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February 9, 1847; Lyme Regis, United Kingdom

She did it! She finally did it!

Evelyn put her hands in a cup as she excitedly looked down at the beautiful little butterfly she had just managed to catch in the garden. It flapped it's wings a bit and flicked out it's little tongue to inspect her hands. Evelyn giggled with glee and ran straight towards her house, where she spotted her mother Connie and grandmother Aveza sitting at the balcony table.

“Thank you so much for visiting, Mum.” Connie told her mother as the two of them enjoyed an evening cup of tea.

“Oh it's no trouble at all, dearie!” Aveza said. “There's nothing I love more than coming to visit my amazing daughter in jolly ol’ England!”

Connie laughed. “Is Charlotte not keeping you company enough? Do I have to go overseas and teach my baby sister a lesson again?”

Aveza laughed. “No dear, Charlotte is a joy back home. Though I think she would appreciate it if her big sister wrote a bit more often.”

“Well I would but I can't help how busy I've been around here! Between helping Victor with his work and-”

“Mummy! Mummy!” Evelyn eagerly said as she came running up to her mother with her hands cupped.

Connie smiled and picked her daughter up and sat her down in her lap.

“Hi sweetie!” she cooed. “What do you have there?”

“I caught a butterfly, Mummy!”

“Did you? Well let's see it!”

Evelyn uncupped her hands to reveal the delicate little animal inside. It stood still on her hand, save for the occasional little wing flap.

“That's beautiful, Evelyn!” Aveza said. “Good job!”

“Thanks Grandma!”

The butterfly then crawled up Evelyn’s fingertips and started fluttering its wings, taking it back into the air. Evelyn watched it go.

“Bye Ms. Butterfly!” she said to it. Connie and Aveza couldn't help but giggle.

“So how is Victor, anyway?” Aveza asked her daughter.

“Oh he's fine,” Connie said. “Caught up in his work like usual.”

“Our work, my dear,” a new voice suddenly corrected. “We share our efforts as a team.”

The three girls smiled as they turned and saw a man clad in a stylish coat and hat walk out of the house and onto the balcony.

“Papa!” Evelyn cheered.

“Hello there my little angel!” he said to the little girl, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead before doing the same for his wife.

“Victor!” Aveza said. “It's been so long, dear! How are you?”

“Oh just as grand as ever!” he told her. “Connie and I have been hard at work as always. We just received a new batch of fossils from our local museum, a few samples from the Iguanodon bones that Dr. Mantell and his wife found a couple decades back, and it's turning out to be quite an interesting set indeed!”

“That's splendid, dear! Good to see the two of you are doing such fine work! Perhaps someday you'll find something that's older than I am!”

They all laughed at that. “Mum, you're not that old,” Connie chuckled. Aveza just smiled.

“So how about you, my friend?” Victor asked Aveza. “How goes things over in North America with your apprentice? Priscilla, right?”

Aveza nodded. “Yes. Priscilla's an absolute darling like always. No one else on this Earth I would've trusted that Key with. Her lot in the States are running into some problems with Mexico, but that's a whole separate issue. Other than that, it's been rather peaceful, at least up north.”

“Well that's splendid to hear!”

“Papa! Papa!” Evelyn said, bouncing in her mother's lap.

“Yes, darling?” Victor asked.

“Can I go play in the gardens again?”

“Why of course, darling! Have fun. Just make sure you be careful, okay? Stay away from the cliffs on the shoreline. You know they get rather weak in the winter.”

“Okay Papa.”

“Good girl. I'll come check on you in a moment once your grandmum and I finish catching up.”

Connie gently helped Evelyn back to the ground and the little girl immediately took off running and giggling into the massive gardens of her home.

She ran around the bushes, chasing down butterflies and other interesting critters from nature that she happened to stumble across. She laughed and crashed through the foliage until she suddenly realized that she couldn't hear her parents’ voices anymore because she had wandered a bit farther than usual. She turned around, deciding to go back, but it dawned on her that she had lost her way in the trees and bushes. She tried her best to stay calm and find her way home. She couldn’t have gone that far, right?

