Kat5

And yet ... here we are. Glued to the stories somehow entranced at the possibility of a "happy ending" that still involves the character being trapped in a situation that we can't stop reading about and hoping they can at least find peace. Some of the Bigs we love! Some of them we -loathe- some we are ambivalent about. But in the end, even if we were there we wouldn't stand a chance against them and would be like rabbits trying to dodge predators at the very best. I, for one, am enjoying this story. -click here to vote for this- *click*

I think that would definitely begin the process of attitude adjustment. No matter what, she's still going to be mad for a while.

I have been enjoying my time here sharing a story and carrying on with the nice people. It's not the best story but it's mine. And I'm also glad to be able to read more of this story! Poor Dawn still doesn't realize how much worse off whe would be with a different pair of bigs. Which is honestly their fault for never explaining the situation that she's in, and how the world around her functions. Thank you again for sharing, and I look forward to more when you are able to share again in the future!

I could cut the suspense with a knife!!

Don't worry, I'm taking notes as they come to me and organizing the next story. I'm finishing this first!

I will admit that I have a way with words. I will also concede that it's not a sensible way with words. I have my own headcannon for the super long term plans for that rift. But I also don't want to throw that out there because it's not part of this story. Oddly, I've started working on a second story as well but that's a ways off as a project. I don't want to get super distracted and not finish this. I'm enjoying writing it and hope others can enjoy reading it.

Y'all! I'm sorry to bother, but ... At the store today we saw a Dragon Plushie. The size of my torso. Drastically overstuffed. It looked like it was made in the dark. Green like an an Iguana. Jade green eyes. Derpy little wings that were like dry clean only and they got thrown in the wash on hot. I saw it an immediately had a laugh attack and had to explain it to my spouse in very vague terms. There's no way I can throw $55 at a supercaladerpaliciouswildlysillyplushie, but I'm content enough to have met REAL LIFE ARGO MCDERPUS. I just can't stop laughing, and on the off chance that anyone else gets a laugh (looking at you @babygamerboy) I just couldn't help sharing. I can't stop the giggle fit a half hour later.

Great minds think alike!

I feel like I'm genuinely privileged to share this story with y'all!

I ... If I'm honest I don't actually know how to say how much this means to me! I'm glad that you're enjoying the story, and I'll keep doing my best with it as I am able to see! Thank you very much, I've read every word of it, but the scale here is much smaller than you may be thinking. Think "one room cabin with a cot and a shelf with water sized for a hobbit" And there's no bridge across the stream, but I can't wait for the part of the story where winter starts settling in and migratory birds start visiting. (not that I would include such a thing)

I don't usually offer this, but say the word and I can go on a distracting ramble about possible scenarios as a distraction. I figure that by now you've seen that I'm pretty good at that.

