On almost any other day, the Cerulean Forest would be peaceful.

Not on this day.

A rather curvaceous young woman of moderate stature, dressed in the rugged leather trappings of a hunter, ran through the forest as fast as she could. Her face was covered with scratches from the blue twigs that hit her as she ran. Her hands, body, and legs were covered in blood. Some of it was hers, some of it was not. In any case, she was fearful and in pain. She shouldered her worn hemp backpack and dashed even faster. However, she feared simply running would not be enough. Indeed, she knew that her panicked running would leave easily noticeable tracks. In a desperate gambit, she delved into the blue shrubbery to her left and started forging a path through the dense undergrowth.

She kept pushing through the dense blue foliage, occasionally looking backwards. Eventually, she stopped running and simply looked back. After about two minutes of looking behind herself and seeing no sign of pursuers, the woman slumped onto the ground. Her breathing was labored, and her chest heaved up and down erratically. For the first time in nearly a day. she spoke, although there were no listeners besides herself.

"Well, Teagan, you've gotten yourself into quite the mess now."

The woman, who shall be henceforth referred to as Teagan, lightly dropped her backpack and opened it. She withdrew a few bandages, and began to patch up her wounds. When she was finished, Teagan returned the remaining bandages to her backpack and withdrew something else. It was a small latched wooden box with a number of holes in the top. Teagan unlatched the box, opened it, and smiled in a sinister fashion. Inside, three tiny humans cowered in the corner, desperately trying to escape. They were talking in their strange language, no doubt begging for mercy. Teagan, however, had lost all empathy for the tomkins when they razed her small burg and killed everyone they could. Now, when Teagan looked at a tomkin, the only thing she saw in them was a possible use - be it entertainment, an outlet for rage, or as... nourishment.

Teagan raised one of the tiny tomkins, a little man with dusky hair, to her face. When she licked her lips and eyed him hungrily, the tomkin started to scream. Indeed, he had reason to.

That night, Teagan slept in discomfort. Her wounds constantly ached, and she was hungry despite her recent meal. Compounding upon this was the fact that there was most likely a legion of trackers searching for her in the surrounding area.

The next morning, Teagan staggered warily to her feet. The sun barely peeked over the horizon, and the ground was wet with dew. She shoved her now empty wooden box into her backpack, took a swig of water from the flask at her side, and set out to the east. She was headed for Whitebreeze Keep, the last stronghold of humanity. At least, that's what she'd heard from some. Others said that Whitebreeze Keep was simply a lie, created by the leader of some desparate party to keep spirits high. Teagan, however, wasn't going to just sit around if there was even the slightest possibility of such a safe haven for humankind to exist. She had learned of the keep from a cynical trapper. When she asked where it might be, he said that he didn't know, but he did know someone who might. Teagan was now off to find an old man living in a peat bog, sequestered away from the grasp of the tomkins. Teagan's muscles ached in protest with every step she took, and her stomach rumbled audibly, but she continued, determined to find safety. She had just escaped from the clutches of a group of slavers, tomkins who captured, subdued, and enslaved humans. It wasn't long until Teagan stumbled out of the last of the bluish bushes that surround the Cerulean Forest and made it to an open plain. The trapper told Teagan that from here, she'd have to keep going forward until she hit a river with green water. Teagan sighed and staggered forward. She was hungry, her water was running low, and she was covered in cuts, bruises, and scratches.

"My prospects aren't looking too well... eeurgh."

Teagan groaned as her leg started to cramp. This journey was a disaster, and she was likely to be murdered by tomkins before she even made it to the old man. Despite the seemingly bleak future ahead, Teagan forged ahead, looking in vain for a river. She reached for her flask to take a sip of water, but when she lifted it to her lips, only a few drops rolled out onto her parched lips. Teagan angrily tucked her flask back into her belt and fished out a tiny glass bottle filled with a light brown liquid from her backpack.

"Nothin' like a bit of whiskey to whet the palate."

Teagan took a small sip of this precious resource before returning it to her backpack. It was going to be a long day.

Teagan looked around her. She was deep in hostile territory, traveling dangerously close to a number of tomkin settlements. It was of the utmost importance for her to reach this river quickly - she was out of food and water, and was being tracked. Teagan turned her walk into a brisk jog, although her muscles burned in protest. Her backpack, now lighter than ever since being depleted of the hardtack, bandages, and cheese it contained, was starting to tear. Teagan resumed walking, still surveying her surroundings. As she continued onwards, Teagan noticed a number of willow trees around her, which thickened as she went forwards. This was a good sign indeed; willow trees tend to grow near bodies of water. Teagan, spirited by this good omen, doubled her pace and continued onwards, a half smile spreading across her tanned face. After what seemed to be an eternity, Teagan crested a hill and came face to face with a river, with water as green as the grass that grew around it. The trapper told Teagan that this water was not only safe to drink, but even healthy and delicious, perhaps the result of magic. Teagan quickly staggered over to the river and drank her fill. When she was done, she then proceeded to fill her flask. Teagan then undressed, revealing her shapely form, and took the first real bath she'd had in months, refreshed by the cool water. She smiled with pleasure as she submerged her tired and aching legs in the river, relaxing for the first time in what seemed to be forever. After a quick scrub, Teagan clambered out of the river, redressed, and started heading downstream. While she was certainly no longer thirsty, Teagan still felt the occasional pang of hunger. She opened her backpack, and withdrew the small wooden box. She looked at it, examining it for a few seconds, before putting it in her belt where a weapon would normally be put. Indeed, this makeshift prison was her weapon.

It was time to secure some food, be it sapient or otherwise.


Teagan knew this area well; it was the site of her home in her youth. Even though she hadn't been by the river in nearly 15 years, Teagan could remember most of the landscape, making her an enemy to be feared. Teagan also knew that this was now a favorite foraging ground for tomkins, who would occasionally come for the delicious but somewhat rare wild strawberries that grew in the area. While certainly tasty, these uncommon berries wouldn't be enough nourishment for Teagan and she knew it. Indeed, they were hard enough to come by when she was a girl, and now that tomkins were harvesting them, the berries would be a rare find indeed. Teagan's footsteps were silenced by the grass that blanketed the riverside, and she was faster than the vast majority of tomkins. She strained her ears to pick up on even the faintest sound of speech, and looked around for even the slightest shift in the grass.

Teagan grinned wickedly as she heard strains of singing drift up a nearby hillock. Although she couldn't tell for sure, the music seemed to be coming from more than one voice, and was most certainly in the strange language of the tomkins. Teagan lowered her lithe form onto the ground and crept silently towards the sound of the singing. She tentatively peeked over the hillock, and clenched her fists in anticipation of the hunt. Four little tomkin maidens were headed towards her, each bearing a number of miniscule water buckets. Two of them were singing, unaware of the danger they were headed for. Teagan darted back behind the hill, knowing that she had limited time before the water girls crested the hill and saw her. Teagan knew that if one if the tomkins escaped after seeing her, it wouldn't be long until a platoon was sent to find her by the nearest tomkin settlement. A peal of laughter rang out from behind the hill, signaling the the maidens were drawing ever closer.

Teagan, sensing that she was running out of time, snuck quickly but quietly behind a willow with a trunk just thick enough to hide her. She waited there patiently, not daring to look out from behind her cover and scare her prey away. She listened intently to the singing, which drew nearer with every passing second. Finally, Teagan heard what she was listening for. There was a series of audible plops as the maidens filled their thimble-sized buckets with the green water. Teagan snuck out from behind her cover, taking advantage of the fact that the tomkins now all had their backs turned to her. She made a wide arc before sneaking up behind the maidens, taking advantage of the sounds of rushing water and singing to drown out her stealthy footsteps. Teagan’s muscles tensed as she drew less than a foot away from the oblivious tomkins. She slowly extended one arm…
With a rapid movement, Teagan seized two of the tomkins in her hand and put them in her box, which she had at the ready in the other hand. The other two tomkins, startled by the sudden movement, turned around to behold the comparatively giant Teagan stuffing their comrades in a box. One of them, a tall (by tomkin standards) lass with ebony hair and a dark complexion, dived into the river, while the other one, a shorter girl with ginger hair and wide eyes, tried running to the right. Teagan instantly leapt towards the tomkin that dived, knowing that the current could carry her to safety. She extended her hand with lightning speed towards the flailing tomkin, and snatched her out of the water. Once she placed this tomkin in her box, Teagan turned her attention to the other tomkin, who was now running as fast as she could towards what Teagan presumed was her town. Teagan dashed towards her, like a stoat chasing a rabbit, and slid onto the ground, hoping to use the extra distance she would gain to reach the tomkin. The tomkin, however, saw this coming, and veered sharply away from Teagan’s grasp. Teagan, now both angry and worried, scrambled on all fours towards the terrified tomkin. The tomkin, hoping to escape Teagan again, veered the other way, but Teagan predicted this and swept her hand in the same direction as the tomkin was headed, catching her. The tomkin weakly struggled, but it was of no use. Teagan put her in the box as well, ignoring the feeble resistance.

~

Sihil wept as the giantess dropped her into the small box. She was so close to escaping. Everything was dark, and the air was stale. Sihil knew little about these giants, but she did know that they had taken to eating people alive and whole after they lost the Giant War. Sihil flinched when something wet touched her shoulder, but calmed down when she realized it was the hand of Fersi, her closest friend who had tried in vain to swim away from the giantess.

“Sihil… I th-thought you m-might have gotten aw… awa…”

Fersi burst into another bout of tears, unable to finish her sentence. Sihil, now having partially regained her composure, started looking in vain for some sort of way to escape. She tried pushing the top of the box open, pounding on the walls, and scraping away at the floor, but her efforts did nothing. Sihil then did the only thing she could do.

She waited.

Sihil, who had fallen asleep in the box, woke with a start when bright light flooded the box. Sunlight poured through the previously black holes in the lid as the giantess drew the box out of her massive satchel. The giantess said a few words in a strange language and opened the lid of the box completely. Sihil bit her lower lip as she watched a giant hand descend into the box, headed straight for her. Sihil shakily stood up and prepared to face death.

“I am not afraid of-”

Sihil stopped her speech as the hand swerved away from her and plucked Fersi out of the box. Fersi started shouting and thrashing, but to no avail. The hand drew nearer to the giantess' face, now clutching the panicked Fersi. Fersi started hitting the hand with her fists, but this unsurprisingly turned out to be ineffectual. She then started begging the giantess for clemency.

“Please, please, if you have any heart at all, let my companions and I go! We have done you no wrong! I'll do anything! Please, just don-”

Fersi was cut short when the giantess opened her mouth, revealing a set of perfect white teeth. Fersi screamed and started struggling, but could do nothing as she was lowered into the monster’s mouth. Sihil watched in horror as Fersi’s legs disappeared into the giantess’s mouth, followed by her torso, and finally her head. The giantess grinned in sadistic pleasure. Sihil watched aghast as the giantess moved Fersi around in her mouth. Finally, she tilted back her head, and with a small gulp, swallowed Fersi alive. To prove her terrible point to the rest of her captives, the giantess opened her now empty mouth. The other two people trapped with her, whom Sihil didn't know well, started screaming insults at the apparently amused giantess. Sihil, knowing that her fate was sealed, simply sat there as the giantess put the lid of the box back on. Sihil silently wept as she was submerged, once again, in darkness.

~

Teagan placed the box back in her backpack. She could swear she still felt the struggling of the tiny creature inside of her, and she honestly enjoyed it. While Teagan was certainly an empathetic person who could easily feel for other people, she didn't think of tomkins as people. Rather, she thought of them as savages, akin to creatures like cows and pigs that were quite naturally and intellectually inferior to humans. Her already biased view was influenced even more heavily by the fact that all of her friends and family were slaughtered by tomkins, and she viewed her actions as justifiable retribution. Teagan rubbed her stomach; yes, the tomkin was still struggling inside of her. She knew that the other three tomkins would only last her until nightfall, and turned her steady downstream march into a jog. At this pace, she was able to reach a strange-smelling bog in little over an hour. She delved in.

The trapper told Teagan that the old man’s hut was well hidden among a grove of three red willows, but not too hard to see if one knows it’s there. Teagan slogged through the peat bog, doing her best to ignore the smell. She soon came across a sparse grove of red willows, and looked around for a group of three. It wasn't long until she aspied such a grouping of willows, with long leaves draping down. Indeed, the hut was concealed well among the willow leaves, but Teagan saw the roof peeking through the leaves after a careful examination. She strode towards the hut, which had no door.

“Heya! Anyone there! I'm looking for someone who knows the way to Whitebreeze Keep!”

Teagan waited for a reply. There was none.

“I'm coming in, is that okay?” she inquired.

“No. Stay out there.” responded a hoarse voice.

Teagan watched as a short balding man with a willow cane hobbled out of the hut. Upon beholding Teagan, he smiled, and did a curt bow.

“It's been a while since I saw me a lovely lady like you. Please excuse my earlier rudeness, and make yourself comfortable.”

The old man led Teagan inside. The interior of the hut certainly contrasted with the outside, which consisted of a few mud-brick walls. The willow wood walls were adorned with a number of paintings. A small bed sat in the corner of the house, while the center consisted of a table, a chair, and a few reed baskets.

“I rarely get company, so’s I've only got but a single chair. You can have it, I'll just sit on the bed. Care for some tea and bread, lassie?”

Teagan smiled.

“I'd love some, yes. However, I didn't come here for tea. I was told you know the way to Whitebreeze Keep.”

The old man chuckled as he started boiling water.

“I thought that's but a legend. And even if it did exist, why would I of all people know where it is?”

Teagan froze. The man didn't even believe in Whitebreeze Keep. She had come out here and risked everything for absolutely nothing. She nearly burst into tears.

“I - but - you were supposed to…”

Teagan stopped for a second, and regained her composure, before speaking slowly to the old man.

“I'm sorry to have bothered you. I guess I'll be having that tea and going, then. I was told you'd know where Whitebreeze Keep is, but if guess it was too good to be true.”

The old man nodded and strained a number of green herbs out of his tea with a fine cloth.

“You've got spirit, lass.”

The man placed a mug of tea and a loaf of coarse but hearty bread in front of Teagan.

“I do know the way to Whitebreeze Keep, and I'd be more than happy to tell it to you.”

The militia lined up in a battle formation, battle standards flapping proudly in the wind. They numbered just over 3,000 in number, and consisted of all able bodied men and women over the age of 10.

An armored knight stood at their head, visored helm concealing his features. He clutched a war banner in his right hand, and a massive tower shield in his left.

"Brave defenders of our homeland! I speak to you, standing here as one among your number. Some of you are old, far too old to be fighting in a bottle. Some of you are but children, too young to wear armor or carry a blade. We are in dire straits, and your service is necessary despite your age or strength, for only united may we stand against the encroaching threat."

The militia stood silent, listening to the knight.

"Some, most, or all of you may never return to what home or family you may have. Some of you may return missing limbs, or unable to walk. Some of you may return alone, having left to fight alongside your best friends or brothers.

We fight against a for far more numerous than ourselves. True, they are far smaller than us. True, their iron holds not against our steel. True, they lack our devotion, and fight with weapons too small to slay us alone. Yet even so, for every one of us, there are a thousand of them."

Murmurs coursed throughout the ranks of the militia. The knight raised his war banner to the sky, drawing the attention of the entire force.

"So let it be that for every gallon of our blood that is spilled, a sea of theirs shall be shed! Defend your homeland, for it is our strength of spirit that shall guide us to victory!"

The militia cheered, weapons raised into the air. Even as they cheered, the opposing army crested a hilltop, coming into view of the meager militia. The tomkin army was massive, a carpet of iron clad soldiers marching interminably forth. A figure clad in a flowing purple and gold cape marched at their head, a javelin in his hand.

"Since the dawn of our people, the giants have driven us from our land, murdering, raping, looting and pillaging. After many winters, hundreds, or perhaps thousands, we have gained the upper hand. Today, we take back what is ours! We exact revenge for those untold millions slain by the giants! Today, the nine factions unite to strike a last decisive blow! In the name of the First Emperor!"

The army cheered, drowning out the cries of the giant militia opposite them.

The two forces faced off. Neither moved, and all was silent.

The knight reached to his belt, and produced a horn. He breathed in, closed his eyes, lifted his visor, and blew.

The deep note echoed throughout the battlefield.

The militia charged the tomkin army, roaring and bristling with weapons. The two armies collided.

Here, a group of tomkins were obliterated by a few giant footfalls. There, a man's eyes were gouged out by hurled darts. An old man was struck down by a bolt from a tomkin siege engine, blood spraying from his throat. A young girl gave in to the pain of the spears biting at her legs, and her falling body crushed her terrified assailants.

The bloodshed was of unprecedented proportions, yet it was soon clear who the victor would be.

The knight rallied those few survivors of the initial clash behind him, his weapon and shield stained with blood. The tomkin army regrouped and marched forth again.

The knight uttered a prayer, knowing his time was near. He was happy, for his young daughter and wife had gone somewhere else. They were safe, far from the armies of the tomkins.

"Be safe, dearest Teagan, my sweet child."

The knight, his tears hidden by his visor, motioned for his remaining soldiers to retreat. Most of them were children, boys and girls only a bit older than Teagan, and he couldn't stand to see them die. He stood alone, shield raised in defiance of the oncoming army.

"Let them come."

The old man's note unfolded in Teagan's hand, and she scanned it for her next set of instructions.
The forest of dead trees is rather small. Just keep traveling from the moment you reach it until the moment you emerge from its depths, and you should be fine. Try to leave by nightfall.
If you are unable to get out by night, sleep in the branches of a tree, and try to stay quiet. Do not attempt travel after nightfall unless you absolutely must. If you for some reason find yourself having to travel at night, be quiet and stick to the shadows. If you hear anything that isn't yourself, be alert.
Teagan wasn't reassured by this message at all. What was there to be afraid of that warranted sleeping in a tree? Tomkins could climb far better than most people, and most wild beasts wouldn't live in such and empty place.
Teagan shrugged, put note away, and doubled her pace. The sooner she was out of here, the better. Nothing could stop her from finding out the truth of Whitebreeze Keep, certainly not some small forest.
She looked at the sky. Judging by the sun, it wasn't even noon yet. She certainly had time to spare for a little bit of rest and relaxation, right? Teagan, exhausted and still in a bit of pain from her recent scuffles with the tomkins, sat down on the soft forest floor. She lowered Sihil to the ground, and opened her box. Inside, her terrified new captive dashed about, desperately seeking escape. Teagan grinned devilishly before her eyes flitted to Sihil... who was shuddering and averting her eyes. Teagan's grin faded, and she picked up Sihil, bringing the little tomkin to her face.
~
While language separated the two, Teagan's eyes told Sihil everything. The giantess wasn't going to let the man go not out of cruelty but out of fear. She placed Sihil back on the ground before turning back to the tomkin man in the box. He was short, even for a tomkin, and rather frail. He looked pleadingly at Teagan, his hands clasped in the universal symbol for surrender. Teagan wrapped her right hand around the man and brought him to her face. He begged and pleaded in his strange language, and Teagan's eyes hardened as her mouth twisted into an evil smile. She would show no clemency to the unfortunate man. Teagan looked back at Sihil for just a moment, seeing the girl's resignation. Teagan inhaled deeply, opened her mouth, and dropped the man inside. She swallowed quickly, despite her urge to savor the terror of the little man. Sihil shuddered, and Teagan resisted the impulse to place her hand to her stomach and try to feel the little man's struggles, as she so often did after eating the helpless little things. Teagan picked Sihil back up, guiding the tomkin into her hand and raising her to her face, and stared into her minuscule eyes. Sihil tried averting her sight, but Teagan's forceful gaze impelled Sihil to stare back.
Teagan had learned the little tomkin girl's name... perhaps she could learn a few bits and pieces of their language. Teagan wondered where she should start, looking around. She decided to start with nouns, and pointed at a nearby gnarled and leafless oak.
"Tree."
Sihil stared for a second as Teagan repeated herself, but apparently caught on rather quickly.
"Ventris."
Teagan couldn't help but chuckle, for to her, this was a victory. Teagan proceeded to learn the words for a plethora of other basic nouns, and felt accomplished at her mastery of the foreign language, an affair that surprisingly few others had managed to come close to accomplishing. She might be able to use this to her advantage in the future. Teagan, after having learned a few words and calmed Sihil down considerably, continued on her merry way. She didn't know exactly what way that was, but she knew it was the opposite direction of the valley, and that was assurance enough that it was most likely the right direction.
Teagan's jaunty step carried her forward quite quickly, and by sundown, the forest was starting to clear again, indicative that she was nearing the exit. However, her instructions stated explicitly not to travel after dusk, and she wasn't about to take any risks. Teagan, shouldering her satchel, looked around for a tree that appeared suitable to climb and rest in. Sihil, who had fallen asleep in the palm of her hand, awoke when she was lowered to Teagan's waist. Sihil uttered a disheartened moan as she was placed back in the wooden box that she had grown to loathe.
Teagan set her eyes upon a sturdy looking black tree with thick and gnarled branches, perfect footholds and easy to grip. She jumped up, grabbing the lowest branch and pulling herself up with her right arm while reaching for the next highest branch with her left. When she grasped this branch, she boosted herself up with her right hand and grabbed on to the higher branch with both hands, resting her feet on the lower branch. Teagan swung herself up to the higher branch, and found that it was quite large and sturdy, as well as being conveniently located next to another slightly less sturdy looking branch. Teagan reclined on this branch, and rested her legs on the other nearby limb, finding that it fit her well. She hooked the two straps of her satchel to the two branches, creating a sort of makeshift hammock. While the satchel couldn't support her weight alone, it allowed her lower body to not sag, and made things a bit more comfortable overall.
She dozed off slowly, trying to calm herself and reassure her tired and anxious mind that there was nothing in the forest that could harm her. She slept uncomfortably, for her accommodations were rough and cold, but she slept nonetheless. Sihil, just as uncomfortable as her captor, dreamed of home, as she had nearly every night since her capture. She had lost track of the days, but her hope of return to her family lessened with every sunset.
~
Firkon's men dropped the formality of marching in formation. They were no longer a rear guard, for their garrison had long since left them. They were giant hunters now, and they had a target far more cunning, evasive, and cruel than many of the giants of the older days. Their numbers were nearly halved now, for many had chosen to return to their homes rather than fight on. Firkon didn't mind. If they wished to do so, he couldn't stop them. He would fight with the strength of ten of those cowards if he had to.
Laeron, a skilled tracker as well as an astute strategist, whistled gleefully. His slim form moved lithely across the ground, his red cuirass stained with grass from his work. He had a particularly easy time of locating the giantess' path, but doing so had not heartened him. Her footprints were visible to all but a blind man, which made her easy to track, but still caused Laeron to choke up a bit at first seeing them. An entire squadron of Orestion's finest legionnaires could fit under the giantess' feet, not to mention a handful of Telaphonis' ill-trained conscripts.
Laeron was naturally scared by this, having not actually seen one of the giants before, let alone the giantess in question. Firkon tramped on with fearlessness, something which both impressed and scared Laeron. While the Legate was certainly attached to his soldiers and wanted to see as few as possible perish, Laeron was afraid that Firkon was a bit too dedicated to seeing the giantess perish, and would sacrifice not only his life but the lives of the entire rear guard in order to see to it that the giantess dies.
Laeron shook his head and focused back on tracking the giantess. A light rain had begun to fall, and Laeron watched in a mixture of awe and horror as the mere footprints of the giantess became small ponds, making his job quite a bit easier.
Firkon had said that if they didn't slay the giantess by the time she exited the forest, he would seek help from the reclusive inhabitants of the mountains behind the forest, a small land called Q'thuman. While normally left to their own devices, the Q'thuman were sometimes called upon as master engineers, scientists, and practitioners of the arcane arts.
As they advanced deeper into the wood, some of the men became nervous. All had heard tales of the beast that dwelled within these woods. While the descriptions given by alleged sightings varied wildly, they all agreed upon three things. The Beast was monstrously large, larger than even the giants, unnaturally shadowy, and possessed an unspecified number of hateful violet eyes.
By nightfall, most of the soldiers yearned to rest, but Firkon knew better. They had a giantess to contend with as well as the possibility of some kind of monster lurking nearby.
He kept up, until he heard Laeron hush. The soldiers halted as the tracker's keen eyes followed some kinds of prints to the base of a tree. Laeron looked up and gasped. She was far bigger than he at first expected, although he couldn't make out details in the darkness. He wondered what her face looked like, and decided it must be ugly indeed, for nothing that large looked or could look like a person. 
Firkon wondered how he would go about this. His soldiers couldn't climb the tree with their spears, but their shortswords would do little against the tough clothing of the massive woman. He motioned to Laeron, beckoning him over.
"Sir... what are we to do?" inquired Laeron, nervousness straining his voice.
Firkon bit the inside of his cheek, right hand eagerly fondling the pommel of his sword. This was a bad position to fight in. While the giantess was asleep, she had been asleep at the start of both fights near Telaphonis. Taking her by surprise clearly wasn't a massive advantage. She had the high ground, she had branches she could snap off and use as makeshift projectiles, and she was probably out of range of their javelins. While the throwing spears certainly went far, they weren't good at aiming high, and throwing up often resulted in the javelin making little horizontal progress and killing one of the thrower's comrades on its descent.
Firkon let go of his sword and clapped Laeron on the shoulder.
"We can't win a fight like this. Let's keep moving forward. We know what direction she's traveling in, and that's enough to anticipate where she's headed. If we're ahead of her, perhaps we can stage an ambush with the help of a few allies. Let's just hope the Beast seizes her in her sleep."
Laeron exhaled with relief and disappointment, happy that he didn't have to fight the monstrous woman but a little let down that he didn't get to see her fight.
"Can do, but I don't know what the men will think about this. We can't really afford losing any more support than we already have."
Firkon nodded. The captain was right, and Firkon couldn't argue that the men were itching for a fight. The longer the men marched, the more their loyalty was tested.
He had to find Brother Volkhard.
Firkon silently moved to the front of his ranks, and gave the order to continue on. The soldiers complied without question, giving Firkon a little solace in this strange defeat. He hadn't lost any men, but he had lost a little dignity.
Laeron, seeing Firkon's troubled facial expression and clenched fists, approached him tentatively.
"It's alright. You've no doubt saved many of these men's lives. Even if he had won, it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best. Now we live on to fight another day, and win a decisive victory instead of a mournful one."
Firkon smiled and eased up a bit. Laeron, comforted by this, fell into the ranks of the soldiers, quickly jawing and jeering alongside them.
~
When Teagan awoke, it was to the sound of crackling underbrush. She looked around cautiously, but saw nothing in the darkness of the night. She was alert, however. Most would dismiss the noise as nothing, but Teagan knew that noises such as this weren't caused by the wind stirring. Something was lurking out there, and it was large enough to snap twigs. Teagan involuntarily flinched as she heard the noise again, closer to her this time. She looked around for the cause of the noise, trying to be as quiet as possible.
She saw it, and she screamed.
It was the size of a bear, if not larger, but Teagan couldn't quite tell. It was composed of twisting and writhing shadows, a coil of darkness tangled in a vaguely bipedal mess. Although it was mostly a blur, Teagan would make out two distinctly limb-like appendages that carried it forth and a third that protruded out from its upper body. A trio of violet dots swam about on the thing, seemingly focused on her. Teagan screamed louder, and saw the beast's eyes flash with malignant light. It circled her tree as lithely as a fox stalking a rabbit, observing and waiting for an opening. Teagan knew this, for only a few days before she had been doing the same to the tomkins. The beast slowly edged closer to the tree, until it circled around the base of the thing, purple dots fixedly pointed at Teagan.
Teagan stood up, flattening her back against the tree, and began to scramble upwards. She tried climbing as fast as she could, but she knew that a fall could prove lethal due to what lurked below. Teagan ascended to a slightly thinner and higher branch, just strong enough to support her weight. She watched in pure terror as one of the creature's limbs thinned out, becoming leaner and longer. It hung limply now, and Teagan thought that it looked alarmingly whip-like. Sure enough, the abomination coiled back its long arm, and Teagan yelped as it shot forward, snapping against a lower branch. Teagan sighed with relief as the appendage fell back to the ground, too short to reach her. Her relief was short-lived, however. The beast morphed form again, becoming much smaller, about Teagan's size, but pointedly more substantial. The once murky shadows were now crisply defined edges, and the foggy nature of the being was gone. Rather than appearing wraith-like and ghostly, the beast was now a hole in the fabric of reality, a pitch black tear in the canvas of the world. Although smaller, it was far more terrifying. The humanoid's three eyes merged into one, and Teagan felt a chill run down her spine. It was the guardian of this forest, and she was a trespasser.
Teagan watched as it stalked about the tree, still seemingly unable to reach her.
"Human... don't worry. I will not harm you."
Teagan felt her voice choke up in fear.
"Come down... and everything will be okay. I could reach you if I wanted to, human."
Teagan stayed in the tree, but part of her believed the creature.
"Human... don't fear me. I am a friend."
It reached an arm out to her, and she shrank back. Teagan felt the branch she was on creak.
"Come down now."
Teagan didn't move.
"Come down or I will drag you down."
Teagan still didn't move. She believed the old man. She told herself she was safe in the tree.
"...Human, you leave me no choice..."
The creature's arms dug into the base of the tree, and Teagan screamed again. It didn't start climbing, but black tendrils started creeping up the dead oak.
"Come..."
Teagan screamed as a tendril wrapped around her arm, followed by another latching onto her leg. She kicked and flailed, and her branch groaned. Teagan was overcome with fear when she realized that the tendrils weren't dragging her. She stopped flailing, and touched one with her finger. Her digit passed right through as if the tendril wasn't even there. The beast howled with rage, and its violet eye pulsed with rage.
"You have bested me, pitiful human. But soon, very soon, I see that one will do unto you as you have done unto others. I will remember you, human, for I never forget those that escape me once."
With those words, the creature was gone, melted into the shadows from which it emerged.
Teagan didn't leave the tree until dawn.

Teagan winced as she climbed down from the tree, extremely sore from her fitful and unaccomodated repose. Her night, after her strange and almost dream-like encounter, had been filled with restlessness, fear, and the discomfort of sleeping on a knobby cluster of branches. Teagan landed on the hard and dry dirt with a thud. The sun hung low in the horizon, having just brought a new dawn. Teagan ate the last of Isaac's provisions as a hearty morning meal, and killed off the remaining thimbleful of whiskey she had been carrying around. She was confident in her ability to find more food and water without getting too close to any tomkin settlements, and if for some reason she couldn't get enough food, she'd always have the the somewhat risky but dependable option of raiding a tomkin town or two. After concluding her sumptuous meal, Teagan pulled out from her belt and opened her little box. Sihil slept inside, her miniscule and frail frame curled up in the corner of the box. She was shivering, for the nights were growing colder as summer drew to a close. Teagan felt her mouth water as she stared at the tomkin girl, and it took her a good deal of self-restraint to not pick the frail thing up and gulp her down. Teagan sighed and shut the box, her hand trembling. She felt something stir up deep inside of her, a feeling she had pushed down so deep inside of herself that she had almost forgot that she, at one point, had even had it - remorse.
~
Firkon and his men trudged up to the massive city gate, their tramping boots hitting the dry and cracked earth in nigh unison. The walls of Q'thuman were impossibly high, an intimidating relic from the times when a true siege from the bloodthirsty giants was something to be feared, and massive walls had to be constructed to have a chance at repelling them. Firkon struggled to look for any observers on the wall's top, but the cloud of grit kicked up by his division's boots made picking out details all but impossible. The city proper was situated in a particularly dry area to avoid the possibility of a catastrophic flood, something generally all too common when near the foothills of a mountain range. Firkon's throat was parched to the point of pain and irritation due to all of the dust kicked up by his arduous march, but he nevertheless managed to sound the high-pitched horn at his side. Laeron, who stood at his side, looked expectantly to the city's gate. It didn't budge, and Firkon couldn't see any movement at the walltop. He sounded his whistle-like horn once again, but was again failed to elicit a response. Firkon turned to Laeron.

"Should we knock down the gate? Judging by our numbers, that should be no hard task, and I'm sure we'll get a hasty response if we do."
Laeron looked to the ground and nervously wrung his hands.

"Sir, with all due respect, we aren't an army, and an attack on the very city we seek to enter doesn't seem like a good idea. Of course, sir, if you decide to knock down the gate, I will assis-"

Firkon cut Laeron off with a quick gesture as a booming noise came from the city gate. Firkon stared at the gate as it slowly swung open, just enough to let a trio of people out, before slamming shut again. Firkon motioned for Laeron and four other soldiers to accompany him as he marched forward to meet the three from Q'thuman. They were clad in lighter armor than Firkon's men, wearing plant fiber vests padded with protective bits of shredded and dried foliage, enough to stop a glancing blow or an arrow and not much more. Upon their heads they wore thick and opaque veils made of the same plant fiber, obscuring all but their wary eyes. Shortswords hung at their belts, and a small wicker shield was slung across each of their backs. Their leader, distinguishable by the gold adornments upon his vest, approached Firkon and firmly clasped his hand.

