Author's Note: Hello again. Thankyou very much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter - TheGreatWhite, MountainLord-92, The Mouse's Rose, MayFairy, TheWritingKat, EmmaMarie, Lexy Summers, GuesssWho, EDZEL2, Neapolitan Dreamss, yulicee, Guest, Lovelyone797, sailormajinmoon, Aietradaea (x 2), Kira, Weiryn, SawManiac211 and Theta'sWosrtNightmare (x2).
To Lovelyone97: Thanks so much for your review, I'm glad to know the chapter made you emotional, that's a great compliment for a writer!
To sailormajinmoon: I'm afraid you may have to wait until the next chapter for the Master and John Hart stuff, because I ran out of space in this one. Hope that is OK. And thanks so much for the feedback.
To Kira: Thank you for your compliment. I hope you enjoy this chapter too!
Special thanks to the people who are also following my other new story, "Revenge, Best Served HOT!", it's so nice to have your support when I am trying something different with my writing :)
So...here's the next bit...
- CHAPTER THREE -
"It was beautiful. They used to call it the Shining World of the Seven Systems. And on the continent of Wild Endeavour, in the Mountains of Solace and Solitude,
there stood the Citadel of the Time Lords, the oldest race in the Universe...looking down on the galaxies below...sworn never to interfere, only to watch..."
The Tenth Doctor, The Sound of Drums
The noise was incredible! A hundred...no, a thousand voices, all talking at once inside the confines of her head. Tejana felt as if she was standing in the middle of an enormous auditorium packed full of people, all of them carrying on separate conversations at the top of their voices. It was worse than a buzz saw, cutting through her brain, especially since these days she was so used to the relative silence of the psychic link. After the Time War, with only the Doctor and the Master left to share the connection with her, it had been kind of like three people rattling around by themselves in a huge deserted house, endlessly wandering through countless empty rooms that had once been full. As a result, there had been no real need to maintain her lifelong defence of always keeping her mental shields at maximum and she had become lazy, mostly leaving her senses wide open unless the circumstances dictated otherwise.
Now though, whatever this place was, the need for defence had obviously returned, unless she wanted blood to start running out of her ears. Instinctively, she slammed her shields up as far as they could go, isolating herself from the deafening psychic clamour, just as she had learned to do so long ago.
Oh gods, she thought with some irritation, already feeling her head starting to throb. That's going to cause one mother of a headache!
She knew she needed to open her eyes and look around, but the truth was, she didn't want to. All she wanted was for all this to just go away. By keeping her eyes tightly closed, she could pretend it was still vaguely possible that she might wake up in the big white bed in the TARDIS at any minute, safe in the Master's arms, knowing it had all been a horrible nightmare. The grief at being unable to save the tiny human child from the oblivion of the crack was achingly raw and painful. In some strange, metaphorical way, by failing to help the little boy she couldn't help feeling that she had betrayed her own unborn son.
Yet as much as she wanted to deny the reality of the situation, once the tumultuous noise in her head had faded away and her senses clarified, she felt an intense flicker of apprehension creeping along her spine, replacing her initial disorientation. Something was wrong, something really, really obvious that she was missing. Something was so very, very out of place...
And then it hit her. All the voices had been speaking Gallifreyan.
Shocked at the impossible realisation, she sat bolt upright, her eyes snapping open. She was sitting in the middle of a narrow stone corridor she had never seen before. Even so...even though with all of her being she knew it couldn't be true...she had no doubt in her mind where she was. She could feel the latent power humming through the stone beneath her, that potent sense of being unutterably old and yet forever new at the same time. In all her travels, there had only ever been one place in the Universe that felt like that.
Gallifrey.
