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[icerats]

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Big chapter here xD I had to cut it in half unfortunately ^^’ See you next week for the second part ;)

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[icerats]

I love this! Are you planning on making another part?

Ooh trap him somewhere either very hot or very cold?? :D

Oh.

Oh.

This is a perfect excuse to write an old daydream from my childhood. Well, there's two-- Arion on a grill and Arion in a box. I chose the box for this one but I may be tempted to write the grill at some point. I haven't written The Box before now because it doesn't exactly... fit with the plot of the actual story, but I mean...

Alternate Rescue AU, coming right up, Anon. (Also sorry I'm like, infinitely late haha. School threw me into a hell pit and I've been recovering. I'm back now ((though I'm not sure for how long, things might change in a week or two... we'll see.)) For now, I'm working on a lot of Arion stuff that will hopefully pop up within a few days! Cheers!)

CW: Tiny whumpee, some blood, cold/hypothermia symptoms (duh), cages/referenced captivity, briefly implied forced nudity from said captivity, brief reference to a past fever and resulting vomiting, referenced/implied physical abuse, water/rain/storms/being submerged in/splashed with water, thoughts of dying (of the "I might die" and "Am I dead?" and wishing to be put out of misery type), crying, (thinking about) needles, short (kind of) graphic description of a bird being run over, brief religion references

-

His legs still ache from running.

Arion sits in the cardboard box he found on the side of the road, huddled in the corner, shivering in the dark. Although he tries to clamp his jaw shut and stop it, his teeth chatter and his shoulders quiver. It feels like the frozen autumn air has grasped him entirely in icy claws that shake him violently in an inescapable grip. It reminds him of being trapped in Heston’s hand, shaken, body tossed in every direction until his head pounded and his eyes watered.

It’s colder outside than it used to be in the garage. But it’s better out here. No one can hurt him here.

As long as they don’t find him.

He rubs his hands over the goosebumps on his arms, hoping to warm them up and calm down the wild pain buried deep in his skin. As he does so, blood smears along the path he touches. It’s still gently creeping out of the series of cuts etched into his forearms. With it, the image of Heston’s glinting eyes surfaces in Arion’s memory. He buries his head in his shaking knees with a wet sniff. But he’s done it, he reminds himself. He’s escaped. Finally. Chewed through rope, slipped through an unlocked door. Heston's gone. For now.

Please, please don’t come looking for me.

A dog barks somewhere in the distance. He jumps. It sets off an echo of shivers all the way down his spine as his hair stands on end.

A raindrop falls on the cardboard roof. Then another, and another. Thunder claps harshly overhead.

Arion shuts his eyes tight, bites back the frustrated tears welling up at the corners of his eyes. He curls up tighter, hugging himself, doing all he can to keep any scrap of heat he has close to his body. A storm might just do it. Might just kill him. A storm means wind. Freezing wind. And freezing rain. The last thing he needs right now is rain. It can’t rain. He presses his body closer to the cardboard wall, knowing it might not be standing there much longer if it rains.

And it does. It pours.

He sees the rain splash into the road before him. The storm swiftly grows. It’s ferocious and feral and cruel. The temperature around Arion drops. His tiny body shakes uncontrollably, as if it weren’t his own. It reminds him of the terrifying fever he had, long ago, in the confines of his red cage just weeks after being taken from his home. He’d been throwing up and twitching and having the most horrible, vivid dreams (on the occasions that both Heston and the illness let him sleep). The fits of shivering drove him mad, the endless teeth-chattering and flashes of uncomfortable warmth and sticky sweat made him feel even worse. It's like that, he thinks. Except, now, as he shivers, he’s unbearably cold.

An involuntary whine fights its way out of him. When he swallows, his throat feels stiff and achy. Snot runs profusely down his lips and no amount of wiping it away with his bleeding arms is helping it slow. Water has thoroughly and entirely drenched the cardboard, at this point. Has crept through the floor and the walls, and, gradually and persistently, has started to drip through the sagging ceiling. For a moment, Arion remembers he has toes, and that they’ve been numb for awhile now. Actually, now that he’s thinking about it, his feet haven’t felt like anything either, and when he tries to move his fingers, they only twitch. They feel heavy and prickly. He feels prickly all over. Like Heston had shoved a thousand frozen needles into a thousand different places all over his body. It hurts to breathe. There’s no way to get warmer. Nothing to hide under, not even something as decent as clothing. No way to escape, nowhere to run to, even if he had the energy left to try. He lets out a miserable sob.

