Brave, headstrong, and stoic. These were good things to be and something he'd always strived to be. To be so when under duress even more so the case, keeping in line with his own personal code. He could push stoicism to one side when it was needed, when it was called for, though that was rarely the case. When under a particularly high level of duress it was an absolute necessity to keep such mentalities, certainly the case in battle aside from a joke or two to keep spirits high and ease tension, but also when being tortured by an enemy. Stoicism was generally the one that stepped away when some zhāzǐ chánshēn de hùndàn tried to take advantage of those he had personal ties to or couldn't defend themselves, though that was more a pride thing.
This particular instance of duress however was a mental assault.
When Malcolm Reynolds had awoken, he'd fully expected his hallucination to be gone and he could mull over whether he wanted to share his experience with Zoë, and try not to be amused at her serious examination of the situation when he did tell her. However, that wasn’t the case, and he wondered just how much Simon had drugged him up. It wasn't like the good doctor to make an error like that, but perhaps he'd reached into the wrong drawer in the confusion of the blackout.
At first when he’d opened his eyes and saw the worn duvet and his gun table he was rather thankful, until he managed to sit himself up and saw the bizarre thing he thought he'd imagined was still there in the room with him, though now it was sitting instead, and on the end of his bed of all possible places it could be.
He was remaining calm and reading the situation carefully like Zoë would do, instead of how he would usually. In most incidents he was either too damn angry or cocksure to care about what others thought, and charged in, albeit with a plan even if it was haphazard. It had worked extremely well for him and he was still alive, but right now this present problem required a little more tact, and his first mate was nothing but stoic and calm with how she dealt with life. His mind was doing gymnastics trying to make sense of it, yet try as he might he really couldn’t justify any understandable reason for this being possible.
All signs pointed to his brain being scrambled just like River’s, not that he was disrespecting the poor girl but her mind did run on a different frequency to everyone else's.
Was this truly madness? Seeing fuzzy ─and admittedly adorable─ critters just sitting about in his abode? For what had to have been at least a couple of minutes or so he decidedly sat there with the creature, not willing to move too much. The creature sat there all the same, as if willing him to make the first move and curiously inspecting him with large innocent eyes.
It looked real, he wasn't going to touch it just now but it was displacing his duvet with weight, and he was pretty sure he couldn't imagine that. He could feel the slight air that travelled with each rise and fall of its chest and that too wasn't something he could write off as hallucination, unless he had a rather overactive imagination when high on sedative.
Of course, there came the thought that if this creature wasn't an apparition, that it was something else... something otherworldly. It was an odd sort of feeling.
That he was entertaining the notion that an alien was sitting in his cabin was a rather mad one, and up until this point Mal had always believed such things were something out of science-fiction ─even if Zoë had once made the point that they lived on a spaceship─ and that aliens were simply fairy tales or make-believe.
It was the kind of exciting thing that first made man want to leave Earth-That-Was and go beyond the stars to explore, and in the modern day was very much a wild goose chase that only fools would waste fuel on to go about and look for such beings, only to find they were still alone in this ‘Verse. However, at the current moment he was possibly looking at a reason to think that now that notion wasn’t the case.
This thing wasn’t human, that was for damn sure, it looked like a damn mythological unicorn.
Well, if someone had designed it for girls.
Its smooth coat was a light shade of purple that Kaylee would call 'lavender', and Mal's eyes were drawn to the long spiralled horn atop its head as he assessed it as a possible weapon. An obvious part of its appearance was the neatly done multi-shade dark purple hair cut into a fringe, a vivid pink stripe running through it with a tail that matched, like the thing knew about hairdressing and keeping a personal appearance. Its face was strange, with big eyes that almost seemed too large for its head, and a muzzle that was too small, the snout somewhat flat and round in a way that a normal horse's wouldn't be.
The body looked just as disproportionate; he was the son of a rancher, and he'd never known a horse to have such a weight distribution. The neck and crest were small, its withers almost nonexistent, while from chest to flank to dock it was far more compact length-wise than it should have been, Its barrel was pinched too, moving into larger haunches with thighs and a croup that were far too big. Its odd shaped legs and hooves were somewhat like the smooth coat, gently brushed over and soft looking, almost like marshmallows.