That was what she thought until she suddenly found herself on the edge of a massive cliff that dipped away into the rocky ocean. Her eyes widened she took a look over the edge. It looked like such a long way down…

But something suddenly caught her eye, something that seemed to be sticking out of the muddy slope. A rock of some sort, but an oddly shaped one, like the ones her parents liked to dig up. Her young curiosity was starting to get the best of her already. She knew she shouldn't try to go get it. She knew she should continue making her way back home.

But…

She really wanted to be like her parents and figure out what that strange rock was.

After a moment of hesitation and debating with herself, she made up her mind. She was gonna take the risk. She'd just grab the rock, head back up the cliff, go home, and tell her parents she found it in the garden. What could go wrong?

She pulled up her skirts a bit and slowly started making her way down the slope. She did her best to only step on the solid rocks that weren't ready to collapse under her feet with the oozing winter mud. She went farther down, hearing the crashing of waves beneath her as she climbed down. She could see the rock from here. She started to make out the shape. It looked like a skull of sorts. She smiled as she finally got within reaching distance of the thing. She grabbed the thing as tight as she could and started to slowly pull it from the mud. She nearly fell back onto her nice little dress when the skull popped out of its muddy prison. She laughed in victory, looking down at this bizarre animal skull. It looked a bit like a crocodile, but with a much skinnier, cone-shaped snout.

“Woah! What are you?” she said out loud. Though she soon found that she didn't have a lot of time to observe and ponder.

Because right after she pulled it out of the ground, the ground suddenly gave way.

Evelyn screamed and clutched the skull as the mud and rocks crumbled beneath her in a massive landslide that forced her along towards the ride, barreling her towards the inky black waves.

She screamed and cried, regretting not listening to her father and just praying to God that she'd get to say she was sorry. She didn't want to die like this!

And just as she was only a few meters away from being swallowed by the sea and mud, she suddenly felt herself getting yanked upwards by her collar. She barely had time to process the next few seconds as she was hoisted onto someone's shoulders and they ascended back up towards the top of the cliff. The next thing Evelyn knew, her feet were put on solid ground once again. She sniffled as tears covered her cheeks and she looked up at her savior. A middle aged woman smiled down at her, and knelt down to meet her eyes.

“Are you okay, little one?” Evelyn was asked. Evelyn nodded, not realizing she was still hugging her bone discovery tight against her chest.

“You shouldn't be playing by the cliffs like that, dear,” the woman told her. “It's very dangerous for little girls like you.”

“I'm sorry…” Evelyn said. “I just wanted to get this rock thingy…”

“Oh?” the woman asked, looking down at the skull. “And what is that?”

“I… uh… I don't know. It's like a weird animal I think.”

“Can I see it?”

Evelyn was hesitant, but she slowly handed the skull over eventually.

“My my,” the woman said as she looked at the skull from multiple angles. “You certainly are a lucky little girl!”

“Evelyn!” the voice of Victor suddenly came through the trees. “Evelyn dear where are you!” He appeared through the leaves, a bit out of breath, and he spotted the two girls.

“My word!” he said. “Mary! Good heavens what happened?”

“Nice to see you too, Victor,” the woman, Mary laughed.

Victor looked down at Evelyn, relieved to find her. He rushed up and picked her up.

“Was she playing on the cliffs?” he asked Mary. “I told her not to.”

“No Victor, she wasn't. The landslide was me. I wasn't careful enough.”

Evelyn felt a surge of relief, though she didn't say anything. She hated getting grounded… She was adventurous sure, but she was still a good girl.

“This however,” Mary said, holding up the skull, “is a find that your daughter can take credit for.”

“My word!” Victor said, staring at it. “That's a nearly complete Ichthyosaur skull! That's phenomenal! I… nice work, Evelyn!”

Evelyn managed to giggle a bit. “What's an ick-fio-s-uhh…?” she tried and failed to say.

Victor and Mary chuckled. “It's an ancient animal from thousands of years ago,” he explained. “Just like the kind of things your mother and I study.”

Mary cleared her throat.

“Oh. And dear Ms. Anning here as well,” he jokingly corrected. “Though to be honest, you really should be in bed, Mary. I know you've been rather under the weather lately.”

