Kat5

Hmmm... I wonder if Sofia likes telling stories... (Also, excellent work!)

Finally made a bit of time to catch up. Things are not going well at Emerson! Some group is going to war with the littles again. And this time they're out to go nuclear. Also: hacking into a conversation involving a member of the Supreme Court is ... a choice. Forget everything going on with the college, if the ABI found out, they'd come through like napalm, leaving nothing in their wake. Great story, and I look forward to more!

One eye halfway works. I think that I'm required to wear a victorian dress and carry a lace umbrella if I get an old fashioned opera spectacle?

It's apparently not going to get better. Listen, in his situation, I would 100% torment Bigs by trying to get them to drink my Spriten Up.

I'd like to apologize for the delay. It's difficult to see to type lately. But I'm working on it! What if I told you that Steve gets a wife in the spring? Well, it was his naptime when the Karen showed up for the inspection. And she didn't make him fall asleep, she just made him have the milk. (Which he does need, as it helps regulate his mood. And he's getting cranky.) And finally: You have to admit: her logic may be entirely one sided, but in typical Amazon fashion, it is completely flawless/inarguable given the information she has to work with.

Chapter Fifty Nine John sat in the booster seat, irritably pulling at the lap belt holding him in place. After everything that he’d been through today, the last thing that he wanted was to feel like a baby. That LPS woman had pretty well spoiled what little patience that he usually had for the baby treatment. As MeMaw put a bowl filled with little cubes of honeydew melon in front of him, he looked for a fork, but there wasn’t one to be found. “MeMaw? Fork?” he asked. But as his toddler cup was placed in front of him, she said “These are finger food, you just eat up and I’ll fix you a drink that Nana Claire said you would like!” Rolling his eye, admittedly still just irritated with the babying treatment, he picked up a cube of honeydew melon and looked at it suspiciously. Fully expecting to like it just because Nana Claire said he would made him even more irritable, but he took a bite anyway. Oh that was oh so slightly sweet, cold from the fridge and the texture was -just- right. Not realizing that he’d closed his eyes until he opened them, he was MeMaw waggling his toddler cup at him expectantly. So without even bothering to argue, he took the cup from her and took a sip. It was Spriten Up. John stared at the cup and blinked. From his left he heard “What’s the matter, do you not like it?” “No, no. I absolutely like it. It tastes like home, in a way.” was all he could think to say without paying any attention. Nana Claire now had not one, but two bigs buying the same inter dimensional beverage for one little. And while he had no way of knowing how much it cost, and there was no way any of the bigs were about to share that knowledge with him, it had to at least cost them something. And he was just one little. If everyone in this town went to Nana Claire for stuff for their littles ... Nana Claire is VERY good at her job. Blinking a few times as his brain caught up, he took another pull from the straw and smiled up at MeMaw as a plan came to him. “Oh! MeMaw?” She immediately smiled back at him and asked “Yes, sweety?” His smile only grew wider as he answered “You know, MeMaw, this drink reminds me of home. Would you like to try some of it? I want you to know what it’s like where I’m from!” Completely unaware of what was about to happen, MeMaw gave him a big kiss on the forehead before turning to go to the kitchen. While she was gone, John looked over at Mom. She had obviously heard the conversation, because she stood there by the couch with a shocked look with both of her eyebrows up. John just smiled at her until MeMaw came back with a bit of Spriten Up in a glass for herself. She held it up and John grabbed his cup and held his up too. After they clinked his cup and her glass, he took a drink from his straw while he watched MeMaw take a great bit swig of Spriten Up at the same time. There was a slightly delayed reaction until her left eye clamped shut, he right eyebrow twitched a bit before her right eye started blinking a little. MeMaw did a slight full body shudder as her head started twitching slightly side to side like some sort of robot glitching out. MeMaw finally managed to move her hand to put the glass down on the counter, but that was only so that she could make a pawing motion at the air for a moment. Then her hands both balled up into a fist and he could see her forcing herself to swallow the mouthful of Spriten Up. After a few moments, she pinched the bridge of her nose and he could just barely make out her mumbling “Why is it in my sinuses. HOW is it in my sinuses. Goddess spare me I can taste my sinuses.” Finally recovering a bit, MeMaw turned around and looked at John who was just smiling as he took another drink for himself. Of course, he held out the cup and offered her another drink. “It’s good, right? Would you like some more?” MeMaw was obviously trying to look mad, but with John looking like an innocent smiling little, she just couldn’t. “No sweety, why don’t we just save some and you can share it with your PaPaw next week?” Johns grin grew even wider as he heard Mommy behind her chime in. “Mom! Will dad even survive that, he has less tolerance for sweet things than we do?” MeMaw patted Mommy on the shoulder and explained “After we left your Father made up all sorts of