EPISODE 22 - INTO THE WOODS
“Goddamnit.”
Damien hissed between gritted teeth, shaking his digivice up and down as if that would work the twentieth time he tried it. When it didn’t (obviously), he lifted it high into the air, hoping maybe - just maybe - that would get some better reception.
It didn’t. Obviously.
“Have you tried turning it -”
“Yes, I’ve tried turning it off and on again,” he muttered, not even looking over his shoulder. “I’ve tried restarting my phone. I’ve tried all of the menus. I’ve tried slamming it into a tree trunk. I have considered smashing it with a hammer, but I do not have a hammer. Unfortunately.”
“Mine’s not working either.”
Damien closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Wow, really? You don’t say.”
“Sorry,” came a mumbled voice. “I’m just trying to help.”
I know.
If he were smart and rational and not insanely fucking frustrated with the current situation, Damien would gladly accept the help.
That is, of course, a lie.
He finally turned around, feeling as if all the life had been sucked out of him, and shoved his digivice back into his pocket much more forcefully than was normal for even him.
“We can try again later,” Anna said, and Bunny, clutched safely in her arms, nodded.
Damien had known where they were the moment the fog had started rolling in. He’d known what the Corroded Woodlands were and what they did to people. He’d known that they needed to leave as soon as possible.
But they hadn’t, and now Damien was stuck here, without his partner and with the two members of the group he was the least comfortable being around and with no idea of how the hell they were supposed to get out of here.
He sighed.
He dug his digivice back out of his pocket again, knowing it was futile and would just drive him even madder. The screen flickered on, and switched to the menu, as it usually did - but when he tried to select the location option, it came up as static. No map to be seen. No way to determine where they were or anyone else was.
And that was saying nothing of how the communication feature was also out of commission.
The analyzer worked fine (Damien got a lot of very useless information about Lunamon), and the evolution menu wasn’t going to be helpful. The only two functions he actually needed were, of course, the ones not working.
Curse this stupid fog and stupid forest.
He’d at the very least had the sense of mind to stay away from the fog, and had directed Anna and Bunny to do the same. They’d seen a bit of it, but kept away from it, not wanting to go through the whole “losing your sense of direction and mind” thing, even if Damien hadn’t fully elaborated on the situation to Anna and Bunny (didn’t want to scare them too much).
They had to find the others. Had to figure out where they were.
Had to get out of here.
But how.
“Follow me,” he said, gesturing for Anna and Bunny to follow him as he started to walk. He didn’t really know where he was going. He just had to hope eventually they’d stumble upon a sweet spot where he could actually put a call through to someone.
(He tried not to think of the possibility that he was actually just endlessly wandering in circles.)
Anna and Bunny stuck close to him, trailing a bit behind him and speaking in low voices to each other. He knew they were just as excited about being stuck with him as he was, but he didn’t really mind. Made it easier to not have to talk to them.
As they walked, he kept his digivice out and tuned to the communications menu. It would probably be smarter to keep it open to the map, but he was more interested in finding out where Bumble was than where he himself was.
He knew where he was: lost in the Corroded Woodlands with a very slim chance of making it out alive.
“You could climb a tree,” Anna said from behind him, and Damien snorted.
“I’m not going to do that,” he said. He didn’t bother looking back at her. “I’d fall and die and then you’d be all on your own.”
He’d considered it earlier, but had quickly decided against it, for exactly the same reason. Not like he was going to admit that out loud.
“I have Bunny,” she said.
He shrugged. “Not really the same.”
Anna went quiet, and they kept walking, Damien waving his digivice around every now and then. There wasn’t really anything to say; Damien wasn’t interested in small talk with either of them, and neither of them seemed to have anything else to say (Bunny hadn’t said a single word the whole time).
Just as Damien was starting to reconsider climbing a tree, the screen flickered to life, and without even thinking, he tapped the group call button.
Anna walked straight into his back - he’d stopped walking - and took a few steps back, then came around his other side to peer down at his screen. “Is it working now?” she asked, squeezing Bunny tighter.
“Not really,” he said - nobody else had picked up - but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, hallelujah, another digivice joined the call.
“Oh, thank god,” Alex said. “I thought we were the only ones trying to call people.”
“It’s not that nobody’s trying to call,” Damien said, wishing that it was anyone other than Alex on the other end, “it’s that there’s no reception. Who do you have with you?”
Cutting straight to the chase, his specialty and his favorite thing in the world.
“I’m with him,” came Ezra’s voice. “Ren and Castor are with us, too. Do you know where Anna is?”
“I’m with Damien,” Anna said, and an audible sigh of relief from Ezra came up from Alex’s end. “I have Bunny too.”
The screen flickered, and Damien’s heart sunk in his chest, but it was just another digivice joining. “Hello?” Miguel said; there were muffled background noises on his end, but he shushed them. “Who’s there?”
“Alex, Ezra, Ren, and Castor,” Alex said. Someone on Miguel’s end said something indistinguishable at that, but they quickly quieted down.
“Damien, Anna, Bunny,” Damien added. “Where you at?”
“Um. I don’t know.” A rustling was heard, and then Miguel sighed. “I have Flip, Ember, and Ko.”
“Ember!” Ezra cried. There was a thump, and then dead silence for a few seconds, until a very loud shuffling and then Ezra’s voice again. “Sorry. I got excited. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ember said, his voice quiet. “Is everyone else okay?”
Almost simultaneously, two more digivices joined the call, speaking immediately as soon as they’d connected.
“Is anyone there?” said Azure, and Moxie said “Is everybody okay? Is this everyone?”
It was. Damien felt a very heavy tension slip off of his shoulders, one he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. He didn’t know why.
The first three groups quickly relayed their members again, while Azure and Moxie listed off theirs - Moxie with Pop, Harmony, Ryan, and Dare, and Azure with Bumble. An even heavier tension lifted from Damien’s shoulders when he heard that, and then it quickly settled again when he realized Bumble was with Azure.
That was sure to be going great for them.
“So where exactly are we?” Miguel asked once information had been exchanged. “One moment everything was fine and we were all together, and then all of a sudden… we got separated? Flip and I wandered around for a bit trying to find you guys, and that’s how we found Ember and Ko.”
“We’re in the Corroded Woodlands,” Ren said, surprising Damien immensely. How does she know that? “You know the fog that’s been going around?” Everyone murmured their assent, and she exhaled sharply. “Stay far away from it. It’ll disorient you, and… for lack of a better way of putting it, make you lose your mind.”
“What?” Miguel shouted.
“She’s being dramatic,” Harmony said. “The fog will not make you lose your mind.” Pause. “Hopefully. It does disorient you, and it does…” She trailed off for a moment, but quickly picked back up. “It’ll make you weirdly emotional. And I don’t mean sad emotional, I mean outbursts of anger emotional. Or maybe not! Maybe something else. What would I know.” She said a few more things under her breath, too quiet for Damien to make out, and then she sighed.
Oh. She got hit by the fog.
