Chapter Text
The patter of feet would never have caught your ear if you hadn't been already lying awake in bed, listening to the sounds of the night after failing to find any sleep. Your heart jumped as soon as you realized what you were hearing, but kept still so the intruder wouldn't know you were awake. You cracked an eye open, just enough to see your desk under the window. There was nothing at first, but then a tiny figure, little bigger than a mouse, jumped out of a drawer you hadn't even noticed was open. It clambered on the desk, lit by what moonlight passed the gossamer curtains, and there it placed down a pair of small metal objects before standing.
The intruder was human in its shape, but no bigger than a doll—a “borrower”. You had guessed as much already—what other explanation for all the things that had gone missing recently? Small things, like needles and spools, buttons and pencils, and more. No big loss, in the grand scheme of things, but it still made you mad. You scowled at that metallic glint in the moonlight, and barely remembered to still your face before the thief could notice it. If it had put down those objects then it might not be leaving yet.
It stood at the edge of your desk for a while. Was it looking at you? After a moment, it jumped off the desk onto the side of the drawer, and from there down to the chair. You heard a soft thump when it hopped to the floor. Seconds later, it reappeared clambering up on the foot of your bed.
You were tense as hell as it rounded your body and approached, stepping cautiously over the folds in the covers, using its hands when needed to steady itself. Maybe you could have grabbed it then, but the needle on its back gave you pause. You doubted it could be deadly, but it would still hurt if it poked you. You cooked up another plan, though, and while it was scampering past your arm, you quickly raised the cover off yourself and flung it onto the intruder.
You heard a sharp cry as cover and borrower alike were thrown off your bed. You turned on the lamp and got on the floor, kneeling right by the cover. The borrower stirred under the heavy fabric, but slowly enough, and far enough from the edges, that you judged it was a long way from escaping. You took this chance to grab a jar you'd left under the bed for such a situation, setting it down between your legs. Then, holding the far end of the cover, you rolled it slowly towards you, gathering up more of it as it went, until the roll reached the borrower. With your hand pressed lightly on the cover to keep them pinned down, you rolled it back over their body.
Their head and shoulders were the first thing you saw. Dim as the light was, you could tell it was a young woman who looked up at you, eyes wide with fear. She hissed when you pulled the roll back a bit farther. Was she hurt? You felt kinda bad—you weren't trying to hurt her, really—but she brought this on herself by sneaking in here and stealing your things.
Her needle now exposed, you pulled it off her and let it clatter on the floor, then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out. She cried out again, but you ignored it. She could be faking it to gain your sympathy, after all; surely you couldn't have hurt her that bad. Either way, you held her up to the lamp light to see what you were dealing with.
She looked some four inches tall, and around eighteen years old. Well, eighteen for a human—you weren't sure if borrowers aged the same way. Her russet hair pulled back in a short ponytail, held that way by a little pink clip. She wore a light red dress and a single boot, and had some tiny pouches hanging from a piece of string tied around her waist.
Despite everything, you couldn't help but pity the little thief. She was cute as a doll, and would have been lovely had she been human. A shame she was only a borrower, and a real pest at that. You'd leave her in the jar for now, and tomorrow you'd make a trip to town and dump her in the woods somewhere along the way. Hopefully she could make a decent life for herself out there. And if not, well, that was none of your business.
You reached for the jar with your other hand and unscrewed the lid, preparing to put her inside. But just as you got the lid off, you saw that the girl had grabbed one of her pouches already and was holding it open in front of her face. She took a deep breath and blew into it, and a glittering pink cloud billowed from the pouch, growing ad growing until it covered your entire head. As soon as you breathed it in you started coughing uncontrollably, which only made you breathe in more and cough even harder. You tried to wave it away with your hand while the other one squeezed her arm so fiercely she cried out. How the hell had you fallen for such a dirty trick? You hadn't meant to hurt her, but now you'd definitely get some payback before you released her.
Before your coughing had ceased, something changed. All of a sudden you were falling, and a second later you landed painfully with a THUNK as your head hit the ground, with a loud tinny clattering noise ringing somewhere to your right
Somehow it didn't hurt as much as it should have, and after a few moments rubbing the back of your head, you recovered enough to see that you were lying surrounded by a round glass wall. It was a jar, though it stood as big as a house, but you knew even before you looked at what lay outside it that it wasn't the jar which had grown huge: you had shrunk, as small as a borrower by the looks of it.
