Despite the events having occurred recently, and Lil being present for them, they continue to read my logs aloud, seemingly deriving great joy from knowing every thought that bubbles to my conscious brain. Their font-voice is rich, joyful as they continue,

Logstart

It looks like Lil is at least as cute as me, as far as the menus think our statistics go, if that’s what duende is for anyway. Wow, they can’t carry much, but their offenses and defenses are so much higher, and looking at the past three years, it’s no wonder. Lilagni was basically in a scrap at least once a month.

Looking at Lilagni’s breath skill, I feel like I should ask to learn that one in a joking manner, to help with the times I hyperventilate. It would actually be kind of cool to learn to breathe fire or lightning or something. I kind of shake my head as if snapping out of a daze when I realize Lil has been bouncing around proudly and then stopped.

Curiously, I ask, ‘What’s up Lil?’

They query, ‘How did you level up some of your skills so much? Your journal just says ‘inventory shenanigans’.’ Oh, right, it appears we’ve been reading one another’s logs.

I chuckle, and scratch the back of my head, closing my eyes, blushing at the simplistic nature of my own thoughts on the matter. I barely understand my own thoughts or skills enough to do anything other than label them something silly like shenanigans in my own memory, so I have to answer honestly, ‘Haha, I suppose it does. Those ones, I literally just put all my effort into combining and uncombining things in my inventory space, or launching things out of my inventory space.’

Lil surmises, ‘So that’s what that space skill is? I’d never seen it before. Too bad we can’t learn each other’s skills, you’re not a dragon type, and I’m not a $%^&* type, whatever that is.’ Lil is apparently able to find out a bit more information about me than I could. I don’t know where the stats panels list my type, or what a $%^&* is. Nor how the heck to pronounce it, or even simply describe the sound that came from Lilagni’s textbox.

Trying to distract myself, and get to know Lilagni better, I find myself rambling, ‘Oh, oh yeah, I suppose I am, and yeah, that’s too bad. Lil, what sort of dreams do you have? Like, what do you want to do?’

‘I want to evolve, to get big and strong so I’ll live safely for a long time, and now to protect my party!’ Their answer is honestly about the sweetest thing I could imagine in response. It seems childish, but also somehow as if it were a concrete goal.

Still, even if they somehow know how to grow big and strong as it were, I was asking more along the lines of dreams that they’d want to see transpire. I try to clarify, ‘I mean, like, do you have any aspirations for like art, or recreation, or community?’

Lil looks pensive before replying, ‘Hm, hadn’t thought the words before, but their definitions sound good. Community sounds kind of nice, now that you mention it. What does it mean to you?’

I wasn’t expecting to have the question turned back on me, so it takes me a minute to reply, ‘Well, community is, it’s, hm. It’s when lots of people, or well, beings or creatures I guess, come together, like in this party, and each of them contributes in some way to the safety and success of the rest of the community, or party. Things like housing, and um, gathering, sharing and caring I guess.’

Lil grins at my response before they continue, ‘That sounds purrrdy swell, but where would we get that community?’

I’m a bit flummoxed as I don’t honestly know the answer to that. Thinking a while, I surmise as best I can, ‘Well, we’d have to build it I guess. Maybe make a place that’s attractive to invite other people to, so they would want to stay?’

Lil gnaws on their tongue once as it sticks out while they look thoughtfully upwards and leftwards, ‘Huh, do you know how to do that?’

‘Nope, no idea.’ I say with a half flustered, half laughing sigh.

Lilagni laughs in response, and bounds over to me, leaping at my chest, I panic a moment before catching them in my arms, realizing it’s as close to a hug as I can share with someone right now. They wrap their long reptilian tail around me, and I feel comforted, loved. I have someone I can hug, someone who cares enough to make sure I’m safe, to avoid things that trigger panic. I can hold someone that wants to protect me. This, this is the best day ever.

‘Thank you Lil, I didn’t realize I needed that.’ I admit as I realize my eyes are wet, welling slightly with tears, though in a happier fashion than most other tears in the last few days.

‘All good buddy, sorry I don’t have arms or wings to hug you back yet.’ Lil’s statement causes my brain to fritz for a moment. Are they a tadpole?

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I barely manage to request clarification, ‘Yet?’

‘Yep! I’m gonna grow into a big big dragon someday, and I’ll have arms too, lotsa them! Well maybe just two, I’m not sure.’ Lil is somehow sure they’re going to have more limbs, but not sure how many. That strikes me as incredibly odd.

What could Lil possibly have meant by that? Dumbfoundedly, I ramble, ‘Huh, that’s pretty unusual, I think. Or maybe it’s not, my preconceptions of what are usual and normal don’t seem to apply here.’

Similarly, Lil appears to peer inward, trying to figure out their own thoughts for a moment, ‘I guess I don’t really know either. It’s funny, I knew about parties, and the rules for parties, but I guess I didn’t even think to ask how I knew that stuff.’

