Yuuno Scrya

He was starting to think this was all a waste of time when he found something promising: a small door he'd never seen before, looking oddly out of place among all the bookshelves. Being familiar with Beatrice's ability to create new corridors out of nowhere and do other amazing things, he immediately thought the door must be her doing. He ran up to it, sliding a bit as he came to a stop, and grabbed the handle meaning to pull the door open immediately.
But as soon as his hand came in contact with it, it felt as if a bolt of electricity shot through his body. Powerful magic launched him backwards, and when he landed he was too stunned to notice anything except how much his head was spinning. It was a long couple minutes before he came back to his senses and could take stock of himself. His hand still hurt and he still felt a weird tingly sensation all over, but when he opened his eyes it was something else entirely that captured his attention.
Between his grabbing the doorknob and coming to again, it seemed like the whole world had changed. Not that he was in a different place or anything—so far as he could tell it was still the same library as before, in the same hall and with the same bookshelves—but everything was bigger now. Way bigger, like a thousand times at least. The ground was here and there littered with what seemed like boulders but were really just grains of sand, and in the air floated countless specks of dust that were only a little smaller than him.
The change was shocking, but Subaru barely had time to come to terms with it when the handle on that strange door turned and it swung open. Then he found her at last: Beatrice, the library's 400-year-old caretaker. She was as cute and dainty as ever, with that “serious” look on her face that made for such an adorable contrast with her appearance. And yet, in his eyes, she was the biggest, most powerful being to ever exist, a living mountain whose lovely pink shoes thundered against the ground with each step. A being so immense, and moving so quickly, that Subaru sat frozen in place as his mind tried to parse what he was seeing.
He was still petrified when she started walking towards him, and when the sole of her dainty shoe appeared in the sky, he only had time to scream and raise his hands before he was crushed.
His death came so quickly that Subaru had no time to feel pain, and he instantly awoke on the ground as though nothing had happened. Frantically he opened his eyes, and was horrified when he saw that he was still shrunk down to that pitiful size. For a moment he had hoped that Return by Death might have sent him back to before this terrible mistake occurred, but no. No, of course not; that would have been much too easy. It was his lot in life to suffer, and all he could do was accept that suffering and face it head-on.
With grim resolve he rose to his feet and looked to the door. Beatrice wasn't here yet, but he could already hear her footsteps approaching, albeit faintly. Thinking to before his death, he called up in his mind the image of her shoe coming down to crush him and tried to ascertain the shortest path to safety, then ran in that direction.
Before long, he heard the door open behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw Beatrice coming closer. His heart skipped a beat. Just the sight of her sparked terror inside him, and he forced himself to look away so that he wouldn't be thrown into a blind panic. Even so, he could still hear her coming closer, still feel the earth trembling with the might of her footsteps. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM they came, growing ever more powerful, until the earth shook so intensely that he could no longer stay afoot. He threw himself flat on the ground, hoping that way to avoid being crushed. But it was too late again. Her foot came down, and he was once again crushed.
His heart was still racing when he returned again, as was his breathing. He forced himself to calm down, and to start thinking more carefully about his situation. There was no point in throwing himself into whatever plan came to mind first if he didn't have any idea what to do afterwards. His death under Beatrice's foot was painless, so there was no downside to staying here until he worked something out.
Obviously the first thing to do was to avoid being crushed, but what came next was the big question. While it was possible that this curse was temporary and he'd grow back in a few minutes, it was also possible that he'd be stuck like this until someone grew him back.
Beatrice's magic had done this to him, so she could probably reverse it too. That meant enlisting her help had to be his first priority after escaping death. Even if she couldn't fix him, at least she could take care of him until someone did. But how was he supposed to do that? Beatrice was unspeakably huge, or rather, he was unspeakably tiny, and every time he saw her step into the library, every time he saw the sole of her shoe fill up the sky, it only drove home how great the distance between them both was. He was nothing but a dust mite at the feet of a goddess; how could he possibly get her to notice him when he was so insignificant?
For many, many loops, Subaru only lay on the floor, sinking deeper into despair with each repetition as Beatrice's sheer immensity was hammered into his mind by her world-shaking steps. The problem seemed utterly intractable to his mind; he thought he might make himself heard if he could only climb up to her ears, but how to start the climb was beyond him. Her dress didn't quite reach the floor so he could only start from her shoes, but if he was anywhere near them when they landed he'd be blown away by the impact.
