Assembly of the Daleks (Rina)

[Deleted]

She really hadn’t expected for the curiosity the man had for her. Rina spent her entire life pretending to be a human except around her parents. Rina knew that everyone is special in his or her own special little way and she wasn’t much of an exception. But the Overseer was making her feel like some rare specimen of exotic flower. She certainly wasn’t, but Rina decided that she wasn’t going to decline the attention. He must be used to being fawned over – he didn’t seem nearly as flustered as she felt.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Rina said dismissively as he trailed his finger up her arm. In primary school, a boy had grabbed her arm too hard and split the bone. The teachers had scolded the boy and Rina had felt quite bad about that because it wasn’t his fault that she was fragile. The kids at her school used to run around her and flap their arms while tweeting, because she was delicate as a bird. “I don’t mind being handled. And you’re not a stranger,” Katharina reminded him lightly. “You’re an eight hundred and twenty-five year old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. Your name is the Overseer, but I don’t know what you oversee. And, most importantly, you saved my life. See? Not a stranger.”

Rina moved his hands to her chest. It certainly was quite the foreign experience to have a strange man’s hands on her chest, but Katharina decided that if any strange man were going put his hands on her, she would quite prefer it to be him. He did, after all, seem to know that Dulcians were quite easily broken. “I’ve never met someone else with two hearts before... except for my mother and father, of course,” Rina said, moving her hands to press against his wrist. She wasn’t bold enough to feel his chest, and something told him that he was much more private than she was.

Earth. He withdrew his hands and, without realizing she’d been leaning into the touch, Rina stumbled forward slightly. She caught herself and cleared her throat sheepishly, smoothing out her dress and offering him a smile. “I do ever so enjoy the humans I’ve met!” Katharina told him. “I don’t think anyone is idiotic. No human will have the vast intellect of someone who has lived for well over eight centuries. I do find humans more enjoyable when they are open-minded,” she commented.

“A diverse planet… that’s such a wonderful term,” Rina said, smiling widely. “I do love it so much, although sometimes I wonder if it’s such a safe place for a Dulcian,” she laughed. “Still, I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else.”

She watched as he walked to the control column. Rina followed, her hands behind her back as she drunk in both his words and her surroundings. Time travel? Why, Rina had always known that it was possible, but it was at least centuries away from being able to go from theoretical to practical. “I don’t find it outlandish,” Rina said, liking the grin on his face altogether. “Wonderful and beautiful and fantastic, maybe. Anyway, you’re a Time Lord.”

Imposement and curiosity, eh? Oh, her parents certainly wouldn’t be thrilled. It was dangerous to be curious, and it was dangerous to associate with those types of people. Rina stepped closer again, her smile widening as he continued giving her permission. Sure, it was a very long-winded ‘yes’, but it was there. “I like it when you talk,” Rina told him as he apologized for rambling.

Visitation and habitation? Rina wasn’t quite so sure what he meant, but that was a definite yet! She giggled happily and crossed over to him, wrapping her arms around him for a hug. He was a giant compared to her, but Rina blithely ignored the difference in height. “Thank you so much!” she said, squeezing as much as her little Dulcian muscle mass would let her. She let go of him and squirmed happily. “Do you like cupcakes? I can make cupcakes! All sorts! Is there a secret Time Lordish recipe for making cupcakes?” Rina asked.

[Deleted]

In all honesty, the Overseer wouldn’t have minded if she had felt his chest, but the wrist was also a viable medium of feeling his pulse. Platonicity was a given around strangers. He listened to Katharina with great interest. Her view on humans was not as conflicted as his. Then again, it must be hard to have conflicting thoughts when one is incapable of conveying anger or hostility of any kind.

“You ought to stop praising me,” the Overseer replied, beginning to fidget as an offshoot of being verbosely complimented. He twiddled his thumbs and fingers involuntarily, unable to suppress the sheer flattery he was being bombarded with. “I’m really – I mean – I – Ah, forget it. Thank you, Katharina. Truly, thank you.”

He took a few steps backward in embarrassment, closer to the TARDIS’ central cognition.

