``Are you suuuuuure this is a good idea?''
Rivulette eyed the large, swirling green vortex nearly plastered against the wall of the family living room, the blue Pegasus giving her wings a workout as she inspected the portal from every possible angle. ``I don't exactly get the `safety' vibe from this,'' she remarked, turning her gaze to the magenta unicorn standing right beside it. ``It's the safest one I've ever made,'' Lulu replied, resting a hoof on the edge of the portal without getting herself sucked in somehow. ``I mean, it has to be; I don't even know what she'll be getting into over there.'' Both the unicorn and the Pegasus turned their attention to the pair standing between the vortex and the couch.
Sugar stood nearly at attention, the orange unicorn giving her own analysis of the portal. Her blue eyes darted about, taking in every aspect. It was almost like staring at the Milky Way, if every star were suddenly green and it was small enough to fit in a house. Maple stood next to her, the brown unicorn filly's eyes alight with wonder as they took in the spiraling sea of magical stars. Sugar stood wearing her saddlebags, packed moderately with unknown essentials for this trip. Maple meanwhile had only her ponytail holders on.
``Where do you think it goes, Mama?'' Maple asked, looking up towards Sugar. The unicorn fished five envelopes out of her saddlebag without skipping a beat. ``Hopefully, to where these letters have been coming from,'' she replied. ``Where that is, I don't know.'' ``Whadaya mean, `hopefully'?'' Lulu piped up from her perch. ``The inter-dimensional residue from those is all I've got to go on. That's why I actually had to spend time making this portal.'' Riv stopped her helicopter flight to look dead at Lulu again. ``Woah woah woah wait wait, you mean you don't carefully craft the other ones?'' Lulu blinked. ``....Maaaaaaaybe? Anyway that's not the point. With the other portals, I could at least give you all a vague idea of what to expect. This one? Nada. Zippo. Zilch. Nothin'. I can't even give the slightest bit of insight here, so keep your wits about you.''
``Oh yeah, how did this whole letter thing start anyway?'' Riv asked, now focused on and hovering near them. ``With a giant letter that covered up most of Ponyville, remember?'' Sugar replied, conjuring a mirror to reflect the incoming growth beam from Lulu back to her. ``Oh yeaaaaah... That thing was waay too heavy to lift. I'd imagine if Lulu hadn't stepped in, we'd still be trying to move it...'' Riv flew over and gave her friend a pat on the back. The magenta unicorn giggled softly, her horn now brushing against the ceiling of the room. ``You're getting really good with the timing, Sugar.'' ``Thanks,'' Sugar fired back, ``but it would've been nice to know I'd be improving my reflexes along with my magic.''
``Think of it as a bonus.'' Lulu allowed another giggle to slip before gaining a serious look. ``Okay, if she really is on the other side of this portal, tell her we all said `hi'. Remember, keep your wits about you,'' she continued, gently ruffling Maple's ponytail with a large hoof. The filly giggled in reply. ``Don't keep her waiting any longer.'' Lulu gestured towards the portal like she was holding open a door. ``We wouldn't want you to be late to your first meet-up.'' Sugar nodded and started trotting towards the gateway. She had one last request for the trio before they stepped through. ``Try not to level the town while I'm gone.'' A burst of light later, and the orange unicorn was gone. Cries of ``That was only the one time!'' along with a giggle could be heard from the remaining ponies before the portal fully closed.
Gabby sighed and leaned back in her computer chair. The purple-haired lavender-and-mauve goodra girl had just checked a series of emails at the end of what was supposed to be the first of a stress-free string of off days. She adjusted her moderately-low-cut orange t-shirt and wiped down her black yoga pants, which had a special strap installed to leave a hole in them for her tail to pass through. ``Phew... Hopefully I didn't pick a bad time to put in some PTO... Worse comes to worse, I can help sort it out when I go back in.'' Her eyes glanced to a series of envelopes on her desk arranged like a hand in a card game, with the far left one hanging more than halfway out over the `model' city below. She quickly snatched the set up before the envelope could cause her a bigger headache, and stood from her chair, pushing it in afterwards. She noted the dates on the envelopes. ``Huh. I think today's the day, actually. Let me just check this out to be sure...'' A single step took her to roughly the center of her room as she pulled out the most recent envelope and read it aloud:
``Dear Gabby,
Can you believe we've been writing back and forth for over a year and we still haven't met in person?! I say we should fix that! If I remember correctly, you work just like I do, so I'll plan to come along a month from now! It'll be so exciting; I can't wait to finally meet and chat face to face! Oooo, there's so much planning to do, and I've got to make sure I have enough PTO saved up over here... Don't worry about the `how'; I'm sure we'll think of something. See ya in a month!
