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“Rosie? Rosie! Heeeey, Rosie!”
Rosetta Christoff didn’t even bother looking up from her book; she shook her head, groaning a little. “Sheena,” she said evenly, “you’re blocking my light.” And she was--one of two mismatched floor lamps in the attic of Ms. Thea’s Consignment Shop was now casting a round shadow with its hands on its hips.
“Oooooh, I’m blocking your light, am I?” Sheena said with a little cackle, pushing Rosetta’s book down with her thumb. “That must mean I’m an impediment to your progress! And as you know, Rosie--”
“Rosetta.”
“--there is but one way to see an impediment cleared from your path!”
With a shake of her head, Rosetta pushed a strand of black hair out of her face, folded her arms in her lap, and sighed. “Witches’ duel.”
“WITCHEEEEEEEEEEEEES’ DUEL!” Sheena screamed; she circled around the bench and leaned over, eye-to-eye with Rosetta, a fierce look on her roundish face. “The fated confrontation at last arrives between two celebrated rivals, the greatest students of Archmagus Thea de la Rocha! Two witches enter! Whom shall be deemed worthy?”
“Who,” Rosetta said.
“ME!” Sheena laughed.
“No, I mean… not whom, who. Who shall be…” She sighed; trying to fix Sheena was like bringing a wrench to the Titanic. Rosetta closed the book in her lap, standing up from the bench. It was fortunate that the attic of Ms. Thea’s Consignment Shop was warded for silence; that much shouting would’ve tipped off half of Drexel that something was happening that they definitely weren’t supposed to know about. “Never mind. Why are you still on this kick, Sheena? It’s a dumb idea.”
“Preposterous!” Sheena laughed, following as Rosetta circled the room. She was shorter and rounder than Rosetta, three years younger, a year less experienced in magecraft, and about six times as loud. “This has been our path, Rosie, not one we walk of our own volition but rather forged of the cobblestones of destiny!”
“You don’t forge cobblestones, Sheena,” Rosetta said. She walked towards the bookshelf and began rooting around, each book containing collections of spells that the two of them and their teacher had spent years assembling. “And you don’t want to duel me. I’ll win. You’re in over your head.” Turning back around, she took a step closer to Sheena and looked straight down—half a head down, to the top of Sheena’s head. “As usual.”
“A-HA!” Sheena snapped, standing on her tiptoes and waving a finger at Rosetta. “Then mayhaps, Rosetta, you will find my selection of dueling spells for the occasion extremely apropos! Oh, ho-ho-ho, most apropos indeed!” With a flourish of her arm, Sheena spun on her heel, scurrying past Rosetta to the bookshelf, where a dog-eared notebook was half hanging out, as if begging to be picked up again. Flipping through it, Sheena finally drew a ratty sheet of notebook paper and thrust it under Rosetta’s nose with a grin.
Rosetta eyed the spell. She’d seen worse copy jobs, but Sheena had been careless as usual; she clicked a pen from her pocket, adding a ley line here, a slight curve to the spell’s circle there. “Okay then,” she said, clicking the pen and returning it to her pocket. “It should actually work now. You’ve got to close the aura loop if you want to…” Then she leaned closer, squinting down at the spell, reading over the crooked text where Sheena had recorded the spell’s effects. “You’ve… you’ve tested this? It works? You’re sure?”
“Verily!” Sheena yelled.
With a smirk, Rosetta snatched the sheet from Sheena’s hand and studied it. She made a small loop with her right hand, duplicating the motions described on the sheet--and feeling the telltale tingle in her fingertips as the magic began to take effect before she waved it away. “Okay then,” Rosetta said, pushing her glasses back onto her face as she committed the spell to memory. “I accept. This is actually a perfect spell to--”
“♫Ᵽ⸎⸙⸔Ꜳ!” Sheena shrieked, her voice carrying through the entire chamber. Rosetta yelped as the tingle returned to her skin--not just in her fingertips but from head to toe. Her T-shirt was becoming looser on her, her black skirt slipping just a little bit off of her waist.
