#tiny dragons

“Flutterfoxes were among the very first creatures seen in the final stretch. Some face the global climate change at the end of the hothouse better than others. Grassland-dwellers survive with ease, whereas forest-dependent species now struggle, with most unable to adapt to the flatlands and pressed into increasingly fragmented refuges. Now as plains expand across formerly wetland and jungle regions, pixies, whose ancestors recently flew over the seaway to the north, experience a population explosion as they follow the new grasslands far and wide over Serinarcta. It isn't the grass that they eat, nor its seeds. No, pixies are predators - fierce enemies of insects, such as crickets and the larvae of beetles, which eat the grasses. Each of these animals is a ravenous eater, able to consume more than its own body weight in prey each day. Yet as this tiny species of flutterfox weighs only .75 ounces - so small that three pixies could sit comfortably on one finger - the total quantity, per individual per day, is modest.

But pixies don't usually live alone. They are highly social, living in family groups which are nomadic, following temporary booms of insect numbers across the land. They are strong fliers, able to cross expanses of unsuitable habitat in search of food, but they forage near the ground. Climbing and clinging to the stalks of plants, they scour them root to shoot for bugs which they snatch in their narrow jaws and chew up well before swallowing. Feeding peaks at dawn and dusk, with the little creatures seeking shade at midday and roosting through much of the night, tightly bunched together in grassy tussocks near the ground.

Though an average pixie clan is three to ten animals, they are well-adapted to make the most of increasingly seasonal rains which can transform a dry plain into a meadow of green leaves and flowers in just a few days. As soon as rains begin, the pixies gather to breed explosively. They pair up and begin to weave complex basket-like balls of dried grass leaves suspended about 10 inches off the ground, intertwined with the living grasses. It is in these nests in which they raise their young. Pregnancy is just 19 days, with litters of up to eight young born naked, hairless, and no bigger than a lima bean. But the babies grow extraordinarily quickly as both their parents make non-stop fetch trips to collect caterpillar-like grubs and swarming winged crickets, which they chew, swallow, and regurgitate as a slurry which is easily eaten by the tiny kits.

Contemplating, really. There were a surplus of mystifying elements to consider as of late, especially now that he’d found out about Logan and Anxiety’s secret tryst.

(He was fairly certain that platonic cuddling between a repressed nerd and an awkward emo didn’t actually qualify as a tryst, but it sounded much more dramatic that way.)

He was no Logic, but as a charming and exceptional denizen of Thomas’s mind, he naturally had wits aplenty of his own.

And so arrived his realization: When it came to the puzzle that was his interactions with Anxiety the past few weeks, there was a pattern.

When Roman ran into the eyeliner-extraordinaire as himself, he was treated to the same prickly reception as always: Anxiety was a creepy, annoying asshole who loved to undermine Roman’s every idea and probably Thomas’s every happy thought, too.

The few occasions that he’d run into Anxiety in his cursed form, however, told a new story. One Roman had never heard before.

When faced with the tiny fire-breathing lizard version of Roman, Anxiety acted entirely differently. Instead of hunched shoulders and purposefully agitating smirks, he wore a casual, slouched posture and wry amusement— even when Roman was actively antagonizing him.

He didn’t act like a villain. When faced with what he believed to be a small, easily-conquered creature, Anxiety hadn’t taken the opportunity to attack, hurt, or even merely frighten him. Not even after Roman had bitten him.

Roman the Side, on the other hand, was given no such grace. He’d even tried to tone down his usual assertiveness in favor of a careful neutrality when running into Anxiety, curious about the strange truce Logan had formed with him, but to no avail.

Without the barrier of barbed bantering between them, Anxiety only seemed to grow more defensive and on-edge, paradoxically enough.

The answer was obvious: Anxiety must have some strange affinity for dragons.

It was the only possible explanation for Roman’s bizarre undersized form garnering a kinder welcome than Creativity, clearly the optimal being between the two. Anxiety simply had an affection for the sharp and scary, and a disdain for Disney Princes.

Of course, that didn’t explain the way he treated Patton with care when nobody was watching, or the lack of backstabbing he’d brought to the midnight cuddlefest. Thus, it all had to be part of some larger plot!

Roman wasn’t as experienced in predicting plotting, seeing as it wasn’t a particularly heroic activity.

Luckily, he had the perfect spy to send in to uncover the truth behind Anxiety’s more bewildering behavior: himself!

