The Other Definition {REVISED}

Chapter Six: A Song's Escapades

Now that everyone had changed out of their wedding attire, the entire atmosphere felt more casual and calm. Energy still buzzed around the room, delight from the wedding far from running out.

The Doctor stared at the vortex manipulator that was sitting on the table as if it were nothing more than another everday object rather than a time traveling machine brimming with immense power. He took into his hands and looked it over, trying to find some sort of clue from it. What exactly he was looking for was beyond him, but he supposed he might find something of use.

But as he tossed it around between his palms he found that there was nothing extraordinary about this particular vortex manipulator. It was visually exactly the same as the two devices he had come in contact with in the past. A spectator from the twenty first century would likely pass it off as being a strange and exceptionally fancy watch with how much leather it was sporting.

The material was cracked and weathered, showing that this vortex manipulator had been through a lot. That was the only bit of information the Doctor was able to glean from the device, and it was something he easily could had guessed off the top of his head without even giving so much as a glance to the condition of it. 

"Doctor, what is that, exactly?" Clara asked. She had noticed his curiosity and had found that she was now intrigued as well. 

"It's a vortex manipulator," the Doctor responded. He turned it around in his hands once more, hoping that something of importance would jump out at him. Once again, this was far from the case. "It wants to imitate a TARDIS by traveling through the time vortex, but it's very inferior. Painful, even."

"Oh, Daddy, shush about the vortex manipulator," Brook sighed, pulling herself into the conversation. "It's not really that bad, Clara. Yes, the TARDIS is better, but he's making it sound far worse than it is."

"I'm still not exactly sure how I'm supposed to be using it," Foreman mumbled, both embarrassed of his shortcoming and fearful of what his wife's reaction to his disagreeement would be. "At least a TARDIS makes sense."

"Don't listen to them, Clara. They're Time Lords. Biased, prejudiced Time Lords," Brook laughed. "This is coming from the Child of the TARDIS squared, too."

"Hey!" the Doctor said, getting offended. But no matter how he tried to formulate a way to retaliate, he came up dry. With a sigh, he just decided to move on.

"How did you get this vortex manipulator, anyways?" the Doctor asked. "They seem to be fairly difficult to get your hands on."

"Oh, the story of how I got this vortex manipulator..." Brook began, her voice trailing off at the end of the sentence. She let out a happy sigh, her eyes raising as she found herself drifting back into the memories from this experience.

"I've never heard this story, so I'm just as fascinated," Foreman said, crossing his arms and stepping forwards.

Brook realized that there was no getting around this. There were three sets of fascinated eyes focused on her, and she had to oblige to their demands from a story

The night of her seventeenth birthday stuck in her head like it was glued down. Her mother had shown up for the first time in a long while. That had seemed like a good enough birthday present to Brook. But then she found that she not only had she gotten spent a night having an adventure with her mother, she got the gift of time travel.

The first physical gift that she had recieved was a book. Of course, it wasn't anything particularly unique for her to recieve a book. River Song gave her a new book every time she visited. But on her birthday, Brook recieved a apparently special book. It told a tale of her grandparents and her father, and it was penned by River herself.