Her snores are absolutely without shame, louder than the most careless beast of burden Eliphas has ever had the misfortune to be around. The prince of Emoria, once the pride of the empire’s military forces, the subject of all manner of respect and awe in the eyes of his people, was now reduced to literally almost nothing, trapped and forced to suffer the indignity of not only defeat, but the humiliation of imprisonment. All the tests of courage and trials of hardship he’d been through could never have prepared him for how he felt in this very moment; insignificant.

The great training halls of his adolescence had beaten fighting spirit into his heart like the hammer upon heated iron, for years he had been broken, indoctrinated, and forged into a warrior built to endure in service to the empire, his empire. Now, he sat defeated, in far more ways than immediately obvious.

The girl inhaled again and the prince shut his eyes, angrily wishing that her incessant noise would cease, even for just a moment, his focus lost, his clear path to his future, gone. He just wanted a brief respite more than anything else from her complete and total display of uncaring slumber.

The woman lay on her simple wooden bedframe, the thing constructed out of bare wood, unshaped by a trained carpenter’s hand and lashed together with ties of leather or other scavenged materials. Her arms were above her head, careless and evenly sprawled, her legs, mostly uncovered by her outfit, similarly stretched out and lounging, her right knee bending its shin inwards.

Sleeping deeply, without a single concern for anything. The scene before Eliphas infuriated him.

She had taken joy in slaughtering his men, stolen him as her prize, and even now, held as much concern for his life as she would a mistreated pet. But worst of all, this beast had slain Lasha, and though his situation was hopeless at present, he swore to the war god no matter how long it took, whatever it would cost him, he would exact harsh vengeance upon her for that, without mercy, and without hesitation. He vowed to make her suffer.

She stirred slightly, her mouth open and a thin trail of saliva running out of and down the left side of her cheek, muttering something under her breath that Eliphas didn’t understand, as if she were in a dream.

He sighed with stifled anger and rising torment, she was so loud, probably due his size he imagined, now that he was the height of a small standing coin on the surface of her uneven table. The girl had placed him there when the pair had arrived back to her simple home, a cottage of sorts, not primitive though not exactly to a standard typical of Eliphas’ experience traveling his lands. He had been unconscious when he awoke here, why exactly, he was not certain. He remembered dropping from her enormous fingers into her zipped pocket after the short battle, feeling the wall of flesh that was her thigh slam against him as he met the bottom of the pouch material. That must have been it then. The exertion of combat and the thump to his head must have done it. But it didn't matter.

When he had woken up, she was already fast asleep, and remained that way still, snoring like a thundering waterfall with each of her shallow breaths. She was, by comparison, massive, even larger than when she had attacked the company on the trail back to the capitol. Eliphas had taken stock of his surroundings, a few walls, a single small, open-air window with no glass but a wooden shutter, as well as other less important observations about her dwelling. Most importantly, was the door, which seemed like miles away, and just the table itself, as the prince had panicked initially trying to find a way to escape as he came to, was high like a mountain ledge from the cold embrace of the floor, a height he knew he could not survive a fall from.

He continued with his task, trying to distract himself as the snoring echoed without pause, not letting up as it had been going on for the last few hours.

Eliphas had a knife in his hand, the short single-edged blade about as long as two index fingers were together, the straight, angle-tip razor sharp and gleaming. The woman had failed to search him before his capture, and as result, he retained his concealed weapon in his boot sheath, as well as a small pouch of silver and bronze coins under his right skirt plate.

 The prince had a piece of his duty tunic cut and bundled in his mouth, trying to keep his voice muffled for what was to come, his left arm bare of his plated armor and pulled out from the protection of his mail shirt, his strong, young shoulder and bicep muscles bulged with regimented strength building and constant exposure to war. His skin bore scars here and there, some minuscule, others like the one nearest to his shoulder bone, deep, ragged, and wide. The shoulder one was where a Scardonic gator had tried to have a bite of him a few years back, but the beast wasn’t quite as quick as Eliphas had been, the oversized reptile missing its bite, though its front claw had slashed through his armor, digging into his flesh. The man remembered the pain and his cry of agony, one of his warriors had pulled him away and saved his life, the rest of his battle-guard killing the raging animal shortly there-after.

That warrior had been Braum.

Eliphas took a deep breath and swallowed, he knew what he had to do, he had been planning this ritual since he'd determined escape from the table was impossible. Such was the way of his people, of his family tradition, the longer he went without honoring this grim custom, the more shame he felt with each passing moment.

