As you can imagine caretaking isn’t quite the same for a whumpee so itty-bitty that it fits in the palms of Caretaker’s hand. Or that two tiny people struggling for comfort is a far greater struggle than that of normal sized individuals.
Difficulties w/Tiny Whump Recovery
Whumpee is so tiny that even some of the best well trained Caretakers would have difficulty trying to patch anything up
Caretaker’s shaking hands and fingers threaten to worsen Whumpee’s state
And don’t get me started about how surgery would go
In fact Caretaker might be afraid to hurt them in general
If they’re both tiny, it must be incredibly difficult for tiny caretaker to find the supplies to help Whumpee
But at least caretaker doesn’t have to worry that they will accidentally crush Whumpee
I’m going to carefully and gently bandage Ollie’s knife wounds and wash the blood out of his hair. Coco is welcome to stay with him during this if it wouldn’t be too traumatic for Coco, and if Ollie wants Coco there.
Warning: Wounds.
Ollie shoves you off every time you attempt to touch him, but as he's trying to bandage himself up, he only seems to hurt himself more. Coco is right by his side the entire time, sitting on his shoulder and whispering comforting things into his ear.
Eventually, after much panicking, Coco gently coaxes him into letting you help. He reluctantly allows you to bandage all of his wounds, trembling out of pure fear the entire time, but seems to relax a little as you're washing the blood from his hair. He even goes so far as to rest the entire weight of his head back against your hand, purring softly as you massage his scalp. Coco, just like before, sits by him, assuring him that It's here and that he's okay.
Once you're all finished, he wearily mumbles a 'thank you' as he curls up inside his favourite blanket. Coco doesn't dare to fall asleep until it knows Ollie is content.
Ok so I saw this post by @pleasancies and holy cow?? I love it?? So here, have the biggest whumpee and the tiniest caretaker (she said and then immediately whumped them the other way around a little bit, but like... just wait for it, it’s there):
Venk’s entire body was on edge, thrumming with adrenaline. This was the worst part of being a scout, or maybe the best. Whatever was crashing around out here in the woods was big, and for a while earlier, at least, it had been getting closer to camp. He needed to get to it, get information, and get back in time for everyone to get ready, or to run.
He darted between trees, staying in the shadows where the moonlight didn’t reach, light and silent on his feet, and with a firm grip on his spear that only mostly made him feel safer.
When he saw the thing, it took him a minute to work out what it was.
It was a foot, on the end of a leg, attached to a hip, and then to a body he could barely see, it was so high up. The foot, wrapped in an enormous roll of cloth, swung through the air and then landed on its tiptoes. It was a giant. And it was sneaking.
He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
For about a minute and a half, he scrambled alongside the giant’s slow, careful steps that crunched branches underfoot and nearly shook the ground, realizing as he did so that the giant was moving parallel to the camp, keeping a distance instead of coming closer.
Then, Venk got distracted, too absorbed in watching the enormous feet swinging overhead to spot the wasp’s nest in the ground until his own foot was in it.
He yelped at the first stings, too surprised to keep it in, and the giant seemed startled, too, the feet leaping backward away from the noise and coming down hard enough to shake the ground and make the wasps even angrier.
Venk pulled his foot out of the nest and scrambled instinctively up a large rock nearby to get away, cursing vociferously when the wasps flew up with him, continuing to sting.
An enormous hand reached down and grabbed Venk by the back of his ratty leather armor, lifting him up toward the giant’s face.
“Oh no,” the giant boomed, clearly trying to whisper to him.
Venk was still being stung, but that was suddenly much less important. He growled, baring his teeth, and brandished his spear in the direction of the face. “Put me down! Put me down, or I’ll put your eye out!”
“Oh! Ouch! There’s uhhh - there’s stingy things down there. Let me - uh - uh - over here.”
The giant held him at arm’s reach, took several long, hurried strides toward a nearby clearing, definitely shaking the ground this time, and set Venk back down on top of another large rock, about 400 feet from where they’d started.
