A blanket of twilight rested over the kingdom of Ellewyn. In the little town of Haledon, some fifteen miles southeast of Felwinter, there stood the House of Sienna with a single candlelit window on the seventh floor that beamed like a firefly in the darkness. Inside, a small figure was making his way across the floorboards towards the bayside window. He walked slowly but in long, heavy, confident strides, the way a sentinel patrols his quarters at night. When he reached the window, he looked up at his mistress as she stared out into the nothingness of the night. Neither said a word.
“It’s getting late,” the man said at last, but his sudden voice didn’t shake her. “…You should be in bed, Miss Olivia.”
“It’s not fair, Kadaj,” Olivia pouted, her arms against the windowsill and her head buried in her arms. “The moon never has to sleep… During lonely nights like these, I wish I could chase it from one side of the world to the other. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“That would be if the world wasn’t flat. You’d fall right off the edge.”
“Well, maybe I don’t think the world is flat. Maybe I think it’s round and we’re always spinning and turning and life will never end. …I like to think it’s like that. Wouldn’t you?”
Kadaj didn’t know what to say, so he stood there on the hardwood floor with his hands interlaced behind his back. “…You’re going to need rest for your meeting with the Queen tomorrow. You know how she hates to wait.”
“Yes,” Olivia said into the flesh of her arm, but that was all.
“…Well?”
Olivia closed her eyes. “What do you suppose it’s like on the moon?”
“…Probably like it is here, with less trees.”
For a moment, Olivia was quiet, silently dreaming. Then she opened her eyes. “I like to think it’s like another world. Some completely…fantastical world where the skies are colorful and skin is free.”
“…Your mother says that you shouldn’t be near the window when you feel like this,” Kadaj said, stepping forth and putting a hand on Olivia’s silky white dress that dangled from the window seat. “It’s not healthy. Come to bed.”
“I’m sick of my bed.”
“It’s where you belong, Miss Olivia. You’re not well.”
“Look, if you want me to feel better, then let me stay here. …It’s that bed that makes me so sick.”
Kadaj sighed and squeezed the cloth in his hands, getting a good grip, and scaled the outside of her dress. She didn’t feel him because it was such an oversized skirt, but even when he made his way across her back, she didn’t budge. He almost lost balance a couple times, but she had no intention of either helping or hurting him, so he eventually made it to her shoulder and sat down. Her great curly locks of hair fell like coiled brown snakes around him, but he pushed them aside and stared out the window with her.
“I don’t suppose I’ll ever understand it,” Olivia breathed into the glass window.
“What’s that?”
“How the moon ended up there and I ended up here. Do you ever think we have a choice of what we become?”
Kadaj shrugged, but she wasn’t looking at him. “I don’t think we can choose our birth or death, but I think our lives are our own to make.”
“Do you ever wish you could be somebody else?” Olivia asked, finally tearing herself away from the window to look at the tiny man on her shoulder. Then she smiled warmly at him, reading his mind. “Of course you do. It must be so terrible being so terribly small.”
“You get used to it.”
Her eyes returned to the window and she pressed her index finger against the glass. “I never could.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about it. You’re not small.”
But she just shook her head, causing her thick hair to brush against Kadaj. “You just don’t understand.”
“I understand that your mother will have me killed if I don’t get you to bed.”
“You know I wouldn’t let her touch you. You’re my servant. And you always will be.” As if to seal that promise, she pulled her finger away from the window and rubbed it against Kadaj’s nose playfully.
He smiled, a little. “I wouldn’t rather be any place than here with you. You’ve done a lot for me and my services will never be enough to repay you…”
“Shhh…” Olivia said, now pressing her finger to her pale lips. “I like the silence.”
Kadaj nodded and let his mistress drift off into her own mind. She began to hum quietly to herself, touching the windowpane again and leaving a streak where her finger skated down the glass, so slowly and perfectly.
“Olivia…” Kadaj said. She continued to hum. “…Olivia, please. You must go to sleep.”
“I’m already dreaming,” she whispered through the seal of her lips, never breaking the rhythm of her wordless song.
“M’lady, I implore you…”
Olivia stopped and opened her eyes, staring down at the man on her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. The music never will die, will it?”
“No… It won’t.”
“That’s good… I’d miss it.” With that said, Olivia thrust her palms against the window, opening it to the night. A cool gust of wind swooped in, picking up Kadaj and the locks of Olivia’s hair, and pushed them both back. Kadaj managed to grab a handful of silk from Olivia’s shirt to keep from being blasted to the floor, although he was knocked back against her shoulder when the gust died down. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Olivia said, lifting her head to the dark sky. She inhaled the air.
“Feels wonderful,” Kadaj grunted.
“I think…I’ll always keep my window open. Then the moon will always have a place to come in.”
“That’s…a good idea, Miss Olivia.”
“I don’t want it to think I don’t like it.”
“I’m sure the moon understands,” Kadaj said awkwardly.
“It does.”
“…Olivia?”
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see if the clouds are out,” she said as she crawled towards the open window. “I don’t see any. Do you?”
But Kadaj wasn’t looking up. He was looking down, seven stories, as Olivia’s whole front body hung out the window. “No… No, I don’t see any clouds! Please, Miss Olivia, get back inside.”
But she stayed there for another minute, cocking her head to the sky, and then slowly slid her body back inside. “Yeah… I don’t see any either.”
Kadaj stared at her, frantically gasping. “M-Miss Olivia, you can’t do that!”
“What? What can’t I do?”
He continued to stare at her, but said nothing.
Giantess World
