It happened faster than Charity could brace for, yet it also seemed to unfold in a slow motion panic she would relive forever.
She had felt the change immediately: the familiar swing and sway of Alejandra’s powerful stride had stilled. Her tiny sanctuary within the backpack had shifted angles, then dipped sharply. The bag was being lowered, Charity could feel gravity reassert itself through the thick fabric around her, pressing her tiny frame deeper into the folds of the hoodie she’d made her burrow.
Muted creaks and the dull jingle of metal cut through the muffled silence: keys rattling against the zipper teeth, then the scrape and groan of an old, stubborn lock giving way. The door’s hinges groaned open in protest. A humid breath of outside air, street dust, exhaust, the sharp hint of autumn chill, washed over the hoodie’s enclosure for just a heartbeat before being replaced by warmth and the thick scent of a well lived home.
Charity heard it all from her dark burrow, the sigh Alejandra let out as she crossed the threshold. A low, rolling sound of deep relief that vibrated through the bag’s fabric, into Charity’s ribs. It was the sigh of someone home after miles walked, chores done, burdens carried, so normal, so human, and so mocking to the tiny creature hidden in her belongings.
She felt it then: the sudden tilt, the weightless second as Alejandra shrugged the bag off her shoulder and let it drop. The backpack thudded onto what must have been the worn cushion of an old sofa, the impact knocking a squeak of breath out of Charity. But there was no time to recover. She heard Alejandra’s voice, muttering rapid Spanish that Charity only half understood: a frustrated string of syllables that probably meant she was looking for something?
Then light, blinding, golden, ferocious, invaded her darkness as Alejandra’s searching hand plunged into the bag. Charity froze, squinting, feeling the slight pull as rough fingers pushed past the hoodie’s folds. The fabric around her twisted violently as Alejandra’s impatient rummaging disturbed the fragile pocket she’d hidden inside.
One powerful shake. Then another. To Alejandra, it was nothing, an annoyed flick of her wrist to free a tangled sleeve or dislodge whatever stubbornly hid what she was looking for. But to Charity, it was a thunderclap.
She shrieked as the hoodie heaved under her. She clawed at the weave, soft but immovable, slipping through her tiny fingers, as she tumbled head over feet, hair whipping her face. Her stomach lurched sickeningly as gravity seized her, tossing her helplessly through folds of fabric that twisted like a wave crashing inside a storm.
A final violent jolt, then emptiness. She was airborne.
A single heartbeat of weightless suspension, the world a spinning blur of harsh ceiling lights and the deep warm tan of Alejandra’s living room. Then impact: she hit something firm but warm, an unyielding surface that gave slightly under her tiny frame but did not break her fall. The landing slammed the wind from her lungs in a rough grunt. Before she could inhale, something heavy and cylindrical slammed into her back, pinning her momentarily to the warm surface.
The scent hit her next. Pungent, raw, unmistakable: weed. The fat, tightly rolled joint, longer than her entire torso, lay across her shoulders like a fallen log. She gagged on the potent smell, eyes watering from its sticky pungency. It reeked so intensely that for a dizzy second she feared she’d suffocate in Alejandra’s casual vice.
Then, thunder.
“¿Qué chingados?”
Alejandra’s voice fell like a god’s decree from above. To Charity’s tiny ears, it wasn’t merely loud. it was total. It filled every atom of the room, vibrating through her bones, pushing her skull inward. She flinched at the raw, rolling consonants, each syllable laced with shock, confusion, a rising tide of disbelief.
Charity’s lips parted to answer, to explain herself, to beg, but only a ragged, voiceless gasp escaped. Her chest spasmed, desperate for air that wouldn’t come. Tears sprang to her eyes, half from the impact, half from the weed’s acrid sting.
Her vision cleared enough to grasp the truth of where she lay: not on a floor, not on a table, but on the living, breathing thigh of Alejandra herself. Warmth radiated upward through the soft stretch fabric of Alejandra’s sweatpants, heat that felt immense to her reduced senses. She could feel the faint pulse of Alejandra’s powerful femoral artery beneath her cheek, a muted thunder of blood that reminded her just how fragile she was.
She forced her head up, neck trembling from the effort. From this lowly perch, the world above was a terrifying cathedral of flesh and fabric and living, moving shadow.
