ONE

"And then what did he say?" she giggled.

"He said he'd obviously drunk more than he thought he had – although I think he'd been smoking a little too – and we agreed not to tell anyone about me having two hearts," the Doctor said as they walked along the grass verge.

"And then?" she asked knowingly. The Doctor turned innocent.

"Well," he said, rubbing the back of his head uneasily, "we might have had a little chat about parallel universes and how, sometimes, everything you thought you wanted is trapped on the other side."

"Thought you wanted?" she prompted, lost.

He didn't look at her. Instead he let his hand drop, sucking in a breath through his nose.

"And then he sneaked off and wrote another album – and had the ginger to write one called 'Quantum Theory', about parallel dimensions," he tutted. "Honestly, you'd think a lyrical genius like Jarvis Cocker would have come up with something a little more original."

"Doctor," she grinned, "do you meet everyone famous?"

"Nah, they meet me," he said cheekily, looking back at the road.

It was a wide dirt track with old, deep ruts grooved in nicely from a thousand different carts having been drawn over it. She watched her feet as they walked along.

"Nice, this," she said amiably.

"What is?" he asked, looking down at her on his arm.

"Well… It's so peaceful. And… quiet. Like proper country life," she said pleasantly.

"Well it is somewhere around 1093," he offered. "It should be free of internets and mobile phones and digital watches," he added with a teasing smile.

"You know what I mean. After being stuck in 1969 and then that internet virus thing, and the spaceship scandal of Rergari Nine, it's nice. No wars on terror, no VAT, no pirate DVDs," she said.

A dark cloud loomed against the sun and she shielded her eyes from it to look up into the bright sky.

"Oh, I don't know," he said mildly, "we might get to the town to find them selling knock-off sun-dials," he finished cheekily.

The pall over the sun suddenly flicked into full-on typhoon tinted darkness, and he stopped her to look up too.

"That's strange," he said to himself.

The darkness against the sun grew larger and he suddenly realised it wasn't a cloud but a silhouette.

"Duck!" he shouted. He grabbed her with both hands and dragged her down to the dirt track with him.

Martha rolled onto her back and looked up.

A great channel of wind and dirt rushed over her, her vision blocked by flying leaves, twigs and plain earth from the road. She was forced to shut her eyes and cover her head as the barrage of wind and shrapnel flew over her head.

She felt it whip past her at impossible speeds, snatching at her hair, whipping it over her head.

It stopped abruptly and she quickly let her arms drop from over her face. She took a deep breath, grateful of clean air unsullied by road dust, and sat up. She found the Doctor already on his feet, staring up and apparently laughing at thin air.

"What was that?" she demanded, getting to her knees and then her feet. He was still laughing like a small schoolboy, delighted beyond his years. "Oi!" she said, putting a hand out and yanking on the sleeve of his long brown coat.

"Magnificent!" he crowed, a huge, daffy grin on his face. "Have you ever seen anything like it?"

She relaxed and looked up. Her eyes caught the shape beating huge wings away from them and her smile vanished.

"Doctor…"

"Dragon! A dragon! I haven't seen one of those – well, an Earth one – in years!" he crowed, beside himself with simple joy. She swallowed.

"Mate, what are dragons doing on Earth in 1093?" she asked slowly.

"Flying?" he hazarded, looking back at her. She tutted. "Oh come on – Saint George needed something to kill, didn't he?" he asked of her disbelieving face. "Maybe he missed one. Ooh, Saint George," he mused suddenly, flicking his gaze over her head and clearly forgetting she was there. "Never met him. Wouldn't mind, though."

"Dragons weren't real!" she interrupted. "They were just… stories!"

"Ah," he said knowingly, pulling on his ear as he turned back to look back into the sky, searching for the shape. It was gone. "So that near-miss was just a story too, then."

"Doctor!" she protested, hurrying to catch up as he carried on down the cart track.

"What was it then, Miss Jones? A large bird? A barn with wings? Mind you, I have actually seen a barn with –"

"Doctor, is this really Earth?" she asked suddenly.

"Seems that way," he said cheerfully. "Why do you ask?"

She yanked on his arm and he stopped to look at her.

"No reason," she said quietly, from the corner of her mouth. She was staring past him, and he turned and looked, following her line of sight.

"Greetings!" shouted a rather tall, heavily-armoured woman.

She was standing in the middle of the road ahead, a large, heavy cross-bow in her hands and covered from head to toe in varying thicknesses of chain mail. Her long, red hair was tied into a single pony-tail behind her left ear, letting it cascade over the dented, used metal over her shoulder.