And then the ceiling falls through, in a blur of collapsing cardboard and splashing waves of water that crash over his head and the rest of his body.

Arion tumbles out of the box, drenched. He coughs up water through jittery movements. For a second, he chokes on a mouthful, and he briefly he thinks he'll never breathe again, before his chest jerks and with another cough, the water falls out of his mouth. He tries to get his arms and legs under him, to stand or even crawl, but his limbs fail him and he crumbles face-first back to the harsh surface below him. The rocks mixed in the road’s tar are sharp. They cut deeply through his nose and cheek and the shoulder that followed his face in the fall. Arion winces against the fresh, sharp pain and the beads of blood that begin to form where he’s been hurt. His breaths come in ragged heaves.

He sniffs. Tears drip from his eyes. He lays helpless in the middle of the little road, in his mind begging to no one that a car doesn’t come along and crush him. Under any other circumstance, he’d love to be put out of his misery. But he’s seen a bird been run over before. Under a truck’s tire. And the memory makes his stomach churn. Flattened face, open stomach, popped like a bubble in a stream.

Briefly, Arion thinks of himself in place of the bird. He thinks of the smear of red underneath his empty, open eyes. He thinks of the way the headlights might look as they would suddenly appear right in front of him. The horrid, mind-numbing honk of a horn. The image he creates in his mind of those headlights, his last moments, is vivid. It’s so vivid that he thinks it might be real, or maybe hypothermia is setting in and beginning to ruin his mind.

It’s just his imagination, he thinks.

And then he smells exhaust from a car.

And the screech of brakes.

And for a second, whilst his body is numb and bright white light is all he can see, he thinks he might be dead.

“I swear, if I keep stopping my car for every mouse that sits in front of it, I’m never going to get anywhere.”

That voice drifts from the car stopped in front of him.

Not dead, then.

Almost, he thinks.

“Can’t help it though. What else am I supposed to do, run them over? Just vet instincts, I guess. Huh, Jasper.” There’s a meow in response. Arion’s breath hitches. The voice says, “Me-ow. I know, I know. I’ll be right back.” A car door shuts. Then there’s heavy wet footsteps. Boots clopping over puddles and asphalt. Panic floods Arion’s chest as a shadow cuts through the blinding white light from the vehicle. The outline of a human lowers, kneels in front of him. His breath stops. His mind goes blank.

“What…”

A moment passes. Something touches him. He flinches hard, but trying to run isn’t an option. His body is completely, entirely, wholly exhausted and far too numb to move more than flailing back a couple inches.

“Oh, geez, that’s-- not a mouse. Okay.” Her head turns in a way that Arion can see her face. A young woman with red hair, watching him with a warm but frantic gaze. “Okay. Okay okay. Oh, God, you’re injured pretty bad, little buddy. Your arms are all… cut up. That’s not good. Um.”

Arion stares blankly ahead. Suddenly, freezing to death isn’t something he feels like putting too much effort into avoiding.

“Okay. Here’s what we’ll do,” the girl continues. “I’m gonna bring you into my car where I can see you better, alright? Then I can help you. It’s gonna be okay. Here. I’m picking you up now, ‘kay?”

The feeling of a warm hand washes over his body. It’s both terrifying and incredibly welcome. The sting of cold seems to seep out of his skin, albeit very slowly. Quickly, though, burning prickles replace whatever comfort the touch brought him.

“Oh, you’re freezing, little guy. You must have been out here for a long time. That can be really dangerous… I’m glad I found you. I’ll get you all warmed up in the car.”

Arion whimpers against the hands that carry him to somewhere warmer, where he hears the faint, deep sound of a large beating heart. For a second, he wonders if this is God. And then the car door opens and creaks, and the girl curses under her breath, and Arion remembers he’s an atheist.

Still, as the stinging in his warming skin subsides, the warmth of her hands starts to feel… nice. If his mind were still intact (instead of shattered into vague, useless fragments as it is now), Arion would have done anything and everything to get away from any human or other predatory beast in sight. But with his head swimming, he leans into her touch, and compliantly accepts the soft feeling of some kind of cloth being wrapped all around him.

