Crystal Gems

“No, Eel! don’t touch—” ZAP!
The small triforce-shaped device whirred, and the room flashed blue and red. A few seconds passed. Then Eel, taken aback, started to grow on the desk as they saw Iso shrinking in his chair. They quickly jumped to the floor, careful not to make the ground shake. Soon both had switched sizes; that had never happened before… They looked at each other for a moment, unsure what to do. Iso knew he was safe, but he worried about Eel. He could see they weren’t comfortable with the situation. He couldn’t blame them: they had been his tiny partner for… was it a year already? or more? The sudden change back to human size was bound to be disorienting.
“I-Iso! I’m sorry! Please f–fix this…” They were shaking, on the verge of tears. “It’s–It’s like the ceiling will crush me and everything is too small and I c–can’t!…” They turned to look around them, and their elbow knocked over the lamp. The sound startled them and they turned back to Iso. “Sorry, Iso!” they whimpered. They dared not move an inch.
Iso breathed deeply. This was just a tiny mistake. It would be fixed easily. The hard part… that was to calm down his dear Eel. He cleared his throat and deepened his voice as much as he could.
“Eel, look at me,” he said in a pipsqueak voice. …It was going to be hard to sound convincing at his size. But they trusted him and looked up to him so much that they did stand still and look at him in the eye. He smiled back. “Eel, you just need to pick me up and put me on the desk, and I’ll fix this. The…” He wished he hadn’t given it such a dumb name. “…The Sizeforce keeps the balance of size between us. It’s a conservation of mass device. I’ll just need to set the balance back to normal. Just pick me up, Eel, please.”

Eel seemed to have somewhat relaxed. Iso noticed their hand was less shaky as it descended towards him. Well, it was hard not to notice it when he was as small as the fingertip that gently landed next to him. He jumped on it and hung on tight. Or, rather, hugged it tight. Eel was as mellow as he ever knew. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and planted his face in their plump skin. He barely felt the air rushing by, and was too soon gently sliding down onto the desk. He got up and fixed his hoodie instinctively, though Eel had been so delicate even his hair was still neat. As much as he wanted to make this moment the shortest he could for them, he couldn’t help but pause for a second to gaze up at this completely new, blurred sight, knowing it was certainly the only chance in his life to ever appreciate their warm, solar face in the sky and the silky clouds cascading behind.
He shook his head and headed for the Sizeforce. He hoisted himself up and put a thumb on the middle triangle. To his relief, it turned a bright green. He bolted across the desk, his step growing longer and heavier. He dived into his chair and sat down legs crossed, waiting. When they both reached the same size, Iso wrapped his arms around Eel and lifted them off the ground to hug and hold them in his hands as they continued to shrink. They finally reached their usual tiny size and kissed the tip of the nose looming above before climbing on it. Iso giggled, petted them, and went back to working out equations while Eel grabbed a strand of hair and climbed atop his head to watch.

After much frowning and scribbling, Iso’s eyes lightened with excitement. He jumped from his chair and carefully carried Eel to the desk. “I think I got it right! I’m going to prepare a solvent, Eel, so stay on this side of the desk. The fun part will come in a couple minutes!”
Eel sat down, arms behind their back, and watched their soulmate in the distance manipulating test tubes the size of buildings, droppers like alien spaceships, burners that lit a firestorm. Had they been a stranger lost in this peculiar land, they would think him a titan causing havoc on a city of glass. Liquids boiled, poofed with smoke, changed colors as if by the magic of a god. Iso finally came back to them and fixed a test tube filled with a sort of watery syrup to a stand.
“Now, you’ll need a good place from which to watch this revolutionary experiment. I think I know just the one…” He bent over Eel, his hoodie strings just touching the desk. They beamed, grabbed one and wrapped their legs around it, sitting on the knot. Iso chuckled and stood up. Walking slowly, he filled a beaker with warm water, taped a round sheet of graphite on the top, grabbed two phials filled with fine powder, one ultramarine and the other amber, and poured a tiny pile from each on the graphite. Using a small spatula, he meticulously flattened the piles and shaped them into hexagons the size of a pea. “Now, see, Eel, my invention, if it works, would allow me to make little crystals in a matter of seconds with this solvent. I’ll just drop a… well, a drop of it, it will react with the powder and diffuse through the graphite, keeping the shape I drew, and cool down in the water below. That would be pretty amazing, wouldn’t it?”
As he was filling a dropper from the test tube, Eel exclaimed: “Wait! Put me on the beaker! I wanna try something!”
Iso grabbed his partner between two fingers, and, feeling playful in the middle of his experiment, gave them a grin. “Okay. But don’t try to run away from me, my precious… you can’t win against science.” He gently dropped them on the sheet and watched as they knelt beside the amber form to trace something in the powder with a finger. He couldn’t make out what they were drawing at that size, and refused the temptation to grab a magnifying glass. He wasn’t gonna pass an occasion to let Eel surprise him!
Once the tiny artist was done with both piles, Eel sat on the rim of the beaker. “Is it safe if I stay here?” they asked.
“I can’t be sure until I’ve tried at least once,” he replied. “Better put you somewhere safe and cosy…” He bent down to their level, his lips so close to them that they could feel the pressure of his words. “…and with a great view, according to the guests.” He lapped them up into his mouth, sucked on their puny body for a moment, then turned them around so that their head stuck out. They crawled a bit forward to let their arms poke out, and stared at the experiment.

Iso focused on the task at hand. He released one drop precisely in the center of each pile, and watched the crystal powder get sucked into the solvent, before breaking through the graphite and landing with a plop in the water. He removed the sheet, put a finger in the water and stirred it. It was crystal clear. He bent down and gently spat Eel into the pool. “Is it warm enough?” They raised a thumb and swam towards the amber crystal. It was slightly smaller than Eel, neatly curved with six sides. They climbed on it to examine it better, and in the sunlight they could see in the center the lining of the hollow caves glisten, forming the face of their lover that they had so gracefully drawn. Iso picked up his own crystal and beamed at the sight of his lover’s face engraved in the crystal. He pulled Eel and their crystal out of the water, gently blew over their frail body to dry it, and snuggled them against his cheek. He felt a tiny kiss and blushed. Experiment more than successful.