Xanthous & Xenophobic
Prompt: "Xenophobic Zoo"
From: KI (guest)
Words: 317
ErinKenobi2893: I don't really know whose wedding it was. It's sort of a "Whoever you want it to be" kind of thing! Thank you!
"Hello, there!" the Doctor greeted cheerfully when it was his and Donna's turn at the ticket box. "Two, please, adult."
"'Adult'," Donna scoffed quietly as the zoo employee entered their ticket numbers into her computer.
"Do I qualify as a senior?" the Doctor asked seriously, turning to her.
"As an 'Under Five', maybe," she replied, reading the ticket plaque.
"Rude," he murmured. ". . . right?"
"No," Donna shook her head. "It's not."
He shrugged in agreement just as the girl handed him the tickets, clipped together by a hair accessory, as was the custom of the zoo. They walked to the gate, where the entrance was covered by a spinning metal rod. When the Doctor handed over the tickets, they were let through.
The zoo was huge, one of the largest in the Game Galaxies, a cluster of small vacation destinations. But over the past few months, it had gotten less traffic than it was used to, and the Doctor had attributed it to the zoo changing hands of ownership. However, he wasn't sure, and the two of them had decided to go there both to observe the acquired animals and to find out.
They walked further into the zoo, but a green-clad employee stopped them just as they had walked under the second entrance arc. The Doctor looked closer at it, and identified it, to his immense dread, as a Gregorian—planet, not the Pope—Alien Identifier. An extremely hardcore guard against extraterrestrial intruders.
"Please proceed to the exit," the employee droned and pointed in that direction. "You will not be harmed."
"What's going on, Doctor?" Donna wondered quietly when they obeyed the command.
"Nothing bad, Donna, I promise," he replied. "I'll tell you when we leave."
The worker's yellow hand guided them all the way to where they had parked the TARDIS, and only returned back to his body when the ship faded away.