No one wanted to play with Lala Smith. 

Every day, as soon as playtime started in her preschool, she would go to the toy chest and select three plushies - a dinosaur, a scrappy girl with long brown hair, and a bat. They were three of the least liked and oldest toys available in the chest, so they were also the ones she knew she could always reliably use. She would then go to a corner of the room to continue her adventures, the ones she had been building for weeks by that point, by herself, away from the other children. From the outside, one would have thought of her as a loner, but that was not the case: she wanted to play with the other kids, but they did not quite get her way of playing.

Lala was five years old, and she was extremely serious about play and about stories; more serious than any of the other children by a massive margin. She was building a very detailed narrative that she developed day by day, an intricate and epic tale filled with drama and conflict, and deep characters. 

Bart was not just a dinosaur; Bart had travelled from the past to warn everyone about the dangers of not respecting nature, and Bart was very close to Tracy, which for the other kids was just a beat-up bat, but in Lala’s world was the only being that knew the way in the Kingdom of Night, the kingdom that Andrea, her heroine, had found herself trapped into after oversleeping on her birthday so long that she skipped it. 

Lala tried more than once to explain her story to other kids, to get them to join her, but they had little patience for that; they wanted to be able to invent new games every day, and not have to follow this complicated story. They wanted to play on their terms. Lala was sad because she really wanted to share, but she could not do that if that meant destroying what she was trying to build.

Eventually, Lala’s teacher even called her parents in to talk about the situation. She told them that Lala was bright and well-behaved, but she had to try and engage with other kids more and try to play on their terms too. When her parents told Lala, she told them that she would have liked to, but their terms changed every day. Their stories and their characters changed every day. So, when you got close to a character, and they disappeared, that was sad. Her characters were alive to her, and she wanted to keep their story going. Her parent and teacher understood; her teacher only told her “You’re very bright, Lala”, but she looked sad while doing that.

She was so passionate about something imaginary that her parents- her mother a designer, her father a lawyer - could not think of a way to change her mind. They kind of liked that grit. But they told her to try and, sometimes, play with other kids creating new stories; the ones she created were always going to be available to her - she could always come back to the Kingdom of Night. She tried, sometimes, but she felt like something was missing.

Some time passed; her story grew, and developed, and she got used to playing on her own. Until she did not have to, anymore.

Lala did not even notice Jen Yamato when she first joined her preschool. Jen was quiet and a bit shy. Her family had recently moved from San Francisco to Seattle for work, so she was completely new to the city and a bit overwhelmed. But during her first day, at playtime, she saw Lala in her corner and, intrigued, joined her. 

Lala immediately explained to Jen the very intricate lore behind each of her toys, half expecting her to just leave immediately like every other kid had so far. Instead, she saw that Jen was very fascinated by her story. She started asking questions about it. Lala answered with enthusiasm, talking for around five minutes, because, as intricate as Lala’s story was, she was still five years old. 

To Lala’s surprise, her audience kept listening the entire time: Jen was curious to know what was waiting for the heroes in the Kingdom of Night; and what Andrea was looking for. And, most importantly, how the Kingdom of Night worked. Lala realized that she had not quite figured that out yet. She did think of why the characters did what they did, and their motivations. But she never considered how the world that surrounded them worked; it was as if it just manifested around them. 

So Jen went back to the toy crate and took two new dolls: a cat, and a dragon. She also took some Playmobil structures and started to place them around her and Lala. 

Jen named the dragon Aris and the cat Pol. The dragon was the keeper of the Kingdom of Night - a kingdom made of lost birthdays. She then created a bridge, and a small hut on the other side of it. The cat was there to give the heroes a series of quests they had to solve to get out on the other side of a giant bridge: a place that no one dared to cross because the water under it was too dangerous - filled with the sadness of children who got stuck there, in the space between one age and another.

Lala for a moment was about to shoot her down. She did not have the vocabulary to put that into words, but her pride as an author was under fire, and she was recoiling. But after that initial shock, she saw that as soon as she integrated Jen’s additions, her story was infinitely better. Jen grounded it. As they kept playing, they could bounce ideas back and forth perfectly. Lala considered the motivations of the characters, while Jen was thinking of the challenges they had to face and the world around them.

She did not yet know that they would keep doing that for their entire life.