Yes. Definitely a house. A house built for giants. From the house side, the arch appears as a crack in the wall where it meets the floor. The room in front of her is some sort of store room or pantry.
Directly in front of the crack is a large sack of what seem to be dried beans. Each bean is big enough to cover her palm. The sack itself is almost twice as tall as she is.
The girl’s eyes are bright, curious, almost entranced at the scene. She’s already been through the whole State your name for the trial! thing, so she takes a deep breath and steps out with a smile. The entrance to the pantry is almost fifty yards (as she measures them) away.
The pantry door has quite a gap above the floor. She drops down and crawls through easily. On the other side is a kitchen. A woman in a dress hums as she stirs a pot on the stove.
The woman is a giant. If the girl were to stand next to her, she would only come halfway up to her knee. The woman is also a muskrat. Or at least that is the first impression of the girl from her vantage hiding behind a table leg along the wall. A muskrat with a rather flat nose, opposable thumbs and a reddish-purple calico dress over calf-length white bloomers.
The soup smells good. Every step the muskrat woman takes causes a small tremor. The girl makes her way stealthily from cover to cover, heading for an open door she’d spotted in the wall to the right.
###
Lydia is sitting at her little table in her room when she first sees it. A mouse, or so she thinks at first. Only it isn’t. Keeping calm, Lydia sits still and observes without making any motions other than turning the page of the book in front of her.
The mouse walks on two legs and is wearing pants, a shirt, and shoes. It appears to be furless except for long dark hair on its head. It has bright dark eyes. Perhaps it’s a sprite or a brownie? Lydia thinks. She keeps watching it as it wanders around, doing a very poor job of hiding.
Finally it comes to Lydia’s doll house. The big one which granddad made for her. The one that stands taller than her waist, has two stories, a full set of furnishings and opens up so she can play with her dolls inside. Lydia almost giggles then. The little house is the perfect size for the brownie.
The brownie looks around to see if she’s watching, then carefully opens the door and slips inside. Just then, Lydia’s mother calls her to supper.
###
The top cover is a bit dusty. That’s the first thing the girl thinks when she finds the bed. But when she takes it off, the other sheets and the mattress are just fine. She’s had a long day exploring and she needs some rest. She just wants to lie down for a while but you know how that goes. She’s asleep before she knows it.
She awakens to ravenous hunger. While it had been getting dark when she fell asleep, now there’s daylight streaming through the windows of the house she’s found. A doll house, she assumes. Throwing off the covers, she leaves the bedroom only to freeze in shock.
There, on the table in the dining room, is a tiny plate covered with what looked like steaming hot scrambled eggs. And a small glass of water. How strange. The back of her spine tingles as she slowly turns to face the front door. Peering in through the big front window is a giant eye.
She freezes in fear for a moment. When her brain recovers, she decides to make a bold front of it. Bowing deeply to the eye, she turns and sits down at the table, carefully picks up the miniature fork provided and begins to eat.
That is how Saki meets Lydia.
###
Lydia is of a species called the Gerfulz. She’s eight years old and goes to school every day for about six hours. During that time, Saki practices her magic and learns to read Lydia’s language. Also, it turns out that turning the pages of a gigantic book is pretty good exercise.
When Lydia comes home from school, she has a snack which she shares with Saki. She then plays with her dolls (including Saki) for a while before doing chores. Once chores are done, dinner time comes. Lydia eats, sneaks some food out for Saki, cleans up for bed and then spends about an hour with her school lessons.
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During that time, she also teaches Saki her language. Lydia enjoys acting out the part of a teacher. She assigns copious amounts of homework, all of which will be finished perfectly the next day. This is always rewarded with a fist-sized (to Saki) crumb of cake.
In this manner, the two become friends. They manage to hide Saki’s presence from Lydia’s parents for more than a month. Unfortunately, everything changes when they find out.
###
Actually, none of that changes. Saki was extremely surprised when Lydia’s parents take her presence in stride. She becomes something of the family mascot. She eats at the family table (actually at a small table set up for her on top of one end of the family table), helps around the house (using what little house magic she can do to be useful), and even goes out with Mama or Papa during the day while Lydia is at school. In this way, Saki learns a lot about Lydia’s culture and world.
