You wanted to find your Papa. He was probably lonely, you thought, and you wanted to find him. But you couldn't find him. You couldn't get out of the itchy ropes and the one long rope kept you from leaving the big round table. You weren't alone though. The big man had stayed after all the others had gone. He sat at the round table with you, a book laid open in front of him and a pencil in hand.
An empty plate sat beside you. It had originally held a slab of "fruit cake" that the big man had given you. You didn't eat it. You did chew on it though. Just a little. The cake was on the floor now.
The little things in red kept bringing the big man plates of cookies, and the big man kept passing them to you. You didn't know what to do with the cookies but you liked to stack them up tall and watch them fall over. Your Papa didn't give you food, but sometimes when the older ones played with him you got to taste his fear and that was nice.
Every now and then the big man scratched at the book's pages with the pencil and you copied the sounds with your claws on the table. You leaned over to see what the big man was doing and saw pictures of strange machinelike people. You liked books with pictures in them.
"Do you like drawings, little one?"
You supposed so. But where were the stories? Your Papa had books with pictures in them, but they also had stories. He showed you the pictures when he read to you, but you didn't think this book had any stories.
"Do you want something to play with?" The big man asked. He asked you a lot of questions, you thought. Questions like "are you hungry", "what do you want to do", and "how are you feeling". You were very hungry, as a matter of fact. You wanted to find your Papa. You were feeling fine.
"Here, you can draw whatever you like." The big man said, sliding some things across the table to you. There were some pieces of paper, which were strange because they should have been in a book, but they had nothing on them so maybe they were supposed to go in a book after you put something on them. There were also some colorful sticks called "crayons" that were covered in bite marks and were apparently not for eating because the big man showed you how to put marks on the papers with the sticks. The little things in red must not have understood this because you could tell some of them had been chewing on the crayons.
Were you supposed to make pictures like the big man did in his book? He had said to draw whatever you liked.
You liked your Papa, so you decided to draw him.
You used your blackest crayon because your Papa was the darkest thing you knew. Your Papa was really tall and very thin, so you drew him that way too. He also had spiky hair and a pointy face. You didn't have any gold crayons but yellow was close, you thought, so you used the yellow crayon and drew your Papa's shiny eyes.
"Is that Pitch?" The big man asked with a small laugh as he leaned over to look at your picture. You chirped an affirmative because that was exactly what it was.
"You drew him smiling." The big man observed.
You nodded, because you had drawn your Papa smiling. Your Papa didn't smile a lot, but you liked it when he did because he didn't go into the room you weren't allowed to go into or look at the necklace that you weren't supposed to touch. He let you sit in his lap and read you books when he smiled, and he didn't tell you to be quiet or lock you away.
"And Pitch is your Papa, you say?" The big man asked you, and you nodded again even though you didn't understand why he was asking you. "I see… Is he a good papa then?" the big man asked. You thought so, and you told him as much.
You didn't understand why the big man sighed afterwards, but maybe he was tired.
Your Papa got tired a lot too.
"What are these?" the big man asked, gesturing to the scribbled blobs of black crayon you put on your newest drawing. They were the older ones because they were bigger than the younger ones. You didn't use any of the color crayons. You liked the black one and the yellow one.
"Why don't you draw yourself?" the big man suggested after a moment. You didn't really want to draw yourself, but the big man didn't mind. He said it was okay. You put all of your drawings in the special bag for safekeeping and the big man let you put the crayons in the bag as well in case you wanted to draw more.
Eventually the big man closed the book he was drawing in and stood up with a groan. "Let us go on a walk." He said, and you grabbed the special bag before he could pick you up and put you on the floor without it.
You didn't know where you were going, but you followed the big man anyway, because maybe you would find your Papa if you went with him.
Exploring the big man's place was dangerous, and you liked it better in the room with the round table. The Phils didn't lift their feet for you so you nearly got squashed several times, and the little things in red tried to grab the special bag when you went by.
The big man's place had more things than your Papa's place did, even if it wasn't as big. It was very loud, so you didn't think your Papa would have liked it. It was also very bright, so you didn't like it either. But there was a lot more things in this place than at your Papa's place, and you saw a lot of things that you had never seen before. New things.
