Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In deaths dream
kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken
column
There, is a tree
swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more
solemn
Than a fading star.
The Hollow Men
Thomas
Stearns Eliot
Time passed strangely in the twilight world Vastra found
herself in. There were moments of light,
hazy, as if something covered her eyes.
She heard bits of voices, mostly unfamiliar, but occasionally a few
words that she could make out as being Tsugu.
Even more occasionally she thought she could hear the Doctor’s voice,
distant, as if she were hearing him through walls and many rooms away. She struggled most then, and then she’d hear
his voice, closer, right next to her.
‘Rest…you need your rest, Vastra. Just rest now.’
Usually it was enough to calm her.
She settled back onto her bed and slept.
~~~
'You’ll have to burn the corpses.’
Tsugu and Prince Taisei looked at the Doctor in shock. It was Tsugu who dared speak first.
‘Kyoujyu,’ he began, slowly, as if speaking as teacher would
to a particularly recalcitrant student, ‘you know our ways. That would only be granting them honour in
death, when they intended to act without honour. You saw that they would have killed those
children had your dragon…’
‘Friend,’ interrupted the Doctor, and even Taisei flinched
at the cold edge the Doctor’s voice had taken on. ‘She’s my friend, and her name is Vastra.’
Tsugu sighed. ‘Vastra
then, as you would prefer it. Had she
not risked her life, the children would be dead. Would you call their
death honourable? Would you call the action of those…monsters,
whatever they are…honourable?’
Tsugu looked at the Doctor with disgust.
‘Sometimes I do not think I even know you.’
Taisei leaned closer.
‘Explain to me, Kyoujyu, why you feel this is necessary.’
The Doctor sighed.
‘If I even tried to explain to you my reasons for this, I
doubt you’d understand.’
Taisei leaned back, tenting his fingers together. ‘Tsugu may be an old man, but he advised my
father well, and I often sat and listened to him as he offered counsel. He spoke very highly of you…said you had
arrived out of nowhere in a strange blue shrine, and seemed the wisest man he
had even known. ‘He had the eyes of a
boy, yet the wisdom of an old man,’ Tsugu told me.’
He leaned forward again.
‘So tell me why I should disregard tradition and counsel
now. Show me your wisdom.’
The Doctor sighed.’
‘You saw what they looked like. You know that they were not from
this
planet…they weren’t even from this solar system! They’re alien, and
they don’t belong here! I’m not saying that they deserve to be shown
honour the way you’ve honoured your father…just that even leaving their
bodies
here creates questions and paradoxes that your people don’t need!’
The Doctor looked around, searching for just one set of eyes
that believed him.
‘Think past yourself, just this once. Think about what may happen in three hundred
or four hundred years, if someone were to find the remains of those
Metatraxi. Or further on…imagine, six
hundred or more years from now, someone finding that armour and those weapons
and trying to figure out how it worked.
You think your wars are terrible now?
Imagine how much more so they would be with weapons and armour like
that? Just think! Would there be honour in that?’
The Doctor’s shoulders slumped in fatigue, his face openly
displaying his frustration and pain.
‘Right now my friend lays two rooms away. She risked her life for your people, not
because she had to, but because she knew that it was the right thing to
do. Because she didn’t want to see your
children hurt. Would you dishonour her
actions by allowing something far worse to happen in the future…even if it does
not affect you right here and right now?’
He finally slumped back in his seat, rested his head on his
hands, and waited. He could hear the
whispers, the recriminations, the arguments.
He didn’t hear the words, but he knew how hard it would be to break tradition for these people. And he would not blame them, would have to
accept it, and would somehow have to find another way to remove all evidence of
the Metatraxi presence here, long before they had any reason to find this
planet of interest.
He thought, bitterly.
If only Torchwood were here…Jack would Retcon all of them
just as quick as you please, and I wouldn’t have any of this mess to worry
about.
He shook his head sadly, his smile not one of happiness but
of inevitability. Torchwood was
gone. Jack was gone. He was, as seemed so often the case, alone,
and would have to handle this on his own.
His thoughts continued to wander.
Once all this is done, what am I going to do with
Vastra? I need to get her back to
London, but there’s no way she’ll be able to go back into hibernation. And there’s no way the people there will
accept her. I’m just lucky we ended up
here…at least there’d be some way to excuse how she looked. I suppose…
‘I said, are you still with us, Kyoujyu?’
The Doctor looked up and saw six sets of eyes staring at him
quizzically.
‘Hmm? Oh, yes. Sorry.
I was just thinking for a bit.’
Taisei folded his hands in his lap. ‘You know how strongly we hold our
traditions, Kyoujyu.’
The Doctor nodded.
‘We do this not out of stubbornness, but because our
fathers, and our father’s fathers, expect us to. They expect us to steward our land and our
people for many years to come, and what is a group of people without tradition?’
Taisei did not give the Doctor a chance to respond.
‘I will tell you what they are. They are a horde, much like the Mongols who
threatened my father’s rule all those years ago. I know you know this, because Tsugu tells me
you were there when they arrived and demanded our fealty.’
‘I know, Taisei, but this…’
Taisei held up one hand, and the Doctor quieted, more out of
respect than any real urge to do so. He
knew his position was weak and gentle nudging, rather than harsh words, would
win this debate.
‘However, there is merit in what you speak. I am reminded of a story my father told me in
my youth, of a man who died suddenly, leaving his family without anything. The gods saw this and allowed him to be
reborn in the form of a swan with golden feathers. He returned to his family and told them that
they may pluck from him one feather to sell, so that they may support
themselves, and that they may return to him from time to time to do so as their
need demanded. The family grew greedy
and plucked from him all his feathers.
Do you know what happened when they grew back?’
The Doctor smiled.
‘They were all plain feathers, weren’t they?’
Taisei looked at the Doctor in amazement. ‘You know the story?’
‘Oh, I know at least two dozen different versions of the
story. Nearly every world has its own
version, its own…tradition,’ the Doctor said, the smile almost reaching his
eyes.
Taisei nodded. ‘This
is why I see some wisdom in what you say.
The gods offered the family something to keep them all their days, and
they squandered it for comfort in the present.
I tell you that my job is to steward the land and its people, but that
does not mean just now. It means, as you
say, for my people in hundreds of years.
I must think of them as well.’
Taisei looked to Tsugu, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘It will be done under cover of night, and far from the
city?’
The Doctor nodded.
‘If those are the wishes of the Prince…King…and his court.’
‘And what about the remains?’
The Doctor shrugged.
‘Let the wind take them, or bury them as you wish.’
‘The armour then,'
‘I’ll see to that,’ the Doctor said. ‘I have a place I can keep it and make sure
it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.’
Taisei rose.
‘Then it is settled.
I will summon half dozen men, along with horses and carts for this nightfall. You will, I trust, accompany us?’
The Doctor looked in the direction of Vastra’s room.
‘What about…’
Tsugu finally smiled.
‘Do not worry about her. I will
sit with her. My bones could not take
the ride, and I have seen too much these past days. I could use the rest. She will come to no harm.’
The Doctor nodded.
‘Thank you, old friend.’
Tsugu laughed.
‘No…thank you, for teaching an old man something.’
The Doctor smiled.’
‘Don’t expect it to happen very often…not while you are
here, and not while I am still your teacher.’
‘Of course not,’ the Doctor agreed, allowing himself a
small, sly smile. ‘I wouldn’t even dream
of it.’