Down inside the dark tunnels of the Underhenge, a little group of Roman soldiers huddled together, curiously sorting through the motley collection of Cyber-weapons the Doctor had found abandoned in the cavern containing the Pandorica. Rory had gone above, carefully carrying the little red ring box up to Amy, hoping somehow to use the symbol of their love to trigger her lost memories. The Doctor was pacing back and forth frenetically in front of the Pandorica, a communicator held tightly to his ear, his steps raising little puffs of dust in his wake as he went.
"It's a trap!" River was saying. "It has to be! They used Amy to construct a scenario you'd believe, to get close to you."
The Doctor ran his free hand through his floppy brown hair. "Why? Who'd do that? What for? It doesn't make sense!"
The only answer he received from the communicator was the sound of a series of small explosions.
"River! RIVER!" he yelled. Still there was no reply, just the crackling noise of what he assumed were fiery sparks fizzing across the TARDIS console. "River, what's happening?"
At last he heard her voice, breathless with anxiety. "I don't know! It's the engines. Doctor, there's something wrong with the TARDIS, like something else is controlling it!"
"You're flying it wrong!"
"I'm flying it perfectly!" she snapped. "You taught me!"
"Where are you? What's the date reading?"
There was a swivelling sound over the communicator as River turned the monitor towards her. "It's the 26th of June, 2010."
The Doctor felt as if someone had just poured cold water down the back of his neck. That date...everything kept coming back to that date, the date of Amy's wedding...and now River was there too, at that exact point in time and space, together with the TARDIS. It was much more than just a coincidence.
"You need to get out of there now!" he instructed urgently. "Any other time zone, just go!"
More familiar TARDIS-related sounds filtered back to him, levers being pulled, buttons being pressed. Then River's tense voice returned, "I can't break free!"
"Well then, shut down the TARDIS! Shut down everything!"
"I can't!" River gritted out. The Doctor had never heard the confident archaeologist sound so desperate before.
Just then, he heard a voice in the background, an eerie, unearthly intonation that grated on his ears. "SILENCE WILL FALL! SILENCE WILL FALL!"
"River, what was that?" he demanded. "River?"
"I don't know!" she responded. "Someone else is flying the TARDIS. An external force. I've lost control!"
"But how?" the Doctor muttered, talking to himself as much as River. For the first time in a very long while, he was baffled, completely at a loss. Normally he had all the answers. But for once he had no explanation and no solutions to offer. "Why?"
At that moment, a shrill, high-pitched whining sound screeched through the air, stabbing through his head like an ice-pick. Wincing in discomfort, he stuffed the little finger of his right hand into his free ear, trying to screen out the noise. He was so intent on his conversation with River, he didn't notice as the entire group of Roman soldiers all fell forward at the waist, like puppets with all their strings cut.
"Listen to me, River!" he ordered. "Just land her! Anywhere! Emergency landing now! There are cracks in Time. I've seen them – they're everywhere and they're getting wider. I'm pretty sure there was one here just now and I think it's taken someone important, so important, but I can't remember!"
"Taken someone?" River said sharply. "Who?"
"That's just it, I don't know. Rory said she was a tiny little thing with long red hair."
He heard the hiss of her indrawn breath over the communicator. "Tejana!"
The Doctor stopped stock still, recognising the name he had written down in Gallifreyan in his notebook. It still had no meaning for him, but obviously it did for River. "You know who she is? For me to forget her, she has to be a direct part of my timeline. One of my companions? One of my friends?"
There was a deep pause. Then River said compassionately, "I'm so sorry, Doctor, but it's much worse than that. Tejana is your daughter."
The Doctor felt as if she had reached through the communicator and slapped him across the face. "My daughter!" he gasped, trying to wrap his head around the astonishing concept. It seemed nonsensical that he could have no memory of something so intrinsic to his life, but every time he tried to recall a girl named Tejana, he just kept drawing a blank. There was only him. There had always been only him. His entire family was dead and gone, a long, long time ago. Just the thought of being a father made him break out in a cold sweat. In fact, it was one of the most intimidating ideas he'd ever had. But he was sure River wouldn't lie, especially under these dire circumstances. "I have a daughter?"