Moxie seemed to be very well aware of that (I wonder why), because she quickly took her digivice back. “She’s right. Please keep far away from the fog. This is the most important thing I will possibly ever ask of any of you. Whatever you do, do not touch the fog.”
“Charming,” Alex said. “How are we supposed to get out of here if it’s everywhere?”
“And if the map doesn’t work?” Castor added.
“Does everyone know which cardinal direction they’re facing?” Pop said. “If you can figure it out, please head west. That’ll probably take us out of the forest the quickest. We’ll reconvene once we’re out.”
Alex cleared his throat. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Surely you’ve got some secret parkour skills you’ve been hiding from us,” Dare said, and then seemed to… cry out in pain? “Ow,” she mumbled. “No need to resort to violence this early.”
“Shut up,” Ryan said, voice muffled.
“She’s right, though,” Azure said. “We’re just going to have to avoid it the best we can. Climb some trees, maybe.”
“I’ve had enough of climbing trees today,” Damien mumbled, not really intending to be heard, but Azure snorted a laugh anyway.
“Reception probably won’t be good from here on out,” Pop said. “If you’re in trouble, it’s definitely worth trying to call, but don’t get your hopes up.”
Azure hummed quietly. “What do you mean by trouble?”
“…Well,” Pop said after a moment, sounding like she was floundering for words, “it’s not likely there’ll be any other Digimon here, but… there’s a chance. Be on the lookout for attacks, is what I meant.”
“Problem,” Azure replied immediately. “Not all of us are with our partners.”
Damien’s fingers tightened around his digivice. Next to him, Anna looked at him curiously, then back to the digivice.
She’d been looking at him a lot today.
Strange.
“I know,” Pop said. Something was hiding underneath her voice, but Damien couldn’t tell what it was, not over a phone call. “You’ll have to make do with what you have.”
Nobody said anything for a long few seconds. It was almost quiet enough for Damien to hear everyone’s breathing. He turned his digivice around in his hands, waiting for someone to say something.
“Okay,” Alex eventually said, just when Damien was about to leave the call. “Sounds like a plan. Head west, avoid the fog, climb some trees just for the hell of it. Seems fun.”
Damien heaved an inward sigh of relief. “Great. See you.”
Without another word, he pressed down on the end call button, greeted by an empty black screen. He stared down at it for a second, then shoved the digivice into his pocket and began to walk.
“Are you okay?”
This time, he actually had the heart to look over his shoulder at Anna. “I’m fine,” he said, a little sharper than he’d intended, and he cursed himself under his breath. When he spoke again, he made sure to soften his tone. “Just not happy about the situation.”
Anna frowned slightly, the corners of her mouth pulling down. “I’m not either.”
“I know.” He looked forward again. “None of us are. We’ll be out of here soon.”
Lie. Liar. Lying.
He almost thought Anna was going to drop the subject - oh, how naive and foolish he was - but then she spoke again. “Are you sure -”
“I’m fine,” he repeated. “Christ, you’re just like your brother. Thought you hated when he acted this way.”
He knew it was a mistake to say it the moment the first word was out of his mouth, but he barrelled on anyway. He’d never been tied down by things like “being polite” or “manners”, why start now?
And it had the exact effect he’d been expecting it to. “You don’t have to be an asshole,” Anna snapped, her footsteps suddenly much louder and heavier.
Damien raised his eyebrows. “Who taught you that word?”
“I’m eleven years old. I’m not a baby.” He could practically feel her eye roll, even from behind him.
He’d set her off, for sure, but he could rescue this. He huffed a laugh - forced, but he’d perfected the art of forcing laughs that sounded natural. “Yeah, when I was eleven, I didn’t know that word.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am.” He winked at her over his shoulder; she was glaring directly at him. “Feels good to say, though, doesn’t it?” She hummed her agreement, and he smirked. “Bet your parents don’t let you say it at home.”
She shook her head. “No. They don’t let me say asshole, or damn, or goddamnit, or shit, or the other one I’m not going to say.”
Damien nodded thoughtfully, resuming his gaze ahead of himself. “Guess you’ve got some class left in you. I think you should say it.”
“You say it first.”
“Fuck.”
“That’s not the one I was thinking of.”
“Oh?” Damien turned around to walk backwards, shoving his hands into his pockets. “What one were you thinking of?”
“I can’t say it,” Anna said, and Bunny smiled softly in her arms. “My mom said that only certain people are allowed to.”
Is that so. Damien tilted his head down at her, eyes narrowing slightly. “Does it start with an F?”
She nodded again. “Yeah.”
“Ask Alex to say it for you, then.”
“Why would Alex be able to say it?”
“Do your parents let you say anything at all?” he said instead.
Anna didn’t mind the subject change - if anything, she appreciated it, and her eyebrows finally returned to their natural resting position on her face, having been released from their eternal frown. “Yes. Obviously. I just can’t say mean things.”
“I don’t think swear words are inherently mean,” Damien said with a one-shouldered shrug. “Sometimes you need to tell someone to fuck off and that doesn’t mean you’re being mean, you know?”
“Telling someone to eff off is mean,” Anna said. “You’re telling them to go away, but in a mean way.”
“Have you ever wanted to tell someone to fuck off?” he asked.
“All the damn time.” She paused, seeming to look straight through Damien for a second, and then she huffed, shaking her head out. “Yes. I do. But I can’t say it. I’m saving that word for a really special moment.”
Damien snorted. “Like your wedding day?”
“I’m not going to get married,” she said matter-of-factly, like she’d been asked before. She probably had been.
“Me neither,” Damien said. “I say to hell with romance.” He reached his hand out for a fist bump, and Anna stared at it quizzically, before lifting her own fist to tap against his.
She smiled up at him - hesitantly, cautiously, but still smiled.
Damien smiled back.
You know, maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.
Corroded Woodlands really was just full of trees and fog, wasn’t it?
Those were the only things that they saw as they walked. No matter how deep they got into the forest, how far they walked, how much they altered their course (not too much, they didn’t want to end up lost), there was nothing but trees and fog. The trees didn’t even have leaves; they were completely devoid of any sort of foliage, which honestly creeped Damien out a bit. He supposed it made sense. Corroded was in the name, after all.
But.
“Wasn’t there underbrush when we first came to this stupid place,” Damien said, after a very long stretch of nothing but silence and, you guessed it, trees and fog. He was perfectly comfortable with the silence, of course, but he just wanted to verify.
Instinctively he looked to his right, but there was nobody there. Anna and Bunny were still trailing behind him, and Bumble was… not here.
He’d been making that mistake a lot today, looking for a partner that was god knows where. Not here, that was for sure.
He tried to ignore the weird internal pain that hit him whenever it happened.
“Like bushes and stuff?” Anna asked, and a little tiny bit of that pain faded away, oddly enough. Damien nodded, and she went on. “I think so. Maybe it was just at the edge of the forest? I didn’t see any when we got further inside.”
“It makes walking easier.”
Bunny’s voice was a huge surprise to Damien, so much so that he actually spun around on his heel to stare at her, eyebrows shot up on his face, nearly touching his sunglasses. She averted her gaze when she met his, her ears drooping.
