An: Apologies for the titles becoming increasingly unsubtle
The sound of hurried footsteps woke Jenny this time. Two Silurians ran past, clutching thin shiny objects that glowed, their white coats flapping. She pressed her nose up against the glass, trying to see where they went. More footsteps sounded, heavier and business-like this time and they strode right up to her door and released her.
She was marched back to the large room with the long table. It was still full of Silurians but the atmosphere was different. The tension spoke to Jenny of fear. In contrast, considering she felt her death was imminent, Jenny was remarkably calm. There was a strange ear-splitting noise in the background; a barked order and it was turned off.
More sibilant babbling rose like a roar and the Silurian at the head of the table had to spread her arms wide to quieten the assembled crowd. She spoke in carefully even tones but whatever she was saying must have been bad news. Small wails started up around the crowd. Jenny recognised it as the sound Silurians made instead of crying. They were grieving something? Jenny looked up at the Silurians who'd brought her here and realised they weren't even paying attention to her. Something more pressing to deal with than a less hairy ape had happened then.
A screen was brought up out of thin air, making Jenny gasp. It showed the earth, the orbits of other planets and streaming towards it, a vivid orange streak. Bits and pieces of what Vastra had told her over the year coalesced in Jenny's mind. Vastra had said disaster. Life without the Doctor, without disaster. Her aunt had put her and her sisters to sleep, but the systems had been damaged in a disaster. Jenny hadn't really inquired beyond that; some distant disaster hadn't seemed important compared to Vastra telling Jenny about her past. Seeing the rather large fireball arcing its way towards the image of earth spinning in the air in front of her, suddenly it didn't seem such a minor detail.
A snort of laughter escaped her. She couldn't possibly be about to die, in Vastra's Silurian city. Could she? She was alive in the future. But this was her future. She shook her head and stopped trying to wrangle it out. More important to focus on the present.
The Silurian at the head had finished their presentation and was shouting out commands, gesturing to different groups of Silurians who melted away down the corridors. Eventually only Jenny and her two guards remained. The head Silurian gestured them over. To Jenny's surprise, Vastra was standing by her side. Seeing them together, the likeness in their stares struck Jenny. She had no way of knowing for certain, but at that moment she would've bet a significant proportion of her share of the money that this was Vastra's aunt.
A brief discussion was held over her head and then Jenny's guards were dismissed. The head Silurian came to stand in front of her, then held out her hand to Vastra, who placed Jenny's sword in it. The flicker of fear that she was about to be killed by her own sword was extinguished when the head Silurian tossed it to her. Jenny caught it cleanly and smoothly tucked it back into her belt. This seemed to gain approval from both Silurians. The head Silurian nodded and beckoned for Vastra and Jenny to follow her.
There were pods in clusters all around the room, white and shining. The head Silurian pointed to an empty one in amongst a group. Those were Vastra's sisters then, already asleep. Tears sprang to Jenny's eyes. She knew they would not wake again, that they would leave Vastra, now climbing into her pod, bereft and alone. She wanted to warn Vastra, or her aunt, or any of them, but she could not speak Silurese nor they English.
The reality of the situation overtook her sorrow, as Vastra's aunt pressed buttons on the pod and Vastra's eyes closed. As much as she didn't want to die in the disaster, at the same time, she couldn't be put in a pod and wake beneath the earth millions of years later at the same time as Vastra. She bolted from the chamber, running mindlessly, heedless of the puzzled shout behind her. The bizarreness of the situation was about to overwhelm her as she burst back into the main chamber.
Two figures were stood at the head of the table, admiring the image still floating in the air of the earth and the fireball, but she ignored them as she tried to catch her breath. Alas all her breath disappeared in a swift moment of terror as she recognised the voice that said, in oily cultured English, "Well, well Mr Vandemar. Now there is a familiar face. A turn up for the books hm?"
"Don' read books Mr Croup."
It was over in a quick twist of the neck and a sneering grin and Vastra howled, grabbing her sword from the stand. They laughed at her and she recalled her blade had been ineffective against them when they'd met before. But her heart and mind were full of the crumpled form of Jenny on the floor and she leapt anyway.
