Standing outside on the station platform, Lexi took one last look at the train which had transported her from across the land: if she hopped back on board now, she might delay this return that much longer, until the conductor noticed her ticket was wrong and sent her home. Then again, she’d still be faced with the prospect of knowing how to tell Opal she didn’t want her apology, and that was a whole other matter.
Lexi shook her head, tightened her fist around her roller suitcase handle, and marched off the platform in the wake of the other departing Alphas. An open-air tunnel led the filing crowd out into urban sprawl. There lay the polished white streets of the world’s premiere city: Aegis’s shining example of hand-holding co-existence between Betas, Alphas, and Omegas. It had been twenty-one months since Lexi had last set foot here. Twenty-one months since the sins of her birth mother had come back to haunt her in the form of a three-inch-tall orphan with a grudge. Twenty-one months since her adoptive sister Bridget accepted the responsibility of punishing Lexi for a crime she didn’t commit. Twenty-one months since everything was taken.
If she procrastinated any longer, Lexi might just convince herself it was better to stay away permanently.
No more running, she affirmed. It was time now.
Her first thought was to catch a subway over to her old apartment, but Lexi stopped herself. Even if the landlord hadn’t dragged all her belongings out to the curb himself, which was entirely possible, it didn’t feel right. Instead, Lexi turned herself in the opposite direction, toward a very particular district of the city, and set off, one foot in front of the other. It wasn’t her plan to go this way first, but very little of her life had gone according to plan the last two years, so this was no exception. Besides, stewing in her apartment would only drag this homecoming out. Better to rip the bandage off in one clean pull.
Walking would give her time to ease into what was coming. The reunion. A year ago, she might have called it a confrontation, but no longer. Now, an encounter with Bridget was simply an inevitability in the girl’s mind, neither a curse nor a blessing. She’d spent the last year and a half getting her head on straight enough to come home, and only recently stopped having dreams reliving those two nightmarish weeks, so Lexi sincerely hoped that peaceful mindset would hold true whenever it was that she finally laid eyes on her mountainous best friend again.
There’d been no pestering messages from Aegis for months, though Lexi knew someone was keeping an eye on her, because she always seemed to receive “special offers” for private planes right before she was thinking of going somewhere new. Kayla Everett really didn’t want Lexi spending a dime of her own money on this scatter-brained, and nearly two-year-long, healing excursion. Still, the Alpha had avoided their help as long as possible, until it became impossible to support herself without aid. When she finally accepted the offer Kayla made to her with that glossy white card, and bought herself a bag of groceries, Lexi expected to feel guilt and self-loathing, like she’d surrendered to an enemy. Instead she felt exactly the same as before: hollow, though ironically less hungry.
Her hand fished for the keys again in her pocket, as she’d done dozens of times on the journey over. The metal one, with its jagged hand-carved teeth, she pushed aside, and instead gripped the electronic reader plug which served as the key to her “other” home. Every step of the long way toward the Omega housing district, Lexi held onto the object, until it felt hot in her closed fist. Eventually, the quantity of Alpha street traffic thinned. She only spotted a few individuals her size here and there, replaced instead by signs of life belonging to the other two classes. The complicated network of Beta paths and commercial blocks stacked like futuristic beehives greeted the eye around most corners. Eventually, on the outskirts of the capital, Lexi saw the beginnings of what she’d come to find.
There were the silver-white fortresses which served as Omega homes, rising three hundred feet into the air, most of them uniform and Spartan in their construction, at least by the standards of skyscraping semi-immortal creatures. Out front and back, several Omegas tended to the jungle-sized gardens adorning their property. The street became joined with an automated conveyor belt path made for Alphas, aligned with the above-ground subway which made stops at every Omega address, since the stroll through this gargantuan neighborhood took great effort on its own.
The moving path was nearly vacant except for Lexi, as was the even-smaller Beta road mounted on the sideline. Since it was still mid-afternoon, most Omegas would be at work, probably a great many over at Aegis headquarters. This was an intentional choice by Lexi to return to town now. She wasn’t eager to be overwhelmed by giant bodies in shocked jubilation at her return, no matter how fragile they’d be around her. Luckily, the few Omegas working their yards either didn’t look up to see her, or weren’t individuals she was hugely familiar with. Lexi was grateful for this.
Trains whizzed by, dropping a couple of Alphas off in front of the family homes they shared with kin hundreds of times their size, but Lexi resisted the temptation to board. As it was, the moving sidewalk kept her at a faster pace than she wanted; all this Omega-engineered convenience was no good when you were already reticent about the final stop. Nevertheless, she was fast approaching. Lexi avoided the attentions of the disembarking Alphas, though they luckily paid her no heed.