“You’re not even walking,” Anna said, tapping against Bunny’s head with a finger, and the rabbit smiled faintly.
“I know, but I like knowing that it makes it easier for you.”
“It’s also harder to figure out where we are,” Damien said, turning around to walk normally again. “All we’ve got as landmarks are the trees, and they all look the fuckin’ same, they’re not gonna be much help.”
“Why would we need landmarks?” Anna asked.
“Were you listening earlier? Like at all?” Anna let out a hmph, and Damien continued. “The fog makes us lose our sense of direction. If something happens, we’re not going to have any identifiable marker to tell us where we are and what direction we need to go in.”
“And the something that would happen would be us getting lost because of the fog.”
Brilliant observation. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Anna said. “Then let’s just not touch the fog.”
“Well, that’s what we’ve been doing, yeah?” Damien said, crossing his arms. “But it moves quickly, and if it overwhelms us, or surrounds us, or whatever, then we might be stuck with no way out.”
“We can climb trees,” Anna suggested, and Damien rolled his eyes.
“Good luck helping Bunny climb a tree.”
“I can throw her really high and she can wait up in the tree for me.”
“Please don’t throw me,” Bunny said quietly.
Damien tapped his fingers along his sleeve. “You could -”
He cut himself off, knowing what he was about to say. You could have Bumble fly you up. He managed to avoid looking over at where he would be flying, but the damage had already been done. Now, he was thinking about it, and that was almost worse.
“If I can evolve to Lekismon again, I could climb the tree.”
“Well, aren’t you just a regular chatterbox now,” Damien said. “We’re not going to climb any trees. I’m sure we’ll be fine. Just wish I had an idea of where we are.”
He looked down at his digivice, still clutched in his hand, still opened to the map. Still nothing.
It was fortunate that they hadn’t come across any other Digimon, at the very least. Small victories, you know? But they also hadn’t found any of the others. Damien knew, deep down, that they probably wouldn’t. They’d have to wait until they got out of this accursed place.
How long would that take?
Whatever. It’ll be fine. I’ve been away from Bumble before.
But I was at home.
Home?
He shook the thought away. No. That is not home. Not anymore.
It had been months since he’d been back in the human world. Months on his end, at least. Probably only a few minutes there.
But the fact of the matter was that for the past seven months, he had never spent more than an hour or two away from Bumble. They’d been with each other the entire time.
And now they weren’t.
Yeah, some of the others were separated from their partners too, but that was different. They’d known their partners for a month. He’d known his for five years.
I’d always thought I was perfectly self-sufficient on my own, and yet here I am, moping around because I don’t have my emotional support bumblebee with me.
But that was different.
“Hey,” he said, managing to snap himself out of his reverie as he pointed off to the side. Further within the forest, a cloud of fog was slowly but steadily rolling towards them, winding between the trees. “Fog headed this way. We need to pick up the pace.”
“Okay,” Anna said, and Damien quickened his steps, making sure Anna was able to keep up with him.
They walked in silence for a while longer, avoiding any fog that they could see and doing their best to keep on the right track. The map did not work at any point during their trek. Damien just had to hope that they were headed the right direction and not going in circles.
They hadn’t touched any of the fog yet, thankfully, but he was (understandably) a little paranoid.
You know, if not for the fog and the fact that he had no clue if they were ever going to get out of this fucking place, this almost - just almost - reminded Damien of when he’d first come to the Digital World, all those years ago. No idea of where he was or where he was going, wandering through a forest full of trees he’d never seen in his life, with little to no company.
It was something he hadn’t ever wanted to experience again, but he very rarely got what he wanted.
“How big is the forest?” Anna asked, presumably less comfortable with the growing silence than Damien was.
“I dunno,” he said. “Pretty big. I guess you haven’t really been in a forest in this world, have you?”
“I have,” she said, and he raised an eyebrow (which she couldn’t see, but whatever). “When I first got here, I ended up in a forest. I don’t know what it was called, but it’s where I met Bunny.”
“Wouldn’t have been Under Forest,” Damien said, thinking to himself out loud. “Since that’s where we came from, and you got to Northern Pier before we did. Did you run into any Digimon when you were there?”
“One. It was a big green Dinosaur thing with horns on its back.” Anna paused for a moment. “Bunny tried to fight it off, but she wasn’t strong enough. We had to run away.”
“Tuskmon,” Damien said. “Did it have white eyes?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you call that mania? Or something?”
Damien smiled. “Wow, you were listening. Yeah, the Digimon with white eyes are being controlled by some evil angel and they’re trying to kill us.” He turned his digivice around in his hands, looking down at it more out of instinct than actually expecting it to be working. It wasn’t. Big surprise. “Honestly, props to Bunny for trying to take on a champion level without being able to evolve.”
Anna laughed quietly. “Ezra told me that Ember took on a champion when he was an in-training level.”
Damien did remember that. Shortly after meeting the rest of the group, Ezra had relayed the story, telling them about Ember’s sudden evolution and how all six of the Digimon had taken on a Cyclomon together and won. (Even crazier was that apparently four of the partners had already taken on champions on their own and won.)
Damien had secretly been impressed, but hadn’t said as much. Obviously. Couldn’t let it get to Ezra’s head.
“Yeah, but he evolved,” he said to Anna.
“To a rookie.”
“He had five other Digimon helping him.”
“Bunny would have been able to beat it if I hadn’t told her to run.”
Damien turned around to face Anna again, walking backwards once more. “You told her to run?”
She nodded. “She was doing okay, but Tuskmon was obviously stronger than her, and I didn’t want her to get hurt. So I told her to run, but she refused. She said she had to protect me. So I grabbed her and ran.”
“Seems you’ve already learned the first rule of survival for humans in this world,” Damien said, nodding sagely. When Anna gave him a strange look, he held one finger up. “Rule number one: run away from Digimon that try to attack you.”
“But you don’t do that,” she said.
“That’s rule number two,” Damien said, raising another finger. “If you think you can take it on, stay and fight. Hold your ground. Show it that you’re not going to back down that easily.”
Anna frowned. “That’s the exact opposite of rule one.”
“You have to learn the difference between the situations,” he said, dropping his hand. “Being able to safely identify which Digimon are which is a very important skill. Some Digimon you can stay and fight without putting yourself in too much danger, but others you have to run away from. If they’re too strong or too fast or just too dangerous, it’s best to book it.”
Anna nodded, then looked confused. “Then why didn’t we run away from Velgrmon?”
Damien turned around to walk normally again, leaving Anna’s question unanswered for a few seconds. “We probably should have,” he said eventually. “But Moxie…” He shook his head out. “We were out in the open. If we’d tried to run from it, it would’ve followed us. Besides. We’ve managed to defeat most of the manic Digimon we’ve come across. Didn’t want to change our tune and send the wrong message to that archangel fuck, yeah?”
“What sort of wrong message?”
“That we’re cowards. That he’s too strong.” He breathed out quietly. “That he’s scaring us.”
“You’re scared of him?” Bunny asked.
