"Ah, there you are Edelgard!" Ferdinand said, speaking so loud he was almost shouting as usual. Edelgard mentally congratulated herself for picking such a secluded meeting location. No one would hear him from their position in the woods.
"Hello Ferdinand. Glad you could make it." Edelgard said cooly.
"And I'm glad you finally decided to take me up on my challenge! After all the training I've done with the professor, I'm sure I'll easily be able to best you in our sparring match!" Ferdinand replied, taking a few steps away from Edelgard to get into a starting position.
Ferdinand turned back towards Edelgard just in time to see her snap her fingers at him, prompting a bright flash from her hand that blinded and engulfed him. When his vision returned, he was no longer looking at Edelgard's face. Instead, he was looking at her now giant boots. When he followed them up her legs, he saw that his empress was now towering over him, seeming to be at least 100x taller than him.
"What's going on Edelgard? Why am I so small?" Ferdinand demanded, looking up at the towering white haired girl.
"I shrunk you Ferdinand." Edelgard said matter-of-factly. "I should think that was obvious. The Professor has been helping me focus on Reason Magic recently, and I think it's really paying off."
"But why?"
"It's simple Ferdinand. You are constantly insisting that we are rivals and that you're my superior, and I've been telling you that that couldn't be further from the truth. But you never seem to get the message through your thick skull. So I decided the best thing to do was to make our sizes reflect the way I see you: as a sniveling insect who ought to be groveling at his emperor's feet." Edelgard explained, before stepping out of her boots and dropping her bare feet down on either side of the shrunken redhead.
"I thought we were coming out here to spar?" Ferdinand said weakly, having trouble accepting the sudden change of scenario.
"Ah yes Ferdinand. You'll still get your fight. I want to see how you fare against my feet."
Ferdinand was unprepared by how fast she spring into action. All of a sudden, she jumped backwards, putting some space between the two of them, only for her right foot to then come swinging forwards like a pendulum. It caught him between her toes, squeezing him as it lifted him up off the ground into the air. Then she released at the top of her swing, and he was airborne.
Ferdinand had never liked heights. Caspar had occasionally tried to talk him into trying wyvern riding, but he always made an excuse to avoid it. Now he wished he had a wyvern below him, rather than the spastic flight he was currently engaged in. When he finally felt himself starting to descend, he looked down towards the ground, wanting to see what surface he would be splattering against. What he saw instead was the sole of Edelgard's pale white foot, upturned and held precisely under him. She had kicked him up and over her head, and now was going to catch him behind her back with her foot. He landed hard on her sole, face smearing against the somewhat sweaty surface. Foolishly, he thought it was over. With a flick of her ankle, he was airborne again, flying up and over her head once more, towards another awaiting foot. This continued for some time, with Ferdinand getting more and more disoriented with every kick. He tried to catch a glimpse of her face when he flew past it, wanting to see what she was thinking and why she was doing this. He expected her to look angry at him, or maybe like she was having fun, but instead she looked... disinterested? It was like this was an everyday thing for her. Sometimes she smiled after a particularly tricky kick, but overall she seemed rather unimpressed by her torture method. Finally, out of what Ferdinand suspected was boredom, she allowed him to drop to the ground in front of her, leaving him panting on his hands and knees before his empress.
Edelgard had never had much respect for Ferdinand, but she felt what little she had slipping away with each impact with her feet. He wasn't her rival, he was simply hers. A possession to do whatever she desired with, whose only purpose in life was to ease the burden of her governance. His life was hers to use, and dispose of, at a twitch of her ankle.
Ferdinand felt this change in roles too. He could tell by how she looked at him that she didn't consider him anything more than a temporary distraction that happened to be rather fun to toy with beneath her toes. He always knew in his heart that she took their rivalry less seriously than he did, but to realize that he didn't even register on her radar as anything other than a nuisance. Filled with rage at the realization of how little he mattered to her, he drew his axe.
"HYAHHH!" Ferdinand yelled, bringing his axe down on the empress's big toe. The front edge of it struck the skin of her toe, making a small cut before the axe was stopped by her nail. The middle of the axe struck the hard surface and stuck in place, leaving him unable to remove the weapon.