Words are spoken to him, but he can’t listen. To him they sound broken up and blurry as the insistence of sleep becomes more desperate in the back of his mind. As he gets warmer, his muscles relax, and his eyes get droopy. His vision darkens, and the girl’s voice hushes.

Just before he drifts off into a far overdue, deep and restful sleep, he thinks to himself, vaguely, that he hopes this human is different. He hopes that when he wakes back up, it won’t be in another cage.

-

Tag list because this ended up being a full drabble:

(Also, let me know if you'd like to be removed from the tag list. No hurt feelings! I know it's been a long time and if you've lost interest that is A-Okay, friend)

(Also, if you'd like to be added or if your username's changed, let me know!)

@whumping-every-day, @deluxewhump, @sola-whumping, @haro-whumps, @inaridriscoll, @whatwasmyprevioususername, @kiretto-laorentze, @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi, @ahorriblebimess, @whump-me-all-night-long

[icerats]

Tiny in the snow Part 6!!!!!!

This might be the end but who knows, I still want to write an epilogue of these two being competent dumbasses cause Nok & Charlie both have one brain cell that pings back and forth aggressively between them

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

The little one, Nok, they said their name was, had fallen asleep against their neck, Charlie’s hand laying over them like a blanket as their other reached for the phone on the coffee table, and it wasn’t long before they found the number they needed. “Kix, I have a favour to ask”

“Oh hey Charlie”, the modulated voice of Kixer replied, causing Nok to stir. “How can I be of service”

“I need you to find out what’s in Deric Walsh’s office”. It was silent for a moment, and Charlie worried that they wouldn’t take the, admittedly, boring job. But then Kix’s horribly modulated laugh busted through the phone, causing Charlie to flinch, which in turn startling Nok enough that they woke.

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie”, Kix echoed, “you want me to fuck up your asshole of a cousin?”

“Uh…I mean I just need you to get into his apartment and find out what he’s keeping hidden?”

“You can keep your Favour. This ones on me”, their horrid laugh was back, and Charlie was tempted to just hang up on them and attend to the sweet little creature currently sliding down to rest in the crook of their neck. “I’ve always wanted to fuck that asshole up”

“Good to know your always down to screw over my family”

“Nah, just him. I’ll call you when it’s done”, and then they were gone, and Charlie sighed. Dealing with Kixer always seemed to leave them with a pounding headache, which was why they let others deal with their anonymous ally.

“Who was that?”, Nok’s little lilted voice whispered into their ear as they shuffled around under Charlie’s hand.

“That was Kixer”, Charlie chuckled softly as Nok continued to wriggle, their fluffy hair tickling the human’s palm. “They’re an Informant, of sorts. They tell us the safest way in and out of places, among other things”

“When your…Stealing?”

“It’s a bit of a Robin hood situation”, Charlie thought for a moment, “Except it’s not at all like Robin hood because we're all terrible. Not at our job, mind you. Just to each other”

“But why?”, Nok questioned. Ever since Charlie had gotten them talking, and after the awkward conversation about Deric, they had been nothing but questions. What’s this? Why’s that? Why why why? And it warmed their heart to see the little creature so full of life. They didn’t even mind that Nok had learned more about them in ten minutes than they had in two days.

“Cause we’re all reckless idiots with a passion for chaos”, Oh so carefully did they lean over, resting their cheek lightly on the giggling Nok, chuckling as they felt their tiny limbs halfheartedly push against the warm skin.

“Get off me! Your heavy!”. Charlie gasped dramatically, and when they had attempted to flip over onto their side to stare at Nok with an incredibly exaggerated look of hurt, they didn’t have ‘Fall off the couch like a fish’ on the agenda. But that’s what happened. And it caused Nok to laugh even harder.

“Oh laugh it up.”, A gentle pat was all it took to send Nok tumbling down from the arm of the couch and down to the cushions with a yelp, which in turn left Charlie laughing harder at the way they fought against the multitude of clothes they still had on, and they had to bite there tongue to refrain from calling them a turtle. “Are you stuck?”

When they did manage to fight their way out of what had to be at least another coat and three different shirts, they were dishevelled and fuming beyond belief. Their odd choppy mop of hair was sticking out in every which way, showing off their rosy ears and cheeks. “Now who’s stuck”

“Not me”, Charlie smiled cheekily, wiggling out of the small space between the lounge and coffee table that they had been cramped into, “If that’s what you were implying”

“Oh Curses”, They had to laugh at that, the little one never actually cursed, but the force behind their words still held strong. At least they were looking at them with anger and annoyance instead of the fear they had been the day earlier.

