Henry woke to the blare of sunlight. The shade was luminously yellow yet not overly warm, suggesting sunrise. Then he noticed the grassy ceiling, the upended trees growing off the roof with their branches stretching down from gravity. The light came from sunrocks.

Sunrocks.

Everything returned to him, the massive giant and her unchallenged power. Rennard and Milton had been there as well. It was no dream.

Henry jerked up from where he lay, resting on his elbows. He was surrounded by a neat ring of bushes. Beyond them the greater grotto was visible, slanted walls of abundant greenery, no apparent doorway in sight. He could hear water running as well.

Henry stood. The streamlet coursed out of a hole in the walls and tinkled down, the surrounding fern and moss and flowers of its established path sheening from the dampness. It pooled into a peaceful pond which continued down and onwards through another hole.

Milton and Rennard were there. Along the shoreline of the pond, he saw his two friends lying in what he hoped to be sleep. How they had gotten here, what had happened, everything, Henry had to know. Above all he was happy to see his friends alive and unharmed, an onerous, devilish knot releasing from his chest, realizing just how worried he’d been for them. Despite the new predicament they found themselves in, and they had no shortage of them, they were alive and well. Other concerns were suddenly trivial.

However, as Henry waded through the bushes and trampled through the greenery around the pond and to his friends, his eyes constantly wandering around the area to get a grasp of where they’d ended up, he spotted another body closer to where he’d been, up the lush slope at the back end of the grotto, away from the pond. She was naked, and as Henry focused his gaze, more of the memories returned to him.

“No way…” he muttered, turning course now, towards her. He remembered how that massive giant had bitten into Ada’s neck, how he faintly recalled her shrinking, an outrageously shocking discovery somehow a lost detail in all that mayhem.

And he could confirm it as he arrived before her, Ada’s naked body spread before him in human size. The enormous body he’d always stared up at, towering over him, shaking the earth underneath him, was now lying here before him as his peer. She was on her side, unmoving. The faint rise of her side confirmed she was breathing and alive.

He didn’t know how long passed, how long he just stared, bewitched, but finally she groaned and moved. Henry was behind her, she couldn’t see him. She jerked up, hands grazing the moss underneath her, index and thumb finding a flower.

“No…”

“Ada?”

Ada turned with a jolt, her damaged eyes the widest he’d seen them, sizing Henry up from top to bottom. “No… No…” The words were like a breath spoken, barely perceptible. “No!” She lurched, retreated, crawling back pathetically on hands and knees. “I’m so sorry, I’m really sorry!”

“What are you—” Henry had to hold his hands up like one carefully approaches a frightened dog. “Ada, it’s fine. Don’t you remember me?”

“Of course I remember you. Don’t you remember me? All the things I did to you, your friends?”

“You can drop the remorse, didn’t we decide that?”

“We did when I was big, when I was stronger. Now I’m…” Her hands went over her stomach, down her thighs and knees, her toes curling the flowers. Ada eyed all his details as if there was more to see than the plain person before her. It was the same for Henry. There was nothing marvelous or arcane about their looks, but to see one another at this size felt like one had woken up and the world had reversed, constantly double-checking, something before their eyes not corresponding with the mental map they had.

There was noise from the pool; Rennard and Milton had woken.

“Just calm down,” Henry told her before making his way down and skirting the pond. He called for his friends. Rennard was up and moving, and they met with another hug, Rennard patting Henry’s back.

“My boy is alive,” he said, an exhale signifying that same devilish knot had left him as well. “We keep finding the most trouble, but at least we’re reunited.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Over Rennard’s shoulder, Henry saw Milton getting up, returning from the slumber the giant had put them in.

“Milton.” Henry greeted him, hand on his forearm and the other on his shoulder. Milton returned it. Unlike true sleep, attention was restored quickly once they woke.

“Lord above,” Milton muttered. “It’s felt like ages when it hasn’t even been that long. I can’t even make sense of the time we were under the Charmer’s spell.”