"Greetings, brother," began the leader, releasing Firkon's hands and giving a dignified bow, "and may the stars for eternity guide your way. I am Ibn-Jahan, a captain of the city guard. It appears that you wish to enter our city, and yet it is not the season for merchants..."

The leader cast a suspicious glance towards the soldiers amassed behind Firkon.

"...and besides, it does not seem as if you are a merchant or traveler. If it is not too much to ask, could you tell me what you seek within our city's walls?"

Firkon smiled in an attempt to win the trust of the captain, and rested his helmet in the crook of his arm.

"Thank you for your audience, captain. I am Legate Firkon, a proud soldier of the Orestian Legion. I come seeking the wisdom of Brother Volkhard, who I can only assume you're familiar with, for his feats are perhaps second to none. We seek trouble with neither yourself nor the good people of your opulent city, and we will leave as soon as we have had counsel with Brother Volkhard."

Ibn-Jahan nodded at this, and motioned towards Firkon's rear guard.

"If you have come seeking only counsel, then why have you brought with you such a large force? Surely a smaller and more flexible group of soldiers would be better for the long trip from your homeland... and, if you will grace me with an answer, for what reason do you seek the counsel of the Exalted Brother Volkhard?"

"I can answer both of your questions with but a single word, captain," Firkon said gravely, "and that word is giantess. There is one on the loose, I have seen it, and done battle with it, myself. My task is to hunt the creature down, for it has already killed hundreds in its violent rampage, and I don't doubt that it will kill hundreds more lest it is stopped. Surely, a number of your people will be among those slain if the giantess is not stopped, for this giantess is like none other I've seen so far - it slinks about with agility of a hidden predator, and despite its great size it can easily hide itself. It devours men, women, and children whole, and was able to escape two of our most cunning ambushes. We can only hope that Brother Volkhard's prowess will be enough to give us a more than ample advantage over the giantess."

Ibn-Jahan stood silent for a few seconds after Firkon finished before responding.

"Then this is a matter of grave importance indeed. You and all your men are, to the extent the authority I wield can provide, welcome forever and always in Q'thuman, for you do us a service by slaying this giantess even after it has long departed from your land. I will see if we can provide any further assistance to your cause, for it is a noble one indeed, and Q'thuman will be greatly indebted to you and your men if you do slay the giantess. We can talk more within the walls of the city, for surely both you and your men are tired. We are to hold festivities tonight, and surely, you deserve a short respite from your task. Come with me, Legate Firkon, and bring along your men."

The leader and the two soldiers at his side returned to the city's gate, with Firkon and his men in tow. The gate swung open again, and Firkon entered. A broad street, lined with barracks and watchtowers, extended deep into the city's heart, where Firkon assumed the general populace lived. Firkon had heard much about the city, but seeing it with his own eyes made it all the more stunning. It was built in a fashion that belied its true nature, not as a city, but as a fortress. Every house was sturdy and built to last, lined with bricks to prevent the spread of fire. Watchtowers sat at every street corner, each with enough space to be manned with at least 10 archers. Further into the city, the watchtowers were larger, and mounted with massive ballistae that dwarfed the small crossbow-like weapons Firkon had seen used to slay giants. Every building, no matter its purpose, had a flat roof that could service archers. Firkon marvelled at the ingenuity of the city's design, not even noticing the ribbons that decked most homes, nor the bursts of cheering coming from the city's interior. Ibn-Jahan, noticing Firkon's awe at the city's design, couldn't help but chuckle.

"Our city is ancient, one of the first to be established in this realm of giants. Had we not built it this way, we would perhaps not be here today to inhabit it. Come now, Legate Firkon - you've come at a wonderful time. Today is a very special day in this city, as it is the start of our Week of Rejoicing. As the harvest season draws nigh, we celebrate the year that has passed. You look tired, and there are many festivities for you to observe while you recuperate. Surely, your travels have been rough."

~
Teagan grunted and sat down. She'd made little progress in her journey, only having just exited the forest of dead trees. She was already hungry and thirsty again, and there was neither food nor water to be found. Perhaps raiding nearby tomkin settlements could be of more use to her than she thought, especially in this all to dry climate. Teagan had managed to find a few edible plants so far, but in small clumps that were not nearly enough to sustain her, at least on their own. Teagan had to supplement her diet with something more substantial, and she knew that game would be scarce in a place as dry and lacking in flora as this.

Teagan was not an expert huntress of most prey, but she knew she was among the best at stalking her particular quarry. She surveyed her surroundings. To the left sat a small range of hills, tall enough to perhaps be considered mountains of lesser size. To the right, a dry field stretched out, dotted with rolling and gentle slopes, ending abruptly in a far greater mountain range. Teagan knew that tomkins had a tendency to live near small bodies of water so that they had access to said water far more easily. Teagan knew that runoff from the mountains would certainly form small lakes and rivers, and as such, would have the highest propensity to be dotted with a few tomkin villages.

Teagan couldn't help but grin as her hawk-like eyes picked out a cluster of miniature cottages in the distance, nestled comfortably in between two sloping hills. She had no cover, but she had desperation and the advantage of speed. She darted forth, showing no pretense of stealth, and she heard the chorus of shouts and screams before she even reached the little village. Teagan's eyes flashed with predatorial lust as she took the bound that propelled her into the midst of the village. With nigh unbelievable speed, she dropped to all fours and scanned the village. A fleeing crowd trampled each other in abject fear, trying to escape the deadly grasp of the giantess. However, in their individual hopes to escape, the villagers rendered each other helpless, only a few managing to escape the tangle of arms and legs that Teagan easily swept up. She, not having the time to put them securely in her box, threw them in the pouch at her side and hoped that none of them carried something with which they could cut a way out. Teagan then turned her eyes to the stragglers, most of whom were screaming and scattering in all directions. Teagan almost instinctually licked her lips as her eyes settled upon a group of three younger tomkins all fleeing together. Teagan scrambled forth, her arm smashing into and flattening a small cottage. Her fingers closed around two of the three, and Teagan bit her tongue as the mere thought of ending the lives of these pitiful tomkins gave her immense sadistic pleasure. Teagan wrenched the two she caught in front of her face, giving them a quick examination. They were both young women, perhaps even girls, and were both crying and terrified. Teagan flashed them a quick smile before opening wide her mouth and cramming them inside, savoring their struggles and screams before gulping them both down...

"Ah... if only all of you little shits were this easy to eat... I'd never be hungry again."
...
Adelpha gasped in horror as the giantess grabbed her sisters away from her, and screamed as she swallowed them both alive. Their outlines were visible in the throat of the giantess, still struggling as they went down. Tears streamed down Adelpha's face as she dropped to her knees, engulfed in despair. The eyes of the giantess settled upon her, but Adelpha was not yet ready to give up... there was perhaps one who could get revenge upon the giantess. Adelpha clambered back up and ran as fast as her legs could carry her, faster than she ever had in her entire life. She managed to escape as the giantess began shoveling others in her accursed, grinning mouth, swallowing them all alive... children, the old, the infirm - none were spared as the giantess preyed upon them, devouring them whole.

Adelpha ran, pushing out of her mind the screams of those she knew, those she loved, and those she wished a thousand times over she could die to save. She ran until she reached the hut of Phyllida, the witch. Adelpha kicked in the door and found Phyllida sitting at her dinner table, eating a meager meal. Phyllida looked worried at the panicked look on Adelpha's face, and pulled a chair over for hear. Adelpha nearly beat the woman before she remembered that the witch was deaf... and didn't know a thing about the massacre happening outside. Adelpha grabbed the witch and led her outside, so that she could see the carnage for herself. Phyllida staggered back as the giantess picked up a straggler, set him gently down upon her tongue, and retracted it, nearly crushing him between her lips before gulping him down. 

Phyllida began chanting, her words slurred but still decipherable. After a quick incantation, Phyllida raised her hands above her head, pointing them towards the giantess. A blast of electrical energy arced out from them and lanced into the side of the giantess, causing her to topple and crush a small storehouse, dropping her next potential victim. A look of shock and pain crossed the face of the giantess, which was quickly replaced with surprise and anger. Phyllida said the incantation again, and again energy launched itself from her hands and hit the giantess, this time squarely in the chest. The giantess recoiled, clearly more hurt than shocked this time, and her hand darted at Phyllida. Another blast repelled her advance, though, and the giantess was pushed back a little bit by the sheer force of the attack. The giantess harrumphed, almost like a disgruntled child, before snatching a pair of farmhands unfortunate enough to be within her reach. The giantess then retreated hastily into the woods.

Adelpha fell to the ground as tears streamed down her face. The giantess had escaped. She had finally met a foe capable to killing her, and she fled. Phyllida, meanwhile, also fell to the ground, from exhaustion moreso than sorrow. She had expended a great deal of energy fighting the giantess, and needed to rest... but Phyllida knew something was off. That was a great deal of energy, and it should have at least left a small burn mark where it impacted... but the giantess seemed to shrug off the attack somewhat more easily than she should have been able to. Of course, she was clearly injured, but Phyllida still thought that something was awry. But now wasn't the time for conjecture. The village was in shambles, and the survivors were slowly gathering around Phyllida, many of them wounded. Something had to be done... but what?

Teagan's wary eyes swept over the lakeside valley as she hurried through the woodland brush, eyes peeled on the hunt for tomkins. She wasn't hungry, but she needed to find a secure area from which she could drink from the tantalizingly clear lake that lie just ahead. Sihil, who was upon her shoulder, sighed in relief as Teagan passed by the camp, glad she wasn't about to witness yet another savage attack by the giantess. The further Teagan crept, however, the more unsettled she became. Torn minuscule banners, checkered black and red, were planted in the ground. She kept on, and saw a tiny spear - not one of the sort used to slay humans, for it was too small to do considerable damage to a person. A few feet further and she saw a few more, some lodged in the ground, some discarded and stained with blood.

Then she saw an explanation for this. Dead and wounded tomkins were scattered about the area, throughout which Teagan was able to make out various trenches and fortifications. Some of the dead bore light vests and shields, some of which were dyed red. Their weaponry was composed of an assorted array of polearms, scimitars, and short spears, the former of which bore standards in the same checkered red and black pattern. However, the majority of the fallen looked quite different. They wore little to no armor, and what they had seemed to be made of substances such as rodent fur or even just dried grass. Their weapons were primitive in comparison to those of their foes - slings, pebble-headed clubs, crude wooden spears and bone knives - none of which seemed even close to adequate to harm a human. Teagan was, however, still confused - as far as she knew, the tomkins never engaged in combat on this scale against each other. She was bewildered as to what could be the cause of this battle. She glanced at Sihil, who whispered a tomkin word in her ear.

"Bellai."

Bellai... Teagan thought about the word for a second. She clearly knew what it meant - battle - but... it was too close to the language of humankind to be mere coincidence. Bellicose means warlike, bellow means warcry... this was no mere coincidence. She pondered the word concernedly, for this meant that, if true, tomkins were even closer to humans than she thought, which was an unsettling prospect to say the least.

"Bellai? How about... hmm."

Teagan scanned the battlefield, making sure that it was mostly empty. A few wounded tomkins lay dying here and there, but they weren't going to make it long. She observed that the wounded were composed almost entirely of the more civilized force. Teagan, upon making sure the battlefield was deserted, strode out into the open and picked up a sword. The few wounded soldiers on the field were terrified, some trying to scramble away as fast as they could and others simply feigning death, but Teagan paid them no mind. She showed the blade to Sihil.

"This?"

Sihil hesitated.

"Gladdui."

"Gladdui…" Teagan echoed, pondering on the word.

Teagan could think of no words for a blade that sounded similar, and her fears were subdued. She, on a whim, reached for a wounded soldier. He yelped as her hand wrapped about him, but he gave no resistance as Teagan raised him to face height. Sihil looked down, unable to stare at the wounded man.

"This?" Teagan asked, holding the man near Sihil. He remained silent as Sihil clenched and unclenched her fists, trying not to act irrationally. The man was going to die regardless, he's probably doing to die less painfully at this rate.

"Militi, or belliacor."

Teagan just barely managed to not let her jaw drop. There was no mistaking this. Militi was an obvious root, or evolution, of militia. Whatever language the tomkins spoke, it was certainly in the same branch as hers. Teagan's mind rushed with explanations as to how this could have possibly happened… but she knew that she was just grasping at straws. This revelation, however small it was, made the daunting task of learning the tomkin language a little less scary. Teagan looked back at the soldier. He peered up at her with fearful eyes, the rest of his face obscured by some sort of veil. Teagan placed him back down on the ground and turned to Sihil.

"You word me."

Sihil nodded.

"Word, for, uhm... friend." Teagan said, hoping the tomkin word sounded similar.

Sihil's face exhibited little besides confusion.

"Uhhh, shit, uh... nice."

Sihil shook her head.

"No." Sihil responded.

Teagan wracked her mind for any other synonyms that sounded different.

"Good. Harm no. Amicable."

At the last word, Sihil's expression changed. She made a circular gesture, and Teagan assumed it was a prompt for her to repeat the latter word.

"Amicable?"

Sihil thought for a second before forcing a smile and mocking an awkward one-person hug. Teagan nodded her assent. Sihil sat back down.

"Amicar." she said, looking at Teagan worrisomely. She wasn't sure what the giantess intended, and that scared her.

Teagan knelt down and extended a hand to the soldier.

"Egum amicar."

Sihil gaped at this sudden change in the persona of the giantess. She had just crudely said "I am a friend."

~

Firkon looked around the house of Volkhard. It was stately, well-organized, and even scented by small sticks of sandalwood incense. Surely, it was a nice place, but it was a stark contrast to the veritable castle Firkon thought the man would possess, considering the nigh legendary status of his deeds.

"What is your name, Legatus? Surely you must have one, and I have not yet heard it."

Firkon surveyed the man more closely. He was finely dressed, and appeared quite young for his age. Firkon remembered someone telling him that practitioners of magical arts generally aged much more slowly, and fit the pieces together.

"My name is Maxim Quintares Firkon, though I usually only go by the latter. As you said earlier, you believe to know the reason for my visit. It would be rude of me to doubt you and tell you regardless."

Volkhard smiled gently.

"How courteous of you, although I wouldn't have perceived it as such. You come to me about the giantess, don't you. I don't think an Orestian would come to me for anything else, to tell you the truth, but the fact that her arrival coincides so closely with yours is too much to be overlooked as a coincidence."

Firkon was surprised, for not even the captain of the city guard knew about the giantess, but this man did. Firkon didn't let his surprise show, however, and continued the conversation.

"That's exactly it. You're the most famous giantslayer that isn't dead or missing, and I assume there's a reason why that is. I come to ask you to slay one more giant."

Volkhard chuckled, and pulled out an armchair for Firkon.

"How surprising. Come, Legatus Firkon, come and sit. My legs tire for a seat of my own, and I'd rather die than be caught sitting while a guest stands.

Firkon obliged, and waited as the man pulled a chair over for himself. He noted the heavy coat that Volkhard wore, and wondered what warranted such apparel in a place as temperate as this.

"You want me to go and kill a giantess for you, hm? What warrants such?"

"She has devoured and crushed hundreds in her carnal lust. She is without mercy or empathy. I have witnessed her cruelty with mine own eyes, and know her to be exceedingly dangerous, even for a giant. She has evaded entire armies, though, well, she would have probably not been able to flee had said armies not been composed of peasants and cowards."

Volkhard nodded.

"So this is, on some level, personal. Well, if this giantess truly has slain hundreds in bloodthirst, as some giants have been known to do, I suppose I could venture out to kill her. Of course, it has been some time since I have embarked on such a journey, and I doubt myself of being up to the task on my own. I will slay this giantess, but only if you and your men accompany me. These are my terms. You will all carry what I say to carry, fight when I say to fight, hide when I say to hide, and die when I say to die."

Firkon was quite pleased with the results of his trip.

"I planned for no less, Brother Volkhard." he said, smiling.

"Then it is done. I will do battle, fight, and die by your side, Firkon, and upon my forebears, I swear that I will find this giantess of yours." proclaimed Volkhard. "Now that business is done, what say you we get you and your men some food? They ought to be starving by now, and I look forward to meeting with them."

"That sounds like a capital idea." replied Firkon.

~

Teagan tore up one of the tomkin banners into strips. Once she had made three, her eyes went back to the soldier in her hand. A spear had pierced his leg, and a small dart was lodged in his shoulder. The spear wound was bleeding rather profusely, and seemed to be the more dire of the two. Teagan took one of the strips of cloth in her hand and wound it tightly about the man's leg. He winced as she did this, but neither shouted nor struggled. When it was done, the wound was almost bandaged, but Teagan's fingers were far too hopelessly large to tie the thing. She looked to Sihil, who looked back inquisitively. Teagan had no idea what the tomkin word for knot was, so she would just have to demonstrate. She ripped a vine out of a nearby tree, and with some difficulty, managed to snap it in half and knot the two pieces. She pointed to the knot, and Sihil nodded.

"Nodai."

Teagan then pointed to the man's bandage, and Sihil let herself be picked up and placed next to the man, who was lying on a patch of grass.

"Is she not going to kill me?" the soldier asked, his face considerably more relieved than before.

"Honestly, I have no idea. Don't let whatever she's doing right now fool you. She's psychopathic, and normally goes out of her way to kill anyone she thinks she can… except for you and I, apparently. Keep it down, too. I don't want her to realize we're talking."

Sihil started tying the man's bandage, but purposefully slowed herself to gain more time.

"What's your name?" she inquired.

"I'm Al-Valizi. I came from Q'thuman to deal with a tribe of barbarians who had been raiding our settlements on this side of the mountain. There were thousands of them… we were just a large scouting party. We held on as long as we could, but they swamped us. Who are you?"

"I'm Sihil. I come from Orestion. I would still be there, but the giantess kidnapped me. For whatever reason, she spared me from the deaths that awaited my comrades, and here I am now."

Sihil finished tying the bandage, and looked up at Teagan. Teagan pointed to the man's shoulder, where the dart was stuck. Sihil nodded.

"Valizi, was this dart serrated?"

Al-Valizi shook his head.

"Alright. I'm not a doctor, and, well, this scares me, but I'm going to have to take it out."

Al-Valizi grimaced as he shifted his shoulder down a bit.

"I guess it has to come out sooner or later. Might as well get it over with now. I have some rudimentary medical training, so just listen to what I tell you, alright?"

Sihil nodded.

"Grab the dart as close to the head as you possibly can. If it's two pieces, make sure to get the head and not just the shaft. If it's just one, for the love of the gods, make sure it doesn't snap."

Sihil complied, grabbing the dart.

"Now, pull gently straight up. Don't twist, don't rip, don't shake it. It should slide right out. If I, uh, if I ask you to stop, ignore me. It's going to hurt, but it won't kill me if you do it right."

Sihil began gently pulling. Valizi sucked air in through his teeth, squeezing his eyes and shaking his arms. Muscles in his neck tensed as the dart slid out of the wound, covered in blood. Valizi slammed his fist into the ground as the last of the dart slid out of his wound. Sihil cast the blood covered dart away, and Valizi sighed. His shoulder still throbbed, and the small hole in it stung badly, but it felt better overall.

"Gah! That... that hurt. Thank you, though. See if you can get another strip of cloth from the giantess, alright?"

Al-Valizi tried to stave off his pain as Sihil was handed another makeshift bandage. Sihil wrapped it about his shoulder, covering the gash.

"Thank you, Sihil. I, uh, I never thought I'd see a giant and live, much less see one and be saved from death by her."

Sihil shrugged and chuckled lightly. As horrible and traumatic as her situation was, the absurdity of it all was simply amazing. Never before had a tomkin had so much influence and power over one of the giants that wasn't a slave or prisoner. When Sihil finished tying a knot on Al-Valizi's second bandage, Teagan deposited the two of them in the palm of her hand. Al-Valizi was quite uncomfortable with this, but Sihil had grown accustomed to it at this point. Valizi turned to her.

"Can she understand what we're saying? Clearly she has some basic grasp on language."

"She knows some basic words, and the Giants' language apparently isn't that different from ours. Just speak somewhat quickly and you should be quite alright."

Al-Valizi nodded and seemed content for a moment. However, it wasn't long until he started looking around at his surroundings.

"Sihil... this path leads directly to the settlement of the tribesmen. The tribesmen that we're at war with, to be exact. Can you tell her that?"

Sihil looked up to Teagan, and waved her hands. Teagan looked down at her and raised her eyebrows.

"Belliacorae. Multei belliacorae."

Teagan nodded at this, and seemed assured with what she was doing. She lifted Sihil up to her shoulder, leaving Al-Valizi in the palm of her left hand.

"Yes."

~

Teagan knew that the primitive tomkins had to be ahead, and that was exactly her intent - to reach them. She could reach them, convince them she was some sort of deity, assuming they were as primitive as they appeared, and then use them to kill the other tomkin army that was more of a threat. Once the more advanced army was slain, she could do as she wished with her crude army.

Teagan soon came into view of what appeared to be a collection of small huts and sheds, arranged in overlapping circles centered around fire pits. Tomkins, some wearing furs, some wearing discarded bits of stolen clothing, and some wearing nothing at all, went about their business. Three wooden spear wielding guards stood watch at the settlement's edge.

Teagan looked to Sihil, who seemed nervous, even more so than usual. Teagan thought for a second before listing off a string of words.

"God. Divine. Angel."

Sihil stopped Teagan at angel, and pantomimed what appeared to be swinging something. Teagan shook her head. That wasn't quite what she was looking for.

"Uhm, heavenly. Deity."

Sihil stopped her again, and this time pointed to the sky. Teagan nodded - she assumed this was the word she needed.

"Dei." Sihil said.

Teagan, armed with this newfound knowledge, strode out from her cover and into the view of the guards. They panicked, shouting and pointing their spears, rather nonthreateningly, at Teagan. She laughed and shook her head.

"Egum dei." Teagan proclaimed, in as booming of a voice as she could muster.

The guards paused for a second, but when reinforcements came in the form of 20 odd tomkins armed with slings and darts, they raised their spears once more. Teagan glowered.

"Egum dei. Negui bellai."

'I am a god, no war' it meant, but it still seemed to have no effect. Teagan bit her lip, restraining the urge to murder the entire force in front of her, when she heard the tomkin soldier she rescued call to her. Teagan brought the little soldier up to her face. She intended to kill him to show the tribe her friendly intentions, but he might have something useful to tell her. He slowly constructed a simple sentence in the tomkin language.

"Negui verbai, belliacorae diciti."

Negui was no, and verbai most likely meant word or words. Belliacorae must refer to this tomkin tribe, and diciti… diciti had to mean speak, considering how similar it was to dictate and diction.

They didn't speak this language.

Teagan held her breath, remaining calm. She put Sihil and the soldier securely on her shoulder, and had them hold on. Once they were secured, Teagan exhaled, and any shred of collectedness she had vanished.

"Gods curse you all! Stupid, useless fucks!"

The tomkins recoiled as Teagan shouted expletives, and some of them lowered their weapons. This proved to be an error, as immediately after her outburst, Teagan stomped down on them with her right foot, crushing four of them into little more than red splotches on the mud. The rest panicked, and Teagan shielded her eyes as a barrage of tiny stones and darts bounced off of her. A few darts managed to pierce her skin, but they were no worse than a large splinter, and only made Teagan more eager to stomp her foot down again, grinding another three tomkins into the dust. At this point, the force of 20 or so had swelled to at least 200, many others cautiously gathering around to observe Teagan's entry. Only now did they realize their mistake and begin to flee, but it was already too late for many of them. In another heavy stomp, Teagan decimated 6 more lives, feeling the individuals under her foot pop like berries. She lowered a massive hand and swept it into the crowd, grabbing 5 more tomkins. She grinned at them all before sliding them, one by one, in her mouth. Teagan heard screams from inside of her mouth as she swallowed one, then another, and then another, until her mouth was empty again. Teagan watched with glee as the tomkins trampled each other to escape, leaving children, older tomkins, and wounded soldiers to die in their panicked stampede. Teagan reached another hand in and grabbed 4 stragglers, 2 young girls, a boy, and a man who was limping away. She licked her lips before tossing the three children in her mouth and gulping them down all at once, feeling the tangle of their arms and legs slide down her throat. She chuckled as the wounded man screamed himself hoarse, watching those lives become nothing more than a bulge going down Teagan's throat. He struggled and kicked with his good leg, and actually managed to land a solid blow on Teagan's finger. It felt like almost nothing, but Teagan was nonetheless tired of this one - he'd be a pain to eat too - and so she simply crushed him in her grasp, her muscles tensing up in pleasure as his bones snapped and his flesh yielded.

Teagan briefly glanced to her shoulder. Sihil was silently weeping, gaze averted, while the soldier was watching everything, jaw agape. Teagan was glad he was watching. We're it not for these brutes being useless to her, this would have been his fate. Hell, it might still be.

Teagan's attention turned back to the slaughter at hand when she felt more tiny spears prick her. A few foolishly brave warriors were flinging throwing spears, rocks, and even tiny sticks at her in an attempt to ward her off. Teagan laughed as loud as she could at this, plucking the darts out of her clothes. When the barrage had subsided, the warriors realizing the futility of their attack, Teagan bent down and picked up a heavy branch, easily the size of a tree to the tomkins.

"My turn."

Teagan hurled the branch at the village with all the might she could muster. The tomkins near it were sent flying as the stick slammed into them, splintering bones and crushing skulls. The stick continued on with most of its momentum, crushing the pitiful huts of the tomkins and bulldozing anybody inside. Teagan marched forth, her footfalls turning a few unlucky tomkins into red stains, and made her way into the center of the village. There were still plenty of fleeing tomkins, and Teagan knew that they lacked the means to harm her in any way. She tossed aside her top, revealing her breasts and her flat and slightly muscular abdomen. Making sure that Sihil and the soldier kept their grip on her shoulder, Teagan lowered herself onto a group of fleeing tomkins. Her entire body contracted in pure ecstasy as she felt the houses of the tomkins under her resist her weight, kicking and pushing in a futile attempt to ward off the massive body closing down upon them. Those under Teagan's breasts were the first to perish, her bust engulfing them in a funeral shroud of soft flesh that weighed down upon them until they burst, becoming little more than red stains on Teagan's chest. The tomkins under her stomach only had a split second more before they too were crushed under the woman's weight, their feeble bodies succumbing to the crushing force pressing them deep into the ground. When Teagan stood back up, her breasts wobbled slightly, and bits of gore fell off of them and onto the ground. All that remained of the tomkin huts under her were small clusters of snapped sticks and crumbled dirt. All that remained of the tomkins themselves were bloody patches on the ground. Teagan was enjoying this immensely, and so she was greatly disappointed when she noticed that the village was all but deserted. A few stragglers remained, but Teagan was on the thrill of a high, and a few individual tomkins would do nothing for her. Teagan exhaled, the adrenal rush that provoked her subsiding, and sat down slowly, unwittingly crushing a hut and the family that was hiding within it under her butt. She felt their warm remains ever so slightly through her trousers, but it did nothing for her. The high of the slaughter was over. The hunt had concluded, and Teagan's desires had been left mostly fulfilled.

~

Al-Valizi retched, feeling the bitter acidic taste of bile in his mouth as he beheld the slaughter around him. How could she save him and call herself a friend one minute, and then murder an entire village the next? Sure, perhaps he too was at war with the savages, but the idea was simply to get them to yield and then annex them, nothing close to this wholesale slaughter.

"She... she ate fucking children! The infirm! The fucking mothers trying to save their families!" he exclaimed, his horror and disbelief giving way to despair and anger.

What could he do? She could end his life in an instant, just as she saved it. Al-Valizi was no hero, and he knew this well. He might be disgusted with the giantess, but he would nevertheless not just lay down his life to seek vengeance. There was nothing that he could do. No weapon that he had been trained to use could kill her, no ambush or clever outmaneuver could force her hand, no shield could block her blows. This giantess was a murderer, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Al-Valizi felt more powerless than he ever had before.

He looked over to Sihil. She was squeezing her eyes shut and holding on to the giantess' doublet, grasping so hard that her knuckles were all but completely white. Al-Valizi made his way over to Sihil, careful not to fall off the shoulder of the giantess lest he be caught in the maelstrom of death under her. He reached Teagan and placed a gentle hand on her back, trying to console her.

"It's alright, okay? Surely the giantess will be slain eventually. All others of her kind have fallen similarly, so how hard could it be to kill one more? I'll escape as soon as I can and summon help, alright? You're going to be okay."

Sihil shook her head.

"I care not for myself anymore. It hurts so much seeing all these innocents perish... and for what? The pleasure of a deranged giantess? Just as I start to think I see some scrap of compassion in her, she slaughters those who have done nothing to her. It hurts so much, and I can't do a thing about it. What's far worse, though, is that she spared me for whatever reason. Why me? I would have died to save the lives of any of those poor souls down there... so why did she spare me?"

Al-Valizi cast his gaze aside. He felt similarly, and the guilt of it all was tearing him apart already. This giantess saved him, then murdered hundreds of others. Even now, he felt her stamping down on the huts around them, killing anyone hiding inside.

"Sihil... where is she going? You said you've been with her for some time now. Do you know what direction she's heading?"

"She's been heading North for a while now..." Sihil responded, "why do you ask?"

Al-Valizi's eyes widened.

"Q'thuman is North of here, Sihil. The largest city in the North."

Sihil felt like vomiting as her mind pictured the potential carnage.

Teagan scrubbed herself clean in the river, using a scrap of cloth from her shirt as a makeshift washrag. Her clothing had all but fallen apart at this point, and her boots were close to splitting at the seams. All that she had was gone, and now even her clothes were degrading into little more than rags. She needed to find another person, a trader, and get some new equipment... but what did she have to offer? Any skills of hers beyond foraging and hiding could be considered rudimentary at best, and she had no possessions of value. 

Teagan paused her bath to glance over at Sihil and the soldier. The two of them were fraternizing, although the soldier seemed extremely shaken and seemed to panic whenever Teagan so much as glanced at him. Teagan couldn't help but chuckle to herself, surprised at the sheer amount of abject fear she was able to instill in the little man in such little time.

The little soldier noticed Teagan's gaze falling upon him, and his eyes immediately widened before his gaze shot towards Sihil. He couldn't even maintain eye contact. Teagan couldn't blame him too much, of course, seeing as she had just committed a wholesale slaughter and suffered little more than a few scratches.

Teagan climbed out of the river and rested in the sun a bit to dry off when her stomach started to ache. She was starving. Teagan looked surreptitiously at the soldier. He would eventually have to be dealt with, so why not eat him here and now? It would be quick, clean, and... Sihil... surely it would upset the girl, but if she simply ate them both...

Teagan bit her tongue in restraint. She wanted to hear Sihil scream. She wanted to hear her beg for her life, listen to her sobbing pleas for mercy turn into wordless screams as she was eaten. Teagan was close to leaping at the two tomkins when she remembered the two she had been keeping in her box

Teagan, once she was dry, surreptitiously opened the box, making sure neither Sihil nor the soldier saw her. The two tomkins inside were shivering, having been neglected for nearly an entire two days. Teagan washed the inside of the box out in the river without removing the two residents, nearly drowning them, before lifting them out of the water. She remembered them both, a man and a woman, both afraid for their lives. Teagan growled. She really wanted to savor their fear, but she had no time. She had made it to the valley that was her next destination, and had to continue reading the directions to Whitebreeze Keep. Teagan unceremoniously ripped the clothes off of the two tomkins, leaving them nude. She took a quick glance at the woman's body, unable to help herself. The woman's breasts were perfect, framed by tresses of golden hair. Teagan held one of her bangs out in front of her eyes with her free hand. The reddish-brown color had always reminded her of rust, a quality she found less than ideal. A brief twinge of jealousy ran through Teagan as she beheld this tomkin with her perfect body and her perfect hair. Even her flesh, unblemished and smooth, outshone Teagan's scarred and torn skin. This jealousy soon passed, however. Teagan had nothing to envy about this tomkin, for they were about to become her meal. Still, Teagan couldn't help but run her pointer finger over the tomkin's breasts and between her legs, perhaps out of attraction. The tomkin struggled, but it was to no avail. Teagan felt empowered by this. She began to whisper to herself.

"I'm strong."

Teagan ran her hand down the tomkin's smooth back.

"You're weak."

She roughly rubbed her finger between the tomkin's legs, causing them to elicit more sobbing.

"You're nothing but toys to me. Playthings."