Chapter Forty One Amanda felt a bit caught off guard. She had just spent the last half an hour politely declining a check from the ABI, only to cave and let them have a work crew come and put in two rows of paving stones from the beginning of her driveway, along the edge of the field between her patch of land and the treeline. A path that someone would have to keep mowed, just in case. Agent Praefectus did make her agree that she would at least call a local contractor that he knew if she was serious about expanding her fence. She could turn down a check, but a break on the cost of a fence was never unwelcome. But the real challenge had been the logistics of figuring out how to make a little shack like John had suggested, and then somehow get it all the way upstream to where it needed to be. They had all agreed that it was a perfect solution, and solar panels would be more than able to keep lights, a fan, and a transmitter powered. But how to get it there? And just when they had agreed to combine the ideas and use the drive to get the materials to the waterfront, they spotted John with a comically swollen diaper trying to sneak to his bedroom. So of course she had gotten him changed, and hurried to get the clothes in the wash, and change her shirt where he had leaked on her. Pleasantly surprised to find that the drips on the floor had been cleaned up, she walked over to kneel down next to her son. John was holding a pencil and instead of drawing quickly and excitedly like usual, she could see he was just barely doodling lines of grass. And she could just make out the sound of him sniffling. Gently laying her hand on his back, she felt her chest tense up a bit as he jumped a bit. When he looked up at her she immediately felt her world stop. John’s eyes were red and puffy. Whispering “Come here, baby” she hoisted him up to her chest, grabbed his drawing pad and stood up. Ignoring everything other than her son, she slid the drawing pad onto the back of the couch and then sat down with him propped up on her chest, lightly rubbing his back with her fingertips. With a soft whisper she told him into his ear “Hey, want to talk about it?” She felt him shake his head against her chest more than she saw it. So she just sat there for a bit longer until he was ready. It wasn’t too long before he caved and said softly “I wanted to feel mature.” Kissing him on top of the head, she whispered “You are very mature.” He snorted softly with laughter and added “For a little.” Scooting him up higher so that his head was against her neck, she started to pat him on the booty to comfort him. After a bit longer, she kissed him on the cheek and said to him “You are more mature than you realize, but you are in a whole new world and you just have to learn what is normal.” She could feel his entire body inflate as he took a deep breath and then deflate as he exhaled. “I wanted to help, and then it was like I couldn’t do anything else. I felt kind of useless. And then I needed a change and didn’t want to ask. I don’t want to feel this way.” He complained. “Aww, sweety. You had a great idea, and we spent the last half hour trying to figure out how to make it happen. Now Agent Praefectus is going to take the idea to his superiors and they’ll see about getting it done. He just had to have a full plan to present to them if they’re going to accept it.” He stopped sniffling a bit and looked up at her. Goddess those eyes looked adorable, even when they were watering. “I’m not useless?” Hearing him ask that made her heart ache. Wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him firmly, she gave him a BIG kiss on the forehead and said “No sweety, you were very helpful. And you can just come ask for a change when you need one, no one will think any less of you. It’s true that you’re very small and littles don’t have any way of knowing what all needs to happen behind the scenes. But that’s what we are here for, to do the parts that you can’t.” With a nod, he flopped his head back onto her shoulder before asking “Can I go back outside?” thinking about it for a moment, she answered “It’s close to time for you to get a little rest. But I guess it won’t hurt to go outside for a bit while we have the some good weather. Standing up with him still on her, Amanda shuffled him around onto her hip and walked over to the two men that had taken a hint and stepped outside on the porch to talk. They seemed to get along mostly well, but she had a nagging suspicion that Agent Praefectus was disappointed to see Mike here. She couldn’t quite put her thumb on it. Stepping out onto the porch, she said “Hey, it’s almost nap time, but I think we should take the chance and go for a little walk outside while we have nice weather.” They both nodded, but Agent Praefectus added “I have to run up the river and put those sensors up anyway. The higher ups want me to try and get them as close as possible to the rift, they just don’t know exactly where it is until … well, it gets used.” Suddenly John perked up and almost bounced off her hip in excitement. She had to squeeze him tight to keep him from falling. “Oh! OH!!” John all but shouted to the group. Struggling to get an arm behind him to keep him pinned to her, she asked “John, what is it?” He looked up at her again, this time with an infectious smile and said “I need my drawing pad!” Mike was laughing as he stepped toward the door, asking “Where is it?” Laughing now, she said “I put it on the back of the couch.” as Mike went in. Moments later they were looking at a pretty detailed drawing of … a tree. “John…” she said, feeling a bit skeptical at the moment. “It’s the tree!” was all he offered as an explanation. The grown ups all looked at each other and then