Late spring was becoming early summer on the southern plain of Gallifrey. The garden of the Dower House was fragrant with flowers that only grew on the temperate parts of that continent. Omega’s Rod, a tall-stemmed plant with a mass of tiny golden flowers, resembling the sceptre carried by the legendary Time Lord, gave off a heady scent that would have made the perfume-makers of Nice weep for joy. Prydonian Glory, a hardy perennial that grew in rounded cushions of scarlet flowers nestled in golden-yellow circlets of leaves were another popular plant in the de Lœngbærrow garden. There were Cerulean Broadleaves and a flower with six-foot long purple petals around an orange centre that was called Arcalia’s Plate, but there was no mistaking a preference for shades of red and gold.

Marion lay back on a garden chair and drank in the scents of the flowers and the sounds of a garden on a sunny day. The river B?rrow lapped gently past the edge of the flower garden. There were insects buzzing around the open flowers. Somewhere a songbird was in full throat.

“Heavenly,” she thought aloud.

“What was that, dear?” Aineytta de Lœngbærrow, her mother-in-law, was sitting under a red parasol at a table, carefully picking the tips from a heap of herbs. The fresh tips were valuable as a sweet herbal infusion, while the rest of the plant would make an astringent for cleansing the skin.

“Heavenly,” Marion repeated. “Sitting here under that lovely yellow sky, with the warm sun and the flowers, everything. I lived in a city when I was young. I had to go to a park for flowers, sharing them with everyone else.”

“I do like this garden,” Aineytta admitted. “Though I haven’t had a lot to do with it. The layout was th work of Mooney’s mother when they lived here in the Dower House.”

“That was the lady who came from the House of Ravenswode, wasn’t it? The start of the feud between the two families.”

“Oh, the bad feeling went back much longer than that,” Aineytta replied. “Kierinia Ravenswode’s elopement with Chrístõ Dracœfire only served to carry the bad blood over to a new generation.”

“I didn’t know they eloped,” Marion remarked. “I knew her parents didn’t quite approve, but I assumed Oldblood snobbery overcame all.”

“I don’t know for sure what the then Lord Ravenswode thought. The Lœngbærrow patriarch didn’t disapprove of Kierinia, but I suppose he didn’t want the trouble that would come of it. He said no to the union. Dracœfire disobeyed. If you wish to know the whole story you should ask Mooney. He’ll be home soon, and he will be pleased to tell you the story of his parents.”

Marion hesitated. She still found the elder Lord de Lœngbærrow a little daunting. Even when Aineytta called him by her own term of endearment, ‘Mooney’ she found it hard to see him as anything other than a very lordly man and one who was extraordinarily well-regarded in the field of astronomy which Marion didn’t know a lot about even on Earth, let alone Gallifrey which had a whole different set of planetary bodies and star systems to learn about.

“You really shouldn’t be concerned,” Aineytta told her. “Mooney adores you. He says you’re his favourite daughter-in-law. Rika is a close second, of course, but you’re the first.”

Marion laughed. She never knew she was being measured by anyone other than the snob clique of the Conservatory. It pleased her that her father-in-law felt that way about her, but it didn’t make him appear less grand in her mind.

The elder Lord arrived home at the Dower House just in time for afternoon tea. The light meal had been brought out to the garden table by the staff and his Lordship took a seat with his wife and daughter in law. He smiled at them, but Aineytta recognised that he was agitated.

“You’ve been arguing with the High Astronomer, haven’t you,” she said, pouring nerve calming herbal tea for him.

“The man is a fool,” his Lordship responded, but he drank his tea and relaxed a little. This was obviously an old issue with him and one there was no use in explaining to anyone outside of the observatory in Athenica where he frequently spent his retirement days. Aineytta distracted him with the question about his parent’s elopement.

“Marion is curious,” she added. “Gallifrey has few romances of that sort, and she is agog.”

Marion laughed at that description. She was sure she had never been agog about anything. She did admit to curiosity about the story of Dracœfire and Kierinia.

