//------------------------------// // I - Giants of Pink and Purple // Story: A Pinch of Vanilla // by B_25 //------------------------------// A Pinch of Vanilla B_25 & Vanilla Beam Vanilla Beam had walked and walked, from minutes to hours, across the same polished floor—sleek whiteness sprawling off into every conceivable direction. With a slump of his shoulders followed by a dejected laugh, he remarked how it was like an ice rink spanning the entirety of a sea. Only, what loomed around him wasn't a sea... despite its size. Rather the floor of the classroom—rather the classroom itself—had become his new world. On his sides rose the round, curved, metallic pillars spanning high into the sky: meeting into a ceiling of plastic.   The bottom of a chair, now, a structure of might. “It's okay... it's okay!” Vanilla leaned back until he was straight again. He puffed out his chest while his feet quickened below. “So what if you're utterly tiny? You have tons of friends willing to help you!” He quickly pressed the side of a hand against the edge of his lips, whispering, in a low voice: “Of course, if they don't first accidentally stomp on you. Or fail to see you. Hear you. Anything that involves them not noticing a white speck on the ground.” Vanilla quickly went back to slumping. That was until he felt it. Distant at first but still very much there with him now. Tremors shivering beneath his feet, one faint strike at a time—then two. The building intensity rising closer to the surface. Something, afar, quaking.   Fear struck him. The shivering beneath the ground now rose to the surface, vibrating his feet as the strikes coursed beneath contentiously. In the great distance, many vistas away, the loud, periodic quakes grew nearer, speeding in tempo, something massive stomping close to the door. The squeaking of the handle, that giant golden thing hovering up in the blurry sky, turning—the creaking of the door like a waterfall unleashed onto the floor. The thuds outright launched the tiny boy a foot into the air, causing him to yelp, scampering in circles as the quakes kept launching him, making him jet into the shadow beneath the monolithic desk above. “Please be someone friendly,” Vanilla whispered to himself upon reaching the top rightmost leg of the desk, hiding behind it like he would a tree. Slowly, he peered around it—just as something towering and pink swung from the frame of the door... hovering in the air. “P-Please be someone less friendly.” The boot came crashing down against the ground, the shock wave of which vibrated the ground, something which the girl might have felt for a split second—but to someone tiny, Vanilla felt every rumble of its quiver. Tightly, he hugged the leg of the desk.   “Are you sure this class will work for the project?” Another pair of shoes strode into the room, smacking the ground but not as hard. Polished and black, clean dress shoes. “It needs to be long enough to suit at least ten round tables. Not only that but ample space between them.” “Don't you sweat it, purple soul sister!” It was impossible to see anything beyond the knees of the distant girls, only having their soft voices boom louder than thunder—but somehow still soft and sweet to the ears. “Clean and clear this room and you have the perfect place for the tea exchange! Gonna need some work, though.” This is it. Vanilla peeled himself to the side of the leg, shaking his head upon draining his lungs of an exhale. Daring a step closer, he left the protective field of shadow, entering the world of gentle giants. If there's anyone who can help me, it's these two. They won't outright hurt me... so long as I can get their attention. But that proved to be anything but the case upon running toward the towering girls which the peak of their height was now impossible to see. He threw his hands up and waved at their monolithic faces higher than the sky, finding his loudest yell nothing in comparison to Pinkie's boot squeaking sideways against the ground. “Help! Down here!” His lungs burned as help loomed above, so much of them, their bodies able to save and to protect him. They were so vast, so close. Yet, no matter how hard he pressed his legs, feeling them ache while his lungs burned from his yelling—his best efforts were nothing to the giants as they continued to talk. “Please! Hear me! Just look down for a second! Please... please!” While the tiny boy begged for his life, to be saved from his miniature nightmare... the girls above continued their talk. Even though it mattered little in comparison to his life, that he was putting himself bare in running toward them... they kept talking about nothing.   “P-Please... please... help me...” Vanilla stopped running not even halfway across the floor, hunching forward while drinking in air. Weak, tiny, insignificant. He knew the girls weren't outright ignoring him. But while he was here begging for his life, and they simply continued to talk, like he wasn't there. “It hurts. P-Please, look down.” Which was precisely the thing he shouldn't have been doing. By the time he looked up, the distant, towering boots had turned toward him, squeaking louder than thunder as he was forced to cover his ears by its steep pitch. Slowly, one foot rose from the floor. It hovered in the air, drawing close, over and then down.   “N-No!” Vanilla turned to run, covering a few feet before the boot stomped into the field of ground behind him, a blast of wind shooting beneath its size and slamming against his back. It lifted him for a few feet before sending him rolling against the ground. “P-Please, just look down.” The great voice spoke from above, beyond the pink skirt that flounced like a frilly dome overhead. “See? Even with the desks, there's plenty of space to dance around! Just watch this.”  Vanilla wanted to cry at seeing the massive boot rise from the floor, its length and width of the bridge arching high into the sky, taking away most of the light away with its size. Only its shadow fell over him. Darkening, as it soon started to drop.   “O-Oh hay!” Vanilla turned as he dashed forward, leaning forth while his feet quickly caught up with his posture. Behind him, the land of shoe smashed against the ground, inches behind him, acres taken up within a second. Even its untied laces dropped against the floor, each smack a dull thud only his minuscule ears could hear.   All the things you're unaware of. Worst was the blast of air. That sweeping current of wind lifting his legs higher into the air, causing him to run faster. The light of the bulbs darkened as the foot raised again, this time, the rubber of its rim graced his back.   “Ack!” The breeze and impact both lifted him and dropped him a few ahead—another shadow flying over his fallen body. Crying, screaming and tucking tightly into himself, Vanilla shielded arms over his head and waited for the boot to descend. “P-Please don't step on me!” One foot danced over the other. Two monolithic things that sprawled into towering pink legs rounder and softer than any pillar to ever be conceived. The other boot fell right in front of him, giggles thundering from above as the air plucked him once more, pushing his body to roll back—right into the front of the first boot. He laid against it, the leather feel of it alien against his skin. Vanilla tilted the back of his head against it, bunching his blond hair against its surface, seeing how it curved up and back, a small hill that was the front of the shoe.   Slowly, it rose again as he fell underneath it. With it hovering in the air, his expression shrunk underneath its mass. Somewhere above, the booming voices continued, discussing nothing, while their ordinary acts threatened his life below.   Vanilla quickly rolled right, as many times as he could, feeling the ground tremble as the foot slammed against the floor once more—its wind shooting him right without any effort on his part. Quickly, however, he was on his feet, running zigzag on the ground, avoiding every rise and fall of the dancing girl, one who did so in place, unaware of the earthquakes she caused the little one.   “Pinkie! Calm it down!” the voice blew from the heavens as the other giant approached, the slim front of those distant black shoes quickly approaching. Vanilla skidded his feet against the ground, trying to stop, as his momentum carried him right to the approaching giantess. “Teachers are going to wonder why we're making a fuss in this room.” “You silly!” Pinkie thundered in laughter from above, causing the tiny boy to stumble back. He stood between both massive boot and sprawling shoes, the front of each blocking path either way. Arching his body back, he gazed above, to where the two shapes of the giants loomed high overhead, their shirts blurred by distance. They talked, unable to see the boy tucked in-between them. “That's not making a rumble. This is!” Be a trick of a mind or a side effect of suddenly shrinking, the pink giant drew a step back, her torso twisting, hands pulling a miniature cannon from behind her back. Bigger than any ship, it blew a blast of air exploding into a storm of raining confetti. Vanilla shivered as he watched. Those black shoes flying up while their broad back slipped forward, the pillars of long, purple legs falling backward in an incredible move of sheer massive—something so colossal, also intricate, flying so quickly despite its size.   Of course the rest of the body fell. The titan of incalculable height and of looming distance now collapsing miles away, the round mass of her skirt flouncing from the rising winds, her tight bottom crashing against the floor. Everything quaked; everything tiny then bounced into the air.  Vanilla eyes could hardly handle the sight as the rest of the giant came crashing down, from her rump slamming a crater into the ground while her sprawling legs then lazily fell, like a collapsing bridge, across the floor. He considered himself lucky, for Twilight had landed on her bottom, her shoes, now upright and like walls, pushing to only an inch from the small body.  He saw everything. Craning his head all the way back was required to see the dimmer black underside of the shoe. Of the dirt and pebbles wedged in the trenches that spanned up across its length. Each wider than his eyes could contain; deep enough for his body to be stuck inside. More than that, however, that if he really wanted too... he could climb those ridges like he would a wall. But something light, but long enough to drape over his body, landed on his shoulder. Vanilla glanced to his right to see pink confetti draped over both sides of his shoulder like an oversized scarf. Beyond paper-thin, and yet, weight to it.  