Sugar Rush''
Gabby shook her head with a noticeable smile as she neatly folded and replaced the letter. ``How she packs so much enthusiasm into paper I'll never know.'' A check of the envelope's front did in fact reveal that today was exactly one month since the letter was dated. She nodded and neatly arranged the letters into a stack before setting them back on the desk. ``I hope she likes it here, at least...'' she said as she strode across her room to the foot of her bed. Her toes gently pawed at the carpet, each digit hitting the ground at random as she absentmindedly looked around her room. It was certainly tidy; she had spent most of the day prior cleaning it and the rest of the house up. When her gaze finally landed on the window, something dawned on her. ``It's getting late, actually... I don't think she's going to show up today, or maybe it's a time zone thing...'' She gasped. Her toes stopped moving. ``Unless...''
A crackling of energy sounded above a strange, grey landscape before a miniature explosion occurred literally out of thin air, blanketing the immediate area in light. In its place, there was the green, galaxy-esque portal. Out of it walked Sugar, who stopped and glanced back at her gateway as it faded away into nothingness. Her form had been altered, as an after-effect of using the portal, but she didn't seem too terribly concerned with that. She was now a bipedal orange rabbit, with long ears that reached just past her moderate chest, and yellow-to-red hair that reached the same length. She sported a fluffy orange tail, an off-tan and red short dress that barely made it to her thighs, and pink open-toed sandals with straps above the heel. It was a form not uncommon for her to take, but it already served to tell her a bit about what she could possibly expect.
Sugar patted herself down and looked herself over, twitching and moving the various parts of her body as part of a routine that was half stretch, half check-up. ``Ears are there and working. Tail's there. All of my hair's there. Still have my arms and legs, hands and paws.'' Satisfied, she stopped her movement and tugged at the straps of what was now a backpack. ``Even my belongings changed! How convenient! Now, I wonder where I am...''
She began looking over the immediate area. The first thing she noticed was that she was standing on a bumpy, uneven surface. It almost looked... fibrous, even. Mostly greys, splashes of yellow here, dashes of white there, some areas were just black but most of the nearby terrain was grey and bumpy. About 200 feet away at her best guess was an absolutely massive brown spire, connected to an even bigger structure above an - wait a minute. Sugar bent down to press against the ground they were standing on. Sure enough, it was soft, but fought against her touch. The pieces were beginning to fall into place rapidly, and it forced a sigh out of the rabbit. ``Last time I checked, I didn't say `small,' `tiny,' `little,' or any other word that would've gotten me shrunken before I walked through the portal. And yet, I'm standing on what I'm pretty sure is a carpet, and I'm fairly certain that spire over there is a bedpost, meaning...'' She glanced up. ``Yep, that's a massive bed.'' While anyone else might have freaked out after realizing this, Sugar stood with her arms folded, mildly annoyed. All the times Lulu had messed with her height over the years had made her quite able to recognize when she wasn't proportioned correctly to her surroundings. ``Why am I absolutely tiny in someone's bedroom?'' she huffed out.
She wasn't expecting an answer, but one came anyway. The ground started shaking, forcing Sugar to shift her stance to avoid falling over, and a combination of noises assaulted her, an attack that couldn't be defended against as her large ears took in all the commotion. Turning to see the source, Sugar's jaw dropped as she saw an absolutely enormous girl, holding a set of envelopes that each look like they could've blanketed Ponyville and then some. Lavender skin with some mauve and green bits showing, notably on the cheeks and tail, absolutely massive ears and horns that hung down behind long flowing purple hair, and an ample chest that the orange t-shirt she was wearing looked like it was struggling to contain. Same went for her wide hips and the yoga pants attempting to keep them in check. She was proportioned to fit this room, if only barely; Sugar, however, was not. ``There goes the need to ask that question...'' She said.
