and then, he finds a fascinating, distracting person. DeRosso/Yulyana subtext

 

Florem, 534

The Doctor ducked behind a wall to catch his breath as magical explosions rained down around him. The Crystalist Civil War was at its peak, battles raging across every continent in waves as the different factions battled for control of the crystals. The world would survive, and come out better for it in the end. But until then, the Doctor minded the details, making sure humanity did not consume itself in its furor. Even if sometimes he felt he was working against the species’ best efforts.

The revolutionary faction would ultimately be victorious, but at this point in the war many of them did not believe that. Some argued for more extreme measures - and one determined mage attempted to summon a demon from the infernal realm that she most certainly could not control.

The Doctor had made it there in time to prevent any rips in reality or rampaging demons, but unfortunately, disabling the mage had taken enough of attention that he couldn’t fully disguise himself.  That determined mage and her allies hadn’t /quite/ approved of the Doctor’s interference, and so he had to dodge their attacks all the way to the TARDIS.

All in all, it could have gone better. Oh well. He’d done what needed to be done for humanity to survive and thrive, and that was all he ever aimed for.

The explosions behind him ceased and the thundering noise was replaced with shouting and footsteps. The Doctor pushed up from the wall, frowning. A more direct attack, then? He was overdue to leave, regardless, so he leapt over the last few barriers between him and where he’d parked the TARDIS.

As he opened his craft, he heard footsteps close behind him – he turned in time to see a man slide around the edge of the wall in pursuit. The Doctor noted details instantly even as he stepped backwards into his ship – long red hair in a messy braid, prominent nose, sharp brown eyes and hands wrapped in gleams of power. The man wore the clothes of a foreigner – Eternian, perhaps?

The man gasped, wisps of power reaching out, and shouted, “/You!/”

-but the Doctor didn’t pause as the door of the TARDIS slid shut.

Harena, 572

A few months (a few decades) later, the Doctor stared at the lush tropical realm of Harena and frowned. At some point, this area turned into a parched wasteland, traditional rulers disposed and replaced by a self-serving monarchy. He was not intending to prevent this – the desert forced the society to become a technological hub, spreading knowledge and science across the region. But such a drastic climate change was strange, and warranted investigation.

As far as he could tell, the change in weather patterns was caused by a change in the mountain range around the wind crystal, allowing dry air to blow moisture away from the region. But there was no volcanic activity anywhere near here, and erosion wasn’t that fast. What could erase a /mountain/?

It all felt like outside interference. There were other realms that humans were only faintly aware of, and any brush with them was often disastrous to humankind. The Doctor was not human, but this species was fascinating, intricate and full of potential. Protecting these fragile lives gave his otherwise empty immortality purpose.

He leaned against a palm tree, not bothering to hide in illusion yet, and watched people walking past on one of the main routes of the region. His pale skin marked him as a foreigner here, but he was hardly the only one on such a large trade route. He leaned his head back against the tree and closed his eyes, stretching his senses out for any gates in space time –

-and then he jerked his eyes open again in shock. He pushed off of the tree and then through the crowd, chasing that feeling of –

The crowd flowed around him, pushing him forward in the direction he was going anyway, until he ended up in the packed city center. The crowd thickened around an ornate platform in the center, full of such an eclectic mix of people that another dark-haired foreigner was hardly noticeable.

The Doctor glanced over the platform, immediately discounting the man in golden robes and the young woman in a white dress, they weren’t –

He locked eyes with an old man in green robes – an old man with pale hair, bent with a cane but /dripping/ with power, so much power, he’d never seen anything like that in a mortal before – he locked eyes with the man and the man /stared back/ at him, brown eyes unflinching and sharp. The man’s expression hardened, the corona of power shifting, sharpening – The Doctor narrowed his eyes, trying to pin down the strange sense of /familiarity/, but he would have remembered this sort of power -

“If you will excuse me, your holiness,” the man said with a deferent bow to the man in gold, his eyes still stuck on the Doctor’s, “For your safety, there is something I must attend to.”

The man in gold turned to say something in reply – but the Doctor didn’t listen, already backing out of the crowd. Whatever was about to happen, there were far too many witnesses – innocent bystanders – in this packed city square. He pushed out against the crowd, able to twist through the clumps of people with ease – a bit of power and he was able to slip through the gaps without anyone noticing, it was easy to get lost into a crowd –

-except when he turned back at the edge of the square, those sharp brown eyes were locked on him still. The man – where had the Doctor seen him before, something about the shape of the face was so familiar – had stepped down from the platform, striding through the parting crowd much faster than a man his age should have been capable of. Power swirled around him, invisible to most but glowing brightly in the Doctor’s vision.

Well. This was going to get worse, wasn’t it?

He ducked down an alley way and then another, trying to get out of the city – he could feel the man’s pursuit, slow but steady as the creep of continents across the planet. If that was as fast as the man could go, then maybe the Doctor would be able to reach the TARDIS and figure out what, precisely, was going on.

Slipping past the sprawling marketplaces on the edge of the city, he reached the fertile grasslands around the city. The tangle of power was still a while behind him, far enough for him to reach where he had parked his craft – he had to get the camouflage fixed -

-the power blinked out, all of a sudden, so sudden that he nearly stumbled into a palm tree. What could possibly – there was no way to /hide/ that kind of power, not if he was looking for it, so where –

He felt a gap in space-time open –

-and then he was blind.

Power exploded in front of him, erupting out of the gap and ringing high and sharp in his ears. What could /possibly/-

“You cannot run from me, demon.”

The man in green? The Doctor blinked vision back into his eyes, mentally swearing in a long-dead language. He looked – up?

The man floated above the ground, supported by a fountain of seemingly endless energy. The Doctor stared for a long moment, most of his mind calculating his chances of survival – only a handful of entities could teleport, and this mortal did it by ripping open-space time!

But the rest of his mind was struck, breathless – this man was a supernova in a mortal shell, like staring into the sun, terrifying and /beautiful/ in equal measure –

“Nothing to say?”

