When I woke up, the sun had been up for a few hours and Sondra was no longer beneath me.  I crawled out from beneath the blanket she had provided and breathed in the morning air.  Sounds of activity came from the direction of the fire, and I figured it was around breakfast time for them.  They had forgotten about me again when it came time to eat, and while Kirinhalut had made it so I needed neither food nor water I still wanted to taste something.  Even if I could get off this disc hovering several feet in the air, there was no way I’d reach them before it was all gone.

The tent’s flap pulled back and Sondra stepped through.  She strode toward me until the front fold of her robe brushed my hovering platform and looked down at me.  I was at about waist level to her, and her immense frame blocked my whole field of view.  Even looking straight up I could barely see her face, though I knew her clear blue eyes were on me.

“Good morning, sleepy-head!” she boomed with a smile.  “How’d you sleep?”

“Best rest I’ve had since I ran into that witch,” I answered.  Telling her about Kirinhalut’s visit last night was tempting, but I didn’t want to risk the devastating reprisal she would bring upon me.  “First time I’ve had a real blanket since then, too.  Usually I’ve just had to sleep in the open air.”

“Well, I’m glad you liked it,” Sondra replied.  “I was going to bring you to breakfast, but you looked so peaceful sleeping there and I didn’t want to disturb you.  Plus, I figured Bush and Lell could use some time to cool down without having to see you.”

“It’s fine, I’m not that hungry anyway.”  Sondra looked doubtful but did not question it.  “Are we getting back on the road, then?”

“Not just yet.”  She reached a hand forward and pinched me between her thumb and forefinger.  When she was sure of her grip the platform beneath me disappeared, dropping the tiny blanket she had given me onto her foot: seeing how it didn’t even stretch from one side to the other was a stark reminder of how puny I was compared to most people.  “Lell thinks the intermediaries who bought the orb are camped not too far from here, so she’s gone to check it out while we stay back here.”  Sondra lifted me to her face so she would not have to keep looking down at me, keeping me about a foot from her nose.

“So, what’ll you be doing while she’s away?”

“I was going to spend the time sorting my reagents,” Sondra began, “and I could really use a pair of tiny hands to help out.  Would you mind?”  She gave a wide, toothy smile, showing off a set of pearly whites nearly my size.

“I’d be glad to help you out,” I told her.  “Won’t the others think you’re bogarting me though?”

Sondra let out a single laugh that sounded like a thunderclap before answering.  “I don’t think Bush will object, and Margret usually spends her downtime praying or fiddling with her armor.  Unless Kiri objects, I’ll have you all to myself.”  From the excitement edging into her voice, it seemed like she might be looking forward to it.

“Sounds good to me,” I said.  Kirinhalut might have something to say about it, but that was a problem for later.  Right now, I was glad I could finally be useful to someone.

She left the tent and started walking across the camp, keeping me at eye level.  As she walked she tried to keep me steady, but I still swayed back and forth with her hand.  Aside from the gigantic hand gripping me it felt a lot like being on a boat, complete with the queasiness in my stomach.  I focused on one of her eyes to minimize the effect, and soon found myself lost in the shining blue.  It was refreshing to look at someone this beautiful for so long without them trying to destroy me.

It was a short trip thanks to Sondra’s long legs, and in less than a minute we were at the back of the wagon.  She placed a third digit on my back to keep me stable, then reached up to grab the handle.  With a quiet grunt she hoisted herself into the wagon, making my stomach drop with the sharp ascent.  Despite her precautions, I still got tossed around when she flailed her arm for balance, my whole body feeling the jolt as her hand lurched from side to side.  Though it only lasted a moment, it was enough excitement for a week.

When Sondra turned her attention back to me, she gave an embarrassed laugh.  Neither of us said anything, and she walked to her workbench against the wall.  To avoid giving me another scare she slowly lowered me from her face, giving me an extended view of her body while she lowered me along it.  Time on the road had been kind to her, giving her a lean, slender body, though she had avoided getting much of a tan.  Her robe was pulled tight enough that I saw she had a modest chest.  She set me down on a metal tray in front of her, and I realized how much of a joy it would be to gaze up at her while we worked.

Once I was settled, she reached into her robe and withdrew a leather pouch.  Sondra spread it open with two fingers, then brought it to the table beside me.  She upturned the bag, dumping its contents into a small hill on the plate.  After a vigorous shake to make sure it was empty, she laid it off to the side and began picking through the mound of reagents.

“So, how can I help?” I asked while Sondra continued breaking the pile of spell components up with a finger.

“I’m trying to make this big pile into lots of smaller ones,” she answered.  “It’s gotten a little unruly in there, and I’m trying to separate each of them out so they can go in their own bag.  Think you can do that?”

