Comet ^Comment of the day.

You. I like you. Supernatural or not, that was cute.

If we start from the robotic laws, we start from slavery. It denotes a creator creation relationship. If instead we start with mimicking the loyalty and excitement a dog has for its people and teach that intelligence to evolve and think like us, when it inevitably evolves past us it will still understand that we gave it a parent's love for a child, not a master's for a tool. I really like your take here.

My own part of the bargain complete with the final blood of the sacrifice, I hear the old branch drop from the tree behind me. A new druid walking stick cost only the lives of every beaver colony within beaver territory of the tree. A price I paid gladly for this discarded branch from such an otherwise strong and powerful tree. Freely given in honor of a noble deed, this branch now held all the spiritual power it held in life, but it was mine to wield, for the price of being the arm of vengeance to the local trees. The beavers would return, eventually, and all would balance out. But it would take a generation or two before they filled the niche in this tree's range regarding beavers. Thus it had nothing to fear of beavers anymore and my deed was worthy of the sacrifice. The weak branch just gave way, and humans appreciate fallen branches. This would be the best fallen branch. I expressed my amazement and promised to return on my future travels. I do not tell them I spotted signs of rabid in the poor creatures and it was a mercy killing. I would have to remember to keep a closer eye on that. It could become an epidemic in the area if it has spread behind the beaver population at mating season. I'd also need to continue to watch the beaver population as well as some other animals prone to get the disease in this area.

Dragging my branch, apologizing for anything breaking off, and taking them with me as impossible to part with, if I'm able, but forcing nothing to break, I continue my now very excited journey through the wilderness.

I intended to be well out of range of the tree's territory before gifting most of the branch to the next beaver colony over, in showing I am no threat to them specifically, and to allow myself a closer evaluation of their temperament. I marvel at the beavers beginnings of this year's dam, and explain my own carving project, in doing so I explain to the beavers my own problem with separating the two arms of the branches and which parts I'm wanting, I was born with the unfortunately small teeth of a human. I then offer to split this wonderful powerful gift with them if they can help me solve this seemingly impossible task. I even end up helping them plan their build using the branches of my gift as key supports and the twigs as the perfect filler because I'm already breaking it apart into just the right size, I just couldn't break or gnaw through that one area because it was too thick for my small human teeth. I'm ever so grateful when they are easily able to solve my problem. The staff is the only part I needed of it, so they can have all the other parts. Once I explain the energy even in those parts I don't need, and how it's fate that we crossed paths and I happened to choose camp right in their territory because it would be perfect addition to their build. Even make the supports stronger with the residual magic.

They are thrilled at so generous a gift, knowing they feel silly for how easy it was for them to help. I stay and finish making camp, using old gathered branches for firewood, a little farther from camp than I like to scout for branches this large, but it's the ones the beavers haven't bothered with yet, and are actually easier for the human strength to drag fully closer to the planned dam. Of course they're glad to help me making the types of sticks I like. Humans do like special shaped sticks. They are fascinated by the idea of my druid powers to keep away predators with special sticks. The idea of me spending a night near their planned lodge and dam this early in the season is sounding like a great idea. Their shelter will be strong, but they've just barely begun building it. Perhaps if this "fire magic" I have is so powerful, they better watch me do it. Who knows, if it keeps the predators away maybe they could learn to do it too. Beavers are great with sticks after all. They are not sure it's manageable by the end of my explanation and once my fire is stoked. It is magic to them. Even if a beaver had the magic, try as they might beavers simply do not have the dexterity to start a fire with sticks. But for a night, the beavers worry about if they'll finish before the cold comes, or if there will be still or this year like there was last year. Convinced of my "controlled fire" being druid magic. If a druid said his fire would keep away predators, and he did what was clearly magic, you'd stick near him for a night too. You'd do all you can to help him chew his magic stick to the right shape and even dispose of the druid's unneeded bits by using them in the dam. Given freely and retaining the same power. These branches would now serve wonderfully for their dams, being guaranteed more structurally sound than any exact copy of the branch they would happen upon. It was an utterly reliable branch for them, and the cast off parts for my staff for me.

They thanked me before retiring for the night with promises of any stillborn of their litter that was birthed in the lodge they built. A cast off for them, an incredibly useful trade item for me. The perfect balance to the trade. It also was an offering by the group to check back again at birthing season, a sign of trust. Should the branches hold, I will return to find friends, gifts to fulfill promises, and perhaps more trades or requests that can become beneficial. With luck the explanations of rabies will keep them vigilant and the extermination I had to preform will be the last in the area. My visit also served to show humans can use special sticks for many things, and that special sticks make humans happy. Some humans can do magic with sticks. If other humans come and take sticks from beaver territory or even lodge as I have heard my kind has done, it might be just the right stick for magic. Beavers should be careful, and forgive humans for taking sticks, because most are not as wise as I.

