dunes turned a deep purple as the ballroom swelled with guests and potential future council members and during the dinner, Paul could say that word spread fast, and everyone except Loran and Talib kept their eyes away from him and Taylor.
He could tell that they were displeased with his presence, wanting nothing more than him gone, but they knew he had a right being there, and there was nothing they could do short of getting him exiled or killed.
A little extreme, but he wondered if there was someone willing to go through the effort.
Under their breaths, Taylor could hear people make comments about her, mostly about her being human, but some were in awe how she looked like the late Rommy.
Most of the time, though, they kept their heads turned whenever they noticed her gaze.
Thus far since they came here, nothing out of the ordinary, and Taylor learnt how true the stories were about people on Gallifrey as she felt the contempt beaming from their eyes.
Something happened and she wound up getting another plate of something from the table, there was a dumbfounded young Time Lord standing near it as he looked confused with his rosy, pink eyes squinting ahead.
Figuring he wouldn't be pleasant with her either Taylor silently took from the serving plates before she heard the young Time Lord calling out to her.
"Um, yes?" Taylor sheepishly glimpsed at the young Time Lord, expecting him to comment how familiar she looked, but he instead asked who she was, that he never saw her before.
Meekly, Taylor responds that she wasn't from Gallifrey, simply visiting, and she saw sparkles in the young Time Lord as he was surprised hearing this, claiming that he hardly knew anyone outside Gallifrey.
Not surprising, what with the radiation penetrating the planet preventing expansion beyond Gallifrey, but well, Taylor got the gist.
"What's it like?" Theta grew curious about the outside and Taylor spoke about the area she grew up in, the giant tree in the back of the home she'd spend time under, it was like she was describing a fable the way Theta looked at her.
The amazement on his face, Theta was in awe, commenting how nothing like what she described existed here on Gallifrey.
"Theta!" Taylor turned her head, expecting his irate mother to come over to yank him away from the table, but it's another young Time Lord with granite eyes as he hurried towards Theta.
Excusing himself, Theta went towards the hurrying Time Lord before they spoke quietly to each other.
They hurried away from the table as a woman screamed.
There's panic and whatever else, before it was quickly resolved when it was found Theta, and his friend caused a bit of stir with a prank.
The prank was the equivalent of a stink bomb, it would seem, and it went off without a hitch, and angry Time Lords soon looked for the culprits.
Theta and his friend rushed out of the ballroom cackling as they disappeared down the marbled corridor.
"Oh! Those fiends!" Seta grew irritated as he caught sight of the fleeing Time Lords before wanting them found and properly punished for their prank.
The smell was strong enough that the dinner was cancelled, and everyone left the ballroom while it was being decontaminated.
"Oh, my mother would have my head if I did that!" Paul found humour in the prank while Taylor mused that she never understood the allure of such prank.
Their arms interlocked; the couple walked through the corridor with the others as they dispersed into different corridors with annoyance on their faces about the cancelled dinner.
"I'm voting for the candidates that get these hellions back under control!" Paul heard someone shout in anger as he held Taylor close to him while they walked.
Theta and his co-conspirator disappeared far before anyone could reach them, though given how Gallifrey operated, they would be found sooner than later, and punished accordingly.
Perhaps Talib had a point about his concerns for the future of Gallifrey, with everyone stuck in the past, determined to hold onto what little they had left from the war, and in return, alienating their own.
Even his great uncle Hamon showed concerns as well, that things such as melding were becoming rarer by the day.
It was becoming difficult to see the proud people that were spoken off in stories, made him wonder if the Time War caused these trends to occur, or it was inevitable, and the war sped it up.
Paul didn't even know if there was a chance this could change, again, and this time everything returning to once was, if that point already passed.
Regardless of how Paul felt, it was out of his control, and he could see the reason loudly and clearly why Cappy, his grandfather, his great uncle, among others leaving Gallifrey.
The Daleks got their wishes, though they wanted to destroy it completely, Gallifrey was destroying itself from the inside.
"What now?" Taylor turns to Paul for guidance as the dinner didn't end well with the prank and Paul sighed as he pondered this before suggesting that they'll reschedule it but have more security this time around.
They can't dissuade the younger Time Lords from joining the dinner, but they can make it impossible for them to try their pranks, again.
"Still don't know why we're here, outside the prank, doesn't seem anything going on. Don't even know which of the candidates would be an 'useful idiot' to someone," Taylor frowns as they're still without answers.
Loran didn't report anything to them, no known threats, it's difficult to know why they're there, but Paul felt there was a reason for the message, and he turns his head as he asks Taylor if she can find her way back to the TARDIS from here.