Teagan couldn't help but smile as she wordlessly placed the two tomkins on her tongue, and shut her mouth quickly. They screamed, but their cries were muffled by the enormous pair of lips that sealed them within Teagan's mouth. Teagan caressed their forms with her tongue, sliding it across their nude bodies for a few seconds.

Then she swallowed.

~

Firkon couldn't help it. He already admired Volkhard, and he just met the man. Firkon watched, a faint smile tugging at his normally stern face, as Volkhard went around the feast table, introducing himself individually to each and every one of Firkon's men. It was nothing short of admirable to Firkon. Firkon had been taught that any good commander must understand and appreciate who they are in command of, lest they prioritize themselves over the good of the unit. To bond with a soldier is to view them as a human instead of a weapon, and that adds an infinite amount of value to their life. To view all your soldiers as humans is the first step in being a truly great general.

Firkon smiled, and turned his gaze to Laeron. He was going to ask what Laeron thought of Volkhard, but bit his tongue just in time - Laeron was speaking with a Q'thumani native, a beautiful young maiden with an alluring pair of emerald eyes.

"Well, uhm, I came here to follow through on some, uhm, military business."

Laeron smiled awkwardly at the girl, and she smiled back, her eyes half-lidded in an expression that could be either smug or listless. Firkon hoped it was the former - at least in that case Laeron hadn't lost her attention - but found himself doubting that it was anything besides the latter.

"Hmm. Military business. That's... informative. Tell me, Laeron, what do you do? With a uniform like that, you're clearly no common soldier, are you now?"

Laeron's awkward expression faded from his face, replaced by a confident grin. Firkon prepared for the worst.

"Well, I'm the second in command of the rear guard, but commanding isn't my forte, so I leave that to our unit's legatus in most cases. I manage supplies, finances, handle maps, books, an-"

Firkon nearly had a heart attack as Laeron committed virtual romantic suicide. The girl's smile quickly faded, and she seemed about ready to try and escape. He couldn't help himself from butting in and interrupting Laeron before he poured oil upon the fire.

"He's a tracker, the finest in Orestion. It's said that he's been able to track anything that doesn't fly, swim, or burrow, and so far, he's been living up to expectations."

Laeron chuckled nervously and held up a finger.

"Well actually, I'm definitely not the best tracker, I'd actually say I'm quite medio-"

Firkon kicked Laeron under the table and interrupted him once more.

"Let me amend my previous statement. The best living tracker around. A few ancients are rumored to have been able to accomplish superhuman feats of observation, but the credibility of legends are dubious. Regardless, Laeron is still the best around today."

Laeron gave a half-hearted thumbs up.

"Yup! That's, um, that's me, I guess. I don't like to bring it up. I never thought bragging brought good of anything."

The girl's eyes opened once more, and her smile returned.

"Well! That's quite impressive, Laeron... perhaps you have a story to tell? These recent festivities have left me wanting of a tale of any quality, what with all the illiterate peasants singing their folk tales in every tavern. If you have a way with words, I might be persuaded..."

Laeron couldn't help but let out a quiet gasp as the girl's finger trailed down his chest.

"...to accompany you to your chambers, should you have more tales in store. Nothing is more mesmerising than a wonderful storyteller."

Firkon, satisfied that he'd saved Laeron, returned to his meal. While he doubted the boy's skill at courtship of any sort, he knew Laeron to be extremely intelligent, and had always asked for his counsel when writing any formal letter. The boy was nothing short of a literary genius to boot, always reading whatever was on hand.

Firkon had nearly eaten the last spoonful of rice from his plate when Volkhard sat next to him, apparently finished talking to the soldiers. Firkon set down his utensils and turned his chair to face Volkhard, his expression resetting to its default stern gaze. Firkon spoke quietly and solemnly.

"Volkhard... what are the chances of my men returning to their families? How many do you think will perish in this endeavor?"

Volkhard cast one last cursory glance about the room, making a rough headcount.

"Legatus, I've dealt with multiple giants and giantesses in the past. I'm can say with confidence that I will likely be able to minimize casualties to no more than ten, and that's if there are any casualties at all. I will prioritize the lives of your soldiers as much as I possibly can, but I will not hesitate to make a small sacrifice if it guarantees our victory. Your men have agreed to join you in this endeavor. They know that death may await them, and have agreed to take that risk. The innocents slain by this marauding giantess have not."

Firkon nodded. His line of reasoning was rational, logical, and utterly utilitarian. The reasoning of one who excels as a leader, as a planner, and as a killer. Firkon looked into Volkhard's eyes, and he knew then that he had made the perfect choice. Volkhard was compassionate, understanding, and caring, but he did not shirk duty, whatever the cost.

"Thank you, Brother Volkhard. I have a lust for vengeance; it is my greatest weakness, my ultimate folly, and what would be my downfall. You are free of impulses and irrational desires. I could think of no better man to follow in battle."

Volkhard smiled.

"I'm truly honored. If you have nothing else for me, I shall retire to my quarters for the night."

Firkon returned to his dinner.

"I have nothing more for you, Brother Volkhard. May the stars forever watch over you."

Firkon finished his last few bites of food as Volkhard exited the great hall. He exhaled in silent laughter as he noticed Laeron, a giddy grin stretching across his face, slipping through the crowd of revelers towards the exit, holding the hand of the girl he was so close to losing. Firkon himself soon retired to the room that had been graciously granted to him by Ibn-Jahan, and he quickly fell asleep, memories of the past few days bouncing around in his restless mind.

~

Teagan, dressed once again in her ragged clothes, read the next part of her directions.

Continue to follow the Great Star, and it shall guide you unto a desert plain just beyond the mountains. The mountain path is temperate in all times of year save winter, and should be free of large tomkin settlements. In the desert beyond, however, there is rumoured to lie a great city, one which even the armies of men could not easily siege. I did not see it in my travels, but be wary nonetheless, for the city's armies patrol the desert's oases. Be sure to bring water with you.

Teagan sighed. She had left her canteen, along with the rest of her belongings, back in the plains where the last tomkin city was. This only strengthened her desire to find a merchant of sorts and acquire basic goods... there had to be humanity somewhere nearby, even if there wasn't much of it.

Teagan picked up Sihil and the soldier. She wasn't going to enter a desert without some way to store water. Worst case scenario, she'd have to make her own crude vessel for carrying water and hope it didn't leak. To do that, though, she'd need wood, and to get wood, she'd need tools. Fashioning tools out of stone was an option, but even then she'd need something to carry her implements with her. Finding another person seemed to be the wall behind which any meaningful progress was locked.

"So be it." Teagan breathed, wondering where she'd live were she in this place.

"Helloooo? Hellooooooo!"

Teagan wandered about the wooded hills of the valley, intermittently calliing out, stopping only to pluck patches of clover-grass and squirrel it away in her box. She was tired of clover-grass, but there was no doubt that it was both plentiful and nutritious. 

It was for this very same reason that Teagan was delighted when she stumbled across what appeared to be a pair of persimmon trees, their ebony branches laden with the small, yellowed fruits. Teagan joyously began plucking away, and soon had an armful of the plump amber berries. Needing a place to store them, she opened her wooden box and dumped all but two of them inside. Having done this, she lowered herself to a sitting position at the foot of the tree and delicately placed Sihil and the soldier on her lap. Teagan waved at the two tomkins, who seemed unsure as to what the gesture meant. Teagan placed the second persimmon, nearly as large as the tomkins themselves, in front of the two of them. With a wink, Teagan took a bite out of hers, ready for the honey-like taste she so desperately needed.

Teagan's eyes widened.

The fruit was sour and bitter, with a taste not unlike the astringent peel of a citrine. Teagan, disgusted but too hungry to waste food, continued eating the persimmon, wincing with every horrid bite. Her eyes watered as she ate the last bit, but she managed to make it through to the end. Satisfied, she reclined against the tree for a quick nap, confident that she'd be able to tell if the tomkins tried to escape.

~

Al-Valizi gaped as the giantess, who he had just watched decimate an entire village, now recoiled after eating an unripe fruit. He looked over to Sihil.

"Does she realize that the fruit isn't ready yet? I don't know much about the plants of this land, but even I can tell that these berries aren't fully ripened!"

Sihil shrugged.

"I don't think so. I'm honestly not surprised - I guess I've gotten used to it. It's a bit strange, watching her murder savagely and indiscriminately one moment and then seeing her struggle with the most mundane of tasks the next...  but spending this long with her has shown me that the giants are people just the same."

Al-Valizi furrowed his brow and looked at the face of the giantess. She was soundly asleep now, it seemed, her eyes shut and her breathing slow and even. He looked back at Sihil.

"That is not a person. Nobody with a shred of humanity in their heart would do what this monster just did. I will not say that the giants have killed any more of us than our own wars. I will not say that I think the giants are unfeeling, unthinking brutes. I will, however, maintain that anything like this creature is a monster."

Al-Valizi looked back up at the sleeping giantess' face.

"She's asleep now," he said, standing up, "perhaps you can try and escape."

"What do you mean, I could try and escape? What about you?" Sihil replied, keeping her voice low.

"Look at me. I'm a wreck. You might have bandaged my wounds, but they're still there, and the moment I move more than the slightest bit, they burn with the same pain that they did when I received them. There's no way I could escape from this giantess, and even if I did manage that, we're without a map in the middle of the untamed wilderness. I'd only be a burden if I accompanied you."

Sihil looked around. Al-Valizi was right. If she was to escape, she would need to do it alone. Sihil readied herself to slide down the giantess' thigh when she noticed movement in the forest underbrush. She froze in fear as a giant, larger even than Teagan, slunk out from the forest, clutching a similarly giant knife in his left hand. Al-Valizi's eyes widened, and he ducked into the divide between the giantess' legs. Sihil quickly followed, watching furtively as the man snuck up behind Teagan.

~

"Don't move a muscle, lassie."

Teagan awoke to a grating voice in her ear and a painful pinch at her throat. Her heart slamming in her chest, Teagan cast her eyes down to her neck and saw a rusty knife pressed against it. She tried looking behind her, but couldn't get a good view without turning her head.

"Good, good, glad to see you're nice and awake. You're not a very smart one, shouting out like that, but you're a pretty little thing, that's for sure."

Teagan gulped nervously, her hands shaking in fear. She saw the two tomkins hiding between her legs, and felt a little more assured. She'd be furious if it was anyone but her that killed Sihil. All that effort just for someone else to steal what was rightfully hers? 

"You're a quiet one, eh? That's good... the boss doesn't like mouthy ones. You'll fit in just fine... now, what's your name, girl?"

Teagan remained silent. She felt around the nearby ground with her hands, tearing the grass to pieces in her fear. The man waited a few seconds before sighing. Teagan was surprised when the knife lifted itself from her throat, only for her thoughts to scatter as the man bludgeoned her in the jaw with the knife's pommel, sending a jolt of pain coursing through her head.

"I'm sorry, I might have mislead you there... the boss doesn't like the loud ones, aye, but if you're asked a question, you better fucking answer! Now, I'll ask again, what's your name, eh? Don't be shy."

"Teagan." she muttered in reply, trying to ignore the coppery taste of blood in her mouth.

"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman like yourself... now, let's get moving, eh? I'm sure the boss could go for another attendant after what happened to the last one, and you'd fill the role well..."

Teagan yelped as she was yanked to her feet, sending the two tomkins on the inseams of her ragged trousers flying to the ground. The man, seeing this, dropped Teagan to the ground once more, still applying the knife to her throat.

"Whaaat have we here!? Teagan, dearie, looks like your next meal was about to escape! Unless... yeah, yeah, I don't think you'd be eating while you're asleep... surely these weren't your little friends?"

Teagan watched, petrified, as the man reached down and roughly picked up the tomkin soldier with his free hand.

"I don't believe it! You even bandaged this one up! We can't have that... you're a traitor. These things are enemies, not little dolls to play dress-up with."

Without hesitation, the man flung the tomkin soldier against the persimmon tree with as much force as he could muster, dashing him to pieces. Teagan nervously ran her hands through the grass while Sihil wept, shocked by her compatriot's sudden demise. The man, chuckling, reached down and picked Sihil up. Teagan's eyes widened, and she began to panic.

"Oooooh!" exclaimed the man, roughly groping Sihil's miniscule form, "this one's a real looker! Prettier than you, that's for sure! Gods, if she wasn't the size of a gamepiece, I'd show her a good time in bed."

Teagan barely contained a gasp as her hand wrapped itself around a sizeable rock, half embedded in the coarse mountain soil. She slowly extricated it from the earth, making sure not to draw any attention. The man continued to obliviously grope Sihil, running his pointer finger over her miniature breasts and her flat stomach.

"It's a real shame that I can't let this one live, or I'd keep it as my own little pet! I have to say, girl, you have a fine taste in tomkins."

Sihil, unable to hold any amount of composure, screamed in terror as the man cocked his arm, ready to kill her in the same way he killed Al-Valizi. Teagan, noticing the man's attention diverted and his knife lowered, bashed the man's left arm as hard as she could with the rock, producing a sickening crunch and causing him to drop the knife. The man, screaming in pain, dropped Sihil roughly to the ground as he stumbled back, clutching his broken arm. Teagan, whirling around, saw the extent of the damage she did: the man's arm was bent at an unnatural angle, clearly broken. The man shrieked with rage before diving at his dropped knife, kicking Teagan in the knee on his way to stop her from snatching it first. Sihil, too stunned from her fall to even stand, watched dazedly as the man recovered his knife and advanced on Teagan once more.

"You bitch!" he screamed, swiping at Teagan's face, "I'm gonna fucking kill you for that!"

Teagan was desperate, stressed, and felt as if her heart was going to pound out of her chest. As the man rushed at her, Teagan threw out a feeble punch aimed poorly at his chest, her eyes squeezed shut.

In an instant, for only an instant, her tension unwound, her stress projecting itself outwards and away.

Teagan heard a rush of wind followed by a crash. She felt no wound, no pain, no indication at all that she had been stabbed. She opened an eye. Her assailant was slumped against the splintered base of a nearby tree, bleeding profusely from the back of his head. He was murmuring to himself, eyes wide, broken arm dangling limply at his side. Sihil was staring slack-jawed at Teagan, her little frame trembling as she tried to stand up. Teagan, still frantic and now more confused than ever, sprang at the man, clutching her heavy rock. Ignoring his feeble resistance and inaudible pleas, she brought the rock down on his skull. Crack. He yelped in pain. Crack. He lifted an arm to try and protect himself. Crack. He went limp. Crack. Crack. Crack.

Teagan, exhausted, dropped the bloodied rock to the ground. She was panting, covered in the man's blood, fists clenched. Teagan turned her attention over to Sihil. The tomkin was trembling like a leaf in the wind, her face pale. Teagan reached out to her with a bloodied hand, wanting not only to comfort the tomkin girl, but to see if she knew what it was that stopped the man from killing her. Teagan lightly scooped Sihil up and held the trembling tomkin to her breast, feeling as her heartbeat gradually slowed down, her panic subsiding. Teagan felt guilt wrap itself around her heart as Sihil wept into her torn vestements, her stomach upset at the her confrontation with reality. She had killed a man to save a tomkin, when she herself had killed thousands of their number. Teagan felt nearly ready to shed tears of her own when she focused her attention back on Sihil, who was still trembling and weeping. Teagan gently stroked the tomkin's hair, slowly raising her to eye level. Teagan simply waited, taking long, deep breaths, as the girl exhausted herself crying against Teagan's cheek. When Sihil was finally done, her face reddened and tearstreaked, Teagan gently lowered the tomkin to the ground, next to the wooden box. When that was done, she turned to the man. He seemed to be a lowly brigand, his knife rusty, gloves tattered, and trousers stained with grass. What intrigued Teagan the most, however, was the man's quilted gambeson. It was in poor condition, but seemed to be from the time before the war, bearing the crest of Dunnehain, one of the last duchies to fall to the tomkins. Teagan quickly surmised that it must have been looted from somewhere, although that somewhere may not be anywhere nearby. Teagan stripped the man of his knife and scabbard, his trousers, his hardtack-laden rucksack, his canteen, and his gloves, leaving the gambeson behind due to its weight. When this was done, Teagan picked Sihil up once more, settling the tomkin down on her shoulder, and headed back towards the lake, intent on filling her canteen and then beginning the journey across the mountain pass. As she walked, Teagan couldn't help but think about killing the man... the power she felt... his helpless struggles... as she replayed the murder in her mind over and over again, she realized that she relished the feeling just as much as she did any of her rampages through a tomkin village. She pictured the man in her mouth, screaming, begging for mercy as she pushed him deeper and deeper into her throat, culminating with her swallowing and tracing his little bulge down into her stomach. She imagined smothering him under her breasts, listening to his muffled cries as his bones began to snap under the soft weight of her plush breasts, ending only when he was reduced to a stain. She imagined crushing him between her thighs, tearing off his little arms, grinding him into paste beneath her heel.

Teagan was pleased to find her old self back.

~

Adelpha thanked the wagon driver as she helped Phyllida down to the ground. The ride to Q'thuman cost a hefty sum indeed, but pack animals from the Old Land were a rarity indeed, and the only other option was travel by foot. Phyllida seemed awestruck by the massive city, imposing walls made only slightly less threatening with the addition of streamers. Music was faintly audible to Adelpha as the two approached the city gates. After waiting in a messy queue long enough to see the sun sink under the horizon, the two reached an amicable guard.

"Names?"

"I am Adelpha, and this is Phyllida. Our village was attacked by... by a giantess. We come seeking aid, and to help in finding her."

"Oh! Oh, uh, yes, yes, come with me, please!" the city guard said, excitedly, motioning for them to follow.

Adelpha and Phyllida rushed through the city streets, following the guard as he slipped through the dense crowd of revelers. Adelpha was almost hurt by the sight of these cityfolk drunkenly parading behind their walls while farmers and townspeople like herself were at the mercy of the roaming giants outside. She was too busy to ruminate on her anger, however, occupied as she was with following the guard. After slipping through a few alleyways, the guard finally stopped at a large barracks complex, knocking thrice on the door. After a short pause, a young man, dressed in the clothes of an Orestian leigionary, opened the door, eyes somewhat bleary.

"Yes? What is it?" he inquired, leaning tiredly on the doorframe.

"These two say that a giantess attacked their village. They say that they may be able to help in her pursuit."

At these words, the young man's eyes lit up, and he called back into the barracks.

"Firkon, sir! A pair of villagers are here! They say the giantess attacked their village!"

"Well, what are you waiting for, Laeron?" came the immediate reply, "let them in, and get them a warm meal!"

Adelpha gratefully accepted the steaming bowl from the Orestian, savouring the honeyed scent that wafted from its contents. Adelpha, glancing to her side, saw that Phyllida seemed equally pleased, the witch's expression now happier than it had been in days. Adelpha returned her gaze to her hosts, examining each one. The young man who had answered the door and given them honeyed porridge, Laeron, was dressed simply, hair neatly combed back, a gentle expression on his tanned face. The man next to him, Firkon, was older, his countenance stern and his face rigid, as if hewn from stone. Streaks of grey ran through his black hair, and Adelpha knew almost immediately that he was most likely in charge. The third man, his name still unbeknownst to the two travellers, was harder for Adelpha to read. His face was free of wrinkles or scars, clean-shaven, and well-defined, but the cloudiness of his eyes and the heaviness of his brow seemed to betray a greater age and wisdom. He wore a heavy grey coat, like that worn by the clergy. All three were seated around a table, facing Adelpha and Phyllida. Firkon, leaning forwards, cast a stern gaze upon Adelpha.

"So, the giantess attacked your village. I am truly sorry, for I have seen what she can do. Firstly, can you tell me roughly where your village is located? If we're able to chart where the giantess has been, it'll be easier for us to predict where she is, and perhaps more importantly, where she will go. Knowledge of the enemy is key to secure victory over them."

Adelpha nodded, replying, "Our town is less than half a day's travel to the south of Nystagmenos Lake, just beyond that dreary, dead forest. I think the giantess continued on towards the lake itself after she left our village. She may still be there even now, given that the lake is a dead end, hemmed in on all sides by impassable mountains."

"Impassable for us," corrected the third man, raking his sharp gaze over Adelpha, "but far easier to transverse for the giants. Firkon has been tracking this giantess for a long time, following her as far back as Telaphonis. She wouldn't have travelled this far without a destination in mind, meaning that there's a good chance she intends to progress further in the same direction. Now, I'm not cartographer, but I've seen enough maps to know that if she makes it to the leeward side of those mountains, she'll end up in the Q'thumani desert. It would be ideal to strike in this terrain, which avails her neither enough food and water nor any cover to remain hidden behind."

Adelpha raised a hand, drawing attention back to her.

"There's something else I, or, well, Phyllida, would like to tell you. She's deaf, so I often speak for her. Anyhow, when the giantess struck, many more would have died were it not for Phyllida... she is a witch. Not a practitioner of any dark arts or such, but a simple arcanist, a sage who dabbles only lightly in the magical. She drove away the giantess with a burst of arcane energy, but when we conversed later that night, she told me that something was off. The amount of energy she struck the giantess with should have stunned or incapacitated her for at least some time, but the giantess seemed to be able to shrug it off as if it was little more than a sting. Phyllida tells me that this may be a sign of magical attunement on the part of the giantess, that she perhaps is a sorceress herself."

"Worrying news indeed," began the third man, clearly troubled, "this is most troublesome. Phyllida is most likely correct in her guess. I know it to be true that some individuals, rare though they are, are born with an attachment to the arcane in their very blood. They exhibit exemplary resistance to many of the arcane arts because of this special nature. It's a well-documented phenomenon, and from what you tell me, there's a good chance that's the case. If that isn't the cause of her resistance, and she was using warding runes or other protective arcana instead, I still think that would be equally problematic for obvious reasons. Well, thank you kindly for coming all this way, Adelpha. Why don't you stay the night, so that I may see to it that you are suitably rewarded for your efforts on the morrow? These roads are dangerous at night, and there are quite a few spare rooms that you can take."

"Thank you for this offer," began Adelpha, bowing her head humbly, "you are too kind to one such as myself. However, though you have already offered us this kindness, I must ask yet another of you, as much as I detest the prospect of begging any further from you. Phyllida and I... we lost so much to that giantess, and she and I both wish to see our vengeance through. We wish to accompany you if you seek to track and kill the giantess, and will help however we can. Phyllida is wise beyond her years and a practitioner of magic, surely a talent that would be of great use to you. I am not as skilled as she, but I can forage well enough to provide for myself without dipping into your own rations, and I can help tend to the wounded - I apprenticed under our town's physician - if you allow me to join your expedition."

"Well, that is a reasonable request, but I haven't the authority to make a decision on it." the man mumbled, ponderously, "Firkon? It is your decision that is final here, although I would ask you to consider the usefulness of having an arcanist join us."

"I am not opposed to the idea, and I know you are already aware of the danger the giantess poses to us all. I will not stop you from joining us, nor will I deny you the warmth of our fires or the nourishment of our food, but you will in turn need to follow orders, no different from the rest of my men, and it is up to you, Adelpha, to convey those orders to Phyllida. Are these terms acceptable?"

Adelpha nodded. What did she have to lose?

~

Teagan, her canteen full and her spirits high, sallied forth towards the mountain pass, a noticeable spring in her step. She had quite gotten over her scuffle with the thug, and was ultimately pleased with the result, having gotten receptacles for both food and water, as well as clothes that weren't torn to pieces. She was still confused and unsettled over whatever it was that caused her feeble strike to land with such strength, but she wasn't going to dwell on it. As she walked onwards, she tried repeating the general motions of those critical moments, but every single time she punched, it came out as a punch alone, and nothing more. Teagan wasn't that upset by this, her meager disappointment with her unsatisfied curiosity entirely eclipsed by her delight at escaping the situation unscathed, and perhaps saving the life of the next traveler to pass through these parts. Teagan was especially happy with her new backpack, which had a little sewn pocket on the side just large enough to fit Sihil, who was snacking on a piece of hardtack, comfortably nestled inside a roughspun pouch. Teagan had finally been able to juxtapose her warmth for Sihil with her hatred of tomkins as a whole, firmly resolving her moral dilemma. Regardless of the fact that the last organized human resistance had been shattered, humanity was at war with every single tomkin here. Why should there be any guilt in destroying a village of tomkins when her own village had been subjected to the same fate? Why should she feel remorse for killing the invaders who settled on her own ancestral lands? While Sihil would certainly hate her all the more for any further massacres, Teagan reminded herself that regardless of her affinity for the girl, Sihil was still her captive in the end.

Teagan slowed her pace considerably as the sun sank below the horizon, still making good progress. She arrived at the foot of the first true stone mountain before the first star was even visible in the night sky, and found the pass not long after. The ground gradually got rockier and more gravelly as she went on, and she occasionally had to pause to empty a pointy stone from her boot. She was considering setting up a camp for the night when a slightly worrisome sight caught her eye: nestled in a small patch of grass was what looked like a tomkin outpost, constructed with the branches of a woody shrub. Teagan wouldn't have noticed it were it not for the tiny fire that burned nearby, around which sat four tomkins, passing around a tankard. One of them, a stout man in dyed burgundy vestements, seemed to be telling a joke or a tale as evidenced by the raucous, over the top laughter coming from the rest. Both the man's speech and the laughter of the rest were slurred and erratic, leading Teagan to the assumption that they were drunk. Teagan briefly considered slinking by the outpost, leaving the tomkins to their devices and she to hers, but she didn't want to leave even the slightest risk that she was found out in her sleep again. Teagan crept slightly closer, getting ready to pounce, but found herself yearning to toy with her victims, yearning for a little relaxed fun to help unwind after her strenous previous encounters. Teagan first looked at her backpack, whereupon she saw that Sihil was soundly asleep. Teagan gently took off her backpack, propping it against a rock and closing the pouch Sihil rested in. With that done, Teagan turned back towards the outpost, excited to begin.

~

Hassan listened as intently as he could manage as the Telaphonoi merchant spoke.

"It's true, I swear!" the merchant uttered, waving his tankard in the air for effect, "250 men, and the Orestian couldn't even manage to kill a single giant! I even heard that he put a sword to the neck of the Senix himself! I'm telling you, I'm telling you all, those Orestians know nothing about war, always just hiring tribal sellswords to do their dirty work. Most of the soldiers at the battle said that the giantess had the face of an ogre and blood-red hands, but a friend of mine who was in the battle says different - get this - he says that the giantess was beautiful! Well-endowed, and with a face that'd be cute if it wasn't 50 paces wide!"

"Reeeaaally?" Hassan inquired, chuckling at the thought, "you actually think that? My grandfather fought in the war with the giants, one of the few to make it to the very end. Said that the giants wore helms that covered their whole faces to hide their grotesque visages! They're an ugly lot. At least, according to him."

"Definitely not! No, no, that can't be the case..." said Aaliyah, her long black hair cascading around her face as she trailed off in thought, "think about it. Many of the beasts and plants of this land are said to just be larger varieties of what exists in the Old Land, so why would the denizens be any different? Sure, their culture is cruel, crude and merciless, but I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't look like us. I sometimes find myself wondering if we could have had peace with them... but we don't know enough to be sure. It's amazing how so few managed to actually keep record of the war, and how oral accounts are so varied, when there are a handful of giants around even now."

Hassan was about to answer when a loud snap sounded out from somewhere nearby. He rushed to his feet, only to fall back to a squat when a wave of drunken dizziness washed over him. Aaliyah and Samira, both outpost guards like Hassan, also seemed to hear the noise, both seeming quite startled. The Telaphonoi merchant, Eucharion, was conversely quite oblivious, and seemed confused at everyone else's reaction.

"Huh? What's the matter?" he asked, warily looking around into the surrounding darkness. Hassan, ignoring him, called up to the watchtower.

"Do you see anything up there?" he cried, imploringly.

"Nothing! Just darkness! You ought to relax, and if you hear or see anything else, just wait it out inside!" came the reply.

Hassan shrugged, and turned back to the fire.

"Probably just a rodent. We've tried hunting them all with ballistae, but unlike the larger creatures, they're able to hide from us quite well. They won't approach our fire." Hassan mumbled, hesitantly returning his gaze to his compatriots.

"Anyhow... can we talk about something other than maneating giantesses? It's been a rough couple of days, especially after we heard about the renewed raids by the local tribes here. A company was dispatched from Q'thuman to conquer them, but until that's done, we have to constantly be on the lookout as it is. Times are tough." Aaliyah concluded, eyes cast down.

Eucharion nodded sympathetically.

"I understand. I've been trading around Nystagmenos for around three winters now, and I know it to be a dangerous area. Let's get on to something more light-hearted, yeah? I'll let you in on a little tip I heard back in Telaphonis: exports from the Phocari merchant cities are about to get a lot more expensive, since-"

Hassan waited for Eucharion to continue talking, but he simply froze, mouth agape, eyes wide. Aaliyah, who was sitting next to the merchant, lifted a trembling arm forward, pointing directly ahead. Hassan was paralyzed with fear when he heard a loud scraping noise behind him, followed by a loud, heavy breath that almost enshrouded him in its warmth. Hassan turned around, slowly, until he was facing the same direction as Aaliyah was pointing.

"What are you waiting for! RUN!" screamed the guard atop the watchtower, flailing his arms wildly, but Hassan knew that running would be of no use to him.

He was staring into the face of a giantess, able to see his own reflection in her vast brown eyes. Her face was framed by bobs of short, auburn hair, and bore an expression that he almost interpreted as amicable, terrifyingly so. Hassan had no idea what to do. The giantess seemed to be laying down, and Hassan could faintly make out the silhouette of her body through the darkness... her size was terrifying. Hassan would have been stunned even longer had it not been for Samira, with a scream, bolting away as fast as she could, shoving him aside in the process. The giantess sighed as Aaliyah and Eucharion followed suit, all dashing off in different directions. The giantess, without even needing to move from her prone position, hemmed all three of them in with her gargantuan interlocked arms, which were wider than any of them were tall. The giantess winked at Hassan, slowly bringing her arms in and forcing everyone back towards the fire. Aaliyah seized Hassan's arm, clutching it as if it were a lifeline.

"Hassan, I'm afraid." she whispered, between shallow breaths, "We're helpless. There's nothing we can do. I don't want to die like this. She’s treating us like toys."

Hassan slowly reached down to his scabbard and unsheathed his sword. Freeing his other arm from Aaliyah's grasp, he wrapped both of his hands around the sword's grip, holding it outwards, leveled towards the face of the giantess. The giantess seemed surprised at Hassan's action, her eyes widening in mild shock. After a few seconds passed, however, she began to heartily laugh, throwing her head back in hysterics. Eucharion and Aaliyah seemed a bit less scared the giantess, while Samira seemed to quake with even more fear as the giantess howled with laughter. Once the giantess was done giggling, her right hand darted towards Hassan with incredible speed. Hassan yelped as the giantess seized his sword between her pointer and middle fingers, wrenching it out of his grasp with almost no effort. She examined the weapon for a bit, holding it delicately, before tossing it aside, no longer interested.

"...Sword..." the giantess said, beaming. 

"What?! She can speak!" Eucharion cried in disbelief.

"I'm not talk word." the giantess said, her friendly smile assuaging some of Hassan's fears.

"I wonder if she understands what we're saying right now." Aaliyah said, walking closer to the giant face, "She clearly has a limited vocabulary. She seems friendly enough, though."

"Friendly?! This very well could be the same giantess that decimated our border towns a few days back! I'm sure that she's killed hundreds!" Eucharion growled, standing still as if petrified.

"I am Teagan!" the giantess exclaimed in a honeyed voice, clearly oblivious as to what Eucharion was saying. Hassan's remaining trepidation, for a second, became genuine excitement. All recorded attempts to communicate with the giants in the past ended inconclusively at best, but before him was a giantess that not only could communicate, but seemed to actively want to engage in such. She even had a name, albeit a strange one. Before Hassan could even consider replying, he heard the twang of a bowstring and the whizz of an arrow. In that split second, that glimmer of hope Hassan had faded into darkness. The giantess cried out as an arrow struck her directly in the left eye, causing her to recoil. One of her arms shot up to cover her injured eye, opening an escape route. Hassan, not wanting to potentially subject himself to retribution, found himself running alongside Samira and Aaliyah. Eucharion was cowering in fear behind a nearby boulder, although it was more akin to a pebble to the giantess. Hassan looked back to see the giantess demolish the watchtower with a single swing of her arm, sending splinters flying in all directions. Herjaz, the guard in the tower, was flung to the ground, a composite bow in his grip. Hassan winced as the giantess slammed her fist down on the disoriented archer in an explosion of gore, but he felt no pity for the man, as it was clear that he had brought this upon himself. The giantess ignored Eucharion entirely, pouncing instead at Hassan and the other fleeing guards with a speed they couldn't hope to match. Hassan felt his knees grow weak as he saw the giantess' terrible, wide grin, a clear indication of the sadistic pleasure that lie ahead. Samira, who was straggling behind, yelped as the giantess' hand closed around her. Hassan dove to the ground as the giantess swiped next at him, hoping to fall under the passing hand, but the giantess easily scooped him up all the same, squeezing him tightly to Samira, who was struggling hopelessly. Hassan felt a rush of dizziness as the giantess raised her fist again, his stomach turning at the sudden change in elevation. Hassan nearly passed out as the giantess shot her hand out once again, presumably to catch Aaliyah. Surely enough, after Hassan had been jostled a little more, the giantess' closed fist opened just enough to force Aaliyah inside. Aaliyah threw her arms around Hassan, lightly pressing her forehead to his, trying to put aside her fear.

