Chapter Text
Leg.
Reassembling herself was no problem, if a bit of a hassle because her hand was attached to her calf and other mismatched parts of that sort.
However, she figured it out, and they stood up adjusting the hat perched once more upon her head.
This is when she noticed a problem.
Where was Humanboard?
“Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no. Where was her special investor? Their most important board member? Their Son!?"
She felt quick panicked gasps escape her as she desperately tried to figure out where Humanboard was.
"Humanboard wasn’t here so the only other place he could be was with that dang Genie. Shoot. Shoot shoot shoot” Ena thought to herself.
Distantly, she knew she was freaking out and this wouldn’t help her get her son back, but it was overridden by the sheer panic that she had lost her Son!
Their breath came in shorter and shorter gasps, and it felt as if all of the hub was positioned upon her chest, restricting her air intake.
It felt like she was back in that terrible half-corporeal, half-dead, half-state she had been in in the bathroom.
Her vision wavered at the edges, and she felt as if the eye in the sky was staring at her specifically, with everyone else's gazes following suit.
She needed to get out of here.
Being an ENA though, meant she didn’t really have a home to go back to, and dragging herself back to the bed door seemed like too great a task.
Instead she stumbled over to the broken dock Froggy usually perched on.
"Gosh, they were glad he wasn’t here right now."
The old wood of the dock creaked under her weight as she crumpled to the ground like a piece of wet paper.
As her legs breached the surface of the sea to dangle in the blood, a single thought broke through the fog of her mind, “I wish I had something to pet right now.”
She shakily nodded to herself, agreeing that it would probably help her calm down.
Just like that, something nudged her leg.
At first she didn’t react, but it kept touching her.
They halfheartedly kicked out at whatever it was, but her foot simply cut through the thick liquid, hitting nothing.
She huffed, wanting to at least take out her frustrations that way, and was surprised when a large white leg flopped into her lap, startling her.
It took her a moment, but she smiled at its antics, so she let it flop around on her lap for a few more moments.
it didn’t seem to mind being out of the blood, so she didn’t push it off her lap, but she did place her clawed hand upon what she supposed was its back.
It didn’t pause its wriggling, but it did lean into her touch slightly.
Meanie smiled slightly, and began stroking it gently.
The repetitiveness of the petting and the weight in her lap served to ground Ena and wave away some of the fog clouding her thoughts.
“Now, down to business, however do we retrieve our dearest emotional stockholder? Without his most incredible talents, I doubt we shall be able to go the way we first did.” Sales thought.
“That’s a good point, I suppose we ought to investigate more. But I say we shelve that discussion for now, I still need a minute to calm down.”
Meanie replied, only to be greeted with a slight chuckle from Sales, “Hehe, vulnerability looks good on you! Very well, we’ll wait a bit to continue on our quest.”
With that, they continued petting the leg, drifting off into a state somewhere between sleep and awareness, lost in the soothing feeling of petting the leg.
A small but sad smile graced both sides of Ena's face, it seemed she’d been doing a lot more of that lately.
Froggy
“Oi. Oi! Are you even listening to me?? Get those ears back to work, Ena!” they felt a foot nudge their side, causing the leg fish to jump off her lap back into the sea.
They didn't react aside from a slight frown. “Ugghhh, c’mon, wake up! You’re in my spot!”
She still didn’t move, despite the nudging nearly becoming kicking.
“Eh, are- are you alright? Why aren’t you reacting??”
The entity crouched down, leaning forward a little, before waving his hand in front of her face.
She distantly registered it, but made no outward expression of that.
“Were your circuits fried by that smoke, Ena? Speaking of, why isn-” Cough cough, hack, couuuughhhh*
At that, Ena jumped back, startled by the entities closeness and the sudden noise of its hacking.
"Oh, wait, that's Froggy" they thought to themself, "i should probably respond."
“Watch it Tadpole! Keep your genius germs to yourself, I’m not interested!”
“Oh, good, you're back to normal, that's a relief. Thought I'd have to perform some maintenance on ya. By the way, what happened? You were gone for a while, but the smoke’s not cleared even though your back.”
Pulling a megaphone out of her shirt and shoving it in Froggy’s face, she responded, “Quit the yammering fly-eater and maybe I'll be able to explain!!”
Taking a breath to calm herself, and arranging her limbs once more into a comfortable position.
“Ok, yes I went to the door, unfortunately an… obstacle presented itself and threw me back here…Literally. And, alas, my only way back to the genie, is, very regrettably, stuck there and I’d like to get him back as soon as possible”
“Him?..” Froggy asked as he just kind of stared at her quizzically for a few seconds.
They stared right back.
Eventually he coughed and looked away, while they smiled to themself about winning the impromptu staring contest.
“Ah, okay then… are you.. Gonna go back? Clear the smoke maybe? It’s just really impacting me here, making it so hard to work. So, I’d greatly appreciate it if you did get back to work. And, as for your path problem, I’m sure there's an alternate route for you to take, just use those sales tricks of yours!”
She nodded along, Sales’ smile growing as they presumably thought of the sales tricks they were going to use.
She stood up, while Froggy stayed perched upon the dock.
“Thank you for your most invaluable input, my amphibian associate! I shall be sure to incorporate your construction into my demeanor at once!”
There was only one way to appropriately end this intriguing interaction, and that was with the gift of head pats!
So, a clawed hand reached down to Froggy’s form, and gave the top of his costume a few hearty pats.
Froggy, very used to this eccentric behavior, simply smiled up at them and shooed her away.
She grinned as they made their way over to the Lonely Door once more.
She passed Coral on her way, who was currently being accosted by Taski Maiden, who waved excitedly at her.
She smiled in her direction, before turning back to the Lonely Door, drawing near enough to use it.
She leaned into its embrace and closed her eyes to think for the few moments she was transported.
“The interaction with both Froggy and the leg had certainly cheered her up, and energized her to both go retrieve her son and get rid of the smoke! Maybe she’d even get to pet the genie for real this time!”
With that, she opened her eyes and made her way into the world of the Lonely Door to start her new job, getting her son back.