“You were with her?” Henry said, releasing from the embrace. “I arrived at the Charmer’s cabin with a giant bounty hunter, but I didn’t find you there.”

“We were teleported elsewhere.”

“Ah, I suspected that. The bounty hunter chased her off, I ended up in the midst. The Charmer made a hasty teleport which malfunctioned, and I ended up somewhere east.” Henry breathed out. “Listen, we’ll catch up sometime, but I need to ask who the hell that giant is. How did you two—” Henry noticed Rennard’s absence, turning about himself, and then he saw him.

Rennard had marched all the way over to Ada, his arm ablaze. “You fucking bitch.”

“Wait!” Henry summoned the art of the fighter and frog-leaped across the pond, dashing right after his landing. He halted like a bullet caught, right between Milton and Ada. “Rennard, what are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” His unlit hand threw an index finger past Henry, at Ada. “It’s her! You know it’s her! You were with her, something you should clarify, by the way.”

Henry didn’t say much, but he continued to stand between them. Ada was on her knees, turned the other way, face hidden behind hair.

“She’s not our problem now.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Rennard shouted, and although Henry had plenty of arguments with his friend, there was a unique rage in Rennard’s voice this time. “Taking her side? Everything is her fault. All of this is her fault. She fucked us over, literally fucked us. She would do it right now if she were giant, but she’s down to our size, just like us, except that unlike us, she’s a pathetic miserable worm cowering over there, unable to even look me in the eyes.”

Henry grabbed his friend’s shoulder, an iron grip to show strictness behind the brotherly gesture. “She wouldn’t do any of that if she were giant.”

“And what would you know about that?”

“I have been with her. We stuck together because it benefitted us to work with one another then be alone, and after time in that partnership, I can attest, she wouldn’t do that.”

Rennard looked at him askance. “Fat chance. Partnership? What did you do together? I can only assume two things you could have wanted, to find me and Milton, or go home to Humius. Was she ready to help you with any of this? Because last I remember, we pleaded her to just let us go and run back to the border, when there was still hope, when we were decently close compared to whatever mess we’re in now, but she would rather fuck and kidnap us.”

Henry couldn’t find a response. There was no good response. He had omitted the crucial detail of how he and Ada even got in this ‘partnership’, how they had fought in the arena and that Henry, according to the well-recognized Richwood documents, was literally Ada’s slave, a result of her efforts. And then Henry had to confront the ghost hanging over him constantly as he was with Ada, never wanting to ask her if she could take him back to Humius, because that would broach the forbidden topics and ruin the illusion their relationship was built on. Henry stared back at Ada, sitting, turned away from them, reserved. How much had Ada really changed? Had Henry just been thinking with his manhood?

“Henry.” Milton stepped in. “What point are you trying to make? Everything Rennard says is true.”

They were right, but Henry returned to the moment. “Fine!” Henry stepped aside, leaving nothing between Rennard and Ada. “I don’t claim she never did any wrong. What was I interrupting you from doing? Are you going to batter her with your flames? She’s harmless right now, defenseless. What will you accomplish by hurting her? We’re sitting here with shared problems, and vengeance against her does nothing to fix that.”

Rennard stepped forward, raising his arm, his fist morphing into a hammer of flame. “Bitch. Turn around. Have the guts to at least look at me. You lacked no courage when you were all big, shoving me in and out of your cunt, and now you’re whimpering like the most innocent flower of the world. You were never strong. You were just big, a bargain you took in exchange for all your pride and honor. And now even your illusion of strength is gone. And what’s left?” It was quiet.” Bitch, look at me. Show that there’s a shred of strength in your character and muster the goddamn courage to look at the people you screwed over when it was so easy to do so.”

Ada adjusted her hair and turned around. The glistening streaks of running tears were threading down her cheeks, her nose red, but it wasn’t Rennard’s sentimentality which made him stop at the sight of her crying. It was the welts of wounds scribbled across her face, the one slashing up across her left eye, leaving it milky and distant, the right one with a bloodshot portion. Rennard remembered how they had gotten away from her, the last attack he launched. “Are you blind?” The question was one of concern, his voice one of anger.

