Illegal Immigrant CH20 - Dumb and Difficult (Patreon)

20 - Dumb and Difficult

“...Where are we going?” Dawn finally mumbled over Katherine’s shoulder. It was a fair question. After all, with the way she was being held and carried, all Dawn could see were the places they had been rather than the ones they were headed to.

“We need to go to the break room. There’s a fridge that has the lunch I made for us in there,” Katherine explained as they walked, and Dawn had the misfortune of seeing the Amazons that had amassed while she spent the early day in total confinement. All of them, teasing her so unfairly. They didn’t give her looks, wave or say anything, but their hands carried books, thin and thick, wide and slim, fingering through pages just to tease the poor girl.

“I’m not hungry…” Dawn moped, only with an appetite for reading that she’d never get to satisfy. Had Katherine not made her agree to some stupid, pointless promise, the tiny girl would be leveraging their agreement to let her see some of the other books right about now.

“You’re gonna eat something…” Katherine calmly insisted, shuffling the Little sitting on her arm just a bit. “I know I didn’t pack you any snacks?”

“I still don’t wanna eat…” Dawn mumbled again. Knowing Katherine, it was either going to be some horrendously spicy food, or…or eggs, even? An egg salad? Something just to grind the girl’s gears. Everything just put her off to everything. Especially the warm feeling from her underwear. Underwear she couldn’t do anything about. But it wasn’t going to keep her from trying. Even if it was futile, it was still the principle. “I want to go change.”

“We’ll change you in a little bit, okay? Maybe after lunch.”

“Why just ‘maybe’?” Dawn sulked, “Why do you have to say it like it might not happen?”

“Because, Dawn, we can’t bring your entire nursery everywhere we go? I only brought so many of your diapers, sweetie.”

“Please…” After just being graciously rescued from one tyrant, the Little being carried right then wasn’t looking to totally sour the mood with the other. “I don’t wanna argue…I don’t need diapers…I’m not gonna go through however many you brought…!”

“I don’t want to make you upset either,” Katherine insisted as she rubbed the back of the girl’s head. “Okay, I promise we’ll change you after lunch. Deal?”

“...Fine.” Hollow victories.

At some point they reached a door, not that Dawn would know other than through audible cues. A digital beep of some kind and one turn of a door handle later and the pair were in a different room set aside from the public sphere.

“Oh hey Katherine!” A woman called, and Dawn just tried to admire the decor. Even their break rooms had just as much time and money spent on the design like the front end of things. Expensive looking ceiling designs with intricate wooden fixtures, polished tiled floors, and even beds of fresh greens to liven things up…

“Hi Lucy! Coffee time?”

“Coffee time…!” The Amazon sighed back, sharing in a mutual understanding. “I swear, it’s starting to become my vice… Can you believe that there’s Littles who drink this too? Well, once they can though, it’s mostly cream and sugar at that point!”

I use cream and sugar… Dawn looked bitter, but kept her voice down, trying to remember what a supposed blessing it was just to be here and not with Dayna.

“Mm…I don’t think I could handle mine tasting sweet,” Katherine agreed, but there was no slight or mocking comment.

And just when things felt as normal as they could get, “Oh! Oh my gosh! Is that your new daughter!?”

“Yep she is!” Katherine replied chipperly, and Dawn reclining herself a bit more could watch the fridge open from the corner of her eye. “Her name’s Dawn.”

“Well hi there, Dawn!” Lucy, a fellow coworker of Katherine’s pivoted around to a spot where Dawn couldn’t do anything but look at the woman. Her smile was wide and her cheeks were rosy. It was like another Dayna.

“Hi.” Dawn waved, then went mute again.

“Not so chatty, huh?” Lucy sounded like she was keeping the indifference in stride.

“It’s her first time here, so she’s a little shy…” Katherine explained apologetically, but the woman was already waving it off.

“No, no worries! Are you having lunch already?”

“Yes, we are,” Katherine nodded, and once she had whatever she needed, the door was closed. “It was my first time leaving her with someone else, so I think I missed her a little too much…” And maybe it was just playing things up to Lucy, but Dawn felt Katherine’s affectionate squeeze with her final words.

“Oh, Dayna? She’s on diaper duty today, isn’t she?”

Diaper duty…at least this one doesn’t try to make it sound like anything that it isn’t.

“She’s running the corner today, yeah. I just picked Dawn up from there, actually.”

“I’m sure she’s excited to be on vacation after today. Did Dawn get to hear any fun stories?”

“I…actually didn’t get the chance to ask her yet,” Katherine paused for a second, and Dawn hoped it would stay at that. “Did she read anything fun, Dawn?”

And just like that, the spotlight was on her. Not just Katherine, but another coworker now too.

“We read about frogs…” Frogs. Froggies, and all their friends in the pond. Stupid smiling faces about learning what all the other imaginary animals and insects do in their habitat. Call her a skeptic, and maybe just ignorant of the way animals live their lives in this dimension, but somehow Dawn still doubted that ducks mingled with playing cards.

“Ooou~!” Lucy wow’ed, slipping her eyes from Dawn and up to her guardian like they were trying to appeal to the excitement in the girl that didn’t exist. “That sounds cool! I know we have lots of stories about animals, so I think you’re gonna have a lot of fun here!”

“She really likes to read, actually,” Katherine included, and Dawn just wanted them to leave. If only she could say that without being chastised for being “rude.”

“Really? So like Mommy, like daughter, huh?” Lucy quipped, then laughed. “That’s so cute!” Cute? It was cute? Then did that mean Amazons liking to read was cute? Or was it for them somehow dignified? Intriguing? Fascinating? Something more than what Dawn got, surely. Fuck, the most it ever could be was cute, assuming what she had for reading variety now was all that she ever got. How badly she wanted to go home. Her actual home.

“And I promised her we were gonna go look at some books after we eat, so I’m sorry to cut this short…!” Katherine apologized, and Lucy only laughed.

“No, no! Go, go! I’m so sorry for butting in! Bye Dawn, it was nice meeting you!”

Thankfully, they were gone and moving elsewhere. They left with a lunch in hand, but now a nugget of confusion was sprouting in Dawn’s head.

“...Hey,”

“Hm?” Katherine rubbed her back.

“Are…are we really looking at the books?”

“After we eat?” Katherine cocked her head a little closer. “You’ll need to eat something if you want to, though.”

“...But I didn’t keep my promise…” Behave and find a book to tell Katherine about. That was the deal, as dumb as the second half was. So was the first, but it was more reasonable than telling the girl to get down and dig deep through a sea of sewage misunderstood as reading material.

“But you tried, didn’t you?” Katherine reminded, striking a weird chord with the girl. “I wish you could have behaved the whole time, but I know this is a lot for you…so I can be patient. As long as you’re trying.”

Trying felt wrong to say, or at least Dawn didn’t want to admit to anything like it. She wasn’t trying to accept any of this. She wasn’t trying to deal with diapers or submit herself to so many attacks of embarrassment and humiliation. She was just trying to bide her time. She wasn’t behaving, she was just enduring. What mattered most was being true to herself, but hearing the way others saw it from the outside looking in didn’t feel great either…

“Besides, it sounds like you found a story you liked, right? If you eat your lunch we can look for something about frogs?”

