Coloth
Coloth was a young Ulk-Ra who was killed in the aftermath of the War Chief incident, but subsequently resurrected by the Bookkeepers, going on to take part in a variety of adventures.
Biography
Original lifetime
Coloth grew up on a planet home to his people, the Ulk-Ra. Though "nameless" as far as the Time Lords knew, (PROSE: War Crimes [+]Loading...["War Crimes (short story)"]) it was referred to as Ulk by the Bookwyrm. As per tradition, the soothsayer Ugrith practiced a prophetic rite on his egg and predicted that he would have a long and glorious future, which would indeed have been his original timeline if not for the alien interference in his life. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"]) He had an older sister named Otchon, who once let Coloth taste reed wine.
Tasked by the chief male of his clan, a young Coloth underwent a rite to become considered a warrior: he went out into the wild with the goal of killing a beast and bringing back its pelt. However, Coloth was captured by Ossu-male, an Ulk-Ra augmented by the War Lords for the War Games and returned to Coloth's homeworld by the Time Lord High Council. Coloth was kept trapped in woven vegetation for a period until — on orders from the War Lord programming — Ossu brutally killed Coloth by slicing him open with his paws. (PROSE: War Crimes [+]Loading...["War Crimes (short story)"]) Caused by the Archons' decisions to return Ossu to the planet instead of simply dematerialising him, Coloth's death was recorded as an alteration to history, facilitating the political rise of the one dissenter who had argued in vain against returning the modified soldiers to their home eras. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])
Resurrection as the cactus-skinned boy
Coloth was later resurrected, remembering that "[his] family, friends, and homeplanet [were] perfectly fine, but [he had] died a horrible death". He claimed that this was a "long story". (PROSE: Sonnenblumen [+]Loading...["Sonnenblumen (short story)"]) This was part of a programme by the posthuman Bookkeepers of the Plume Coteries' Library to Time-Ladle witnesses to historical events and then transfer their consciousnesses into holo-cubes from which they could project hard-light avatars. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"]) In his new life, Coloth had the ability to appear however he wished, being known to adopt such forms as "a young man who looked exactly like Harry Styles from the band One Direction" or "a massive writing ball of tentacles". His most favoured appearance, however, resembled a cactus-skinned humanoid (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory [+]Loading...["Cobweb and Ivory (short story)"], A Farewell to Arms [+]Loading...["A Farewell to Arms (short story)"]) with yellowish-green "skin". He could manipulate the details of this appearance at will, for example growing flowers on his skin. (PROSE: Sonnenblumen [+]Loading...["Sonnenblumen (short story)"]) Lady Aesculapius was aware that he was an Ulk-Ra but also a "shape-shiter". (PROSE: Life After Death [+]Loading...["Life After Death (short story)"])
As a fugitive
The Bookkeepers' resurrected holographic witnesses were only meant to undergo a short interview process before the cubes were wiped. However, two Novices, Callum and Maritsa, took pity on him and stole his cube from the "restricted section" of the Library before his time was up, then fled with him into the deeper reaches of the Library. They were originally meant to quickly run into and befriend the Birdhemoth Rich, on whose back they would then have escaped into the wider universe. However, after coming to the Library, Auteur decided that this didn't make a good enough story for his liking, and temporarily retconned Rich out of existence, resulting in Coloth, Callum and Maritsa spending over three months as fugitives stuck within the unexplored areas of the Library, with various agents of the Bookkeepers pursuing them to destroy Coloth and bring Maritsa and Callum to justice.
