Dr Niall Freeman was taking some well-deserved time off. He was currently about 200 feet shy of a peak in the French Alps. He was feeling very pleased with himself. He’d spent the last few months working on the ITER fusion project in Southern France and last week had redesigned the magnetic containment fields of the reactor to initiate fusion with only 50% of the input energy. This breakthrough very nearly makes nuclear fusion a viable power source for mankind.

Niall had struck the genetic goldmine. He was a genius. He was 26 and had an IQ off the charts. He earned his second PHD in Nuclear Engineering at 16. He got his first in Quantum Mechanics at 15. He was also, tall, athletic and handsome. To top it all off he was Irish which added luck to his already extensive list of advantages. All these things had given Niall something of a superiority complex. He was beyond arrogant and thought most people around him were idiots. He could also be quite unkind and dismissive to people he did not view as valuable.

Niall hauled himself up on to a thin ledge. He examined the rock face in front of him for the best way to the top. The weather had closed in and the snow was coming down hard, reducing visibility. Niall had pressed on to the top by himself leaving his concerned group behind, who had decided to wait the bad weather out. He had just dug an axe into the rock face when he felt a low rumbling in the air. He looked around as it got stronger trying to identify a source but he couldn’t make anything out in the snow. The light level rose sharply and Niall blacked out.

“How about this one?” Jeska asked the petite brunette in front of her.

“Hmmmm I dunno. I’m just not connecting with any of them” the brunette replied.

Jeska sighed. Most people usually knew what they were looking for in a human but this girl couldn’t list anything. She just kept handling the containers and looking at their occupants and then shaking her head. “Look, security handed me a new batch this morning but I’ve not had a chance to look them over yet” she said.

The Brunette’s light blue eyes lit up. “Oh yes! Can I see those too?” she asked, her squeaky voice getting squeakier as she got excited.

Jeska disappeared out the back of the shop and returned with a half dozen new containers and set them down on the counter. Jeska waited impatiently as the little brunette slowly scanned each container. She had to get back to looking for her missing humans.

“Oh! Oh! Him!” the brunette screamed excitedly clapping her hands and hopping up and down.

Jeska lifted the container and examined the tiny human within it. “Ohhhh he’s a nice one” she said trying to complete the sale “Tall for a human and strong looking”. The brunette looked very excited and quickly handed over the exact amount for her human and accessories and made off out of the shop still staring at her new pet. Jeska sighed, glad to be rid of that particular customer.

“Now….where are those little humans…..?” she said skulking off out the back of the shop.

Naskia clutched her new pet tight to her chest as she made her way through the Titan Station Bazaar. She had a bag but she didn’t want to risk him getting smashed or hurt while she was on the busy station. Her transport had stopped here for a quick resupply on the 2 day trip back from a visit to a pulsar research facility. Naskia boarded her transport and made her way to the small cabin she had been allocated.

Naskia held the small container between her thumb and forefinger and admired the tiny figure inside. He was handsome. She held her longest finger up beside him and noticed he was the same length as it. Most humans were usually slightly smaller. Naskia bit her lip with excitement. She wanted to wake him up now but this wasn’t the place. “It will be better when you get home and can take the time to do this properly” she told herself. Naskia was not a risk taker. She set the container down on the table beside her bed and opened her notebooks. “Better to use this time to catch up on some studying…..” she sighed.

The remainder of the flight took a couple of hours but it felt like it had taken an eternity. Naskia tried to focus but kept finding her eyes drawn to the frozen human on her table. The work in front of her was slowly melting into gibberish. She was following in her father’s footsteps and studying for a doctorate in high energy physics. Students were required to be able to read reaction equations as well as they could read words but despite being VERY bright Naskia had been struggling lately. Part of the reason for purchasing a human was to have something to hug when she wanted to break down under the pressure.

Naskia rushed back through the campus towards her dorm building as fast as she could. She ran straight up the stairs, unlocked the door and ran through the living area to her bedroom, locking the door behind her. She pulled the container out of her bag and stared at the little human inside. She walked over to her desk and sat down. Naskia went to press the release button to wake him up but was too nervous. “Argh…..why can’t I do this?!?” she said hovering her finger over the button. She eventually squished her eyes shut and hit the button. There was a hiss as the lid came off and she carefully poured the small man out on to her hand.

Niall’s head was hurting. He was groggy and a bit dazed. “What the hell happened…..I must have slipped or something…?” he said to himself. He stretched out. He wasn’t hurting which was a good sign. He was still in his mountaineering gear. He slowly opened his eyes. The light stung his eyes and he winced. There was a pretty face looming over him just staring at him. “Excuse me Miss….would you mind giving me a bit of space?” The face didn’t move. Niall sat up and focused around him .He instantly knew something was wrong.