“I don’t like frogs,” Dawn admitted in a burst of honesty. “We just had to listen to a stupid story about them… Some other person liked them. That’s the only reason why…”

“Yeah? Why didn’t you like the story? Because you don’t like frogs?”

“No,” Dawn stressed, “I-I didn’t not like it because of frogs! It’s because it was just…just some boring story that you read to kids! It wasn’t advanced; there wasn’t any substance! That’s all those books! Just…just mindless, pointless words on paper…”

“Uh-huh?” Katherine nodded and listened, surprisingly, and Dawn was half expecting the admonishment that never came. “We’ll find something you like, I’m sure. And I’m sure it’s not all bad? Don’t worry, I can be a picky reader, too!” Katherine chuckled, and Dawn hung in her arms with just as little hope as she had a few seconds before. Holding out hope for anything in that tiny prison was nothing but a fool’s errand. Trying to convince any Amazon of that was impossible. Dawn liked reading, but maybe Katherine wasn’t seeing it that way. It was just Dawn who likes “reading.” Reading as much as “coloring” is when you let a toddler scribble inside, around and outside the lines.

“Where are we going now?” Dawn finally pressed on Katherine’s shoulder just to sit herself up in her arm to look around. With jealousy and envy, she spotted tables off to the sides, spotted with folks in chairs, quietly absorbing enjoyment, entertainment and information from pages and pages of the deemed forbidden fruit for Littles. Some had computers out. Laptops and phones. Notebooks and pencils and pens… Some were students, maybe? Just like…Dawn.

“Remember that big tree you saw from the car?” Katherine rubbed her shoulder, “I wanted to take you there. They have tables we can eat at.”

“You let people eat here, too?” Dawn asked with a sideways look. If she wasn’t attacking it from that angle, she’d be far too pissed about Amazons not only being the only ones allowed access to real books, but to even risk food and drinks near them as well. Meanwhile, Littles were discounted for simply being too small.

“Yes, but not while they’re reading. That’s a very important rule,” Katherine explained carefully, despite there not being much to say.

And while they walked, or rather, Katherine walked them both, Dawn was unfortunate enough to witness some folks who didn’t rely on the Library’s endless services so heavily. With an uneasy feeling in her stomach, she watched one Amazon in particular, quiet and focused on her reading, pausing just to scribble something here or there in her adjacent notebook. And yet, all the while using her foot like a pendulum, quietly and slowly pushing a stroller back and forth. Inside it was of course a man, not a boy, gagged by a pacifier with shut eyes, hiding under some stupid, soft-looking blanket covered in trucks and cars.

Christ, it actually looked like he was sleeping. Slumbering. Like it was somehow normal. Like he could be at ease enough to actually fall asleep in a public place. Like it didn’t matter that his entire life was over likely before it’d even reached the halfway point. Like…!

“--Look, Dawn, see?”

In spite of seeing the horror stained in her vision, blinking once was enough to wash the echoed horror out of her eyes. There it was, the tree. Sitting on a large oasis of bright green grass on a short, sloping hill, the centerpiece was a massive tree made up of girthy and thick, winding roots that skidded across the surface before disappearing into the ground. The only separation between what was natural and manmade was a circle of large, uniform stones establishing the perimeter.

A dense shade was offered by the overarching head of leaves supported by countless branches, but allowing slivers of sunlight to slip on through. Folks were chatting and eating, just like Katherine said. There weren’t any Littles in this spot though, thank goodness. Just to watch someone so…complacently suffering was enough to make the girl’s blood boil and her mind to panic. And yet while the living nightmares were dotted all around her, at least she had a pretty tree to look at.

“I still can’t believe we have this here…!” Katherine marveled at the sight. It was more than double her height, which meant Dawn was but a mere fraction to it. “What do you think? Isn’t it pretty?”

“Mm…” Dawn nodded, keeping her feelings reserved. She wanted to believe that even a place like this couldn’t pervert nature itself, but operating on assumptions so far had only shocked the girl even more when supposed absolute truths were nothing more than fallacies.

“Did you wanna pick where we sit?” Katherine offered, and Dawn, far from wanting the opportunity, pointed off to a corner anyway with at least some kind of sculpture as a usable privacy shade. As a bonus, it left at least a full table’s width from any others that were sitting there.

“Is…is it okay for you to be eating out here?” Normal people were nearby, either eating or reading, but normal people meant a public place. Wasn’t it weird for a worker to be eating in the same space? Separation of spheres, or something?

“It’s okay, we’re allowed,” Katherine assured. And without asking, Katherine took her seat, meaning Dawn took hers as well. Right on her lap.

“Are there…any…higher chairs?” Dawn carefully asked, but it didn’t change how heavily she was toeing the line. Two letters less and Katherine probably would’ve been overjoyed to hear such a question.

“Sorry, sweetheart, we don’t have chairs here like the one you have at home,” an apologetic explanation came, and Dawn’s modicum of hope had gone. “Is it okay if you sit in my lap?”

“...Uh-huh.” There was hardly anything else to say. If she refused there wouldn’t be an alternative. Katherine would be put into a difficult situation. As appealing as that was, it meant delaying Dawn’s food, and no food meant no books; the one reason for experiencing all this suckiness.

So she sat in her lap, watching all the luggage unload on the table. First was the diaper bag, then it was slid to the side. Next though were a couple plastic containers and a bottle of water. An Amazon bottle of water. No nipple to go with it.

“And I made sure to keep one cold for you too,” the Amazon added as Dawn watched a baby bottle descend from the heavens, loaded with more of the same juice she’d been getting all day, only freshly chilled now.

“...Thank you,” and Dawn accepted the drink just to keep her hands full with an excuse to do nothing else. And dare she ask, “What did you bring?”

“I made a…salad! And a sandwich, too. You can share with me.”

One lid after another came off, and true to Katherine’s words, Dawn could see what looked like greens in one container and bread in the other. The sandwich came out first though, which was an uncanny similarity Dawn could remember, albeit much bigger than the one she was served.

“This is the one I made you yesterday. You liked it, right?”

Like was a very strong word. Her body simply needed food. Sustenance. Energy because she didn’t have a deathwish and believed in at least living just to reach the other side. “Yeah…it’s fine.”

That was more than enough for Katherine to bring the food to her mouth, and Dawn finally bit off a corner. True to her word, it had the same taste, albeit slightly more bitter than she remembered.

“It’s not too much, is it?” Katherine was already asking the same time a surprise napkin wiped away the imaginary crumbs off Dawn’s face. “I put a little seasoning on mine…” she said in an almost apologetic voice.

“It’s…” Dawn choked down a small cough, “fine,” and then took a swig of her cold juice to wash it down.

“Once it’s time to go food shopping, I’ll make sure we get some stuff you’ll wanna eat, okay?” Then Katherine took a bite herself. “I’ll need to remember to ask James about getting you some of those Little Lunches…”

“I don’t need anything special, this is fine,” Dawn tried to insist. The moment she found something livable was the same time she sought for the status quo. Nothing more needed to change or slip further than it already had.

“You don’t need to be so reserved, honey? We just want you to have some things that you’d like too?”

“And I like this sandwich, so it’s fine. I don’t need anything else.” Dawn spoke firmly, and Katherine didn’t push. Not any more than offering her an occasional bite from the shrinking sandwich.

