Five years ago, Vastra awoke after an almost eternal sleep to the sounds she didn't understand, things she didn't recognise and blood she could tell was her sisters' all over her body. Who had slaughtered them in their sleep? What Silurian would have the courage, let alone the insanity, to kill two hibernating? How had they infected her mind and made here worry about this? She would kill them, whoever they were, and make their death painful and long!
She couldn't see her sisters' lifeless bdies even with her night vision. If she was going to avenge them, he needed to have an advantage over her enemy, and that meant knowing her surrounding. He didn't know how long thye had been aleep, but almost certainly long enough to mean the immediate environment would have changed. The Silurian warrior extracted herself from her shattered hibernation pod and stracthed her limbs. Whoever the attacker had been, they hadn't harmed her, perhaps as they presumed the blood soaking into her cloths had been her own. That is to say, she didn't feel harmed, she had the procedre for 'unexpected hostile awakening' drummed into her since she was just a hatchling, so she made a thorough inspection with her tongue. A she had thought, nothing. Good. That would make it that much easier when she met her enemy,
Chapter Twelve
In the three hours since Jenny had left, Madame Vastra had not moved from her position hunched over the fire. Occaisionally, her tongue flicked out briefly to swat the flies that had somehow escaped the cobwebs, attracted by whatever Jenny had bought and left on the dust covered table.
Reluctant to get up and lose the flames warmth to see what it was, Vastra breathed out all the air she had in her lungs and sucked in air from all over the room into her nore; a trick used by warriors o sniff out who thery up against. She ignored all the now-familiar smells of the pine-wood panelling, smoke from the fire and Jenny's human smell, and found another edible scent. Not human (too sweet, and something Jenny obviously wouldn't buy), but definitely mamalian (too much meat for a bird, and not chewy enough for a reptile – Silurians can small the taste of their prey) o it must be one of things these the apes hunted – although to call it that was exaggerating. She had seen the stupid beasts going to the slaughter without a thought of fear. They were... bovine. Interesting. She ometimes wondered what the humans prefered to eat. Silurian unters had once brought the bovine creatures into the cities but they had proved wasteful to eat, as certain part were either unappitising or didn't agree with their reptilian digestive systems.
Finally, curioity compelled Vastra to move from her feotal position and crept silently to the bag containing the meat. When the saw inside the holdel, she thought at first she couldn't trust her sense of smell. What was it? It seemed to be just a hunk of tissue. She vaguely recognised it as the most tasteful part of the bovine, but they had eaten much more that this and it was still considered an enormous waste. I was right. The apes are all idiots.