Margret groaned loudly and finally got up to one knee while Sondra dabbed me with the cuff of her robe, a dark, wet spot spreading as it absorbed more saliva.  I was in shock from nearly getting swallowed, and even if I did not frequently have a thumb pressing on me, I doubted I would be able to articulate what happened.  Llelwyl crossed her arms and began tapping a foot impatiently, looking between the two regular-sized humans.  “Don’t everyone talk at once,” she chided, “I only saved your lives.  Where’s Bushwack?”

A sharp cry of pain filled the room when Margret pushed herself to her feet, leaning heavily against a table for support.  “Oh shit, Bush,” she muttered, and started limping toward where she had fallen, dragging a boot behind her.  “Don’t worry little lady, I’m coming.”  She grunted with each step, and the floor shook each time her good leg set down.

When she had dried me to the point my clothes were only a little damp Sondra gave her a quick answer, though she kept her focus on me.  “Kiri was a succubus named Kirinhalut.  She forced the shrunken human into a bond with her, stole his height, and turned us against each other so she could steal the Orb.  We confronted her before she could make much use of it and unlock its true potential.”

“I figured she was a demon,” Llelwyl replied.  “There was a surge of evil power here just a few minutes ago.  That’s why I brought cold iron-tipped arrows.  Doesn’t matter how augmented they are, demons are still weak against them.”  Her tone was remarkably smug for someone who swooped in at the last minute with a hunch.  “Where is the Orb, anyway?”

For the first time in several minutes, Sondra looked away from me.  It was a good question: the Orb should have been easy to see even amid the wreckage, it was a brightly-glowing ball the size of a person’s fist.  However, there was no sign of it.  Sondra’s lips parted while she tried to process what she saw, then she answered, “It’s… gone.  It must’ve gotten banished with her.”

Margret’s boot stopped scraping against the ground, and the room shook when her knee landed on the floor.  “Come on Bush, stay with me!” she pleaded, shouting at the pixie.  “You and I both know it’s not your time yet!”  She muttered a prayer, and golden light spread over the wall.  There were a few moments of silence, then Margret started grunting again as she got back to her feet.

“Guess we won’t be getting paid for this job after all,” Llelwyl remarked.

Sondra glared at her and said, “We’re not exactly focused on money right now, if you can’t tell.”  She turned her attention back to me.  “Are you okay?  Do you need me to dry you off some more?”

Before I could answer, Llelwyl stepped forward until her chest brushed against Sondra’s fingertips.  She peered down at me, narrowing her dark eyes while she loomed above.  Being between two giantesses always made me feel uneasy, but it was worse when one of them looked like she wanted to squash me.  “I see you’re still carrying that thing around.”  Her tone was cold, just as it had always been when she spoke about me.  “I’m surprised no one stepped on him during the fight.”

“This ‘thing’ is a person,” Sondra shot back, “and he’s the one who told us about Kirinhalut’s plans.  If it weren’t for him, she would have made us all kill each other eventually.  We all owe him a lot, even you.  It’s because of him we were able to stop her before she became too powerful.”

“And here I was thinking that things started to go wrong right after he showed up.”

“I’m pretty sure that was because of the succubus, not him.  She used our feelings about him to sow discord, but you’d be daft to lay that at his feet.”

Before the discussion could turn too nasty, Margret shuffled up beside Sondra.  She was in bad shape.  A large welt covered her whole left cheek, and it had swollen to the point that eye was shut.  One arm hung loosely from its shoulder socket, and from how she dragged a foot I doubted she could stand on it.  Her good hand, still marked by dozens of scrapes and cuts, was wrapped around Bushwack.  The pixie was limp in Margret’s grip and her fragile wings were bent at odd angles, but her breath was steady, albeit shallow.

“She’s alive, but in bad shape,” Margret reported.  “She needs her bones and wings set before I give her any significant healing, and I don’t trust my fingers to be able to do it.  We need to get her to a pixie anatomist as soon as possible.”

“Let me take her,” Llelwyl offered.  “I know where her home is, there’s bound to be someone there who can help.”

“I think she’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to travel with you anymore,” Sondra responded.

“That was when she was under the succubus’s influence, and I think she would agree these are extenuating circumstances.  I can get her the help she needs.”

“I’m not sure that was it,” Sondra replied.  “She was just as horrified as we were after you crushed the shrunken human.  I’ll agree to let you rejoin us, and we can all go to Bush’s home, if you apologize to him for treating him like trash.”

Llelwyl leaned forward until her nose nearly touched my chest so her enormous face was all I could see.  “Hello, little bug-man!” she boomed, her voice loud enough it made my ears ring.  “I’m sorry you ended up under my boot and I smashed you, and I’m sorry for constantly pointing out how useless you are to everyone else.  I wish you weren’t such a burden too, but with the succubus gone I don’t think you’ll be getting any bigger after all, so you’re going to keep being dead weight for us.”

Sondra slid her other hand over me as a barrier between me and Llelwyl’s sonic assault.  “That wasn’t an apology and you know it,” she said gravely.  “Get out.  I thought you were awful to him because of Kirinhalut’s influence, but it’s clear you’re just rotten.  We can help Bushwack on our own, just get out and hope our paths don’t cross again.”