“Can I have some of the salad, too?” Dawn asked of her own accord, purely for the sake of variety. She looked up at the fork moving to and from the food and Katherine’s mouth, all above her as the motions ensued.

“You can try it?” Katherine accepted, somewhat. It was a loaded answer with lingering effects and conditions. “I think there’s a dressing on this you’re gonna think is yucky, honey…”

And Dawn, just as ignorant and stubborn as ever, insisted, “I’ll be fine.”

Just like breakfast that morning, Katherine fed her a bite with a fork held out to her mouth. With a small bushel of greens, sliver of onion and chunk of tomato, all dressed in some kind of unifying substance, Dawn took the mouthful and swallowed.

Her face felt like it was imploding. Her lips were folding in and the prickly, sour, bitter taste was traveling up and down her system like a frantic chicken with its head cut off. The only thing keeping her in Katherine’s lap was the very Amazon’s arm around her stomach.

“Drink your juice, sweetie?” Katherine helpfully reminded, and not a second later and the girl was self-soothing her tongue with cold, refreshing fruit-like juice.

“Wh-why is all your stuff so bitter? And so…so spicy?” Dawn tiredly complained, taking another bite of sandwich as she started to feel bitter herself. “You people even make your food to discriminate against Littles?”

“Dawn, it’s just what Amazons like? We like sour and bitter stuff. Just how Littles like sweet things?”

It was a pointless discussion because that’s the only place it could have gone, and Katherine skipped right to the end. Instead Dawn was watching the tree, angling her head up high just to see the entirety of it.

“Do you like it?” Katherine smiled down at her.

“It’s…whatever,” Dawn turned her head away sheepishly. “You must, though?” After all, Dawn spent last night briefly on the back deck while Katherine watered her garden.

“I like it a lot!” The Amazon answered honestly and without reservation. “You know, if I could, I’d want one just like it at our house. I’d want it right in the center of the backyard, too.”

“And do what with it, just look at it?” Dawn, a person hardly of greens, but not a denier of their use, openly debated. “Wouldn’t it like…suck up all the nutrients, or something?” That was common sense, right?

“That’s a very good point,” Katherine complimented the thought with a rub on her head. “But there’s plenty of food for all the plants and a tree. That’s a little silly though, huh? Even plants need to eat, too.”

“Yeah, like photosynthesis. I know.”

“Uh-huh, very good,” Katherine praised her again, despite Dawn not looking for any of it. “But they need more than just the sun, you know? Flowers, veggies, trees, and everything else that lives in the ground also has roots. You know how trees have branches?” she pointed out all the forking limbs of thinner and thinner wood, “Imagine all that, but also in the ground! They’re like a bunch of straws that like to suck up the water in the ground and other yummy stuff that they need to grow. Does that make sense?”

Yeah. I know already. “Yeah. It does.”

“I like growing all sorts of stuff.”

“For free food?” Dawn could at least see the use in that.

“Mmm…maybe!” Katherine laughed, “I never thought of it like that! It doesn’t have to be something we can eat, though. I like big plants, small plants, colorful ones and silly ones. As long as I get to start with the seed.”

“Why just the seed?” If memory served, Dawn could always remember her mom getting flowers, though that just meant bringing back pre-grown ones from the store just to plop in the dirt. Did they even do much growing after that? It definitely didn’t make much sense to her, but everyone had their hobbies… Katherine included.

“...Because that way I get to grow it all on my own,” Katherine spoke, and Dawn could hear the smile. “It’s a very good feeling when you can raise something, because you get to see them from start to finish. Going from just a seed, and then a little bit of green…getting bigger and bigger…until tiny buds start to form, and blossom into lots of pretty flowers.”

“So you just like the process?”

“Kind of!” Katherine smiled, then put them both through the motions of taking another bite. “All the plants in the garden need a little bit of care and love for them to grow big and strong. They can’t get all the water they need on their own, so that’s my job. Sometimes there can be bugs or weeds that can make them feel sick, so then it’s up to me to fix them and make them feel all better.”

Dawn took another swig from her bottle. “Sounds like a lot of work.”

The Amazon holding her chuckled as her first response.

“It is a bit of work, but if anything is worth doing, then it won’t be easy.”

Well, not exactly. Dawn could think of a million different things worth doing that were in fact easy. Case and point, brushing your teeth every night and day. So simple, yet it saves your teeth from a lifetime of dental issues…

“...Dawn?”

Odd. The pause there was before speaking put the Little a bit on edge. “...Yeah?”

“Can we talk about what happened with Dayna, now?”

Ugh. And just like that, the next forced bite of Katherine’s sandwich felt just a bit more bitter.

Dawn was brief and fast, just so she could fill her mouth with juice. “It’s her fault, not mine. I did what I was supposed to.”

“Honey, I’m not mad… I just want to understand what happened?”

Finally, for once, Dawn could see the most obvious trap if there ever was one. Maybe she wasn’t mad, and maybe she was speaking calmly and soothingly, but that didn’t change the certainty there’d be consequences anyway. Punishment was sure to follow for telling the truth. Undoubtedly. Call her a coward, but the thought of another spanking made the girl visibly uncomfortable.

It was a trap, definitely, but Dawn was supposed to talk. She was supposed to tell her story. Share her frustrations, and just thinking of them was getting her riled up again. “She…she just kept…getting in the way!”

“Mhm? How was she doing that?” It was a neutral question, completely without any indication whether she felt differently or not. As far as Dawn could tell, she really did have the entire floor.

“Just…the way she talked to me. The stuff she made me do…! Did you not tell me to go looking for a book to read, or something?!”

“I did,” Katherine nodded, agreeing simply.

“Well Dayna didn’t get that I guess. You…you gave her all that stuff in that bag, and she wouldn’t stop bothering me! As soon as I’m reading, she makes me take some juice that I didn’t even ask for! And after she gives it to me, she says, ‘You can have food or drinks with a book’!’” Dawn scoffed with a pissy look. “She GAVE me a drink just to force me to stop reading!”

“Do you think she may have thought you were just thirsty?”

“I–I don’t know? But it doesn’t even matter! Because she kept doing it! And then I started to say ‘no,’ but she wouldn’t listen to me! She wouldn’t take that as an answer! She…she just kept holding you over my head! Like she was gonna tell you what a brat I was being, or something! A-and wait, that’s not even everything she did!” She was on a streak and her memory was flipping stones in a flurry of residual rage.

“Okay…take your time. I’m listening,” Katherine said as Dawn was too driven to even care about the hand on her back.

“There was some ki–... There was another person who showed up when I was reading; some…some Little,” it felt wrong to say. Horrible, but in what other way could she communicate it without giving in to what these people wanted? What, call her a fucking kid? “There…a Little was bothering me. She kept talking to me and trying to get me to do stuff…!”

“Were you nice to her?”

“Yes! I was nice! I even went to the corner just so no one would bother me! But she said Dayna told her to come over! She made her walk over to me just to bother me!”

“Dawn, maybe Dayna just wanted to help you make a playmate?” The Amazon softly reasoned.

“No! Because I told Dayna that I didn’t want to be bothered! I just wanted to be left alone! But she kept doing stuff! She…she even touched me!”

“Touch…?” Katherine’s voice was slow and hesitant. “She…touched you?”

