My first thought after reading this chapter is that I might have underestimated Jen a little bit in my last review.

I previously thought that she wouldn't be able to come to terms with and accept that the Lilliputians (really Gulliverans in this universe, if we're sticking with that terminology) as a whole are actually people and that she has murdered and eaten several innocent people. I think we saw a lot in this chapter that shows that she's slowly moving down the path to doing just that.

I was a little surprised that her main reason for getting Sara to eat those soldiers was to have a partner in crime to help alleviate the guilt nagging at the back of her mind. I really thought she was just going to push ahead and ignore the contradiction toward her love for Kara and her viewing the rest of her race as food (and evil food at that). And speaking of that, I love how that contradiction came out in her rambling argument to Sara for why the soldiers are pests but Kara isn't didn't make any sense to our Latina goddess. While Sara is starting to adapt to Jen's cross-dimensional diet, I have a feeling that this won't be the last time that Jen's faulty logic gets to her, and she's probably going to call her tall friend out on it at some point.

And Jen gaining a new respect for the late Osmund is another sign that her way of viewing the Lilliputians is changing. Before she was thankful that he saved Sara, but now she actually appreciates what he was trying to do and (it looks like) she's willing to take up his cause (beyond just killing the queen, which she was down for before even meeting Osmund and company). In the early chapters of this story, I couldn't have imagined her feeling this way about a Lilliputian, and Kara earned that over the course of several chapters after that, thanks in part to being able to speak English. Jen never even have an actual conversation with Osmund, so I think this is some real growth from Jen here.

I love the evolution of Sara in this chapter. Her hesitation to eat or even kill Osmund's murderers herself fits with her gentle personality, but between their taste, her hunger, and what they did to the family that saved her life, she was able to get past that and eat them. She even briefly wanted to take it back and throw the first one back up, which I found to be a bit cute.

I wasn't sure if we were going to see her go that far in this story (I figured she would move away from her pacifism a bit, but not that far), but it makes sense that she did. And her framing of the act as being a sort of avenging angel kind of helps her maintain that gentle, good-person status, despite killing two tinies in maybe the worst way possible (and knowing exactly how torturous the digestion process is for them).

But all-in-all, something like this needed to happen. Sara had to become willing to hurt enemy soldiers at the very least. The battle at the farm probably would have gone better had she been more aggressive during the battle (I'm not sure it would have saved Osmund, though, to be fair).

Kara's got a lot going on inside her head right now. I think this chapter shined the most when it showed her processing her grief, anger, and guilt over Osmund's death. The way she took command and ordered Jen to eat the soldiers in the house showed a serious yet very believable change in her, which also needed to happen at some point. I feel bad that she blames herself for what happened, and Soren's quick appearance in the chapter to let her know it wasn't (and to quietly endorse Sara killing his father's killers) was a nice touch as well.

I also thought her reaction to Jen's anger after telling her about the Microlings (see real Lilliputians) was intriguing. Her greatest fear with Jen isn't death or digestion but Jen abandoning her. That's pretty remarkable when you think about it. It really built off the time that Kara explained to Jen that she was basically ostracized from society because she was so short. Jen's acceptance of her is the most important thing to her, and losing that is the worst thing that can happen to her. That's pretty sad, but it also makes the relationship between the two of them that much more special, especially with Jen more or less forgiving Kara and briefly wishing she was small enough to comfort her properly immediately after hearing that from her tiny friend/love.

As for that relationship, this chapter continued to show how serious Jen's feelings for Kara really are. Aside from Kara's sadness wiping out Jen's anger (which isn't an easy thing to do, based on how this story has gone so far), there were plenty of little things scattered throughout the chapter. There was Jen asking Kara is she could hold the tiny woman after that near-death experience (she's not normally the type to ask tinies for permission), her letting Kara get away with ordering her around with those soldiers, the fact that she had to really focus on not ripping into Sara for Kara almost dying on the Latina's watch, the way she gently stroked Kara's cheek while she declared that she would rip the head off of any Lilliputian that would so much as look at her little friend the wrong way, and even how she has gotten really good at holding Kara steady in her palm while walking, as well as other minor details peppered in as well. You've really nailed down the whole "violent giantess with one special tiny" thing down.

And I vote for Shortcake as Kara's pet name. You didn't say we were voting, but I you don't hate democracy, right? RIGHT?!

The double-sided hypocrisy between Kara and Jen about the MIcrolings made a lot of sense. Kara was raised to not view the Microlings as people, so while the reality that Jen is to the Lilliputians as they are to the Microlings has surely been in the back of her head for a while, she views people her size as having value and needing to be kept alive. She was never cruel to the Microlings, but she doesn't value them in the same way either. It's an illusionary crime against her (and most of their kind) committed by the Queen (I know they didn't think much of the Microlings before, but at least they mostly left them alone back then).

Jen is right to be angry. After all the shit Kara has given her about being peaceful with the Lilliputians, it has to be annoying to hear that most of them do the same shit to people so much smaller than them. I also like that she rationalized her own mistreatment of tinies as unknowingly helping the Microlings. Just another way to try and unburden that deeply buried guilt over her actions.

Which, of course, makes Jen a hypocrite here as well. She calls the Lilliputians evil monsters for what they've done to the Microlings when she's done the same shit to the Lilliputians. To be fair, she did the worst of it shortly after Anton died, so grief and vengeance were factors while the Lilliputians do their terrible deeds for fun or annoyance, but that doesn't change the fact that she ate and flattened several people that had nothing to do with Anton's death and were really only guilty of being under the wrong boot at the wrong time. Like I said above, I'm starting to think Jen will actually confront this reality at some point, so I'm pretty interested in seeing how that goes (if it does actually happen; some people run from shit like that, and I'm not sure I could totally blame Jen if she was one of them).

I do like that while Kara automatically assumed Jen would think about eating the Microlings, the giant blonde went the other way and seems to want to protect them. I think that shows that Jen is a good person despite what she's done throughout the story, and without being blinded by the hatred that can only come with the love of your life being murdered in front of you, her first instinct is to stand up for those weaker than herself. I'm really curious how her coming into contact with the Microlings will go.

And if they go to where the Microlings near the farm were, Sara is probably going to be pretty devastated when she finds out what she unknowingly did to them a while back.

Lastly, it was a small thing, but I love that Tarkus can speak some English. It just makes it feel as though the man is prepared for almost anything. Like I said in my last review, even though he's not the primary villain here, he's probably the most complete one. I absolutely love him as an antagonist!