the linguistic fallacies

He casually pulled out a razor from within his inner coat pocket and shaved a bit of the hair off my cheek, creating a small cut in the process. 

"Why?" 

"Occam's razor. The simplest valid explanation of events, or solution to a problem, should be taken as the most probable."

Aware of his callous antics, and that the wound would be less than a scar in a matter of hours, I, Lady Alethia d'ephine whined, 

"You treat me so cruelly."

The Doctor retorted, 

 "I treat you as I treat myself, as someone to care about the actions of, and with self criticism to accompany it. I treated most other people differently, as I don't care about them. An active apathy."

"Then you don't show yourself to me, or you're not telling the truth."

"By now, it's always true."

"Stop acting omniscient."

"it 's more like omni comprehension or omnicognaisance. I understand everything, I am always aware of everything, even if I know nothing."

"And now your arrogance is on full display."

"Which I am self aware of, like my profound realisations."

Slapping herself on the forehead, "I just asked you to stop being so condescending."

"Which I shall counter with an increase in pretentious behaviour, mon amie."

The Jester interludes with the following as he gallops into the room from the horizons, rather than an archway.

"Cease the mundane tête-à-tête, our task lies ahead."

Lady Alethia Sighs, "Now you're copying his drama."

"It's an act worthy of mimicry"

"Is it really… I mean your actions aren't the most commendable."

"Which is in part why I copy him, the morality behind him is barely solid, much less than the rigidity of yours."

"Ethical conduct is a necessity for permanent social relationships, not that a scaramouche like you will ever build one."

"He did so with me."

The quietude behind the doctor's words, contrasted with the amplifying voices of his foils.

"Well, a single counter example isn't enough to break the trend, we're discussing behaviour patterns after all."

"But examining why the exception exists could find the driving force of the pattern, and the flaws therein,"

"STOP TREATING ME LIKE A SOCIOLOGY EXPERIMENT YOU ********"

"Our least sincere apologies, O' jester of the court of the TARDIS"

The courteous bow that delivered this caused alethia to fall off the arch that she was resting above, enlisting a grin from the doctor, who had stopped running around the central console, toying with the holographic screens for this gesture.

Naturally this was cut off by the jester attempting to punch him, though fog got him to trip instead, as she left her box under the console in search of a snack. She then jumped through one of the 7 arches and her best friend took her where she wished to go.

The doctor side stepped backwards "then we shall pull back our topic to ethics, and the goodness of the univ-"

"Give me a single ethical statement, and I shall counter it."

Alethia took up this challenge.

"A quote from apparently from jesus of nazareth; "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

"That gives every suicidal person the obligation to commit murder."

"If these are your preferred counter arguments then" she turned to the doctor, having gotten up and dusted off the pollen, "i shall not play your game. Rather I will test your own principles, through an interview."

"Okay"

"Fair enough."

Alethia continues, "will you ever stab me in the back?"

"Only if it goes through my own chest first."

"Only if it benefits me more than not doing so."

"What are your greatest flaws?"

"My presence here,"

"Where am i not a flaw…"

"Can you solve a problem?"

"Yes"

"Which problem?"

Running out of question ideas, it was time to amp up the angst.

Alethia, with a hoarse voice, "don't you think that the universe could be made better?!"

"Yes, but I don't think that it could become good."

"Yes, but I think that it could also become worse."

The difference in their responses highlighted the fundamental difference between the three of them, though fog would have stated that it could stay the same, and the tardis would advocate change for neither better nor worse. 

"This is getting frustrating, let's do something else,"

"Deal, what?"

"Visit a planet, solve a problem, the usual."

"Got a place in mind?" alethia asked as she tried to stop the jester from braiding her brown with dyed green tipped hair.