In the end, he had to give up all his planning and trust that he would find some other answer once he made it out of this alive. As soon as he revived again, he jumped to his feet and started running in the direction of safety, sprinting as fast as he could. Again Beatrice opened the door soon afterwards, and again she walked towards him. Subaru felt a chill take hold of him when he felt her feet coming down behind him, wondering if perhaps there was no escape at all from this death loop and he would spend all eternity as a dust mite crushed under her shoe. He pushed himself to run harder than he ever had before, almost flying along the ground, anything at all to escape that awful fate. Then Beatrice's foot came down, and this time, he lived.
The impact was immense. A shockwave spread out over the earth as her foot thundered against it, and the little puff of wind from her step sent Subaru sky high. In the air he turned and tumbled, surrounded by the countless specks of dust whose idyllic flight Beatrice's appearance had disturbed. The whole world whizzed by so fast that he had no sense of where he was or where he was flying to.
It was a only few panicked seconds before he landed on something big and pink. He scrambled to get a grip on it, and quickly did so as the whole surface seemed to be made of rope-like cables. Then, with everything shaking, he looked to his right and saw a vast pillar of pink and purple swinging by hundreds of feet away. That's when he realized that he had landed on the threads of Beatrice's striped tights, somewhere on her shin, and that the cables he was clinging so fiercely to were the individual fibers that made up a single thread, with the thread itself being wider than he was tall.
Beatrice's other leg stopped swinging a fraction of a second later, and then this one swung forward as she took another step. Carried along with it, Subaru traversed thousands of feet in less than half a second, and felt the force of the giant foot's impact on the floor even from all the way up here. He held on securely despite the tremendous shock, but still the whole thing scared him. He felt like the wind might blow him away at any moment, and decided to go somewhere he'd be protected from it. Whenever Beatrice's leg wasn't moving, he carefully climbed towards a nearby gap between the pink threads, meaning to crawl through to the other side. But his grip on the fibers was weaker while he climbed, and just as he reached the opening, the impact of another step broke his hold on them. He fell down along her leg, his trajectory steered by the whims of the air currents, and eventually landed right above her shoe's topline, falling between the threads of her stocking to hit her skin beneath.
Subaru had no choice but to cling to her for safety, even as her own steps threatened to dislodge him again and send him still further down, where he might meet his end under her foot. He spent many minutes down there—hours, it felt like—while Beatrice kept walking. Subaru wondered if she was taking a full tour of the library, but in time she stopped and took a seat, finally putting an end to this trip.
Once she kicked off her shoes and left her feet resting on the floor, Subaru felt he could finally take a deep breath and let go of her skin. Exhausted after holding on so fiercely and for so long, he was content to lie on her foot and let the soreness drain from his muscles. He snuggled against her skin, letting the softness and warmth of her foot soothe his tired muscles. Thankfully she didn't move her feet much at the time, and he could so relax that he nearly fell asleep on her foot, but then there came a sudden jolt as her foot was lifted up.
Pinching the fabric of her tights down at her foot, she stretched it up and pulled it back, readjusting it all to deal with a bothersome bit of bunched-up fabric down on her sole, never suspecting as she dealt with it that the speck-sized Subaru was being sent rolling down the slope of her foot until he slipped down her toes and was wedged between the two massive walls of skin. Then, when she set her foot back down, her toes splayed a bit under the weight and Let Subaru fall from them, to land down on the fabric stretched under the arch of her toes.
In the dim light making it in through the threads, Subaru looked up and saw Beatrice's gigantic toes hanging overhead. Dainty little things they were in reality, but to him even the smallest of them was as big and impressive as any castle he'd ever seen. A single twitch, a single curl of her toes, might be enough to end his life. Indeed, just a moment later they all stretched and splayed, pulling at the criss-crossing threads on which he stood and nearly sending him falling between them, then came back down with a resounding THUD. All that was only a taste of the power they held.
