Twelve-year-old Belena began that morning, like any other, by reading. She suspected that it wasn’t quite normal for a girl like her to spend so much time buried in her books, but she couldn’t help it. Her life was enjoyable, of course (she was a princess, after all), but it didn’t seem quite as eventful as the lives of the characters in the stories she read. An unknown giant scribe had, centuries ago, collected a vast amount of tales from throughout the human and giant lands, and, to Belena’s delight, most of these books had survived, undisturbed in the castle’s vaults and libraries.

She much preferred to read stories from human authors, even though they always portrayed giants as cruel, malicious, bloodthirsty freaks. But most giants, she knew, really had been aggressive towards humans, and her mother had told her that humans used to be tortured and even killed in ghastly ways, right within these walls. She was therefore very glad that many humans of today had decided to give Valerie and her daughters, the last remaining giants, a chance to show that not all of them were worthy of resentment.

These thoughts had diverted her attention from the book, and she put it aside and got out of bed. It was a Saturday, which meant that she did not have any school lessons, nor did she have to spend hours working in the garden.

“Why don’t I take a stroll around the town today?” she said to herself as she got dressed. “I’m sure Mom and Dad will let me go alone – I have to be old enough by now!”

She slipped on a royal violet dress, with a matching girdle around her waist and shoes on her feet. It was important to look like a princess, she thought, even if she was 150 feet tall and larger than most of the fearsome creatures in her stories. People had to see that they had no reason to be afraid of her: she was only a little girl, after all.

She brushed her long, flowing hair and held it in place with a band. Unlike her parents and brother and sister, who were all blond, she had hair of a darker, reddish colour. This she had inherited from her human grandmother, who had passed away less than a year previously, and whom Belena never got to know well. Presumably the old woman had been too taken aback by the idea that her granddaughters were taller than the greatest trees, or else she might have been more accepting of them. Belena, never one to dwell on the past, figured she had better go out and get to know people as soon as possible, before everyone but her family ends up completely alienated from her.

Breakfast was no different than on any other day, except that Valdan said he was feeling a bit ill, and requested to go and lie down after he’d eaten what little food he could. Belena carried her little brother back to his room, built into a hollowed-out section of a thick castle wall. Normally he’d have to climb forty feet of steps to reach his door, but to his giant sister this was less than knee-high, and she could simply kneel next to the wall and place him on his front porch.

“Hope you feel well again soon!” she said, and she meant it. Belena was very fond of her tiny brother, though he was less accepting of her. Valdan always felt that it was massively unfair to be stuck at such a titchy size, while his two sisters towered above him and everyone else. He also hated being carried around by them, especially by Sylvie, who was still of an age at which she loved to play with her dolls, and considered Valdan as little more than one of them.

Sometimes he wished he could grow up quickly and become king (even though he knew Belena would inherit the throne, which he also thought was unfair), and sometimes he just wanted to live a normal life, away from this vast palace, and with a family who were all of regular size.

Valdan shut the door to his room and lay down on his bed. He wasn’t actually ill, though he did feel a bit under the weather, and he hoped to sneak out of the palace later and explore incognito. He and his sisters almost never went out beyond the garden walls, except in the company of their parents, and he envied the freedom that the boys in the town must have.

Belena, meanwhile, had gone straight to her mother after breakfast and asked for permission to go out by herself.

“I may be twelve, but I’m not a child anymore!” she insisted, after Valerie had hesitated in giving an answer. “I won’t cause any trouble, I swear, and…and I promise I won’t hurt anyone, or step on anyone, or…or break something, or…”

“All right, all right!” Valerie said, sighing. She put down the quill she was writing with and turned to face her daughter. “Belena, I know you won’t do any of those things, and I know you’ll always behave politely towards our tiny townsfolk. It’s just…”

“Just what? What is it, Mommy?”

“Oh, forget it! I suppose I can’t keep you locked up in here forever, but…well, you have grown up so fast, darling, and I sometimes can’t help but think of you as the little girl who would sit on my lap every evening and listen to me reading a story.”

“We can do that tonight, if you want?” Belena said, eager to please her mother, even though she also knew that she had long ago lost interest in that activity.

