While she had been living with her aunts, Annie had been used to a very torn-up mattress and a room so small one would be forgiven for thinking it was just a large closet. Not pleasant, but it had meant the switch to sleeping rough once she had left hadn't been too difficult for her, and she'd adjusted to the nighttime sounds, sights and smells of the coastal marshes and jungles that part of the Feywild offered.
So when she awoke to find herself in a luxurious room devoid of damp, rot, pests, dirt and various wild animals who had mistaken her for fresh carrion, she thought she was dreaming and her to rub her eyes repeatedly before she was convinced she was, in fact, awake.
Had she finally found her way to the Material Plane? This certainly didn't feel like the Feywild anymore, though there was something about it that felt... odd? She couldn't quite put it into words, at least not ones that would make much sense to others. It was this vague, almost crawling feeling on her skin. Maybe that was just bed bugs? Though this bed looked much too nice to have such things.
Maybe that's just what the bed bugs want me to think, Annie thought to herself. After all, one of the first things you learnt growing up in the Feywild was that nothing was ever what it seemed, and even if she wasn't in the Feywild anymore, that lesson she was not going to discard to easily.
She got up, taking a moment to side-eye the bed so it knew well that she was onto its games, and began inspecting the rest of the room. It was weird to her how... clean it was. Even her aunts' own room - which if anyone asked, she'd never been it, not once in all her life - were not devoid of wear-and-tear, pests or moss. She'd even swear that Aunt Ivette's room had barnacles growing on the walls - though obviously, she'd never been in there, but you know, she just had a gut feeling that that was the case.
As Annie was inspecting the room, someone knocked at the door, causing her to jump slightly. Apparently, a meal had been prepared for her by her mysterious hosts. As is to remind her that it had been some time she had eaten proper food, her stomach gave a whine.
Well, she wasn't going to be much use if she was hungry so she exited the room, down the hallway to a dining area where she found other people - some wearing animal masks, which she thought was quite neat - gathered round the largest feast she had ever beheld in her life. There wasn't really much in the way of the seafood she was used to eating, but beggars couldn't be choosers so she sat down and immediately began tucking into the food in front of her, only half-listening to the conversation going on around her. A man wearing a fox mask was apparently in charge and had brought them all here to participate in some sort of game... a hunt? Hunting what?
Apparently she wasn't the only one wondering this as scarred goblin, who for some reason was not partaking in the food, asked who they would be hunting, and who would be hunting them.
Something clicked in Annie's head. Oh, so it was like hide-and-seek! Annie used to play that sometimes with her aunts, usually after she had done something bad she would go hide somewhere, and if one of them - usually Ivette - found her, they'd smack her silly upside the head. Sometimes worse. One time, before her gills had started to grow, Ivette had held her head under the water for an extended period of time. She'd been bedridden for a long time after that.
Swallowing her current mouthful of food, Annie raised her hand. "Erm, I have a few questions as well!" she said. "First off, where exactly are we? Is this the Material Plane?"
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