“Katie, we cannot stay cooped up here forever. We are going to meet the Emperor of Lovell County.”
“Hold on, did you say ‘emperor’ and ‘county’ in the same sentence? You are not corrupting, are you?”
“No, I am not becoming corrupt. While the size of these people has changed, they have agreed to keep the current political boundaries. Years passed, and they found it easier to govern a county instead of a country. Their tiny size makes it impossible to enforce a set of laws across an entire country.”
“Fair point. Where is their capital, anyway?”
“15 miles north, we can follow this road the entire way there. There is a small stream on the way there, so I think it would be best to bring extra socks.”
“Hey, do you think that I could make the trip barefoot? The ground is quite soft, and I don’t think those trees are strong enough to cut my foot.”
“Katie, if it were up to me, I would wear my shoes, but your feet stink. We can get them rinsed off at the stream but we don’t have enough time to really wait for them to dry. I guess that we could go barefoot, but that wouldn’t give the best image, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, I’d rather go barefoot than go with shoes that stink more than the town dump. Should we leave now?”
“I mean, its 15 miles, and it is like early morning right now, we might not make it back before dark.”
“Don’t forget that I was a runner on the track team. We used to do 10 mile runs. An extra 5 miles couldn’t hurt that much.”
“But have you ever ran barefoot?”
“Actually, yes. My shoes had came off in the middle of a race. Thank god it was a beach race.”
“Ok, you do you, I’ll get the maps loaded. Are we going to bring Taylor?”
“We could ask her.”
-
Taylor had agreed to travel to the capital with Katie, but Katie realized that there is no good way to hold a 2 inch tall human while running for 10 miles. Sure, she can find a (long) rope or cable and tie Taylor around her waist or thigh, but Madison reminded Katie that doing so would still be extremely dangerous to Taylor.
“Imagine tying a banana to your waist with a fiber optic cable. The wire would just cut through the banana.”
-
I left for the capital at around eleven thirty in the morning. Initially I ran (more like jogged, I guess) alongside the main road, but after realizing that there were too many power lines and small farms to jump over, I decided to deviate to a side road. Madison said that the road was intended to be used as an emergency backup in the case of invasion so the main road can be used for transporting military vehicles.
Unlike the main road, the side road was not paved. My feet still sank an inch or two into the ground, but it was a lot like running on wet sand. The asphalt and concrete on the main road splintered under my feet and launched debris everywhere and covered my feet in a sort of white powder. The side road just sort of squished under my feet with a slight “pop” whenever my foot left the surface. The ground was still damp after the storm, and occasionally I would come across small pockets of water that were below the surface and would collapse when my foot came down, launching mud everywhere. Luckily, building on the side roads was forbidden to reduce the traffic volume in emergencies, but the mud launched must be at least a handful, well more than enough to level the largest plantation mansions.
We arrived at the stream around one in the afternoon. The stream was the official border separating the capital from the smaller municipalities to the South. The stream was also an actual normal-sized stream, so it might as well be the Amazon to the tiny people. Crossing the stream was actually pretty easy, not stepping on the lighthouses dotted everywhere on the normal sized rocks was not. The rocks were smooth from the constant flow of water, but the people apparently decided that the stream could be used for shipping, and built lighthouses on every rock that was large enough for me to use as a stepping stone. My foot came dangerously close to many lighthouses without actually causing too much damage (ok, I may have accidentally kicked the top off one of them, but it should still be visible.)
“Katie, it looks like they’re expecting us.”
I looked over and saw the largest tiny army that I had ever seen. Tiny men lined the banks of the stream with what appeared to be medieval siege weapons at distinct intervals. I cannot help but notice how cute the army would have looked. If they did not point their weapons directly at me.
“What are you doing on our land, monster? Why have you come? Where have you come from?”
Ugh, here we go again.
“Guys, my name is Katie, and I’m pretty sure that I’m not a monster-”
“We watched you kick that lighthouse and decimate it as if it were nothing but a pile of sticks and stones in front of a rabbit! What do you mean, ‘I’m not a monster?’ You clearly have more strength than every monster combined! And you have every intention on abusing that power! All men, fire at will!”
You know, I think that it would take them a while to learn that no matter what you shoot at a giantess, you’re shooting a giantess.
The “bullets” were so tiny that I can’t even feel them hit my skin. It was like walking through a cloud of baby powder. The ballistas and trebuchets didn’t do much, either (try throwing a toothpick at someone’s leg. It won’t do much.) Their projectiles just bounced off my thighs and shins. They weren’t even able to shoot past my waist.
“Ok, so you guys are seriously good at tickling girls. How about we get on to a truce? All I want to do is to introduce myself to your people. Although it appears that none of you are listening. Can we at least stop shooting?”
It was actually pretty comfortable. Part of my didn’t want it to stop. It felt like ants crawling on my legs, but much more comfortable than ants. (Maybe ants but they were wearing cotton balls on their feet and they didn’t bite.)
The men had seen how futile their attacks were, and some even ceased their attack. Others had different ideas.
“The monster is trying to lure us into a trap! Quick, surround her and hack at her titanic toes until she bleeds out!”
When will they learn? I watched a few hundred men swarm around my feet, and it was pretty hilarious how the best warriors in the country (er, county) were utterly dwarfed by my smallest body parts. My big toe could easily crush 4 or 5 men underneath it, and I would hardly feel a thing.
The feeling of a few hundred battle axes hacking at my feet can only be described as “unbearable” because it nearly tickled me to death. I raised my right foot by instinct and lost my balance, nearly falling flat on those poor idiots. Those closest to me were frozen in sensory overload as a 350-foot tall bikini-clad track star nearly fell on top of them while the others broke ranks and ran for their lives. I spotted a clear spot in the dirt that was barely large enough for the ball of my foot, and aimed my right foot in that direction. Unfortunately, I missed, and instead of landing in the open space, my foot fell onto a trebuchet, and splinters covered the cowering men that barely escaped death. I have both feet on the ground again, but they were much farther apart than I would have liked it. My feet started slipping outward, and before I knew it, I found myself falling into an unintentional split. I can easily do a split, but I never had tiny guys underneath my legs and butt when I did one. I may only weigh 135 pounds, but I am also 350 feet relative to these men, and if I am correct, my legs are quite hard from the muscle that has developed in those areas, and there’s still a few dozen men directly underneath them…
Well, too bad for them. I guess that being smushed under the biggest quads that are known to man is a way to die. Except there was no blood. Only screams of pain. That did not end when my legs stopped sliding. Pushing myself off the ground, I found the men, still alive, but with pressed into the soft mud, some with all of their limbs smashed and barely alive, others completely fine and got back onto their feet.
Well, that’s quite some story, isn’t it? I’ll tell you guys more of it later. Madison’s nagging me about the “cuts” and “abrasions” on my foot from running 12 or so miles barefoot in tiny nation.