“I’m not,” Damien said. He was telling the truth. He hoped. “But some of the others are. Even if they try to act like they’re not. I mean, Miguel is obvious enough, but… I think even people like Ren and Ryan and Ezra are scared of him.”
Anna laughed out loud. “Ezra is scared of everything.”
“Really,” Damien said, actually surprised. “Like what?”
“Like heights,” she said, “and deep water, and the dark, and skunks, and me being in danger.”
“Well, that last one is obvious enough,” Damien said. He paused. “Wait, skunks?”
“Yeah. He got sprayed by one when he was really young and he’s been afraid of them ever since. I think it’s silly, but I haven’t told him so.”
It is. “That’s polite of you.”
“Is Bumble scared of him?”
He looked over his shoulder at Anna, one eyebrow raised. “Who, Ezra?” What a strange question.
She shook her head. “No. The archangel.”
Ah. That made more sense.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
It was true. Bumble hadn’t really shared any thoughts or opinions or, god forbid, feelings about the whole situation - which wasn’t anything unusual. Bumble didn’t like sharing those things. He didn’t usually have opinions of his own. He just did whatever Damien did, which had never bothered him in even the slightest, but… it did lead to him never really knowing Bumble’s true thoughts on any given situation.
He didn’t think Bumble was scared of the archangel, but who was to say, really?
Had Bumble ever been scared of anything?
Have I?
“My turn for the deep personal questions,” he said to distract himself, slowing his pace to walk beside Anna and Bunny. They blinked over at him, almost simultaneously. “This one’s for Anna specifically. Are you glad you’re here?”
She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Are you glad you came to this world,” he said, holding his hands up to gesture at not only the forest but the general idea of the Digital World. “Glad you’ve gone through all of this with us. Glad that you’re stuck with us. Glad that you’re lost in the worst forest on the planet with very little hope of getting out alive. Glad that you have to fight against an archangel to save the world.”
He was exaggerating, yes, but not by that much. It was true that she was stuck here with them, and that she was lost in the worst forest on the planet, and (probably) had to fight an archangel to save the world. It was a very barebones overview, but it was all true.
He was dramatizing it for, well, dramatics - but also because he didn’t really expect Anna’s answer to be -
“Yes.”
He looked over at her, crossing his arms and tilting his head. She lifted her chin, staring him down (or up) defiantly and saying nothing else.
“Why?” was all he said next.
She shrugged, reaching one hand up to stroke Bunny’s head. “I mean, it hasn’t been that bad so far. I know this forest sucks, but we’ll get out of here. Alive.” She smiled down at Bunny briefly. “And I met Bunny here. That’s worth everything that’s happened so far and will happen.”
“It’s worth it to me too,” Bunny said softly. She looked up at Damien. “I know you didn’t ask me, but I’m also glad to be here.”
“Is that so,” he mused. “Well, I’m glad someone is at least having fun.”
“I have to make up for your lack of it,” Anna said. “Law of equivalent exchange.”
…Honestly, that was fair.
The three of them talked for a while longer, about anything and everything. Earlier, Damien hadn’t had any interest in talking to them, and though he wasn’t exactly interested in it even now, he figured it was better than leaving the two of them in silence. It was for their sake, not his. (At least, that’s what he told himself.)
But even so, he felt a little bit obligated to keep them company, especially with everything he’d heard about Anna from Ezra.
“I know she thinks she can handle herself,” Ezra had said to Damien the night prior, on the ferry. “But I also know that she remembers that wasn’t always the case. She told me that I was the only person she could trust.”
He’d sighed, resting his chin on his fists. “She was inseparable from me for a few years, and then everything changed. I don’t know what it was. Maybe she really can handle herself, but every time she says that, I can’t help but… think about the way she looked at me when she came to me and told me she needed my help.”
Damien was listening, but not saying much. He didn’t want to press too hard (or just at all, really), but Ezra obviously needed to talk to someone. He must have known that Damien would be the one most likely to keep a secret and also not ask any personal questions. (That was his forte, after all.)
“I don’t even know what it was,” Ezra mumbled. “She never told me or our parents or anyone. Just… a thing that happened to her and changed her into a completely different person. I can still remember how she used to be, somehow. Happy and carefree and always smiling.” He buried his face in his hands. “Sometimes when I speak to her I feel like I’m talking to someone else entirely.”
Damien still hadn’t forgotten that.
So it made sense that he wasn’t really expecting her (or Bunny, for that matter) to be especially talkative. He’d been thinking (hoping) that they’d keep to themselves and he’d get away with the bare minimum amount of talking.
Turns out that wasn’t the case, and the two of them were nothing like Damien had expected. Wild what can happen when you actually get to know someone.
And then he had the absolutely wonderful idea of bringing this up with them. Because things were going too well and it only seemed fit that the universe would grow unhappy and try to ruin it for him.
“I didn’t really think you’d be this… open,” he said during a lull in their small talk. Anna’s eyes narrowed, and he continued. “I mean. I’d sort of been expecting the both of you to just never talk to anyone other than yourselves. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s what Bumble and I usually do, but still.”
“You shouldn’t be making assumptions about people you don’t know,” Anna said, sounding quite put out.
“It’s not an assumption,” he said. “You just sorta give off moody teenager vibes. Except, y’know, you’re not a teenager. It’s gonna be extra bad for you in a few years.” He was teasing her, but it wasn’t really coming off as such in his deadpan voice, and he didn’t see fit to correct it. This was his first mistake.
“I’m not moody,” she snapped, clenching her hands - still holding Bunny - into fists. “You’re the moody one.”
“Anna,” Bunny said softly, but Damien swooped in, feeling somewhat offended.
“I was just teasing you, jeez,” he muttered, practically feeling his expression darken. “You’re pretty much just proving my point now.”
Strike two. Anna scowled at him, faltering in her stride before setting herself back on track.
“Maybe if you hadn’t been a jerk about it, I would have known that.”
“I wasn’t being a jerk,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I told you that you defied my expectations and you got all grumpy on me. It was supposed to be a good thing. I don’t know what the problem with it is.”
“The problem is that you’re wrong,” she said. “I’m not quiet and I’m not moody. You’ve known me for a day and you’re already jumping to conclusions -”
Damien cut her off. “Not a conclusion, just an observation -”
And then Anna cut him off in turn. “And now I’m regretting saying anything to you in the first place.”
Ouch.
Damien didn’t think he’d said anything wrong, really - he’d said that Anna and Bunny were more talkative than he expected them to be, and Anna was… mad about it? Why? She kept insisting that she wasn’t quiet, but was mad at him for saying the same?
Or maybe there was something else going on.
Well, nothing else left to lose at this point.
“I’m not gonna let you give up that easily,” he said, and as the words left his mouth he was reminded of a very similar conversation he’d had with someone else not that long ago. It had gone well then; why wasn’t it going well this time?
He shook his head, staring Anna down. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
“No,” she mumbled, looking away.
He felt an itch of frustration rise in his chest and had to force himself to ignore it. She was being so difficult. She’d been doing great not that long ago, and then he had to open his mouth and ruin it - or was it that she was the one ruining it? -
“Are you doing this on purpose,” he said to Anna.