And then a low growl cut the impromptu staring contest in two, leaving their tiny guest even redder. With reminded Charlie that Nok hadn’t actually eaten anything since they had found them in the snow, an event that seemed so far in the past now, and who knows when the last time they had eaten before that was. Plus, Charlie realised with disdain, the last thing they had eaten was reheated Chinese, and that had been a good few hours ago.

And Nok hadn’t drank anything yet. God, Charlie really wasn’t cut out to be an adult.

“Come on”, Offering a hand to the tiny creature, Charlie smiled. “Let's get you something you eat”

[icerats]

Add me to tag list pretty please? 👉👈

Dragons Aren’t big, And Fairies Aren’t Weak

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[icerats]

borrower: I can't talk to you, you mustn't know I exist. Its borrower code.

borrower (20 minutes later): ...and yeah, that's my childhood trauma, family tree, and my top ten worst fears. Now onto favorite food....

[icerats]

You have the funniest memes I love u

borrower who suddenly is turned normal sized and gets human roommates and desperately struggles to act as if they’ve been human sized their entire life

[icerats]

Thanks for the idea! Making piccrews is very fun ^-^

yo game time

make a picrew of how you imagine yourself as a tiny/giant/shifter! i wanna see y’all

this is my tinysona! made w this picrew here but yall use whichever one you wanna!

[icerats]

Me in the kitchen in general:

tiny me trying to imitate the giants by cooking but i have no clue how a recipe works and i only have stuff i stole from them:

[icerats]

when i make a post about new oc’s who are a scared but sweet tiny with a troubled past and a gruff and terrifying giant that ultimately gets a soft spot for the small after a lot of fearplay and angst:

[icerats]

Fearplay concept

classic set up of tiny!hero locked in battle with giant!villain. maybe this is their first encounter and they're feeling confident, or maybe this is their 80th fight this week and they're used to the groove, but the tiny is just laying it on thick with their quips and jokes during the game of cat and mouse. it comes to a point where they're borderline flirting with the giant and being a general tease, just as a way to goad/annoy the villain while easing the tension of their own shoulders.

it's all well and good until they're actually caught, like completely pinned on the ground by a hand while the giant looms over them with a grin. this was clearly never part of the tiny's plan and they're 100% shit outta luck in this situation. no back up, no weapons, nothing but extremely nervous rambling consisting of weird compliments as a means of trying to sway the giant into not killing them with a literal snap of their fingers.

the good news is all that flirting actually worked

the bad news is all that flirting actually worked

[icerats]

giant with a freshly caught borrower: you can’t just live here and take food and not pay rent!

borrower: do you realize how many times you’ve left the oven on? or candles lit. or the sink running. i once barked like a dog for TEN MINUTES to scare off a burglar. did you ever even find out about the rats? you have no IDEA the shit i do when you’re at work fucker

giant:

[icerats]

Omfg this prompt is amazing I love it

love the idea of a borrower purposely befriending a giant just to vent to them about their awful borrower acquaintances. pulling up to someone 20 times ur height JUST to tell them about the shit Janice pulled on the last borrowing trip and their giant pal is just listening to this two inch tall person rant like

and their giant friend is just HYPING them up the entire time

[icerats]

Adding this to the list of random prompts I might write in the future haha

a group of roommates all living in an apartment, and occasionally their things or food go missing and they are all unaware that there’s a borrower in the walls

eventually one of them catches the borrower but lets them go and tell them it’s chill if they stay and that they won’t tell the other roommates

this happens to the borrower with each roommate

eventually all the roommates realize they all know about the borrower and its just

[icerats]

[icerats]

so i never make these types of posts, but my situation has gotten a little bit rough lately. I’ve been to the ER three times this month, and my health issues have caused me to miss a lot of work. stuff has been tight financially with my medical bills and me barely being able to function on top of it.

so, i just wanted to say that i do have a ko-fi here! if you do donate anything, let me know and i’ll draw or write you a little something! again, no pressure to donate, but if you enjoy my content and want to support me it’d be greatly appreciated. thank y’all and love y’all 💖

[icerats]

Tag your favorite authors below! Shout out to @bottlesandbuttons, @narrans, and @chasing-starlights. Please check out their stories ^-^

[icerats]

One Shot | A Tall and Small Collection | Distracting Stories

*Advisory* | The following chapter contains mentions of scrapes, severe injury, mentions of fatal wounds, hopelessness, inability to act, and death of a minor character. Though it is not graphic, some individuals may find these topics disturbing and/or unsettling. This is the only chapter of this nature.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It felt like the day was draining away. Each second dragged its feet for the next second to procrastinate even longer than the last. It was agonizing.