“Yes! When she wasn’t supposed to! You said you were gonna check on me. But she did it anyway! She kept grabbing my–the stupid diaper! She pulled down my pants and just did whatever she wanted! Like it didn’t even matter what I said or did!”

“Sweetie, when you say ‘touch’, you mean when she checked your diaper, right?”

“Yes!” Christ, Katherine, what else could it mean?!

A was low and quiet, but a sigh left the Amazon’s mouth. “O…okay. She checked your diaper and you weren’t comfortable with that, right?”

“No, I wasn’t! And aren’t you too?” It sucked appealing to her on whims and means that Dawn denied and was against, but she needed support. She needed to be justified. “Didn’t you say that only people we trust can do that stuff? I don’t trust her! Not now and not ever!”

“Dawn…Dayna is someone I’ve worked with for a long time now? She’s safe to trust.”

“Well she isn’t!” Dawn huffed and crossed her arms. “She was being…ugh, so manipulative! She was making me do stuff just so she could make me do other things! She gave me juice so I couldn’t read, then used that as an excuse just to get me sitting in some stupid story time circle! Then she promised I could go back after the story, but then just tried to give me another bottle! She didn’t listen! Nobody listens!”

“I’m listening right now, aren’t I?” Katherine leaned over just to get her head a bit closer.

“Maybe…but is that gonna change anything? It doesn’t make me any more right, does it? Are you gonna go ask Dayna what happened next? Because whatever she says has more credibility than me, right?”

Frustration was a good motivator for the stomach, because Dawn was already reaching for another bite.

“Honey, you need to know that what you have to say always matters, okay? It matters to me and James. Just like what you’re saying right now matters.”

“And that’s the problem! You…you and James can say whatever you want, fine,” it was a whole other issue entirely, “but what happens when I’m around someone like Dayna? What happens when she doesn’t care about what I say?”

“I’m positive she cared, Dawn. Dayna was just doing what anyone would? It’s our job to take care of you guys when you’re there?”

“Even if I don’t consent to it? Even when I tell her not to?!”

“It’s because she’s not just going to ignore you, Dawn? What if something happened? What if you got hurt, or you needed a grownup to take care of something?”

“Then I would take care of it myself!” Dawn raised her voice, and a hand on her shoulder brought the levels right down. “So what, she gets in trouble if I don’t let her baby me? She was doing stuff you were gonna do! I could have asked you for a drink when you came by! I would have said I needed to change when it was your break! She had no business and didn’t care that I told her not to!”

“And you’d really want to be in a wet diaper until I came and checked in on you?”

“N-no! Don’t twist it like that!” Dawn cried, “It’s not the same and you know it! I already said I don’t trust her, and no one is allowed to touch me or…or change me!”

“But how about when I change you?”

“I don’t want that either! But I can’t stop you, and there’s no one that can stop you from doing that to me…! So…at least with someone else, there’s supposed to be you that can stop it from happening…” It always sucked. It fucking sucked so much to keep on confronting the same, undying sense of helplessness. It wouldn’t die because as long as she was stuck here, that feeling would be validated. The only sense of empowerment she could have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting was by living vicariously through the Amazons that’d kidnapped her. It was supposed to be them that put a stop to the injustices committed against her, so what was the point if they listened to outside opinions first and foremost before their very own captive? The one that they “swore” to protect?

And maybe it was late, and it certainly wasn’t needed, but both Amazon arms came around Dawn, pulling her against Katherine’s torso.

“I know it feels tough…I know it’s scary being in a new place with new people, but I promise you, Dawn, I wouldn’t ever put you in a place that I didn’t feel comfortable with. I know we made a promise, and it makes me really happy how you were trying so hard to keep it, you know?”

Happy, great. It didn’t change the fact what things had become, though.

“But as much as that makes me happy, I don’t want you to make trouble for others because of it, okay?”

It felt like a harsh one-eighty, which is why Dawn spun her head up with an incredulous look. “But–!” Dawn tried to speak, but Katherine calmly continued. It wasn’t even a rude interruption, it was simply the woman speaking with such inertia that the Little felt compelled to go quiet.

“I think Dayna just really wanted you to fit in, sweetie. She wanted you to make a friend, feel included, and have a good time? Would you ever want someone you’re looking after to feel sad or left out?”

“No, I wouldn’t, but this is different than that!” Dawn wanted to be left alone! And great, what an opportune moment where she could have pointed that out, but just missed.

“And Dawn, be honest with me: were you using bad words?”

“N-no! I–”

“Dawn?” Katherine interrupted, much more sternly. “Don’t make me turn you around to look up at me. Answer honestly. Were you using bad words?”

She…she wasn’t! She didn’t say anything bad! No fuck, no shit, no ass, no nothing of the sort that she’d been reprimanded for so many times already! What was this, coercing a false confession? There was no crime, yet Katherine talked like it was certain. Like…like Dayna could only speak in absolute truths.

“I…I said stupid! That’s all I said! I didn’t swear! Not since…not since last night!”

“Dawn…no bad words means no bad words,” Katherine emphasized with disappointment.

“It doesn’t count!” Dawn legitimately whined. “I did what you told me! Why can’t I even say that? What, can I not say ‘dumb’ either? Is that too much of a bad word?”

“If you know that it’s a mean thing to say, you shouldn’t be saying it at all,” Katherine softly scolded. “I’m very proud that you did stop saying so many naughty things, but I know you can do better, sweetie? I know that you have so many nice things to say?”

The disconnect couldn’t have felt any greater, because Dawn most certainly did not have anything nice to say. Whatsoever. Henceforth she wouldn’t be saying anything at all, apparently. Her language had been thoroughly policed once already and now it was time for crackdown number two. How unfair. How so unbelievably un-fucking fair.

“I’m not mad, and you’re not in trouble, but we’re not putting up with bad behavior anymore, Dawn. Do I make myself clear?”

“It’s… Fine! Yes! You do! But why do I have to get in trouble for doing what I’m told?”

“Because, Dawn, if James and I aren’t there, then you need to listen to the grownup in charge. Even if we make a promise, that doesn’t give you an excuse to misbehave or backtalk.”

It was all just framing. She was being framed for crimes she didn’t commit. It was all for the sake of self-defense and preservation. And it sucked, just to think for even a fraction of a second that Katherine was on Dawn’s side. And yet, even with them alone in just the company of themselves, the woman still wouldn’t crack under the many fallacies that Dawn just couldn’t shine a light on. “So…so even if I think it’s a bad idea. If it’s something that’ll hurt me, you still want me to listen? You still want me to just give in?”

And a pair of lips pressed against the top of her head, right before hearing, “James and I will never put you in a situation like that. Just listen and behave, okay?”

“I’m done eating…” Dawn moped, crossing her arms one last time.

“Okay,” and Katherine graciously moved on, “Drink your juice while I finish my food, okay? Then we’ll go look at some books.”

And again, Dawn felt that the chance had somehow been squandered by their little heated debate, yet apparently not. Katherine didn’t seem to let grudges linger, not nearly as long as they admittedly did with Dawn. By the time the Amazon could be as cool as a cucumber, Dawn would still be trying to stomach the frustration and negative feelings, much less truly start to digest them. Her frame of mind was still stuck in a bitter place that would never be so gracious to herself like Katherine was being.

