A) A Beautiful(?) Day in My Neighbourhood

[ You think you’re amazed by the sights of prehistory? Leslie has never been in a forest in her life. She’s fascinated by everything.

Following a small set of footprints in the mud, or just happening to wander in the right direction, will lead to the sight of a child rushing about with wild abandon, looking at everything and anything with great curiosity. At a glance, she appears to be around 9 or 10 despite her hair already being white, and she also definitely doesn’t look like she belongs here. The bare feet (now caked in mud) might not look out of place, but the ruffly nightgown and the plush rabbit toy stuffed under an arm definitely aren’t prehistoric.

Some of the things she might be found doing are probably harmless, like when she tries to jump up to grab at a low-hanging giant leaf (she is still at least two feet short at the top of her jump to grab it) or when she tries to turn over a log from a fallen tree over to see underneath (a similar lack of success given her arms are thin enough that they look like they’d snap if she fell over wrong.

Others might be less so. Biology was not a part of her education growing up, so she’s unaware that bright colours in the jungle generally mean poisonous, or in the case of the curling vines, venomous. All she knows is that the flowers are pretty and she wants to know what they smell like.

In either case, she would welcome company. In the latter case, she really needs it. ]

B. Buzz Off!!

[ If visual discovery isn’t your thing, we have one here for our auditory learners when a shriek pierces the background noise of the jungle. Right now, Leslie has a bit of an insect problem.

You see, about the hand-sized mosquitoes? Leslie’s hands are quite a bit smaller than usual, being only a little over four feet tall, but that doesn’t make the mosquitoes any smaller. She currently has one riding on her back, taking up not a small amount of real estate, while Leslie flails ineffectually, trying to reach her passenger and having much less success than she’d like, even when using her black bunny plush as a bludgeoning weapon. ]

How did — what is — ow! Don’t bite me!

[ She is very rarely managing to finish her thoughts as she is freaking out over this frankly enormous bug. Please help. ]

A. Astronomy Lied to Me?!

[ After calming down the villagers, Leslie has taken a seat on a flat rock (after dusting it off the best she can), placing her stuffed rabbit on her be-nightgowned lap. She doesn't really need to rest, because this is a dream, but it felt like she'd been walking for so long that she feels like she ought to take a moment's rest. Swinging her legs a little, she looks up at the night sky. It always makes her feel -- hmm? There's something strange going on here.

Getting up, she seeks out the first person she can find who doesn't back away automatically from her, which is to say you. Holding her plush toy in her arms, she tries to get into your line of sight. ]

Hello. Do you -- ?

[ She comes up short. Huh. Your clothes are a lot more like she's used to seeing than from the villagers. This is especially true if you're wearing clothes from Aefenglom, as their Victorian aesthetic isn't that far removed from her own canon's kind of Georgian period aesthetic, but really, just having regular tailoring is enough to make it familiar. After a moment, she shakes her head -- it's a dream -- and resumes her question. ]

Do you see what looks like a second moon, too? What is that?

B. Children Are Children Everywhere

[ Despite the wariness of the general village atmosphere, even here, there are the joyful shouts of children. As Terry Pratchett might say, it's a lovely sound as long as you are too far away to hear what they were actually saying.

On the outskirts of the village, a group of children have set up a very low-tech shooting gallery, which is to say they have a flat rock that they put other rocks on to try to knock off by throwing even smaller rocks. When all you have is a hammer....

One of those children definitely isn't a part of the village, wearing a ruffly nightgown, but it seems she's been roped into the game. When it comes to her turns to throw, the village children are generally using noises or simple words to express more or less "wow, you suck at this." Leslie is not a good aim.

Eventually, though, someone notices that their children are not being as cautious about this outsider than they should be, and they are rounded up, leaving Leslie standing there looking a little confused and disappointed. She dejectedly tosses a few more rocks (they all miss their intended target) before a couple of the villagers come back to shoo her off completely. Look, we're ostracizing you. Don't hog the playground.

Obediently, Leslie scurries farther off before slowing down, looking first frustrated, then determined, as she goes from merely walking away to looking around on the ground for something.

Looking up to see you, she asks: ]

Have you seen some kind of flat rock, maybe raised a little off the ground, somewhere around? Outside of the village?

[ She's not going to just let herself be bad at this game when she has an opportunity to practice. ]

[ This is Leslie's grumpy face. She doesn't like being treated like a child, and it's not especially helping that they're doing it to everyone.

The thing that is most concerning to her, though, is the way that the humans here are dressed. The history books she's read are official histories, which means that if there was slavery in the early days of the empire, they certainly never wrote it somewhere Leslie has been able to find it. But even so, something about a collar just feels...bad.

After not finding any success asking the humans working here (and the fae becoming, if anything, even more patronizing when she tries), she instead sidles up to someone who also doesn't look like they belong here. Maybe not quite as much as Leslie, who is dressed for bed with no shoes, but certainly not anyone from here. ]

Are...are the... [ She traces about halfway around her own neck to indicate the collars. ] Is it normal for servants to be dressed like that?