Destroyer, please. Please listen, would-be king. This is important—
“Colada,” I commanded, reaching over and gripping Breaker’s current hilt, effortlessly sliding my hand into the weapon’s basket grip without even looking.
“Set all fear to flight.”
The voices vanished, to my immense and weary relief.
I released the weapon, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep. Breena muttered grumpily from her pillow, and seemed to do the same.
At some point, I felt her put her hand on my shoulder. It felt nice, and lulled me to sleep a little deeper. I didn’t know how long my sleep lasted. All I knew was that it ended as soon as I realized that her hand felt much, much larger than it should have been, meaning that a full-sized someone was currently resting right next to me.
My eyes snapped open. My brain hesitated for a second to try to determine whether or not I was under attack, and my body flinched as it tried to figure out what to do in the meantime. I decided that if someone was trying to harm me while I was asleep and defenseless, choosing to rest their hand on my shoulder was one of the least optimal options.
I turned my head to look at the hand. It appeared extremely petite and feminine, with just a hint of pink. Except for the fingernails. Those were extremely pink, with a dash of all kinds of other loud, flashy colors. They also had a glittery finish to them.
“Breena,” I said quietly, trying to work out how I felt about this encounter, and preemptively telling Teeth to shut the hell up. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” the currently human-sized fairy mumbled. “Don’t take my cookies.”
I started turning the rest of my body so that I could face her, and she shifted her body away from me, while still leaving her hand on my shoulder.
“Mean it,” she mumbled. “Don’t take my blanket-cookies.”
“Your what?” I asked, thoroughly confused. But I had finally turned enough to see my bonded familiar.
I had previously watched Breena become human-sized a handful of times, and as far as my sleep-fogged brain could currently remember, all of them had been in combat. She had been five feet tall, wings and body glowing with power as she fired powerful, devastating blasts at her targets, usually followed by a storm of golden energy blades released from her wings. Her attacks in that form were on par with the strongest attacks the rest of us could manage, including my battleform and Teeth’s dragonform. Her blasts had even been enough to destroy one of Cavus’ forms when he attacked her, a feat supposedly considered impossible by the newly rescued members of Stell’s family. Despite her height reaching only five feet, she was easily the most terrifying presence on the battlefield whenever she activated those attacks.
This was different. She was slightly taller than five feet, but looked even less threatening than she did in her tiniest form. Her hair was a spiky pink mess, her wings were nowhere to be seen, and she had managed to gather almost all of the blankets on the bed around herself, as if she was trying to make a cocoon thick enough to deflect bullets.
I had been so tired that I hadn’t even realized there were blankets on the bed. I had just dismissed my armor, laid Breaker on the nightstand, left only a thin shirt and shorts for clothing to remain decent, and collapsed upon the massive bed.
Massive bed, I remembered, just as I remembered placing Breena on the farthest part of the bed from me before falling asleep, and feeling annoyed by just how far I had to walk to do so. I had tried to be a gentleman about that matter, and even Teeth wasn’t about to recommend that I try anything with an unconscious woman the size of my hand.
Thank you! The Freaking New Guy spoke up. Finally got some credit for—
Nope, I interrupted. Still an asshole. Shut up.
Anyway, I had carefully put Breena on the other side of the bed, on the largest, most comfortable-looking pillow, before going to bed myself. Like a perfect gentleman, despite how tired I felt.
Congrats, Teeth spoke up defiantly, but you’re still an asshole. Keep complaining, though.
I decided to own the repaid insult, and turned back to the matter at hand.
My tiny fairy had apparently traded her old body for the super-deluxe version, wings not included. In spite of all of that, she was still only a fraction of my own size—I still probably had an entire foot of height on her—but she had managed to somehow take up well over half of the bed and nine-tenths of the covers (there was a corner of a bed sheet that had somehow wrapped around my ankle). In fact, after a few drowsy blinks, I realized that I was close to the edge of the bed, despite starting the night right in the middle.
In that moment, I felt seriously let down by everyone who had ever tried to prepare me for my adult life.
They were willing to spend hours and hours on lecturing about college, scholarships, and career paths, but never even mentioned the concussion risks of sleeping next to another person? Hypocrites, all of them, I thought bitterly, as I carefully reached to remove Breena’s hand.
“Nope,” the still-sleeping fairy mumbled, gripping my shoulder tightly. “Don’t take my Wes-cookie either.”
“Breena,” I repeated, “wake up. Seriously. You need to explain.”
“Huh?” the fairy-woman mumbled, shifting her barely visible head to face me a little more. “What? Is it morning yet? Because I don’t smell breakfast,” she said as she drifted back to sleep, finally letting go of my shoulder to clutch the blankets tighter.
Note to self, I thought as I tried to figure out how to handle this. Breena does not do luxury halfway.
“Breena,” I tried again, carefully summoning some more clothing to try to avoid any harassment accusations, “why are you so much taller right now? Is something wrong? Did anything happen to you? Are you okay?”
“What?” she asked, apparently getting just annoyed enough to open her eyes. “Why are you still talking? And out of bed? Did we not do all of the things yesterday? ‘Cuz I’m pretty sure we did all of the things yesterday. That makes today a vacation day. Don’t take my vacation-cookies,” she warned, with just a hint of an edge.
“Breena, why are you so big?” I said bluntly, finally running out of patience with her. “You were like half a foot tall when I put you to bed last night.”
“You didn’t put me to bed,” the sprite woman muttered stubbornly, shifting around in the blankets. “I’m a grown up. And older than you. I can go to bed whenever I want.” She blinked again, and then we both looked to notice the light coming in from the window.
“Drat,” the pink-haired woman pouted. “Really is morning, then. Alright, alright,” she said, shuffling the blankets around, “I’m up. Just don’t hurry me.”
With that, my enlarged friend sat up in the bed, slid the blankets down before I could protest, and yawned.
Fortunately, she was still dressed, though her sparkling pink dress had somehow transformed into a pink t-shirt featuring some familiar-looking cartoon horses.
Unfortunately, now that she was much larger, it was obvious that she needed just a little more of a covering, at least in mixed company, for decency’s sake. That fact became painfully clear when she yawned, lifted her arm, and did a long stretch.
“That’s better,” the disheveled woman said as she finished yawning. “Why are you looking away though? Did something interesting happen?”