"Something just hit us!" shouted The Doctor as he flew around the console of the TARDIS, adjusting switches.
"I know! I felt it!" Clara shouted over to him as she white-knuckled her grip on a convenient handrail, "Hang on, I thought we were heading home at last?"
"We were…" The Doctor hummed, "But there's been a change of plan!" he grinned. Clara doubted that this would end well…
Two minutes later they crash-landed, with a thud, on another planet. Clara prepared herself for what was outside those doors because it was guaranteed not to be somewhere nice, like Spain or Paris. And it wasn't. It was nothingness.
"Well… I suppose it's better than a land filled with aliens…" Clara started to say, but just then a Dragon swooped past.
"I see I stand corrected."
"Come on then!" said The Doctor, cheerfully.
"Well you can but I'm staying right here in the TARDIS where it's nice and cosy and warm," said Clara, dreamily, and she started to walk back inside. The Doctor grabbed her by her arm.
"Ouch!" Clara exclaimed, rubbing the side of her arm as she reluctantly walked outside again and into the dangers of yet another adventure. Another Dragon flew past and The Doctor and Clara crept, cautiously, round the sides of the TARDIS… a huge burst of fire heated the wood of the TARDIS' exterior and The Doctor and Clara started to run. As they ran, something gradually came into view in the distance… it looked like a town, so the duo ran towards it.
After a while they arrived at the gates of the town and The Doctor looked through the bars of a portcullis with a sign saying 'Mud'.
"LET US IN! PLEASE!" He bellowed as a blue and silver dragon flew towards him and Clara. The portcullis slowly and painstakingly opened to reveal, behind it, a slightly blurry hillside. The Doctor ran through to the hills without hesitation. The hills seemed to wobble as he ran through the portcullis' gateway; Clara looked behind her, to the darkness and nothingness, and stepped through the gateway, reluctantly. She had a strange, fizzy, nauseous, feeling of being in a huge oceanic depth and then she was on the other side. She looked behind again and instead of nothingness, blackness and dragons, there was a wide mountain range with hills and trees.
"It's a telisenctual hallucination," said The Doctor, eventually.
"A what?" Clara asked, bewildered.
"A hologram," explained The Doctor. There was a cough from behind them and the two time travellers turned round to see a man dressed in a scruffy top and even scruffier jeans held up by a piece of rope instead of a belt.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Evening," replied The Doctor.
"Who are you?" asked the man.
"Well, I'm The Doctor and this is Clara. Who are you?"
"I'm Tobias. What brings you here to our village in the middle of nowhere? We don't usually get visitors around these parts."
"Just…exploring… really."
"Well why don't you come inside for a bite to eat?" asked Tobias. The Doctor wasn't given much of an option, so he and Clara followed Tobias into a small house made of mud and sticks - there was a nice smell of cooking coming from inside. In the house there was a small stove, a wooden bench, a small coffee table made from a tree stump, a wicker dog basket in the corner, a kettle and a few plates and cups carved out of wood. A lady sat on a rug (evidently made out of bear skins) next to the stove, brewing tea.
"Let me introduce you to my lovely wife, Jessica," said Tobias, gesturing to the lady, "and our pet dog, Davie," he continued, pointing to a Burmese mountain dog sitting in the corner next to another tree stump table. Tobias peered over his wife's shoulder to see a pot with something bubbling away inside it. " Mmm! What's cooking?" He asked.
"Foie gras," answered Jessica.
"What's that?"
"Specially fattened goose liver."
"I'm… I'm not hungry," said Tobias, grimacing. Turning back to The Doctor and Cara he said, "Jessica, let me introduce you to Clara and The Doctor,"
Jessica turned round to face them,
"Take a seat."
And she gestured to the wooden bench next to the coffee table. The three of them sat down.
"You live here, then?" enquired The Doctor.
"Yes," answered Tobias.
"What's the hologram for?" Clara asked. Tobias coughed,
"The dragons, they've been terrorising the village for centuries. We have the hallucination field so we don't have to see the dragons outside the walls, such a dull reminder of what's there."
"Where did the dragons come from?"
"No-one knows. But some say they came from outer-space," Tobias whispered. Jessica placed a bowl of foie gras on the table and drew up a seat next to them,
"How did you get here anyway?" she asked. The Doctor and Clara looked at each other and nodded,
"Well the truth is…" started Clara.
"We're time travellers, we travel through time and space in my space/time machine, the TARDIS," finished The Doctor.
"We help people," sighed Clara, "On other planets and, sometimes, from other time periods."
"Can you help us?" asked Jessica, "Can you drive the Dragons away? Sometimes they manage to fly into the village and they… burn the villagers. To death. Can you stop them?"
"We'll try," sighed Clara, "We pick up the pieces-""But sometimes the pieces are broken." Finished The Doctor, sadly. Jessica and Tobias nodded in agreement.
"It's getting late, let us show you to the nearest inn," Jessica offered, after a while of silence.
So Jessica and Tobias opened the door and The Doctor and Clara followed them into town…