"Augnius. Augnius is a rogue planet without a star system and has a surface temperature of 53℃, hence mandating suits for us, the tardis crew to wear, with Fog getting a spray-on gel version. Atmospheric composition; 36% nitrogen, 40% helium, 14% carbon dioxide and 10% hydrogen, which further necessitates the suits, which uses perfluorocarbons to supply its oxygen contents. There is no solid surface, rather it's a dense fluid in constant tidal flux. The planet has a neighbour of equal size and they both revolve around a point equidistant from each other while travelling interstellar space. This causes the rare fluctuations on the planet's surface, which is why the enemy's base is at that fixed point. The neighbour, Privetla, is inhospitable to all forms of life. The suits use the transdimensional technology of the tardis to allow one to intuitively adjust their position in the nearby space, allowing a form of displacement without velocity, so they can move in any direction or at any speed they like unaffected, as long as the suits have the energy needed and their are no obstacles in the way. This is extremely energy consumptive, giving the suits a maximum continuous usage time of an hour. It also psychically transfers speech as quantum state adjustments to corresponding atoms in other connected suits, with an inbuilt speaker and gravitational wave generator to communicate with those not in the tardis and not using the suits. The planet's surface is an evershiting semi solid black mass, too dense to swim in but too fluid to walk on. The air density is too low for flight. As a result, the residing species use the magnetic field of the planet to jump or throw themselves from one place to another, levitating mid air when not in deadly motion. The surface is glowing."

"We are not called the tardis crew,"

"You have a better name?"

With a groan, "no"

As we landed, I opened the tardis doors and stared at the surface below, content to stay in silence. The tardis stopped a few metres above the surface, and each of us put on our suits and left to explore the nearby area. I paused a short while after, looking at the chaos formed by the interaction of 2 nearby species.

Physically, both species were only distinguishable by their colours, green with red tips and blue with grey tips respectively, based on who appeared to have more agency. They're limbs a series of 8 (4 pairs of 2) interlocking rigid cartilage curves stacked one above the other from opposite sides alternatively which open up to push them forward, revealing a face akin to a german shepard. Their ability to manipulate their environment appeared to be completely telekinetic, and the intersecting point of these limbs finds a bony vertebral column.

Lady Alethia d'ephine - "What happened to them?"

The Doctor- "Righteousness. A species wide value system on individuality. Imagine it. A glorious civilization, with such a focus on being unique that it becomes the most prominent evolutionary pressure for over a billion years. A divided species by choice. And the result is the 2 extremes in front of us. Those who could adapt became the Calumniatur omnia, where their focus on being one's own self cost them each other. The slight discrepancy between what one means and what another comprehends amplified until each interpretation, each perception is not only dissimilar but incompatible. An alien sui generis. Everyone has their own opinions, and now everyone has their own language. Infinite meanings for a single syllable, to each his/her own. Sapience evolved by arbitrary values, fundamentally crippling itself. The others lost that sapience. The Sine symbolis. They couldn't assimilate the change in language, in brain structure, so they discarded it. No more language equated no more communication and with that went symbology. But the brain stayed. Intelligence rendered inapplicable. The processing power had to go somewhere. And it did. Perfect body control. Every cell in the body, never responding uninitiated, only when called upon. A formerly sapient species with the ability to use the full potential of their body, but with the consciousness of an animal. Predators and prey; evolved to manipulate their environment and the ability to manipulate their own body perfectly. This is the one planet, augnius i believe it is called, in which that was successful in its existence, and what follows but chaos. Solitary creatures with no concept of knowledge, of data, of information, yet utter mastery over themselves can and will do any random thing, once the survival needs are met. And here they are, meeting their opposites from the same birth. This conflict was inevitable and beyond my capabilities to resolve. But maybe we can guide them back together again, though I can't use my most useful skill. They can't be talked to. For both kinds, we speak and gibberish, since this is the one language set beyond the tardis translation matrix. It's most likely overloaded and you have no idea what I just said, do you?" 

The Jester, sarcastically-" I am so sorry for stopping her from signalling you, but I had to capture that self absorbed arrogance in high Gallifreyan first hand. Please consciously speak English now, for her sake." 

