Talk of Talking

She was up high. She was up high on something that didn't even go straight down, the edge she'd touched had gone in sharply and her house was probably on top of a thin bit of rock like a lilypad's stem, and she couldn't stop picturing how lilypads tipped when they came out of water. She had to get down before it tipped and the rock broke and she fell. She ummed miserably. Stupid, it wasn't like her mom was here.

The only good thing, she thought as she shot back up to the second floor where her headphones and server player waited, was that as awful as this was, at least that horrible, horrible Kernalsprite would be gone now.

"MuZZZZZZZZZZZZtch! tchZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz."

Maka skidded to a halt and fought the urge to whimper.

"Hey... Spot..." she said. "You're...bigger now."

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZver!" the sprite said. It looked even more like Spot now. Before it had just been a head.

It was supposed to be gone. She'd been promised she wouldn't have to see her pet as this broken gibberish spewing monster if she could just complete whatever the alchemiser did.

"Just...stay here, okay? Don't do anything... Don't worry. At least you float."

"VkerZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ~!"

She edged sideways, then darted for the headphones.

"Stop running around!"

"What's wrong with Spot?" Maka demanded. "You said it was going to break up and go away! It's still here!"

"I - it split up. These black and white blobs, and those floated off, but I guess the sprite got left behind. I thought when it broke up it'd be gone. The game doesn't really explain."

"You said it would go away!" she wailed.

"We have bigger problems!"

"You can't hear it, it's still making noise and it can't talk and it's awful! "

"Look I'm sorry about your cow but it couldn't talk before either, stop panicking over this!"

"She could so!"

"Maka, it's a cow!" She flattened against the ground and croaked miserably. "Knock that off!"

"Maybe it wasn't like a person but she could still speak and you made her dumb, you did that to her -"

"Stop saying that!"

"-and she was the best pet and she'd follow me everywhere and you made it so she can't speak and she's trying to and she can't and she's stuck like that and you won't fix it-"

"I said I don't know how! I didn't realize it was your pet, okay? Why would you put a dead pet in your freezer!"

"-you did it to her you made her dumb she can't speak-" Maka stopped. There was just static in her ears now. She pulled the headphones off.

The sprite had floated closer. "ZZZZZZZZZZZmZZZZZZZZZZZ!"

She shuddered. "You're not really Spot, right?" Maka said, standing up carefully. "Spot died. We were going to bury her. You're just her shape and a bunch of computer sounds."

"BzTZZZZZZZZZZZZmt." The sprite tilted its head exactly like Spot used to.

Maka shuddered. "I'm sorry. I didn't know this would happen, I would've burned you or something, I just - " And then something grabbed her tail.

She yelped, smacking it against the wall, and turned, pulling her tail away.

And stared. The thing was black with white spots, a bit shorter and a lot smaller than she was. She'd never seen anything like that, and she'd seen practically everything when it came to animals. It looked a bit like a squished ape, its limbs oddly short and stubby, but they seemed to work well enough as it got up.

"I'm sorry," Maka said. "You startled meah wait!" she yelped, scrambling backward as it jumped at her. "I didn't intend to hurt you, can we talk about this?" She watched it for any response. "Hello? Are you an ape? Do you talk? I don't wish to - " It punched her in the snout.

It didn't taste like anything, though. As soon as she bit through its head it turned into, or disappeared and was replaced with, weird blocky things. She wondered if that meant it was dead. She touched one tentatively and it vanished with a pop.

"ZZZZZZZZZXm."

She shuddered but looked over at Spot. "The game isn't over, that's it right? There's something else I've gotta do before you can break up?"

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZty."

"I really hope the rock holds," she whined, stomach rolling. "I'm going down. The totem lathe is downstairs, maybe I have to make something."

"XchtZtch."