"Yes, you have a daughter!" River said. "Her name is Tejanakaturadilena and she means everything to you."
"Everything..." the Doctor repeated. "And yet I can't remember a single thing about her. River, I'm telling you one more time, land the TARDIS, right now!"
Behind him, the Roman soldiers straightened again with a peculiar, almost mechanical noise, like robotic servo-mechanisms whirring and clicking. Unnoticed, they turned as one towards the Doctor, their eyes cold and blank and menacing.
"The TARDIS exploding is what causes the cracks," he continued, pacing even faster now, the words pouring out of him in a cascade. "But we can stop them ever happening, if you just land her!"
"It's not safe!" River refused, apparently still wrestling with the console of the malfunctioning time machine.
The Doctor was about to argue further when a huge, metallic rumbling sound interrupted him, reverberating thunderously around the room. Pivoting sharply, he turned to look at the Pandorica, the hand holding the communicator dropping away from his ear. Two of the walls of the grey cube were retracting, slowly sliding back and allowing pure, white, blinding light to spill from the interior into the gloomy shadows of the Underhenge.
"Well now," the Time Lord murmured, transfixed by the ominous sight. "Ready to come out now, are we?"
Tejana stared blankly at the unremarkable stone wall in front of her. Unremarkable in appearance, perhaps, but nevertheless still one of the most confusing and frightening things she had ever seen, something that couldn't possibly exist. She thought back to the flash of orange she had seen through the crack as she fell, and at last understood that she had been seeing the burnt umber skies of her birth world. Trembling, she wrapped her arms tightly around herself and rocked back and forth, like a child seeking protection from the cold.
In her timeline, her home planet was gone, completely and utterly destroyed during the cataclysm of the Time War. And yet, here she was. Somehow, by falling through the crack, she had managed to do the one thing a Time Lord could never do. She had contravened the Fourth Law of Time, which stated that under no circumstances could anyone ever travel into Gallifrey's past. The Protocols of Linearity had been one of the first things she had ever learned as a student of the Academy and they had been drummed into her, over and over again, until they became as much a fact of her life as breathing, a part of the base code of her Universe. Back then, before the advent of the Time War, each Time Lord's personal chronology was always synchronised with that of Gallifrey. It had been so incredibly important, not only to ensure that their timelines had always remained relative when they met outside of Gallifrey, but also to maintain the continuity of the causal nexus. The Time Lords had been able to see all of time and space, the sheer magnitude of its infinite terror and majesty – even they needed some sort of reference point, some sort of unchanging anchor from which to begin, if only to retain some semblance of sanity. And that anchor had always been Gallifrey.
Despite the physical destruction of the planet during the Time War, her past had always remained inviolate. Even notorious renegades like the Doctor and the Master would never even contemplate messing around with the history of Gallifrey, it was much too dangerous. The more the enormity of what had happened sank into her brain, the more she felt as if the sky had fallen down and struck her on the head. It would never have occurred to her in a million years that she would be the one to end up breaking the biggest Time Lord taboo of all.
But I'm not a Time Lord any more, am I? she told herself. I'm one of the Neverwere. I fell through the Time-fire. I've been erased from Time and I never existed. So it's probably a bit pointless to be so concerned with contravening the Protocols of Linearity when you never HAD any linearity to start with.
The thought was oddly comforting. The realisation she had been wiped from Time was utterly devastating, but after her strict upbringing, it seemed a lot more acceptable than to commit the ultimate sin of breaking the Fourth Law of Time.
