"I'm not squishy. I'm a dragon." He butts the side of their head, gently. "Are you gonna let Leaf see if you're a plant? Plants are squishy sometimes."

Rustling giggle. "Yes!"

Leaf reaches out, and there's an odd sense of... taste, almost, at the tips of his fingers where they touch.

"No," he says after a few seconds. "Not any kind of plant."

   Everia nods. "Well, you can stay for a few days, anyway."

"Okay! Thank you."

    "Mmhmm. Do you remember how to get to the pillars from here?" she asks Raafi.

"I'll show them!" Juuni prances on his new friend's shoulder. "I can do it!"

    "All right, little one. Don't leave Leaf behind."

"I won't!"

It's not far, but it's not fast, either, following the little dragon, who wants to show them everything and is only barely managing to restrain himself to things that are even nominally between here and there - here's a fairy ring (the fairies are shy) and here's a stream with good rocks in it and this tree over here has prism wasps nesting in it which they shouldn't eat and that tree has special bark and here's where Mhaenal and Sarra keep the wine they're brewing (he doesn't know why, it tastes gross) and over here...

Raafi and Leaf follow along comfortably enough, catching each other up on the news and gossip.

October has a similarly short attention span, fortunately, and is fascinated by all the things!

They'll have a good interesting walk, then!

And eventually they make it to the pillars, or rather to one of them, a rough stone cylinder some thirty feet high and maybe eighty feet wide that looks like a chunk of the earth was pushed up from underneath. The area around it is cleared of underbrush, and the trees thin out, giving the humanoids gathered here space to move around easily.

Most of them are elves, of a few sorts, though the difference might not be obvious to casual inspection. Halflings are also well-represented, one speaking to a group of gathered children while another two teach a handful of adolescents the finer points of using a sling to throw stones and a fourth lounges under a tree petting a giant snake. The rest of the people here are more of a mixed bag; one looks a bit like Juuni, but with duller scales and standing on two legs like Raafi and Leaf; another looks mostly like Raafi from the waist up, except for a pair of horns on her head, but has furry brown legs that bend twice instead of once and end in shiny black hooves; another is entirely bald, with grey skin veined like marble.

"Do you see anyone you want to meet?" Rafi asks. "Or we can find somewhere to sit and they'll come over and talk to us when they're ready."

Uncertain rustle.

"When they're ready?"