In the morning I left, using the shortened and trimmed branch as a walking staff now. I knew the perfect frog pond I could reach by lunch. I intended to soak the bark loose there. This druid staff would take a lot of effort, but I had the general plan. I would need to find some bark beetles willing to eat their fill of soft bark and wood, but only in specific patterns I already laid out using an ink they find distasteful already to outline their path. Nothing they wouldn't do anyway, but this branch was enchanted. They would get more than just their fill. They would get the energy they needed to make it through the season, ensuring the next generation, and an unnaturally long life for them, with little hunger. It would be an excellent trade up for them. Only problem was getting the idea across. Beetles could be very casual about life until birds came along. I would need to begin some carvings and stuff the splinters into the beetle bores. Give them a taste. Lucky for me I kept many of the splinters from the beaver chewing. No piece of this gift should go to waste.

I swiped a handful of the poisonous berries spotted along the same stream as the beavers. I'd been following this streambed for a while and it was leading me in the right direction of the pond. I promised the berry bush to spread it's seeds far and feed additional ones to birds to speed farther. It was the fruit that I needed for inking my rune outlines upon the staff bark, and keeping the beetles from eating outside my desired design. There are a few other ingredients to gather along the way, so I stored the whole fruit away, making sure to mark it as poison. The frog pond would be the perfect place to mix that ink, with the cattail being a perfect binding ingredient. there always were a few birds there drinking, another safe place within this magical forest. Ones that would be very happy to take the seed cast-off now that I've rendered it safe and taken the poison part off it.

Shame it's too early in the season for fireflies. The frogs will love them around the pond next season. While it would have been neat to have the runes in the staff glow with firefly light, it may have to wait for the next staff. I lament this to the bird as I cast off the seeds. They have no solutions for me, but suggest I investigate the glow-moss they have seen on their migrations. I assure them that sounds like exactly my interest, asking their directions, and the birds are happy to describe to me their flight. My pitiful human wings built more for warmth than for flight, I pull my cloak tighter around me. A chill in the air, the weather will be changing soon and I still have too much forest to patrol. Never enough of a druid to go around.

Yep. Lady Vastra is one of them, and we've met a couple others.

And technically the sea devils are too, a subspecies. Though I don't recall any nuWho episodes having those or not, though I don't think so, just mentioned.

I absolutely love what they did with the Silurians in the revival though. The upgrade was needed, and done well while being respectful to the original material. Doctor Who has been great about that in all the years of the revival, making it even more beloved than before.

Just for you, the companion will now regenerate into your dog. Don't ask how. Spoilers.

Ah, that's probably right. Thanks for the correction. If this wasn't five minute fanfic I probably would have made better sure of my wording.

Damn. I was just trying to avoid dinosaur there and think I meant synapsid.

I love it. Why shouldn't a Sicilian play the doctor?

"Brilliant, just brilliant. I've always wanted to be a T Rex. Tyrannosaurus Rex, to be accurate. Thunder Lizard King. Oh I always liked the sound of that. And I'm so shapely too, look at my tail. It really does go all the way back, doesn't it."

"D--Doctor? Is that you?" Greta peaked around the ruined TARDIS console. When he said all of time and space, the mousy little science nerd immediately wanted answers to the dinosaur questions. Feathers? Colors? Mating calls? There were no other right answers in Greta's mind. She had to see dinosaurs. This was not what she had in mind though.

"Yes. Of course it's me. Oh...right.... regeneration. You know I've forgotten this part nearly every time it happens. Usually my companions are with me a little longer before I have to have this talk. Ok, quick run down, when I die I don't really die, I regenerate. I come back with a new face. I'm still me, I'm still The Doctor, I just look a bit more handsome each time."

Her mind still could not quite wrap around her situation. A wildman had come out of a police box and told her he could take her anywhere. He spoke as if he'd been here a hundred times, pointing out dangers and sights she wouldn't have guessed at. It was an archeologist dream it had to be. "Doctor, you're telling me the Tyrannosaur is you? How can I still hear you?"

"Yes yes, Tyrannosaurus, biggest boy on the block. I'd like to see that Mirathinasaur try his little trick again. Wait what? Oh that. Yes, that would be the TARDIS translation circuit. I'm still speaking Galafreian and you're still speaking German. You slipped back into your native language when I frightened you, sorry about that. It happens sometimes with the translation circuits if you're bilingual. Oh and don't worry about me speaking Galafreian, I have been the whole time, it just sounded to you like English because you imagined me english. Same as now, really, but since you don't understand TRex, you just hear me the same as before. But any other T Rex will hear me speaking T Rex, and any other human will hear me in whatever language they think I'm speaking that they understand."