back at John. “There …” She took a breath “There are a lot of trees.” He looked so confused for a moment and then she could see the gears in his head move as the look on his face changed. “Oh! That was the first tree that I saw when I came through the rift. Great big tree, and the trunk splits like that off to the right.” John finally explained. Agent Praefectus nodded and pulled out his phone to take a picture. He seemed understandably skeptical as he said “I’ll keep my eyes out for a tree that looks like this while I’m up there.” With that, Agent Praefectus shook hands all the way around, even got a little fist bump out of John before heading out to the gate. “Okay! John, you’re going to drink some water before we head out, no getting dehydrated on my watch.” By the time she had a full sippy cup, he was sitting on the porch trying to tie his shoes on his own. Every time he would make a loop and pull it through, the laces would fly out of his hands. That probably wasn’t helping him with his feeling extra little today, but maybe learning to rely on bigs would be better for him to learn sooner rather than later. Sitting down next to him, she patted her leg and simply said “Here, I’ll help.” It was easy to see that he was sulking, but he finally gave up and turned to point his feet toward her. She had them tied in an instant. Reaching over to muss his ever messy hair, she hugged him with one arm. It seemed that he got upset over the smallest things, and easily accepted the big things. “Come on, let’s go, you can walk the dog.” Amanda said while poking him in the ribs. The resulting giggle as he scrunched up was adorable. He stood up, but insisted on climbing down the stairs by himself. It seemed like he was more focused on the smallest details of doing things for himself and accepting the bigger ones. That warranted a conversation with Cat. As they gathered by the gate facing the stream, Amanda leaned and whispered “Xerxes: Guard” while Mike opened the latch. Mike held the gate while she followed the boy and his dog pal out. Walking side by side with Mike while John ran off to a nearby tree, she spoke to Mike without looking at him to her left. “Thank you for helping with the salsa. And helping me negotiate w… argue with Agent Praefectus.” It was easy to hear a small laugh come out of him right before he said “I’m happy to help. It was pretty funny to see you turning down the check.” With a shrug from Amanda they kept walking along the stream, going north toward the direction that John had originally come from. The going was a bit slow because even with John half running through the grass, he couldn’t keep up with their normal walking speed for very long. But everywhere he went, Xerxes just trotted along behind him looking happy as could be. They did have a fun stop as John found some acorns and looked up to ask “Hey, do we have a bag?” As Amanda answered “John…” he realized that he had a great big pocket on the front of his shortalls. Which was immediately filled with acorns. Because of course he filled it with dirty acorns and she would have to figure out how to clean that pocket out. After about twenty minutes of walking, John had started to slow down and he walked over to pat Mike on the leg. When she saw Mike lean down and they both started smirking, she knew they were up to something. Mike picked her little son up and deposited him on top of Xerxes. Now all traces of his earlier stress and crankiness were gone. And Xerxe’s tail was flapping back and forth. Experimentally, Amanda picked up the pace and walked at her normal speed. They were able to cover much more ground more easily. “Hey.” she said to Mike “I just noticed that it’s a lot harder to walk slower than it is to just … walk.” Mike nodded as he answered “Well, this is a really nice place you have out here. It’s quiet.” Then he lowered his voice and whispered “He also didn’t want to ask to be carried because he’s getting tired. When do you want to turn around?” Laughing at the antics of her little son, she thought about it while they walked before answering “Let’s give him another five or ten minutes. He’s having fun playing horse with Xerxes.” Without really thinking about it, she reached out with her left hand and tapped Mikes right hand. Without looking, he reached back and took hers. His hand was larger and her hand just seemed to slip into it. It was firm, it was warm, and it was nice. Neither of them said anything about holding hands, but Amanda knew for a fact that she was smiling. About ten minutes later, although no one was watching a clock, she could see John starting to bob forward a bit on top of Xerxes. Letting go of Mikes hand, she said “Xerxes: Heel.” Sure enough the dog veered back around and came along between the two bigs. John was struggling to keep his eyes open and holding on to the dogs collar. Looking up at Mike, they nodded at each other and turned back around, each one with a hand on Johns shoulder, just in case. Despite obviously being sleepy, John kept trying to pat on the dogs shoulder to encourage him to run along faster, but between being told to heel, and them each having a hand on him, it just wasn’t going to happen. They weren’t halfway back to the house when John slumped forward and Amanda silently swooped him up and got him situated on her shoulder. Immediately he caught on to what was going on and started complaining “Nooo, I’m not sleepy, I just need to walk a bit.” “Shhhh” she said softly into his ear “You can walk a bit when we get home. Just met Mommy carry you there first.” “Nnnnn” was all he got out. A little ways from the house she felt him go limp and his bottom started to grow warm a moment after that. It was very hard to keep from