“What’s a cupcake?” he inquired curiously, raising a bushy eyebrow in response to Rina’s declaration of her baking prowess and beginning to aimlessly pace around again. “I’ve never heard that term before in all my years of time and space travel. What an odd word, cupcake. Is it a cake made entirely from cups? That doesn’t sound very appetizing. It would probably give me a bout of indigestion, actually. Or is it a pile of cups shaped like a cake, and then baked for visual appeal alone? I don’t see the significance of that at all… Or maybe it’s cakes in cups? Yes, it has to be. Cakes in cups. I’m right, right? I have to be right. Of course I’m right. I’m the epitome of right.”

The Overseer nearly bit his tongue while suppressing himself from going off on a further tangent. Although Katharina had reinforced the fact that she didn’t mind his rambling and actually liked it when he spoke, the flustered Time Lord despised his rambling habit. It was miraculous to think that he had hardly antagonized any of his previous allies.

“Anyway, I digress…” the Overseer concluded, finally regaining his composure completely. He halted his pacing and glued his wide gaze back to Katharina. “There’s a kitchen on the lower level of the TARDIS, through the northwestern doorway if you were facing it from the entryway. I don’t think I have many supplies for cooking in there, seeing as I hardly cook myself. I suppose you’re free to utilize it as long as you don’t accidentally incinerate us in the process. Bit of a joke, actually, the TARDIS can gradually renew herself if she’s taken damage… Sorry, I’m digressing aga- Oof!”

Before he could complete his response, Katharina had launched herself at the Overseer, wrapping her frail arms around him in an unmistakable embrace. But how could he return this embrace without accidentally causing her ribcage to cave in? He resorted to patting her back instead as lightly as he could instead of partaking in a full-fledged hug.

“Make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa!” the Overseer highlighted jubilantly. “I think that’s human French. Or Portuguese. Could be Anglo-Saxon. Hell, I don’t know. Let me know if there’s anywhere you want to go in particular. I explore planets and time periods for a living, as a matter of fact. I guess I wouldn’t mind having someone tag along for a bit.”

[Deleted]

Rina tilted her head as he began to stumble over his words. Had she done something to offend him? Perhaps in his culture, flattery was a form of insults! Or perhaps one was not allowed to compliment someone until they are friends. Rina would quite happily insist that the strange Time Lord was her friend, but Rina quite liked everyone she met. It seemed that she was rather successful in making the poor man fidget and squirm. She didn’t know what she did, but a smile grew on her lips regardless. “You’re welcome,” she told him, going forward as he stepped away from her.

Well, if she were going to be staying him with any length of time, she was going to need to apologize for sending him off on that stumbling spree. The Overseer seemed the sort of man who didn’t like to lose control of himself. And what a better way to apologize than with cupcakes? So, she cheerfully asked him about the kitchen and tried to gauge his favorite sort of cupcake. Most of the time when she mentioned she could make cupcakes people responded with their favorite flavor, or a childhood memory about their mum in the kitchen after a long day.

He responded with absolute ignorance. Katharina stared at him as he groped blindly around his massive brain for any sort of idea what a cupcake was. She covered her mouth, horrified with herself. She had simply assumed he’d known what a cupcake was! Rina sniffed, rubbing the back of her eyes with her hands. “Y-you’ve never had a cupcake,” she said, feeling a bit numb. “That’s okay. I-it’s not your fault. Oh, I do hope I didn’t make you feel bad not knowing what it was!” Rina felt a bit silly, but the poor, poor man had never had the joyous pleasure of sinking his teeth into the universe’s unsurpassed delicacy!

Then her eyes lit up and she stopped frowning, excited again. That meant she got to make him his first cupcake! This had to be the most perfect cupcake in the entire universe! She listened eagerly as the Overseer gave her the directions to the kitchen. Hopefully he would at least have the basic supplies – what sort of advanced ship would this be if he didn’t? And he did say that he could be anywhere within a matter of moments. Surely that extended to a grocery.

Goodness! This was panning out to be the best day she’d ever had, and she had eight thousand eight hundred and two of them! So she did what seemed to be perfectly natural for humans – she hugged him. She had startled him, and for a moment she wondered if Time Lords even knew what hugs were. They sure didn’t know what a cupcake was. He patted her back and she let go of him, unsure if the pat was his way of trying to defend her frail bones or if he just didn’t know what she was doing him.

She supposed she was as alien to him as he was to her. His first Dulcian, her first Time Lord.

