All translations, explanations, advertisements, and thought processes are at the end of the chapter.
Disclaimer: All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I don't own them.
An Unnamed Planet at an Unknown Time Over Five Weeks Later.
The Androzani trees were very clever and benevolent. I told them all about my adventures and what brought me here in the first place. They were more than happy to help me in any way they could. However, being trees, there was not much they could do. They did encourage me and help raise my spirits. They sang beautiful songs that, in all likeliness, could never be replicated, even in memory. They also shared their wisdom and history as well as their future as they had been foretold.
Apparently, sometime in their distant future, hunters would come and, by means of acid rain, would vaporize them and turn them into fuel. Before I could despair for their fate or even think about how terribly sad it was, they told me a traveler would come and save them. They were purposely vague so this fate wouldn't change. Telling me just enough so that I wouldn't fall into despair and do something foolish, but not some much that I would try something equally as foolish, like making it happen sooner or something.
I mostly spent much of my time outside of the TARDIS reading my sister's logs, because I was unable to bear the lack of Tarus, the lack of actual life. I had found out my sister had, indeed, visited here before. The trees I was talking with-if you could call it that-never met her personally, but their previous generation had and some of the memories were passed down from tree to sapling. It was also recorded in her logs as one of her earlier adventures.
This was her favorite planet, her most beloved one.
A planet where the trees could actually 'talk' to you instead of giving off vague impressions or emotions. The trees could create things using their life fore; it was something incredibly strong, incredibly bright, and incredibly beautiful. Everything create was grown from wood, but it could be grown to look like and feel like and was-for all intents and purposes-anything that wasn't wood. They created a wooden queen to guide me along the forest, something that wasn't technically necessary but very appreciated.
I missed Tarus terribly, but the trees made it slightly more bearable with the distractions they offered. The distractions their planet offered. With its wild and untamed charm and its new and foreign life forms, it was treat for me to jot all my findings down during my resting periods. The cool weather was a rare pleasure that I didn't get to experience much anywhere else but here.
It was so lovely being here, I almost didn't want to leave. I almost wanted to give up my search for fixing Tarus and accept this new TARDIS. Actually, I had found myself almost seriously entertaining the idea of staying here for the rest of my natural life and leave with them when their appointed time came to leave this planet. I had almost forgot about my personal mission and my purpose. I almost forgot myself.
Almost.
When a folded piece of paper fell out of the book and fell on to the ground, I remembered most clearly and most piercingly just who I was and what I was supposed to be doing. I realized just what exactly was happening to me too, a low psychic field had been emitting from the trees, slowly convincing me that I wanted to stay here, that I belonged here, and that I had always been here. They knew that my sister was never coming back and that I, the second best thing, might never be coming back. So, they used an old Time-Lord tactic to get me to trust them, to like them, and to do whatever they wanted me to do, which was to stay with them.
I had left my mind vulnerable and complete open to them, no barriers what-so-ever. They had full-access to my memories and knowledge without me even being aware of it. I had forgotten the old lesson that a door is open both ways. The Androzani trees were very clever and benevolent. They liked to help in any way they could. They encouraged me and raised my spirits. They shared their history, wisdom, and future. I knew so many things about them, I learned so many things about them. Whenever I wanted or needed to learn something, I made it a point to never miss anything, but I did.
I had never realized just how lonely the trees were.
I could not stay though, and I told them this. I told them this, and they were unselfish enough to understand and respect my decision. The instructions were clear on that folded piece of paper-my sister knew I occasionally had trouble with the jargon in the manual-but what I saw scared me. I was so scared, because I knew what would happen if it went wrong, and no one would be able to save me this time, Tarus wouldn't be able to save me this time.
I knew, logically, that what I had to do would work most likely, since my sister had to do it twice before. The first time it happened, my sister came in contact with a sentient computer virus that somehow got in the TARDIS. In order to save Tarus, Zeeta had to reboot the TARDIS. The second time, both Zeeta and Tarus were being chased by hostile alien hunters.
Apparently, somewhere in the universe, there was a person or a group of persons that wanted to add my sister to their collection of...things. She thought it was things that were kept alive, she couldn't be for sure though. When Zeeta rebooted Tarus that time, it was because the hunters were doing something that was scrambling Tarus's sentient computer mind. When Zeeta rebooted Tarus, she set her course around a seriously dangerous part of space. The hunters bio-scans disappeared part way through their chase of my sister and the TARDIS.