Only one thing bothers her: there is talk of war.
###
Saki’s been living there for three months and is starting to seriously wonder what the Trial is supposed to be when the war finally comes. On that fateful night, she’s awakened by sirens screaming out in the darkness from all directions. Lydia’s bedroom door slams open and her father scoops her up before she’s even half awake. Saki quickly gets dressed and runs after them.
Too late, though there’s nothing she could have done anyway. Something big hits the roof of the house and there’s an explosion. The whole front of the house collapses with a horrible sound. Panicking and choking on dust, Saki makes her way around the rubble to the empty kitchen. To the back of the pantry and the crack between worlds. There she spends an anxious few hours crying in the stairwell.
It’s a long time before the sounds of war die down. Days at least, although Saki has no way to tell time. Gathering her courage, Saki finally returns. It’s a scene of utter devastation. Only one part of Lydia’s family’s house is still standing. Just that one little corner with the pantry.
Saki makes her way through the rubble to the street in front but finds no one. There are many bodies in the street, covered with a light dusting of sooty snow and already starting to smell of decay. Regular townspeople, local soldiers and some strangely dressed soldiers of a species she’s never seen before.
It takes her a whole day to find her family. Saki’s magic is powerful, but she can only do so much at a time. First she finds Mama, then Papa still holding Lydia in his arms. Their cold lifeless bodies are crushed and battered.
It takes her another day to dig graves in the backyard. Moving the bodies into them stretches her magic to its limits. She sets a stone at the head of each grave. She’d never learned Lydia’s parent’s names. Lydia. Mama. Papa. That’s what she engraves on the headstones.
###
In a brobdingnagian world, it’s difficult for the miniscule to make much progress. Fortunately, sound carries just as well here as elsewhere and Saki is able to track the sound of the troops going about their work. It takes her two days to get there, but she finds the army camp in the next valley over from the town.
She sets up an observation post and settles in. Every now and again, a patrol will pass through her area so she’s able to verify that the army camp she’s looking at is indeed the bivouac of the invaders which killed her friends.
Saki is a creature of cold logic. Most of the time.
But not this time. No. Not at all this time.
Saki is a believer in loyalty and friendship. Also in justice. As she walks back to the crack between worlds, she feels her resolve harden. She is no longer just sad about the senseless waste of lives, she is angry.
###
Crossing over the boundary into the cave of the Trials, Saki stalks over to climb the stairs. She enters the cave in a towering fury. Crossing the platform to the pedestal, she signs: Teach me!
“What would you have me teach you?”
Teach me the next level. The seals of true power.
“This is not a wise choice. You will not be the same person afterwards.”
Teach me!
“The seals of true power cannot be unlearned. There is no going back.”
Saki says nothing, merely picks up the wand and waits.
###
She returns on a cold rainy afternoon a week later. Her face is grim, her mouth set in a determined line. She moves to the road and makes her way up and out of the valley.
As she crests the ridgeline the next day, she sees them. The military camp now completely fills the floor of the valley, even extending up the hills on each side. She observes carefully, making sure once again that these are the invaders she came for.
The next step is not easy. Time after time, she has to beat down her anger. What she is planning will take preternaturally rigid self-control. When she’s finally sure of herself, she begins.
Her wand traces the lines and curves with incredible skill. Some of the massive construct of light shifts in and out of strange dimensions that mortals are not meant to know. With a final flourish she completes the Seal. She looks at it with satisfaction for a moment, traces the glowing lines and characters with a critical eye. At its center is a single Rune. One of the True Runes she’d learned in her first Trial. Created with the techniques she learned in the second Trial. Imbued with the power she has taken for herself in this third Trial.
Finally satisfied, she activates it with a snap of her fingers.
The gates of hell open up in front of her. Fire rains from the sky as the earth opens up and swallows the camp, the soldiers, their gear, every single trace of their existence.
The look on her face is hard and cruel. Her eyes are devoid of both passion and compassion. It’s true, she thinks as she dissolves in a flurry of white sparks. I will never be the same.