Perhaps the oddest part of the thing was the eccentric starry mark on its haunch. Like someone had stamped or branded it with a pattern for identification. Maybe it was.
It was all so otherworldly that Mal couldn't help but glance away, though eventually his vision passed back and he found himself looking into its wide eyes. They were a similar shade of purple to its hair, varying in lighter degrees in a way that he could compare looking at those pretty amethyst rocks they sold in various stalls at market. The eyes he was witnessing had a massive intelligence to them. to the point where emotion was almost both felt and seen. The creature projected a certain aura, and it seemed to him that a lot of that was through eye contact.
In all, with its size along with its strange small physique, it more resembled a pony than a horse. With this major observation out of the way he figured he was already insane, so screw it, why not be polite?
“Yí gè jìnǚ de pòsuì de duòtāi… howdy, little critter,” he greeted it, burying his face in his hands and sighing. “I’m Mal, an’ clearly I ain't got no sense left in my head.”
He froze in surprise for a second, as what he didn’t expect was a reply.
Granted, he couldn’t understand what it had said, the sounds it made were like a mix between random syllables a child learning a language would make and higher pitched neighs and whinnies, but it did respond. Given the noises, it was certainly... equine. He really was quite mad, he had to be.
With a slightly quick shuffle he got to his feet, careful to maintain his balance. He was much more sure footed now having likely slept off a majority of the sedative but his gut wound was still tender and likely prone to splitting open. Trudging over to his room intercom and pressing firmly, he decided that even if he was insane that he was not drunk enough to handle this alone.
“Wash, is Zoë there with ya?”
“Naturally, Captain,” came the reply a moment later, followed by the sound of a kiss. "I'm fine by the way, blackout had me hitting my head but I'm alright."
“Never doubted you weren't, I saw ya up there earlier. Zoë, would you mind comin’ to see me?” Mal said, not entirely an order. “I’m in my cabin, got-” A quick glance back at the… pony? “-things, we need to discuss.”
“She’s going,” Wash told him, speaking again after a second. “No funny stuff though, she’s a married woman, would make her husband all kinds of angry I bet. ...There could be bloodshed.”
“Roger that.” Mal scoffed, lifting his thumb.
It wasn't even a second before there came the knock on his hatch, fast as always.
“Come on in.” Mal spoke up to the entrance, purposely moving in front of the small purple creature he still wasn’t entirely comfortable calling a pony. When Zoë's boots appeared and she started descending into the room he kept a straight face. “Make yourself at home.”
Zoë regarded him with a quizzical look when she’d stepped down off the ladder, crossing her arms and noting the odd way Mal was standing. She saw it wasn't just due to his injury, as his hands were tucked in around his suspenders, which he only ever usually did when he was a mite agitated or in a good mood. He didn’t exactly look to be in a good mood, even with the ghost of a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. Zoë knew him well enough to know that he was on edge, something was wrong here.
“You alright, sir?” she asked tentatively.
Now Mal decided here came the fun part in seeing if this was all real.
He stepped aside, tilting his head briefly at the thing. Pony? It.
Zoë froze as her eyes immediately snapped to the obvious newcomer sitting on Mal's bed, her hand not quite going for her lever-action, but near enough, though there wasn't so much shock from Zoë, just pure cold assessment. It had been why she'd stopped her slide into combat mode as the creature wasn't moving at them or being aggressive. She said nothing as she studied it for a few seconds, visibly swallowing as she composed herself while possibly thinking what to say. Her brow knitted as her eyes flicked between the thing and Mal, then back to the thing, and finally again back to Mal before opening her mouth to speak, but words failed her.
"Crazy, ain't it?" Mal offered, glancing around and looking at it before returning his attention to his first mate. Still nothing from Zoë as she took it in. "Yeah, my thoughts too," he dipped his head, sighing as he turned about and met eyes with the critter, it automatically looking at him as he turned his attention its way. He exhaled deeply as he looked back at Zoë with a raised brow. "Can't rightly say just what I make of it at this juncture, but I got all manner of theories."
"Be quiet." Zoë sternly said under her breath.
"I- excuse me?" Mal baulked almost as much as he did when the thing had talked at him, his eyebrows raising higher as he looked at Zoë. "What was that, exactly?"