stories about why you can’t plant the lettuce I want, complete with making up international articles with convincing sounding reference numbers and just kept making it up the entire way home. He’ll survive.” They both stopped to look at John. John, for his part, just ate another cube of Honeydew melon. They knew what he just did on purpose. But if they weren’t going to call him out on it, he was just going to eat his snack and play innocent. He’s just a little, after all. John was slowly catching on to how this world works. After finishing his bowl of melon cubes, MeMaw picked him up and carried him to the bathroom and put him on the counter and ran water. Without thinking about it, she washed and dried his hands for him. “MeMaw, I can do it.” “I know sweety, but I want to help you.” With a half sigh, half growl, he complained “MeMaw, I just … I don’t want … MeMaw, I don’t want to feel like a baby right now, okay?” Suddenly MeMaw stopped and looked him in the eyes without speaking for a few moments before she nodded. “You know, sometimes after a rough inspection, littles need a bit of time to calm back down. Usually after the inspection we are gone and we don’t see it directly. You are still a little, so you DO still have to accept some help. But maybe we can talk about this for a bit.” With a huff, he said point blank “MeMaw, you said I’m a toddler. I’m still an adult.” Slowly nodding for a moment, she picked him up and got him up so his butt was on her arm as she spoke softly to him. “John, this isn’t the world you are used to. And quite frankly, most littles here aren’t as mature as you are. And even then you still need to learn to accept what you can’t change about this world.” Letting his head slump onto her shoulder, he kept complaining “But I’m an adult. I’m not a toddler. I can work, and cook, and mow the grass, and stock shelves, and do everything you can. Just … smaller.” Feeling her cheek on top of his head was comforting, but not reassuring in this moment. “John. Sweety. Littles … I don’t know how to put this gently. Did you know that we have portals and trade with three dimensions of littles?” Looking up now, he asked “Wh… what? Three dimensions of littles?” She simply nodded and explained “And those are only the ones we trade with. There are a few more that … Well let’s just say that those places are not very nice. Every one of them are run by littles.” John didn’t really notice that MeMaw had started walking around and patting his butt trying to keep him comforted. “And us Bigs have been watching all these littles from different dimensions and then there’s the littles here that grow up and then sometimes they … grow back down. And we love them all the more with every passing day.” With that, she lifted him up and gently bumped her forehead against his. “I know that this might be a bit more than you’re ready to digest. But while I know our world isn’t perfect, we don’t let littles go hungry and homeless here. Does that happen in your dimension?” John stammered a bit. This was the most direct and maturely that anyone had addressed him the entire time he was in this dimension. “Well … uhhh…. Yeah. It does, but what does that …” She stopped him with one finger to his lips as she answered “You are one little in a wide world of Bigs and Littles. You don’t know the way things are here, and that’s perfectly fine. Please just try to accept that we know what this world is like, and we are going to do what’s best for you in it. You may not understand it, and honestly you don’t need to understand all of it. You just have to trust us. Okay?” All he could do was nod silently along. How do you respond to being told all of that? “Now. I hate to spoil this moment, but it’s time for you trust me now.” And with him on her arm, he was carried as she went to the fridge and got out a bottle of milk, ready and waiting. As she carried him to the rocking chair, he caught on to what was happening and started trying to squirm to get down. By the time she was sitting down and getting a blanket to wrap him up in he was trying to push her arms away. “MeMaw, I don’t want a nap!” He protested. “Sweety, you don’t have to take a nap right now, you need some milk. It’s nutritious, and you’ll feel better. You can nap later.” While she looped the blanket over him, he tried to roll to get loose, but she simply wrapped him up like he was a toddler burrito. “MeMaw, no!” While he squirmed and tried to somehow wriggle out of the top of the swaddle he was stuck in, she kissed him on the cheek and held the bottle to his lips. He tried to protest again “NO-umpphh” but the nipple of the bottle went right into his mouth. He tried to refuse to drink, but with a little squeeze of the bottle a few drops went into his mouth and he started to swallow and suckle on the nipple seemingly on autopilot. Without knowing how long it was taking to drain the bottle, he tried to do anything he could to stay awake while he got halfway through the bottle. He tried wriggling what little he could. He tried moving his toes. John patently refused to fall asleep right there in her arms and on her terms. As he finished the bottle, his eyelids felt like they were made of lead when he was slid up onto a shoulder and his back was patted in just the right spot to make him give off a soft burp. Pulled back around and resting against MeMaws chest, he felt a pacifier against his lips and gave in to take it. And there, with a belly full of milk, a pacifier in his mouth, and swaddled up nice and warm as the slow motion from the rocking chair moved him back and forth, John dozed off.

