The sneasel would shift a bit in her spot, a yawn coming from her as she started to rouse from her slumber. Another day to her, yet it usually meant she wound up in a different area, more likely than not a different universe larger than the one she had outgrown. Rubbing her eyes with the fur of her hand-claws, she hefted herself up into a sitting position, feeling the weight of the amulet pulling on her shoulders slightly, looking down at the jewelry that hung around her, smirking a bit as she adjusted it slightly to make sure it wouldn't slip off of her.

After the usual routine of waking herself up – one that usually involves a home but was exempt in the sneasel's case – Serice would try to familiarize herself to newer environment she was in. Clean from what she could see so far, the surface she was on being some form of cloth, roughly the size of one of the buttons on it since it was close enough. Moving around the area a bit, each step sinking into the cottony material, the surroundings would also show some form of table that the cloth rested on, the edge of it rather close to the sneasels spot, which easily shown a drop that would be dizzying for most others of her current stature.

“Hmm…some kind of lab…” Serice muttered under her breath as she stepped away from the edge of the table, hopping off of the cloth she was on and onto the table proper, continuing to look around while having her growth, continuous as it may be, slow down rather significantly.

The table itself would have several items resting on it, the usual when it comes to those of the more scientifically inclined; Beaker stands, microscopes, clipboards with papers that had difficult-to-translate writings on them. None of them really interested the sneasel, though she couldn't help but explore the area while she still could, moving under the elevated microscope to sate her curiosity of the area. Other than a form of coin being in the area, not much other than the bit of dust, Serice making her way back out to continue roaming about.

Her curiosity to roam around ended up making her not pay that much attention to what else was going on past the table, not seeing some form of figure entering the area, far larger than her currently. Said figure noticed the tiny speck that was going about the surface of the table, blinking a bit before reaching to a drawer of a different piece of lab equipment. They didn't have to search for what they were looking for too long, bringing out a small pair of tongs, the ends of either arm having a head of cotton for handling fragile items.

Serice was too busy trying to decipher some of the writings on a clipboard to even notice, letting out a yelp when a pair of cottony surfaces clamped around either side of her, unwittingly tripling her size in response to the event, struggling to escape the objects that bound her. The immobilization from the clamp wouldn't last too long as she was released, dropping a short distance onto a different surface, thankfully as soft as the ones that previously held her. It was then that she saw the larger figure that loomed over her, bright blue eyes gazing down at her.

The head of the 'giant' that was gazing down at the sneasel looked to be like some kind of rabbit, though the patterns of the face shown that it wasn't exclusively of said species. Silver-gray coloration for most of the face, while the patterns of the short snout being separated by a line of blue that extended from either sides of the forehead down past the bridge between the eyes to around the nose. Four appendages – ears apparently – would be twitching every so often as both it and the sneasel stared at each other.

What was striking the sneasel as odd was that she could see through the face of the giant, seeing the wall that was far off in the distance to her, past the back of the larger beings head. Her mouth would open to try and say something, only to close it, utterly confused on who or what the giant to her was.

“Haven't seen something like you before.” the 'giant' would speak after a little while, the head lowering down to where it was almost level with Serice's spot. “And you look a bit larger than when I first grabbed you.”

Serice would only nod lightly in response, soon clearing her throat before standing up in her spot after a quick glance around, seeing she was on a different type of cloth.

“Y-yeah.” she started. “I'm what's called a 'sneasel', since it seems you don't know what I am.” she explained, though was wanting to avoid explaining her growth for now.”

“A sneasel, huh? Never heard of your kind before.” the giant would respond, a form of smile showing on its face. Another oddity to Serice was the faint squeaking she was hearing from the giant each time that she moved or spoke, raising more questions on exactly what that the larger figure was.

“Sorry if it's rude, but could I get your name?” the giant would ask after grabbing hold of a clipboard from a different spot beneath where Serice was currently at, holding a pen like she was eager to jot down some notes.

“It's not, and my name's Serice.” was the sneasel's response, doing a small shrug at the first part, seeing the giant starting to write stuff down on the clipboard she held. “Guessing you're a sci…shen…”

“Scientist.” the giant finished and corrected for the struggling sneasel, a light chuckle coming from her. “Mine's Tazu. I'm a member of the Avali species.”

“Right. Nice to grow to this point to meet you then, Tazu.” Serice replied with a nod.

“You're we–wait, 'grow'?” Tazu started but cut herself off when she processed what the sneasel had said, the clipboard lowering as she looked at the sneasel with a questioning look.