With effort, Sugar picked up her jaw off the floor. Trying to figure out how huge the girl was compared to herself was making her head hurt. So many questions were flowing through her head. Is this the right place? Did Lulu actually do this? Is she big or are we small? Who even is she? She was dragged from her thoughts by the loud indicator of the giantess raising the envelopes to her face. Seemed everything she did was going to cause some sort of ruckus, and the rabbit could already hear the protests from her nearly 2-foot long ears.
``Huh. I think today's the day, actually. Let me just check this out to be sure...''
Sugar was betting on that sentence taking out half of her hearing. Instead, the being's voice was maybe a bit louder than someone her size yelling through a microphone. Tolerable, but not damaging. Why didn't that blow out my eardrums? she wondered. Her thought session was abruptly cut off as she bore witness to something she'd rather not have seen: this massive being in motion. An enormous lavender paw lifted up slowly, the ground shaking from it leaving, before it covered an immense amount of ground and touched down much closer to where she was. The resulting thoom was much more defined, and the shockwaves that came with it just about launched Sugar off of her paws. She dove to the shaking ground as the other paw repeated the same arc through the air, landing next to its partner with the same amount of force. Sugar strained her ears to listen for a few things as the fibers of the carpet quivered from the disruptions. She was listening for anything else to rattle or shake when the giantess stepped. Nothing else of her size even moved. Equally as perplexing to the bunny was the fact that her footfalls weren't as fast as they could've been.... It was almost like... No, that's couldn't be it, could it? Another series of noises caught her attention as she shifted to a sitting position, and she looked up at her face. Seems she had opened one of the letters.
``Dear Gabby,
Can you believe we've been writing back and forth for over a year and we still haven't met in person?! I say we should fix that! If I remember correctly, you work just like I do, so I'll plan to come along a month from now! It'll be so exciting; I can't wait to finally meet and chat face to face! Oooo, there's so much planning to do, and I've got to make sure I have enough PTO saved up over here... Don't worry about the `how'; I'm sure we'll think of something. See ya in a month!
Sugar Rush''
Sugar sat, stunned. ``Wait, what? That's Gabby?! She's huge! Is that why the first letter was so big?! Come to think of it, all of her letters were big... And here I thought Lulu was playing a joke on me.'' Sugar couldn't help but stare at the monstrous form in front of her, pondering a deluge of new questions as she did so. She's much closer now, so why didn't her voice become unbearably loud..? Is it because she's gentle? If so, then why is she gentle? I don't remember anything like this in the letters... Another chorus of noise sounded off in the heavens above her.
``How she packs so much enthusiasm into paper I'll never know.''
``You might not get the chance to ask...'' Sugar mused, looking at her gigantic unaware hostess. She was again left to her thoughts as Gabby reached over and placed the letters back on her desk. I have, so many questions, but will I be able to ask them, or have them answered? Sugar was again cut off, but this time by the sound of something far worse than ruffling paper. Footfalls. Strong, and getting stronger.
``I hope they like it here, at least...''
Need to get a move on now, or I'm done for! thought Sugar as she tried to scramble to her feet. Thoom. This was the worst series of shockwaves felt so far, and they launched her onto her rear as many times as she tried to stand up. Boom. Another massive lavender paw crashed down in front of the first, taking up half of her field of vision. The shockwaves were stronger. The ride, bumpier. The only thing she could manage to do was curl up nearly into a ball. Boom! Sugar was launched high into the air, holding her ears in pain and tumbling head over heels. As she could feel she was beginning to fall, Sugar flapped her ears a few times to straighten herself out. Huge toes filled her vision, and they were much, much bigger than they were a few seconds ago. She wanted to wager they were each 100 feet tall! As soon as she was able to land, she took off at breakneck speed from the wall of lavender. She was going even faster because she was `riding' the shockwave of Gabby's step much like a surfer would with a wave of water. She zipped under the enormous bed as the tell-tale rumble of her other paw lifting sounded.
