I wake! My morning battle cry rings out through the room. “Waaaaahhhhyahhh!”
Big stretch. Wiggle toes. Wiggle fingers. Swing arms, stretch legs, wiggle spine.
I begin my new morning exercises. Since I realized that my hands, arms, toes, and bits are now capable of following my instructions I’ve set about working with them every morning to help grow their connection to each other. I have gained mastery over each individually - and have learned to use them together to traverse the world around me.
Now, I must increase their speed, strength, resilience, and balance.
“Bwahhh” I finish my ritual and roll over, push myself up to a crawl, reach up to the edges of my box, stand up, and begin to climb over the side and out of my box.
“Sisters. Sisters. Sisters. SISTERS.” Maeve seems to be quite energetic this morning. I smile at her as I climb over my box, and put my feet on the floor.
Over the last couple days I’ve noticed that each of the pretties seem to be really busy getting things ready for something. There are banners that they put up, check on, take down, and fix. There’s smells and sounds from the cooking area. Arguments over flavors - mostly between Delphine and Amy who both love to cook and bake things… and Maeve because she’s a glutton for sweets. Oh, and Xanthe has been making me a new thingy to wear.
Pausing in my motion I stop and think about that. I don’t really like wearing things, but it makes them happy to see me in stuff… Shrugging I figure that’s a good enough reason to enjoy this new thing I find myself in.
Standing and making sure I’m not about to fall over I let go of my nap box. Yes! Finally I can stand and feel my whole body maintain balance. No more toddering and falling over.
“WAH!” I shout as I throw my hands in the air.
Oop.
I start to fall backwards and a thought strikes me. I slide one foot back and pivot with the motion allowing me to stay on my feet.
“HA!” I cry out in victory, posed with feet and arms spread wide.
Viciously grinning I drop my arms and start to gently swing them back and forth like I’ve watched people do when they move really fast.
I pause in my swinging.
Hmmm… big motions go faster, but feel like I have less control. What about smaller motions?
Slowing down my arms I do little motions and let my body turn side to side. Yeah, this feels like that looks.
Taking a deep breath I step and swing my arms. Poop! Too much.
I windmill and fall face towards the ground. Everything feels like it slows down just a bit as I remember watching the pretties do this.
I turn my head, put my face on the back of my hands, and land with a “puwah” of air being forced out of me. Instead of stopping I feel my butt go up as my little body rolls and I flip right on over, rolling onto my back as my leg and foot whap against the floor.
“Did he just fucking breakfall? Who the hell taught him that?” Patricia is booming her voice around the room while pointing at me. Impressed?
Giggling because I now have my audience I roll half way onto my side and try something I’ve seen the pretties do when they’re wrestling. Putting my hands down I lift my butt and plant one of my feet on the ground with the other back behind me and shove for all my little arms are worth.
I come part way up but fall back over. Hmmm… What if I scoop?
I try again, but this time as I go up I try sliding my butt under my head and press through my legs.
IT WORKS! I’m up on my feet standing tall… and now falling backwards. Uh oh.
I toss my hands over the back of my head and tuck my chin down as I fall backwards, first landing on my butt as I roll onto my back, head safe and not wobbly.
Blinking, I look up to see a dozen pretties looking down over me. It’s a funny sight because they’re all so much taller and shorter than each other that their faces are in funny layers of a circle.
“Whoop!” I declare proudly.
Greyward and Patricia look at each other and around the room at the other pretties. Greyward asks with a fragrance of hostile confusion, “Ok, which one of you bitches has been training Ratel behind our backs? There is no fucking way he learned how to breakfall all on his own. He just did a dead tree fall into a tucked roll, a side pushup, and then a controlled backfall.”
They all stare at each other before pointing fingers and starting to argue and guess who could be responsible.
Nuh uh. I want the attention. Time to unleash a new trick. “Mawwick.” I clearly say.
Finally! I had been practicing talking when I snuck out to play with Wooshie and kitty and my bat friends. There has been less of that recently. The pretties that see well in the dark have taken to watching me sleep and keeping me inside. Booo.
But I’ve still caught them falling asleep and sneaking away - or when they go to the potty. Then I crawl and climb as fast as I can to make it outside. They seem to always know where I’m going though because they’re there waiting. It’s fine though since they don’t take me away from my friends when we see each other.
“What was that Ratel?” Cosmia looks like she is about to explode with excitement. Ask and ye shall receive O’ pretty one.
“Masgick” I giggle out. It’s getting easier to say. I wave my hands a few more times while saying it and pointing to myself. “Massik. Mawgick. Maagick. Magick. Magic! MAGIC! MAGIC!”
Swinging my fists and feet in the air I continuously cry out my favorite word. The first word I say successfully. “Magic!”
I then turn over and try pushing myself up again. This time I toddle around, having to step a bit, but I stay on my feet.
“Magic!” I cry in victory again. I then point my little arm at where my squishies are and start waddling over.
The pretties make a path, but stay close to see me walk for the first time. I can walk. This isn’t hard, it’s just… hard. You move a foot. Easy. But move everything together. Not easy.
Ooooo…. Foot, hand. Nope. Foot other hand. Gotta twist a little or I feel like I’m still moving when I put my foot down. Okay, okay. Making progress. Just a bit further. Step, twist, step. Ugh, hard. Step and twist at same time? Yeah ok, but less twisting. Owww, foot comes down too hard and that hurts. Slide foot while twisting, let arms swing.
I feel the front of my foot and toes touch down first as my body twists a little and something clicks as a shudder runs through my entire body. I can just intuitively feel that sliding just above the ground and letting my toes touch first gives me better balance. But more than that, I can feel the sway of me moving spread through my whole body if my toes touch first.
What happens if I push off my toes?
I give it a little push and fly forward. “Bwah” I yip as everything speeds up.
Challenge me will ya? My face scrunches in concentration as I try and move everything faster.
I baby sprint the five or so feet from my crib to my blankie area where my stuffies are and, pushing as hard as I can off my feet, practically leap off the ground and sail the final distance at the large stuffie of a black and white bear that is so soft and comfy to nap on.
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I know that I didn’t really jump that far, and that my little run wasn’t really that fast, but I don’t care in the slightest. This is a powerful victory for me. The first steps, literally, along my path to conquer challenges no one before has ever imagined.
I dimly realize that the room has been echoing with cheers, clapping, whistling, and chants of “Ratel! Ratel! Ratel!” since I got on my feet and pointed.
“Bwhahaha. Magic!” I cry at my adoring fans.
“Here we were planning on giving him presents for his first birthday and he goes and does that.” Ariebella cheers with tears in her eyes.
“Well fuck us all if we think he was a hellion before today.” Alice guffaws.
Niamh chimes in with, “How long before he’s running around the streets on his own? It’s dangerous out there, but we all know there’s no way to stop him.”
Ruth flashes something shiny around the room, “Let’s start a betting pool. I say 26 months and we find him with a weapon in his hand.”
That seems to be the magic words for something because a lot of the pretties make weird noises and go back to what they were doing, while others start some discussion about something. Ruth and Maddie start taking notes as shiny things get pulled out of places and handed over then put in a box and locked.
I decide to turn to my toys and stuffies and start playing games. I imagine them flying through the air, eating good sweets, and throwing fire and lightning and cold and stuff at each other. Esmeralda and Hilda sit down with me and an epic battle of titanic proportions takes place between my stuffies. They fly and dodge and walk on the clouds. I can tell that neither of the pretties quite know the story I’m telling, but that’s ok. I’m making it up as I go. Either they’ll figure it out or I’ll learn to adjust to new things.
The early morning passes with me playing with the toys and eating breakfast with Esmeralda and Hilda. Hilda and Merrygold keep talking about the details for something today. I heard the word ‘park’ a couple times so I hope we go outside. It’s been a lifetime since we all went to the pretty rainbow fist place and they played music together. I’d love to hear that again.
When mid-morning comes around, it becomes obvious we’re all getting ready to go out. The pretties all put on their veils and boots, pack their bags, and gather their things.
I stare in amazement as I watch them open up a very large chest in the corner of the room and start putting furniture and food into it. The stuff going into the chest is a lot bigger than the chest, but as it gets closer it shrinks and just goes into the chest. Woah!
I point at the chest and ask Esmeralda how it works, “Magic?”
She smiles down at me, “Very clever Ratel. Yes. That’s a magic chest. It’s like a portable hole, but in chest form. You can put anything you can pick up into it. It’s much bigger on the inside, but nothing alive can go into it.”
I wonder what’s in there. One day I will climb in and figure out how it works.
She starts to scoop me up and put me in the nap sack pack, “It looks like everyone's ready. Time for us to head out. You ready little guy?”
I wiggle in and bobble my head as I smile. I’m so ready to go back outside and meet more people.
Esmeralda straps my sack to her chest and follows the procession of pretties out of the tower. We move through the city again, but this time without gathering a huge crowd of people.
Awwww. I wanted all the people again. Oh well. Maybe this is something new…
I giggle to myself, plotting what the surprise could be, as we all head through this section of the city and over to the park.
There it is! I spot the huge marble fist spraying water into the sky, complete with rainbows.
Does it still spray water when it’s all gray outside? What about when it rains? A new mystery presented to me that I will unravel one day.
The pretties head over to the grove of trees with the shade again, but this time it looks like the people already there are waiting for us.
I see Lady Wisemore, along with a bunch of her knights - I know they’re her knights because she showed me her ‘coat-of-arms’ patch and each of them are wearing it. Some of them are older dudes with long gray beards, but most are younger men and women. Not as pretty as the pretties, but their confidence has its own charm. She also has a few tiny giants with her. I wonder how big one has to be to join.
Oooo! Bark is here! Maybe he’ll let me ride in his antlers again?
A really old lady, covered in wrinkles strides right over and starts poking me. Ugh. Who are you?
She croaks out, right in my face, with breath that smells like tea, “Well I’ll be. It seems little Ratel here not only healed all his meridians fully, but they seem to be wide open. I’m excited to see what kind of potential the little guy unlocks. Be careful though, he’s going to be a nightmare baby.” She begins cackling.
I change my mind about you granny. You’re silly and I like you.
I puff up my chest - as much as I can in my modified nap sack - point at my chest, and declare, “Magic!”
Her eyes go really wide, then her face almost splits in half as she smiles hard enough to crease every wrinkle on her face. She slowly looks up at Esmeralda’s face, then around at the other pretties, before just full belly laughing. “Oh boy do I not envy a one of you. I bet even all thirty of you combined won’t be enough.”
Esmeralda scoffs. “Ol’ Zishuy, what makes you think we’re capable of it even now? Come, let us get everything set up and we’ll tell you a couple stories.”
As they walk me over to the middle of the glade, I notice that there are a lot of tiny giants running around.
I’ve learned by this point that they’re called children, and that I’ll be like that one day before I get big - but thinking of them as tiny giants is so much more fun.
Watching the tiny giants kick and run around I notice that they range in sizes from barely bigger than me all the way up past Hilda and Esmeralda. Some are as tall as Sakura, and a few are even taller than that, but those ones look like they’re trying to pretend they’re full giants - which is honestly so cute. I bet I can get some of them to put me on their shoulders and run around.
Esmeralda brings me over and sets me in the middle of the glade on a huge blankie. All around people are putting up tables, hanging a giant banner, and placing food and drinks everywhere.
As I sit here, looking around, I see a few of the softer looking tiny giants come over and start making noises at me.
“Hi Ratel! I’m Emily.” One girl who is quite a bit bigger than me says.
Another girl, much smaller - smaller than me - with big ears and ruddy skin - who looks like a miniature Maddy (which is funny because Maddy is already tiny) - steps out from behind Emily. She smiles and shows wickedly sharp pointy teeth. Oooo… I wonder if she likes rabbit meat?
“Baby. Hi baby Ratel. Me Brig.” She points at her own face.
Waving, I smile, put my feet under me, and “hyup” to my feet. I toddle over and put arms around them both to say hi. I lean back so they can see my face - making sure to hold onto them both so I don’t fall down - and wave with my head. “Woooo! Bwah!” Welcome!
They giggle and sit down, pulling me onto their laps. They start to tickle me, and we clap hands, and I pull their hair - gently. I just wanna feel it. They let me play with their ears and noses and fingers and toes, while they do the same with mine.
After a couple minutes a lot of other tiny giants start coming over and saying hi, telling me names, and playing.
I completely lose track of the time as I play with the children. Some of them act like they’ve seen me before, and a couple pick me up and spin me until they fall over dizzy. It feels really familiar, but I’m having too much fun to try and remember why.
We just crawl, and sing, and clap, and make noise, and laugh and giggle.
People keep coming over to say hi, and tell me their name, and then say, “Happy birthday.” I don’t know what that means, but if that’s what this is then I should say it back.
“Hawwy burbey!” I start shouting at everyone who tells me their name.
This is fun. So many people. Not as many as the last time, but this time we get to play instead of just watch and dance.
After a while Gwab comes and scoops me up, saying sorry for taking me away and letting everyone know I’ll be right back. She winks at them, and everyone’s faces light up, so whatever is about to happen should be fun.
She places me in a tall chair that I’m not sure I can escape from - drat - puts a funny hat on my head with some string to keep it in place - I like hats so I will allow this - and then makes some gesture.
I dunno what’s up but then a bunch of people all start singing together. It’s… it's bad. It sounds awful. But everyone is smiling and it feels good, so I’ll allow it.
When they finish, there's some food thing put on the tray of the table of this trap chair I’m stuck in. I stare intently at it. I look around to make sure Maddy isn’t angry that I have whatever this is. She has her own much bigger version so I assume this is safe.
I grab a chunk of it and carefully put it in my mouth, only getting some of it smushed across my face. This is really good!
Delphine exclaims from near the table, “Oh, he really likes cake.”
Forgetting everything else I just shovel the whole slice of, cake, into my mouth and chew and drool. This is yummy!
Once I’ve finished I wave and point at the mess I made.
One of the little girls I met earlier giggles, “I think he wants more cake. Here you go, have mine. I can get more from over there.” My goddess of sweets, I will remember this favor.
Shortly though, the children make a game of bringing me different foods to try. As I take bites of different things I take my time to savor them and give the most honest opinion that I can.
“Blegh.” For the things that are too salty.
“Waaah!” For the spicy things. Spicy is good, but it hurts. Weird.
Sweets get the “Yummm” treatment.
Meat is all good, so it goes into the “Gnah gnah” pile of chompy noises.
Ooooh, no. Eaten too much. No more, sleepy.
I proceed to just shove all the rest of the food off my tray onto the ground. Letting out a massive belch, I lay my face down on the tray and promptly go to sleep.
– – –
Waking up the first thing I notice is that I’m laying on my back on the soft lap of a girl I don’t know. That’s fine. I look around and notice we’re still at the park.
Some of the bigger tiny giants have sticks and are play fighting around the park. Most the - adults I’ve heard the tiny giants call them - are sitting around with drinks and chatting and laughing.
The sun is high in the sky and the day is really warm, but this little glen is nice and cool.
“Did you have a good nap Ratel?” The lap asks me.
I did. Looking up into bright yellow eyes positioned over a snout filled with sharp smiling teeth, I smile and nuzzle. She’s soft and comfy, and feels like she’s worried I’ll find her scary. Nah, she’s cute.
Looking closer I realize she has really smooth but textured skin covered in stripes, small claws for fingers, and a snout like a dog. Her little forked tongue slithers out of her mouth and back. Woah.
I just stare at her. I’ve never seen someone who looks like this. So cool.
I guess she noticed me looking her all over because she picks me up, turns me around, and sits me on her lap to get a better look.
“I’m a Kobold.” … “Gobolb?” … ~giggle~ “Close enough. Kobolds are reptiles, lizard people, kinda. We’re not very large, unlike actual lizardfolk, and not related to dragons or dragonborn at all. But, yeah! I’m a Kobold.”
I reach up and start rubbing her face and snout. It’s dry and smooth. I likey.
She leans her snout down and rubs it against my cheeks. “Keeeheee.” That tickles.
Alice saunters over while I’m being tickled. “It seems our birthday boy finally woke up from his nap.” She turns around and hollers, “Present time!”
Everyone around me pauses, before there’s a sudden clamor of movement as the children rush into a semi-circle around me and Kobold. Some of the adults start passing things forward.
The rest of the afternoon becomes a bit of a blur as people start pushing things into my hands, saying what they are - which I have no clue about because words are still weird. But they take the time to show me that everything has a tag with symbols and that all of these presents are things that are for me later. Some things I think are for now because they leave them around me - but most of the stuff I play with for a moment before it goes into the magic chest thing.
Too much input. I’m overwhelmed and can’t keep up - so I’m just gonna sit here and enjoy the attention. I already napped, don’t need to poop, and can’t keep track of stuff anyways.
Just playing with things as they come, many people giving me a lot of stuff. I wave to them all - lick everything - see where it might fit on me - and then move on to the next thing.
It’s hard work keeping up with expectations. But I’m never one to back down from a challenge.
Eventually the day winds down, people start to say goodbye. Niamh comes and tells me it’s time to go home.
Whew. Busy day. Time to be sleepy.
Enjoying the great weather and smiles on other people, I fall asleep. Today was a great day.