Im probably not a good source of advice, being a medium quality writer, but I like what you're doing here and want only to encourage you to keep creating! Sharing our creations using imagination and writing is one of the greatest gifts that we littles can have!

I break the fourth wall in the comments where I admit that the main character is the dog pretty frequently.

Thank you very kindly! I consider that to be high praise! I'm glad you're enjoying the story. I think MeMaw had more fun just dramatically kissing all over the side of his face and tickling him instead of answering. Grandma even refused to elaborate on her history or what all that was about. And if I may get away with being so direct... Karan may be a horrible person from our point of view. (She is) But from her point of view, reducing littles to infants from day one by sheer force makes them 'adapt' (i.e. give up fighting) sooner, and to her that is a sign of love. She wants us all to be reduced to nonverbal babies unable to walk because she loves us. Let that simmer for a bit as an expression of how she views us.

This was surprisingly wholesome! I enjoyed it, thank you.

I've been so buried in RL that I'm just wildly behind on reading stories.

Don't do it, Jack! Stay at the tier you're in! (Or more realistically l: good luck delaying things as long as you can!)

Remember that Amanda is one of the best among her kind. But she's still an Amazon, and that's why the point of view feels different, and how she thinks of him as an actual toddler more than a vertically challenged adult. The best that one of us could hope for in that situation, but some things just seem so normal that them happening doesn't even register. You know like subtly training a little to use a pack for self soothing. A little somehow winds up addicted to the calming effect of the pacy? It keeps them calm. They were meant to have it. And if that pack makes the little have a childish lisp when its in their mouth? Well, that's just how littles wind up sounding. Toddlers in diapers waddle, they have temper problems as they learn boundaries, they have speech problems, and they still love cuddles when they're sleepy. From Amanda's point of view what else could you possibly see right now but a toddler?

Yep! MeMaw knows whar she's about! I'm glad that you're enjoying this little slice of life story about growing into this dimension and learning how to adjust to this world in a little different pace. I have my own headcannon that I cannot shake that Amazon's are able to grow so big and strong due to a combination of great nutrient density and lower atmospheric pressure, much like how the atmospheric pressure on earth was (at least when I studied it before this) believed to have had a lower atmospheric pressure many millions of years ago. Not a lot, but reading that study stuck with me and here we are. So higher nutrient density helps them evolve to grow bigger and stronger, and as a result, the same things that give each food their taste are just ... more packed. At least, that's my headcannon for their size. A mixture of ancient earth history and logical extrapolation. If you want, I can ask the author if they're going to get along. *wink wink* Real life and I have not had a healthy relationship lately, if I'm honest. But I'm trying my best.