"We're going to be okay. All of us. I think I'm going to visit my mother back in Q'thuman tomorrow. She always told me that she wanted me to serve in the city garrison instead of joining the frontier guards. She said that this was more dangerous, and that it'd be easier for me to visit her if I lived in the city barracks. I said that I wanted the excitement of the frontier... can you believe it? I certainly can't, not now. I asked for this."

"I-I just j-joined to pay off the debt on my new h-house!" bawled Samira, still struggling in vain against the giantess' grip. 

Hassan was silent. What was there to say? He was still even as the giantess unfurled her hand, looking at the three captive guards with a face that sent a chill down Hassan's spine. She still had her other hand over her left eye, but from what he saw of the uncovered portion of the giantess' face, she was experiencing a mix of rage, pain, and anticipation, the last of which scared Hassan the most. Slowly, the giantess took her hand away from her injured eye. It was closed, but Hassan could see a reddish tinge to the tears that flowed from it. The giantess first grabbed Samira with her free hand, dangling her by the shoulders rather than gripping her tightly. Hassan already had a solid guess about what was going to happen next, but he still couldn't avert his eyes as the giantess opened her mouth and extended her tongue. Samira kicked and screamed with renewed vigor as she too realized what fate the giantess had in store for her, but the giantess only giggled before dropping Samira on her tongue. Samira's struggles weakened before ceasing entirely as the giantess slowly retracted the sobbing woman into her mouth, until even the tip of Samira's head disappeared behind the lips of the giantess. Aaliyah silently cried, tears running down her face, but Hassan was too deep in thought to grieve over the impending deaths of both him and his comrades. This, he realized, was exactly why there never was a peace with the giants. An arrow was loosed upon her even as she tried to make simple conversation, but she intended to kill, no, to devour all associated with the perpetrator of that fear-driven attack as recompense for what amounted to little more than a splinter in her eye. Hassan snapped out of thought as the giant hand he rested upon dropped out from under him, causing him and Aaliyah to drop directly onto the giantess' throat. The giantess then placed her hand on top of the two guards, pressing them tightly against her throat.

Gulp.

In just that instant, Hassan's cool denial of his entire situation faded away. As he heard Aaliyah scream in horror, he felt his heartbeat quicken. As he felt the giantess' throat abruptly rise and fall under him for only a split second, he choked up. As he saw the giantess trace her finger down from her throat to her stomach, he knew that he was already a dead man, his fate sealed. He resigned himself to death as the giantess then wrapped her hand around him, lifting him up just as she had Samira. Samira... a quiet girl, a gentle soul, a collection of hopes and dreams and follies and achievements... gone in an instant, consumed for the amusement of her murderer. Hassan prepared to join her, when he realized that the giantess was carrying him away from her mouth, not towards it. As Hassan passed by her stomach, he was filled with a mixture of rage and sorrow as he heard faint, muffled screams of what he could only assume was agony emanating from within. Hassan threw kicks and punches at the giant hand that carried him, but he knew before he even started that it would be ineffectual. He felt his blood boil as the giantess pulled down her trousers, revealing her partially shaven crotch in the full. Hassan felt a twinge of desire rush through him even as he cursed the giantess for what he realized she intended to do. Hassan was helpless as the giantess inserted him, head first, into her sex, pumping him in and out at an abrasive speed. Hassan sputtered for breath as the scent of her flesh encompassed him, trying in vain to push away the soft flesh that yearned to engulf him. Hassan screamed in pain as his shoulder was forced out of its socket, sending a flash of white-hot pain through his entire body. Still he was pushed and dragged, pushed and dragged, arm trailing limply behind him, until the blissful release of unconsciousness gave him rest.

Eucharion watched in minutely aroused terror as the giantess pulled her top away, revealing a pair of breasts large enough to flatten a house. He didn’t dare to try and flee, instead hoping that he could wait the giantess out, not having to abandon his goods. He winced as the giantess kneaded Aaliyah into her breast, slowly crushing her. Aaliyah pleaded with her gods, but it did her no good - Eucharion heard a jarring crack from Aaliyah’s body as the giantess arched her back, moaning in pleasure. The giantess, left panting from her intense orgasm, slowly extricated Hassan from between her legs. Eucharion gagged as he beheld the man, one of his arms rolling loosely about, covered in the giant woman’s vaginal fluids. The giantess, apparently done with the guards, dropped their limp bodies into a large wooden box, something Eucharion hadn’t noticed on her person earlier. Eucharion was relieved as the giantess stood up, seeming ready to move on, but his heart sank when she turned her head back at the outpost, affixed directly on him. A smile spread across her face as she dropped to all fours, looming above Eucharion, the tip of her tongue snaking out from between her lips.

“Wait! Wait! Please, no, please! I’m not one of the guards! I didn’t do anything!” Eucharion pled, dropping to his knees.

The giantess extended her open hand, palm flat, on the ground in front of Eucharion. She nodded quickly at it. Eucharion, knees buckling, stepped slowly onto the giant hand, staggering as the flesh gave way under his tread, like walking on a massive pillow. He fell down entirely as the giantess lifted him up to her face, terrified of being eaten, but managed to struggle back up to a kneeling position as she lifted him past her mouth and up to her left eye, the one stricken by an arrow. Eucharion saw that the eye was still teary, and though the eyelids around it were reddened and puffy, there was still an arrow lodged in it. The giantess put her hand directly adjacent to her face, and pantomimed a pulling gesture with her thumb and forefinger, like one would unwind thread from a thimble. It was obvious that she wanted Eucharion to extract the arrow. Eucharion, not seeing much of a choice on his end, delicately grabbed the arrow’s shaft. That simple action alone was enough to cause the giantess to suck air in through her teeth in shock, but she kept her hand steady. Eucharion, trying his best not to tremble, slowly pulled the arrow from the wound. The giantess balled her free hand up into a fist, taking shallow breaths as the shaft was slowly and presumably painfully extracted from her eye. As Eucharion pulled the head of the arrow out, the giantess pounded the ground with her bloodstained fist, but Eucharion was able to retain his focus, fearing what she would do to him if he made even the slightest mistake. Eucharion cast the intact arrow aside, exhaling deeply. He wondered if she’d let him live even after he took the arrow out of her eye, knowing that she had no reason not to do as she wished with him now that he was no longer useful to her. Eucharion was certain that his suspicions were confirmed as the giantess lowered him to her mouth level, bringing him to her lips. He shut his eyes and balled his fists, knowing the futility of pleading with her, when he felt her lips encase his head for only a second before drawing away. The giantess had given Eucharion a kiss, and now gazed at him with a relaxed, half-lidded grin, smug in her superiority to him but bearing no ill will. She set him back down on the ground just as gently as she had picked him up, depositing him near the ruined outpost.

“I am Teagan.” the giantess reiterated.

Eucharion, with a shaky bow, replied “I am Eucharion. Hello, Teagan.”

Teagan frowned, muttering “Hello? Hel-lo?”, painstakingly sounding out every syllable. Eucharion realized that she didn’t know what it meant. He performed another bow, accompanied by a pretend handshake. If Eucharion had any luck, perhaps the giants had these gestures in their own culture. Surely enough, Teagan let out an utterance of realization, followed by a giggle. Eucharion was shaken by her levity only moments after she had killed two of his would-be companions and captured the other two. 

“Hello, Eucharion!” she said, with a quick wave of her own. She, seemingly on a second thought, then stood to her full height. Eucharion marvelled at the towering giantess above him, craning his neck upwards until he was woozy just to look at her face. She returned his bow, moving her massive form with the lithe control of a lioness, before striding away into the night, leaving Eucharion alone amid the scattered wreckage of the Q’thumani outpost.

“Teagan…” Eucharion muttered, awestruck.

Teagan stretched, yawning drowsily. She’d slept soundly, her tiredness from the previous night’s excitement helping her slumber without issue. Pushing herself to her feet, Teagan surveyed the nearby terrain, now visible under light of day. It seems she had chosen a somewhat difficult place to cross the mountain range at; while she had certainly chosen the point at which the ascent seemed to cover the least distance, it was also the point at which the ascent required the most vertical travel. The path ahead was steep, and Teagan wondered how the tomkins managed to cross it at all if even she struggled. Nonetheless, Teagan pushed doggedly onwards, past verdant pines and loose hunks of pumice and scoria. As Teagan drew nearer to the summit, her legs ached with greater intensity after each step, and her throat grew dry with every breath of the dry air. When the discomfort turned to outright pain, Teagan sat down to take a much-needed rest. Almost unthinkingly, the first thing Teagan did after taking a seat was retrieving the wooden box from her side.

The two tomkins inside were quite battered, but the sudden introduction of sunlight into their confines as Teagan opened the hinged lid of the box was more than enough to wake them both up. The man quickly forced himself up, staring angrily at Teagan, his miniscule fists balled in meaningless defiance. The woman remained prone, using one of her arms to weakly prop up her head. Teagan rolled her eyes as the man shouted at her, either too stupid to realize or too angry to care that she had no idea what he was talking about. Tiring quickly of his hoarse voice, Teagan wondered what she cared to even do with him; she didn’t feel like eating tomkins when she still had hardtack available, and there were all sorts of fun games she could play with this one while she rested. Just as she was about to start twisting the little guard’s arms off, Teagan heard muffled shouting coming from her backpack. Teagan lifted Sihil out of her pouch with a disgruntled sigh, being greeted immediately with a furious glare from the red-haired girl.

“DICITI!” shouted Sihil, stomping angrily on Teagan’s hand. 

Diciti meant speak, or at least something along those lines, as far as Teagan knew. She was still somewhat confused until Sihil, almost quaking with anger, pointed at the tomkin guards in the box, who were now both staring, slack-jawed, at Sihil. Teagan, thinking for a second, found herself wondering the same thing as she assumed the guards were: why the fuck was she about to let a tomkin give her orders? Teagan needed to put Sihil on a tighter metaphorical leash, lest she step out of line anymore than she already was. Reciprocating Sihil’s glare, she roughly seized the man with her free hand, lifting him up towards her face. Sihil, only now aware of the mistake she had made, fell to her knees, prostrating herself on Teagan’s hand, crying for mercy on the man’s behalf. The man himself struggled furiously against Teagan’s grip, impressing her with his tenacity after being so roughly handled last night. Nonetheless, Teagan continued lifting him until he dangled above her mouth, which she opened as wide as she could manage. Sihil was practically screaming at this point, tiny tears rolling down her tiny face. Teagan, figuring that Sihil had learned her lesson well enough, nonchalantly tossed the man back in the box, leaving Sihil distraught but placated. Teagan, done with the man, turned her attention wholly back to Sihil. The girl’s chest was heaving as she struggled to catch her breath, which combined with the exhausted, distressed expression on her face brought Teagan a strange, esoteric delight that she couldn’t quite explain.

“Diciti?” Teagan teased, brushing the tomkin’s red locks out of her face in feigned sympathy. Sihil nodded unsuspectingly.

“Diciti your fucking heart out.” Teagan mumbled, dumping Sihil into the wooden box alongside the two guards before shutting the lid and setting off once more on her ascent of the mountain pass. Time seemed to drag on as slowly as it could, but progress was undeniable, and soon enough, Teagan was steps away from the summit. She was intrigued to see what was on the other side of the range, but was unsure what to actually expect. 

As she crested the last rise on the path, Teagan’s face lit up, new vigor coursing through her tired body.

This side of the mountain range was nigh indistinguishable from the coniferous, lake-dotted highlands that lay opposite. The mountainous terrain shifted almost jarringly into a steppe of golden grass, forming a horizontal strip abutting the mountainside. The steppe, in turn, seemed to gradually transition into a reddish shrubland, presumably the desert the old man wrote of. The view was breathtakingly picturesque, the sublime yellow of the steppe framing the reddish desert beyond in a golden aura. Though Teagan knew little of the world’s borders before the tomkin incursion, she knew that this territory would have likely constituted part of the Republic of Pazsich, a collection of small towns that banded together in a loose mercantile confederacy. She knew that many smaller burgs managed to remain unnoticed by the tomkins, and wondered if she would be able to find any here.

Teagan’s descent was far easier than her ascent, but midway through it, she found an obstacle other than fatigue impeding her progress. Blocking the path downwards was a tomkin structure, nearly as tall as her and significantly wider at its base. The building, built of bricks hewn from the abundant loose rock in the area, bustled with activity, with tomkins busy tending to farms of miniature crops, hewing the stalks of woody shrubs into tiny planks, and washing various articles of clothing in a washbasin fabricated from a nutshell. Teagan could make out much less of what was going on inside the structure, but she was able to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be an ornate mosaic through a window. She didn’t have much time to observe, however, quickly ducking away and out of sight to consider what she’d do next. While precautionary logic dictated that she should just take the extra bit of time necessary to skirt the building, Teagan was intrigued with its presence, wondering exactly what its purpose was. The building, while perhaps architecturally and stylistically unique, seemed to be similar to a monastery in its general configuration and layout. As evidenced by the lack of nearby houses present, the tomkins working the fields nearby most likely lived communally in the structure, similar to a monastic order. Teagan found herself wondering exactly what parallels tomkin culture had to that to humanity. Did they value the same virtues? Did they worship the same gods? Did they prepare the same meals, paint the same art, play the same music?

Teagan’s curiosity got the better of her, and she decided to sack the building. It didn’t seem as if the tomkins inhabiting it were anything more than civilians, and she saw neither defenses on the building nor a single weapon on any of the tomkins themselves. Confident in her own personal safety, Teagan strode back into the open, wearing her most deceptively charming smile, a jaunt in her step. Teagan bit her tongue to stop herself from laughing as the tomkins panicked at her entrance, ringing a tiny bell somewhere in the building. The tomkins fled into the building as fast as their little legs could carry them, which, Teagan had to admit, was proportionally far faster and more impressive than anything a human could achieve. After the last few stragglers had rushed inside the building, the doors slammed shut, and the bell ceased ringing. Teagan took slow, deliberate steps towards the building, approaching until she stood close enough to tough it with an outstretched. She wanted to peek through a window, but didn’t want to deal with another eye injury, the first one having hurt enough already. Teagan, instead, decided to make her own window. Seizing a large portion of the building’s roof, she pulled upwards with as much might as she could muster. She wasn’t able to achieve a solid grip, however, and despite her best efforts, the ceiling remained firmly affixed. Her efforts didn’t go unnoticed, either - Teagan heard a chorus of screams and shouts coming from within the building as she pulled, which subsided into quiet murmuring as her hands slipped away, unable to find a hold on the smooth, angled roof. Not ready to give up just yet, Teagan instead decided to target the weakest point on the building, a large pair of wooden doors, reinforced with thin metal crossbars. It only took a single spirited punch on Teagan’s end to blow the tiny doors off of their hinges, revealing a huddled mass of tomkins inside. Teagan noticed that all of them were dressed in the same drab brown garb, young or old, man or woman.

“S-salviti...” Teagan stuttered, remembering the tomkin greeting taught to her by the Eucharion fellow last night. The tomkins inside the building erupted into a clamor at her invasive introduction, a good deal of them scattering around the building’s interior. One of them, an older man with a shaven head, approached Teagan, storming out the doorway and facing her outside. She was surprised at the man’s bravado, impressed that he’d leave the meager safety offered by his building to confront her in the open and shout at her in a language she didn’t understand. Teagan, quickly tiring of his shouting, reached a hand down to nudge him out of her way. He responded by hurling what appeared to be a miniature ball of fire at said hand, singeing Teagan’s thumb and causing her to recoil sharply, now wary of these tomkins who at first seemed so benign.

“Whoah! Ow! You fucking burned me! I only broke your doors because you all r-”

Teagan was abruptly cut off as the man threw another orb of flame at her, this one leaving a ragged, charred hole in her newly looted trousers.

“Alright, that’s it!” she shouted, leaping at the man. He was clearly unprepared for such quick retaliation, his confidence draining away in the fraction of a second it took for Teagan to pounce on him, flattening him under her forearm with a cringeworthy crunch. Teagan’s attention returned to the building as she felt something sharp prick her scalp. Her attention rose to the windows of the building, from where the tomkins were pelting her with an array of ineffectual projectiles. A few of the tomkins even had little bows, although they did little to deter Teagan compared to the composite bows used by the tomkin soldiery. As soon as Teagan drew near the windows to retaliate, the tomkins hurriedly rushed away, leaving Teagan extremely disgruntled. With her harassers gone for the time being, though, she was able to lower her attention back down to the doorway.

Too frustrated to go through the motions of trying to calm the situation down, Teagan simply reached through the door, barely wide enough to fit her arm, and grabbed a writhing mass of tomkins. Methodically, Teagan stripped them one by one of their robes before shoving them in her mouth, taking little time to savor their futile struggling as they slid down her throat. While the crowd near the door had scattered completely after Teagan reached in the first time, she was ready to once more pit herself against the building. Backing up so that she could get a running start, Teagan lined herself up with the bell tower on the building’s right side, hoping to first destroy the spindly protrusion and continue to disassemble the building from there. With a powerful exhale, Teagan hurled her shoulder into the bell tower. She was pleased when the tower offered almost no resistance, practically exploding against her weight. Seizing the opportunity, Teagan used the newly created hole as a handhold to pry at the roof, this time with a firm grip, and almost immediately succeeded in tearing away a large portion. The panicked tomkins inside scattered to the stairwell, heading back to the ground level, but not until after Teagan managed to snatch a few in her offhand. Her cruelty and voracity now unrestrained, she lifted a particularly tall boy to her mouth, seized his legs between her teeth, and bit down with as much force as she could muster, filling her mouth with blood and severing his legs from his body. She tossed the boy’s mangled body aside, spit out his legs, and moved on to the next tomkin in her hand, a brown-haired girl  with wide eyes and soft, rounded features. She was sobbing furiously as Teagan began squeezing her, slowly applying more and more pressure; continuing mercilessly as her ribs cracked, her arms broke, blood gushed from her mouth, and she let out a final gurgling sob before expiring. Teagan decided that she’d take things a little more slowly with the next tomkin, a portly man with grey hair shaven in a manner resembling a priestly tonsure. Dropping the body of her last victim, she picked her new target up in her right hand.
“We’re gonna have some fun, you and me…” Teagan breathed at the terrified man, biting her lower lip in anticipation.  

The man was beating at Teagan’s closed fingers and trying to squirm out of her grasp, panting heavily between hoarse shouts. Teagan popped open the lid of her box to deposit the other few tomkins she had snatched inside before using her newly freed hand to draw her knife. The man went silent for a few seconds upon seeing the knife, the blade of which was taller than he, before he resumed his shouting with redoubled volume and effort. Teagan pinned him to the wall of the building with one hand, and began cutting away with the other. She started with tiny incisions, drawing her knife across each of his arms, his legs, his chest, forming tiny beads of blood and pulling guttural wails from the man’s throat. When the man, exhausted, grew unresponsive to these smaller wounds, Teagan sliced a long, clean incision across the man’s stomach, sending blood dribbling down his robe and bringing him back to full consciousness. Teagan went over this cut again, this time slicing even deeper. She was a bit surprised when the man’s innards popped out from the wound, but found a strange delight in the man’s face as he realized that he was truly dead. He reached out with a trembling, bloodstained hand, weakly trying to put his guts back into place, but it was of no use given both the extent of his wound and his apparent weakness. Teagan, after sheathing her knife, knocked him unconscious with a hard flick to his temple, leaving him to bleed out.

When Teagan finally turned her attention back to the building, she was incensed to see that a great deal of the tomkins had apparently snuck out while she was busy with the victims in her hands, with the last of them already seconds away from reaching cover in the mountain grass. Teagan was too fatigued from her ascent of the mountain to give chase, and so she half-heartedly resumed tearing down the deserted building, taking her time to inspect it now that its inhabitants had fled. She found two rooms that rather intrigued her more than any of the others. The first seemed to be a treasury of sorts, a small locked chamber filled with tiny plates and goblets cast from precious metals, miniature bronze-faced shields, a few small sacks of coins no larger than grains of sand, and a handful of wine casks. Teagan drank the contents of the wine casks, the entire stock adding up to just a bit more than a draught for her, and emptied everything else into a pocket on her rucksack.

~

Iacchus, though Selcenian by birth, had served in the armies of Q’thuman for nearly four winters as a tracker and a pathfinder. In all his time, he had never before seen a sight like the one that lay before him now.

A day earlier, his division had marched forward to answer a relief call for a battalion ambushed by Caeni savages who had somehow gotten their hands on a method to travel from the Old Land. They were too late, arriving only in time to treat the wounded. Many of these wounded, however, said that a giantess had strode out onto the battlefield, seemingly learning the words for various objects from a girl she carried with her. Iacchus was incredulous, but the story was corroborated when Iacchus found the tracks of a giant going around Nystagmenos lake. Bringing a few skirmishers and a scribe with him, Iacchus followed these tracks. He was unprepared for the first thing he’d stumbled on: the remains of a Caeni village, utterly razed, strewn with the crushed and mangled bodies of dead tribespeople. It was a terrible thing to behold, but at least it meant that his division wouldn’t have to fight any battles. Iacchus’ curiosity wasn’t quite sated, however, and he continued to follow the tracks left by the giantess, trailing them further and further northwards, towards the Stele mountains. It was after continuing along that path for another few hours that Iacchus stumbled upon a sight that would jar him for days.

Propped against a splintered ebony tree was the dead body of a giant. A huge sharp stone, caked with dried blood, sat on the ground next to the corpse. The giant’s head was completely caved in, its face destroyed, a lumpy mass of protruding bone fragments and decaying flesh. Iacchus was unprepared for such a sight, but his curiosity persisted as he noticed a strange detail about the scene, one he struggled to understand. A cone-shaped segment of grass, facing away from the dead giant, was entirely flattened as if pushed down by a great weight.

“Write it all down.” Iacchus murmured to the scribe at his side.

Sihil winced as the lid to the box slammed shut, trapping her in the dark prison she dreaded most. She simply wanted to talk with the prisoners, and this is what Teagan did? Sihil clenched her fists and muttered a curse under her breath, but knew that anger would do her little good in a time like this. She turned to the two other prisoners in the box, hoping to help them however she could.

“Um... hello.”

The two of them stared at Sihil, silently. They were both weaponless, but still seemed to be soldiers on account of their armor,  woven from the fibres of giant grasses. One of them, a clean-shaven young man with wavy black hair and a furrowed brow, sat sulkily in a far corner, reminding Sihil of the time that she had taken refuge from Firkon in that same corner. The other, a woman with a dark complexion and a slight build, lay prone on the ground.
“I’m… sorry that we find ourselves in these circumstances…” Sihil muttered, casting her eyes downward. She was nervous, sad, and now she was making a complete idiot out of herself in front of two people who most likely had no desire to talk. Sihil was going to apologize and sit down when the prone soldier, propping herself up with an arm, responded.

“We all are, I’m sure… but there’s no point in dwelling on what cannot be helped, when we could instead be thinking about what can. This giantess, are you aware that she can speak?”

“I am,” Sihil replied, “I was the one who taught her. I don’t think I’d be alive right now if I didn’t.”

“You taught her, eh? How long have you been here?” asked the soldier in the corner, suddenly interested.

Sihil paused to think for a few moments before responding, “...I don’t know. I’ve lost track of time at this point. Take that how you will.”

“I’ll take that to mean that you’ve been here long enough. Does she let anyone go?”

“No.”

The soldier’s gaze dropped down once more. Sihil felt ready to cry as she wondered how far Teagan might have taken her from her home. Without a paved road or a steed, what it takes a giant one day to travel could take anyone else at least five. She thought about all the others she had seen enter this box, each more hopeless and dejected than the last. Was it a nightmare, perhaps? A feverish night’s terrible fantasy, drawn out by the machinations of the mind? Sihil cast her thoughts aside, neither ready nor willing to dwell on them just yet.

“Are either of you hurt?” Sihil asked the soldiers, hoping to avail them some kind of aid. She was taken completely aback when the prone soldier gave a weak chuckle. The other soldier grimaced at the question, clearly upset by the answer. 

“It’s not like there’s anything you can do about it that we couldn’t. Don’t bother asking. You’re just wasting our time in the most irritating manner possible.”

“Hassan, please, don’t be so harsh, she’s just a girl!” the prone soldier chastised, casting a glare in the man’s direction, “but he’s right. There’s nothing you can do, child. He tended to his wounds, and there’s little that can be done for me. I can’t move or feel a thing below my waist; there’s no treating such an injury. I try not to think about it too much.”

“Oh… I’m so sorry, I had no idea...” Sihil muttered, ashamed of her ignorance. The soldier forced a smile and shook her head.

“There is nothing to be sorry for. You tried only to help, and I’m thankful for that, I really am. What’s your name, girl?”
“Oh, uh, I’m Sihil, of Alephasia.”

“It’s good to meet one as caring as yourself, Sihil. Your bravery is exemplary… I don’t think I’ll ever see anyone face one of the giants as fearlessly as you did earlier. My name is Aaliyah, and my friend here is Hassan. You are both caring and courageous.”

“Hmph. Courageous, perhaps, but not because you do not fear death, but because you do not fear the giantess. Am I wrong? You seem too familiar with her, too friendly. I don’t doubt that you’re a captive, but I feel as if she may hold you in higher regard than us… and you know it well. Are you afraid of her inflicting upon you what she does upon others?”

Sihil silently shook her head. Lies would get her nowhere, and it seemed that Hassan, while certainly gloomy, was not the type to blame her for his capture.

“Interesting. I would normally say that it’s pleasing to hear of an act of understanding by the giants, but given what happened to our Samira and what’s bound to happen to us, I would feel greater joy from seeing one among their own number die. A vitriolic sentiment perhaps, but one that is reciprocated tenfold by the giants themselves.”

Sihil was once again engulfed in a deep, gnawing sadness. She missed her friends. She missed her home. She missed the promise of food every day, of seeing the same familiar rolling hills, of never having to fear for her life. She fell to her knees as she saw faces in her mind’s eye, faces of those who had died. Thanalia. Fersi. Thestaran, Al-Valizi, and the countless others who she had never even had a chance to speak with. Sihil’s eyes still stung from her sobbing breakdown the day before, but she could do little to contain the tears that once again dropped from her eyes. Aaliyah, seeing Sihil helplessly bawling, motioned for her to come closer. Sihil stumbled her way over to Aaliyah, and was met with the first embrace she had received in what felt like it could have been months.

“It’s okay, Sihil. It’s okay. You’re strong to have made it this far. You’re going to make it through this. Sh-”

Aaliyah was interrupted as the box, apparently still affixed to Teagan’s hip, lurched violently forward, sending both Aaliyah and Sihil crashing into a wall. Sihil felt and saw a white hot flash as her head snapped violently backwards, the back of her skull cracking against the hardwood. As the light faded, Sihil’s vision didn’t return to her, the searing pain leaving only numbness and darkness in its stead. The last thing Sihil could hear before slipping entirely into unconsciousness was screaming, not from within the box, but from without.

~  

Teagan, after pocketing the last of the building’s treasures, turned her attention to the second interesting discovery she’d made. After tearing down a few walls, Teagan was able to see the entire mosaic that she previously peeked through a window. It was about as tall as the distance from Teagan’s shoulder to her hip, and just over half as wide. It was assembled out of tiny chips of vibrant stone, although the general style of it was far different than the artwork Teagan had seen on her few trips to larger towns. The mosaic was split into nine roughly equal sections, the background of each colored slightly differently than the rest. Each section depicted a figure, most of them wearing a crown, wielding a scepter, or flaunting some other display of authority. Despite their regal bearings, however, they were all depicted in stances of deference, prostrating themselves to a crown-like silhouette in the mosaic’s center. Surrounding the crown was what appeared to be a brief poem in the tomkin language. Teagan was surprised to see that they used the same general script, although it helped little in her efforts to understand what the text truly meant. She looked it over multiple times, but she gleaned nothing, the words meaning little.

ENNEAM BASILEIS

TREMERE BARBARICOR

FIDERE DEBITAT

SUB UNAS REGNITOR

Teagan, with a bit of neatly applied pressure, was able to break the mosaic away from its constituent wall, leaving it mostly undamaged. She placed it in her backpack, keen on trying to translate it. Surely it pertained somehow to tomkin culture or religion… but Teagan was in no mood to deal with Sihil at the moment. Progress needed to made, especially if the tomkins that minutes earlier escaped her grasp intended to summon aid. Giving the building one last kick, Teagan turned her attention to descending the mountain. The incline was steep, and without a path, Teagan would have to tread carefully to assure that she didn’t tumble down. She took a careful step down onto a rather flat rock. All was going well until the rock, thinner than Teagan had anticipated, snapped in twain as she let her full weight upon it. Teagan lost her footing, and tumbled roughly down the last stretch of the mountainside, finally coming to a stop on a hard granite outcropping. Teagan felt a levity to her body and a strange sensation of pressure in her head, but she was otherwise only a bit scraped. Looking up, Teagan saw that her fall was nearly six or seven times her own height, and was amazed that she wasn’t in far worse shape. Still panting and out of breath, Teagan moved her gaze from where she was to where she intended to be. Her fall had carried her past the steepest bits of the mountainside, leaving what was more or less a leisurely trek to the bottom.

Just as she was about to brush herself off and continue her descent, Teagan suddenly reached to the box at her side, wanting to check on Sihil. She opened the lid and saw the captured tomkins inside heaped up at one end of the box, thrashing in uncoordinated attempts to extricate themselves from the crush of bodies. As Teagan opened the lid, casting them in a sudden influx of sunlight and greeting them with an intent stare, the tomkins’ already difficult endeavor became a fruitless task as it devolved into chaos and panic. Teagan presumed that Sihil was somewhere in that mess, and decided to extricate her. She was met with a chorus of irritatingly familiar screams as she reached a hand into the box, roughly pushing her other captives aside as she caught a glimpse of Sihil’s red hair. Teagan delicately scooped up Sihil’s torso between her pointer finger and her thumb, and was stricken with panic as she felt that Sihil had gone entirely limp. Teagan lifted the girl out of the box and splayed her on a small bed of moss. The other tomkins in the box, having finally separated after the chaos of the fall, watched intently and whispered among themselves as Teagan slowly examined Sihil. Teagan winced as she noticed a bloody gash on the back of Sihil’s head. As much as she tried, she could tell neither is Sihil was breathing nor if her heart was still beating, but the fact that her chest wasn’t heaving in the slightest was a bad sign. Now it was Teagan who started crying, cradling Sihil’s limp body in her hands.

“Sihil… Sihil, please, please, come on… don’t you fucking die, n-not here, not yet… I’m sorry, I’m sorry for everything, I should have listened to you, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

Teagan slammed her fist down on the rock beneath her in anger. An earsplitting crack sounded just as her fist collided, and she was momentarily stunned by the unexpected noise. When Teagan realized the source of the noise, she was entirely dumbfounded. A web of cracks had spread across the granite hunk where she had slammed her fist. There was no doubt in her mind that this was connected to the incident at the lake, and this incident conversely confirmed that it was she who had flung the brigand backwards. Teagan’s realization was abruptly interrupted as the pressure in her head intensified, the slight discomfort it caused amplifying into a migraine. Teagan sprawled back on the rock, laying Sihil’s body gently on her chest. Tears streaked their way down her cheeks, mingling with her sweat and evaporating before they had a chance to fall away. Teagan let her eyes lose focus, mingling the clear blue sky with the white clouds adrift in it. Still the pain remained. Teagan squeezed her eyes shut, trying to enshroud herself in sightless dark. Still the pain remained. A faint crunching noise denied her the quiet rest that she so desperately longed for.

“Hullo?”

Teagan smiled. Maybe this was her time. Maybe the mountainside fall was worse than she had realized, and she would be returning from whence she came. Already, she could hear heavenly voices calling her onwards.

“Are you alive, or can I take that knife?”

Teagan bolted upwards, almost instinctively obscuring Sihil’s body in her left hand. Standing above her was a brunette woman, brown eyes boring into her own. The woman wore a patchy leather jerkin and ill-fitting linen hosen. Teagan didn’t know what to say. The woman raised an eyebrow, squatting down so she was face level with Teagan. She didn’t seem to notice Teagan’s box of tomkins, or if she did, she didn’t seem to particularly care.