“I’m not certain what you expect me to say,” He finally said, brushing dust off of his pants and straining his senses for anything else in the area. Weak spots in reality tempted all sorts of invaders, and that was the one thing that could possibly make this day worse. But there was nothing – the gap in space time had closed like it was never there. The power of planets colliding and the control of a master surgeon.  Who /was/ this mortal? “I just arrived here.”

The man snorted and crossed his arms. His cane floated next to him, twisting like caught in a wild stream, the currents of power snarling and tangling through brassy-blond hair.

“You are a plight on humanity, demon. Where you walk death and destruction follow. I am Yulyana the sage, and I will remove you.”

The name struck no recollection, but that was no indication – it was a clue, useful for research later. As for the rest, well, the doctor had been called worse over the years. Just usually only /after/ he’d done something in the area, and he hadn’t been anywhere near here in the last five decades as far as he knew.

Maybe he would be able to talk his way out of this battle. Unlikely, but always worth a shot. A battle this close to the city, this far from the TARDIS, and dealing this level of power? It would take all of his effort just to minimize bystander casualties.  “I assure you, I have not, nor do I intend to harm anyone.” The man narrowed his eyes and the power around him flared once. Not a good sign, but the man wasn’t attacking… “I’m sure this is all a misundersta-”

The man’s cane flew at his face. The Doctor twisted out of the way – and then ducked as the cane swung back around, returning to the man’s side. The man’s expression was stone.

“This is no misunderstanding, demon. I would know you no matter how you disguised yourself.” Reality cracked in waves. “This is a reckoning, for all you have done!”

Power exploded out as punctuation, strong enough that the grass around them was blown back. The Doctor covered his eyes against the glare and rapidly calculated the location of the TARDIS, the distance to the city and the nearby Temple of Wind, and the amount of power the man was apparently willing to use.

Well, /damn/.

Escape or neutralize? The Doctor had doubts about the ease of either, but nevertheless. Leaving someone with this much power active near a population center, much less near the Wind Crystal, could be disastrous – but on the other hand, the man had only become aggressive when the Doctor appeared, so perhaps escaping would neutralize the situation regardless…

The Doctor nodded, decision made, and pulled out his rarely-used thin red blade. To decide the best course of action, he would need to take the measure of the man, and there were few better ways to do that then battle.

As soon as he drew his sword, the battle began in earnest. The cane dove at his face again – he blocked the blow with his sword, stepping back to take the force. Then he swore – the cane twisted about the contact point and swung at him from the side. He ducked underneath its swing and then blocked the next attack with the flat of his sword.

All the while, Yulyana floated a few meters away, brows twisted in concentration but otherwise unaffected.

The Doctor growled under his breath, actually rather impressed. His enemy’s telekinetic control was as flawless as his control of space-time, and he was clearly clever enough to use his unconventional weapon to its full advantage.

Defense was going to be difficult, then. In that case…

He shifted his grip on his sword and pushed back against the next blow with enough force to send the cane pin wheeling away. In the second he gained while his opponent tried to regain control of his weapon, the Doctor lunged at him.

It was time to change the dynamic of this battle.

The Sage dropped to the ground to avoid the attack, his brown eyes widened in shock for a moment before narrowing again. His cane shot back to his side, and then twisted up to block the Doctor’s next attack to his shoulder. The Doctor aimed not to kill, to cripple at worst, though how to do that with a telekinetic?

The cane circled Yulyana like an electron, blocking him from attacks, and then swung out in a slash. The Doctor dropped to one knee and then thrust up underneath. His opponent jumped back – spry, for such an old man – and his cane slammed down. The Doctor heard the whistling of the air and tumbled to the side.

He rolled and then rose to his feet again in time to block the next blow. He slid backwards on the grass, this attack so much stronger than the last, only maintaining his footing with effort. Yulyana snarled at him and then his cane returned to his side.

Power exploded out of the Sage. The Doctor slid to a stop midway through his next attack, what was the man /doing/ –

The Doctor watched in mounting horror as Yulyana ripped open reality itself. A vortex of darkness twisted around them. He could feel a score of demons and otherworldly monsters pushing at the sudden weak point, his ears ringing with their screams and snarls and the sound of flesh tearing, unholy claws scrambling at the boundary – at any moment they would break through and spill out on a vulnerable world, and all of the Doctor’s power would not be enough to save it.

And then the Sage Yulyana did the impossible, yet again.

He stared down at the vortex he had opened, calmly assessing. He reached down into the darkness and pulled out – something, glowing with too much energy for the Doctor to distinguish – and then with a flicker of power –

-his ears popped at the change of pressure, at the sudden lack of demonic noise, at the shuddering realization that Yulyana had the power to close the vortex against the efforts of a hundred monsters –

The Doctor blinked spots out of his vision as the vortex snapped out of existence. The ball of light in Yulyana’s hand was growing, unfolding as the Sage pumped his own power into it –

The Doctor swore as the realization hit him – there had only been a dozen human summoners in the entirety of history! And one with this much control, feeding a summon with enough of his own energy to allow it to fully manifest- 

Girtablulu, the earth scorpion, raised its massive claws above him and he barely managed to dodge as they came down. The force cracked the ground and spread outwards, towards the mountains behind him that guarded the wind crystal. A thick crack erupted, the mountains barely absorbing the force.

Ah, the Doctor thought flatly, watching a mountain explode into a landslide. So that’s how that happened.

He spun back to his opponent, his blade flashing in kicked up dirt. The potential for damage just grew exponentially if the man was able to do that and willing to risk the crystal. He tracked Yulyana by his power signature and pushed power into his sword, ready to attack, until the dust faded–

-and he saw the man’s expression.

Shock, surprise, guilt – the summon disintegrated into a swirl of light as Yulyana stopped feeding it power. An accident, then. The man hadn’t expected him to be able to dodge.

