Ellie’s enormous eyelashes bat in a blink of stony-faced surprise.  You both understand instantly what the real question is, but neither of you is going to admit it.

            “Ummm…” she drones, her mouth hanging slightly open.  “I’m… not sure, exactly.  I’ve never used it to make anything less than a quarter inch, and those weren’t people, that was just when I moved my things to campus.  I mean, ten years ago, it… didn’t even used to let anything go below one.  For safety.  It’s just the new models with all the extra security protocols.”

            “Ah,” you say with a nod, trying to look nonchalant but knowing full-well that Ellie’s already completely read your intentions.

            “Why?” she asks, her flattened palm rising higher until you’re level with her eyes and free to intimately study their every twitch and flicker of light.

            Apparently she wants to give you the chance to offer your reasoning freely, and again remembering the unofficial pact you’d made together to be more open, you fold your hands behind your back, puff up your chest, and let the words come.

            “I wanted to try going even smaller.  As… small as you’re willing to make me.”

            Ellie nods, her lips pursed thin and pale, but there’s a flash of silvery inspiration in her eyes you can’t help but notice.  Despite the grim look of hesitation she’s wearing now, you can tell it’s not the most hateful idea to her, either.

            “What if I said I didn’t want to take you down to any less than half an inch?” she counters calmly, compressing the fingers of her other hand to her temple.

            “I… guess I’d just drop it, then.  Like I said.  It was stupid,” you respond quickly.

            Above all else, you don’t want to make her uncomfortable.  After all, with every fraction of an inch you lose, it’s more responsibility placed in her hands: responsibility you have every confidence that she’s capable of handling, but responsibility nonetheless that she has to be content with for any of your usual games to work mutually.

            She sighs, lowering her gaze for a moment and biting her lip.  That same flash in her irises from before.

            “Look, I…” she begins uncertainly, the words caught in her throat.  “You know it’s not that I don’t think it could be… fun.  It’s just that… having you this small, already, I have to make sure I know what I’m doing while you’re in there.  Any smaller would just make me nervous.”

            “I know,” you accept truthfully.

            “Plus, at that size… if you dropped too fast, or I bumped you the wrong way off a tooth, you…” she barrels onward, clearly intent on airing her grievances with the notion.  Her mouth hangs open again, unable to get out the last word before her eyes meet yours again.  The titanic fingertip returns, this time stroking down the side of your cheek with such gentility you’d swear it was just a butterfly alighting on your skin.

            “If anything… ever happened to you…” she continues with painful gravity in every syllable. “…because of me.  While we were just messing around.  I… I don’t think I could handle it.”

            “I understand.  Forget I asked about it,” you breathe.

            “Thank you,” she whispers.  “You know the way we play.  It’s never a dull moment.  That’s not something I could trust myself with if you were any smaller.”

            “What if I wasn’t talking about playing like that,” you blurt, risking one last olive branch extension on the subject.  “What if we just… did it.  Nothing wild.  Just to try it.”

            Ellie takes a deep breath, and you can see from the now-lingering glow of eagerness in her eyes that she’s not going to shoot it down directly.

            “For how long?  I’m not letting you do it for almost an hour like last time.  I already feel bad enough about that,” she presses.

            “For as long as you’re okay with it,” you shrug.  “Really.  I’m… just throwing it out there.  If you hate it, I won’t mention it again.  Ever.”

            Instead of a response, this time Ellie’s eyes bashfully pull away from yours and descend toward her pocket as she draws out the PMRD and taps through its security measures.  After a few more seconds of scrolling, you see her pupils dilate and another near-silent intake of gasping breath, not from shock, but from what you could only estimate as earnest elation.

            She gulps audibly.

            “If you’re serious about it only being for a little while.  And nothing crazy…” she sighs, reviewing her words a final time before speaking them.  “I’d be willing to put you down to two-tenths of an inch.”

            “That would be just fine,” you say as coolly as possible, despite having to fight back a victory dance inside with every fiber of your being.

            “You can look excited if you want to,” she simpers with a raised eyebrow.