You were flummoxed. How had this happened? Did that pink dust cause this? How could that thief have gotten her hands on something like this? And where was she? You couldn't see her around anywhere.
That didn't matter, though. The important thing was getting out of this jar. You jumped and jumped, reaching for the rim, but the jar was twice your height and however high you jumped you always came short of it. If only it had been just one inch shorter. Maybe you could use your clothes somehow to get up there? But wait, now you heard movement. There was that borrower, standing up behind the rolled-up cover with a boot in hand. So that's what she'd been doing. Your fists balled up just looking at her, and then you stepped forward and banged on the glass. “Hey! Hey, you! What the hell did you do to me?”
She glanced at you over her shoulder while you raged, but ignored you in favor of putting on her boot. and picking up her needle, only afterwards deigning to pay you a visit. You stopped shouting while she approached, but you were still seething inside. Pretty as you'd thought she was, now everything about her just made you mad, especially her little self-satisfied smile. “Need some help, human?” she said, knocking twice on the glass.
It galled you to see she was now taller than you by a head. Of course. It wasn't enough that you were small now, you had to be even smaller than a borrower. And she noticed it too, standing up proudly outside the jar and angling her head back just a tad so she could look down at you past her nose. “Screw you, this isn't funny!” you growled.
“Who said it was funny? I'm just asking if you want my help. But if you don't, there's no reason to stick around for you to yell at me.” She shrugged and rounded the jar, then stepped away and started walking back to your desk.
“Where do you think you're going? You can't just leave me like this!”
“Why not? Weren't you going to do the same thing to me? Or is it wrong if I leave you in the jar, but it's fine if you do it to me?”
“That's... It's not... At least I wasn't going to shrink you! That's way worse than just putting you in a jar!”
“Don't be such a baby! If I can manage being this size my whole life, then you can manage being a tiny bit smaller for a few hours.” A few hours? At least now you knew this wasn't permanent. Still... “Just lie down and go to sleep. You'll be back to normal once you wake up. Or stay awake all night being angry. Your choice.”
“Wait, wait! What if someone... What if something finds me here? You wouldn't leave me to be eaten by a cat, would you?”
“You'll be fine. Cats don't like the taste of human anyways. Is that all you have to say?”
Her eyes stared into yours. You grimaced and looked away, then gave a deep sigh. “I'm sorry for... throwing you off my bed and... trying to put you in the jar. Could you please help me get out of here now?”
The borrower walked back to you. “Do you promise you won't try to catch me again?”
“I promise, as long as you don't steal from me again.”
She rolled her eyes. “It's just like you humans to get upset over a few missing trinkets. You weren't using anything I took, were you? We need it more than you, and we make better use of it, too.”
“So what? That doesn't give you the right to take it.”
The way she glared at you, you thought you'd messed up and that she would leave you stuck there. Then she shook her head. “I guess it hardly matters. I'll have to get another home now that you've found me, anyways. Well, let's see how we can get you out of there.” She circled around the jar, looking at it from every angle, then put her hands on its surface. “Stand on the other side,” she said.
You hurried over there, and she started pushing. She put her whole body into it, but all she managed was to slide the jar bit by bit along the floor until it was pushing up against the fallen cover. You tried to help by pushing from the inside, then by throwing yourself violently against the jar, hoping that together you could push it over.
“Ow!” she gasped, and when you looked back you saw her nursing her shoulder.
“Heh! What's wrong, girl? Did you pull a muscle or something? Come on, it can't be that bad. I've been tackling the jar all this time and you don't see me chicken out!”
“My name's not 'girl', it's Arrietty. And it's not the pushing that did it. You... hurt my arm earlier.”
“Oh. Well... sorry?”
She glared at you, but before long her face softened. “I guess I can't blame you too much. You humans are too clumsy. It's got to be those giant heads of yours; it takes too long for your thoughts to form inside there, and longer to reach the rest of your body.” You didn't appreciate the comment, but you supposed she was in her rights to be mad at you. As long as she helped you out, she could say whatever she liked. In the meantime, she looked at the jar again.
“I don't think this will work. Hang on, human, I'm going to try something else.” She grabbed another pouch like the one she'd used to shrink you and poured out some pink dust onto her palm. “There, that should be enough. Hold your breath just in case, human.”
