Eat Me, Drink Me

[that-depends.livejournal.com]

Scattered around the park are four smallish glass bottles filled with a mysterious liquid (tasting deliciously of cherry tart, custard, pinapple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot buttered toast). A paper label is attached to each, with the words "DRINK ME" beautifully printed on it in large letters.

Scattered elsewhere are four little glass boxes, containing small cakes on which the words "EAT ME" are beautifully marked in currants.

Neither is marked "poison," which is sensible since neither are poisonous. However, the Surgeon General, were he here, would probably be a little put out that other effects aren't warned about on the packaging.

((The bottles (in Frontierland, Tomorrowland, New Orleans Square, and Toon Town) make you shrink, the cakes (in Main Street, Fantasyland, Adventureland, and Critter Country) make you grow. Have fun!))

Comments

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

"Yes, yes," she said, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "First of all, maybe you can show me where this cake was?" A lecture on the obvious dangers of a cake enjoining one to partake of it quivered on the tip of her tongue, but she bit down on the words and kept them to herself (for now, at least).

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

Affronted, John waved his hand dismissively at the bakery across the street and ended up smashing out two window panes from the second floor, cutting his finger.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

"Oh, do be careful!" Susan jumped back at the spray of glass. "Oh, hell, let me see that," she said, seeing he was injured.

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

he said irritably, showing her his hand. There was a six inch piece of glass embedded in one of his huge fingers.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

"No, not at all." She stood up slightly on her toes to get a better look at the wound.

Susan wasn't the sort of woman who got queasy at the sight of blood, but there was something deeply disconcerting about seeing what was essentially a scratch from that close up. Or on that kind of scale. On a normal-sized person, a six-inch shard of glass cutting that deep would be, if not necessarily fatal, decidedly ruinous to one's day. On John's enlarged hand, it merely a flesh wound.

"Hang on and I'll patch that up." Before he could protest, she vanished inside the bakery and returned with a couple of very large dishcloths, one of which had been dampened down.

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

but she was already gone. He sighed heavily and the banners up and down the street fluttered. The glass shard didn't hurt, really, but the sooner it was out, the sooner he could try to find a way back to being an inch shorter than her, which seemed like a wonderful place to be right now.

When she returned, John set his hand on the ground to stabilize it. Sotto voce he said, "I'm sorry, Susan."

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

"Sorry? For what?" Carefully, she wrapped a towel around the glass and pulled. "Are you all right there?"

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

He winced slightly as the sliver was taken out. A small drop of blood the size of a grapefruit welled up where the shard had been.

John tried to answer her first question. He'd been about to wave his hand again as he tended to do while speaking, but he managed to hold himself still and stave off more accidents for the time being. The congressman was apologizing for all the trouble he'd put her through, but for his attitude as well. It was just frighting to discover that you have no place to sleep, would have to spend half your day eating tiny amounts of food so as to not starve, and that your significant other could fit in your waistcoat pocket.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

Susan blotted up the blood, cleaned up the injury, and as best she could, knotted a towel around the injured finger. The matter attended to, she looked up at John and smiled, most of her irritation having worn off by now.

"It's not your fault," she said. "There's never been any reason before to be worried about the food. In fact, it's extremely vexing to me to think that we'll need to be especially cautious now." She sighed and looked inside the bakery. "I'll be right back."

Inside, she found the cake, just as John said. She broke off a tiny piece and sniffed it; it smelled temptingly delicious, but she knew there was nothing to be gained by increasing her own size to match John's. One of them had to stay normal-sized.

Glancing down, she saw the cake had re-formed itself. She grimaced and stepped back outside.

"Well, if the rules of magic work the way I suppose they do," she said, "eating another piece will either restore you ... or make things much, much worse. Perhaps there are different cakes elsewhere in the park?"

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

If he grew six times his size again, he'd be 180 feet tall and more than likely have his head in the nothingness.

John trusted Susan's sense of magic, though. She came from a place where it was common and had more experience of Hogwarts, as well. He blinked down at her.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

"It'd probably be faster as well," she agreed. She looked around. "Very well. Let's go to Fantasyland first, then Frontierland. Once we get to the central part of each area, I can go look in the buildings and see if there's anything that might help."

