Part 3 of The Sizemancer Queen.
It didn't take long for Queen Louisa to reach the castle at her new size. A trip which had taken so long in one direction, now completed in a short stroll in the other. She bent over to inspect the tiny structure that barely reached her knees. She expected to see the tiny occupants of the castle cowering in fear of her in the courtyards but there appeared to be no one around - either she was too big to see them, or the castle was empty.
She pondered for a second, had they known she was coming and evacuated? No doubt they would have seen her approaching - how could they miss her? But with her large strides there was no way they could have gotten far in the time they had.
"Show yourselves!" she demanded.
She didn't need to shout or bellow, at her size she knew her voice would carry. To her satisfaction she saw the tiny shapes of what she assumed were the remaining guards and soldiers in the castle emerge from their hiding places. She got a thrill seeing how small they were in comparison to her, she could easily crush a dozen of them beneath a fingertip if she pleased. She noted there weren't as many here as she remembered, were they still in hiding or had something happened?
Louisa scanned the tiny figures below her. The Queen was certain she'd be able to pick out the figure of her usurper sister even if she was now smaller than an ant to her - but after some time it became apparent that she couldn't.
"Where is my sister?" she asked angrily, her slightly raised voice creating shock waves through the forests surrounding the castle.
"Here!" came the resounding reply from behind her.
The Sizemancer Queen turned and nearly toppled back onto the castle she was crouched over in surprise. Before her stood her sister, Milada. To Louisa's shock she was as massive as herself.
"How... how is this possible?" asked Louisa straightening back up from her inspection of the tiny castle to face her half-sister.
"Turns out I know you too well. I knew you'd go find that old Sizemancer, so I decided to fight fire with fire." Milada laughed before explaining, "I found a book with a size-changing spell deep in the Stormhold's archive."
"But you're not magical though." interjected the Queen, "You don't have enough power to change size to this degree surely?"
"You're right, I don't." her sister shrugged before a smile crossed her gigantic face, "But the court magician did."
Queen Louisa saw now what she faced. Her sister had access to the same sizemancy as herself and a source of magical potential from the court magician - she would need to be dealt with. Louisa had never needed to fight hand-to-hand before but at this size there wasn't much she could use as weaponry. She decided to get the drop on her sister and made a lunge for her without warning.
Milada had some experience with getting her hands dirty though and was able to fend of her sister's sudden attack, leading them both into a deadlock of trying to escape each other's grappling. Louisa quickly thought of a way out however - she could just outgrow her predicament.
As the Sizemancer Queen started to enlarge once more, her sister felt her efforts against her starting to weaken. In her panic she was finding it hard to recite the growth spell, she almost had it when her concentration was broken again by the shouts of a tiny voice.
"Your majesty! Your majesty!" came the tiny cries.
"What is it you fool?" she angrily whispered to the magician safely tucked in her cleavage.
"Your sister" he yelled up, "She's not wearing a protection spell!"
A devious smile crossed Milada's lips as she realised the implications.
Louisa was still growing, she was nearing double of Milada's size when she felt something strange. The direction of her size change flipped and she soon found herself back to being face-to-face with her sister.
"What did you do?" she snapped angrily.
Milada couldn't help but chuckle as her sister continued shrinking past her, "I just cut you down to size."
Louisa had already figured out her mistake. Her new size had made her feel untouchable - she hadn't seen the need for a protection spell. Now she'd be hit with a strong shrinking spell. Oh well, she could easily grow herself back - and then some. The Sizemancer Queen uttered the size altering spell with a massive modifier for strength - she was going to make her sister pay for trying to take her size.
But as the Queen finished her spell nothing happened. She tried it again to find she was still shrinking. Something was wrong, she couldn't access her magic.
"My... my magic!" screamed Louisa in panic looking up at the titan of her half-sister looking down at her.
"Oh dear, did someone have access to their magical potential cut off?" laughed Milada with mock pity.
Louisa finally felt the shrinking spell wearing off, she found she was now dwarfed by the castle she was bending over just moments ago. Above it stood the looming figure of her sister, now bending down to inspect her.
"Now, lets get a good look at you." Milada mocked, "Looks like you finally got yourself a body - shame its nothing still when compared to mine!"
Her sister's subsequent laughter nearly deafened Louisa. The Queen watched in terror as her usurping sister straightened back up to her full height above the castle to demonstrate her body and its size.
Fear filled almost all of Louisa's head, preventing her from taking her eyes off the horror above her. She felt like there was no way to win against her titan of a sister without her magical reserves - until she spotted something. Louisa noticed for the first time a tiny man hidden away in Milada's cleavage. It was no doubt the court magician feeding her the magical potential required to grow so much. He was also no doubt responsible for cutting her off from her magical reserves.
A plan formed in Louisa's mind, she could still win this... but first she had to get closer to her sister.
Meta: I wanted to continue making the sizemancer story and I had lots of cut outs of the two giantesses in it to hand so it should have been easy. Making the collages was, but finding the time to write the story turned out to be tougher than I thought - thankfully I've finally had the chance to sit down and write this chapter of it now.
I was going to add Louisa Khovanski in, cowering beneath the castle walls but it was difficult to find her in the right pose for it, so in the end I decided to make it seem like its her POV. I have collages for the rest of the story ready now, I just need to write it.
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