SFFS 20/2/2016 Sorrel Swordless - part 3

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this group - you can find the information here.

This is part 3 of a complete short story (in snippets) set in Sorrel's world. For those who have already read the Sorrel novels (and if you haven't, you should - they're good books!) this is set after the end of Sorrel in Silver - but you don't need to have read the novels for it to make sense, and it doesn't contain too many spoilers for the main trilogy. Part 2 is here, in case you missed it last week. A giant horror has crept up on our hapless heroine, and she suspects it is going to eat her...

I had a sneaking suspicion I was about to find out what it felt like to be a giant ruzdrool's dinner. I suppose in a sense it's fair – I've eaten ruzdrool meat before. They're just about edible, assuming they don't eat you first.

Except that so far it hadn't gone for me. Ruzdrools are virtually brainless. Nothing but hunger, savagery and more hunger. I'm assuming they have fond feelings for ruzdrools of the opposite sex, but otherwise they aren't friendly towards anyone. This creature was different – in a weird way, it almost seemed to like me. I couldn't think of another reason why it hadn't already tried to drive one or more of its spikes into my heart. There was no way it could believe I was a potential mate – so why wasn't it attacking? We had been facing each other for at least a century. All right, perhaps thirty seconds, but my initial description felt more believable. Why hadn't it lunged?

Not that I was complaining, you understand.

 As always, comments welcomed!