Story time

“...For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it's not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It's not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers? It's no more serious and more important than the numbers that fat red gentleman is adding up? Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he'd done - that isn't important? If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that's enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself 'My flower's up there somewhere...' But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it's as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn't important?” - The Little Prince

Introducing me and my companions....

"Kilbey, don't put wiggle eyes on the Dalek, please. Be nice." I knew I was going to regret it the minute he bought that bag of wiggle eyes. 

"If they provided clearer vision I would not be opposed to them," the Eternal said. 

"Maybe LaMarr and I can come up with something." I never imagined I'd be trying to help a Dalek see better, but there you have it. 

Then again, there aren't many who can genuinely claim a Dalek as a friend. 

~*~

My name is the Lady Madrigal Baker, but pretty much everyone calls me Maddy. I'm a Time Lord. For years I believed I was one of the last of the wonb-born Gallifreyians, but now I'm not sure. My old friend Joshua believed my father to be the mysterious Other of Gallifreyian legend. He believed the Other had stolen a TARDIS and escaped from Gallifrey before Rassilon could have him executed - after all, without the Other, he could rule Gallifrey unimpeded. I've never thought much of Rassilon, to be honest. However, I've come to find out I, along with my sisters, was loomed, and the man who Joshua believed to be my father was in fact my mother, who had regenerated into a male. Yeah, it's complicated.

I miss Joshua. He could have made some sense of all of this. I wish I knew what happened to him. He had settled down on another planet and married, but his wife was murdered (NOT by him!) and he left soon afterwards. The Doctor and I have been looking for him ever since.  

~*~

Kilbey is from Zarvos, the same planet Joshua's wife Chaini was from. He's a zeomorph (not to be confused with a xenomorph!) They're shapeshifters. He can imitate anything from as big as an Indian elephant to as small as a housecat. I think their default form is a gray blob, but most of them find something they like and just adopt that. Although I admit a Venusian sand snail was an odd choice. After all, they've been extinct for millennia.  

The Eternal Dalek and I met on Cassinus - yes, that horrid place. The Mogul (yes, he still runs the show there, that horrid Oompah Loompah) had captured him and sent him to exterminate the "illegal alien" whose crippled TARDIS had just crashed on his miserable little planet. I convinced the Eternal not to kill me and he - it? - ended up escaping with us. I suspect the Eternal is in fact so genetically pure that he - I keep saying he - has evolved all the way back to what the Dals were before Darvos taught them to hate. But that's just my theory. I don't think the Eternal understands it, either. But for whatever reason, he's on my side. 

Which brings me to LaMarr Keisler. She's from Cassinus as well.. As you probably know, women on Cassinus aren't actually "women" under the law  they're more like property and/or breeding stock. LaMarr was conscripted to be the Mogul's latest trophy wife. She was poisoned at their wedding celebration, but Kilbey and the Eternal rescued her and got her back to my TARDIS. They ended up using the Chameleon Arch to save her  - a little drastic, but hey, whatever works - so she's now Gallifreyian. She's also one heck of an inventor, a self-taught scientist and a master codebreaker. And if she hadn't told me how to frequency-hop around the Mogul's Time Lock device, we would never have gotten off Cassinus, 

And this is my TARDIS, in case you were wondering. Mine is a Type 60 Mark VIII. The Chameleon Circuit works quite well, but, like zeomorphs, every TARDIS has its preferred default form - and this is Vangie's.

Yes, she is a "she." And she has a name - Evengeline. Vangie for short.