Katharina turned to look at the stairwell to the other level when she heard his cheerful recitation. “Spanish,” she corrected, giggling. “Do you really not know so much about Earth culture? I can teach you, if you like,” Rina offered. She wasn’t quite the Earth expert, but she knew London like the back of her hand and she knew how to say her name was Katharina in seven different languages.

“I’m afraid I don’t know nearly as much as you do about planets and time periods,” Rina told him, deciding not to dwell on the ‘I guess’ in front of his words. “You choose somewhere or…. or somewhen, and I’ll make cupcakes!” she chirped, and hurried down the stairs, nearly tripping over herself and tumbling down them a few times.

[Deleted]

Earth culture was certainly not the Overseer’s forte. Perhaps a crash course would do him good. Yes, that would work beautifully.

“By all means, blabber on anytime you like about Earth and its customs. I’m afraid my weakest point is slang. Never understood the concept of slang,” the Overseer said, placing a hand bracingly on the TARDIS’ central control column. “Tell you what. Since this is your first journey, I’ll let the TARDIS choose our destination. She won’t materialize anywhere dangerous – ideally, anyway. And you can go ahead and make these… erm, cupcakes, was it?”

The Overseer enjoyed a few aspects of Earth cuisine, but the excessively sweet palette that humans adored was admittedly a bit excessive for a Time Lord’s taste buds. Perhaps these “cupcakes” would be an exception. All in all, though, the Overseer quite enjoyed this eye-for-an-eye exchange. It was a refreshing sensation to have a companion sharing the TARDIS with him. It felt like eons since Angelica traveled with him. The female human was his only past companion, and by now, she would’ve grown old and finally perished. After all, she was only nineteen at the time she congregated the TARDIS, and she had left purely from free will alone. Had two hundred solid, concrete years truly passed since the pair was exploring planets and celestial bodies together? For the Overseer, the moment had gone by in a flash. Even if he traveled back to the exact moment he had met Angelica, he ultimately wouldn’t be able to speak with her again. She wouldn’t recognize him, for one – a very significant and unfortunate drawback of changing forms. Secondly, the events occurred at a fixed point in time, meaning that the Overseer’s second incarnation would always be in that point in time. If the Third Overseer were to interrupt this and see his second incarnation, he would cause a paradox and unintentionally rip open a black hole the size of Jupiter. That wouldn’t go over all too well.

As Katharina bounced excitedly to the TARDIS’ kitchen, the Overseer toggled with the main interface. The TARDIS answered to this beckoning, and began to move (although neither the Overseer nor Katharina would feel it). The final destination of this trek would remain a mystery for now.

[Deleted]

Rina stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the doorways contemplatively. He had said northwestern, hadn’t he? Or had he said… northsouthern? Was there such a thing? Katharina took a step forwards, biting her lip. How did she know what was north in a TARDIS? Oh goodness, what if she got lost and accidentally stumbled into a room he didn’t want her to go into? She shivered, trying not to think of her host as an angry man. She’d seen what he had done to the Daleks, and she certainly didn’t want the same fate.

She peeped through a doorway tentatively. It seemed to be some sort of entertainment room. “Not a kitchen!” she decided, wandering over to the next room. It was yet another gray-and-green schemed room. Rina took a nervous step inside. It was a very odd-looking kitchen, but if the stove was anything to go by, it was, indeed, a kitchen. She took off her coat and laid it on the back of a chair. “I’m making cupcakes for an eight hundred and twenty-five year old Time Lord,” she told herself, rummaging through the cupboards and pulling down various ingredients. Vanilla extract, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and confectioner’s sugar. She paused, and then took out some food coloring.

“Where would a Time Lord keep his pans?” she asked herself, digging through his pantry. Well… a muffin pan would work, certainly. She pulled out the pan and the muffin wrappers. They weren’t the cute pink-and-white wrappers she had at her shop, but she’d certainly stock his shelves with all sorts of ingredients and she would make him food every day! If he liked her cooking, anyway. Her mates and her parents told her she could make cupcakes that would make the angels sing, but she’d never met any angels and they’d never sung for her.