chuckling. They had a quiet conversation, talking about what they did for work, and Mike seemed very interested in how she wound up doing editing and preparing articles for three different groups. “Well, it started off as one job, and the one job paid my bills, so I picked up a second one and quit my day job. I had a desk job at a real estate company. I didn’t hate it, but it was obviously just a job. I picked up a third job that pays per contract, but only has two or three jobs per month. It’s not much, but I put it all into savings. Between the two extra jobs, and selling my produce, I managed to pay this place off in a little over three years.” Mike seemed genuinely surprised as he whispered back loudly “You paid this place off already?” Amanda just nodded “I also got lucky and I got it cheap because it sat empty for a few years. My friend Cat helped me paint everything, my Dad helped replace the rusty sink and stove. Mom insisted on buying me a dinner table. Cat helps me till the garden every year, but every time we expand it, it feels a little bit harder. And now that I need to move the fence back and expand the yard, we’re pretty well out of our depth.” With a smirk he added “You know, I bet I could help with that. It would take a bit of time to plan it out though.” Now smiling back, Amanda answered “On the upside, someone accidentally gave us a sketch to work off of. Oof, that someone is getting heavy.” Stopping to hold out his arms, Mike offered “Here, I can carry him the rest of the way back.” It took a moment to carefully shift him into Mikes arms, but she was genuinely curious to see how Mike would do holding her sleeping son. He seemed really good with him. Where She had been holding him laid on her shoulder, Mike just carried him with his arm under Johns back, hand holding his thighs so he wouldn’t roll, and spent a moment getting a limp arm flopped against him instead of dangling comically. Finally back to the house, she tried to close the gate, but Xerxes chose that moment to need to potty instead of, you know, the ENTIRE time they were out for a walk. So they settled for sneaking all of the acorns out of Johns pocket, taking his shoes off, and then Mike very gently lowered him into the playpen. For good measure, she put Rupert and Argo both in the playpen with him. She tried to lift his arm up over Argo, but it just flopped back limply. He was truly out like a light. Looking at the light coming from the kitchen, Amanda took a moment to take the blanket off of the back of the couch and drape it over the side of the playpen so that the light wouldn’t wake him up. Walking back to the kitchen, they talked quietly while she got coffee making. Turning, she asked Mike “So where do you live?” With a hand over his mouth to keep his laugh quiet, he answered “I live in one of the cheaper suburbs this side of the city. One of those places where half of the neighbors don’t want to be in the city, and the other half want to pretend that their suburb is the fanciest.” “Dreadful.” With a bit of a laugh, Mike continued “Tell me about it. It’s not that bad, but every weekend I get the lawn tended to. I don’t have much in the way of landscaping because I don’t want to do the extra upkeep for a front yard that I can’t really use. And you might be a bit disappointed in my back yard, I only have a few plants, and nothing comparable to what you’re doing here.” Now pouring a cup of coffee and a glass of water for each of them while they talked, Amanda probed a bit by asking “Have you considered moving a bit further out of the city?” “You know, I’ve thought about it a several times. There’s a lot to look into to move out of town. Utilities, things like TV service, extra drive time to work.” Nodding in response, she recommended “If you start looking again, the sweet spot for me was under thirty minutes away. But when I saw that stream and open field here, I just knew instantly. Being cheaper than the houses in the city made it even better. Needing the repair work that I couldn't do myself was the big downside.” After finishing off their coffee, Mike finally stood up and admitted “Well. It’s about that time. I need to head back. I'm very glad you had me back out." Standing up herself, Amanda felt bold enough to go in for a hug. Mike seemed all too happy to return the hug. After that nice moment it was time to get Mike loaded up with salsa and sauce. Plus she made sure to give him her last ready jar of pickled ghost peppers. May as well go the extra mile. She was definitely going to have to start making more. They stood there awkwardly after it was done, neither of them completely certain what to say next. Finally she broke the silence first: “So when is your next day off?” With a laugh, he thought about it for a second before answering “I work a half day Wednesday, and I’m off for the weekend.” Smirking she asked “Chicken, or a roast?” “Hmm…. Roast.” Going in for another quick hug, She said “I’ll see you after work on Wednesday?” “Hah! You got me, I’ll be back on Wednesday.” She stood by the gate as he drove away, until he turned at the end of the driveway onto the main road. Spotting a gray squirrel on the fence, she snuck over to swipe an acorn from Johns wagon and then crept over to the fence line. By the time she got within ten feet of the squirrel, he sensed her, even though she was nearly dead silent. And Steve ran off along the fence, jumping to a nearby tree. Calling after him “Fine then! You have to wait for my son, you ingrate!” Sighing as she sat on her chair on the porch, she mumbled “Great, I’m yelling at a squirrel now.” as she called Cat. It was barely past one, but Cat was going to want to know the details of Mike coming over while they were fresh.