"Sorry, sir." Zoë immediately corrected course, her brow knitting further in worry momentarily at the disrespect she'd dished out, she only usually did that when Mal was being completely unreasonable and he never got on at her for it because he knew it too. Mal could allow that the situation was such that she was very much off-kilter right now. "I just..."
"Yeah, I getcha, lots to take in. No fuss." Mal nodded, sighing.
After a few tense moments, she breathed in deep as she resettled herself into the current scene playing out before them. She glanced apologetically at Mal before looking back at the bed with concern.
“Sir, why is there a... a small purple pony on your bed?” she asked, doing her best to keep her face a solid mask of neutrality, but her hand was still partially reaching for the rifle on her hip. That she'd called the creature a pony at least meant Mal wasn't far off his own estimations of its similar appearance to an equine. “Is it real?"
“Looks that way, it's just been sittin'.” Mal said, looking at the lavender critter with its wide curious eyes staring back. He sniffed, clearing his throat. “But at least you seein’ the critter means my brains aint scrambled.”
“I think we're both possibly insane, sir. Maybe we hit our heads a mite hard."
Mal felt himself smile. Humour. Good, defuse the situation.
“It’s not hostile, whatever it is.” Zoë said, it was a statement.
“No, don’t look the type. Seems more a ‘have a tea-party’ type, to be honest.” Mal nodded, somewhat amused by her process of working this through like an assessment and trying to make sense of this insanity. It was cheering him up immensely considering he'd not been happy or amused by much in a long time.
“I’m lost,” Zoë commented, taking an experimental step forwards and felt actually rather intrigued when the pony shrunk back ever so slightly; it fully recognised her as a threat. “I… don’t know what to make of it. I’m guessing it can’t talk?”
Mal glanced at her with a look. “Oh, it did,” he nodded as she gave him an incredulous glare in return, his hand moving in a vague gesture as he tried to express it. “Just came out as… horse sounds, is all.”
Zoë nodded slowly, closing her eyes and heavily exhaling. She was a practical first mate, in any situation she tried to figure out the best way forward ─pending captain’s orders to do things differently than she liked─ and rolling with it as easily as possible, which usually meant the crew dealing with a complete mess and making the best of it.
Like Mal's decision to knock Jayne unconscious and leave him out in the desert so he wouldn't bring a disturbing Alliance weapon aboard their ship, which he'd ended up doing anyway out of pure stubborn bullheadedness, and they'd all suffered hallucinations and almost died from it until River had been the one to save them all. Great times.
This was possibly another one of those times.
Somehow, Mal had acquired a strange creature that could have been an extremely strange Alliance weapon for all she knew, and of all places it was in his quarters. He clearly wasn't aware of how it had come to be here, and she knew his mannerisms well enough to know he wasn't pulling a fast one on her. It had to have been quite sudden and gotten on board without his knowledge, which raised the question; if he didn’t bring it here, then who or what did?
Her mind immediately and logically went to the blackout, the deafening wailing scream and the haze that Serenity had passed through, and River acting a little more peculiar than was normal for her. A trap set in space perhaps? If this was some kind of Alliance asset, which she honestly wasn't too sure of as 'cute' really wasn't their modus operandi, then it wasn't doing a lot. Then again, just like that container Jayne had taken aboard ─the Ghost Machine, as River had dubbed it─ the creature could be building up something in their minds the longer they spent in its presence, something to control or harm them.
That might have bordered on paranoia, but given the absolute everything they'd all been through with the Alliance she really wasn't going to put it past the possibility of that being the case.
“So… what do we do with it?” she wondered after taking a deep breath and coming up with nothing. “Can’t just let it live in your quarters, or, well... maybe we should until we can... Hell, no one would take it. You said it spoke?”
“Aint rightly sure, could have just been animal talk. Could keep it as a pet,” Mal smiled jokingly, ignoring Zoë’s expression that said for him to stop screwing around. “Could have us all manner of fun playing fetch, probably be a good foot warmer too, train it to bring me my slippers.”
“Sir.”
“I know, I know,” Mal waved, not laughing and letting his smile die down into a flat expression, looking back at the creature. “Just... dealin’ with the situation in my own way.”