Refrigerator! She crossed over to it cheerfully. It was bigger on the inside as well, and Rina wondered what other sorts of oddities she’d find. She pulled out eggs, butter, and milk. And chocolate, of course. Or, at least, they looked like it. She hummed cheerfully as she put together the ingredients. She poured the vanilla batter in the muffin pan, and, once she was done with the chocolate batter, she poured it in as well. She opened the oven and stuck the pan inside. She set the timer for an hour, and turned her back to make the frosting.

This was the easiest part – if she had been in her bakery and had her full arsenal of ingredients and tools, it would have taken much longer. Her best chocolate recipe included pouring coffee over the powder, but no matter! She had just finished the frosting – which only took ten minutes – when the oven beeped. She blinked, and looked at the oven. ‘DONE’.

“I just put you in!” she said, flustered and confused. She opened the oven and peeked at the prepared cupcakes. How on Earth could they be done so quickly? “A time-traveling oven?”

Nonetheless, this meant that the Overseer didn’t need to wait quite so long! She smiled happily and put the frosting on the cupcakes cheerfully. She put the cupcakes on the table and grabbed one of the chocolate and one of the vanilla and hurried back up the stairs.

“The cupcakes are done, Overseer,” she told him. “I couldn’t help but noticed that you liked green and grey, so I made the cupcakes those colors!” she chirped, handing him both the cupcakes. “The cupcake with the green frosting is vanilla, and the white frosting is chocolate,” she told him, bouncing around him eagerly.

“They’re sweeter than kisses,” Rina informed him. She tilted her head. Would a Time Lord even understand that expression? “You do know what a kiss is? Is that only a human thing?” she questioned. “I would think that most everyone knows what a kiss is, but I thought everyone knew what a cupcake was, too. And Peter Pan didn’t know what a kiss was…” she trailed off, embarrassed again. His rambling seemed to be a contagious habit.

[Deleted]

The Overseer waited quite patiently as Katharina went to concoct the cupcakes. He couldn’t get over how odd the name sounded. Cupcakes, cupcakes… hopefully she wasn’t trying to poison him. No matter how much he repeated the name to himself, he still couldn’t make the word “cupcake” become synonymous with the words “poison”, “venom”, “spectrox”, and etcetera. Perhaps this truly was an act of kindness.

About ten minutes later, the Dulcian bounced just as excitedly out of TARDIS’ kitchen. What had taken her so long? The oven could bake things meant to be cooked for up to a thousand years in a matter of seconds. Upon closer inspection, the Overseer realized that Katharina had two small dome-shaped components palmed in each hand. They were garnished with a curious green-and-white adornment.


“Oh, what have we here?” the Overseer asked, approaching Katharina’s outstretched arms. “Cupcakes? Interesting, very intriguing… And yes, I have heard of a kiss before. It’s a gesture used by plenty of extraterrestrial species. Means the same thing as it means in human context.”

He took both cupcakes in each hand respectively, and popped the lighter hue of the two into his mouth first. A sickeningly sweet sensation subsequently clung to his tongue like glue, causing him to recoil slightly. But it was in a positive light – whatever this substance was carried the blessing of being delectable.

“This is vanilla, isn’t it? I have to admit I love this one. Except I think you burned the other one – wait, I lied, that’s chocolate,” the Overseer observed between bites.

He then ate the chocolate cupcake, which yielded similar results.

“If it was advisable at all to eat the entire tray, I would. But that’s doubtful. Something this delicious surely has drawbacks.”

[Deleted]

She clasped her hands over her chest, wriggling excitedly as he took his first bite of his first cupcake. Well, if she had made this on Earth he would have been absolutely done for! She would have made him the best cupcakes the world could ever imagine! She examined his face carefully – at first, he seemed perturbed by the sweetness, in a slightly off put not altogether negative way. It was a bit like how her mum had reacted when Rina told her she was trying to make egg-nog cupcakes. Rina grinned brightly at him as he began to speak.

“Yes, it is vanilla. I love vanilla as well!” she chirped, bouncing on the heels of her feet. “Pumpkin spice is my favorite, but you probably didn’t have the ingredients. I just made the two most popular flavors, you understand. Not very adventurous on my part,” she apologized, looking at him meekly. “When I was a little girl, I used to make chocolate-chip cookies with my mother and we would put vanilla almond bark over them,” she rambled, trying to fill the silence with mindless chatter. “I used to dream of owning my own bakery ever since I was a girl.”