“Do you really think that would be enough to keep me from coming out here and reliving the glory days?”

Victor chuckled. “Alright fair enough. Still though, take it easy, alright?”

“I make no promises.”

Victor smiled. He looked at his daughter, who seemed a bit confused. “Evelyn, this is one of your papa’s old friends, Mary Anning. She's a scientist like me and your mum.”

“Pleased to meet you at last, little one,” Mary told Evelyn. “Your father talks about you all the time.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Evelyn said. “So… that animal doesn't exist anymore?”

“I'm afraid not,” Mary told her. “There are hundreds of creatures that have left God's green Earth for the rest of time. This is honestly one of the less-bizarre examples.”

Evelyn looked in awe at the skull. She had always loved nature. She always loved playing outside in the gardens looking for new animals and plants to watch. But this was something that was different from anything else she had seen, than anyone had ever seen. Something brand new that swam around only in her imagination. And that fascinated her little toddler mind.

“Are there more?” she asked the adults. “Can I see them?”

They chuckled. “Your mummy and I will show you some of our collections once we get back home,” Victor told her. He looked back to Mary. “Speaking of which, we should start getting back before my wife starts getting worried. My mother-in-law would kill me if Connie started to have a panic attack while I wasn't there.”

Mary laughed and handed the fossil back to Evelyn. “Very well. Take care, you two. It was a joy seeing you again.”

“Same to you, my dear. And please, try to take it easy. Not a lot of people recover swiftly in your state.”

“I promise I'll try to quell my adventurous spirit until I am back to health.”

“Thank you Mary. Godspeed. Say goodbye, Evelyn.”

“Bye bye,” Evelyn told Mary as her father turned to leave.

“Bye bye little one. Be sure to keep that keen eye out for more fossils. I'm sure you'd make quite the little scientist.”

Evelyn smiled brightly at that comment. As her father carried her back through the foliage and into their family's yard, the gears in her little toddler brain started spinning like mad. She wanted to do what her mum and papa do. She wanted to find the unknown and discover worlds long gone. She wanted to be a scientist.

And thus her destiny was set.

Description
February 9, 1847; Lyme Regis, United Kingdom

She did it! She finally did it!

Evelyn put her hands in a cup as she excitedly looked down at the beautiful little butterfly she had just managed to catch in the garden. It flapped it's wings a bit and flicked out it's little tongue to inspect her hands. Evelyn giggled with glee and ran straight towards her house, where she spotted her mother Connie and grandmother Aveza sitting at the balcony table.

“Thank you so much for visiting, Mum.” Connie told her mother as the two of them enjoyed an evening cup of tea.

“Oh it's no trouble at all, dearie!” Aveza said. “There's nothing I love more than coming to visit my amazing daughter in jolly ol’ England!”

Connie laughed. “Is Charlotte not keeping you company enough? Do I have to go overseas and teach my baby sister a lesson again?”

Aveza laughed. “No dear, Charlotte is a joy back home. Though I think she would appreciate it if her big sister wrote a bit more often.”

“Well I would but I can't help how busy I've been around here! Between helping Victor with his work and-”

“Mummy! Mummy!” Evelyn eagerly said as she came running up to her mother with her hands cupped.

Connie smiled and picked her daughter up and sat her down in her lap.

“Hi sweetie!” she cooed. “What do you have there?”

“I caught a butterfly, Mummy!”

“Did you? Well let's see it!”

Evelyn uncupped her hands to reveal the delicate little animal inside. It stood still on her hand, save for the occasional little wing flap.

“That's beautiful, Evelyn!” Aveza said. “Good job!”

“Thanks Grandma!”

The butterfly then crawled up Evelyn’s fingertips and started fluttering its wings, taking it back into the air. Evelyn watched it go.

“Bye Ms. Butterfly!” she said to it. Connie and Aveza couldn't help but giggle.

“So how is Victor, anyway?” Aveza asked her daughter.

“Oh he's fine,” Connie said. “Caught up in his work like usual.”

“Our work, my dear,” a new voice suddenly corrected. “We share our efforts as a team.”

The three girls smiled as they turned and saw a man clad in a stylish coat and hat walk out of the house and onto the balcony.