The big man was talking while he walked, and he didn't let you look at the new things because he walked so fast. He talked at the Phils, and the little things in red, and you thought he talked to you a lot too but you didn't notice because you saw something shiny under a table that you wanted to examine. You darted closer as fast as you could, because you knew the big man wouldn't stop to let you pick it up.
It was a big round button, and it sparkled while you held it. You put it in the special bag for safekeeping, because you were sure your Papa would like it. You also found a shiny ball with a little gold hook but it broke when you dropped it. You didn't think the big man would mind too much though because you saw a bunch more growing on a tree nearby, and you put the pieces into the bag because they were still shiny. You also found a noisy silver bell that tinkled when you touched it that reminded you of the little things in red. It wasn't gold, but you put it in the special bag just in case.
There was a lot of stuff to look at, like the shiny trees and the sparkly things on the tables, but the big man walked so fast that you could barely keep up. You latched onto the big man's foot while he walked, and you held on tight because you didn't know what else to do. He was not your Papa, so he didn't have a robe for you to sit on. If he had been your Papa you would have sat on the robe.
The big man stopped when he felt your claws poke through his pants and he looked down at you with wide eyes. He had very big eyes, you observed. They didn't glow like your Papa's eyes did, but they sparkled just like the button you had found.
"Do you want to be carried?" he asked as you climbed a little higher up his leg. Your Papa carried the younger ones sometimes. Sometimes he picked up one of the younger ones and then forgot that he was holding them and they got to be carried around until he noticed them again. You'd never been carried by your Papa before.
The big man wrapped you in the sack first, and your eyes widened as you were lifted up.
You could see everything from there.
The big man laughed, and it wasn't like your Papa's laugh, or the cold boy's laugh. It was big, loud, and warm. You reached up and grabbed hold of the big man's fluffy beard, yanking on it with a squeak. Your Papa didn't have hair on his face like the big man.
"Do not pull on beard, little one. That is very naughty." The big man scolded, tugging his beard. You didn't know what "naughty" meant, but you let his beard go anyway because at that moment one of the Phils walked by with an armful of books. They weren't as big as the books your Papa had, and they were much brighter. They reminded you of the mama bird with all their colors.
"You like the books, little one? Do you want to see the library?" The big man asked, also watching the Phil that was carrying the books.
You chirped in surprise.
Your Papa had a library. It was really, really big and you got lost in it sometimes so you didn't like to go in there. Your Papa didn't like you going in there either because he didn't like it when you touched the books. The big man didn't seem to understand this because he took you there anyway, but when you got there you forgot that you weren't supposed to touch the books because there were so many. And some of them had shiny gold squiggles on them! Your Papa loved shiny gold things!
"Do you want to read this one?" The big man asked, pointing to the book with the shiny gold squiggles. You whined and stretched for the book and the big man laughed. "I will take that as a 'yes', I think." The big man said, pulling the book from its shelf.
"This is very special book." The big man told you as he looked at the front cover. You agreed with him. The gold squiggles looked just like the gold on your Papa's shiny gold necklace!
"This book was made by Mother Goose. I do not know if you remember her. Maybe you know her as Katherine?" He was saying as he walked away from the other books. You didn't know what he was talking about, but you remembered the colorful mama bird with the babies. Was there another mama bird? A mama goose? You weren't sure you remembered a "Katherine", but maybe your Papa knew about a Katherine.
The big man kept talking but you weren't listening. You wanted to look inside the special book, so you grabbed at it eagerly until the big man carried it over to a table and set it down. It wasn't round so you didn't think there would be knights at the table. When the big man opened the book you squeaked with delight because there were pictures and stories!
"Would you like me to read it for you?" He suggested, and you nodded because you very much did want him to read to you.
The big man laughed one of his big booming laughs and flipped through the pages until he had gotten to the front of the book. He used funny voices while he read, like your Papa did, but they didn't sound like your Papa's funny voices. You didn't really mind though, because this book had your Papa in it! You screeched in excitement.
"That's right, it is Pitch." The big man said.
The big man read to you for a long time, not as long as your Papa did, but that was okay you guessed.
You would find your Papa soon.
Author's Note: If you want to see what our little fearling drew, check out my deviantart. My username is MonsterBrush.