“You weren’t supposed to start yet!” Rosetta yelped. She pulled her heavy leather belt from its buckle and cinched it a few more loops. “I wasn’t even ready. Using a spell against an unprepared opponent is against the spirit of a witches’ duel, Sheena!”
“Oh, don’t flip your little lid, Rosie,” Sheena laughed. She took a few steps forward, grinning as she twirled her fingers in the air--she and Rosetta were, all of a sudden, the same height. “By uttering the words ‘I accept,’ you therefore indicated your acceptance of these terms--whether the outcomes were desirous to your likings or not!”
Rosetta growled in frustration and took a long step backward, not wanting to look Sheena in the eye. But Sheena took a step forward, pressing her just a bit closer to the wall. “This is such a load of crap,” Rosetta muttered. “I’m… you made me your height.”
“Precisely my height!” Sheena shouted. She put a hand to her forehead and moved it straight towards Rosetta’s--until Rosetta ducked out of the way and stomped around her.
“On the one hand, you probably wanted to shake me up a little,” Rosetta continued. Stepping across the room, she turned, looked up, and grimaced. “On the other hand, you probably need all the help you can get, amateur.”
Sheena let out a cackle, leaning back, hands in position to cast. “I shall permit you adequate preparation this time,” she said. “Perhaps you shan’t take me for granite on our second casting.”
Rosetta dropped her arms, rolling her eyes. “Granted, Sheena.”
“You’d better be as hard as granted if you wanna stop me!”
“Oh my god, Sheena, I’m gonna make you so small you’re gonna need help getting stuff off of the top two shelves!”
“Until surrender then?”
“Until you surrender, yeah.”
Sheena raised a hand above her head. “Then count five, Rosetta Christoff, for the fated confrontation is at hand!”
Both mages stood in position, arms out, fingers curled, and waited, counting to five under their breaths. The duel required concentration and careful timing. Striking too early could prevent the opportunity for a counterspell; waiting too long could leave a mage wide open. Rosetta watched Sheena’s hands and eyes, waiting for her fellow student’s concentration to break, a subtle moment when her distraction would cost her everything.
Then, suddenly, Sheena’s fingers flexed, her hands moving in so quick a circle that Rosetta was alarmed by her shout.
“♫Ᵽ⸎⸙⸔Ꜳ!” Sheena shrieked.
“♫Ᵽ-♫Ᵽ⸎-wh-WHAT!?” Rosetta fumbled, desperately trying to scream the counterspell just as her clothes began to slip again. She let out a load groan, bunching her swelling skirt up against her waist. The modest attic of Ms. Thea’s was beginning to stretch out around her like an arena, the tops of the carefully arranged bookshelves reaching well over Rosetta’s head. Her glasses were sliding off, settling on the end of her nose; she tilted her chin back just a bit to keep them on.
Then she felt her shirt slip down her front and yelped, holding it up with one hand and keeping tight onto her skirt with the other, her dwindled hands nervously fumbling with her suddenly much wider belt to try to tighten it again.
“Mmmmm, listen, little Rosie--I believe you may wish to heed my advice…”
Rosetta looked up through her enlarged glasses, shaking with rage, as Sheena sashayed across the room. It wasn’t just that she was now relatively taller--Rosetta had dwindled to about half her height, and the rookie mage now seemed taller to her than a house. It was that all of her had grown out--hips, chest, thighs, and all. Her round, grinning face, gazing down over her chest, was twice as wide as before, and when she reached down to pat Rosetta on the head, her fingers stretched nearly down her cheeks.
“...perhaps you should discontinue the skirt altogether.”
Rosetta felt heat rising to her face as Sheena stroked her ear with her long, fat thumb. Glancing down, she realized that her T-shirt stretched nearly to the floor now; it seemed to fit her like a loose-fitting dress. “I-I don’t need your advice,” Rosetta stammered quietly.
“And yet you intend to take it.”
“That’s not the point!” With a little grunt, Rosetta shoved Sheena’s hand away, wiggling her hips to shake the rest of her skirt loose. She took an awkward, wide step backwards, stepping out of her skirt and boots altogether.