Subaru knew he needed to get somewhere safe again, and quickly he ran to the sole of her foot, where he jumped onto her skin and started climbing up between her toes, helping himself to the tiniest imperfections of her skin as the perfect footholds. Climbing up the wrinkled wall, he silently begged her not to move her foot yet. But Beatrice couldn't listen. He hadn't even made it halfway up her toes when she curled them tight around him. Then the wrinkles of her skin folded up, and tiny Subaru was swallowed whole by one of the smallest. The pressure wasn't enough to crush him, but even when her toes relaxed her skin still didn't release him. He was sealed in there, entombed in an airtight crevice of her flesh, and surrounded on all sides by her divine presence. He pushed against her skin with all his might, trying to get some air, but couldn't create even a sliver of space for himself.
With his lungs aching, little by little he lost feeling and awareness until he blanked out completely. Then, just like that, he was back under Beatrice's toes again, trying to find another way out.
Going between her toes was out of the question now, and since he knew that she would curl her toes sooner or later, he also couldn't stay down here. Instead he walked along the threads to the toe of her stocking, running right past the tips of her toes, and from there climbed up the fibers until her toes curled behind him. He survived it, and when the mighty digits uncurled her second toe brushed over him and swept him along on its tip.
Though he knew that he'd have to reach her ears eventually, Subaru thought it was too dangerous to try scaling her at a time like this, especially from all the way down here. Better to wait until she was resting so he could simply walk across her body. Until then, he decided to crawl under her toenail and wait.
But her nails were finely trimmed, and there was hardly any space for him underneath. Still he squeezed himself in as best he could, but it was so tight in there that all it took was a little bit more pressure on her toes and instantly he found himself being crushed. Not the immediate crushing he'd found under her shoe this time—her toe was too soft for that. Instead his body was slowly and painfully ground down, his bones crushed and his limbs broken, until his skull gave in and his life left him.
He reappeared on the tip of her toe again, and immediately moved to climb over the giant nail and crawl further along her foot. Forget waiting in one place until it was “safe”—if there's anything he'd learned down here it was that he was never really safe at this size.
Each time he'd died, his save points had been incredibly generous, and while he didn't know what rules they operated on, he believed he could probably count on that generosity being the case so long as he was tiny. Better to make progress little by little and go back only a minute or two if he died, than to wait for the right time and end up dying before it came.
He crawled up her foot and out of her tights, then climbed up the fibers towards her knee, until he reached her lap nearly an hour later. Though he'd died a few times, his save points proved as generous as he'd expected, and he could keep making progress with only small adjustments to his journey.
Up on her thigh, he looked up and found that everything above her belly was blocked from view by a table. Together with the occasional sound of turning pages, he figured she must have been reading a book up there.
After taking a minute to recover, Subaru started running across to her waist, hoping to get there before any other setback happened. But he was still a minute away from her dress when Beatrice suddenly adjusted her position. The movement of her legs send him tumbling down the inner face of her thigh, and though he tried to grab ahold of the fibers, the persistent wobbling of her flesh while she tried to get more comfortable kept throwing him off. He tumbled head over heels and finally he ended up in the canyon between her thighs, wedged in her softness and warmth. He grabbed her tights again and started to pull himself out, making slow yet steady progress, until Beatrice crossed her legs and he was engulfed by her thighs.
The subtle friction of one leg against the other as she bobbed her foot up and down had Subaru sliding along between them too. Without realizing it she rolled him around like the tiniest piece of lint, effortlessly overpowering all his struggles to escape her.
The pressure was immense, but thanks to her softness, it was nowhere near enough to crush him, nor even to suffocate him usually, though reduced circulation did numb his body and dull is mind. Still, it wouldn't last too long. Only a few minutes later, Beatrice recrossed her legs the other way around, and this time Subaru wasn't caught between them. He breathed easily now, and prepared to start climbing up. Only, he couldn't. When he tried to move his limbs, he found them all bound by something. He looked aside and saw that they had all gotten tangled up in a mass of fibers. They must have ended up like that while he was being rolled all over her tights.
He tried for minutes to untangle himself, but the knots were so firm and complex that it proved impossible. Maybe if he died he could jump back to before this happened, but seeing how well he'd fared between her thighs, he didn't feel his life at risk. Ironically, being safely trapped in here was a bigger setback than even his death might be.
The only option open to him was to wait, to study the fibers, and maybe in time find a way to free himself from them. But that proved harder than he thought, and he hadn't made any progress on his bindings when Beatrice hopped out of her chair. When she started walking, he gave up on his efforts—it would do him no good to break free now if it meant falling off and losing all the progress he'd made, without even the assurance that Return by Death would bring him back up here. Besides, there wasn't much he could do while Beatrice was up and walking, her thighs brushing against him and each other with her every step.
