The tiny ruckus briefly arose again, then quieted. Feeling left out, the princess regally bowed her head down nearer to the ground, letting her ear hover just over the nearest battalion. However, even from this close, she couldn’t distinguish their voices as anything but the whining of insects. When she turned her head again, Narina noticed several dozen troops had accidentally become tangled in the sea of her hair when she knelt, and held still for several minutes while they fought to free themselves. She even helped by slowly combing her fair fingernails through the golden threads, picking the soldiers out like lice and gently sprinkling them back into a clear patch of grass.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t understand you!” Narina bemoaned. She sighed bitterly as she reared back up, though she remained seated on the ground, as it became difficult to make out individual shapes of bodies if she stood at full height, especially on a day as cloudy as this. “I should have brought my father’s special bugle, so that I could understand the voices of any travelers I met. I do so like to hear others’ stories! But alas, you’re simply too small for me to make out your words. So, please forgive me my poor manners of not responding to whatever it is you’re saying down there!”
By listening intently, the princess noticed that several of the bug-like men at the front of the immense crowd were yelling something to their troops. She watched with keen interest as a row of catapults were reared back, their oily payloads lit aflame. Then they launched. Every projectile met its mark, some bouncing down the princess’s gown, and a few of them warmly sliding off her cheeks. After this, a hailstorm of arrows was fired from the rows of archers behind the front line. For Narina, these gestures felt akin to have a feather tickled along her skin. When she finished giggling, and softly scratched an itch inflicted by the final catapult blast, the princess puzzled over the meaning of all this.
“Hmm. Perhaps they think I don’t notice them, and want to get my attention?” Narina concluded at last, following a second round of armaments rebounding off the lovely hand-woven landscape of her torso. She cupped her hands around her lips. “My apologies, sirs, if you didn’t hear me at first. I grow so often, sometimes it’s hard for me to judge how I should express myself to little people, such as yourselves. My name is PRINCESS NARINA, FROM THE KINGDOM DUE EAST OF HERE!”
The serenity-shattering call of the girl’s voice, melodic though it was, nevertheless hit the front line with such force that most of them tumbled over like dominoes. Some were thrown backward through midair. These victims were left rolling in the grass, clutching their damaged ear drums. Yet another, slightly more reticent round of attack came, this time in the form of a charge. As Narina’s hands came to rest back on either side of the field, men drove wheeled battering rams into her thumbs. These contraptions barely managed to nudge the girl’s thick and comparatively muscled digits, but she was again titillated by their efforts, and held as still as possible to watch their next move. Once the vehicles were lined up, men threw themselves atop Narina’s hands. Some began driving their weapons down against her tender yet unbreakable skin, while others bum-rushed for the sparkling hem of her sleeve in hopes of spreading their assault as far as possible.
The princess patiently watched the armies covering her hands, only occasionally twitching when tickled and knocking over their meticulously placed battlements. This activity reminded her of an occasion from her childhood, when she’d discovered an anthill in the castle courtyard and allowed several of the little creatures to crawl across her hands, enjoying the feeling of their diminutive legs walking on her skin. Of course, these men were much smaller to her than those ants were back then, but the effect was similar. Suddenly, Narina had another idea.
“Oh!” she gasped. “You’re trying to reach me up here, so that you’ll be heard! Brilliant solution, everyone. I… well, just come here, so we may get acquainted!”
Narina was so enthused by this revelation, she forgot the fragility of her new friends. Her hands rose swiftly from the ground, wrecking all the battering rams in the process, and sending half the charging force of men spraying through the air. Those that managed to cling to the textured terrain of the princess’s soft flesh were in for a wild ride, soaring skyward toward the blonde royal’s beaming face. The girl drew both hands together, and gently as she could, brushed both sides of her upturned fingers in simulation of washing her hands, until the remaining troops were piled into her cupped palms. She smiled ear-to-ear, her eyes bright with happiness at the sight of so many eager fellows heaped in her very own two hands.
Narina drew both hands beneath her ear and listened as hard as she could.
“Oh, please do forgive me for not noticing you sooner. You see, I’ve been so preoccupied, as my puppy has been missing for a year and a day now! And… wait… Argus!” Narina piped. Almost forgetting her handfuls of armed men, she quickly retracted her palms from around her ear, inadvertently sending many of the troops flying through the air, some to their doom and some to a tangled trap in her hair. “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’ve been wasting far too much time! He could be in trouble, and I’ve got to find him. Excuse me, now. I must take my leave.”
The princess lovingly dumped the remains of her attackers onto the field where they’d come from, then hopped back to her feet at full height with such speed that when her slippers met the earth again, the entire army was knocked to the ground. Horses were frightened into a stampeding panic. Catapults tipped over and fell into splinters. Even the mountain seemed to groan, as multiple snowy avalanches from the highest peaks started rolling down toward the valley below. In almost no time, those military companies gathered at the base of the mountain were buried under a billowing onslaught of sleet and rocks.
Missing all of these drastic effects entirely, due to her concern for the dragon, Narina stepped over most of the multinational armies and planted her foot into a forest beside the fields, thinking she’d found a safe place to set down. As it happened, there were numerous spies and mages hiding out in the trees to strike unseen once the “battle” got underway, but the princess unceremoniously squished them all, along with many of the trees and shrubs caught under the broad shadow-casting shape of her elegant yet mighty slipper.
Ignoring the crunching noises, thinking it to be just lumber and not insectoid insurgents, Narina proceeded to hopscotch her way out of the valley by only planting her feet in patches of tree-dense forest. Each step she took dwindled the number of troops. Those she missed underfoot were blown into chaotic disarray simply by the flag-like sweep of her dress fanning them back. When the princess was at last clear of the army’s gathering place, she waved goodbye, and turned her back on the forces she’d dominated without her knowledge.