Tara and Lucy had been sitting together for many hours, just enjoying one another’s company.  Tara had been thinking about the promise she’d made to the girl, and felt quite happy about it.  Her life had been saved, thanks to Lucy, and she was willing to do anything in return.  Living with Lucy for awhile would be an incredibly easy thing for her to do, especially after she got back to her normal size.  Once she accomplishes that, she could start taking care of the girl instead of being taken care of. 

However, Tara did enjoy the situation of being the one who was cared for.  Despite her fear of being helpless, having her hair stroked by this tall young woman gave her an incredible feeling.  As she was in Lucy’s care, she felt like her mother was back home again, caring for her as she had so many years ago.  There were obvious differences between Lucy and her mother but, in her mind, they were both beautiful women who were trying to take care of her.  As much as she wanted to do things for Lucy to help repay her for saving her life, a part of her didn’t want to leave her care.  That part had an inner desire to stay small and in this girl’s care.

Despite the events of the day having very sad results with the loss of Lucy’s mother, Tara was glad they’d turned out the way they did.  It had been so long since she’d been cared for or had someone she could call a friend.  That’s what Tara thought she could call Lucy, anyways.  They’d just met, but she felt some sort of connection with her.  She wasn’t exactly sure what it was.  It could have been the desire to be there and dedicate her life to Lucy since she’d saved it, or it might have just been some charm Lucy had about her.  Tara didn’t know what it was, but her face grew red as she looked up at the girl, feeling as if this was a place she wanted to be.

From the opposite side of things, Lucy was enjoying every moment that she was spending as she took care of Tara on the couch.  The woman was like a tiny, living doll, something from a little girl’s fantasy-driven mind.  Just like any other girl, Lucy had always envisioned that her dolls were alive from the time she was a child.  She believed so strongly in this fantasy, that she’d always taken good care of her dolls.  Deep down, she’d always known that they weren’t ‘alive’, but that didn’t matter to her.  Now, however, there was a doll-sized person in her hands.  This doll, however, was very much alive and wasn’t a doll at all.  It was a person, someone who’d fought to protect her.

This situation caused a lot of thoughts to fill up Lucy’s mind.  Obviously, she would need to take care of poor Tara since she was so small.  It’s not like a 6-inch person would be able to just waltz around a huge house and be able to do everything a normal-sized person like Lucy would be able to, right?  She thought on this for a moment, hesitating before coming to any sort of conclusions.  Even though she was definitely tiny, could she use that magic she’d seen her use earlier in various ways to help her move around and get things done?  The idea intrigued Lucy, and she looked down at her friend, smiling and gently posing a statement towards her.

“Hey, Tara, may I ask you something?”

Tara was smiling up towards Lucy at the time and cocked her head a little at what the girl asked of her.  Surely she knew that she would do anything for her at this point.  Why would she need to ask her if it was alright to pose a question towards her?  She figured Lucy may have just been trying to be polite, so simply tilted her head a little and nodded.  “Of course, Lucy.  You may ask me anything.”

Lucy let out a smile and her own face was getting a little red.  Hearing Tara’s bright attitude was, for some reason, comforting to Lucy.  Her curiosity ran pretty deep at times, and she was worried that Tara didn’t want to reveal many secrets to her.  Happy at the fact that she could ask the tiny sorceress anything she so desired, she began to respond to her, asking about the miraculous skill she’d seen earlier.

“When you were, well…when you were fighting that monster, you did a lot of things that really looked amazing!  All those flashing orbs and flying and stuff!  It was really cool!  What was that?”

Tara had gone from being happy to being confused from that simple question.  She knew exactly what the answer to Lucy’s question was, but the thing she didn’t understand was how she didn’t already know about it.  Even though not many people around the town practiced “The Arte”, she was certain that everyone knew about it.  She knew about it when she was a little girl, before her mother died.  Was it conceivable that Lucy had never even heard of it before?  Tara wasn’t sure, but figured she might as well explain it to her, just in case.  If nothing else, she felt nice after hearing Lucy say it was ‘really cool’.

After turning herself around, she sat in the girl’s lap, now facing her and looking up towards her face.  It was a bit cramping for her neck to look so high, but she was alright with a little discomfort.  “Well, Lucy…it’s called ‘The Arte’.  I guess you could call it…magic?  Basically, I can focus the energy particles around me into forms of my desire as I cast spells.  I don’t know all that much, but it’s how I was hovering and launching those energy-filled orbs.  It’s also…how I ended up shrunk.”

Lucy was quite interested in everything Tara was saying, but cocked her head a little, confused at her last statement.  This ‘Arte’ thing seemed to be some sort of magic, so she must have been casting a spell, as she called it, that she got caught up in the middle of.  Realizing that she probably wasn’t terribly comfortable with the fact that she did this to herself, Lucy decided to try to lighten the blow by going on with the conversation instead of asking about the shrinking that had happened.

She smiled down towards Tara and gently wrapped her fingers around her, setting her in her hand.  Bringing the hands and Tara up to eye-level, she smiled and threw a request towards the tiny sorceress.  “Show me, Tara!  Show me all those amazing things you can do!” 

The girl was quite interested in Tara’s abilities, almost child-like at the idea of seeing all of the spells and tricks Tara could do while using ‘The Arte’.  She had a huge smile on her face and her eyes sparkled as she looked at Tara.  Tara had seen the look in her eyes and, after seeing such an innocent look, how could she possibly refuse?