He gets down on a crouch then looks up at her. "Behind you," he says.

"Mm?" She turns to look behind her, carefully taking a step towards her—guide? adventure buddy?—to hopefully get out of the way of... whatever is behind her.

It's an ant. A very, very large ant. About the size of an elephant, towering over her.

Except, no, she's just gotten smaller again, the grains of sand under her feet more like smooth stones. And the ant seems content to keep ignoring her.

O...kay, then she'll just stay out of its way and do her best not to get stepped on. That sounds like a smart idea. And look at her, she didn't even make an eeping sound, she's so proud.

"Are you in control of the size changing thing, or just... more accustomed to it?"

"Yes," he says, grinning. "Come on," he calls, and hops into the hole that's now more than large enough to let them in.

"Oh, come on, pick one instead of just saying yes!" she huffs, stifling her laugh so as not to discredit herself too badly. Fine, yes, hopping into the ant hill after him, is there a way to do that with anything resembling lady-like grace, maybe a gentle decline to take advantage of...?

Yes, the hole isn't a straight drop and the ants themselves need to be able to walk in and out of it. There is a slope, and down it she can see the fairy running up ahead of her. Until, that is, he takes a left.

He's doing this on purpose, the jerk. It's admittedly somewhat charming but look he's still being a jerk, just a charming jerk!

Fine, fine, yes, up ahead and to the left, she's going, at an almost jog, even, since he insists on taking this so quickly.

They have much to see and only so much time to see it in! He takes the middle tunnel up ahead and then disappears down with a "Wheeeeee!" that suggest maybe more velocity than expected.

"You know that if I have fun and am returned safely I'll probably want to do this again, right, there's no need to take things at such a rush!" she calls after him.

... But she will slide down after him. It's sliding, right? It seems like it'd be sliding.

The physics makes no sense—it's gravel, stones, sand writ big—but yes, she slides. Down and down in a spiral, and she can hear the fairy "wheeeee" down just ahead of her.

Most of this doesn't make very much sense, actually. She's okay with that. Actually, she finds herself laughing with delight without quite meaning to, so it's perhaps safe to say that she's a bit more than okay with this.

She keeps just enough control to manage not to make a complete fool of herself, but not enough that she can actually prevent spending most of the slide on her butt. She's fine with this too. Wheee!

They coincidentally weave between the ants, sometimes even under their legs, but never colliding with any of them, until eventually they're launched forward into an enormous chamber. There are many tunnels dotting its walls, with the elephant-sized ants walking along them and into and out of those tunnels easily, always busy with taking something here or there. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. And though it should be dark, there is a soft omnipresent light permitting them to see all of that.

She interrupts her delighted laughter with a little squeak the first time she weaves between an ant's legs, and then she puts a bit more effort into trying to steer, but—yeah, no, this is still really fun. Soon enough it's back to laughter.

At the end of it, she lands in a... somewhat graceless heap, if at least not an indecent one. Evette covers her mouth with both hands, giggling helplessly.

The fairy is also in a heap, but "graceful" was certainly never part of his portfolio. He, too, is giggling helplessly as he rights himself and sits up cross-legged, looking up to watch the natural clockwork marvel that is the insides of the ant colony.

His companion is not actually paying attention to the ants right now.

"That made—no sense," she giggles between her fingers. "How, how was the timing of that so we wouldn't get stepped on, and why weren't any ants on the path that we were on, and, and, this is—how could we have been sliding, there's nothing slippery..."

"You're paying off your debt," he says, turning his grin to her. "The world likes cooperating when people do that."

"So if there wasn't a debt to be paid would this have been less cooperative and, and, silly?"

He shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Look," he says, pointing at a particularly huge ant on the floor of the chamber. There are eggs behind it, and other ants every now and then stop by it to give it food or touch it with their antennae or just generally be of service.

"But—" but she looks as directed, which distracts her from her protestations of how little sense this all makes. "Oh, my." She makes a face. "Look, I can respect having servants to wait on you hand and foot but, my, it must be boring being stuck down here."

He shrugs. "They are ants. I don't think they get bored."

"Let me anthropomorphize and pity the ants if I want to, it's part of my adventuring experience!"

"Just don't do it too much. You wouldn't want it to become true."

"Wait, does that happen??" she says, straightening up in a bit of alarm.

Another shrug. "Can't rightly say. Just make sure not to do them any favours."