As we’re both sharing our confusion, I come to a decision, ‘Yeah, I don’t think it’s normal to have knowledge in your head that you don’t know how it got there, but I can’t prove that it’s not normal, especially since the only two examples are people who have had that happen. Anyway, so, with my inventory space, we can carry lots of fish and water with us, we could journey anywhere. I was thinking maybe follow the river, see if it leads to an ocean, sometime after we stock up on food?’

‘Any plan sounds fine to me pal, I’ve got nothing better to do, and we’re partners, so we have to keep an eye on each other.’ I crack a smile at Lil’s candor.

Still, I can’t help but to agree, ‘Yeah, now that I have someone to talk to, I wouldn’t want to go back to the way things were.’

‘Me neither.’ Lil hops around, exploring their surroundings, stopping to sniff every small bud of a flower. I hadn’t even noticed there were flowers before, I was so caught up in surviving. There aren’t many, as I said the plant life is pretty homogenous, but still, I can’t believe I thought there were zero. I kind of literally couldn’t see the forest for the trees, or something like that. Even still, the majority of the landscape is very samey. The flowers are rare, the grass is short and sparse. There is the slight possibility that the flowers only just started spawning in the last few moments for some reason. In reaction to our presence? I guess if the world has some sort of spawn limit, it would be wise to not waste it when there’s no one around to appreciate it. That seems terribly unlikely though. Far more some limited videogame thought process than any likely reality.

Figuring I can’t just watch Lil explore the pond, I have to come up with something to do. I don’t want to seem like some weirdo who won’t leave their new friend alone to enjoy the scenery. When I decide, I state, ‘I’m going to try something dangerous, I’m going to lure a bunch of fishies to me, to be able to take down a lot at once, and maybe get better at defending myself.’

‘Sounds fun, I’m in!’ Lil seems to have no compunction about being right back with their new friend for every moment of our time together. I chuckle slightly at that. Since Lil suffers no such compunction, or even a concept of needing personal space, I’m all the more glad for their company.

Trying to gauge how close our bond is going to be, and what I can reasonably ask of them, I instead ask, ‘Well, can you just cover me and make sure no giant one is going to sneak up and bite me in half from behind?’

‘Oh, yeah sure I can do that.’ Lil sounds almost dejected that we’re not going to be right in the thick of it together. Maybe my assumption was correct, maybe they do truly want to be ultimately close at all times. I’d be honored if that were the case.

I clamber into the shallow pool side of the pond, and pull out one of the sashimi racks to begin eating, and sure enough, every fish I can see, and probably some I can’t see yet, begin darting my way angrily. Making sure my spear is in hand, well, the tiny pointy stick with a fang attached to it, I try my best to fend off all of them physically, without relying on my inventory space shenanigans. I do this mostly because I can always fool around with my inventory no matter where or when we are, but here in the pond is the only safe place I have to practice combat. I can just get out of the water if it gets to be too dangerous.

Lil occasionally calls out to warn me when a bigger fish gets behind me, and chars several smaller ones that wind up back there as well. I decide it’s probably best if I put the bulkiest armor padding on my back, so I put my leaf leather and bark armor in my inventory for a moment so I can reconfigure it, adding big fish scales to the back, then re equip it, when I’m suddenly weighted down, and glancing back, the scale is basically a large tortoise shell on my back at this size. I vaguely knew it was large from its icon in my inventory, but I had no idea it was this heavy. I don’t have time to stop to question it, as I’m now struggling to keep my head above water, trying to backpedal to a spot where I don’t need to hop on the tip of my toes to touch the pond floor while keeping my nose in the air. My arm grazes the sharp edge of the scale I'm wearing as armor, gashing it thoroughly.”

Logstop

Lil’s narration of my mental logs basically brings us up to the present, anything past that point was a short while ago. That’s when I rubbed my arm against the scale and summoned Vampguppy into existence. Lil continues reading out loud however, striking me humorously.

Laughing a bit hysterically I call out to Lil “Alright, alright buddy, that literally all just happened! We just experienced that together a tiny bit before we slept! I can continue narrating my own life story in my head now, thanks. I don’t need two copies of all of my logs from here til forever. Hahaha.”

Lil starts to read the combat with Vampguppy to me, but I just laugh, and shove an entire platter of sashimi in their face, straight into their mouth that takes up a significant portion of their face.

Lil grins, pleased beyond reason. They consumes the fish instantly, the way eating seems to work here, then concludes something I probably should have already realized. Their font, text, voice is laced with tenderness as they break down their current thoughts, “Reggie buddy? I think I know the biggest thing that triggers your panic now, and it’s just two common words together. I’m so sorry for upsetting you so many times. I love you pal.”

I nod at Lil, concluding the same thing, I’d already suspected that I unintentionally created my own simplistic trigger. After what seems like several chapters of my life, even if it was only a couple of hours, I’m finally back to narrating my own internal tale. I hug my dragon buddy close, yawn, and drift off to slumber yet again, having been exhausted due to reliving all that. Hopefully this doesn’t become habitual, sleeping repeatedly while hardly waking up or doing anything between sleeps.