Anyway, my sister managed to get Tarus back-both times-by using a procedure that most Time-Lords would consider an unnecessary risk. Zeeta took the chameleon arch helmet and rerouted the circuitry. So that instead of memories being extracted in a fob watch and autonomy being rewritten, the memories would be copied and be put into the TARDIS data banks with any actual changes being made. The risky part was how much of the memories were copied and what was taken out.
If too many copies were made and not enough of them taken out, an overload of information would happen result resulting in mental failure and ceasing of all bodily functions. In other words: my brain would "short-circuit," my hearts would cease to beat, and I would die. If too little copies were made and too many were taken out, there would be major amnesia which carried the possibility of being dangerous to my health. It was a three-way road, but it was one that I was willing to take-death, loss of memories, or a possibility of success-but it still didn't change the fact of how terrified I was, because I remembered all too clearly what happened last time I used the chameleon circuit.
The helmet lowered onto my head and my breathing quickened, now very audible in the almost completely silent room. I felt the Wooden Queen squeeze my hand comfortingly and I said, "If I scream, ignore me. Don't try to stop the process, it will stop on its own once it's done, I promise." The hand froze before squeezing once more and let go of my own hand. I only had time to stuck in a quick, panicked breath before the Wooden Queen turned on the modified chameleon arch.
I had forgotten how much it hurt. And actually, I am rather surprised that my sister neglected to mention how painful the process really was. Even if it was no longer the chameleon arch, it still messed with the mind in ways where it was not meant to be messed with. The chameleon arch also messed with the body in ways that weren't natural at all. I was now breaking my vow that I would never go near the chameleon arch again. However, it was for the best, because unlike last time, it was to bring someone back from the dead, not cause someone's death.
Something had gone terribly, horribly, and inexplicably wrong.
I knew that it would hurt-I mean, all of my cells were being rewritten: it would be odd if that didn't hurt. However, the pain lasted longer than it was supposed and it wasn't just my body that was in pain, but my mind too. It was like my memories didn't want to be stuffed into a fob watch with the Gallifreyan symbols for 'Traveler' on it. I could feel my mind being, literally, torn apart. I screamed in agony for close to seventeen minutes before the chameleon circuit had finally and successfully completed its job. Returning to my original self had been much more painful, has had the returning of my memories.
They had both returned, just not in that order.
The Qwert body was in no way compatible for my time-lady mind, it started to burn up almost instantaneously. When I say that it was burning up, I don't mean that the sensation was like my mind was simply set on fire. Rather, it was more like a Red Carnivorous Maw came and started tearing my mind to shreds while it was set on fire and somehow all through that supposed metaphor I managed to remain conscious. Lightning went down my spine, through my brain and into my body. It felt like that metaphoric fire was burning my flesh off and that acid was eating at the inside of my head. I was crawling back to the TARDIS to get to the zero-room, because I knew that once I did that, I would be able to continue my transformation painlessly.
Spasms started to wreck my body, making it harder to grip the grass and pull myself further. I could feel my fur disappearing off my body and my long tail shrinking back into my much smaller tail bone. The small trunk on my face melted away into a regular-sized Gallifreyan nose while my pointy, floppy ears also turned into normal Gallifreyan ones. My organs multiplied once again: two hearts, four kidneys, two stomachs, four intestines-two large and two small-two spleens, and an extra two ribs. My teeth rearranged themselves and changed their general shape.
I felt everything and felt nothing. I was in pain and that one sensation overloaded all else. I could feel my body start to fail as my organs got mixed up and fused together or split apart. My teeth suddenly started to multiply and fill my mouth much too full, dislocating my jaw. The tail bone kept shrinking and was slowly started to disintegrate my spine. One of my hearts failed completely and the second didn't feel that far behind.
Regenerate! Regenerate!
A feeble glow started appearing on my now disfigured limbs; it was barely even there. The rate of my regeneration was happening slower than my rate of death. I would die and stay dead, instead of being reborn. My lungs felt like they were ripping each other apart as I screamed and screamed and screamed. I screamed until my entire throat was dry and I was completely out of oxygen. I screamed out of pain until I could no longer scream.
