“Lil, I want you to do me too.” Te proclaims matter of factly. I raise an eyebrow at this, though I catch her meaning. She wants to be connected to us.

“Are you crazy?!” Lil virtually shrieks in an outraged-seeming fear. “The last time, I messed up, and almost killed all three of us. There’s no telling what would happen if I tried to do it again!” Lil continued to explain. Te frowns at the explanation, unsatisfied.

My heart palpitates, feeling this heated exchange, on one side, literally feeling Lil’s terror at the prospect of trying the action again, on the other hand, seeing Te’s frown droop to an angered pout. I can’t weigh in on it, I want Lil to be safe, I want all of us to be safe, I wouldn’t risk any of us, for anything, no matter how special a bond we might be able to form.

“It’s not fair, you know how each other are feeling, so much that things like that happen! Why can’t I be a part of that? I’ll never know Reggie like you do, it’s not fair! I can protect Reggie, I took care of them all that time!” Te’s exclamations are somehow simultaneously a mix of immature jealousy, and a concerned indignation.

“Guys? This topic, I think talking about it anymore only ends badly. I love you all, I just want us, well, I just want us to be okay.” I try to defuse the situation, though my emotions are jumbled, and I trail off, mumbling by the end. I feel myself tearing up, water welling in my eyes, imagining my closest friends fighting, and a rift forming between them, or them silently resenting each other. I gulp back sobs and try to hide the sadness that has found its way to my face. I gasp a quick breath, almost a hiccup, having accidentally forgotten to breathe for a bit while trying to not sob out loud.

Te sighs loudly, and stomps closer, for a second appearing furious, but she spreads her arms wide and hugs the rest of us. I sniffle and bury my face in the velvety fur of her neck. All Te says, in that endearing, lovingly insulting tone of hers, is, “Sorry, Brats.” I lose track of how long we spend in a tight hug shared between the four of us. It’s probably the best feeling in the world, this much love and concern for each other, which made the earlier outburst all the more frightening, to me at least.

I can tell Teuila is stroking Luni and Lil both while hugging us, and I feel the sincerity that her words didn’t convey. I guess she’ll always slip into a playful meanness verbally. She doesn’t seem as used to having to express her feelings. I can definitely see why she would want to just be connected, emotional core to emotional core. For Te, saying what she feels is just harder. I don’t know whether it’s embarrassment holding her back, or something else, but of that much, I’m certain.

“Guys, um, this makes me think.” I gulp. “This makes me think about my dream, well, desire, or goal I guess, not like a literal dream. My dream about building a community at the fishing pond where I met Lil. A community shares and cares for each other, and we can build, like literally build, and, and, and, well, and stuff.” I start to trail off, still a bit emotionally shaky and slightly sobbing. I don’t know how to tell them how important it would be to me to bring them all there, and to build something special with them. I don’t know how to express the homesickness I have for a tiny area, and how much I worry that they will always feel a similar lingering homesickness, no matter where we go unless I can give them something special.

Lil knows what I’m feeling, and thinking, deeply. Luni comments on it however, “You’re right, nothing will ever be the same as Shellcracker Rocksmasher beach, it hurts when I think about it, remembering it, missing it. We can’t return though, so maybe you’re right to want to share your home with us. It’s a sweet sentiment in any case.” I feel the weight behind Luni’s comments, her emotions and feelings behind her statement, and I can tell she has that same sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, perhaps more so, as she’s definitely lost more than I can ever remember having. “It’s not a competition.” She states plainly.

My eyes hurt, and I just want to make everything better between all of us, I don’t think there’s anything I can share between Lil, Luni, and myself, that needs to be said, or hasn’t already been said, or that they can’t already tell that I’m feeling, but for Te, I don’t know how to absolve her. “I want you to be happy, I don’t want you to feel envy. I don’t want anyone to have to share my panic, and fear. If I could punish myself in a way that wouldn’t hurt Lil and Luni, for having subjected them to that, I would probably do so.”

