The bustling waterside metropolis of Seaway began the morning like any other, sending fleets of fishermen out along the coast and lighting up hydro-powered buildings at the heart of the city. Today was special, however, as two brand-new cruise vessels, each tied for the largest ships yet constructed in Seaway, were leaving for their maiden voyages, loaded to the gills with fat-pocketed citizens. Along the central docks, thousands had gathered to cheer and watch the ships setting sail. Not long after the pair had begun their journeys, however, and still well-within sight of the coast, something broke the morning tranquility.

The sea, previously judged to be calm and travel-worthy, started churning up. Apparent grey storm clouds formed. A dense soupy fog swallowed the horizon, which made it even more surprising as huge waves began rolling in. At this onset of strange weather, many citizens retreated from the docks back home, but most remained, fascinated and concerned for the cruise ships as the waters frothed.


Then they caught the first sight of it, or rather, her. A set of ten spherical objects, split into two rows of tightly-packed five, emerged from the fog. They were colossal, large enough to be meteors, yet their soft curves and textured peachy hue didn’t suggest rocks. Thousands upon the docks watched, quiet and unblinking.

Abruptly, the view changed as the ten rounded bodies charged forth at a loping pace, pausing every mile or so before thrusting forward again. Each set of five shapes was gradually revealed to belong upon the bow of an ovular island-sized structure, with the same plush edges and rosy flesh-tone. Tidal waves crashed around the two gargantuan masses, though the water could hardly reach even halfway up the ring-patterned boulders. This pair of colossal shapes, the combined surface area of which might’ve covered the majority of Seaway’s length, continued their march forward, until each was finally revealed to be piloted by a lithe spire near the back, in the same geometry and color of the mysterious moving islands, and then at last, everyone understood what they were looking at, though they scarcely believed it anyway.


###


“Wow…” Sherry breathed, her fingers cupping her lips. “Is that… real?”

Sure enough, there it was: a tiny, intricate city positioned by the water in an arc, so detailed and luminous that it almost looked to be made of crystal. She shambled softly through the shallow puddle in her bare feet, timid of upsetting the natural equilibrium or, even worse, accidentally spooking the microscopic beings below. Nevertheless, the girl couldn’t stop herself from investigating closer. The sight was just too precious. Too enrapturing.

Sherry took slow steps, only moving one leg at a time, and never picking either foot up, for fear of splashing the city and ruining it upon breaching the sea with her dexterous toes. She took hold of her light-brown locks, which hung around her shoulders, and quickly tied them up into a braid behind her head, making sure her view was unencumbered. Then, giving her uniform skirt a tug so it wouldn’t reveal too much of her cottony undergarments to the little creatures within the city, she knelt down once she was but one stride away from the place. When her knees landed in the water, she saw a tiny surge in the waves brush toward the coast, but was hopeful it wouldn’t have too dire an impact.

“Sorry about that,” she whispered. “Here comes the splash!”

Every move she made now was done with extreme delicacy: arching her feet back against the seabed, re-tucking her skirt, then sliding her hands down the front of her exposed thighs for support, allowing her to lean forward closer to the city without losing her balance. From this vantage point, much nearer than standing up, Sherry had a better view of the city that had so pleased her from afar. She couldn’t help but giggle now, overwhelmed by how darling and yet impressive it was. It was a little work of art.

She could see the miniature docks, dotted in thin splinters like wooden teeth all along the expansive coastline. Beyond, the tiny charming nubs of what Sherry judged to be houses, modest ones even for beings so small, which might’ve been mistaken for crumbs had she not been looking so intently. Finally there were the taller buildings relegated deeper in the city, though for Sherry, the distance was roughly the length between the slender knuckles of her hands. These looked like little silver needle-heads, though of course smaller than the type used to sew the girl’s uniform.

How long had it taken them to build this place, she wondered. Decades? Centuries of work, even? After all, the inhabitants were so very small, or at least Sherry was pretty certain they had to be; their scale of life was so dramatically punier than hers, the girl was unable to spy any individual people, though she spied around like a hawk, hoping to catch even a glimpse of movement. The odds were against her, and she had to imagine actually finding a person was as likely as finding a mythical fairy, but still she kept at it.