“She was a rare beauty in her youth,” Lord de Lœngbærrow said. He held out his hands across the table. Marion was delighted when he produced a three-dimensional image of a very beautiful woman with long black hair and a pale complexion with very naturally red lips. She was wearing a long red satin dress that fitted closely to her slender figure.

“Very beautiful,” Marion confirmed. “She looks like a Disney heroine.”

Neither Aineytta nor her husband understood that reference and Marion found herself unable to explain. See urged him to continue the story.

“She was one of the few women of her generation who graduated from an Academy and become a transcended Time Lord,” Mooney went on. He saw Marion’s face and anticipated her question. “Yes, it is always Time Lord, regardless of gender. It is a reminder of a stubborn misogyny in our society. We don’t want to admit there ARE female Time Lords. But Kierinia was one of them. She was a clever, accomplished one at that. But as a woman she was not expected to do anything with her skills. After graduation she was compelled to spend her time going to parties in fine gowns and attracting a husband.”

“I can’t imagine she was satisfied by that?”

“She was not, but at least the parties brought her into contact with the one young man she WAS interested in getting to know, the young, handsome and promising Chrístõ Dracœfire. He had just been commissioned to go on a ten-year expedition in the Serrano Cluster, a collection of mostly primitive cultures with no knowledge of life beyond their own worlds. He was tasked with discovering any race that might, with guidance, become a higher culture and an ally in that sector.”

“This must have been before the policy of non-interference in other worlds.”

“It was. Then we fancied ourselves as the fathers of those races we saw potential in, ready to nurture them to maturity.”

“Sounds like the British Empire in the nineteenth century, right down to the superior and patronising attitude,” Marion remarked.

“I don’t know much of you Earth history, my dear, but that is an apt description of our offworld policies in those times. How we found ourselves burned by that arrogance and forced to change our outlook is another story. Dracœfire’s description of his proposed mission fascinated Kierinia. She was entranced by the idea of travel into unknown territory. It was just the sort of thing for her with her boundless energies and keen mind trapped as it was in the dull world of husband-catching. Besides, Dracœfire himself was a huge draw. Travelling to those exotic places at his side became her ambition.”

“I suppose she didn’t share those ambitions with her parents?”

“She did not. When she broached the idea of Dracœfire as a potential husband her father immediately vetoed the idea. The age old enmity between Ravenswode and Lœngbærrow was hardly a smouldering ember at that time, but it was enough for her father to ban her from having anything to do with Dracœfire. He saw to it that she was introduced to just about every other eligible man in our social class, but she rejected them all. Of course, she was seeing Dracœfire in secret. Their love deepened. They vowed they would be together. A few days before Dracœfire was due to leave on his mission, in a brand new deep exploration TARDIS, she went from her home. She left a message saying that she would not be married against her will and was entering a closed order of Contemplation. She very deliberately didn’t indicate which one, and her father would need an order from the Lord High President to force any of the closed orders to reveal that she was in their company. That bought them time. Dracœfire set off on his mission with Kierinia hidden in the Zero Room. It is the one part of a TARDIS that cannot be scanned at the Transduction Barrier. After that, they were free. They were married at the first space port they came to. It wasn’t the full Alliance of Unity in the Panopticon before the Lord High President that they were both fully entitled to, but it was valid by intergalactic law and could not be undone.”

“What did they do, then?” Marion asked.

“They travelled through the Serrano Cluster making a covert study of more than a hundred primitive races. They fought dragons….”

“REALLY, dragons?”

“So I am given to understand. They were real, huge, leathery scaled flying monsters that terrorised whole villages. That’s what my father told me, and I will call out any man who says he’s a liar.”

He said that with a twinkle in his eye and Aineytta laughed softly.

“You’ve never called out a man in hour life, Mooney. Even some who deserved it.”

“I am the son of Chrístõ Dracœfire the dragon-slayer,” he answered. “Nobody ever dared give me cause.”

