6A/N: Sorry for the delay! I accidentally wrote over this chapter (don't ask why or how), so I had to re-write everything. However, this draft, I think, is far better than the first and makes more sense. Also, if you didn't read the last time, the Master appears for the first time in this chapter as a young boy! :D
Something I want to say too, is that in The Journey's End, the last episode of series 4, the Doctor says he visited the Mudusa Cascade when he was just a boy - 90 years old. I'm choosing to ignore this by saying this: this is relative. To Time Lords, anything under 300 is young. Also, with what I'm making up, Time Lords have years of schooling in many different times of their long lives. Just wanted to clear this up 'cause as I continue to learn more about the Doctor, it's just more I gotta deal with.
Gotta go now, so buh-bye,
~Ms. Unusual-in-Groovy-Ways
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who or any references to the show or anything else. 'Cause if I did, I'd be killing more people off than Moffat.
Penance
IX
The Vortex
The Doctor was immediately instructed to walk with the Elder and leave. Without even looking back, he left his home far behind him. He desperately wanted to turn around and run into his Daddy's arms where he'd take him inside and have his Mummy hug him until the tears stopped. But he couldn't. The soldiers around him kept telling him to march along the narrow road that led into the city.
As the massive entourage entered Arcadia, the young boy saw such a sight. Fathers all dressed in their traditional battle uniform were standing outside their doors with their children. Something were completely stoic, looking ahead emotionlessly as their kids cried and whimpered. But there were some that, despite their hardened demeanor, couldn't completely mask their pain. In their eyes, the Doctor saw a sadness he knew his Mummy had felt just minutes earlier. It was a difficult sight to explain, but just imagine when your a father in the near/far future and you're forced to hand over your child. How would you feel? What ache in chest would destroy your composure?
All the children filed behind the Doctor. Some of them were like their fathers: countenance maintained, expressions blank. Then they were children who weren't soldiers. They cried hysterically. A few of them ran back to houses, where sobbing mothers couldn't help but embrace their babies. It was a horrible sight to watch, but the Doctor, even as a boy, couldn't look away from this so called tradition. He stared intently as he marched at the fathers carrying their kids back to the line, half angry, half still trying to keep themselves from crying.
After what seemed like forever-and-a-half, the large group of soldiers/children walked along the worn out path led by the Elder Rassilon. He acted like he hadn't even noticed all the tears. He just walked forward, ignoring the still screaming kids. He was somewhat like a shark, swimming forward to forget what could kill him.
The path was not any better than a dirt road. Despite the fact that it was a sacred road that led to the holiness place in the universe, it was just a sad dirt road. Only simple torches on the sides lit the way. But it was not any ceremonial torches plated in gold and silver and encrusted with deep, colored jewels or mother-of-pearls. Just torches. As good as a torch can realistically get.
Anyway, the Holy Backwoods Road curved through the northern part of the Woods. It led deep into the trees, so deep that the two moons' light couldn't even shine through the black canopy over head. The battalion walked ahead stoically, but the children shivered in fright. The trees, the farther they walked, became more gnarly and knotted. The branches were unruly and continually slapped them and tripped them over. The green of the forest was drowned out by the overwhelming presence of inky black that seemed to move, suffocating all the light in its dead wood.
The trees cleared slightly to show a rocky ledge that turned into Mount Gaea. It was a narrow street made out of rocks that have probably been their since the first Time Lords. Only two people at a time could pass. The Doctor was the first children to follow the Elder across. He was terrified. His mom didn't like heights. She would even climbs tree or the TARDIS with Lucius or her son. The Doctor never understood why she was so scared of being off the ground. But as he looked down, he saw the trees shrinking and the city walk away from his eyes. Vertigo caught him, but the centurion he was paired with took his hand and pulled him forward. In a nice way too, that made the Doctor very grateful.
At the very top of the mountain was the school, but Rassilon took a detour. Instead of following the rocky path that spiraled up the side of the mount, Rassilon found yet another sad, sad dirt road. The kids started to mumble in protest and question the old guy's judgement, but they still marched along the totally dark runway until they heard a gravely voice shout, "STOP."