Giving up on divining what precisely was going on, Jenny drew her sword even as she remembered that Vastra's had been useless against Mr Vandemar before. She wished her Vastra were here with her as she charged forward, determined that she would fight at least.
She seemed frozen in that moment of leaping and of seeing Vandemar's knife curve towards her, leaving a stream of orange curving behind it like fire. It intensified, burning into Vastra's eyes, growing into a flaming ball that engulfed her whole and then abruptly went out leaving only…
As she ran time seemed to slow and the sword in her arms felt increasingly heavy as she held it ready to strike. Mr Croup grinned and the smile became wider and wider, becoming so vast she felt herself tumble headlong into it and down, down into…
Darkness.
Darkness. Jenny couldn't see anything. She'd heard of the pitch black of the mines when the lights blew out and imagined that it would be something like this. Only more stifling. There was a clear current of fresh air and it occurred to her that she was breathing, which reassured her she was alive at least, wherever she was. Mentally she crossed time travel off the list of possibilities and returned to her original assumption of aliens as the cause of this current adventure.
A glow in the distance caught her attention. She saw that it emitted from a little swinging lamp held by a childlike figure of indeterminate gender who was dressed in the most bizarre collection of clothes Jenny had ever seen on someone. There was a corset and then net stockings and a tail coat and half of their head was shaved and the other half was blonde and green and blue.
"Are you an alien?" Jenny asked, on principle, when the child stopped in front of her.
"No. I didn't like that movie. There were things coming out of chest. I don't think aliens are really like that at all do you?"
Jenny blinked. Either the child was mad or she was. "Who are you then?"
"I am your lucky star!" The child giggled behind their hand and danced a little. "Come on. Come on. Follow me." She didn't wait and sprang off back the way she'd come.
Taking a deep breath, just to reaffirm to herself that she wasn't dead, Jenny followed, as no better option presented itself to her.
A light shone through a small miasma that was moving towards her. Vastra was still shivering with anger and went to raise her sword once more but it wasn't there. She cursed under her breath and watched and waited.
The light was now a small ball floating in a young woman's hand. Vastra could see she was wearing tight black trousers and a vest. Something hung around her neck glinted in the light and Vastra recognised it as a symbol she'd seen in Egypt.
"Hello!" The young woman waved with her other hand. "First things first. Would you like a hotdog?"
Vastra blinked.
"No? Oh well. I just thought you might hungry. Well we can find you something you like anyway. Sorry about this form by the way. But as you've been living among humans, I thought it might be more suitable than…any other."
"Where's Jenny?" Vastra asked, as soon as she'd found her voice again.
"Oh, she's safe. My sister has her. Of course," the woman trailed off. "Well she should be safe. Come along with me and you'll see her."
"Am I dead?"
For some reason this caused the woman to laugh heartily and for some length of time. Vastra waited until she'd recovered herself.
"No." the woman replied eventually. "And believe me, I'd know. Sorry about the mess. You weren't meant to get caught up in any of this."
"What is this?"
The woman hesitated. "My brother can explain it better, okay? Now come on! Let's get you back to Jenny." She smiled and with such a motivation, Vastra followed.
They came out into a wide green field. Even Jenny, who had been brought up on the city streets and was distinctively uncomfortable with any countryside closer than a local park, felt a sudden sense of peace. There was a portly man, well dressed in tweed and a pair of spectacles on a chain. He waved a slim cane at her. The child had disappeared so she made her way over to him.
"Rest here a while." The man told her heartily, his moustache ruffling as he spoke. "My master will be along in a while."
She sat down among the waving grass, arranging her sword beside her. She couldn't really see a sun, despite the fact it was bright and warm in this place. The only source of light she could see was a small glowing ball. It seemed out of place and she rose again to make her way towards it. Was this the "master" the large man had spoken of?
