Short little Chalkzone drabble. Don't read if ya ain't ready for feels.

Snap didn't like change.

Wait, that's a lie. He did like change. Chalkzone was changing all the time. And every time it did there was somewhere new to explore, or someone new to meet.

But while Chalkzone changed, the Zoners themselves stayed the same. They looked the same, they acted the same, and they always liked the same things. Except for when they found something new to like.

Yes, Zoners stayed the same from their creation until, well, forever. They never changed how they looked, or grew older, or even died really. They could be killed, sure, but they wouldn't die from just… nothing.

But humans weren't like that.

Humans aged, they grew taller, their entire appearance changed. They could like something one day, but hate it the next. Even what they wanted from life changed with nothing but time.

And Snap didn't like that.

It had come as a shock, when one day he found he had to look up to meet Rudy's eyes. He'd blown it off as nothing but a joke at the time, but something about it had stuck with him.

"How'd ya get so tall, Bucko? Ya find some sorta magic wand, o-or somethin'?"

Snap didn't like being reminded Rudy was growing up. But he often forgot that the two kids were human. And that, being human, they had lives of their own outside of Chalkzone.

He didn't like being reminded of that, either.

"When did ya get a girlfriend, Penny? Ya hidin' somethin' like that too, Rudy?"

Watching the two kids head off to college was like a punch in the gut. They'd promised to write, and both had packed some Magic Chalk so they could visit anytime. And they had even found someone else to help keep Chalkzone safe, so none of the Zoners had to worry. But Snap was in denial, he was sure that if he could get them to stay, everything would go back to the way it was before.

"Why can't ya just stay? Tell ya parents ya went to college and then come here? Maybe we could finally find Chalklantis."

"As fun as that sounds, we can't, Snap. We have to go."

"But…"

The kids finished college. Rudy graduated from CalArts while Penny went to Yale. They had met more people there, people they liked.

"But why?"

They got married. Snap wasn't able to attend either wedding. You'd stick out too much, they'd told him. But they had showed him the photos. And when they'd had kids, they'd let him meet them.

"Why can't ya just stay here?"

Neither of their kids had a talent for art, but Penny's granddaughter did. Rudy let her in on the secret to Chalkzone on her tenth birthday by giving her one of his last two sticks of Magic Chalk. She met Snap, and he told her about the adventures they'd had.

And in the end, it was Rose who told him when Rudy had died. He passed in his sleep, she'd said. Snap hadn't known humans could do that.

"I don't want ya to go."

Snap didn't talk to Rose again, after that conversation. He didn't talk to the next human to show up either. Or the next one. He only knew they existed when he spotted them out a window of his house.

He always moved to a new house, after that.

"Please, come back."

"We will Snap, don't worry. We're not going away forever."

A better way of putting it would be: Snap didn't like it when people changed.