In the few still seconds that followed, the Doctor spared half a moment to think about the angle of attack – it struck the mountain at a glancing blow, unable to directly hit the crystal. Random chance? Considering the skill and intelligence the man had fought with up until this point, it seemed unlikely.

A thread of tension dropped from his shoulders. Knowing that his opponent did not intend to cause, nor gloried in collateral damage made him feel much better about leaving him alive. His abilities were alarming, but not something that had to be dealt with now.

Escape, then. He triangulated the position of the TARDIS – he’d kept it within reasonable reach in case of escape, though never /too/ close – his normal escape tactics might be tricky with someone who could track him –

A thundering crack shot out behind him, and then – “Child, be careful!”

The Doctor spun around and then swore. Bystanders.

A young boy stood on the edge of the crevasse, eyes wide and staring at the battle. A clearly-terrified old woman was inching forward towards the child – but aftershocks were still rumbling through the area, and it was only a matter of time –

The Doctor grit his teeth and, ignoring his opponent, leapt towards the child – he landed on the edge of the crevasse and felt the earth shifting beneath him – another burst of energy and he tackled the child and knocked them both away from the edge. A second later, and the ledge crumbled into dust.

He let go of the boy and glanced over him to make sure he wasn’t injured. A few scrapes, but… He enveloped the boy in a haze of healing magic, and then pushed him gently in the direction of the old woman. The boy stared at him for a long moment, and then ran in that direction. The old woman grabbed him and clutched him close. The Doctor let out a relieved breath.

He felt a flush of power behind him and he spun around again, summoning his sword again –

However, what he found was not an attack. Yulyana was using his incredible power to close up the crack in the earth, but even though his energy was focused, those sharp brown eyes were locked onto the Doctor. His face held no anger, just surprise and confusion and perhaps, a little bit of awe.

The Doctor stared back for a long moment, and when the Sage made no move to attack, The Doctor sheathed his sword. Yulyana stared at him for a long moment, let out a long breath, and then very deliberately turned away.

Well then.

The Doctor decided to take the opportunity, and escaped to the TARDIS before the Sage could change his mind.

Eisenburg, 553

Flumes of heat buffeted the sides of the T.A.R.D.I.S as it landed. It wasn’t the gentlest landing, nor the best place to do it, but it would survive and so would he.

Normally the Doctor wouldn’t have dreamed about landing on the side of a volcano, much less one that was soon to erupt. But the battle at Harena had left him uninterested in attracting attention, and news of a flying black coffin tended to spread.

Blasted broken chameleon circuit.

He shut the door of the TARDIS, and closed his eyes to feel the faint tremors of the volcano below him. Unnoticeable to human observation, the vibration was steady and slow. Good. He still had time.

The Doctor glanced around the rocky landscape to orient himself, made sure he remembered where he put his ship, and started to slowly feel his way around the volcano. On the whole, he preferred to stay uninvolved in the course of history, changing as little as possible. Humans were too /wonderfully/ complex for him to ever truly predict how his actions would influence events.

And over the centuries, he had found that humans did better with less interference. Trapped in a situation that would make other species give up, humans would survive. They would struggle and then solve their problems with fascinating new ideas. They would reconfigure their world with nothing but the strength of their minds and their will, spurred on by either determination or spite. 

But sometimes, there was no way out for them. Sometimes all their cleverness and stubbornness and flashes of brilliance would fail them, and at those moments, the Doctor would step in. Outside interference, trans-dimensional attacks, threats the crystals… There were things that not even such a resilient species could recover from.

The eruption of Eisenburg Peak would cause one of the worst natural disasters in human history. Hellfire would explode out of the weaker south western side, erasing the nearby cities and damaging fire temple. The crystal would survive but only barely, the lava’s energy forcing the crystal to its breaking point. The Fire Vestal, along with a dozen high Orthodoxy officials, would survive the initial eruption but then die attempting to calm the crystal. The vestal’s death would trigger a chain reaction of eruptions – the single volcano becoming three and the destruction multiplying.

The eruptions would last nearly thirty years, and the cumulative death toll would reach millions. 

And so the Doctor carefully worked his way over the mountain. There were occasionally rough paths, little more than animal tracks, and he ignored them completely. Instead he followed his own senses, glancing around to keep himself oriented and minding the faint vibrations of the ground beneath him. There was no way to know exactly where he needed to be without being on the volcano itself, and so his landing wasn’t the most precise.

He was so focused on the barely-perceptible movements of magma, trying to find the best place to work, that he was nearly a half hour away from his craft before he noticed anything else.

At first, he was half certain it was nothing – the crystals were enormously powerful, and this close to one it was nothing to sense variations in power. Nevertheless, when he paused in the shadow of a stubborn mountain scrub, he took his attention off of the vibrations long enough to analyze the layers of energy he could feel. Nearly overpowering everything else was the thick heat of the crystal, fire and magma coating his senses until he could sort through it.

But like ignoring the sound of a stampede for the sake of hearing a snapping twig, the Doctor peeled back the spiritual noise of the crystal until he could hear –

-a flash of power underneath it, ringing clear and high and sharp and /familiar/ -

Oh, /hell/.

He refocused on the vibrations beneath him and began moving again. He couldn’t afford to fight here, not now, with magma eating away at the rock beneath his feet and the largest population center on the continent in the blast zone. A part of his mind remained distracted, however, triangulating the flashes of power he felt and trying to figure out back up plans.

Yulyana the Sage was powerful, almost impossibly so. But this time was twenty years before their battle at Harena. Would the mortal be able to summon and control something from the Infernal Realm now? Would he be determined enough to try? Why was he even /here/?

Ducking around another patch of brush and glancing around to keep himself oriented – still in the right area, he hadn’t wandered too far– he realized that the power of the sage he felt was not getting closer with any sense of purpose. He was not yet being pursued. Perhaps he would be able to do what he needed and duck away without a confrontation, if he were really, extraordinarily lucky –

He felt the flickers of power near where he left the TARDIS and his jaw clenched. He was never all that lucky. No time to go back and try and protect his craft – the magma beneath him was shifting, eroding away at the rock, and soon the southward edge of the volcano would be weak enough that he wouldn’t be able to prevent the catastrophe. Nevertheless, he hesitated a moment – he was quite fond of his craft and it would be near impossible to replace.