She drew herself up on her knees, concentrating on pulling herself together. All right, she was on Gallifrey, that was a given. But when was she? How far back in the planet's past had she fallen? It would be easy enough to find out using the psychic link, but she was reluctant to do that. If any of the other Time Lords sensed her and picked up on the fact that she was out of her own timeline, the repercussions could be immense. She shuddered as she remembered the horrific "re-education program" she had been subjected to in her youth when she and the Doctor had transgressed the Time Lord rule of non-intervention. The Time Lords had no scruples about disciplining their own people when they thought it necessary. And she had no intention of ever going through anything like that again. So the psychic link would have to stay firmly closed for now, to prevent the risk of discovery. She would have to gather information the old-fashioned way, by poking around a bit.
Assuming she could poke around, of course, considering she didn't technically exist. She waved her hands in front of her face. She had no experience of the Neverwere except for the Could-Have-Been-King's army, encountered in the catacombs of Avalon. But as far as she could tell, she wasn't anything like them. For one thing, she wasn't green and luminous and see-through, which she had to admit was a bit of a relief. She banged her fists hard on the stone floor, feeling the pain of the impact tingling up her forearms. Her body seemed solid enough, so walking through walls didn't appear to be a viable option either, especially since it was apparently still possible for her to be injured.
As she examined her hands, the previously damaged skin around her wrists caught her eye. The deep, black, angry-looking weals left by the Master's touch had faded to a few, faint marks and were hardly even noticeable any more. Of course, the Eye of Harmony still exists! she thought with a surge of nostalgic joy. The Time Lords had always healed faster on Gallifrey, due to their proximity to the Eye of Harmony, the black hole Rassilon had harnessed eons ago and set at the centre of the planet, holding everything in balance.
Even better, the invisible presence that had threatened her back in the Underhenge seemed to have vanished. Despite everything she had recently been through, other than the headache caused by the overload of the psychic link, she felt better than she had for ages.
Her hand crept down to rest reassuringly on her belly. Hang in there, kid. We'll get back to Daddy, I promise.
"You there!"
The clear, disdainful voice cut through her reverie. Tejana's head shot up, only to see a girl standing in the middle of the corridor, regarding her with an expression of disgust. The newcomer had a thin, sharp-featured face and light brown hair, twisted into a practical knot at the back of her head. She was wearing a neat, black, ankle-length dress, unadorned except for a Gallifreyan sigil stitched in scarlet and orange over her left breast. Tejana recognised her attire as a uniform. She had seen it often enough as she was growing up. This girl was a housemaid, employed by the Time Lord Academy. And, going by the scarlet and orange of her service sigil, she was attached specifically to the Prydonian Chapter.
"Are you talking to me?" she queried in surprise. She was unaccustomed to servants addressing her in such a peremptory manner. During her time in the Academy, she could remember any number of them, always unobtrusively in the background, busily employed doing the mountains of work required to keep everything running smoothly. But they were always extremely deferential and rarely dared to speak to any of the students, unless they were spoken to first. According to the strict Gallifreyan social structure, it just wasn't done.
"Of course I'm talking to you!" the girl snapped, in a tone that could never even come close to being described as deferential. From her uncultured Southern Gallifreyan accent, Tejana guessed she hailed somewhere from the Continent of Endless Philosophy, maybe from the agricultural settlements in the Valley of Soonwell. "There's no-one else here, is there?"
A spark of haughty anger lit Tejana's green eyes. "Now, wait just a minute..."
"Oh, there's always one, isn't there?" the girl ranted. "Turn my back for a minute and someone always gets lost from the orientation tour. Too busy gaping at everything, I suppose, just because it's your first time in the big city. Pathetic, I call it." She looked Tejana up and down with contempt. "From the ridiculous way you're dressed, I'm guessing you're a Shabogan, am I right?"
Tejana glanced down at her leather jacket and faded blue jeans. Orientation tour? Shabogan? Then it dawned on her. The Time Lords were an impossibly formal and traditional society. This girl would never have seen anything like her casual, Earth-style clothing before. Therefore she had mistaken Tejana for a new servant, and a Shabogan at that. No wonder she had shown such unusual disrespect.