“Ooooh, bright pink panties?” Sheena cooed, pointing to the pile of clothes. “Even the great Rosetta Christoff has a hidden cute side!”
“Quit it!” Rosetta snapped, her face turning suddenly hot. She adjusted her shirt, letting the collar drape over her front. Sliding one arm inside her shirt, she unsnapped her bra, shaking it loose and letting it drop to the floor. Her head was still tilted back a bit to keep her glasses on, but at the very least, her clothes fit like an oversized robe instead of a constricting pile that kept falling off. Her hands were free of her short sleeves, which dangled from her forearms to just up her biceps. It was, at least, looser and freer.
“You are almost naked, Rosie,” Sheena chuckled.
Rosetta grunted in reply, almost spitting. “Get into position,” she said between gritted teeth.
“So you shan’t surrender then?”
Rosetta raised her arms. “Into. Position.”
Sheena smiled, not even bothering to take a step back as she raised her own arms. She was staring right into Rosetta’s eyes, the little bounce in her posture much more pronounced now that there was so much more of her. She held steady, and Rosetta watched her hands, taking a moment for a slow, cleansing breath.
Sheena’s lips began to move.
“♫Ᵽ⸎⸙⸔Ꜳ!” Rosetta screamed at the top of her lungs, coughing just at the end of the spell. She was practically giddy as she saw Sheena’s face turn from confidence to fear, as her chanting turned to indiscriminate babbling, as her clothes began to deflate and her head began to sink into the top of her shirt.
“Ha!” Rosetta yelled, almost falling backwards with laughter, her glasses tumbling off and onto her shoulder. “Counterspell! You fell for that breath hook, line, and sinker, and now the shoe is on the other foot!”
Sheena let out a little squeal, an odd sound Rosetta couldn’t place as the experienced mage leaned against a bookshelf, smirking, waiting for Sheena to swear vengeance, to curse her name, to give up, to… to do something.
But all she seemed to be doing was shrinking. Her head and hands vanished into her deflating top, then her jeans seemed to plop to the floor. Everything was falling onto the floor--in a crooked, lumpy pile.
“Aha,” Rosetta chuckled nervously. “I… yeah, I really got you, huh? That’ll… that’ll teach you to…”
Then, a moment later, the motion stopped, and all that seemed left of Sheena Starr was a pile of clothes.
“...Sheena?” Rosetta called quietly, taking a few cautious steps towards the pile. She looked around the room, watching the doorway, hoping that Ms. Thea didn’t walk in to find out that her best student had turned her worst into a pile of empty laundry. “I… there’s a reversal spell, right?”
But as Rosetta took slow, cautious steps closer, she heard a rustling from inside the pile. Sheena’s jeans and shirt seemed to be shifting a little, a few tiny grunts and groans emerging from inside. Rosetta crept right towards them, crouching down.
Right as Sheena’s pants leg lifted and a tiny round face poked out. “Ah-HA!” Sheena shrieked, and Rosetta fell backwards onto her butt, her glasses falling to the floor beside her.
“O-Oh wow…” Rosetta said, watching with wide eyes as Sheena leaned forward. She was standing entirely inside her own tennis shoe, struggling to pull herself over the edge, her chubby little breasts flopped over the cloth edge. She was grimacing with the effort, but she was also laughing like mad. Soon she tipped far forward enough that the shoe tumbled over, sending her to the wooden floor with a little smack. She rolled onto her back, naked and as tall as Rosetta’s shin, laughing wearily.
“Sheena…” Rosetta said quietly, scooting forward without standing. Her bare foot stretched from Sheena’s toes to just above her waist. “I-I… I didn’t mean to make you this small!”
Sheena laughed, short of breath, hands on her chubby belly as she stared up at the larger mage. “Such is the nature of our duel,” Sheena said in a hoarse croak. “Take… take me in your hands, mighty Rosetta Christoff.”
Rosetta winced. “You’re… you’re very naked,” she said.