She took a breath, fully prepared to continue her full-on ramble about everything from the color of her favorite socks to her career. Thankfully, the Overseer beat her to another observation about the cupcake. Her heart sank as he told her she burned it, and her fingernails dug into her skin nervously. “I-I…” But before she could drop to her knees and beg for forgiveness, he told her it was just chocolate.

Her shoulders loosened and she dropped her hands, sighing shakily. “You had me going there. I thought I’d burnt it,” she said, smoothing her dress out again from habit. She giggled as he told her he’d eat the entire tray. “It won’t kill you if you do it just this once,” she told him, politely. “It would make you very hyper, I think.”

Rina peered over to the TARDIS console. “She is picking a random point? How does she make a random decision, do you know?” she asked, putting her hands behind her back. She’d been tempted to touch the console, but she wasn’t sure how intimate a Time Lord was with his TARDIS, and she certainly wasn’t about to make a huge faux pas.

[Deleted]

Perhaps the Overseer was wrong about the whole random location fiasco. But then again, the destination was still a mystery on his end.

“Alright, the TARDIS knows where we’re bound. But I’ve told her not to tell us,” the Time Lord said, a cheesy little grin beginning to surface on his eager face once again. Although he shared a symbiotic connection with the dutiful vessel (known by a select few as the Rassilon Imprimatur), the latter couldn’t tap into or read his mind save for special circumstances. But returning to relevance, the cupcakes were admittedly very delicious.

“Well done, on the baking,” the Overseer restated, smile still steadily plastered like unrefined marble on his bearded face. “Perhaps we could sway enemies with these cupcakes… Yes, I do have enemies, unfortunately. Quite a few, in fact. I may have just understated. Anyway, it’s unimportant right now, since we’re under the guise of my faithful TARDIS. I daresay we won’t be facing anything hostile unless she plops us in the middle of a Sontaran encampment. And since my TARDIS is derived off of a combat TARDIS, she’s automatically calibrated to land under safer circumstances, and location certainly plays a factor in that. Oh, don’t mind my babble…”

The Overseer regained his composure within seconds, in response to what he perceived as an incredulous expression on Rina's face. But his habit still persisted anyway. How embarrassing.

[Deleted]

“Oh, I’m sure that will be fun,” Katharina said in regards to the Overseer declaring he asked the TARDIS not to tell them. “I do enjoy surprises ever so much!” she chirped happily, clapping her hands together excitedly. “She is fascinating, Overseer. I used to love to imagine that things like this is possible,” she said, waving a hand to gesture the TARDIS in her entirety. “My colleagues didn’t much like my imagination,” Rina shrugged, still smiling. She had traveled around the universe from a young age, making her mind much more open than a human’s. Still… they remained adorably close-minded. Rina found it cute.

She looked up at him and nodded when he told her she’d done well on the baking. “I own a bakery,” she reminded him. “Baking is my life. It’s not as exciting as running around and exploring the universe, but it’s a nice little life, I think. Rina’s Ritz, if you’re ever in London. If I’m not there, you can check the shelters or the children’s center. I volunteer a lot,” she said thoughtfully.

Sway a few enemies with her baking? She giggled, unbothered that he had enemies. “Oh, I don’t think my cupcakes are that delicious. I got shot in the leg once because I offered chocolate-chip cookies to a man selling drugs outside my stoop,” Rina told him. “It hurt a lot, but I hope he enjoyed my cookies. Wouldn’t it be awful if he didn’t?” she asked, tapping a finger to her lips.

Katharina listened intently as the Overseer continued telling her more information. “I met a Sontaran once. They are lovely conversationalists and quite intelligent about certain things,” she said cheerfully. “A combat TARDIS? That sounds… combative.” Oh sure, it was a bit redundant, but Rina didn’t bother with her wordchoice. “I don’t think it’s babbling. I think your line of thinking is very interesting.”

[Deleted]

If Katharina was good at one thing other than her obvious aptitude for baking sweet confectioneries, it was listening and responding. Whether or not it was a Dulcian thing to respond to everything that one uttered to her, the fact that she actually seemed to care about conversational etiquette was surely a sight for sore eyes.