When I didn't have the strength to scream out loud anymore, only my mental screams of anguish were left and even they were growing more and more faint. The pain was so great I was starting to forget who I was, what was going on, I was forgetting everything. Signs that my situation was extremely dire at this point. Pain was my world engulfed. The TARDIS hummed, distressed at my situation, feeling my death and the loss of the bond between the two of us. It dematerialized by its own power before rematerializing around me.
'Get up,' Tarus begged in my mind, 'You must get up! You must go to the zero room or perish!'
'I...need you...move...room...c-closer...'
'I cannot replace the control room with the zero room while you are still in it. The best I can do is make this room smaller and have the door to zero room be a yard away. If it is much closer, there is a risk that it could compromise you.'
'Voice...in-in-inter...face...help...' Tarus's form was now able to appear, since the order had been issued. Tarus quickly dragged me into the zero room, heedless of the pain it caused, knowing that it would cause me more harm if she dithered around. She put me into the center of the room before closing the door. The zero room wasn't as affected by the laws and influences of the universe, I could feel my permanent death being hindered while my regeneration was being helped along. The room started to mend my lesser injuries cause by the chameleon circuit and regeneration gone wrong.
The room cut off all feeling, the pain was gone and I felt nothing. This nothing was different from before, then I had only felt pain and had felt so much of it, it was like I knew nothing else and it canceled into nothingness. Before it was just pain and nothing else, but now it nothing else at all. I was not connected to my physical body anymore-I passed out, you could say-but I was still aware of my surroundings.
Some of our people consider this a curse, their brain never being able to have silence. Our biology allows to need only one hour of sleep every eighteen hours, but while our body is resting, only half of our brain is doing the same-at most. I may be resting, but my brain is always awake, always aware. I knew what was happening to my body in the zero-room, I could feel it slowly mending as my regeneration went under way.
I was dying.
I would never be the same person again, some other Gallifreyan would get up and walk away. I would never be coming back. I would be gone forever and no one would even know it, no one would even realize, because I was never going back home. I had predicted this, to both myself and to my sister-even if she didn't realize that I had truly believed it and meant it at the time. I was never going back home again, not as me. I probably only be able to do it as some other girl. Someone who nobody would recognize, even when our minds reunited. I would be dead and never coming back again, not ever.
And you know what the worst part was?
I didn't care about the fact I was dying-well, I did care, but I didn't care about dead as much in the face of something else that I cared about so much more than the fact that I would be dead. It wasn't just the dying part that got to me, it was the fact that I was alone when doing it. My first regeneration-my first death out of many-and I was suffering alone. I was so scared and so sad and so ignorant of what would happen next, because I didn't know what would happen next.
I remained in the dark, and in that darkness, I knew true fear.
I was almost too scared to try to see if it worked. I knew if it had failed, I would be crushed. I knew that if it had failed, I would stay here until I rotted or, more realistically, I would "stay" until I died of dehydration around forty days later after being delirious and suffering from severe hallucinations. The Wooden Queen tentatively raised the helmet off of my head and held my hand, I could feel her concern. I had to do it, I had to see if I had really failed this time, I had come too far and done too much not to.
"Voice interface," I croaked, scared at what I might find, "I am requesting assistance."
"Request noted, what would the Traveler require of 'Tarus?'" I let out a strangled cry of joy when Tarus's form appeared in her plain white clothes, long black-hair, and familiar silver-eyes.
"Your memory banks, how far do they go?"
"I exist in every point in time and space," Tarus stated dryly.
"I thought you couldn't crack jokes," I teased, giving a watery smile with tears running down my cheeks, my vision getting blurry, and my nose starting to run.
"I cannot," Tarus deadpanned, "Officially, my memory banks extend to five weeks, two days, four hours, seventeen minutes and thirty-six seconds. Would you like me to convert Earth time to mili-spans or centi-spans according to the Time Band?"
"No, it won't be necessary...So, unofficially, just...how far do your memory banks extend?"
"Unofficially, my memory banks extend to around 798 years-or 126.7 spans-in this voice interface, since previous memory banks are accessible until the last non-altered reboot."
I whooped, "You sly and cheeky girl!" Laughing, I hugged the Wooden Queen, "It worked, she's back! Tarus is alive! She's not dead!"
"The Traveler will be reminded that the voice interface cannot 'die' in the sense you give it, unless the TARDIS itself dies. Like a regeneration, I would return, just without the same memories as before."
