This is what was going on in Ingrid's garden at the same time her tank was parked out front, and something I had to include somewhere as soon as I thought of it. These two are Dana, a little Basran squirrelgirl who for reasons nobody is clear on is patterned like a skunk, and Ingrid's little niece Jessica, the daughter of her younger sister Nicole who's the actual heir, having the unusual purplish furtone that's unique to the Sola family*. The two playfight more or less constantly and since this usually involves Dana's enormous fluffy tail getting wrapped around both of them they tend to bounce around like a fuzzy little tumbleweed.

At present they've finally run out of energy out near the ponds, and Ingrid's ornamental koi trilobites (a modern amphibious species) are coming to investigate because fluffy things usually give them bread and / or pet them.

The one under the bench is a little nervous compared to the others: her egg was misplaced by her parents and Ingrid found it and hatched it herself. This means she imprinted on Ingrid as her mother and since that's where she sits to read on sunny days, it is the trilobite's Safe Place where nothing bad can possibly happen to her.

The fish in the pool are not called catfish, since Aludrans would never regard a fish as capable of sharing any of their Qualities. They are chosen for their markings: large omnivorous trilobites like these will eat even fairly big fish, but the combination of markings and their long barbels are enough to trick the trilobites into thinking the fish are other trilobites, and so aside from some curious nudging to try to get them to come up on land to graze and explore, they largely leave them alone. They treat the low loops around the path as being totally impassible, so they won't go into the other ponds.

The cat does not know why she tolerates any of this.

*Aludran noble genetics works primarily through a technique known as bullshitting, they marry some other noble they at least enjoy arguing with, marry whoever else they like, find someone to have heirs with who actually looks like them, and proclaim it a function of noble blood that their heirs only look like one of their parents (and usually coincidentally like some member of the Household, such as the head cook who would leave the kitchens if she weren't certain some random apocalypse would commence as soon as she set foot upstairs). Ingrid is descended from both of her noble great-grandparents, so she looks like Fiona with the Sola purple as her point colour.