(Untitled)

[goingtodorking]

Karen has been looking for Rollie all morning. She's got Josiah with her, dragging him along in his cart. She's been having a one-sided conversation abotu whether 'Josie' or 'Joe' or 'Joey' suits him best but, mostly, she's been doing it to cover her rising sense of panic. Ainsley disappeared and so did Shadow; Karen's old enough to know that

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[start_a_rumpus]

Max kind of likes this thing. This new weird thing with everyone. He saw a bunch of blue kids and people flying and all kinds of things. He's a little mad that he doesn't have anything, but it's okay. He doesn't want to be pink.

He's been fighting all kinds of demons and monsters today and is actually on a really important mission when he hears Karen crying. Girls ruin everything but she probably needs his protection.

That's before he sees the huge, gross pod thing.

"What is that?"

[goingtodorking]

She's actually relieved to see Max. A grown up might think that she was being silly, but Max is her own age and she's seen him cry lots of times so maybe he understands.

"I don't know," she says, studying the cocoon with a somewhat doubtful look. "But I think it maybe ate my dad."

[start_a_rumpus]

He blinks up for a few second, fighting the embarrassing urge to run away and find a grown up. Find Joe he thinks, painfully.

"Do we...I mean, we should get him out then, right? What if it's not him and it's really a huge blood sucking monster?"

[goingtodorking]

Karen wipes her face with both hands again and, without thinking, she slips her hand into Max's as they stand there. She studies the cocoon for a moment.

"Why would a huge blood sucking monster be in a cocoon in the clinic?"
To her, it makes perfect sense.

[endlessdel]

Something lurked at the corner of her eye, something terrible and beautiful but she didn't dare look. Her siblings surrounded her, changing shape and appearance like they had over time and changing colours. Del couldn't control it, the images but they kept coming forth. Something she could see but couldn't touch.

"Karen?" Del asked, placing a blue Daniel down on the ground and bending down to Karen who was crying. All the images, the people changed around her as she approached her into blue swirls and flowers and a pretty young girl who looked like Del but wasn't her. "Karen, what's the matter?"

[goingtodorking]

Delirium's surrounded by pretty things, shifting colours, but Karen barely takes any notice at all. She wipes her face again but, for now, she's focused on the cocoon. She tilts her head.

"I think something ate Rollie."

[endlessdel]

"Oh," Del said before turning her head to look at the cocoon. She'd been butterflies before, plural not singular, and it had been very confusing but she'd liked the cocooning bit. "Oh, oh, he's not eaten. He's made a cocoon, he's taking a nap to become something bigger and better. A butterly except I didn't think humans did that but maybe Rollie's do that."

Delirium nudged the cocoon. "Maybe he just needs to wake up."

[goingtodorking]

Everything's better now that there's a grown-up here, even if it's Delirium and, sometimes, she's strange in the same way that Karen is. Even so, Karen slips her hand into Delirium's and squeezes.

"How do we wake him up?"

[giftless]

Edmund was, for the most part, thoroughly amused with how the day was sorting itself out. He hadn't woken up with any special powers himself, which usually would be a blessing, but as he walked along he wondered what he would have gotten, how he would have used it, and all the other sort of things that young men dream about. (Mostly, how cool he would have looked if he could fly.)

When he saw Karen, however, some of that good mood diminished, replaced by a rather brotherly sense of concern. And wary curiosity about the giant growth that had attached itself to the clinic. "Karen?" he called, coming closer. "I wouldn't touch that. Do you know what it is?"

[goingtodorking]

"I think it's Rollie," she says, tears still shining on her face even though her expression has turned my thoughtful than anything. She bites her lips and frowns, gives the cocoon a more deliberate push.

"Maybe it ate him."

[giftless]

"Karen," he said again, a warning in his tone this time, and he reached out to keep her hands away from the object. "Don't. You don't know what it is."

Saying that, however, only reminded Edmund that he did not know what it was either, and that perhaps they would need to do some poking to figure it out. "Why do you think it's Rollie?"

[goingtodorking]

"I just do," she says, looking up at him. "It's in the clinic. Who else would it be?" She slips her hand into his and squeezes. "What if he never comes back?"

[not_the_s]

"Karen?" Kon frowns when he sees the girl. He doesn't know her well, but he does know her and he's never liked seeing a little girl - even if she is older than he is - upset. She's poking some...some thing and he doesn't know what it is except that it looks like some kind of giant cocoon. That's never a good thing.

"You okay? Anything I can do?"

[goingtodorking]

"I think it ate Rollie," she says, frowning, still studying it, her head tilted on one side. She's cared, but she's not going anywhere.

"I can't find him and I think he's in there."

[not_the_s]

"Ooookay," Kon says slowly. He eyes the cocoon warily. "Then we have to get him out of there, right? Or else...well, the island is doing funny things. Don't you usually have to wait for butterflies to hatch?"

[goingtodorking]

"Sometimes?" says Karen, with her nose wrinkled. "But he's not a butterfly. He's a doctor. And he's kind of my Dad. What if he never comes out?"