“Papa!” Evelyn cheered.

“Hello there my little angel!” he said to the little girl, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead before doing the same for his wife.

“Victor!” Aveza said. “It's been so long, dear! How are you?”

“Oh just as grand as ever!” he told her. “Connie and I have been hard at work as always. We just received a new batch of fossils from our local museum, a few samples from the Iguanodon bones that Dr. Mantell and his wife found a couple decades back, and it's turning out to be quite an interesting set indeed!”

“That's splendid, dear! Good to see the two of you are doing such fine work! Perhaps someday you'll find something that's older than I am!”

They all laughed at that. “Mum, you're not that old,” Connie chuckled. Aveza just smiled.

“So how about you, my friend?” Victor asked Aveza. “How goes things over in North America with your apprentice? Priscilla, right?”

Aveza nodded. “Yes. Priscilla's an absolute darling like always. No one else on this Earth I would've trusted that Key with. Her lot in the States are running into some problems with Mexico, but that's a whole separate issue. Other than that, it's been rather peaceful, at least up north.”

“Well that's splendid to hear!”

“Papa! Papa!” Evelyn said, bouncing in her mother's lap.

“Yes, darling?” Victor asked.

“Can I go play in the gardens again?”

“Why of course, darling! Have fun. Just make sure you be careful, okay? Stay away from the cliffs on the shoreline. You know they get rather weak in the winter.”

“Okay Papa.”

“Good girl. I'll come check on you in a moment once your grandmum and I finish catching up.”

Connie gently helped Evelyn back to the ground and the little girl immediately took off running and giggling into the massive gardens of her home.

She ran around the bushes, chasing down butterflies and other interesting critters from nature that she happened to stumble across. She laughed and crashed through the foliage until she suddenly realized that she couldn't hear her parents’ voices anymore because she had wandered a bit farther than usual. She turned around, deciding to go back, but it dawned on her that she had lost her way in the trees and bushes. She tried her best to stay calm and find her way home. She couldn’t have gone that far, right?

That was what she thought until she suddenly found herself on the edge of a massive cliff that dipped away into the rocky ocean. Her eyes widened she took a look over the edge. It looked like such a long way down…

But something suddenly caught her eye, something that seemed to be sticking out of the muddy slope. A rock of some sort, but an oddly shaped one, like the ones her parents liked to dig up. Her young curiosity was starting to get the best of her already. She knew she shouldn't try to go get it. She knew she should continue making her way back home.

But…

She really wanted to be like her parents and figure out what that strange rock was.

After a moment of hesitation and debating with herself, she made up her mind. She was gonna take the risk. She'd just grab the rock, head back up the cliff, go home, and tell her parents she found it in the garden. What could go wrong?

She pulled up her skirts a bit and slowly started making her way down the slope. She did her best to only step on the solid rocks that weren't ready to collapse under her feet with the oozing winter mud. She went farther down, hearing the crashing of waves beneath her as she climbed down. She could see the rock from here. She started to make out the shape. It looked like a skull of sorts. She smiled as she finally got within reaching distance of the thing. She grabbed the thing as tight as she could and started to slowly pull it from the mud. She nearly fell back onto her nice little dress when the skull popped out of its muddy prison. She laughed in victory, looking down at this bizarre animal skull. It looked a bit like a crocodile, but with a much skinnier, cone-shaped snout.

“Woah! What are you?” she said out loud. Though she soon found that she didn't have a lot of time to observe and ponder.

Because right after she pulled it out of the ground, the ground suddenly gave way.

Evelyn screamed and clutched the skull as the mud and rocks crumbled beneath her in a massive landslide that forced her along towards the ride, barreling her towards the inky black waves.

She screamed and cried, regretting not listening to her father and just praying to God that she'd get to say she was sorry. She didn't want to die like this!

And just as she was only a few meters away from being swallowed by the sea and mud, she suddenly felt herself getting yanked upwards by her collar. She barely had time to process the next few seconds as she was hoisted onto someone's shoulders and they ascended back up towards the top of the cliff. The next thing Evelyn knew, her feet were put on solid ground once again. She sniffled as tears covered her cheeks and she looked up at her savior. A middle aged woman smiled down at her, and knelt down to meet her eyes.