He repeats his statements in english ad verbatim.

Lady Alethia d'ephine - "What is a divided species?"

"A divided species is the opposite of a unified species. In a divided species, each individual has their own unique behaviour pattern, goals and personality. Humans are a prime example of the same. In species like daleks, cybermen, sontarans, ice warriors, weeping angels etc, the general behaviour of each individual is equivalent to that of its kind. If you know how one sontaran behaves, you have a fairly accurate template for how they all behave. With humans, the opposite is true. All you know is how that individual behaves. Some species like silurians, or time lords, are a mixture of these characteristics."

The Jester- "that's the part you ask about."

Lady Alethia d'ephine - "I only inquire into what I don't know."

"So the grammatical inconsistencies are not an issue then."

"Meh, I can translate."

Which was the point when we realised that the Doctor had calmly walked straight into the battlefield.

I was forced to call out my next query into the distance; 

"How do you know all of this?"

He turned around and continued his brisk jog backwards, his royal blue trench coat with silver furnishings billowing towards me with the breeze that threw liquid dust against what would qualify as a visor in this spray on gel breathable space suit. His next words continued as he stumbled over the glowing black fluid surface of augnius, an impossible manoeuvre considering the way these suits facilitated movement; The suits use the transdimensional technology of the tardis to allow one to intuitively adjust their position in the nearby space, allowing a form of displacement without velocity, so they can move in any direction or at any speed they like unaffected, as long as the suits have the energy needed and their are no obstacles in the way. This is extremely energy consumptive, giving the suits a maximum continuous usage time of an hour. It also psychically transfers speech as quantum state adjustments to corresponding atoms in other connected suits, with an inbuilt speaker and gravitational wave generator to communicate with those not in the tardis and not using the suits. The clever child thus resulted directly underneath a blue with grey tipped creature amongst the chaos they had been observing as he yelled back his expositions continuously,

"The tardis has an entry on this planet. I simply interpreted, extrapolated and paraphrased the 5 page summary."

"You did this in the middle of-" she gasped and continued to the next sentence, skipping the final word, "that is very rude, rather inconsiderate of the effort it takes to talk to you, and undermines the gravity of this entire trilogue…" 

However at this point, our protagonist's mind was on a different story, while the little scaramouche had found some other toys to play with. The jester floated off perpendicular to where the doctor was, relative to the tardis, before accelerating towards the horizon. He'd spotted a tower out of the corner of his eye, the only way to overcome a perception filter on one's own. Meanwhile, the doctor leapt forward and ran. He had had enough, and chose to spend some time alone, wandering this once great planet. Eventually, he found himself at the jester's tower, having curved across the hypotenuse of the triangle they had formed. This left alethia with ergosum, the calumiteur omnia who had accidentally walked over the doctor. By the nature of her kind, ergosum had a concept of language, but it was her own. Unique. No one else could speak it and/or understand it. Yet she tried to communicate, to convey what she meant. So she pointed her frame at alethia, and unfurled her limbs without intending or attempting to jump. Alethia stood still, and then relaxed herself as she stared back. She took control of her breath, slowing and lengthening each inhalation and exhalation, through her nose and mouth respectively. She then widened her stance and raised her arms while letting her shoulders droop. Ergosum then bowed her head, this being the limits of her ability to move, and with that, they had both made their intentions clear, and were glad to have made a friend. Alethia then sighed and walked back into the tardis, headed for her room where she took a nap. Meanwhile the jester was fiddling with the command interface outside the tower, which he had discovered to be a beacon and a range enhancer for a structure outside the planet. It was at this point that the doctor walked in.

"What's all of this ? Clearly, it's not native, the entire architectural style would be impossible to create psychically."

"So far, it appears to be a tracking beacon and range enhancer. But what is it trying to boost the range of ?"

"Judging by the remains of the world outside, probably something biological…"

"A romantic genetic rewriter then."

