Chapter Ten: The People We Meet

When the little Digimon awoke, he was met with a crackling fire and many pairs of eyes. Tokomon almost jumped out of his skin. He bared his rows and rows of teeth and looked around the rather diminutive circle until he saw two familiar faces. "Taichi? Agumon?" His ears spread a little, then retracted. "What are you doing here? You're alive!"

Taichi managed a smile. "Tokomon, you're all right!" Well, aside from having passed out and clearly hungry.

"Course I am!" The little Digimon wiggled his legs and made himself get up, sniffing for the dried meat and fruit left on a nearby leaf. "I was just tired. It's hard to be strong without Takeru around…" As he said the name the little Digimon drooped like a sad dog. At the sight of Hikari, however, he perked right up again, pausing to chew and swallow a berry. "Hiya!" he said. "Who are you?"

"This is my sister, Hikari," Taichi explained. Then he gestured, though his brow furrowed, at the white cat in her lap. "And this is Tailmon." Hikari waved and Tailmon's ears twitched but she didn't leave the warmth of Hikari's lap. She was too tired to do so.

"Hello!" Tokomon's weary voice was still managing to sound undeniably happy, and he went over to Hikari, plopping himself by her knee. She reached out and pet him before she could stop herself. "I had a fight with Takeru," he told her. "Cause he made a new friend… and that friend didn't like me much and he caught us fighting. So i left and now I'm hungry and tired but without Takeru…" The little digimon curled up small enough for Hikari to pick him up and put him in the remaining space in her lap.

Without him, it doesn't seem that important.

Tailmon heard the words even though they weren't spoken, and her stomach agreed with it somehow. It made her a little nauseous, truth be told. The baby actually sounded depressed without a human. How disturbing was that? Wasn't that a sign of how dangerous this whole thing was? How dangerous humans were? They could cause a Digimon to give up on living just by fighting with them!

Being close is dangerous, Tailmon reminded herself. Relationships are failures before they even start. They are painful. They will end. With fire and blood.

Hikari's fingers played with Tailmon's ears as she thought about these things, being uncomfortably distracting. Once again, it was like she knew or something. It was rather unnerving to be honest. She didn't say so, however. That might mean she would have to move. That did not sound exciting. Or helpful.

She didn't want to admit it, but Hikari's warmth was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Taichi grimaced, kneeling by the little Digimon. "Tokomon… the fight couldn't have been that bad, right?"

Tokomon shrugged his ears, one of those things Tailmon realized was kind of odd for a human to look at. "Yamato-san and the others left us behind after you didn't come bac, and they don't want anything to do with Takeru anymore. That was what Takeru heard from PicoDevimon and i didn't think it was true. I guess my opinion wasn't important after that."

"It should have been," Taichi said quietly and for some reason, Tailmon didn't want to ask about he patted Agumon's snout and earned a small, somewhat cheeky grin. "Friends fight and all but still. Your opinion is still important."

"Not in a dictatorship," Tailmon deadpanned. Hikari made a noise that sounded like admonishment. Taichi shot her a look at the same time, but that made her quail much less than Hikari's sound and she didn't know why. Probably because Hikari didn't sound upset.

Tokomon yawned. "It's okay, Taichi. I'll go talk to him soon. After I get full again."

Taichi shook his head. "We're all gonna go over there tomorrow. We need to get some rest after today and this is a good camping spot.. Then tomorrow, you all will talk this out and I'll keep it from getting rough. Sound good?"

Tokomon nodded, black eyes wide and kind of hopeful. For a moment, Tailmon felt sick with envy.

She didn't want this though, did she? She knew where it would end up.

She knew where she would be.

The rest of Tailmon's night was quiet, occasionally marred by bad dreams and odd thoughts. She stayed in Hikari's hold, much as her body said not to, much as her brain wanted her to run and hide far away and out of the inevitable dark storm. She was not in Vamdemon's favor anymore, if she really ever had been to begin with. (She must have been or she would be dead by now. She would have been murdered by the guy personally for getting as close as she had.) Hikari's arms chased that away in their own way, and before the sky began to warm, she was able to relax and close her eyes for a few more hours.

When she woke, she was on Hikari's head. Tailmon made to protest and squirm free. She hadn't even been awake enough to ask!

Hikari at least looked a little embarrassed. "You seemed really tired so I thought it would help if you got some more sleep. And you fought really hard too…"

"I'd carry Agumon if he wasn't two bricks shy of a metric ton," Taichi said with a grin. Agumon shook his head in defiance.

"I need to walk," Agumon declared with a grin. "It is good for your thighs and calves."

Also, Tailmon noticed belatedly, Tokomon was in Taichi's arms, pointing the way with his stubby legs. The only way to carry that dinosaur anywhere would have been by the tail, and she wouldn't wish that herculean effort on anyone.

As they walked, something tugged at the back of Tailmon's mind. It was something the walking teeth monster had said. A name. The digimon who was saying cruel things to his partner… she knew of someone who only had one good point: their words. He floundered at everything else.

Tailmon's eyes went wide as they reached the carnival. She knew then. As they walked, her fur itched. Beneath her claw gloves, her paws ached with memories of ripped off claws. She knew that black ball of failure anywhere. She saw him on top of a food table, waving his wings excitedly to a small blond child. She didn't really care about that.

"You," she hissed. She spun in Hikari's arms and lunged for PicoDevimon, intending to kill. She felt a sick pleasure at the way his eyes went wide.