Hopscotch was fun.

Especially when you were missing a leg. Not the entire leg, of course, that'd be kind of silly- and boring. Honestly, hopscotch with one leg and a stump-less other leg could have been called borring-ific- it was that silly! Granted Robyn hadn't tried it, but she could imagine... it would be like... like walking! With one foot. The epitome of boredom. There wasn't even a change between feet! It wasn't just right, left, right, left, it was... right, right, right, right or left, left, left, left. Or lots of rolling around. But if she wanted to get somewhere (or if Alice-mommy was planning on taking her somewhere) she had to actually do stuff to move and with only one leg she'd have to take actually walk! With the one leg!

Boring, boring, boring!! Like tedium but only ten thousand times worse!

There was a giant squishy noise as something in Robyn's borrowed leg splintered. A kneecap went flying in one direction and shards of blood, bone and gore in another. Robyn grinned- that was worth a nine at least! With ease born of practice she switched to hopping with her good leg (good being a relative term) and for a moment was about to contemplate on the sheer mis-fortune that had befallen her in order for her to have to borrow more than ten or twenty legs in the same number of days but decided against it. It was boring stuff too. So much repetition. First there had been the pointy-ear one (that had been a particularly nice leg) and then a green-ish/blue one (that had been a strong leg) and... she had just lost her last leg in a horrific-

"Didn't I just tell you to stop thinking?" Robyn-rin cheerfully asked her brain. Her brain did not reply and it was just as well- Robyn would have poked her brain into submission if it had dared to make any substantive argument against the state of not-thinking and not-recollecting.

"That's better." Robyn said, nodding in satisfaction. The game had gotten harder a while back- for some reason there had been this giant slope (mountain, The Chef muttered) and if she fell down too hard on the leg-that-wasn't-quite-there-leg Robyn-rin risked tumbling down the looooong slope. And then she'd lose the game! And that wouldn't be any good!

Plus, the... earth was calling to her. Something was stirring. Something hot like fire, but strong like metal. Something that wanted her to move forwards. Something that liked, hated, feared and loved her all at once. Robyn didn't think it was her real mommy, her real mommy was probably still being held hostage by the ebil point-foreheaded-horseys but maybe it was her real father calling her! Poppa Bear had always said that real poppas were scared of being a father. That would account for the fear. Momma Bear had said that real fathers were always hateful, spiteful creatures: that would account for the hate... but fathers were still fathers! That would account for the like and the luff.

"I'm coming, Poppa." Robyn-rin said determinedly. "Unless you're not there. Or you're being silly and stoopid! Or..."

Hopscotch, Robyn decided, was definitely fun. Especially with a stump.

The hat was a good thing, Tarlak mused to himself as his legs braced with each and every step he took further up the slopes of the volcano.
Already he could hear the pools of magma, swirling around, spewing forth great plumes of vitriloc gases into the skies as a testement to the powers that the natural world could bring to earth.
The volcano was a true source of wonder for Tarlak, it was rare that he would venture so far off of his own predetermined course and investigate something such as a natural wonder.
However, curiosity was always a plague to the ebon skinned elf and off course he went, merely for his own personal pleasure.

His nimble strides took the small rocks and boulders that so littered the ascent up to the peak. Large chunks of cooled down magma formed black patches that Tarlak knelt besides and jabbed at with his fingers, quite perplexed at the formation.
In the underdark, leaking magma was almost unheard of and no real specticle was ever made of it.
Taking his blade he cracked it at the edges and took a small sample for himself to look at later on.
It wasn't long before an extra sound hit his ears, it sounded like laughter.
"On a Volcano?" he thought, his eyebrows furrowing into a curious position.

Onwards he walked, as the sound was growing louder. Quite amused that there might be a child up on the cliff of a volcano. Of all the places to find an oddity this would be one of them.
His head breached a peak, and he took his first sight of the source of the laughter. No suprised expression crossed his face, only a look of amusement.
"Undead children play up on volcanoes do they? One would never have thought that such a spectacle occurs here on the surface. You denizens are quite the oddity."
Speaking outloud to catch off the small undead child off guard, he always relished meeting one, unpredictable to the last and this one didn't seem any break in the rules.

Robyn-rin was having a very detailed and intricate conversation with her ruined leg (that involved her trusty knife-knife that she had found in her back- it called itself spineslicer) when a voice made its way towards her ears. She perked up (the darn leg wasn't responding much) and looked around for the mouth. She had seen mouths without heads before- but never a voice without a mouth.

"...on volcanoes do they?"

He was a funny looking man, Robyn-rin decided. She hadn't been sure if he was a man at all what with his rather skinny build and pointy ears but when he opened his mouth she was preeeettty sure he was a man. Or maybe a manly woman. Life was confuzzling like that sometimes. Why, just the other day, Robyn-rin had tried to make sense of Mr. Fluffington's gender and had quite failed. It was horrible! Robyn-rin no longer knew if Meester Fluffington was a Meester Fluffington or a Meeses Fluffington. It was all so confuzzling! Good thing that Meester Fluffington was a cat and a good friend-friend, Robyn-rin had no doubt that other friend-friends would have been quite offended if she called them Meester forever and forever when he had really been a 'she.'

But back to the funny looking man. His skin was black like the night but what truly captivated Robyn was the hat. Wide, brimmed and in possession of a feather it seemed like the quintessential, must-have thing for all funny-looking men. Robyn made a mental note to make sure she informed every other funny-looking men she knew to get a hat like that.

"One would never have thought that such a spectacle occurs here on the surface. You denizens are quite the oddity."

Funny men apparently had to make really difficult speaksies too. What was an 'undead'? And a 'denizen'? Robyn-rin was pretty sure an oddity was just another word for 'super-fun-fun-fun' but wasn't entirely sure if her definition was the same as his. It probably was. Yup. Probably. And un... dead. Well... 'un' meant not and dead meant dead so... he was saying she wasn't dead.

What a silly leetle thing to say.

And 'Denizen'... maybe he meant 'dozen'? Robyn looked around, hoping to see more friend-friends but failed miserably. With something approaching irritation she asked, hopefully but still suspiciously:

"What dozen?"

From inside her empty chest cavity Meester Fluffington yowled.