Just then, beyond the crest of an Alpha train station depot, Lexi spied the top of a fiery ginger mane. She couldn’t be certain of the distant Omega’s identity until the young woman appeared from around the corner, but even before the porcelain freckled countenance of the “petite” giantess was confirmed to Lexi, her heart raced again. Not due to the identity of the Aegis Enforcer herself, but rather the Omega’s lineage, and specifically, the connection Lexi knew her mother had to this towering girl’s family. The Alpha was glad when the strawberry-blonde Omega failed to notice her, or at least acknowledge her, as she instead stalked across the grass plain below toward the door of her apartment with that militant gait. Jenna Reynolds disappeared inside, while Lexi hustled on. Another few minutes, and she’d reach her destination at the end of the block.
Approaching the Cade house was easier than Lexi had calculated. For the past few months, once she even convinced herself it was nearly time to return, she’d imagined her knees turning to jelly. Perhaps a melodramatic faint as she marched toward the imposing fortress door and shot up in the elevator lift. Lexi gave her future self a lot of shit.
Instead, she made it to the front stoop before she’d even realized. Her hand hovered over the door handle. For a long beat, Lexi studied the two-hundred-foot-tall entryway off to the side used by her Omega adoptive mother and older sister. Most of her passages in and out of this house, in fact, were through that door instead, since Bridget always carried Lexi in her hand while operating the knob with the other. Meanwhile, the Alpha entranceway, positioned just by the doorbell, was strangely more intimidating to Lexi. She’d have to step through it on her own, after all.
The Alpha sighed. If Opal could look the daughter of her would-be-murderer in the eye and ask her for surrogate forgiveness, then Lexi could do this. She pressed her key to the reader and stepped through the unlocked door.
Once inside, an instant feeling of homey warmth pervaded the Alpha’s personal atmosphere. This was unexpected, particularly because the slender girl was prone to drafts in this comparatively vast space. Yet it felt more like home than it had in years, even before the horrific misunderstanding. Lexi crossed her hands over her shoulders and took in the expansive arena: like the outside, the architecture was predominantly whitewashed, but dotted with color and handmade texture wherever Evelyn and Bridget had selected furniture and trinkets to characterize their abode.
The elder Cade, in particular, was known to overpopulate the modest living area with bits and bobs. Conversely, Bridget, while still a fan of color, was in a constant losing battle with her mother to keep new accessories from crowding the house. As brilliant a city planner as she was, Evelyn was a bit of a kitschy packrat when it came to the smaller scale of home décor.
Lexi studied the living room landscape. Several new features had been added in the twenty-one months since her last stay. Specifically, a synthetic ceramic elephant the size of the actual creature, painted in gaudy red and pink, rested on the living room side table. Slowly, the Alpha made her way along the wall-mounted walkway into the area, until she could get a better look at the thing from above. It was flashy and eye-catching, exactly Evelyn’s taste. Though she couldn’t fully say why, Lexi grinned ear-to-ear, and even had to stifle a giggle.
Bridget surely hated that thing.
In the silent interim, Lexi couldn’t help but wonder how long the elephant had lived in the Cade house, and at what point her best friend had simply given up on its permanent residence in the living room. Other unique items now dotted the table surfaces and bookshelves, too, but that elephant was the tacky crown jewel.
Lexi was so inexplicably entranced by this funny detail of her true home, she didn’t notice Evelyn Cade’s approach until the Omega had turned the corner and entered the living room. As was the habit of most leviathan citizens, the woman’s footfalls were soft, scarcely quaking even the carpeted floor. When the Alpha turned at the sound of the approaching giant body, her spine went rigid and her throat tightened to a closed coil.
Sure enough, there she stood: the statuesque silver-blonde, emanating her usual magnetic kindness despite her patrician exterior. Between a pair of garden-gloved hands, she clutched a patch of maple trees inside a polka-dotted flowerpot. Evelyn had always been a nigh-uncanny doppelganger for Bridget herself, give or take the illusion of a fifteen-year age difference, which Lexi thought was impressive considering the year gap was more like a century; however, after so long gone, the Alpha was utterly stunned at the lack of separation between their appearances. She had to blink a few times just to distinguish the towering figure as Evelyn and not Bridget. For this reason, Lexi was rooted to the floor, her hands in her pockets and her heart in her stomach.
