neutral_omens | (no subject) (Reply)

Time: Night, July 25th, 2000
Place: the Doctor's room (and the dreaming?)
Status: Private (the Doctor, Dream?)
Summary: The Doctor dreams and recieves a message

The Doctor dreamt of endings.

He’d seen a lot of them. Endings. One of his earliest memories was of closing a book. He’d seen so many things end: planets, wars, species, civilisations…

If there was one thing the Doctor had learnt – one thing he had really learnt on his travels, not what he said he had learnt – it was that nothing lasts forever, no matter how much one wants it to. There was really no such thing as ‘eternity’ because if eternity had a beginning, it must have an ending too, which rather defeated the purpose.

Everything has its time and everything dies.

He had said that to Rose, once, when she protested he hadn’t tried to stop the end of the world in the year five billion (there wasn’t anything living on the planet at the time. All species of life had long since left.). “Everything has its time and everything dies,” he had said, back in his old body with its jug ears and leather jacket. And he had taken her hand and gone back to the TARDIS and taken her back to Cardiff, 2005, and then they had both eaten chips.

In his dream, the Doctor was in Cardiff again, outside the Millennium Centre. He was looking up at the great building, the words on its front bright. Its outer covering was slate from local mines, and its basic shape was something like an armadillo.

Creu gwir in these stones fel gwydr horizons,” he read aloud, “and Ffwrnais Awen sing.”

Create truth in these stones like glass horizons, and make Awen’s furnace sing.

He wasn’t quite sure what Awen’s furnace was. He turned to ask the TARDIS, but she wasn’t there. In her place was a large white wolf, seeming to emanate yellow light. She turned kindly navy eyes on the Doctor and he heard, rather then she said, “Things will seem strange, Lord of Time. You will be challenged and your world will change. But remember…”

The Wolf stepped forward and nuzzled the Doctor’s neck. She could do that, as she was a very large wolf, as tall as he was. “It is worth it. You are all needed here. All of you.”

The Doctor woke slowly. He sat up, frowning. “Needed for what?” he asked the room. He sighed and rested his head in his hands. “I don’t doubt you,” he said softly, “but that doesn’t mean I understand you. Usually I have some idea as to what’s going to happen; usually I have some idea about the future. Time and space. But this place, this Manor…” He shook his head. “I don’t understand this place.” I need to get out of here, just for a bit. Maybe I should go to Cardiff again. Stand in front of the Millennium Centre and read the words, the sentences in English and Welsh, not exactly one or the other.

He lay back down again and turned onto his side, facing the window. He wondered what they were all needed for, and who exactly ‘they’ were. He had reached some drowsy conclusion before he fell asleep again, and couldn’t ever remember what that idea was.