Today the Citadel stirred with the kind of tension that hums beneath the skin – an uneasy chorus of raised pods, anxious glances, and the soft mechanical breathing of the great machines that cradle our world. What began as a simple briefing unfurled into something stranger, older, and far more intimate than anyone had quite expected. The Lord President convened the Council with a single purpose: to pry meaning from the six ancient symbols carved into our floor by a rogue, unbonded TARDIS – a ship that refuses to speak in any tongue our machines can decipher. Lady Mayfair stood first to share a week’s worth of research pulled from the darkest, dustiest corners of Gallifreyan history. Symbols from the Old Times. Earliest circular Gallifreyan. Too old for our translation circuits, too stubborn for our modern tools, too deliberate to be dismissed. And then came Kisa’s report. Quiet but steady, she spoke of her hunt—of tracking bio-data through the plaza, the repair bay, and into the skies. Her ship had scanned the planet. Her instincts whispered that the guards were not far, and not free. Every trail, every fluctuation, every null result pointed back toward the same conclusion: the missing guards were connected to the mysterious TARDIS. Perhaps even inside it, though no proof yet allowed us to breathe that truth aloud. The Lord President listened with a grave stillness that said he had feared as much.
The chamber grew quieter with each revelation. If six symbols mark a place—and another six a moment—then the message is a set of coordinates. A locked address, written in a dialect older than the Schism itself. It was a sober thought, and even the children felt the weight of it. The notion that something from the Old Times—something with knowledge of chaos, magic, and the Great Old Ones—was reaching out or sending a warning. Discussions spilled into speculation about the missing guards, about whether they’d been taken into the capsule, transducted through its walls… or worse. A Prydonian woman offered a chilling but hopeful theory: that the ship, lost and confused without its pilot, might have been trying to communicate clumsily – its attempt at speech mistaken for an attack on Lady Chronotis. The idea lingered in the air like dust in sunlight- possible, fragile, frightening.
It was then that the meeting moved to the repair bay, where the rogue TARDIS waited like a wounded animal holding its breath. A pulse of cold air. Lights flickering in patterns not their own. And then – between the black and gold machines – a figure. Half-formed, glitching, golden, fracturing through positions like a candle flame blown in too many directions. A guard. Or an echo of a guard. A memory imprinted through time itself. When the figure vanished, a new sigil burned onto the floor. A seventh. Theories erupted like sparks: shifting coordinates influenced by our decisions… a chase through time… a containment failing… the ghost of someone running, terrified, not alone. Everyone reached for answers in their own disciplines, but the sigil remained stubborn and silent. Roxy felt it too—an emotional tug toward the apparition, a pull she could resist only because her daughter’s hand anchored her. Rain, brave and trembling, was the first to step closer to the glowing mark, and her questions hung heavier than any of ours. Was the guard still alive? Were they alone? Was the one who sent the symbols already on Gallifrey? And – perhaps most unsettling – was the ship simply trying to speak?
When the idea arose that someone might touch the capsule again to encourage communication, Roxy asked the question out loud – but the Lord President answered, his voice firm. No one was to touch the TARIDS or the symbols. Because we all remember what happened last time.
As the Council started to disperse, Kisa stepped closer to her ship – intent on running one final diagnostic, one last attempt to coax truth from the shadows. Witnesses report only a flicker of lights, a sudden lurch of artron levels, and the unmistakable groan of a TARDIS cycling through impossible states.
Then the doors sealed themselves.
A vortex shimmered across their surface.
And in a single breath of displaced air – Kisa was gone.
Pulled inside her own TARDIS.
No scream. No warning. No trace.
Only the echo of a ship that should not have awakened,
and the uneasy certainty that another piece of the mystery
has slipped beyond our reach… for now.