For some reason, Mimsy had not expected a tree with a fairly ordinary appearance to talk. She briefly wondered if there was some sort of accidental tree bias buried deep within her, but ultimately tabled the introspective inquiry for a later time.
"Hello," said the tree.
"Greetings, my pleasant perennial Wonderland playmate," said Mimsy (who had been practicing that one in her head).
Her clever wording seemed to have gone unnoticed, and she would have been disappointed again, but something
extraordinary happened instead. The tree began to ask for her assistance with a
math puzzle.
"I have a small question. I have two friends, Dilly, Milly, and Nilly. Nilly is taller than Dilly, but shorter than me. Dilly is shorter than Milly but taller than me. How tall am I?"
If only the name were two letters away from the name it spoke
twice, the helpful, energetic smile she'd been giving the tree might have spread into something even better, which might have encouraged her to have a pleasant conversation with the tree, which might have ended this entire interaction on a good note for each of them.
But each 'Milly' felt like a nail being driven into her stomach, and the smile soured instead. She slouched and lowered her head, one arm shifting to wrap tightly over her chest. It was not supposed to be like this. Wonderland was everything promising and nothing discouraging at all, yet there it was, this little mustard seed of doubt, working its way into the hairline fractures of this fantasy, eager to split her perfect dream in two.
This had only just begun, and she had not yet seen even one iota of what she intended to see. If this was her dream, an important part of the 'everyone' mentioned by the invisible smiling entity was still somewhere in this world, waiting for her to share this with them.
The tree pined for an answer.
It was just a puzzle. It was just a name. She sat on the ground and buried her face in her hands.
<
But you are Mimsy,> Svensyl crooned, his voice carrying the image of the smooth edge of his cold claws pressed tenderly to her temple. <
You are Mimsy in this world and out! Nothing less, nothing more! There are few that are more than Mimsy, after all. You can count them, one-two-three! But you are Mimsy, made of most magneffic muchness, and...oh, all right. Maybe more, but no less!>
Encouragement from the Jabberwock was never really welcome, but this was Wonderland, and it worked. She raised her head and propped her chin up on her knees.
"I am Mimsy," she told the tree, voice stern. "I will solve your conundrum of calculation, and you will not ruin this for me."
For a long while, she did nothing but silently glare at the tree, daring it to protest. When it did not, she smoothed out a clear space of multicolored sediment and began to draw in it with her finger, labeling each figure only by a single initial.
"This is Dilly," she began, pointing at a line drawn in the sand, labeled with a 'D'. "You claim that Nilly," she pointed at a second line, "is taller than Dilly, but shorter than you, and that Dilly is shorter than Milly, but taller than you. As you can see, this would not allow your heights to function in a linear fashion."
It clearly did not, which was unsurprising, because such rigid logic from reality had no place here; but it only felt uncomfortable for a fleeting moment before she looked at it again, her head tilted to the side. Oh, right! Now it made
perfect sense!
"A linear fashion is ridiculous. Your heights require a sufficiently circular method, like so."
She rubbed away the drawings and began again, placing them each at a different point around a circle. Dilly was positioned at the top, and an arrow connected them to Nilly, who was connected to 'You', who was then connected to Milly. She glanced up to make sure that the tree was following along before she drew in the last arrow, connecting Milly to Dilly.
"This is correct if we assume that each arrow theoretically means something akin to 'is taller than', and it is the solution to the problem itself as you presented it. However..."
She pushed herself up and stood straight and proud and
happy again, her playful smile returning as she entered the game once more.
"You have only two friends. The reality of this problem is that Milly does not exist, which is quite a problem for Milly. I am certain that Milly is the false friend, because someone with that name would never have a friend, and would positively not have three or more." Brows raised, she put her hands on her hips and looked up at the tree. "Clever of you, but not clever enough! Of course, this does not solve the question entirely, does it? After presenting all of your information, you did not request the correct order of heights in any capacity. You asked only,
'how tall am I', so I will gladly show you!"