“Hello down there!” she cheered, louder now, and held up a hand, waving it slowly and peaceably above the city, so as not to frighten them. “It’s nice to meet you all, wherever you are down there! If you’d like to come out and say hello back to me, I’ll be waiting right here. I’ve just come to have a look at your beautiful city. I mean you no harm, I pinky-promise!”

As she waved, Sherry took a moment to laugh in delight again at the amusing sight of her hand’s shadow entirely blotting out whatever sector of the city she held it over, as the town was elongated into so narrow a shape along the sandy coast. Even one of her fingers could do the job, where the sparkling little city’s sprawl was thinnest.

“You have such a lovely little home,” she added with a beaming smile.

Below, things were less optimistic. Upon realizing they were not looking at oblong alien isles, but instead a pair of youthful female feet and legs that stretched literal miles up into the sky, the huge crowd gathered to see off the cruise ships was thrown into screaming panic. Soon the dark clouds above were discovered to be not a result of weather, but the titanic girl’s clothing. The more of her body that emerged from the fog, the greater the hysteria increased below, across the entirety of Seaway.

Unfortunately, the gathered throngs were so tightly packed for a good view of the departing ships, it was impossible to make a clean exit back to the city proper. In the quaint seaside streets, cars were packed into a city-wide traffic jam, though many simply abandoned their vehicles, taking pointless flight away from the coastline, or simply huddling in their basements to wait out emergency services. Those services, and a small military cadre, did their best to keep everyone calm, but it was clearly a losing battle.

When those feet finally “arrived,” close enough that one more step would surely send the toes barreling into the city for annihilation, most feared the end was here. They couldn’t hope to repel such a leviathan, and no force on Earth could, either. At any second, they understood, the next pinkish ped would ascend, hover in the air for just a moment, then come crashing down: the toes burrowing in for the initial seismic blow, the heel settling in like an oversized asteroid, the fleshy slope of the arch pounding a new canyon into the ruins of Seaway. Nothing would be left of the sea port except a footprint molded into the stone-and-metal metropolis like clay.

But that didn’t happen. They weren’t obliterated in shadow and sole-skin. Instead the toes came to a stop, which nonetheless shuddered the waves hard enough that they washed well-over the docks, soiling dozens of homes along the beach. Though the danger hadn’t retreated, most of the citizens stopped the mayhem for a moment of eerie silence. All eyes went to giantess to see what would happen next, knowing now that whether they hid or ran, they would still be doomed if she took one more step. No matter how hard they tried, it was impossible to see her face up through the clouds, until someone in the observatory used a telescope to spot the brunette’s innocent and sweet-tempered face.

Then she descended. The girl’s feet remained rooted to the ocean floor, but the rest of her towering citadel of a body was dropping to a crouch. For a moment everyone assumed she was falling on top of them, which would’ve multiplied the extent of the catastrophe exponentially, to go from just one foot’s destructive squashing capabilities, to an entire body of that astronomic size giving into gravity. The force of her fall might’ve simply split the planet.
Yet again they were surprised, as it was clear the giantess was going to a controlled kneel, though it wasn’t all good news. The wind generated by the lowering of her form swept across the coast, knocking over anyone in the crowd directly in the way of the airy wall, and toppling others like dominoes behind them. The whistling gale continued through the streets, blowing open shutters and slamming doors. Their cool seaside temperature dropped by several degrees. Then at last, when the girl’s knees struck the ocean, barely concealing the very summit of her soft joints into the comparatively shallow waters, another gust of wind blasted over Seaway, followed by a mammoth wave.

The white water curled and crested right into Seaway’s port, splashing all those gathered at the docks, and forcing them to take hold of the nearest railing to avoid being washed right into a building, or even the ocean itself. The beachside houses went from merely soaked to waist-high flooding, and the water rushed a full half-mile deep into the city. As a canal divided the town at its center, there was now one bended leg pointed to each half of the place like an infinite altar of creamy thigh flesh.