Chapter Fifty Eight John felt so much relief the moment MeMaw walked through the door. And when she picked him up, he knew that this other lady would have to deal with -HER- before she could keep being mean and degrading to him. He felt her chin on top of his head as she whispered “I’m happy to see you, too.” Mommy walked over and started to say “Hi Mom, I didn’t get to read your mes…” But she was interrupted by Karen. “Margaret!? What are you doing here, this is my inspection. You know you can’t interfere with another LPS agents inspection.” The tone alone made John tense up and bite down on the pacy in his mouth nervously. “Well, Karen” MeMaw spoke softly while stroking his back “If you recall, I retired.” Behind him he heard her say suspiciously “Then what brings you so far out of town?” John felt himself being shuffled up with an arm under his butt. When he was face to face with MeMaw she made a big shoe of kissing him on the cheek and then rotating him to show him off to Karen. “Well. Karen. This is Thursday. And every Thursday I come babysit my grandson while my daughter works her in her garden.” MeMaw had a threatening tone. John felt relieved that tone was aimed at someone other than him. Looking over his shoulder at Karen, he could see her jaw clenching slightly, even from across the room. He briefly wondered if small details were easier for him to see because they were all bigger than him. “Well Margaret, I must insist that you bring him back over here so that we can finish his evaluation.” Looking up now, he could see that MeMaw had a smirk. “Of course Karen. You know I would never interfere with an evaluation. Those are the pillar of our process.” With a bit of bounce in her step as she crossed the distance to the coffee table and she sat down directly on the floor with him in her lap facing the table. Karen gave an audible “HMMPH.” as she sat back down on the couch facing the table. Karen started to reach into her diaper bag for something, but frozen when MeMaw started talking. She already seemed annoyed. MeMaw asked “So how far have you gotten in his evaluation?” Karen stopped with her hand still in the diaper bag as she answered with what John thought must be her most official ‘office tone’: “If you must know, he has done the first part of his evaluation, had his physical inspection, and is almost done with the second part. He does not pass every bar for maturity, since he falls short on two metrics. We were in the middle of reading comprehension when you got here.” As Karen answered, MeMaw leaned over John to peek at the paper he had started writing on. He could tell that she knew what he was about to write as an insult to her when she chuckled and said over his head: “Well I think he’s proven he’s literate enough. What’s left?” With a frustrated sounding sigh, Karen responded “For his exam I will be satisfied with the coordination to stand up and do one toddler level puzzle at the same time.” Feeling her lean down and rest her chin on his head for a moment, he then felt her sit with her back perfectly upright. “Karen.” She started. “What if he sits on my lap while doing a puzzle, and you and he have a little race?” John could see her eyebrows scrunch up as she said “Margaret, no little can do a puzzle in even ten times as long as a big.” “Well.” MeMaw started, but then she left a big pause as she seemed to fake thinking about it. “What if he can do the same puzzle in, say … four time as long as it takes you? Would you then write him down as toddler level and … hmmm… give a dog treat to the border collie outside that’s still staring at you?” “Margaret, you know very well that I don’t like dogs one tiny bit.” Came her retort. “So you don’t think you can do it.” Oh MeMaw seemed to know how to push her buttons, because Karen looked like she was done with MeMaw already. “Fine! I’ll time him doing the puzzle, and then you time me doing the same childish puzzle. And when I win, you have to leave, with that dog, so that I can finish the outdoor inspection in peace. Deal?” The two women shook hands over his head. But when Karen pulled the puzzle out of her diaper bag, John felt himself being lifted onto his feet and MeMaw whispered “Go get your middle sized puzzle, and be quick.” And he did not even hesitate, he started off into a waddle/run to the play mat where the plastic box she had brought on her first visit. Once he hit the play mat he immediately toppled onto his knees and had to crawl across the play mat. It was entirely embarrassing, but he didn’t even slow down, he speed crawled like he knew what he was doing and opened the big plastic toy box quickly. Grabbing the puzzle he was sent for, he sat it on the play mat and pushed it ahead of him as he crawled. When he made it off of the mat, he didn’t even get to finish standing