"Tarus," I say seriously, my good mood dampening for a moment. "Regenerating is very much like dying to me. I leave my life behind, dead, and a new person saunters off. It's worse for you, though, because, like you said, you don't regain those memories back unless the reboot is altered. Even if I regenerate, I still have those memories, they are just stored away for safe-keeping until needed."
'Has the Wanderer died before?' The Wooden Queen asked me somberly.
'I have,' I answered faintly, refusing to look at either the Wooden Queen or at Tarus.
'Did the Wanderer die alone?' I bit my lip and clenched my eyes shut as I sucked in a quick breath, trying to hold back the painful memories again.
'...Yes, yes, I did.' I didn't want to remember the scary and lonely moments of finding myself regenerated and alone in the zero-room or having to figure out how to cope with this new me by myself. Desperate for a distraction, I asked Tarus aloud, "How long until you are completely rebooted?"
"49.3 micro-spans."
"Four days? Well, I will make the best of those four days, then." I turned to the Wooden Queen and declared, 'I will spend the remainder of those seventy-two hours and forty-odd minutes with all of you.'
An Unnamed Planet at an Unknown Time Four Days Later.
The Wanderer spent those days with the Androzani trees with a savoring zeal. She spent the long mornings and afternoons doing her best to sketch pictures of the forest and talk with them about their history. She learned much about them and their rare visitors. In turn, she told them about her forests back on Gallifrey. The trees knew all things the Wanderer was telling them and more besides, because the Traveler, Zeeta, had already told them all about her home-planet.
The trees knew, however, that the Wanderer needed to tell someone about home, that the story telling was more for her benefit than theirs, even if she didn't realize this. The time that the Wanderer spent away from her home had caused her many emotional deficiencies, and Tarus's 'death' hadn't done her any favors.
She spent the long nights pointing out distant stars and planets as well as telling the trees all the Wanderer knew about them. The trees understood this as the Wanderer's way of returning their kindness by telling them of possible suitable places for them to go after they are forced to leave their home. It had to be said, however, that the trees, at one point, had been planning to use the Wanderer as a mother ship.
She was strong, not weak like the males or inadequate like the children. The only thing that had spared the Wanderer from this fate was the memory of her sister; how Zeeta would have reacted to that decision held them back. Zeeta, the Traveler, a time-lady, a Gallifreyan with the soul of a tree, had understood them on a level no mammal had ever been able to before.
Even the Wanderer, the Thinker, the twin of a time-lady who became one herself because of the mental connection between the two of them, could not compare or touch the level that her sister had been able to. Although, the Wanderer was a very close second. It was only because the Traveler had the heart of one of their own, that the Wanderer would be spared and that the trees would wait for the one who had been foretold would save them.
All too soon for the trees-let alone the Wanderer herself-it was time for the last link of the Traveler to leave. It was the end of the fourth day and the start of the fifth day. The trees did not understand why the Wanderer had to leave the moment that the 'Tarus' had finished rebooting. This 'Tarus' was very special to the Wanderer, even if it was slightly defective.
'Tarus' was a TARDIS whose chameleon circuit was broken, so 'she' was stuck in her natural form. In the Wanderer's opinion, all TARDISes naturally look like the wardrobes and clothes closets found in twenty-third century Earth. Not like the wardrobes made out of wood and doors on hinges as seen in previous centuries, but wardrobes made with a metallic material and sliding doors. 'Tarus' had always been there for the Wanderer, even when the Traveler had not.
The Wanderer had said she had died alone and she truly believed that. However, the trees thought differently as they watched the TARDIS leave with the Wanderer safely inside it. 'Tarus' had been there for the Wanderer when 'she' dragged the barely conscious time-lady into something called the zero-room. The voice interface had been there to support the Wanderer during and after her first regeneration. The trees may not have liked the fact 'Tarus' was the one who was taking away the forest's last link to the Traveler, but they could not have found a better guardian for the young and inexperienced time-lady.
To Be Continued...
Translations:
*Zeeta ~ Seeker
Explanations:
*Most of the information about the Androzani trees is either from 'The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe,' the Doctor Who wiki page, or my speculation.
*I have no idea if that's even possible to reroute the circuitry in the chameleon arch or if the chameleon arch could potentially be deadly. I think my theory is sound-assuming that the last sentence is plausible-since it seems to make sense to me, but that might not mean anything.
*Note that Traveler will always have a lot more trouble with Time-lord/lady biological things, like regenerating, senses, psychics, and other things that will become more evident and the reason behind it will be explained in greater detail as the story goes on.