“You took an awful tumble there. Can you hear me? See me?”

Teagan nodded. The woman gave a tight-lipped half smile that could be expressive of a wide variety of emotions.

“Good, good. It doesn’t look as if any of your important bits are broken or shattered - which is honestly amazing given how far you fell - but you could have internal injuries that aren’t apparent. Does anything hurt?”
“Head…” Teagan muttered, eyes half-lidded. She couldn’t bring herself to say any more, the pain in her head increasing with even the slightest of efforts on her behalf. The woman examined Teagan’s head in much the same way that Teagan had been examining Sihil only minutes earlier. Teagan offered her no resistance, although she kept her hand curled around Sihil, concealing her from the stranger’s view. After a quick inspection, the woman nodded as if satisfied, standing back up.

“Well, you don’t have any obvious injuries, but you might be concussed. Can you tell me what your name is?”
“I’m… I’m Teagan.”

“Teagan. That name… you’re a highlander, aren’t you? From Cill na Naomh or Dunnehain?”

Teagan nodded. The woman shook her head incredulously, giving a quiet chuckle.

“You’ve come quite a ways. You’re in the Regtsniktland, the heart of Pazsichia. Now, Teagan, do you think you’re ready to try standing up?”
The woman offered her left hand to help Teagan up, agitating Teagan. She was holding Sihil in her own left hand.

“Are you, er, a physician of sorts?” Teagan sputtered, trying to buy herself time.

“I was.” responded the woman, somewhat dejectedly, “My town was razed and my people slain or enslaved a year prior. Not even by tomkins, either, but by a group of roving mercenaries turned bandits. Pazsich survived by trade, not military might, and our wars were won through the contracting of Landsknekte, professional soldiers for hire. Now that nobody’s hiring, they loot and burn to make their ends meet.”

“I’m… I’m quite sorry to hear that. I myself had an encounter with one of that sort just a day ago.” Teagan responded.

“Well… in any case, I’m a physician, surely enough.” the woman said, apparently not comfortable with the topic at hand, “You can trust me. You ought to try standing up… I saw you from nearly a mile away, and I’d guess that any tomkins in the area saw the same. Take my hand.”

Teagan, without hesitation, looked directly into the woman’s eyes before uncurling her left hand, revealing Sihil. The woman seemed intrigued.

“If you’re a physician, can you tend to her? I’ll repay you however I can, just, please, can you do anything for her?” Teagan asked, pleadingly.

“It’s a tomkin.” the woman replied, in a belittling tone, “I’m not tending to a tomkin. Those things are the enemy, Teagan. It would be a waste of our time, and more importantly, my materials. The thing looks like it’s dead anyhow, and there’s not a thing in the world I can do for that.”

“Her name is Sihil, and she’s my friend.” Teagan muttered through clenched teeth, trying to maintain her composure, “Please, just try to save her. I’m fine. She isn’t.”

The woman glared at Teagan.

“It’s dead. I can tell just by looking at it. Just… just hand it over, will you? I’ll do what I can, but I have nothing precise enough to actually operate on it, so don’t expect results.”
Teagan silently handed Sihil’s limp body over to the woman, watching intently as the woman examined Sihil’s injury. After a short while, she nodded to herself, satisfied with what she’d gleaned. She laid Sihil down on the ground and rifled through a pack at her side, withdrawing a long, thin needle. She kneeled down over Sihil, looking momentarily back to Teagan.
“The tomkin has a serious head injury. There’s bleeding under the skin, and possibly inside its skull… this is normally a suturing needle, but I’m going to use it to try and open a small puncture in the back of the head, allowing blood to drain and perhaps relieving the humoral imbalance in the area caused by said excess blood. If this doesn’t work, the tomkin’s as good as dead.”

Teagan watched as the woman used the needle to carefully drill a hole in Sihil’s head. Clotted blood dribbled from the opening like jelly, sickening Teagan; the woman seemed completely unfazed. After she made the opening, the woman slowly withdrew the needle, and the dribble of blood hastened for a few seconds before stopping entirely. Next, the woman wiped her needle off on a small rag before producing a small bundle of tinder, a dried leaf, a small black rock, and a small steel hoop.

“We’re going to have to cauterize the wound. If we left the opening as is, she’d continue to bleed, and the procedure would do more harm than good.”
The woman struck the flint on the steel a few times, creating a handful of sparks, before one finally caught on the dried leaf. The woman quickly applied the flame to the tinder, creating a small fire. She held the needle in the flame until the fire burned out, waited a few seconds, then applied the heated needle to the back of Sihil’s head. Teagan winced as she heard a tiny sizzling noise for a few seconds.
“There. That’s all I can do.” the woman said, putting her tools away, “Now… about repaying me. Where are you headed, Teagan?”

Teagan figured there was no reason not to tell the truth. This woman did go out of her way to help, and seemed to be a kind sort, if not a bit distant. After gently picking Sihil up, Teagan replied.

“Well, I, uh, I’m looking for Whitebreeze Keep, humanity’s last bastion against the endless tomkin hordes! It’s… it’s in that direction… for now, at least…” Teagan trailed off, pointing to the deserts ahead. 

“Intriguing. I’m trying to make it to Sudgau, or, well, at least what used to be Sudgau. I was going to spend a few weeks circumventing those wastes ahead, but if you think you know a way through them, I’d love to accompany you through that part of your journey.”
“Oh… okay, sure. It’s the least I can do. Again… thank you dearly. You’ve done me a great service for me being a stranger and all.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” the woman replied, standing back up, “There’s no guarantee that my treatment’s going to work.”
She paused for a moment.

“You’re an odd one, Teagan. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who was friends with a tomkin before… have I introduced myself? Oh, no, I don’t think I have. I’m Hannah von Nieders.”

~

Firkon was absolutely incredulous. He read over the letter handed to him by the envoy once more, making sure that he wasn’t making any mistakes.

To the esteemed Legatus Maxim Quintares Firkon,

We have received word from our circumspectors in Machiae that the Selcenian Empire is soon to declare a punitive war on Q’thuman. Selcenian armies are already on the march, and to maintain Orestian diplomatic neutrality, you are ordered to cease your current task for the time being. It is the recommendation of the Praefect that you return to Telaphonis for the time being, and refuse further aid from Q’thuman. Avoid contact with Selcenian armies if possible.

SATRAPS CYRUS

“Can you believe this?! Was it not the will of the First Emperor that the peoples of all nations set aside our petty conflicts to unite against the giants? A punitive war! What would Selceus want to raze Q’thuman for?”
“I believe a Q’thumani garrison decided to raid Selcenian border towns, sir.” Laeron meekly muttered.
“This is ridiculous! I refuse to cooperate with a treasonous order such as this. I refuse! We will pursue this giantess to the ends of this forsaken planet, if necessary! Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!”
“Well, sir, I think we can accurately judge her path, assuming, of course, that she was responsible for killing the dead giant found by the Q’thumani scouting party. Oh, and, um, speaking of that party, sir, they want to join us. They say that the Emir is offering them pay to accompany us.”
Firkon glowered.

“That’d put us directly in conflict with the Selcenians, Laeron… why not?”

Teagan snapped the lid to her tomkin box shut, hooking it back on her belt. Hannah luckily didn’t see it, and paid the closed box no mind, busy packing her own bits and bobs up. Teagan, her headache fading quickly, forced herself to her feet before surveying the lands ahead. It was all the same as when she’d seen it from the mountains, but being closer to the ground, it all seemed so much more vast. The steppe-like plains abutting the mountain, which appeared to be little more than a long strip before, now seemed to stretch for at least a mile before they even began to transition into sagebrush-speckled desert.

 “How is it that it’s all desert and dry steppe on this side of the mountains, but a day’s travel across takes you to verdant forests and lakes? I don’t get it.” Teagan pondered aloud.

“It’s the mountains themselves,” Hannah replied, “they tower higher than the clouds in many places. They catch the clouds like a giant net, flooding the highlands and leaving the Regtsniktland dry as bone… at least, that’s what most scholars said. I honestly don’t know to be sure, but I’ll take whatever explanation I can get.”

Teagan and Hannah continued on for some time, mostly in silence. Hannah didn’t seem like the talkative sort, only responding when Teagan first posed questions, and Teagan was still too disoriented, tired, and worried to try and converse. She idly kicked at rocks as she and her newfound companion descended down the last bits of the mountainside until they reached the steppe, blanketed with soft stalks of knee-high grass. When the terrain leveled out, the going got a bit easier, and Teagan was able to regain her composure and collectedness under the easier conditions of travel. After passing through just over half of the grassy plain, Hannah tapped Teagan on the shoulder.

“Could we stop for a bit? I haven’t eaten all day. I’m quite famished, but I don’t have anything I could eat on the go.”

“Certainly!” Teagan responded jovially, being quite hungry herself, “Travel is much easier on a full stomach.”

Teagan found a flat area on the ground, pushed the grass in the area down, and sat crosslegged. Hannah followed suit, rifled through her pack, and withdrew a loaf of bread. Teagan reached in her backpack to grab a hardtack biscuit, but wound up grabbing only a handful of powdery lumps and crumbs. Teagan peered inside her backpack and saw that nearly all of the hardtack was ground to a paste, most likely crushed when she tumbled down the mountainside. It was effectively inedible, being composed moreso of grime and stray worn bits of leather than of actual pieces of the biscuit. Teagan meekly set her backpack aside, forcing an awkward smile and looking at Hannah until she was noticed.

“Is something the matter?” Hannah inquired, eyebrow raised in confusion.

“Well, uh, I wanted to ask you a question. Nothing much, it’s just something about, er, tomkins…” Teagan muttered, not sure how her question would be received. Hannah waited for her to follow the statement up, eyes half-lidded in quickly growing exasperation.

“Did you, uh, ever eat tomkins in your village? I’ve heard it’s something people do in places.” Teagan lied, wringing her hands nervously.

“Well… yes. The tomkins made an intense effort of hunting down as many creatures as they could find, both to deny us food and to make the land more suited to their own habitation. One must have meat of some kind - even the peasantry would occasionally poach rabbits and waterfowl in days gone by - and nowadays, tomkins are the most plentiful quarry. The Regtsniktland is desolate, and one cannot spare the conscience to the detriment of the body should they survive. Of course, if you’re asking this because you think I’d harm your friend, worry not. It is up to you to decide what you do with the small folk. Do not expect me to abstain from doing what I must on her account, however.”

“That’s not quite actually the reason I ask.” Teagan said, emboldened by the knowledge that Hannah felt similarly to her on the matter, “I’d like to perhaps propose a barter, should bread alone not be to your liking.”

Teagan slipped her box away from her belt, put it between herself and Hannah, and popped it open. Hannah showed little visible reaction at the sight of the huddled tomkins within, only staring with the same half-lidded gaze for a few seconds before looking back to Teagan.

“I suppose I could spare a hunk of bread in exchange for three or four of them.” Hannah indifferently posited.

Teagan reached her hand into the box, raising a chorus of little shouts of panic. She was ready to withdraw a handful of the tomkins inside when she heard an all to familiar voice call her name in a similarly familiar pleading tone. She was filled with delight to see Sihil standing woozily in the pocket on her backpack. Teagan, as gently as she could manage, placed the disconcerted girl on her hand and raised her to eye level.

“Sihil!” Teagan exclaimed, overjoyed to see that Sihil lived. 

“Teagan… ” Sihil meekly muttered, drowsy and characteristically sad, “amicar…  save…”

Sihil pointed weakly at the box, wherein the frightened tomkins were still left exposed. Some of them were trying to boost each other out of its confines, prompting Teagan to rap the edge of the box with her knuckles and send them tumbling back down. Teagan knew that she wanted to spare the tomkins inside, or at least some of them, but wasn’t too keen on the idea. She needed to eat, and if she needed to give a few of them to Hannah to make that happen, so be it. On the other hand, she wanted Sihil to be happy, and surely this would further her dejectedness. Making careful note of the tomkins inside the box, Teagan looked at Sihil and held up a finger.

“Save one.” she said, knowing that Sihil would understand her.

~

Sihil felt her heart flutter as Teagan lowered her into the box, which was now far more crowded than it had been when Sihil blacked out. As she dropped inside, many of the strangers gathered around here, asking questions, barking accusations, begging for aid. Sihil, overwhelmed and afraid, stumbled her way over to Aaliyah. When she made it to the crippled soldier, Sihil fell to her knees. The soldier drew her in for a quiet, loose embrace before looking her in the eyes.

“Aaliyah! Aaliyah, what happened to me?” Sihil quietly asked.

“You slammed into the wall, dear. You fell entirely unconscious… the injury looked terrible, but Hassan and I were unable to do anything to aid you. Only seconds after, the giantess started dropping more people in here. From what they say, they’re members of a scholastic commune isolated up here in the Stele mountains. Even after it seemed as if she was done, we were interrupted again when this prison once again started jarring everyone about, this time even more forcefully than before. We think the giantess fell down the mountainside… but in any case, the giantess somehow attracted another of their kind. She withdrew you from the box, and, I swear on the First Caliph, the two of them treated your wound. They didn’t return you here after they were done with you, so I can’t tell you any more.”

Sihil was amazed, mortified, and guilty. Why did the giantess continue to spare and even aid her while affording nothing but death to almost any other who crossed her path? Sihil had little time to ponder her unique predicament as a tall man, eyes wide with fear, seized her by the shoulders and tore her from Aaliyah’s grasp. Sihil shrieked in surprise and pain as the man roughly spun her around and restrained her.

 “What did she say to you?!” he bellowed.

 “Leave her alone! She’s already scared enough as it is!” Aaliyah shouted at the man, throwing her waterskin at him. He ignored her entirely, focusing purely on Sihil.

 “What did she say, girl! What’s going to happen!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.

 “She… she said that I can… that I can rescue one of you.” Sihil tearfully whimpered, dropping back to her knees as the man released her shoulders in shock.

An eerie silence hung in the air for a meager second before someone in the crowd wailed. With that one spark, almost everyone in the box either fell into a panic or began to cry. Sihil screamed again as she tried in vain to wrestle herself away from supplicants begging to be spared, some more threateningly than others. Sihil was thrown suddenly back as someone pushed at her, sending her crashing into the tall man who had just berated her.

“Save my child! Please! Please! Celia! Celia, where are you!” he shouted, scanning the roiling crowd.

Sihil tried dashing away from him, to which he responded by punching her in the back, knocking her down onto the ground. Sihil tried scrambling away, but the man pinned her down with a knee, his expression utterly crazed. His full weight was pinned atop her, and others took advantage of her situation to run to her side, still begging incomprehensibly. Sihil was sure that her bones would start to snap under the man’s weight when she heard Hassan bark something out over the crowd.

“Get the fuck off of her right now!” he growled, advancing on the tall man. Sihil was relieved and grateful as the man stood up, taking his knee off of her back, and threw himself at Hassan. There was a single, loud cracking noise as Hassan threw a punch at the man’s jaw, leaning his entire body into the blow. The man dropped to the floor bellowing in rage and agony, his jawbone clearly fractured. Hassan helped Sihil to her feet and guided her back to Aaliyah.

“Sihil.” Hassan began, his gruff voice almost concealing the fear he felt, “I’m going to ask a great favor from you. Please, save Aaliyah. I don’t know what ‘save’ means in this context, but I think whatever it may entail, it’s a better fate than what would await us otherwise. I’m not going to demand it, but please, just consider it. She has been a good friend to you.”

Sihil nodded. Just as Hassan concluded, however, Sihil saw the man he had just punched slinking up behind him, his mangled face contorted further with rage.

“Hassan, behind you!” she cried out, hoping to alert him before the man struck.

She was too late, however. Hassan turned just in time for the man to kick him in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious. Aaliyah shouted for help, but nobody proffered any aid as the man grabbed Sihil by the throat and started strangling her. Some even egged the man on. She kicked and struggled, but her resistance was feeble, and she felt her head pounding with pain as her heart slammed furiously in her chest.

“You lishle whore! You arensh gonna shave your friend here and leave the resht of us to die! Bitsch! I’ll kill you! I’ll k-”

The man was cut off as Teagan pinched his head between her pointer finger and thumb, causing him to scream as she roughly handled his broken jaw. Sihil scrambled back to Aaliyah and watched as Teagan handed him off to the stranger giantess, who withdrew a knife and methodically began carving into him. He jarringly screeched as she sawed through his left arm. The screeching turned into a pained choking noise as she finished cutting off the left arm and started hacking at the right. It was only after she had cut both the man’s arms off and left him a murmuring, half-conscious double amputee that she finally started sawing at the man’s neck, slitting his throat and letting the blood spurt across her massive hand. Sihil felt nauseous at the sight, and heard others in the box retching similarly. Teagan seemed to be watching as well, as it was only after the stranger giantess had finished decapitating the man that she reached once more into the box, gently extricating Sihil. Sihil held tightly to Teagan’s hand as she was raised up to the giantess’ eyes. Sihil, working up her courage, raised a hand, holding two fingers up. She wanted to save Aaliyah and Hassan both, and hoped that the giantess was feeling magnanimous enough to grant her request. The giantess, hesitating only a few seconds, gave a relaxed shrug before nodding and flashing two of her own fingers back at Sihil. Sihil excitedly pointed back down at Aaliyah and Hassan, to which Teagan nodded. With little warning, Teagan plucked the two tomkin soldiers out of the box and sat them on the palm of her hand alongside Sihil. She smiled at the three of them before depositing them on the ground. Sihil watched, horrified, as the giantess then reached into the box with both of her hands, withdrawing nearly seven or eight struggling, crying people. The stranger giantess cupped her own hands and allowed Teagan to shake three people into them. Sihil turned away as the stranger giantess replicated the process she had done to the tall man, ruthlessly sawing the people’s arms off. They screamed, pled, and cried as usual, but Sihil somehow felt that their cries were even stronger than those of Teagan’s victims. The stranger giantess cut off the arms of all her captives before starting on any of their necks, leaving them to bleed and suffer as they stared death in the face. Even Teagan seemed disconcerted at this, though far less so than anyone else. The stranger giantess, only after reducing her captives to headless torsoes and legs, began to take small, delicate bites, ripping through flesh and bone alike as she devoured the bodies. Sihil nearly fainted as the stranger giantess sucked the flesh from a man’s leg, tossing the bloody bone aside once she had finished. Hassan jumped to her side and turned her away from the brutal, gory spectacle, clearly shaken himself.

~

“Uh… Hannah?” Teagan asked, getting the woman’s attention, “I have to say… I’m a bit intimidated with how you, er, prepared those tomkins.”

Hannah shrugged.

“The arms are too bony for me. Biting into them is a bit nasty. As for the heads... I can barely stomach them raw as I already do. I think adding the viscera in their skulls to the mix wouldn’t improve the matter.”

“Well, what about swallowing them whole?” Teagan asked, lifting a tomkin from her hand up. The young man screamed helplessly as Teagan dropped him on her outstretched tongue, retracted him into her mouth, and gulped him down. Teagan took little time to savor him, instead opting to show an example, but she still felt a slight perverse pleasure as she felt hints of movement in her belly. Hannah, for the first time since they sat down, showed genuine surprise or interest in her expression.

“I thought they can kill you if they aren’t dead before you eat them! Surely they can damage your internals before they themselves perish.” she remarked, her eyes affixed on the bulge traveling down Teagan’s throat.

“Haha, yes, yes, I’ve heard the story myself. It’s a misnomer. I’ve been regularly eating them whole for… ugh, I’ve lost track of time… at least a few months now, I think, and for years before, I ate them occasionally. It’s never done me any harm yet. Want another one to try it out?”

Hannah shrugged.

“If you’re offering, I’ll accept.” she replied.

Teagan scanned the four tomkins left in her hand. They cowered and wept as her gaze raked across them, but she ignored their frightened mewling, looking for the smallest among their number. Swallowing tomkins whole was difficult at first, and the urge to chew was insurmountable with a larger one. Teagan decided on a little brown-haired girl, appearing as if she would be no more than 11 years old were she human. Teagan dropped the girl in Hannah’s outstretched hand and watched. The girl wept and barely struggled as Hannah slowly, hesitatingly drew her in. She sucked the girl in through her lips, tucking her in her cheek. Teagan saw Hannah’s cheek shift slightly with the girl’s struggles, and suppressed her guilt as deeply as she could. Hannah tried swallowing, but the bulge in her cheek remained, muffled wailing now faintly audible from it. Hannah pushed the girl around with her tongue, forcing her as deep as she could towards the back of her mouth before attempting to swallow again. Hannah’s throat tightened as the girl was slowly dragged down it, forced inextricably downwards towards her death. Teagan gave an approving thumbs up as the girl’s screams faded away, and a tiny bump ran down Hannah’s neck, disappearing below her collarbones. Hannah still seemed a bit surprised, and put a hand to her stomach after a few more seconds had passed.

“I… I think I can feel her down there, wriggling… it’s not an entirely unpleasant sensation.” she slowly said, the experience clearly novel to her, “Huh. That was much easier than my method. Thank you, Teagan… you truly are full of surprises.”

Teagan smiled sheepishly. No matter how many mental gymnastics she tried to throw herself through to deny it, she had just witnessed a girl die because of her, and now she was being complimented because of it. Teagan yelped as one of the tomkins hurled themselves off of her palm, hitting the ground below and taking off almost immediately. Not ready to try and catch her, Teagan threw the rest of her tomkins forcefully back into her box, leapt at the fleeing tomkin, and smashed her under a tight fist. She scraped the gooey remains off onto the dirt, but felt a gut-wrenching sickness tighten her heart as she did so. What was she? Did she delight in the torture of these tiny people, or did she hate herself for it?

~

Firkon, although driven to find the giantess, was sad to leave Q’thuman behind. The city was stunning, far larger and formidable than all but the grandest of Orestian strongholds. The people were welcoming, the landscape beautiful, and all his men were able to rest in a true bed, not the itchy cots they were so accustomed to. Volkhard seemed to sense his pining and gave him a reassuring smile.

“Q’thuman will await your return. Your generosity and heroism have not gone unnoticed by its people. This ‘war’ will blow over quite quickly once the Selcenians reach the walls. It’s happened before with the Phocari and the Telaphonoi - an army approaches, threats are made, a siege started - but it always ends with the attackers leaving, morale low and food lower. Grain stores in the city are plentiful enough to survive the longest of sieges, and the Selcenians know this well.”

Firkon nodded.

“If this is true, then I look forward to seeing your grand city once more. I also know, however, that the Selcenian Empire truly is an empire… to compare it to a city-state like Telaphonis or a loose confederacy of towns and trading posts like Phocarus is to vastly underestimate its capabilities. Even the Orestian territories are nearly incapable of fielding armies as large and well equipped as the Selcenian Empire’s.”

“You raise a good point, Firkon.” Volkhard replied, “This may be more than we have faced ever before. Of course, that should be of little concern to you, Orestian. The people of Q’thuman are the only ones who need stand against Selceus and his generals. As for us, our time and focus are better spent planning our own battle. I know that you have denied this in the past, but you need to face the facts, Firkon: our foe is cunning and intelligent. It won’t be easy to force her into a battle. We will need a plan that accounts for her own tricks, one that uses them against her if possible.”

Firkon looked ahead. The vast scrubland was harsh at first glance, but various watchtowers and towns dotted the horizon, demarcating oases and potential markets. The terrain offered the giantess little in the way of food, water, or cover, while affording Firkon and his men all that they needed for now. Everything seemed to be falling into place. He turned back to Volkhard, his normally steely eyes now cloudy and distant.

“If Laeron’s estimations are correct, the giantess is likely either in the Stele mountains or the grasslands abutting them. That gives us perhaps a day or two before we’re likely to encounter her, assuming she travels at the same rate. We have plenty of time to plan for anything she could do, as long as we’re able to pick the battlefield…”

Volkhard chuckled, his heavy coat snapping as a sudden breeze bore down on the hot plain.

“That is wherein one of our many problems reside, Firkon. I heavily suggest you get to thinking about a solution.”

Teagan and Hannah made steady progress as the afternoon light waned away and the sun drew ever closer to the horizon. The formerly waist-high grass that once blanketed the ground had thinned out significantly as the two made progress, now only appearing in scattered clumps and tufts that barely made it to their knees. The setting sun bathed the golden grasslands in a lovely orange hue, causing Teagan to halt for just a moment to admire its beauty. Noticing that Teagan had stopped, Hannah returned to her side and gazed with her. The mountains Teagan had crossed were now distant once more, giving Teagan a true sense of how relentlessly quick she was traveling. It was heartening, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had wasted a great deal of time in surmounting the mountain… but the point of gazing upon the scenery wasn’t to worry over mistakes that were made, but rather to set aside that worry, if even only for a minute. Teagan looked down at the palm of her hand. Sihil was holding hands with one of the tomkin soldiers, watching the sunset with her, while the other seemed to be asleep. The sight warmed Teagan’s heart in an almost painful manner, her heart delighting at the sight of Sihil experiencing a moment of tranquility while despairing all the same at the circumstance of their captivity.

The tranquility of the moment was shattered by the distant rustling of grass and noise of clanking metal. Teagan’s gaze darted around, and she saw a few people trekking through the grass a few hundreds paces away, their silhouettes pitch black against the light of the sinking sun.
“Quick! Get down!” Hannah whispered, dropping to the ground as quickly as she was able.

Teagan tried following suit, but her descent was slower and clumsier on account of the tomkins in her hand, who she couldn’t bear to risk injuring in the slightest. Teagan could swear that one of their heads whipped around just before she dove to the ground, presumably hidden by the surrounding grass, but she wasn’t entirely sure. Sihil and the soldier she was holding hands with seemed startled, while the other soldier somehow remained asleep. Teagan looked to Hannah for an explanation.

“Robbers.” she succinctly said, spitting the word out as if it were poison, “As I said earlier, Pazsich is plagued by mercenaries and soldiery turned thieves and murderers. Surely, you heard the clinking of their maille as well as I did… there is no need to wear such armor unless one intends to seek out a fight with other people.”
Hannah’s eyes widened as the potential bandits drew nearer, their approach signalled by the clinking becoming constantly louder. Hannah reached into her satchel and unsheathed her knife, still spotted with flecks of tomkin blood. Teagan withdrew her own knife, which unlike Hannah’s was more akin to a proper weapon than a tool. The two waited in silence as the noise of the oncoming strangers indicated their presence no more than ten paces away. Teagan was sure that she was spotted when she heard their voices.
“Are you sure that you saw someone here? You’d best not be wasting our time.” a low voice said, agitatedly.

“Yes, yes, I’m certain!” replied a far higher-pitched voice, “I swear it, there was movement right around here!”
“Movement? A minute ago you said it was a person, and now it’s just movement, eh? You’re a fool!” remarked the first speaker.

“Well, it, uh, it looked like a person, but it was far away… it was movement for sure, though. You have no right to get upset after you let a squirrel make away with half a day’s rations on your watch duty.”

Teagan grew impatient. She didn’t like the idea of just waiting to be discovered, and these people seemed distracted and incompetent. She quietly slipped Sihil and the other two tomkins into her backpack, readying herself to strike. 

“How many times must you bring that up? I told you, the squirrel wa-”
Teagan sprung at the nearest person with a fierce warcry and swung her knife viciously at what appeared to be a torso. She grunted as her blow was deflected by something, and quickly leapt back before she could be subject to a retaliatory strike. Teagan was able to size up her enemy in this moment of surprise, and was worried by what she saw. There were three of them, two to her right and one directly ahead of her. The one Teagan had struck at was the tallest and most imposing, being clad in a maille hauberk and wearing a pot helm with a haphazardly attached pot helm, armor that made him all but impervious to Teagan’s knife. The other two wore quilted armor and simple kettle helmets, leaving them somewhat more vulnerable. All three carried one handed swords which seemed more than capable enough of running an unarmored person through. Teagan regretted her choice to attack, and hoped that something would save her, some force would manifest itself and deliver her from certain death like it had when she had faced a bandit earlier. She willed with all her might that she might once again be saved.

Nothing happened.

Teagan barely stumbled away fast enough to avoid the first strike directed at her, a clumsy swing by the armored bandit at her legs. She managed to use her dagger to block the second, a crude blow aimed at her shoulders by the bandit in the middle, who gripped his sword as if it were a club, using the pommel to strike and the blade as if it were a handle. It was only by falling down that she managed to avoid a kick from the last bandit, but this left her in no better a predicament than she’d have been in had the kick struck her squarely. She was sprawled out on the ground, helpless, with nobody to save her. Hannah could almost certainly do nothing to aid her in this situation, and whatever force had saved her life before now refused to manifest. Teagan closed her eyes and raised her hands to shield herself when she felt a familiar pressure in her head. Knowing vaguely that it meant she could perhaps survive if she bought herself a few more seconds, Teagan slammed a fist on the ground as the three stepped over her prone form.

“Dirty thieving brigands!” she growled, “Honorless sots! If you mean to kill me, I will have the last laugh! I haven’t a thing on me that lowlife highwaymen like yourselves would value. Not one! Hah! What did you seek, eh? Gooooold? Precious treasures? More weapons with which to shed innocent blood?”
Teagan paused, hoping to rile the three into responding. She only needed a few seconds more...

“Bandits?” the low-voiced one asked, incredulously.

The question was followed by hearty laughter from all three of the men. Teagan was completely confused, but decided not to intervene, taking advantage of every second that she could.

“Oh, dear me…” the high-pitched one wheezed, struggling to force his laughter away, “We’re… oh goodness, haha, we’re no bandits! See, we, heh, we thought you were, ah, yeah, you were the bandit! I spotted you skulking about in the grass, and thought you meant to waylay us. My dearest apologies. Please, allow me to, er, help you to your feet, if I may?”

Teagan grudgingly clasped the man’s outstretched hand, and allowed herself to be pulled back to her feet. The last of the men’s laughter had died down, and Teagan felt much safer, but she wasn’t yet sure if Hannah should come out of hiding. She wanted to glance back, but didn’t want to give even the slightest indication that she wasn’t alone.

“Our dearest apologies, madam!” said the third among their number, his voice carrying a notable accent, “I hope that you can set aside any misgivings, and we might perhaps start off on better terms.”

Teagan shrugged, saying, “Er, yes, of course. I suppose I’d be dead already if you wished it so… but I must ask, if you aren’t freebooters or robbers, why are you so heavily armed? Your appearance was certainly responsible, at least in part, for my inclination to believe you lot were banditry.”

“We’re knights!” exclaimed the high-pitched man with almost childish excitement, “We’ve come to Pazsich to seek our fortunes and bring justice to the wicked. We’re all brothers, from Allegaine to the East, and we’ve been wandering the land for a long time in search of lord.”

Teagan gave the so-called “knights” another passing glance. Rusty blades, crude armor, and the voices of mere boys… Teagan had her doubts about whether these were truly knights. Her mind drifted back to memories of her childhood. Her father was a knight, the most trusted retainer of the baron who’s land her village tended to. She remembered his neatly polished blade, his intimidating plated armor, and his intricately plumed helmet which she always wanted to wear. These wanderers were nothing close to what she knew a knight to be, but Teagan knew better than to point that out to them.

“Knights, huh? Well, it’s nice to hear that someone intends to stop these ruffians, making them fear the law once more and all. Well… it was good to meet you on friendlier terms. I bid you farewell.” Teagan said, waving and turning around.

“Wait! I apologize for my forwardness, but surely you will allow us to repay you for your understanding of our misunderstanding. We simply cannot let you continue without first making amends for our indignity. May I first ask your name, kind stranger?” the 

“I’m Teagan. Your chivalry is obvious, but repayment is unneeded. It seems my travels take me in the opposite direction that you head.”

“Teagan! It is a pleasure.” the low-voiced knight said, bowing low, “I am Tancred de Bedault.”

“Osred de Bedault, at your service.” the high-pitched knight chirped.

“And I am Bohemond, also of the brothers Bedault, and just as pleased to make your acquaintance.” the knight with the heavy accent said, “You said you travel in the opposite direction that we head. We have been taking an, er, rather roundabout path, however, and that may not be the case. May I inquire where you are headed?”

Teagan saw no harm in telling the truth.

“For now, I travel to reach a place by the name of Sudgau.”

“Ah, Sudgau, yes!” Osred began, “we were there no more than two days ago. The path to it is perilous indeed, fraught with both the small folk and roaming cutthroats. The people there are quite kind, however, and supplied us with both provisions and advice about these lands. You’d best hurry if you seek to reach them, though, as I was told they intend to leave no later than three days from today.”

“Leave?” Teagan asked, puzzled, “You mean abandon their village? Why would they do such a thing?” 