The surface below him was warm, pink and soft. The pretty face above him was not only looming but it was massive. He tracked the platform he was resting on to the body of the girl hanging over him. Alarm bells were ringing like mad in his head. “What’s going on here?! Why am I so small!?”

The face above him giggled a girly laugh “You’ve not become small silly, you’ve always been tiny, you just didn’t know it.” Naskia explained, thinking this was making sense.

“What?!” Niall asked looking confused.

Naskia cupped her hand to give Niall a seat and slowly lifted him to her face level with her eye line. She could feel his little arms bracing into her palm. “You’re not on Earth anymore. You’re on my world. And I’m not human, I’m a Titan” she said trying to sound calming.

Niall’s brain was working in overtime trying to process everything. He maintained his steely gaze not wanting to give away the terror he was feeling. “Titans…..as in gods?” he asked.

“Yeah…our ancestors first encountered your planet thousands of years ago. Your species worshipped us as gods but your world isn’t really suitable for us so instead we established a station nearby to monitor you and protect you.” Naskia continued.

Niall stood up shakily on her palm and held out his arm firmly and extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you Madam Ambassador. My name is Dr Niall Freeman of Earth” he said officiously.

Naskia brought her pinky up to Niall and allowed him to shake it briefly. His tiny fingers tickled her finger as he shook it. It felt like he’d put a great deal of effort into the shake. She was shocked at how little he weighed. She barely felt anything as he moved on her hand. “I’m….I’m not an ambassador….” Naskia said not sure how exactly what she was doing. She hadn’t had any pets as a child let alone one who could talk to her.

“Apologies, by what title should I address you?” he asked maintaining a note of pompousness in his voice.

“Just Naskia” she said with a smile “I’m a student so I don’t really have a title…but I will one day! Nice to meet you Niall”

This was getting more and more confusing for Niall. Why would an alien race make contact but send a lowly student and not an ambassador to greet him? “Would you mind telling me how and why I’m here?” He asked.

“Wellllllll….I got you on Titan Station near the planet Saturn. According to the lady there you had been captured by smugglers who were caught trying to sell you. Some species like to eat humans as a delicacy. I’m not one of them!!” She giggled at the last part and put her hands up. Niall was getting more and more concerned. “It’s too risky to return you to Earth as we don’t want to cause an incident, so I took you to look after you. You were quite expensive” She added with a smile.

“Expensive?!” Niall shouted “I was bought?!”

Naskia backed away a bit unconsciously. “Yea…yeah. Usually people buy humans bred here but you looked so nice and I really need a pet to…..”

Niall cut her off shouting “A Pet!? A pet?! I am no one’s pet. I had 2 PHDs by 16! I am one of the finest minds of my generation and you call me a pet?!”he spat. Niall was waving his arms around frantically and pacing in circles. He didn’t seem to care that he was high in the air.

Naskia slowly lowered him to the desk. He didn’t need to be prompted to get off. Niall jumped off her hand before it reached the table and continued on with his monologue. Naskia was panicking. She’d been told humans were lovable, caring creatures who would make her forget about all her problems when they played. This one was just mean and aggressive. Now on top of all the stress of failing her studies she had an angry, aggressive pet to deal with. She felt herself starting to get upset. She stood up abruptly and walked to the other side of the room to face away from Niall.

Niall was instantly silenced when Naskia got up and walked away. Despite having sat in the giant girl’s hand he had yet to grasp just how large she was. Her hips were level was the table and he estimated them to be 28 feet from end to end. He did some quick mental mathematics in his head and estimated she was around 120 feet tall. He would look 3 inches tall to her. Comparing her to various objects around the room he guessed she was quite small for her species. He put her age at anywhere from 18 to 25.

She was very, very pretty. Her eyes were huge, even for her size and light blue in colour. She had pale skin with big red cheeks, a red heart shaped mouth and a dainty nose. Her hair was the colour of dark chocolate and amazingly thick. She had the fringe pinned back and parted in the centre. Her hair looked as if it had taken a lot of effort to do as it went down over her shoulders and was perfectly neat and straight. She wore a dark blue dress that seemed to shimmer slightly in the light and it hugged her curves tightly. Niall estimated her human equivalent to be 32D-24-32.

Niall’s staring was interrupted when he caught Naskia quickly glancing back towards him. Her chin was quivering and her eyes were red. She was clearly barely holding herself together. Niall started to feel pangs of guilt. Normally he wouldn’t have bothered with an emotionally fragile person but in this case he had to. “Naskia, please can you come back?” Naskia looked over at him keeping her hand cupped near her mouth just in case she needed it. “Please Naskia, I’m done shouting. I promise.”