Just how small and how weak had his body become? “Pinkie!” That voice. Vanilla put hands over his face, not only from the winds blowing that somehow blew from the distant, massive mouth—from that its sheer sound could now smack into him. Instincts told him that, instead of plugging his ears, the force was now such a threat that his hands would be better set in blocking the blow of the force. “Look at this mess! Someone is going to check up on us for sure!” Finally, however, Vanilla's body knew that blocking the inconsequential actions of a giant was pointless. Rather, he stumbled back with a pained groan and pressed his palms against his ears, shaking in place while the distant giant starting sitting up. Intense. Her sprawling form rising like a skyscraper building within seconds. Her natural form arched upward, the field of her shadow settling over him, the mass of her body blocking any light. The walls that were the underside of her shoes slid back into oblivion. Vanilla felt the biting impression he wouldn't be able to handle much more of this.  “We have a good reason to be here, silly!” “Not if we're messing around with all this confetti on the floor!” “Please! You worry too much.” Thuds boomed from behind, each stomp shaking the world sideways. Vanilla heard and felt them grow distant, each one still causing him to struggle on one leg, fighting to keep balanced as those booms then quickly returned. “Besides! If you get rid of the crime, then you can't get caught for it, right?” “That's... not how that works, Pinkie.” Silence for a moment. Were they really so worried about stuff like that rather than looking at the floor? One glance downward and they would see him. That speck against white that didn't look quite right. How could something so simple and easy be so hard for giants all so great? “At least, sort of. Don't push it.” That, or Vanilla was so much of nothing, not only to them, but to anything. D-Don't think like that! There's a-always hope if you're still breathing! Then it slammed down. Long, thick, brown strands harder than hay. Dirt covered their tips as they sprawled to the side like a wall. It was a dense forest of something, connecting into a platform of blue plastic above. From them, a slender but shooting pole beamed upward—right into the hazy pink hand holding it above.  Vanilla realized, with that ignited hope already burning out, that Pinkie had gotten a broom.  T-This world may be scary... but so long as I get their attention, then they can easily protect me from everything scary about this world, right? Vanilla could faintly feel something burning in the corner of his eyes while he turned, without a cause yet to run, but having endured enough to know to do so anyway. All I have to do is run toward Twilight's shoe and reach her sock. If she feels a poke there... Vanilla had been running toward her frozen feet, alright, as something colossal clattered in front of them. A black bin larger than a school, a platform from the ground that curved into a level inside the object. Light didn't shine within it, growing darker the longer his gaze delved into it—until only seeing darkness. By the time his feet hopped against the ground, each bounce trying to slow his speed, he had turned around on a foot, seeing, the moving wall of brown strands. Each of the thousands flicked against the ground, hurling toward him.  Left or right, ducking or hiding, none of those choices mattered... for escape was impossible.  They blew against him. The explosion of air throwing his body against the moving mass, particles of dust and dirt rising, causing his eyes to water and lungs to cough at the thick air of nasty. It quickly ended when the wall crashed into the black structure, flinging Vanilla's body into the bin, where he then rolled deeply inside.  He laid on his stomach within the darkness. Streaks of light shone outside the entrance of the dirty cave, a world where the pegs of desks loomed and filled the background. The massive broom kept striking and swiping the floor, not an inch safe from its way, harmless sweeping now threatening a different kind of world. As much as he hated to admit it, the tiny boy felt safer within the bin, despite the light foul smell and the film of dust and dirt that covered the floor. His hoodie created enough distance between him and it. Not only that, but the world within the dust bin, though long and big, was at least relative to his size—not impossibly massive like everything that loomed beyond it. That was until something picked up the bin, and the ground tilted downward, where he quickly plummeted. Above, the light of the distant bulbs shined into his prison, the black walls rising too high on all sides to possible escape. Just beyond the rim of the entrance, a giant pink hand holding its handle, connecting into an arm that the rest could not be seen over his current entrapment.  The boy, scared and exhausted, sat back against a wall, feeling his eyes close while light sways of his world—the girl swinging her hand while she walked merrily along—brought him to sleep. Nothing else he could do, and he was safe for now.  Or, at least, as safe as he could be all things considering.