Venk brandished his spear again and was surprised to see the giant shrinking away from him, one arm up in front of his face as if to protect himself from something.
Venk turned quickly to look behind himself, but saw no one. He looked back at the giant, raising his spear higher again. “Stay back!” he ordered, “What are you doing here?”
The giant had grey, stony skin, and was both thinner and narrower than most giants Venk had seen before - though, he supposed, he’d only ever seen the other ones at a distance, so perhaps he just didn’t know how to judge.
“Please don’t hurt me!” the giant said, “The master says I have to get into those ruins over there,” his huge hand pointed in the direction of Venk’s camp, and the ruins behind it they were supposed to explore in the morning. “He sent me to bring something back for him, but then I saw your camp, and I - I promise I was trying to go around!”
“What kind of something?” Venk asked, curious in spite of himself.
“It’s, um - it’s some kind of sphere, I think. It’s very magic. He said I’d know it because it was very magic and if I wanted to be sure not to disappoint him, I could just bring everything that seems magic. I - I don’t mean to - to - it’s -”
The giant’s voice started faltering, and his shoulders shrunk inward, his enormous arms coming up around his middle as he hugged himself, wilting visibly in front of Venk’s eyes.
The goblin glanced back over his shoulder one more time, verifying that it was really just the two of them, and then sighed, lowering his spear.
As frightened as the giant seemed to be of him, there was no way he could do any real damage. Not when he knew he was knee-high to the giant at best, with a spear the giant could have perhaps held as a pencil, but not as a spear.
“Can you come down here so I can talk to you?” he asked, putting the spear down and raising his empty hands. “I promise not to stab your eyes out. Just don’t grab me again.”
“Oh!” The giant’s eyes widened, and then it was falling to its knees next to his rock, so fast that the stone underneath Venk shook a little.
Even on his knees, the giant loomed over Venk and his two-foot rock, but he seemed to realize it pretty quickly and fell backward onto his butt with another shuddering crash. Then he pulled in on himself again, as if he were trying to be as small as possible, which didn’t actually do much to put him at Venk’s height, but did make Venk feel a confused tangle of emotions.
Now that he was closer to the giant’s head, he could see a huge, nasty-looking collar around his neck, black leather studded through with small metal lightning bolt shapes. Above and below the collar radiated several overlapping sets of electrical scars, like the giant had been struck by lightning a dozen times. He winced sympathetically.
“Alright,” Venk said, trying not to squander the giant’s apparent intimidation before he figured out he could probably crush Venk between his palms in a single motion. “It seems like maybe this is a time when we ought to just make a deal. That sound good?”
“I - I don’t think I can. I have to give the master what he wants.” The giant was - shaking? He pulled even farther in on himself, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. Venk couldn’t see the collar anymore, but he could see scars crisscrossing the giant’s shins.
“Why?” Venk asked, “What kind of master have you got, that you’re that scared?”
The giant shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t, if he found out I told his name -” he looked half-panicked, his breathing getting quicker, “I can’t!”
Venk held his hands up in front of him, trying to calm the giant down. “Whoa! Hey, no. No names. You don’t tell me your master’s name, I won’t tell you my clan’s name, everybody’s happy. I’m guessing he’s some kind of mage or demon or devil or something, if he wants his name safe?”
The giant nodded, but didn’t indicate which one.
“What’s he want the orb for, anyway?”
The giant shrugged one huge shoulder.
“See, that’s gonna be kind of a problem. My clan’s got this whole thing with the orb. We’re camped there to go find it, ‘cause we’ve got this whole underground war going with a bunch of kobolds and it’s supposed to get us a dragon on our side or something, and even if I was going to let you go around past our camp, which I’m not sure the others would be thrilled about, I get the feeling our shaman’s gonna say we’ve gotta kill you before we let you take the orb.”