He glanced around again, double checking his orientation. The Fire temple was to the west, settlements to the southeast, and the ocean in front of him to the north.  He closed his eyes to feel the movement of magma bare meters beneath him. In the worst case, he could probably /make/ a suitable place as long as he aimed it right.

Yulyana’s distinctive energy circled around the TARDIS as if investigating it. Hopefully the man wasn’t powerful enough yet to damage it. At least he was alone – or at least, he was the only one using his power at the moment.

Not for the first time, he wished he could disguise the TARDIS as something that wouldn’t be immediately obvious on the side of a mountain. A rock. A tree. A herd of goats. Anything other than an oversized coffin.

The power suddenly focused and swept out over the mountain side like a searchlight. The Doctor hastily retracted all of his power until the sensation of being watched passed – only to swear as it swung back as soon as he started feeling for the magma currents again. The ringing in his mind grew louder with disappearing distance and focused with a sense of purpose.  Damn. /Now/ he was being pursued.

“Bishop, while I agree that this is very alarming, there is no need-” A woman’s voice emerged out of growing noise, sooner than the Doctor anticipated. Women were rare in the upper ranks of the Orthodoxy – The Doctor risked a moment of focus, but found only elemental heat and magma in her energy.

The Vestal of Fire, then. Damn, damn, /damn/.  

The Doctor ducked under the shade of a tree and cloaked himself in shadow with the barest hint of power. It wouldn’t fool the Sage, not if he had half the power he had at Harena, but it was better than nothing.  His plan needed rapid recalculation.

Triggering the eruption now, with the vestal here, would only cause her death regardless and cause the tragedy he had to prevent. The deaths of any high members of the Orthodoxy would only reawaken the still lingering civil war, and he was no more eager to kill Yulyana here than he was before.

And regardless. Even if they were strangers, even if they held no power in the world and no one would suffer for their deaths, the Doctor would not sacrifice the few needlessly for the many.

The Vestal came around the trail, Yulyana a few steps ahead of her. No mounts, for any animal would refuse to step foot on the mountain now. Yulyana’s power swirled around him in a twisting corona, flaring out of his every pore – but while he still glowed far more than most mortals, looking at him was no longer like staring into the sun. The Doctor narrowed his eyes and traced the shape of the man’s face, the long red braid shot through with brass streaks. He was struck again with familiarity, not just from Harena but from –

Ah. Florem, during the civil war. The Doctor could see the continuity, now, between the young man with bare wisps of energy around his hands and the Sage with power and control to rearrange the world. Three times, then. Three times he had impossibly crossed paths with this mortal, who knew his face and pursued him whenever they met. The Doctor watched him from his hiding place, for a moment distracted by the organic twists of power and by wanting to sketch the unreadable expression in those brown eyes –

-Yulyana’s gaze swung over his hiding place and it felt like warm oil poured down his spine.

 “Bishop, whatever that box was and whatever it means,” The Vestal argued and Yulyana half-turned in acknowledgement, “I am now certain that is something amiss with the volcano and I must return to the temple.”

She must have been investigating the state of the volcano. Being on this side of the peak would have protected her from the initial eruption even as it nearly destroyed her temple. He’d wondered how that would have happened.

The Doctor cloaked himself even more, covering himself in smoke and shadow until he was invisible in the shade of the tree. He needed only a flicker of power to feel the shifting of magma beneath him and he grit his teeth to keep from moving. If the sage – was he yet a sage? – listened to the vestal, maybe they would leave and the Doctor could work uninterrupted.

Below him the magma shifted and the Doctor closed his eyes for a half second to think how long it would take them to get out of the blast zone if they left now, how long it would take him to get back to his ship from here, and how soon the eruption would probably happen.

Breath hissed out through his teeth. Even if they left this instant, it would be… close. There was little chance that Yulyana would have the power and control to teleport at this point, so they would have to travel on foot. And to be sure they would not linger in the blast range… Could he knock them out and get them away manually? He’d have to carry them in his ship…

Power and warm oil cascaded down his back – he opened his eyes –

“Vestal, I agree,” Yulyana said, his brown eyes locked onto the Doctor’s hiding place, “Something is very wrong.” The Doctor held his breath, his teeth clenched. “You should return to the temple. I, however, intend to continue investigating here.”

There had never been any chance of an easy resolution, had there? And that power was still focused on him, those brown eyes locked on him even though he was hidden from all mortal eyes. Yulyana took a step forward and his power flared around him –

If the Doctor was judging Yulyana’s power level accurately, then a battle now would likely end in his favor. But it would cost him time that he frankly did not have, as well as risk the safety of people he had no interest in harming, as well as damage the peak in unexpected ways. But Yulyana was getting closer and his energy was sharpening.

“Bishop, there is little that can be done here,” The Vestal insisted. Her pale red gown was splattered with dirt and her pale hair was pinned back messily, but she held herself with the strength of a Vestal. “We will return and then-”

But Yulyana ignored her and took another step forward. His power cascaded down the mountain side – a mere stream compared to the flood the Doctor weathered in Harena, but nevertheless, what was he doing -

“I can see you.” He called out. The vestal stared at his back and then followed his gaze, confused and quickly becoming more alarmed. She touched his shoulder gently.

“…Bishop, there’s no one….” He glanced back at her in shock, but shook it off.

“Can you not see,” Yulyana let out a breath and his power refocused on the Doctor again as if to confirm. The Doctor knew that he would not back down and he could feel the volcano stirring beneath him. He’d already wasted too much time.

Time to force the issue. He only had half a plan, but half a plan was better than nothing.

