A line formed behind Mara, people with little offerings: skewers, sacks of fruit, a hand-knitted scarf, a radio playing slow jazz. The feeding ritual evolved quickly. Local vendors learned to craft offerings that were safe for both parties: giant-sized trays of rice and stew, reinforced pallets so Ari could lift them without crushing them, long-handled ladles to scoop soup into a hollow of her palm.

People would smile and say, "So she still feeds us, sometimes—only now it’s with the memory of how we were when she was here."

Ari tapped a finger to the bridge. The single note she tapped out echoed like a bell inside the chest. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, she began to sing.

Business boomed along the river. Cafés retooled to make giant-safe packages. Farmers in the outskirts adapted fields for the new demand—barley, giant-sized cabbages, vats of stew. Volunteers became feeding attendants, trained to stand on reinforced platforms and use poles to present offerings. There were rules, of course: no sharp objects, no glass, no attempts to climb or ride. People respected them for a while.

And for Mara, that was enough. She took the compass out on clear nights, found north, and walked home with the certainty that some parts of the world were still capable of being both enormous and kind.

The gift changed nothing in the official sense, but it changed Mara. She kept the compass in a pocket, and on nights when she worried about the future—about jobs, about whether a colossal stranger could remain gentle forever—she would hold it and remember how Ari had listened to a trumpet, how she had caught a flying billboard with the same fingers she used to cradle a paper boat. The image made her steady.

"Who is it for?" someone shouted.