At least it wasn't the worst place to be trapped, he told himself as he whiled the time away on her leg. He still tried to break free whenever she stopped for a while, and he made some small progress with his left arm, but nothing to write home about, and he was still all tied up by the time Beatrice entered her bedroom.
It was there that the youthful spirit began undressing, first slipping off shoe, then pulling down her tights and letting them slump onto the floor. Subaru fell along with them and, luckily for both, he ended up inside the pile of fabric. He saw nothing of her carefully removing her dress, hair ribbons, and tiny crown to change into a fresh outfit identical in appearance.
Beatrice sat at the foot of her bed, swinging her legs up and down with a thoughtful look on her face. For hours now, she had the nagging feeling that she had forgotten something, yet she still couldn't figure out what. Was it the books? No, she had put them all back in their proper place before leaving the library. It wasn't the cleaning either, since she had taken care of that this morning. And she'd locked the library door after leaving, so it couldn't be that either.
Door? Wait, that was it! The other door, the one she had created herself in the back of the library. She forgot to check if anyone had triggered the safety measures on it. Since it had never happened before, she simply forgot all about it.
Well, she probably wouldn't find anything, but it was worth making sure all the same. Beatrice closed her eyes, breathed in, and slowly exhaled. Focusing on the flow of mana, she tried to read the traces of her spell. When she found them, she gasped and opened her eyes. Someone had fallen for it after all. What's more, she could detect traces of the spell now, albeit faint ones—that must have been what was nagging at her all this time.
She focused on that trace, resolved to follow it wherever it lead, most likely back to the library. She was surprised when the trace turned out to be coming from inside this very room, from a spot on the floor.
Beatrice stood. She walked over to her discarded tights. Whoever had fallen for the trap was right down there.
Mana flowed into her eyes, enhancing her sight beyond any human limit. She looked down at the tights, scanning their surface for any signs of humanity. When she found none from this angle, she gripped the waistline by her toes and stretched it out on the floor. Still nothing. But when she flipped the thing over, her eyes instantly seized on the shrunken victim and widened in surprise.
Meanwhile, down below, Subaru had been listening keenly to her actions ever since she hopped off the bed gain, and waited to see what would happen. When she stopped right by the tights, he thought he would be killed somehow, and wondered if that might be better than being stuck here all night.
She didn't crush him, but he took another scare when she stretched out the tights, and again when she flipped them over. When he was left facing up, he looked straight ahead and found her eyes staring right back at him.
His breath caught in his throat. Was she really looking at him? No, it couldn't be. He was much too small for anyone to notice from that distance. It was impossible, he knew. But was it really?
He held on to hope even as he told himself how dumb he was being, and when he saw and heard her delicate lips whisper, “Subaru? Is that really you I suppose?”, he rejoiced with tears in his eyes. Finally, she had found him. Finally, he was saved. Beatrice would grow him back and this nightmare would be over. And with a sigh, he gave a silent prayer of thanks for this weight lifted off his soul.
“You little worm. I should have known it was you. And now I'll have to punish you for snooping around, I suppose.”
And just like that Subaru's hopes came crashing back down. The young man couldn't help but tremble as he met the hard gaze of her colorful eyes; whatever was coming next, he knew it wouldn't be good for him.
If only he hadn't touched that damn door.
With a flick of her finger, Beatrice's magic freed the speck-sized Subaru from the fibers of her striped tights and lifted him into the air, to float before her colorful eyes. “Alright, explain yourself. What were you doing trying to open that door? Were you spying on me I suppose?” Even at a whisper the spirit's voice thundered in Subaru's ears, and her breath as she spoke rushed over him like the winds of a hurricane. If not for her magic holding him in place, he would have been flying away with the countless other specks of dust now swirling in the air around him.
“Y-you want an explanation? Can you even hear me?” he wondered aloud.
“Of course I can hear you, I suppose! Did you really think I hadn't accounted for that already, or that my magic wouldn't allow me to hear even a tiny germ like you? Hmph! Go on, answer me I suppose!”