Momentary relief that Seaway hadn’t been drowned during this event swiftly turned back to panic at the sight of the giant girl’s arm extending toward them. Her hand, an island unto itself, unfurled on approach, with fingers the size of inlets outstretching in all directions. That shadow of that open hand further cooled the water-logged, wind-chilly town, making them feel as though they’d suddenly transformed into winter. Then, against all odds, the hand did not come flying down to pancake them into paste. Instead, it swiveled back and forth, causing the sun to alternately flicker between her powerful digits, all while a cheerful yet booming voice sounded from the heavens, too deep to be interpreted by tiny mortal ears. She was… waving. And laughing.


###


Sherry was on the verge of swooning with joy, her cheeks blushed pink and her mouth curved in an irrepressible smile of wonder. Her eyes darted from one micro-pleasure to another, marveling at the diminutive architecture and urban design. They were such an admirable little society, she decided, so fragile relative to normal-sized things like Sherry, yet determined to create, even if they were smaller than dust particles. This town was like the best dollhouse she could ever imagine, though of course she couldn’t touch it or play with it, much as she wanted to. As it was, Sherry was apprehensive that while kneeling she’d accidentally swept too much water onto the land, which probably got some of their shoes wet, thus annoying them, and the last thing Sherry wanted was for the little people to be annoyed at her.

“I don’t know why I never noticed you before!” Sherry said to the town below. “Maybe because you’re so small, I missed you next to the water there, like a special sea shell. Well, not anymore! I’m going to come visit you all the time. Don’t worry, I’ll try not to break anything when I come. I think in time we can become really good friends. I really like meeting new people, after all. You’ll see that after you’ve all had the chance to get to know me! Oh, wait, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I haven’t introduced myself! My name is Sherry. What do you call this place?”

After her bubbly rambling, the girl silenced herself, listening closely for a response. But she heard nothing.

“Hmm. This could be a problem. You’re too far away for me to hear you, and none of your buildings are really tall enough to reach my ears, so I guess I’ll have to come to you!” Sherry concluded. “Just give me a second! I’ll go nice and slow.”

Keeping her legs bent and her toes flexed in the ocean for grip, the girl bowed her torso deeper and deeper, holding herself with balletic control, until she’d ducked into the equivalent of a yogi’s child-pose. From here, Sherry’s face was as near as it could come to the city without outright resting her cheek on the surface, which she assumed would probably be prickly and not very uncomfortable on her face. Plus, the city might not appreciate it either. Despite her carefulness, she did notice a gnat-like tickle on the tip of her nose.

“Hellooooo! Can you hear me better now?” Sherry murmured in her most secretive whisper, worried that raising her voice could startle them. “In case you didn’t hear me from up there, my name is Sherry, and I want to be friends with your whole little town! It’s the most beautiful and amazing and cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and I love it so much already! I’ll be back every day now to visit you, so we can all have the chance to get acquainted, and I can see your little town again! Can someone down there please tell me what it’s called?”

Thoughtfully, Sherry then turned her head to the side, instead pointing her left ear down at the heart of the city. She even cupped her palm around it, to focus the sound, and waited in breathless silence for a full minute. At last she heard several shrill cries, not unlike a mouse’s call, if said mouse was the size of a mouse to a mouse. Gleeful, the girl assumed these must be greeting announcements, and continued listening to their indecipherable peeps, feeling she’d made a hundred new best friends already.

The giantess showed no signs of imminent departure, and if anything seemed to be leaning closer to Seaway all the time. After a while, and a few more thunderous booms from her lips, she descended yet again, this time bringing her face to bear right over the city. Soon the telescope was no longer necessary to discern her feminine features, and the enigmatic giant visitor’s face was plainly visible to everyone below. The girl was undeniably pretty, adorable even, which seemed in strange contrast to everything else about her mighty form that suggested an apocalyptic harbinger. Her twinkly eyes and earnest smile soothed some citizens but unnerved others, as they had to guess this was the same expression a regular-sized girl might make just before she fried an anthill with a magnifying glass.