Without saying anything, the sneasel couldn't help but smirk as she folded her arms, starting to have herself grow larger right on the spot, much to the larger figures surprise as her eyes widened at the sight of such. Tazu would back up as the sneasel grew to match the size of the beakers on the stands, soon starting to get large enough to hop down from the table. Even when she stumbled back from a misstep, Tazu would continue to watch the sneasel grow, soon going past the size she would usually stand at, seeing a toothy smirk on the now-larger beings face, her growth slowing to a supposed halt.

“Yep, grow.” Serice would simply state with a laugh, lowering a hand-claw to the downed figure to help her up. When the avali grasped hold of the hand though avoided the claws, the sneasel would tug to help Tazu up. The action though would be followed by a yelp from both of them when the avali's face ended up smacking right into Serice's own, showing that she weighed far lighter than she looked, the latter stumbling back slightly from such out of surprise rather than oddly-lacking pain.

“Eep! Sorry!” Tazu cried out once she recovered, hurrying to the larger sneasel's side, only to be pushed away a bit roughly.

“Okay, what exactly are you?!” Serice demanded, a questioning gaze that was almost like a glare coming from the sneasel.

Another, more quiet squeak would come from the avali, intimidated by the glare before gathering herself, taking in and letting out a breath to further calm herself.

“I am an avali, though not really a normal one.” she started, holding a wing-hand up to cut the sneasel off since she was about to object. “What I mean is that I'm not a flesh and blood one, rather one that's like those living balloons conjured up by magic. It's why I'm far lighter than you likely thought I was and why my face ended up smacking into yours.”

Serice was surprised to learn on what the avali really was, lifting a hand-claw to try and poke at her, only to jolt and quickly lower her hand back down, mentally face-pawing herself for the rather stupid act for a moment.

“So…what's that thing you're wearing?” Tazu asked, Serice seeing her crouch down slightly and saw her looking at the large ruby the amulet had.

“Oh, this?” the sneasel replied, grabbing hold of either side of the amulet with her hand-claws. “Ended up ah…'borrowing' this–”

“You mean stole it.” Tazu cut in with a flat tone, looking up from her spot.

“Yes…from some trader around the time.” Serice finished with a bored gaze down at the avali. “Didn't really know it would be making me grow as well, since I thought it was just some nobles necklace. And boy, did it have me grow, with quite a bit of interest.”

“Mind defining how it made you grow?”

“Heh. I was a runt when I first got it, but I'm guessing it was enchanted as well. When I woke up from a nap after wrapping it around me like you're seeing it now, I found myself to be larger than even the cathedral of the whole city there!” Serice explained with a small laugh at Tazu's reaction. “That wasn't the end of it. I found out that because of this bad boy here, I'm just gonna keep on growing, no stop on this trip and with no complaints.”

“Then if it's really doing that, then what happened to your home, if that city was your home?” Tazu asked as she stood back up, looking up at the sneasel.”

“Oh, that place? The universe it's in is probably among the fur of my foot, probably far too small for you to even think about.” Serice said in a dismissive tone.

“Wait, UNIVERSE?!” the avali blurted out, mouth agape.

“Well yeah. I did say that this thing was making me grow nonstop. Didn't I?” Serice gave a toothy grin at the avali.

“Ooo, this is something that has GOT to be investigated further! I know so many folks that would be interested in this kind of relic, maybe some kind of ancient technology to makeyoulikethis,Ihavesomanyquestionsand~!” Tazu blurted out as she tried to get the amulet off of the sneasel, earning complaints from the larger figure as she tried to pry the overeager scientist off of the jewelry.

“Hey, hey! Whaddya doing!? Get off!” she barked out as the balloonie just about climbed around her, the sneasel unwittingly growing in response to the irritation on trying to pry the clingy bugger off.

During the scuffle though, one of the sneasels claws ended up jabbing into the avali's side, an eep barely escaping from the balloonie before her form ruptured with a loud bang, Serice jolting as she locked up in her current stance, heart racing at both the bursting of the avali and the sound of such. Small rubbery tatters from the avali littered the floor around the sneasel's spot, some parts of the rubbery limbs mostly intact, the scientist coat she wore among them as well.

“Oh…crap.” Serice managed to breathe out once the surprise of the event wore off, easing from her pose while looking at the scraps that littered the floor around her, holding a hand to her mouth. “I…didn't mean to…Tazu.”

After a few minutes of feeling regret for the avali balloonie, a sigh would come out from the sneasel as she carefully stepped around and over the rubbery scraps, trying to find a way out of the room she was in since it was starting to look a bit cramped now. Again, her attention was lacking due to her focusing on finding a way out, not even noticing some of the scraps starting to twitch slightly and pull themselves towards each other. The sneasel would find the only door leading out locked, a number pad next to it and let out a grumble, knowing that she was pretty much trapped since she unintentionally popped the only one who knew the code. Even slashing at the door for a couple of minutes did nothing other than ending up dulling her claws slightly, grumbling again as she plopped herself down on the floor.

