Traumatic Experience

1. Inside Nanny Muk's house, Nanny struggles to stuff a tentacled monster into a pot. Its eyestalks hang out the sides. Kayra cracks the door open and pokes her head inside, Singing Cricket lingering cautiously behind her. On the counter is an abandoned teacup, a half-eaten cookie, and an open book.

Kayra: "Hi, Nanny! Is Granny around?"

Nanny: "No, she went out. And she just left her things lying about!"

2. Nanny adds, "Be a dear and pick up after her." Kayra and Singing Cricket go to tidy up the abandoned items. Singing Cricket reaches for the book.

3. The book's cover reads, "Good House-Keeping The care and feeding of mobile homes. B. Yaga." He reacts with a "!".

4. Caption: "Later..."

Singing Cricket and Nanny sit at the table. Nanny is about to dig into her stew, in which the monster is still alive and looking up at her. Kayra brings another bowl to Singing Cricket, but he is preoccupied with the book he found.

Singing Cricket: "It says here that houses should be walked daily. But I've never seen yours get up, nanny."

Nanny: "Oh, I don't care for mobile homes. Too unpredictable."

5. Kayra goes back to fill a new bowl of soup while the conversation goes on.

Patting the table affectionately, Nanny continues, "No, I prefer my reliable old MIMIC."

Singing Cricket slams his hands down in shock, sending his soup bowl and the creature inside it flying toward Kayra. "What?? This house is... a MIMIC?!" He is terrified.

6. Kayra goes to comfort him. "Husband? What's wrong?"

"I've had... Bad experiecnes with mimics," replies Singing Cricket. Faint images surround him, his memories of those bad experiences: sitting down on the pointy-toothed maw of a mimic chair, reaching a hand into the mouth of a hungry mimic chest, taking a bite into a mimic sandwich... "But... the house doesn't MOVE, right? It's not like the TABLE'S going to reach up and GRAB me."

From off-panel, a hand reaches over and pats him on the shoulder. Nanny Muk says, "Don't worry. It's completely docile."

7. "Thanks, Nanny," says Singing Cricket, putting his hand over the hand on his shoulder. Zoomed out, it is revealed that Nanny Muk's hands are both occupied in eating her soup; the comforting hand Singing Cricket is holding is stretching up out of the table, and has an array of eyeballs and a toothy smile. "You know, you have surprisingly soft hands."