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We Have a Small Problem — Description
"We made it through! HAH, jokes on THAT place! Now we need too..."

"...SNIFF"

"......Damn it :'D"

I'm a fan of the concept of characters temporarily becoming older or younger (I know you're positively shocked over that one). Whatever Amel got himself into, his mind resorted back to that age- he's suddenly away from home, strangers are ahead of him, he's lost, covered in painful scratches and ready to pour out the water works. Kaden and Sorrel have to convince him to trust them until it wears off or until they find a way to return him to normal.

This plays out like a tv episode to me (I guess what doesn't lol), and Kaden and Sorrel unwittingly act like parents and it's just really cute to me and cracks me up. To Sorrel's surprise Kaden is really watchful and firm- he never saw this side of him before because normally Kaden likes to be lighter in his approaches to situations. The faun was already concerned enough when Amel was his normal age so now it's x2- Kaden was always a bit on the paranoid side but not quite like this. You can only imagine how much more naive Amel is, with a child's innocent trusting nature he's much more vulnerable-which Kaden is well aware of and taking no chances.

Although I entertain the idea of it taking an unexpected turn later, where Kaden goes too far and badly scares Amel- even Sorrel is completely stunned. Amel timidly, quietly and tearfully asks why he's so angry which gives Kaden pause. A memory slams him in the gut where he asked his dad the same thing when he was younger and with horror realizes he turned into his dad in that moment. Kaden is extremely bitter and resentful of his father so thinking about being anything like him felt like touching a hot stove. Needless to say he feels absolutely awful and apologizes and sweet little Amel easily forgives him.

I tried a bit of a different technique here by leaving Sorrel lighter since the focus is supposed to jump from Kaden to Amel but I don't know how well it translates on paper compared to if it was say animated. So whether it has that effect at least you know why now lol.

I tried to see if I could make Kaden's face a bit "harder" and make him a bit more proportioned to his age without changing too much- I rather like the result