Grark was finally ready to run, and they were looking forward to it Grark loved running, Grark loved helping, and Fuzzyfriend and Fixymonkey were going along, meaning Grark could run, and help, and be with Fuzzyfriend, and if anything broke it could be fixed. (Grark knew by now of course that Fixymonkey was actually called Alyvyn, but since he had started posting pictures of Fuzzyfriend and Fixymonkey with little comments underneath they had become really popular on the network and the name stuck, besides humans picked such silly names Fixymonkey was better.)

Oh and Grark was helping big-time this time round, they remembered the snappy creatures (they were called Caymen now, yet another silly name.) They had hung round Grark lots before the big nap, they used to finish off Grark’s leftovers, (not that there would have been a lot left by the time a Protodragon was done snacking, but it had helped them through some lean times,) and scared away anything bigger that tried to eat them. (There were so many bigger things back then Grark remembered, now everything was bite sized and Grark was really glad they no longer had to eat or they would be really hungry and cranky since almost everything moving around them now was made of rock, or not for putting in the mouth. Grark don’t bite the magic array, Grark no eating the sun stones they go kablooey. Grark put down the wagon it isn’t a chew toy, blah blah blah.)

They had made Grark a present now, a big metal ball. They threw Grark brought back, it was a fun game, sometimes they even pretended to throw it so Grark chased, Grark didn’t like that so much. (How Grark managed to fail to notice the Constructs had not thrown a ball that was literally bigger than they were that they simply stood in front of in a dramatic throwing pose truly was a mystery for the ages. But if it kept a couple of tonnes of Protodragon occupied for a little while then nobody was prepared to complain.)

Grark stepped forward and was fastened into the thingy, they had to be really really careful not to smash it with a wag, or run too fast till the round bits fell off, but it would help Grark get the hot stones to the Caymen before they woke up. Grark remembered the cold, Back when they had skin instead of stone they had hated the cold. It made them all twitchy and shaky, then sleepy. Some like Grark had gone for a big nap when cold happened, cold was no fun, and Grark would do anything they could to help. (It had been debated and decided whether to teach Grark about mass extinction events, meteorites, though he'd already learned about those via terminal headache, and ice ages, and the collective decision had been that maybe it was not the best idea to educate several tonnes of rock and dragon scale with undead traits about upsetting subjects. Grark had a tendency to bite scary and upsetting things, and they figured that maybe the idea of several centuries of ice and death might be slightly upsetting to them.)

Finally it was time to run, they couldn’t figure out anywhere else to put Fuzzyfriend and Fixymonkey so they had made a special hat for Grark with padding inside, lots and lots of padding, and thrown in as many pillows as they could find. So once those two were on board Grark started to run.

Grark really enjoyed the run, he panted as he ran, stone tongue hanging out to one side. They were running good and fast. Grark was surprised nothing had tried to stop them though, in the old days even the little hissy lizards would have jumped at them in a bunch and tried to eat them. But everything was so much littler now, sometimes a little creature would jump out and then change their mind and run off. But they were all so puny and didn’t seem to know how to hunt in groups. It was cute really watching a little thing no bigger than a wheely thing (Grark thought they were called wagons) jump out, make a puddle and run. Were they trying to mark territory? That was silly Grark was just passing through.

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Genesis really was doing their job now, the waters were rising fast (the locals had to lift anchor on the grounded boats in a hurry, it’s easy to forget that anchoring something down when there’s no water means they can’t rise when suddenly there is water, and right now with how the water was churning up trying to swim in the rehydrated desert would be like taking a dip in quicksand, which by the way is definitely not advisable.)

A lot of people were keen to celebrate, but first there was damage control to do. A lot of water suddenly can be almost as bad as no water, but also needs different coping strategies. After all not all emergencies are made equal, though they may be a great equaliser. (For instance a dinghy is great in a flood, but in a wildfire? Not so much. Or in case of famine it doesn’t matter how much emergency savings you put to one side in case of financial collapse. It may end badly for you though, as the old suggestions for how to deal with the rich may be taken a tad more seriously in that circumstance. Particularly if you used some of said cash to buy your way out of trouble early on, and tried the same later. As Mayor Donner of Smiletown discovered after flashing some cash to try to buy food for a party.)

Meanwhile back at Genesis they had a problem, the lime gelatin stuff was starting to flicker a little. Inside it some of the little Caymen were starting to wake up too, the field was buying them time (both literally and figuratively) and they desperately needed it. But there was no sign of the stones yet, and if they woke up without that they were really living on borrowed time.