maskormenace | Entry #004

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Entry #004 | Video

[ Here is Gansey, looking a little strange. He’s wearing a navy-blue sweater emblazoned with a raven – an Aglionby school sweater, over what appears to be ordinary clothes. His shoulders and hair are damp, like he’s been rained on, and he looks strangely pale. Despite that, he’s displaying a welcoming smile, and his hazel eyes are bright and vital with some emotion he’s holding back. ]

Apparently, I vanished yesterday.

I say apparently because it feels more like several weeks ago, but according to this – [ he holds up one of De Chima’s daily newspapers – a tabloid, headlined with speculation about the upcoming import elections ] – it’s only been a day.

A lot can happen in a day. Sometimes things that give you perspective.

Can I ask – the school year is almost over. Some of you will be graduating. I will. Which is odd, because I was here for eight months, and then I went home and it was Fall again, and Senior year was just beginning. I’m not completely sure what age I am now. I turned eighteen a couple of months ago.

[ Which, he actually never mentioned. It had seemed like there were more important things to be getting along with, and the thought of getting older in the wrong world had annoyed Gansey anyway. He’d kept quiet. Now, if he could do that over again, he thinks he’d celebrate it more – even though he’s only mentioning it now because it’s relevant to this. ]

Then I go home, and I’m seventeen again, so now I don’t even know what counts. Graduation will, though, I know that much.

So: to everyone else who’s graduating. Or even if you’re not, even if it’s just that you see change coming for you. What are your plans? Will you work, will you travel? What would you like to do, ideally? I think I’m ready for it to be summer again.

Private to: Billy Kaplan, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny, Matthew Lynch

[ This part goes to everyone’s private inboxes. Gansey’s smile is less presidential here, but his eyes are even sharper. He seems energized, like he’s on the edge of something. His voice is trying not to sound like it. ]

Hey, everyone. I very much hope I didn’t worry you. I think I was mid-conversation with you, Billy. I’ll have to blame my rudeness on the Porter.

Listen, I’m on my way home. Could someone bring the car and pick me up? I’m getting pizza from that Italian place near the porter in De Chima. I’m absolutely famished.

I’d…like to know if anyone else vanished, too. Ronan, Adam?

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You're talking to an actual time traveler, Prep School. Of course it's incredible. [ yeah the Doctor's being a tad egotistical here but so what? Time travel's awesome! ]

Oh, but you must have seen amazing things. Not to mention places, I -

[ Wait a minute, here. Priorities. ]

I don't suppose you've ever met the Welsh King Glendower, have you? Late fourteenth, early fifteenth century. Fought against the English.

Sorry, I hung out on the other side of that conflict. I've met Henry the Fourth and Prince Hal but I haven't met Glendower yet.

[ Doctor, you traitor. ]

It was worth a try, I suppose. He's a fascination of mine.

[ That is putting it mildly. ]

Does that mean you witnessed their lives? Front row seat on St Crispin's Day?

[ sorry Gansey, he's King Traitor ]

Course I did! What's the use of having a time machine if you don't hit up the highlights?

That’s marvellous. History is a passion of mine. I mean, Glendower in particular, but World history in general…

I’ve always felt quite aware of time slipping away.

[ Or slipping, in general. That’s a little harder to define. ]

You know where you are with history. It's never going anywhere.

You know where you are if you're looking back. Owen Glendower didn't know where he was going on St. Crispen's Day, after all.

I wonder which side he’d have taken, had he lived to see it.

[ Gansey smiles. It’s almost like he’s thought of this before. ]

I can’t help thinking it might have been the French. I imagine he’d have sympathised.

Tell me something, Doctor. If that’s what you think of the past, what are your thoughts on the future?

The future's just as wonderful as the past, [ the Doctor said with a small nod and grin of his own. ] It's the same level of inventive, the same level of creative, people are still wonderfully people.

[ Gansey cannot help but smile. That seems a terribly indulgent thing to say. ]

I meant...

Do you see it as something fixed, or something fluid? Are there things that have to happen, or do you believe people can deviate from their path?

Depends on the point. Pompeii? Fixed point. Time War? Fixed point. Other events, things like you picking a certain uni or whoever the next president is are more in flux.

Anything in particular on your mind?

Well, how do you know what's in flux and what isn't?

I mean...there were certain things that were foretold to happen, and did, but didn't turn out quite the way we thought they would because we were still able to act and change it.

Can that happen? Or were we always destined to change it in the first place?

I just know. Time Lord perks, after all.

Meaning, what, that you're born with this knowledge? Or you've learned to see the signs?

Meaning due to my weirdo alien powers and weirdo alien biology I can sense time.