The sun was now thoroughly blocked by the girl’s face, trapping them all in twilight, save for the light shining between the ropes of brown hair. Her head hung so close over that city that her every innocuous nostril exhalation unleashed another miniature storm cell of wind. This was different from the approach of her feet through the thrashing waves, however: this air was warm, even muggy, and dispersed like mist to the anxious population scattered around Seaway’s roads and docks. Though the girl seemed not to notice, her long bridge of her button-nose dipped just a little lower than the rest of her cute face’s landscape, and happened to nudge a clock tower, one of Seaway’s tallest structures. By the lightest of touches with her skin, it tipped over and collapsed in a dusty mess, though luckily everyone saw in time to clear away.

When her mouth opened again, words dispelled with such volume and power that they were even less distinguishable as language than before. Rather, the girl’s voice was a singular force of nature. Windows shattered in the buildings directly below her lips, and every surface and structure within a mile vibrated askew. Half the citizens lost their balance, cowering on all fours and covering their ears for protection. The giantess’s hot breath billowed from her dark throat, once again altering the climate to feel like summer in Seaway, and left a cloud of scented vapor permeating through the streets that smelled of strawberries and milk.

Steadily the people came to fear that those lips might lower further and smear along the coast, her top and bottom rows of pearly teeth cutting into the countryside and scraping ever-nearer together again, until she’d gathered up a whole district of Seaway in one bite, perhaps to wash down with a gulp of the ocean. Once again, this demise thankfully failed to happen, but what came instead made even less sense.

The girl’s head turned on its side, revealing the tiered shape of her ear, with its invisible void at the center. Her ear was not the concern of the people, however, but rather the strands of loose brown hair now free to hang in the streets. It dangled and swung, tense as steel cable, flipping over cars and sending the citizens back into a fleeing tizzy.

Military jets were finally scrambled, soaring in formation across the city to engage the gigantic intruder, but no one below had even the slightest faith that they might succeed.


###


With her head still tilted to the side, desperately hoping to hear a word in answer to her salutations, Sherry’s eyes wandered back to the water around her knees. She peered to the channel between her parted legs, and through the swirl of tossing waves, she managed to squint and make out two distinct shapes. At first she wondered if they were simply lint that had fallen off her uniform, especially because other tiny white specks were zipping by, but upon rearing slowly back up and focusing entirely on the silvery spots floating between the arch of her legs, Sherry determined they weren’t skirt-fluff, but in fact boats: cruise ships, she guessed, though they were so tiny it was impossible to say.

So excited to make this find, the girl nearly forgot to treat the civilization like fine china, and swooped both hands between her thighs with a cheer. She stopped short of plucking the bobbing vehicles right off the waves, remembering herself. However, after watching the things swaying violently about in the water Sherry herself had stirred up, the girl decided that the best way to show her friendship to this lovable town would be to rescue its toys. Gently as she could, Sherry brought both cupped hands below the water, then swam them together, until her interlocked fingers were floating just below both boats. Then, with surgical tenderness, Sherry brought both hands up out of the ocean, and the boats pooled along with them.

Droplets of saltwater splashed down the sides of her fingers, but a sizable pond generated in her palm. As she tipped her hands forward, causing most of the liquid to drain away, each ship was marooned upon her soft fingers, protected from spilling between the crevices by her poise and grace. Sherry’s jaw dropped to finally get a good look at the little boats, whereupon she made out the sight of people, packed into the upper decks, and so utterly miniscule that she could barely comprehend it. The girl smiled and held her head high, proud of herself for her compassion toward this helpless little species, which so obviously required her care. Her satisfaction was such that she didn’t even consciously notice the ghostly tingle of missiles pinging off her inner legs, nor the infinitesimally larger tickle when she shifted forward on her knees, causing those speedy white specks to bounce off the bulwark of her legs and into the swirling ocean below.

“Good news, tiny people!” Sherry shouted to the port city, as she held their prize cruise liners above for demonstration. “I saved all your boats! No need to thank me, of course. That’s exactly what friends are for! So, who else would like my help?”