[prompting_muses] February 2008 - "A coward dies a thousand times..."
February 2008 - A coward dies a thousand times before his death. The valiant tastes of death but once.
Okay. Me, I can die thirteen times. So by that math I'm only... what? 1.3% a coward?
I think I can live with that. Believe me, it's a lot better than what a lot of people I've run into over the years might say about me. There's plenty in the universe who think I'm a coward a lot more often than once out of a hundred. But then, they don't like me much to begin with, so that's not exactly a trustworthy source, now is it?
For those of you not in the know as far as what the heck I'm talking about, here's your Time Lord primer. Well, at least as the whole regeneration thing goes. I could give you the whole textbook, but frankly, I don't have the time.
Ha. Get it? Never mind.
At times of extreme duress, such as, you know, dying of some radiation poisoning or what have you, I am able to tap into an enormous reservoir of energy and use it to break down my physical being and reconstruct it into a completely new body. No matter how grievous the injury or how terrible the stress, once I have completed my regeneration (and after, a bit of a lie down, too), I end up good as new on the other end.
Very new, in fact. Each time I regenerate, I take on a different appearance. The face and form change, but underneath it all is still The Doctor. So one day, you might run into me, and... I'll have huge bushy brown hair and be wearing a whopping long knitted scarf, maybe. Next day, I'll have kind of scruffy blonde hair and a tan suit, looking like I've lost my way between the club and the cricket pitch. I'll know you, but you won't know me until we've been re-introduced.
I retain all my memories from my previous incarnations and take the wisdom and experience of all those lives into my new one. When you spend as much time as I do traipsing around time and space, you get to appreciate the lessons you can only learn by living. The interesting thing is that all those experiences? They have a tendency to affect me a great deal. You see, every time I've regenerated, even though I'm the same entity, I've ended up with different personalities.
Oh, yes, there are constants. I'm always brilliant and insightful and courageous and all that, as you're sure to expect of me. And I'm very often quite a good looking fellow, when I'm not on the odder side, but even then, it's usually a cute sort of odd. But one me could be very serious and dry, very much the scientist and researcher parts of me come to the fore, and the next could be a near absolute loony, eating jelly babies all the time or wearing produce as a fashion accessory. I could be aloof and distant and very, very alien (because... I am an alien, remember?) or I could be romantic and sentimental.
A lot of that's the Companions, really. I really do learn so much from them-- I don't think very many people realise that. Their perspectives, their own interpretations of our adventures... without them, I wouldn't remember how to see the world and the universe the way normal people see it. And I'd never have anyone to tell all about the things I've found, either.
Pssh, I've even had their accents rub off on me.
Anyway, I've done the regeneration thing nine times so far, which makes me the tenth me along the line. So, just a few more and the death thing's gonna stick. And like the Pan said:
To die would be an awfully big adventure.
(624)
Okay. Me, I can die thirteen times. So by that math I'm only... what? 1.3% a coward?
I think I can live with that. Believe me, it's a lot better than what a lot of people I've run into over the years might say about me. There's plenty in the universe who think I'm a coward a lot more often than once out of a hundred. But then, they don't like me much to begin with, so that's not exactly a trustworthy source, now is it?
For those of you not in the know as far as what the heck I'm talking about, here's your Time Lord primer. Well, at least as the whole regeneration thing goes. I could give you the whole textbook, but frankly, I don't have the time.
Ha. Get it? Never mind.
At times of extreme duress, such as, you know, dying of some radiation poisoning or what have you, I am able to tap into an enormous reservoir of energy and use it to break down my physical being and reconstruct it into a completely new body. No matter how grievous the injury or how terrible the stress, once I have completed my regeneration (and after, a bit of a lie down, too), I end up good as new on the other end.
Very new, in fact. Each time I regenerate, I take on a different appearance. The face and form change, but underneath it all is still The Doctor. So one day, you might run into me, and... I'll have huge bushy brown hair and be wearing a whopping long knitted scarf, maybe. Next day, I'll have kind of scruffy blonde hair and a tan suit, looking like I've lost my way between the club and the cricket pitch. I'll know you, but you won't know me until we've been re-introduced.
I retain all my memories from my previous incarnations and take the wisdom and experience of all those lives into my new one. When you spend as much time as I do traipsing around time and space, you get to appreciate the lessons you can only learn by living. The interesting thing is that all those experiences? They have a tendency to affect me a great deal. You see, every time I've regenerated, even though I'm the same entity, I've ended up with different personalities.
Oh, yes, there are constants. I'm always brilliant and insightful and courageous and all that, as you're sure to expect of me. And I'm very often quite a good looking fellow, when I'm not on the odder side, but even then, it's usually a cute sort of odd. But one me could be very serious and dry, very much the scientist and researcher parts of me come to the fore, and the next could be a near absolute loony, eating jelly babies all the time or wearing produce as a fashion accessory. I could be aloof and distant and very, very alien (because... I am an alien, remember?) or I could be romantic and sentimental.
A lot of that's the Companions, really. I really do learn so much from them-- I don't think very many people realise that. Their perspectives, their own interpretations of our adventures... without them, I wouldn't remember how to see the world and the universe the way normal people see it. And I'd never have anyone to tell all about the things I've found, either.
Pssh, I've even had their accents rub off on me.
Anyway, I've done the regeneration thing nine times so far, which makes me the tenth me along the line. So, just a few more and the death thing's gonna stick. And like the Pan said:
To die would be an awfully big adventure.
(624)