Carefully, trying to brace for the pain and keep the line straight, he pressed the honed, biting side of the knife to his skin. He grunted in pain as the blade cut into his meat, blood running freely as he gasped out and groaned, his slightly trembling hand slowly making its way down and around to the softer muscle of his arm.

“What are you doing?” A voice came like the concussive shot of a powder weapon.

Eliphas stopped at once, though he knew who the question had come from without glancing up. He wasn’t afraid, for whatever reason, and his reply seemed to reflect that as he spat out the rolled bit of fabric in between his teeth.

“Mind your business, mongrel.”

The girl rose up, not coming back with words initially, as the bed she lay upon creaked and contorted beneath her weight. She stood to her feet, the soles of which boomed out lowly as they landed, doing so similarly with each step she took bringing herself to the side of the table.

She looked down at him with indifference, as if she wasn’t concerned for her new found property’s well-being or the fact he was mutilating himself. A few noiseless moments passed, as she beholds him with completive curiosity. When Eliphas concluded she was not going to intervene, he turned his gaze back down to his arm and replaced the small bundled gag in his mouth, intent on finishing his grizzly task.

The horned woman watched him without moving, her eyes narrowing and observing closely with an inquisitive nature, as he continued to strain in pain, her eyes keeping track of the small blade he pressed into and drew along his skin, carving a line of blood around his bicep.

“If you’re trying to kill yourself, you should probably go at something more important. Don’t you think?” She said without a hint of humor or sarcasm, dead flat and serious. Her voice was a few tones lower than a girl ought to have, but there was a decently pleasant quality to it, as if the pitch reflected power or drive, and not dainty femininity.

Eliphas inhaled shutting his eyes distractedly halting a second, then sighed and shook his head, thinking of responding, but deciding ultimately to remain quiet, following the trace of the weapon neatly again as it neared his first point of contact, a nearly complete, unbroken line carved into his bleeding skin upon the circumference of his arm.

The girl concluded it was nothing to be worried about, although it was a curious development. She knew little of this man, and nothing of the place she had visited during the ambush, and her mind was teased with answers she had yet to pose questions about. Who really was this stranger?

She turned away, pushing the thoughts from her mind, heading to a small area in her home that seemed to be for preparing food or meals, baskets of fruit hanging and covered boxes here and there in no orderly fashion. She poured water into a simple bowl and grabbed a large piece of scrap fabric, gathering something for the man to clean his wounds with, though not intending the gesture to be one out of kindness, merely necessity. The woman knew she’d injured him during the span of their duel, and understood that split in his body needed washing if he was to survive to see her intended purpose for him.

She walked back, and as his small form focused into her vision again, she saw him wiping away crimson from his grim handiwork, red still running out of the straight gash all the way around his left arm. She placed the bowl and rag down next to him nearby and his head jerked up and over to the sound of the heavy thud.

She stood there, quiet and resting her hand on her hip, leaning to one side as she examined him without speaking. Eliphas looked back up at her, not sure of how this latest confrontation would play out, her sharp yellow eyes somehow frigid with the unmistakable disregard for life. She could kill him, right now, in more than a thousand graphic ways he did not want to consider.

“I’m Daedra,” she began with no amount of formality, “I cast a spell on your body. It shrinks you, obviously, whenever I touch you a certain way or,” she pauses, bringing her right hand up and next to her head, keeping her savage eyes placed upon his body as she snapped her index finger and thumb together, the digits clicking out an audible noise.

Eliphas found himself suddenly sick and tumbling off the table with a loud crash, full and normal sized as the ground rushed to meet his face and chest, his removed armor plates from his arm and shoulder remaining on the table, resized with him where they had been relatively left when he'd been smaller.

The prince realized in an instant he still clutched his knife, and as his mind focused, recovering from the strange after-effects of the odd magic, he whirled the next moment, a roar coming from his throat as he lunged for Daedra, intent on slicing open her neck and feeling her blood on his hands again.

But before her prisoner could even rise completely and take a single step, however, she snapped again, entirely unconcerned at his impulsive response and shrinking him in an identical drop of time back to his tiny stature, the size she more preferred him at.

Eliphas staggered and almost fell back over again, shaking his head in disbelief as the whole room had burst and grown back before he’d even understood what was happening. Worryingly he found, the girl now stood before him, without having moved an inch and his own form shrunk and on the floor beneath her threatening gaze.

Weapon still in hand, he gawked up at her, his mind not comprehending what his eyes were trying desperately to tell it, that he was again as an insect would be before her once more.