Edelgard was furious: "Did you just strike your empress?" She dislodged his axe with an effortlessly flick of her ankle, sending it spiraling away, before abruptly slamming her foot down on top of the shrunken man.
Ferdinand had all the air forced from his lungs as her now increasingly dirt covered foot stomped down on him. His surprise at her speed was quickly replaced by surprise that he had survived the strike, knowing a regular bug would have been obliterated by the impact. The ball of her foot came down right on his ribcage, leaving him with his face pinned beneath her big toe. The underside of it was covered in dirt from being barefoot, but that didn't stop her from grinding it on Ferdinand's face, pushing the back of his head deeper into the dirt as she gradually increased the pressure. Just when he thought she wouldn't stop until his head cracked like a coconut, she lifted her foot off of him. He gasped down air desperately, relieved to be able to breathe.
She didn't move her foot to the side though. She lifted it straight up into the air, allowing it to hang above him like the blade of a guillotine. And before he could get to his feet, she brought it down on him once more. She stomped him over and over again, driving him into the dirt, squeezing out a little bit of her rage at his rebellion with each stomp.
"I'd like to spend all day stomping you bug, but as empress, I have responsibilities." Edelgard said, smirking at the sight of the tiny man laying in her footprint in the dirt.
"Does this mean you'll grow me back?" Ferdinand asked weakly, every ounce of energy extracted from him by the pale feet of his empress.
"Well Ferdinand, do you still think you're my equal?" Edelgard asked.
"No, no, of course not. I'm nothing compared to you." Ferdinand groveled, desperate not to make her angrier after his axe stunt. He couldn't take any more.
"Well then, I don't see why you should be the same size as me." Edelgard replied. "Don't worry, I know you feel very strongly about your duty as a noble, so I'll make sure you still get to support me, in your little insect way." Rather than wait for him to ask what she meant, the silver haired empress grabbed her shrunken classmate between her toes, pinching him tightly and lifting him up over the entrance to her boot. She separated her toes without warning, allowing him to plummet down into the darkness of her shoe.
Ferdinand landed hard on Edelgard's insole and immediately found himself surrounded by the familiar smell of Edelgard's feet. He looked up at his empress through the hole he'd fallen into, seeing her giant purple eyes trained on him.
"I'm thinking you'll make a good insole. My feet can get very sore after a long day of training, so I'll take any cushioning I can get. Even if it comes from a worthless speck like you." Edlegard said, before rising to her full height. Once again, her face was miles above him, and he doubted she could even see him in the dark confines of her shoe. "You'd better run to the toe section unless you want to be flattened." Edelgard warned. This wasn't out of anything resembling sympathy, she merely wanted to ensure that her foot toy stuck around for a while.
Ferdinand got the message when he saw her foot lift over the shoe's entrance, encasing him in its shadow. He began a mad sprint into the boot's depths, as though there were some exit he could find if he only ran far enough. Of course, no such exit existed. The light in the boot was snuffed out as Edelgard's foot entered, blocking the only entrance. He could see only a faint outline of her toes as they came barreling into him, carrying him the rest of the way into the boot. When they arrived together at the toe of the boot, her foot settled in on top of him. His chest was beneath the ball of her foot once more, but this time his head was between her big and second toes, allowing them to secure his new position in life with a taunting squeeze. And then, without another word from her, she began to walk.
Edelgard smiled as she strode back towards the monastery, feeling Ferdinand squirm against her every step and knowing that he was beginning to understand his place in her world. As she walked, her mind was full of ideas about how she should punish him further. Perhaps a combat training session with Petra while Ferdinand struggled in her boot would have the desired effect? Or maybe she should find someone to share him with? Dorothea had always seemed to hate him. She didn't know why, but that didn't matter. It would be enough to motivate her to join in the fun. Her last idea was perhaps her most devious. She could show him how insignificant he was by letting him be killed by a classmate unaware. She imagined slipping him into some sweets for Bernadetta's birthday today, and letting the timid girl devour him. No matter what she picked, she knew her little rival problem was solved.
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