Lady Mira was a rather clever woman. She had seen the march of the Elsiran armies coming well before they ever declared war on her nation. She had made arrangements with the King to have the armies trained by survivors from elven conflicts. These were not implacable enemies after all. They could bleed. They could die. Elves weren’t invincible and indeed while the tales of survivors were harrowing, training could help. 

It was why she was unconcerned tonight, when others might well be trembling in their boots. Her holdings were on the border and thus she had a good number of troops all through the area. They had planned for where and how the elves would strike after all. The moment they crossed the border they would be in for a nasty surprise laid out by the generals of the kingdom. Thus she sipped at her wine at the dining table, her husband having already taken to the field himself. Why, she suspected he’d return with elf ears on his belt. What a lovely gift that would be. 

The dark haired woman was a beautiful matron, well into her thirties. Dark hair was schooled into a tight braid and her fine silks and fabrics hugged a mature and filled form undulled by age. She was the very picture of regal and noble beauty, carefully maintained each day with painstaking work. One had to look the picture of leadership after all.

The woman inspected one of her nails, ever so slightly chipped and frowned. “Ugh. Today of all days.” She grumbled.

“My lady, more wine?” Asked one of the maids nearby. 

The dark haired woman waved a hand. “No, no, won’t do for me to be completely tripping over myself when I welcome my husband back from the battlefield. Do check with the kitchens though and make sure the chefs are prepared for the meals for the victorious champions.” 

The maid dipped her head low and shuffled from the luxurious dining hall. Mira watched her depart and rose from her seat in a whisper of fabric, walking toward a nearby balcony. She opened the glass doors and stepped out into the night beyond. She gazed out into the distance. Elsira was a nation that many feared, indeed many in their own country feared the advance of the elves. However they could be defeated. They would be defeated. Mira had faith in their preparations. 

She could see flickers of light in the city below, the people going about their lives in their homes. The night would pass and they would continue to do their routine for many more days and nights to come. Mira had to believe in her own work, in the careful plans they had laid ahead of the advance of the elves. After all, if she didn’t believe in it then how could she have expected anyone else to? 

Her gaze lingered out into the darkness for a few moments before she heard the doors to the dining hall open. Her maids were quite speedy really. She turned and walked back into the room… and her glass shattered on the ground at the sight in front of her. Mira’s eyes widened, not even registering the glass shards in her dress now. 

Standing in the doorway now was a woman dressed in black. An *elf* dressed in black. Mira had never met an elf before but it was very distinctive how… inhuman she moved and how graceful her basic movements were. Her jet black skin was as smooth as possible and her beauty was something that made Mira appear no more pretty than some homely barmaid. Bone white hair was pulled into a tight braid with bangs framing her face. A pair of purple eyes swept around the room idly, noting Mira but passing over her without much concern. 

Mira screamed. She let out a very loud and very piercing scream. “Guards! Guards! Intruder!” The woman called out as loud as she possibly could. 

The elf rolled her eyes. “Don’t know why you think there are any guards around to hear you.” She remarked. 

She started to back away from the elf in terror and continued to cry out and scream. “Guards! Maids! Anyone!” She screamed out. 

This wasn’t possible. How was she here? HOW? The battle was taking place miles away, they had double the guards patrolling around the city and the keep. There was no way the woman could be here, but yet, here she was. Standing before Mira as though mocking her. The dark haired human was near the balcony once more, her back striking the edge of it. She looked over her shoulders. Some of the guard posts near the gates had gone… suspiciously dark on inspection from a distance. 

The dark elf muttered something in her strange language and rolled her eyes as she flicked her fingers out in Mira’s direction. The noblewoman immediately felt a pulse of something seize her. Some force, some energy that was beyond her. Magic. The elven magic seized her and forced her to her knees and as she knelt she felt her clothes growing looser around her. Fabric was falling around her body and strength was flooding from her. She knew what this was. It was in the horror stories of anyone that had seen what the elves did to their captives. She was being shrunk. 

“W-wait, hold a moment! I’m a valuable hostage, please don’t do this!” Mira was a proud woman but in the face of the world getting bigger and bigger around her it was hard to hold onto pride. 

The elf inspected her nails as she was walking closer to Mira, her steps soon enough felt a bit more keenly as vibrations on the ground became something Mira was more aware of. The noblewoman let out a cry as she was swallowed up in the veil of her own clothes, a pile that was on the floor without an owner seemingly. She pushed and crawled through the fabric only to find a very different and very alien world was what awaited her. 

The balcony was a vast structure, the plain of cold stone that stretched around her. In the doorway, framed by the light of the dining room, was the dark skinned elf. Mira’s eyes followed up her body, from her sandal clad feet to her long legs, to her modest bosom and a face looming above that looked down at her. A face that didn’t seem to take much glee, there was more an expression of a woman going through the motions of a job more than there was enjoyment. 

“Hold still.” She thundered in common, squatting down and reaching for Mira. 

Mira did no such thing. The noblewoman started running across the fabric of her clothes in the opposite direction. The opposite direction where there was an edge to the balcony. A wall that rose above her that might as well have been the sheer face of a cliff. She was still running, an instinct, a fear pounding inside her as the naked woman tried to get away from the elf reaching down toward her. 

The elf rolled her purple eyes and her fingers came in anyway, deftly and nimbly gripping and jerking upon a leg. Mira screamed, loudly. As loud as her lungs could manage. She grabbed fistfuls of expensive silk and tried to keep her hold on the ground, scrabbling at it to try and not be lifted off the ground. She held her grip for moments, a tiny pale half inch tall thing in the grip of the woman. 