“No, it’s all right. I was just being silly, that’s all. You go out and have some fun. Only, be careful…” she called, as Belena had already begun to make a dash for the door. She halted, and turned back uncertainly.

“I know that nothing can hurt you out there,” Valerie continued. “But there are still some people who have a, shall we say, less than favourable opinion of giants. Especially giant young girls. I don’t want you spending any time with them, so if you…”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mom!” Belena replied lightly. “I’ll just pretend I don’t hear their squeaky little voices, or else I’ll tell them that they’re being a bunch of sourpusses, and then I’ll leave them alone.”

“That’s right,” Valerie said. “Daddy and I have raised you well, I see. Now go on, before I think of some chores for you to do.”

At the castle’s front gate Belena halted and considered where she should go first. Down at her feet, the gate guards bowed respectfully to their princess. She didn’t know these men at all, though she knew that Valdan liked to hang around them sometimes, so she simply smiled politely down at them. Resisting the urge to pick one of the guards up and talk to him, she carried on, and headed towards the town of Rismark.

Though she could see it clearly from the castle windows, it looked quite different than it did now, up close. It was roughly circular, about a thousand yards in diameter, and was surrounded by a thirty-foot high wall of wood and stone. Several thousand people lived there, in homes of various sizes, and from the town’s centre there stretched outwards six very broad streets, for the Queen to use when she wished to visit. In the centre was a small park, the meeting point of two streams, and a forty-foot statue of Queen Valerie. Belena smiled when she saw it: to the people of Rismark this was a great monument, yet it was little bigger than doll size to her.

As she approached the town’s gate, people began to react to her. Outside the walls, the farmers who were working in the fields ceased their activities and stared up at her. No-one came close to her; in fact, a small group of merchants who were travelling on the road ahead of her hastily made off in the direction of the fields. She made no attempt to head after them, and carried on along the road, until she reached the great gate. The guards stationed on the wall watched dumbstruck as she knelt down before them, before realizing that they should probably bow before her.

“Good morning,” she said, and they cautiously lifted their heads. “May I, you know, come in? I just want to take a look around.”

“Ummm…” one of the guards answered. “I…I’m dreadfully sorry, Your Royal Highness, but…but we…well, the queen told us…”

“Oh, don’t bother about that!” Belena laughed. “My mother gave me permission to visit, so I guess that means you will do so too. Right?”

“Yes! Yes, yes, of course! You…you may enter, Princess. We’ll open the gate right away.”

“Not necessary!” she said, and stood up again. Then she lifted up the bottom of her dress and easily stepped over the little gate. A part of her skirt caught on one of the guard towers, but she unhooked it, before she accidentally pulled the entire tower to the ground. She waved to the soldiers on the wall, who were still a little anxious, and then turned her attention to the town before her.

The reception Belena got surprised her quite a lot. She had expected the inhabitants of Rismark to either flee from her in terror, or fall down before her in obedience. Instead, they thronged by the side of the road, or leant out of heir windows, seemingly fervent to get a close-up peek at her. Many of them did look up at her with mild fear, but just as many others seemed rather excited to see her. The last time she was here, she was only six and was being carried in her mother’s arms, so to the people at her feet, she must appear almost as a new person.

She kept her eyes on the road before her, watching each step cautiously, and every now and then she’d stop and take a look around. But she really wanted to talk to the people and get to know them, so she carefully sat down in a convenient empty space, right in front of the town’s courthouse. The populace kept watching her from a safe distance, but she spoke up and asked them to come closer.

“Um, hello, everyone,” she said, trying to behave in a fitting manner for a princess. “I suppose you’re all wondering what I’m doing here, right? Well, as you might know, I am to be your Queen someday, and I…I thought I had better come and visit you, and learn about you, so that…so that you won’t have a complete stranger ruling over you someday.”

She smiled cautiously, but no-one had the boldness to approach any closer. So, to save time, she crawled forward a bit on hands and knees, reached with her hand into the crowd, and scooped up the (un)fortunate man who was closest to her. She then sat down again and addressed the tiny man who was kneeling in her palm. He seemed terrified of his situation, so she laid a finger against his back and tried to stroke him reassuringly.

Right at that moment a stern voice called out from behind her: “What on earth is going on here?”