Venk adjusted his stance as he was talking, ready to leap backward off the rock and away from a blow if he needed to, but instead the giant wailed.
“Whoa, hey!” Venk said, patting at the air between them as if it would help, “Hey, calm down, you’ve gotta be quiet, there’s worse around here than wasps.”
The giant was weeping, and that was - huh. That was something else, too.
“I d-don’t wanna die!” he blubbered.
Venk took a deep breath, trying to calm himself before he spoke again. “Hey, buddy, it’s alright. I didn’t say we would kill you, just that I figure that’s what the shaman would say. Maybe we take the orb, we do whatever magical mumbo-jumbo gets us a dragon long enough for it to tell those kobolds to fuck off and give us our caves back, and then we let you have it. I’m just saying we gotta be clever about it, is all.”
The giant shook his head fiercely. “No, my master will know. My master will know I wasted time. I shouldn’t even have gone around I - I don’t want to kill anyone, but I have to make it back, I -” he reached up around his neck, wrapping his hand over the collar, “I have to make it back with what he wants, I - I have to please him.”
Venk felt a stab of something through his heart and sighed again, sliding carefully off the rock and landing on his less swollen foot. He was an idiot, and he was about to die for it, but at least none of the rest of the clan was around to see it. They’d probably assume he’d done something heroic when they found the pulpy mess of his body out here. Probably.
He stepped up to the giant’s side and patted his huge ankle. “Hey, it’s alright. It’s alright, I don’t want you to kill anyone, either. You gotta calm down. We can figure this out.”
We can figure this out. As if he even knew what “this” was. The giant’s sobs grew a little softer, though. Venk patted his ankle again. “There, there.”
“I shouldn’t have talked to you,” the giant said miserably, starting to pull himself together, “Master always says it’s my own fault things are so awful and upsetting, ‘cause I don’t kill people fast enough. And now I’ll be sad even if I do kill you fast enough, which I don’t even want to do.”
Venk looked up at the huge figure. This close, he could tell that the scars along the giant’s shins were burn scars, like he’d been standing in fire. The lightning scars on his chest and face weren’t really visible at this angle, but there were a couple of small but deep bruises dotting his ribs, black against the stony grey of the rest of the his skin.
“Ok, buddy,” he said, making a decision even as he spoke. “Let’s take a step back. Let’s take a step back from the orb. What’s up with you and that master? He got anything on you, or is it just that collar up there?”
The giant shook his head and said nothing.
“I won’t tell. Not a soul. Just between you and me. I just need to know what I’m dealing with here. Gotta get all the options on the table, you know? And then once we’ve looked at the table, it’s all between you and me still, alright?”
“It - it’s mostly the collar,” the giant said, voice so faint it actually came across as a whisper this time.
“Well, then we’ll get it off you, and then you don’t have to kill anybody. How’s that sound?”
The giant shook his head again, vehemently, wrapping his hands around the collar again. “No! It’s locked. It’s locked, and it’s got traps! It’ll shock me and it’ll shock you, and then he’ll know, and then -” Venk could hear the giant starting to cry again, “And then he’ll know!”
Venk breathed deeply again, trying to center himself. “Ok. Ok. That’s - good to have on the table. You’re gonna be ok, buddy.” He patted the giant’s ankle again.
As the giant continued to sniffle and snort and try to get ahold of himself, Venk breathed deeply and tried to think. How serious was he? How dumb was this? He bit his lip and kept patting the giant’s ankle, weighing the dangers to himself, the giant, and the clan.
Finally, he stepped forward and leapt up to tug at the giant’s sleeve. “Hey, buddy. One more idea, ok? One more idea. We’re gonna take another step back. I’ve got this amulet,” he lifted it out from under the collar of his armor, “And it dispells one spell a day. Only the best of our scouts have ‘em, so you’re lucky it was me that found you, but they’re made to get us out of a tricky spot. If I turn the spell off and pick the lock myself, are you gonna get hurt? Or just me?”