“What do you mean,” she replied.
He lifted his arms to gesture at a vague, nebulous everything. “All of this? Being so weird and hedgy with me?”
“I’m not being weird,” she said, but she did not say anything else, which was exactly what he had been not hoping for.
She was back to that same, keeping-to-herself person that he’d just said she wasn’t. What on earth was going on?
Damien pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s like a game of cat and mouse,” he said, ignoring the scowl she quickly took on. “One minute you’re all bubbly and open, and the next you just close up.”
Three strikes, you’re out. Anna took the metaphorical pitcher’s mound and glowered at Damien. Was she baring her teeth at him?
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped. In her arms, Bunny looked more than a little concerned, but she didn’t say anything. Probably for the better. Damien didn’t want to end up offending her, too.
He raised his hands to halt Anna. “Okay. I just wanted to see if you needed -”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she repeated, quietly but more forcefully. “And don’t tell me you’re just trying to help me or be nice to me or anything. You don’t actually mean it.”
“Alright,” Damien growled, at the end of his wits and patience. “If you want to drop it, we can, but learn to ask nicely next time -”
He was cut off by a call from his digivice, which he’d tucked back into his pocket a while ago. Without another word to Anna, he fished it out, and, seeing that the call was from Azure, did not answer immediately.
Their talk at Hallowed Hall was, in the grand scheme of things, so long ago, but even so, he still wasn’t super comfortable around them. They’d apologized, yes, and he’d accepted the apology, but -
And then it hit him that Azure was with Bumble right now, and he muttered a definitely-not-panicked “oh, shit” before finally hitting accept.
“Hey,” their voice came from his digivice. “So. Not to worry you or anything, and we’re fine right now -”
“Get to the point,” he said.
“Right.” Azure cleared their throat, sounding almost nervous. “We - Bumble and I - got attacked by a Digimon a little bit ago. It was a Harpymon, he said. It wasn’t manic, thankfully - probably just got lost in the fog and lashed out at the first people it saw next.”
Damien’s stomach dropped into his feet, which he almost tripped over, but he managed to right himself in time.
“Bumble couldn’t evolve,” Azure continued, “because obviously, but he was able to hold it off long enough for me to escape. He caught up to me, and he told me he’s fine, but he’s a bit… out of it, I’d say.”
So he wasn’t okay. Damien knew his partner well enough to tell that much. He clenched his teeth, practically unaware of Anna and Bunny next to him. “Is he hurt?”
“…No injuries, obviously,” Azure said hesitantly. “But again. He’s out of it. Even if he’s currently trying to insist that he’s not.”
“Bumble,” Damien said, raising his voice in the hopes his partner could hear him better, “stop with the tough guy shit. If you’re injured, don’t fucking push through it, you’ll just hurt yourself more.”
“What else are we going to do?” Bumble’s voice was muffled and a little pained, but Damien breathed out slowly, instantly relieved upon hearing his partner speak. “We can’t stop walking.”
“Might have to,” Azure said, sounding as if they were sucking a breath in, and then Bumble groaned. Damien could practically hear Azure’s sarcastic smile grace their face. “Sorry. Figured if you were hiding it then I should too.”
“What?” Damien asked, raising his digivice closer to his face as if that would help with literally anything at all. “Is everything okay?”
“Not really,” Azure said. “Harpymon got me a bit harder than I let on at first. On the leg. Which is makin’ walking difficult.”
Damien, much like his partner - practically identically, actually - groaned, dragging his hand down his face. “You need to stop the tough guy shit too. Hypocrite.”
“We can’t just stop walking,” Bumble said again. “We need to get out of the forest.”
“I think this is the most amount of words you have ever said in one conversation,” Azure said, sounding slightly strained, and then they sighed. “Sorry. I don’t think we’re getting anywhere else tonight.”
“What?” Bumble said. “Get up. We need to keep going.”
“I can’t walk,” they said, presumably from a sitting position on the ground. “It’s gettin’ late. We’re not going to get out of here tonight.”
“Are you sure that this is really the best place to stay overnight,” Damien said. He was picking up what Azure was putting down, but only in the simplest of terms, and he wasn’t exactly happy about having to pick it up, like a kindergartner who didn’t want to do their share of clean-up time.
“We don’t have any other choice,” they shot back, sounding more defeated than argumentative. “I wouldn’t make any bets on the rest of the group being uninjured or exhausted or whatever. I can’t keep goin’, and something tells me Bumble can’t either, even if he wants to.”
“I’m fine,” Bumble said, sounding anything but fine.
“Ain’t really up for debate,” Azure said to Bumble. “Unless you want to leave me here on my own.”
There was a long pause before Bumble sighed. “No.” Damien couldn’t resist the smallest of smiles.
“Thought so.” Azure coughed lightly, then groaned. “We can take shifts to watch for the fog. Don’t wanna lose our minds in our sleep. Turn us into zombies an’ whatnot.”
“If you’re sure,” Damien said slowly. He supposed it was better than nothing, but even so…
“I’ll call the others and let them know what’s up. If my digivice cooperates. Took a bit to get a call through to you, but hey, it worked in the end.”
“Good luck,” he mumbled, but Azure didn’t hang up yet.
“Hey,” they said, their voice softer. “It won’t be long. We’ll all meet up tomorrow and we’ll finally get this show on the road again. Not the first time we’ve had to take a detour.”
Damien didn’t reply, and Azure sighed. “We’ll both be fine. Just need a bit of a break, you know? Don’t worry about us too much.”
“Not worried,” Damien said. “Just concerned.”
“Same thing,” Azure said. Damien rolled his eyes. “Try to get some sleep tonight.”
“Will do,” he said. “Make sure Bumble does too.”
“Yessir,” Azure said, audibly saluting.
Damien ended the call and breathed a long, labored sigh.
“We should keep going a while longer,” he said to Anna and Bunny, who had remained silent but attentive during the entire call. “Not much. I’m just not ready to stop for the night.”
“Azure said -” Anna started.
“I don’t really care what Azure said,” Damien drawled, placing his hands in his pockets. “Can’t hurt to walk for another hour or so. Unless you want to stop?”
Anna stared him down for a few seconds, then shook her head, Bunny following suit. Damien nodded, then turned to lead the way again, pausing for a fraction of a second to make sure he was still heading the right direction.
Truthfully, the reason he didn’t want to stop was because he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts, but it turned out that walking wasn’t really any better for that.
Azure had gotten injured. Bumble had gotten injured. Damien hadn’t been there; there wasn’t anything he could do, and he knew it wasn’t his fault (not his fault he got stuck in this forest, not his fault the group got separated, not his fault he was useless where he was right now), but he couldn’t help but feel… guilty. Like he was at least some part to blame. If he hadn’t gotten separated from Bumble, he would’ve been able to evolve, and he and Azure wouldn’t have gotten hurt. He’d be of at least some use.
But then Anna and Bunny would be on their own.
He cast a surreptitious look their way. Anna was still a few paces away from him, looking to be speaking to Bunny with quiet words that he couldn’t hear. They seemed fine. Almost like their little argument just five minutes ago hadn’t even happened.