“Doesn’t sound too hard,” I said, and walked to the pile of spell reagents.  When I was almost close enough to grab something the smell hit me, and it felt like I had just been punched in the face.  I recoiled and covered my nose, gagging and trying not to retch.  The smells of every item had combined into a single horrific cloud that was almost thick enough to see.  Sickly sweets had mixed with dead fish, and below those were the scents of a half-dozen types of fruit and old meat.  My eyes watered, and I forced myself to breathe through my mouth with each step as I inched closer.

“It might be a little harder than you think,” Sondra teased, plucking a couple plant buds out.  “Don’t worry if it’s too much for you.  I’ve been doing this myself for a while, I can do it again.  I really just wanted you here because it’s tedious and it’d be nice to have someone to talk to for once.”

“No, if I’m going to be here I insist on helping,” I replied, taking a big step toward her spell components.  After the initial shock, I was getting used to the smell.

“Suit yourself.”  Sondra shrugged and reached into the pile again, nudging things aside until she had collected several down feathers.  “As long as we can still talk while we work.”

“Sure thing.”  I reached in and grabbed what I thought was a black pearl, but the slime on my hands told me otherwise.  It was soft and squishy, and as I rolled it toward me I realized it was a fish eye the size of my torso.  Even had it not been incredibly gross, it was hefty and a little on the bulky side, so I rolled it over the ground.  “What do you want to talk about?”

“I’d like to start by getting to know more about you!”  When I had reached what I thought was a good distance away, I stopped and turned around to get more.  “For instance, how long have you been… like this?”  As she spoke, she flicked several more fisheyes toward me, and I rushed to stop.

“Small?  Shrunken?  A shrunken human?” I asked while I corralled the black balls.  “It’s fine, you can say it.  It’s what I am now, and no amount of talking around it will make it not so.  To answer your question, I was made small three months ago, and just a month later I ended up trapped in that room.”  That seemed like a reasonable amount of time, I thought, considering what Kirinhalut and I had been using as a cover story.

“Huh.”  Sondra picked out a series of long, green stems that were like small trees to me, and I started back to the pile.  “So you were with your group for about a month at this size.  How’d they deal with the change?”

“We made it our first priority to get the curse lifted.”  I picked up some flower petals and hoisted them over my shoulders, a different color on each side.  “We were actually there because we’d heard he had an item that could undo it.  That turned out to be wrong, but they never found out we had been misled.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“What about you, though?”  The flower petals slapped against the metal when I dropped them off my shoulders.  “I’ve met my fair share of groups, but I’ve never seen one that had a pixie as a member.”  I paused to crack my back before going back to load up again.

“She and Lell were a package deal,” Sondra began while gathering a collection of rat tails.  “They’ve been friends since they were young – since one of them was young, at least, I’m not sure which ages slower.  After a couple of weeks, Margret and I realized we could use someone with a bow, so we started looking for another small group to merge with.  We were confused when we first met since we only saw one of them, but Bush made herself known very quickly.   She’s a great thief, though, and proved her worth early on by getting into places that only she could.”  She set the handful of tails down on the edge of the metal plate, then her eyes widened. 

“Not that I’m saying you’re worthless, mind you!” she rushed to add.  “See?  You’re helping me!”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said, loading up with more petals.  “I know you didn’t mean it like that.” Sondra sighed and visibly relaxed, and I tried to lighten the mood.  “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen while adventuring?”

“Weirdest?” she repeated.  “Other than a person who seems to be permanently shrunken, I’d have to say a crazy mage who thought he’d trained a bunch of mustard jellies to be his pets.  Maybe he had, and they were just trained to attack people.  Either way, he didn’t really care for us fighting back and said we were hurting his friends.  Definitely weird, though admittedly not all that funny.”

I got back to where she had dumped out her pouch and found the only thing left was a white paste with some dirt sprinkled in it.  “Huh, looks like we’re done,” I announced.

Sondra’s eyes flitted to the mass in front of me.  “Yeah, we are.”  She began loading the piles into little glass vials, and I helped guide them through the vials’ mouths.  “That went a lot faster than usual!  Or at least, it seemed like it did.  Either way, thanks.”

“Glad I could help,” I replied, looking up at her.  She secured the vials in her robe’s pockets, and we stared at each other silently for a few moments.

“So, and please don’t take this the wrong way,” Sondra began, nervously tucking a lock of hair behind her right ear, “would you mind if I experimented on you?”  I waited for her to elaborate, because that sounded much more horrific than she had shown herself to be.  “What I mean is, well, I’ve read about witch’s curses, but I’ve never actually seen the effects of one.  I know I can’t dispel it, but there are still a lot of other spells I could try to maybe work around the effect.  Want to give it a try?”

I shrugged.  It sounded like she did not have any other plans for the day, and whatever I could do was limited by someone being willing to carry me around.  Besides, if I should be doing anything it should be focused on undoing the damage of my bond with Kirinhalut.  “Yeah, let’s see what you can do,” I said at last.  “Don’t think you’ll make anything worse, at least.”  Sondra looked overjoyed and eager to get to work as she pulled out some of the recently filled vials from her robe.