Tejana was about to set the girl straight in no uncertain terms, when it suddenly occurred to her that passing herself off as a Shabogan maid-servant might not be such a bad idea, after all. At the very least, it might give her an excuse to ask some questions, in an effort to find out exactly what timeline she had ended up in. And it wasn't as though she could traipse around Gallifrey in her full Time Lady glory, was it? A new Time Lady turning up inside the Academy without any records would definitely occasion some unwanted investigation. Whereas servants came and went all the time and nobody paid much attention to them at all.
"Yes, ma'am," she responded meekly, keeping her head down. "I'm a Shabogan. Just arrived from Low Town, ma'am."
The girl clicked her tongue in satisfaction. "I thought so. What's your name, girl?"
Tejana racked her brains, trying to think of a suitable alias. Tejanakaturadilena was much too identifiable as a high-caste Gallifreyan name. It was not at all appropriate for a Shabogan.
"Kat," she said quickly, seeing the girl give her a curious look at her hesitation. "Ma'am."
The girl sniffed fastidiously at the short, uninteresting name. The length of a Gallifreyan's name tended to be an indication of their status, which meant that the low opinion she had already formed of the new servant had just been confirmed.
"Well, Kat, my name is Fionnula. I am the Head Housemaid for the Prydonian Chapter of the Time Lord Academy. And you have much to learn, if you intend to remain in service here."
Tejana bobbed a curtsey, just as she remembered the servants doing back when she lived on Gallifrey. "Yes, ma'am."
Fionnula swept off down the corridor, obviously expecting her to follow. "The first thing we need to do is to get you some appropriate attire."
Tejana gritted her teeth in annoyance and hurried along behind her, almost trotting to keep up. Ruefully, she wondered how long she would be able to pretend to be a servant without forgetting herself and blowing her stack. Pride and arrogance had been bred into her since birth. Coupled with the fiery temper she had inherited with this new regeneration, subservience wasn't something that came naturally to her. Placidly taking orders from someone like Fionnula definitely wasn't going to be easy. Although, at least now she knew why this part of the Academy was so unfamiliar to her. It was one of the windowless passageways used by the servants. She was willing to bet none of the students had ever set foot here.
Fionnula was not one to waste time. Before long, Tejana found herself in a small cubicle, changing into a black dress similar to the one the other girl wore, only with a much less elaborate service sigil, as befitted her junior rank.
"Hurry up!" the other girl had ordered. "And for Rassilon's sake, do something about that awful hair!"
Tejana obediently twined her abundant hair into a plait, her mind racing as she bundled it up in a knot at the back of her head. So far, she'd had no further clues as to what time-frame she had ended up in. The problem with Gallifrey was that things had often gone for centuries without changing. Just because she was familiar with the uniforms worn by the maids didn't necessarily mean that she had arrived anywhere near her own era at the Academy. If only Damon was around here somewhere. She was sure she could get him to help her, even if he didn't remember who she was - that was the sort of person he was. And he was brilliant at temporal physics. If anyone could figure out a way to reverse the effects of the crack, it was him. But she supposed the chances of coming across him were rather slim. It wasn't going to be much use if she found him and he was still only eight years old, for instance.
She rejoined Fionnula, who was standing outside the cubicle and tapping her foot. "Hmmm..." the other girl said, eyeing her dress critically. "I suppose it will have to do. You are very small, aren't you? I must say, I hope you are stronger than you look. There's no room here for girls who can't work."
"Ma'am, may I ask a question?" Tejana asked, making sure her voice sounded as timid and unsophisticated as she could, even though she was actually itching to slap Fionnula across her smug face.
"What is it?"
"I was just wondering...what the name of the current Time Lord President is?"
Fionnula gave her an incredulous look. "You are here to work, Kat, not to obtain a political education. Time Lord matters concern only Time Lords, something you will soon learn, if you manage to remain here long enough!"
