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”It’s time to get up, Blanket!”Anne’s voice is molasses and groggy as she sits up in Fig’s bed, rubbing anima dust from the corners of her eyes. A back-popping stretch releases a loud, echoing yawn; she may have just woken up, but it doesn’t take long for her to recall the events of the last couple of days, and it drags on her soul. How could everything Bonku had taught her be a lie? She’d never considered why they were different from everyone else, she’d just accepted it as fact that they were Other. And now, it feels like she doesn’t know who she is — or anything about herself. When she’s not running for her life from explosions or tramping through spirit caves, she finds her spare thoughts questioning and re-analyzing everything Bonku has ever said to her.It’s an understandable reaction to having a world turned upside down, or so Anne is convinced. The only bright spot in this whole mess has been reconnecting with her Blanket, the protector she’d never known she had. The only connection she still has to her mother. The one who’d kept her safe and warm, both out in the Ether and here in the Realm. Optimism temporarily restored, she throws her legs over the side of the bed, eager to tell her new friend what had danced through her sleep. “Blanket, you’ll never guess what… I dreamed…”“Blanket?”She’s barely made it out of bed, but her legs won’t hold her when she registers Blanket’s blue-green crystal glowing peacefully in front of the mirror. The final straw in a very unsteady haystack that’s already been swaying, the discovery of Blanket’s passing releases a pressure-valve of tears, welling up from places deep inside her and spilling out into the world as angry, keening wails. Anne doesn’t know when she last cried like this — maybe when her clock had crystallized? She had been so young then; Bonku’s isolation had served to shield her from much loss, at least, but it’s doing her no good now as she holds onto Blanket’s crystal and waters it with a pain so big she might explode.She's totally numb to the way the jagged edges of the newly-formed rock cut into her skin while she hugs what remains of her old companion; just as she feels she can’t bear any more emotional strain, a sense of peace and warmth wraps around her shoulders. For a moment she feels every last ounce of Blanket’s love and care for her in that full-body hug.When she starts crying again, it’s quieter. She feels acceptance; now her tears are for herself, for the time she’d missed with her Blanket. All the love she’s missed out on. Why had Bonku separated them? He wasn’t equipped to offer the affection she needed, so she’d been forced to settle with what he had to give, but knowing she could have had Blanket with her all along stokes the small kernel of anger being fed by so many recent occurrences.As Anne’s sobs finally subside into watery hiccups, she hears a creak from the door, causing her head to snap up.“Fig!” Her eyes, bloodshot and swollen, go wide; in a small display of vanity, she tries to wipe her face clean of the evidence, but there’s no hope for it. A sudden wave of irritation directed at him flashes through her. Why does he always have to see her at her worst moments? When she feels the least like the Anne Bonku raised and loves. Says he loves. Whatever. She resents how it’s only more confusing, causing her thoughts to twist into a maelstrom that claws and hammers at the foundations of her world-views.“How long have you been standing there?” she demands miserably, hunching her shoulders up to her ears and tamping down on the impulse to hide her face in Blanket’s crystal again. Thinking about the old forgotling initiates another pulse of crystal-warmth to spread from her hands outward through her limbs and chest. Take a deep breath, it seems to say. He’s not your enemy. Or maybe that’s her own conscience, pricking at her for lashing out at Fig. He can’t control the things she’s conflicted about, and in fact has done his best to ease the blows she’s been dealt.Even with the odd torso-face, Fig is twice as expressive as anyone else Anne’s ever met. Every limb articulates precisely to convey a wealth of information; his eyebrows tuck together and one hand reaches out passively, gently. Not demanding, not shaming. Just reaching out to offer support. His eyes are so kind, so empathetic. She doesn’t know if she can stand it. She doesn’t even feel like she truly deserves it — how selfish is it to grieve for a forgotling she’d only met a few days ago? Surely Blanket has a real family somewhere in the Lower Streets, full of forgotlings who knew her well and didn’t send her friends to be distilled at the Plant.“You’re not as quiet as you think you are,” he answers, one shoulder rising in a slight, helpless shrug. She’s grateful he’s spoken before her thoughts could begin to spiral further downward. “I finished planning with Bulb, then I came looking for you.” That he could hear her all the way from Bulb’s house goes, mercifully, unsaid. “I know this is bad timing. I know you’re hurting. But, I’m sorry, Anne, more forgotlings will be violently distilled. If we don’t shut down that Bridge before Bonku activates it, they’ll never be able to crystallize peacefully like your friend, Blanket.”Nodding and sucking wet breaths through her nose, Anne scrubs both cheeks clean, dashing away tears and snot that have clung to her skin, and stands up. “You’re right.” She tries to smile, the corners of her lips twitching in a valiant attempt before her eyes stray back to Blanket’s crystal and her face crumples again. I’ll never get to know more about her. The last few days have been nothing but Anne’s first, agonizing brushes with survivor’s guilt, heaping on all the other guilt she’s taking responsibility for.Fig steps forward and rests a hand on her shoulder. Even though he’s taller than her, they’re eye-to-eye, which makes it difficult to avoid meeting his concerned gaze. “Why don’t I have someone move her to the Memorial so she isn’t alone?” The corners of his mouth tighten slightly into a moue of concern. “You aren’t in this alone, Anne. I’m your friend, remember?”He’s so patiently kind. He’s opened her mind to so many things she’d never even considered, and she’s met a lot of interesting forgotlings because of him, whether directly or indirectly. She wonders if he knows the impact he’s having on her, or if he’s blissfully oblivious to the way she feels two steps behind in some conversations with him. He makes her mind race in a thousand different directions, but they all come back to, How did I not know you existed before this? It’s a response to both his natural showmanship and his, yes, natural charisma, blending together to confuse her feelings — on top of everything else that’s happened!This time her smile is small, but unstrained. Her mischievous side peeks its head out so, stretching up, she places a kiss on the cheek of his dummy head, enjoying the way the wood goes from light ash to cherry-tinted. She feels the edges of his wig brush against her skin as she pulls away and it makes her own face feel slightly warm. “Thank you, Fig. Now, let’s go save the world!”She’ll mourn all her losses later, after the immediate danger has passed. Maybe Fig will help her. Anne never saw her current circumstances coming, so she feels safe only in saying that the future will be unexpected. She’ll leave fortune-telling to the professionals.