Boom. Sugar was finally safe, stacked against the immeasurable wooden spire of a bedpost. In front of her: both of the paws, effortlessly dwarfing her. Looking up only awarded her with a view to above the yoga-pants-clad kneecaps before the sheets of the bed cut off vision. She wouldn't be able to look up all the way without lying on her back, and even then, Gabby's own features would block her view. Just when it felt like she could take a much-needed breather, the ground started shaking. Very violently. All eight of Gabby's toes were repeatedly raising and slamming back down into the carpet at random intervals, giving Sugar a view of a different portion of the underside of her paws, along with a massive headache. Every crash of every toe caused a part of Sugar's body to twitch involuntarily, and adding to the display was all the debris the enormous paws had collected in just the short trek here. Crumbs. Bits of carpet. Some of her own hair. Sugar braced against the bedpost and sat down, holding her head and hoping for a miracle.
Luckily, she got one.
``It's getting late, actually... I don't think they were going to show up today, or maybe it's a time zone thing...''
Sugar internally laughed. An immense being was standing right over her, and somehow her voice wasn't turning their heads into mush. It made no sense to her! But, what happened next confused her even more. The loudest gasp she had ever heard sounded off from high above them, and suddenly, out-of-the-blue, her toes stopped moving. Sugar couldn't believe this. She had been shaking for so long, it took her body a while to register that the shaking had finally stopped.
``Unless...''
Unless what? Sugar wondered, staggering to her feet. A breeze blew down from above, and a series of slight rumbles got her attention. What could you have possibly remembered that would cause you to stop moving? She walked out from under the bed and look up. What she saw made her jaw drop.
Gabby was slightly bent over, looking curiously at Sugar with her huge green eyes.
Gabby sat in her computer chair, an apologetic look plastered across her face. In the expanse of her right palm sat Sugar, still subconsciously comparing the giantess' curves to her own from what she saw on the ride up. She absentmindedly looked down at the carpet as she mused. Now that she wasn't threatening to sink beneath the fibers, she could see that the carpet was patterned in the grid of a city, with some of the blocks designating where buildings could go, others having parking lots, and others still leaving it up to the imagination.
She gently cleared her throat, causing the very small rabbit to turn to look at her massive face. ``Let me start by apologizing for putting you in sooooo much danger...'' Gabby attempted to smile, but knew in the back of her head that she was in the hot seat. Imagine her surprise when she saw a tiny orange hand wave her off.
``Relax. I'm here now, and it's fine. Besides, you're not the only one at fault for this,'' Sugar yelled. ``Don't strain your voice; I can hear you just fine!'' chirped Gabby. The bunny did a double take.
``W-what? How?! Your eyes are bigger than me; how can you hear me when I talk normally?!'' Gabby twitched her own huge ears as she replied.
``These babies hear much more than you think. It's part of how I found you.''
``What was the other part?'' asked Sugar, coyly. Can't wait to hear this answer, she thought.
``My eyes,'' responded the goodra girl. ``You say your sight and hearing are good, but I wager mine are just a bit better! I can see you just fine. So.... How is this your fault too? I'm confused.'' Sugar twiddled her thumbs a bit.
``Weeeeellll... remember when I said in a letter the first letter you sent me covered nearly the entirety of my town?'' Gabby nodded. ``I wasn't kidding,'' Sugar said flatly. ``Lulu could shrink them down to normal size for me to read, but we never thought about the reverse happening if we came to you.''
Gabby turned her head to the side and sighed, to avoid literally blowing her friend off. ``I... should've brought that up... The letters you sent me were so small, I wouldn't have been able to find them if they didn't land right on my desk here. I could fix them no problem, but... it was finding them that was the tricky part.'' Sugar nodded.
``Mmm, so we'll just have to keep that in mind for next time.''
