you've talked a little about how Henry would be different if their situations had been reversed, but im curious about how Melanie who was already struggling with making herself smaller and seems far more shy would handle being the small one and being at the center of attention of such big people? Would she become outspoken and stand up for herself faster or shrink in on herself more? And what kind of thing would be the catalyst for making Henry see her as more of a person?
Oh this is a beautiful question, damn. I needed a minute to think on this. Thank you so much for sending it!
She would be horrified. Mortified, genuinely. Even in the mindspace-playground I made where the "If We Made It To Shore" AU takes place (and a few other weird plot ideas I kick around just in the fantasyland) where Henry's in a better space to empathize with her and understand the position she's in, it's still horrible to her in a new, fresh way.
For the exercise of this ask, I'll keep it to being pretty simple with Henry finding Small Melanie instead of Melanie finding Small Henry, essentially just a Reverse Rescue situation:
There would be no trust of anyone, from Melanie's perspective, and Henry at the start of it all would not make that any easier. He'd do a lot of poking, prodding, very blunt questioning/interrogation without taking any of her feelings into account as he would, initially, not really think to treat her like a person more than an oddity or an animal that happens to speak his language (which would really just be a bonus to him; extremely convenient that this weird thing can actually communicate answers to him so he doesn't have to completely guess!)
Being crowded by the rest of the crew/any amount of other people would be a nightmare for her. No place to escape, always feeling outnumbered and surrounded and at the mercy of anyone and everyone around. There would likely be a lot of yelling at the start just to make the hands and grabbing and *noise* (god the noise would be horrendous to her) stop until at least one of them was listening.
The only thing that would really work out well for her is if she could come to trust Henry (or one of the other men) to advocate for her. She'd be fine, almost, with coming to rely on one of them and just... letting them do what needed to be done in terms of handling, carrying, etc. if it meant she got to worry less about everyone else. She could get used to having ONE person holding her and handling her constantly, she'd learn to ride on them or get comfortable enough with THEM to perhaps set up a room in their quarters, but she would essentially want to keep her circle as small as possible in terms of who she spent time with and interacted with. She would hate to be seen, just because she would have no way to defend herself against those initial reactions of someone possibly wanting to grab her, hold her, poke and prod her and figure out what she is.
With someone she could trust in her corner that had that kind of equal power and footing with other giants, she would be more outspoken when around multiple people. She'd advocate herself, but probably only if she felt she had actual support behind it to back it up, otherwise she would worry she's just putting herself in a position to be ridiculed and further dehumanized if she had to encounter folks who would probably not take a small person demanding fair treatment very seriously.
The catalyst for Henry coming to see her more as a person? At the start of his ill-fated adventure that lead him into the Rescue originally, the person he was would have needed something, well, probably really bad to happen to her and for him to not only notice but realize he had a responsibility to make it not happen. Either his carelessness gets her hurt in a way that he should have realized long beforehand he was not actually prepared to handle and help her with, or his disregard for her puts her at the mercy of someone who treats her much worse and he realizes that he should have been better as well.
She could get sick, and he suddenly realizes she really had no way up to this point to actually take care of herself properly, and he should have listened beforehand about helping accommodate her before this happened, and now he'll take responsibility for her too late in an attempt to make up for it. He could simply be careless, cause her to fall/unintentionally cause her to get seriously hurt like have a bone break, and realize he at no point thought about the logistics of having to care for someone her size in that way. He could hand her off to someone to show her off as an oddity and watch them immediately mishandle her in a way that causes severe pain, damage, trauma, etc. and finally come to his senses about how vulnerable she's been the whole time.
He could also just... have to spend a lot of time alone with her, and suddenly have to face the extreme emotional distress she's been under. As much as I'd like to have hope for the man in this instance, and as much as I do believe there's a chance that they could talk enough that he could come to actually listen to her and take her to be a person, if it's happening while he's actively Captaining a ship and crew-- no matter how small and tight-knit that crew is-- he probably wouldn't make the time to allow that to happen. It would likely come down to something bad happening, like above.
Out of the whole crew, Gibson would be the least likely to unintentionally traumatize her, but he wouldn't interact with her in any kind of like... accommodating way, or like she was a person he should be caring for. The rest of the main four (Henry, Forbes, Neilson) would treat her, again, as an oddity worth examining and exploring for amusement and to slake curiosity first and foremost. Gibson would be "hey she can handle herself" and implore they leave her alone, even if she was trying to communicate that No! Actually, she can NOT handle herself right now! This shit is not her usual Way Of Being(tm).
I have to bounce off and help Zip with dinner, but thank you so so much for the ask!! If you have any more, always feel free to drop them in and I'll do my best to get to them when I have the time and energy <3 <3
