A/N: Written for the Tale in Fragments Challenge, 10 prompts List 1, prompt #05 – rage, and for the Female Character Appreciation Competition (with Ruki), both on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's in my profile).

Enjoy. :D

Picnic Day
5. Rage

There hadn't been time to know more delicate things before. It had only been fighting. Renamon didn't know what sort of foods Ruki liked to eat, what sort of things she liked to drink, what sort of books she liked to read. She'd done all of those things, but she'd never looked happy doing them.

She hadn't even known something as simple as why she was different from the boys. And it hadn't occurred to her to find out. Now she can though, because she has time and that's more important than the fighting they don't have to – or want to – do any more.

But Renamon finds she's learnt more from the hot springs than she bargained for. 'Ruki,' she says quietly. 'Why is it such an awkward topic for you and not your mother?'

'What is?' Ruki asks. She is inside her bedroom, behind the door. Changing into her pyjamas she claims.

'Your…' Renamon fishes around for the word. 'Womanhood.'

If Ruki goes scarlet behind the door, Renamon can't see. ''kaa-san's been married,' Ruki squeaks out eventually. 'How do you think babies are born?'

'From eggs?' Renamon ventures.

Ruki squeaks, then clears her throat. 'No! We're not chickens…or any other animal that's born from an egg.' Her voice goes even higher as she continues: 'A man and woman…they…umm…' She trails off, then yells: 'Ack, just ask 'kaa-san!'

Renamon blinks. 'Ruki?'

'it's just – ' Ruki coughs. 'You really don't know about humans, do you?'

It sounds as though Ruki hadn't realised before either.

'Not a lot,' Renamon confesses. 'I know you're more fragile than us, that your world isn't made entirely of data, that you have relationships called "friendship"…'

Ruki sighs. 'Well, leaving babies alone, when kids grow up they…change a little. Not just grow bigger; other things. Like…umm…' She trails off again.

'The bumps on your chest?' Renamon supplies. 'They're called –'

'Renamon!' Ruki cries, throwing open the door. 'You don't just say stuff like that!' Catching herself and fighting down the heat in her cheeks, she adds: 'it's a little…private.'

Renamon accepts that; privacy she knows, and can understand. Anyone will get angry when it's invaded – but Ruki's not mad, just off balance. Not even her mother is that direct.

Then again, Rumiko understands growing up better than Ruki does. And Ruki realises that again a few days later, when she's changing in to her pyjamas before bed and sees a red stain in her underwear.

By then, Renamon has learnt a little more about puberty and isn't shocked for her life when Ruki screams for her mother. Though she is amused; humans are still beyond her, just like the detachment of the Digital World is beyond Ruki who's used to feeling everything around her. But the world is a little more integrated now, and such knowledge is unavoidable.

For a moment, she wonders how Leomon would react to such knowledge; if she is female, then Leomon is certainly male, even if he is partnered to Juri. But that question will never arise. Leomon is dead. Though Calumon stays intermittingly with Juri – though Renamon doubt the once-catalyst will understand. He cannot even grasp the concept of school.