A couple minutes later found Gabby sitting at the head of her bed in the back of the room. One of her legs was lazily stretched out along the mattress' length; the other was firmly planted on the carpet below. Sitting between them, Indian style, was a much larger Sugar, now proportionally accurate to her hostess. ``It took a few tries but we finally got it!'' the dragon says cheerily, following it up with a giggle.
The rabbit smirked in response, adding, ``Yeah. Sorry I'm not as tall as you might've thought.''
``Well, I am rather tall,'' Gabby replies, shifting her leg resting on the bed and accidently brushing Sugar with her calf in the process. ``A little over seven feet, before you ask. Here at home is about the only place where I don't have to worry about bonking my head against a door frame.'' Sugar chuckled.
``You certainly didn't look seven feet to me a few minutes ago.'' ``Oh yeah, about that... Just how big was I to you?'' Gabby asked.
It didn't take Sugar long to reply. ``Your toes were pushing ten stories apiece from my best guess. I'm honestly surprised you were able to see me while standing up!''
``I'm impressed you stayed on top of the carpet. I got the extra-soft stuff; it works wonders on my paws after a long day,'' came Gabby's retort as she idly pawed at the carpet with her toes. ``It's also a good thing you stood out against all the grey. ...I didn't scare you too much, did I?''
Sugar dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand. ``Psh, no! I hinted at it in my letters, but I've had my fair share of run-ins with giants before. Granted, they weren't as big as you were, but I've still had enough carpet close-ups to recognize when I'm the smaller party. Speaking of, I have a question.''
Gabby's eyes had briefly darted to a table next to her before returning her gaze to Sugar, opting to rest one of her arms on the table's edge. ``Fire away.''
``Well, everything about you seems so... gentle. There were several times where I thought I'd either lose my lunch or my hearing but none of that happened. Are you one of those gentle giants or is something else going on?''
Gabby's lips curled into a small smile. ``Weeeeellllll, yes and yes, actually. You'll have to see it to believe it for the second part, though.'' Sugar couldn't even get the confused look on her face in time before one of the dragon's horns moved and pointed down at the table that she was resting against. The next thing Sugar felt, was Gabby's leg nudging against her, still gently, but with a little more force than the last time. The rabbit took the que and made her way off of the bed. As she approached the table, she started to notice things about it. What Gabby was resting her arm against wasn't part of the original table, but was part of a wall that stretched around its perimeter. Painted on the inner parts of the wall were not-too-detailed images of a cityscape or a countryside, depending on which part she glanced at. It was almost as if the painter wanted to create the illusion of a more open space. Wait, that seemed to be exactly the point, and as Sugar finally got close enough to the table to peer down, she saw the reason why.
Encased within the walls of the table was just about an entire city, with half of it looking more suburban and the other half sporting skyscrapers. Skyscrapers that didn't even crest the walls surrounding them. There were roads, parks, a landfill, even a major highway carefully strung throughout the area. Everything looked so detailed that Sugar was in a state of disbelief. Gabby caught onto the look, completing the shifting of her position such that she was now sitting on the edge of the bed and also peering over the cityscape. Sugar managed to collect herself and turn her head towards the dragon. ``This can't be real. ....can it?''
``Oh, it's real. Look closely, and look carefully.''
Sugar did as she was told and leaned in closer, trying her best to keep her wild hair at bay. Sure enough, anywhere she looked on the table, there were little specks. Some were moving about, while others were stationary, but the rabbit's own sharp vision told her that these were not bugs, and in fact, tiny people. It didn't take Sugar long to piece together why the stationary people were stationary. Gabby had leaned in to gauge reactions while she was peering curiously, and with both parties' chests looming over portions of the city, it made for quite the sight. ``How...?'' Sugar asked incredulously, lowering her voice and turning her head.
``Well, I was taking a walk through a forest a good while back when I decided to venture off the beaten path for a few minutes,'' replied the dragon, also keeping her voice down. ``I looked down after stepping on a twig, and it was a good thing that I did. Turns out that the paw that didn't step on the branch nearly stepped on a city.''
``You mean it was already this small?!''