Marion laughed, now. She knew that her father-in-law was a born academic who would rather give a three-hour lecture on the properties of pulsar stars than fight a dragon. How different he was to his legendary father. How different again was his own son, Kristoph, who had his grandfather’s spirit of adventure.

“But what happened when they returned to Gallifrey?” Marion asked, returning to the story of Dracœfire and Kierinia. “Was there a lot of trouble?”

“Trouble doesn’t begin to describe it. Kierinia’s father was incandescent. He had Dracœfire arrested and threatened to have his daughter forcibly confined in one of the same Contemplative Orders she had deceived him with. Unfortunately for him, the Lord High President ruled that no crime had been committed. Kierinia went with Dracœfire of her own free will. She married him in the same free spirit. The union could not be dissolved even by the highest authority on Gallifrey. Dracœfire was reprimanded for the minor offence of not fully declaring the crew complement of his TARDIS when he left Gallifrey. Lord Ravenswode had to accept that they were married. He didn’t have to do it with good grace, though. He virtually disowned her. He refused to have anything to do with the Lœngbærrow family. The old enmity was aflame again. But remember that Dracœfire’s father was an even greater legend, Chrístõ Mal Loup, the military hero. No Ravenswode had the nerve to openly cross him. It was mostly noise and bluster. Meanwhile Dracœfire and Kierinia went on to have even more adventures in time and space before they were ready to settle down as Lord and Lady de Lœngbærrow and raise a family to continue the noble line.”

Marion felt as if she ought to applaud. It was a wonderful story of love against the odds. It was also the first of the generations of de Lœngbærrow men who married for love, and against expectations. Chrístõ de Lún had married Aineytta, a woman outside his class. Their son, Chrístõ Mian, her own Kristoph, had found love with her outside of his world entirely. What outstanding men they all were.

“We’re lucky to be the women those men have chosen to love,” Aineytta said to her. “You and I, and Kierinia Ravenswode.”

“Oh, I agree,” Marion answered. “I absolutely agre

Late spring was becoming early summer on the southern plain of Gallifrey. The garden of the Dower House was fragrant with flowers that only grew on the temperate parts of that continent. Omega’s Rod, a tall-stemmed plant with a mass of tiny golden flowers, resembling the sceptre carried by the legendary Time Lord, gave off a heady scent that would have made the perfume-makers of Nice weep for joy. Prydonian Glory, a hardy perennial that grew in rounded cushions of scarlet flowers nestled in golden-yellow circlets of leaves were another popular plant in the de Lœngbærrow garden. There were Cerulean Broadleaves and a flower with six-foot long purple petals around an orange centre that was called Arcalia’s Plate, but there was no mistaking a preference for shades of red and gold.

Marion lay back on a garden chair and drank in the scents of the flowers and the sounds of a garden on a sunny day. The river B?rrow lapped gently past the edge of the flower garden. There were insects buzzing around the open flowers. Somewhere a songbird was in full throat.

“Heavenly,” she thought aloud.

“What was that, dear?” Aineytta de Lœngbærrow, her mother-in-law, was sitting under a red parasol at a table, carefully picking the tips from a heap of herbs. The fresh tips were valuable as a sweet herbal infusion, while the rest of the plant would make an astringent for cleansing the skin.

“Heavenly,” Marion repeated. “Sitting here under that lovely yellow sky, with the warm sun and the flowers, everything. I lived in a city when I was young. I had to go to a park for flowers, sharing them with everyone else.”

“I do like this garden,” Aineytta admitted. “Though I haven’t had a lot to do with it. The layout was th work of Mooney’s mother when they lived here in the Dower House.”

“That was the lady who came from the House of Ravenswode, wasn’t it? The start of the feud between the two families.”

“Oh, the bad feeling went back much longer than that,” Aineytta replied. “Kierinia Ravenswode’s elopement with Chrístõ Dracœfire only served to carry the bad blood over to a new generation.”

