Before Ella can do anything about her current predicament there comes a loud "Click, Click, Click" from behind her, the sound of hard shoes impacting harder cobblestones. She turns slowly, and right in front of her a dark wall of cloth is slithering over the cobblestones right at her! She barely has time to step back before it hits her, knocking her over backwards and rasping over her prone body in a very unpleasant fashion, drawing her into total darkness.
At least, it seems like total darkness at first, to her panicking mind. However, as she lies there for a number of moments she realizes that, in fact, it was comparatively bright- dim, certainly, but certainly not pitch black. She also realizes that she is not alone. She can hear more of those clicks, there source much closer and stationary. Standing up and looking around, she realizes at last that she is under the tightly-shut robe of a women. Over on another cobble, she can dimly perceive a large, long object, clearly a foot, whose toenails were painted in the same shade of red that lies upon its high heeled shoes, a lustrous red that catches even this dim light. Looking over to her right, she sees its opposite, shifting up and down as if to relieve its burden, causing the steady succession of clicks. Stretching above them she can see two columns of flesh which rise to a lofty height until they meet the gigantic mass perched almost directly over the tiny girl, which she can't make out very clearly. Turning, she sees the street through the threadbare and rough-woven cloak, clearly cheap and probably ineffective at keeping out the cold. But, unknown to Ella, this day its purpose is not to keep out the cold.
Maybella stands on the street corner, back to the alley and muttering under her breath. The cloak is chafing her exposed skin, of which there is a considerable amount, and she is cursing the necessity which makes her hold it tight around her body. She scans up and down the street, looking for trouble. This is one of the few alleys that she or any of the other girls could stand in front of with reasonable safety, since Mr. Hember, owner of the shop that dominated this alleyway, did not call the market watch on them, as long as they didn't steal anything, of course. Taking one last look around at the street, empty of guards but full of potential customers, she takes off her cloak and lays it neatly to the side before beginning to advertise her "wares".
Ella squeaks and dives out of the way as the woman takes a step forward, nearly puncturing her body with her amazingly high (a tiny bit shorter than Ella) and pointed heel. When she looks up, the cloak is gone and the castle sized woman is setting the folded bundle of cloth on the ground next to her. Ella, however, is staring, surprised, repelled and slightly fascinated, at what little cloth the woman has remaining on her body, which isn't much. Her pale, shapely legs are bare all the way up to an astonishingly high level on her thighs, and the tight, brown under thing at that point only extends a tiny fraction up her midriff before becoming pale skin once more, leaving a massive expanse of skin which tapers off in an incredibly tight breast band (red, of course), which in turn ends astonishingly low on her chest, leaving nothing but a pair of string straps and the prostitutes face, which is too high for Ella to see even as she cranes her neck as far as it will go.
Ella watches, almost entranced by this vision of a world she almost never views, given that this market is in the "decent" part of town. She watches as the woman, completely unaware of her presence, puts one immense bare arm to her even more massive midriff, cocks her hips seductively and calls out to one of the passerby:
"Hey handsome," The man in question was, in fact, reasonably attractive, well dressed and still the right side of thirty, if only just. He turns and stares for a moment, admiring the prostitute, who is actually fairly attractive and also on the right side of thirty. Than he shakes himself and hurries away, red-faced and eyes downcast. Maybella stares after him for a moment, tosses her head as if to say "You may be ashamed, but I'm still here" and directs her attention to the next passing "gentleman".
Ella slowly comes back to herself, the spell of both the massive size and forbidden display of this "lady of the night" wearing off as she displays herself to the passerby. None of them notice Ella, despite the fact that she is standing in plain sight. They are too busy, either averting their eyes and hurrying on or focusing their attention far higher up than the wee girl's height can claim.
Ella considers for a moment. Now that the initial shock is gone, she pulls herself together and thinks. Clearly, getting attention will be even more difficult now that this paragon of sensuality has arrived. As if to demonstrate this, a young, drooling male nearly squashes her underfoot in his booming passage, so taken up that he doesn't notice the figure, who is the size of a moderate rat, diving out of the way.