For some reason I'm remembering my DM days when I would freehand entire villages and maps and occasionally ask my players very normal and soothing questions like "You guys like swarms of things, right?" (For some reason they did not. strange.)

Okay. But they still get to count was chemical warfare used as a thrown weapon. 1d4 bludgeoning damage. Plus 1d6 burning, with the target having to make a constitution save or lose an attack phase to being suddenly very sick at their stomach.

It may be inconvenient, but the website that we have is far better than the one we no longer have?

Maybe the authorities start getting involved when a trail of radioactive diapers gets tracked in a circle following Carly around?

Thank you very much. I've been plugging away at it as best I can and I wanted to share what was ready! Don't worry, just this once I admitted that I was getting worse over the last week no matter what medicine I tried and I actually went to the doctor and they gave me some shots and some prescriptions. yeah ... no idea how any of us know that ... Perhaps the correct solution here is somewhere in the middle? I can't even honestly say to you that I wouldn't just have the occasional complete mental shutdown! As I've said before, they would have to saw two sides off of the playpen to keep me in the corner that much.

Chapter Forty The statement “From the mouths of littles” was not lost on John at all, being further compared to a child. But he felt like he at least succeeded in making one point to the bigs. They went back to talking and planning among themselves, and he was back to being a non participant. He watched and listened for a couple of minutes, but when it was blatantly obvious that they had moved on to talking about some sort of playhouse and solar panels, and then the bigs started talking about math and engineering. That part of the conversation was exactly as riveting to John as one would expect. So, already bored out of his skull, he took his drawing pad and pencils and put them on the chair next to his foot. Then while reaching down and trying to pull, pry, and twist his new stuffy, Argo McDerpus of the McDerpus Clan, out of the booster seat he realized that he felt warmth spreading in his diaper. A bit indignantly he looked at the wrist band that was stuck on his wrist and poked it a few times, not really sure how to make it do what he wanted. Finally a number showed up and he realized that he had no concept of time here. It was kind of cool not having to watch a clock all day and stress out about it, but it was also a bit odd having no responsibility for keeping track of time. His new Mommy kept track of time for him. He just had to let her know if he was hungry, or thirsty, or wet … or messy. His job was to just be … here. With a frown after a couple of minutes standing on the chair holding Argo to his chest, he realized that he was eventually going to have to come to terms with the rules and circumstances that had become his life. But he didn’t feel like dealing with that right now, so he slid off of the chair and started toward the living room, dragging Argo behind him. He made it two steps before he realized he realized he had to waddle horribly because his diaper was swollen. Looking back in the direction the big ones were he felt like asking for a diaper change right after making a valid and useful contribution would feel kind of demeaning. So he did his own waddle of shame to the living room carpet. And then he made the mistake of sitting down. Not being able to feel the rug underneath him through three inches of swollen padding was one thing. Not being able to stand back up was a bigger problem. With a frustrated sigh, he dropped Argo onto the floor, and laid halfway on top of him. This at least left him propped up with his butt in the air, hanging off of one side so that he could draw. What he started on this time completely clear in his mind. John drew the very first tree that he saw when he came through the rift. He could see it so clearly in his mind because it was the one that he stared at when he realized that the trees looked bigger. It helped that it had a strange part that grew straight up, and then turned and went to the right. It was a bit harder to draw a tree than he wanted to admit, but he took his time with it. He was so absorbed in his task that he barely registered when he felt warmth below a few more times. Finally finishing the tree, he started to add a hazy background, but could no longer ignore the clammy feeling he had coming from below. Where normally his diaper felt thick, and maybe warm, his skin always felt conveniently dry. And right now his skin down there did not feel dry, it was starting to feel damp. Pushing off of Argo, John tried to stand up. But the area at the very bottom of the diaper between his thighs had expanded outward side to side as much or more than it expanded down. He’d had trouble with the thick padding of the Rough Pups making him waddle when he got a little bit wet before. But this wasn’t a bit wet, and now he couldn’t get his knees anywhere closer than shoulder width apart. And even that took all of his strength for a moment! So staying there on all fours in front of the couch while he thought … John simply could not think of any way out of this situation with dignity. He needed a change. And he needed it now. “Hmm” he wondered quietly to himself in a whisper “If I call her over here they’ll all be looking at me. I can’t very well crawl over there because