[1438] Tarquin and Hat III

This is the first chapter of Tarquin and Hat. Anyone present early 2025 might remember me starting on this, and I'm getting back into writing now that I have a bit more time.

Last year, I started on something that had Tarquin immediately finding Hat, but I don't think going straight into the inciting incident serves the story, and decided to start a few hours earlier, to set the scene of Tarquin's world. I think I've managed to avoid being too lore-dumpy, but I'm very much looking for feedback on that point, as well as the POV. That's gone through a number of iterations with the omnipotent narrator, and it ended up feeling a little tongue-in-cheek with the narrator making a number of first-person observations on Tarquin's culture and planet, so I removed them, leaving the only reference as the first line. I plan to use them very sparingly throughout the novel, but I'd love to see how others interpret that without me saying any more.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KubxK5Z7LLTR-TYgKjtRSAmnp_Jhb7-8cRmafNfHSmc/edit?usp=sharing

Critiques

[1405] https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1u7kbv3/1405_a_snippet_bianca_semmelink/

[202] https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1u8wb8j/passenger_seat_202/