Time Shade
The Time Shades were legendary beings on Gallifrey, with reports of their existence going back as far as the Dark Times and the days of Rassilon, (AUDIO: Damned If You Do [+]Loading...["Damned If You Do (audio story)"]) when Time ran still wild, (TV: Once, Upon Time [+]Loading...["Once, Upon Time (TV story)"], The Vanquishers [+]Loading...["The Vanquishers (TV story)"]) meaning that they prefigured the anchoring of the thread, which enforced a Time Lord order and established a rigid structure for history. (PROSE: Lungbarrow [+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"], So Vile a Sin [+]Loading...["So Vile a Sin (novel)"], The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"])
Their remarkably fluid forms seemed to escape all light and shadow, even swallowing them up. Each Shade was intimately connected with one particular aspect of Time, such as eternity or dreams. (AUDIO: Damned If You Do [+]Loading...["Damned If You Do (audio story)"])
Members
There was a "pantheon" of Time Shades, including the Shade of Eternity, the Shade of War, the Shade of Dreams, the Shade of Protection, and the Shade of Portent.
The Shade of Portent was able to see the future, and knew that Narvin, a Time Lord of relatively low rank, would become pivotal to the timeline. They abducted 5 students from the Academy, freezing them in time, in order to draw him in. Clad all in gold, this Shade appeared to have a glass head, which, oddly, reminded Narvin of a black hole. They were able to give him kaleidoscopic visions of the timeline which would soon form around him. (AUDIO: Damned If You Do [+]Loading...["Damned If You Do (audio story)"])
Possible identifications
The loa
The Gallifreyan sect known as Faction Paradox, (AUDIO: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"]) noted for their manipulation of their own shadows, would call down and channel "spirits of Time" known as loa, who helped them protect the Eleven-Day Empire (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire [+]Loading...["The Eleven Day Empire (audio story)"]) until its fall to Lolita. (AUDIO: The Shadow Play [+]Loading...["The Shadow Play (audio story)"])
The Faction viewed these loa or spirits as emergent processes within the structure of time itself, who were in some sense alive, (PROSE: "Loa" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"Loa","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) as contrasted with the Great Houses' conventional view that the laws and processes of time were mere mathematical equations. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell [+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"], "Loa" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"Loa","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}, Weapons Grade Snake Oil [+]Loading...["Weapons Grade Snake Oil (novel)"])
They were also involved in rituals. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire [+]Loading...["The Eleven Day Empire (audio story)"]) This name was chosen because they were "a presence which walks on a plane alongside humankind rather than above it", (PROSE: "Loa" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"Loa","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) and not in a different world altogether. They were described as follows: (PROSE: Interference - Book One [+]Loading...["Interference - Book One (novel)"])
[They] aren't your average bunch of gods-from-above, that's what I'm saying. They're not untouchable, and they're not infallible. They get drunk and they get angry and they have good days and they have bad days, same as the rest of us. They're real, but they're not-quite-real. They're here, but they're not-quite-here. Ready to get involved at a moment's notice, if you know how to get in touch with them. [...] You don't worship them, not like you worship gods. You talk to them. Like friends. Like companions. And they talk back.
During Narvin's one-on-one encounter with the Shade of Portent — who had lured him in, in order to nudge him, to ensure Narvin's place for Gallifrey's future timeline — he noted how the Time Shade seemed to be there, but also not-there, completely absorbing all light and shadow, an "apparition" with what might be described as a "black hole" for a head.
Nonetheless, they engaged one another in conversation, and Narvin tried not to let on his instinctive feeling of reverence for this being. He also noted that the Shade of Portent was very sarcastic. (AUDIO: Damned If You Do [+]Loading...["Damned If You Do (audio story)"])