“London,” the Overseer repeated, his eyes beginning to boggle with excitement once more. “Posh little city. Could be worse, though. At least it’s not Oxford.”

He strode brightly over to Rina once more after ensuring that the TARDIS was entering her landing sequence optimally. It always took her a little longer when on random, blindfold-esque settings.

“I think the man was on drugs himself. I highly doubt it was your cookie that caused him to shoot you. Bullets are such primitive and obsolete technology compared to what exists beyond the confines of Earth. There are more efficient forms of ammunition out there, like plasma… Now plasma can do some serious damage. Took a nasty shot to the back by a plasma rifle once, but I’ve long since recovered from that.”

The Overseer’s monologue was sidetracked by Rina’s remark about Sontarans.

“Sontarans are potatoes,” the Overseer stated flatly, his demeanor changing abruptly from jovial to critical. “Not actually potatoes, but they sure as hell act like them. Braindead, I think. Can’t even power down a failing engine without blasting the wretched thing apart. I’m sure there are a select few that are passable, though. They make half-decent gunmen, at least.”

As quickly as the bombast banter began, the Overseer extinguished it and returned to his cheery, mostly dignified form. He began to pace again, lightly humming to himself in response to being exalted by the Dulcian once more.

[Deleted]

At least it’s not Oxford. Katharina tittered nervously, looking down at her feet, red-faced. It was the second time he’d called her posh, and he’d already said he didn’t like posh. Well, she certainly wouldn’t tell him she spent a year in Oxford University now! Unless he asked, because although Dulcians could lie, it was against Rina’s nature to be dishonest. She didn’t know what was posh about London town, but it certainly didn’t set well with him. She looked up at him, biting her bottom lip as she watched him stride towards her.

“That’s a comforting thought,” she said, smiling. “I’d like to think my baking doesn’t cause excessive violence. I think I would have to stop baking,” Rina told him, tapping her chin with her index finger thoughtfully. “It could have been much worse, then. At least he was only a human and not someone with a plasma rifle,” she continued. “I’m very thankful you didn’t die.”

Then she paused, and thought about what he’d casually mentioned earlier. He wasn’t always in the same form. Perhaps he had died, and this was the new Overseer? She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Oh my, you’ll have to forgive me. I hadn’t thought it over before I said it,” she apologized quietly. Oh no! But he thought she was posh! How could she possibly be unposh? “I-I mean…” she cleared her throat, and frowned, trying to appear as grumpy as possible for a Dulcian as she crossed her arms. “You don’t have to forgive me.”

All right, so it didn’t sound as tough as she’d planned, and the expression of grumpiness immediately faded into her normal air-headed smile. “Personally, I find all violence primitive and obsolete. I do wish everyone would stop fighting. Can you imagine, Overseer? The entire universe getting along?” she asked wistfully.

Katharina looked away when he stated the Sontarans were potatoes. It was true that they had a sort of baked potato quality about them, but she didn’t think it polite to talk about petty things such as appearance. In any case, the Overseer wasn’t joking around. He seemed quite against the Sontarans as, she supposed, she’d be if she weren’t Dulcian. They had kidnapped her, broken her collarbone and dislocated her shoulder. But it wasn’t as though they’d meant to. She bit her lip to keep from telling him that actions of a few weren’t enough to make broad generalizations from.

Thankfully, it was over as soon as it began, and Rina breathed out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t ready to be kicked out of her new home for differing views on Sontarans. “Do you ever get bored, Overseer? I mean… you’re over eight hundred years old. I suspect you’ve seen most everything,” she said thoughtfully. After all, once you met one human you’ve met the base for the rest of them. And when you meet a Dulcian, you’ve met them all. She expected the novelty of her to wear off quite quickly, if it hadn’t already. And when you’re as old as that… well, isn’t violence just violence? All wars were fought for the same reason, just concerning various circumstances. She watched the floor with great interest, grateful that the Time Lord didn’t seem to have telepathic tendencies. Well, that she was aware of.

“Oh dear, never mind. That was a little cynical. I’m not sure where that came from,” she laughed, stepping over to him and smiling up at him broadly. “Anyway. Have I thanked you for letting me stay with you yet? Because I do appreciate it ever so much!”

