Giantess World
“So, um… how’s it all look from there?”
“Different. Different, for sure.”
Lexi nodded, unsure what else she expected to hear. The Omega had been reduced to such a miniscule fraction of her former size that she would’ve needed to squint and lean in by fourteen stories just to be able to read her own tiny countenance from normal height, so the view had to be a tad disorienting. Bridget spoke quietly, but neither did she seem intimidated by the abruptly much-larger world around her as the pair made their way toward the city proper through the Omega neighborhood, leaning so far over the cusp of her hand-chauffeur’s thumb that Lexi had to steel her heartrate from increasing by reminding herself of just how sturdy Bridget was, no matter her scale. A tumble to the ground, even from this relatively long distance for the three-incher, would deal less harm to her than tripping and falling into a pile of pillows.
But Bridget was careful, just as Lexi was, and knew she didn’t have to fear disaster either way. Plus, the Alpha had to recall that she herself had always been just as adventurous a passenger when their roles were reversed, sometimes dangling herself monkey-style off an alarmed Bridget’s pinky from high in the air during their youth. With this guilty fun in mind, Lexi allowed herself to become relaxed with the puny Omega’s eagerness to view the world from her Beta’s-eye perspective. By the time they’d exited Bridget’s room, Lexi had a handle on carrying the sister who’d spent years acting as their collective transport, with the Omega always keeping an open palm so the Alpha could watch the oncoming landscape rolling along a hundred feet below, using Bridget’s soft fingertips as protective fencing. Thus Lexi extended her sibling the same courtesy.
Secretly, too, Lexi found herself strangely relishing the chance to have Bridget in her hand, even if it was a temporary arrangement. After the struggle for them both to return home following such a long time away, it was an added reassurance that, at least for now, her sister literally couldn’t get anywhere on her own, because she was perched in the palm of a girl who normally didn’t rise higher than Bridget’s ankle, even standing on tiptoes. Not that the Alpha would’ve tried to stop her charge from leaving, three inches tall or not, but there was comfort to be had nonetheless at being the one in the driver’s seat for a little while. It would surely only be of help once the Omega got around to saying her piece, and Lexi could be the one holding her up for once.
“I guess I could’ve asked Evelyn to give us a lift, if you want to reach town faster,” Lexi said.
“I’m not in any rush. Are you?”
“No way.” The Alpha couldn’t help but smile then.
“Wow. Did… those trees get bigger?” Bridget said after a quick beat, pointing out the array of leafy maples lining another Omega family’s front stoop. Blushing, she chuckled at herself, before even having to look up at Lexi, who was stifling a similar reaction. “I mean, obviously they’re… bigger now to me, but they look like they actually got taller since last time I saw them in the daylight. Or is it really just me?”
“I think it might just be you,” Lexi said. She paused in front of the expanse of their neighbors’ yard, admiring with her sister the thin forestry which decorated the cobblestone line, a footpath roughly the size of the Alpha roadways in town. If she closed one eye, the trees almost blended in with the scale of the house like shrubs rather than fledgling woodland. “They looked bigger eight or nine years ago, but after I climbed ‘em a few times, they didn’t seem so tall. Especially not with you standing next to them.”
“I remember. You could get up there pretty fast, too. It was impressive.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s so true,” Lexi snickered, rolling her eyes. “Even when I got to the top, it was still barely over your knee.”
“Hey, that’s still tall. And… God, it almost gives me a stomachache looking at it now, thinking of you getting all the way up there by yourself.”
“You sound more and more like Evelyn every year,” Lexi said, trying to keep a straight face.
“You take that BACK!” Bridget practically squealed in a way that made Lexi’s heartstrings tug. The Omega turned again to face her sister’s face above, giving the Alpha’s thumb a sporting smack which reminded Lexi just how strong and capable the blonde still was, even at three inches. “That might be the worst thing anyone’s ever said to anyone.”
“Okay, now that’s just mean. What’s so bad about it? Your mom is the coolest mom I know.”
“OUR mom.”
Another pause followed, with both girls again watching the colorful maple branches sway, and Lexi struggling to articulate a rather complicated swell of feeling.
“I know she is. O-Ours, I mean,” Lexi said, unsure what was making her stammer. “I just, um… wasn’t always sure if that’s how she, or… you… thought…”
“Well, she always has. And so have I,” Bridget said matter-of-factly, still with her gaze fixed on the trees. Her tone was serious, making sure the point of Lexi’s family belonging was firmly driven home, then shuddered with what the Alpha was at first startled to believe were tears, but were in fact continuing chortles. “I can’t believe you think I’m turning into her, though. Still!”
“All I’m saying is, telling me that you get sick thinking about me climbing a tree is a very MOM thing to say.”
“Oh, whatever. I wasn’t always like that, though! Just sometimes. Usually just when you ran off to try to do things like that yourself when I wasn’t on standby to catch you.”