Daedra took a step, stretching beyond what seemed like a mile and dropping her right foot before the insignificant man in front of her toes. She could see him clearly enough, but she was acting to dissuade him from doing anything else that might earn her displeasure from here on out.

She brought her other foot rushing over and placed it nearby the first, the ground shaking and rattling Eliphas’s bones as it met the improvised floor. Her entire body was vast, seeming to go on forever, all the way up to those menacing eyes that now held him in place with the promise of death should they wish it upon him.

He took an involuntary step back, his inner reason pushed just as he was beyond its limits as she spoke down to him, raising an eyebrow and smirking in his direction.

“If you don’t do as I say, my little lord, I will kill you. Make no mistake of that.”

The small man gulped as a bead of sweat rolled down the right half of his forehead, his breath rushing higher, anxiety welling up in him and his nerves resisting a cry to flee.

“I killed your servants, because they were in the way. But you…”

She pauses and lifts the toes of one of her feet from the ground and places her biggest before his body as he slightly recoils, her largest a head or two still taller than he was.

“I’ll have a great deal of fun with you before I allow death to take you from me…Do you understand?”

Eliphas hesitated and didn’t answer, still partially afraid, and the rest of his mind not keeping up with these ceaseless, outlandish events and displaying his obvious discomfort.

Daedra smiled down at him as she brought her big toe up above him, then casually bumping it into his torso with careful delicacy. By contrast, her captive was shoved mercilessly to the ground, his armor unable to protect his vital organs against such an incalculable amount of power, fire in his chest burning and his lungs forced empty as he thudded to the floor.

He was on his back and gasping, as the boulder of flesh then pinned him to the ground resting on his body, his head just barely coming out from beneath its embrace and able to see passed its nail, up to the grinning teeth of the inhuman woman, both her hands coming to rest on her hips. Eliphas had both his hands attempting to hold the creature’s weight at bay, from his perspective that made him feel like it was helping, but in reality, Daedra applied no more force now than she did when totally relaxed.

“I said,” She began to repeat, “Do you understand?”

“Yes!” shouted the man beneath her toe, gasping and teeth clenched tight, straining hopelessly against the pressure’s unimaginable force.

“I don’t think I heard you, little lord, what was that?” Daedra replied, the previous time with a serious, low tone, this time with a humorous taunt, placing one cupped hand to her left ear as she bent over slightly, turning her head still wearing her smile. She carefully pressed down her smooth, largest toe, increasing the agony by a fraction to the pinned boy far below her excited eyes.

“Yes!” Eliphas forced from his lungs as his face turned bright red, stammering out a pained gasp as he finished his reply, his armor was starting to groan and creak, and if this playfully tormenting didn’t stop soon, it would buckle and become his new casket.

Then at once, the pressure ceased, the girl removing her foot and placing it again a distance away with a thunderous boom, saying out happily at a normal speaking voice as she did so.

“Good! Then we understand each other!”

Eliphas gasped and coughed, rolling partially to one side as his lungs took in saps of precious air. Daedra watched him writhe for a moment, enjoying herself immensely; this newest catch of hers was proving to be quite unique. She told him as much, though knowing full well she’d soon be done with him. Strangely, she wasn’t excited for that time to arrive, not like the few others before at least. The girl decided, setting herself down to her knees to the surprise of her small prize, that she would get some proper entertainment out of this one before she turned him over for payment.

She knelt down in front of Eliphas, her face filling the sky, and her eyes, like a pair of murderous stars, making his dark plate slightly glow with them nearing.

Daedra whispered down to him, her grin never ceasing and her breath, warm on the exposed parts of his skin.

“I think you and I will get along, juuussst fiiine…”

She held his body and especially his eyes, within the huge iris’ of her own matching pair, thinking to herself of wonderous fun to come in the next few days. A thought, however, arriving within her mind as she completely forgot a key question to pose.

“Oh right, I almost forgot, what’s your name, my little lord?”

Eliphas blanched slightly at being referred to as belonging to someone else, stammering a half moment before the towering woman spoke out again.

“It’s alright…I don’t bite…” she said whispering the last bit, her tongue pushing out and testing the sharp edge of one of her slightly elongated canine teeth.

The Emorian took a breath, and then replied, his composure returned now and feeling brave again.

“Eliphas. Lord of Emoria, the empire of man.”

“Eliphas…” she said testing the word as it came from her lips, “Eliphas…” she whispered again, this time adding, “Of what house? Do you have a more specific bloodline?”