“Not fully blind,” Ada said, keeping a firm voice. “Just worse.”

“Will it get better?”

“No.”

Rennard remained motionless, flames flickering. He clenched his teeth together, raising his enflamed hammer-hand. He swung sideways, over her, throwing the flames across the corner. The fire landed onto a cluster of bushes and exploded, throwing scatters of burning leaves. Rennard left her. “You paid your price.”

They heard crinkling. At the site where Rennard’s flames hit, the bushes regrew to their previous glory.

“What the hell is this anyways?” Henry said, both fascinated and a good opportunity to change the subject. “This place, that giant. She was massive.”

“It’s a whole underground population,” Milton said. “And that giant is called Goddess Helga. The people in here worship her as a literal goddess.”

“What people?”

“You haven’t seen them. She’s tried her best to keep us hidden from them. I don’t know what she is, but she’s no usual giant. Her power, you can’t just boil it down to ‘strong magic’. It is beyond power and magic.”

“I can see that.” Henry took in the sight of the grotto, the bountiful harvests. “For God’s sake, she shrunk Ada. Has such a thing ever happened?”

“Unheard of,” Rennard muttered absently, his anger still needing time to wane.

“What were you two doing down here?” Henry asked.

“In the endless chain of escapes we’ve found ourselves in since we came to Gintessa, we fell into the most random crevice there likely is. We ended up here. The goddess seemed sympathetic, willing to let us go if we worked with her. Everything pointed to her being the exception of everyone we’ve come across.” He glanced at Ada, who was downcast and quiet. “But the moment you two stepped in, it all changed.”

“She wants to keep the people under here unaware,” Rennard said. “Stupid like cattle. Another giant stepping in made her afraid. She didn’t want anyone to see that.”

“I’m not sure afraid is the right word. She’s all-powerful. I’m struggling to think who on the surface would even challenge her, among the strongest giants even.” Milton turned to Henry. “Your turn, how did you end up down here?”

“We were led here by an object called the Compass,” Henry said. “We’d heard rumors of this object, called the miracle stone, which would be able to cure Ada’s eyes, among other things. That…” Henry lost himself in thought.

“What’s the matter?”

“That tiny glowing dot on her forehead, what is that?”

Rennard shrugged. “Probably some nice little gem she conjured up for herself.”

“I don’t know, it was pulsating,” Henry said. “And maybe I’m imagining things here, but when she asked what Ada and I were doing, I mentioned the miracle stone, and it seemed to set her off. She’s never mentioned it to you?”

Nothing came to mind for the two. “First time we hear it.”

“There is no hope of fighting her, conversation is the only way.”

“Guys.” Rennard stared towards the other end of the pond.

Helga stood there. No sound, no entry, nothing to note, she was suddenly in the grotto. She started walking around the pond, not many steps needed to round it and advance on them. The boys huddled together, Ada trying to capture the sight of this giant, feeling the other perspective. Her eyes couldn’t capture the details, but seeing that monumental size move so casually towards them had her agape.

Helga stopped so close to them the hemline of her green dress almost touched their heads. They craned their necks all the way up.

“Goddess, please,” Milton said. “Whatever you ask of us, we’ll do it. What can we do to convince you we don’t want any trouble?”

She stared down at them, an icy expression. With a wave of her hand, two pillars of leaves shot up from underneath Rennard and Milton, raising them all the way up to her chin. Her fingers closed around them, their legs sticking out of the bottom and head out of the top of her closed fists.

And with that, she turned around, took them to a corner of the grotto. Helga took a deep breath, and with her exhalation came a blue mist, expanding, growing, manifesting into a hazy circular swirl large as Helga herself.

“What about us?” Henry called.

“You may do whatever you please,” Helga said. “It won’t matter.” With that, she stepped into the mist, Rennard and Milton in hand, and they vanished.