Vastra returned home, returned to the Throat, because she wasn’t entirely sure what else to do. Could she live in the Marsh with Kaos, or with Kisamoa? Either name was fine with her, she had adored the bone monster that he had created and her idle mind kept replaying the grace with which the monster moved. Still she wondered if she had been able to take just a small bite of one of those bones, would she have turned into such a powerful creature as well?

And everyone else had attacked it.

Almost everyone, anyway. Some had ran and Vastra remembered seeing a pillar of fire that seemed to be joining sides with Kisamoa. Who had that been?

These thoughts stuck with her as she settled into the shade by the Dragon’s Blood tree, ready to test her magic. The magic Kisamoa had given her.

Before her, on the hard-packed sand, lay three objects. One of Gaucho’s feathers, some scavenged fur from one of the manticores, and the shed skin of a snake. None of which were particularly appetizing objects but that was hardly the point of this experiment. So far, she had shifted into another animal twice - once with the help of golden seal meat and the other after choking down the feather from a turkey. Her wings still bore dark brown markings mimicking the intricate stripes of a turkey’s wing, a reminder of that last shift, while the spots from the seal form she had taken had faded away.

What did that mean?

Her brown eyes were intent on the objects before her, the yearling girl focusing only on her experiment and not really minding whether anyone else was watching. It would be good to have someone there, she mused, as a witness but she didn’t exactly have any friends she could approach and ask - and her family’s presence was as changing as the weather.

She decided to start with the snake skin, not eager to feel the prickle of fur or feather in her throat, and tore a bite-sized piece of it off - quickly swallowing it while making a face. In a flash, Vastra caught fire - the flames consuming her entire body. The pain she felt did not come from the flames - she was not burning - but her entire body was reforming into something new and that hurt.

When the fires died down, instead of a year old filly there was a western shovel-nosed snake in her place. Instead of the natural colouring of the snakes that were found in the Throat, this particular Vastra-snake had her ginger and sand colouring, matching her natural coat colour, and blinked with brown eyes.

"Interesting." Came Vastra-the-snake's only comment as she curved her head to take a look at the scaly body that now extended from it.

And this certainly was interesting.