“The town of Sudgau itself was ransacked by bandits years ago,” explained Tancred, “burnt timbres and scattered shards of earthenware will attest to that. The people dwelling in Sudgau today are transitory, carrying all they need in wagons that they bring with them from site to site. They’re lucky enough to have a few breeding pairs of oxen, allowing them to carry far more with them. The small folk killed most of the pack animals in this place as they did in our home, but a few were bound to make it somehow, and these people managed to get their hands on them. Many others are jealous, and it would be unwise to stay in one place for too long while others plot your demise, yes?”

“Interesting…” Teagan mused, thinking this information over, “how long would you estimate it would take to reach Sudgau, then? Surely we stand a good chance of reaching it before the residents move on, yes?”

Tancred nodded, saying “Indeed. As Osred said, we’re around two days’ travel from it, and I’m quite sure that you move at a more rapacious pace than we, given your lack of encumbering armor. Of course… well, there is one thing that may delay your journey. There is a veritable army of the small folk on the march around this area, armed to the teeth. What an army it is… the three of us didn’t see to much, but I’d estimate their number in the tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, more than anyone can hope to challenge. I even saw a few men among their number, doubtlessly mindless slaves who have been turned against their fellow man. Tread carefully, sleep lightly, and avoid travelling out in the open, and you should be fine, of course.”

Teagan smiled gratefully, but the man’s words were concerning. Teagan could feel that her journey was taking her deeper into tomkin lands, and every step of the way would carry her into further danger.

“Thank you for telling me. I’ll be sure to stay vigilant. In any case, you’ve given me warnings and information aplenty, and surely your debt is repaid, yes?”

“Not quite yet, I think…” Osred said, smiling mischievously, “I’ve got one last thing for you. That knife didn’t hold up that well for you, fortunately for us. What say you I take that off your hands and give you something that packs a bit more of a punch, eh?”

Teagan peered in as Osred fumbled with his belt for a few seconds before pulling a sheathed dagger off of it. He unsheathed it, revealing a small lenticular blade that tapered into a fine point.

“It’s a rondel dagger,” Osred explained, “capable of punching straight through maille and forcing through gaps in plate. No matter how armored your foe is, this should be able to help you stand a chance at victory, eh?”

Teagan warily accepted the dagger and sheath from Osred, placing it on her belt after giving it a last cursory glance. She wasn’t sure why these knights were acting with such generosity, but this clearly was a better weapon than the knife she had stripped from the slain bandit, and she was in no position to refuse aid of any sort. Teagan then unhooked her old knife from her belt and handed it to Osred, who accepted it with a clumsy bow.

“It’s been a pleasure, Teagan.” he said, tucking the knife under his belt where the rondel dagger had been, “It’s comforting to know that there are honest folk such as yourself out here. Perhaps humankind stands a better chance at persistence than we once thought. In any case, it seems you wish to move on, and now that our debt is duly paid, we shall do the same. Fare ye well.”
“Aye. It’s been nice talking to someone beside these two clods for a change, and I daresay, one such as yourself is a sight for sore eyes, madam.” Tancred quipped.

“We wish you luck on your journeys. May they carry you to a place both peaceful and bounteous.” Bohemond said, giving a friendly wave before turning away from Teagan and beginning to head off. The other two knights followed suit, and soon enough, they had returned to the route they were taking. Only after their distant speech had fallen entirely silent and the sun had sunk entirely under the horizon did Hannah creep out from the cover of the grass, carrying Teagan’s backpack.

“What a strange lot…” she mused, “thank you for taking care of that. I’m glad they turned out to be kind folk, but if they weren’t, you would be in grave danger. Try not to fight if it can be avoided, yes? We don’t know if they would have found us.”

Teagan was in no mood to argue to justify her actions, and simply nodded to Hannah. She took her backpack and gently reached a hand in, scooping up Sihil and her two friends as delicately as she could manage. She raised the three of them to her face and looked them over. They all seemed shaken and despondent. Hannah seemed to notice as well, and flashed Teagan a quizzical glance.

“Are you sure they consider you a friend? It seems a lot to me like you’re a captor and nothing more. No offense.”

Teagan cast a sideways glare at Hannah, tiring quickly of her criticisms.

“I don’t rightly know, and honestly, I don’t rightly care. It’s either this or killing them, so I think I’m making the kind choice here, no? Or would you rather I release them into the wilds, where they’ll either die slowly or rat us out? I’d rather not deal with armed tomkins right now, given I’m still recuperating from the wounds I got last time I fought them off.”

“It wasn’t a critique, Teagan, I was just wondering what you thought. Your logic is sound, although I can’t say I’d do the same… befriending a tomkin just sounds like a futile endeavor, or worse, a disaster waiting to happen. It leaves you vulnerable. In any case, I’ll leave you to it… I think I’m going to sleep. Good night.”

“Sleep well, Hannah. If you happen to wake before me, just give me a quick rousing and I’ll be ready to go. I don’t want to hold you up at all.” Teagan replied.

“Alright. I’m not too worried, but I appreciate your concern that we get there in time. It means a lot, considering that you haven’t any reason to care for my plight, heheh.” Hannah chuckled as she laid down on the ground and closed her eyes.

Teagan shrugged and looked back to the tomkins on her palm.

~

Hassan held Sihil’s hand as Teagan returned her focus to them. Sihil’s hand was shaking, and he noticed the glint of tears in her eyes. He himself felt vulnerable, alone, and entirely helpless. He missed the familiar weight of a sword at his side, the cool nights overlooking Nystagmenos Lake, the occasional traveler come to exchange pleasantries and barter.

“I am Teagan.” the giantess breathed, her voice surprisingly quiet and airy for her size. Hassan heard what he could only describe as a tinge of sorrow to her tone, which perplexed him. What reason could she possibly have to be sorrowful? Hassan pondered this as the giantess pointed to Sihil, her massive finger poking at the girl’s chest.

“Sihil.” she said, before pointing to Hassan.

It was there that Teagan’s finger lingered, pressing into Hassan’s chest. Teagan was silent, and Hassan assumed that she wanted him to state his name.

“...Hassan... “ he muttered after some hesitation, no longer able to repress his own fear. What was the point? Why was she doing any of this? Hassan felt a slight rush of relief as the giantess pulled her finger away and looked to Aaliyah. Aaliyah was prone, not even trying to prop herself up with her arms. Hassan felt sickened as Teagan wrapped her free hand around Aaliyah and stood her up, only to let go and let Aaliyah fall down again, her hair spilling around her face in a messy cascade, her eyes sparkling with tears, her lips ever so slightly parted in a tearful utterance. Hassan turned away, unable to watch as the giantess denigrated Aaliyah. It was abhorrent, watching as someone was stripped of their power, of their free will, of their control over their body. Teagan furrowed her brow in frustration as she tried standing Aaliyah up once more, only for the crippled soldier to drop back down, her legs offering no stability whatsoever. Aaliyah was at this point entirely unable to hold back her crying, and was covering her face with her hands, ashamed, afraid, and humiliated. After her fourth attempt, Teagan seemed to give up with an exasperated groan. She jabbed a finger into Aaliyah’s stomach with enough force to turn her quiet crying into pained gasping and coughing.

“She wants your name…” Sihil whispered, seeming just as appalled at the spectacle as Hassan.

“I a-am Aaliyah…” she stuttered, unable to look up at Teagan’s face. Only now did Teagan seem to realize that she’d upset Aaliyah, and with a far more gentle touch, lifted Aaliyah’s face up with her finger.

“Aaliyah? I am... um, I am...” Teagan trailed off, before starting to say words in her own language. She went through a string of meaningless sounds and words, and Aaliyah quickly cast her head back down, trying to tune out the sound of the giantess’ voice. Hassan was about to do the same when he heard a word that sounded almost like ‘sorry’. Could it be? Was this murderous creature, one who had taken hundreds of lives by Sihil’s account, trying to apologize? Was she even aware that she was the one who crippled Aaliyah, or that Aaliyah was crippled at all? Surely if she did, she’d know that no amount of apologizing would rectify the hate felt towards her. At least, that’s what Hassan thought, until Aaliyah lifted her head, her crying almost immediately halted.

“Teagan, you’re… sorry?” she asked, looking at the giant woman’s face.

“I am sorry. I am sorry.” Teagan repeated, stroking Aaliyah’s back with her finger like one would treat a pet. Hassan clenched his teeth, unsure what to make of the entire situation. He watched anxiously as Teagan rifled around in her massive pack with her free hand, wondering what she might withdraw. He was pleasantly surprised when she withdrew a few lumps of the hard bread she’d been eating the day before, crumbs to one her size but ample servings to him. Hassan was grateful as she gave a hearty portion to both Sihil, Aaliyah, and himself. The bread-like stuff was extremely hard, but it was dense, and Hassan was happy to have such a filling meal. This was proof that the giantess intended to keep the three of them alive, for why would one feed a prisoner they had no intention of sparing?

“Do you think she has empathy?” Sihil asked, whispering so quietly that even Hassan could barely make out what she was saying.

“I cannot be sure.” he replied, “She confounds me. She devours people alive, cripples Aaliyah for her own perverse pleasure, and kidnaps innocents to use as playthings… and tries to make amends with an apology? I think she is remorseful, perhaps, but empathetic? I’m not so sure.”

“I want to help her.” Sihil said, a sudden inflection of sharpness adding itself to her tone.

“I’m sorry?”

“I want to lead her down a better path. I see humanity in her, Hassan, real compassion and forgiveness that surfaces every now and then. When I first ‘met’ her, I saw none of this side to her, but I was somehow slowly able to coax it out. I think that I can change her. I can teach her the value of life, and maybe, just maybe, secure your freedom while I’m at it.”

“Most would call that a madman’s task. I myself cannot say that I think such a thing entirely possible, but try if you will, Sihil. She really does seem to care for you in some strange, twisted way.“

After Sihil and Aaliyah finished eating, Teagan pulled out the massive box from the belt at her hip, the hinged wooden cube that surfaced so much pain and anguish. Hassan choked up as Teagan popped the lid open.

There wasn’t a single person inside. They were all gone.

~

Firkon gazed at the oasis town as it came into view. It was nothing much, appearing less defensible than even the most hastily constructed forts, but he had to admit that it was well fortified for a town. A mud brick wall surrounded it, high enough to come up to the waist of a giant. At each corner of the hexagonal enclosure was built a tower fitted with a ballista, a deadly looking implement that was of a greater size the giant-slaying arbalests Firkon took from Telaphonis.

“Are you sure that she’ll come this way?” Firkon asked Laeron, who was walking beside him.

“Well, let me put it this way. From your accounts, sir, she’s bound to be famished, and she preys on smaller settlements for… food… and this area is quite desolate. No other sources of food to be found in any direction, especially enough to sustain a giant. She’s at least going to pass by this area, so a few relays and scouts placed close by should be enough to catch her, unless she drastically changes direction. I don’t think she will though, given she’s been travelling this way for days now.”

Firkon rubbed his hands together.

“Good, good. And Volkhard, you talked with the townsfolk?”

Volkhard nodded.

“I was able to ease their concerns. They will let us enter the town, use their weapons, and man their walls should the necessity arise. A few members of their garrison even pledged to help us should the fight come to us.”

“Good, good.” Firkon said, a smile easing its way across his face, “so we just wait here, then?”

Volkhard nodded.

“Exactly. We’ll take the fight to her if need be, but I don’t want any more lives to be lost than is absolutely necessary. In that vein… I’m going to forge ahead.”

“Wait, what?” Firkon asked.

“I’m going to see if I can kill her before your men have to face her. If I can take her out before any lives are lost, then there’s no point in letting her attack a town and risking the lives of your men and those of innocents. If worst comes to worst, I can return back here and we can fight her together. I don’t mean to strip you of your deserved victory, but this is necessary, Firkon.

Firkon nodded.

“Of course, Volkhard. Do as you see fit. If you do manage to slay her... look out for a girl she keeps with her, red haired, a bit short. As I mentioned to you earlier, the giantess has a traitor on her side, an evil brat who’d turn her back on her own kin to further the ends of this foul giantess.”

“Very well, Firkon. I’ll see to it that she faces justice.” Volkhard said, giving Firkon a last glance before breaking away from the company and heading onwards, walking alone into the vast plain beyond.

Teagan felt a pang of hunger not long after Hannah woke her. She’d run out of every last bit of food, including tomkin captives.

“Hannah, could I perhaps trouble you for a bit of food?  I’ve run out, and I’m quite ravenous… I feel like I’m about to fall down if I wait any longer.”

Hannah shrugged.

“If I had any to give to you, I would do so gladly, Teagan, but as I told you earlier, I barely brought enough food to cover the journey to Sudgau, even for myself. I planned on making this last stretch of the journey without anything, and that was before I traded away some of my bread. If you can make it this one day, I can get a bowl of stew for us both to enjoy, alright?”

Teagan nodded, but she was far from content. The sun beat down upon her back, the uneven ground shifted underneath her every trembling step, and her vision swam. Teagan’s mind drifted to the soldiers, Hassan and Aaliyah… she had no reason to keep them alive, did she? Sihil would hate her even more, but that surely wouldn't matter at this point. Teagan knew that she was already reviled, so why not just commit to it? Two tomkins wouldn’t be much, but it would be enough to keep her going until she could find something more…

Teagan licked her lips as she swung the lid to her box open. The three tomkins inside shielded their eyes from the light as Teagan reached a hand in and seized both Hassan and Aaliyah, who were unprepared and immediately started to panic. Teagan felt a nagging voice in the back of her mind constantly telling her to stop, to put them down, to suffer in silence… but why suffer when a solution was so easily accessible?

“Put them down!”

Teagan looked around for the source of the voice. Hannah seemed to have moved on, and the voice sounded like that of a man, and yet nobody was visible... 

“Put them down now!”

Teagan warily dropped the two tomkins back in the box and drew the knife given to her. She scanned the flat plain in all directions, but there was nobody there, nor were there any places to hide.

“Where are you! Show yourself!” she barked, hoping to locate them from the sound of their voice even if they refused to reveal themself.

“Down here.”

Teagan could hardly believe what she saw. A single tomkin, armed with what appeared to be a lugged spear, although it was small enough that the detail escaped Teagan. Teagan hesitated a few seconds before turning to fully face this strange tomkin. He wore a grey coat, a long-sleeved jerkin, and heavy boots, all of which seemed unnecessarily cumbersome and heavy for a hot steppe. 

“A tomkin that speaks the language of men, hmm? You are interesting, little one. Very, very interesting indeed. Tell me, what is your name?” Teagan asked, her tone one of genuine intrigue and wonder.

“I didn’t think you’d want to talk… what a shame. I could go for a chat in this tongue, lest I let my vocabulary diminish and wither in the unused corners of my mind. You may call me Volkhard. Now, it would be rude of you not to tell me your name after asking mine, and rude of me to strike you down without knowing yours. You are?”

“I’m Teagan.”

“A pleasure. Now, Teagan, I assume that you have many questions right now - most do, considering my verbosity in the language of men - but I sadly lack the time for a parley. I have come here to kill you, Teagan, and I’d rather not waste my time answering the questions of a dead woman.”

“Kill me? Why, what do you intend to do with a sewing needle like that, little man?” Teagan tittered, amused by this tomkin’s almost suicidal confidence.

Teagan was less amused as Volkhard hurled his spear at her forearm with a sharp cry. The dart-sized spear hit its mark and lodged itself in her flesh, drawing a rapid trickle of blood. Teagan yelped and jerked her arm back as the pain from the wound hit her, hoping to distance herself from Volkhard and let her focus on crushing him. She was infuriated as the tomkin was somehow jerked backwards along with her, the momentum carrying him into the air. Only then did Teagan notice a thin strand or cord of sorts wound around the tomkin’s arm, one that was tied at the other end to the spear stuck in her arm. Teagan screamed and flailed about wildly as the tomkin landed on her injured arm, gripping his embedded spear as if it were a climber’s pick lodged in a mountainside. 

“You little bastard!” Teagan growled, sheathing her dagger and slapping at Volkhard with an open hand, hoping to crush him like a biting pest. 

The tomkin had already dropped back to the ground before Teagan would have hit him, however, and was already readying for a second attack. Teagan’s wooziness grew worse with every passing second. Her head throbbed. Her stomach twisted. Something was terribly wrong.

“What… what did you… do to me?” she muttered, brow knit fiercely.

“Extract from the fangs of a dervish snake. Not enough to kill you on its own, I’m afraid, but it’ll help me do the job.”

Saying this, Volkhard pulled a machination resembling a crossbow from his back, and took careful aim at Teagan. She tried to pounce at him, but her knees buckled and her legs remained firmly unresponsive. She cried out as she was peppered with a barrage of needle-like bolts, fired from the weapon at an incredible speed. They only hurt a little, but Teagan assumed that they too were tipped with strength-sapping venom. Teagan tried to focus her power, to send the little warrior flying with a burst of power, but her head throbbed far too violently for her to focus. Anger and adrenaline fueled a sudden onrush of fear and desperation as Teagan felt herself drop to her knees.

“Giving up so soon, Teagan? I heard that you escaped the clutches of entire armies, and yet here you are, ready to drop against one foe. In any case, I won’t drag this on any longer. A murderer such as yourself has no place i-”

Volkhard was cut off as Teagan whipped her dagger at him with all the strength she could muster. He leapt to the side, but not entirely fast enough: the dagger clipped his leg, shattering the bone. Volkhard fell down in a tiny puff of unsettled dust, gasping in agony. Teagan’s hope was short lived, however. She watched in grave concern as the tomkin seized his mangled leg with both hands, chanting something under his breath. Flesh knitted itself back together, making way for the shattered bone of the tomkin’s leg as it was fused together, undoing the damage that Teagan had inflicted.

“I rescind my earlier words. I’m satisfied. Let me put an end to this… now!”

Teagan was speechless at what she saw next. In the blink of an eye, in an instant and nothing more, the tomkin had become a man. A fully-grown man. His apparel had grown with him, though his weapons had not, his spear and crossbow now mere playthings in his hands. Teagan tried scrambling backwards as the man picked her dagger up, eyeing its point.

“I have lived among them for years, Teagan. They are no different than us. No different at all. How can you justify murdering them for nothing more than your own delight?” he said, his tone quiet and cool. Teagan lacked the energy to even try and respond.

“I have no affinity for murder. I have always hated bloodshed, and despised cruelty. I only do what I do now because I know that the cessation of your life will save a thousand others, and that is a tradeoff that I am willing to make. I apologize.”

He struck. A cold iron dagger, aimed at her heart. Grim satisfaction on his face, in his eyes. A moment of clarity.

A moment of focus.

~

Volkhard sputtered as a phantom force knocked him breathless and sent him tumbling back. The dagger was wrenched from his gloved hand, landing at Teagan’s side. Volkhard tried getting back to his feet, but was met with a strange resistance, like that one feels when moving underwater. He saw a band of faint, almost translucent white fog encircling his limbs, doubtless the cause of his impeded movement. By the time he had managed to force himself upwards against the strange magic’s force, Teagan had hauled herself to her own feet, and was now staring straight at Volkhard with a furrowed brow and an unblinking glare. She was hunched over with exhaustion, her arms hanging limpy at her sides, her back bowed and her knees buckling, but Volkhard was intimidating by the murderous determination in her eyes. He reached down and grabbed a fistful of dirt as she charged him, dagger raised above her head, ready to strike. Just as she bore down upon him, Volkhard threw the dirt at her face and in her eyes. Instead of blinding her as he intended, however, the dirt was pushed aside by that same phantom force that Teagan seemed to somehow manifest. Volkhard grunted as he was tackled to the ground, knife’s point at his throat. 

“So this… this is how it all ends?” he mused, staring into Teagan’s wrathful eyes, “I suppose this isn’t that bad. It is an honor to be laid low by the hand of one so imbued with dogged determination. I only wish our fight had lasted somewhat longer.”

Volkhard shut his eyes. He may have failed, but he knew that she was in no state to continue this trek across the steppe. If Teagan skirted the city and wasn’t killed by Firkon and his men, she’d doubtless die in the unforgiving and barren lands ahead. 

“You... want to live... to fight another day?” Teagan asked, panting with exhaustion. Volkhard simply nodded in response, to which she said, “Well, then, you’re going to have… to do a few favors for me. Firstly, strip me of this damnable venom! I can barely feel my arm...” she mumbled, eyes half-lidded. Volkhard briefly pondered if he should truly tell her where the antidote was, but felt no need to sacrifice his life when her death was inevitable. The venom wouldn’t kill her in the first place, so what was the harm?

“There is a phial in my left pocket, holding a clear ether... drink it, and you should be remedied.” he said, hoping Teagan would release the point of the dagger from his throat a bit. Contrarily, she only pushed it harder into his skin as she searched his coat, drawing a bead of blood.

She quickly found the phial and downed its contents without so much as a second thought. Volkhard wished that he had kept a poison on hand - if he had, she would be dead right now - but he knew that hindsight would bring him nothing. Teagan tossed the empty phial aside and looked back to Volkhard. 

“Next… well, answer my question. You healed your wound quite impressively… can you work that same magic on others?”

“Well, while I can, it would have little effect on your injury. This particular magic reunites shattered bones and damaged internals, having only marginal effect on flesh wounds like yours. And please, please, please! That dagger of yours, it hurts! Give it some space, will you?”

“Sorry,” Teagan said almost confusedly as she took the point off of Volkhard’s neck, “but, well, I neither want, need, nor trust you to heal me. I’d like you to help someone else. You seem like the stuck up honorable type, so, er, don’t try and kill me for a moment?”

Volkhard nodded. He wasn’t ready to try and fight her anyhow, not now. His transformation had drained much of his energy, his leg still pained him where the muscle was likely torn, and even if he attacked when her dagger wasn’t at his throat, she still had the dagger. He watched as she grabbed the box she was taking tomkins out of when he first accosted her, and extracted a scared and confused Q’thumani soldier, sitting in her cupped palm. Volkhard’s worst fears were confirmed when the woman looked at him with a definite glance of recognition.

“Could it be?” she mumbled, shielding her eyes from the sun to get a better look, “Esteemed Brother Volkhard? But you’ve, you’re… you’re one of them? A giant?! My mind plays tricks on me, devilish tricks!”

Volkhard shook his head.

“It is a very long story, and one which I have never told before, for my own safety... I-”

“So that was you fighting her!” the soldier exclaimed, interrupting Volkhard, “Yet if you’re here, unarmed and on the ground, and she has a knife, does that mean she bested you?!”

“Hey!” exclaimed Teagan after the soldier trailed off, “I don’t want you two talking. I’m not here for you two to have a chat, especially when I don’t understand a word you’re saying. Volkhard, this is Aaliyah. She’s been travelling with me for around two days now, and I think I may have seriously hurt her. I haven’t seen her stand to her feet, not once, and I want you to help her if you can. Please. She has shown nothing but goodwill to others, and deserves none of what I have brought upon her. If you can make this right, I will let you go.”

Volkhard was stunned. Was this the same giantess that Firkon had told him of? Bloodthirsty, uncaring, sadistic… Firkon made her sound like another power-obsessed wanderer seeking revenge on innocent village-dwellers, but this was entirely uncharacteristic of such a type. Volkhard had scarcely before seen any positive relationships between the two races, and the few he had witnessed always ended in tragedy for one of those involved.

“Hello?” Teagan asked impatiently. Volkhard had unwittingly pondered in silence while Teagan stared at him, awaiting a reply.

“Oh, um, well, do you mind if I talk to her? It would be best to hear about her ailment firsthand, although I understand if you hold reservations about us talking, even if only for a lit-”

“Yeah, yeah, get on with it.” Teagan muttered, not happy with her concession but willing to make it on Aaliyah’s behalf.

“Sorry about that, Aaliyah.” Volkhard said, now speaking the tomkin lingua franca, “The giantess is somewhat averse to us conversing too much. Let’s make this quick, then.”

“What does she want with me?” Aaliyah asked, clearly nervous. Volkhard felt terrible for her as he noticed her little lips trembling as she spoke, in fear of what was to come. It had been so long since he beheld a tomkin from a human’s perspective that it was at this point an alien feeling to him, uncomfortable and surreal.

“She wants me to tend to your wounds, it seems. She told me that it seems to her as if you can’t stand. Is your leg paining you, or perhaps your back, or…?” Volkhard trailed off.

“There is no pain at all.” Aaliyah responded, her eyes now wide at the prospect of curative aid, “I cannot feel a thing. Nothing under my hips has any sensation at all, nor have I any control over my legs. It is a sad state, one I cannot imagine living in for the remainder of my life. Please, if there’s anything you can do, I will be forever indebted to you should you help me.”

“Don’t worry about debt. Just close your eyes and brace yourself for pain. Based on what you’ve told me, of course, pain should be a good sign, so, you’d best hope for it. Are you ready?”

Aaliyah nodded. Without another word, Volkhard concentrated. A mantra of mending repeated itself in his mind, lending him new strength and acuity. He felt the soldier’s wound, a sudden disconnect of mind from body, a severance of the harmony between thought and being. His already wavering vigor was drawn away further as he tried his hardest to mend what was broken and bring balance to Aaliyah’s fractured being. Just as he felt ready to collapse from exhaustion, he heard Aaliyah suddenly scream in pain. Volkhard smiled as he felt the soldier’s vivacity course into her formerly stagnant and unfeeling limbs. He closed his eyes, exhausted, weak, and barely able to move his own legs.

When he opened his eyes, the sun had gone from its zenith to the horizon, the formerly cloudy sky was now clear throughout, and Teagan was utterly gone. Volkhard grunted as he pushed himself up, dusting off his coat. 

“Teagan... I will figure you out.” he said, pushing himself to his feet.

~

Firkon clenched his fist angrily. Laeron stood nervously by his side, along with a few members of the town’s garrison. Firkon was looking forward to the idea of manning the town’s impressive wall when he first arrived, but not under these circumstances. He wanted to fight a giantess. Instead, sprawled out in a messy camp outside of the town’s walls was a mass of Selcenian soldiers, accompanied by an enslaved giantess. Firkon shuddered as he looked at the giantess, repulsed by its disfigured face and emotionless, unthinking eyes. A miserable creature best off dead.

“Well? What is an Orestian doing out here, with an army at his back?” demanded the Selcenian commander, shouting up to Firkon, shielded only by a truce of parley.

“I am Legatus Firkon, and I am here to slay a marauding giantess!” Firkon shouted back, “This city has pledged its walls, its bolt throwers, and its men to assist me in this cause. I will not let you raze it for some foolish war. Was it not the word of the First Emperor that all kings and nations set aside their grievances and unite against the giants? Dare you breach that sacred agreement?”

“Hah! The First Emperor is not my liege. I will heed the orders of the Basileus long before those of a dead man.” the commander scoffed, chin held high, “I am a servant of Selceus and Selceus alone.”

“You are nothing more than a heresiarch’s pet! If you dare attack, you will be held in contempt of the First Emperor’s will like the fool you are! Even Selceus cannot shelter you from the repercussions of such a gross and unintelligent act. Find some other town to besiege, you cur!”

“Ah, Legatus Firkon, I don’t think you quite understand. If the Basileus wants this town taken, then he shall see it taken. You can cooperate, leave, and find some other way to kill your giant, or you can find yourself on the head of a pike. Your Satrap informed us that you were to be returning to Orestion, and yet here you remain… there will be no defense for you.”

“The same goes for that bastard!” Firkon shouted, now enraged, “He stands in contempt of the First Emperor’s inviolable laws!”

“Don’t you see? Nobody cares about that fool any more! Well, I should moreso say that nobody important cares, assuming there are others as stupid as yourself. I shouldn’t be giving you a last chance, but given that your resistance comes from ignorance rather than insolence, I give you one last chance to leave this town. “

“May the stars cross your every step, mangy dog!” Firkon spat, throwing a rock at the commander. Laeron seemed quite malcontent with how the events resolved, but Firkon paid him little mind. The giantess could wait… this fool, on the other hand, could not. Firkon smirked as the commander and his hetairoi stalked back towards their encampment. Firkon’s smirk faded as the slave giantess took a shaky step towards the city walls, which it could most likely breach with ease. Firkon was confident that he could hold the city with few casualties should the invaders be forced to scale the walls, but were they to pour in through a breach, Firkon knew that his legionaries would be demolished. The Selcenian armies consisted mostly of phalangites, poorly trained conscripts who could do little more than form a pike wall, but their heavy infantry, the thureophoroi, were nigh unparalleled in close combat, bearing great bronze-rimmed shields and deadly spears with a sword-like tip. Firkon’s men were tired, weary of travel and battle alike, and the town’s defenders were little more than burghers and conscripts headed by a handful of unprepared sergeants. If the giant breached the wall, there would be no battle, only a slaughter.

“Ballistae! Aim for the head!” Firkon shouted to the operators, who were hastily taking aim at the giantess, “Get archers on the walls, now! War bows, hunting bows, javelins, slings, or just thrown rocks, anything you can hit that creature with, you hit it with!”

Firkon held his breath as the two ballistae facing the giantess took careful aim, bolts loaded. He cursed as the first missed by a hair, bolt whizzing past the giantess’ head. The second ballista, however, hit its mark, burying a bolt into the giantess’ shoulder. The giantess screamed in pain as a stream of blood poured from the embedded bolt, but it continued plodding on after only a moment of shock. The arrows fired at it by the city’s archers seemed to have even less of an effect, only prompting the giantess to raise a hand in protection of its face. By now it had nearly reached the wall, and Firkon was beginning to panic. He watched in horror as the giantess lazily swiped a hand across the wall, seizing a squirming mass of archers. Their screams were quickly and messily silenced as the giantess applied pressure, culminating in a resounding series of sickening cracks and death rattles. The citizen archers were now in a panic, scrambling only to save their own lives as the giantess reached in once more, seizing another three poor souls. With a guttural growl, the giantess raised the three tearful archers to her mouth. Firkon could barely watch as the giantess pulverized their heads with a single bite, mindlessly tossing the limp, mangled corpses aside. Their blood dripped down her pale lips, and Firkon was disgusted further as she smiled a bloodied grin, the first show of emotion he saw from the vile creature. Firkon was at this point forced to accept that the city’s defense was likely to be a lost cause. The giantess had reached the wall, the garrison had fallen into panic, and his own men were too exhausted and too few to hold the wall. Just as he was ready to swallow his pride and start trying to negotiate a surrender with the conceited commander, a ballista bolt hit the giantess squarely in the neck, piercing it through. Firkon glanced back and saw that one of his men had loaded an unused ballista, firing it over the wall and somehow hitting his mark from across the town. Firkon cheered as the giantess slumped to the ground, clutching at the hole in her throat as she bled out. Still, he knew that the Selcenians were a far superior force, and would likely be a dangerous foe even if they had to scale the walls.

Firkon watched closely to see what the Selcenians’ next move would be. Surely any chance he once had of negotiating a surrender were now hopeless, and the commander already made it clear that a Selcenian concession wasn’t a consideration. At first, it seemed as if the Selcenians were simply waiting, with almost no movement going on in their war camp. Firkon worried that they intended to starve him out rather than storm the walls, forcing him to sally out into a pitched battle lest he and his men perish of hunger. Firkon had hoped that the urgency the commander conveyed meant that they wouldn’t consider a protracted siege, for he knew that he had no way to claim victory if the Selcenians did so. He was, consequently, strangely relieved by the sight of the Selcenian troops rushing at the wall, their ranks veritably bristling with half-raised siege ladders. Firkon, remembering the words of Volkhard, seized a discarded spear from the floor and rushed to the ramparts alongside the rest of his men. He was not the kind of coward to sit and watch as his men fought for their lives in a battle he had helped orchestrate. Such an undertaking was a risky gamble, however: Firkon knew that his soldiers’ spirits would be bolstered if he fought alongside them, but should he die alongside them, they would likely rout. Firkon resolved to himself that he simply wouldn’t die, no matter how much it seemed like he ought to. As the first ladder slammed against the wall, Firkon gave a silent prayer. It would take a miracle for this situation to end well, and he wished for nothing less. 

~

Teagan, already exhausted from her dangerously close encounter with Volkhard, was left with blurry vision and numbed limbs as she finished the sprint to Hannah, who was apparently unaware of Teagan’s absence for a good few minutes and had continued moving on until such.

“Teagan! There you are! What happened to you, eh? You had me worried.”

“I just needed to rest for a bit, relax!” Teagan lied, “I was gonna pass out if I kept going. You didn’t wait for me, did you?”

“I backtracked for you, actually. Not enough to really make much of a difference, but still, I needed to tell you something. Er, rather, to show you something.”

“Yeah?” Teagan asked, “What is it?”

“Follow me. You’d best see it for yourself. I’m not really sure what to make of it, nor what to do about it, but I figure that you might have some ideas. You seem to be quite the quick thinking type. I bet I’d do well to learn from you, if you’re willing to give me a few tips.”