“But what if he finds out?” the quiet hiss was still louder than a whisper, but Venk appreciated the attempt.
“Then you tell him I did it. You tell him a tree fell on you and I came across you before you could get out from under and I thought maybe if I took off that collar I could be your master, only then it zapped me and I died and you’re still a good boy following directions, or whatever.”
“What if it does kill you?”
“Then you tell my clan to get back underground before your master gets here, and you go on forward to the ruins like you were going to anyway. I’ll write a note for them.”
The giant shook his head. “I can’t escape.”
Venk looked around and, finding no body part particularly convenient for grabbing, leapt up to tug at the giant’s sleeve again. “Give me your hand.”
The hand that came to rest on the ground beside him was too big to hold, but he wrapped his hands seriously around the giant’s thumb, trying not to think too much about babies and their hands, just now. “I promise, I can do this. And if I can’t, you weren’t gonna get away before, either. But if I can, then you can get away when you couldn’t before. That’s worth a try, right?”
The giant bit his lip, but didn’t immediately say no.
“What’s your name, friend?” Venk asked, “Mine’s Venk. I can promise you by name, if you want.”
This time, the giant’s eyes widened. “F-Falgh, Sir.”
Sir. Huh. “Falgh, I promise, if you let me try to take that collar off, I’ll be as careful as I can and I’ll give you the best shot I know how to give. Ok?”
Falgh closed his eyes, but then nodded, once, quickly.
Venk took a deep breath and nodded back. “Alright. Let’s try it. Bend forward so I can stand on the top of your back and get at that latch.”
Clambering up a living being was an odd feeling, even one that was lying on its stomach, but Falgh helped, clearly trying to flatten his back as much as he could under Venk’s feet.
The amulet flashed with a soft light and a pleasant heat, and then Venk set to work with a set of thieves tools, wishing he had more practice on things that weren’t manacles.
Then the lock clicked audibly, and both their bodies tensed immediately, but nothing happened.
“There we go,” Venk whispered, “I think I’ve got it. Let me try to open it.” The mechanism that closed the collar was more clamp than buckle, clearly designed for medium-sized hands, which sent a little half-shiver through Venk’s spine to think about. Falgh wasn’t medium-sized, either.
He held his breath as he pried open the clasp, and then - the collar fell free.
He almost fell over as Falgh let out a great, heaving sigh of relief, tension draining from his muscles. “Whoa!”
The giant froze again. “Sorry.”
Venk bent down and patted the giant’s back, beside where he was standing, “It’s ok, bud. I get it.” He wasn’t sure he did, but it seemed like the thing to say.
Falgh nodded, seriously, which also jarred Venk a little bit, and he hurried to scramble back off the giant’s back.
As he settled back onto the ground by the giant’s face, Falgh looked at him with big, soft grey eyes, and whispered, “Are you my master now? Or was that just for pretend, if it didn’t work?”
One answer to that question was clearly more interesting than the other, but he knew he could never give it, even as it crossed his mind.
He placed a small hand on Falgh’s huge cheek. “It was just for pretend, Falgh. I don’t mind if you come with me, though. I’m sure you’d be a great help in the ruins. Or you can go somewhere and hide. I’d understand that, too.”
Falgh’s eyes were dark, serious as they gazed into his own. “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind? I’m -” his eyes darted away, “I’m not convenient. Or sneaky. Or very good at things”
Venk raised an eyebrow. “Think you’d be good at carrying me back to camp? My one foot’s pretty bad. Dunno how much you feel wasp stings, but I feel ‘em kind of a lot, just now.”
Falgh’s eyes widened, darting back to Venk’s face. “Oh! Yeah, I can do that! If you want.” He bit his lip. “Will the - will the shaman still want to kill me?”
Venk smiled, patting Falgh’s cheek again. “Not if you’re with me, buddy. Not if you’re with me.”