"Remote, not romantic, but yes that's most likely."

"Well, can we use it ?"

"Sure, but what for"

"You know what for, to help these people. At the rate things are going, these species will never be able to rebuild themselves, and the only reason that they are still alive is because of the pre existing infrastructure, which has already mostly degraded." 

"1. I am surprised that you want to help. 2. You could only know that after spending months here, doing research. And 3. We would need the actual location of the rewriter to modify it beneficially. What is the current setup trying to change?"

"How long do you think you have been walking for… it's at the lagrange point between augnius and privetla. The current setup appears to attempt to make it impossible for the only 2 surviving races on this planet to interbreed…"

"We need to get back to the tardis imminently"

And so they did, just as Alethia had gotten up from her nap and walked into the control room.

I realised without much suprise that he had been silent and stationary for hours, maybe even days, leaning against the dashboard, his gaze unfocused as he stared into the horizons of the tardis, Fog haunched next to him. With the Jester out of sight, I signalled him, and when he returned to consciousness, I asked him, "what were you doing?"

"Reminiscence and introspection…"

He got up and walked into one of the granite arches, the grey fluffy cat following after. I paused for a moment, realising that it could actually have been days with the tardis's feature of staying in the time vortex after destination coordinates are set, slowing down time to give us more. To give him more. I sighed and then followed.

I walked into a sandstone hollowed out structure, shaped like a geoid with a single open window, after walking up a curved staircase. I found the Doctor sitting there, his arms wrapped around his knees, his left wrist clasped by his right hand, and rocking back and forth, Fog asleep beside him. I went and sat down similarly behind him, our backs in contact. He stopped rocking and lay his head backwards on my shoulder, his grip loosened, arms and knees slacked, left foot crossing over the right as always.

"We are thinking about very different things now, aren't we?"

I mimicked his motion and replied, "probably"

He sighed, "yet the mood remains the same…"

"Do you want it to?"

The silence then prevailed, finishing the commencement of the moment.

He then twisted his body over, his royal blue trench coat draping itself over his knees, which were at that point supporting all of his body weight. I turned my neck around, facing behind me like an owl, where I met his eyes with my glowing own, the left half of my iris is indigo, and the other half is violet, and they fade into each other where they meet. He raised his hands, the screwdriver slipping into his cuffs using the pen clip. "Did you know" said the Doctor, his hands over my head, his index fingers in the hole directly behind my earlobe, the ulnar side of his hand directly against my cheek, the ring finger in front of the tragus, "that there is a point right here" he sharply pressed his index and ring fingers into the cavity as he continued and i opened my mouth, "which blocks your mouth from closing, leaving you stuck agape for a long as pressure is applied there, just like one of gandhi's monkeys." I paused until he released the painful pressure, before composing my response alongside myself.

"No, I didn't, and nor do I see a point in knowing it now. Yet, how did you know?"

"A compulsion of regeneration, I tend to be curious about my own body. It feels like a developing child."

"Just how old are you by now?"

The Doctor sighs, " by what measuring system? Chronologically, it depends on the time period that I am in. Experientially, I don't know anymore. In terms of human maturity, I have the experience of a 120 year old, the body of a man in his 20s and the emotional state oscillating between that of a 2 year old and a teenager. So don't ask me my age, it stopped mattering."

"More like a 12 year old actually, albeit a traumatised one…"

He stared at me, as if I just asked him something that I should already have known.

"At this point, you've experienced excessive trauma, your hands prove that if nothing else. And I have been through this for far longer than your few decades. Makes me doubt why I do this to people…"

This reminded me about the end of the adventure where I first met The Doctor. I told him that I wanted to join him in the tardis, and he started to play "angel eyes" by ABBA. I asked him what he meant and he said a warning. His exact words were, " By my analysis, this song is a perfect analogy of how things will turn out. You are the narrator, and I am the monster with the angel eyes. This is my warning. You join me, you will suffer, and if you live, then one day we will separate and I will move on to find another. And maybe, you will rue me forever." I chose to ignore the warning, so far all it was was foreboding. I am still scared, yet I believe that it will be true. Eventually. Hopefully after eternity. 

