Why an update now, eleven months after chapter two?

...Well, why not now?

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Young Salamander: Be Confused and Tentatively Disappointed

Well, this makes no sense.

Really, it doesn't. Your experience- along with several quite plausible stories you've heard from Farmer Salamander- tell you that, if a strange traveler appears in a burst of light with an unusual array of clothes and weapons, he or she can be expected to possess great knowledge. After all, if this boy has successfully existed in more than one world, if follows that he knows exactly what he's doing, right? A veritable master of interstellar travel, no doubt.

But the bucktoothed, bespectacled, neon-suit-clad tyke standing before you is nothing if not foolish.

Yes. A fool. That seems to be a good word. It adequately expresses both how dumb the boy must be, as well as his curious sense of... wonder. Fun, even. He has only been a part of this planet for a few minutes, but already he has deigned to squeal and point in several different directions in a most undignified manner.

The most mundane and ordinary objects seem to cause him no end of delight. The fireflies, up in the clouds? He stares up at them in rapt fascination, lost in their everyday, boring light. The rivers? He trails his fingers through the oil without a word, staring down at the liquid as if it's something he's never seen before. Even the mountains- simple as they are, of brown stone and nothing else- capture his attention.

Most of the others have started to avoid him completely, given his tendency to pick up whichever consort is closest and laugh.

Apparently, he is shocked at the size of your race. How droll.

Even offensive, now that you think about it. The Salamanders are not a display to be gawked at, at the mercy of whatever small-eyed children happen to-

"WOW! These trees are glowing! That's so cool! And what's the deal with all these mushrooms! They look like Gushers or something!"

You heave a bubbly sigh. It seems this boy's endless supply of amazement is just that. A part of you wants to indulge in his childlike joy that only comes from learning something new.

But no. You remind yourself that this is the only outsider your land has ever seen, and of all the possible news-bearing, society-building travelers in all of paradox space, you had to get the one that can't stop gawking up at the fireflies.

And forgive your language, but that's glubbing ridiculous.