For the first time since the rise of the new moon, the click of footsteps can be heard echoing through the halls of the former False Moon Institute. Where one Doctor was struck down, another has come to collect any materials left over from the creation of the artificial moon marrow. The notes will surely be invaluable, and many of its components can likely be used in future work. The first iteration of the artificial marrow had given him a massive surge of power when combined with the others; there's still potential there. Fate won't dominate him forever.
"There, be careful with that," Dottore says as a cohort of Fatui soldiers start moving the more delicate machinery into a storage box. "If you break it, you'll have to put it back together."
It's an effective threat. Nobody but the Doctor knows how to build these things. While others do the physical work, he flips through the research notes. Of course he was the one who wrote them, in a manner of speaking, but review is essential, and it's important to make sure it's all accounted for.
It takes the better part of a day to get everything loaded up onto an inconspicuous ship docked at the Institute's small pier. Dottore is reviewing a checklist before boarding; it won't do to have missed something important and have to come back.
The letter from Nefer came unmarked and without a signature, but there's only one person in Nasha Town who would send missives on parchment from Sumeru — green ink still wet and seeping into the paper, bearing a hint of incense. And yet, despite the elaborate trappings, the message inside was incredibly simple and straightforward:
You might want to investigate the False Moon Institute.
So Aether went. Might is a polite way of saying that he should, which means there's something of such dire importance that Aether needed to know about it immediately. And, lo and behold, the traveler arrives to find Dottore himself loading machinery and other odds and ends into a ship docked at the pier.
How? Didn't they kill him? But then, he's like a cockroach with his segments, isn't he: you crush one and another pops up to take its place. Aether has to resist the impulse to groan.
Right. This is probably the one that was located in Snezhnaya this whole time. And the one they killed, the one that was experimenting with the moon, that was just another one of his many little clones.
Aether thinks of bugs. Squirming, disgusting bugs.
Dottore is somewhat more pleasant to look at than a bug, of course. But not by much, when one considers his interests.
Aether decides not to make any immediate and impulsive moves; he decides not to approach, at least not immediately. He wants to wait and see if he can figure out what Dottore is doing. He's not really making any special effort to stay hidden, though. Can Dottore see him where he is — a lone figure garbed in white and gold on a cliff's edge just above where he's directing his soldiers? Aether hasn't used a bow since he left Inazuma, but he imagines it, sometimes. The care he'd take in aiming. Pull the string taut and aim for Dottore's chest, maybe his throat...
If such a thing as killing intent exists, then maybe Dottore will be able to feel it from up above. At the very least, perhaps he will sense Aether staring.
If the Doctor could take notice every time someone wanted to kill him, he'd never get any work done. It's not until he waves one of his subordinates over to discuss something that there's any indication something's wrong, because the gunner spots Aether on the ridge and immediately drops to one knee to line up a careful shot. "Lord Harbinger!" he barks, bracing the butt of his rifle against his shoulder.
Dottore turns, following the sightline of the gun, and smirks a little when he spots the descender on the cliff. He reaches out and pushes the rifle down before the soldier can fire off a round. "Well spotted," he says, and gives a subtle sign for the soldier to stand. "Go with the others, sail back to Snezhnaya with the supplies."
"Lord Harbinger, are you certain? We don't know his intentions." The man does stand, though, shouldering his gun again. The full-face mask hides any expression he might be making but his bearing is uncertain, caught between instinct and orders. Dottore shakes his head.
"Look at his position. Far away, but with a significant height advantage; I dare say he had a clean shot on me, yet he didn't take it. What does that tell you?"
"That he doesn't have a gun," the soldier says grimly, which draws a sharp laugh from the Doctor.
"True, true. My instruction stands. Take the supplies back to the mainland."
"Of course, sir. Do you require another ship be sent back to pick you up?" His warning had been heard and acknowledged, and subsequently discarded. The gunner supposes he did his due diligence.
"No. 'I' will meet you there," Dottore says mildly.
As his troops withdraw and the ship pulls away from the pier, the Doctor doesn't take his eyes off the Traveler, arms folded neatly behind his back. He can wait.
It's an unsettling feeling. To have the Doctor's gaze on him — a gaze that he himself cannot see for the way that the man's mask obscures his features. Aether's never liked it, the way that he has no idea what the man truly looks like past the mask. But would it matter even if he did? Either way, he knows that he's looking at one of the most reprehensible people he's ever had the misfortune of meeting.
That being said, the conversation with his subordinate was really very funny. Aether almost laughed, too, which says terrible things about how he and the Doctor may or may not have similar taste in humor past their differences, but it's easier to hold back his chortling when he remembers the things he's seen throughout the nations. Abandoned labs, faded medical records. Aged passages describing deaths that the writer did not even conceive of as deaths so much as experiments.
No — it's really no laughing matter at all.
Though the other unsettling piece of this puzzle is this: Aether feels like he spent an eternity with that segment of Dottore in the time between the moons, but rationally, he realizes, the Dottore in front of him now is a completely different man entirely, and shouldn't have any knowledge of what that was like.
