Wordcount: 297
Rating/Warnings: PG
Summary: It’s a city built for exploration and Gray’s itching to go out and play.

NOTE: This is a very rough draft with no editing at all (per National Novel Wiriting Month rules) and is presented for amusement value only. Think of it as a periscope into my writing process rather than a coherent story!

There will most likely be spelling and grammatical errors afoot as well as flat out bad writing, info dumps, plot holes, contradictions/retcons, uneven characterization and pacing. These snippits are also posted out of order, so please refer to the Outline to figure out where it’s supposed to fit.

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And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street

There are plenty of weird things in the city, both from within and without. The mechanical squirrels, the odd plant life that fills in the gaps where the city doesn’t. The werewolf bartenders and humans of every shape and hue.

There’s a thousand possibilities for everything they see and after a while Gray gets used to seeing the unexpected. If that’s even possible.

Tan is still amassed at every new thing, she thinks it’s part of his programming and maybe his breeding. The constant inquisitiveness that makes her think there is some border collie in his parentage, hidden behind the bloodhound and the Irish wolfhound.

But she has to admit she’s just as curious, even if the edge has dulled somewhat. There’s something thrilling about finding things that don’t exist where she came from, or that look like they shouldn’t exist at all.

She likes to watch the folks who come back in from the various scouting missions through the doors. They never go through doors that look hostile, but that’s such an arbitrary distinction. If they had a way to send through probes first, they would, but they have to send people and that means there are living breathing people who are risked with every try.

The city won’t let them go to truly dangerous worlds. They know that from White’s red door that leads to a world with poisonous air and poisonous soil, the remnants of something that the older woman refuses to talk about.

For a moment Gray was tempted to have Tan stick his nose through that door, just to see what really lay on the other side, but she knows better than to interfere in White’s business and the city has made it very clear that no one else can open it.