One of their adventures during this time saw them set a course for the mysterious Floor 899,167,435,042, only for Master Librarian Naimon to catch up with them. After he took the children's camp by surprise, Coloth managed to evade him for a time, but failed to take full advantage of this second chance, and was soon captured as well. Searching the children, Naimon discovered Callum's map, still pointing the way to the mysterious Floor, and he decided to attempt to explore it himself with the children as forced helpers, hoping to reap twice the glory. On the way, Naimon ended up falling to his death down an elevator shaft, despite Coloth reluctantly attempting to warn him of the "Cho". By expanding his holographic body into a huge vegetal shock-absorber, Coloth allowed the children to safely make their way down. They discovered that the contents of the Floor had been burnt down to ashes in an effort by Master Librarian Roland to destroy Auteur before he could take over the Library. The dead Naimon's blood allowed Auteur to effect a regeneration, rebuilding a body out of nearly nothing, and the renewed Auteur — who had already met a version of Coloth in his personal future — was gleeful to meet him the right way around. Auteur then attempted to complete his original aim in coming to the Library, namely summoning the Bookwyrm, only to be swallowed whole by the creature before he could subvert it for his own ends. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"])
As ambassador of the Plume Coteries
Later, no longer a wanted fugitive, Coloth represented the Plume Coteries on Terra Primagenia at the unveiling of Cernunnos. Fleeing from a painted warrior during a praxis trip, Avus shoved past Coloth, and was hurt by his cactus skin. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory [+]Loading...["Cobweb and Ivory (short story)"])
As part of his duties with the Coteries, he was present in the Plume Coteries' Library when it was visited by Graelyn Scythes, Archimedes Von Ahnerabe and Lady Aesculapius, of the 10,000 Dawns, who were looking for a copy of The Book of the Enemy alongside a person claiming to be an agent of the mammoths' opponent in the War, "the Emissary", but who was really solo operator Auteur. Coloth got Marissa to give him a glowing library card which would lead the travellers to the Book. After they found it and discovered that their next destination would need to be the mammoths' stronghold, Coloth, stating that "an Ulk-Ra lives on bravery", abruptly volunteered to go with them, since his library shift ended in five minutes anyway.
Subsequently, he was turned into fiction by Auteur using the gauntlet, and existed as such within Auteur's Town as a series of Coloth Adventures films for 17 years. One of them, which came out when Graelyn (who'd been reverted into a baby) was ten, was Coloth Adventures 4: The Patron of Doom. Eventually, Graelyn remembered her original life and freed all the fictionalised characters from the town's cinema. In the following battle between the defictionalised prisoners and the inhabitants of the Town, Coloth was seen fighting a group of cultists who were members of Auteur's people, back-to-back with Lady Aesculapius. They were all very briefly fictionalised again when Auteur manipulated Graelyn into completing her original ritual, but this didn't last as Graelyn outwitted Auteur and used the gauntlet to reverse all the fictionalisations and send everything Auteur had gathered back to its proper reality. The next day, Coloth attended the Christmas Needle Agreement negotiations on the Needle, and, after the document was signed, played a card game with Lady Aesc, Arch, and a great number of aliens; at one point, he won a hand against an alien with a tentacled face, to Aesc's amusement. (PROSE: White Canvas [+]Loading...["White Canvas (novel)"])
Still a "cactus-skinned boy", Coloth once flew beyond his native universe on Rich's back. As they were passing through the 10,000 Dawns, Rich's wingbeat caused a "rogue wave of dimensional pressure" which led to a Galaxy Accident befalling the Sun of the beings of light's Dawn. Realising the subsequent plague of Invisible Infernos was somehow their fault, the two stayed in the Dawns, helping Dawn to deal with this crisis as well as others, including the destruction of Dawn 10000. (PROSE: Sonnenblumen [+]Loading...["Sonnenblumen (short story)"])
As a cactus-skinned man
Now a cactus "man" rather than a boy, Coloth once walked through a section of the Labyrinth resembling a regular alley. Nezf, Wade, Tabrenilsodvoravitas, and a Shift passed Coloth on their way to steal the Greater Key from the Fortress. (PROSE: A Farewell to Arms [+]Loading...["A Farewell to Arms (short story)"])
The adult Coloth was one of the individuals who showed up to Aesculapius's funeral in her Factory of Crystal, secretly a ploy by Aesc (who'd been reborn in a new body) to find out who had sent the trapped parcel which had taken her previous life from her. Coloth nearly bumped into a highly ominous man with a black goatee, dressed in all black with crimson robes, whose every word seemed to be a double entendre implying that he was the one who'd killed Aesc; however, it later became clear the goatee-sporting man was an old friend of Aesc's called Steve whom she seemed to trust completely despite his villainous stylings. Aesc deduced that her killer was instead an old acquaintance in a new body; she specified that even though she was looking for a shape-shifter, she did not suspect Coloth, who was relieved to hear it. Instead, the culprit turned out to be Meistras. (PROSE: Life After Death [+]Loading...["Life After Death (short story)"])
Behind the scenes
- Prior to Coloth's cameo appearance in Nate Bumber's Cobweb and Ivory [+]Loading...["Cobweb and Ivory (short story)"] almost 20 years after his debut in War Crimes, Bumber contributed a story foreshadowing Coloth's reappearance, titled The Library At the End Of the Universe: A Comprehensive History, to the 2017 fan anthology Shit Trips 2. The story features the Thirteenth Doctor and a boy named "Callum" in the Plume Coteries' library preparing for Coloth's arrival, with the Doctor at one point saying, "History has been broken. The most important person in all of time and space was killed before their time, and they'll be coming through here any day."
