She has their whole world in her hands...

Always amazing art by  kerneldecoy

Story this snippet hails from: Savor The Day

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“Payment will be tendered upon delivery. No sooner.”

Arms tucked against her chest, and boots kicked up on the table before her, Kovania glowered at the tiny bird perched upon her inn room’s windowsill. The drab and claustrophobic lodging, plaster peeling from its slanted walls, spoke volumes to the proprietor’s utter lack of concern about their guest’s experience. Much less where their ill-gotten gold came from.

Wings bunched against its blackened body, with beads of tar dripping from its shadowy feathers, the summoned sparrow’s milky white eyes regarded the hyena with cold indifference.

Sinking a snaggle tooth into her lip, Kovania irritably thrummed her fingers against her forearms. “That’s not what we agreed upon.”

The bird’s dead and beady eyes, shining through its wavering form like fog lights, flattened into half-circles. “Do you well and truly believe it wise to risk leaving your latest ‘package’ in the hands of my familiar?” With a swish of its wing the irritated avian gestured at the nondescript bottle planted before the hyena’s heels.

Kovania ran a hand through her wild bangs of hair before she took to scratching at her neck. “Never was a problem for you before.”

“Never have I asked you to steal something so… sensitive,” retorted the blob of a bird. “Were we to be intercepted it would be the end of both of us. It has been but a matter of hours and already its absence can be felt. Already those Guild jackals bite at our heels. Are you still so willing to entrust its transport to yours truly? To my defenseless go-between?“

“Hmph.” Sliding her legs off of the podunk table, the hyena let her gloved hands come to rest against her knees. With a grunt she rose to a stand and pinched the bottle betwixt her padded digits. Thumb pressed against its smooth glass bottom and index finger papped atop its cork cap she couldn’t help but flash a grin at the sight of its contents. Its captives. “S’pose not,” Kovania acknowledged. “Still doesn’t change the fact that it’s my neck on the line here.”

The sparrow visibly deflated with a disgusted sigh. “For which you are being generously compensated.” Bitter chirps tumbled out from its beak as it kneaded at its feathery forehead. “I have strived, at length, to blur the degrees of separation between us. Yet should you, or our quarry, be captured then all that effort will amount to nothing. After all, there’s only so many sorcerers capable of… well…”

Brow cocked, Kovania curiously regarded the miniature terrarium. Wispy beads of moisture, clouds no thicker than a tugged apart tuft of cotton, swirled about the neck of the bottle. Towards the bottom of the glass container pebble-thick layers of bedrock, soil, and grass served as a foundation for the shrunken civilization tucked away inside.

“Just how much danger did you place me in again?” she brusquely asked. Lips scrunched, the hyena squinted incredulously at the occupants inside. At their windmills, cottages, and flowering fields of wheat and barley that could comfortably fit into the wrinkles of a padded fingertip.

“None,” the familiar replied matter of factly. “I asked you to vet out a hypothesis. Nothing more. When it, to my delight, bore out it was then and only then I amended our contract to include a dash of… larceny.”

Kovania’s sky filling visage beamed down at the barely visible furs. Her eyes strained simply trying to take them in. “That hypothesis being?”

The feathery familiar’s mood lightened as it brought a wing up to its beak and politely cleared its throat. “That giants are, in fact, creatures of magic! That their size and strength directly correlates to how much ether, mana, or whatever you deign to call it they possess. Should they be deprived and drained of such then their stature will compensate accordingly. Truth be told I would have thought there to be a hard limit, some baseline to which they bottom out at, but I am delighted to have been proven wrong!”

With great care, Kovania gently set the bottle back down upon the table before her. Strange as the job offer was, sneaking something into as opposed to out of a village, a village of giants no less, the thief could hardly afford to turn down such a lucrative opportunity. “So then that rune you had me reverse pickpocket into their coffers…”

“Would have had no effect on you seeing as how you are not a creature of magic.”

Folds of fur bunched up against the undersides of the hyena’s eyes while her gaze swiveled warily towards the plundered people. All of a fortnight ago they scraped against the very sky. Now? She had an easier time picking out stray hairs than she did these former colossi. “How considerate,” she grimaced.

“That said…” the sparrow hummed as it stroked at its ever shifting chin. “Curious as I am to ascertain how far gone I could push a giant in the other direction I would rigorously advise against finding out. Provided this pans out I will have to research just what limits, if any, there are to the amount of mana that can be extracted from and in turn poured into them.”

The hyena shuddered at the thought of what would happen should magic, in any quantity, be introduced to them in transit. “Duly noted,” she whistled under her breath. Still though… much and more remained unanswered. “The land itself?” Kovania asked as she paced up to the window. “Their very homes even?”

“This concerns you how?” cooed the familiar crafted from dredges of darkness.

“You’re asking me to handle things that are, quite clearly, beyond my understanding,” growled the thief as she slammed her hands down beside the bird. Upon being tasked to return to the scene of her latest and greatest heist(?) to date Kovania had not expected to be greeted by the sight of a vast crater. Nor the shrunken commune having contracted to nearly nothing at its center.

"Details details..." the sparrow dismissively squawked.