“Well, the truth is, I only went into the library looking for you. Since I hadn't seen you in days, I was getting worried. When I saw that door that I'd never seen before, I knew it had to be something you made, since you're so incredible at doing stuff like making new rooms out of thin air and stuff like that. I just wanted to go inside to check up on you, is all.”
Beatrice pouted. “A-as if I could believe a story like that! You're obviously lying and trying to flatter me so I won't punish you, I suppose! No way would you be so worried to go around looking for me. You were spying on me for some sick, twisted reason, just admit it!”
“No, I swear it's true! I really was worried about you, Beako! I thought something might be wrong and I wanted to help you if I could!”
“More lies! As if there's anything a bug like you could do to help me! You keep trying to get on my good side, I suppose. Well, it won't work on me! I've had enough of your lies. If you won't tell the truth, it's time you were punished.”
Subaru shut his eyes as Beatrice's hand stretched towards him. A moment later, he was flattened between a pair of warm, heavy objects that embraced his whole body with a crushing pressure. Beatrice didn't go easy on him, squeezing him between her fingers like she was trying to crush a bug, but she used her magic to protect him from the risk of death and injury and ensure she could safely handle him. Enhancing now her sense of touch with her magic, the centuries-old spirit rubbed her fingers together to feel the tiny Subaru rolled around between them.
Subaru was suffocating, unable to breathe from the pressure, and even with her protective magic he would have passed out if she hadn't released him just then. He coughed and gasped for air, and while he recovered he noticed everything shaking with Beatrice's condescending chuckles. Then he looked up and saw her rows of giant, glistening teeth exposed to him in a smug grin while further up her multicolored eyes peered down at him. He tried to stand but he was stuck to her skin, and his failure only made her more amused.
“What's wrong, speck? Can't even free yourself from my skin, I suppose? How weak. I'm not even using my magic to keep you there so you really don't have any excuse. You're so pathetic you can't even handle a little squeeze from my fingers I suppose. Without me you couldn't even hope to survive. Your life is in my hands, or on my fingertip I suppose. Normally I would crush a bug like you for being so annoying, but lucky for you I don't want to dirty myself with such a vile thing right now. If you apologize for lying and confess why you were really going in that door, I could spare your life, I suppose.”
“I wasn't lying; it's all true! I was going in to look for you in case you needed help! I mean, maybe I was also a bit curious to see what was inside, but I wouldn't even have gone in the library if I wasn't so worried about you!”
“Hmph. Subaru, you are not a good liar!”
“Eeehh?! That's because I'm not lying!”
“Enough!” Beatrice slammed her fingers together with enough force to leave him stunned. “If you won't tell the truth then your punishment continues I suppose. In fact, you earned a harder punishment for making me stay awake interrogating you when I was just about to sleep.” Sighing, she climbed on her bed, where she lay on her belly with her arm propping up her head. “It's amazing how you can manage to be such a pest even when you're this small I suppose. Now, how to punish you?”
With Subaru stuck fast to her finger she tapped it pensively on the side of her head, brainstorming possible punishments for him. She finally thought of one, and held him in front of her mouth again. There Subaru watched as her mouth opened into a vast, yawning cavern. “B-Beako? You're not really going to eat me, are you? Beako? Hey! Q-quit playing around and answer me already!” But Beatrice only moved him steadily towards her waiting mouth. Subaru fought to free himself from her skin, but he was as powerless as always against it, and could only watch as he was carried between her lips and her terrifying teeth, and finally pushed right into her soft pink tongue, whose taste buds scraped him off Beatrice's fingertip and left him floating in a pool of her saliva. “Beatrice!” he shouted from inside. “Enough, please! I'm sorry for trying to get in that door but I swear I didn't mean any harm. What do I need to do to make you believe me? Just give the word and I'll do it, I promise! ... Beatrice?”
Everything was still. He waited for an answer, thinking she must be mulling over his words, but in the end her mouth started to close, cutting off more and more light until her lips came together and left him in total darkness. Then Beatrice's tongue awakened and everything turned to chaos.