“I just wanted to impress you. So sometimes I had to sneak away and get a head start before you freaked out,” Lexi shrugged. “It’s not always easy to show off when you’ve got a safety net hanging an inch under your butt the whole way up the tree.”
“Well, you still impressed me. Also, don’t forget that half the time, it was me trying to convince you to do some of that crazy stuff.”
“That’s true. You remember when you wanted me to do that tightrope walk over the bed?”
“Of course. And that time I convinced you to ride on that model boat we built?”
“It wasn’t a model to me, it was just a giant stack of wood we glued together that sunk after thirty seconds, and we painted it so pretty that I thought it would float anyway. But, sure, that one was all you.”
“Don’t forget when I got you to swing around the house on a string like Spider-Woman. I mean, we made you a seatbelt, but still…”
“All right, I take back part of the comparison to Mom,” Lexi relented. “But only like, twenty percent of it.”
“Thirty percent.”
“Deal.”
They were already fifteen minutes into their journey, and Bridget still hadn’t yet spoken a word of whatever had made her ominously suggest this stroll in the first place, which suited Lexi just fine. Yes, she felt the unspoken pressure of the other giant shoe about to drop, much as she had in nightmares during the early days of her solitude, imagining Enforcement sessions she hadn’t even been punished with, but the amusing and literally small-scale wonderment of having a three-inch-tall elder sister in the palm of her hand as they conversed like the good old days helped soften this tension for now.
Eventually the maples were left behind. It was a lengthy walk without an Omega to carry them, but Lexi was anxious for the trip to last as long as possible anyway. The difference in Bridget’s stature actually became less stark in Lexi’s eyes once they had departed the Cade household and finally the Omega neighborhood itself, places they were surrounded by colossal reminders of the change in every drawbridge-like door and tree-height houseplant. Once out in the architectural melting pot of the city, though, where the geometry of the buildings and streets was designed to simultaneously cater to the needs of diverse beings ranging from two inches to nearly two hundred feet tall, the tiny golden-haired trooper in Lexi’s hand seemed to blend in with the rest of the serene multi-sized urban chaos. Almost like this had always been the way of things.
“Was it this crowded all the time?” Bridget asked. Her voice was nearly lost among the downtown area’s hustle-and-bustle din. At first Lexi thought she’d just misheard, until she saw the curious look on the Omega’s face, like she’d never been here before.
“Actually, this isn’t too bad,” Lexi said. “I think you’re just used to seeing it all from-”
“All right, maybe I should stop asking dumb questions,” Bridget said, clasping a hand over her eyes.
“It’s not a dumb question. I’m guessing it just looks a lot different here, too.”
“I think I’d be afraid of getting lost around here.”
“I used to feel that way, too. A long time ago.”
“But you got used to it from walking the streets enough times?”
“Actually, I think it was just because you ended up just carrying me above them half the time, so I got to learn where everything was like looking down on a model town,” Lexi said, sharing a conspiratorial glance with her older sister.
“Yeah, I guess that would do it,” Bridget said, again wrapping her arm over the Alpha’s thumb for balance and, more importantly, succor. The longer they talked, in fact, Lexi began to feel the kind of catharsis she’d hoped would instantaneously result when she found the Omega trying to forget her sins in Sanctuary’s flora. Perhaps there was something to this reversed perspectives idea as a therapeutic tool after all. Certainly Bridget had spoken more in the last half hour than she had the entire march back from the refuge city two nights before. In realizing this, Lexi hoped that maybe whatever mysterious and uncomfortable notion had crossed Bridget’s mind back in the bedroom would simply vanish into the noise of the crowd, now that they’d both had some fresh air and the chance to slip back into their sisterhood like a well-worn glove. It would still take time to adjust, of course, but the Alpha now had every confidence that things would return to normal, if only they kept on pushing through.
Almost in answer to this pre-emptive relief, then, Lexi couldn’t help but notice what she at first perceived to be a literal changing in the wind, the breeze nudging Bridget the opposite direction in her palm-perch. When she took the time to pay attention, though, it became clear it was just her imagination, probably encouraged by whatever was making the tiny Omega fidget in her hand. Trying not to frown too conspicuously, the Alpha raised the elevator of her cupped fingers up toward her face.
“Comfy enough?” Lexi asked, clearing her throat. “I’m, uh, guessing it takes some getting used to. It didn’t even totally occur to me until we were out of the house that this is your first time riding anywhere this way. Also, it’s been a long time since I’ve held anyone… your height… for more than like a minute.”
“It’s not that. You’re doing great. Seriously, you’re a natural,” Bridget insisted, standing up to close even more of the distance between their faces. “But that… also has to do with what I want… no, what I need to talk to you about.”