up. MeMaw picked him up, he picked the puzzle up, and he was pivoted up and into her lap. John looked at Karen and instantly looked confused. She was holding the exact same box he was. Karen looked exactly as confused as John did. “Margaret, what are you trying to pull here?” she asked, honestly suspicious. As MeMaw opened up the box for John, she just shook her head and replied “Not pulling anything. You can even swap puzzles with him if you would like.” With a deep sigh, Karen fiddled with her phone and set up a timer. Karen looked directly into his eyes, and he felt like his throat was suddenly dry in her gaze as she asked him flatly: “Are you ready, little boy?” “Ummm… Can … May I furn my piefes right fide up before we far...sfart?” the training pacy subtly affecting his speech. With a simple nod, she said “Certainly, that seems a small enough handicap.” Oh, he was nervous. There’s no way he could be as fast as a Big. He poured the pieces out and scooted them a bit to his right and flipped them all face up as fast as he could. He was getting more nervous by the second until he heard MeMaw whisper into his ear. “You don’t have to beat her, and you have plenty of time. But if you can tie her, it’ll mess her up for months. You’ll do this just fine.” Somehow her little quiet pep talk in his ear calmed him down. She even pushed his pacy in and out a bit to get him sucking on it, and that made him feel even more calm for reasons he couldn’t understand. Looking down at all the pieces, he realized that he remembered the picture on the box and knew where they all went. He stared at the box for five full seconds until Karen started counting down. “Three.” John nodded. “Two.” Then he just reached over and slid the box completely off the table so it wouldn’t distract him. In a moment of impulse he decided he didn’t want it there. “Go.” With a start he realized that he’d missed the one because he was thinking and he just started reaching with one hand and then the other and putting them roughly where they went. He’d already done this puzzle, and even though it was a hundred and twenty five pieces, they were kind of big and easy to grab. The bottom was snapped together and he didn’t dare look up to see what the woman was doing. One side was together and he was biting down on the pacy in his mouth as he concentrated. The top was done and the other side followed. John got a bit frustrated as he dropped a couple of pieces, but after roughly slapping them in place, he kept going. With the last two pieces in his hand, and he was bringing his hands down to slap them in place as he heard: “Done!” John froze and looked up with is hands inches from the puzzle as he saw that she had already done it. With a huff, he glumly put the last two pieces in, having in his own mind lost the race that he was was supposed to do his best in by several seconds. Feeling dejected, he started trying to turn to hug MeMaw around her ribs when MeMaw lifted him up out of her lap and got her onto her arm. “Well Karen, that was a lot faster than four times as long as it took you.” When he looked over at Karen, for some reason she looked flabbergasted. Looking up at MeMaw now, who had a big toothy grin, and then over to his Mommy, who had her phone out to record it … “But … I wost” John said in the forced lisp around the ‘training pacy’ that he still hadn’t put together what it was training him to do. Karen exclaimed “He’s Eidetic!!” MeMaw simply nodded with all the smugness of a proud Grandparent. “MmHmm.” “He has the social challenges … no brain mouth filter … he … He drew that picture of the back yard!” Again, MeMaw simply answered “MmHmm” “Margaret, you know perfectly well that he falls short by two metrics. Especially his size. He’s TINY!” Looking up, John saw her nod as she answered. “And a little is allowed to fall short by exactly two metrics, so long as they excel in other areas.” “You. Knew.” Karen said accusingly. MeMaw didn’t even answer her, she simply picked John up and just started kissing up and down the left side of his face dramatically and tickling him under his ribs, causing him to giggle and scrunch up. When the assault was over, he looked up at MeMaw and then over to Karen, who was writing in her notepad angrily. As she finished and started shoving everything she had back into her diaper bag, MeMaw seemed to want to goad her on. “So Karen, as you can see, you can’t judge a little by their diaper. I told you when I trained you ten years ago that littles each deserve a chance.” With her bag now packed, Karen stood up and said curtly “I know what you taught me. But I still say that you went too easy on too many littles. Every single study has shown that keeping littles in crawler diapers during the day, and newborn diapers at night for the first six months in our