She knew she was in the right, and Dayna was wrong. Katherine was misguided, but she was wrong about so many other things too. And yet, Dawn couldn’t seem to reason with any of that. Dawn just didn’t understand. Dawn did the wrong things even when she did as she was told. How many times would the goal post move? How many times would it shift? It was constant bouts of self-sacrifice, and the only compromises were just Dawn letting herself slip more and more.

Regardless, Katherine got to focus on eating, and Dawn was able to keep to herself; the very thing she wanted since the start of today.

-----------------------------------------------

“So we’re really going?”

“Mhm!”

“Do I get to touch them?”

“You need to promise to be gentle.”

“I am gentle! I–! I…I promise, I’ll be gentle.” Did she somehow think Dawn’s books back home could withstand nuclear warheads and she didn’t understand the concept of paper being torn easily?

“Okay, I believe you,” Katherine laughed, and Dawn was simply too on edge, dearly hoping that this was going to be what she was actually promised. Finally, something just as advertised without any cruel or mean tricks. “We’ll look for a little bit, but then I need to change you before my break is over, okay?”

“Fine, fine. Can we go now?” The experience of wearing a wet diaper hadn’t left her, but even the most tortured could endure something so simple if it meant being offered food on the brink of starvation.

“Is there somewhere you wanted to look at first?”

“Fantasy,” Dawn blurted out. Something. Anything, just so they didn’t waste their precious time deliberating on where to go.

“Fantasy? Mmm, okay!” All it took was a hum and thoughtful look around, and Katherine with a blueprint of the building seemingly in her back pocket, departed and moved with purpose.

Finally, Dawn with a personal escort had been sprung from jail and was about to have the time of her life. What a sweet reprieve it would be from all the baby books and propaganda that place was filled with. There wouldn’t be anything out here about the diapered divas battling the potty monster or Hansel and Gretel finding a daycare in the middle of the forest.

The genuine excitement was enough to shield her eyes from all the Amazons getting to roam about the library so freely, including all the fake parents carrying their Littles off, likely to a particular corner ruled by an evil witch of an Amazon.

“Okie-dokie… See everything on these two shelves?” Katherine pointed from floor and nearly to ceiling of two long and tall faces of pure literature. Dawn nearly squealed.

The spines were titles, the covers looked textured. Hardcovers, paperbacks, authors and more. The images she could see weren’t pastels, some were wonderfully plain, and others seemed modest.

“That one!” Dawn hurriedly pointed, and Katherine laughed, looking delighted as could be to pull one from the shelf. Katherine leaned over and slipped the book from its socket, leaving the hivemind of words and wisdom to be united with Dawn. It was big, certainly. Amazon big. A bit much, but Dawn could easily stomach that much if it was just like the real thing in every other sense.

The synopsis! The synopsis!

Dawn desperately fought the urge to touch it right then herself.

A Tale of Ten Towers, by Sofia Suffix

She was practically bouncing like a junkie just about to get their best fix yet.

Sofia, please don’t disappoint…!

What unfortunately put a damper on things though was when Katherine robbed her of the chance to open the cover herself. Fine, whatever, Dawn would get the chance later, but she couldn’t necessarily complain about getting straight to the reading part.

But Katherine stopped right after opening up the cover. Then she muttered, “Let me just take a look at something, honey…”

And Dawn watched what she was looking at, but it was practically otherworldly to her. Stamped on the inside had to have been somewhere around a twenty-ish letter code of some kind . Sixteen? It was a seemingly scrambled string of letters and numbers with some symbols, even. It made absolutely no sense to Dawn, hence her frown, but also including Katherines?

Before Dawn could even touch the page though, Katherine gently closed the cover and slid it back into place. She was speechless for a moment, ready to wonder why the hell she had gone and done that, but Katherine said so herself.

“Why don’t we take a look at a different one?” Katherine smiled, but it didn’t add to any explanation for her decision.

“Wh-what? Why? What’s wrong with that one? We didn’t even read the back?”

“I didn’t like some of the things that were in that book,” Katherine explained simply, and Dawn gave her a weird look.

“W-well, like what?” Hate speech? Radical ideologies that’d somehow transmit indoctrinated teachings to the reader? The only acceptable reason for putting it back was that, and nothing else. No other reasoning would excuse it.

“Mmm…naughty grownup stuff,” Katherine was fast and quick with her words, like she was trying to shift focus fast and quick.

Naughty…grownup…?

“You mean like se–”

“Ahp!” Katherine gasped before Dawn could finish. “Dawn? No naughty words, understood?”

Did the book have sex, was that it? How did Katherine even know? She was a self-described avid reader, but surely that didn’t mean she had read everything that there is to read in this place? You’d need three lifetimes and then some, just maybe.

“M-my bad. But wait, I wanted to look at that book?”

“We’ll find a better one, okay?” Katherine was already stepping out of its reach, and Dawn watched her forbidden knowledge miraculously disappear.

Normally the loss of opportunity or being told she couldn’t do something she knew that she could handle would put her right back into a pissy mood, but being allowed to come into close contact with legitimate literature just felt too good.

“That one,” Dawn pointed out a new title, “Silver Stars,” feeling much more eager to take the book herself this time.

And like a well-oiled machine, or one of the book buddies that Katherine always worked on, she retrieved the book, sitting it in her hands. And just to get the feeling, Dawn, despite Katherine needing no help whatsoever, joyfully partook in peeling back the front cover. She nearly cried.

The flimsy, cardboard cover was just like at home, if not a bit tougher, but that was a bonus, not any kind of mocking detriment like it would’ve been at the Little’s corner. Instead, Dawn got the feel of the thin, textured paper with her fingernail as they flipped the first page up to a similar…long and complicated code.

“C-can we take this one over to a table so I can–?” Dawn tried to set up their next destination with a treasure in hand, but twice her expectations had been resurrected and removed because Katherine with a small, disapproving look started to put the book back.

“Wait! What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Dawn begged for an explanation, but watched as her book slipped back into the shelf.

“I didn’t like some of the things I saw there either,” Katherine frowned. On some level she must have known what this was doing to Dawn, but it didn’t change the impression that the Little figured the Amazon was just being too overprotective.

“Katherine, whatever it is, I can read it! I’ve read plenty of books before!”

“I’m sure you have, honey, but some of these stories just don’t seem very appropriate…”

Time was ticking and not a single book had yet to be experienced or even read just a tiny bit…! “How can you even tell? Y-you’re not even reading them!”

“Did you see all those letters and numbers on both books?”

“Yeah?”

“We call those  ‘Sequence Series,’” Katherine explained slowly and carefully, like Dawn had regressed into being a preschooler again. “Those codes can tell us what a story is about and what kind of themes or genres might be in them.”

“Wh-what?” Didn’t having a fantasy section count as enough? They tagged the contents of their books individually, more specifically than that? “Let me see. Show me.”

“Okay,” Katherine had no hesitation and grabbed a new book from the shelf. She turned the page, and in the same fashion as the others this one was another sting of gibberish. “See that code?” her finger landed on the one thing that was actually on the page. “We use sixteen letters and numbers to keep track of what this story is like!”

“H-how?” Dawn peered down at the page, finding it no less insightful than the other two were. She wasn’t even seeing a pattern. All three books that were in the fantasy section should have at least one unifying trait, right?

“See these first four letters here?” Katherine traced her finger.

“Y…yeah?” Even the first four seemed to have no meaning, yet Katherine spoke like it was the easiest thing to understand.

