(HQ) The Dragon in the Shadow 1 (Patreon)

Re rendered at higher resolution.

This is a continuation of In the Shadow of the Dragon 2 and somewhat Friends in Small Places

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Iris knew her situation was helpless but nonetheless she just kept running forward trying to escape the bottom of Hilbert's shoe. She panicked at the thought of becoming a meaningless dot on the bottom of a shoe, maybe it was this panic which caused her to start shrinking again to about a tenth of her current size in less than 5 seconds. 'This couldn't get any worse!' Iris thought to herself. But the shrinking curse at this point turned out to be a bit of a blessing as she became so small that when Hilbert's shoe touched the ground she fit right between the shoe's grooves unharmed.

Meanwhile Dawn had decided to go investigate the thing she thought she had seen near Hilbert's shoe. She decided to call someone to tell them that she was going to be walking around to make sure they didn't accidentally step on her. Afterall Dawn herself was only about 5cm big. She called Hilda, Rosa was too clumsy and Roxie got weird when she was around someone smaller than her. Dawn headed towards where Hilbert had been standing and looked around. But she couldn't see anything. The thing Dawn had seen looked around 2cm big so it shouldn't be too far below. Of course it could've just been a bug pokémon but the group of trainers had come here looking for a shrinking giant, she couldn't ignore a coincidence. She noticed a faint sound below...

Iris pathetically crawled out from underneath Hilbert's relatively ginormous shoe covered in dirt. Her eyes started to swell with tears at the thought of having to live the rest of her life like this. She had been a dragon master prodigy at such a young age, she could've been a legend but she got greedy and messed with forbidden magic, why couldn't she have been grateful of her life at the time? She started to accept her new position when suddenly a girl appeared in front of her, but something was different, she was tiny! Well, not tiny to Iris, the girl was still about 20 times her size, but this girl could be able to see her! Maybe the girl would even be able to hear her? And to top it off, Iris recognized her, it was Dawn! Iris called out Dawn; 'Hey! Down here!' Dawn seemed to react to her voice! But the second she shouted she shrank another centimetre. 'No! How can I still be shrinking?!' Iris thought. She desperately started waving her arms and running towards Dawn, with each step she shrunk more.

Dawn turned towards where she had heard the sound. For a moment she thought she saw something at Hilbert's feet, but it was hard to tell with all the giant grass blades in the way. Dawn walked towards the sound coming from the miniscule Iris but when she reached the source she still couldn't see anything and the sound had stopped. Tears ran down the face of Iris, now less than half a millimetre big as she looked up at the confused Dawn from next her boots. But she couldn't give up, she took a deep painful breath and screamed as loud as she could before shrinking once more. Dawn could barely make out the scream and her eyes were drawn to the source. It took her eyes a second to focus but she could make out something on the ground next to her boot, but she couldn't tell what it was. She carefully went to pick it up with just two fingers. Despite Dawn's delicacy, Iris definitely felt a bone or two crack as Dawn picked her up, but she didn't care, she cried with happiness, Dawn had seen her she was saved!

Dawn placed Iris on the tip of her finger and tried to make out what it was. Was it a person? It had such a strange shape that it surely couldn't be hair, she thought. Iris had relaxed for a moment but looking at Dawn's distant unsympathetic eyes she knew something was wrong. 'B- but she's looking directly at me, how can she not see me?!' Iris said out loud. Iris stood up, but her gaze didn't rise, she was shrinking again! 'No! Dawn, please, you have to help me!' Iris started waving and screaming desperately.

Dawn squinted and moved her finger closer to her face 'What is that? It looks kinda lik-' Her thought was cut off as Hilbert called out from above

'Did you find something Dawn?' Dawn merely glanced up for a moment, but that was enough, Iris shrank rapidly into Dawn's finger, she was far past being visible to a normal human now. Dawn looked back down. 'What? Where did it go?' she thought to herself squinting at her finger. All Iris could see for miles was Dawn, while Dawn herself saw, nothing and at this point Iris might as well have been nothing.

'If it had been a person it wouldn't have run away surely, besides nothing could survive at that size surely.' The blue haired girl wondered.

Dawn called out to Hilbert 'Nah I think it was just a pebblet'. Dawn dropped her arms to her side...

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