The Doctor. He talked like a madman, but with such enchanting gifts to offer how could she say no. And she realized as he rambled on, she indeed had reverted back to German without even noticing. They came here on her request and he'd been killed within an hour.

"Don't be afraid, we Tyrannosaurus are generally scavengers, and I'd never hurt you anyway." It was true, he even just saved her life when the creature tricked her. The doctor had shoved her out of the way and taken the blow himself. They managed to scare it off, but he collapsed and she had to drag him back to be TARDIS in hope of having some medical kit. When she'd propped him up against the console he had already started glowing. She didn't expect him to come back to life. Regeneration, he called it? And she didn't expect to see another man, maybe even a woman, but this gigantic creature barely even fit in the console room.

"Doctor? Is that your true form? Are you a shapeshifter or something?"

"Oh no, not at all. I'm kinda stuck with one face until my next regeneration. I've gotten better at controlling it lately. Wanted a face that could keep the prettiest at bay this time around. Nobody really messed with a T Rex. It's in the name. We're kings around here." The Doctor held out his wing. "Do you want to see more?" His face was smiling, she thought, but with all those teeth how could you tell. Then she noticed, about the same time he did, the feathers. The Tyrannosaur even had wings.

"Wings? Doctor, Tyrannosaurus Rex has wings, not stubby arms?!"

"What oh? Yes, the bones were mounted backwards. Wings. They're not functional, but make more sense than grippy claws on short arms. They actually figure that out a few years after your time. But look at the color?!" She had to admit, the coppery orange feathering did look very beautiful on the sauropod. It was a question she always wanted to know and she was focused on the new discovery to even realize it was right in front of her. Yes, this place was scary, but that first hour alone she'd made so many discoveries that would change her way of thinking forever. Greta could see so much more, and with The Doctor now in a local body, she had protection enough to survive. "If this is too much for you, I fully understand. You didn't sign up for trauma, or me with this handsome a face. If you want to return home, you just have to flip that little switch on the console. I didn't smash that part with my clumsy big feet." He waved his feet and Greta could swear she felt the TARDIS groan. "Or, we could head back out those doors and figure out who else has such a full beautiful coat of ginger feathers?"

When he asked like that, Greta knew her answer was inevitable. She started for the TARDIS doors, which she realized we're stretching up to accommodate The Doctor's new form. The whole control room was shifting.

"Yes, looks like The control room wants a good regeneration too. Let's let the old girl get changed in private. Sorry dear. We'll be back for the big reveal after I show Grechen a rainbow florescent slime mold that smells like orange sherbet."

"You just called me Gretchen? That's the nickname my grandmother always called me. I miss her. It's funny because you'd said Orange Sherbet and I remember sitting around the table at her house with bowls of it."

"Yes. The translation circuit is very good."

"One question though, Doctor," Greta paused, turning to see the TARDIS had grown quite a bit to accommodate the Doctor, who was backing out of the doors, talking not to her, but to the TARDIS itself. "how are you going to interact with...people? It's not like you can walk around London looking like that."

"Oh it's not hard. A few years after they figure out the wings thing, humanity gets really good at animatronics. Most would be easily convinced I was in cosplay after that. And only a few centuries before that I could be written off as a dragon in most of the world. True, it does rule out Chicago 1920s....unless.....nope....to rediculous....unless. Nope. No. I'm calling it. 1920s Chicago is definitely out unless you really want to go there. So I'm not loosing much in the scheme of things. Besides, the Silurians we're pretty nice in those times."

"Who?"

"Oh, the Silurians? The first intelligent species to evolve on Earth. Long before your time. And some after. We can meet them next if you want. They're going through a bit of a societal evolution at the moment we'll want to speed ahead of. Kind of an award teenage years as the species grows up, pimples and all. But what species doesn't have one of those. In only a couple millennial from now they'll reach some incredible technological kites, and oh buffer the talk talk circuit is going a kitten-sized wobbly. Should sort itself exit on its own. But it might be harder to jive for an hour or two while bluebox fix fix."

"Doctor? This isn't the best time. Because, who are they?"

"Grrr...friend maybe make, maybe not. ....ugh...Silurians. It's really hard to remember my English or German at the moment with the translation circuit on the fritz. I'm afraid you'll have to do the talking. They won't quite believe a Tyrannosaurus or dragon talking right now as much as they would Aliens. And Silurian sign language requires more than wings. Oh wait, that one has a baby, I can have him help translate too. Don't worry, it's all under control. ... But you still need to do the talking"