Te just lightly punches my shoulder, and sweetly mutters “Dork.” Her expression is of a strange forlorn contentment. The look she displays is both a sadness that’s uniquely hers, yet an acceptance that contains a preternatural beauty. She then frees us from her hugging embrace, and continues the trek back to our temporary home. After riding this rollercoaster of emotion, I feel yet further exhausted. What is a rollercoaster and why do I know that idiom? Whirlwind of emotion would have sufficed, yet my brain pulls these preconceived phrases and words out of nowhere. If I get to analyzing this though, I’ll wonder how I know any adjectives to describe anything, or nouns indicating what anything is. This makes my head hurt.

We march, well, I, march back, mostly in silence, even Lil and Luni aren’t chattering over the shared wavelength. I think we all need some time to process a few of the revelations we’ve had. These are more than just acquaintances that I’ve found with a common interest, or people I keep bumping into. These are friends that form my chosen family, that have accepted each other, and accepted me. Most of us have lost actual family, or never known any. I can’t bear the thought of irreconcilable differences. I don’t think it will come to that, since we hashed things out slightly in the swamp, but there’s a lingering spark of terror, that paranoia of a loss of what we have. It occurs to me that I haven’t even asked any of the Shellcrackers if Agwai and Laomati are the parents of the remainders, or if they were from separate parents. Who to ask though? Agwai is stressed with having to keep everyone together. Laomati is in mourning, grieving her losses, and probably doesn’t need to be reminded of them. Luni seems fairly young, she might not even know who her parents are, or what parents are. Similarly, the twins as well. Then there’s Te, who right now, might be brooding about not feeling connected to her chosen family. Would asking her or reminding her of parents she may have lost, be cruel right now?

The thought of hurting her sickens me so much that I double over, weeping silently for a moment. I feel some teardrops on the back of my neck from Luni and Lil as well, and I curse myself for subjecting them to such sorrow and pain. “It’s okay buddy, you just feel feelings, really strongly.” Lil tries to comfort me, and is mostly successful in absolving my guilt, since Lil and Luni are whom I would want to have forgive me.

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Luni chimes in “Lil’s right, until this bond, I’d never known anything like it, but I wouldn’t give it up, for anything.” This entire exchange happens in the few split seconds of me quickly doubling over, weeping a scant few tears, and standing back up.

I can hardly bear being out of Te’s embrace right now. I worry so much about what’s going through her mind, if she’s hurting, envious, resentful, jealous, or if she’s bottling things up, or if she’s just stoic. Maybe Te really is contented, and the issue is resolved, but I just want to hug her and hold her until I can be positive. But without the bond, I’ll never be positive of what she’s feeling. I gulp, and shake my head, rattling my brainpan in frustration, dislodging Lil, and barely catching them before they land from the surprise fall.

My chagrin is obvious as I apologize, “Err, sorry about that buddy, was starting to get bogged down in thoughts.”

Lil nods along knowingly, “Yeah, I could tell.”

I bite back a dry laugh, “Right. That’s kinda the current issue, huh?”

Lil agrees and explains further, “Yup! It’s okay though, based on her aura, I think Te’s going to be okay. She feels really really strongly for us, you especially.”

“Is it okay though? For us to be twitterpated? To have such strong feelings for each other?” My thoughts on feelings and emotions are muddied. The way the world from my memories is supposed to work, well, it's just so different from reality.

Lil is confused about even the basis of such a premise, “Why wouldn’t it be?”

I frown as pain shoots from temple to temple as I try to answer, “I mean, based on what you said before, it was obvious that we felt this way immediately, or at least felt some version of this way, immediately. Sure, since then, we’ve been through hell and high water together, kind of literally, like a fiery hell, in high water. Wow, that phrase came back to haunt me. Err, sorry, distracted. I mean, since then, we’ve had time to bond and chat and get to know each other, but is it okay how it started? Like, we shared a meal, I’m afraid she wanted to like me, from feeling indebted to me, and I’m afraid that whatever twitterpation is, that it was superficial to begin with.”

“Buddy, buddy, I can’t answer any of that for you, I’m sorry. I just think that you’re going to be okay. I can feel what you’re feeling for her, and those feelings are strong, ugh, how many times am I going to say feel, probably should have said emotions.” I chuckle a bit at Lil’s frustration over how their vocabulary choices expressed their thoughts.

I still ramble along on the topic, trying to come to any sort of resolution or conclusion, “Okay, okay, maybe I just need something to focus on to take my mind off of all this emotional analysis. There’s this terrible hurt in my chest that feels like homesickness, but deeper, and I think it’s worry about losing what we have. I guess I could focus on trying to imagine our community?”