Thus, the next time Roman found himself with wings, scales, and a tail, he strode down the hall towards Anxiety’s room with confidence that was only a little faux.

He’d worried for a bit that it wasn’t a very gentlemanly thing to do, invading one’s privacy, but this particular opportunity had come about after a spectacular tiff between the two of them, and Roman found that his reservations had suddenly vanished.

Anxiety certainly hadn’t been holding back when he’d poked at Roman’s every sore spot in the brainstorming today. Roman wanted— no, needed to uncover the motives of his scheme, so he could go back to giving every argument his all too, without wondering how things might be different between them.

Anxiety’s room was usually sealed up tight, but occasionally he would leave it cracked, presumably because the sight of it sitting just slightly ajar at the shadowed end of the hall prompted exactly the sort of unease that he loved to inspire in everyone.

Fortune must have smiled on Roman today, for when he trotted closer, he found that the door was indeed not fully closed.

Taking a deep breath, Roman steeled himself and then headbutted the door firmly, pushing it the slightest bit further open so that he could wriggle his strange little wyrm-like body through.

It made a horrendous creaking sound, eliciting a wince from Roman but absolutely no response from the figure flopped over on the bed in the middle of the shadowed room.

Wary now, Roman crept forward bit by bit, until he spotted the outline of bulky headphones. So that was why his entrance had gone unnoticed by the twitchiest Side in the Mindscape.

Hesitant to grab Anxiety’s attention right away— he would have to be in a foul mood after their altercation today too, wouldn’t he?— Roman instead clambered up the side of a padded armchair, pausing to glance around at the rest of the room curiously.

For such a grimdark and gloomy guy, Anxiety certainly had excellent taste in Disney decor. He would love something like that Nightmare Before Christmas poster in his own room, perhaps an entire section of the wall dedicated to a collage of the more aesthetically appealing Disney classic poster— no, focus!

Shaking himself out of the theoretical redecorating, Roman leapt nimbly to the bedside table, flaring his wings slightly on instinct to muffle the impact of his landing.

When he turned to check that Anxiety was still unaware, however, the sight that greeted him was shocking enough to strike him dumb.

Anxiety’s eyes weren’t on him, because they were cinched tightly closed. He had both hands wound firmly into his hair, face twisted into a panicked grimace as he struggled to inhale a full lungful of air. His panic was practically tangible in the air— Roman felt his own heart rate begin to rise as though in empathy.

His startled question (“Are you okay?!”) came out as a warbling call, one that didn’t make it through the emo soundtrack blasting from those headphones.

After a brief moment of hesitation— why was he so nervous?— Roman made the short leap to the bed, landing with a slight pressure that instantly made Anxiety’s red-rimmed eyes shoot open.

He backpedaled slightly at the way Anxiety sat bolt upright, but in the next moment, the tension seemed to drain slightly from the other Side.

“Bitey,” he greeted, and the wobble in his voice was so alarming that Roman didn’t even snap his teeth in his usual protest of the nickname. “I don’t think you should— should be in here, bud. You may not be affected by the room itself, but I'm… I’m not great company right now.”

Roman kneaded the comforter beneath his talons for a moment indecisively, earning a shaky half-smile from Anxiety. It could be part of some larger plot, but… Roman was the most dedicated actor out of them all, and he didn’t feel like this was an act.

Carefully, his heart pounding in his ears, he crept forward and butted his head against Anxiety’s knee in a meagre attempt at comfort.

Anxiety let out a stuttering, painfully-shallow sounding exhale, and then reached down and picked him up, supporting him with the curve of one arm as he curled around Roman in an unmistakable hug.

The moment they made contact, Roman felt a burst of all-consuming panic that didn’t belong to him, spiked and piercing into every vulnerable bit until there wasn’t any calm left.

It was an echo, emotional feedback from the panic attack that Anxiety was having, and it was a perfect mirror of every fright and fear he’d faced while this size, all at once.

Oh. Oh.

Anxiety hadn’t been kind to him because of reptilian favoritism, after all. It was because he was more than familiar with the sort of flipped-beetle vulnerability that came with feeling afraid, the defensive bared teeth of the fight bit of fight-or-flight. He wasn’t just the cause of Thomas’s anxiety, he was the experience of anxiety itself.

That put… a lot of things into perspective, actually.

Roman pushed his head against Anxiety’s sternum, returning the hug as best he could.