"So that's how you came to be here," Amy finished. "And now that you know what happened to you, may I inquire as to what your name is?"
"Clara Oswald. I'm a teacher at Coal Hill Secondary School," she replied a bit absently. "So you're telling me there's a dragon on here?"
"Um. It's not really a dragon…" Amy trailed off as Clara hopped off the bed and marched determinedly toward the door leading to the hall.
"You want me to believe you? Then you'd better show me this dragon," she announced.
"You know, for such a tiny thing you really have a powerful presence," Amy mumbled.
Clara blinked, obviously trying to figure out if that was a compliment. The much taller red-head pushed herself off the wall where she had been leaning with a slight smirk and lead the way into the hallway.
The hall was much bigger than Clara expected. Amy walked ahead of her confidently, navigating her way through the (to Clara's eyes) bewildering labyrinth of rooms, branches, and (once) large holes in the floor.
"What's down there?" Clara asked her guide as they edged their way around it.
"Oh, it's just another hallway. The gravity switches once you go in it. Don't ask me how." Clara marveled at how nonchalantly Amy said all this, as if it was perfectly normal to live in an immense rabbit warren with hallways that magically switched their gravitational pull.
It's just like Alice in Wonderland, she thought to herself. Oh, dear. I do hope I'm not high on opiates or something. Maybe this is all some sort of elaborate pre-death hallucination. She quickly abandoned that train of thought. Even if it were true, there wouldn't be anything she could do about it, and as far as hallucinations go this one wasn't too bad.
"I thought you built this place. How do you not know how it works?" she asked instead.
"Well, first of all I didn't build all of the TARDIS, just most of it. And second of all, the main reason why I said 'Don't ask me why' is because it would take forever to explain all the science behind it, unless you happen to have a PhD in physics. Do you?" Amy had reached the other side of the hole and held out her hand to help Clara the rest of the way. A bit offended by the seemingly implied insult to her intelligence, Clara coldly ignored it and got the rest of the way herself.
"No, I don't," she sniffed, and something in her tone must have tipped Amy off to her irritation.
"Oh, I hope you didn't take that to mean that I think you aren't smart enough to understand! I mean, from what I've seen you're very brave and keep a cool head under pressure and since you're a teacher I'm sure you're terribly clever too and-"
Clara cut her off with a wave of her hand.
"It's okay, I knew what you meant. I've just had kind of a crazy day so far," she said. "But if we don't get to that dragon soon I'm going to be quite displeased."
"Yes ma'am," Amy said with a small bow and a wide smile. "It's just up here to the right." She pointed to a black door that looked quite a bit sturdier than a normal door. As they observed it, it trembled slightly.
"Is that normal?" Clara asked, just now beginning to be troubled by the implications of approaching a live, fire-breathing dragon.
"Oh, don't worry about it. It's only about the size of a labrador," Amy reassured her, but somehow Clara suspected that she was a bit nervous too. "Thankfully, this fireproof room has a special venting system. I'll give it something to calm it down before we go in."
"You're giving it anaesthesia?" she asked. "Do you have training in this?"
"Oh, sure. I mean, I am a doctor," Amy said airily.
"Seriously? As in, MD doctor, not PhD doctor?" Clara was sceptical.
"PhD. But that's okay, I've done this kind of thing before." She walked with confidence to the door and, opening a hatch that Clara hadn't noticed before, started punching buttons. Clara quickly moved to stand beside her to observe.
"There," Amy announced after a bit of fiddling. "Now we just wait for a minute or two, to give the gas some time to take effect. It's not like how you see in the movies - it takes a bit for the chemicals to kick in, and he's not going to be entirely unconscious, either, just woozy. But he won't be able to breathe fire at us!" she said brightly.
Clara held her breath, listening carefully to hear when the dragon stopped moving around. After a good two or three minutes of silence, Amy announced:
"Okay! We should be good to go!" and swung the door open.
Sure enough, there was a scaly gray winged lizard lying in the middle of the floor. Amy boldly strode up to it and knelt down.
"Hey there, buddy," she half-whispered, stroking it soothingly. "I know you're scared. I'm sorry. Don't worry, we'll get you home."
Clara approached it cautiously. She was impressed by Amy's tender manner but wasn't quite convinced that the little dragon wasn't a threat anymore.
Sensing her hesitation, Amy looked up from her ministrations and patted the floor next to her, inviting the other woman to sit beside her.
"Don't worry about this little guy," she said as Clara sat down gingerly. "He was just scared. The gas has made him very calm and relaxed. He won't attack you."
Taking Clara's hand, Amy guided her toward the sleepy lizard and helped her stroke its wings. Clara observed it carefully.
"They're a bit like bat wings," she said, indicating the large, whitish wings draped over its body.
"Yep! This particular lizard race evolved from an animal quite similar to a bat or even a pterodactyl, except instead of being mammalian, like Earth's bats, they were lizards. Cool, huh?"
Clara nodded, continuing to stroke the lizard.
Amy continued. "He's not really a dragon in the traditional Earth sense. He doesn't hoard gold or snatch maidens or anything. In fact, he's not even terribly intelligent. But there are other lizard races on his planet that are quite intelligent." She paused, taking a deep breath.
Clara looked up at her, cocking her head questioningly. The other woman avoided her eyes, turning slightly away and scratching her head.
"Um, well, I'm going to have to take this little guy home, and since you're already here with me… Would you like to come along and see some dragons?" she rushed out.
"Absolutely!" Clara exclaimed. Seeing the little lizard creature had pretty much swept away all of her doubt, and an opportunity to see a planet full of dragons just sounded to cool to miss.
Amy beamed at her.
"All right, then!" she said, getting up and offering her hand to Clara. "It's time for you to see the control room."