Lil prods, directing me further down a salient thought train, “Oo, that would be good for all of us. What is it going to be like? Are we just going to sit around fishing all day until we get old?”

“Huh, that doesn’t really sound very fulfilling, does it? I guess I really should put thought into it. I know we’re not the only people anymore. Oh those beaverfolk, they’re builders, and the Shellcrackers are aquatic types, so maybe they’ll be our friends now, and maybe they’ll join us. Also the Shellcrackers were pretty handy with stacking up shells into buildings, they didn’t even have inventory magic, they did everything by hand, or uh, by paw in some cases. I guess.” I ruminate about the possibilities, with Lil listening in to my rambling thought process. Luni, for her part, I think is trying to hold back just the slightest bit of laughter, mostly about me being unable to keep a train of thought for very long.

A song suddenly springs into my head, and I realize, in all of my existence so far, as far back as my memories reach to when I woke up, I don’t remember hearing a song, or singing. Lil or I may have hummed slightly on occasion, but even that I can’t recall offhand. The song in particular is someone claiming that someone else has never had a friend like them, which is really apt for the current situation. I really ‘aint never had a friend like these’, as it goes, more or less.

“Music, instruments, art, for those we need tools, for tools we need materials, and safe spaces to store and work on them. For training, and exercise, and expanding our abilities to ensure our safety, we could make facilities that, well, facilitate that, wow, I wonder if they have the same root because, well, yeah, probably, duh. Please allow myself to introduce, myself, jeeze.”

Lil laughs, and Luni snorts, actually laughs so hard she snorts in our shared thinkspace. It’s about the most adorable thing I’ve ever mentally heard. The levity and laughter helps lift my mood, as I’m distracted more and more, just enjoying being with these comrades that I love. I put on a burst of speed and rush up to Te, I tackle her into a hug, once again covering us all in mud, flinging Lil and Luni up into the air to land atop us.

“Huh, oof, what, oof, Jerk, oof, you’d better have your magic stone.” Te suffers three impacts, first my tackle, then Luni, then Lil, landing atop us. She doesn’t really make an effort to shove me away, I feel her nose nuzzling into my neck. After a few moments, we all get up, and I summon the soap stone so we can all instantly clean up.

“Are we, um, are we good?” I ask, scratching the back of my head, somewhat avoiding eye contact as my face flushes. Te actually takes a step back, and leans forward, peering at me, craning her neck side to side. Despite my inability to currently see, she's trying to catch my eyes for some reason.

Eventually I can tell she spots how hard I’m blushing as she makes eye contact, and she grins widely. “Yeah, we’re good, Bozo.” She simultaneously gently punches my shoulder and kisses my cheek.

I mumble about my curiosity from earlier, “I’ve got kind of a weird question, I hope that it’s maybe okay to ask? It might, um, yeah, it might be weird.”

Teuila prods to hear it, “What question?”

Basically having been granted permission, I ask, “Are Agwai and Laomati your parents?”

“My what?” Teuila's response sounds almost joking. I know at the very least, knowledge of terminology propagates for us when we think of a new term. Definitions just spring up.

Still, I try to nudge towards the answer I'm looking for, “Your parents, like, uh, birds and the bees, mammals, birth, uh, you know.”

Teuila, almost certainly running a bit on me, continues, “I have no idea what any of that means, except yes, I’m a mammal.”

I blush as I'm still trying to get at least one answer from this curiosity, “Okay, err, maybe instead of that, when were you born, how were you born?”

Teuila seems to drop the bit partway through her response as she actually answers, “I’m not sure what you mean, I’ve borne shells and burdens since as far back as I can remember. I guess maybe Lao or Ag might have borne me when I was still little like Luni.”

My right eye squints and twitches while my left brow raises in surprise, “Wait, so you were a sphere like Luni at one point?”

Teuila matter-of-factly responds, “Of course, eventually I got strong enough to evolve, and so I did.”

My left brow tries to rise further, but there's no more elasticity in my face for further surprise, “Wow, that is, uh, not what I was expecting to learn right now. Okay, let me try another angle, how or when did you start existing?”