“I saved your lives, I was hoping for some gratitude!” Llelwyl protested.

“And you have it.  That’s why I’m letting you leave on your own.”  Sondra and Llelwyl stared each other down, daring the other to make a move.  Llelwyl blinked first, however, stepping away from the challenge.

“If you want to trade me for someone the size of an insect, fine,” Llelwyl said, then scoffed.  “I can find my own group, one less enamored by someone shorter than the sole of my boot.  I hope you’re all very happy making sure he doesn’t get carried off by a bird.”  She stomped out of the ruined room, her footsteps thundering loudly on the floor.

Three months later we were in our room, still recovering from the fight.  Though he was initially horrified at the damage Kirinhalut had done, we were able to convince him that, were it not for us, the damage would have been much worse, and not limited to the inn.  He graciously offered to let us stay as long as we wanted, so long as he could advertise that the heroes of Gorbatov were staying at his inn.  With nowhere else to go we accepted, and tried to keep our celebrations moderate.

After asking around a bit, we managed to find a fey quarter of the city that contained a sizable pixie contingent.  Based on rumors alone we headed for it immediately, keeping Bushwack in a small box to keep her from moving around.  There were several anatomists among the population and, working together, they were able to get Bushwack’s bones set.  Her wings, much more fragile than her arms and ribs, were a different story.  While they were able to reconstruct them with the prognosis that she would fly again, she would not be able to use them for several months.  With her grounded, we were effectively stuck in place.

The adventurer guild was surprisingly understanding about the Orb.  Apparently, they had expected whoever found it to simply run off with it, though their actual plan was to destroy it.  Getting it banished was an acceptable, though not ideal, outcome, and at least now they could plan for its return in a century.  For our efforts they gave us half the initial award with a bonus for sending it to a different plane it, netting 3000 gold pieces for each of us.  That was enough to get us some much-needed upgrades after dealing with Kirinhalut as well as some things that were just nice to have.

I was helping Sondra scribe her spells into a much more condensed spell book using a quill that was reduced for my size, which would allow her to many more spells for the road, accessible so long as she had a magnifying glass.  While I could not read magic, tracing the patterns was easy enough, especially when the initially scribed glyphs were half my size.  Sondra watched me work, making sure I did not deviate from the established patterns and offering me gentle encouragement as I wrote.  We made a better team than I expected, and I had no doubt that nights spent cupped between her hands contributed to that.

Margret sat against another wall, tinkering with a tiny set of plate armor.  Her work was slowed with one arm restricted by a sling, but it ended up making her much more careful.  Every strike with her small hammer against the heated metal was carefully considered since she could not simply pry it back apart with her fingers.  It was precise work, forged out of a single ingot, and she frequently borrowed me to test how it fitted around my body.  A sword would apparently come later once she had figured out how to properly scale a weapon down to my size.

Bushwack paced along the edge of the table I was on.  She a difficult adjustment to being grounded, but seemed to more readily accept it after I explained to her she was going through what I do on a daily basis.  While she was still not happy about it, she was more willing to accept it, especially since it was only temporary.

Suddenly she stopped and looked behind herself with an enormous grin.  “Hey, everybody!” she shouted, drawing our attention.  Her delicate wings were still bandaged, though the splits had been removed, and they were moving on their own.  “I can move them again!  According to the person who bandaged me, I should be able to fly in just a couple of days!”

“That’s great news!” I exclaimed, turning away from my scribing for a moment.  “As soon as you can fly again and my armor’s ready, we can get out there and start fighting evil again!”

“Maybe not quite so fast,” Sondra interjected.  “I checked the guild bylaws, and technically we don’t constitute a full party right now.”  I looked at her puzzled, so she elaborated.  “The minimum is four people, and by the rules you don’t count as one.  I’ve lodged an appeal to have your case reviewed since you were previously a member in good standing, but they aren’t known for being flexible in their interpretation of the rules.  Right now, you’re officially our group mascot.”

“What does that mean for us if they don’t change their minds?” I asked.

“It could go one of two ways,” Sondra answered.  “If we wanted to keep adventuring, we’d have to find a new member.  That would be a long process, complete with interviews to make sure they were okay with our so-called ‘mascot.’  Lell made us understandably worried about outsiders might react to you, and I won’t accept anyone who treats you as less than a full member.  Alternatively, we could just retire.  We’ve all got enough money to live on for the rest of our lives, and with the favors people owe us we could be countesses and counts.”

I would need a while to think about the proposition.  The guild would probably not accept the changes: they struck down a measure to reclassify a batch of mold as slime despite overwhelming evidence from my expedition.  If it came down to it, I would be very comfortable settling down with Sondra, letting her rule as countess while I lived large as her tiny partner.  However, I would miss adventuring.  Although I could not contribute much, I loved being on the road, and having Sondra along would be a bonus.  We would have to wait and see what the official response was.  As things stood, I was fine with retiring, as long as I got to spend my nights cupped between Sondra’s warm hands.