Standing up straight and fixing a look on the pony ─as Zoë seemed certain to call it such he may as well too, odd as it may be─ he supposed the only way forwards here was to see, if at all possible, how intelligent the pony was. He knew horses well, what made them tick, what they liked, what they generally hated, and how they thought. Mal wondered if it was the same for this rather horse-like looking critter. Moving forwards just a tad and very gently crouching down to its level he felt much less out of sorts as things felt like they were calming down, but that was likely because a strange creature had jolted his senses into overdrive and he was partially in a combat mindset the same as Zoë was.
He met its gaze, those mighty bright eyes looking into his own. Those orbs really were like massive wells of colour and pure emotion, which honestly didn’t seem right but it was what it was. He had no misgivings; those were intelligent eyes with the way they regarded him, that they were questioning what he was himself as much as he was questioning what it was.
“Zoë, I’d already had the notion, but I figured I’d run it by ya,” Mal pondered, tilting his head back while keeping his eyes trained on the creature. “An’ I know it aint gonna sound right, probably’ll sound like crazy talk, but-”
“Thinkin’ it might be an alien?” Zoë finished, hand on her hip as she sucked in a breath and exhaled. “Yeah, gotta say that’s at the top of my mind, but that just sounds... too strange. Like if aliens were real, they’d have been found by now. Remains, or... something."
“Yeeee-ah... that was my notion,” he nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Seems far-fetched of all the folk in the 'Verse to make some kinda contact that it'd be us, that would be some mighty bad lu-”
He paused.
The pony was getting off the bed, while looking at them. He didn’t tense nor freeze, but he did hear Zoë audibly breathe in again, and he knew her hand had gone straight to her rifle instinctively. Can’t ever take away the soldier in ‘em. He didn’t need to tell her not to shoot, he knew she wasn’t going to as it was just reflexive. Slowly, the pony very cautiously took a step towards them, pausing to see if they reacted, and its face was most certainly full of curiosity. If that wasn’t a sure sign of intelligence then Mal wasn’t sure what would have been beyond speaking full blown English.
It stopped in front of him, leaning in and properly examining him as well.
He couldn’t help but laugh a little when one of its wide, flat, and soft hooves was placed on one of his hands he was resting against his legs as he crouched. Even while low down like this, he was massive in comparison to the little pony as it was roughly the size of a medium-breed dog, and stood only a little higher than one, likely only just coming up to his thigh if a little higher. The pony gently tilted its head upward and met his eyes with its own deep ones, and then it spoke again.
More horse sounds and syllables he couldn’t understand, but it had definitely just tried to communicate like a normal human being would have done.
“Well now… That is something, aint it.” Mal breathed out.
“Yes, sir.” Zoë agreed, a slight crack in her voice.
“Where do we go from here?” Mal asked, not really thinking Zoë had the answer, but it seemed the thing to ask. “This certainly aint no dumb beast, but it aint from ‘round these parts, that's for damn sure.”
“Mhm.” Zoë agreed again.
“Clearly it don’t speak the language, and I aint sure it can,” he said, carefully turning his hand upwards and taking a gentle hold of the pony’s hoof. He audibly scoffed with a smile when the pony actually shook though, like a gorram handshake. “Nǐ tài bàng liǎo, ya see that, Zoë?”
“I did."
Mal looked back at her and got up. “You fancy greetin’ it?”
He figured she took that as more of an order, or she was just as fascinated with this creature as much as he was, but tense as she was she came over and crouched down to one knee in front of the pony, and smartly held her hand out in a clear gesture that was the universal initiation for a handshake. Damn if it wasn’t amazing when the creature placed its hoof in her hand too, shaking with a genuine smile across its odd little face, like it had accomplished something truly grand. Which, maybe it had.
“Zoë, you good?” Mal asked, crossing his arms as he noted the way she’d breathed in as the pony had smiled at her.
Zoë nodded, breathing out a shaky breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding as she looked incredulously at its happy expression. “This is insane.”
“Feels like,” Mal agreed, then posed a thought. “Wanna go show an' tell?”
"No!" Zoë frowned, twisting back at him with a scowl. "Sir, I aint one to question your judgement often-"
"You do. All the time."
"-A little, yeah, but, don't you think it's best to play this safe? You do recall the Ghost Machine?" she said darkly. "What if this... pony, alien... whatever it is; what if it's an Alliance experiment? What if it was put on the ship without our knowledge?"
"I'd say with our luck that, well, it's always a possibility, but I mean..." he gestured at it. "Look at the critter, it don't exactly scream 'terror weapon' to me."