Well, I guess that told me, Tejana thought, disappointed at her failure to obtain more information. She supposed she hadn't been very subtle. She would have to work on that.
She continued to follow Fionnula through the dark passageways until they came to an enormous kitchen area. Tejana gazed around in amazement. Everywhere she looked, there were people working frantically on the numerous long benches. The room fairly bristled with technology, the walls lined with massive convection ovens, rows of thermally-insulated compartments and magnetic refrigerators, laser slicing devices, huge mixing machines and plenty of other equipment she couldn't even begin to identify. There was food piled everywhere, all at various stages of preparation. Tejana had never seen anything quite like it. The sight was a complete revelation to her. She had eaten countless meals in the Prydonian Refectory, but she had never actually bothered to wonder where the food had come from. It had just turned up and she had eaten it and somebody else had tidied away her mess afterwards. It had never occurred to her that there were this many people slaving away down below to make it all happen.
Fionnula led the way over to a tall girl with pale blonde hair and a round face, also dressed in the black maid's uniform. She was busy preparing a tray, carefully setting out some porcelain crockery. Tejana stared at the delicate, wafer-thin teacups, a faint memory stirring in the back of her mind.
"Dyoni, this is Kat," Fionnula said briskly. "She's one of the new Shabogan recruits. Nevertheless, I have decided that she will be taking over Minya's position as an upper housemaid. Kat, this is Dyoni. She will instruct you in your duties. Please be aware that I will be watching you closely for any sign of misconduct. That is all."
With that, she swept away, leaving Tejana with Dyoni. Tejana only just barely refrained from poking her tongue out at her retreating back.
Dyoni gave her a shy smile, as if she knew exactly what Tejana was thinking but was too scared to say so. "Hello."
"Hello," Tejana responded. "She's a bit much, isn't she?"
"Oh, she's not so bad, once you get used to her," Dyoni answered. Tejana could tell immediately that she was probably the sort of person who had a good word to say about everybody, no matter how much of an ass they were. "You're lucky she's given you upper housemaid duties. Most Shabogan recruits get stuck scrubbing pots in the kitchen. Still, I suppose that's got a lot to do with the way you look."
Tejana raised her eyebrows. "The way I look?"
"You know...pretty," Dyoni said matter-of-factly. "You're presentable enough to be allowed to serve upstairs. The Time Lords don't like anything that's ugly. Everything has to be as perfect as possible, at least on the surface. Including the servants, even though they never actually look at them. You'll see what I mean before too long."
The words, slightly tinged with bitterness, surprised Tejana. Perhaps she had misread Dyoni. She certainly didn't seem to have anything good to say about the Time Lords. It wasn't as if the description was fair, either. Some of the Time Lords might have been like that, but not all of them, surely, no matter what era this was...
"Anyway," Dyoni continued, putting a crystal bowl full of sweetmeats on the tray. "You're a Shabogan. I hardly need to tell you about class prejudice."
For a brief instant, Tejana had a sickening flashback of Kelios's tortured face as he died on Mnemosyne. I...just wanted...my turn in the sun. Just once...was that..so very wrong?
"No," she replied in a quiet voice. "No, I don't suppose you do."
Dyoni picked up the tray. "Come on. We have to take Lord Borusa his tea at this time every day. Minya used to do it, so it'll be one of your duties from now on."
Both Tejana's hearts leapt at the familiar name. Lord Borusa! Oh, now she was getting somewhere! Of course, Borusa had been in charge of the Prydonian Academy for a very long period of time, so it didn't tell her anything specific, but at least it narrowed things down a bit. No wonder the delicately-patterned cups had looked familiar. She had poured Borusa's tea often enough while she had been his personal assistant on Gallifrey. It was funny, the humans on Earth thought that they had invented tea. Humans had a lot of ridiculous beliefs. Tejana didn't know exactly where in the Universe the beverage had originated, but she did know that Borusa had drunk it for as long as she could remember, religiously and with great ceremony, every afternoon in his study.