He leapt from his hiding place, dropping his illusion when he was in the air. He floated down, his coat billowing out behind him, and landed lightly on the ground in front of the Vestal and Yulyana. The Vestal cried out but held her ground. Yulyana just stared and whispered,

“You.”

The same word from Florem. Then the word had been full of shock, surprise – now Yulyana stared at him with suspicion and growing anger. 

“You should not be here.” The Doctor punctuated his words with a burst of power – not enough to do damage but enough to imply damage. Yulyana’s braid flew back in the sudden wind, but he held himself solid.

“What do you intend here?” Yulyana shouted, his power wrapped around his clenched hands. Any response was cut off by a sudden tremor – the Doctor pushed power into the ground, mapping the magma below him, and barely kept from swearing. He had an hour before the eruption. Likely less. “Answer me!”

Instead of responding, the Doctor flourished his weapon with a burst of imitation hellfire. Yulyana grit his teeth and his power whipped around him in glowing-white streaks. If he was as determined to fight now as before, then… 

The Doctor did not attack. Instead, in a burst of power he leapt over them and landed on the far side. He paused long enough to glance behind him, long enough to see Yulyana pursuing. He tossed a plume of fire behind him, and then jumped again further down the mountain.

It was a delicate game he played now: running fast enough to get Yulyana and the Vestal out of the blast zone but slow enough for them to keep up – attacking enough to infuriate Yulyana and keep him moving but not enough to actually harm them. The Vestal kept up, lending her power to blast away rocks that tumbled nearby, and sometimes sparing breath to say that they had to leave /now/ if they had any chance of making it to the temple –

Finally, the Doctor reached his craft. He stood on top of the TARDIS, his coat billowing out behind him and smoke erupting from his hands. If his craft /must/ be stuck in the form of a coffin, he may as well use the look. He sent another beam of energy from his sword towards Yulyana, who deflected it with a blast of his power. In another moment the Doctor would have been fascinated by those bright brown eyes, by analyzing the differences in fighting style over time, utterly distracted by the glowing sweep of power -

“Bishop-!” The Vestal cried out and the Doctor blinked out of his daze to see – oh, /damn/ -

The Vestal stumbled as she dodged the errant beam at the same time as tremors rocked the mountain. Yulyana slid to a stop mid-way through a strike, distracted and alarmed – the Doctor watched him carefully, because if the man would risk the Vestal to pursue an enemy…

But instead, Yulyana swept to the Vestal’s side. He helped her to her feet and then his power spun out, sinking into the mountain. His eyes widened – he stared at the Doctor and then back at the Vestal, and then back to the Doctor. The Doctor watched, trying not to be transfixed at the way the man bit his lip.

“Bishop,” The Vestal growled, “We have to go /now/, I must get to the temple before something goes horribly wrong!” She stumbled again at a tremor and her ankle was held at a bad angle. The Doctor hissed – should he knock them out and carry them to safety? It would work, at least probably, and yet…

Yulyana straightened, and his power pulled back to him in a jolt. He glared up at the Doctor. “I will find you!” He shouted, his fists clenched and snarling with all the power of his anger. “Don’t think this is over!”  Yulyana turned to the Vestal and his power began to pool around their feet – what was the man doing – “I’m very sorry, Lady Vestal,” He said and suddenly – oh /crystals/ – “But I’m mostly certain this will work.”

A small rip in space time opened beneath his feet – sloppier than his work in Harena but still so much control, totally safe even though it shouldn’t be /possible/ - and the two mortals disappeared in a flash of light.

The Doctor wasn’t sure if he was he imagined Yulyana’s brown gaze stuck to his own until the light faded, but the image left him staring at the place he had been.

He shook his head to clear it. No time for such nonsense. He closed his eyes and tried to track Yulyana’s distinctive energy. He finally found a flicker of it – half way down the mountain, on the other side. Well out of the blast zone. He let out a sigh of relief.

Now, to work. He opened the door to his craft with his heel and then swung down into it. A moment’s effort and a whirr later, he pushed open the door again onto the area of the volcano he needed to be.

He focused on the currents of magma beneath him, glanced around at the surroundings, and then pulled his weapon out once more. All of his energy poured through his arms into his sword, and he thrust his weapon into the ground. He released the energy all at once, and then stepped back into his craft. A press of a button sent it rapidly into the air just as the ground below turned to rubble.

The Doctor watched from the open door of the TARDIS. The side of the mountain collapsed – and then the cracks reached the veins of magma and the mountainside exploded. His craft a mile in the air, the burst of hot air blew his hair back –

-but once the worst of the eruption was over, the dust cleared and the Doctor traced the path of the damage before closing the door of his craft. The adrenaline crash was hitting and his fingers were starting to shake, but nevertheless. 

It worked. That was enough.

He slumped into the pilot’s chair and blearily typed in the commands to take him somewhere peaceful where he would be left alone for a while. The shadow of the moon, possibly, or near one of the outer planets. He leaned back in his chair, and tried to sleep through visions of sharp brown eyes and breath-taking power.

 

Eternia, 527

The Doctor’s boots slid in the snow and he braced himself before he tumbled. He wrapped his cloak tighter around himself and looked down at the glittering city in the valley. He nodded to himself, and continued down into the main city of Eternia.

The Orthodoxy Civil War would begin here within two years, but the population of the city going about its business, showed little warning of the coming strife. If the Doctor hadn’t known it was coming, even he might ignore the signs.

A young woman with mud stained boots and clothes too thin for the weather glared up at the largest cathedral in the world. She clenched a cracked crystal pendant and tugged at it until the string holding it to her neck broke. She held the crystal pendant in her fist for a long moment, and then furiously shoved it into a pocket before stomping away from the cathedral.

The young woman bumped into an old man heading into the cathedral. The man’s red-and-gold robes kicked up snow as he turned and grabbed her shoulder. His grip was tight and his rings dug in.

“Show some respect, girl!”