"I mean it's not like you don't grieve us."

"I don't."

That one took me by surprise, so I knew to inquire further. So i responded to my eldritch crush, 

"why?"

He gave me that stare again before getting up, dramatising his explanation.

"You know why I don't grieve those I don't know or barely know. Because unlike you, all of you, my bonds are not inherent. I don't automatically intuitively connect with anything. For me to feel, it always always takes time. And with that time I do. Without it I don't. I won't. That's why I have you. To give me that time. To make me feel. Even if the last one is grief and guilt. Those before you did the same thing, and so will those after. Even after me."

"But you do know me. You have had that time."

He released a mirthless laugh, before following it up with a sigh,

"How can i expect to understand you, if i don't even know me."

"Is there even a counter to that, or is it like solipsism?"

He actually shrugged.

"Naturally, that doesn't mean that you're not important to me, after all who isn't."

"You flout that importance for most on a daily basis, and you still harm all of us."

He paused, then chose to elucidate, while I lay down on my back in front of him over the smooth stone floor.

"I still have rules. Constraints. Something to stop me from turning into the people I face. But they've changed. They're loosened now. More flexible, with exceptions. Why? Because to be who I am, to be The Doctor, a champion of good, I must no longer consider good or evil. Morality is subjective. Arbitrary. And to uphold it I must disregard it occasionally. Positive and negative behaviour isn't black and white, it isn't greyscale, it's in colour. And that makes me the bad guy." 

"reductio ad ridiculum"

He made a face at the latin name for the fallacy.

"It's not a hyperbole, nor is this an argument."

"No, it's just you venting"

"I… yes it is. It always is. That or an explanation, like the one for those species."

"Or the one you are about to give about where we are."

"Oh, right. The beacon we found was an amplifier for a remote genetic rewriter. This is where the signal came from. The person exacerbating your friend's flaws is probably right outside the tardis doors."

The tardis, as ever, was a thing of beauty. The dimensional transcendence was reminiscently mesmerising, though magnitude had gone into the Doctor's head. The control room was now a misty garden of violet alien flowers and short grass, the entrances sporting intricate stone arches with something entirely different on the other side. The hexagonal interface of the central console, was now an intricately carved and engraved stone monolith with exquisitely designed wooden planks replacing the control panels and the actual control mechanism being an azure holographic translucent panel draped over it like a layer of silk. The energy disk at the centre was now a fountain which re-utilised the same fluid through a mono concave glass disk that reflected a distortion of the external view, causing the Doctor to have to swerve his head to avoid the extravagance. The ceiling was now the night sky, the stars ever shifting to the one outside the tardis's current spatiotemporal position, emitting a dim violet hue, suggestive of a serene mystery. The fantasy design was a result of the change of the adventures he was having, this being a little less overwhelming for those whose technology was equivalent to the arcane. Clearly, the exterior was the same old blue police telephone box as always.

"a what?"

 "remote genetic rewriter. It does exactly what it says on the tin."

 "But I don't understand what's said on the tin."

After sighing and smacking himself on the face, " It allows one to, from a distance, edit one or multiple entities' genomes. One could merge species, give them specific characteristics, remove said characteristics, undo or accelerate their evolution, in any manner one liked as long as you knew or could create the genetic code and program required for the same. In some cases, it may not activate till the next generation though."

"That's simpler, barely. So, it's just a chameleon arch then."

"The chameleon arch is similar, yes. This is far more generalised and versatile, the arch is of a specific purpose, and has a few other capabilities. Time lord tech is still superior."

"No, that's your god complex."

"My entire species has what you would term as that, mostly too far greater magnitudes than mine. Besides, it's not like I believe myself to be superior."

