Chapter Text
The TARDIS was like a cavern, lit in golden and blue light, the supporting beams around the console like glowing quartz. It seemed really, properly alien, and, like the Doctor, beautiful, glowing, but with sudden dark shadows, like a monster lurked within. Yaz didn’t think she loved anything more in the world. Scratch that, in the universe. She’d seen a lot of amazing things since starting to travel with the Doctor, and she didn’t think any of them had managed to top the sheer exhilaration, joy, and fear she got every time she stepped into the TARDIS.
Currently, the Doctor was dashing around the console like a madman (madwoman? Mad-alien? Yaz wondered), flipping switches and pushing buttons and generally looking like she was having the time of her life.
“Where are we headed to now, Doc?” Graham asked, watching the Doctor as if her energy was making him tired.
The Doctor looked up with a huge smile beaming across her face. “You know it as one of the stars in the Pleiades. The seven sisters. Well,” she added suddenly, “there’s actually more than seven stars in the Pleiades. Don’t know why you lot decided to call them that. They call the star cluster the Celestial Family. Well, that’s what it translates into in English.”
“Okay, but what does that have to do with the name of the planet we’re going to?” Ryan asked, before Yaz could ask the exact same question. “You can’t just explore a star, Doctor. They’re all… big and fiery… and stuff.”
“There’s only one planet that supports life in that solar system,” the Doctor replied, as if it were obvious. “The inhabitants call their planet Faure.”
“Like the composer?” Graham asked. “He was alright, if you like that kind of thing.”
“What, classical music?” The Doctor asked.
“No, that wasn’t Classical,” Graham replied. “Faure was Romantic. Which is alright, I s’pose, but nothing will ever be better than some good Baroque music. Hey, Doc, you should take us to meet Bach!”
“Did you know I once got into a sword fight with Bach?” The Doctor mused. “He called me a nanny-goat bassoonist. He went to jail because of the sword fight. Although I look a lot different now, I suppose. He probably wouldn’t recognize me.”
Graham was about to say something, but Yaz cut him off. “Doctor? What about Faure? The—the planet, I mean, not the composer. You were looking like your birthday had come early piloting the TARDIS just now.”
“Oh! Oh, yeah! Faure! It’s one of the most beautiful planets in the universe. I mean, Earth is really nice depending on where you go, but nothing beats Faure. And not only that, but the Faurels are some of the most peaceable, artistic beings in the history of the universe.”
“Sounds boring,” Ryan said. “I mean, a planet that’s also an art museum? Nah. I’ll pass.”
“Your nan would want you to go see this planet,” Graham said. “She always was saying how you needed to go to more art museums.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not an art museum,” the Doctor said. “It’s very… interactive. And when I say art, I don’t just mean drawing and painting and sculpting. Although there’s that, too! But they’ve got music, and horticulture, and culinary arts. I mean, just about everything you can think of on Earth has been turned into an art form on Faure, plus a few other things besides. You like cars, don’t you?”
Ryan nodded.
“Well, they’ve got completely sustainable cars that are literally works of art. Completely sustainable! You should try it sometime. It’s a paradise on Faure, it really is.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Yaz asked. “Let’s go!”
The Doctor pulled the big materialization switch, and the familiar groaning of the TARDIS sounded around them. The Doctor pushed another button after the groaning stopped, and the doors flew open. “Ready, gang?” She asked. Together, they stepped outside, to…
…not a paradise.
The sky was a milky gray, bare trees filling it in, like a canvas that hasn’t had the background painted in yet. Ruins of sculptures could be seen in the town square they’d materialized in, paint colors flaking off some of them. It was cold. A few large, black birds had already flocked to the top of the TARDIS to sit.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Yaz asked, viewing the deserted square and shivering.
The Doctor’s mouth was open, her face confused. “This isn’t right…” she muttered. To Yaz, she said, “I double checked the coordinates! This is supposed to be Faure! And,” she added, “it looks like the town square of Pele, if Pele went through some kind of… armageddon. And I was trying to get to Pele. I have friends here. Or, I did.” She stopped talking then, suddenly, and looked around once more, taking everything in. She looked like she might start crying.
A door on the other side of the town square opened tentatively, and a middle-aged man beckoned at the group. “Come in!” He called, trying to keep quiet. “It’s not safe outside!”
They listened to him, running across the town square to the door. Yaz wondered briefly why they hadn’t just gotten back into the TARDIS, then reflected that the Doctor would want to stay and figure out what was going on.
Once they had gotten inside, the Doctor closely inspected the man’s face. He looked just like a human, Yaz thought. She wondered why so many aliens looked human. The Doctor probably knew the answer, but she didn’t want to seem rude to the alien.
The man had thinning brown hair and a short gray beard. His eyes were large and wide-set, his nose aquiline. His skin was pockmarked and he looked a little deranged. “Where’s the Doctor?” He asked. “I saw the box appear. That’s the Doctor’s. Is he still inside?”
“Mekken!” The Doctor exclaimed suddenly. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in centuries.” She looked over him, then seemed to remember. “Oh! I’m the Doctor. I… changed. But then again, so have you.”
Mekken looked at her suspiciously. “I’ve only gotten older. I’m not a teenager anymore, Doctor. If you’re the Doctor. Last time I saw the Doctor, he was a big guy with curly hair and a rainbow suit. And you had a talking flightless bird.” He looked from Graham to Yaz to Ryan. “Are these your new friends?”
The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. “This is Ryan, and this is his granddad Graham, and this is Yaz. We’re best friends.”
Mekken raised his thick eyebrows. “What happened to your talking flightless bird?”
Yaz registered for the first time how odd that sounded. “Yeah, Doctor. What’s this about a talking flightless bird?” Mentally, she added, And a rainbow suit?