“Tips come later. First, show me whatever you’re talking about, will you? The suspense is already killing me.” Teagan said, hoping to move on. She wasn’t in the mood for talk.

Hannah led Teagan past the last few tufts of tall grass, and to the end of the steppe. The two were firmly in the desert now, a red-sanded scrubland that seemed terribly inhospitable. Teagan noticed that Hannah was leading her up a steep ascent, to the top of a small mesa. 

“What’s the point of climbing this? Why can’t we just go around?” Teagan asked.

“The view, mostly, but also remember that the strength expended going uphill will soon be strength saved going downhill. Just don’t fall this time, okay?” Hannah quipped.

Hannah was the first to reach the top of the mesa, and sauntered slowly over to the plateau’s front edge, waiting for Teagan to finish her ascent. Teagan dragged herself over to Hannah’s side, wondering what it was that could possibly warrant needing such a view.

She could hardly believe what she saw.

In the distance raged what appeared to be a siege en miniature, consisting of a sizeable tomkin army storming a walled tomkin town. This was the first Teagan had ever seen of tomkins waging war on other tomkins, although she assumed such an occurrence had happened before, given their propensity to sometimes carry sidearms that were too small to be of any use against a human, suited only to killing other tomkins. What startled Teagan the most, however, was the sight of a human corpse leaning against the town wall. The body was nude, malnourished, and horribly scarred. Could this have been a tomkin slave? Teagan turned to Hannah, her face contorted in disgust and fear.

“That person… I wonder how many others there are like that, reduced to slaves to those smaller and weaker than themselves. It’s horrible, isn’t it?”

“It is, but there’s nothing we can do about it.” Hannah chided, “We serve them best by surviving ourselves, lost already as their cause is. I say we give that place as wide a berth as we can manage, but if you have any better ideas, lay them on me. I’m sure that army has plenty of rations in store somewhere, hmm?”

Teagan absentmindedly nodded. She had already made up her mind. Those tomkins had no right to use humans in their petty, meaningless wars. She could exact her revenge, and if done right, play the role of the savior to the beleaguered town.

“I think we ought to strike at them, Hannah. They’re already engaged in combat, and they likely aren’t prepared explicitly for facing humans. There is much to be gained and little to be lost… and it’s been far too long since I’ve indulged myself with a little carnage.”

Andronikos watched with blithe satisfaction as his archers fired volley after volley of arrows at the defenders on the town wall, each met with a chorus of screams and plummeting bodies. As effective as this tactic was against the town militia, however, the Orestians’ armor was more than adequate to protect against the wooden arrows used by the levy archers. Selceus had put him in command of a rather poorly supplied and equipped regiment: with the exception of his bronze-clad hetairoi bodyguards, his forces consisted mostly of levied troops, many of whom had never before fought in a siege. This was an experiment, a test by Selceus to see what Andronikos could do with the figurative bottom of the barrel. So far, Andronikos reckoned that he was doing quite alright. Already, a few groups of shieldbearers had made it up their ladders and begun fighting on the ramparts, buying time for the more vulnerable phalangites to scale the walls and form a spear wall unmolested.

Andronikos was sure that the Orestians had realized the futility of their predicament when they began hastily shouting and rushing to and fro across the town wall. He was struck, then, with an intense worry when his own men started doing the same. Formations broke, combat disengaged, and the raging battle on the wall ground to a standstill. Everyone was gazing back to Andronikos… no, not to him, but behind him. Behind him…

Andronikos turned hesitantly around, wondering what possibly warranted such pause. A Q’thumani army intercepting the siege? Reinforcements, perhaps under Selceus himself? One of the deadly sandstorms that often swept the area? Andronikos felt queasy as he took in the sight for himself.

Two giantesses strode directly towards the siege with paralyzing intensity, their gaze set unmistakably on the battle at hand. Their every footfall left a cloud of dust large enough to engulf a man, and a noise to match. They were not nude in the fashion of the slave giants used for war, but clad in clothes of fabric thick enough to serve as armor against any normally sized weapon.

Andronikos panicked almost immediately. The defenders were relatively safe within the town’s walls, but the Selcenians had no such buffer, nor did they have the necessary armaments for fighting the giants. Andronikos gathered his hetairoi and other officers close with a series of frantic shouts and waves. He figured that he had a minute at best before the giants were upon him, and knew that he needed to act fast.

“Give the order to retreat! Scream it to all those who would listen! We’ll regroup at Pylis Pass - that’s where Selceus last set up a war camp - and see how many soldiers make it back. Now go! Go! Fly as if your lives depend on it, for they very well may!” Andronikos exclaimed, but he quickly doubled back and pointed at two of his hetairoi, “On second thought, you two are with me. Grab as much food and water as you can carry and follow me!” 

In the commotion of the impromptu retreat, Andronikos was oblivious to the lithe figure in a grey longcoat that scaled the stony town wall with neither ladder nor rope, swinging from nook to cranny before leaping to the top mere paces away from the Orestian legatus.

~

“Volkhard!” Firkon exclaimed, barely processing the events that were occurring, “What in the name of the First Emperor happened! There are two of them now! Two! What did you do? I do-”

“Get a hold of yourself, Firkon! Think straight!” Volkhard barked, “You know I am not responsible for this. I was prepared to fight one giant, but two made the problem far more complicated. How did you get into this situation? I leave at the sun’s zenith and it only takes you until sunset to get yourself involved in a war? Do you understand the diplomatic repercussions that might arise from this stunt?”
“The First Emperor stated that we must set aside wars among ourselves in the name of vanquishing the giants, something that these Selcenian dogs seem not to understand!”

“Get with the times! The First Emperor was dead before you were alive, Firkon! The laws he instituted are as obsolete and powerless as the council he established to arbite them, now full of puppets and fools! Now, I want you to listen to me closely. We do not intervene in whatever goes on out there, okay? I don’t care how much you want to kill the giantess, now is absolutely not the time. The Selcenians would see every last one of your men butchered given the chance. Spare your men, and let the Selcenians fight giants themselves in your stead. Perhaps they’ll gain an appreciation for the difficulty of the task.”

Firkon’s jaw dropped.

“Are you too suggesting we abandon our task in favor of waging this war?”

“I am suggesting you temporarily pause your pursuit of it in favor of surviving! The Selcenians cannot afford to let you escape and risk war with Orestion. They will show no quarter.”

“I would rather die with my honor intact than live in disgrace! If we let her go now, who knows how many more will die before we fight her again!”

“Not as many as the Selcenians will kill, I assure you that!” Volkhard spat, now incensed, “You made an oath to follow my instructions unquestioningly. Do not be a fool, Firkon! We can argue once this is done. We will not intervene in whatever happens next, and that is final.”

Firkon grit his teeth, but he ultimately decided on complying. Volkhard had more experience when it came to giantslaying than nearly any other, and Firkon deferred to the man’s greater wisdom. The Selcenians who had made it to the walls had all either surrendered or fled back down, leaving Firkon and his men free to watch as the giantesses descended upon the Selcenian army. Firkon couldn’t help but feel smug as the first giantess, the brown-haired fiend he’d been hunting for so long, dove upon the thronging Selcenian army. Her massive hands moved with terrifying precision, snapping up soldier after terrified soldier. Firkon knew what came next before she even finished grabbing up the fleeing Selcenians, but gritted his teeth in ruefully restrained anger as the giantess raise her captive-filled hand to her face, opened her mouth, and let the soldiers drop onto her waiting tongue one by one, pulling them down between those slightly chapped pale lips. Firkon’s anger didn’t come from the giantess’ devouring of the Selcenians, an almost karmic punishment in his eyes, it did evoke memories of when he watched innocents fall into the exact same helpless plight. It was all too familiar of a scene.

Gulp.
Gulp.
Gulp.

The giantess’ hand, holding at least six squirming, crying men and women in it only moments ago, was now empty. The Selcenians had started dispersing more effectively, and the giantess realized this well. Unpleasant memories stirred in Firkon’s mind as the giantess popped open that same wooden crate he has spent agonizing days in, a mere toy box in her hands but a forlorn jail to any other. Her movements delicate and precise no longer, the giantess swept her arm across the ground in front of her, sweeping up at least a dozen stragglers into her box. Volkhard spat upon the ground and stalked off towards the other end of the wall.

“I can’t watch this.” he said as he paced away, “If she assaults the walls, I’ll be back in an instant, but I don’t think she’s got any reason to. The fools out there are far easier pickings.”

Firkon didn’t respond. He had nothing to say. The second giantess, darker-haired and paler than the first, had descended upon the fleeing Selcenians at this point and was wreaking deadly havoc on what remained of their ranks. Unlike the first giantess, she seemed utterly indifferent to sating her carnal hunger, and was instead crushing the soldiers under hand and foot. Firkon cringed as her palm dropped down onto a comely Selcenian woman, a levied phalangite judging by her lack of armor, crushing the poor woman flat into the dusty ground with a quick crunch. When the giantess lifted her palm, Firkon was sickened at the sight of mangled viscera and blood-soaked grit as all that remained of the unfortunate woman. A quick death, certainly, but a horribly gruesome one nonetheless.

“Sir!” Laeron cried to Firkon, sprinting down the wall, “the leftmost ballista operator has a shot on either one of the giants! Which do we fire at?”

Firkon muttered a curse under his breath. Did Volkhard too abandon the chivalric ideals of brotherhood against the giants in favor of seeing his human foes perish, or did he simply believe that attacking now truly wasn’t the best course of action? Whatever the case, Firkon wasn’t about to relent on his pact with Volkhard just yet. Perhaps he had a good reason for all of this.

“Tell them to hold their fire.” Firkon said, hesitating over every syllable.

Laeron froze, stunned by Firkon’s reply.

“S-sir?! You mean-” he began.

“I mean what I said, damnit!” Firkon barked, “Tell them to hold their fire!”

“Aye, sir!” Laeron exclaimed, sprinting back off to the ballista to deliver Firkon’s message.

After delivering Firkon’s commands, Laeron sauntered back over to the wall to witness the chaos. It was a terrible slaughter, terrifying and merciless, but something just couldn’t let him look away. He watched intently as the giantess he had tracked for days on end now laid waste to the Selcenians in a tragically one-sided bloodbath. No longer did the giantess kill to sate her hunger, but now instead simply killed for what Laeron assumed to be the sake of killing. Her expression was a closed-lipped smile, not a particularly cruel one, but the smile of a child playing marbles with their friends, almost innocent in its unperturbedness. A giggle escaped her ever so slightly bloodied lips as she crushed a fleeing man with her forearm, sending bits of him flying. Laeron was sickened, but at the same time, he couldn’t tear his eyes from her. Her utter disregard for the lives of those under her was captivating. Laeron’s eyes widened as he felt something in his pants stiffen. He was disgusted with himself almost as much as he was aroused at the sight of the giantess crushing a terrified soldier under her knee as she shifted her titanic weight, unaware of his presence until he was a red stain on her skin. 

Laeron, after glancing around to make sure nobody was watching him, settled down into a squat to watch the bloody show unfold. The other giantess, brunette-haired, paler, and smaller chested, simply didn’t capture his attention in the same way as the first. Her kills were methodical, uninspired, and bland, but the amber-haired one… though she was scarred aplenty, she nonetheless had the physique of a goddess, and cruelty to match. Almost always on all fours, she cornered her victims, lowering her face so that her toothy grin encompassed all that they saw, savoring their fear and pointless supplication. Only after they had begged and cried and ran did she begin to kill them off, tearing away limbs and crushing bones to draw every last scream out of each victim.

A trio of soldiers managed to muster up enough courage to charge the giantess with their pikes, perhaps in an act of martyrdom to buy their comrades time. The first two managed to stab the giantess in the back of her left thigh, drawing trickles of blood and causing her to yelp, but the third was knocked aside by her arm as she turned herself around. The soldiers had barely any time to react as the grumpy-faced giantess slammed a tight fist down on the frontmost soldier, splattering his comrade with his pulverized viscera. The second soldier staggered backwards in terror and fell to her back, and Laeron felt a pang of pity for her as she curled up in a ball, trembling and sobbing, as the giantess raised her bloodstained fist again. The giantess, seeing the pathetic state of her cornered prey, seemed to waver for a moment. Her arm lingered motionless in the air, bloody fist uncurling into an open hand. Her expression softened for a moment, and she seemed almost as if she felt sorry for the quivering soldier at her mercy. Laeron winced as the moment passed, and the giantess slammed her into the dust with her open palm, crushing her into yet another of the dozens of bloody stains dotting the area.

Given this display of unrelenting cruelty, Laeron was surprised as yet another group of soldiers, this one five strong, laid their weapons down and kneeled in an unmistakable sign of surrender. It wasn’t long until the giantess noticed them and made her way over to them, a devious smile snaking across her face. The surrendering soldiers all gazed at the ground, not daring to make even the slightest of movements. The giantess, extending both her hands, nudged one of them onto her palm, a short boy with a lanky physique and an ill-fitting helmet. The boy gasped and lost his composure as the giantess seized his leg out from under him, dangling him upside down in front of those who had surrendered with him. The boy’s expression stiffened as the giantess snapped his leg with a limp-wristed shake before transferring her grip on him to the other leg. The giantess then repeated the process on his other leg, causing his eyes to roll into the back of his skull and his chest to heave heavily and erratically. Only now having determined that their choice was extremely faulty, three of the four others made a mad dash away from the giantess. The fourth, a middle-aged man with a scruffy brown beard and a muscular physique, remained kneeling and motionless.

The giantess dropped the broken-legged boy to the ground as the three others bolted, catching up with them in a single bound. Another bound sent the giantess dropping down directly on top of them. Their horrified screams were cut short with a sickening squelch as the giantess landed, smushing one under her bust and the other two under her belly. After checking the bloodstains she left behind to make sure she got all three of them, the giantess returned to the last soldier, still kneeling in complete stillness and silence. Laeron was fascinated as she gently picked scooped him up in her open hand, examined him, and returned him to the ground unharmed before moving on to another target.

Laeron had little time to think about why she spared the man before the giantess found yet another fleeing victim. He watched with excitement as she picked up a young woman by the arm, pinching it between her forefinger and thumb with a surprisingly delicate gentleness, considering how fiercely the woman was struggling. The giantess said something in her language before applying more pressure to her grip.

“No! Kill me! Just kill me! Just fucking kill me, you whore!” the captive woman screamed as her arm was gripped ever tighter. Laeron heard the crack of bone from the wall as the giantess continued increasing the pressure. He saw the white of bone pierce the woman’s skin, followed shortly by the red of blood. Finally, with a wink of all expressions, the giantess tightened her grip until her fingers turned white, pulverizing the stunned woman’s arm. The woman slipped into unconsciousness, and the giantess simply tossed her aside like a broken toy. By now, the last of the Selcenians had fled, and the battlefield was a mess of blood and bodies.

With a sigh, the giantess turned her attention from the siege camp to the town. Laeron felt his heart quiver as the giantess approached the wall, which stood at her chin level. She could probably vault it with ease if she was so inclined… but that wasn’t what was causing Laeron such anxiety. With every step that took her closer, Laeron realized that she was going to wind up right in front of him. His legs froze, unwilling to move, even as those in his relative vicinity scattered for shelter.

And then she was upon him.

Laeron choked up as the giantess rested her chin on the wall no more than three paces in front of him. Her eyes were the size of shields, and both of them were focused on him. Laeron fell to his knees, terrified, excited, and awestruck at once. He had never before seen a giant, and he imagined that even among those who had, few had the opportunity to stare one in the face, especially one this beautiful. Laeron had heard that these creatures were ogres in both intellect and visage, but clearly what he had heard was a lie. He fell to his knees as the giantess opened her mouth and spoke.

“I am Teagan. Teagan save you.” she said, her smile broadening.

Laeron’s conscience was no longer troubled, no longer uncertain. There was no doubt about the matter: he was entirely enamored with the giantess. He could do nothing but hope that his face was too small for her to see that he was stupidly grinning, eyes half-lidded in recollection of her murderous acts. It was only after she waved a goodbye to the town and set off past it that he started thinking about exactly how troubled he was with his newly discovered fixation. Before he searched for Firkon, Laeron wondered exactly how many people the giantess, Teagan, had fit in that wooden box of hers. It had to be in the dozens at least… he shuddered as he wondered what it would be like to be devoured alive. Even after his revelation, he still dreaded the idea of being a victim himself.

Volkhard, meanwhile, was still standing next to a stunned and visibly agitated Firkon.

“Now can you explain to me why we held our fire?” Firkon growled, not even looking Volkhard in the eye. 

“I don’t think it would have worked, Legatus. When I fought her, I could do little more than watch helplessly as my envenomed bolts were held back by some phantom force, halting them in the air before her. If she had managed to deflect the ballista bolt in the same fashion, we would be facing both her and her companion. If that isn’t enough, I’m already exhausted from my previous fight with her, and I’m sure your men aren’t exactly eager to fight her after witnessing what happened to the Selcenians. In fact, after all that… Firkon, to be blunt, you tread on thin ice. Even the most loyal of soldiers will only go so far, and you are pushing that limit to the extreme. The men just witnessed the giantess scatter a vast army and kill dozens with terrifying ease. They also witnessed you pass up what some may see as an opportunity to attack now and end this journey. They’re far from home, weary of marching, and have now delved into yet a second conflict, this time with the one power outside of the Old Lands that rivals the might of Orestion. You don’t seem to realize exactly how bad of a situation you’re in right now, Firkon, and while I respect your motivation and am almost awed by your determination, stubborn and singleminded pursuit of your goal will only get you so far before you must widen your gaze. Your men need more than a leader, Firkon. They need a commander, a commander of respect and wisdom alike. Inspire them, reward them, and do whatever it takes to hold them together until we get an opportunity to strike at our target alone.”

As much as Firkon was frustrated with Volkhard at the moment, he knew that the man was at least partially right. His men were bound to be tired and homesick at this point, not having expected to embark on a full campaign. Discontent could quickly turn to mutiny if he didn’t manage the situation with care.

“Very well, Volkhard… I’ll see what I can do, and so should you. Consult the deaf witch, see what she knows about dealing with the arcane. I’ll talk with Laeron and the Q’thumani scouts and figure out how exactly we’re to catch up with the giantess.”

“I’m going to tend to the wounded, Firkon. I’m not leaving them out there to suffer and slowly die just because they’re Selcenian. Talk to the witch yourself.” Volkhard spat, clearly perturbed.

Firkon barely managed to keep his composure, but he could feel his doubts over Volkhard growing. The man wasn’t a fool, but Firkon found some of his recent choices questionable.

“I’ll figure you out, Volkhard… I’ll figure you out.” he spitefully said to himself, heading down the wall to talk with the witch.

~

That night, Laeron was left with a litany of questions swarming his mind. His father told him that the giants were ugly brutes, but clearly this wasn’t the case: Teagan was comely as they came, with no noticeable differences in her physiology save her size. Firkon told him that the giants were unintelligent brutes, but between the giantess wearing clothing and a backpack, performing communicative hand and facial gestures, and of course speaking in the common tongue, Laeron was fully convinced that this was untrue.

What bothered him the most, however, was her nigh unimpeded slaughter of the Selcenian army. While it was true that the army was small, ill-equipped and unprepared, there was no denying that they left barely a scratch on the giantess while sustaining horrid losses. He was left wondering how exactly the First Emperor managed to seize these lands from the giants. He knew that humans had a vast numerical advantage, but even so, he couldn’t imagine how an army numbering even in the millions would manage to defeat a small but coordinated group of giants. He was determined to find answers.

With a deep breath, Laeron rapped twice on the door before calling out, “Hello? It’s Laeron, the tracker. May I come in? I have a few questions about the giants, ones that I figure you might know the answers to.”
A few seconds passed before the door swung open. Only when he was face to face with him did Laeron realize exactly how tall Volkhard was. Laeron, while by no means tall himself, only came up to the man’s chest. Laeron found himself feeling a bit awkward as he craned his neck up to look Volkhard in the eye.

“What a pleasant surprise! I’d love to answer your questions to the best of my ability, Laeron… you may find that I know more than you’d think. Come on in, I’ll fetch you a drink and we can get started.”

"Adelaide? Be a dear and fetch your brother for supper, will you? It's getting late! Best not let him play after sundown... I hear the tomkins have been encroaching further. Little pests."

"I'll get him, mother!" Adelaide replied, heading to the door, "And I don't see why you're scared of the tomkins! They're so small, they're almost cute!"

Adelaide ran outside with a burst of excited energy, forgoing her shoes in favor of the childish pleasure of running barefoot through the grass. She dashed from place to place, wondering where her little brother could have gone. Adelhard, though named in her likeness, was in most ways her polar opposite. Adelaide was diligent, dutiful, and responsible beyond her years, while her brother was inquisitive and sporadic in the most unpredictable of ways. Adelaide grew frustrated as she scoured the woods near their cottage, calling his name to no avail.

"Where could he have possibly run off to?" she pondered aloud, wondering if he ran off to town to buy sweets.

Adelaide grew a hunch as to where he was as she thought about his recent actions. As of late, Adelhard had been asking why he wasn't allowed to play in the clearing by the brook. Every time he asked, mother explained to him that it was dangerously close to the tomkins, but the explanation never seemed to stick. Adelaide wondered if she should ask her mother permission to look for him at the brook before ultimately deciding against it - what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her - and sprinted off towards the brook, anxiety growing as the sun sank lower in the horizon.

Surely enough, when Adelaide reached the leaf-cluttered brook, she saw her brother kneeling on the opposite bank of the brook.

What over there could possibly be so important that he'd get his shoes wet romping through the brook? she wondered, trying to take a look at what he was doing.

"Adelhard! Hello?" Adelaide called, scaring Adelhard, "Mum says it's time to eat, and we both know you aren't allowed over here! Come back with me if you don't want me telling on y-"

Adelaide froze mid-sentence. A tiny human silhouette stood warily watching her, cradled in Adelhard's hands. Adelaide, no longer caring whether she got her own feet wet, ran across the brook to Adelhard's side, scraping her bare feet on the gravelly bank.

"Is that a tomkin?" Adelaide asked, more incredulous than sincere in her question. There were few other things it could have been, but Adelaide was aghast at her brother's recklessness. Tomkins were known to be pestilent little creatures, notorious for slipping poison into wells, releasing vermin into grain stores, and coating their tiny weapons in venom to murder even the largest of soldiers in their sleep. 

"A-Adelaide! Wait! I can explain!" Adelhard sputtered, bringing the tomkin close to his chest. Adelaide now stood over him, and got a closer look at the tomkin. It was a girl, dark-haired and tan, appearing overall little older than Adelhard. Adelaide was surprised at how human she appeared, but was no less wary because of it. She didn't know much about tomkins, but she knew that they were dangerous, and she wasn't about to let her brother die.

"Put that thing down! What if it hurts you? Or poisons you? Or follows you home and poisons us all? Put it down and I'll stomp it for you, just be quick!"

"No! Don't stomp on her! Adelaide, sit down and listen to me, will you?" Adelhard shouted, unnerving Adelaide with his intensity. Adelaide, noting how emotive her brother was, decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and comply to his wishes, taking a seat next to him and staring ruefully at the tomkin in his hands. Even after she sat down, Adelhard continued to silently glare at her.

"Well? I'm listening!"

"Alright, fine! Just, um, don't tell anyone about any of this, okay? Promise?"

"Promise." Adelaide said, truthfully.

"Well, this all started a long time ago, long enough that it was back when mom let us play by the brook. I was out looking for frogs when I heard voices talking in a strange accent, sort of like that merchant from Allegaine that gives us candy sometimes. Well, I naturally wanted to go and see who it was, so I decided to take a look around."

"Adelhard, I hate to butt in, but we don't have a lot of time. If mom finds us here, we're both goners, so hurry it up, please!" Adelaide interrupted, growing impatient as the last of the sun's light faded.

"Alright, alright! Long story short, it was tomkins, Adelaide. Two of them, farmers from the looks of it. They were talking to each other, and I understood."

"So they were conversing in Pazsichian, or the commonspeak?" Adelaide asked, suddenly a bit more interested.

"No, Adelaide, that's the thing: see, the next day, I came out to the brook again, looking for more tomkins. I followed it for a bit before I found a tiny mudbrick house, with voices drifting out from inside of it. It was a different group of tomkins, a few foresters playing a gambling game of sorts from what I heard, but I understood them all the same. It's not them, Adelaide, it's me! I just understand their language!"

"So is that what you're doing out here? Catching them and listening to them? I won't tell, then, but I still think we should stomp that tomkin and go home for the night. You can always come out another day if you really want to listen to them, but I don't see why you would - it's not like they'll understand you back, and it's dangerous! Just because they look like tiny people, and if you're to be believed, talk like them, doesn't mean you can trust them!"

"I can talk back to them."

"You mean..." Adelaide trailed off, eyes wide.

"I don't know how to describe it. It's just like there's a little lever in my mind, and I pull it, and I start speaking their language. They've got a common one, just like us, and then a handful of regional dialects, also just like us! They aren't evil or anything, at least, not any of the ones I've talked to. Think about a world where we can live in peace! Together!" 

Adelaide was conflicted. On one hand, she'd like nothing more than to believe her brother, but on the other, what he was saying not only sounded entirely fabricated, but it went against everything she was taught.

"So you come out here to talk to tomkins?" Adelaide asked, hoping to see if his story would fall apart the further she pried into it.

"Well, not tomkins, exactly. Just her." he responded, looking down to the tomkin in his hands. She looked terrified, and was tightly clinging to Adelhard's thumb.

Adelaide didn't like hearing this. He was spending time with this tomkin, curious to the point of gullibility as usual. While normally it just made him the butt of most other kids' jokes, Adelaide feared that it could be tampering with his mind and endangering his life in this case.

"Adelhard, I'm sorry if you like talking with it, but it's a tomkin, and tomkins can't be trusted. If you won't take care of it, I will, alright? I can't take any risks here."

"She's not an it, Adelaide, and you aren't going to hurt her!" Adelhard said, standing up with the tomkin and backing away from Adelaide.

"And why is that?"

"Because I love her. Her name is Aelia, and I'm in love with her." Adelhard said, quietly.

Adelaide was silent.

"We first met by complete accident. I was coming to the brook to wash up, and she was gathering bundles of water-reed. She saw me first, and I wouldn't have even noticed her run away if she didn't curse under her breath, drawing my attentnion. When I saw her, I called out for her to wait, and surely enough, she stopped and looked back to me. It took a while of conversing to convince her that I meant no harm, but once she felt safe around me, we spent a while talking to each other about our people. We're not so different, the tomkins and ourselves. They think that we're giants, maneating and merciless, and, well, I'm not surprised that they have that impression. They're far more afraid of us than we are of them, and for good reason! But after a while, when it came time for Aelia to go, she told me that she comes to this brook often to get water-reed, and asked if I'd meet her again. I did so happily, and after a while, we were meeting every two days, with few exceptions. About a week ago... she told me that she loved me, and I said it right back. I don't know how, but I'm going to figure out a way to live with her in peace. Maybe we can prove that our peoples can live together."

Adelaide processed this information. It was a lot for her to hear at once.

"Is she your sister? She looks a lot like you."

"Yeah, she is. I'm trying to tell her that she shouldn't be afraid of you, but it's hard. She's been told lies her whole life about your people, and I don't think it's going to be easy to get her to trust you. Once I can get her to stop being so obtuse, I might be able to properly introduce you to her. She's really a nice person."

"Do you think she would hurt me if you weren't here? I'm still a bit scared, you know, so please keep me safe. She's been giving me looks of hatred for the past few minutes. Why would she hate me before she even knows me? I just don't understand."

"...I don't know why. I really wish I had an answer to that, but I just don't know. Don't worry, though, I'll make sure to protect you until I know she's safe for you to be around. I'd never let anyone hurt you, even her, alright?"

"Thanks, Ad. I love you so much."

"I love you too."

Adelaide felt like crying. Her brother was making gibberish noises to the tomkin. She was certain that he'd been poisoned, drugged in an attempt to win him over to their side. He would hate her for this, but she needed to save him. She wasn't going to lose her brother, not to the tomkins or anyone else. She had always been responsible for him, but this was the greatest test yet. He needed her now more than ever, and she wasn't going to let him down.

"You know, if anyone finds you with a tomkin, they'll kill both of you, right? It's dead for sure, of course, but you? You might get off with torture or imprisonment if you're lucky, but the soldiery have only been getting harsher with their punishments, especially to foresters like us who don't serve a nobleman's estate. I want to believe your story, I really do, but you know nobody else will. I'm really sorry. I wish I didn't have to do this."

"Wait, do wha-"

Adelhard was cut off as Adelaide cuffed him in the side of his head with a stinging blow, blurring his vision and sending him reeling just long enough for her to bat Aelia from his hands. Adelhard tried to tackle his sister having figured out what she intended to do, but dizzied as he was only tripped and fell on the rocky bank, gashing open his chin and scraping his hands. Adelhard could only watch with teary eyes as Adelaide raised her foot above the terrified Aelia. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as Adelaide's foot fell. Aelia lifted her hands up in a defensive cower, eyes shut tight in that instinctual paralysis in the face of death.

Adelhard retched as his sister's heel crushed Aelia into the gravel in a burst of blood, much of which ended up on his face. Adelhard's hands were shaking with adrenaline as he pushed himself to a hunched standing position, eyes unblinking, mouth hanging slightly open. She had just killed the love of his life. His sister had killed his soulmate for no other reason than the fact that she was small. Aelia was dead.

Aelia was killed.

"I'm sorry, Adelhard, but I had to do it. I needed to save you. She was poisoning your mind."

Our people are killed by yours in saddening numbers. I'm glad you're different.

"I wish I didn't have to hit you there, but I could tell you weren't in your right mind. Let's go get you bandaged up. I'll buy you all the candies you want the next time we go to town, alright? Let's just go home.

It's alright, Ad. I'd be happy to count you among my folk. We'll find a way.

"Adelhard? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

Please keep me safe.

"What are you doing? Let me go! Adelhard! You're hurting me!"

Why would she hate me before she even knows me?

"B-brother... you're killing me... please, s-stop..."

I love you.

"I love you too. I'm glad I could protect you, but I guess this makes one thing clear for sure, huh? I guess we can't live in peace with the giants. It's sad, but if they have to die so we can be together, so be it. I will be the strength of our people."

Volkhard looked at the dead giantess. She was a child, an older one perhaps, but a child nonetheless. He was sad that he had to kill her, but knew that if he didn't, Aelia might have died. He knew that others would come looking for this one as the night went on, and decided to head off into the wilderness. He was determined to make it to Cassaphon, Aelia's town. He made sure to return to his normal size as he departed, as he certainly didn't want anyone to mistake him for a giant!

"I'll keep as many as I can safe from the giants. For us."

"So, well, I figured that you'd know more about giants than anyone else here, giving that you're one of the most prominent champions when it comes to dispatching them. Firkon says a lot about the giants being primitive, but, well, I just don't believe it any more. You saw all of that, right? She's just as smart as us. She has to be. Gods, she might even be smarter! It's not like there are many among our number that speak their tongue. Sorry, sorry, I'm rambling, but surely you can explain this, right?"

Volkhard nodded.

"The giants are scarily similar to us, and that similarity doesn't end at their intellectual faculties. They once had nations like ours, cities no different to those we build and armies no different to those we field."

"So how do you know all of this?" Laeron asked, leaning forward in his seat.

"Well, Laeron, I'll let you in on a little secret. There are a lot of misnomers going around about the giants, but, well, remember, I've studied magic for years now - I suppose I have a certain affinity for it to boot - and my lifespan has been stretched out as a result. I remember a time when the last vestiges of their society still stood against us. I didn't serve with the First Emperor, but shortly after his coalition fell to pieces, I fought first alongside the Lycrians and then with the Orestian legions before I finally settled down in Q'thuman and offered my services to the otherwise defenseless border towns nearby... and well, that's where you found me."

"Wow." Laeron muttered, "Huh. So, they, um, they're really just like us, then?"

"Did I say that?" Volkhard queried rhetorically, "No, I said they are scarily similar to us, but not the same. A murderous streak runs through their kind, xenophobic fear and hatred to a degree I have rarely seen in one of ours. But let me ask you something, Laeron... why are you interested in this matter?"

"W-well, sir, I, uhm, I-" Laeron stuttered nervously, not knowing what to say.

"Tell me the truth, Laeron. There is no admission you could possibly make nor secret you could possibly have that I would find need to tell any other. No need to be nervous in the slightest."

"It's Teagan!" Laeron blurted out, "I, uhm, I don't know, I guess I just... she saved us, Volkhard, she saved us! I don't understand! Why would she do that?"

