"What about that pile over there?" Vianna asked Madison as her index finger aimed at stacks of stone, wooden logs, bars of metal, and all sorts of other supplies neatly ordered in the corner of the cave.

"Oh, that's just stuff they use for building their homes and such. It comes from the land of humans. It's getting shipped in daily, depending on the threat on the river," Madison said as she proudly let her eyes wander over her Sanctuary.

As far as she knows, this is the first settlement in the world where both humans and lilliputians live in one society in peace. That knowledge alone made  Madison already proud as a peacock. Sure, friction and mistrust between the two races were present, but it wasn't leading to any big disruption in this development stage. At least, not yet. Madison had to keep them tightly in line to maintain order, though. To do that, she was forced to step out of her comfort zone as the ever timidly and friendly girl and act firm and decisive at times – even if it meant banishing troublemakers from the safety of her Sanctuary and throwing them out in the middle of Brobdingnagian territory.

"Serious? These maggots are really working for you? That's so cool!" Vianna smiled as she saw lines of human vehicles – like trucks and cranes and excavators – driving up and down at her feet.

"They're not working for me!" Madison said firmly. "they are working for themselves, to build a home where they can live in peace. I am merely here to aid them in this pursuit."

"I see," Vianna said.

"And they are not maggots, but people. Just like you and me. Only smaller." Madison added.

"Yes, yes, of course, Maddy. I'm sorry. My bad."

"It's okay."

"Hey! That one over there is slacking!" Vianna said while pointing at a human eating some dried beef while leaning with one arm on a shovel. He looked up at the two teen Goddesses with frightened eyes.

"Shall I deal with him?" Vianna took one step in the direction of the busted human. Madison grabbed Vianna's arm.

"Leave him. We're not here to boss them around. That's the exact thing where they escaped from."

Vianna frowned. "Then why are some of them referring to you as their Goddess?"

"Who?!" Madison asked, looking about frantically.

"How about that bunch over there building a temple with a statue in front of it resembling your appearance."

"For Chrissake! How could I've missed that? I explicitly forbad them to do something like that!" Madison fumed as she straddled over to the discomfited group of humans. They all sank down on their knees with their heads glued in the dirt.

"Stand up! All of you!" Madison stood towering over them like a reprimanding mother. "How many times do I have to tell you? There's no need for you to revere me like some divinity."

Vianna watched it all with great amusement. The humans seemed quite grudgingly when Madison ordered them to keel over the statue and reorganize the temple so they could honor a more fitting religion.

"You can't change the way they see us. "Vianna curled her arm around Madison's neck as both girls watched the humans carrying out Madison's instructions. "Might as well embrace it, girl." She smiled.

Madison scoffed. "I bet you would."

Vianna shrugged. "Well, why wouldn't I? Being in charge is way more fun than being the subordinate."

Madison shook her head. "You're incorrigible."

"At least I dare to see things how they really are."

"And that's where you're wrong! Things have never been like this, Vianna. You think you all see the truth while you're actually seeing life through color-tinted lenses polished by our ancestors."

"And you have read that line in what book?"

Madison shrugged. "Does it matter? It's just the way how things are. This so-called Pact of Equivalency was nothing more than a getting-favored intervention by the dominant politicians at that time. This law has never ensured the desired effect it was designed for – reaching equality among all races."

Vianna clapped her hands. "Kudos to you, Maddy! You really did all your homework."

"Well, you should so too."

"Nah, I think I fancy living in a contorted truth." Vianna winked at Madison.

Madison shook her head and turned her attention to the humans standings at her feet near the statue.

They looked up at her with a long piece of rope clutched in their tiny hands while its noose was tightly bound around the statue with Madison's likeness. Madison nodded and they started pulling, slowly toppling the statue.

"May I?" Vianna asked while gesturing her head in the direction of the toppled statue.

Madison nodded.

The group of humans quickly scurried off when not their blond Goddess but the other Brobdingnagian girl with the dress sank low on her haunches to reach her hand out.

An amused smile cracked Vianna's mouth open when she saw a pack of less-than-one-inch-tall humans tripping over each other as they ran to safety for her descending hand. Clutching the statue in her fist, Vianna stood back up and brought the object to her eyes.

Vianna whistled as she scrutinized the statue. "Pretty impressive if you ask me. Here look, Maddy! They even got that lovable top-tilted nose of yours right!"

"I don't want to see it," Madison said curtly and turned her head away.

"Really? Aw, come on. You're insulting the hard work of your thralls."

Vianna stuck the statue in Madison's face to see.

"No! Get that thing away from me!" Madison's eyes flared.

"Okay, chill out. You don't have to fly off the handle with me… can I keep it?"

"Yes… No… What are you going to do with it?" Madison looked at her friend with narrowed eyes.

"Quite the leery one, aren't we? Nothing special, of course. I'll just show it to my mom and then place it on a shelf or something."

Madison chuckled. "On a shelve? A statue? Of me?"

Vianna breezed through her nose. "If you want to keep it, just say it, Maddy! Here, let me put this thing in your back pocket." Vianna roughly clutched one of the pockets sewed on the denim shorts on Madison's butt.

"Hey! Let go of me!" Madison tried to yank herself loose. She stumbled, took a step back to regain her balance and gasped deeply.

One of her sneakers just decimated several blocks of freshly built Lilliputian homes.

Vianna let go of Madison and slammed her hand against her mouth. Madison crouched down to assess the damage – shrouding many acres of lilliland with her celestial body. Curling a lock of blond hair behind an ear, Madison glared down upon the richly filled suburb of lilliputian homes like an omniscient Goddess. Thousands of minuscule houses she saw, most of them made of wood. They looked like squarish brown sprinkles to Madison, neatly and orderly scattered in blocks ringed by gray, paperclip-thick roads.

One part of it that was perfectly shaped in the form of her shoe was utterly destroyed and pushed deep into the soil by her weight. The outlines of her sneaker sole were well marked as they curved imperturbably through blocks of decimated lilliputian property. Adjoining to it all lay plenty of microscopic suburbs that were heavily damaged by the godlike shockwave caused by Madison's landing sneaker. Madison allowed herself a tiny sigh of relief when she could discern movement among the lilli suburbs. She saw flocks of dot-like people and cars not bigger than grainy bread crumbs scurrying away from ground zero. Luckily, some of them were alive.

"Are they… are they alright?" Vianna laid her hand on Madison's shoulder.

Madison slammed the hand away and leaped up. "No! They are not! I knew that it was a mistake to bring someone along like you to this place!" her index finger pierced into Vianna's face.

"Hey! I'm not the one who Godzilla-stepped on these dust mites here!" Vianna snapped back.

"Get out." Madison crossed her arms. "I don't ever want to see you in here!"

Vianna stared back a few seconds with disbelief dripping from her eyes before scoffing. "You know what? Fuck it. I was just about to leave anyway. You owe me a new phone, by the way." Vianna spun on her heels to pick up the handle of the pull cart. "Oh, and this?" her hand held up Madison's statue. "Why don't we let them know that their prayers are heard, huh?"

Madison's eyes peeled wide open as she saw Vianna's arm circling around in a pitcher swing. The Madison statue cannoned out of Vianna's hand and shot straight towards a coal-fired power plant built by the humans.

Bullseye.

Madison squeezed her eyes into slits as a bright explosion reverberated within the cave, with plumbs of black smoking swirling upwards, finding its way to the sky through the circular-shaped opening in the ceiling.