"No, you consider yourself inferior on a good day. No matter how much I debate otherwise…"

"Do you really?"

"Implication can still be used in an argument. Besides, are you going to compromise with this being."

"The researcher… no, a valid compromise is only plausible when both sides of the argument are not in direct contradiction. Or conflict. Or contrast. Or opposition. To do so otherwise is fallacious."

"A researcher huh, why is that the assumption?"

"External cameras showed scanning equipment, more than necessary for a rich kid using a biosphere as a sandbox."

"Does augnius even have a biosphere?"

"It used to, before leaving its star system. The calumiatur omnia and sine symbolis only survived due to pre existing infrastructure from their past civilisation. "

"How long are we going to wait in the time vortex before properly landing?"

"I'll decide eventually, since we have all the time in the universe."

"What's the point of that feature, anyway?"

The Doctor mutedly states, "it's all just drama anyway. Showmanship. I could do this entire universe saving nonsense in under a second if I wanted to. Not a word out of my mouth. All alone. Over and over and over again… the tantrums of a self centred child. That's what I do, the life I live, the person I am..."

"To all those who know you, that's the obvious part. But we are all like that, just not sane enough to stop deluding ourselves."

"I keep forgetting that you are smarter than I am. But you choose to ignore this outside of us…"

"Because while you value and seek objectivity, I seek fun. So you go get your enlightenment, and I'll take my bliss."

"I'm the Doctor. The one who doesn't make a difference. The one who when dies, nobody will miss. Nobody ought to anyway. Yet nothing would ever be there, if I never existed. So many titles, so many words… The Doctor is the man who dies alone and unremembered by choice. My choice. There is no enlightenment in being me."

"Stop with the emo monologues no matter how true"

"Fine," he stated, as he slouched against the wall, dropping us back into silence.

 After a short while, I got up and left, heading for the control room to wait for him to finish brooding and complete his show, while he sleepily hummed the sounds of the tardis.

Finally, the Doctor walked back into the control room sporting a new addition to his outfit, a pale white ceramic mask sculpted to look like an ephemeral version of his face that he held in place with his left hand. He silently walked, past me, out of the tardis, face to face with a single solitary figure. He faced him and dropped the mask, which fell to the floor with a resounding snap, bouncing to the left while shattering in half, before disintegrating, creating the perfect tension and symbol for his next words; "I am the Doctor, the most dramatic transient fool masquerading as a genius that you're ever likely to meet, and the villain of my own life.". He then thrusted his sonic screwdriver towards his opponent, right arm outstretched, left foot forward by a stride, right foot perpendicular to the left and left arm fiddling with his pockets. 

"That's an odd choice of worlds, Doc-tor. It contains more than one must say, yet less than what you mean." Mori Murakami stretched, as the crustacean slowly unveiled a single set of arms in his clattered server room. The doctor relaxes his body, rehooking the sonic screwdriver to the seemingly silver button on the cuff of his royal blue trench coat. "The words that I choose express exactly how I feel." Those slender palms begin flittering about as the time lord began pacing the cramped corridor. Bemused, Mori turned to follow, knowing his systems were already collecting data from his station at the rogue planet's point of zero intensity. 

"You know, these worlds down there, this set up of your's we stride, all of which seems like the fairy tales of stars"

 Mori dismisses this with sarcasm,"what's the difference between reality and a story?"

The Doctor intonates,"there isn't one. Never has been. And that was both the biggest revelation and most fundamental characteristic of my current incarnation. It's a secret that I am willing to share."

"Life isn't a fairytale."

"No, it's a dystopia. But it's still a piece of prose."

"Dystopias aren't exactly stellar. The cosmos is more eldritch."

"Have you been reading Lovecraft, or are you generally unperturbed by insanity?"

"While it's fun to keep up this game, explain the point of this dialogue…" trailed off our antagonist. The Doctor stopped waving about and grinned, as the jester stepped out of the tardis behind the lobster's back. He raised his right arm and snapped his fingers, drawing Professeur Murakami's attention to him as his suit bellowed.