“As it was fated to be,” Sheena sighed, letting out a low, guttural-sounding cough. “P… Please…”
Rosetta shook her head, sliding her fingers under Rosetta’s round butt, her pinkie behind her thigh and her thumb on her lower back. She held her other hand out to steady her back, lifting her off the ground. She seemed about as heavy as a brick, not really light but not difficult to lift in front of her.
“Thank you,” Sheena said, smiling as she leaned against Rosetta’s fingers. “This is truly an unprecedented occurrence that has occurred. Splendiferous even.” Putting her hand over her mouth, she let out another little cough. “I guess there’s only one thing I need to say then.”
With a nod, Rosetta held Sheena closer to her face, trying not to laugh. “Surrender then?”
Sheena lowered her head, folding her hands in front of her. She stared down at her little legs dangling over the edge of Rosetta’s hands, placed her hands on her thighs, and looked up into Rosetta’s eyes.
“Just this,” she said.
And her hands darted into position.
“♫Ᵽ⸎⸙⸔Ꜳ.”
“YOU TINY LITTLE BITCH!” Rosetta shrieked, jumping backwards to her feet as she dropped Sheena back on the ground. Her shirt was creeping larger and larger, dragging along the floor, and with a frustrated shout she pulled her arms totally inside, slipping her slight, dwindling frame through the head hole.
“Woooo, naked mage party!” Sheena shouted, skipping in a circle along the floor. She was growing quickly, every light step seeming heavier and heavier as Rosetta dwindled closer to her size. “Abandon trivialities such as clothing, Rosie, and embrace the purality of the naked duel!”
“PURALITY ISN'T A WORD!” Rosetta screamed. She tried to step out of her shirt towards Sheena but lost her footing, falling gently onto the hard floor. She was amazed at how little it hurt to faceplant like that; she must have weighed nearly nothing. But pulling herself up, she stomped towards Sheena, growling. “I'm gonna make you so small you’re gonna have bacteriophages correcting your grammar, you… you itty-bitty--”
“Itty-bitty what?” Sheena cooed, spinning on her heel--face-to-face with the still-dwindling Rosetta. She put her finger to Rosetta’s nose and tweaked it as the more experienced mage shrunk past her shoulders. “I caught you with your pants down, Rosie--haha, literally this time--so what do you have to say about that?” With a wide, toothy grin, Sheena put her hand on Rosetta’s head and pressed down, rubbing her index finger over her chin as she continued to shrink.
“Ugh…” Rosetta groaned. She pushed Sheena’s hand away--only for the bigger woman to wrap her arm around her, pulling her in to her soft, warm side. “A-At least you… at least you used ‘literally’ the right way.” Pulling herself loose, she tripped over her own feet, landing on all fours on the ground below.
“Ha! I know,” Sheena laughed, playfully nudging Rosetta’s naked butt with the heel of her foot; she could feel it growing against her skin as she caught her breath. “See, I may not be the sharpest crayon in the drawer, but I can shine bright sometimes! I can learn things! Like how to say ‘literally’ right!”
Rosetta nodded, rolling over onto her butt. “And how to…”
She was staring at Sheena’s big toe.
“...oh, dammit.”
“And how to cast this one spell,” Sheena bellowed from high above. Rosetta craned her neck, following Sheena’s thick calf, her heavy thigh, her broad hips and belly, her hands on those hips… and far, far higher than it should’ve been, her grinning face, looking down over the length of her naked body at what her rival had become.
“Holy shit,” Rosetta said, her breath catching in her throat. She tried to pull herself up but slipped again, Sheena’s wide eyes following every movement of her tiny body.
“Yeah, when your guard is down, the magic really hits hard,” Sheena teased. She moved her foot forward and pressed her toe into Rosetta’s stomach, the curve of it perfectly following Rosetta’s body, her long aqua-painted nail just over her head. Rosetta held her breath, tilted her head to the side, anything to keep from the ever-present tang of sweat and skin. “You’re about as long as my big toe now, Rosie, but don’t forget--I’m tiny, too!”