Naskia walked back over to the table and crossed her arms over her chest. Niall noted her massive bust being pushed up as she pressed her arms in to her chest. “Please sit” he said gesturing to the chair. He did not like being loomed over in that manner. Naskia sat down without saying a word. “First of all I’m sorry for my outburst. I’m sure you can understand why I got so angry” Niall waited for a response that wasn’t coming. He noticed Naskia’s big doe eyes still looked quite red and teary “I really didn’t mean to upset you. Can you please explain this whole pet situation?”

“What do you mean by pet situation?” she asked.

“Well, why are you calling me a pet? Why are humans not treated as sentient beings with self-determination?” Niall replied.

“Well…and please don’t get mad but it’s because the universe doesn’t work like that. You humans are actually far smaller than most intelligent life. And you lag far behind. We protect you because you look and act so much like us but you are FAR less developed than we are. Most humans here have been here for generations. They are well looked after but don’t understand higher reasoning such as maths, reasoning, problem solving. Humans are very good at fun though….” Naskia said sounding a bit calmer.

Niall bit hit tongue. He didn’t appreciate being called a lesser life form. He was perfectly capable of all the things Naskia had said humans couldn’t do. “Ok…..next question. You said you purchased me for a reason. What was it?”

Naskia looked a bit embarrassed. “Oh….just the usual reasons….” Niall kept his gaze locked on to her, it made her feel uncomfortable. “I’ve been under a lot of stress lately with my studies, a lot of pressure from my family and people always tell me that humans are great at…….relaxing you….you just looked so nice in the shop, like we had a connection.”

Niall was trying to see things from Naskia’s point of view. He’d never done too well with empathy with Humans and was definitely no better with Titans. “Can I tell you this from my perspective?” He asked. Naskia nodded her response. “I woke up here. I didn’t ask to come here. I am perfectly capable of advanced mathematics, reasoning, problem solving and pretty much everything else you can think of. A lot of humans are quite good at those things.”

Naskia giggled and Niall shot her a look. “Oh…sorry”

Niall continued “I accept that I cannot go back to Earth. Your policy of non-interference is quite prudent. What I cannot accept is being a pet, a slave. I am happy to stay with you but it has to be as an equal.”

“But you’re not an equal. You can’t look after yourself, you can’t feed yourself. You need me to give you all those things. This makes you lesser and therefore a pet. The sooner you accept that the better it will be for both of us” Naskia said quite matter of fact.

Niall could not take it anymore. That last remark felt like a deliberate insult. He started shouting again “I will never accept slavery! I am your equal in every way apart from size. I’m probably far more intelligent than you!”

Naskia stifled a laugh.

“This isn’t funny. I have spent the last 16 years advancing the knowledge of humankind. I can work equations in my mind in minutes that take computers days to do. You are just a ditsy, little girl that requires a pet to make up for her own inadequacies.” Niall continued to rant at Naskia, belittling and berating her. It wasn’t long before Naskia began to feel as if he was the master and she was the tiny pet.

She stood up quickly and shouted at him “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You’re only making this worse for yourself. You are a pet. You have no choice in the matter!” She grabbed him quickly and locked her fingers around him. Niall tried to struggle but her hand was too powerful. “And pets do not wear clothes” Naskia said as she moved her hand round to grasp his collar, leaving him suspended 40 feet above the table.

Niall did his best to keep her hand away from him but it was no use. She used her nearly half foot long nails to slice through his clothing with ease and it fell away from him. As his jacket ripped he fell towards the table screaming but was caught at the last minute and set down gently.

Niall covered himself. He was shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was rage or terror. Naskia had gotten up and was busy sorting something on a shelf beside the table. She soon dropped herself back in to her chair and glared at Niall. “Are you going to behave?”

Niall didn’t know how to answer. His fight or flight instinct had kicked in and he knew there was nowhere to run to. “Behave?!? You just assaulted me! Some advanced species you are. We abolished slavery on my planet over a century ago!”

“Well if you’re going to be like that I’ll just have to find some way of training you…..” Naskia said with a tone of resignation.

“I will never become a slave. I will sooner kill myself than live a life in chains” Niall yelled before taking off as fast as he could and throwing himself off the edge of the desk. He closed his eyes and waited for the hard stop to take him but it never came. Naskia caught his foot and lifted him to her face.

“You silly little thing! You wouldn’t kill yourself jumping from that height! All it would do it cost me a lot of money in vet’s bills! I don’t have time for this. Go sleep or something while I do my work!” With that she deposited Niall roughly into a glass terrarium up on the shelf. “I can’t believe you’d rather kill yourself than let me love you. Story of my life really…” she said sounding upset.

Niall ran to the front and looked out. Naskia had sat back down and was starting into her work. He started to bang on the glass but she was ignoring him. He tried banging for what felt like an hour but got no response. There was a soft matt in his terrarium. He was exhausted and settled down to sleep.