Beatrice tossed the tiny Subaru all around her mouth, treating him as she might treat a tiny morsel of food she meant to savor. With her tongue she could handle him as she pleased, mashing him against her soft cheeks or pressing him against her teeth, even submerging him in the pool of spit in the bottom of her mouth. She could feel him fighting against it, trying to cling to her taste buds so he would at least stay in one place, but always he was swept away with a motion, or else pinned to the roof of her mouth until he lost his strength and let go. Beatrice couldn't have wished for a better toy than he, and she amused herself to no end with his struggles until, out of curiosity, she decided to enhance her sense of taste. She immediately regretted it when she tasted nothing but dirt and sweat from him, and spat him out onto her hand. “Disgusting! Couldn't you have taken a bath before thinking to soil my mouth with that horrible taste, I suppose?”
Subaru groaned tried to sit up, but he lost the fight against the spit plastering him to her palm and released all his frustrations on Beatrice. “Why are you blaming me? I can't exactly take a bath when I'm this size, you know. Besides, I spent a bunch of time on your foot after shrinking down, so that's probably what you're tasting; if anything it's your fault I taste so bad!”
“You insect! Do you really think you're in any position to talk back to me? You must really want to be punished even more, I suppose!” Beatrice snapped her fingers and instantly a familiar sensation came over Subaru. His stomach sank and he watched in dread as the world around him expanded. The tiny pool of spit in which he lay grew to become a huge lake, and the wrinkles and ridges of Beatrice's skin, previously just big enough for him to lie between them, now grew to become mountains and valleys of incredible size, big enough to hold small villages. Beatrice's palm, already big enough before, was now a vast rolling landscape he could get lost in trying to traverse. And above, the spirit's face hovered in the sky, making him tremble as he tried to take in her immensity. Subaru thought himself small before? His previous size now seemed absolutely gigantic compared to the germ he now was.
With a little gesture, Beatrice dried the spit off her hand and left Subaru lying at the bottom of a deep valley, trembling in its shadow. She brought her finger over and put it down next to him, an apocalyptic earthquake taking the world upon its impact. When Subaru recovered from it and looked at her fingertip, he balked at its size. “Mountain” was too small a word to describe it.
“My, would you look at how small you are? Even with my magic my eyes can barely see you. But maybe it's not small enough, I suppose. Should I shrink you again, or have you learned your place already?”
Subaru almost had a heart attack. After losing his life so many times already, dying was nothing to him. But to be reduced to insignificance and spend the rest of his life like that, protected as he now was by Beatrice's magic, was a fate worse than death. “No! Please! This is small enough!”
“Smart decision. If you shrink again, I'll completely lose track of you and you'll end up lost on my body forever I suppose. Can you imagine how pathetic that would be? Of course, I could still do it if you make me upset again.”
“I won't! I promise!”
Beatrice snickered. “You say you promise, but you don't sound serious enough I suppose. Say it again, and this time make me believe that you accept my full authority over you.”
“I...” Subaru felt a frog in his throat. He knelt and lowered his head to the ground—to Beatrice's palm. “I fully submit to the Great Spirit of the library. I pledge to do whatever you say, without question or hesitation.”
“Hmph; that's good enough, I suppose. Alright, I won't shrink you, but you'll have to serve me for a few days before I grow you back.”
“Y-yes, of course!”
“You can start by calling me 'master' from now on. And kneel to me when I'm addressing you! A germ like you should cower in the presence of his master, I suppose!”
“Yes, master.” Subaru held back a groan as he knelt to her again.
“Good. And now, tell your master the truth about why you were snooping around in the library.”
Subaru panicked, and wondered if he should tell her the truth again or make up a like for her. She hadn't believed the truth any other times; if she didn't accept it this time either then she might shrink him again as punishment. But he didn't have enough time to come up with a convincing lie, certainly not in this state of mind. “Master, I already told you the truth, I swear it. I can't tell you anything I haven't said already.”
“You really expect me to believe you were only trying to go in the door because you care about me? If you really cared that much you wouldn't be so annoying! But if you insist it's the truth I can give you a chance to prove how much you care, I suppose.” Beatrice's magic lifted Subaru from her hand and sent him flying over her back and towards her feet. With her knees bent, they both were swinging in the air, and he rushed right towards her left foot, where he floated down between the threads at the very end to land right at the tip of her big toe. “You'll rub my foot until I tell you to stop, understand?” she said, wiggling her toes to command his attention.
Subaru held on tight to her as his world swung about. “Yes, master! But please, keep your foot still so I can work!”
“Trying to tell me what to do again I suppose? I'll do what I want so you just focus on doing your job.”
