One of the enjoyable things about Tephra was its lack of winter. Vastra would never complain about the cold, she’s lived through bone-chilling winters before, but it’s pleasant not having to worry about any of that. There is no shortage of food here, no real hardships.

And she finds that she’s spending more and more time within the jungle. Occasionally trading her favoured mountain lion shape for something that suits this place more - jaguars and brightly coloured parrots. It’s one of those, a vivid bright macaw, that she coasts through the jungle as today. She is bored, a mood that rarely settles on her and which feeds frustration and a short temper when it does. She is flying because walking felt too slow as she searches. Either for her children, for they are always up to something, or for Svedka and the particular ways he has of distracting her.

She finds him first, illuminated by the late afternoon sunlight like he had been when they had reunited.

Vastra, for all her attempts at being playful, is not creative enough to imagine landing upon Svedka’s back as a bird, or using her shifting in any other way than to fight.

So she shifts as she coasts to the ground, approaching as a mare though there is a glint in her eye reminiscent of the lion shape they once shared. She is bold with her approach and greets him with a low nicker as her muzzle brushes against his skin.