The woman’s jaw tightened and her fist clenched, but eventually her gaze dropped. “…of course, Cardinal, I am very sorry.” The old man nodded stiffly and continued into the cathedral. The young woman glared at his back. One hand went back into the pocket and she pulled out the battered crystal pendant. She stared at it, and then up at the heavy cathedral doors, and then down again.

With an angry snarl, she dropped the pendant into the snow and kept walking.

The Doctor watched all of from the shadow of the cathedral and did not interfere. This drama had already played out a hundred times and would play out a hundred more times, in this city and other cities, different faces in the same expression. A thousand people, poor and angry, glaring up at stained glass windows and velvet cloaks edged with gold, glaring up at the comforts and safety denied them.

The anger of a people was a volcano. An eruption could not be prevented, and only precariously delayed or redirected. The Crystalist Civil War was one of those rare ‘fixed points’ in history – if it did not happen, all of the innovations and progress dependent on it would cease to exist.

Sometimes, as much as it ached, there was nothing to that the Doctor could do.

All he could do in times like these is understand why and how they happened – to bear witness to the individual stories swept up in the greater tale and to remember the faces of individuals that would be forgotten by humanity. And so he went into the city and walked along the streets, cloaked in shadow and illusion until he would be invisible to any curious mortal eye.

Yulyana had been able to see through it. But whatever impossible power he held later in life, the man would be little more than a child in this time.

Was he here? The Doctor’s thoughts stuttered over the unexpected question and he paused in the street. Then he caught himself and ducked into an alcove before someone walked into him. He could make himself invisible, but intangible was a different issue. All the disguises in the world wouldn’t make someone not notice walking into an invisible obstacle. The Doctor wasn’t sure why the thought occurred to him - he had crossed paths with the mortal three times, which was more than most mortals, but hardly often enough to expect him at every turn.

But nevertheless, he wondered. He had known that Yulyana was from Eternia from his first meeting in Florem, from the young man’s northern accent and Eternian-style clothing. Still, no reason expect the man here. This was the largest city in Eternia but there were a dozen more and countless villages, each with a crystal shrine and priest who could train a brilliant youngster to the positions Yulyana later held. Within a year, maybe more, the inevitable war would erupt in these streets, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. This close to the center, only the very lucky, or the very powerful, or the very clever would survive.

….though he had to concede, Yulyana was all three.

The Doctor forced himself to focus on the passage of people in front of him. He had a reason for being here, one that did not include fights or chases.  He could not stop the war, nor twist the passage of history such that he could save all or even the majority of these people. But there were things he could do, small kindnesses and memorials. He leapt up lightly to a wide ledge on the second floor of the building. He balanced for a moment, glanced around, and then sat down on a spot clear of snow.

From here, overlooking one of the main roads in the city, he could see scores of people living their normal lives uninterrupted. Priests walked in clumps, always given a wide berth on the streets – married pairs mingled in the street and through market stalls, their chatter blending into a lively hum – children darted through each group like fish through weeds, at once at their parents’ sides, then chasing each other and daring each other to swipe fruit from a stall, then ducking around the priests’ disapproval.

Unseen by any, except for a few local cats – there was no fooling cats, regardless – the Doctor pulled a slim book from out of his coat and flipped open the front cover. Inside was not paper or slate, but a tablet with a pressure sensitive surface. A swipe of his fingertips across the surface and the device lit up with his native script, and with another swipe it extruded a stylus into his hand.

The technology wouldn’t be invented for millennia, and while it would never truly replicate the pleasure of oil paints to him, it was more convenient than hauling around an easel.

The Doctor could not save any of these fragile lives. Here, his duty was remembering, and so he painted. First, from memory – the young woman from the cathedral, her face twisted in rage and determination, her cracked crystal pendant half way to the ground. When he was finished, he saved the image and, shifting on his perch, glanced over the street for his next subject.

As he watched, a young pickpocket, her hair in messy curls, ducked through the crowds towards a cluster of priests. One of the priests noticed and raised his hand in threat and she ducked away – but one of his fellow priests, once his companions weren’t looking, tossed the young thief a few gold coins.

Across the street, a pair of young women held hands and walked very closely together. The elder of the two fidgeted, clearly nervous, but her younger companion smiled widely and pulled her closer. Sisters, maybe, or – ah, yes. The Doctor smiled softly and pushed a bit of his power around the two women as he painted them, just enough so that the nearby priests wouldn’t see them kiss.

The Doctor painted merchants, with their wide smiles and clever words, and metal smiths with soot smeared into their skin and calloused knuckles. He painted anyone who caught his eye, anyone who looked like they had a story – and he knew very well that any mortal could have a story.

It took him almost an hour of painting for him to catch himself watching for red hair, for sharp brown eyes and pronounced features, his senses straining for any flicker of the power he would recognize in his sleep.  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to center himself and focus. There was no reason to think that Yulyana would be here, and no reason to interact with him if he were.

He opened his eyes again, and saw red.

The Doctor’s breath caught in his throat, stylus forgotten in his hand. Yulyana – hardly more than a boy, now, but unmistakable for his youth – walked down the street, easy and confident and unaware of the Doctor’s gaze. It felt unnatural, not having those sharp brown eyes locked onto his, all of that power and attention focused on something other than him.

The Doctor swallowed thickly, at once utterly caught and aware of the net. He watched Yulyana stroll beneath him and could have cursed, either Yulyana or himself, because suddenly, he was conscious of the /fascination/ coating the inside of his skull, the gripping desire to /understand/ this inexplicable mortal. He wanted to paint him, wanted to speak with him as an equal, wanted to know everything about him –

-this happened sometimes, this breathless fascination. Sometimes in his travels the Doctor would come across a gem of a mortal who shone even more brightly than their fellows, and watching them made him feel like he was watching stars form out of nebulae or a planet birth the first fragile signs of life -

Yulyana had lingered at market stalls, but now he was on his way along the street, further away from the Doctor. The Doctor swallowed again, his fingers clenching on his stylus. He shouldn’t, he had his duty – it was a dangerous distraction, he couldn’t afford to –

He kicked off from his perch and landed lightly in the snow, his tablet tucked into its pocket. He landed in a gap in the crowd, but the space wouldn’t be open for long, so he glided through the crowd like a ghost. He kept his eyes on that bright red hair, dodging people by instinct and following Yulyana until they reached the Cathedral square again.