Sighing, and with Beatrice's toes still wiggling, Subaru let go of her skin with one hand and started rubbing her with it instead, putting as much care into it as he could given the circumstances. Beatrice, meanwhile, cast a spell of awareness over him, getting a good view of his labors though she wasn't even looking at him. How sad and pathetic he looked, struggling to even stay put on her toe. She wiggled it around even more and watched him cower in the depths of her toeprint.
She expected him to give up after just a few minutes, after which she would threaten to punish him. He would beg for mercy, and after giving him a big enough scare, she would grow him back and send him away so she could finally get some sleep. She never meant to keep him shrunk for too long, after all, nor did she ever really consider shrinking him again. But the minutes passed and Subaru still didn't stop working. Sure, he slowed down now and then when the motion became too much for him, and he couldn't exactly keep working when she curled her toes and he was engulfed in the wrinkles of her skin, but he worked whenever he could and never cried or complained. Honestly, Beatrice was starting to get upset at him. Why was he holding on for so long? Didn't he realize she wanted him gone? She started bouncing her foot even harder, and rubbing her toe against the sole of her other foot, but he refused to take the hint and kept working. Either he really wanted to avoid another punishment, or he was determined to prove that he was telling the truth after all.
Beatrice considered just telling him to stop and letting him go, but she felt it would make her look weak after everything she'd done. If there was one thing she wanted to accomplish by all this it was making Subaru show her more respect, and she would do it too, even if it meant letting him stay up all night working. She slowly stopped wiggling her toes so much and let her foot fall on the bed. Seeing that her foot had stopped moving, Subaru felt free to put more effort into rubbing it, and Beatrice realized it actually felt good. She curled her toes in delight, then let them lie still for good while she enjoyed Subaru's attention. Her toes still twitched a little, prodded into it by the diminutive hands pressing on her soft skin, but she didn't move them on purpose at least. Even that twitching decreased the more relaxed she got, and it practically stopped altogether when she fell asleep.
Even then, even in the darkness inside Beatrice's tights, Subaru still kept working as he had no clue that Beatrice had fallen asleep. He didn't know where he was going or how much of her toe he had covered, and wouldn't have known even if it weren't so dark. All he did was keep crawling along this valley, rubbing as much of her skin as he could reach, and hoping it would be enough for her.
But though he pushed himself to keep working, it wasn't long before he had started yawning. Not only was it very late, it was also surprisingly comfortable down there on Beatrice's toe. Her body warmth hanging in the air was a welcome blanket on what would otherwise have been a cool night, and even at this size her skin was very soft. Plus there was the subtle sound of her pulse coming from the ground and helping to soothe him. It was only a matter of time before he fell asleep all curled up on Beatrice's skin, letting her toeprint be his cradle tonight.
When, hours later, morning came and Beatrice yawned and stretched to greet the day, the thought of Subaru suddenly sprung to her mind right as she was curling her toes. She drowsily directed her awareness towards him, using the faint traces of her magic to pinpoint his exact location on her toe, and found him smothered in the folds of her skin. At once she splayed her toes and pulled him out of there, rolling over in bed so she could see him while he floated over her face. “So, all this time later and you still didn't even finish one of my toes. What a pathetic showing. But I can't expect any better from a germ, I suppose. Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I...” Subaru held back a yawn. “Master, I can finish the job, I only need more time. Leave me on your foot today, I'll rub as much of it as I can. I'll finish it, however long it takes.”
Beatrice was taken aback, but she agreed to give him more time and sent him back to her foot so he could keep working. She had expected him to give up this morning, but he hadn't uttered one single excuse. Nor did he complain or stop working when she stood, put her shoes on, and went to see to her duties around the library. With her magic keeping him on her foot as though by gravitational pull, he kept diligently working on her toes and her sole with hardly a moment of pause.
Beatrice didn't get it. How could he stand to keep rubbing her foot after all this time, especially now that it was getting all hot and stuffy inside her shoe? Even if she was only sweating a little, he must still be soaked with her sweat by now, she thought. Avoiding punishment, proving that he told the truth—none of that explained why he seemed so unbothered by it all.
Unless... Could it be that... He actually liked being on her feet? The thought alone made Beatrice blush. And thinking back on it, hadn't he said that he spent a lot of time on her foot yesterday? What exactly had he been doing there all that time?