“I didn’t know they eloped,” Marion remarked. “I knew her parents didn’t quite approve, but I assumed Oldblood snobbery overcame all.”

“I don’t know for sure what the then Lord Ravenswode thought. The Lœngbærrow patriarch didn’t disapprove of Kierinia, but I suppose he didn’t want the trouble that would come of it. He said no to the union. Dracœfire disobeyed. If you wish to know the whole story you should ask Mooney. He’ll be home soon, and he will be pleased to tell you the story of his parents.”

Marion hesitated. She still found the elder Lord de Lœngbærrow a little daunting. Even when Aineytta called him by her own term of endearment, ‘Mooney’ she found it hard to see him as anything other than a very lordly man and one who was extraordinarily well-regarded in the field of astronomy which Marion didn’t know a lot about even on Earth, let alone Gallifrey which had a whole different set of planetary bodies and star systems to learn about.

“You really shouldn’t be concerned,” Aineytta told her. “Mooney adores you. He says you’re his favourite daughter-in-law. Rika is a close second, of course, but you’re the first.”

Marion laughed. She never knew she was being measured by anyone other than the snob clique of the Conservatory. It pleased her that her father-in-law felt that way about her, but it didn’t make him appear less grand in her mind.

The elder Lord arrived home at the Dower House just in time for afternoon tea. The light meal had been brought out to the garden table by the staff and his Lordship took a seat with his wife and daughter in law. He smiled at them, but Aineytta recognised that he was agitated.

“You’ve been arguing with the High Astronomer, haven’t you,” she said, pouring nerve calming herbal tea for him.

“The man is a fool,” his Lordship responded, but he drank his tea and relaxed a little. This was obviously an old issue with him and one there was no use in explaining to anyone outside of the observatory in Athenica where he frequently spent his retirement days. Aineytta distracted him with the question about his parent’s elopement.

“Marion is curious,” she added. “Gallifrey has few romances of that sort, and she is agog.”

Marion laughed at that description. She was sure she had never been agog about anything. She did admit to curiosity about the story of Dracœfire and Kierinia.

“She was a rare beauty in her youth,” Lord de Lœngbærrow said. He held out his hands across the table. Marion was delighted when he produced a three-dimensional image of a very beautiful woman with long black hair and a pale complexion with very naturally red lips. She was wearing a long red satin dress that fitted closely to her slender figure.

“Very beautiful,” Marion confirmed. “She looks like a Disney heroine.”

Neither Aineytta nor her husband understood that reference and Marion found herself unable to explain. See urged him to continue the story.

“She was one of the few women of her generation who graduated from an Academy and become a transcended Time Lord,” Mooney went on. He saw Marion’s face and anticipated her question. “Yes, it is always Time Lord, regardless of gender. It is a reminder of a stubborn misogyny in our society. We don’t want to admit there ARE female Time Lords. But Kierinia was one of them. She was a clever, accomplished one at that. But as a woman she was not expected to do anything with her skills. After graduation she was compelled to spend her time going to parties in fine gowns and attracting a husband.”

“I can’t imagine she was satisfied by that?”

“She was not, but at least the parties brought her into contact with the one young man she WAS interested in getting to know, the young, handsome and promising Chrístõ Dracœfire. He had just been commissioned to go on a ten-year expedition in the Serrano Cluster, a collection of mostly primitive cultures with no knowledge of life beyond their own worlds. He was tasked with discovering any race that might, with guidance, become a higher culture and an ally in that sector.”

“This must have been before the policy of non-interference in other worlds.”

“It was. Then we fancied ourselves as the fathers of those races we saw potential in, ready to nurture them to maturity.”

“Sounds like the British Empire in the nineteenth century, right down to the superior and patronising attitude,” Marion remarked.

“I don’t know much of you Earth history, my dear, but that is an apt description of our offworld policies in those times. How we found ourselves burned by that arrogance and forced to change our outlook is another story. Dracœfire’s description of his proposed mission fascinated Kierinia. She was entranced by the idea of travel into unknown territory. It was just the sort of thing for her with her boundless energies and keen mind trapped as it was in the dull world of husband-catching. Besides, Dracœfire himself was a huge draw. Travelling to those exotic places at his side became her ambition.”

