Reunion

“Crisis? Is that really you?”

Crisis looked to the source of the sound, her face brightening with joy as she saw the woman. “Milly! It’s so nice to see you again!”

As they embraced in greeting, Crisis was very careful to stay still, to avoid jostling her passengers around. A jolt of pain still went through Beth’s injured leg, however.

“Where have you been all this time? And who are your new friends?”

“Some crazy human sorcerer turned me into a human and sent me to Earth. I guess it was trying to get revenge on me… but I’m back now. Subeta saved me. As for these two…”

She gestured to the human and neko on her shoulder. “The human is Beth. She’s my friend from Earth. We went to school together. Be careful with her, she’s injured.”

“Yeah, and whose fault is that,” thought Beth, but she didn’t feel comfortable voicing it aloud.

“Beth, this is Milly!”

Beth looked up to see Milly smiling at her. She couldn’t handle talking to these monsters right now. “Hi.” she stated flatly.

“The neko is just food. I’m just a little bit too full for it right now. You can have it if you want!”

Beth sat bolt upright. She tensed, she wanted to say something, but no words came to mind. The neko didn’t even react.

“Thanks, but I’m kind of full too. Why don't you come by my place? I’ve got cages to store food for later. I’ve even got some human first-aid kits, so we can help out our friend there.”

Beth had an ugly suspicion about how this hunter-gatherer giantess had come across human first-aid kits. But she really did need to stabilize her leg, and it’s not as though using them would cause any further harm, she thought. She didn’t want to have to rely on some makeshift cast made of leaves.

It was a fairly short walk to the giantess’ hut. Crisis knew Milly never wandered far from her home, as she was protecting the Alsumis, a tribe of tomthumbs who lived underneath, from any nekos who might want to snack on them.

“It’s been rough for my tomthumbs since you’ve been gone,” explained Milly on the way. “There are a lot more nekos around here now. It’s getting harder for me to protect them. Some keep getting stolen. I was never able to hunt nearly as many nekos as you, Crisis. I’m so glad you’re back.”

In other words, thought Beth, Crisis single handedly made this entire area less inhabitable. At least, less inhabitable for nekos and humans. These “tomthumbs” seemed to benefit from having her around.

Beth sighed. This whole thing was such an ethical nightmare. How was she even supposed to begin to make sense of a situation as messed up as this?

“On the plus side, that means I probably won’t be hungry for a while yet! That explains where all those nekos came from! I’ll bet there’ll be plenty more where they came from!”

Beth looked over at the neko woman to see if the casual mention of genocide against her people had any impact on her. It seemed the woman was beyond caring, though. She just kept sitting there, the same glazed expression on her face. To be fair, Beth couldn’t really do anything better either.

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Milly chuckled a bit. “Guess so! It’ll be nice to relieve the pressure on my Alsumis a bit.”

They arrived at the hut, which was either gigantic or small, depending on your perspective. As they entered, Milly took the neko off Crisis’ shoulder and put her into a cage hanging from the ceiling. The cage’s other occupant, a man in worn adventuring gear, yelled and shook at the bars as she did this.

Beth shuddered. She could hardly imagine the horror of being trapped in there for days, knowing full well that you would be eaten alive soon and there was no way out.

“Now that I think of it, I thought you’d stopped storing prey like that,” said Crisis, puzzled.

“Yeah, I stopped for a while. But mostly just because Isham didn’t like it. A while after he moved out, I started doing it again. I guess I could keep honoring his wishes, but it’s just so nice to not feel like I have to eat all the prey I catch immediately, to have a store in case the garden or the hunt dries up one day. I figure, what Isham doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? I just don’t like wasting food, you know?” The man in the cage yelled something unintelligible in response.

“I can definitely understand that. I don’t like wasting food either,” said Crisis, gently setting Beth down on the table.

Milly searched her shelves for a bit, retrieving five different first-aid kits. They looked comically tiny as she held all of them in one hand, then set them down next to Beth. They were all different from each other: different sizes, shapes, colors, and even language. She opened all of them and looked through the contents for anything useful. Many of the things inside were strange devices she couldn’t recognize. She didn’t dare touch any chemicals, as none of them were labelled in a language she could read.

Finally, she found what she was looking for: a self-applied leg cast. She grunted as she applied it. In retrospect, she probably should have tried to improvise one herself a while ago. Her leg had been moving around far too much, and she was concerned that there might be some permanent damage. She supposed that was something to worry about later. Crisis’ friendship was far, far more essential to her survival here than any of her limbs.

They could see out the window that the day was beginning to draw to a close. Crisis yawned. “It’s been a crazy day. I think I’m going to get some sleep. I’d prefer to sleep outside. It’s been nice meeting up again, Milly.”

“Crisis? Can I sleep in that cage?”

“Huh? That cage is for food, Beth. I guess you could sleep there, since Milly knows you aren’t to be eaten. But I mean… I wouldn’t advise getting too attached to those humans.”

“All the same… I’d like to be up there.”

“Alright then. Milly, is that okay with you?”

“Sure, I guess. Can I pick you up?” she asked politely.

Beth sighed. “Go ahead. Just be careful of my leg, okay?”

“Understood.” She picked up Beth in one hand, and one of her makeshift human beds in the other, putting both of them in the cage and locking the door.

“Good night, Beth. I hope you sleep well.” Crisis waved goodbye, then slithered out the door. Milly looked in at her, smiling. “Good night, to all of you! It was nice to meet you, Beth. I hope we can get to know each other better. But for now, I’d better get some sleep as well.”

After Milly lay down in her bed, the human in the cage with her scoffed. “Bullshit. If she wanted us to have a good night, she wouldn’t fucking eat us.” Beth lightly nodded in agreement, then looked over at the neko woman. She was sitting at the edge of the cage, dangling her legs out between two gaps in the bars, staring out the window at the seemingly endless expanse of forest.

Beth figured they wouldn’t be going to sleep anytime soon, so they might as well have a long conversation. It was likely to be their last.

She gently put her hand on the neko woman’s shoulder. “Hey,” she said softly. “I just realized I never asked you for your name. I guess I was just distracted by the situation. And I’m really sorry I yelled at you before. I was just so shocked. I’m sure you must be even more shocked.”

She sighed and turned her head to face Beth. “That’s alright. It’s not like any of that matters anyway. My name is Rose.”