dimension makes them acclimate more effectively. That way they learn how to rely on us quickly, and it breaks those pesky rebellious impulses before they can even form. Surely, helping them adapt is the most effective expression of love.” MeMaw watched Karen make a line for the door when she stopped her. “Karen.” MeMaw said it with some weight to her voice. Turning to look, Karen asked curtly: “What?” Suddenly MeMaw’s voice was just dripping with sweetness. “Don’t forget that you promised to feed a treat to the dog.” Mommy needed no prompting, she hustled her way into the kitchen and came back with one of the dental treats shaped like a bone. Karen looked through the glass door at Xerxes who was -still- staring at her. As she approached the door, he stood up and his lips curled back a bit to show his teeth. No sound came out of the dog, just the warning. MeMaw carried John over and gave him a pat on the diapered bottom as she said “John, why don’t you give Xerxes a treat to save Miss Karen from the mean ol’ doggy?” After a moment to realize what was going on, he mumbled “Ummm… sure?” And sure enough, Mommy opened up the child gate and held the treat out for John to take. As he took it she said “Why don’t you show Miss Karen what you taught Xerxes to do, all on your own without any help from anyone?” Again, it was all he could do to repeat “Ummm… sure.” as the glass door was opened for him. Stepping out on the porch, Xerxes immediately smelled him down from top to bottom, and every so often he would smell a spot, glare at Karen, and then smell that spot again to confirm that she had touched his little. John had to literally poke Xerxes on the side of his snout with the treat to get him to acknowledge it existed. Patiently leading the stubborn dog to one side of the porch, John held out his right hand and said “Gimme Paw!” Xerxes immediately picked up his paw and gave John five. Then John got greedy for the moment and held his arms out and said “Hug?” Suddenly Xerxes huffed and snatched the treat from his hand before stepping closer and sitting, so that John could wrap his arms around his neck. “Close enough!” John declared as he hugged the dog. Looking over toward the bigs, he could see that Karen looked even more incredulous than she had when he had come a couple seconds from matching her time with the puzzle. Finally Xerxes started trying to stand back up, so John ran around and tried to climb up on top of him to keep him distracted. As Karen took the moment to try and leave, she shouted back: “I could still write you up for not having a mesh wall on the porch!” MeMaw just waved and said “But you won’t, because then you’d have to come back and face the dog!” Karen was out the gate, and the gate slammed shut behind her. As the gate made a loud clatter, Xerxes stood up with John astride his back and turned to bark a couple of times. The sound of a car door was heard briefly before tires could be heard on gravel. Finally MeMaw burst out into laughter. Not even her usual reserved laughter, she had a genuine good laugh attack while John and Mommy both stared at her, eventually at least chuckling along with her. When she regained her composure, MeMaw kissed Mommy on the cheek and reached down to take John from Xerxes back. Xerxes tried to growl briefly, but one loud snap of her fingers above his head and MeMaw had Xerxes shut down in a heartbeat. Even Xerxes respected MeMaw too much to try his luck. “Come on you two, now I get to spoil my Grandson some more while his Mommy works in the garden.” Mommy followed her into the house asking “Aren’t you going to bother explaining what all just happened between you and her?” MeMaw just shook her as she took some groceries out of the bag with only her left hand. “I don’t really intend to explain it. She’s got some nasty preconceptions, and this inspection will hopefully shake her up a bit. Now! I stopped by the store on the way here and got some Honey Nut Happy-O’s for my little grandson to snack on.” “Mom!” Mommy tried to get her to come back around, but MeMaw didn’t seem to care as she just went back to talking. “Also, I went through the produce section and had a quick conversation, and would you believe that Nana Claire not only remembered John, but when I told her that he was my Grandson, she cut up a small container of honeydew melon for him and told me that he would love it with a bottle of some sort of inter dimensional drink to go with it?” “Mom!” came Mommy’s reply. John just looked up and asked around his pacy “Weaw...Weally? Doef Eferyone hewe know Namma Claiwe?” MeMaw simply nodded and explained “This is a very small city, and everyone knows Nana Claire.” John couldn’t help rolling his eyes and flopping his head onto MeMaws chest. Somehow, that settled it. This entire dimension was just crazy.