[Deleted]

Now, there was some food for thought. The entire universe getting along, while certainly beneficial, would ultimately be an impossible feat to realize. While the Overseer viewed violence as rash, he wasn’t all too sure if he considered it… unnecessary. And was it truly primitive? Violence was unfortunately one of the most rapidly expanding technologies in existence. Perhaps the practice itself was a bit obsolete, but how many historical events could’ve been attained without the advent of warfare? It was a sad, even devastating truth, but he declined to comment. Instead, he took to fumbling with his brow, which was currently starting to irritate his lower hairline.

“Eight hundred fixed years is hardly enough time to see everything,” the Overseer dismissed in response to Katharina’s second inquiry (though admittedly it was more of an inference). “The universe is a void of infinite space to me. If there’s a pocket of black space, then I would power through said black space because there’s always something beyond it, even if it takes months, even years to traverse. Well… either that or I’d have stumbled into a very slow-acting black hole. I digress. Anyway, the most concise response I could have given is that no, I could never be bored of the wonders of time and space. Why would anyone be truly bored of either?"

The Overseer was tempted to begin pacing yet again, but this time he suppressed this urge successfully.

“I don’t think I explicitly stated that you were allowed to stay, but let’s assume I have. You’re actually decent company.”

[Deleted]

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Katharina admitted, still watching the ground sheepishly. Goodness, who was she to ask such questions? Of course he never got tired of travelling. That would be like if she ever got bored of baking! “I don’t think anyone could get bored of either space or time, as long as they had a good enough friend to guide them,” Rina said, “or a big enough imagination.”

Rina put her hands behind her back as she thanked him for allowing her to stay with him in his home. She didn’t know many people who would let an utter stranger stay with them! Certainly not a total stranger who was a Dulcian. While there was no danger of being mugged or harmed by one, there was also the fact they were utterly useless in fights. She smiled up at him, but the smile faltered slightly as he recalled not stating that she was allowed to stay.

Her face flushed hotly and her eyes returned to the floor. She had merely assumed! Again! Fortunately, the Time Lord agreed to assumptions. She breathed out a thankful sigh of relief, and smiled happily when he called her decent company. “Thank you very much!” She looked over at the console and then glanced towards the doors.

Katharina was a very patient woman, but her excitement was obvious. She was with a total stranger – a Time Lord, no less – and he was taking her to a totally mysterious and potentially dangerous (but hopefully not) place. And it could be any place or any time! She could even meet the person who invented cupcakes!

Still, despite that she was squirming with anticipation of their destination, Katharina refrained from asking possibly the most annoying question in the universe: are we there yet?

[Deleted]

Touchdown, at last, the Overseer thought somewhat vehemently. She certainly took her sweet time. Our destination better be worthwhile.

Although he was ever so slightly enamored with indignation internally, the Overseer nevertheless retained a likable emotional complexion as he strode past Katharina to the TARDIS’ doors.

“I don’t expect you to be a burden, Katharina,” the Overseer chided playfully, turning to Rina, one hand resting lightly on the metal handle of the left side door. “So I ask that you’ll stay close to me. My TARDIS wouldn’t have landed us in a black hole, but on the off-chance that she was feeling a bit volatile… Hah! Merely jesting. Go on and let’s have a look.”

The Time Lord threw the doors open, awashing his eyes and other sensory organs with enigma. They appeared to have landed on a rather rocky surface, owing to the fact that a slight jolt was felt upon landing. The sight that greeted the Overseer was intriguing, to say the least; the geographical makeup was quite notable. He was right in assuming that the area was rocky and cragged, for one. Perhaps they had landed on the side of a mountain or on the surface of an asteroid deposit. It was green-tinged, atypical of the geological masses that Katharina was probably used to. The Overseer, however, was perfectly familiar with the area.

“Well, that’s no fun,” the Time Lord stated agitatedly, surveying the area ahead of him. There appeared to be something that resembled a cave several hundred meters away. “Not for me, anyway. I may have accidentally set the TARDIS to random archival travel. Or maybe she was trying to get smart with me. Either way, I’ve already been here before. But you haven’t, so we’ll stay.”

The Overseer beamed at Katharina once more, stretching his hands out in a cordial sort of pose, as if he were a successful inventor finally unveiling his magnum opus.