Ella pushes herself off the ground once again, thoroughly put out, trying to brush off the accumulation of grime on her clothes. She eyes the figure above her nervously, than sets her shoulders:
"After all," she says to herself reassuringly, "there just like any other person, just trying to make a living. Its not like there simply bad..." Her sense of moral issues propels her to action. She marches towards the woman with a determined look. Arriving just below her, trying not to look straight up at the large-but--tiny set of underwear hanging over her, she starts jumping up and down and yelling:
"Hello up there! Down Here! Help me!" she screams at the very top of her lungs while waving her arms.
Maybella, cursing even more fervently on the inside with every passing missed opportunity, fumes inside while keeping that seductive smile planted on her face. If only one male would take her up, she could get out of this watch-infested market. Preparing to try again with an old but obviously rich old man coming down the street, she pauses as she hears some truly odd sounds, like shouting at a distance heard through a wall. She looks up and down the street trying to identify the source.
Ella gives a frustrated "Uhh!" as the working girl's features hanging above her turned right and left, clearly looking for her. Ella puts her hands to her mouth and screams at the very top of her lungs:
"No you floozy, down HERE!" The prostitute definitely heard that, her head snaps downwards, eyes locking on to the miniature girl standing at her feet. Her eyes widen in shock and she sucks in a breath. She starts to step back and bend over, but before she could get any further a voice shatters the air:
"You There, stay where you are!" Maybella looks up from the ground quickly, eyes darting up and down the street. There, just up the street she sees a squad of overdressed Watchmen, led by a short and officious sergeant, bearing down on her through the thick crowd, trying to force their way through. Maybella reacts instantly, She sweeps up her cloak and pulls it on, covering her revealing clothing. She starts to run, but then recalls the sprightly figure at her feet. Looking down, she sees that the girl had been knocked over by her sweeping cloak and was now staring up at her, eyes wide and chest heaving. After only the slightest hesitation, she reaches down, snatches up this seemingly living doll and retreats into the alley.
It happens blindingly fast, the hand, the pressure from all sides, the massive force of being born into the air and deposited in this small cloth pouch, clearly an inside pocket of the cloak. The nauseating ride continues as the cloak swings back and forth freely, the prostitute is clearly hurrying along at a good pace despite her astonishing heels. Ella is thrown around in the pocket, getting rasped by the incredibly scratchy material of the cloak, occasionally feeling herself pressed up against the working girl for a moment of uncomfortably intimate contact, even through the cloth. The smells saturating the cloth are old and stale but still clearly, and horribly, identifiable to the unfortunate, trapped girl. The ride seems to last forever, but it really takes no more than thirty seconds as the woman finally comes to a halt after pulling a door closed.
Ella feels the cloak relax as the woman slides down to the floor, panting.
"That was a close one," Maybella remarks to herself before remembering her little passenger. Intensely curious, she reaches down and pulls the warm, flexible figure out of her pocket and into the dim light. Ella is brought before the woman's face. She looks at it for a moment, taking in the blue eyes, thin but pleasant cheeks and good complexion as well as the unbelievably thick makeup, eye shadow and lipstick. The woman stares right back, frankly appraising Ella's looks and body, turning her hand this way and that as well as flipping Ella over in her hand for a moment. Flipping her back over, she smiles faintly and says:
"My, you're a pretty little thing, aren't you?" The figure's face screws up for a moment, than composes itself and shouts back:
"I'm not a 'thing', my name's Ella." The prostitute looks slightly taken aback, but then she says wryly:
"Are you now? So you can talk, it wasn't my imagination."
"No, It wasn't, I can talk. I'm a human, its just that this guy spilled some potion and then it got all over the ground and I... shrunk." Maybella notices the slight hesitation in th girl's voice before the final word, clearly being somewhat evasive.
"I'm sure there's more to this story, but later. For now, my name's Maybella." They both hesitate, wondering what to say next. Finally...