She was upset and disgusted at first, but the reaction soon subsided. How could she stay mad when she herself enjoyed having him down there too? And besides, it just meant that he already knew his rightful place was cowering in the shadow of her feet and debasing himself to serve her every whim. It was the perfect outcome, all things considered, and Beatrice was more than happy to take advantage of it.
The matter now settled, at least in her mind, she started toying with Subaru again, squeezing her toes together to catch him while he walked on the side of her second toe,and tended assiduously to its surface. Though almost imperceptible, it brought her great pleasure to feel his pathetically tiny body dragged and rolled all over the surface of her toe, becoming intimate with every ridge and sweat pore that covered its surface. Sure he was probably enjoying it, but that didn't matter; all that mattered was that she was enjoying it too—or so she told herself, though she couldn't help blushing when she thought about how much he must be loving all this. Well, he had worked hard enough, so it was fine if she gave him a little reward.
She smothered him mercilessly in her flesh, reveled in the sensation of his pathetically puny body squirming between her toes. “How are you holding up down there, speck? I didn't hurt you too much I suppose,” she asked when she finally released him. “Since you're taking too long to finish, I've decided to change your task. Instead of rubbing my foot, you will lick it all over, down to every single wrinkle. I'll keep track of everything you've covered, so don't think you can skip out on anything. I'll grow you back only when you've finished.”
“But... but that will take me weeks! Months, maybe! You promised you'd grow me back after a few days! Beatrice? Master? Master!” Subaru shouted, but she didn't hear him at all. Beatrice had long since stopped keeping up her enhanced hearing spell, and now as she waited for him to start licking, she only wondered what was taking him so long. Growing exasperated with him, she forced him to stick out his tongue and lie down on her toe. It was trivially easy to manipulate his body as she pleased at that size, and she took advantage of that to make him drag his little tongue right over her skin.
The feeling was toe-curlingly delightful, and she smothered him between her toes once more, forcing him to lick her even then. “Keep going or I'll shrink you again I suppose,” she said once she released him, completely forgetting her promise to him in her lust for power. Subaru knew better than to disobey; he threw himself at her skin and started dragging himself all over it, exhaustively licking every spot of her toe he reached before moving on to the next.
For a long time Beatrice was content to enjoy the feeling of that tiny little tongue against her skin, and dominating Subaru with her toes at every chance she got. But eventually she got bored of keeping him like that. She wanted to achieve levels of superiority over that little speck that he couldn't even imagine yet. And for that purpose she took to working on a new spell of her own devising, practicing it on some random useless objects in the library, until just a couple hours later she had mastered it. By then Subaru was still working on the same exact toe, having covered no more than a single square millimeter. Beatrice smiled thinking that meager surface would soon become his whole world.
“So you've only finished this much so far I suppose? Pathetic. You need to be more motivated, I suppose, and I have just the thing to do it.” Beatrice cast her new spell on him, and instantly Subaru noticed himself start to slowly shrink. “The longer you take to finish, the smaller you'll shrink. You'd better hurry up, Subaru; remember, I'll only grow you back when you're done.”
Subaru knew from the first there was no way he would ever finish. Though the shrinking was slower than before, it was still fast enough that there was already more of Beatrice's foot to cover than there had been when he'd started licking, and it only kept growing around him with each passing second. He shouted at the top of his lungs, begging her to stop this madness, but the spirit was content to watch him dwindle away on her toe, shrinking smaller and smaller, though always remaining in her sight thanks to her magic.
Subaru had only one hope to get out of this mess: that in dying he would be sent back far enough to prevent this horrible nightmare from coming to pass. From the bottom of her toeprint he ran up along the titanic ridge at his side, managing despite his shrinking to reach the top after only half an hour. There he positioned himself somewhere he might be crushed when she took a step. And, sure enough, when her foot swung forward he was crushed between her toe and the massive fibers of her tights.
Yet the world he perceived when he returned was the same as the one he had left; the valley of Beatrice's toeprint, where he felt himself dwindling away.
It was over. This was his fate. He would live here forever, with Beatrice as his whole world. With his last hopes shattered, his life reduced to nothingness, he turned his whole being to the one thing that might give him some small bit of purpose: his new Goddess, Beatrice. He fell to his knees in worship and kissed and caressed her almighty toe, as he would do until the day he died.