Here the crowd was thinner, and the Doctor could lean against a wall and observe Yulyana uninterrupted. Red hair hung unbound to his shoulders, and those brown eyes lingered on the tall roof of the Cathedral. He wore the clothes of a commoner rather than a priest, not even bearing the sigils of a seminary student, but he wore crystal-shard pendants from each wrist in an unusual show of piety.

When did he join the Church? How was he involved in the civil war? He survived and had a highly-successful career after the war, if his affiliation with the vestal and the archbishop were any indications. And yet, he remained unnamed in much of history. Was he a loyalist who joined the winning side, or a revolutionary at heart? Commoners were unlikely in the church before the war…

The Doctor wanted to know more. He wanted to know the whole of the man’s story, surely fascinating and so intertwined with his own. He wanted to know where Yulyana gained the ability to see through the Doctor’s disguises, where he learned to slice open reality so neatly and hold the infernal realm at bay, how he learned to fight with such an unusual weapon. The Doctor wanted to know how he took his coffee, or if he preferred tea – wanted to talk with him as an equal and not an enemy – wanted to paint him properly, with oils and canvas.

Distracted by his illogical desires, the Doctor almost missed Yulyana continuing into the cathedral by one of the smaller side doors. Perhaps the sensible thing to do would be to leave it here, to leave this fascinating distraction alone and continue on his work. And yet, there was still so much about this man that he did not understand.

The Doctor slowly walked towards the smaller side door, instinctually dodging the occasional passerby. He could not pretend that his interest was purely out of duty, just threat assessment. Nevertheless, Yulyana remained a dangerous mystery, and any clue to understanding him would be valuable. So the Doctor slipped into the cathedral, a small stream of power enough to silence the sound of the door.

The thick stone walls of the cathedral muffled the noise of the city and the high ceiling swallowed any internal noise. Dust swirled in streams of light through the tall windows, the only movement in the building. At this time in the afternoon, the church was empty but for Yulyana kneeling at the ornate altar.

The Doctor approached carefully from the side. Another tiny burst of power silenced the sound of his footsteps on the tiled floor as he walked. He paused long enough to glance at the altar – the wood was imbedded with brown crystal chunks and precious metals. The crystals were of not made from the distant Earth Crystal, but perhaps they bore enough similarity for the pious to feel a connection.

He stopped a few feet from Yulyana, and felt the itch to paint him once again. But unless Yulyana prayed out loud, or spoke to a priest, there would be little information gained here. Observing much longer would push at the bounds of the Doctor’s sense of decency. As fascinating as this mortal was, the Doctor had no right to observe him in secret for so long.

Yulyana released his crystal pendants from his hands and allowed them to hang loosely at his wrists again. He stood with a deep breath and nodded to the altar once more. Yulyana turned to leave with a glance around the cathedral –

– sharp brown eyes slid over the Doctor –

And paused.

/Impossible./

Yulyana didn’t have a scrap of his future power, he shouldn’t be able to see through the Doctor’s cover, how did he - Yulyana’s eyes widened and his throat worked. For a long moment the two men stared at each other in silence. The Doctor was struck by the awe and wonder in those brilliant brown eyes, so different from rage.

“…what are you?” Yulyana breathed out.

“You should not be able to see me, mortal,” the Doctor said instead of answering. His mind twisted with alarm and he double checked – but no, Yulyana held none of his future power and even if he had, he wasn’t wielding it consciously. But if it wasn’t intentional, then –

“I see many things I should not,” Yulyana said, and now there were the faintest sparks of energy off of his hands and a barely-noticeable glow to his crystal pendants. “I see masses of snakes that breathe ice and lightning, and young girls whose backs explode into claws. The priests call them demons, when they believe me,” the young man added absently, taking a step towards the Doctor.

Demons from the infernal realm? But how would he ever see – /oh/.

Second Sight was even rarer in humans than summoners were – the ability to see through the weak points in this reality and glimpse the infinite worlds beyond drove most people mad. But if those brilliant brown eyes – this close the doctor could see flecks of gold in them – could peer through the boundaries between worlds, then it was no wonder that the Doctor was stripped bare before them.  

“What are you?” Yulyana asked again, but still there was no anger in his voice – awe, and a strange tremble of reverence, but no rage. “Are you a demon? Why can I see you and the priests cannot?”

The Doctor felt his throat tighten in understanding. He could see the course of the young man’s life easily, now – he would join the church in an attempt to understand the world that only he saw, to prove or disprove his own vision – and then the civil war would erupt and he would gain prominence with his clever mind and unusual power – and then the eruption, and then Harena.

And at every turn, the Doctor had been there.  Twisting the fate of the civil war in Florem, triggering an eruption in Eisenburg. Perhaps it was little wonder that by Harena the man was convinced the Doctor aimed to destroy humanity.

But none of that could be said now. The Doctor had already twisted this young man’s life into strange and impossible shapes by following him here, and there were some things the Doctor could not undo. There was nothing the Doctor could say or do that would change the path of Yulyana’s life from here.

There was only one thing he could do, now, that would not send all of history spiraling out of control. Sometimes the moments that mattered were small, and private.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor whispered, for everything perhaps. It was impossible to predict how Yulyana’s life would be different without the Doctor in it – better or worse, there was no way to know. The Doctor brushed his thumb over Yulyana’s cheek, and with it, pushed a tiny curl of power into his body.  “But you were not supposed to see me.”

Yulyana opened his mouth to speak – and then the power took hold and he dropped into an easy and unnatural sleep. The Doctor caught him as he fell and carefully lowered him to the floor, and then let out a heavy breath.