“I-is this a joke!? Don't tell me you're–”
Poof! A cloud of pink spilled onto the jar before you could even finish. At once you held your breath and even covered your face, crouching low to avoid the dust for as long as possible. Specks of something cool danced upon your skin and gave you goosebumps all over. Too scared to even look, you huddled up inside hoping that the dust would have no effect. But the “Oops!” you heard, and the loud footsteps that followed, told you that wasn't the case. You opened your eyes and looked up to the girl who was now both the biggest and smallest person you had ever seen.
Her boots fell just outside your jar and shook you with their impact. Her feet were huge; it seemed you only came up to her ankles. Up above, Arrietty bent over and peered into your jar, her face filling up the opening. She looked nearly as shocked as you felt.
“I'm so... so sorry, human! I really thought I used just enough to shrink the jar! I never thought that...”
You were shaking from head to toe, and clenched your fists trying to keep it under control. “What... what did you do to me? What the fuck did you do to me!?” The borrower flinched. “Wasn't I small enough already? You said you would help me. Fucking liar! I knew I shouldn't have trusted you! You borrowers are such fucking scum! I should have killed you when I had the chance! I should have–”
“Alright, that's enough!” Arrietty stomped her foot so hard that it bounced the jar off the floor. It rattled around afterwards before settling down again. By then you were breathing so fast it felt like you might choke on the air, and gaped as if seeing her for the first time. Then she crouched and reached for your jar.
Her hand clasped around it, and you saw her flesh flatten and blanch against the smooth glass wall a moment before she lifted you up. The inertia and the subtle movement of the floor, tilting away from Arrietty, knocked you on your ass by the time she held the jar before her face. She stared at you intensely, while you huddled in the corner of your glass prison, looking at her giant hands and face and at the “huge” drop that awaited you if she let you go.
Her frown disappeared, and instead she smiled at you. Only it wasn't a friendly smile at all. It was a smile that said “I'm the one in charge here”—the smile of someone who knew she could do whatever she pleased and get away with it. For a moment you truly feared for your life. Then her face relaxed and turned apologetic. Still, some of that other expression remained even then.
“I'm really sorry, human. I really didn't mean to shrink you again. It's only my second time using this stuff. But even if you're upset, I won't stand you talking to me like that just because I made a mistake.” A part of you was furious, but you didn't dare talk back. What the hell had you been thinking back then, shouting at someone big enough to snap you in half like a twig? If it came down to that, you'd much sooner fall on your knees to beg for mercy than to ever raise your voice against her again.
She held you in her gaze for a while. “Well,” she finally said, “at least I can take you out of the jar now.” Her other hand appeared overhead, fingers nearly as thick as your torso stretching down to fetch you. You cried out and raised your arms as they approached, meeting her fingertips with your hands and pushing for all you were worth. That you were no match for them was obvious from the start. They could have forced their way past your hands with the slightest effort, or seized you by the arms and pulled you out with them. Instead they stopped short of you and let you push them back, pulling back out afterwards.
She looked conflicted. Was she thinking about whether to punish you? She'd sounded fine with you before, but you had hurt her arm; you were planning to throw her out for a far lesser crime than that. If she got rid of you, she wouldn't have to leave anymore. If your lives had been switched around, wouldn't you at least consider killing her so you could keep your home?
“Guess I can't leave you all alone like this,” she said at last, and set your jar down while grabbing another pouch from her belt. She must have noticed the start you gave when she grabbed it, because she turned it inside-out for you. “It's empty. See?” Then she grabbed your jar and lay it gently on its side, holding the pouch open just outside it. “Get in. I can carry you safely like this.”
You weren't sure you wanted to go with her, but then, you didn't have much choice. If you refused she'd probably stuff you in the bag herself. At least she hadn't killed you yet. Maybe she really wasn't going to.
Once you were in the bag, Arrietty pulled it up and peered in. You gripped the thick fabric like your life depended on it, already regretting your decision. Too late to change your mind now. “I'll leave you a little opening in case you want to look around, but be careful if you do. I don't want anything bad happening to you.” She pulled on the drawstrings and tied the pouch to her belt, then she started walking.
She moved slowly, at least for her size, but still the bag swung frightfully every time she took a step. You held on tight and prayed it wouldn't fall off, grunting every time you bumped against her body. It was especially bad when she was climbing up your desk and down the window, and even with her her reassurances you were scared out of your mind. When she settled back into her casual pace afterwards, you felt it wasn't nearly as bad, and you could relax a bit and start to wonder about she was going now. Then you carefully stood up in the pouch and poked your head out the little opening.