Lexi stopped dead in her tracks at this omen, which caused some Alpha teens walking behind her, eyes glued to their phones, to plow into her. Though the crash jolted her off-balance, Lexi instinctively curled her fingers inward around Bridget, protectively shielding her against the cushion of her palm while drawing her hand in toward her stomach just below her chest, to prevent her Beta-sized occupant from receiving any of the brunt in case she couldn’t regain her footing in time to avoid a wipe-out.
Though lithe and on the skinny side of average for her whole life, for perhaps the first time, Lexi became painfully aware of the mass her figure carried for someone of three-inch stature. When she wobbled forward after the collision with the oblivious teens, swinging her free arm and thrusting one foot out in hopes it would be enough to get balance, for an elongated instant the Alpha imagined herself carrying the ponderous momentum of an Omega, with fifteen stories of sky-blocking volume that constituted a thousand pounds of potentially street-cracking weight. Such was the unspoken responsibility of every towering upper-class being, she supposed, an uncertain perspective that made her feel different in a way she couldn’t quite place by the time she’d successfully “slammed” a foot down and stopped the pair of them from toppling face-first to the pavement. Catching her breath, Lexi swiftly reopened her hand, certain she’d turned to a nervous brow-furrowing wreck in the span of three seconds, but didn’t especially care.
“Are you okay?” the Alpha gasped, side-stepping under the awning of a nearby shop to avoid any more foot-traffic fender-benders.
“Of course,” Bridget said with a shrug, despite haphazardly straddling Lexi’s clawed fingers.
“Right. Because you’re made of sugar, spice, and Omega super-steel.”
“Actually, I meant because you have good instincts,” Bridget said with a warm smile, then mimicked the evasive action Lexi had taken, pitching forward and clutching her fist to her abdomen. “Even if I wasn’t made of sugar and spice and whatnot, I’d have been just fine.”
“Sorry about that. Like I said, it’s been a while. I probably need more practice. It just kind of caught me off-guard, when I thought you were about to say… something.”
“Maybe that’s a good reason for us to find somewhere more out of the way. How about that little park near here? It’s probably almost empty this time of day.”
They headed off without debate. The site indeed was bare, except for an old man reading on a bench, and an Alpha mother supervising her Beta kids practicing tee-ball swings on raised grassland. Though the park was certainly “little” compared to some of the other greenspaces around the city, there was still plenty enough ground for Lexi to take her time in winding along the paths between trees, continually bypassing benches she could’ve easily chosen which still had lots of empty void between them and the nearest pairs of ears, save for the chirping birds. But she rejected all of them as options for reasons that probably didn’t have to be spoken aloud to be comprehended by her passenger.
“I guess it’s a little bigger around here than I remembered, too,” Bridget said, breaking the quiet after Lexi passed on the tenth available bench. At this point they were on the verge of walking a complete lap around the inner circle of the park. Though soft, the Omega’s tone firmed in the way it occasionally did when circumstances gently required her to take charge up at her natural height, a role owing more to her older-sibling status more than her hundred-fifty-foot size however. She pointed ahead. “How about that one right there?”
Lexi spotted the bench, shaded under a pair of trees which reminded her of those in the Cades’ backyard. It was as good a place as any for whatever-this-was, and the Alpha’s stomach was starting to twist too severely anyway for it to be worth procrastinating any further, so she nodded and made a striding beeline for the wooden seat. She had no specific reason to be anxious, of course, as Bridget had reassured her by now in a dozen different ways just this morning that things were on their way back to normalcy for them. That should’ve been enough, she told herself.
Still the apprehension of the unknown gnawed. Her sister had spoken so cryptically of “needing” a Beta’s perspective in order to fix herself and their relationship; what if that meant Bridget taking another pilgrimage abroad, this time at three-inches, to rediscover herself? Yes, she was made of tough stuff, but in an emotionally vulnerable state, without a lifetime of instilling the better-safe-than-sorry, look-before-you-leap mindset which most actual Betas learned for daily survival, Lexi couldn’t help but feel another lurch of paranoia. Suppose Bridget crossed paths with the wrong people: the kind of conservative old-guard Alphas with bones to pick with both Betas and Omegas? Bridget would make an ideal target to take out their ire, killing two birds with one stone. Maybe not even just metaphorically. Plus, there was the fact that it would and could shatter Lexi to say goodbye for another unknown stretch of time.
By the time they’d settled onto the chosen bench, despite the Alpha’s best intentions to keep the concern from etching into her every facial feature, she knew it would be impossible to prevent Bridget from noticing her leeriness, now more than ever that the puny Omega had those worries blown up on a billboard-scale head to observe. So, rather than making her face turn red from the effort to conceal it, Lexi raked her fingers through her dark hair with her free hand, while the other palm propped an equally-reticent Bridget up at chest-height.
They’d dragged this out for long enough.