Does he know Dottore, or does he not know Dottore? He knows the Dottore that he killed; what does that make this Dottore? Thinking about it feels like it's going to lead into some kind of bland tautological philosophy, so Aether simply sighs, steels himself, and —
— leaps from the cliff, landing heavy on his heels.
Normally, he'd summon his sword at this junction, but the hands behind Dottore's back implies that he intends to make this an unarmed conversation, so Aether relents. He knows full well that neither of them are ever truly unarmed. He rises slowly to his feet, now standing some short distance away from Dottore.
"You seem awfully busy," Aether says lightly, as though greeting an old friend. The look on his face suggests something closer to unfettered rage, though. "Moving day?
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"There, be careful with that," Dottore says as a cohort of Fatui soldiers start moving the more delicate machinery into a storage box. "If you break it, you'll have to put it back together."
It's an effective threat. Nobody but the Doctor knows how to build these things. While others do the physical work, he flips through the research notes. Of course he was the one who wrote them, in a manner of speaking, but review is essential, and it's important to make sure it's all accounted for.
It takes the better part of a day to get everything loaded up onto an inconspicuous ship docked at the Institute's small pier. Dottore is reviewing a checklist before boarding; it won't do to have missed something important and have to come back.
sorry for the wait ♥
You might want to investigate the False Moon Institute.
So Aether went. Might is a polite way of saying that he should, which means there's something of such dire importance that Aether needed to know about it immediately. And, lo and behold, the traveler arrives to find Dottore himself loading machinery and other odds and ends into a ship docked at the pier.
How? Didn't they kill him? But then, he's like a cockroach with his segments, isn't he: you crush one and another pops up to take its place. Aether has to resist the impulse to groan.
Right. This is probably the one that was located in Snezhnaya this whole time. And the one they killed, the one that was experimenting with the moon, that was just another one of his many little clones.
Aether thinks of bugs. Squirming, disgusting bugs.
Dottore is somewhat more pleasant to look at than a bug, of course. But not by much, when one considers his interests.
Aether decides not to make any immediate and impulsive moves; he decides not to approach, at least not immediately. He wants to wait and see if he can figure out what Dottore is doing. He's not really making any special effort to stay hidden, though. Can Dottore see him where he is — a lone figure garbed in white and gold on a cliff's edge just above where he's directing his soldiers? Aether hasn't used a bow since he left Inazuma, but he imagines it, sometimes. The care he'd take in aiming. Pull the string taut and aim for Dottore's chest, maybe his throat...
If such a thing as killing intent exists, then maybe Dottore will be able to feel it from up above. At the very least, perhaps he will sense Aether staring.
you're good bestie
Dottore turns, following the sightline of the gun, and smirks a little when he spots the descender on the cliff. He reaches out and pushes the rifle down before the soldier can fire off a round. "Well spotted," he says, and gives a subtle sign for the soldier to stand. "Go with the others, sail back to Snezhnaya with the supplies."
"Lord Harbinger, are you certain? We don't know his intentions." The man does stand, though, shouldering his gun again. The full-face mask hides any expression he might be making but his bearing is uncertain, caught between instinct and orders. Dottore shakes his head.
"Look at his position. Far away, but with a significant height advantage; I dare say he had a clean shot on me, yet he didn't take it. What does that tell you?"
"That he doesn't have a gun," the soldier says grimly, which draws a sharp laugh from the Doctor.
"True, true. My instruction stands. Take the supplies back to the mainland."
"Of course, sir. Do you require another ship be sent back to pick you up?" His warning had been heard and acknowledged, and subsequently discarded. The gunner supposes he did his due diligence.
"No. 'I' will meet you there," Dottore says mildly.
As his troops withdraw and the ship pulls away from the pier, the Doctor doesn't take his eyes off the Traveler, arms folded neatly behind his back. He can wait.
no subject
That being said, the conversation with his subordinate was really very funny. Aether almost laughed, too, which says terrible things about how he and the Doctor may or may not have similar taste in humor past their differences, but it's easier to hold back his chortling when he remembers the things he's seen throughout the nations. Abandoned labs, faded medical records. Aged passages describing deaths that the writer did not even conceive of as deaths so much as experiments.
No — it's really no laughing matter at all.
Though the other unsettling piece of this puzzle is this: Aether feels like he spent an eternity with that segment of Dottore in the time between the moons, but rationally, he realizes, the Dottore in front of him now is a completely different man entirely, and shouldn't have any knowledge of what that was like.
Does he know Dottore, or does he not know Dottore? He knows the Dottore that he killed; what does that make this Dottore? Thinking about it feels like it's going to lead into some kind of bland tautological philosophy, so Aether simply sighs, steels himself, and —
— leaps from the cliff, landing heavy on his heels.
Normally, he'd summon his sword at this junction, but the hands behind Dottore's back implies that he intends to make this an unarmed conversation, so Aether relents. He knows full well that neither of them are ever truly unarmed. He rises slowly to his feet, now standing some short distance away from Dottore.
"You seem awfully busy," Aether says lightly, as though greeting an old friend. The look on his face suggests something closer to unfettered rage, though. "Moving day?