Hello everyone! I'm so excited for this year's challenge! Here we go...

1. From Aleine Skyfire - Mary goes on an adventure. Bonus points if she has a sidekick.

"Briefly," she continued, "the facts are these. My father was an officer in an Indian regiment who sent me home when I was quite a child."

-The Sign of the Four, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Papa," Mary Morstan asked, tugging at her father's sleeve. "May I go outside to play?"

"Hm?" Papa was distracted, pouring over grown-up papers.

"May I go outside to play?" she repeated. "I've finished my letters and my chores. Nanny says I may play."

"Put on something to protect your skin dear, you'll burn terribly like that," he said absentmindedly. "Don't go far, and be back before tea."

Mary beamed. "Thank you, Papa!"

Papa hadn't probably meant for her to dress in the dresses the natives had given her, but Mary put it on anyway, along with a head scarf. She liked the bright, loose langa and choli much better than the thick, proper English dresses Nanny made her wear. "You can't run around dressed like a heathen, Miss Morstan," she liked to say. Mary didn't think the other children were heathens; heathens couldn't be so fun. But Nanny disagreed.

"Don't go far," Papa had said. How far was far? She could probably leave the courtyard, she decided, and the immediate compound. Was the market off limits? Mary loved it there. It was bustling and exotic and interesting. It was too late for the morning traders, but there would maybe be snake charmers or magic men out, calling to passerby. Maybe she could go even further out, to the pools and the grasses and plants Aaditya had showed her when her mother sent her to market and Mary snuck away from Nanny to tag along.

"Be careful, Mary," Aaditya had warned in her soft, lilting voice. "Out here there are snakes and wild things. Tigers will eat a man-child whole." Mary wasn't sure whether she had been utterly serious.

Mary should like to see a tiger. Though she wouldn't want one to eat her.

The forest it was, Mary thought.

Mary sat by the water, humming to herself and weaving a doll out of dry grass, for some time, before wandering further toward the plains. She found a small cave and wandered in, hoping to find cave art or geodes.

Instead, Mary Morstan found what she had been hoping to see.

Tigers.

They were small, sleepy balls of fluff, huddled together, breathing as one entity. Almost like big kittens, Mary thought with delight. if she had met their mother, who was stalking meat for her cubs, Miss Mary Morstan would have never have lived long enough to end up in England and go on the next great adventure of her life, but the likelihood of meeting her end did even cross her mind.

"Oh, aren't you precious," Mary cooed, dropping to her knees by the sleeping cubs. "So little. I expect you're just children, like me." She reached out her hand and stroked the fur of the nearest cub, who yawned, revealing small fangs. Mary sat, entranced, for some time, watching the sleeping cubs, before she saw the sinking sun through the mouth of the cave.

"Oh, I'm late- Papa will be cross!" she gasped. "I must go, little cubs." She gathered her skirt and stood to go- then hesitated.

Why not take one?

The other children had pets to keep them company. Mary was awfully lonely. She didn't have any English children to talk to, and Nanny often wouldn't let her play with the natives. Papa might let her keep a pet if she promised to take good care of it, and oh, she would!

She carefully picked up the smallest cub, curled by its siblings at the edge of the pile. The cub stirred, by sighed and fell back asleep when Mary hushed it. She kissed its fur softly and hurried off to home- oh, wouldn't Papa be surprised!

Captain Morstan certainly was surprised when his child skipped into dinner, beaming, and held up a wild cat with the delighted declaration: "I named her Naisha! Please, please, Papa, may I keep her?"

It took a lot of convincing to get Mary to relinquish her "pet" and a promise to buy her a nice orange kitty to soften to blow before she allowed her father to deposit the cub back near its cave (and run, before its furious, roaring mother caught up to him).

Hope you enjoyed!