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

Ever so carefully, John laid his hand on the ground for Susan to sit on. When she was comfortably ensconced on his palm, her legs dangling off the side, he put his other hand behind her back for support and wrapped his middle finger and thumb around her waist. In that way he thought she might be safe and comfortable as they traveled, while still able to see what was happening. Slowly, he lifted her twenty feet off the ground, trying not to crush or drop her. Susan was like a Barbie doll in his hands, not that he'd know what that meant, but the scale was about right.

he asked.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

Susan had ridden her grandfather's horse across the universe; had ridden a god-boar across a precipice of ice. Being lifted up like this was ... well, no less strange, when you thought about it, but decidedly a hell of a lot more comfortable.

"If you could just not grip quite so tightly -- yes, that's better. Thank you, I'm fine." She turned around slightly and smiled up at John. "Well, shall we?"

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

John... had yet to hear of these things in detail. Instead, he released his hold slightly. Funny how that smile did things to him even when he was enormous and could hardly see it.

Watching the ground very carefully, John made his way slowly toward Fantasyland. He couldn't fit through the doorway beneath the castle, so he had to take the side way through Tomorrowland. It was a relief to have Susan with him if only to have a second set of eyes out and make sure he wouldn't step on anyone.

Eventually they made it with no casualties, as far as he could tell, and he set Susan gently down near the Storybook Land ride, of which he had fond memories.

he asked with a wry smile. As if she couldn't find him anywhere...

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

Susan slid off his hand (not quite as gracefully as she might have liked). "I'll be back soon," she said, and went to explore the shops.

Most of her search was a disappointment; the shops and restaurants in general seemed little changed from usual. She returned to John after a moment, holding another cake.

"I found this in one of the shops," she said, "but it's almost exactly like the one you already ate. I'll bring it with us just in case, but I think we need to keep looking."

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

Waiting patiently for her return, John looked around, catching sight of a red-headed someone even larger than he, standing in Frontierland already. It figured he'd make a short giant... But at least he wasn't the only fool to have been caught out by the magic of the park.

When Susan came back, he mentioned all this to her before pointing back toward the flat hills of Toon Town.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

She looked in the direction of his gesture. "Toon Town? You might not have -- I've been there a couple of times." She shook her head. "Not too fond of it, myself -- too colourful. But we might as well have a look around."

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

Raising an eyebrow at her description, John lifted Susan as carefully as before and brought her to the strangely flat and colorful land.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

"I think it eludes me too," she said wryly. "Twentieth-century roundworld children seem to have ... interesting taste. That or their parents' notions of it are decidedly odd."

She looked around and, hazarding a guess, ducked into Clarabelle's Frozen Yogurt (http://www.mouseplanet.com/guide.php?pg=AAF401). And was rewarded with the sight of a beautiful little bottle with the words "DRINK ME" on it.

She opened it and sniffed; it was, she thought, one of the most delicious things she'd ever smelled, and she very nearly tasted it before realising that would be an exceptionally stupid thing to do. She closed the bottle back up and went back outside.

"I believe I've found something," she called out to John, holding up the bottle.

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

John kneeled and squinted at the tiny thing in Susan's hand.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

"I hope so. My only reasoning is that, well, magic tends to work as opposites or complementary forces on one hand, and like-to-like on the other. 'Drink me' is a complement to 'Eat me', so --" She shrugged.

"Er. I suppose if you pick me up, I could, um, administer the potion. I don't see how you'd hold this thing without crushing it."

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

Especially if she had to climb onto his chest in order to reach his mouth.

John gave a wry smile, which writ large looked like a grimace.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

"I suppose you're right. Very well." She looked around and gestured to a stretch of open walkway nearby. "That should suit, I suppose?"

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

With an embarrassed sigh, John lowered himself to the pavement trying not to knock anything over. Once he was uncomfortably situated on the concrete, he nodded.

[sensiblesusan.livejournal.com]

Feeling incredibly silly, Susan made her way up to John's head. There was something deeply disconcerting about seeing a person's face on this scale -- and it was really the eyes, nose, and mouth that were the most disturbing. She hoped he didn't notice the brief moment where she averted her eyes in alarm.

"Well, here goes," she said. She uncorked the bottle and, standing on her toes, tipped the contents into John's mouth.