The way the bag swung and spun with her every step, it was hard to make out anything in this darkness, but in time you figured out a few things. Instead of hanging at her side where the pouch had been originally, you were hanging from her back. Not where you'd expected to be, but you supposed at least there wasn't much risk of the bag falling off if she brushed against something while moving.
More concerning was just how low your were hanging: just above her knees, and low enough that you could see under her skirt when you swung towards her. Was she aware? Surely she couldn't have put you this low by accident. But why do this? Was she taunting you, or... flirting? No, surely not that. A borrower and a human? It was unthinkable.
You looked at her butt for probably longer than you should have. It was hard not to, with how big it was. You looked at her back too when you swung far enough behind her, and of course at her thighs which kept bumping into you one after the other, passing the pouch back and forth each time. It still awed you just how huge she was, so much bigger than tiny, insignificant you.
Just how small were you, anyways? She was close to four inches tall, and if you came up to her ankle, you were about the same size to her as she was to a human. It was hard to be sure, but you figured you had to be around a quarter of an inch tall.
You were puny. As small as an ant. A human fingertip would dwarf a king-sized bed. If you fell, you'd be at the mercy of every living creature bigger than a pebble. A bird or a mouse might take you for a bug and eat you, and anything bigger than that might crush you without ever knowing it.
You ducked back into your pouch, seeking refuge in its darkness. As soon as you could talk to Arrietty again, you'd promise her anything she asked for as long as she could put you back to normal.
The walk didn't take much longer, though with all the jostling you endured, and with the terror that visited you with every rustle, squeak, or hoot that sounded in the night, it seemed you spent a lifetime in there. What a relief when you heard the opening and closing of a door, and when, with a click, a light turned on and Arrietty stopped walking. Afterwards she unfastened the pouch from her belt and pulled you up. After all that swinging, even being held in her grip wasn't quite so scary as it would have been back in your room. You didn't even push back when she pulled open the pouch and fished you out to place you on a small table.
You watched Arrietty as she took a seat on a sort of couch before you, and while she was taking off her boots, you looked around this... place. Judging by the large wooden boards that made up the ceiling, it was probably somewhere under your house, or maybe under your shed. The floor, as far as you could make out, was covered with leaves, though here and there you could make out the earth underneath.
Other than the table—your missing spool—and the pile of dirt on which Arrietty sat—molded into a couch shape and cushioned with fluffs of white cotton—there wasn't much else in here. A small chest, something that was probably used as a bed, some wood chips in the corner that it seemed she was shaping into what might become a bed frame, and a few trinkets in the corner whose use in the borrower's hands you couldn't guess. As for the light, it came from a small flashlight you'd lost a month ago, shining the ceiling and so lighting the rest of the room.
Suddenly something swung onto the table, landing with a big THUMP. You looked to it just as it was followed by a second object, and saw that a pair of feet had come to join you on the table. They towered over you, each sole standing twice your size, and that without counting the toes that splayed and stretched at the top of each. Your heart racing, you stepped back from those monsters until you heard a soft chuckle.
Arrietty grinned at you from beyond those feet. “Sorry, did I scare you?” She moved them further towards you and angled them forwards so her soles almost bumped into you, and you hurried to step away, blushing when her laughter followed.
“That's not funny!” you shouted. “Move your stupid feet away, or let me sit on your couch.”
“He-he! If you want to sit here, you're free to come over! I'm sure a big brave human like you doesn't need a little borrower's help for something so small.”
You grumbled, but you weren't about to beg for her help again. Going around her feet, you stopped at the edge of the table and looked down below. The ground couldn't have been much more than an inch away in real terms; only two feet at a borrower's scale. To you, it was more than thirty feet. You looked to Arrietty. Her smile widened, and you heard her feet slide together behind you.
There really was no helping it, was there?
Taking a deep breath, and with all the courage and dignity you could muster, you walked up to Arrietty's bare ankles and carefully climbed aboard. You'd thought to walk along her legs from there, but one glance at the floor was enough to dissuade you. Backing out now would make you seem even bigger fool, though. You crawled on all fours the rest of the way, seeking support from her long, shapely legs, all the while she watched in silence. You would've even preferred her to laugh at you; at least then you would've been mad at her and not just scared and embarrassed the whole time.