They did as they were told. They waited impatiently but soon torches were lighted in a fit of flames. They were lit in order until it hit a group of men far away from them. They were about six of them, all dressed like Rassilon. The were formed in a semi-circle, in front of something. They couldn't exactly make it out, but it seemed to glow and hum, like it was alive.
The centurions bowed and marched back down the mountain. They left the children alone with the Seven Elders of Gallifrey as they were ordered to do. But that didn't mean they wanted to. They knew what would happen next. The children would be forced, one-by-one, to look into the Vortex of Time. They would stare at time itself and the whole of infinity. It was a marvelous sight and grabbed on to you like it needed you to bask in its glorious beauty. But what followed hurt. Some children would be inspired, others would run away in fear, but some - some would go insane, such a sight burning itself into their minds like a hot brand. Staring into the heart of time was like looking into the belly of the beast...it changes you.
They children were ordered to stand at attention, with their backs facing the Vortex. They were close enough to hear, but not enough to understand what was going to happen. Gallifreyans thought that this part brought out a child's character even before they were tested. But if you heard another kid scream in terror wouldn't you break down crying? But this logic escaped the Time Lords. Surprise, surprise...
A child's name was called in Gallifreyan. The boy turned with sad blue eyes and faced the Elders, trying to be brave. But he was a small boy, he looked like he was a skinny five-year-old rather than an eight-year-old. But he as he walked away from the other kids, he puffed out his chest and marched.
To his damnation.
The Elder of Arcadia guided him up to the vortex slowly, telling him to let his soul see rather than his eyes. He faced it and looked and died inside instantly.
What he saw that day could never be told in actual words, but it was war, to be simple. Some say it was the Time War. Others say it was the war inside him being told through gory, broken images. Maybe it was every war that has ever ravaged universe with their stupidity. But no one is certain. But what little the Master has said reveals that there was blood. Seas of it. People swimming lifelessly atop the red goo. People bleeding like waterfalls, their wounds gushing that thick liquid. Blood - just everywhere. Being drunk. Bathed in. Just blood. The redness piercing every color. Drowning anything - literally.
The Master's scream erupted the night. It sounded like a blade cutting the silent in halves. He fell to his knees, but didn't stop screaming. He yelled louder and louder and didn't stop. He couldn't stop. He just yelled as loud as a boy's lungs could muster...multiplied by infinity. His shrieks tore the night and made it bleed. That's why he screamed. He saw death and carnage and brutality and everything was red and screaming in it. He yelled for his vision. His vision would be heard and it was. The high-pitched roars mixed with gurgled sobs was heard and echoed through the forests like wailing ghosts.
Wailing, wandering ghosts clothed in the red pain of a child's life ruined.
Now it was the Doctor's turn! ;D
The Doctor's face was covered in wet tears and he started to protest as the Elders ordered him to come. He shook their hands off as he saw them cart a still yelling Master away from him. He couldn't let this happen. He cried, kicked, and screamed. He wouldn't look. He would not stare in whatever made that kid die and come back as a banshee. He couldn't lose like this. He wouldn't look. HE WOULDN'T LOOK.
But the Elders held him down. They threw him on his knees and held his face to the Hole in Space. They made him open his eyes and what he saw he never said. Unlike the Master who desperately had tried to vocalize that night's vision, the Doctor never opened his mouth. He just said he ran. And that's true. He did run - like if he was the Flash who needed to pee now. But he never said how he fell over his feet and instead of getting up to run some more, he turned around and looked at into the Vortex. In his face still red and puffy and wet, he stared into Time and Space and he smiled. What he saw that made him smile...*shruggs*...I don't know. But the Elders were shocked as they witnessed the crying boy waving into Time. They stood flabbergasted as the Doctor laughed and wiped away a stray tear. He waved his good-bye one last time and ran once more.
And he's never stopped.