“That tells us the year and place when this book was written.”

A location for the author? A time of completion? A year…and an address? All in just four spaces? Using only four characters? There weren’t even any numbers? How was a number stored in this?

“So these two letters mean it was written about…twenty years ago. That’s a long time, huh?” Katherine chuckled, and Dawn tried to focus on the teaching moment. “And then these two right after that mean it was written in a place called Catalon. Does that make sense?”

“I…guess…” Dawn murmured in a shy voice. How did a ‘Z’ and ‘Q’ imply a time period two decades ago, and letters and symbols like ‘#’ and lowercase ‘I’ indicate a place called Catalon? They weren’t even an abbreviation?

“Now the next twelve spots tell us all about the story. These three let us know there’s a hero…these two say it has a little bit of mystery, and…mm. This one says it’s a little scary, so how about we find a different one?”

Horror was obviously manageable for the girl, but she was still feeling overwhelmed by the system, yet driven to try and understand it.

“W-wait, so…” Dawn tried to trace her finger. “So…so these three characters mean it has mystery themes?”

“Yup! Very good!” Katherine was quick to praise, but the shine missed Dawn completely who was still trying to cement the understanding. She tried not to let her confusion get the best of her. Katherine was so casual and confident with her words, it only made Dawn more hesitant as she looked at it over and over. It was all a continuous line of letters, numbers and symbols. There were no spaces or breaks, and yet Katherine was somehow able to piece it apart like it was nothing?

“Okay…” Dawn said it quietly, and Katherine was putting away the book and pulling out another.

And almost immediately when they flipped to the sequence series, Dawn spotted the same chain further along the 12 characters.

“Wait, so that says there’s mystery in this one?” Dawn pointed it out, suddenly too preoccupied to even enjoy the touch and feel of the textured paper. Just like she remembered. It wasn’t smooth or rigid like all the ones back at the baby corner. What a joy, though. Not only did she get to interact with genuine books, but she was learning, too!

But then Katherine made a noise, like she was proud of Dawn for trying, but she was un-arguably incorrect. “Oh, good eye, Dawn! But actually, right here are two different ones. It doesn’t say mystery, but actually this one says it has dragons, and this one says it has two main characters.”

“...Oh…” the disappointment and embarrassment was hard to hide. She felt so certain, and yet she couldn’t have been more wrong. “Then…what about the first three after the location? So these…?” And just like Katherine explained, Dawn traced out the following three spaces after the first four.

And instead of making the answer direct, the Amazon started with, “You’re really close!” It was like textbook childcare. Praise them right before delivering the bad news. “This time though it’s only just two characters, not three.”

“But…how do you know?” Dawn frowned, looking down at the page. “How do you know where the spaces are, or…which ones stop and start?” Was she missing something obvious? Sure, Katherine had more experience with this, but…it just looked like nothing?

“Well…sometimes you can just recognize them,” Recognize? Like Dawn just tried and horribly failed at doing? “Or, what we can do is take the first letter and the fourth, and that tells us the kind of ordering sequence the letters use…” Katherine’s voice was slow and careful, pointing each and every piece of the puzzle out, but the confused look on Dawn’s face was reflecting in the librarian’s eyes.

Suddenly Katherine was looking sympathetic, almost as if she embarked on a subject far too complex for poor little Dawn. “But that’s a lot of tough stuff to remember, huh?” she quickly pepped up her voice. “You wanna keep looking for a story?”

It was an unexpected detour that left Dawn feeling oddly clueless. It was the first time something in this dimension had intellectually stumped her, other than that stupid bread tie thing from that one morning… Obviously if she tried hard enough, she could figure it out, though. This sequence series stuff, that is. The bread tie too, of course…

“I guess, yeah,” Dawn nodded, and was given the privilege of trying to seek out more books. And as They searched, more so Katherine skimming, peeking at the multi-digit code on each one, disapproving of each one someway and somehow, the Little in her arms was starting to fidget. As more time went on without a result, the girl was feeling more and more anxious

“Don’t you guys sort by those codes, or something? Is it really just sorted by random?”

“Some libraries do that,” Katherine answered while she filtered through book after book, “but that’s what all our special helpers are for!” she looked up to the ceiling, and by coincidence one of the drones was quietly sliding by on its rails. “It’s a little tricky for us to remember, but these guys can remember where each and every book is, and they remember that long line of letters, too! Soon though we will be organizing our books like that,” she chuckled, “but it’s a lot of books to move around!”

After enough time Dawn was losing hope that there’d be anything Katherine might approve of, and that was only adding to her worries about Amazon books altogether. Was it just a bad section? It had to be! It’s not like Amazon teens and preteens went straight into text about murder, politics, and sex?

“Mmm…oh! This one looks good!”

“What? What is it?” Dawn, not even paying attention anymore finally glanced down at the book she was holding.

“This is an older one…” Katherine passively mentioned, finally skimming through the actual text. It was all ink-letter print; some offshoot of Times New Roman. Times New Amazon? Just maybe. Either way it was just like Dawn expected, and she wanted to consume it so badly. “Helmsman of the East…” she commented curiously, looking the front and back over.

“Can I read it now?” Dawn asked. The title alone was enough to send prickles up her spine. It sounded like an actual title. No signs about learning to like diapers, Littles learning to love their new “families,” or anything as disgusting of the sort. Just an unbiased, normal story, and Katherine could actually be the very reason she could escape from that.

“In a minute, honey,” Katherine said, and Dawn watched the book disappear in the diaper bag. “You’re getting a little squirmy; time for a change!” she announced in a sing-song voice, and the accused tried not to blush, hoping the aisle was empty.

The slightest perk to Katherine working here was having a full understanding everywhere everything was, and that included bathrooms.

Once they entered the long bathroom, every step and click from Katherine’s heels was like a punch to her gut, skipping each and every bathroom stall on their way to a station not equipped to deal with the urgency of bodily needs, but only the aftermath of it.

“W-wait!” Dawn whispered nervously, and Katherine cocked her head.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s…it’s not…! It’s not private…!” It didn’t sound like anyone was in there with them, but what was to stop someone from walking in?

A plastic foldable table bolted into the wall hung on the far end wall, right next to the mirror lining a long row of sinks. The only thing that would be keeping her from the public eye was Katherine herself. All it took was the right angle though from an all-encompassing mirror…

“No one’s here now, sweetie, it’ll be fine.”

“B-but what if somebody walks in?!” The argument didn’t stop Katherine from unfolding the table.

“Then that means they need to use the potty too?” Use it too? Katherine could be so innocent and so nonchalant, yet somehow be just as insulting at the same time. Dawn used the bathroom just like every other Amazon, only in a completely different way. Christ, she didn’t even get to use it, she was the one being used.

“Please, then just let me change myself! I’ll be quick!”

“Dawn…” There wasn’t even a debate this time, just a soft warning from Katherine that just may have reminded the Little how that went last time. The devastation from not even being able to take off her own diaper.

“W-wait, I don’t, I don’t need the–!” And the strap went on.

“Shh,” Katherine soothed, brushing her shoulder. “It’s just so I can be quick, okay?”

“So you mean I’d just get in the way?” Admittedly, there was a small amount of hurt, but mostly pissy attitude, and not including the diaper.