“Oh, he was a friend of mine,” the Doctor said, trying to sound casual. Yaz knew she didn’t like talking about the past. “Frobisher. He was a shapeshifting alien species. He liked to go around as a penguin. He was a very good detective.” She seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, then she shook herself. “Anyway. Mekken! What’s happened? Faure used to be–”
“A paradise?” Mekken interrupted sarcastically. “It hasn’t been for ten years, Doctor.”
“Ten exactly?” The Doctor asked.
Mekken rolled his eyes. “No. I don’t remember, alright? No one really noticed at first. It was just the temple, you know? It was around ten years ago when things really started changing, but they’d been changing bit by bit before then. Now everything’s dead. People are dying. Well, we think they’re dying.”
“Why do you just think that?” He had the Doctor’s full attention, that was for sure. Yaz wondered if the Doctor even remembered her companions when she was like this. “Why aren’t you certain?”
Mekken licked his lips, and looked nervously from the Doctor to Ryan to Yaz to Graham. “Not in here,” he stated. “Come in. I’ve got a sitting room, you know. It’s a long story. But we have to be careful. And fast. People will be coming for you. It’s just a matter of time.” He ushered them into the sitting room, looking nervously over his shoulder at the door, as if he thought it would burst open at any moment.
It was a plain house, although traces remained of former beauty. Paintings hung on the walls, the canvases ripped through with jagged scratches, as if someone had taken a knife to them. A beautiful glazed vase sat in large, broken pieces in the corner. The intricate rugs were frayed and coming apart. The chairs had torn upholstery, stuffing from an armchair spilling out onto the floor. The Doctor gazed at the wreckage in shock, and Yaz wondered once more if the Doctor was going to cry.
When Mekken stepped in, ushering for them to sit down, the Doctor finally looked up from the destruction. Her brown eyes were large, and she seemed unable to blink. “What happened?” She whispered.
Mekken sighed, and collapsed in one of the torn armchairs, wincing as he did so. “The gods came back, Doctor. Or, at least, one of them did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ryan asked. “Someone’s going around pretending to be a god?”
Graham shushed Ryan quickly, who raised his hands in a questioning shrug. “What? I was just trying to–”
“Good question, Ryan, but the wrong one for right now,” the Doctor told him. “Go on, Mekken.”
“The goddess is angry, Doctor,” he said quietly, licking his lips again. “We strayed from our true purpose. We were too busy creating art. We were destined for the stars, Doctor. That’s what she told us.”
“But nothing is more important than your art, your culture,” the Doctor cried indignantly. “She had no reason to say anything of the sort! This was the most beautiful planet in the history of the universe!”
“What could we do, Doctor?” Mekken asked. “She is a goddess. She has proven that much to us. She has created natural disasters, disasters our scientists couldn’t predict. She took away all the oxygen in the air for five seconds. She made the day night and the night day. And she wanted us to destroy our art.” He nodded around the room sadly.
“But that’s not the worst of the atrocity, is it?” The Doctor guessed. “If I remember from the last time I was here, your people have psychically and empathically enhanced minds.”
“You remember correctly,” Mekken said.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Graham asked.
Mekken sighed. “They don’t talk as much as your detective friend,” he told the Doctor. “But they ask more questions.”
“Fine, I’ll just keep my mouth shut,” Graham said, crossing his arms in front of him.
“Anyway,” the Doctor said, almost cutting over Graham, “you were saying?”
“I was talking about, uh,” Mekken said. He paused. “Do you want anything to eat or drink?”
“No,” said the Doctor decisively. “Oh—do you have the little powdery–”
Yaz cleared her throat.
“–Never mind,” said the Doctor sheepishly. She made a face at Yaz. “So: your people have psychically and empathically enhanced minds.”
“Yes,” said Mekken slowly, hesitantly.
A fist pounded on the door. Mekken’s eyes darted to the hallway, then back at the assembled friends in his sitting room. “I’ll go see who that is,” he said, almost apologetically. He rose to leave the room.
And then the door flew down the hall and into the room, hitting him in the side full force.
There wasn’t time to stop and think. Yaz tried to open the window, so they could escape that way, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Out of the way!” Ryan shouted. He picked up the largest pieces of the broken vase and chucked them at the window with all his force. They bounced to the ground without breaking the window and shattered into smaller pieces.
Seven people burst into the room, wearing what looked like motorcycle helmets over their heads. Their faces were completely obscured. They were carrying guns, but they didn’t look like the guns Yaz was used to seeing. They were sleek and cold, metallic gray, without any sign of a trigger. She wondered how they worked. She wondered briefly if they were guns at all, but the Doctor’s face confirmed her fears.
The Doctor raised her hands in the air, breathing hard. She had been trying to find other ways out of the room. “We surrender,” she said quickly. “Just—take us to your leader. Your goddess.”
The helmeted guards said nothing, but grabbed each person and forced their arms behind their backs. Yaz trusted the Doctor, and so she didn’t fight back, but she wanted to. She just wished someone could tell her what was going on.
One of the helmeted figures who hadn’t helped secure them made several hand gestures at the others. They appeared to be using a form of sign language. Yaz wondered what they were saying, and why they weren’t just speaking. She saw Mekken rubbing his side, standing behind the leader. He wasn’t secured as a prisoner. Yaz wondered what was going on. The Doctor had seemed so trusting of him. They knew each other from before, before the Doctor was… who she was now.
The helmeted figures began marching them out of the house. Yaz shivered as the cold air hit her face. Her guard began marching her across the town square, in a different direction than the others. She tried to glance back at the others, but was shoved on before she could see anything other than Graham, attempting a sympathetic smile.
And then she was hit on the head with something large and heavy and cold, and she fell to the ground in a slump.