A Big Tiny Problem

Chapter one: Butterflies and Giants

The forest was already getting dark. The fireflies danced around in the night, setting the entire forest aflame with their poisonous yellow glow. The moonlight that came tumbling through the trees like yards of satin cast lingering shadows and glistened off of blue butterfly wings. The whole forest seemed to shimmer in the gentle glare of the full moon, and was only disturbed by a single bright light that shone from the middle of the forest.
She lay there alone, the hem of her white silk gown strewn fluidly amongst the tall peacock green ribbons of grass that surrounded her silent little body. Her chest slowly waved up and down as she breathed in her death-like slumber. A translucent ocean blue butterfly softly glided over her hand, and landed on it. This tiny sensation made her eyes flutter open. Her eyes were the most pallid shade of blue, much like the spray that glides off a waterfall, which had splinters of sapphires spiralling out from the raven-black centre. She blinked again.
The mountainous trees glowered high above her, higher than she ever thought possible. Mind you, she couldn’t remember having thought anything before. The fair petal-soft skin of her hands swept across the grass as she raised the butterfly up to her face, and lifted herself into a sitting position so that she could see it properly. The little creature was smaller even than she felt when she was looking at the trees; its beautiful azure wings only the length of her arm.
The butterfly blinked at her, never having seen a two-leg that was so small before. Although the girl herself was much larger than it, the butterfly thought this young girl was a most curious phenomenon. Her body was so small, in fact, that compared to a regular human being she may as well have been nothing more than a butterfly herself. The butterfly thought that she shamed his own beautiful wings however and decided that he had had enough of her searching smiles and her warm strokes of his wings. He blinked at her once more, taking in one final image of her tilted head and flowing pearl-white hair before he flew away in jealousy and contempt.
The girl thought the creature an oddity. It flurried away with such elegance and swift fluency that she stared after it, and in doing so realised where she herself had been lying. The entire place buzzed and chirped with subtle whispers from crickets and insect’s wings flapping softly in the sweet earthy-scented air.  She blinked twice before finally believing that this magnificent world was real. She unknowingly heaved a sigh.
The ribbons of grass that rose up to her knees spread out farther than her eyes could behold. It was the green that shocked her most. The overwhelming amount of green that coated everything in sight. Even the rough leathery bark of the trees was either coated with moss or turned green by the mixture of light from the moon and fireflies. The whole scene just became a deeper shade of teal green that stretched out so far it became nothing more than an abyss of green in her eyes.
She didn’t know where she was. How she got here. Where she was before this. But that didn’t matter now. Who could possibly question such a place? She decided to walk until she found someone who could tell her what had happened. She gently gaited her way through the grass and clambered clumsily over the thick roots of some intruding trees that got in her way. The hem of her dress caught on a stray twig from one particularly pestering root and she had to pick it off with her long thin fingers before continuing.
She couldn’t tell why she was wearing a dress in the first place anyway. The girl wished so much that she could remember anything. Just the tiniest thing. Eventually, after tripping and fumbling her way along for a few hours she realised that this brooding was doing nothing but making her fall over, and wasn’t helping her remember anything at all. She grew tired and frustrated with herself, and was resolute in finding a place where she could lie down for a while. After climbing through a bunch of tall bluebells and snowdrops, she came into a clearing. But there was something in her way.
It was not at all what she had expected. A giant block with thick black leather binding around it. It was almost as tall as her, but wider by much much more. She thought it looked rather comfy, and decided to climb on top of it, to try it out as a bed. She attempted to jump up using her arms and legs in a desperately ridiculous manner. After falling over twice, she decided to try a different approach. She ran back a few steps, the dirt flying from her, now chaotic, hair and charged at the black thing, using her arms to try and make herself run faster. Then she threw herself at the black thing, arms out in a diving motion and was just able to grasp on to what appeared to be a rope of some sort, before hauling herself on top of it.
There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it? She thought to herself. She brushed herself off and jumped up and down a few times on the springy black entity, before deciding it was a perfect place to sleep. In fact she was just about to settle down when she noticed something even bigger than the black thing. By bigger, it was probably fifty times the size of it. Not as tall as the trees, but this big lump was big enough to scare the girl silly. It scared her so much, that she stopped breathing for fear of waking it. She stood absolutely still, and studied this sleeping giant with vigilant flitting eyes.