Her foot shifted to the side, and Rosetta found herself between Sheena’s toes, the two car-sized digits closing around her and lifting her off the ground. She tried to push back at them, tried to spread them apart, but Sheena was just too huge now, too heavy, and the bigger mage easily plucked Rosetta from between her toes, beaming as she held her up to her face.
“So I guess that makes you just a little speck now, huh?” Sheena said, giggling. “The most gifted mage of her time, the prize student of Ms. Thea de la Rocha--reduced to naught but a cute, teeny-weeny, itty-bitty little speck of a witch!”
“Sheena, pl--” Rosetta began before she was suddenly thrust forward, right into an immense, full-body kiss from Sheena’s soft, gigantic lips. She squirmed and shoved, shrieking a little as Sheena pulled back with a loud, popping mwah. “SH-SHEENA YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”
With a giggle, Sheena plopped backwards onto her butt, shaking Rosetta’s entire body. She dropped her into her palm, holding her at arm’s length below her, looming with a steady confidence despite being naked and six inches tall. “I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me what my capables and incapables are, speck,” she said, a whisper that sounded like a whistling gust of wind. “You’ve lost your size, your vestments, your undervestments, your edge. In my estimation, the mighty Rosetta Christoff has lost this duel!”
Rosetta bit her lip, slumping back into Sheena’s palm and pulling her knees into her chest.
“Your silence is telling,” Sheena said, cackling. “Yes, quite telling indeed! With this concedence, your defeat is finally sealed, and you must at last offer admittance…”
She rared her other hand back, poking Rosetta’s knees with each phrase with her thick finger.
“...that Sheena Starr has outmagicked you, has outspelled you, has outsmarted y--”
“♫Ᵽ⸎⸙⸔Ꜳ!” Rosetta shouted, flailing her hands at Sheena’s probing finger.
“Rosetta, no, I don’t have the reversal spell!” Sheena screamed.
“Wait, what?” Rosetta yelled, just as Sheena’s hand dropped under her and let her fall gently to the floor. She landed softly, stomping towards Sheena as she quickly dwindled to the ground. The small grooves and cracks in the hardwood floor, previously unseen, were starting to become perilous pits and divots nearby.
“I-I didn’t think we’d get this far!” Sheena cried, dropping to just a shade under Rosetta’s height and settling there. As Rosetta approached, she motioned back to the sheet of paper in the distance, where the spell had been written. Bent and crumpled, it formed a tall bowl-shaped tower, each side seemingly high off the ground. “I-I had some of it written down, but I figured we’d help each other figure it out after we--”
“Come on,” Rosetta huffed, grabbing Sheena by the arm and dragging her across the floor. They passed her glasses--now a towering concave wall of glass held in black frames nearly as thick as Rosetta’s entire body was tall--and Rosetta shivered as she noticed in precise detail every minuscule scratch, the slight peeling of the thin protective cover suddenly looking like warping wallpaper. The bite marks she’d chewed into the earpieces--an old habit made worse by months of nervous studying--were now so deep that she could sit in them.
“How do you not figure out the reversal spell?” Rosetta huffed, dragging Sheena past her towering pile of clothes, trying not to notice the threads as thick as ropes on her skirt.
“I’m sorry!” Sheena said. “I-I thought one or the other of us would give up sooner!”
“And you had no plan if it didn’t happen? Which of us did you think was gonna give up? The experienced witch or the stubborn moron?”
“I’m sorry!” Sheena repeated.
“AUGH!” Rosetta screamed, her little voice almost instantly fading away in the vast attic. “Y-You have to cast spells carefully, Sheena, it’s a whole thing!”
“Hey, you’re the one who agreed to the duel!” Sheena snapped back, pulling herself away. “You should’ve known I was stupid and would do something stupid because--”
“Shhhh,” Rosetta hissed, putting her hand over Sheena’s mouth. They were at the piece of paper, and for the first time she became aware of just how bent it was--the bowed edges seemed as high to her as treetops. “W-We can’t get up there.”
“I’ll climb on your shoulders!” Sheena shouted and immediately set to work, nearly smothering Rosetta as she threw her arm over her shoulder, lifted her thigh over hers. “Grab my feet and pull me up!”