There was nothing else he could do here, so the Doctor left the cathedral in silence and returned to his ship unnoticed by anyone.

 

 

 

Norende, 592

The Doctor set his craft down in the middle of a pasture, making no effort to hide it or himself. Sheep looked up at him with strangely wise eyes and then ignored him. He closed the door to the TARDIS, leaned against the side, and waited.

This was not a delicate point in history – these were not historically significant sheep. This particular moment was important to no one’s story; except, perhaps, his own.

Soon, he felt the familiar energy twist in the air. He turned to the tangle of power he felt, and watched the man approach. Age had bent his shoulders and his hair was fully white, but the sharp glint of those brown eyes was as strong as ever.

Yulyana met his eyes and nodded in acknowledgement. The Doctor nodded in return. The man patted a passing sheep on its horns, and then glanced over the Doctor and the TARDIS. He leaned heavily on his cane and inclined his head.

“So. What do you call yourself?” The Doctor raised his eyebrows at the question. “I’ve done a lot of research over the last twenty years, and I’ll ever seen you called is ‘The Doctor’.”

Twenty years – he paused and reoriented. Eisenburg? No, Harena. Ah, yes. He shrugged. “That is all I go by.”

Yulyana snorted and stepped closer. “Pfff, that’s no name. Ah well.” The man leaned against the side of the TARDIS with an exhale. The Doctor looked over him, tracing age spots, gnarled hands and wrinkles. He still wanted to paint him, as much as he ever had.

The Doctor enjoyed a few moments of quiet among the soft breezes and apathetic sheep. It was oddly comfortable, with a man next to him who was somewhere between stranger and enemy and friend. Then Yulyana leaned with both hands on his cane, staring out over the pasture, and spoke.

“I’ve been chasing most of my life, you know.” The man did not look over, except in fleeting half-second moments. “Ever since I saw you as a young man in Eternia, appearing out of smoke like an angel or a demon.” Now he glanced over, eyes sharp and power collecting in his cane. “I was sure which, for a while.”

The Doctor snickered, his shoulders shaking with the force of restraining laughter. A sheep looked up from its grass and then back down, but Yulyana’s eyes stayed locked on him. The Doctor shook his head ruefully, not sure if he was more amused at being thought a demon -or an angel- or at his own part in causing the twists of fate.  Yulyana waited until his laughter faded, and then raised his eyebrows.

“That wasn’t quite the response I expected, I admit.” Yulyana said, still leaning on his cane. The power in it was no longer concentrated but swirled around it, barely visible but for how it disturbed blades of grass in its wake. The Doctor inclined his head in acknowledgement. He would not explain to most, but this mortal had long since earned.

“The only reason you saw me in Eternia,” He explained, as a slightly more curious sheep sniffed at his coat, “Because I was researching you.” Yulyana’s eyes widened, the power dropping in his cane for a second in his surprise. The Doctor patted the sheep and continued, “After our battle at Harena and then at Eisenburg, I wanted to understand.” Yulyana’s eyebrows rose higher, and the Doctor couldn’t help but smirk. But the man’s expression was shifting, eyebrows furrowing in thought, and the lightning quick mind that had nearly been his end in Herena was at work – and so the Doctor added with a shrug, “I experience time somewhat… differently than you.”

Yulyana tilted his head in thought, spare wisps of power curling around him. A few motes swirled around the Doctor in gentle examination.

“Was Harena the first time you saw me?” He finally asked.

“Not quite,” The Doctor thought back, connecting events to dates in his head. It was easier to remember places than dates. “It was the second. Florem was the first. In…the 30s, during the Civil war.” He inclined his head. “Thought that meeting was brief.”

The Doctor waited for accusations, the outrage. He had revealed his identity to a few others, over the centuries. After a few moments of shock, reactions were similar – were you there, how much do you know, why did you, why didn’t you. As if he could remove one evil and be sure he was not causing a worse one, as if he did not feel the weight of history on each step. As if he were a master puppeteer rather than a man trying to control an avalanche, changing as little as he dared and never certain how his actions would change the world.

“And then you showed up in Harena and I immediately tried to kill you.”  The Doctor stared, blinking as Yulyana burst into laughter. Unlike his own laughter from earlier, Yulyana laughed loudly, from deep in his chest, all his weight on his cane and tears springing in his eyes. The Doctor waited, bewildered, until the man caught his breath. “No /wonder/ you were so confused!”

He looked even lovelier when he laughed like that, the Doctor thought. His face was fascinating, always: twisted in rage, eyes narrowed in thought or widened in surprise; the look from Eternia, awe and fear and reverence. But this expression, relaxed and full of mirth, was as beautiful as it was unexpected and precious.

“People have attacked me before, but you were rather vehement about it.” The Doctor conceded, absently. A plan was brewing in the back of his mind – if he were entirely honest, it had been there for since he arrived.

He had come here for a reason, after all.

But then, Yulyana wiped his eyes and said, “Well, if we stand here much longer the sheep will complain.” And he began to walk away.

Perhaps there would be better moments for it – indeed, the Doctor had access to an infinite number of them. But in /this/ moment, watching Yulyana turn away from him, the words tumbled from the Doctor’s mouth.

“Wait.” Yulyana paused, looking back at him. “Would you come with me?” The man’s white eyebrows went up. “We could explore all of time and space together.”

Yulyana huffed a small laugh. “I was going to invite you in for tea, but I think you’ve got me beaten with that offer.” The Doctor just shrugged, a bit surprised at his own impulsive request. The man stared at him for a long moment, brown eyes sharp, as if waiting for the Doctor to take it back. “…Talk over tea, shall we? I imagine we have much to talk about.” He turned again and waved a hand in invitation. “Come on now, I’ve got the kettle started.”

The Doctor smiled and followed a few steps behind. Tea and a chance to speak with this fascinating mortal as an equal and maybe even a friend. In this moment, that was all he could ask for.

.