            “Thank you,” you sigh, pumping your fist dramatically for show.  “That would’ve been a tough one.”

            “I could see that,” she says, and suddenly the PMRD is hovering over the heel of her hand, pointed at you.  “So, are you ready to… you know…”

            “Yes,” you say simply, not pausing for breath.  “If you are.”

            “I am,” she replies.  “If you really do trust that I’m not gonna move, or mess anything up.  You… do, don’t you?”

            “I trust you with my life,” you say without a moment’s hesitation, refusing to break eye contact as Ellie’s lips part in shock at your boldness.  “I mean, you might as well know, with our fancy new straight-talk thing happening.”

            “I think I’m liking this straight-talk thing more and more,” Ellie admits warmly, her cheeks blushing a deep pink as she clicks through the settings, clearly unconcerned with how aware of it you are at your scale.  “Ready?  No turning back now.  And by no turning back, obviously I mean literally, as soon as you decide you’re done, just let me know and we’ll turn back right then and there.”

            “I was born ready,” you growl as daringly as possible, thrusting your chest forward and holding your meager biceps up to flex them.

            “Again: you are absolutely impossible to take seriously like this,” Ellie mumbles as she rolls her eyes and squeezes the button on the PMRD, bathing you in its familiar green light and recalcifention-induced chills.  “But you are pretty adorable.”

            “What?” you squeak, not from the sudden reduction in size but from embarrassed cheerfulness.

            “Straight-talking.  Didn’t you hear?  It’s the hip thing.  All the kids are doing it,” Ellie giggles under her breath as the world around you exponentially swells in size, enlarging your best friend from mere feminine titan to mountain goddess.

            The air is sucked from your lungs as you unsuccessfully attempt to drink in the visionary majesty of Ellie who, as far as you’re concerned, now stands at nearly two thousand feet tall.  That hair might as well be a snowpeak of gold and honey.  Those eyes are like silver moons unto themselves hovering above.  Her hand is a living island beneath you, pulsing with energy and muscle and the power to tear the world asunder if those fingers the size of lighthouses were to curl inward just a little.

            And all she’s doing is staring down at you with affection welled in her kind eyes, watching over your very existence, and promising silently with each passing second that you maintain that contact that nothing can possibly happen to you as long as you’re with her.

            You believe it just as thoroughly as you ever did.

            “Well,” she whispers so softly the word is barely sculpted, though you get it loud and clear, echoing roundly in your ear drums.  “How does it feel?”

            “I think I might need smaller shoes now,” you call out with hands cupped around your mouth, trusting in your friend’s impeccable sense of hearing to pick it up clearly.

            She shakes her head as she lets a smile creep over those sumptuous pink lips that look wide enough to drink a lake in just a couple gulps, relieved that your poor joke-making capacity has remained intact in favor of the gut-twisting fear she obviously was nervous about you experiencing.  Her first glance put that thought to rest, and you wish she could accept it as quickly as possible, so she could start being as comfortable as you are now.

            “You’re insane, you know that?” she mouths with a broad beam plastered on her face, light dancing in her eyes, and only letting the sounds emerge on emphasized consonants.

            “I’ve been telling myself that for a while.  Nice to have it confirmed,” you bellow more casually, satisfied that she can hear everything without you straining your throat.  “So this is two-tenths, huh?”

            “This is… two tenths,” she repeats, fighting back a chuckle of disbelief.  You can tell she’s slowed her breathing down to avoid any sudden gusts of wind descending on you like a typhoon, and she seems to have curtailed laughter under the same logic, though you secretly resent this a little.  Hearing the booming music of her laugh at this size seems positively amazing.

            “I’m surprised you haven’t asked yet,” she coos under her breath, her tone suddenly becoming noticeably more confident.  Almost… coy.  You can see a smile struggling to stay hidden in the corners of her lips.

            “Asked what?” you yell out, too tantalized to drag this out with any games.

            “Asked if… we can play yet,” she answers simply, and from between her lips you watch her writhing pink tongue the size of an aircraft carrier runway slithering out into the open air, its sticky heat reaching you even this far away and beckoning you inside.