“No, you do not get in the way,” Katherine was quick to correct, “But I can be super fast all on my own! And…off we go!” Her shoes quickly popped off after the laces were undone, and Dawn tried pressing her knees together to stop it, but the diaper bulk between them prevented her from stopping Katherine’s quest to take off her pants.

“Please…just hurry…!” Dawn begged with her eyes shut, flinching as each tape ripped and popped. And then, if it couldn’t have been any more emotionally overwhelming, her toes hiding in her socks curled the moment she heard the front door open.

She wanted to mindlessly beg Katherine to do something. Anything. Hell, exercise her authority as an employee to kick the stranger out. But she was too embarrassed, too mortified to do even that. The cool air on her crotch was suddenly the paralyzing chill, even if Katherine’s shadow was hiding her from the rest of the room.

In a perfect world it would have been someone just going to use a stall. If only the world was perfect, though. So instead, a girl, or a mini woman was tearfully whining instead, “Mommy…!”

“I know, baby, shh… Be patient, okay? We’ll change you right after they’re done, okay?”

“Sorry!” Katherine, the social butterfly she was of course, had to acknowledge the people behind her, and Dawn stared up at the high, high ceiling trying to do nothing else but disassociate from reality just to hide herself away.

It didn’t matter if she wasn’t being seen right now. Someone was waiting on them, waiting to use this exact changing table. Whoever it was, they would without a doubt see Dawn on their way out. They would know that it was Dawn just getting her bare ass wiped and her privates rubbed down with baby powder. They’d know that the crinkling diaper they heard unfold would be around Dawn’s hips.

“Hm?” The Amazon behind them made a noise. “Oh? Oh! No, no!” she laughed, and Dawn watched Katherine’s head up above turn so that they could converse, and somehow it didn’t impede the diapering process by much. “Please, take your time!”

“I promise we’ll be done soon!” Katherine lightheartedly apologized anyway, and Dawn felt no need to contribute.

“Mommy…!” The girl complained again. Just maybe, what if she could be an actual baby? An Amazon-born one? Not one just picked up off the streets? It would have been nice to know this casual chatter wasn’t so morbidly fucked like every other Amazon, but by the same token, it’d make Dawn feel even worse. What a thought: she was laying in the same place that not only babified Littles got changed, but actual babies too. What made her any different from them?

“Uh-oh, cranky?” Katherine laughed.

“Cranky…” the other mommy agreed with a sigh. “Nothing we’re not used to, though.” And then in a not so quiet whisper she said, “She gets like this whenever she makes a stinky!”

“Awh…poor thing!” She said it right as Dawn felt her thumbs smoothen out the freshly applied adhesives. A new prison for her posterior. After her pants went on, the strap was undone and she was lifted up.

Dawn’s head was perched over her shoulder, forced to come face to face with the mother and mind-fucked behind them. Some random person in glasses with what looked like a laptop carrier hanging over her shoulder, paired with a much more bright and green diaper bag to boot, all the while held at her hip…?

The sulking, grumpy girl’s face then lit up like the sun once she saw the fellow Little.

“DAWN!” the voice shrieked, and collectively all three other folks in the room winced, albeit Dawn a bit more.

“Kailey!” the Amazon holding her scolded the girl, only in a much more level voice. “What did we say about shouting inside?”

“But! But she’s my friend!” Kailey, the same girl in the dress and yellow sandals from before; frog-lover Kailey, pointed squarely at Dawn.

The mommy blinked in surprise, so did Dawn, and especially Katherine.

“What? What are you talking about?” Kailey’s guardian gave her an off look, then said to Katherine. “I’m sorry…she’s a bit energetic…”

“No, that’s fine!” Katherine laughed, though she sounded a bit confused as well. “Do you know her, Dawn?” and with her own charge held against her hip, Dawn was bounced like a physical cue to have her chime in.

All Kailey did then was giggle and wave, and the smell was finally starting to catch up to Dawn. Not her own clean backside, but the one that was still in need of it…

“...Y-yeah, we met.”

“We’re friends!” Kailey, sounding not very helpful, added to it. Dawn never once remembered becoming friends, more so just this girl forcing herself into an acquaintanceship. Then the girl gasped again, pointing at Katherine this time. “Do you talk to the robots?!”

Unless Katherine had some extra job Dawn didn’t know about, that was simply incorrect. She fixed them and performed maintenance. Robots didn’t talk, and even this dimension didn’t seem to have that. It was impossible.

And yet in a shocking turn of events, “That’s right!” Katherine smiled, and Dawn gave her a weird look.

The answer made Kailey squeal while the Amazon holding her only looked more and more apologetic.

“Oh, wait–!” The other Amazon scrunched her face like she was filtering out a memory. “That’s right!” she laughed. “My daughter was saying something like that when I picked her up. She did say she met somebody at the daycare!” And finally acknowledging the Little herself, she smiled as she asked, “Your name must be Dawn?”

Daycare? Dawn flinched, resolving it as just a generalization. She did not do daycares, so that was simply impossible. It was the Little Learning Corner, and nothing else.

“Yes…I’m Dawn.”

Katherine was quiet up until that point, looking from one person to another, only finally jumping in now.

“You know my– you know Dawn? She made a friend?”

No, she did not. Dawn did not make a friend…!

“We sat at story time!” Kailey proudly reminisced like it was meeting a soul mate, only that one of them had ever felt the magic.

“I think I was the first one to drop someone off,” Katherine explained, “I work here, so I can’t bring her in any later.”

“Ahh!” The woman nodded like the final piece of the puzzle had been found. “I think I remember being in second place, actually!” she laughed. “Oh! And sorry, I don’t have any manners!” Maybe that’s why Kailey didn’t have any either… Ew, low blow. Suddenly Dawn was hit with internal guilt for kicking someone that was already down… So far down.

“My name’s Sandra?” the Amazon offered a hand, and Katherine reciprocated.

“Katherine. So nice to meet you! I can’t say I keep track of regulars, but do you come here often?”

“Not too much, no,” Sandra shook her head. “I just needed to do some research on a drug for my work, and Kailey here was being a little fussy; didn’t wanna dump that on the folks at her usual daycare…!”

And the pair shared a motherly laugh, one that Dawn wished Katherine couldn’t participate in.

“Yeah? Well she seems like a real sweetheart to me?” Katherine complimented with a grin right at the girl, suddenly going from bold and brave to shy and demure.

“A little time with me is usually enough to mellow her out. Well, that and clean diapers.”

And just so Dawn wasn’t a decoration as much as Kailey, feeling the need to differentiate, she said to Katherine, “She’s a doctor.” The one other thing she remembered from talking to Kailey.

“Oh wow!” Katherine marveled, and Sandra grinned with a crease in her brow. “Do you work at one of the nearby hospitals?”

Suddenly the woman was laughing. “Ugh, please…!” Sandra groaned, giving her charge a playfully stern look. “I swear, behind my back Kailey tells everyone she sees that I’m some kind of superhero… I’m just a boring old pharmacist!”

A pharmacist. Not a doctor. Dawn had vouched for her, and now she looked just as silly as Kailey, spurring along tall tales and make-believe. Meanwhile, Kailey the culprit simply looked distracted trying to simultaneously follow the conversation and dangle her foot around the edge of Sandra’s sweater jacket.

