Erik was already running when the first booming step echoed out. It wasn’t logical, it wasn’t smart but he was running as fast as he could as Iona was stepping around her desk to pursue him. His heart was pounding in his chest as he fled but it was almost hilarious how little progress he was making at the utterly pitiful scale he’d been reduced to. At one point Erik had mused that it wasn’t possible to feel any smaller than he normally was. Iona had taken that idea and smashed it quite firmly. 

Her heel clad foot came down from around the side of the desk, followed by the other as a great and looming shadow suddenly fell over Erik. He stumbled and fell face first into one of the carpet fibers and looked up, feeling his blood freeze over as he drank in the sheer enormity of the woman. It was like a biblical titan gazing down upon him, her face far away above him and her form almost like that of a living landmass. She lifted her pipe to her lips and took a drag as she watched him. 

“Not really going to stop me from doing what I want with you, but amusing effort.” The woman remarked as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. 

Her steps cut across the floor, the blonde moving faster than anything her size had any right to do. Erik tried to get up… only to smack face first into the side of a wall. Iona’s expensive and fine heel was pushing down on the carpet and he was right next to the base of it, stopping right in his tracks as this vast and endless wall towered above. He couldn’t see beyond the inside of her large and voluminous skirt, tracing up her legs and beyond. A sky of fabric in its own right that stole away his view beyond. 

She shifted her skirt aside and looked down at him, noting his expression probably and that was why she smirked. “Now where were we, ah yes. I think it was here.”

The heel shifted and wobbled as she slowly pulled her foot from within the confines of the footwear, flexing and curling vast toes and wrinkling at her mature sole as it danced overhead. The prince stared upward in naked terror as he was reminded of his second visit with a princess only too well. Compared to that, this was far worse just due to the incredible difference in scale. One would think his mind well equipped to get used to it, but it was too much. 

“W-wait, my lady! Stop!” He cried. 

She didn’t hear or she didn’t care. Whatever the case was her foot came down for him and he suddenly found a grand pressure upon him that shifted to a squeezing. The toes of the woman wrapped around him as she lowered her foot down and he was firmly locked in place as they held him tightly. He squirmed and writhed and that only made her squeeze him tighter, knocking the air from his lungs. The ever so faintest scent of sweat filled him and he could feel the battering was going to leave some bruises. 

At last he was released as the toes uncurled and he plummeted straight down until he landed upon something soft and leathery. He groaned from the vertigo and looked around. What he gazed around at was the vast insole of her heel, specifically he was upon the slight incince just above where her toes would normally rest. He looked back up and swallowed hard as fear filled him again. 

“I’m sorry for any offense I’ve given, my lady! Please, let's be civilized about this!” He pleaded. 

Again she didn’t acknowledge or hear whatever it was he said and her foot came down toward him regardless. He scrambled to his feet and was running for the imprints her toes had made upon the insole as fast as he could manage as the pale digits came closer. He let out a cry as he was bowled over and his scream was perhaps audible for a moment before Iona’s foot settled back into its heel. 

The prince was caught in a nook between her toes, mashed and pressed tightly as her toes were squeezed into her fine heel. The pressure was intense, enough that it was something even he could feel. He could breathe but only just barely and when he tried to speak only muffled noises escaped him from his cramped and tightly packed place. There was motion as she tapped her foot upon the ground beyond, the movement jarring Erik and shaking him to his core. There was no room to wriggle or squirm. Her soft and doughy skin was an inescapable prison for him at this scale. 

It was hell but it wasn’t nearly so bad as when she started walking. Moving. Navigating the world and all without a care for the prince in her shoe. He was getting flashbacks to Amelia, a lot of flashbacks to Amelia as she had worn him around in her sandal while she went about her day. That was what Iona was doing only it was with an even wider gap between them. A gap where he truly was a bug to this woman. 

It was a motion machine that never seemed to stop. When it did stop it was only for a few moments. He could hear indistinct muffled booming noises from beyond at times, her speaking to this or that person no doubt. The Duchess was unfortunately a busy woman and not simply someone that sat around and enjoyed killing time. Every step would have killed him if he was human, would have rendered him a tiny red stain between her toes. There were points when she stepped down especially hard that he almost wished for that. 

As with Amelia it was hard to know how much time was passing beyond as he was trapped in his dark and cramped prison inside her shoe. It was even harder from in here. There was no light and no glimpses of the world beyond. For all he knew he could have been trapped for minutes or hours. The only metric of time he had was how many steps the Duchess made. Even those were hard to track in his daze. 

Then that was when thoughts started to creep into his brain. Unwelcome thoughts. Thoughts that told him it was no accident he ended up like this a good few times. That this was pretty appealing in an illicit way. The way this woman in particular just threw around her power with such confidence. It went beyond a lot of the ladies he had met. A self assured woman that did things because she wanted to. It was pretty hot. 

That thought was killed in his brain quickly. No, no this was horrible! He hated this! She was treating him like a plaything. If he was thinking thoughts like that it was clear the constant impacts from her merciless steps were doing a number on him. Erik tried to squirm weakly and immediately regretted it as his form was squeezed by her toes and he felt for sure that he was going to pop from the pressure before it stopped. 

Eventually he felt her toes shifting around him a bit and clean fresh air flooded in, the prince taking great gulps of it as Iona pulled her foot out. The motion and movements beyond him caused his head to spin before he was aware of a distant impact. Then another, and then nothing. Erik opened his eyes and looked around, trying to get his bearings as he blinked away black spots. 

He was pushed up against her big toe between her big and second, the prince having to peel himself from the side of the sigit many times his side. Iona had set her feet upon a table and crossed them at the ankles. He looked out across the way and could see her seated upon a couch, taking a drag of her pipe as she looked between her toes at the miserable looking prince between them. 

“Proper look for you down there, Prince. I think I see some lint between the toes. Clean it out.” She ordered. 

A flash of hot defiance welled up. “I will not- Urk!” 

All at once her toes curled. Hard. He felt himself squeezed and pushed to near bursting before her toes relaxed again. “You will.” 

“Y-you can’t-!” 

Again her toes curled hard around him, battering him and sending black spots dancing before his eyes. She relaxed again. “I can.” 

He wheezed and coughed. “I’m a prince-!” 

Again the digits enveloped him, this time holding him like that for a few moments longer, the agony mounting before he collapsed, coughing and sputtering. It was her words that might have hurt most. “Who cares?” 

Erik felt the words slam hard against him. They rang in his head, repeating endlessly. Who cares? She didn’t. Looking up he could see it in her eyes. She didn’t see a prince. She saw some small amusing thing squirming between her toes. And that was what he was. Erik could argue and bluster, but all she had to do to silence him was curl her toes. A simple gesture from her that utterly dominated him. She was so far above him it was hilarious. No, he was so far below her that it was only natural. 

So it was that the prince whimpered under the casually uncaring gaze of the Duchess, getting down and using his hands to clear away any lint clinging to the webbing between her toes. The woman chuckled as he got to work, the rumbling noise drawing a wince from him as he worked, dirtying himself for her whims.

“Good boy. You’ll make a fine husband in the end. Even if you somehow manage to make it a few days, I’m sure whatever suitors you have after me will be most happy you know what the natural order is.” The woman said. 

Erik was in such a state that all he could manage to do was nod meeking, shutting down mentally to just try and get through this.