Cute Cat Videos

I suppose it's time I discuss my oldest companion and, frankly, dearest confidant, Bast.

Several people have met Bast in the past (rhyming aside), and few have ever understood who or what she is. To an extent, that works to my advantage.

When I first awoke in Bifrost, I wasn't actually alone. In fact, I didn't just spontaneously wake up. I was awoken by the feeling of the rough tongue of a domestic feline on my nose.

When I first opened my eyes, I was looking face to face with a Gallifreyan cat. She was orange tabby, incredibly friendly to me, purring and in every describable way, perfectly mundane (yes, I restrained myself from making the cliched "purr" pun).

I named this little ball of fluff "Bast" after the Goddess of an ancient Terran religion and proceeded to accept her as my friend and companion.

The life of a Time Lord is a gift. I won't lie about it. Our life-spans are nigh infinite assuming we don't take stupid risks. Most life forms in the universe would happily wage intergalactic war to achieve this. There is, however, a downside.

You see, the life-span of a Time Lord is measured in tens to hundreds of millennia. The life-spans of other creatures is... considerably shorter.

And the life-span of a Gallifreyan feline is, roughly, 15-17 years. To a Time Lord, this is the merest blink of an eye.

Bast was my only companion in my early travels. She was a companion I refused to let go of.

And, so, I began my work.

While I am known for a few things within New Gallifreyan society, my true specialty is genetics and nano-genetics. I am very adept and the manipulation of almost any genetic code as well as augmenting that code with specially designed and programmed nano-genes.

I won't pretend my work was pretty. Or even remotely "ethical" by usual standards.

I separated her cerebral and nervous systems from her body. I re coded the genes in her body to bring it to a previous evolutionary state, that of a sabre-toothed cat; extremely large and powerful. Simultaneously, I re coded her brain to a far advanced level, granting her an intellect equal to that of a Terran adult, manipulating latent genes to allow her a telepathic link to me. I recombined the parts and infused her with some specially programmed nano-genes allowing an extremely accellerated healing.

Now Bast considers me almost a father-figure. She's extremely protective of me and will, if necessary, lay down her life to keep me safe. Given her advanced healing abilities, this would take an almost Herculean effort on someone's part. I am, in fact, fairly sure it would take total atomisation to kill her.

And whoever acheived this had best HOPE they obliterated me at the same time.

I should note an unexpected side-effect of my work on Bast.

Recently, though with some difficulty, she has begun to display the ability to speak.