By the time you were on her thigh, you more than welcomed her hand coming to pick you up, even as her fingers curled around your body and brought you to her face. Then she moved you in her grip, and left you sitting on her palm with your back against her fingers. “I didn't think you'd make the trip. Guess you're braver than I thought. But just so you know, you probably would have been fine if you fell.”
Probably? That was fine for her to say, but you weren't about to stake your life on any “probably”. You shifted back in her palm and put each arm around one of her fingers for balance. “How long before I grow back to normal? You said a few hours after the first time. Will it be longer now?”
Arrietty grimaced. “I'm not sure. I told you this is my first time using it. But... what I heard is that if you use it twice on the same thing, it won't wear off on its own anymore.”
“What!? You mean I'm going to be stuck like this forever!?”
“Not necessarily! There's an antidote, but it's rare and expensive. It's going to take a long time to get the money for it”
“So take some of my money to pay for it! It can't be that expensive, right? You can pay it back later.”
“I don't know anyone who will take human money. But I can take other things you own to the market and sell them there. It will take a lot of trips, but I could have enough for the growing powder in a month, I think.”
“A month!? You're going to leave me like this for a whole month!? Screw you! Just look at what you did to me!”
“Hey! Remember what I said about not talking to me like that?” You withered under Arrietty's glare. “I know you're upset, but show a little gratitude. I don't have to help you, you know. This is all your own fault, so be mad at yourself.”
“My fault!? You're the id... You're the one who shrank me twice when you knew it would be permanent!”
“I only shrank you the first time because you were going to trap me! You could have just let me go instead!”
“You snuck into my room to steal from me! You had no business being in there! And what were you doing coming up to me with that big needle of yours? Were you going to stab me in the eye or something?”
“Don't be ridiculous! I was only going to... get some stuffing from your pillow. I thought it might make my bed more comfortable.”
“So you were stealing, like I said. And you're going to keep stealing now that I'm at your mercy, aren't you? You're going to clean out my home and sell it all for this supposed antidote. How do I even know it's real?”
“You humans are so dense! If you don't trust me, I can put you back in your home and let you take care of yourself. Do you want that?”
“I... No, no. I don't want that. Please, don't throw me out. I don't want to be alone like this.”
“That's better. Now, listen. I'm going to help you, like I said, and I'm going to take care of you until I can buy your antidote, but that's going to take a long time and a lot of work, and I want you to pull your own weight around here. You're tiny, but I'm sure I can find work for you to do.”
“And what if I don't want to work for you?”
“Then you can forget about me helping you with your size, but I'll still take care of you.”
It sounded nothing short of extortion to you, but there was nothing to be done about it. “Fine, I'll do it.”
“Good! Oh, and if you need to borrow something from me, feel free to do it. Unlike you, I won't get mad and throw you out for taking some junk I don't even need.” You winced at her words. That seemed to please her. “You can start with your work right away to make up for twisting my arm.” Arrietty leaned over and put you back on the table before presenting you with her feet again. “You can manage a foot massage at that size, right?”
It was the last thing you would've wanted to do, but you didn't have the energy to keep arguing with her. With a sigh, you stepped up to her left foot and put your hands up to it, pressing them into her sole. Its sweat was gone now that it had been airing out for a while, and so was most of the smell. It was still warm, though, and soft and a bit leathery in texture. It wasn't that bad, taken by itself, but you resented all of it for this humiliation, and especially hated it when Arrietty pushed you with her foot and laughed as you staggered back and muttered under your breath. Eventually, though, you couldn't even manage that. Instead of raging when she knocked you on your butt and laughed at you, you just yawned and rubbed your eyes.
“Are you tired, human? I guess you'd still be asleep right now if I hadn't woken you up. Well, it's about time I got some rest too. Come on, I'll show you to bed.” She pulled back her feet and you plodded towards her so she would pick you up. You were too tired to be scared when she picked you up, and were almost falling asleep in her hands while she carried you away. She turned off the flashlight then, and in the darkness walked to her bed, where she pulled back the covers and climbed in with you in hand. “Good night, human,” she said, letting you lie on her belly with her hand as your blanket. Maybe you would have demanded a different bed for dignity's sake had you been able to think clearly, but as things stood, you found this one more than adequate. You snuggled into her stomach and let her fingers brush away your worries as they gently stroked your back. Before you knew it you were already asleep, blanketed more comfortably in the borrower's warmth than you ever had been in your own bed.