Alec slept. He was so comfy in this spot. In fact he often came here when he needed some time to himself. His head rested on a tree stump and his legs were sprawled boldly about the forest floor. His gentle whine of a snore could barely have been heard by another human being. But she heard it. The girl gazed at this huge being with sincere terror and trepidation and was frozen on the spot for a solid half an hour before finally deciding that this noisy giant must be some sort of harmless animal that used its noisiness to scare away any predators that could actually hurt it. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to be scared by this silly creature. It was stopping her from sleeping. Perhaps if she went and spoke to it and told it that she wouldn’t do it any harm then it would stop being so palpably noisy.
A new determination in her step, she leaped gauchely from the black thing that had taken her so long to climb and marched steadfastly towards the snoring giant. Little did she know that this giant was in fact Alec, and he had absolutely no idea what was about to hit him, or rather, kick him in the foot.
The girl eventually got to this giant before realising she had no idea how to get his attention. I mean, could this animal hear her? Or understand her? She decided that all animals would have to be able to feel something, if very little. The closest part of this enormous creature was a big white rubbery oval shape. She couldn’t possibly articulate what it was, but all she knew was that it was part of the thing that disturbed her sleep. She gave it a gentle tap with her fist, like someone knocking on a door. This did nothing whatsoever to the giant, so she chose a different approach. She grabbed a hugely heavy green pare of lips that lay only a short distance from her and threw it with all her might at the thing. This too did nothing. She was getting rather frustrated with it now, and gave it a big shove with her foot, numerous times. After a while, Alec felt the tiny flick on the sole of his shoes and stirred from his sleep. He thought it must just be an insect and was about to go back to sleep when he heard a tiny squeak of a voice coming from his foot.
“Hey! Can you hear me? I’m trying to get some sleep here! You great oaf!” Alec deliberated on how this was most out of hand before finally realising that his foot shouldn’t be able to talk. He sat up and leaned forward, studying his foot a great deal before becoming even more perplexed than he was previously.
“Finally! Some response. I came to tell you that your insistent whining is disturbing my sleep, so if you would please keep it down a bit I would greatly appreciate it!” The girl yelled at the top of her voice, for fear of not being heard.