The Doctor subtly stipulated, "still the phoenix rising from his ashes, I see."

The Jester countered, "says the cat with over 15 lives."

He then tossed it a hydroplasma handgun, earning a small shock from the meddling researcher's face.

" The person who one trusts the most, is the one that has a loaded gun pointed at at that very moment."

"As far as comradery goes, this is quite unnerving…" He disassembled the gun to check if it works with 8 tactile limbs, before reassembling it in a second. "Still, better not look a gift horse in the mouth." It pointed the gun at the youthful dramatist.

"You set yourself up, you know. the reality that you're in, the one I created, is one you cannot escape."

The Jester amplified, "what the **** do you think I am doing here? Escaping reality is what I do. It's what I live for. How do you think I got here? Isekai style? Are you kidding me, you fools! But you are right about this much. Now is not the time for me to transcend this mess. That would insult the storytellers, using a Deus ex Machina like that." As he compulsively snapped his fingers to accentuate each pause.

At this point, all of the attention in the room was at our orator, while the chittering creature had to relax his tracheal pores.

"Child Child Child, I am not foolish enough to be afraid of you. I have begun what I must, and that reality is up above us now."

"Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky." The Jester whistled, before addressing his audience from a new vantage point, placing Mori's back to the tardis again and his own at the transparent window while Fog slipped out. 

"Stop ridiculing me with human poetry, you *******." He finally lunged forward in aggression, gun forgotten, only for the Jester to sidestep him entirely, before grabbing it's head with his left hand and dragging it backwards into his right knee, shattering that intersection in its exoskeleton. The beast collapsed as The Doctor walked by, then sobbed after hearing what he had done. The screwdriver had messed with the remote genetic rewriter, stopping the interbreeding blocking protocol. Instead he remerged the species, giving the sword fallen race a second chance. And committing double omnicide. 

"You doomed me. My family. My life. So akin to the beings you destroyed. You just ended 2 species. You killed 2 unique races, both one of a kind, to give idiots another chance. Fools who bred themselves out of existence. This is a murder, not my intended sterilisation. And soon, none of my blood will ever know what the other says…"Murakami spouted, and justifiably blamed. Which The Doctor acknowledged, "And now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." He then turns to leave, and with him go the words;"Memento Mori"

As they returned to the tardis, The Doctor paused the Jester at the doorway and asked,

"Why did you let it go?"

The Jester dropped his grin and stared at the threat before him.

"You knew," he remarked.

The Doctor released a knowing smile as he lifted his left hand between them. A chain materialised around it, connecting his wrist to that of the comrade before him within the entrance. He tapped the imprisonment with his right index fingernail with an audible clink. He then dropped his arm, the binding merging with the ether.

Reassured, The Jester relaxed and posited,

"Why did blon fel-fotch passameer-day slitheen from raxacoricofallapatorius let Cathy salt, a human reporter who was a threat to her plan to blow up the earth via a time rift and ride the shockwave offworld by investigating the deaths she caused along the way, live?"

"Because the only way to keep sane and live with yourself and justify killing millions, is, from time to time,on a whim, to let one go. I suppose a new name is deserving of a new face, Master."

The 2 wise ancient and still young men, turned through the open doors and walked at a 120 degree angle from each other, still bound as they entered their own parts of the tardis, Fog following in after, having stayed to watch the drama.

Meanwhile, back on Augnius, Ergosum wakes up and gets to his/her feet, before realising her physical changes. she stares at her own body in shock, and starts to make sense of her surroundings. Lady Alethia was gone, and the others of both kinds were now like her. Similar to what they were, but noticeably different. Then she heard one of them curse. she collapsed, sobbing with joy, realising what this meant. she could finally communicate with another person. Now, long after her hope was a distant memory, she could share how she felt. No restraints, no self subduction, just freedom. she already knew what a chatterbox she would soon become.