When she came back to herself, Jump-touch found herself sitting under a tree in a well-cultivated garden. There was a dog's head resting in her lap, and the dappled afternoon sunlight was warm against her shoulders.

Opposite her was an open set of glass double doors, and she spent a moment staring at them unblinking, such wealth barely touching her in her current state of mind. She only found herself staring as her eyes started to itch.

Above her there was the noise of fighting birds, and an aching glance revealed a hanging treat, high up in the branches.

Fat and seeds for the treat. Sparrows for the birds. Diving at each other in the air, play-fighting and taking turns at the food.

She sat a while, petting the dog and watching them squabble amicably.

There weren't many birds on the Mountain, but down in the Valley they flourished, and she had sometimes sat and watched them for hours. It was rarely this warm, though, and the heat of the sun and the warmth of the dog were lulling her into a drowsy state.

From inside the house, she could hear the faint sound of voices, My-he-kal, and somebody else.

"What's your name?" she asked quietly, and the dog huffed onto her knee.

She'd met dogs before, they weren't uncommon. The Lower Village either traded from the humans for them, or had found some starving in the woods and taken them in out of pity.

There were none up on the mountain though. Her village was much less… Human, for lack of a better word, than the Lower Village, and dogs freaked some of the kobolds out a little. They looked so much like people, and they were almost smart enough to speak, but they never quite got there. They did have wolves, though.

"Guess not," she said, giving the dog a scratch behind the ears. "That's okay."

A moment later there was a click as the big glass doors swung open, and My-he-kal and another human, even taller than him, walked out into the garden.

He had taken off his jacket, she saw, and changed his shirt to a less sweaty one, but she could see he hadn't washed. The person beside him, in contrast, looked like she'd never seen a spec of dirt in her life, and Jump-touch found herself momentarily enthralled. Her dress was long and a light cream colour, patterned with little flowers, and her stance was that of a well-made spear. Straight and tall.

The flowers on the dress were daisies, maybe? The cut of it extended up over her shoulders, and ended about halfway between her knees and the floor, leaving her lower legs bare.

I was right. I am supposed to have fancier clothes.

Also, while she wasn't great at reading human expressions, she thought the... Probably a woman, looked unhappy. Her face was tight and her body language hostile.

Is she mad I'm in her territory? Should I leave?

She kept her hand on the dog's back as he looked up. "Friends", his body language said, and she relaxed a little. If the dog said friends... Well, she should try and be friendly.

"Who's your friend?" she asked My-he-kal, squaring her shoulders and trying to pull herself out of her drowsy state, "one of the few humans who isn't scared of you and Roo-set?"

He squinted at her, and then made a sort of gesture at the woman as if to say "See!"

The woman gave him a look, before walking over and crouching down in front of her, the beautiful dress pooling on the neatly trimmed grass around the base of the tree.

"Babble babble?" she asked, and Jump-touch looked away, not comfortable with the sudden, close eye contact. "Babble, My-he-kal, rabble jammer?"

Was this a mistake? She thought as she tried to shuffle backwards, struck by a sudden bout of shyness. She hadn't- she should have gone into the village alone, like the kobolds had told her to. Why was she here, in this garden with no way of escape?

"I don't know what you're saying."

"Jabber yammer?" asked the woman again, then she pointed at herself and made a very long and exaggerated set of syllables. It sounded like "An-jel-ee-nah," which was far too long to be a name, it had to be something else, right? Possibly a name and a title? An-jel, ee-nah of… The Village? Whatever this place was?

Stolen story; please report.

"I don't understand?" she tried, and then in Other to the dog, "what does she want from me?"

The dog nuzzled his head deeper into her hand. He didn't know what either of them were saying, her or the woman with the whole sentence for a name, but he was happy to have found a friend.

"That's not helpful," she told him, before turning back to the An-jel-í-ná who was still way too close.

"I don't get it." She used her hands for emphasis. "Listen. I can say rock, fire, Road, Winter, Summer. That's all the words I know in your stupid language. Ask My-he-kal," she pointed at him, "over there with his ridiculous three-word name. He knows I don't know what you're saying."

On her lap, the dog was starting to sense her agitation, raising his head to look between her and An-gel of the Garden Ee-Nah, or whatever her stupid name was.

