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Kotori slammed the TARDIS door shut, gasping for breath. Her lungs were burning after that last spurt, and she let out a surprised shriek when what sounded distinctly like a rain of bullets pattered against the other side against the door and shook the entire TARDIS.
“Don’t worry!” she heard the Priestess yell. “Nothing can get through a TARDIS door!” The shaking continued for a few more terrifying seconds, until the relieving sound of the TARDIS dematerializing reached Kotori’s ears. Finally, now that they’d escaped to the safety of the time vortex, she managed to relax, letting out a deep sigh of relief before scurrying over to the console, where the Priestess was pressing buttons and pulling levers seemingly at random. Unlike Kotori, she showed no sign of exhaustion, but her blue coat was dirty and her dress pants had been torn on the knees.
“What was that all about?” Kotori asked, trying to keep the hysteria out of her voice. “Are all aliens this aggressive?”
“All aliens? Whatever gave you that idea? Humans are more aggressive than most species, you know.” The Priestess gave her a sharp, almost accusing look. “Generally, the people of the Gamma Forests are peaceful. They shouldn’t have attacked us like that…” A thoughtful, worried expression appeared on her face.
“I just meant that every alien I’ve encountered has been trying to kill me!” Kotori said, shuddering when she remembered the Autons.
“Not true! I haven’t tried to kill you”, the Priestess said, making a point to look away from Kotori to fiddle with some buttons on the TARDIS console. Was she offended? Kotori really hadn’t meant to offend her. In fact, it was just so easy to forget that the Priestess was an alien as well, when she seemed so human.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that”, she said quickly.
“I know, I know”, the Priestess mumbled, still not looking at her. “It’s odd… It was only after I mentioned to one of them that I was a Time Lord that they started acting hostile…”
“Time Lord? Is that what you are? Like, your title?” Kotori asked curiously.
“Species, actually”, the Priestess said, instantly seeming cheered up by the idea of explaining something to Kotori. She looked up from the TARDIS console, grinning eagerly. “Well, some people would say I’m a Time Lady, but that’s just being picky.”
“So, you’re different from humans in some ways, then?” Kotori wondered how. It certainly wasn’t noticeable on the outside.
“Yeah, want a biology lesson?” The Priestess winked at her. “First, a demonstration.” She stepped forward, grabbed Kotori’s hands and placed them both on top of her chest. At first, Kotori couldn’t understand what in the world she was doing, and was about to question her, but then she felt something. The Priestess’s heartbeat, beneath both of her hands, a steady rhythm. Something about it was off…
“Do you…” She met the Priestess’s eyes nervously. “…have two hearts?”
“You got it!” the Priestess said proudly. Kotori awkwardly removed her hands. “That’s probably the clearest difference. Oh, that, and the regeneration thing. Basically, if I die I’ll come back as a different person, in a new body. You never know what body you’ll get or how much your personality will change, so it’s pretty unpleasant.” She stuck out her tongue and grimaced. “Let’s hope you never have to be present to witness that.”
Kotori stared at the Priestess, letting those words sink in. That sounded unbelievable, incredible and horrifying all at the same time.
“Wait, how does that even work?”
“If I’m going to explain Time Lord biology to you in such detail, I’d have to go through decades’ worth of education”, the Priestess said and let out a laugh. “And I’ve forgotten most of it at this point anyway…”
“Wait a sec…” Kotori stared at her. “How old are you? How old can your people get?”
“It’s kind of hard to remember how old you are when you’re constantly bouncing back and forth in time…” the Priestess replied dryly. “Three hundred, maybe? That’s young, by the way, for Time Lords. My current body shows my age pretty accurately. I’ve looked older before, in other bodies.”
“Huh”, was the only thing that left Kotori’s mouth. She still found the whole thing almost unbelievable, and wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or impressed. Of course, the Priestess had already told her before that she wasn’t the twenty-year-old human she appeared to be, but every time she told Kotori more about what kind of being she actually was, she still kept surprising Kotori.
“Hey, where do you want to go next?” the Priestess suddenly asked.
“Um, I don’t know”, Kotori said thoughtfully. She always hated picking destinations. “We’ve been to a few other planets now… maybe we could go to Earth, and go back in time? I’d love to see Ancient China, or something.”
“Ooh, that sounds great!”, the Priestess said eagerly, casually turning back to the TARDIS console and fiddling with some buttons. “I haven’t been further back on Earth than your time period for quite a while. I avoided it completely in my last body, actually. For some reason, humans historically don’t seem to like male-aligned individuals going by the title Priestess.”
“You were a guy in your last body?” Kotori asked curiously.
“Time Lords don’t really do the whole gender thing”, the Priestess said. “But yeah, my last body was what humans would refer to as male. I used to wear really cute dresses in that body too… I don’t really do that very much anymore. Maybe I should start doing that again.” She turned to look at Kotori, giving her a contemplative look. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, you’d look great!” Kotori said cheerfully. Honestly, the Priestess would probably look great in anything. The Priestess began to smile, seeming genuinely encouraged by her words.
“I’m sure I still have some of those dresses in the TARDIS wardrobe! Come on, you should try some of them too! Let’s go!” She ran off, disappearing through one of the doors leading deeper into the TARDIS, and Kotori quickly hurried along, curious about the dresses but more curious about the Priestess herself.