``Yes, and I didn't see anywhere were it could've been. There were no gaping holes in the countryside or anything like that.'' ``Nothing indicating the whole city shrank?'' Gabby shook her head. ``If that were the case, then it's been like that for many years. All of the trees around there were fully grown.''
``That's concerning... What'd ya do next?''
``Well, I marked the area, came back with a shovel, and the rest,'' she said, gesturing to the city with one of her horns, ``is history. I've been coming up with little tricks to make their lives bearable ever since I found them.'' Sugar processed this information for a few seconds before piping up again.
``So, you just, share your bedroom with an entire city?''
``Mmhm!'' Gabby smiled. ``And that's why I have to be gentle. They're about as small as you were when you first came here...''
``I literally know how that felt when you were walking around.''
``It wasn't too bad, was it?''
``A little rough, but nothing I couldn't handle.'' Gabby nodded, satisfied with the answer, before finally pulling back from the city, Sugar following suit and doing the same.
Gabby got up and strolled over to her computer desk, which flanked the city on the side opposite the bed, and woke up her trusty PC while Sugar stood idly by the city. Any plans the goodra girl had with regards to her computer were dashed upon seeing the time splashed across the monitor's screen saver.
``Geez, it's nearly midnight already?'' Sugar scratched her head curiously.
``That's odd... I didn't think that much time had passed.'' ``It's only been a couple hours or so, but it was late when you got here. I didn't think you were coming at all...''
``It was only early evening when I went through the portal. Maybe you're just in a different time zone?'' the rabbit asked sheepishly.
Gabby rolled her eyes. ``Suuuuuuurre, blame it on the time zones,'' she said with a giggle. ``That muuuuuust be the reason.'' Sugar went to the backpack containing her belongings, which rested against the very bedpost that she entered Gabby's room near, and started rummaging through it.
``Soooo, I've got a sleeping bag and a change of clothes. Is there anywhere specific I'm sleeping tonight, or...?''
``I've got a guest room, but it's not exactly prepared or anything,'' Gabby replied, stretching. ``I was also hoping I'd have some company for tonight...'' Sugar was already raising a finger to point at the city before Gabby cut her off. ``Some bigger company, sheesh!''
Sugar lowered the finger, defeated. ``So we're doing this sleepover style? Alright, works for me!'' The dragon nodded, moving from the desk to a door right next to it and opening it. Sugar went over and checked out the room beyond, revealing it to be a standard bathroom, about as long as the bedroom was, and with a shower in the back.
``Feel free to use my bathroom as if it were your own, but don't make a big mess, and, uh, watch your footing in the shower.'' ``Why's that?'' ``It's kinda super slick and itmightbemyfault,'' was the rushed reply.
Two bedtime routines later and the ladies are each wearing what passes for pajamas. Gabby's garb is an oversized shirt and her undergarments, and Sugar sports a button-up pajama top and pajama pants that each have a lollipop pattern stamped all over them.
Gabby couldn't help but giggle at Sugar's choice. ``Awww, those look adorable on you~!''
The orange rabbit grew red in the face. ``They were cheaper because they were in kid's sizes! Besides, they're really comfortable and - ''
Gabby had taken this time to approach her shorter guest and embrace her. ``Thank you so much for coming. I can't wait to spend some time together, but for now, let's get some rest, okay? We're gonna have so much fun!'' Sugar, of course, was caught off guard by the surprise hug, but managed to nod, making her way into her sleeping bag. Gabby climbed into her own bed not long after and pulled the covers over herself. Sugar tried to make herself comfortable, but something was off...
``Hey Gabby, ya got a spare pillow?'' Fwump! A soft rectangle hitting her in the face was the reply. As the pillow fell to the floor in front of her, it revealed a very deadpan look from the rabbit. ``Thanks...''
Gabby giggled like a little girl from her bed. ``Don't mention it~. G'night, everyone! G'night, Sugar!'' Sugar couldn't help but chuckle, placing the pillow under her head.
``G'night, Gabby.'' As the light from the monitor began to fade and the little pinpricks of light from the shrunken city were blacked out one by one, the room's two biggest residents drifted off into dreamland, each already thinking of plenty of ideas for what to do tomorrow, and for the rest of the week.