The woman rocked back on her heels, thinking, and then in one smooth movement rose to her feet. She was so tall! Will I ever be that tall?

Where had that come from?

Also, probably not, but it was a goal, she could get taller. She'd tower over everyone back home, and be able to help with all the building work. They wouldn't need to call in one of the Guardians if a roof collapsed or a wall needed rebuilding, she could do it all herself.

I'd like to be tall.

An-jel said something to My-he-kal, and he shot something back, his body language hostile and his gestures wide. Did they not get along? They both seemed unhappy.

"I can go if you want," she offered, but they both ignored her.

She could leave; there wasn't anything actually stopping her. She was an adult now, after all. Living on her own, travelling to distant lands to learn about the world. They couldn't stop her.

Yes, these two weren't helping, she decided. The best they could do was shout at her in their babble-tongue and then get angry at each other, and she'd rather be gone before they started to fight.

"Do you want to come with me?" she asked the dog as she got to her feet, "I bet you just lie here in the sun all day and people bring you food. Not like the wolves back home."

The dog tilted its head to the side and looked up at her with one dark eye, flopping sideways onto the grass. That would be a no, then. Oh well.

She brushed the dust off her skirt, looking around for an exit. Ah, there was one, a flimsy metal gate all that was separating her from the rest of the city. She would go now, find her way to the walls, and then circle until she found a stream or somewhere to bathe. Then she would, slowly, work her way back towards where the people were, and if she did it gradually enough then she wouldn't be overwhelmed this time.

Humans had shitty night vision, right? Mountain knows, hers wasn't great, so it might be quieter at night. Sleep through the winter-heat of the day, and go into the city at night. That was a plan.

She said goodbye to the dog as My-he-kal and Ann-jal moved from bickering into full-blown shouting. Humans had magic, right? She didn't want to find out if that came into play when they fought.

A hand grabbed her shoulder as she picked up her pack and turned to leave, and she violently flinched it away. "I don't need to be a part of your fight," she protested as she turned to An-jel, "you two keep it to yourselves, I'm gonna get out of your way."

Had she missed some grammatical thing, something you used to exit a situation? Some languages had those. She turned to My-he-kal, dodging another grab from An-gel-i-nar. "Thank-you-" another dodge, "-for bringing me to your city. I'm going to-" he said something to An-jel and she finally stopped her grabby little hands, "- I'm going to go now. Thank-you for your hospitality."

Jump-touch turned towards the gate, only to find An-jel standing in her way, staring at her with something like exasperation.

She had seen that look on Rat-tail's face enough, normally shortly after she and Feather-paw had got themselves either into, or out of, trouble.

"Look, tall human person," she could try and push past, but she didn't want to touch the human, "I can't understand you, you can't understand me. This isn't going to work."

She hesitated. She really didn't want to push past. Was there another exit?

An-jel made eye contact with My-he-kal over her head, saying something she didn't understand. She had never had this much trouble with languages before, she always picked them up within days, why was this stupid human one such a pain?

It was so isolating, being unable to talk to anyone. Was this how the people who only spoke Other felt when they travelled away from home? Was this how the Mud-people had been, until they'd found the whistles?

Jump-touch took a step back, glancing towards the dog. She didn't want to fight, but she also didn't want to be here.

"Bite?" he offered, getting to his feet, and she considered it. It wasn't really speaking, he was a dog, but that didn't mean he was stupid.

Jump-touch hesitated. She was new here, she didn't know the etiquette, and she was feeling like a trapped animal, which was colouring her thoughts.

"No bite", she said finally, hoping he understood her shift in body language and tone. "Wait."

The dog looked at her, then up at An-jel and My-he-kal, who were both silent now, and came to stand beside her.

"Can bite," his posture offered, and she nodded.

"Me too, dog," she muttered in Given Tongue. Then louder, "please let me go or we'll bite you. Both of us."

A look passed between the two humans, My-he-kal seemingly resigned to letting her go, An-jel... She couldn't read the woman, but something else.

There was some chatter between the two of them, and a second later My-he-kal looked alarmed as the woman took something out of the pocket of her dress, surging forward to grab for her hand.

But it was too late, as she clenched her hand around the object, something happened. A change in the light, a cloud in front of the sun.

"Okay." The woman said, "How's this?"