Evelyn made it all the way into the center of the living room before her eyes locked to the young woman the size of her finger standing on the Alpha walkway. The instant she did, she stopped in her tracks. Her trembling hands fell away; the polka-dot bowl plummeted to the floor and shattered, spilling soil and maple trees at Evelyn’s feet, though she didn’t even flinch, let alone notice what had happened. Instead, her arms hung at her sides, and the Omega’s jaw quavered just open enough to speak.
“Alexandra…” That was all she could muster. The word came out as a forbidden whisper, and Evelyn blanched as soon as she uttered her foster daughter’s name. She had yet to either take another step or blink her eyes since spotting the Alpha.
Lexi, too, was still paralyzed in place. It was a startlingly naked feeling, standing here unannounced after so long, in the presence of her colossal hostess. Her clammy hands grew cold in her pockets. Ironically, the Alpha had sent so much time psyching herself out to reunite with Bridget, she realized only now, too late, that she hadn’t emotionally prepared to face the only real “parent” she’d ever had. Consequently, it was taking a heavy toll.
“H-Hi, Evelyn,” Lexi peeped. She had to say something else; that was the only way to break the spell. Her eyes darted from Evelyn’s gob-smacked countenance above to the strewn mess of plantlife around the woman’s mammoth boots. “You d-dropped your… trees.”
This was about the point the Alpha’s knees gave out and she wobbled to the ground, which she decided to forgive herself, as she’d been expecting it much sooner. Evelyn, snapped from her own suspended reverie, came rushing in. Her boots trampled through the dirt, tracking it across the carpet, and the Omega very nearly tripped over the coffee table on her affectionate warpath toward the wall. But nothing stopped her.
The following minutes unfolded into such a concentrated emotional barrage, Lexi had to consciously focus her attention on each isolated moment to even begin to process them.
Her foster mother ripped the garden gloves off with such force the rubber tore, but these were discarded without a glance. Freed, the Omega’s benevolent hands came to rest on their sides upon the miniature walkway, slowly cupping inward until they formed a canyon of palm flesh on either side which rose marginally taller than Lexi. However, Evelyn didn’t even come close to backing the Alpha into a corner, let alone making actual contact. Her log-like fingers twitched with an aching desire to touch the comparatively doll-sized girl, and cuddle her between them, but she held at bay.
Lexi breathed shallowly, looking from one massive hand to the other. From the flutter of her tender skin, Evelyn’s nerves were just as frayed as Lexi’s. There was no fear inside the Alpha now; no instinct to recoil at the sight of gigantic inviting hands, like she once felt for those two long weeks. If anything, Lexi’s only impulse was to go toward them.
Evelyn bowed slightly, until her gaze was perfectly level with Lexi’s. Even before the golden-haired Omega could open her lips to try talking again, those eyes did most of the speaking, at least until welled tears glazed over the green pools of her irises. At last she let herself blink, and when she did, the tears gushed in hard trails down her cheeks, reaching her neck in record time.
“Oh, Lexi. Oh, God… I…” Evelyn moaned. She gnawed her lip as more tears poured.
Lexi said nothing. Instead, she stumbled to her feet and stepped closer to the edge of the walkway, until she was near enough to reach out and touch the bridge of the Omega’s nose. Then, following that earlier impulse, she did. Lexi placed her tiny hand on Evelyn’s face, and felt the rolling shockwave course through her tremendous face: a shudder, not out of revulsion, but rather like the Omega was receiving a blessing.
“I missed you,” Lexi said. Her hand remained on the Omega’s now unmoving face. She was proud of herself for choking out the words without stuttering, only to cancel the effect when she realized she too was crying.
“I missed you too, dear.” Evelyn’s hands cupped closer, but she still didn’t pick the girl up. Her cheeks burned pink. When she tilted her head forward, a tear instead rolled down her nose and splashed over Lexi’s arm. As balanced and in-control as the Omega usually was in moments of crisis, even two years ago after the truth had been revealed and Lexi was accidentally injured, Evelyn only now officially lost her composure. Lexi had the distinct impression that if she were to push back against her foster mother now, the graceful titan would simply fall to the floor below.
“For all my life,” Evelyn uttered, “even if I started when I woke up and stopped only to go to sleep, I don’t believe I’d ever say it enough to you, but… I’m so, so sorry, Alexandra.”
Lexi had heard these words more times than she could count while Evelyn was visiting her in the hospital all those many months ago following the accident in the garden. However, then there had been a distance, as though the Omega had built up a wall around herself, unable to face reality. This time, the phrase was so ragged and soaked by literal tears that it felt like the one her foster mother had been waiting to say for twenty-one months straight.