“No,” he said lying, “I am a general of the Emorian military, the men in my company were my personal guard.”

“Why is it that you wear black, then?” She came again without pause, her head tilting a bit away, eyelids fractionally lowering as if in contemplation of his answer to her inquiry.

“It is to mark me out among my fellows. A symbol of rank, more than anything else.” That part was the truth, and though he had just lied about his own true lineage, he found he had done so because he was not sure how damning it would be to reveal that type of information just yet.

“Hmm…” The girl commented with a raise of her eyebrow.

“Well,” her voice came as she closed her eyes, shaking her horned head, and suddenly rising back to her feet making to turn away, as if at once incredibly bored, “You’re in my company now, so don’t try anything stupid anymore.”

She snapped her fingers again as he flashed back to his normal size in the span of time it takes to complete a single breath. He shuddered slightly as his head spun in a stab of pain, the spell seeming to be the source of the mild dizziness that bombarded him.

“Clean off the wound on your chest. Oh, and that latest stupid choice of yours on your arm, I don’t want you dying before I manage to sell you.”

“S-sell me?” Eliphas blurted, looking up and rising to his feet.

Daedra turned and looked back and forth as if looking for some obvious alternative he appeared to suggest.

“Yeah, why else would I have kept you alive? I’m going to sell you, and hopefully, make enough to eat for a month or two. Now clean yourself up.”

The prince blinked in utter disbelief, and shook himself rigid, reaching down and taking the bowl of offered water and rag as if confused, but knowing he should tend to his mess of a chest and still bleeding arm, before he contracted anything truly serious.

He looked at Daedra as she rummaged around a box and then tossed him a small brown bag. When Eliphas reached out and caught it, the material half opened and revealed a red, wet, sand-like substance. He peered down at it and flexed his fingers, trying to test its odd, unfamiliar consistency.

“Lacos,” Daedra said turning away again, “put it on your chest and it’ll seal it without having to bandage you up.”

The prince had finished looking at the powder, and now, without realizing it, glared over silently to the girl as she looked around for another box, his lack of moving though, attracting her attention, her instincts feeling his eyes on her from behind. He kept trying to convince himself to try and kill her again and again, he just couldn’t seem to wrestle with the fact that she could annihilate his life with such ease, as well as shackle him so completely without any physical bonds. She aided him in changing his mind though with the next words she spoke, meeting his eyes, not backing down from his hatred on clear display.

“If you don’t do what I say, I’m going to bite off one of your arms, you snot-nosed little shit.” She paused and emphasized the last words she growled out to him.

“My patience has limits...Eliphas…”

She said his name again, and he had not yet gained control of his breath, which became somehow more difficult with her speaking it. “It’s suicide to conceive trying to attack her again,” his mind was screaming to him. He wanted to ignore it, he wanted to place his faith in his abilities, and his skills in fighting, but he knew in his heart he could not kill her in the time it would take for her to snap her little fingers.

And he rather liked his arms, he had to admit.

He sighed heavily and looked away, back to where his remaining plates of armor sat idle. He stepped over and kept his eyes on Daedra as she watched him scoop them up and head for the door, her face betraying no emotion as she made certain he was going to cooperate.

“Where are you going?” She said as he turned and faced away, halting as he heard her speak.

“To do as you wish, in what privacy I can steal from you, filth.”

Daedra finally smiled again, rolling her eyes and turning away herself as her prisoner ducked and went through the only door to her home, calling out as he let the light of the midday sun flow inside.

“If I step outside and don’t see you, I’ll snap my fingers. The spell works no matter where you may plan to run, no matter how far away you could ever hope to get.”

Eliphas stopped dead again, surprise on his face, and a small consideration he’d been having shattered. Daedra turned and glanced over her shoulder smiling at him as he looked over back at her.

“…Let me know if you need any help, tin-man…” She muttered out sensually adjusting her standing posture ever-so-slightly to accentuate her physique.

The prince of Emoria frowned and bared his teeth at her for trying to play games with him, while simultaneously threatening his life. He hawked his throat and brought up a bit of phlegm, a clear insult in any culture as he spat it onto Daedra’s floor, defiance, no matter how much the girl had tried to subdue it, still burning in his soul.

The horned girl allowed this gesture to pass as he finally made his way out of the cottage, slamming the door behind him, the woman with almost jet black hair turning to gather some supplies for the coming journey the two would soon be going on.

“So proud. So full of fire…” She whispered to herself.

“And feisty too…”