"So...this Borusa...is he a Cardinal?" she asked innocently, trying to narrow the temporal possibilities down even further.
"Oh no," Dyoni said. "Not yet anyway. My father says he's ambitious enough to get there before long, though, one way or another." She shot Tejana a nervous glance. "I shouldn't have said that. We're only phlebeians. Time Lord politics have nothing to do with us."
"My lips are sealed," Tejana assured her as they moved towards the entrance to the kitchen. "Here, shouldn't I carry that? You did say it was going to be my job from now on."
Reluctantly, Dyoni handed over the tray. "All right, but for Rassilon's sake, do be careful."
"I don't do anything for Rassilon's sake," Tejana said with a scowl. "But I take your point. What happened to this Minya anyway? Why isn't she doing this stuff any more?"
Dyoni's face shut down like a door slamming. "She left."
Oooo-kay, Tejana thought, as the other girl turned abruptly away. Note to self, don't talk about the mysterious Minya.
"We have to take a transmat up to the Great Hall," Dyoni said over her shoulder, her voice now cool and business-like.
Tejana followed her into the tube-like matter conversion station, carefully balancing the heavily-laden tray. Within moments, there was an almost imperceptible shimmer and then they were in a completely different place.
"Try to be as inconspicuous as possible," Dyoni told her anxiously, as they stepped forward from the transmat. "Don't draw attention to yourself."
But Tejana wasn't listening. Instead, she was looking around her with tears in her eyes. Oh gods, the Great Hall of the Prydonian Academy. She had never thought to see this place again, with its huge, vaulted ceiling, its polished onyx floor and its majestic sweeping staircase. It was filled with students scuttling back and forth, all of them dressed in the orange and scarlet Prydonian colours. Many of them wore the simple tunics and trousers Tejana remembered so well, but here and there she spotted the swirl of formal robes. Enormous, arched window embrasures filled an entire wall, providing a stunning view of the snow-capped Mount Cadon. Overhead, the glorious tangerine sky blazed like a sheet of flame, punctured only by the double spectacle of the twin suns. Tejana stood transfixed, unable to tear her gaze away. So beautiful...how could she have forgotten how beautiful it was? Memories burned through her, all the good times...and there had been good times here, wonderful times, times of love and laughter and joy, no matter how many bad times there had also been.
She was so absorbed in her conflicting emotions, she didn't even notice the three girls in elegant silk robes coming towards her until she caught a vicious, breath-stealing elbow in the ribs. Gasping in shock, she accidently allowed the tray to tilt sideways. All the beautiful, expensive crockery belonging to Lord Borusa fell to the floor and smashed into pieces. She could see it happening, but there wasn't anything she could do to stop it. Dyoni cried out in deep distress, falling to her knees in amongst the ruined shards.
Tejana glared at the tall girl who had deliberately collided with her, fury blazing in her eyes. The girl matched her, look for look. She wasn't exactly beautiful, but her strong features were attractive in an extremely eye-catching way. Long dark hair cascaded down her back, dressed elaborately in the usual style of the high-caste Gallifreyan female. "You should watch where you're going!" she remarked in a haughty voice, before continuing on her way with her two companions. Tinkling laughter echoed back to Tejana, enraging her even further. Trembling with fury, she took an irate step after the girl, only to be halted by a hand grasping her around the wrist.
"I wouldn't," a male voice advised. "Ushas can be a bit of a bitch, but she's not worth it, believe me."
The words seemed to explode inside Tejana's head. Ushas! The only Ushas she had ever heard of had ended up becoming the Rani. But that meant...
Slowly, like an automaton, she turned to face the speaker, who was still holding on to her arm. He was tall and slender, with a mop of curly blonde hair and laughing blue eyes.
"Hello, are you new?" he asked cheerfully. "Nice to meet you. My name's Theta Sigma."