“It’s too high,” Rosetta said, shoving Sheena off. “There’s no way.” She stared down at her feet, shaking, hands balled into a fist. “If you hadn’t suggested this stupid duel, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”
Sheena huffed back, standing up and stomping her foot. “Oh, I grow weary of your attempt to pin my recklessness and unexperience on me!” she yelled. “I’ll see to it that you dwindle to--”
“♫Ᵽ⸎⸙⸔Ꜳ!” Rosetta screamed, flailing her arms in the air as Sheena began to shrink again, dwindling past Rosetta’s chest and hips in an instant. “There, that’ll give you lots of time to--”
“♫Ᵽ⸎⸙⸔Ꜳ!”
“NO!” Rosetta screamed. She moved to tackle Sheena, easily pinning the shrinking mage to the ground with one hand, but Rosetta was shrinking faster, and Sheena easily shoved her aside and onto the ground. She ran over quickly, dropping onto Rosetta’s stomach and sitting on her, pinning her down.
“You shan’t defeat me that easily!” Sheena shouted, laughing wildly. “You’ll… you’ll have to surrender now! You just have to!”
“NEVER, GOD DAMMIT!” Rosetta screamed back, clawing at Sheena’s thigh and biting down hard. The bigger mage screamed and jumped to her feet, rubbing the bite mark and--for the first time since the duel began--scowling. She stomped her foot, letting out a low growl as she charged towards Rosetta, ready to bowl her over.
“Girls? Sheena, Rosetta, are you in there?”
Sheena stumbled backward, falling onto her butt, while Rosetta turned to face the new voice. Across the room--over the now-insurmountable cracks between the floorboards that lined the floor--the door loomed as large as any mountain on Earth.
Then it clicked. Then it opened.
Spiked black heels clacked into the room, the arc of the foot forming an immense arch overhead. Long, loose-fitting black silk pants tracing legs that stretched for eternity. A tightly-buttoned blouse over a slender upper body, a large pentagram pendant dangling from her neck. And a small, round face, graying hair tied back in a bun, dark eyeshadow and liner immaculately in place even checking on her own “inventory room” in her own consignment shop.
“I’m closing up for lunch, darlings. Shall we try the new taco place? My treat.”
Every step seemed to clear miles. Every step made her seem larger, more imposing, more impossible.
“Girls? Come now, I saw you both go up here, no need for games.”
“Ms. Thea…” Rosetta squeaked. Her voice was all but gone, her vision utterly incapable of even taking in parts of Archmagus Thea de la Rocha’s blurry, immeasurable frame. When the Archmagus tapped her toe on the ground, it rumbled. Rosetta could sense the slight, imperceptible ways the wood warped at her touch, movement she could never hope to see at her full height. But the sound--the click of those heels that was audible throughout the store… it canceled everything around her.
“By all the gods…” Sheena said, and Rosetta whipped around, realizing that Sheena was still looming behind her, her white legs forming walls like huge dams that would appear impossible were it not for the fact that Sheena was also nothing more than a speck before Ms. de la Rocha.
“You!” Rosetta screamed, turning around and pointing upward. “Once again, this is your fault! You didn’t--”
CLACK.
The footstep must have echoed for an impossible amount of time when it landed, Ms. Thea’s heel landing just above the two mages’ heads. Rosetta covered her ears, waiting for the ringing to stop, waiting for the shaking to stop, waiting for the universe to stop moving and ringing, for sounds and sights to--
“Hmmm. Sheena’s writing, almost expertly copied… except the corrections.”
Rosetta looked up with a start. Ms. Thea was bending over, lowering from heaven to earth, her long slender fingers delicately lifting the crater-sized notebook page from the ground.
“Oh,” Ms. Thea said. Then a low, refined chuckle. “Oh, no no no no no.” She twirled her hand in the air and drew a huge magnifying glass from the air, her extradimensional storage space she had created as the area’s most powerful mage. Then she placed it against her eye, scanning the ground. “You’ll both be safer when I find you, darlings--if you’re about, you should come out of hiding!”