“I suppose she didn’t share those ambitions with her parents?”

“She did not. When she broached the idea of Dracœfire as a potential husband her father immediately vetoed the idea. The age old enmity between Ravenswode and Lœngbærrow was hardly a smouldering ember at that time, but it was enough for her father to ban her from having anything to do with Dracœfire. He saw to it that she was introduced to just about every other eligible man in our social class, but she rejected them all. Of course, she was seeing Dracœfire in secret. Their love deepened. They vowed they would be together. A few days before Dracœfire was due to leave on his mission, in a brand new deep exploration TARDIS, she went from her home. She left a message saying that she would not be married against her will and was entering a closed order of Contemplation. She very deliberately didn’t indicate which one, and her father would need an order from the Lord High President to force any of the closed orders to reveal that she was in their company. That bought them time. Dracœfire set off on his mission with Kierinia hidden in the Zero Room. It is the one part of a TARDIS that cannot be scanned at the Transduction Barrier. After that, they were free. They were married at the first space port they came to. It wasn’t the full Alliance of Unity in the Panopticon before the Lord High President that they were both fully entitled to, but it was valid by intergalactic law and could not be undone.”

“What did they do, then?” Marion asked.

“They travelled through the Serrano Cluster making a covert study of more than a hundred primitive races. They fought dragons….”

“REALLY, dragons?”

“So I am given to understand. They were real, huge, leathery scaled flying monsters that terrorised whole villages. That’s what my father told me, and I will call out any man who says he’s a liar.”

He said that with a twinkle in his eye and Aineytta laughed softly.

“You’ve never called out a man in hour life, Mooney. Even some who deserved it.”

“I am the son of Chrístõ Dracœfire the dragon-slayer,” he answered. “Nobody ever dared give me cause.”

Marion laughed, now. She knew that her father-in-law was a born academic who would rather give a three-hour lecture on the properties of pulsar stars than fight a dragon. How different he was to his legendary father. How different again was his own son, Kristoph, who had his grandfather’s spirit of adventure.

“But what happened when they returned to Gallifrey?” Marion asked, returning to the story of Dracœfire and Kierinia. “Was there a lot of trouble?”

“Trouble doesn’t begin to describe it. Kierinia’s father was incandescent. He had Dracœfire arrested and threatened to have his daughter forcibly confined in one of the same Contemplative Orders she had deceived him with. Unfortunately for him, the Lord High President ruled that no crime had been committed. Kierinia went with Dracœfire of her own free will. She married him in the same free spirit. The union could not be dissolved even by the highest authority on Gallifrey. Dracœfire was reprimanded for the minor offence of not fully declaring the crew complement of his TARDIS when he left Gallifrey. Lord Ravenswode had to accept that they were married. He didn’t have to do it with good grace, though. He virtually disowned her. He refused to have anything to do with the Lœngbærrow family. The old enmity was aflame again. But remember that Dracœfire’s father was an even greater legend, Chrístõ Mal Loup, the military hero. No Ravenswode had the nerve to openly cross him. It was mostly noise and bluster. Meanwhile Dracœfire and Kierinia went on to have even more adventures in time and space before they were ready to settle down as Lord and Lady de Lœngbærrow and raise a family to continue the noble line.”

Marion felt as if she ought to applaud. It was a wonderful story of love against the odds. It was also the first of the generations of de Lœngbærrow men who married for love, and against expectations. Chrístõ de Lún had married Aineytta, a woman outside his class. Their son, Chrístõ Mian, her own Kristoph, had found love with her outside of his world entirely. What outstanding men they all were.

“We’re lucky to be the women those men have chosen to love,” Aineytta said to her. “You and I, and Kierinia Ravenswode.”

“Oh, I agree,” Marion answered. “I absolutely agree."