“I know,” Lexi whispered, and as she said it, it occurred to her she meant it fully. Any resentment and anger toward Evelyn had been permanently unloaded from her weary back. It went away with less fanfare than she could’ve ever dreamed back when she was sitting in that detention cell on Bridget’s desk, wondering how to get through to her surrogate sister and mother. Relieved, Lexi suddenly felt so light, she thought she just might float right off the walkway.
“What can I do for you?” Evelyn asked. Her tearflow had slowed from burst-dam to a steady trickle. “Just say it, dear.”
“I… was hoping I could stay here again?”
The Omega shook her head and bit her lip. “Alexandra, you’d never need to ask something like that. This is your home. Please, stay.”
“Thank you.” Lexi let go of Evelyn’s face, her arm sopping with salty moisture, and backpedaled, until she could feel the heat of the Omega’s wide palm behind her.
“What else can I do? Are you hungry? Do you need your bed made up?”
“M-Maybe soon, but…”
“Yes?”
Lexi gulped. “Would you… hold me?”
“Oh, darling,” Evelyn cooed. “Of course. Come here.”
Feeling safer than she had in months, Lexi let herself fall back against Evelyn’s palm. The giant woman’s hand eased onto its side, until the Alpha was reclining sweetly in the concave cushioning of her soft appendage. Fingers curled inward, shielding Lexi from the side. The crook of her thumb hovered over the little woman’s fetally curled body.
“Is that all right?” the Omega asked.
“Yes. T-Thank you.”
Gentle and expertly balanced, as though no time had passed at all, the Omega walked to the couch with her foster daughter in-hand and took a seat. Even though the rest of her body continued to tremble, and the tears flushed down her cheeks, Evelyn’s arms held steady as stone.
Lexi practically turned inside out with goose bumps. The warmth and plush give of the creased skin beneath her back allowed her to completely surrender. Not to mention the familiar aroma of rubber gloves and fresh pollen inherent to the hands of the master gardener which invited her to relax.
As good as she felt walking through the front door, this was the moment Lexi started to feel she was actually home. For braced support, the Omega’s opposite hand cupped beneath the one which cradled the tiny brunette. Both hands then rose slowly toward Evelyn’s face, until her beautiful countenance hung wistfully above where Lexi lay.
Twenty-one months ago, the Alpha might have told herself it was a blight on her dignity to not only allow herself to be held, but to enjoy the sanctity and comfort of it. Yet in her new state of semi-enlightened serenity with the world and the past, Lexi knew now that would be a silly judgment, and also a way of depriving herself the protective relief of her gigantic family she’d so craved in her isolation.
Humid, green-tea exhalations wafted down from Evelyn’s still-open lips. These, too, melted Lexi into a state of calm repose. She felt like a twenty-two-year-old infant, letting herself yield to such coddling, but it felt so nice, Lexi decided she didn’t care. Shifting against the squishy terrain behind her, the Alpha studied her foster mother’s giant thumb for a moment, particularly the spiraling pattern of her peachy fingerpad, then shrugged and said a mental screw it. Lexi reached up, wrapped her hands over Evelyn’s nailbed, and forcibly hugged the enormous thumb down against her body.
The Omega shuddered again, but couldn’t hide her grateful smile. She embraced her thumb over her foster daughter’s little body, until Lexi was thoroughly snuggled between a thick, pillowy finger and the mattress of her palm.
“It’s so wonderful to have you back,” Evelyn whispered.
“Wait, what about the…” Lexi said, abruptly remembering. Looking over the edge of the woman’s hand, she could see the soil staining the carpet and the muddy water sopping through the fibers. The Alpha felt ridiculous saying the last word, but said it anyway: “…trees?”
“Oh, they’re just trees, dear. They’ll grow back.”
Lexi stopped herself short of outright nuzzling her cheek into Evelyn’s cushy thumbprint. There would be time to let herself fully out of the shell again. For now, this was more than plenty. The pair remained on the couch for an hour, with no more than a few dozen words exchanged throughout the whole time, and exclusively when Lexi initiated the conversation. Evelyn’s thumb never budged.
Only when Evelyn broke the silence to suggest they get find something to eat, Lexi recalled. In all the emotional unwinding, and perhaps due to a subconscious defense mechanism, she had forgotten the most important question of all.
“Where’s Bridget?” she asked.
Evelyn nodded sorrowfully, but there was no sign that she intended to hide anything.
“She’s not here, Alexandra.”
“Where is she?”
“Sanctuary.”
“Sanctuary?” Lexi frowned, still not following. At last, she loosed her hold on the Omega’s soft thumb. “How long has she been there?”
“A while,” Evelyn said gently. “She left just after you.”
Giantess World