that would be humiliating.” “Ugh.” he finally conceded and started trying to crawl on hands and knees to the bedroom, deciding that he would crawl to there and then call for her to help him. Crawling in the saturated rough pup diaper was no small feat. If it were able to sell any more he’d barely be able to move at all! As it was, the more he moved, the more he couldn’t ignore the feeling of the padding squishing into him from all directions, from just below his belly button around to the small of his back. Everything was squishy pressure. It felt more weird than it did bad, but with every step it felt a bit worse. John made it to the back of the couch when he came into full view of Mr Mike. Mike took one look at him and stood up to walk over. It was all he could do to only close his eyes as the giant man walked closer. “Hey Big Man you … oh.” There were more footsteps and without even looking up, he could tell that he was the center of attention. All three bigs were standing around him, and from what he could tell they were looking at a crawling little with a diaper that felt like the size of a beach ball. It obviously wasn’t -that- big, but from the inside it certainly felt that big. As he saw Mom’s foot come into his view, he heard Agent Praefectus observe out loud “Oh, someone sprung a leak.” Mom’s knee came into view and she knelt down low to whisper to him “John, are you okay?” Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. John shook his head “I’m … no.” Slowly he felt himself being lifted up gently and cradled against her chest. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’… John buried his face against her shoulder. To his credit, he didn’t cry, but he also couldn’t speak. So he rested his head against her shoulder as she carried him to the bedroom and sat him up on the changing table with an audible squish, the swollen diaper pushing his knees out almost 45 degrees. Instead of saying anything at first, she seemed to prioritize comforting him by leaning over and pulling him into a hug. After his breathing sort of slowed down, she asked quietly. “Hey, usually if you’re wet you come get my attention, so I can change you. Did you not want to come let me know you were wet?” John simply shook his head. She asked more “Was it because we were busy?” Again, he shook his head. “Well, you can tell me what is wrong. We can’t fix these things unless we talk about them.” With a deep breath and a sigh, John finally admitted “I didn’t want to look like a baby.” “Oh my sweet little John.” Mommy kissed him on the forehead now “You’re not a baby, and no one here thinks of you that way. You have some challenges that we do not, and that is all perfectly normal.” He just sort of nodded along, obviously a bit spaced out. She used a finger to tap him on the cheek until he looked up into her eyes before adding. “Please don’t ever feel bad about the challenges you have for being so small. Besides, taking care of you and making you happy makes me happier than you know.” Managing a sort of a weak smile, he nodded. And she quickly laid him back and stripped him out of his wet clothes and then scrubbed him down with a couple of baby wipes before finally laying him down to start on the diaper change. Curiosity got the better of him as he looked to see that the swollen object she balled up still looked kind of big, even in her large hands. These things swelled up more than he had realized! Instead of being told to lift, John was tiled up by his ankles and scrubbed thoroughly with wipes all over, tilted, scrubbed more, and then ultimately held up while the mat underneath him was scrubbed. Finally lowered onto the table, Mommy then made a big production of holding up three different diapers. Obviously he was expected to pick one, but with his wrists above him, he couldn’t point to one so he asked “Little Pup, please.” In no time she had a more generous than usual amount of powder on him and had him taped into a little pup. Being hoisted up, naked but for the diaper, he was pulled into a hug, given a big kiss on the forehead, and found himself placed on the floor in front of the dresser. “Now.” Mommy explained “Usually I let you pick, but right now I want to put you in a cute shirt and shortalls, so that we can take the shortalls off and throw a blankie over you when you take a nap later. So arms up!” With a mute nod, he held up his arms and a red shirt with a dinosaur on it was pulled onto him, and then he found himself stepping into shortalls that were snapped onto him. With a light swat on the bottom with a humorously muffled thump sound, he was sent back to the living room while she got his wet clothes bundled back up. The sight when he made it to the door made him stop on the spot. Agent Praefectus had a wet rag from the kitchen and was wiping up some drips that he had left, and Mr Mike had a dry towel and was drying the floor behind him. He had wanted to look mature and avoid feeling embarrassed, and now they were all cleaning up his pee. His shoulders slumped and stood there staring, feeling tears trying again to push past his eyes. Mommy stepped around him in her way to carry some clothes to the laundry room. And all of this left John alone to wallow in his own misery. Trudging past the two men, he flopped back onto Argo and just stared at the drawing of the tree that he saw when he first came through the rift and tried to not cry. ~~~~~~~~~~ (I'm sorry, I had to divide this in half for editing. I'm a little sick and shaky right now.)