It wasn’t that Soren lacked confidence in his younger siblings to climb up the staggering height of the standing desk. It wasn’t that Soren didn’t want them to see Brady. It was his belief that this needed to be handled in a calm environment and an anxious climb up the line would only exacerbate and taint the encounter.

If Brady couldn’t pull through, Soren wanted Dorian and Rey, at the very least, to be able to say good-bye calmly and in their own way. Sitting exposed on a desk felt more like a display.

So, they sat just under the edge of the bed and waited the painstaking time until they heard Ashlynn’s muffled voice through the door. She was talking to someone and, instinctually, they pulled further into the shadows of the bed comforter as the voice of another woman and presumably the boy responsible for Brady’s injuries. The conversation lasted for a few minutes before the door shut with a dulled thud.

Moments later, Ashlynn knocked on the door and peaked her head into the room. “Soren? Are you okay?” She took a hesitant step into the room. “I’m coming in.” The Borrowers stepped out from their shadowed concealment, both Dorian and Rey clinging to each of Soren’s arms not from fear but for comfort and reassurance.

Ashlynn’s eyes scanned the ground carefully, lighting up with recognition and a twinge of sadness upon spotting the three familiar faces she had grown accustomed to seeing every day. She could see out of the corner of her eye that the container hadn’t moved, and neither did Brady. A subtle sense of gratitude washed over Ashlynn. Leaving Soren alone with the guy who he was angry enough to throttle wasn’t ideal and Ashlynn wondered what Soren might do the moment she left; but thankfully he hadn’t tried to move Brady off of the desk or do anything else reckless.

Instinctively, she closed the door behind her and knelt. It had become second nature, kneeling to not seem so intimidating. Following their pattern, they began to approach. She couldn’t imagine what was going on in the young boys’ heads. Well… she could… but she shrugged it off. Telling them a story of how she had an idea of what they were going through would redirect the attention from Brady who still wasn’t out of the woods yet.

She snapped out of her gaze just as Soren tried to get her attention. “Yes? Sorry,” she apologized, her blue-grey eyes fixating on his steeled features. Soren’s hazel eyes, filled with the pain of others, had a false hardness to them. Even if the eldest of the three brothers didn’t care for Brady, it was still obvious that a life was a life to him.