"Of course it's Earth," the Doctor hissed at her. "Where else could we be?"

"Up the Amazon?" she hissed back sarcastically, eyeing the tall, rather over-bearing female in their path.

"Pray introduce yourself!" she called sternly.

"Oh, er, sorry," the Doctor said, a broad, friendly smile on his features. "Just a bit lost, I think. I'm Sir Doctor of TAR-"

"Be quiet, slave!" she interrupted angrily. "How dare you speak to me!"

The Doctor slapped his mouth shut in surprise, his teeth clicking together audibly. "Um..?" he managed, then looked down at Martha. She caught his gaze and squared her shoulders.

"I'm Martha Jones. This is my travelling companion," she said boldly.

"The Lady Martha," she said respectfully, inclining her head slightly, and Martha let out a breath. "You have come a long way, and we are pleased to receive visitors from such an exotic land," the woman added pleasantly. "Do you wish entrance to the city?"

"Er – yes please," she said quickly. "Could you please tell me, what city does this road lead to?" she asked.

"Why, the greatest city of the Creeyanon nation: Cyleen!" she replied with a proud straightening of shoulders. "It would be my honour to escort you there and arrange for you to meet with the councillors, Lady Martha."

"Oooh! Creeyanon! Heard of this place, never been before," the Doctor grinned, nodding at Martha. "So we're not on Earth, sorry," he added quickly. "Small geographical error."

"How small?" she asked him seriously.

"Oh, well, only about a few hundred – um – million parsecs," he allowed gingerly. "And – well – maybe a few hundred years –"

"You muppet," she sighed under her breath.

"Er, well, then," he said pleasantly to the woman in chain mail, "might we enter the city?"

"You will restrain your man-servant, Lady Martha," the woman responded tightly. The Doctor opened his mouth, then just ran his tongue over his teeth slowly, deciding against a smart rejoinder. Martha looked up at him.

"I'll do the talking, young man," she said haughtily, and he eyed her.

"City? Or back to the TARDIS?" he asked seriously from the corner of his mouth.

"What, and miss the chance to prove that that wasn't actually a dragon?" she scoffed. "I don't think so, mister!"

"Ok, but you asked for it," he allowed airily. She yanked on his arm and walked forwards slowly, pulling him along.

"You have my apologies for the conduct of my – er – man-servant," she said bravely, and the woman nodded. "I would very much like to see the city, if that's alright."

"It is my pleasure to present you, Lady Martha," she said graciously. "You have travelled far, you must be tired."

"How did you know I'd travelled a long way?" she asked, pulling an intrigued Doctor in her wake.

"Your colouring, my lady. You are clearly from a far-off land," she said patiently. Martha just nodded.

"Oh yeah. I get that a lot," she said, and the woman smiled before turning and walking back down the cart track. She followed. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," she said politely as they fell into step beside her.

"Berresh Tavkor," she said simply. "It means 'dragon-killer'," she added, somewhat proudly.

"You have real dragons?" Martha blurted.

"Your land does not?" she asked, surprised. "You saw that one. She was younger, smaller," she allowed. "There are bigger ones. But we are well defended," she said smugly. "And they are stupid, ugly beasts, nothing more. They cannot elude us forever, and our ruler – in her infinite wisdom – had devised a way to wipe them from the lands. Have no fear, they will soon be eradicated."

"They're just trying to survive," the Doctor put in harshly. "There's no need to –"

"Lady Martha, you really must discipline your slave!" she retaliated quickly. "I am quite tolerant, but the others, especially the Pak'tor, will not be so."

"Oh, yes," she said quickly, then looked up at the scowling Doctor, mouthing 'leave it' at him. He huffed. "I'll make sure he behaves. It's just that we've been travelling together for a time, and well, we kinda get the rules blurred," she said gingerly.

"Pray you do not blur these lines should you meet with the Pak'tor," she said darkly. "She executes disobedient man-servants."

"What?" Martha breathed, looking up at the Doctor. He pulled his most urgent face, wide-eyed and serious, gesturing to the woman with his head, and Martha swallowed. "Well… is she always so strict?"

"Always," Tavkor said. "Although she is only recently our ruler, she does adhere to the traditions handed down by her mother," she said dutifully.

Martha kept judiciously silent. She looked up and caught the taller Gallifreyan's pout.

They walked on, and as Martha looked up she spotted the huge gates of a teeming city in the distance.