“Oh, god, this is embarrassing,” Rosetta hissed. “Listen, it’s been fun, but I’m gonna hide in the cracks between--”
“MS. THEA!” Sheena screamed, waving her arms over her head and standing up. She bounced up and down, not even budging the floorboards but rattling Rosetta’s ears with the thud of her heavy soles. “MS. THEA! WE’RE DOWN HERE!”
“Oh, no,” Rosetta muttered, covering her face, feeling heat rising to her face as the magnifying glass began to turn, as the towering Archmagus turned her gaze towards her own feet. “Sheena, please…”
“WE’RE DOWN HERE!” Sheena shouted. “BOTH OF US, IN FACT! ME AND ROSIE!” Rosetta felt the pinch of Sheena’s fingers on her sides, groaning slightly but totally unable to resist as she was plucked from the ground. If anything, Sheena was even bigger relatively this time than she was before; her thumb was almost as wide as Rosetta’s entire height, and she soon found herself lifted high above the ground. Less than a tenth of an inch, no doubt. She was a speck being held by a speck.
“Dammit,” Rosetta hissed, closing her eyes. “Please don’t see us, please don’t see us, please don’t see us…”
“Oh, there you are, lovelies.”
Rosetta forced herself to open her eyes, swearing under her breath in a sound she doubted microbes could hear. Who was she kidding? She was a microbe, and now a lens bigger than an entire observatory was needed to even catch the slightest glimpse of her. Hanging her head, she slumped in Sheena’s grip--just as the bigger student waved her back and forth, her limp limbs swinging along with the ride.
“§¤ʕϢϤ,” Ms. Thea said--a levitation spell, Rosetta recognized, one she’d cast herself before… one that could’ve come in handy to throw Sheena off if the duel hadn’t been limited to one spell. The difference between lifting off the ground and being weighed by gravity felt like little--she weighed next to nothing, after all--but soon she and Sheena were zipping upward, held smoothly in Ms. Thea’s magical grasp as she stood. Her finger, tracing their path upward, was colossal, every groove like a dangerous divot, her fingernail thicker than a concrete wall.
Holding the two out just in front of her face--hundreds of feet from Rosetta’s perspective but no doubt just a few inches--Ms. Thea beamed, a smile on her long, thin lips. She chanted a quick spell under her breath. “I did warn you ladies about tinkering with unfamiliar magicks,” she scolded lightly, her voice quiet and soothing. “But I value your curiosity, Miss Rosetta, even as things went awry.”
Rosetta’s eyes narrowed. What was she…
Then her eyes lit up. “Y-Yes, of course!” Rosetta said suddenly, nodding enthusiastically, glad to hear that Ms. Thea’s secret spell had made her voice significantly louder… but distressingly high-pitched. “Yeah, that’s what all of this was, Ms. Thea! Just… just some magical experimentation gone wrong. Trying to learn a new spell and, you know… poof!” She laughed quietly, looking down at her feet, breathing a sigh of relief.
“What the heck are you talking about, Rosie, the witches’ duel?”
“SHUSH!” Rosetta snapped, whipping around to face Sheena, who was grinning from ear to massive ear.
“You couldn’t be talking about the witches’ duel, right?” she chirped--just as squeaky but six times as loud. “You helped me finish the spell for the duel, remember? Here in the attic, the duel we’ve been having? The one where I was forcing you into submittiveness?”
“Sheena, no!” Rosetta hissed, whipping around back to their colossal teacher. “Ms. Thea, it’s not what you--”
“Yes, a WITCHES’ DUEL!” Sheena interrupted. “The fated confrontation between two celebrated rivals, the greatest students of Archmagus Thea de la Rocha! Two witches enter! Whom…” She giggled, blushing. “I mean, who shall be deemed worthy?”
“Oh, god…” Rosetta sighed, slumping her head.