Alejandra’s torso rose like a cliff face, casual tank top straps clinging to olive skin, collarbones broad and strong. Higher still, above the rounded slope of her shoulder, Charity found Alejandra’s face: dark hair disheveled, one earbud dangling forgotten, lips parted in a soft, stunned o. Her wide, dark eyes locked onto Charity’s minuscule form. In that instant, the cleaner who once lowered her gaze out of deference was looking at her with total, unguarded disbelief, and, deep underneath, the faint tremor of dawning comprehension.
For Charity, the stare was suffocating. She had never been so truly seen, not as a girl, not as a bully, not as a queen bee, but as a thing so pitiful, so fragile, so small that it almost defied belief.
The silence between them rang louder than Alejandra’s startled curse. Charity’s mind spun, a riot of humiliating truths crashing down: She had hidden like vermin. She had clung to the scent of a girl she once dismissed as nothing. And now she lay sprawled across that same girl’s thigh, pinned under the careless weight of her half-used joint.
This is what you are now, Charity Stevens, her mind hissed. A bug on the leg of your maid.
She tried to speak. To apologize. To plead for help. But the words tangled behind her teeth, her voice failing, her chest still fighting for air. All she managed was a raw, squeaking whisper, pitiful, stifled, pathetic.
Alejandra blinked once, twice, her lashes flickering like shuttered windows, then her lips parted again. Not for a curse this time, but for something Charity couldn’t yet read in her massive, shadowed eyes.
And so they remained: one enormous, stunned girl frozen on her couch, a stunned, gasping Little sprawled helplessly on her thigh, two worlds colliding for the very first time, each realizing with a brutal finality that neither would ever be the same again.
There it is the meeting that we have all been waiting for.
Yes 26 episodes in the making
Hell yeah, physical contact lol
I wonder if her culture affects her views on littles.
That question is almost definitely answered in upcoming chapters
I know I have said this before but my experience with Latin woman is they are very loving and have a high maternal instinct that makes them amazing to be around. Always wanting to help people.
1) “It was the sigh of someone home after miles walked, chores done, burdens carried, so normal, so human, and so mocking to the tiny creature hidden in her belongings.” That’s a good sigh to make, and I’m sure mocking Charity was Al’s first priority doing it.
2) “She felt it then: the sudden tilt, the weightless second as Alejandra shrugged the bag off her shoulder and let it drop. The backpack thudded onto what must have been the worn cushion of an old sofa, the impact knocking a squeak of breath out of Charity” bag being dropped instead of placed, I should have made a bingo card of the potential dangers.
3) “It filled every atom of the room, vibrating through her bones, pushing her skull inward. She flinched at the raw, rolling consonants, each syllable laced with shock, confusion, a rising tide of disbelief.” so much for controlling first contact.
4) “not on a floor, not on a table, but on the living, breathing thigh of Alejandra herself” not a bad place to land.
5) “She had never been so truly seen, not as a girl, not as a bully, not as a queen bee, but as a thing so pitiful, so fragile, so small that it almost defied belief.” well it’s nice to be seen, especially for what she is now.
6) “Charity’s mind spun, a riot of humiliating truths crashing down: She had hidden like vermin. She had clung to the scent of a girl she once dismissed as nothing” couldn’t have happened to a better person.
7) “This is what you are now, Charity Stevens, her mind hissed. A bug on the leg of your maid.” Self-awareness is good.
8) “two worlds colliding for the very first time, each realising with a brutal finality that neither would ever be the same again” If Al’s world is forever changed too, does that mean she’ll be Charaty’s guardian?
1) Considering Charity is the labor driver i would say that’s probably a fair assessment to make. I feel like most people do that after a hard days work. So it felt appropriate. I thought about adding a flop onto the couch but I decided against it as it didn’t flow right with where the scene goes.
2) That was one of my favorite lines in this episode. I really liked the “Squeak of breath”. Placing didn’t quite hit right. As I thought about Alejandra having to take the bus trips, walk a bit, do her stop offs be they leisure or life errands. So i thought no she isn’t going to just set the bag down. Shes going to let that drop off of her.
