Fiona… lost all sense of courage and ran in the opposite direction from the towering woman. It was a natural animal response, running away from something scary. She was running back the way she had come toward the towering gates beyond. It was cowardly but in the face of certain things one just knew they should run. There was no glory to be found under the steps of this Jailor. No battle she could possibly fight against something that big. So she just ran. She ran as far as her legs could carry her with a look of terror on her face. 

“Now that's no fun.” The dark haired woman remarked with a slight pout, picking up her pace slightly. 

Fiona knew it was coming. Knew she was about to get stepped on and crushed. Knew that she couldn’t hope to outrun the towering dark haired woman. The shaking of the ground beneath her boots almost had Fiona fall over and stumble a few times but she kept running, managing to cross into the gateway and just past the threshold where she started feeling the weakening of her body. She didn’t suddenly sprout back up to her normal scale of course, but she crossed some distance. 

Then the shaking of the ground stopped. There was no more quaking and the adventurer dared to glance over her shoulder. She saw the Jailor just… standing right at the edge. Her boots were so close to her. She was towering over her, looming above. But she was stopped dead right there, like there was some invisible line she was unwilling to cross. Her lips were turned down into a pouty little frown and she had her hands on her lips as she glared impotently at Fiona below. 

“Ugggghhhh, hate when you guys do that! Come on now, come back here, I promise I’ll be nice. I’ll give you your own cage… right around my neck. You can be my new necklace!” She said, giggling into her fingers. 

“Not on your life! No amount of gold is worth this!” Fiona called as she kept running as fast as she could. The church, it was so far away at this scale but she could probably make it there eventually that would be her destination. 

The pale woman rolled her eyes and stomped her foot like a petulant child denied a toy. “Fine! Go and get eaten by a crow or something, see if I care! Hmph! I have prettier girls than you anyway!” She turned with a huff, clearly put out by not being able to get her hands on Fiona. 

Fiona for her part just kept on running as fast as she could until she was past the gates. It took her… well over half an hour. She fell to her knees after that, gasping and panting and wheezing. The blonde felt like she was about to die from exhaustion. Her heart was pounding like a war drum. Her mind was reeling from it all. Not even one step into Istrel and this had happened to her. She had nearly been… she honestly didn’t know what the Jailor had in mind for her and she didn’t really want to find out. Not at all. 

She slowly managed to pick herself up and was looking out in the direction of where the Church was. Sister Ana. She could probably help her. Maybe. At the least it would be safer than anything that this city could possibly offer her. Fiona was starting to regret ever coming to this cursed city. Starting to regret ever deciding to try to make her fortune here. This was absolute madness. Who could have ever imagined what would happen to her just from walking through the front gate. 

Slowly, Fiona started making her way back toward the Church. It… took a while. Hours. Quite a few hours. Hours where distant caws or noises pricked at Fiona’s nerves. She was the size of an ant after all, traveling across uneven rocky roads with nothing to arm herself with. A crow would be like fighting a dragon. Not something she considered an appealing proposition. The blonde still managed to make her way to the glow of the Church, feeling such relief as it came within sight. 

The door loomed over Fiona in quite a different way than before. She swallowed hard and then slowly crawled under the thin clearance given under the doorframe. So thin that it would have been hard for anyone not her rather pitiful size to manage it. She squeezed her way inside the door and brushed herself off as she was now inside the Church. Judging from the quaking and rumbling ahead the Sister was now wide awake unlike when she had first met her. 

She spied her in the distance, the woman idly sweeping the floors of her church without a care in the world. After her scare with the pale woman, the redhead looked like the merciful Venerated. Compared to Fiona really she might as well have been given the vast difference in scale. Fiona started walking forward across the marble floors. 

And then she was spotted. The slightest movements upon the floor were enough that the redhead bristled and spotted her quite easily. Though… there was a pit opening up in Fiona’s stomach as she didn’t like the twisting of her expression. The soft and rather pretty Sister had a look of absolute disgust on her face, her nose wrinkling slightly and her eyes bearing a cold fury in them as she saw the ant sized figure moving on her floors.

“I don’t know what it is, Sister Abigail never mentioned having this kind of problem!” She let out a groan of annoyance as she set her broom aside. 

“W-wait! S-sister Ana! It's me! Fiona!” The blonde screamed. 

Ana absolutely didn’t hear what Fiona was saying. Vast bare feet thundered across the marble floors, shaking the ground beneath Fiona. Despair started washing over the blonde as she realized she had made an absolutely horrible mistake. Coming here had been a bad idea! A very very bad idea! Fiona turned and started to run as fast as she could back for the door but this time there was no way she was going to make it. It was just not feasible at all. 

Ana stopped, looming over Fiona on high. Pale walls rose up on either side of the blonde and one lifted up onto its heel. A dark shadow was lifted over Fiona as she scurried away toward the door but there was no way she could do it. No way she could make it. Not like this! Not like-! She didn’t even have time to let out a scream as a pale sole smashed down upon her. She lived only for a single instant of being squished under Ana’s foot before absolutely smearing upon the floor like a miserable insect. 

The Sister lifted her foot back and looked at it with a wrinkle of her nose. “Maybe I should ask the church for a sealed door or something…” She mused. That had to be how they were getting in right? Well regardless she idly wiped Fiona’s remains away with a cloth like the piece of dirt she now was and continued on with her tasks. 

(Ending Unlocked: A Sister’s Scorn)