This time, she bent down to draw in the sand, pushing her fingertip along in straight lines until the diagram was complete. It consisted mainly of an acute triangle, with the 'tree' on one side, and a thumbprint 'Mimsy' at its point, and was incomplete, but she still had work to do. She brushed her hand off, looked back at the tree, pursed her lips, and took several large steps backwards. From there, she approximated a measurement with one eye closed and her hands held at a steady angle.
Satisfied, she moved back towards the tree in slow, even steps, paused briefly when she reached the tree itself, returned to the triangle in the sand, and began to speak again.
"Forgive my imprecision without the proper tools. My answer should be very close, however, so you need not worry. The margin of error is minuscule. That aside..." With care and concentration, she labeled each portion in preparation for her explanation.
"I stood a distance of ten meters from you, here," she said, pointing at the thumbprint, "where I then measured the angle of elevation that was necessary for me to view your very tip-topmost point. Now...I take that number, and..." Her expression softened into something apologetic. "Forgive me. Explaining this step itself might take all night, and it would please me greatly to observe more than just your area of the forest, as lovely an area as it may be. I will touch upon it in brief - oh, are you familiar with
pi? Wait, nevermind."
She waved her hand dismissively and began to write in the sand again.
"I used the number I defined as the angle for which I acted as the vertex to determine the same angle's tangent. Generally, you would input the value for the angle into a calculator, which would find the tangent when you press the button labeled 'TAN', but you are a tree, ha ha!" The joke was so funny to her, whatever it was exactly, that her almost flatly-spoken laughter broke into actual giggles. She had to take several deep breaths to contain herself before she could continue. "It was a friendly jest, I assure you! Anyway, we have no calculator, and I would prefer to avoid that lengthy explanation, so you will have to trust that my mental calculation of the tangent is close enough to be safely considered 'correct'. Well...in truth, it is not much of a calculation at all, because..."
A look of suspicion crossed her face, and she leaned forward, cupped one hand around her mouth, and loudly whispered: "
I memorized the tables."
She pressed a finger to her lips to urge the tree to remain silent about this, stared long enough to be sure that it knew she was watching, and moved on.
"So! As I said, I stood at a distance of ten meters from you. This number is multiplied by the tangent of the angle of elevation, resulting in...hm, nine point zero zero four. But there is still math to be done! I am one point eight meters tall, which must be added to the number that I previously mentioned due to the height at which the angle was measured. The final few steps of the equation look like this."
"Well." She drew in a deep breath and clapped her hands together, as if she had a fantastic surprise in store for the tree. "Are you ready? Your very closely approximated height is..."
For effect, she wrote it in the sand first:
"Nine point one eight four meters!" she jovially announced, which was not at all as satisfying as she had imagined it. Probably because it was still not correct, she reminded herself. "Or it would be, if you lived in my world, because those are the exact calculations that I would have used there too. My approximation of your height here is eighteen dodos, five filigree, and one-seventh quip."
This was typically the point where Svensyl would begin to laugh or scream or chant loudly, but he was quiet. She must have been listening to him during the days on end when she provided nothing but silence and apparent disinterest. Fancy that.
"No, why, I--" the tree said, before Mimsy began to speak over it.
"Oh, no need to thank me! My mathematical estimations are a free service. I understand your desire to express your gratitude, but
really, it is my duty to use this to benefit those who cannot do
math."
And with that, she walked briskly away, feeling immensely pleased with herself.
OOC
My character's username: Mimsy
My character's level: 1
Character's HP: 30
Current party: Current Guild: Location: Tulgey Woods
Small IC description of character: Mimsy is tall, thin, and colorlessly pale, with wide teal eyes that appear
incredibly manic behind her thick glasses in her haste to see everything, bright red and indigo streaks in the bangs of her black hair, and one long, thick braid, ending just before her knees. She has Cheshire ears, a fluffy Cheshire tail, and a pair of blue demon wings. Her appearance is accented with images of galaxies in blues and purples.
Character journal: here 
My character's username: RazerHead