"Of course, what are you planning?" Taylor could see cogs turning in Paul's head as he explained how he wanted to find their answer with Loran's help and how since the TARDIS was on Gallifrey, he hoped it could extend the search into where the message came from, maybe who sent it.
Slowly nodding, Taylor sees what Paul had in mind.
Giving her a quick hug, Paul smiles as he promised he would find her if he found anything.
"Wouldn't I be in trouble being by myself?" Taylor worried that because she wasn't a Time Lord or related, she would be subjected to harsh penalties for being an alien.
Patting her on the back, Paul assured her that they couldn't lay a hand on her without reason, she was his guest, after all.
He promised her with a kiss on her forehead that it would be fine, before sneakily stealing a kiss from her lips.
Smiling, Taylor waved him off before retracing her steps as she set out to return to the TARDIS.
It was hard without signage guiding her, but she put her memory to the test.
Everything quieted down as the Time Lords retreated to their homes until the morning where they would go back to their daily rituals until word was given when the next dinner would be, and the capture of the party responsible for ruining the previous dinner.
Passing the glass, Taylor sees the dunes turning a deep purple as darkness crept over the irradiated planet.
She was retracing her steps when she spotted Theta hiding among the statues, his eyes moving as he hid.
He panicked when he saw her before she gestured that she had no authority on the planet, so he was safe.
"Oh good, I didn't think it would work," Theta mustered that he was shocked how well his and his friend's prank did.
Nodding, her vibrant red hair shimmering under the soft light above with strands of blond, Taylor agreed before asking how he'll handle the repercussions of his actions.
"No one got hurt, though, right, it was a little prank," Theta gestured as he argued that there were worse things that can happen, this one was the least of them, before Taylor expressed concerns that the others didn't think like he did.
Frowning as he pulled away from his hiding spot, Theta mustered, "No one's fun here. All serious. It's a real tragedy."
He revealed he was only fifty years old, looked no older than thirty, and how even when he was younger Time Lords were too serious for his like.
Seeing confusion on Taylor's face, he asked what was wrong, before she admits that for her people, being fifty would constitute Theta as an older adult.
Not someone who was considered a child among his peers.
"Problem with a short-lived species, I guess. I'm not even going to be an adult until I'm three centuries old, who's got time for that?" Theta commented on how long his race lived before realising how insensitive it sounded before he apologised to Taylor for it.
Gesturing, Taylor wasn't offended by it, but she was curious how the long-lived Time Lords treated their young.
Scoffing, Theta mused, "Not well, as you imagined. They treat us as empty-headed fools, make us work our fingers off to prove to them we're remotely capable of rudimentary physics. By the time I'm 800 years old, they're still going to treat me like a child. It's annoying, y'know."
It was a struggle for others like him to prove their worth to the older generations, but the more the days went, the more Theta's getting fed up with it, all.
"I'm sure there'll be relief, soon," Taylor gestured as she tried to help Theta find comfort, but the spry Time Lord warned her that it wasn't as easy as she made it out to be, how everyone was set in their ways, that it almost makes Theta want to go out into the irradiated land without a suit.
Seeing how despondent he looked, Taylor motioned her hand as she asked about his friend and he said that his friend was supposed to be waiting for him, but he wasn't here.
When asked, Theta told Taylor his name, Othello, they were only playing a prank, but the "adults" would have their heads.
Theta waited for Othello for what felt like forever, but he hadn't shown, and he was getting antsy, causing Taylor to ask if he wanted help finding him.
It's a curse, Taylor knows, but she couldn't help it, and it's her and Paul's lot in life helping others, even if they're guilty of what they have done.
"Oh, I don't know if I could ask this of you, miss, they're not too fond of you either, me mum was saying awful things about you," Theta warned that he didn't want Taylor getting caught with him and Othello, considering how much negative attention she garnered at the dinner.
Frowning, Taylor weighed her options before gesturing that she's aware of how she was perceived, but it didn't matter to her, that finding Othello mattered more.
"You must come from a forgiving society, then, there's feuds that go back before my bloodline existed!" Theta winced at the end as he commented how unforgiving people on Gallifrey were when they wanted to be, but Taylor refused to let them have the last word.
Theta thanked her for this as she followed his lead as they searched for Othello.
They haven't found him since they started, Taylor asked Theta if Othello went home or gone somewhere else, but Theta believed that his friend wouldn't go anywhere without telling him beforehand.
Looking around, they attempted to find him, but it's as though he vanished, but Theta wasn't deterred as he pushed on attempting to find his friend with Taylor trailing behind.