Doctor Who: The Boy Who Remembered (Fan Fic)

Chapter 8: Keeper Of The Flame

For the first time in nearly a year the ravished English countryside had found a day of rest. It had taken the Doctor the better part of the following hour, and a few mistaken words in the language of the Ignisylian, but he had settled on a momentary truce. Just as had been expected, the Silurian and her charge had agreed with little protest; it had been Sire William who had been the hardest to convince. For despite having seen the impossible there remained the difficult task of bypassing his human ego, and not only that, but one belonging to a prideful man. Zaruvia had placed her blade back within the cave and taken a seat. Even the supposed dragon had calmly laid his head upon the sands with but a word from its defender. And yet still, the knight-errand continued his protests with sword in hand.

Unlike the tales of old, filled with chivalrous knights freeing damsels from their towers and slaying mythical beasts that tormented their lands, the truth was never as fantastical as the fiction. Benjamin had heard tales of valor the likes of which could not find equal in the centuries that followed. Knights were the symbols of heroism that echoed throughout the halls of time, the pillars of strength upon which soldiers and warriors had assumed their strength; and somehow they had been proven to be nothing more than fearful children. Rather than finding a means for peace they would rather cut down whatever stood in their way.

It was upon that day that Benjamin realized who the greatest heroes had been. It was those that stayed their hands, that walked away when faced with insult, and were able to suffer the burden of knowing that which they hated would remain. Heroes were the vigilant that chose peace instead of cowering behind the banality of war. Those that wielded words as their weapons, and still refused to pull the trigger even when words had failed. Watching the Doctor, the boy knew he was just that sort of hero. A name that only few would remember, but a name that would bind together the pages upon which history was written.

However even the Doctor's patience was drawing thin in the face of the ranting knight, "Are you done Sire William? Have we expressed all the proper grievances, protested in all the right ways, observed formal courtesies, and seen the conducts of court fulfilled?"

"You would stay my hand for the moment Sire Doctor," conceded Marshall. "But only for the moment."

"The same may be said of mine," added Zaruvia. "I've no sympathy for these senseless simians Doctor. This is a thing done for the consideration of your kind. The Time Lords are remembered in the Silurian histories."

"Voila! We have ourselves a compromise. Homo reptilia, meet homo sapien! If I remember correctly this is the second successful meeting of your two species. What do you think Benjamin?"

The boy could not focus for long enough without staring at the calm dragon he had seen terrorizing London less than a day before, "Good...good good...and all that."

"Oh don't mind him," the Doctor had begun to rub the side of the dragon's snout while avoiding pressing the scales the wrong way. "You handsome prehistoric devil. You're not a dragon at all though are you? You're far too terrestrial for that."

"Could you explain yourself in English Sire Doctor," pleaded the knight.

"It is English, just not your sort of English. Funny how that works. If it makes you feel any better Squire French isn't actually French," none of them said a word through their dumbfounded stares. "I know, it's mindboggling! Right, so let's start with you Mr. Dragon."

Benjamin took a step back with each breath that vented out its nostrils, "Which isn't a dragon at all according to you."

"It's not. It's an Ignisylian, like we keep saying. Why your species must be some odd twenty million years old?" smiled the man who claimed to know it all.