“Are you okay, little one?” Evelyn was asked. Evelyn nodded, not realizing she was still hugging her bone discovery tight against her chest.

“You shouldn't be playing by the cliffs like that, dear,” the woman told her. “It's very dangerous for little girls like you.”

“I'm sorry…” Evelyn said. “I just wanted to get this rock thingy…”

“Oh?” the woman asked, looking down at the skull. “And what is that?”

“I… uh… I don't know. It's like a weird animal I think.”

“Can I see it?”

Evelyn was hesitant, but she slowly handed the skull over eventually.

“My my,” the woman said as she looked at the skull from multiple angles. “You certainly are a lucky little girl!”

“Evelyn!” the voice of Victor suddenly came through the trees. “Evelyn dear where are you!” He appeared through the leaves, a bit out of breath, and he spotted the two girls.

“My word!” he said. “Mary! Good heavens what happened?”

“Nice to see you too, Victor,” the woman, Mary laughed.

Victor looked down at Evelyn, relieved to find her. He rushed up and picked her up.

“Was she playing on the cliffs?” he asked Mary. “I told her not to.”

“No Victor, she wasn't. The landslide was me. I wasn't careful enough.”

Evelyn felt a surge of relief, though she didn't say anything. She hated getting grounded… She was adventurous sure, but she was still a good girl.

“This however,” Mary said, holding up the skull, “is a find that your daughter can take credit for.”

“My word!” Victor said, staring at it. “That's a nearly complete Ichthyosaur skull! That's phenomenal! I… nice work, Evelyn!”

Evelyn managed to giggle a bit. “What's an ick-fio-s-uhh…?” she tried and failed to say.

Victor and Mary chuckled. “It's an ancient animal from thousands of years ago,” he explained. “Just like the kind of things your mother and I study.”

Mary cleared her throat.

“Oh. And dear Ms. Anning here as well,” he jokingly corrected. “Though to be honest, you really should be in bed, Mary. I know you've been rather under the weather lately.”

“Do you really think that would be enough to keep me from coming out here and reliving the glory days?”

Victor chuckled. “Alright fair enough. Still though, take it easy, alright?”

“I make no promises.”

Victor smiled. He looked at his daughter, who seemed a bit confused. “Evelyn, this is one of your papa’s old friends, Mary Anning. She's a scientist like me and your mum.”

“Pleased to meet you at last, little one,” Mary told Evelyn. “Your father talks about you all the time.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Evelyn said. “So… that animal doesn't exist anymore?”

“I'm afraid not,” Mary told her. “There are hundreds of creatures that have left God's green Earth for the rest of time. This is honestly one of the less-bizarre examples.”

Evelyn looked in awe at the skull. She had always loved nature. She always loved playing outside in the gardens looking for new animals and plants to watch. But this was something that was different from anything else she had seen, than anyone had ever seen. Something brand new that swam around only in her imagination. And that fascinated her little toddler mind.

“Are there more?” she asked the adults. “Can I see them?”

They chuckled. “Your mummy and I will show you some of our collections once we get back home,” Victor told her. He looked back to Mary. “Speaking of which, we should start getting back before my wife starts getting worried. My mother-in-law would kill me if Connie started to have a panic attack while I wasn't there.”

Mary laughed and handed the fossil back to Evelyn. “Very well. Take care, you two. It was a joy seeing you again.”

“Same to you, my dear. And please, try to take it easy. Not a lot of people recover swiftly in your state.”

“I promise I'll try to quell my adventurous spirit until I am back to health.”

“Thank you Mary. Godspeed. Say goodbye, Evelyn.”

“Bye bye,” Evelyn told Mary as her father turned to leave.

“Bye bye little one. Be sure to keep that keen eye out for more fossils. I'm sure you'd make quite the little scientist.”

Evelyn smiled brightly at that comment. As her father carried her back through the foliage and into their family's yard, the gears in her little toddler brain started spinning like mad. She wanted to do what her mum and papa do. She wanted to find the unknown and discover worlds long gone. She wanted to be a scientist.

And thus her destiny was set.