“Welcome to Nirn, Katharina. This planet is located approximately one hundred and fifty thousand light-years away from Earth. It sports a rather rocky terrain overall, and it’s personally one of my favorite places to travel to. When I’m in the mood, of course,” the Overseer recited thoughtfully, the last statement supplemented by an irritated jerk of the head in direction of the TARDIS’ central control column. “This planet is a significant source of income in this particular sector of the universe. Beneficial crystals that emanate energy are found here. Some denizens of the universe can’t afford bio-ships, you see. Therefore, those unfortunate saps have to resort to using energy crystals. And don’t even get me started on that gasoline crap.”

The Overseer took a few steps away from his vessel, his arms still outstretched, his eyes still affixed to Katharina’s bewildered form.

“One last thing, you don’t need to worry about being unable to breathe. The TARDIS has an oxygen filter that encompasses a thousand-mile radius. Without it, you’d be breathing in the harmful methane atmosphere here. I once accidentally disengaged the filter myself, and I nearly died from the resulting asphyxiation. Doubt you needed to hear that, though. Moving on! There’s a cave ahead. Caves serve as pockets for crystal harvesting. The bigger caverns are like hubs for commerce purposes.”

He thrust his right pointer finger forward, indirectly urging Katharina to follow him in the process. The purple sky above them would be quite an accompaniment.

[Deleted]

There was a slight bump and Katharina looked at the Overseer, slightly alarmed. He didn’t seem particularly perturbed by the incident. Instead, he strode over to the TARDIS doors. She grinned, excited, and followed him closely. Rina widened her eyes as the Time Lord turned to her. “A burden?” she repeated, a little worried until she caught the playful tone in his voice. She smiled and stepped closer, putting her hands behind her back. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Mr. Overseer,” Rina responded innocently. “I wouldn’t care very much to be stuck in a black hole again,” she said thoughtfully, stepping through the doors.

She took his hand in hers, deciding that it was the best possible way to ‘stay close’. The planet before her was like nothing she’d ever seen before. She had been off-world many times, but Katharina had always been limited to planets that were known to Dulcians and were capable of sustaining Dulcian life. That limited her options very greatly. She didn’t quite know how to articulate anything at the moment. “Overseer! This is lovely. I truly mean it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so splendid,” Rina said, and paused, glancing behind them to the TARDIS. “Well, this planet is the second most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

The sky was an amazing shade of purple, and although Rina sometimes went to the bay and watched the sun rise over the channel and it would turn the sky pinks and purples, it was nothing like anything she’d ever seen before. The closest reason she could figure would be the sort of atmosphere, but she hadn’t listened very much in her astronomy class. She’d only spent a year at Oxford before dropping out to become a baker, and learning plants’ atmosphere had not been taught either semester. The ground was green except it was very solid and thick like a rock. There was a cave further off in the distance, but Rina distracted herself examining what was closest to her.

She let go of the Overseer’s hand to crouch down and knock at the rocks on the ground. She sniffed her knuckles, but it didn’t smell like any of the rocks she was used to on Earth, and her geology prowess only went so far. “No fun?” she questioned, looking up at him with a small frown as she lifted herself up. “If you like, we can go to somewhere more fun for you. I wouldn’t mind,” Rina said politely, although the Overseer struck her as the sort of man who, if he wanted to go to a planet he hadn’t been to, would simply throw her over his shoulder and head back to the TARDIS.

Rina returned his grin, laughing at his grand gestures. He did have the oddest gestures, didn’t he? She found them very endearing. “I can see why you love to travel here. It seems very relaxing,” she said, looking towards the cave. Nirn. She’d never heard of such a place, and it was much farther away from Earth than she’d ever traveled. She continued walking down the terrain. It was very rocky, and Rina nearly fell a few times. As patient as the Overseer seemed, she doubted he’d want to deal with a broken Dulcian.

“Oh my. Asphyxiation sounds very painful. I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Rina told him, turning back to him. He pointed forward and began walking to the cave. She hurried after him, watching the ground studiously to watch for any cracks she might trip in. “You mention that Nirn is a commerce planet. Are there native species of the planet? I would imagine it would be a very difficult life to lead with such high amounts of methane. When I went to university, though, I learned about methanogenesis and the archaea that would use methane,” she said pensively. “I’m sorry for all the questions,” she added.