“Awh, don’t act like that!” Katherine laughed, “She’s just proud that her Mommy does something so exciting!”

“Mm, well…” the woman chuckled, “As cute as she is, she really knows how to inflate an ego…! Sometimes I wonder just who her actual mommy is! I wish I was a doctor! Just like talking to robots, huh?”

“Right?”

More shared laughs, more discomfort from Dawn.

But the novelty was finally gone for poor Kailey, back to whining with a full diaper now everyone could certainly smell.

“Oh, gosh!” Katherine gasped, stepping aside and hooking Dawn’s sneakers off the table with her free hand. “Sorry! All yours!”

“Sorry you had to smell mine!” Sandra stepped forward and down Kailey went. “If I had known she was gonna do this, I would have picked her up a little bit later…”

“Nothing we’re not used to,” Katherine dropped on a dime, spilling more secrets between her and Dawn like they were free samples.

Her cheeks were hot and embarrassed, but at least they were stepping away, thank God.

“Nice meeting you!” Katherine waved, and Sandra stuck a hand up from the operating table.

“Likewise!”

And suddenly Dawn was breathing fresh air again back outside.

“Dawn…!” A disappointed voice was suddenly closing in on her. “You never said anything about making a friend!”

“Wh-what?” Dawn stammered right back. “I…no, I didn’t. She’s the one that Dayna forced to come over to me? We…we barely even talked.”

“She seemed nice, though? Her mommy, too?”

Her “mommy,” the pharmacist, not actual doctor “mommy.”

Dawn frankly wanted nothing to do with them, but forgoing the route of saying something mean or rude, meekly shrugged. Katherine tucked her mouth into her cheek right back, making a small, pensive look.

“Well…okay. My break is just about over, sweetie. Ready to go back?”

“Go…back? Where?”

“Back with Dayna?” Katherine turned her head.

“Wh…what? Why? You came and picked me up, though!” Was this a joke? Didn’t she set her free for a reason?

“Dawn, that was just for lunch? It’s not that much longer?”

“N-no! Please! Don’t make me go back!” It was an immediate plea. She knew the mess she had caused and the fire she started. If Dayna was vengeful, what if she tried to get back at her for being such a disruption? Was she going to be fair? What if she was like Stacy? Treating Littles like kids all up until they were an adult nuisance, and only then did they dish out cruel treatment.

“Dawn…I can’t. Please don’t be upset?”

“Wh…why though? I won’t bother you! Can’t you just let me sit with you, or something? A-at a desk? I’ll be quiet! Just don’t bring me back! I don’t want to go!”

“Why not, honey?”

“Because Dayna! What if she tries to do something to me?”

“What do you think she’s going to do?” The look on the Amazons face communicated that she hardly understood what Dawn was getting at. Like any clueless parent, she was just trying to figure out what irrational boogie man was inside her head.

“I…I don’t know? Just…something! I made her mad! If she does something to me, I can’t fight back, and you won’t be there! I’m…I’m scared!” It was the truth, and the thought of being delivered right back into the den made her clutch Katherine’s shirt. “Please…! Please don’t make me…!”

“Dawn…” Katherine exhaled sadly, and Dawn was nearly quivering from understanding what that implied. There was no alternative, no other answer. She was going back and would be left at the mercy of a stranger she’d started and ended on the wrong foot with.

And so they walked, embarking on Dawn’s departure to deathrow.

She couldn’t watch. How could she witness her own demise? Keeping her head down, she sulked, not even trying to beg as Katherine’s mind had been made. She likely chalked it all up to babyish behavior blown out of proportion, and that ultimately the grownups knew better.

Maybe it was all Dawn’s fault though. Maybe if she had fallen in line there would be the worries or fears of what was to undoubtedly come. She dug her own grave and now all she had to do was lay down and be buried.

It was inevitable, and the thought of seeing Dayna again made her heart ache to a point that didn’t even feel right. Why was she scared? She shouldn’t be! She didn’t even do anything that bad…! Kids act up all the time, don’t they? Wasn’t that all Dawn was to her too? So she’d be let off lightly, right? Right?

“Excuse me?”

Dawn went limp when Katherine spoke up. They were back, weren’t they? Time for drop-off. Back to the internment camp.

“Hey, Katherine, have a good lunch?” Wait, that wasn’t Dayna. It sounded like…Grace, was her name? “Oh? Bring back a little snack with you?”

“Kind of,” Katherine chuckled, but started to whisper. “Do…do you think you could do me a favor? Dawn’s feeling a little groggy right now… It’s either take her back to Dayna and put her down for a nap, or keep her nearby while she does it. She’s being a bit clingy though,” and there was a soft pat on her padded bottom to boot. “Would you mind if she napped here while we run the front desk?”

She…she didn’t take me back to Dayna? Was she covering for me? Actually?

“Yeah, sure, that’s fine,” Grace agreed nonchalantly, and Dawn was ready to squeal a bit herself about Katherine’s best friend, and now Dawn’s. “I’m fine with it, but are you okay if someone else sees?”

“I’m gonna give her a corner under the desk…” Katherine explained, though she didn’t sound so keen about it either. “I’m glad I packed her a pillow and blanket though.”

“So now’s her usual nap time?” Hardly. Never was nap time because naps didn’t happen for Dawn.

“Working on it,” Katherine said as they sat down in an adjacent chair. “It was either gonna happen now or start on the car ride home… But you’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Yeah, no biggie for me. I wouldn’t try to let anyone else see, though. Awh, she asleep already?”

“She’s definitely tired,” Katherine hiked her up some, and Dawn kept her eyes shut, opting for as much believability as she could. If Katherine was giving her a way out, Dawn was finally going to cooperate. “From the sound of it she’s been drinking juice all day and I just fed her some lunch… Sorry, could you hand me that jacket from the diaper bag?”

“Sure…” Dawn quietly listened to the rummaging. “This one?”

“Perfect,” Katherine took it and did something close to the floor. “And down we go…”

And down Dawn did go. Right on the somewhat hard floor, but she was cushioned by a thin layer of material underneath. Katherine’s jacket, apparently. But her head did get a pillow. Did Katherine really pack something like that? Was she really planning on a nap? Dawn stretched her legs, remembering her lack of shoes, and suddenly that question felt a little bit more answered. This really was premeditated?

“Dawn?” A soft voice whispered into her ear. “Not a peep, okay? Naptime, understood?”

She had half a mind to ask if she could read that book, but Dawn wasn’t looking to earn herself a trip back to jail.

“Mhm…” Dawn murmured back. Fine. The next best thing to reading really was sleep. No expectations to do anything but keep to herself. For once she would concede to a nap, only because it suited her wants and nothing more. It wasn’t giving in or being obedient, but instead furthering her own interests.

Call it a low blow though, one Dawn couldn’t react to without making a scene, but with her eyes closed and unable to anticipate what might come next, she had no way of dodging the silent peck on her cheek.

“Sleep tight…!” Katherine softly whispered, and Dawn tried to not make a face, pretending even to Katherine that she was already out like a light.

The desk hanging over her was like a pseudo artificial darkness, offering a good amount of shade just to simulate the darkness. It was enough  if she turned the other way to face the wall of the desk.

But this was it. All she had to do was close her eyes, and just maybe, hopefully, once she opened them the day would be over. The library will have been conquered and triumphed, and she will have survived.

A…victory?