The first thing the Doctor felt was cold. Deep, all-encompassing, empty cold. It was immobilizing, and it crept into his mind and seemed to freeze any thought that wanted to cross his mind. He couldn't move.

He floated for a while, eyes shut against the sunlight- wait. Sunlight? In the Empty? That couldn't possibly be right, no way no how, The Empty was, well, empty. Of all things. Not just Doctors and Merlins and TARDISes and all that, but life too. So where was that light coming from?

He cracked his eyes open just a smidge, and was nearly overwhelmed by the barrage of brightness that bit into his retinas. Tears came to his eyes as he gradually got used to the light, and he was able to pick out vague shadows from his surroundings. Blind, weak, and nearly helpless, he tried to stretch out his arms, but found that he couldn't. Panicked, he tried to thrash, break free of whatever power was holding him, but every muscle in his body was clenged, tight and horribly sore, and wouldn't obey his commands.

Then, as if matters couldn't get any worse, a huge crash resounded through the trees. The Doctor froze. This time figuratively. More crashes followed, as though something huge were dismantling a beaver dam by body slamming it like a professional wrestler. They grew steadily louder, like something was walking toward him with the rage of 1000 bloodthirsty men. He didn't know whether this thing was big enough to step on trees and crush them, or if the ground was replaced by a forest of tiny trees, because based on how many trees he crashed into over the course of this 1000 years, the sound of trees being utterly merked by something huge was unmistakable. Either way, the Doctor's two hearts were ready to spontaneously combust.

Not long after, the thing got so close, he could feel the footfalls through the floor of the TARDIS, and he knew that it was gargantuan. The tears that streamed down his cheeks now had nothing to do with the light, especially now that it was blocked out by the thing that was probably there to slurp up his intestines like noodles.

Then, warmth. The heat was so intense, it was almost scorching but at that moment, it felt so wonderful that the Doctor didn't care if his fingers cooked like sausages and fell off. His muscles loosened, his tears evaporated, and he found that he was shivering. He screwed his eyes shut in an effort to fool the thing standing above him into thinking he was dead or unconscious, and definitely not something good to put in its mouth. When he could move his hands, he slowly but surely closed them over his sonic screwdriver, in case he had to kill something.

Then, silence. Darkness and silence. Then, You smell strange.

The Doctor started so badly, he pressed a button on his sonic and burned a hole in his shirtfront. Screaming in pain, he leapt to his feet and tried to put out the tiny tongue of flame that was intently trying to climb up his chest, and screamed more when he saw the 30 foot tall dragon staring down at him with its head cocked, as though he were a cockroach that started trying to stab it with a baguette while cursing in fluent French. It was the most confusing image he could come up with at the time.

You're a strange little thing, aren't you?

It was then that the Doctor realized that the creature wasn't speaking the words aloud: they were being projected directly into his mind.

"What are you?" he inquired.

...A dragon. It didn't sound threatening, not even in the slightest. In fact, it seemed a bit amused by his bedraggled appearance, and considering the hell the Doctor recently went through, this upset him. Just a bit.

"I know that," he snapped irritably, getting up and brushing tiny twigs off his suit coat, for the ground was covered in tiny trees. Not the oddest thing he'd ever seen. "But see, I have a magic friend that can do the speaky mindy magic thing too and the fact that an unnervingly huge fanged gecko that would be all too happy to eat me as a side dish beside my multi dimensional space box that I crashed on a backwards planet while I was almost frozen to death unsettles me a little bit."

The dragon cocked its head.

"It's been a rough morning."

You intrigue me, the dragon said, lowering its head so that it was looking him in the eyes, And I wish I had the time to riddle you out. But alas, I was merely sent to fetch you.

"Fetch me?"

By your "magical friend" so to speak.

"You know Merlin?"

I know him better than you ever could.

"Grade school crush, eh?" The dragon snorted derisively.

You disgust me, little man.

The Doctor grinned. "Does that mean you're not going to eat me?"

You're not worth it.

"Testy are we?"

I think I am reconsidering eating you.

"So now I'm worth it."

No, I just want you to shut up. It glared at him for a moment, then shook its enormous head. I have been sent to retrieve you by Merlin.

"Yes, I was going to ask where he was. How is the man that abandoned me to freeze to death in the woods- er - flowers or whatever this place is ?"

I'm here to take you to him. Climb on my back. The Doctor eyed the spines on the dragon's back, glinting in the sunlight. They were so sharp, they seemed to ring whenever the dragon moved.

"That would be a no from me, thank you very much. I began the day freezing to death, I don't need to end it doing swan dives in pools of my own blood"

Morbid.

"Indeed."

Climb on.

"No," the Doctor growled, now really not in the mood for bantering with dragons and riding knives through the air. At this point, he was kind of sick of it. What started out as a grand old adventure quickly turned into the most difficult challenge he had ever encountered. Usually, the Doctor enjoyed a good challenge: things were no fun if they were easy. But that was back when he knew things. Now, in this world of magic, dragons and the dead rising, he had no idea what to do with himself. It wasn't challenging anymore. It was impossible.

It's not impossible.

"Will you quit reading my mind please?"

I can't exactly help it. I need to in order to communicate the fact that you'll be in grave danger if I don't take you to Merlin.

"Grave danger? From what?"

Let me just say that this world gets pretty nasty if you don't know your way around. Merlin almost got killed by 20 foot tall frogs a few hours ago. He's somewhere safe now. I am to take you to him.

The Doctor looked nervously at the dragon's spines and weighed his options. It's either wander through these tall flowers with trees for grass and eventually get killed by a giant bunny or something weird, or go for a ride on Puff the Magic Dragon here and risk getting sliced to ribbons.

He decided losing a few fingers was worth it