Her ears flicked when she heard some kind of squeaking coming from a different part of the room, arcing a nonexistent eyebrow and got up, or at least tried to as she let out a yelp when her head hit the ceiling. Despite the minor incident, she crawled to where she was hearing the squeaking, which turned into a form of hissing, hearing it coming from a side room that had the door ajar. Looking in, she saw that it was a form of supply closet, several canisters of some kind of gas or liquid resting neatly inside. What caught her by surprise was what she could figure was the deflated form of the avali balloonie holding onto the crank wheel of one of the canisters, a hose in her mouth while her form was slowly filling with the gaseous contents of the tank.

The sneasel could only watch in surprise as more and more features of the balloonie filled out as she inflated, some details popping out when they filled. Eventually, the avali would turn the latch to cut the flow of the gas, taking in a breath then let it back out albeit more higher pitched, looking to the sneasel after.

“Sorry about that.” Tazu started, her voice a bit squeaky, the sneasel fighting the urge to even smirk or chuckle at the sound of such. “Got a little carried away since your amulet is something entirely unique. It's something that I never really heard about up until you told me about it, so I wanted to try and remove it to study its properties. Guess I shouldn't do that since it's something valuable to you.” she stated, the pitch of her voice steadily deepening back down to its normal pitch.

“But…how…?” Serice tried to ask once she was able to speak albeit barely.

“That's a perk I have.” Tazu replied, giving herself a pat with one wing-hand, the other still holding onto the canister. “I can reform myself after I end up bursting, but I'd need to find someone or something to help pump me back up. What I had was a little something I brewed up, called 'Healium'.”

“Helium?”

“Yes, but spelled as H-e-a-l-i-u-m.” Tazu answered. “It's a mixture of helium and a type of water that has healing properties, simply called 'Healing Water'. Helps soothe the nerves and recover from wounds, for those who choose to breathe it in.”

The large sneasel would let out a sigh, one of relief that she wanted to let out once she found out that the avali was still alive and well, holding a hand-paw to her face as she turned away from the supply closet for a moment, back propped up against a wall with her eyes closed.

“You were worried, weren't you?” she heard the avali ask, cracking an eye open and saw the smaller balloonie floating up against the ceiling close to her head, nodding to answer.

“Yeah…thought I ended up…” Serice spoke in a low tone, trailing off as she let out another sigh.

“Well, it happens, and it is indeed quite the shock to anyone that doesn't know beforehand.” Tazu replied, patting the top of the larger sneasels head and got a smile from her in response to such. “Much as I said I shouldn't, I'm still curious of your amulet. I won't try to remove it, mainly since it's easily far too heavy for me, but rather I'd like to watch it in action once we're out of here.”

“Heh, yeah.” Serice simply responded, shifting in her spot. “I tried to get out, but that door's rather tough for me to slice through.” she stated, partially ignoring an outcry from the avali. “Could you help get it open?”

“Mmph…alright. Gonna have to buffer the door later on though, if those claws were as sharp as they used to be.” Tazu replied, going along the ceiling towards the exit door, pushing against the ceiling to try and lower herself down enough to get to the number pad but failed each attempt. “Er, little help?”

A chuckle came from the sneasel as she shifted in her spot, crawling towards the scratched door and lifted a hand-paw up to the avali. She grabbed hold of the balloonie's legs, pulling her down to where she was level with the pad. After earning a 'thanks', she watched the avali punch in the code, the door opening up despite all the scratches on its surface.

“So, how many universes did you end up outgrowing?” Tazu asked once the sneasel pulled herself out into a more spacious hallway while the former floated up to the ceiling again, signs pointing towards the exit of the structure, heeding them.

Serice smirked as she grabbed hold of the avali balloonie so that she wouldn't be left behind, gazing down at her.

“Oh ho, quite a lot of them.” the sneasel answered with a grin, already feeling eager to start growing once she reached the exit, watching the automated door open to let her through.

-0-0-0-0-

Feel free to leave a comment. I don't care if it's criticism, praise, or both.

-0-

The result from the stream of this week, and it felt good to actually write something instead of just doing either Gmod or f***-all.

Anyway, Serice is a sneasel that's always growing, just about non-stop. Even if it looks like she's not, she's still growing albeit very slowly. It's all due to the necklace she wears almost like a tunic, having transferred its magic into her and thus resulting in her ever-growing stature.

Tazu here is one of two forms, the other male form I'm saving for playthroughs in Starbound. Living balloonie as the story states, the 'Healium' being something I made when I was RPing with a friend.

-0-

Sneasel © Pokemon, Nintendo, GAMEFREAK, Creatures Inc..
Avali © creator of the avali species.
Serice, Tazu © Me.