It's certainly a big sigh of relief for me, the last chapter had me scared of ...y'know. Gun -> person interaction. Wow, my bad connection ate my comment and posted it when I opened the browser now! Thank you very much for this story. I have enjoyed it greatly and been emotionally invested in it!

It's certainly a big sigh of relief for me, the last chapter had me scared of ...y'know. Gun -> person interaction.

I mean, she got what she got. She hurt a lot of people ans threatened to do something horrific. She earned it, I'm not saying that. But she started off happy to help and normal and this mantra was drilled into her and she went wacko. Is it her fault that she went wacko? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that she did not have the potential to be an amazing person before that. But I'm a little softy. I know it.

Oh my G... That left me crying. Yes, Nancy caused it all, but I can't help remembering who she was at first and now Emma is going to cry and frankly I know I would be traumatized by this FOR LIFE. Poor Emma. And to a lesser extent ... Poor Nancy.

We have reached a point where I thought the same thing specifically because I thought Guilend would think that. Guilend has become their own meme.

I don't really know how to express how much this means to me. I think I've said before that I had no real goal for this story. It was just in my head clawing at me to get out. And after a time I couldn't ignore it and just HAD to start writing it. And then I just stepped out of my comfort zone, and here we are. The fact that it brings a smile to someone's day means more to me than I ever really expected. I'm sorry that you have rough days, and I pray that you have calmer days with more smiles ahead. And thank you for sharing with me that this brought you some cheer. (Also the invasion happens in a few more chapters. Don't worry about it, its probably fine.) Also, as Littles we literally have a different point of view. Their entire society has assumed for countless generations that we are basically just... toddlers (at best) you can't just turn that off like a switch. The statement "From the mouths of Littles" being a direct parallel of the RL "From the mouths of children" is entirely purposeful. Thank you very kindly! I would like tonl say that it's just because I've been reading in the setting for some years and understand the setting, and not that I can relate to being vertically impaired and working with tall people on the regular. Or being in Second Life and the 'correct height while everyone else around me is sized like an actual Amazon. Thank you very kindly! Part of the idea behind the story is that not -all- Amazon's are horrible evil creatures. (Though there is no shortage of them!) But that in any society there will be statistical outliers. Misfits that don't fit into the mold that is expected by their society, and they have to put on a mask to go through their daily lives. (Wow, I just realized how much I can relate to that. Ouch.) The characters HAVE to blend in with the society around them. But like ones social battery, how long someone can keep up the act, and how hard of a toll it extracts varies from person to person. If there is any one moral that I could choose to share through this story, it would be to encourage the oddballs that don't fit in. Many of us know the struggle. And not being alone lightens the burden.

Let us not forget those that wake up cheerful and choose to use their powers for evil instead of giving us a stuffy, covering us back up and letting us sleep for another hour.