Alec was twice astonished. First a voice coming from his foot, now a voice coming from a little white girl who was attacking his foot. That was it, he had to be dreaming. Alec decided to go back to sleep, and was just leaning back down when the girl kicked his ankle instead.
“Oh my, would you please stop kicking me!” talking to a little white fairy-girl. This was normal. Alec thought. The girl looked petrified. Her whole body was shaking and her eyes were blinking at a speed Alec could only describe as very, VERY fast. “I’m sorry, hey, please don’t cry, whatever you do don’t cry. I didn’t mean it, hey little girl, don’t get upset.” Alec shuffled himself cautiously so that he could see the girl better, and so that the girl could see the expression of harmlessness and contrition on his face. The girl was shy. She looked down, but had stopped shaking. Alec immediately knew that the girl understood that he meant her no harm. What the heck, this is my dream. Might as well make it interesting. Alec thought.
“What is your name?” he asked her. This creatures booming voice sent shivers up her spine, but there was something in the chaotic mess of his hair, and the sheer honesty of his massive brown eyes that told her he meant her no harm.
“I… uh… EVELYN!” she burst out with excitement. “My name is Evelyn! Oh my… I know my name!”
Alec thought this outburst most unseemly. Perhaps it was a tradition for the little folk to yell in excitement when they said their name. Then the girl started swirling her dress and jumping up and down before falling over and landing on her backside. Okay, this was normal.
“What’s your name?” The girl yelled; her excitement only slightly dampened by the pain in her rear end.
“Alec. Alec Henderson. What are you? That is, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“I dunno! I was about to ask you what you were.” Evelyn yelled again.
“Well… uh… I’m a human.”
“Really? I thought that’s what I was.” Evelyn scratched her head and scrunched her eyes up, trying to understand this new development. She pursed her lips. “Well then, if you are human, what am I?”
“I dunno, do I? Maybe your some sort of fairy.” Alec suggested.
“Shouldn’t I have wings then?” Evelyn asked.
“I suppose so. Well anyway, what were you kicking me for?”
“Your snoring was disturbing my sleep. I found a big black thing to sleep on and all I could hear was you.”
“Oh. Sorry. Hold on, I don’t snore!”
“Sorry to break it to you, but yeah, you do.”
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
“Fine, maybe I snore. But I can pick you up with two fingers if I wanted to.”
“Don’t you dare… DON’T YOU DARE!” Alec giggled and lifted Evelyn up between his thumb and forefinger. It was just like lifting up a pen, by the size and weight of her. Mind you, a pen didn’t pose this much resistance to his hand. She wriggled and squirmed and eventually resulted to biting.
“Hey! Do you want me to drop you?” Alec exclaimed. At this Evelyn decided to stop fighting his hand, and after looking down decided that she would much rather be in his hand at this height, than out of it.
“So… uh…” Alec tried to start a conversation. “How come you don’t know what you are?”
“I don’t know! I woke up a few hours ago. Somewhere over that way.” She pointed with her little fingers in the direction that she had come from. “I didn’t remember anything. That’s why I was so surprised at knowing my name.”
“Oh, right. I was wondering about the victory dance.” Evelyn blushed and hid behind her fluid white hair. Alec giggled at this, and with the little finger of his other hand pushed the hair from her face. “Relax. It’s cool. So… you found a black thing?”
“Yeah, that thing there.” Evelyn pointed to Alec’s journal.
“Oh… Evelyn that’s not a black thing. Well… I suppose it is but… that’s my journal. I was writing in it earlier and fell asleep.”
“A journal? Oh.” Once more Evelyn giggled and blushed at herself.
“So… where are you gonna go?”
“I dunno. It’s beautiful here. Everything is a bit alien though. And I fall over a lot.”
“I had noticed.”
“You didn’t see me earlier.” Evelyn sighed a mouse of a sigh and fidgeted with her hands, still clasped between Alec’s two fingers.
“Why don’t you come home with me? I mean, I don’t think my mom would let me keep you, but I’m graduating in a month and you could come to school with me if you like. I can set you up a little mini-bed in my room, and then at my flat in college.”
“How old are you, then?”
“18. Do you… I mean do you know how old you are?”
“Well if we are basing age on how long you have lived, not a clue. If you are basing age on how long you are consciously aware of living, about 3 hours.”
“I see. Well, what do you say?”
“You mean it?”
“Of course I do. Mind you, you would need to be quiet. But I don’t really think that is a problem for… well… someone of you stature…”
“A short person, yeah yeah, you can say it. But yeah, I’d like that a lot.” Alec was so exited at her acceptance that he completely forgot his presumption that this was in fact a dream.
“Why don’t you sit on my shoulder and I’ll bring you back now?” Evelyn nodded frantically. She was getting exceedingly tired of being manhandled, and practically leapt on to his shoulder as he brought her nearer to it. She took hold of some of his dark brown hair as he stood up and clutched at his white shirt with her toes so tightly that her feet turned white.
“You okay?” Alec asked. Evelyn just nodded and clutched even tighter to his hair and shirt when he bent over to pick up his journal. Soon though, she found the ride on his shoulder quite enjoyable. Like a rollercoaster ride or a ride on one of those little toy machines that you inserted a quarter into when you were little. She found a smile spreading across her face with every enormous step that Alec took. The smile grew even larger when Alec talked to her. Evelyn thought that he surely must never stop talking. The words coming out of his mouth were as unrelenting as a railway track, but Evelyn liked the sound of his voice. She liked the idea of having some company. For how long, who knew? But that didn’t matter just yet. She wasn’t alone anymore.


(there will be more to come, just keep checking if you are getting interested >.< )