"And that's what has me worried, we once thought River was just a normal girl too." Zoë said quietly, looking back at it.
The pony simply smiled at them still with its large eyes glancing between them, as if feeling almost awkward that they were looking at it for an extended period of time. It sat down on its thick haunches after a few seconds seeing as they weren't doing much with it.
Mal came to a decision after a moment.
"Usually I get a hunch when somethin' aint truly right. Had it with that Ghost Machine, had it with the first drop we took back in Serenity Valley, had it with every gorram step I took on Miranda. Somehow, I aint gettin' that from this pony, not even that odd tenseness the way I did with River lookin' into my mind, same as she did all of us before we knew what it was she was doin'. The way I'm seein' it is that it could just be you an' me knowin' about it, sneakin' in to feed it or whatever, make sure it's all fed an' watered, but River would find out in a heartbeat, if she doesn't already know; intuition leads that girl to strange conclusions an' she'd just see it from our minds anyway." A pause. "What I'm also seein' is that it's most certainly equine, an' it'll likely go stir-crazy from bein' locked in my room all the time, the chances we'd have to let it out an' about would be few an' far between. I think the best option we got is just to let everyone know we've got a new passenger for the foreseeable future."
"So we're not ditching it?" Zoë said, keeping the pony's gaze.
"No, we're aint. Besides, you think Kaylee would ever forgive me if she found out we left it on some rock to fend for itself?" he fixed her with a quick glance. "Not sure I'd feel quite right my own self, somethin' powerful in me tells me that'd be highly criminal. If this lil' critter is connected to the Alliance then you can tell me 'I told you so', but if it's the genuine article, I aint gonna be the one to abandon it for them to pick up and pull apart."
"I suppose so..." Zoë gave a nod, sighing as she quickly gave a dry scoff. "I will look forward to saying 'I told you so' if this bites us on the ass, though, sir."
"I got no issues with that." Mal shrugged, looking at the pony. "So... let's go introduce it to the crew."
* * *
Twilight was pleased, she’d made progress.
The creature was undeniably male. She’d sat there around an hour since she’d calmed down from her panic, and she’d taken the time to examine the creature lying on the bed snoring away peacefully without being intrusive. It was indeed just like a minotaur in its overall body structure. Bipedal, broad-shouldered, and rather muscular in such a way that denoted its masculinity. She couldn’t really see its face properly right now as it was face down into the duvet, but it had been quite angular from what she had seen.
So, it had to have been male. A lack of breasts and high curvature normally found on female minotaurs said as much, and she was certain she had no need to see the creature's genitalia to confirm her suspicions, she wasn't that curious.
Progress. It wasn’t much, but at least she could mentally catalogue this new possible race or even minotaur subspecies for when she made the trek back to Equestria, which might take a while. Then again, for all she knew this was just on an island somewhere far east of the Badlands beyond the Dragonlands, which naturally would be quite undocumented, or maybe further south of Badlands where it was rumoured that odd species lurked.
If that was the case then really it was just a hot air balloon ride back and she was home, maybe she could enquire to the local authority when she was out of here.
She then looked at the creature as it had made a noise.
It was waking up!
She sat patiently and calmly as it properly arose, curious as to why it regarded her with a strange expression that seemed like incredulity. It knew she was here, after all. Maybe it had believed she would go away, but she felt a scientific need to find out more. The not-minotaur shifted about until it looked comfortable, and then met her eyes. It was actually quite amusing the creature was doing the same as her and trying to understand what she was, so she sat in silence and let it cast its eyes over her until it was done.
And then it spoke!
...But it wasn’t a language she understood. That was problematic.
Something told her it had just said hello though.
“Hello to you too,” she nodded, it would be rude to not greet it back even though it likely couldn’t understand her. It was a given as she didn’t understand what it had said either, though more was the surprise when it seemed amazed she had even tried to speak at all, clearly her first assessment of it having been afraid of her was very wrong.
That was a bit of an issue, however. There were very few species that were known to ponykind that didn’t know or speak Ponish, those usually being the more bestial and feral of races that had no need of such civilites, so it begged the question of just how far she was from Equestria. Possibly more than a hot-air balloon ride.
