If you want an idea of what it's like to be a Time Lord in exile, here's how you do it: One. You can't. Two. You really can't. Three. Never mind, let's try regardless. Imagine you've spent your entire life on the move, constantly running, dashing, jumping, moving. Not a care in the world. But then, imagine that one day, you're locked inside a prison cell, without reason nor warning. You can survive, but you can't live.

You're trapped.

And suddenly, all that running, and dashing, and jumping and moving…seems like such an alien concept. Now you're close to getting it.

Every Time Lord is brought up with the sense of right and wrong, black and white, good and bad. The only problem was, that's all we were taught. Oh, of course, we knew how many beans made five, and how many fives made a bean, but that wasn't worth anything, unless you knew when to use it. And why, of course.

That's just some of the thoughts running through my head as I arrived in the field, my head spinning one way and my body the other. I hit the ground hard, and then it all went black. Some Time Lords are able to render themselves unconscious in times of crisis, especially in cases of regeneration.

When I awoke, I was completely different. Due to the transmat failing, my body was shredded and sheared apart, killing me in seconds. Well, it would've killed me, if I hadn't regenerated, and renewed my entire body. It had changed me, from the smallest of cells to the most intricate temporal functions. As a Time Lord, it takes 'temporal' in every meaning.

After a few days of wandering the countryside, I finally managed to make my way back to the mainland, to seek help from the Doctor, and his organisation. It took a few days more to locate the base, and make my way there, switching between walking, hitch-hiking and falling asleep in one place and somehow waking up a few miles down the road.

At last, I had reached the organisation's base. I waited outside, crouched amongst the bushes for hours, waiting for the last of the troops to leave. Finally, the last office light was snuffed out, and the last soldier emerged from the doors, getting in their car and driving away. It was time.

For one of the most important institutes in the planet's history, it held some pretty shoddy security. A few circuit breakers, blow the odd fuse, and I was in. I stalked amongst the corridors, remaining out of sight of the prying cameras perched at every other corner. I searched every room, every office, every cupboard, searching for the Doctor. Time Lords don't sleep, not that often. Someone like the Doctor, someone trapped amongst a swarm of primitive apes, they would take any second to themselves they could get with both hands, and never let it go.

Except they weren't. After a few minutes of searching, I managed to find the Doctor's lab – it was easy enough to identify. Remnants of technology far beyond this culture were scattered across the work surface, with toasters being turned into warp cores and atom accelerators across the room. But there was one thing missing.

The Doctor.

In one corner, a square of perfectly clean floor sat, amongst a thin layer of dirt and dust and decay. After a few moments of examination, I reached the conclusion. It was the right size to fit his TARDIS, in the now-famous shape of the Terran box. It had recently left, departed. But how? If the Doctor was truly in exile, as the Time Lords on Gallifrey had told me, neither his nor his TARDIS would be able to leave this planet's orbit. Something was wrong.

I didn't have time to find out what. A blaring alarm cut off my train of thought, pricking up my ears and quickening my pulse. Somehow, I'd triggered the alarm.

I opened the window just a few feet away from me, and leapt out, my feet screaming as I hit the gravel two stories below. From across the empty grounds, a vicious howling and barking broke out, followed by a soldier's whistle and the stampeding of dozens of soldiers, all on night duty.

Luckily, Time Lords have a slight genetic advantage to humans, thanks to the variations in air consistencies and gravitational pulls of the two planets. In short? They were fast…I was faster.

Within seconds, I had charged across the field, dodging the first wave of sentries, sending some colliding with one another, and others spinning after me so fast they slipped on the wet grass and hit the ground with a splash, sending mud flying into the air.

It wasn't hard to reach the edge of the grounds, and I leapt over the row of hedges, before rolling on the opposite grass to aide my landing. As the guards overcame their stupor, I ran back to the village a few miles down the road, before hiding in the local church. The remaining troops came round about an hour later, looking for me. They weren't successful.

So there I was, with the last chance of escaping this world vanishing in the blink of an eye. So, I did what any good explorer would do – I explored. I travelled by foot and, on the odd occasion, by hand, from one country to the next to the next and so on. I saw the tips of the world's mountains and the bottoms of its crevices, from the brightest light to blackest dark. It took around thirty years to complete my task.

And that's when I got word back.

One day, I was asleep, en route from the Port of Tortuga, on top of a sack of seeds in the ship's hold. I could hear the rushing of wind, and the ship fell away from me. It took me a few minutes for me to realise where I was – the Panoptican. Gallifrey.

As it happens, things hadn't been going too well for the planet in the time of my absence; a war had broken. The war to end all wars. Between two warring peoples – the Time Lords and the Daleks. The Time War.

It had been raging for a few eternities by this point, and they were starting to get desperate for help. Everyone, anyone who had something to do with Gallifrey was summoned without choice, taken from their current time and place and forced to fight in the war. Any was worth the defeat and downfall of the Daleks – we'd fight to the last Time Lord.

But that didn't matter to me – I was back on Gallifrey. At last.