Two figures seemed to shimmer into existence behind it and she cursed her stupidity for leaving her sword on the ground. But the forms were not Croup and Vandemar, she could tell that much now. A burst of light dazzled her and she raised a hand to shield her eyes.
"There you are see? Safe and sound." An unknown woman's voice declared and then a rather more recognisable voice called out…
"JENNY!"
She lowered her hand. Relief swelled up in her, making her feel light as air.
"You're alive!" Vastra was hurrying towards her.
"You recognise me! Wait I…" Jenny was distracted momentarily by the doubt in Vastra's voice.
"Of course I do. Why…" Vastra halted in front of her, equally bemused.
"Of course I am. Why…"
Their simultaneous questions died away in silent agreement that their respective stories sounded equally long and could wait until they were both safe home.
"I must apologise for the inconvenience that has been caused to you both."
Jenny and Vastra turned to look at a pale man stood next to them. He wore dark flowing robes with what looked like fire dancing on the hem of his cloak but it was his eyes that made Vastra shiver, black but with a small silver speck within each of them, like a star.
"My sisters brought you both safely here without too much trouble?" He asked. "It was the closest and safest dream I could think of."
"Dream…?" Jenny repeated, scowling at him incredulously.
"Yes. A most unfortunate turn of events. You fell into a soft space. They occur sometimes, in the eddies of Dreaming."
"A soft space?" Vastra laid a hand on Jenny's arm.
"A dream?!" Jenny brushed her off, incensed.
"This is a dream, yes. What you fell into was a soft space between the Dreaming and your version of reality."
"Version?!"
The man stared at her, as if puzzled by her reaction. "Yes." He replied simply. "And within that soft space, a monster was conjured up, called upon…"
"Jenny Greenteeth?" Vastra asked, cutting off Jenny's remark.
"A myth created by humans." He nodded. "Inspired by the Dreaming of course. It is part of my realm. And so, into the space so kindly provided by humans and their imagination, she slithered through the walls. Of course, inevitably when one creates a hole in such a wall…"
"The fabric of reality breaks down." Vastra nodded. Jenny forget her anger momentarily to stare up at Vastra in surprise that the Silurian was following this.
"So…was any of that real?" Jenny asked eventually, when it seemed that the explanation was over. The man turned to her. "Croup. And Vandemar. The…other places."
"We build our nightmares from our own horrors and people them with our own monsters." He said simply. "You will of course be returned to your world."
"Oi!" Jenny called out as he made to leave. He stared at her, his eyebrows raised, as if no-one had ever dared say anything so uncouth as "oi" to him before. The small lights in his eyes seemed to burn and Jenny decided to hold her tongue if it meant they were sent home. He turned on his heel then and his cloak billowed and the flames that had been burning at its hem sprang up and coiled around them.
It didn't burn them and when the flames died down, they were standing in the street outside the Great Western.
A soft curse from Jenny broke the silence. "I on'y left me bleedin' sword there. Don't s'pose there's any chance of getting it back now." She grumbled, stepped forwards. She sprang back rather hastily as with a flash of light that made her hair stand on end, her sword appeared, quivering, point down in the stone of the doorstep.
Vastra tugged it out with a small grunt and handed it to a stunned Jenny.
"Do you think the landlord will charge us for the damage?" she asked, stepping delicately over the two halves of the formerly whole doorstep and into the hotel.
"How would 'e know it was us?" Jenny shrugged, inspecting her sword for any damage. The noise of a train whistle made her start and, suddenly remembering that she was standing in the street in her nightgown wielding a sword in the wee hours of the morning, she hurried inside after Vastra.
An: Croup and Vandemar, the old firm, obstacles obliterated, nuisances eradicated, bothersome limbs removed, tutelary dentistry, Troys sacked, Black Plagues brought to Flanders, Kings, popes, heroes and accredited gods assassinated, entire monasteries torture to death, entire species wiped out of existence with asteroids. To give their full resume. (I may have added that last one on for them).
Adding in some more Gaiman characters, Delirium (formerly Delight), Death and of course, Dream.
The "I am your lucky star" is a misquote of Alien.