There was a twitch of the elf’s brow and she tightened her fingers ever so, twisting a bit. “Aaaaaaaa!” A scream of pain echoed out from the depths of Mira’s soul as she lost her grip on the fabric, the pain of her leg being twisted ever so a sharp flare through her nerves. It wasn’t broken, but damn if she was going to be walking easily for a while. 

The elven woman lifted the dark haired human through the air, the cold air of the evening a stark chill upon her naked body, and brought her to her side. Her free fingers were spreading open a pouch on her belt and then with no further fanfare she simply dropped Mira down into the pouch. Mira screamed and flailed through the air as she was released, arms flailing as she fell and struck something hard. Several somethings. 

There was a commotion all around and with the brief bit of light she could see… other people. Naked humans, men and women alike, well over a dozen half inch tall people. She recognized them. Some guards, some servants. Her gaze turned upward and she screamed out at the woman that had dropped her down in here. 

“W-wait, hold on a moment! Just let me speak!” 

Evidently the woman wasn’t interested in that. She pulled the leather cord around the neck of the bag and sealed all of the humans in darkness. There were noises of distress and Mira jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She whirled around, her eyes searching in the pitch darkness of the little bag. She squinted and tried to make out who had touched her but thankfully the voice that came clinched it. 

“Are you unharmed, my lady?” The maid that had left to take the orders to the chef, Diane if she recalled correctly. 

The dark haired woman took a moment and was about to respond… before motion suddenly kicked in. She let out a yelp and ended up falling over onto Diane, both of them smacking into the wall of the pouch. The little pouch swayed ever so as the hips of the elven woman moved as she walked, the occupants tossed around by the simple motions of her walking around. She didn’t seem to have a care for their comfort, treating them like coins she had discarded into her purse if anything. 

The motions went on and on, sometimes they got worse when the elf moved faster, sometimes they got better. Mira couldn’t right herself. She couldn’t see where she was going. She smacked into others inside the pouch. The moments she stopped were the moments when the pouch opened up and a new human was added to the pile inside. She used those moments to catch her breath. 

“I’d say none of us are exactly unharmed.” She managed to finally get out a response to Diane, who was holding a steadying arm on her. 

Some men were trying to climb out the opening of the pouch, only for it to close again and then the dark skinned elf was walking again. The motion was probably something the elven woman never noticed or gave a thought about, Mira certainly didn’t when it came to pouches. Being inside one however was a very different story. It was a motion machine of misery from which there was seemingly no escape. Escape attempts to climb out or try to tear open the bottom were foiled when the pouch smacked into her hips and jostled them around. Battering them into submission with barely any effort at all. 

It went on like that for a long while. Maybe it was hours. It was hard to say as the passage of time was hard to track. There were well over two dozen of them inside the pouch now, the cramped space making it so more often than not someone fell on someone else. People had stopped trying to climb and claw their way out after the dozens of times they had been tossed around. This was already awful, no reason to make it worse on themselves after all. Mira herself was nervous but really, there wasn’t much they could do but wait. 

After what seemed like hours she could hear voices beyond the pouch. Elven voices. The elven language being spoken by a number of people beyond. A camp? Were they at the elven encampment? Weren’t they defeated? Mira couldn’t really understand what was being said all too well, elven wasn’t a language she had learned. However it sounded like general chatter, a blur of noise where people spoke to each other about banal matters. 

Suddenly gravity shifted and everyone cried as they felt as though they were falling before being caught, smacking into one another and groaning. The voice of their captor rang out, discussing something with another woman nearby. There was a little exchange before gravity shifted again. Everyone let out a scream as they started falling through the air, Mira waving her arms around as well. 

They fell and landed hard within a square metal cage with extremely thin bars, thin enough there was no way to squeeze out. The top of the cage was closed shut as they had been carelessly dumped inside of it by their captor. She was speaking with an older elven woman with red hair and freckles. The redhead produced a few coins and offered them out to the dark skinned elf and the woman offered a nod before filing them away and departing. They had been… sold? She expected them to take hostages or something like that at least. 

Mira looked around inside the cage and she could see those she had shared the pouch with, but she could also see sights that turned her blood cold. She recognized a couple of knights that had sallied out with her husband to meet with the Elsiran Army in the field. She winced as she rose, her leg tweaking a bit. She limped her way over to one man, a sandy haired youth that looked particularly down. 

“Y-you! What happened in the battle? What’s going on? How did the elves manage to get into the city?” She asked. 

The young man looked up and looked at the dark haired noblewoman at length. Recognition worked its way into his blue eyes and he lowered his gaze moments later. “My lady… the battle was lost. We were outmaneuvered by the Elsiran general. Some were taken prisoner and ended up… well, here.” He gestured around. 

Defeated? No… no that couldn’t be. Mira felt the strength leaving her legs. “A-and my husband?” She asked. 

The young knight paused and seemed to consider his next words carefully. “From what I know he was taken to the Elven General. He was… well he ended up shrunken like us first. I don’t know what happened to him there.” 

Mira knew what the tales said at least. On the eve of her victory over a commander, they were shrunken down and dropped in her wine goblet. Drunken down in celebration of her victory. Mira fell to her knees, she was vaguely aware of Diane offering a hand on her back. Her face fell into her hands and she wept.