>>5828110…And screamed, as she was immediately set upon. You felt panic rise in you, never having expected VIOLENCE as a possibility—maybe just banishment, rejection, or rudeness! You began to cast <Summon Elemental>, but stopped yourself as the shrieking turned to… laughter?
>16Two semi-huamnoid, somehow familiar shapes tugged at the package of cookies, jockeying with one another for it while sitting atop Izirina, who curled her arms over her head to hold her had in place as she was (harmlessly) jostled. You were shocked to recognize them when you saw their heads and faces: long-eared, antlers, little noses atwitch as they wordlessly screamed and whined at one another. One was brownish, the other greyish white; one was hooved, the other had the wide and furry feet of a rabbit.
“I had mentioned that some of us had rather missed you,” the od spriggan said, shocking you out of your reverie.
“But… What?” you balked. “HOW?”
The two jackalopes approached, one holding the lion’s share of the cookies while the other gnawed at one. They had THUMBS, and walked upon their hind limbs! Their body plans were too warped to be called truly ‘humanoid’, and they looked about as suitable to quadrupedal movement as to their present gait, but it was CERTAINLY not the morphology of any other species you knew, either… And they were big! At least, the size of a halfling, which was bigger than a rabbit had any right to be, or even a jackalope to the best of your knowledge.
The spriggan reached down and snatched the package from both, who scrambled to climb up his torso before sopped when they set eyes—wet, dark, wide-set eyes, yet with more understanding than you were sued to seeing from a rabbit or deer-upon you. They… Recognized you.
“Uh,” you stammered, “hello?”
They both ran at you and tackled you as they had Izirina. You held you footing, barye, before another member of the fairy court swept your leg and sent you crashing down or the two strange, antlered and rabbit-faced creatures to settle upon your chest and rub their soft and fluffy faces into your face and neck, making the soft, tooth-rubbing ‘purr’ of contented bunnies.
You sat up, and saw Izzy nervously bent at the waist before the spirit of the old maple, hands clutched before her, in amusing mimickry of Easterling custom.
“Well, anyone who makes such cookies as these, and is welcomed by the children, if welcome here among us,” the spriggan eventually said, between loud crunches. “But if you two decide to court, you had better damage someone else’s tree! There will be no more carvings here!”
You were too overwhelmed by the continued snuggling of the two jackalopes, failing to register exactly what he’d said. When you did, and opened your mouth to protest that you and Izirina were not a COUPLE, the words died in your throat.
It seemed obscene to interrupt with a complaint, when Izzy looked so happy.
