Chapter Text
001. Beginnings
1884
Vastra could not take another minute in her little room. Not that she minded the lack of space or solitude, no. In fact she would have preferred that. But the ape that the Doctor had charged with “taking care of”—An ape spy, no doubt, she thinks, cursing the Doctor that saved her life—was always coming in, disturbing her thoughts and forcing her to eat. Enough of that! A walk, she had decided, was what she needed.
Now that she was out walking, Vastra is regretting that decision. The ape city is loud, even in the late evening hours. It reeks of the vermin, their waste, their disease. Worse yet… Vastra is not entirely certain how she got to where she finds herself now. Ridiculous. Vastra and her sisters have a magnificent sense of direction. All of these right corners and cobble stones and cold haze cannot undo that.
She’s beginning to curse herself. It was a foolish idea to go out into the streets of this stinking ape city, and it was a foolish idea to step into the Doctor’s ship. Vastra should have stayed with her sisters and died honorably. Why cling to life when this life is so unbearable? Why continue her intolerably long life, forced to live in the company of wild animals?
Fear.
Vastra stops, her scales humming. The scent is fresh and unmistakable. Keep walking, she tells herself, but she cannot. Something about the scent is wrong.
She pivots at the sound of a high-pitched scream. It’s short, but the scent is confirmed: The fear of an ape-offspring, one of the little ones. Curiosity, not concern, carries her into the night.
The scent is simple enough to follow, despite the stink of the gutters. One by one, three new scents surround the little one’s, all of which are decidedly ape and decidedly unafraid. Before long, she sees them.
How very little it is, thrashing against the adult apes holding her mouth and arms and neck. Are they disciplining it? In their uncivilized ape manner. No one from the apartments on either side of the way is looking out to see what is causing such an obnoxious commotion.
“Oi! Who’s that there?”
Their harsh movement ceases. All eyes turn in Vastra’s direction, yet not one ape actually looks at her. Well then, she ponders, that is interesting. When she was young, before the great sleep, she had enjoyed hunting apes with her friends. Back then, they could see in the dark. Perhaps their brains had grown over millions of years, but they seemed to have lost the ability to see in the dark. They certainly couldn’t smell her.
“I said, who’s there?” the ape is shouting now. The little ape still yanks for freedom, but the others will not move. They do not wish to be seen, Vastra thinks. They are doing something unacceptable to their species, yet it is something others have come to see as unpreventable.
“Smith, go check it out.”
“There’s nothing there, mate,” another ape responds. Oh how you do wish.
“I saw something! I know I did. Now go look or I’ll cut your tongue.”
“I’m going, I’m going! Don’t got to be nasty.” The ape called Smith lets go of the small ape’s left arm, which immediately rebells against the other two adults. The one called Mate hits its shoulder.
Vastra watches ape-Smith approach her slowly in the dark. She waits, enjoying the scent of its growing fear. At the last possible moment, she lays her strong hand across his mouth, pulls its skull towards her, and snaps her tongue into his neck, tasting his blood as she delivers a fatal dose of venom. She drops him, dead before he hits the street.
“Smith?”
“It is dead, Ape.” Vastra steps over the corpse and into the light. At first she hopes to hear screams, as they should be afraid of her. Then she realizes that their seeing is so poor, they cannot see under the hood of her cloak. What hopeless creatures, how did they ever learn to make a building at all?
“Who the Hell are you?” Ape-Mate shouts.
Vastra sees no reason to answer a pitiful ape’s inquiries. She steps closer.
“Oi, you, take care of her!”
The third ape makes a sound, but it isn’t English. It isn’t any language, ape or otherwise, as far as Vastra can tell. As this one let’s go of the little one, freeing its mouth for all sorts of howling, the one called You slowly approaches. Clever Ape-Mate, sending its soldiers in first. Disgraceful, but clever.
The speechless ape stops, thinking it is out of her reach. How foolish. She grabs his face by the jaw, and it screams. She pauses, however. Within its mouth, there is no tongue. Rather, there is the stump of a tongue, but the part the apes use for tasting and speaking is missing. She holds it on its knees, clearly terrified and in pain.
Vastra looks up at Mate. Without a moment’s hesitation, she whips her tongue out and dispenses her venom into its neck. It lets go of the little one and slumps against the wall behind it. She looks down at the ape in her clutch. It stares up at her, eyes round as the Moon, fear spilling out of every pore. “You… Run!” It obeys. Vastra watches it, amused, when she realizes the little ape is still just standing there.
“Why are you still here, little ape?”
“Ma’am, I- I- I thank you, ma’am. I ain’t nothing but a match girl, nobody ought to care about me.”
“Thank me…?” Vastra looks it over. Its hide is darker than most of the apes she has encountered thus far, which is surprising. Vastra did not know they could come in multiple colors.
“You saved me, ma’am. Thank you,” the ape says again.
“Foolish hatchling, don’t you know I could easily do to you what I just did to those males?”
A look of fear and quick calculation crosses the ape’s face, deciding whether to run. “Will you?”
Vastra takes a step closer to the creature in its torn dress and odd hat. “I would consider it.”
“No,” the little ape squeaks. “No, ma’am. You wouldn’t save me just to kill me?”
Vastra is taken aback. “Do you have a name, ape?”
“ ‘Course I do, ma’am.”
“Well what is it?”
“Harriet, ma’am. Harriet Tubman Jones.”
“Well Harriet Tubman Jones, I suggest you learn not to trust a stranger, no matter how benevolent they appear.”
A look of marvel crosses the ape’s face; Vastra thinks perhaps she has walked close enough now that it’s brown eyes can see her properly.
“Ma’am, your face—!”
“Yes, little vermin, run.”
Harriet Tubman Jones does just that, jumping over its fallen captors. But it shouts back over its shoulder, “Thank you, Green Lady!”
Thank you. Vastra did not know apes were capable of gratitude. Fear, rage, lust, certainly. Gratitude seems like one of those emotions left to civilized, sentient creatures. An idea is beginning to form in Vastra’s mind, watching the little scamp run away, and a tiny little sense of purpose bubbles in her chest.