The Twins in the Wood

"You shall rule together, just as you were born together."

Writer: Justin Richards

Format: Short Story

Released: August 2026

Printed in: Time Lord Fairy Tales 04

Synopsis

We are all stories in the end...

Sixteen tales of ancient wonder and mystery, passed down through generations of Time Lords. 

Dark, beautiful and twisted, these stories are filled with nightmarish terrors and heroic triumphs from across all of time and space.

Verdict

The Twins in the Wood was a good little story to continue my way through the Time Lord Fairy Tales collection! I think this followed a similar path to Cinderella and the Magic Box in following the route of being about Time Lords rather than a fairytale to be told to them. That’s no problem at all and against I would just suggest that the marketing have been a little different prior to release. That’s pedantic though and it really doesn’t matter. I thought the story was just fine even if it was pretty predictable, but sometimes in short stories like this one there’s no room to go with a twist. And just because it’s predictable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad! I just don’t think it’s going to get any higher of a rating from me when that happens. I thought the situation for Asher and Ella was intriguing if not unique in that their emperor father passed away and now they were the heirs. However, they were not yet of age to rule and so someone would have to fill that role. Except they barely got a chance to see how that succession route would go down as they were subjected to the obliterator module. They were officially announced as dead, but Rigel had revealed that he had tampered with it to ensure that they wouldn’t be obliterated at all. The ship crash landed on Gallifrey which was fascinating. I thought it was good to not name their location by name but the description of the orange sky was more than enough. That’s a detail that has stuck with me in picturing the landscape and beyond of Gallifrey so it still irks me that this was a missed detail in The Invasion of Time. It was still fun though to explore a different side of the Time Lord home planet because this was a wild part I don’t think has ever been explored or even mentioned. This seemed even super far removed from the wastelands we saw Leela exploring amongst the local inhabitants not lucky enough to be inside the Capitol. Rigel explaining about that in terms of directions but how far away they were was intriguing, but I must say if I was Asher or Ella and I knew he wasn’t coming back for a year to check on them I couldn’t help myself and go explore! I thought that was a little strange in that they just stayed put in their routine with the cat-dog creatures helping them with fruit and water. Surely you’d go and have a wonder even if you were happy and set? I thought Rigel coming when the twins were of age was good but it was obvious that their uncle was the one who murdered their father. The council on Levithia having posthumously pardoned the twins was good and Rigel being the one to evidence that they weren’t the killers was nice. He though for his part was sentenced to death by the now emperor and I can’t say that was much of a surprise given he was trying to reinstate the twins to their rightful place! It was bordering on Game of Thrones style stuff which was marvellous. The thirst for power! Asher and Ella agreeing to appoint Rigel as advisor on their return was a nice way to conclude things and the image of them now returning home was a good way to end. Overall, quite a nice and fantastical short story despite it going as expected. A good little read! 

Rating: 7/10