“No, it’s okay. Um… Ashlynn, could you… bring down the box and put it by the bed?” asked Soren. She fulfilled the request, carefully keeping the container level and placing it by the bed. The younger two kept close to Soren’s side as he muttered a brief “thank you” and guided them to the makeshift bed.

~~~~~

Dorian and Rey weren’t sure what they were expecting. Despite the fact that Soren had warned them, it didn’t stop their breath from hitching in their throat after uttering the faintest gasps. Soren was right, their dad did look different. He was thinner and bruised. Things just looked… off. He was asleep at the moment, but that didn’t seem to deter their older brother who guided them forward to the edge of the container.

“H-how long will he be…?” The question could be filled in a number of ways, but Soren simply pulled Dorian further under his arm in a half shoulder hug.

“He needs his rest, but I’m sure we’ll wake up soon.” The words soothed Dorian and Rey’s minds, but it seemed to be just now sinking in how terrible the wounds actually were. They wordlessly sat on the edge and waited for their dad to regain consciousness.

In the meantime, Soren stepped off to the side toward Ashlynn. He wasn’t sure when he became comfortable with it, and perhaps the circumstances left him numb, but when he saw her hand extended and laid on the ground he stepped onto it. She raised him up, pulling him slightly to the side.

“You okay?” she asked softly. Soren, finding it better to kneel on her hand rather than stand, readjusted so his legs could dangle from the edge. Something about the warmth of her hand was oddly soothing. Soren gave a non-committal shrug, rubbing his eyes in hopes that would alleviate the rising tension. “That bad?”

Soren nodded. “I don’t know if he’s going to pull through Ashlynn.” The utterance was a harsh one and certainly conveyed Ashlynn’s worst fear after discovering the injured Borrower. “I mean, I was in bad shape but this is…”

“We’ll figure it out,” reassured Ashlynn. “And… you have me, if you need anything.” Soren looked up into her blue-grey eyes.

“Thanks,” he smiled. “We could really use that right now.”

The moment would have lasted longer if Rey’s shout didn’t redirect their attention. “Soren! He woke up! He’s awake! He’s awake!” Ashlynn startled, shaking her hand enough to make Soren gasp and throw himself backwards to make sure he didn’t accidentally fall off of her hand. She lowered her hand so Soren could step off and be led quickly to where Brady lay.

The breathy words were accompanied by a slight wheezing sound. Undoubtedly, it was Brady speaking. Dorian was currently clinging to his father’s hands as he listened intently to what he was saying. Soren only picked up on the last bits of it, but whatever was said before obviously was upsetting the middle brother based on the tears in his eyes.

“Be sure to look after Rey, okay?” wheezed Brady.

“Okay dad.” Dorian agreed without hesitation. Soren bit his tongue. He wanted to scold Brady for talking like this to his son; at the same time, if this made him feel better Soren couldn’t deny him. Instead, he went for a slightly less harsh approach.

“You don’t need to be worrying about that,” said Soren. “We all look out for each other, just like how we’re going to look after those bruises of yours.” Rey scurried from Soren’s side and hopped into the container, so he and Dorian were on opposite sides of Brady.

“Yeah dad,” Rey chimed in. “We look out for each other.” They were silent for a few minutes, none of them certain of what to say until Soren had enough. They needed something – anything – to lighten the mood. He sat on the edge of the container, a faint smile on his lips.

“Do you remember the first time you saw snow Rey? Dorian?” All three of them redirected their attention to the seemingly unrelated words, clinging to them as a wanted distraction. Rey and Dorian both shook their heads at first before Dorian piped up.

“It was in the old house, right?” asked Dorian. Soren nodded.

“Yeah,” the eldest muttered. “The old house. We were walking up and down the walls searching for buried treasure. There was the split in the wall that we hadn’t explored. Remember? So, we followed it and ended up outside right as it started snowing.”

“I… think I remember that,” muttered Rey. “It was by the climbing bush, right?”

“Right,” confirmed Soren. “It was freezing outside, and we almost turned back if not for the snow.”

“I remember. The snowflakes were huge. Almost as big as Rey,” Dorian chimed in. “Not that it was hard to do.”

“Hey!” Rey retorted. “I wasn’t that little.” Their reactions, like clockwork, shifted from frowning and sad to small grins of amusement. Slowly, the stories continued to trickle out from things Soren remembered and questions from Dorian and Rey. Brady chimed in every once in a while, but for the most part listened as the three boys talked.

Soren could see fragments of wincing smiles from Brady, as if he could see each memory play out as they talked. Slowly, the mood lightened. They talked for hours, Brady fading in and out from time to time. They would check on him, see if ne heeded anything in particular, but his answer was the same.

“I’m just glad to be here with you boys.”

They ate dinner at some point, and Soren gave a more thorough check-up on Brady; and it wasn’t good. His fever was spiking despite the cold cotton cloth bundles on his forehead and wrists. His breathing was more shallow than before and Soren swore the wheezing was getting worse.

Soren remembered these same symptoms from his mother. It wasn’t a good sign. At some point in the night, Brady called the boys to his side, saying how much he loved them and how proud he was of them. The night was a somber one, and one they wouldn’t forget.

Ashlynn had stayed up, not wanting them to be alone but feeling awkward at the same time, feeling this was something private she wasn’t meant to be a part of. What pieces stood out in Ashlynn’s mind was the way Rey came out, sniffling and stifling soft whimpers. She sat on the ground and watched him curl up in her hand.

The human did what she could to offer comfort, rubbing his shoulders with the tips of her fingers as delicately as she could. It was so easy to forget how small he was for how much personality he had shown since being here with her.

She knew it was difficult and that the morning would be even worse; but, for now, she let her fingertips stroke the boy’s back and cradle him until he drifted off to sleep.

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