As Nadia and Grandis wait for Jean to awaken from his vegetative state brought on from stress to both the body and mind, the two girls talked.
“So you grew up in the circus?” Grandis said, having a hard time believing that someone could spend their entire life as an acrobat.
“Well, I wasn’t an acrobat when I was one. I just hanged around, talked with the clowns and acrobats, honing my skills so I had perfect balance and stamina.” Nadia smiled as she remembered her early years in the circus, she was just a tot and everyone loved her. She would help sell peanuts during the show and would use her cuteness to guilt people into buying the stale nuts. It was hard for anyone to say no to a three year old with puppy eyes. Years went by and she started to train as an acrobat and before her tenth birthday, she was up on the top rope, doing handstands on a unicycle. It wasn’t until recently that she started to wonder if there was something more to life then the circus. She thought it could have been family or love, well now she had one of the two and hopefully she’d have the other soon. Jean really was a Godsend; he treated her with such love and adoration, that any girl would be smitten by the bowtie-wearing inventor’s charm. He had an honest smile and a good sense of humor, two things that the other women at the circus said all their men lacked. He had risked life and limb for her went he went into Grandis’s stomach, proving that he wasn’t just words. Truly, Nadia felt lucky to have Jean.
“Hey, you still in there?” Nadia shook her head to rid herself of the daydream and returned her attention on Grandis.
“Sorry what?” Nadia said. She had missed everything that Grandis had to say and was terribly lost in the conversation.
“I asked how long have you known Jean for?”
“I met him about ten minutes before I met you.” Grandis’s eyes bulged at the information and she didn’t know what to say. Her voice returned to her soon and whispered in a perplexed voice what she thought.
“How can two people fall in love in such a short amount of time.” The dedication and heart that Nadia had shown to Jean was something powerful and awe-inspiring, but to find out that the connection was made not a few hours ago was beyond belief. The trust that had been made between those two seemed to be stronger then steel, to think that last night these two lovers didn’t even know each others name was hard to believe.
“Well Jean came to me, saying that he thought I was beautiful and I just fell in love when I saw the little guy standing there. He had this adorable look on his face and this bug toothy smile that made him look like such a cutie. It wasn’t until we really got to know each other through the accidental swallowing…”
“How do you accidentally swallow another person?” Grandis interrupted with her question. She had forgotten that she had accidentally swallowed the Blue Water a little while ago, so it wasn’t that hard to deem it impossible to swallow a person.
“Actually, that was your fault,” Nadia pointed out with a grim smile.
“My fault?”
“When you grabbed me in the circus, I was hiding Jean in my mouth. Your pull flung him down my throat. I got quite the scare when that happened. I thought that Jean was going to be digested; it was later that I learned that my Jean was indigestible. It was from that scare that I really understood how much that boy meant to me, with out him, I doubt I could of gone on.” Nadia frowned as she remembered the fear and terror she felt when she thought Jean was gone, but a bright smile pushed that frown away when she remembered that he was sleeping in her palm right now.
“I guess you have to thank me for bringing you two together. I’m a regular cupid aren’t I,” Grandis said with out a hint of modesty.
“Are you saying that I should thank you for attacking me and putting Jean in my stomach?” Nadia was having trouble believing the gull of this woman.
“Yep.”
“Oh, well thanks…I guess,” said Nadia a little unsure of herself. It was at this moment that Jean started to stir. Both girls looked down at the shrunken man with mixed reactions. For Nadia, she was filled with excitement that Jean was back and that everything would turn out fine. She would give her courageous friend a big kiss if he wasn’t covered in undigested food, mucus, Saliva and bile. Grandis was a little bit worried about the boys return, she had found a friend in Nadia and didn’t want her past animosity towards Jean to sour their relationship. Jean blinked several times at the sight before him; two blurry faces were looking down at him like towering mountains. He quickly remembered that he had shrunk himself and been eaten by Grandis, so why wasn’t he wading through mushy steak in Grandis’s stomach? His vision started to return and a goofy grin came on when he saw his beloved Nadia, then he saw Grandis and had what was a natural reaction to being faced with such a person.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” His lungs burned from the cry and even at his size, Grandis and Nadia’s ears hurt from the loud cry. Nadia quickly tried to calm down Jean.
“Jean it’s okay, she isn’t going to hurt you.” Even in his state of panic, Nadia’s soothing voice calmed him down and he looked around uncertain to what was going on. Grandis, the cruel hag that had been tormenting him and Nadia all day, nearly killed Nadia with her plane and had just put him through hell was standing unbound in front of him with a nervous smile. What in the blue hell was going on here?