“You’re still awake,” comes the lilting observation, dispersing altruistically through the dark from behind you.

            You don’t even flinch, but as usual, you’re surprised at Ellie’s continual ability to perceive your tiniest changes in equilibrium, despite the fact that you’re lying down at a half an inch tall in the near pitch-black of her bedroom and breathing gently enough that you’re not even bothering the dust.

            Wrapped up for about two hours now in the wooly fabric of the cloth she provided for you to sleep in on her bedside table, you’ve been warm and happy as could be, but sleep eludes you with particular ferocity this evening.  Not that you care.  Your mind isn’t plagued with difficulties or worries tonight, at least not when Ellie is so close, mighty and wonderful.

            It’s just that your brain won’t shut off.  You think you know why, but you’re still too nervous to confront it.

            “You are, too,” you answer, rolling over and facing her bed.  As your eyes try to adjust and drink in the serene void, you can make out her unbelievably massive form stretched out for longer than a city block in silhouette, her enormous eyes glinting with the smallest fractal of light from underneath the crack of the door to the hallway.

            No matter how many times you experience it, you always have to do a double-take in Ellie’s presence at this size.  It seems beyond fathoming that a person that massive, that powerful, that capable of controlling your existence could give a damn how you’re doing, and yet her tender voice billows through the dark again, only for you.

            “Are you cold?” she murmurs.

            You are, but it simply comes with the territory of standing at half an inch tall, and it’s something you’re fully prepared to live with.

            “No,” you lie convincingly.

            Before another response can be uttered, you become aware of the expansive canopy of her palm looming above you: a sky of skin, her fingers closing in cautiously.  She’s obviously perfectly aware of your exact location in the dark, not even needing another word from you as guidance.  The peachy pads of those fingertips graze against your shoulders and find your sides, gripping you and letting you sink lightly into the give of her pliable flesh.

            And then you’re in the air, rushing over a gap that would kill you via heart attack before you even hit the ground if her thumb and index finger were to shift a matter of millimeters further apart in either direction, but you feel no sickness nor spend any time pondering this severe impossibility.

            “Yes, you are,” she corrects, the warmth of her breath washing reassuringly over you as she grips you closer, mere inches from her chin until each of her restful sighs wash relaxingly over you in everlasting balmy waves.  Your face brushes past one of the seemingly infinite honey tresses of her hair as though you’ve dipped a hand into a still river.

            “Oh,” you respond with false discovery, falling so habitually into this dry sense of humor you both share and probably use as a shield against your true intentions.  You wrap your arms as far around the curvature of her embracing thumbprint as you can.  “I guess I was off.”

            “It’s totally normal,” she reports in a whisper.  “When you shrink, the cold comes as a natural process of your body adapting at a molecular level.  All your energy is going into that, and doesn’t leave enough to warm you up, even after you’ve stopped changing.  That’s why you feel coldest when you start getting smaller.  It’s called recalcifention.”

            Hearing Ellie spout wisdom from her textbooks is one of your favorite things, because she utters each factoid with such heartfelt resonance and passion that it becomes just as fascinating to you as it is to her in that moment.  Or at least nearly so.

            “I don’t think I’ve heard of recalculus,” you say ponderously, intentionally mispronouncing it.

            “Recalcifention,” she corrects with a snicker of feigned annoyance, and you can just picture her playful smirk forming in the dark above as wide as a river to you.  “And you probably wouldn’t have unless you took a science of size-changing course.”

            “Why would I need that when I’ve got you to just give me the greatest hits?”

            “Maybe I should stop giving this stuff away, or you’ll never learn anything for yourself,” she teases, and as she says it, you feel two more of her fingers encircling you until both her thumbs and index fingers are each pressed to a surface of your body, instantly providing heat and security in the comforting huddle of her soft fingertips.

            You can’t help but sigh from the gloriously secure sensation.

            “Better?” she chuckles at your reaction.

            “Much,” you say.

            “Let me know if it gets too hot.”

            “No, it… feels nice.”

            “Well, then, we’ll just sit tight for a little while.”

            “I don’t want to keep you awake, though.”

            “I was already awake.  You know that,” she says, undulating her fingers with tiny, almost imperceptible quivers that massage your back and chest.  It’s like she’s practiced her whole life.

            “Neither of us are going to be able to stay awake in class tomorrow,” you comment.

            “I know,” she admits, and you can see the frame of her shoulders nudge in the dark against the cushy hillside of her pillow, shrugging.  “But that’s okay.  That’s why they invented tape recorder apps.”

            “Oh, so that was it,” you gasp with fake amazement.

            You hear a low rumble of laughter from her throat, and then return to the silence of before, even as her fingers continue with their precise motions: minute adjustments that make all the difference in the world to you.  You’re fairly certain you would fall asleep right here between Ellie’s fingertips, if not for that same wonder in the back of your mind, and the longer you stay awake with it there, the more you come to realize it’s not simply a wonder but a yearning of some sort.

            Even without seeing Ellie’s swimming gray eyes, you can tell the yearning is there for her, too, in some part, though why, you still can’t imagine.  Simply asking her, of course, is out of the question.

            “Maybe we shouldn’t play as long as we did today anymore,” she sighs.  “I think we overdid it.”

            “Maybe a little,” you admit, truthfully not wanting to cut back on your sessions between your friend’s lips, but recognizing the wisdom of this decision as well.

            “We’ll still do it,” she adds.  “Just not as long.”

            “Sure,” you agree, trying not to sound too eager.

            “Okay.  Deal.”

            “Why do we do it?”

            You both freeze in the darkness, her fingers pausing momentarily in their noble work of petting you into slumber.  You’re hardly aware that the question came from your own mouth with such careless spontaneity, considering how scared you’ve been of phantom phrases all night, and for a moment, you’re certain it came from her titanic lips instead of your pathetically miniscule ones, but that’s absurd, because you can still taste the instantaneous regret in the back of your throat.

            Neither of you can see the other’s face still, but in the blackness, you can feel a different mood settling in, miraculously devoid of uncomfortable omen, but different all the same.

            Open.

            “What…” she utters, seemingly with incredible ease, but something in her voice tells you she’s been nervous about this moment as well.  “You mean why do we shrink you down to the size of a crumb so I can play with you in my mouth?”

            “Yeah, um… what you said,” you mumble, clearing your throat and forcing yourself to be more present.  You asked the question.  You’re in it now.  You’re not backing down.  “You know.  I was just kind of… curious.”

            “Well,” Ellie continues, aware as well as you are that this long-overdue conversation is at last taking place.  “That’s a good question.”