“Witches’ duel…” Ms. Thea hissed, her eyes narrowing, each eyelash as wide as a tunnel to Rosetta. Her smile, far below them, faded into darkness. “Rosetta, that is flagrantly irresponsible of you! Engaging an inexperienced mage like Miss Sheena in a hostile duel environment is…” She grimaced, drawing a single out-of-place strand of hair as long and wide as a highway from out of her face. “...well, frankly, I’m disappointed and surprised. What if the reversal spell had failed?”
“Oh, we didn’t have a reversal spell!” Sheena laughed before Rosetta could get a word out. “I figured we’d work one out when the duel ended--which it would have, per our terminologies, only via surrender!”
Rosetta let herself go totally limp, looking up at Ms. Thea with pleading, desperate eyes. Could the Archmagus even see the look? Did it matter? She seemed to take a moment to take a slow, heavy breath, steadying herself, whispering some strange arcane language under her breath. Then she opened her eyes, an image of calm, but behind her even expression Rosetta could still feel the thunder of her rage.
“In that case, I’m ending this duel at once,” she said, carrying the floating specks with her as she crossed the room, the sheet of paper in her other hand. “Crafting a reversal spell will be trivial, but I shall nevertheless need to close up shop for the remainder of the day. And I intend to take my time--I do so loathe a working lunch, after all.”
Rosetta stared down at her feet, shaking her head as Ms. Thea crossed the room to her wide wooden desk. “Ms. Thea, I’m--”
But she dropped suddenly, quickly, thousands of feet at once before she landed gently as a feather on a vast, smooth surface, translucent pink and curved downward, Sheena landing with a heavy thud behind her. In the middle distance nearby, she watched as Ms. Thea drew the rest of her foot from her heel, laying it gently on the ground.
“I have a dinner to attend tonight,” Ms. Thea said from miles in the air, a scratching noise soon rising under her voice--her feather quill, of course. “Local chamber of commerce. Very important to keep up appearances in town, you see. I think I’d like to wear my sandals to the event, which means my toenails require attention.”
She tapped her toe on the ground, creating a rumble that knocked both mages over--and seemed to cause brushes to appear in their hands, brushes flecked with bright red paint.
“Of course, you’re both likely… insufficient for the task of managing ten toes, but one could work if you choose to cooperate. Your brushes won’t run out of paint--they’re enchanted--so you have everything you need for a perfect job. Even and flawless. At your size, I should expect expert precision…”
A dark chuckle echoed from above.
“...and I believe I should have the reversal spell completed just as you finish your task.”
With a grudging sigh, Rosetta looked out over the width of the toenail. It was Ms. Thea’s biggest toe, wide as the parking lot in an amusement park, and Sheena loomed just behind her. The bigger mage was already on all fours, dutifully painting… a splotchy, slipshod job.
“Sheena, could you please be careful with this?” Rosetta asked. Climbing to her feet, she scurried over to dab away the tiny spaces around the splotches Sheena was leaving behind. “I think she meant it when she asked for perfection.”
“That’s why we’re a perfect team!” Sheena laughed. She rose to her full tiny height, towering over Rosetta, hands on her hips. “Two fated rivals, fresh from their heated battle in the greatest witches’ duel of all time… suddenly driven to cooperation! How can they coexist? How can they give their strengths the leveragings that they so desperately need? Can the tiny speck Rosie Christoff--barely existing--truly bring perfection to the artistical strokes of her much, much bigger partner?”
Rosetta shook her head, rolled her eyes. Tried not to let Sheena see her chuckle as she painted. “Whatever you say, Sheena.”
They worked in silence for a moment, Sheena painting vast strokes, Rosetta filling in tiny gaps, scurrying to fill in wherever she left off, all while Ms. Thea quietly hummed to herself miles overhead.
“Heeeey, Rosie!” Sheena suddenly called--a squeal in the nearly silent room.
Rosetta looked up, disheveled, already exhausted. “Now what?”
With a wink, she brought her toe down from the sky, pinning Rosetta flat to the nail. “Told you it was I whom would be victorious.”
Rosetta grumbled, resting her chin on the ground. “Who,” she corrected.
Sheena cackled, leaping into the air and sending a splatter of red paint flying. “ME, that’s who!”