Thredwyl looked up at the giant who in blocking the door had cast the attic into a deeper dark. Female. She must be, aye, by her voice and her legs.

She moved. And suddenly there was light.

Flabbered, he gulped. The source of that light wasn’t hard to find, dazzling him from an inverted bowl which hung above and behind the female’s head.

With that light he now could see the gigantic creature. But nay, surely it was him made preternaturally small. And, aye, it was female, no doubt about that. Very curvaceous. He gawked. In all his long life he never had touched, not a giantess nor a Nixie, neither a cousin nor any other, but he did like to look. Her clothes were black, all black, jet and polished till gleaming. And they fitted where they touched, and they touched everywhere, as if painted onto her uncluttered flesh.

His eyes tracked up the height of her – he may have dribbled – till he found her face. Set within the asymmetry of her sapphire locks, such disappointment. Bone-white, not even a hint of classical ivory. And her lips, though deliciously full, gleamed of that same blue stone – aye, stone, not flesh – and so cold that frost glistened upon them.

Now come on, Thredwyl, he chivvied himself, this shows that she and you share a clan.

She might be blue in places, but her eyes weren’t sapphires. A cross-breed then? Cross-bred with the Emeralds, for her eyes, buried into the blackness of her eye sockets, glinted deep green. Above them, her brow-ridges were studded silver, in mimic of her wide amulet-hung belt.

“You lit the attic without saying a spell,” he said in a rush. “But what’s a robot, and who or what is Jace? And who are you?”

“Neat,” she said, spreading a wide sapphire smile.

“Nice to meet you, Neat,” he said and offered a leg though he wasn’t well-practised. The full skirts of his deep-blue coat fell around him and spoiled the effect. “Myself, I am Thredwyl. You do magic?”

Of course, she did magic; she’d lit-up the attic. He tried to smooth his blunder with a wide smile of his own.  But magic. Had she the magic to return him to his proper size before Grandma Eanch discovered his doings?

Thinking of Grandma Eanch, he wondered where she might be. Why hadn’t she warned him of this company. Was it done intentionally, pushed by the Mothers to get him and this Neat together, subtly? This Neat might be a crossbreed, but Sapphire and Emerald, both were pure. That made her eligible for marriage. At that, the biliousness in his belly returned.

He needn’t have feared, for despite his courtesy, Neat didn’t answer him.

Instead, she turned about and called down the stairs again. “Hey, Jace, this is ace. It talks and everything. You’re getting a patent on it, yeah? Hells, Jace, with this you’ve made your fortune. And you still at Uni, too.”

Thredwyl’s smile receded. It talks and everything—it?

“My pardons, Neat, but….” How was he to put this not to offend? Were he his normal size it wouldn’t bother him. But here he was, a diminutive fellow, and she with the magic. Though he’d draw a line at grovelling, yet perhaps a little cajoling? “It appears we have yet to, um, to connect.”

“You mean, hook-up?” She laughed and again called down the stairs. “Jace, really, this is ace.”

Thredwyl drew in a breath and drew himself up to his highest height, which he reckoned might bring his eyes on a level with her knees. “My pardons, Neat, if I offend but one: I am no one’s ‘doing’ but my own. A spell gone awry has shrunk me to this unfortunate size. Two: I am not an ‘it’ but a ‘he’, as much as you are a ‘she’. And three: Aye, I can ‘talk and everything’, so would you mind addressing yourself to me instead of your Ace-Jace.” He added a smile. Really, he did not want to offend.

His words gained a result. Neat bopped down low, her legs bent at sharp angle, the better, so he thought, to be on a level with him. With a sapphire-nailed finger she beckoned him closer.

Finally, they now were communicating, one to the other. He edged closer, mindful of her personal boundary, an important factor in the Stone clans. She reached out a hand. He offered his.

Next he knew, her hand had whipped around him, low on his waist, and grasped him as in a granite grip and whisked him off the floor and swiftly up, to be greeted eye-to-eye. He didn’t shriek, he needed her magic. He smiled his best. And still the stubborn stanchion didn’t answer him.

She turned so sudden he lost his ruby-red beret. His blue-black hair, jolted free, swirled round his face to settle like a curtain and blurred his view. The urge to kick and squirm and to demand she set him down was strong. But he held his tongue; she had the magic while his was lost.

Then… horrors!

Oh, horrors of horrors of horrors!

She was heading downstairs. With him still clutched in her hand.

Neither did she descend just one flight. Nay, ‘twas three. ‘Twas four. ‘Twas five. Five flights, five levels, five floors. And each with oddities that he ought to have noted but it all sped past that fast he couldn’t see where he was, except these weren’t the stairs he’d climbed to reach Grandma Eanch’s attic. Grandma Eanch’s stairs spiralled around a central circular column not these sharp squares that turned, then downed, and turned again.

He was scared. Truth, he was terrified. What if she dropped him? What if he fell? What if he shattered again? Already his beauty was marred, he’d never survive the shame.

And she wasn’t peaceably, properly, walking downstairs but was skipping. Skipping. Held in her hand, he swayed, was jolted, had his head cracked twice against the wall, was one moment up, the next hung low. His belly soon grew rebellious and uppity.

His head hit a wall with a sickening crack. But at least Neat no longer skipped down the stairs. The bashed-against wall gave way. Ah, now he saw, that wall was a door. Beyond it light streamed in blinding intensity. “What the crazies—?” There was no magic bowl this time hanging above her.

“Hey, Fleur, I’ve told you before about you crashing in when I’m—what the fuck is that?”

Thredwyl groaned. “I am not a ‘that’. I am Thredwyl, and I have to admit it, my spell’s gone all awry.”

It had gone more than awry, it had gone very wrong. Aye, the spell had moved him someplace other, he wouldn’t deny it. For of a certainty, this wasn’t Grandma Eanch’s Chamber. But moved him to where? And had it truly shrunk him to small? Or was this sapphire-lipped, jet-legged Neat Fleur truly a giant?

And there he’d been hoping to plug-in to her magic. Instead, he’d plugged into a tank full of shit!