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[everythinglost]

Call for a good time

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[everythinglost]

"We were traveling through these ice corridors and then me and Iris were kidnapped by giant owls. Iris kept them off with a blaster long enough to met terrifying ride on probably-meat-eating horses but it ended by the oldest giant owl telling us about how one of the eggs whose hatching would mean the end of days - or something - had been stolen and they needed to go kill whatever was in it. Which I think might have been that angel kid I heard about, but who knows."

He slumps further in his chair. "There were glass people? An evil elephant? It was actually an alternate universe?"

[wildguardian]

"Was this an unusually weird breach I missed, or do you two actually know each other from outside?"

[everythinglost]

"This was way before I came here. Iris and the Doctor are the same - I suppose 'species' is close enough."

[wildguardian]

"Huh. The more you know!"

So, does that mean Fitz's Doctor is telepathic too? Yunlan isn't going to admit it, according to the code, but his opinion of the man really does just keep slipping. Careless seems like the best that can be said of him.

[everythinglost]

"I think they are, anyway. Their history is confusing. And the first time we met the Doctor didn't say much because he was sulking about how she tricked him and then we got caught up in the whole 'Elder Things'... thing."

He drinks some juice, not trying to figure out what it might be.

"The whole lot of them are crazy, but most of the others are also just awful."

[wildguardian]

"Well, you know what they say about absolute power. Mastery of all space and time doesn't need a lot of arrogance added to it to get in-fucking-sufferable, I imagine," Yunlan observes, cradling his juice bottle between his hands as he sinks down more comfortably into the chair.

[everythinglost]

"Yeah, I got the impression they were basically intolerable at all points in time. In both smug fake non-interventionist and 'we have embraced the nature of war' forms."

[wildguardian]

"Well, good to know at least some of 'em broke out of that bullshit," Yunlan mutters, shaking his head. "But I guess it makes sense that most of them didn't."

Power, unfortunately, doesn't come with morality or good sense attached by nature.

[everythinglost]

He almost shakes his head in agreement, before catching himself. He's feeling better, but there's no reason to test fate. "It was always easy to understand why the Doctor had even less interest in going back 'home' than I did. Even before they started actively chasing us because of Compassion. When the best you can say about a place is that when it wasn't evil it was pretty boring, it's not a great selling point."

[wildguardian]

"It's really not," Yunlan agrees. "Especially not when that's a place tossing around superpowered time ship level technology."

With a click of his tongue, he adds, "And trying to enslave ships with human minds, at that. Not great."

[everythinglost]

"Yeah, something about how you can't let war make what is expedient be chosen over what's right. Though while it was a pretty good speech, I'm not sure if there were really that many morals there to be thrown aside in the first place."

[wildguardian]

"Uh huh." He clicks his tongue against his teeth again, thoughtful. "Who was giving who that speech?"

[everythinglost]

"The Doctor polished up various parts of it. Though I don't think he managed to ever give them the full thing. But he was more upset about the Madame President when it came to expectation of having at least one moral. They used to travel together. And definitely had a thing, though he'd never admit that she dumped him and then went and got an actual job." Whatever else, despite everything else, the memories lend a fondness to his tone.

[wildguardian]

"So... damn near his whole planet went off the rails about this war of theirs, huh?"

[everythinglost]

"Oh, definitely all of it. Though it also never started. Time travel, it can do your head in."

[wildguardian]

"Stopping the war involved making it so it never started-- that kind of thing?"

He shakes his head.

"--Who won?"

[everythinglost]

"Which is even more of a headache because we came across the war being fought a few times. Which was always awful, in case you were wondering." He shakes his head, too, forgetting to be careful of any headache.

"No one. And I don't mean in a dramatic, Pyrrhic victory way. I mean that both sides of the war now have never existed."

[wildguardian]

Yunlan's eyebrows go up. "And that's not a dramatic Pyrrhic victory? Wasn't your Doctor on one side of that war?"

[everythinglost]

“The universe suffered but I’m still not sure it counts if only five or so people know what never happened.” He lights another cigarette.

“No, he was one of those people who don’t participate on moral grounds. You can kidnap him to try to make weapons and then find you really can’t make him sort of thing.”

[wildguardian]

"Conscientious objector?" Yunlan suggests. He doesn't think "pacifist" actually is the right word, considering.

[everythinglost]

"Yeah, that's the one. He can be a hypocrite, but he wasn't about that."

[wildguardian]

"Stakes like that," Yunlan sighs, "I'm glad he decided not to be a hypocrite about it."

[everythinglost]

"He doesn't like wars, but there are times you have to fight. And there are times when you have to say that joining a fight would be unforgivable. So, he's one of the only ones left."

[wildguardian]

"That's a hard place to be in." His tone is thoughtful, but not particularly pitying. It's also a lucky escape -- getting out before your entire damn species manages to obliterate itself in a causality war.

"Well. Sounds like it's a lucky thing that the universe came out of it in one piece. "

[everythinglost]

"It didn't. But, so far, it seems like it can hold together enough for things not to totally fall apart, despite large holes."