3) I think we all could see that was not going to happen. Kelli can barely control things and she is the little in the best scenario to have control over any aspect of her life. Charity certainly wasn’t going to achieve kelli levels of success.
4) All things considered that is a good place to land. Far worse places to land that would be troubling for her.
5)I don’t think Kelli would agree with you on that one. She would probably ideally not want to be quite so dressed down. But your observation did give me a laugh. As it was like a sarcastic glass half full response.
6) Thats true, although I would probably grade Charity as above Cindy. As while I think charity was a bad person in a lot of ways. She probably didn’t deserve littlehood for her actions. While Cindy I feel like fully deserves being a little.
7) Especially when its so accurate.
8) It could mean a lot of things depending on what she does. In the most immediate term, she’s out of a job and may not get paid for her work, or if she does, it would be a drawn-out process. As it’s not like she has money set aside. Life changing has a lot of meanings.
1) It’s certainly what I do.
2) It was a good line, dropping the bag makes sense.
3) No, I don’t think many could achieve what Kelli has, (let’s be honest) stumbled into.
5) That was the point, looking on the Brightside, but making it mean. (I’d also never describe Kelli in such a way, or agree with her calling herself that, but Charity’s different)
6) I agree, Cindy is more deserving than Charity since she actively worked against Littles’ rights, but we do know Charity laughed at Littles’ rights too. Plus, I’ve not forgotten how reckless she’s been with Little life, knocking Jordan off Sara’s shoulder in 395 was her worst action we see in my opinion.
8) Al is unemployed now, I actually hadn’t thought about that particular angle.
Hey I read the comments on my idea that a tiny fall into the hands of his little sister or something like that and that it is not possible because a guardian has to be at least 12 years old etc. what if this story happens before there were any rules what if the unlucky guy was the first ever human who caught the smallara virus a patient zero story of a man who once was 6.2 feet, very confident, well trained, very successful with woman just a picture of a man if you want so and becomes now a 1 inch tall dolly for 7 year old Angela who took him home with her because she thinks he´s just a talking dolly because humans are not known to be that tiny… and so the magic happens =)
littles & most dolly’s don’t get that little lol. I am thinking you mean 6 inch’s.
no 😀 i mean jordan is also only 3 inches … why not becoming even tinier =) so everything would become more threating and humiliating to the little
for me it makes the story less fun for a sci fi story. I like the smallara frame work because it does have some little attachments to real science here and there lol. Everyone is into there own thing and I respect that but I’m into physically engaging stuff and under 3 inch’s is just bug stuff which is not my thing. The great thing about the internet is there might be a story place with the stuff you like in it. So from a star wars geek since it was released when I was in 2nd grade, good luck bud:)
The issue with going smaller then 3 inches tall and for the record Jordan is smaller than most male littles. But getting back to my point. The reason they are the size they are as the main thrust of Smallera is in the fact they are human like but smaller.
The strife and debate of rights and equality. The societal and social norms of having smaller species of humans. I tried to mimic the size of dolls as it allows for a degree of independence. They are large enough to be seen but small enough to be have some level of persecution against them.
Its harder to tell a story like that with a 7 year old. Its also harder to tell that story with a 1inch (4cm) tall person. Not that it can’t be done. But I just don’t personally have a story to tell around that idea. However, if you wanted to write a fanfic around the idea you are certainly welcome to.
My production calendar is pretty booked. The charity stevens story arc for season 1 is 101 chapters in totality. I have a story I’m working on after that, then I have Madison’s world slated following that story. Following Madison’s world, it will probably be a Good Girlfriend story arc, but it could be a new tale in a smallara universe as well.
oh no you got me all wrong 😀 i just want to point out that this would be a solution to go around the “rules” made by the government … was just an idea, nothing less nothing more =)
I will say having raised a daughter that young kids tend to use the I’m bigger so you have to do what I say rules so the idea of a parent or older sibling being a little and having to try to deal with 4 to 7 year old daughter or younger sister would be interesting to see how they can navigate that road when I am guessing there is a parent or older sibling as a guardian letting the interaction play out while nearby to encourage as much family time as possible and finding the interaction funny to watch and being good family memories for someone.
I hope you can get Madison to bond to Cindy to mellow her out and make Madison completely go away from her teaching and make her Learn the girls nicer little treatment.