Doctor Who and the Warrior Princess

"How can you have come here without knowing of the Dragon?" said Astra. She had plenty of other questions about who the Doctor was and what he was saying, but had no idea where to start. "He has ravaged the lands of my country and many others, and I have come to slay him or die in the attempt." He was a strange man, Astra thought. He seemed to be almost treating the whole thing as a joke, yet his gaze was intense and almost frightening.

"Oh, I wander around without knowing where I'm going all the time. Makes things more interesting that way. A dragon, you say? Now that's interesting. You know, Martha and I were just fighting a dragon of sorts just a few months ago. She would have loved this planet, I'm sure."

"And who's Martha?"

"She was... never mind. It's a long, long story. She was a friend. She was someone who was brave and strong and noble, and she saved the world, and she left me, and I really can't blame her." He sighed. "But never mind. Let bygones be bygones. We've got a world to save. I can help you deal with that dragon or whatever it is."

"What do you mean, does he threaten the entire world?"

"Well, maybe not, but that's usually how it turns out. I'm used to it by now." He turned his charismatic smile on Astra. "So tell me, what do you call your planet?"

"You mean-- you come from another planet?"

"Oh, you don't know the half of it. This thing travels in space and time. And it's bigger on the inside than on the outside. You're the only person I've picked up who never said anything about that. It's called the TARDIS, by the way."

He was right, of course. Astra had still been adjusting to all the strange things she'd seen and hadn't really taken it in. "We call our planet Earth."

"Just Earth? Not New Earth or New New Earth or anything?"

"Just Earth. Is there another?"

"Is there ever. Your species came from a planet called Earth that existed oh," he ducked to look at the scanner, "millions of years ago. It's long gone by now, but they've spread throughout their entire galactic cluster and a few others, and they've evolved into all kinds of weird forms. You seem pretty close to what they were on Earth, though."

Astra gaped. If this man was telling the truth, and from the very fact that he was here in his strange blue box which came out of nowhere it seemed as if he was, the implications of what he was saying were incredible. Though she only understood about half of it. "You... you're not human."

"No. I'm a Time Lord. And... I'm the last of the Time Lords. The others are all gone now Well, here we go," he said hurriedly before Astra could ask any questions about what he'd just told her. He leaped around and manically pushed some buttons on that large central column thing. "If my calculations are correct, there's a great big energy source right around..." He pushed a few buttons and then the column started moving up and down and groaning. "Here! We should be right where the Dragon is in a few minutes."

"And you're just going to rush in and fight the Dragon without knowing anything about him?"

"Well, I might as well grab the dragon by the horns. Do dragons have horns? The ones Martha and I met didn't. But there are any number of things that could be mistaken for or impersonating dragons, it's a pretty universal archetype wherever humans go. Do you know anything about this one?"

"I have met him," said Astra. "I was fully armed and prepared for him. I am one of the greatest warriors of Aqualaria. And he defeated me and stripped me of my armor and chained me to a wall in no time at all. And he came to me to taunt me in my weakness, and I was so helpless, and... And I think he's captured Fred now too. Lord Frederigo D'Honaire, the man who saved me. We have to rescue him too"

"I'm sorry. I know what that's like, believe me. And don't worry, as soon as we've dealt with this dragon, we can save Fred. I always liked the name Fred. But do you remember at all what this dragon of yours looked like? Of if he was actually a him, for that matter?"

"I... no. I fought him, he came to mock me, and I don't remember him at all. I don't remember what his lair looked like either."

"Interesting. And what about you, er, Velus, was it?" Velus had simply been staring dumbfounded at the whole conversation.

"Well, the dragon came in the night, he always comes in the night, no one's ever seen him in daylight, and he captured me, and he locked me up with a bunch of other people and turned us all into animals, and somehow I got changed back, and I don't know what he was talking about, and I don't remember what he looked like either, but I remember the screaming, oh god..."

"Hmmm," said the Doctor. "Now that's interesting. Why would he want to do that?"

"I don't know," said Velus. "He wanted to get back at humans, we were hurting the trees and stuff, or something."

"That's what he told me too," said Astra, "And he wanted to experiment on them, to gain some sort of knowledge. He is a mage as well as a Dragon."

"Experiments in genetic engineering? Environmentalism? That doesn't sound like very dragony sort of behavior to me."

"All the dragons I have ever heard of are quite different," said Astra. "This one seems very old and very complicated, much like you."

"Well, here we are, we'll find out soon enough," said the Doctor. He scurried over to the door and yanked a leaver, opening the doors. "Ta-da!" he said, striding out of the control room into the dragon's lair.

1. Outside the TARDIS was, indeed, a dragon's lair, complete with massive hoard. The dragon himself didn't seem to be here. "Amazing! It's just like the Hobbit!" he said. "Martha would have loved this."
2. Outside the TARDIS was a pale white room fulled with strange panels that looked like the ones on the Doctor's TARDIS. He spent a few moments examining each of them and his jaw dropped. "Oh my God. This is Time Lord technology."

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