<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;">Thumbelina</span></div><br/><br/>"Where do you think we should set down, Svale?" Thumbelina asked, looking over the countryside from the swallow's back. Both sets of eyes scanned the area below them. "Certainly not there... look at all of those will-o-wisps!" There was a cluster of them hovering over a farm. Most of them were irritating the farmer and his hands, but each cow and pig and chicken had one annoying them over their heads as well. "Perhaps the next village?" she suggested with a sigh. She was very tired of will-o-wisps. They kept floating up to follow them if they flew low enough to catch their notice, and sometimes they resembled nothing so much as the tail of a kite with them trailing after. It made Svale twitchy to be followed so closely, though it<span style="font-style: italic">had</span>come in handy on foggy evenings.<br/><br/>They flew on, before long reaching a small village. There seemed to be an excessive amount of scurrying about than was usual, however. They flew a bit lower, and Thumbelina let out a sigh of exasperation, planting her face in the back of Svale's neck. "Gnomes. An entire village's worth of those stupid, plummy gnomes." Her voice was muffled by Svale's feathers, but the swallow heard her anyway. She sighed again and sat upright once more, shaking her head. "All right, let's find somewhere<span style="font-style: italic">quiet</span>, then. No wisps, no gnomes, just a tree and perhaps some flowers. What in the<span style="font-style: italic">world</span>is going on here?" Svale shook his head as well and rose into the air once more, determined to find a place to sleep without excess company.