Volkhard paused for a moment to think about how to answer Laeron's question. Did Teagan truly save them simply because she wanted to, or did she just use it as an excuse for her rampant slaughter? Volkhard gritted his teeth and shook his head. This went against everything he believed. Everything he forced himself to believe. Painful memories strained against their prison.

"I can't answer that, I'm afraid. Are you having second thoughts about hunting her down?"

"I am." Laeron said, honestly.

"Well, you aren't alone. When I fought her, Laeron, I didn't fight the other giantess. It was just her. I saw her carrying a soldier with her, a Q'thumani, and decided to at least try to save the soldier's life. I fought long and hard, but I was defeated. Teagan didn't kill me, though, since she saw me heal one of my wounds. She needed my services, as it so happened, but not for herself: she took me captive and asked me to heal the soldier. She had broken the poor woman's back, but felt genuinely sorry, and spared me on the condition that I healed her. I had no choice but to comply, thinking she would kill me when I was done, but... she was compassionate. I woke up unharmed. I think Teagan's a sad kid who's lost everything, and filled the emptiness left over with hatred of humanity. Gods know I'd understand that. Something in me is just screaming at me that this is all wrong, but then I remind myself, she's killed innocents. Lots of them, Laeron. There's no excusing that... not at all."

Don't choke on your hypocrisy.

"Well, I guess you're right. Thanks, Brother Volkhard. Your words are wise as ever." Laeron said, standing from his seat, "I suppose I'll excuse myself now. Thank you for your guidance."

You have no right. 

Volkhard took a heavy swig of his drink as Laeron stood up to leave. Just as he was about to depart, however, another knock came from the door. Laeron froze and looked to Volkhard, who stood up himself.

"You'd best come up with a good reason as to why you're here, just in case, alright?" Volkhard whispered to Laeron as he got ready to open the door once more.

Volkhard opened the door, and saw two people on the other side. The first he immediately recognized as Firkon, still wearing his armor, with a smile on his face. Not a sight one is often treated to. The other was a stranger to Volkhard, though something about her complexion, garb, and demeanor told him that he ought to recognize her: long black hair tied back in a bun, unhealthily pale skin, a dark vest and rope-tied skirt, and an artavus knife poorly concealed in her left boot left Volkhard with the impression that this was a notable individual.

"Firkon! I was just talking with Laeron about methods I used to track the giants myself in days long past. Who is your companion here?"

"This is Icaria the Younger. Surely you've heard of her, Volkhard?"

Volkhard knew that name. Icaria was a giantslayer, same as he, but she had just started her career. She was an alchemist, concocting poisons that could fell even the most titanic of giants with a handful of drops. Her notoriety came not from her reputation as a savior, however, but from her reputation as thoroughly ruthless. Her poisons were known far and wide for the collateral damage they inflicted, rendering entire villages toxic and often killing just as many as the giant she slew with them. Rumor held that wherever she traveled, disease quickly followed, disease unlike anything it ought to be, unnatural and unreasonably fatal. Volkhard was one of many who wondered who dared contract her services and fund her horrid concoctions, but those who asked had a penchant for ending up choking on their own blood.

It was safe to say that Volkhard did not like Icaria the Younger.

"Ah! Such a pleasure, to meet one who follows the same noble goal as myself. I am Brother Volkhard, a humble servant of the First Emperor and an appreciator of your work." Volkhard lied, pulling the act off quite convincingly.

"You are no servant of the First Emperor. Firkon told me what you said, and I find it disgusting how little faith some people have in Him. Death is nothing to the likes of Him, and I, Volkhard, am His emissary. Firkon, on the other hand, is dogged and loyal, and for that reason alone I have come here to offer my services. Show some respect to your Emperor." Icaria said, pushing her way past Volkhard into the room. She took a seat at the table across from Volkhard and stared him down.

"My apologies. I meant Him no disrespect, nor did I mean to say that I myself am faithless, simply that the Selcenians are. I hope that you understand I hold Him in the highest of regard." Volkhard said.

"I've heard much about you, Volkhard." Icaria said, ignoring Volkhard's apology, "Your record is impressive. I knew something was special about you, but, well, I can't say I expected this."

Volkhard's heart quickened. What did she mean?

"I'm surprised at your bravado. Going up against a giant on your own? That's plain stupid, but your courage is evident. It doesn't matter how oafish you are as long as you aren't the one giving the commands. See, that's why I'm here." Icaria quipped, smirking.

"I'm not here to take insults, especially from a fledgling." Volkhard responded, no longer willing to keep up the charade of formality, "If you're joining us, that's fine. More help is always welcome. Just keep your comments to yourself and make yourself useful, and we won't have a problem... bitch." Volkhard muttered the last word under his breath in the human language, trying to restrain himself from letting her get him any angrier.

Icaria scoffed before waving a hand at Firkon and Laeron, signaling for them to leave the room. Volkhard wasn't surprised when Laeron hurried off, but he was taken aback when Firkon headed back towards the exit.

"Emissary Icaria, ought I wait outside?" he asked.

"No need. I've said to you all I need to. I just want to spend a bit of time with Volkhard here, discussing technique. There aren't a lot of practicioners in our field, and, well, I'd be happy to further my own understanding while imparting some of my technique unto him. It's been a pleasure."

Firkon left without another word, closing the door behind him. Volkhard briefly wondered what Icaria could have possibly said or done to get the prideful man so submissive to her, but the thought slipped his mind as his glance flitted back to the woman in question. He didn't like her at all, but he especially didn't like her in his room.

"Well? Discuss technique? Get on with it. What do you want to know?" Volkhard asked, impatient to get her out.

Icaria waited until Firkon's footsteps were no longer audible before responding, "Oh, Volkhard, I don't care for your technique. I have my own, and I rather quite enjoy it. I'm here to talk to you about something far more important. A giantess, especially a magically capable one, is something we simply cannot have, is it now?"

"I don't know what you mean by we, alchemist. My problems are no concern of yours, and yours are absolutely not mine. I don't know what stake you have in this, but I know your type. You aren't just doing this out of the goodness of your heart. I'm certain that you don't really care how many innocents die to her at all, do you?"

"Watch yourself, Volkhard. Don't ask questions that you won't like the answer to. Now, I'm no practicioner of magic myself, but if she defeated one such as you, she must have developed her powers significantly already, hmm?"

"You seem to forget the fact that she's a giantess. The odds are already stacked against me before including her magical prowess. I won't be making the same mistakes the second time around." Volkhard replied, condescendingly.

"Don't treat me like an idiot." Icaria snapped, "I know how many giants you've killed. Giants more physically imposing than her. It's her magic, and we both know it. In any case, that's for the best, if anything. The one who sent me wants Firkon to be responsible for her death, not you."

"So you do have a master, hmm?" Volkhard asked sarcastically.

"I said watch it, you impetuous idiot. Don't think you can just do whatever you wish because of your status. I am an emissary of the First Emperor, and you, well, you're an emissary of nobody. A vassal of nobody. A champion of nobodies. Saving peasants and farmers? It will get you nowhere."

"Enough with the petty insults. You're acting like a petulant child at this point. You want Firkon to be the one to kill her? Fine. That makes my life easier, if anything. I'll return to my home and look back on this time fondly as the last I ever saw your pale, sun-starved visage."

"Not so fast, comrade." Icaria said, lacing the last word with venom, "I just said that Firkon needs to kill her. You will still be useful. Think about it! Firkon defeats the giantess Volkhard couldn't. It'll be sensational. He'll be exactly the kind of hero that we need. You need to lose to her again, Volkhard. Slink back to him with news of defeat... not like you could take her on your own, anyhow. Once you make a pathetic show of it, we dismiss you, and end her without your aid. Firkon is a hero, I get a bit of recognition myself, and you get an opportunity to fade quietly and cleanly away. Trust me, you'd prefer that to the alternative. Stay small, Volkhard. Stay small, and you'll stay happy.

"Why do you want Firkon to rise to fame, why exactly would I want to tarnish my name, and what exactly do you mean when you say 'stay small', anyhow?" Volkhard demanded, reaching almost imperceptibly for the knife at his belt.

"I said no questions, dolt! I have no answers for you, champion of nobodies, except the point of my blade. I am an emissary of the First Emperor, and I do not answer to scum like yourself. My station is higher than you could ever perceive." Icaria disdainfully spat,

"I can't say I recall the last time I saw the First Emperor, you know." Volkhard retorted, "I would assume a dead man wouldn't have enough messages that he'd need an emissary. Your threats don't scare me, alchemist. If I earnestly wanted you dead above all else, you'd be dead in an instant, and there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it."

"I don't doubt it." Icaria responded, smirking contemptuously. 

"I'm sorry?" Volkhard disbelievingly asked, not sure if he had heard correctly. He didn't believe that she would fold so easily now after giving him nothing but a headache for the past few minutes.

"I have no doubt that if you really, really wanted me dead right now, yeah, you'd be able to kill me in an instant. An instant!"

Icaria stood up from her seat and paced over to Volkhard, causing him to tighten his grip on his knife. If she was picking a fight with him, one of them wouldn't be walking away from it. She stopped less than a pace away from him, bent down with her hands on her knees, and looked him closely in the eye. Volkhard met her intense gaze unflinchingly, not willing to show even the slightest sign of weakness.

"Then again," she whispered to him, "how do you think everyone would react when you show your true self?"

Volkhard flinched at these words, and in his moment of shock, Icaria moved with the rapidity of a wildcat. She tore his belt away from his waist, seized the knife from within it, and planted it firmly in the table. Volkhard barely even reacted, only twisting slightly away from Icaria as she took his belt.

"I don't think Firkon would take kindly to a giant, much less one that's an impostor in his perfect little imagined world, would he? You see, these people, all of them have been eating up the First Emperor's dogma like candy, and they know above all else that they ought to hate the giants. Even now, while bastards like Selceus and his generals defy His word, His message about the giants will ring true as long as even one of their number walk this world... but we can make room for you, Volkhard, if you keep your mouth shut and stay small. It's too late to uninvolve yourself in what's happening here, and believe me, it's going to be momentous. The best thing you can do is keep your head down, follow orders, and ride it out. For once, you're going to feel what it's like not to be in charge. Am I understood?" Icaria asked, pulling Volkhard's knife from the table and sheathing it back in his belt.

"Yes." Volkhard replied, extending a hand to retrieve his belt from her. At this reply, however, Icaria retracted her arm, leaving Volkhard grasping at nothing.

"That's yes, emissary of the First Emperor to you, Volkhard." Icaria snipped, waiting for the correct reply.

Volkhard balled his fists up in rage. Was it really worth submitting here just to keep his secret under wraps? He could kill her with ease, even she knew that... but more would come. She had made it clear that she wasn't alone, not at all. Something larger than any one person was unfolding, and Volkhard wasn't ready to make new enemies before he knew the scope of their might.

"Yes, emissary of the First Emperor. I will work with you as best as I can. provided you keep my secret."

Icaria dropped Volkhard's belt on the table and walked towards the door.

"Don't renege on your word, Volkhard. You will find that it does not end well for you."

Volkhard briefly contemplated hurling his knife into her back before deciding against it. If he did kill her, even without returning to his full size, Firkon would turn on him in an instant, and she knew it. He was a hostage now.

~

"Welcome to Sudgau, Teagan." Hannah said, beaming.

Teagan was awed. Sudgau consisted of little more than a trio of oxcarts and around ten people. Teagan hadn't seen this many people together in years! She had made sure to instruct Teagan, Hassan, and Aaliyah to hide quietly in her backpack, but couldn't manage to brush off a lurking fear that they'd be discovered and hurt. Nevertheless, she followed Hannah to the crowd, which was positioned around a small campfire, and stood awkwardly back while Hannah rushed in.

"Wulfric! Wulfric, are you here?" Hannah shouted, drawing the attention of the crowd, formerly unaware of Hannah's presence.

"Hannah? Is that you?" A voice called back, followed quickly by a tall young man pushing himself up from the fire and running towards Hannah. The two embraced each other warmly, and Teagan could swear that she saw the glint of tears in Hannah's eyes as she hugged Wulfric. 

"I missed you dearly."

"I missed you too."

While the two of them spent time in an embrace, another person from the campfire motioned for Teagan to come closer. She hesitantly obliged, sitting at the edge of the fire nearest to the man who waved her over, an older man with a warm smile.

"Any friend of Hannah's is a friend of ours, miss. Wulfric is Hannah's brother, and the two of them are tight as thieves! Come, enjoy the fire, tell of us yourself while they have their fun. They will take a while, no doubt."

Teagan gently shouldered off her backpack, making sure not to jostle it, before scooting forward and joining everyone else.

"I'm on a journey." she began, "A journey to find Whitebreeze Keep."

There was a bit of whispering as Teagan spoke the fabled citadel's name, but she continued without giving it any pause.

"My name's Teagan, and I've been at this journey for, well, I'd guess at least a month and a half now. It's hard to know for sure, though. Days blend together when time is measured in hunger, thirst, tiredness, and pain. I come from Dunnehain, and with the guidance of an old man's note and a foolish amount of hope, I've made it here, to Pazsichia. I've faced a bandit, a tomkin legion, and an accursed creature of the night, and I've triumphed over them all so far. I met Hannah when I was first crossing into Pazsich over the mountains. I took a terrible fall, injuring my head quite badly, when up to me comes Hannah. I must admit, for a minute, I thought I had died and she was an angel come to take my soul!"

Teagan felt a sense of relief wash over her as she heard a few members of her welcoming audience chuckle at the story, easing her tension and making her feel less like an intrusive stranger.

"Well, Hannah treated my wounds, and asked only in return that I accompany her here. I was more than happy to oblige, and we set off together to reach Sudgau!"

Teagan continued, telling everyone about their encounter with the wandering knights, their battle against the tomkin army, and the highlights of their conversations. When she finished, it was to applause and cheering. Teagan beamed, flush with excitement at the attention and approval she was getting. She never truly realized how much she needed people to talk to until she'd met Hannah, and this only reaffirmed her belief tenfold. After the applause had died down, Hannah and Wulfric returned together, with Wulfric making a beeline straight for Teagan.

"You must be Teagan!" he exclaimed, extending a hand.

"And I'm guessing you're Wulfric?" Teagan responded, shaking the man's hand. His grasp was light and not quite commanding, and he seemed a bit frail altogether. Teagan assumed that he hadn't been eating much recently.

"Wulfric von Nieders. Hannah's brother, if she hasn't given you our family name. We hear that our family line used to be nobles, but that all ended with the tomkins, of course, so we hold neither wealth nor lofty titles. It's funny how this brings the poorest and richest of us together, isn't it? In any case, Teagan, I heard bits and pieces of your adventures while you were telling your tale, and Hannah told me much more. It's truly a pleasure."

Wulfric bowed to Teagan before taking a seat next to her.

"You know, Teagan... I know we're practically strangers, but you're a friend of my sister, and that means you're a friend of mine. Sudgau may not look like much to you, and to be honest, it really isn't, but I want you to know something important. You're banking a lot on hope and a legend, Teagan, and if Whitebreeze was anywhere nearby, we'd know about it. You have a long journey ahead of you, and I won't tell you that it's anything less than extremely dangerous. You draw ever closer to the heart of the tomkin lands, and it'll only get harder from here. If you so decide, I would be more than happy to offer you a life with us. It won't be easy, nor will it be stationary, but I can promise you that it will be safe, and you will find us the truest band of compeers you've ever met. Of course, I will not be offended if you decline, but please at least consider it well."

Wulfric paused before whispering a quick addition in Teagan's ear, "Hannah told me about your tomkin as well. Keep it hidden well from the others and we will have no issue."

Teagan was taken aback. Safety not only for herself, but for Sihil as well. Perhaps... perhaps this was the home she was looking for after all?

"This might just be my own little Whitebreeze Keep." Teagan said, "I'll think on it while I sleep. Thank you so much."

Sihil felt the wind knocked out of her as Teagan placed the bag on the ground, slamming her into Aaliyah and Hassan. The three of them had been kept in its confines for over a day now, punctuated only by infrequent and short breaks given to them to eat, drink, stretch, and attend to any other needs one otherwise couldn't in complete darkness. Now it seemed as if Teagan was about to let them out again, but alas, nothing happened. Sihil waited hesitantly, but when she heard the muffled sound of giants conversing in their guttural tongue, she knew that it was a false hope. Teagan had forgotten about them.

With a saddened sigh, Sihil rested her back against Teagan's waterskin and tried to fall asleep. She was ready to slip into another night of dreaming about home when she heard Hassan's voice pierce the silence.

"How much longer is this going to go on? I'm not going to live out my days like this."

"You know there's no answer either of us can give you, but it can't last forever." Aaliyah replied, "The giantess is traveling, right? Sooner or later she'll reach her destination, and we'll at least spend our time is a place more dignified than a rucksack. Ideally with a bit more legroom."

"You know that's not what I mean, Aaliyah. It doesn't matter if it's a canvas bag or a gilded cage, a prison is still a prison. We're people, not playthings, and I'm getting more and more afraid that the giantess sees us as little more than a passing interest."

"So what's the point of bringing it up, hmm? You thinking of trying to escape?" Aaliyah asked.

"Believe me, I'm not that desperate." Hassan answered, "The giantess doesn't care for us. Only Sihil. We'll be killed on the spot if she finds us, and as if that wasn't bad enough, there's no water around for miles and we have nothing to navigate with. I'm thinking we could get Sihil to build a little trust, you know? The giantess clearly fancies her, that much is undeniable. If she can just figure out a way to ask for nicer accomodations and more freedoms, it'd be a lot easier waiting this captivity out."

Sihil felt their eyes on her. Hassan's plan didn't actually sound risky or dangerous at all, but how was she to communicate what she needed to Teagan? Their shared vocabulary was extremely limited, and abstractions like freedom and trust were a lot harder to translate than simpler, more corporeal concepts such as objects or places.

"I can try. I'll need time with her, time alone, and privacy, but I can try. She's more malleable than you might think, and, well, I actually get the impression that she thinks of me as a friend. Maybe I can play into that, give her the impression that the feeling is reciprocated, and eke a favor or two out of her while I've put her in a good mood."

With these words, Sihil fell back into slumber. She heard Aaliyah and Hassan talking to each other for some time, but tired as she was, no amount of noise could stop her from falling into a gentle slumber.

She dreamed of home. Alephasia, a small town on a big riverside, surrounded by verdant fields free of dangerous creatures. A small but sturdy brick home with a warm hearth and a soft bed. A loving, caring father, two rowdy brothers, and fiercely loyal friends. It was, in many ways, a perfect life.

Too perfect.

Teagan loomed over the village, her face shrouded in darkness, her hands stained in the blood of countless untold thousands. Alephasia was next, and the town fell into ruin at her approach. Crops withered. Houses burned. Dozens were crushed with her every step. The streets ran red with blood, the air grew clouded with smoke, and the screams of the desperate townsfolk filled the air. Sihil could do nothing to stop the slaughter that unfolded in front of her eyes, and felt her stomach turn as she felt each life snuffed out.

"Stop." she said, to no avail. Teagan simply continued.

"Stop!"

"STOP!"

Sihil was jolted from her dream when she felt something shaking her. She woke up to see Hassan leaning towards her, hands on her shoulders.

"Sihil. You're shouting. It was just a bad dream. Are y-" 

Hassan was interrupted as the aperture to the bag opened.

~

"Cessare!"

Teagan froze as all eyes turned her way. Sihil's voice was audible, even through the bag, and now Teagan was going to pay for it. Wulfric looked disappointed, Hannah worried, and most of the others either afraid or angry.

"What have you got in that bag, hmm?" the old man asked, "I haven't ever seen a bag that speaks before, so I'd assume that the contents are responsible for that noise."

Before Teagan could respond, Wulfric answered the old man on her behalf.

"No need to dance around the truth, Peric. She's got tomkins in there, aye. Not many have the luxury of knowing when their next meal is out there. They serve as nourishment in a pinch. That being said, Teagan, there's no need to keep those things around. Why don't you just dispose of them and we'll get you some real food, eh?"

Teagan opened up the bag, and looked inside. Hassan, Aaliyah, and Sihil were sitting together. Aaliyah was squeezing Sihil's hand, while Hassan was clasping her shoulders, in the act of trying to calm her down. Teagan knew that what she would have to do next would break Sihil's heart, but she had no choice. Without giving herself time to second-guess herself, Teagan plucked Aaliyah and Hassan out from the bag in each hand, holding them up for all to see. Their terrified faces faced towards her, however, and she saw their forlorn sadness in all its pitiable desperation.

I can't do this... how have I gotten this soft?

"I... I guess this isn't my home after all. I know none of you will believe me, but these tomkins are good people. I'd rather take my chances out there than kill them for my own safety."

Teagan was lying, of course - she was more than happy to kill a tomkin for her own pleasure, let alone safety - she didn't want Sihil to hate her for killing more of her friends, though. If she had to abandon Sudgau, so be it: she'd just continue on the path to Whitebreeze Keep.

"That's not how this works, and you know it." Wulfric said, standing up, "We can't take risks. It's standard practice - if the tomkins know that we're out here, then they'll hunt us down. Makes our lives harder than you might think. You can leave if you want, but not with those tomkins."

"No."

"If you don't want to kill them, you can hand them over. We'll do it discretely, quickly, and painlessly."

"No!"

"Teagan... don't make this harder than it has to be. Please." Wulfric said, walking slowly over to one of the oxcarts. 

"This isn't right." Hannah said, obviously panicked, "Everybody slow down. We can talk this through."

"I'm not handing them over, and that's final." Teagan said, lowering Hassan and Aaliyah back into her bag. She needed her hands free for her combat, if things escalated any more.

Teagan heard a snap and a whistle. Wulfric pulled something out from the oxcart.

Then the pain hit.

Teagan cried out in pain as the realization hit her that she'd been shot. A crossbow bolt was lodged in her right thigh, surrounded by a quicky spreading bloody stain on her pants.

"WULFRIC! What are you DOING?!" Hannah screamed, wrenching the crossbow from his hands. Wulfric ignored her and stalked towards Teagan, followed by three of his men.

"I'm sorry that it had to come to this. I really am... it's a damn shame that I ever had to even consider hurting you, but you left me no choice. Peric, kill the tomkins. Eckhard, Vale, hell, everyone else with a weapon - let's escort Teagan out of the area and make sure nobody else gets hurt. Hannah... keep everyone else safe."

"Wait, yo-" Hannah began.

"Hannah! Please, keep them safe! We won't kill your friend. I swear. Just get them out of here!" Wulfric interrupted, marching towards Teagan.

Teagan, now kneeling on her uninjured leg, made a quick headcount of the aggressors coming towards her. There were six in total, though Wulfric and Peric were unarmed.

"You're making a mistake..." Teagan groaned, forcing herself back to her feet.

"Don't give me that. I see your knife, and while I have no intent of killing you, I won't hesitate to defend myself if you draw that on me. If you don't want to end up any more injured than you already are, I advise being smart an-"

Wulfric was cut off when Teagan launched herself at Peric, who was getting ready to seize her bag. In one swift motion, she tackled him to the ground, drew her dagger, and stabbed him in the throat. Peric's eyes went wide as he drew his last gasping, blood-choked breaths. 

2.

"I warned you." Teagan growled, yanking the crossbow bolt out of her leg with a wince and tossing it aside.

Wulfric looked at his men. They were nervous, angry, astonished, and eager in equal amounts, bundles of energy waiting to be spent.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he cried, "Kill her!"

They charged.

Teagan was ready.

The first among them, a young man with a wood-hewn spear, stumbled back as a phantom force impacted him in the gut. The next, a man sporting a bushy black beard with a red face and a bald head, swung his hammer at Teagan's chest, but his blow was stopped short just before it connected for no apparent reason. He managed to muscle his way through the resistance, but the blow had already lost its momentum, and barely seemed to hurt Teagan at all. Teagan, in retaliation, planted her dagger in the man's chest, slipping the blade through his ribs and hitting his heart. The man dropped to the ground, but Teagan's dagger, lodged as it was in his wound, dropped with him. Teagan was left weaponless as she faced the remaining four foes.

3.

The spearman and a scrawny woman with a large knife, seeing what befell their comrade who attacked alone, charged Teagan together with a warcry. The man shouted in surprise as his spear burst into splinters in his grip, drawing the woman's attention just long enough for Teagan to grab her fallen foe's hammer. When the woman looked back to Teagan, she received a powerful uppercut to the jaw with the hammer, shattering half of the bones in her face. She screamed in agony and flailed aimlessly with her knife, but her blind jabs and slashes came nowhere near hitting Teagan. Teagan swung her hammer at the woman's head again, augmenting it with as much force as she could. There was a sickening crunch as the woman's skull was caved in, and she dropped to the ground, dead.

4.

The last of the armed aggressors, a scrawny man with a cudgel, was nowhere to be seen. Teagan assumed he had run away until she felt an explosion of pain erupt from her neck. Teagan whirled around and saw the man winding up another swing, this one aimed at her head. She easily grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the cudgel in one hand and punched him in the face with the other, paralyzing him with pain, or perhaps shock. Teagan neither really knew or cared, but in any case, it gave her enough time to put the man in a headlock and snap his neck.

5.

The young man, seeing the littered corpses at Teagan's feet, started to back away, hands raised in submission. Teagan wasn't about to let him get off that easy. With a twist of her offhand, Teagan wrenched the man's left leg out from under him, toppling him to the ground. Teagan loomed over the man, hammer in hand, casting a hateful glare downwards.

"Gods above and below, please, please, show me mercy, spare my soul!" he shouted, eyes squeezed shut.

"It's me you should be asking for mercy." Teagan said, driving her into the man's side with a vicious kick, sending him into a coughing fit. Teagan knew he wouldn't be getting back up to challenge her again, leaving only Wulfric. He had grabbed a sword while Teagan fought his underlings, and was now staring Teagan down.

"So, you're a mage." Wulfric snarled, "I should have just let you go, in retrospect."

"Yeah." Teagan curtly replied.

"There's no going back now, though, is there? One of us is dying here."

"Yeah."

"Alright. Just don't kill anyone else if you defeat me, okay? They don't deserve it. Just me. Can you just promise me that?"

"Yeah."

Wulfric lunged forward, blade pointed at Teagan's throat. She tried to sidestep the stab, not confident in her ability to parry it with the hammer, but her injured leg gave out underneath her in the middle of her manuever, and Wulfric's stab hit her in the right shoulder. The pain helped Teagan focus and push herself back to her feet, but her vision began to swim and her lungs screamed for air. Her gratuitous use of her power had drained her energy significantly, and blood loss was by no means helping. Teagan dropped her hammer and rolled backwards as Wulfric made another strike, this time trying to stab her in the chest. She managed to evade the strike, but by the time she had scrambled back to her feet, Wulfric was coming at her yet again. Teagan swept the area around her with her hands until she got a hold of the cudgel used by the scrawny man. Barely an instant before Wulfric swung down at her head, Teagan raised the cudgel in a protective block. Wulfric's sword destroyed the makeshift weapon, but Teagan herself remained unharmed.

"Just give it up, Teagan. I can tell you're out of power, or else you would have used it on me. I might even let your little tomkin friends go if you stop resisting." Wulfric 

"You're... a terrible... liar." Teagan panted, taking advantage of the brief pause to the fullest and wrenching her dagger from the bearded man's chest.

"So be it." Wulfric replied.

Teagan was able to block Wulfric's first swing, but his second was too fast for her, and ended up clipping her left arm. The cut was superficial, but Teagan was too exhausted to fight on. The pain from her myriad wounds was just too much. She fell back to the ground, released her grip on her dagger, and stared towards the starry night sky. Wulfric raised his sword above his head, tip facing down over her heart.

"I lost a lot of good men today. You took more than you could imagine from me today, so be thankful that I still elect to grant you a painless death."

Teagan said nothing and closed her eyes.

"NO!"

Wulfric turned his head.

Teagan saw an opportunity.

6.

~

Hannah couldn't help but cry out when she saw the bodies of her comrades strewn about the area. Only Wulfric remained standing, preparing to plunge his blade into Teagan's chest. Hannah immediately regretted her impulsive shout as Wulfric turned his head to look at her, just for an instant. She watched in horror as Teagan, appearing defenseless and weak the moment before, sprung up and drove her knife into Wulfric's back.

When he turned back around in shock, she stabbed him against, this time in the eye. She left the dagger embedded in Wulfric's head as his body dropped to the ground. Teagan stood amid the carnage she wrought, covered in the blood of Hannah's companions and kin. Hannah, not caring whether Teagan would kill her, ran over to her brother's side, and cradled his body in her arms. She started to sob.

"You killed him."

Teagan said nothing. She simply kneeled down and picked up her bag.

"You killed them all over the lives of two tomkins."

"I did." Teagan coldly replied.

"Kill me, then." Hannah said, overcome with emotion, "Let me join them. I've been looking for them for months, and when I finally return to my home, you destroy it."

"No. Wulfric made me promise that I wouldn't hurt you. I won't break my word." Teagan said, beginning to walk away.

Hannah noticed that Teagan had left Vale, the youngest of the group, alive. He was cowering on the ground, nearly motionless.

"How did you do this? How did you kill them? Wulfric was a skilled swordsman. No human could have possibly killed them all... you're no human at all, are you, Teagan? You're a monster. You're a monster!"

Teagan continued to walk away, ignoring Hannah. Hannah looked down to Wulfric. She quietly pulled his hand away from his sword, seized it in both hands, and stood back up, steeling herself. She was no expert with a sword, not on Wulfric's level, at least, but she wasn't a complete novice either. 

"I'll kill you! Get over here before I stab you in the back!" she screamed, to no avail. Teagan continued to walk away.

Hannah tried to give chase, but felt as if she was frozen in place, held back by some invisible wall. Maybe if she was less distraught, she could have pushed past it, but as she was, Hannah was hapless. She fell back to the ground, sword slipping out of her grasp, and watched Teagan walk until she disappeared under the horizon. She was never going to get her vengeance.

~

The moment Teagan was sure that she'd limped out of Hannah's sight, she fell to the ground, exhausted. She slowly pulled open her bag and retrieved her waterskin before slowly undressing, trying to ignore the throbbing pain from her wounds. After peeling off her bloodied shirt and trousers, Teagan examined her wounds. Out them all, the wound left by the crossbow bolt looked by far to be the worst of them all, the triangular wound still bleeding profusely in comparison to the superficial wounds inflicted by Wulfric. Though she pretended not to notice, she watched keenly as Hassan emerged from the untended bag at her feet, followed by Aaliyah and finally Sihil. The three of them watched as Teagan washed her injuries with the last of the water from her waterskin, staining the nearby ground red with blood. After she'd finished washing off as much blood as she could, Teagan tore what was left of her shirt into a trio of long, misshapen bandages, the largest of which she used to start binding her leg wound. Teagan shuddered with pain as she tied the makeshift bandage tight, compressing the injury and causing her a fresh wave of discomfort.

"Teagan..."

Teagan turned around. Sihil was worriedly looking up at her, fixated on her shoulder wound. She gently lowered a hand to the ground, allowing Sihil time to clamber onto it before bringing it to her uninjured left shoulder, where she let the girl climb off.

"These injuries must look pretty fuckin' huge to you, huh? You should see the other guy, though. I did it all for you, too, not your two friends over there. I like the woman a bit, I guess, but in the end it was really just so you don't hate me as much. I don't know why I'm so attached to you, and so far, I've really just gotten my ass kicked by life for it. I guess you've just got a winning smile and pretty face. If you could understand me, maybe I'd like you a little less, if I'm being honest. It's nice being able to talk to you and not having to worry about you caring what I say."

Teagan planted a soft kiss on Sihil's head, and felt her heart leap as the girl leaned into it instead of shrinking away from her. Progress! The girl might not hate her with every fiber of her being! Teagan suppressed a squeal of delight as she pressed her cheek gently against the girl, the affectionate display helping take her mind off of the events that had transpired minutes ago.

"That's right. This is why I keep you around. I feel like I'd go insane without someone to love. You're a real champ, kid, and I'm no fucking monster myself. I guess you probably think I'm one, though."

Teagan looked down at the other two tomkins, who were still awkwardly staring at her. Specifically, Aaliyah had been watching her talk to Sihil, while Hassan was clearly trying his hardest not to stare at her exposed breasts. Teagan normally would have laughed at his awkward reaction, but she was more surprised that neither of them even tried to make a break for it. Maybe saving them wasn't such a bad idea after all...

"You know what I need? A little rest and relaxation to get my mind off the pain. Why don't you little guys help me unwind a bit? I'll make it fun for you too!"

Teagan won the first couple games with ease, given that none of them had ever played before, and so opted to stop playing herself, instead letting Sihil, Hassan, and Aaliyah play among themselves. Hassan had an early advantage in his first game against Sihil, but ultimately found himself soundly defeated when Sihil took half of his pieces off of the board in a single move, much to her delight. