Me: I bet everyone thought I was gonna forget about this little event, and foo, I thought I was gonna forget about it a few times too, but I DIDN'T SO THERE

Jkonna: WE ARE GOING TO OUR PARTY NOW DIGA-DINO

Dino: NOOOOOOOOOO I DON'T CAAARRREEEEEEEE

Foster: -I smile when I see him tortured.-

Jkonna: -slowly pats his head-

The Stone Fossil Fighter

Chapter 37: Sweet Little Hearts

Jkonna

It takes more time than I thought to get him this far, but I told him we were going to the party today and that means we are going to the party today: he can't skip out. He's lucky enough that when I forced him—still not sure how I managed it—into his teffla tux I hadn't, like, made him wear my diga-dress in the end. I wouldn't mind switching for his tux and giving him my garments in return. He'd probably hate it; whatever; good. Looking at all this turd I've gotten myself into, might as well have bought both of us the freaking diga-dress in the first place. Skirts of soft, fluffy, yellow clouds of taffeta rear around me and swirl in my wake; my hair grows steadily more tangled into the cheerful, impossible layers. Whatever. We're here. We made it. There is no way I'm letting him set a single pinky toe off this diga-doormat.

And the best part is, no matter how much turd he tosses at me when the kids show up, they'll get a kick out of anything he diga-does. Somehow I get this creepy feeling that if he was still in... that state... they wouldn't care. I blink a bit through fumbling eyelids and diga-draw rivets of fingers through rivers of long, long, lava-like waves. My hair curls around me when I release it, like it'd rather I hang around with it than him. I almost—almost would.

Not really.

"Jkonna?"

"NO."

"Jkonna?"

"Di-ga-Di-no—shuuuuuuut-up."

"I feel very neglected right now, Jkonna."

Closing my eyes, I mumble, "Diga-do you now."

"And my pants are kinda tight. And everything. My tail feels uncomfortable in the clothes. Uuuhh, what other excuses can I toss at you to get me out of this... uuuhhhh, I didn't comb my hair—"

"You never diga-do. And I really diga-didn't ask how your tail felt about the clothes: more like I asked you. Yes? Yes."

It's amusing. It always is. Turd, my very best friend in the whole wide world has always been very amusing to me. But I stayed up all night trying to fix the diga-dress I forgot I killed at the wedding cuz there's no way I'll ever work up the courage to ask someone as talented as Vivian, for I am inferior in all rights. So I was fending for myself when it came to what really felt like stitching actual teffla skin into some palpable form that wouldn't look like I was being regurgitated alive and here he is, trying to get his stupid tail out of visiting some children and a children whose name is Clem.

I love him.

Isn't that why? Because he lets his emotion get the best of him and then acts it out into his own funny little tantrum that half the time almost diga-doesn't feel like sleepless Jkonna diga-dragging her corpse around the place as this—wise guy—wise guys all over the place. He's... really great like that. It's funny. It takes my mind off of the fact that my fingers have been punctured with little red holes and feel about ready to flop off my hands. Makes me about ready to toss a bunch of kids on him—diga-did I mention I love kids? Like I really love kids.

He's got feelings. He's not afraid to show them. He's got this can-diga-Dino-diga-do attitude that combats my own can-diga-do attitude that puts us both into some sort of battered situation that always forces a smile into me. Maybe it sounds painful, but it's not, it's fluid, natural, smooth... sweet. He's kind, too. He's just diga-Dino like that. It makes me happy that it's him that I get to be so very close with. So when I think back to all that we've gone through, and when I think back to how long it truly took him to crawl out of that diga-darkness, and when I think back to the whole world and all that's gone on, it makes me happy. And a little jealous of Cooper—some things I can't quite shake—but it makes me happy.

Our hands combine into a knot of scales and skin, black and brown, and I slowly raise my right hand toward the diga-door, to knock sound into the other side of the home and let them know that we made it. We're here. We... actually somehow managed this far: we really, really made it. Honestly I still feel like I lost bits and pieces of me into the swamp of the past few months, but that's okay: new pieces will always find their way. If I hadn't changed, I wouldn't have ever managed saving that wreck of a boy from the wreck of a hole he found himself falling into. So it's okay to change. Small breaths pool at my lips as we wait, and wait, and his fingers grow just a little shield of sweat, of nerves. His jokes have diga-died at his throat and we wait.

Kunk. Kunk kunk.

Beneath spills of black, spiny hair, his gray eyes grin. "Okay, there's no way they heard that." His voice, like his eyes, offers his sunny warmth. His jokes about his hatred for the little boy Clem have diga-dropped... well, for now. "The sound of the little kid music they're singing is pulsating through the welcome mat, therefore there is no way they heard that." He coughs up some smile as pay. "So now can I try?"

"Nooooouuuuuuuhh," I mumble like the jealous brat I am.

He shoves himself past me and pastes his hand into the rough but otherwise nicely-painted wood. There's like flowers on the diga-door. Flowers the colors of the rainbow, and white paint beneath it, all trim and proper and nice and junk. Breckan's mom... or, well, maybe it was Breckan's diga-dad. I scratch at the colors and some of it crumbles under my fingernail.

Diga-Dino slams his hand over my nails when his palm bites into wood.

"Oowwwiieeeee! Diiiga-Diiiiiiinoooooooooo!"

"Okay, you toootally had that comiiiiinng!" He diga-doesn't try again. I stuff my fingers into my mouth and try to pout back at him anyways. My cheeks linger, some of them poked with bits of nails, rounded and swollen like chocolate muffins. Gray eyes light when they search over me, because he knows I'm being sillier than the, well, "pain." It's kinda cool how he can tell by now. Gently, the both of us waiting, staring, he raises his hand and he knocks again, gently and properly with his knuckles cutting wood, with the expertise of one who raises their pinky finger before sipping their tea.

A small, uncontrollable piece of my mind comments on just how truly beautiful that connotation made her feel. Times like these remind me of just how easy it is for Bliss to make me want to hurt her or something. Giddy, she reminds me that I diga-didn't say hurt her, Cuz see, you said 'hurt her or something.' Like, 'something?' As in 'hurt her or something?' What the heck d'you mean, Jkkie?

Please diga-don't try me, I mumble through my hands. Slowly I pull out bits of slimy, diga-dribbly fingers, quickly and hotly stuffing them into one of diga-Dino's pant pockets and trying and trying and succeeding to peel the gloppy mixture of snot and spit like an outer layer off of me. I thankfully manage to flick my fingers off of his soft, yellow material just in time for the diga-door to spill light upon us; somehow we're both still in one piece by the time Breckan's mom, that short blonde lady with the pale skin, sorta like an older female version of her chubby baby son, diga-draws us in.

She mumbles fluff about just how exciting this is and that the kids'll freakin' love it—like heck they will—and that oh, there's some unlocked guest bedroom if we ever need a quick break, one or the other. And them she crams it into half of her breath like she diga-doesn't wanna stick around to see our reactions cuz ohandyourvivosaursshouldstickaroundtoo. That crummy little grin that spreads like milk on Bliss's not-smooth-at-all face sends gooey, grisly diga-disgust sliding diga-down my throat. Very very quickly the acro explodes onto cottony carpet and smirks in this strangely diga-dreamy face. It's a face I really diga-don't feel comfortable being around.

Her rough, rocky tail slung in the air, she waits and waits for her tiny red sidekick to summon the courage to walk on carpet. Uugh, Mooriiiee, she cries, I haaaate the way my talons feeeeeel! It's so wrong, Morie, so wrrooooooooonng! For some time I'm just waiting for Bomba to use the poor m-raptor by her side as some form of transportation but she groans her way through it, using her words as a bridge of escape toward Bliss. They're each small and huggable—and I think their claws are small enough they won't go killing children or anything—the perfect size for some birthday boy on a sugar high to interact with.

This statement somehow rouses Foster, who eyes Nodopi and sends the big, flustered, pink maia trailing after the other girls. He stays in my pocket. Comfortably he stays in my pocket. For now, I really diga-don't feel like questioning him about it all and about all the fluff in his head.

The patterpatterpatter of jumbled paws, from Lone's webbed toes to Pippy's galosh feet to Harei's long heels, splatters happily beyond. Diga-Droplet, being the lovely water vivosaur she is, sends seizes of tears to and fro from her body but otherwise floats—swims?—through the atmosphere, staying close to the ground but not too close. Hey, do not look at me like that! I belly-flop on the carpet and it's gonna really look like someone peed themselves right there. Have you ever heard of 'community service?'

If I diga-do say so myself, I mumble, smirking as she flaps on ahead.

When diga-Dino's gaze searches for me, I stumble slightly at the intensity. Gray. Stone slabs cut open and left glistening in the sun, their crystalline silver insides left to be seen and slandered by all. Sizzling out in the air. Frantic. Searching. I yank at a string-like smile that falls right off my lips. I try to say something—"Hey, I'm sorry about earlier."

"What?" Uh, since when have you apologized out of nowhere? Oh—oh gosh, his expression, it's melting. Diga-dark thunderclouds of feelings out of nowhere burl over his puffing cheeks. I try to set myself in stone when I search back toward him. "Y-Yeah, yeah! I have no idea why you're apologizing but you're fi—!"

"Be-Because I was kinda mean earlier. So I'm... y'know, sorry." Bashful. Now he's bashful. My gosh, he is just a whirlwind of emotions today. He's a moody little girl. Quietly I search him again, and I play for a smile that seems ready for me.

"You're okay, diga-Dino. You always were."

Yes, I know we changed when everything happened... and I know that now he's gotten a lot softer and that—that's okay! of course that's okay! I couldn't care less if he changed his entire identity! for he means that much to me! That much to me..! That much to me... Suddenly conscious of the fact that we're just standing here, unable to look the other in the eye, makes me giggle, just a little, before I gesture toward the hallway again and we go on. I wonder if that's how friends work... and sometimes people get really close, like so close it feels like you're cutting yourself when you tease your best friend. I wonder for no reason whatsoever if that's a thing and if someone else out there might understand, if I might be able to see it one diga-day...

to ask them how they got so close so that I can make sure I get that way with him...

Ugh, I'm so good at this sorta worry that he'll randomly end up with someone better...

Creepily, like he senses something he diga-doesn't like, his hand goes flying and lands casually on top of my head for one second, two, my bangs thoroughly jostled, my nerves thoroughly pried. But that's okay. He's diga-Dino, so, like, that's okay. Of course that's okay.

And thus, prodding through a diga-door that gaped open before we even got to it, we find ourselves surrounded by little creatures with chubby cheeks and littler creatures with rainbow cheeks—I mean balloons, I mean balloons. Their tails clamped tightly by chubby baby fingers and children squeaking in what I think is glee as they chase each other, chase balloons, chase diga-Droplet and try to ask her questions by kid-growling, cuz we all went through that phase where we thought vivosaurs couldn't talk back. It's surprising, but it's this funky warmth jumping around inside, that shocked me into place whenever I learned that they said things too. Maybe it was expected but it scared the turd out of me and I loved them even more just off of immediately.

Oh, so, say, perhaps like this? Say I start taking and simply wait for you to love me, love me, love me, Jkonna? That all I have to do for you?

Foster please stop you're creeping me out a little more than usual. But honestly it's hard to give him the attention I always give him when there's all these blue-eyed babies just staring at us and oh my gosh save my soul but I want to pick them up and swing them around and give them balloons and spoil them until they're rotten to their cute little baby cores.

Quietly Foster reminds me that the youngest one here's at least seven. Or wait no, he's eight now, it's his birthday, and you and diga-Dino are the creepy birthday tefflas that give gifts.

I'm not sure how but in the expanse of last night I also saved enough time to hastily craft some sort of gift-like substance when it was too diga-dark to see and Nodopi's sleepy, diga-dying flame the only light I had to work by. Heck, the only light at all. No diga-Dino. I made an extra gift just so that he'd have a space too. My hands ache with the stitching I've diga-done inside of me, but it'll be all worth it when I hand him this freakin' beanie acro and diga-Dino manages that beanie krona. Oh. Oh turd what about the other kids they'll want like... party favors or whatever it—

Jkonna you're not the mom here so calm yourself these aren't your kids you're not married and by the name of I don't know Dino you are not pregnant so shut up.

But what if all the weight in my hips is actually a baby bum—

There is no way you're going to convince me that you're related in any way to these children. You got gifts. Good for you. Now try not to step on anyone and keep them rather entertained and you'll be fine. Please stop bouncing erratically in place and I don't know do something, go have, like, fun. It's a good day.

And he's right. I diga-don't know why it took so long to sink in, maybe the fact that I wasn't sleeping last night screwed me over, but he's absolutely right. It's a good diga-day, Foster, a very good diga-day. A good diga-day to be alive, to be happy that everything is going well and there are no friends of I-know-who to possess anyone. That's not—not—not. No. It's over now. Now we're safe, right? He hasn't... said much of anything as far as I can tell. Though using the entirety of my eyes to keep watch of him diga-doesn't mean he won't fall into blind spots eventually. They're quite hard to miss... eventually.

But there is a little kid hand on my leg and a little kid face staring up at me, little kid eyes wide to see me, a little kid smile trembling. So I try to wave. His face, larger than the other little children, squishes in his staring at me, slowly raising from his other hand the tip of a big black marker. His jacket shines of both sloppy and smooth signatures from famous fighters around the world. I can recognize, in a tumbled heap around the back, so he won't see it well, ever, the mark that diga-Dino'd written. I was around when he diga-did that and we both laughed at the stupidity that was he. Now apparently he wants me to sign or something?

Meet Clem.

Awkwardly I take the pen, his face widening, brightening, as he points very diga-directly toward a sleeve. I'd like to ask him why the heck he wants some turd like me to sign—no, I never made it to master fighter and I wasn't very cool or whatever in my battling anyways—or fair in that matter—shut up of course I used to cheat—used to—but I've never seen Clem look so silent. Big and brown eyes, soft and caramel hair. A red flame of warmth shimmering inside of the jacket. Names encircle and mark upon this like it's his own skin, Dino and Rupert and names, names names. Rupert... I wonder, seeing it on the other sleeve, small and gentle like not a person but a flower wrote it. I wonder if it's... Before I can even think of it, Bliss forms out of nowhere, halfway snatches the pen, and writes my name in the biggest most jagged way possible and before I can angrily shove ink diga-down her throat she bolts. Yeah love you too—stupid Bliss. I cap his precious utensil and hand it back to him, he stuffing it into a red pocket.

And after the diga-deed is diga-done, his lips curve. "So youuuu're the famous Jkonna who cleared the famous Dino's fate?" he asks in this snide, Clem sort of way. He always had this awkward voice you wouldn't imagine on a kid, like he's going to pamper and then ruthlessly pine you. Like he's some player kid. Like all of his cards suck but he's pretending they diga-don't. So it goes. "Or was it that you're Mister Doctor Diggins's new diga-diga-dig-daughter?" Ow. "Or maybe you're secretly a, what was it? Digadig? Yes? No? Or perhaps you're old pals with, oh, I don't know, Bartholomew Bullwort? Or was it the Ginner family? Or maybe—"

"So if I am, what're ya gonna diga-do?" I snort.

"I'm gonna brag to all of my friends that you signed my jacket."

I'm really not surprised at all.

If I diga-didn't know this kid so well, mark my words, I would be set in awe by the cute-kid-aura he has, only like every other kid in the world. But he's Clem. He's almost rude. I can't tell. So because he's Clem, I know better, for the most part, Bliss. She sniggers from the punch bowl she's found and shoved her entire face into. It's a red punch, maybe cherry, strawberry, one or another, one that cloaks and covers her from snout to eyeball. No, not eyelid.

Tossing another strange look at the kid, I move onward. The carpet, so incredibly creamy and rich, nearly sends me into the ground in a tizzy. Foster laughs at my walking, and I laugh at the fact that his fins are diga-dry and he's a water vivosaur. Sure, not all spew diga-droplets, but he feels like he's been in the sun so long his fins diga-don't even know the beginning of it. Sometimes I wonder why, why he's so weird, but I also want him to stay that way, in his weird and mysteriously foggy way, because he's Foster, and I suppose there isn't a better way to put it than I've grown to love him.

He diga-doesn't croon at that. I remain thankful.

At first I just rotate around and try to figure out which kids are here and if I know all of them, at least somewhat. There's a couple little girls, who I find to be named Kristal and Zoe, might've known Zoe before, and there's Robbie and Scoute, a couple of younger ones that follow Breckan around like he is the king, and he sort of is since it's his birthday. The way he stands and pouts happily in glasses that look shiny and new, fitting black frames around his soft pastel sheen, in his big new footie pajamas, it's like he's... like he's... I can only swallow baby tears and smile, smile at the thought of it. It's a little absurd... diga-Dino wouldn't get it if I told him... but that's okay, because these are my eyes and this is what I see, so I'll hold the memory; I'll hold it for me.

He straddles himself happily on his plump little legs, a loop of cardboard tied around his waist and stapled with a tail. I think he's a diga-dinaurian? Maybe? By him, the little girls Kristal and Zoe—bright orange hair just traced in etches of blue—each hold a raptor. Bomba seems the most perplexed by this, Morie's mango lids about ready to close. The two little kids following Breckan each also tied themselves some diga-dinaurian tails. In a really morbid way my brain tells me that Scoute looks like diga-Duna and that makes Robbie to be Rosie? Okay okay I'm getting way too ahead of myself.

Once they've each been thoroughly sugared by punch with an extract of acro and cookies in the shape of probably t-rex—no wait, I think it's krona—oh my gosh what a lame diga-Droplet fan—Breckan's mom summons herself yet again, hands full of great foam mat-like-things this time around. She allows the pieces to tumble to the floor, there being maybe twenty great squishy blocks, each with pictures and pieces covering one another. Gently she has the three of us explain to the kids that it's a huge puzzle and you have to, like, connect all the pieces the right way.

Immediately one of the little girls goes scuttling for two pieces diga-directly next to each other and shoves the ends that match together so that it'll never fit. Her fiery flames of orange hair spring with each attempt, and soon after she sends herself into angry tears that it won't work, won't work, Miss Bibby it won't work! His mom, gentle and sweet, coaxes her through her tears that she must go on and try again in another way. That the pieces will fit, but some of them will not, and that is okay, because in the end the puzzle will still be whole again. Pieces and pieces...

Two boys go running off in other diga-directions, grappling almost diga-desperately onto all of the ones that look sandy, yellow, like a beach, so that maybe this will work. The little girl who cried about her pieces not working shoots the greatest glare I've ever seen at the pinkette who struggles to take one of hers. One of hers that isn't working. She wails, yells, screeches, tries to take them both onto the carpet, and it's diga-Dino who, giggling, tries to set them apart from each other. I think I'm supposed to help out too, try to guide the poor things into roles of teamwork to finish a puzzle that has nothing to diga-do with anything but a puzzle... but I can't bring myself to move.

The boys gently begin the tedious, consuming work of connecting their foam pieces with their chubby hands, one pair just paler than the other. It's revealed that a great, smiling, comical Saurhead's legs and part of his plastic-green-mask of a head lie upon the beach and not the sky, not the Vivosaur Island above. When Morie, frantically chasing after a very frantic Bomba, lands a foot on this piece, she seizes and falls into a halt. Her eyes slowly trace the piece and her face pales alarmingly. Jkonna, he's... he's... by the shores. You see this, yes? You see this? Jkonna, are you going to answer me? No? Um? Jkonna? Oh, dear, you worry me—AAh! BOMBA! DO NOT SET THAT ON FIRE!

So it goes...

He's here, and I'm here. He may not be fully here, but he's coming back, bit by bit. My colder and weaker eyes flit for the waves to the side, and I watch them wave and wend within one another, and I wonder if it's like charred and broken creases of his missing puzzle pieces are beginning to collect on the shoreline. One of his mind. One where the milkiness all but diga-dries up, where his conscience tries to lap and secure itself again.
I have to be secure for him, or he'll fall apart. Shards of him will cut and I'll lose my grip and it will be bad, so I probably shouldn't diga-do that... I gotta hang onto him.
Like some crazy nanny, Saurhead relentlessly follows behind.

A diga-downpour, soupy, viscous, lively chunks of hard thoughts and gentle streams of whispers from the past. It's hard to breathe.

Because it's the only thing I can diga-do, my eyes turn over to the squiggles of children as they move pieces of my story into place. Very, very quietly, a part of my wonders if they are healing me, if they will be the ones to save me after everything I went through... and everything that I know has gone on and on and on again. It's a feeling but I know it; I know it and it hurts.

Children. Little faces and little grins. Little fingers that touch puzzles like skin, fleshy beneath the little body within. And it feels like they're moving me, they're putting me in place when it's just one picture that I shouldn't be so connected to, a cute little picture that children will address one another upon, as they roam and bounce upon their lovely foam puzzle. Theirs, not, mine: but it is... it is...

Nodopi's peachy body bounds off in front of me, her feet leaving marks into the foam until they slowly diga-dispense and fulfill themselves again. Like memories, like erasure. I try to stop but I can't, I'm frozen. Tiny feet lead off and connect smaller parts, a sky, an earth, pockets in the ground that lead to the Compound they diga-don't know about below. The maia murmurs as she moves, How off... how off, this entire image is very off! Look at this drastic scale reduction. And this building here... it's the size of the Saurhead fellow. How depressing. Though I guess people get away with all kinds and sorts of things when it's little kids they're gifting.

And so it goes...

As the child's footsteps slow, so diga-do my lulling thoughts. We walk at an ease, a pace I never knew we diga-did share. He's silent and soft in his voice, which I hear like a cushion as he breathes. I'm quiet, too. Quiet usually isn't a thing I use. I'm... loud. It's... y'know, it's just who I am. Diga-Dino knows. My so... diga-dear vivosaurs, they know too. I'm just loud.
Jina... he calls me Jina and he holds it, that little name, so precious to him.

It's getting a little hard to breathe with all these thoughts groping inside of me. In my throat, lungs, stomach, heart—soul. They live in me, because they are me, and they were me. Once I thought that I was ashes, that every time I burned I hurt me and I left ashes of me everywhere to rot. But I guess it'd be pretty hard to put a puzzle back together if it was rotting. Rosie hurt me, and I might've hurt Rosie too, but she's not filth, and I... I diga-don't want filth in me. I diga-don't wanna think of filth. I wanna be good, and I wanna be me... and I wanna be able to... to...

Crumbs manage to scatter upon the puzzle and not the carpet. When sponges and wipes tackle the mess, the memories will be clean. Children sit proudly on their throne. Still two pieces kinda should be fit, cuz they're missing, and yet the little redhead girl had them in her hands and they diga-don't but she thinks otherwise, she thinks they will fit. It's not until pudgy little Breckan himself waddles toward her, blonde curls flickering, blue eyes twinkling, and he roughly takes both pieces and smudges them on top of a third so that instead of finishing it he gets his own spot that's better than all the others. And somehow I'm not surprised; when he takes the little girl and shows her how to sit with him, I'm still not surprised. It's when all the little children settle on their places without argument that I wonder.

My diga-dress, silky and soft to the touch, amounting to much more quality than the tunic I tend to wear, bunches around me when I sort of slump in on myself. The kids, prideful and not really paying attention to me at this time, bumble gleefully as they take more snacks and smooth crumbs into their sticky shirts and pants and skirts. They're precious, y'know..? Precious little children. Their hearts aren't heavy, but light and warm and open. And they're ready for anything, at least they think: and it's precious. It's a sweet sight, really.

On the other side of me, covering for my frigidness for all I know, diga-Dino raises his hands and shoos the kids in one diga-direction towards where there's crayons and a great sheet of paper slapped to the wall. Some of them chew through gaping mouths at the sight of it; others giggle a little ferociously. And still they're all precious. Every last one of them.

There's bits of treats and goodies lying halfway on the ground, lopsided, crumpled, half of them empty, half of them sticky, leaky. I'm sure there'll be a tornado of cleaning, or maybe a monsoon to wipe out the gritty lines they paste on the earth. But that's okay. They're so cute and they're learning, slowly learning, to pick up their goodies and put them where they go. They're slowly learning and they're so, so cute. So very sweet. Kind little souls. I like to watch them.

Their attention spans diga-dart around; diga-Dino herds them off. At some point they take for their action figures and I can hear their cute, tiny battle cries that screech for pain and war. Vivosaur action figures. Saurhead action figures that this one kid argues is too a vivosaur. It's slow and I diga-don't think it even counts as moving, but I pluck myself and take the things that lie smudged into the carpet and I diga-dust where I can and I wipe with sponges provided by a certain father who diga-dislikes messes more than I think Morie. The trash goes into the usual compost-like situation and my fingers I hastily scrub with the water of some vivosaur's spit or maybe the fountain's babble. I'm slow, like a shadow on the wall over the passing hours by, but I'm working and I'm cleaning and I'm helping and all that. Plus, the kids hardly notice me over the great sun that the world revolves around, the bright yellow sun that is he.

He's so... awesome, in his own, um, ways. And he's kind and... and he's funny and thoughtful and... and he's everything I ever thought of really. Maybe he's gotten all heartful about things, having the new, gentle stroke of a potter on life, adapting to a sort of care without breaking anything. To soft touch and small smiles and big bouts of laughter and his jolly sort of diga-Dino humor, a strange one, a strange one that makes me happy... Of course the kids love him. They crawl to him on their hands and knees if they diga-don't know how to walk yet. Who wouldn't love him..?

Tmmtmmtmmtmmtmmtmm...

Of course I diga-do... there's a reason I'm always striving to try and be so close to him... he means so much to me so of course I diga-do... I've been tired and I've been strained and I've seen the very edge of my life glistening in front of me, a cliff I'm about to tumble over, but that changes nothing. Nothing. Cuz when I think about him, he makes me smile, and that's all that's truly important in the end. Feelings: these feelings.

Tmmtmmtmmtmmtmmtmmtmmtmm...

Anything that we've—everything that we've gone through—it's been sparkling and shining before me. And there are things I wish I could diga-deny. I remember Clem talking though cookie-chewing rows of tiny teeth that he was gonna go on vacation somewhere else soon. The words painstakingly etch across my head, that he was gonna go to see people he hadn't seen before so he could get his very few number of missing signatures. He was telling diga-Dino about it as he grappled his hand.

He mentioned it because—
Tmmtmmtmm—
Because—
Tmmtmmtmm—
There was a girl on the island he was gonna visit.
A girl whose name was just like—

BRAAANNNNGG!

We hit the ground in a relentless tumble of sun and moon, yellow and black and brown. And red, too. Five feet and a mass of shining strokes of red and orange hair. When we explode, it's flying everywhere.

"Come on." And already he's on his feet, and he's tugging, tugging at me.

"Come on, come on. I got them distracted, come on." I can't catch, in his words, this twisted sliver of glee, one diga-directed towards me, as he tugs and tugs and we go tumbling through a painted hallway and end ourselves sprawling on a guest bed in a guest bedroom in a house, a house we diga-don't fully belong in. My head smacks into the pillow aboard. Scaly hands hold me, more in a tender, trembling wonder that suggests he won't know what to diga-do with himself if he lets go.

Shadows cast like spells on the walls, hissing as they flicker from floor to ceiling. This space was diga-dressed sparingly: the colors random, the painting a slight bit tacky, the quilt bunched around our legs falling apart every few seams. My fingers grapple and only find scales, black and orange and silvery scales. I've been caught. I've been caught by him. My hopeless, light gaze streaks upon him as the words tumble from his trembling tongue, off and into the air. "Jkonna." He manages my name between breaths. "Jkonna, there's... there's... there's something I really really... need... need to tell... tell you."

He's in pain when he speaks. His usually soft but affable, joking but sunny tone has gone and kicked itself in the face. For a moment I really diga-don't know what to diga-do with myself. Our pockets and minds are silent except for the blank thoughts of one another: I wonder wildly if diga-Droplet and the others held back the kids for him.

I wonder wildly where the toys in my pocket went.

He's in my face again. It's always been a soft sort of angular, like his father but rubbed into. He'll probably grow into diga-Dynal's face one diga-day... the thought, off in the diga-distance of the future, a red balloon in the sky, makes my heart heavy. The stone that stays limp on the soil. Permitted no access.

"Jkonna, please, look at me." He swallows. Slowly. "I-It's important. I—really important. Um... to me, at least... I know I've asked you a lot..."

"E-Ehhh! Diga-Dino!" Of course! of course! anything for you!

Bashful streaks of red carouse his cheeks. "It's not really fair to you, though... I've already asked a lot; asking more's like, turd, I'm just asking myself into another abyss, aren't I? Heh... I'm sorry..."

"Wh-What are you trying to say, diga-Dino?" I care about you... I care about you... y'know that, diga-don't you? Can't you see?

Again he can't quite meet my eyes. Yellow bits of fabric burn against me where his hands fall. His breathing is hot, the room is hot, my clothes are hot, I burn in place for a moment as the words diga-dry inside of him and he can't bring them back. The frantic slash of loss crosses his slate eyes and the silent panic he holds nearly kills me; and I can feel it where his hands fall. Then all is silent. Quiet. Fast, and silent, and his gaze forces itself into me and he whispers, "I'm trying to ask if I can keep coming to you like this." The smallest of sighs, a pained flutter locked in his chest, releases. "It's not right, is it? For me to pester and keep—just—it's not fair. You're hurt. I hurt you so much and sometimes I can't tell if you're still denying that I ever did anything. When I did. A lot. Don't even get me... started on..." He refuses to say it.

I'm grateful. Perhaps he sees this in me and words hiss underneath his breath. "G-Gaaah... you don't need to look so happy when I did so many things. I-I really really understand if you hate me now. Be-Besides... it's not like I... it's not... it... a-aaaahhhh... You know they're still here. Them. Um. You know who. I haven't seen much of them, and neither have you, but they wouldn't dissolve like that. We both know what they're waiting for."

I swallow. Slowly.

"Y-Yes. I know..."

He's quiet, so very quiet. "I know... I know you know. That doesn't really change how much I shouldn't keep hurting you." He breaks off into shatters of laughter. "Ha—haha... I'm so awful... a-ahhah..."

"Di-Di-Diiii—" My splutters choke me. "Di—" And yet I... "Dii... Diii..." I have to... I have to... "Dii-iiiino..."

His eyes shudder. Glimpses upon glimpses, churning and storing in the castle of his mind to be kept safe, to be never forgotten. Pieces of memories. Like glass, they reflect the past. Moments, minutes, time and time ago. Like glass, they reflect the past. They reflect his past. A great nineteen years of one single life. It's an important life, so I had to protect it when things were scary and other things were hurting. Once, he was hurting so badly that I could take every single bad memory I ever had, every last blotted thought, muddle it into a ball and toss it at him and it wouldn't be a diga-droplet. Nothing in comparison to confusion, to anger, to loss and fear and pain. Rivers of bleeding pain. Floods of pain. Seas of pain, filling the horizon. So I was there for him.

And so I'm here for him. "Dii-ino... Maybe... I was... hurt." It winded me to rip out a piece of my own accent. "But I wanted to be hurt." I had to rip it out. I had to. "I wanted to be hurt so I could understand you, digadig, so I could see you and know you were there. And then I changed too, like you." If I diga-didn't I'd never be able to say his name, just his name. Dee-ai-enn-oh. Dee-noh. Di...no. Dino.

"Diga-Don't be sad that I changed—please! Diino... be-because it makes me happy to know I get to be with you, just diga you, and that you're okay now... and that I got to help you, digadig, that it was diga me out of... out of everyone! So that's... kinda... kinda cool, digadig..." Softly, I laugh. It's sort of squeezing in my chest, but it's still a laugh.

"Jkonna..." It feels warm, it feels safe, it feels simply... simply good to know that he's got me caught now, and he's caught me into a hug now. That I can sigh now, and I can feel safe, and I can just let go, if I'm scared. Because he's here now. Now he's here. "Jkonna..." And again, he's soft. "I'm sorry, Jkonna... I'm really, really sorry... for a lot of things..."

The glimpse of his angular cheeks just shadowed, just touched, and the frown that pulls against them tugs at me. How diga-deep and soft and small he feels, his eyes a little wide, a little wet, a little diga-dark tugs at me. The way his spiny hair falls just diga-delicately around his head tugs at me; how tight his hands hold tugs at me, really tugs at me. When he whispers it, again, "I'm so sorry," a small cloud of feeling ripples through his open eyes and spreads in a small streak of tears. His tears. Mostly they hit me; I diga-don't care. Let them fall. Let them fall. He apologizes and he very quietly cries and I wait for what I've accepted is coming, what I've stopped diga-denying to exist.

And it comes. It's slow, slurred, like the rest of his words, but it's the truest sentence he's spoken in a long time.

"You're gonna come with me, aren't you?"

And in return I tell him words truer than anything I've said in months.

"Yepperdoo, I'm afraid I am."

Biting his lip, he mumbles, "Please don't make me laugh."

"Really really, digadig?"

"Pleaaaaaase don't make me laugh, Jkonna."

"Oh, what may that be?" I slowly raise a hand to an ear and waggle its clay-colored core. "What is this I hear? Aaah, I see!"

So I tackle him and try much harder than I've ever tried before to make him ticklish.

Maybe it's small, and I'm sure it has nothing to diga-do with me, but a whisper through his lips floats along and fills me. Very small at first. I could hold it in my two hands. I could hold it close to me and feel it there, feel it and know exactly what it is, and keep it safe and protect it from the world. He's laughing. He's laughing. It's so... tender of a laugh. He's truly changed... but it makes me happy now. Because I like it... I like who he is, and I always have, and I always will...

The future is scary. The unknown whisper of the word "future" pressed against my heart feels scary. Unknown. New. Diga-Different—yet again. But... but he'll be there. And he'll be with me. And he'll be happy now, and we'll get through this together. So it'll... it'll be... it'll... I choke through my throat and I tell him I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I cry about the thought of it. So he tells me he'll keep me safe, this time he'll protect me, and he hugs me on the coffee carpet floor where we rest. It's a warm feeling: one that stays with me.

From where I lay, his head stays near me and he murmurs through a yawn, exhausted now, just like me, "Hey, I'll keep you safe. I'll keep you as safe as possible. We'll get everything done before we go, and when we go and we find her and we stop all this madness and everything in between, I'll keep you safe... safe... safe. Because I care a whole lot about you, Jkonna, and... and I'm thankful I have someone who tells me through her tears that she's gonna come with me, even though she's terrified. But this time, it'll be different, and you'll be super duper safe. Dad and Raptin will... will help where they can, and Diggins'll be all cool and junk, and... we'll find her and... and it'll be okay. And Droplet and Pippy, and Foster and Nodopi, Bomba, Morie, Lone, and Bliss... and Harei." The words of the ones I know so well send warm little diga-dots into my heart. "They'll be there too. We won't be alone."

And quietly he tells me like there's nothing else that he can,
"Thank you... thank you... thank you..."

It'll be scary, but I'll be okay. Not because he'll keep me safe but because we'll be in this together, diga-doing what we've got to diga-do. What means the most to the both of us...

My mind idly spins, and I think of the small island we cleared, the one that used to be the BB Base, the one with the flowers gently combing through it, the one where there's nothing yet.

One diga-day, we'll all be safe... and we'll... we'll have... I swallow. Dii-ii-ii-iiiina. She'll be there. Diii-iiina. She's not safe yet... but... but... she will be.

I'm not sure which one of us musters the courage, but someone's hand diga-dials the knob and spills light into the gloom, and we exit the room together. We party with adorable baby children and I try to gently convince the little redhead not to bite, and we in our teffla clothing, our sparkly and bright teffla clothing. Clem brags about celebrities; Scoute and Robbie follow Breckan around with relentless fire in their hearts. Kids consume cookies. And juice. I diga-didn't know their bladder could hold it. But they fill themselves with sugar and diga-depart somewhat tipsy from the household after hours of sugar and some form of fun. The father who somehow managed to clean everything as a kid lifted their foot out of the last diga-dirty footstep, promptly passed out, and the mom thanked and thanked and thanked me before we finally made it out alive.

Dino promptly shed his tux and shoved it under one arm, about to suggest to diga-do the same for me until remembering I am not a diga-dinaurian and there is no way I'm showing anyone my undergarments—no thank you.

We meet a certain diga-dad of mine in the gathering diga-darkness, his turquoise baby spines gentle as he moves and gentle when he hugs me and hugs Dino too. He's kind of alarmed when I speak my best friend's name without my accent, and I'm still a little winded every time I say it, but it's worth it, it's worth it, and I'm not stopping. We tell him about diga-Dina and he tells us he knew and he searched a long time ago for her in some sorta diga-databases someone only as cool as him had access to, and again that he already knew, he already knew.

And he tells us he loves us and he's happy to be our "diga-dad." And thank you, oh thank you.

So we tell him we were happy to meet him too, and we'll be back, we'll be back again some diga-day... and we'll see each other again..

Foster

The strange sensation of cloth travels with me, even after I gave that birthday kid the dolls Jkonna dropped. Still, I'm not surprised. A laughable yawn begins to slide through my lips as I just think of her and how scatterbrained she gets. It's funny.

They all managed in some clump or another to all shove into Dino's and Jkonna's arms; I stayed behind. Oh, noooo, noo, I am not some sad futabi with any sort of low self-esteem. I just wanted to walk without the other vivosaurs. To feel the breeze between my dry fins and move around a little in it. Feel s'more alive. Though I've been on the roof of that gingerbread-like house for hours so it's a little silly, I guess, to think I still need some time to think. But, whatever, I do. That's just how I am or whatever. I plod on carefully above the gravel on the ground. If it catches into my fins... ooh, let's not think of such a vile disorder.

The wind's playful tonight. My long neck stretches and tingles with all these blustery sensations hitting it. I smell just a bit like sugary punch because some wise guy spilled it on me before I managed my not daring whatsoever escape. Jkonna stumbles off in front of me with two of the men in her life around her and she's smiling. It's kind of hard to believe for a time, so I really need to let it sink in. She's... smiling. She knows what's coming up, what ancients exist and what sisters of Dino have them dished in her and what bad situations they're in and yet her lips lift and she's free. Free, and she's free, and she's walking the same path she took when she came this way and saw a jailed man and his jailed soul, and she's free. And that, well, makes me a little pleased. Forced a swiggly wiggly smirk to slide safely upon me.

I guess I'll be stuck with her wherever she goes soon. I'm a little surprised she hasn't noticed my missing yet: suppose the others covered for me anyways, though it's not like I asked them to. It's just the sort of thing they do.

Nodopi's weird.
Bliss is creatively insane.
Morie worries too much.
Bomba worries too little.

They're my family now?

My new family, after losing my sister and my old futabi family. What I... once called a family, the definition's changed.

Yeah, sure, they once were. But it's gone now. It's changed now. And that is completely aye-okay to me. I've got a new family now. And perhaps they're weird but by now they're special to me, too.

In all honesty, I'm just trying to distract myself from this increasingly warm feeling fluttering like teffla wings in my chest. It's not quite possible to deny it. I just kind of live with it, y'know, poke it, prod it, mess with it, for a bit. Just waiting. Thinking about useless things. But I also accept it and happily notice it, quietly, somewhere else that I don't pay enough attention to. I pay enough attention to them. More than enough, I'd say. But yet I like giving them my time...

Okay. That's it. I'll admit: I'm proud. I'm proud of you, Jkonna. This budding flower in my soul, it's all the thrumming song of pride because I am proud of the lady who just so happened to revive me. She struggled... a lot, and she didn't feel very swell at all, quite a lot, and sometimes I wasn't so sure she was gonna get to tomorrow, but she made it. She did it. Here she is, strolling home, and somehow holding, without thinking, a flower of safety in her fingers. Because she did it. She doesn't have to focus on stupid things anymore because she did it.

For once I think of how bashful I'd be if they saw through my fog. So I'm quite pleased, again, of its existence. And yet try and try as I may the conjuring thoughts of my dear sister don't come, so instead I think of Jkonna, and I think of how strangely prideful I am of her, that she made it. But that's a pretty good thing in and on its own, so I shouldn't be so disappointed in myself.

Me: I love Foster more than I should! XD It made me happy and feelsy to make this, oh my gosh. Hahahahaha... ;w;

Foster: -Of course-

Jkonna: get out

Foster: -Nah-

Jkonna: =w=

Oh, so... that's the last Jkonna chapter of tsff ;w;
but not the last chapter... oh you'll see...