The creature got up and walked away for a moment, though only near to the ladder, then pressing against a little off-white box built into the wall and speaking its unknown language into it. That didn’t make sense to her, though it certainly improved how the creature was feeling, as it was standing easier and not being so discouraged by her presence.
Moments later the entrance to the small bedroom opened again, and she saw another set of feet clad in boots come down the ladder, before the first creature moved in front of her to block her from view. That was interesting, was it trying to hide her?
They both conversed until the first stepped out of the way to reveal her to the newcomer.
The new not-minotaur fixed her with what felt like an almost cold hatred, which did make her wither under the intensity of it as the creature took a step towards her, but she could still clearly discern its features. The obvious teats ─or breasts as minotaurs would call them─ upon its chest and the ample curvature of its figure undoubtedly denoted its femininity and the fact that it was female of the not-minotaur species, a minobous, or well, a not-minobous.
Quite interestingly as an aside; this not-minobous shared the lack of fur over its body with the other one, but its skin was a gorgeous shade of ebony.
Its face still had the trademarks of femininity that were shared by ponies, such as the full lashes on the eyes or the thicker pouty lips, though. This female had a strong jaw too, yet that wasn’t uncommon among minobous either, with the females having the slightest of masculine traits while retaining the essence of feminine beauty.
Twilight watched as the male crouched down nearer to her, as if wanting to get a better look.
She’d do it one better. Ignoring that the two were still conversing between themselves, she slowly got down from the bed so as to not spook them, not that she thought at this point that she would at all, they seemed very strong-willed. Of course, the second she did that they stopped talking and watched her. She took it step by step until she was face to face with the male, again looking into his eyes. They were a very nice shade of blue, with green flecks.
Taking a deep breath, she placed a hoof on one of his hands, and she smiled when he turned his hand and took her hoof into it. His hand was rough and calloused, which suggested a life of either labour or fighting. Not uncommon for minotaur-like beings she would have believed.
“It’s very nice to meet you, I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she smiled. This was good, even if it didn’t understand, it meant they weren’t hostile and relations could be built between their species.
Deciding it was a good idea, she shook his hand in a formal greeting.
It seemed absolutely awed by the gesture. It spoke again and backed off, the not-minobous coming over and kneeling down now instead, holding out her hand in what was undeniably the universal gesture for a hoofshake. Twilight placed her hoof into her hand and greeted her with a smile as well.
This was great!
The female then let go and stood up, walking away from her and back to the side of the male, casually talking between themselves again. It seemed quite interesting, the two of them standing side-by-side, both somewhat relaxed and yet very alert, they looked quite different and yet were obviously friends or shared some bond. She highly suspected they might be warriors of some kind, they both had strange instruments on their person that were definitely a type of weapon, and it interested her to know how they functioned. She'd have to wait on that one until their friendship had improved, nopony liked it when somepony just tried to fiddle with things that didn't belong to them.
Twilight smiled as the male beckoned her forwards with gestures as he knew they couldn’t communicate through speech, so she complied, going straight past them and looking up at the hatch. Thinking on it now the occasion had arisen, she hadn’t used magic in front of them yet, though now it seemed like it might be necessary because of the ladder she wouldn’t be able to properly climb up with just her hooves.
She had no idea how they would react, if they’d never seen a pony before then it was a very safe bet to assume they hadn’t seen magic before either, as ponies were one of the sole races able to control it at all. It did seem like the not-minotaurs had that one figured out about the ladder, because the male lent down and looked her in the eyes. He pointed to her, then up, then mimicked lifting.
She understood perfectly. It would be weird, yet a hurdle that needed to be gotten past.
With a slightly reluctant nod, she blushed as one of his arms hooked around her haunches and rested on her chest, and she yelped in surprise a little when he fully succeeded in lifting her in just the one arm with a strength she didn’t foresee. It was slightly embarrassing really as she was being handled by an unknown creature, but he then proceeded to quickly carry her with no effort on his part, up the ladder and out of the room in very little time without being underhoofed ─underhanded?─ in any manner at all.
He gently knelt down and deposited her into a strange dark metal hallway that was rather gloomy and only illuminated by pale blue lighting along the sides of the floor, and she looked around at its angular design as the female came out of the hatch too, closing it after herself. The difference between the bedroom and this hall was night and day, this was the most bizarre home she’d ever seen.
But she was excited to explore it.