[ Oh, well now. That definitely catches Gansey's attention. He's quiet for a moment, and pensive, while he tries to decide whether he should say this or not.

Eventually, he decides he might as well. It would probably sound crazy to anyone else, but a man like this? Maybe it won't. ]

Sometimes...when I'm looking around, or thinking about the place I'm in, I feel as though time is slipping around me. As though I'm aware of how it exists in time, or as though...as though I'm aware of all times at once.

[ He frowns, growing in awkwardness now that he's actually said it. ]

Does that...make any kind of sense to you?

[ The Doctor frowns for a moment. But it's not a "wow I'm angry at you" sort of frown. It's a "I'm thinking and my default state is frowning" sort of frown. ]

It makes perfect sense. You are human, right? Some humans are more aware of time than others, whether it's because you grew up near a rift, you were exposed to something else, or you've just got freaky genetics.

I wouldn't worry too much about that.

[ Gansey considers for a moment, before making this private. It's not that he doesn't want anyone to know, it's that he's yet to tell Adam and Ronan, and he's not sure how public he wants this knowledge to be in any case. ]

I am human. But I died, twice, and to put it bluntly, a magical forest brought me back to life. The first time, it fixed me, and I lived when I shouldn't have.

The second time - which is to say, earlier this evening - it rebuilt me completely, using...what remained, of its own life force. I'm still myself, I...think, but it had to make me into something new to do it. And the forest, well. It doesn't see time like a human would. It's an eternal thing, which takes a physical form, and then dies, and repeats the cycle. It gave me what remained of one cycle, I think.

I don't know, it's complicated. I haven't fully gotten my head around it yet.

The Second Gansey, [ the Doctor muses, more to himself than anything else. But well well well, this is interesting. Gansey becoming more, his life getting rebuilt by a timeless entity. That's happened time and time again in the Doctor's world. Bad Wolf, the crack in Amy's wall, Clara fracturing herself through time and space. All of those times, Rose, Amy and Clara ended up being...well, Rose, Amy and Clara. But it would only make sense that during one timeless entity of nature, someone would come back as more. ]

Have I explained the concept of regeneration to you yet? It's another part of my weirdo alien powers. With Time Lords, when we die, we don't die. The body changes, the personality changes, but the essence remains the same. Sounds a bit like your predicament.

You don't die.

[ Gansey shifts a little, uncomfortable, and feeling not quite sure of himself. ]

When this happens, Doctor...what happens, to your old body? Is regenerating the thing that lets you see time from all its angles?

Well sort of. Everything dies in the end, even Time Lords. [ said in a 'duh' tone. Just...ignore the fact that earlier he said he doesn't die. ] I'll die then regenerate and when I run out of regenerations, I'll die die.

[ which will probably never happen because Doctor Who makes the BBC money and this Doctor doesn't even know how many regenerations he has left BUT HEY, LET'S DODGE THAT QUESTION. As for the other question, the Doctor shrugs before continuing. ]

One, there is no old body. This Doctor, me right here, I'm the same man who grew up looking at Gallifrey's orange sky and who's shown up here as an Edwardian gentlemen with a penchant for amnesia, I've just got a different face and personality. Same phone, different case. And nah, the time from all angles is a different weird Time Lord thing—a weird thing that some humans can do, if they grew up near a rift or are particularly temporally sensitive or got brought back to life by an eternal entity.

Well. I suppose it makes me feel better that I’m not the only one. I think that I was always aware of time slipping, even before I was brought back. But since I was brought back by an entity for which time means little, I suspect the cause was always Cabeswater. The linear passage of time was only relevant for my perception.

[ And, you know, not for the forest’s. But honestly, even saying that makes confusion tug at the edges of Gansey’s brain. As does the Doctor’s description of himself. ]

Tell me something. If your looks have changed, and your personality has changed…how can you be the same?

You're special, but you're also nothing special. [ said with a little smile of his own. Sometimes he's halfway decent at reassuring. ]

As for your question, it's memories—cogito ergo sum and all that. I remember being the Doctor. I remember living through what other Doctors have done. And I want to be the Doctor, so I'm still the Doctor. You remember being the First Gansey, you remember living through what the First Gansey's done, you seem like you want to be Gansey, ergo you're still Gansey.

[ The crease between Gansey's brows indicates he doesn't wholly like that answer. Memories, identity, personality - these things are not always set. When he was home, he didn't remember being here.

He'll take it, though. ]

Well, if it's as easy as that, I suppose I'll take your word for it. I used to think it was something that was wrong with me, you know. Feeling out of time like that.

It helps to know where it comes from, even if that means it's permanent.

Nah, you're a perfectly normal shade of weird, [ said with a little grin and a smirk on his face. The Doctor's being a bit of an ass, but at least he's being a friendly ass. ]

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