The first sensation was brightness—no, not just brightness, but a warm, teasing glimmer that seeped through closed eyelids the way laughter seeps through thin cottage-pane windows on festival nights. A brassy dawn-beam cut the morning haze above the hidden meadow and landed squarely on a tuft of wind-stroked clover. In that soft nest of green, where the grass still wore night-dew like tiny crystal medals, something stirred. That something was half-human, half-hare, and one hundred percent confused.

Loma Bigfoot opened her eyes to a world already mid-breath. Blue sky yawned overhead, wagtails chirped operatic scales, and the distant hum of bees pirouetted between snow-white daisies. She blinked twice, sat upright, and gasped. Her hands—slender, human, trembling—ended in fingers lightly dusted with palest-sienna fur. Her feet—huge and padded like cloud-stuffed slippers—kicked involuntarily, drilling twin hollows in the soft loam. When her ears twitched and rose into view, she nearly fainted. Ears…

“Okay… that’s new,” she muttered, the words rough like pebbles inside a tin pail. She tried to stand. Her legs obeyed in a loopy, spring-loaded fashion, propelling her several inches higher than expected. One wobble, two wobbles, three, and she balanced on haunches shaped for bounding rather than strolling. The light that had woken her hovered like a curtain of gold, parting to reveal an audience she hadn’t noticed.

Five silhouettes approached through the tall grass, hopping more than walking. They resolved into figures remarkably like her: human torsos, expressive faces, and proud rabbit ears crowning each head. Pastel waistcoats flapped open; patchwork breeches and utility belts jangled with acorn-caps, colored twine, and carrot-peel confetti. They came in colors of personality: one bright as sunrise, one as cool as pond-shadow, one as thorny as briars, one as gentle as moss, and one vibrating with mischievous static.

“Look, look, look!” cried the brightest, a flaxen-haired bundle of sparkle holding a megaphone fashioned out of rolled birch bark. “Fresh-flashed Flarionian!” She leapt, clicked her heels, and sprayed glitter from a pouch at her hip.