If he wasn’t here, they’d be completely alone, nobody around to guide them or help them or irritate them to no end.
Even if he wasn’t a fan of this whole situation, and even if Anna was incredibly frustrating to try to talk to, and even if he wished he was with Bumble instead, he had some sort of obligation to help them.
…Though he had to admit that he himself was frustrating to talk to, so maybe that wasn’t relevant.
Well. That was really only around people he wasn’t comfortable with. He was very easy to talk to if you were, say, Bumble or Moxie or Pop. Anyone else? Definitely not. But that wasn’t the point.
He sighed to himself. He could practically feel the empty space next to him where Bumble should be.
And apparently Anna could too, as she looked over at him and - after a brief pause - moved to walk beside him.
…It helped a little bit.
She was silent for a few moments before she spoke. “Have you ever been away from your partner before?”
He considered whether to answer, and what to tell her if he did decide to. He knew that she wasn’t aware of his and Moxie’s history with the Digital World like the others were (and even they didn’t know the whole story), so it made sense she was asking, but…
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said, and he realized he’d spent too long thinking.
“It’s fine,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not like it’s a secret or anything. We’ve known our partners for around five years.” He figured the “we” in question was obvious enough without him having to clarify. “We didn’t do any saving the world stuff, but. We had partners. We had digivices. They could evolve. I knew there was some reason we’d met, but I didn’t know what it was.” He also didn’t know why he was telling her this. “Sometimes we’d bring them back home with us at the end of the day, but most of the time we had to leave them here in the Digital World. Sometimes we’d go weeks without seeing each other.”
He stared down at his feet. It felt distant now. Over the past seven months, he hadn’t been apart from Bumble for more than an hour at most. They’d had each other the whole time. And now they didn’t.
The past seven months had also been an entire lie.
“We stayed overnight in the Digital World every now and then,” he continued. “But not often. We couldn’t leave our -” He cut himself off, drawing a breath in through gritted teeth. He didn’t look over at Anna. “…We couldn’t let our family worry about us. And we couldn’t let them know about the Digital World. We made do, but… it never really seemed to be enough.”
“What do you mean?” Bunny asked softly, pretty obviously trying to not provoke him. He appreciated the effort.
“I’ve just always felt bad for not being around enough,” he said - around enough for who, he purposely left unsaid. It could apply to both parties, now. “Like some deadbeat dad or whatever. Even though I wasn’t the dad in the situation. I dunno. We didn’t have a choice, but… looking back on it, I wish I’d spent more time with them.”
Well, it was pretty obvious who he was referring to with that.
“But it’s all in the past now,” he said, waving it off with a hand. “Now we’re with Bumble and Pop all of the time. Most of the time.”
Anna and Bunny didn’t respond, which was fine by Damien. He felt an uncomfortable feeling crawling up his chest from the bottom of his stomach, a feeling of wondering if he’d said too much. He’d never told anyone that much of anything - not that he could remember, at least.
What was it about Anna and her uncanny ability to get everyone to open up to her?
And yet she was mad at me for saying that she was open.
Well, there wasn’t any going back now. “You don’t need to repeat any of that to anyone,” he said, giving Anna and Bunny a pointed look.
“I wasn’t going to,” Anna said, almost defensively, and Bunny nodded in agreement.
“Just saying,” Damien said, and maybe he would have continued if Bunny hadn’t spoken up next.
“Every time I’ve been away from Anna I’ve felt like a part of me is missing.”
Damien raised an eyebrow over at her, more surprised by the fact that she was saying anything at all rather than the actual contents of her sentence. “You’ve known her for like a week.”
“And in the five days before we got to Northern Pier,” Anna said, sticking her tongue out at him, “she’d have to go off to get food for us every day. I’d stay behind at our camp and she’d go look for mushrooms and apples. And I felt the same way as she did whenever she was away.”
“Like a part of you is missing,” Damien echoed, and both of them nodded.
He supposed that was one way of putting it. A little extreme, but… hmm.
Maybe they had a point.
Damien certainly did feel like a part of him was missing, even though he knew - he hoped - that it wouldn’t be long until he was whole again.
They stopped for the night a little while later, when it was finally dark enough to actually feel like nighttime rather than just some spooky forest. They’d skirted around more patches of fog as they went, at one point having to maneuver through an almost maze-like formation of it, but all things considered, they’d done pretty well.
Through some magical twist of fate, they’d stumbled across a clearing that had, surprise surprise, actual plants. Grass, shrubs, bushes… why, some of the trees even had leaves.
It gave Damien a little bit of hope that they were headed in the right direction.
They didn’t have anything to start a fire with, but it wasn’t like they had anything to cook with, anyway. Maybe they could have roasted some digitakes, but Damien had actually decided to splurge a bit tonight and enjoy some of the harder-to-come-by food that he still had in his backpack from back home.
He frowned to himself, but ignored it.
“This is a drizzle cabbage,” he said, handing out leaves of said vegetable to Anna and Bunny, seated in the grass, to go along with their blue raspberries (another specialty he’d offered them). “It’s supposed to help recover energy, but I’ve never found it to do that for me.”
“Lucky that I actually like cabbage,” Anna said, peering down at her serving, and Damien smiled to himself, knowing what was coming next. She took a small bite, and her face instantly lit up - and then she crinkled her nose up in confusion. “How does it do that,” she mumbled, looking down at the leaf in her hand and then over at Damien.
“Better than cabbage back home?” he asked, taking a bite of his own. The familiar taste of sweet leafy greens flooded his mouth, and then the sensation of falling raindrops on the inside of his mouth. Anna nodded hesitantly but enthusiastically; Bunny was too busy chowing down on her food to verbally or physically agree, but he took her eagerness as enough of an agreement.
“There’s lots of food here that have effects like that,” Damien said in between bites. “You ever had a katsura ginseng?”
Anna shook her head, which he expected.
“I’ve never even heard of that,” Bunny said, finally slowing down, “and I actually live here.”
“Not here,” Damien corrected. “This is File Island, remember? We’ve got some different plants growing here than on Server. Here we’ve got katsura ginseng and their - cousin? sibling? - sakura radishes. The ginseng tastes pretty much like ginseng in the human world, but instead of being bitter, it’s like…” He trailed off, rubbing his fingers together as he sought for a description. “Sweet, but in the way that tea is sweet. Mild at first, and then it increases exponentially until it’s just a rush of sugar and spice at the end.”
“Those sound good,” Anna said. “I’d like to try some.”
“We’ll keep an eye out,” Damien said, and she smiled.
Bunny had finished her cabbage, and was staring down at her raspberry curiously. “What about the radishes?” she asked, not averting her gaze.
“Sharp,” Damien said. “Almost peppery. Like a radish in our world, but more pungent, I guess. They’ve got this underlying sweetness to them, but it’s nowhere near as obvious as the ginseng.” He took another bite of his cabbage before continuing. “They’re bright pink. Makes sense that they’re called sakura. They sort of have a petal-like texture.”
Bunny nodded sagely, then lifted her raspberry up, pathetically large on her tiny paw. “And what about this?”
“I’ve never seen a raspberry that big before,” Anna said, holding hers as well.
“Lots of the vegetables and fruits and nuts here in the Digital World are a lot bigger than back home,” he said to Anna, then turned to Bunny. “Why don’t you take a bite and find out?”
Bunny frowned at her berry, concentrating very hard on it, looking almost as if she were trying to explode it with her mind. She very obviously was not, though, as she took a bite out of it mere seconds later. Her eyes widened and she brought her paw away from her face, marveling at the berry.
“It melted in my mouth,” she said in a voice hushed by wonder. “Like ice.”
“It doesn’t really make sense to me either,” Damien said, biting into his own. “Certainly an interesting experience.” Bunny and Anna - the latter of whom had finally tasted her own raspberry - nodded in agreement, and Damien smiled.
He didn’t think he’d ever described food this much in depth before. Maybe he could get a job as a food blogger after all of this was over.
…Yeah. Like that would ever happen.
(Was he referring to becoming a food blogger, or “all of this” being “over”? He couldn’t tell. Both, probably.)
They continued eating with lighthearted chat here and there, Damien answering any questions Anna and Bunny had about the food on File Island. He told them of the fruits and vegetables they’d likely find as they traveled more, of where they were native to, of some of his favorite meals to cook (correction: meals for Moxie and their partners to cook; Damien was prone to burning kitchens down if he so much as looked at a stove). Bunny supplied her own knowledge of the produce on Server and some of the more common dishes made there, and Anna added stories of times she’d tried to cook back home and failed miserably, which Damien could heavily relate to.
Even as they wrapped up their meal, packing their things back into their bags and preparing to wrap up the night, the overall good mood hanging in the air did not dissipate.
It was confusing.
Just like she had earlier, Anna was acting like their argument hadn’t ever happened. Damien admired her resolve. If it had been him, he’d still be carrying a grudge, even if the offender had said sorry or something.
I should apologize to her.
The thought struck him so suddenly that he almost laughed out loud. Apologize? Damien didn’t apologize. That was not something he was good at. Anyone who had known him for five minutes could discern that much.
Would Anna be able to tell he wasn’t good at it? Would she think he was faking it? That he just wanted to get on her good side?
(But if their conversation was proof enough… wasn’t he on her good side right now…?)
He hadn’t even started it. He’d said a completely inane thing and she’d gotten mad at it for some reason and refused to tell him why. It wasn’t his fault.
But he still felt some sort of compulsion to apologize. Maybe he hadn’t started it, but he sure as hell didn’t try to end it, at least not until Anna did.
That was another thing he was bad at - ending fights.
…Maybe he should try to get better at it.
So, mustering up the courage and good will to admit that he was actually sorry for something he’d said, he let loose a quiet sigh and turned to Anna.
“Hey. I’m sorry. For earlier.”
Anna looked up at him, something flickering behind her eyes, but it disappeared when Damien tried to get a closer look. “…Apology accepted. But I do mean what I said. Don’t make assumptions.”
“It wasn’t -” he started to protest.
“It was. I know it was.” She bit her lip, then plowed on ahead. “I heard you talking about me last night with Ezra.”
Damien closed his eyes, sighing inwardly and resisting the urge to stand up and walk away.
“Is that so,” he said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible, avoiding Anna’s gaze.
It wasn’t exactly a surprise. Not that he’d expected this entirely - he just hadn’t bet any money on nobody listening in. They hadn’t exactly been as secretive about it as they should have been, looking back on it, especially considering how heavy of a topic it had been.
What an ironic twist that the person we were talking about was the one who’d been listening in.
He shook his head in a mix of disbelief and resignation. “Yeah, I figured that would happen.”
Anna shrugged, a wry smile tugging at the edges of her lips. “I haven’t told anyone about the… thing that happened. It’s not anything super bad,” she appended quickly, and Damien realized he must have been pulling some sort of face. She sighed, stretching her legs out in front of her, careful not to hit Bunny beside her. “Just sort of changed my life in a lot of ways. Mostly badly. But…”
She trailed off, looking up at the treetops, but Damien got the feeling she wasn’t simply admiring the fact that there were leaves on their branches. Her face shifted into one of… irritation? Annoyance? It was only a split second, and she very quickly shook her head out, lowering her head.
“It’s hard to tell people,” she said, looking over at Bunny. Damien suddenly got the very distinct feeling that she’d told Bunny. “I don’t know if they’ll - mm. If they’ll… actually care in the way that I want them to care. My parents would probably… understand what happened. But I don’t think they’d care.” She was choosing her words carefully, sounding almost as if someone was reading off cue cards to her. “Not really anything new for them, but. This would be different.”
Well, that was very fucking familiar for Damien. Surely she didn’t mean what he was thinking of - what he had, essentially, said to Moxie a few years ago when he’d told her what was on his mind.
“Would they even care,” he’d asked her, thirteen years old at the time, sitting on the edge of his lower bunk so he could look up at her.
She’d shrugged and leaned farther forward so that her upper body, dangling off the side of her own bunk, could get closer to him. “What does it matter if they don’t? I do. Pop and Bumble will. We’ll run away to the Digital World if we need to. You can just be you.” She’d smiled down at him, the hair hanging in front of her face almost obscuring it, but it was obvious enough from the way she looked at him even if her mouth hadn’t been visible.
Their parents had cared - they’d cared more than Damien would have ever expected them to. He didn’t know if he’d still be here today if it wasn’t for them.
But with the way Anna spoke about her own family, he got the feeling that it wasn’t the same for her.
“Well, fuck your parents,” he said, leaning back on his hands, and she smiled faintly. “What does it matter if they don’t care. There’s people out there who will, in the way you want them to.”
“I know,” she said quietly, looking over at Bunny.
Whatever it was was obviously important to her. Hearing her side of things at least helped Damien understand her more, and understand what Ezra had told him on the ferry. He wasn’t going to tell Ezra about any of this - obviously - but it made some things a lot clearer.
And, at the same time, a lot more confusing.
Anna sighed and pulled her knees to her chest, her hands on either side of her pulling at the grass absentmindedly. “Is Moxie your only other sibling?” she said, her voice low.
Damien blinked. Well, that’s certainly out of left field. “Yep,” he said with a nod. “Only ever been the two of us. Our parents had always wanted just two kids, and they got a package deal. Two for the price of one.”
Anna nodded, gaze still solidly fixed on the ground.
“What about you?” he prompted. “Just you and Ezra?”
Anna didn’t respond; her brow furrowed deeper, and she clenched her fingers a few times, digging them deeper into the grass and dirt.
She was silent for a while, staring off into space - or rather, down into earth - and barely sparing a glance at either Damien or Bunny. Her partner shifted slightly on the other side of her, but similarly did not move.
Damien was about to change the subject, anything to fill the expanding silence between them, and then finally she shrugged.
“…Yeah. It’s always only ever been the two of us.”
Her voice sounded heavy as she spoke, as if weighed down by unbidden words, but if there was anything hidden in the undertones of her response, it wasn’t obvious what it was.
She didn’t say anything more, and Damien didn’t press.
Damien took the first watch.
He wasn’t tired yet. He probably wouldn’t be for a while longer, so why not kick things off on his own?
He could tell that neither Anna nor Bunny were tired either. They were doing a great job of pretending to be asleep, but the rise and fall of their chests were too quick for them to actually be unconscious. It was a valiant effort, at the very least.
He sighed through his nose, leaning up against the trunk of one of the only branchless trees around.
Today had been… well, it had certainly been a day. A day that Damien didn’t ever want to live through again. A day he didn’t want anyone else to ever live through.
He wondered how Bumble was doing. How Moxie and Pop were doing. How any of the others who were separated from their partners were doing.
Yeah. What a day.
And it wasn’t really helping that they still didn’t know where they were. The leaves and bushes and grass were hopefully signs that they were near the edge of the forest, but they couldn’t tell for certain. Corroded Woodlands was massive, and Damien didn’t have enough knowledge of the species of flora that lived within to be able to tell for certain if grass equaled freedom.
Thinking about it like that made it sound like he was a caged animal.
He… didn’t particularly feel like one, surprisingly. The woods were definitely the eternal prison, a hell he couldn’t escape, but. Aside from the mind-fucking fog and getting lost and being separated from his partner, his sister, and the rest of the group…
It wasn’t quite so bad.
He knew a little bit more about Anna and Bunny now, the most mysterious members of the group aside from himself. He wasn’t exactly keen on being buddy-buddy with them (and he knew they weren’t either), but there were worse people he could have been stuck with.
This would all be over soon.
He stretched his arms above his head, interlocking his fingers to crack his knuckles, and chanced a look over at Anna and -
Hmm.
Bunny had pushed herself up and was heading over towards Damien, and as he watched her float-walk his way, he realized he’d never actually seen her move on her own. She almost seemed to be hovering over the ground, but he could definitely see tiny paws peeking out from the bottom of her dress. …Flesh dress? It was connected to her body, with no visible separation of the two, but the implications of that were -
“Damien,” she whispered, having arrived a few feet in front of him. He blinked down at her, and then crouched to be more eye-level with her. She inclined her head off to the side, away from where Anna was sleeping. “Can you come with me?”
Damien nodded, and she led the way, heading a bit deeper into the forest, careful not to stray too far away from Anna. Eventually Bunny stopped and turned around, and Damien knelt down next to her.
“What’s up?” he said, keeping his voice low.
Bunny fidgeted with her paws for a moment, then exhaled slowly. “It’s about Anna.”
“You’re not gonna tell me whatever her secret is, are you,” he cut in, starting to dread this. That wasn’t Bunny's place to tell him.
“Of course not!” Bunny said, looking incredulous. “She’s the one who gets to decide who to tell and when. It’s not about that.”
“Good,” he said. “I was just making sure.”
“It’s just…” She sighed, her ears twitching. She looked back over her shoulder, and Damien followed her gaze, but saw nothing. She shook her head. “She is scared to be here. And so am I.”
Damien furrowed his brow. “Is that so,” he mumbled.
Bunny nodded. “I know we said earlier we were glad to be with your group, but… I don’t think I’d be surprising you if I said I’m scared of a lot of things.” Wow, really? You? No way. “I’m going to do my best to save the world. But I’m going to be scared of it the whole time. And Anna will too. She’s got…” She stared down at her paws. “Well, we’re cheering her on, and it’s helping a little bit, but not entirely. She’s eleven years old. That’s not a lot for humans.”
“No, it’s not,” Damien said, suddenly feeling as if he were in his forties.
“Humans aren’t supposed to be saving the world like this,” Bunny said, and Damien snorted a quiet laugh. She didn’t seem to get what was so funny, but went on anyways. “She’s doing it because she has to. She can’t just sit aside and not do it. And neither can I.” She drew herself taller, looking determined. “We’re going to do this and we’re going to hate every second of it.”
Damien hummed to himself. “And why are you telling me this.” He sort of thought he knew where Bunny was going with this, but he couldn’t tell for certain.
She sighed and deflated, casting her eyes downward. “I just need someone to know that she’s scared,” she said mournfully. “She can’t tell Ezra because he’ll make her stay out of it. She can’t tell Alex because he’ll tell Ezra. She doesn’t know anyone else well enough to tell them. I know you think that she’s open with everyone -” she looked at him quite pointedly “- but she’s not. That’s why she got mad at you earlier. She thought she was doing a good job of showing you that she trusts you in specific, but… apparently not.”
Oh, shit.
Well, that explained a lot. Damien cursed himself both inwardly and outwardly (though he kept the verbal curse low enough for Bunny to not really be able to make out any of his words). God, he was an idiot.
But -
“Why me?” he asked.
Bunny blinked big lavender eyes up at him. “Because you treated her like a human being today. When we figured out that we were by ourselves, you took charge, but you still treated her like a person. Even if you were kind of frustrated at first.”
“Isn’t that what everyone would do,” he said, and Bunny shook her head.
“Well,” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her tone and on her face, “remember how Ezra reacted when you were going to go buy our ferry tickets? Just instantly shutting down everything she said and insisting that it was too dangerous and she wouldn’t be able to handle herself. That’s how everyone she’s ever met has treated her.”
Damien was also familiar with that.
People acting like they knew better than him. Like it was just a phase he was going through. Like he was lying, or faking it, or exaggerating. No matter how hard he’d tried to explain it, nobody had ever seemed to believe him.
Nobody other than his family.
And, once again, it was the exact opposite for Anna.
“I know this is a lot to ask,” Bunny said, and Damien snapped back to the present. “But. I’d appreciate it if you could… keep an eye on her, of sorts. Try to protect her.”
He frowned. “Protect her?”
“Something like that. I can’t think of a better word.” She shrugged. “Someone needs to watch out for her. Someone other than me.”
“Ezra watches out for her literally all the time,” he pointed out, but Bunny shook her head.
“Whatever you do,” she said, her tone deadly serious (it almost scared him), “do not act like Ezra to her. I will make you regret it.”
Bold threat coming from a little purple rabbit, but Damien nodded anyway, even if it was hesitant.
He didn’t know why he was agreeing to this. Damien did not look out for anyone other than his family - Moxie, Bumble, and Pop. As far as he knew, it would always only be them.
(Even though, over the past month, it had been a lot more than just them.)
But with the way Bunny was looking up at him, hopeful and pleading and so, so sincere - he couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy.
(And hadn’t he said that he had an obligation to help her?)
“I’ll try,” he said finally, watching as all of the tension slipped out of Bunny’s shoulders. “But I don’t know what I can do. If it comes down to it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do anything to help.”
Bunny smiled up at him, practically beaming, and for a moment, the moon - high above the trees, just barely casting beams of light upon the forest floor - reflected so brightly in her eyes that Damien finally understood what that pizza song was about.
“I think you’ve done quite a lot already,” she whispered.
He didn’t get a chance to ask what she meant by that before she had turned around to head back to where her partner was sleeping soundly.