*The Qwert is a creature of my own creation, I will try to put up a picture of it later on a Facebook page once I set one up for my Fan Fiction account.
*Gallifreyans have got multiple organs of virtually everything including two more ribs than humans. They have two of most of the organs that humans have only one of, and four of the organs that humans have only two of. Aside from the extra ribs a Gallifreyan's skeleton is almost identical to a human's. They have only one liver.
*Gallifreyans can enter self-induced sleep trance in which breathing, heart beat, and brain activity are all reduced to an absolute minimum. While in this trance a time-lord/lady can ponder complex ideas without any outside distractions. Twenty minutes in this state is equivalent to eight hours of sleep for a human. Thus they only need about one-six hours of sleep every two days and some Gallifreyans can get by on a decade of sleep every one hundred years. Others become tired after only being awake for four days, most prefer one hour of sleep a day.
*Gallifreyan seconds, minutes, days, and years are not identical to the ones used on Earth. A Gallifreyan month is probably equal to twenty-seven days. A Gallifreyan day is probably equal to eighteen hours, nine hours of daylight and nine hours of night. The length of the hours are dependent on the season and location. A Gallifreyan cycle (year?) is equal to twenty-three of our years, approximately.
*Gallifreyans have more than one stomach and are not as vulnerable to malnutrition as Humans are. Some, if not all, believe that only one meal a day is perfectly normal. Despite this, their metabolism is relatively close to a humans and they can eat the same foods. They can easily go two days without water and a week without food is not a major strain. In fact, they sometimes sit in thought for days without food or water. However 40 days without food or water will make a Gallifreyan delirious.
* Because Gallifrey is located in Inner Time-i.e. closer to the center of the universe-Gallifreyans measure local time according to the Time Band. They use spans, which was also used by the Sisterhood.
1 nano-span = .2 seconds
1 micro-span = 200 sec (3.3 min)
1 milli-span = 55.6 hours (2.3 days)
1 centi-span = 23 days
1 span = 6.3 years
1 kilo-span = 6,341 years
*When the Traveler said "four days," she was referring to four Gallifreyan days, which-if you recall-were only eighteen hours long.
*The Traveler's description of the natural form of the TARDIS is how I would describe it after I saw a picture of one without the chameleon circuit. The links to the pictures are on my profile.
Thought Process:
This might very well be the second to last update [of this fan fiction] until I go into my great big hiatus in honor of my senior year of high school, bleh. I don't know, though, I'll do my best to get another chapter up before that time, we'll see. Anyway, on to less depressing topics.
The Doctor is finally appearing next chapter! Yay! :D
We won't be starting on follow Doctor Who cannon until chapter six or seven, maybe. It's leaning towards seven though, we'll see.
Sorry about the short chapters though, there are short because chapter is focusing on one different theme. I don't really want to have more than one theme per chapter. You can kind of guess the theme by the name of the chapter in this fan fiction. The theme of this chapter is: Regaining Tarus in Return for Regaining Painful Memories as well as Losing Some New Friends.
Kind of a mouthful though, isn't it? :/ That's why the chapter has a different name.
Well, I am super happy, because for my birthday, I got raspberry-not pink!-All Star Converse Chuck Taylor Trainers! :D I was so happy, I couldn't stop smiling. I haven't been that genuinely thrilled about something since I got a couple of tickets to take myself and my sister to the 3D Hobbit movie or since I got pumpkin pie with pumpkin pie flavored ice cream for my birthday or since I got my first and only phone (which is only about a month old, if that). As you can tell, I am a person of simple needs and simple pleasures.
You should have seem my face when my grandparent told me that my uncle Denny used to drag the toes of his trainers so he could ruin them. Apparently, he did this just to get new shoes so he didn't have to wear said trainers because in those day only poorer families would buy those shoes. He didn't want to be called 'poor' because of the shoes he wore. I was so upset with him, that if he was there, I probably would've thumped him good. I have always wanted trainers for years now-even before I met and feel in love with Doctor who-and he had them and ruined perfectly good shoes! D:{
Le sigh.
Anyway, enough of my same-old-same-old stuff. Things are going to get interesting now, hold on for the ride people!
Happy Friday,
FFA, the Fan Fictional Authoress
Date Submitted: Friday, August 2, 2013.
