Ch. 2

            “How are you doing, Leigh,” Nami gently asked.

“Ok, I guess.”  Her chest was bright pink at the moment.  Leigh was exceptionally shy, and speaking to others usually made her feel uncomfortable.  However, because she and Nami had spotted together so many times, Leigh had started to loosen her guard around her, and could more easily respond when spoken to.  “I’m quite hungry though.”

“I am as well.  Let us hope that Xi and the others will be able to recover enough to feed us all tonight.”

Leigh didn’t respond, but simply nodded her head in quiet approval.  She had a slight smile on her face which conveyed a mixture of both satisfaction and anxiousness.  “We must part ways here.”

The two had reached the far end of the room, very close to the entrance.  On either side of the front door were two windows, where the spotters would sit and observe the outside world.  Leigh promptly took flight and headed toward the window on the left.  She landed on the windowsill and made herself comfortable.  Before Nami took off, she surveyed her surroundings.  This room, which was much larger than any other, seemed massive, at least from the perspective of the tiny Calculus.  She looked at the many enormous devices which occupied the space.  To Nami, these items were nothing more than cover from the large one’s wandering eyes.  To the giantess, however, they were used both as tools and as entertainment.  If she weren’t so scared of what might happen to her, Nami sometimes imagined herself sitting beside the giantess as she used them, so that she may gain a clearer understanding of their purpose.

A bright pink light from the distance, emitted by Leigh, already in position, signaled to Nami that she needed to get moving.  She took flight, quickly traversing the distance from the floor to the adjacent windowsill.  Once she was seated, Nami took another look down at the room.  It seemed as if she was inside of an enormous cavern with passageways leading to different underground compartments.  Directly below her was another piece of furniture, similar in texture to the softbox, but this one was in the shape of an L, and as far as the Calculi knew, the only thing the giantess ever used it for was relaxing.  Underneath her feet it looked like a giant plateau which extended out from the wall itself.

Some time went by as both spotters continued to gaze out the windows.  Leigh sat innocently with her legs crossed and her hands upon her knees.  Nami maintained a similar posture, however her elbows rested against her knees so that her hands could support the weight of her head.  It was one of those strange days where water fell from the sky.  Nami was grateful to be inside of the giantess’s home, for she would surely drown if she were outside.  Occasionally a mechanical beast would zoom by on the blackened track which seemed to be designed specifically for their use.  Such a wondrous sight only fueled Nami’s curiosity about the world outside of Sanctuary.

After the better part of an hour, Jericho appeared in the distance, flying toward the windowsill.  He approached Nami with a sense of accomplishment defining his visage.

“We have finished, it is time for us to go.”

“Ok, thank you for informing me, Jericho.  I will tell Leigh.”

Jericho nodded and took off in the opposite direction.  He flew uneasily throughout the musty, darkened landscape.  It was clear that he was growing old and could not maintain the speed and vitality of his youth.  He rounded the corner into the personal chambers of the giantess and out of sight.

As Nami made her way over to her Leigh, she once again took in the grand spectacle around her.  Though dimly lit, she could see many of the objects in the room quite clearly.  An enormous, wooden box with multiple levels rested against the opposite wall.  These levels held a vast assortment of various trinkets.  Particularly fascinating to the small Calculus were the tall glass frames which sat upright on the surface of each level.  They all possessed a window, of varying shapes, which seemed to have captured miniaturized versions of other giants and giantess’s which had been frozen in time.  Some even depicted the very girl that her colony tried so desperately to avoid.  She stared, wide eyed, at Nami mid-flight, and Nami stared back.

“Come now, Leigh, it is time for us to depart.”

“Ok, I’m ready to go home.”

The two Calculi made their way off of the windowsill to the ground below where they began walking back toward the entrance to Sanctuary.  Leigh quietly looked around, taking in the sights around her just as Nami had.

Nami broke the silence.  “It’s quite amazing, I think, that the large one knows how to put all of these devices to use.  Sometimes I imagine myself the same size as her, and that I could communicate my thoughts well.  That way I could ask her all about her confusing world.”

“Yes, it is truly fascinating.  I wonder myself how these objects serve her.”  As they walked by a smaller version of the softbox which was positioned under Nami’s windowsill, Leigh reached out her hand to touch it.  Nami stopped to survey the enormous structure in front of her.  From ground level, it was so large that it almost did not seem real, as though Nami was staring at it from a distance.  Her chest glowed dark violet as she took flight, gracefully landing on the plateau of its surface.  The purple light radiating from her body blended well with the red fabric which made up the structure.  In front of her was a large, rectangular object which was also made up of the soft fabric.  At each of its corners was a puff of cotton.  Nami sat down at the edge of the plateau and looked down at Leigh, who looked back up, her chest glowing bright yellow.  She smiled softly, but was quickly interrupted by a noise coming from the entrance of the home.  The giantess had returned.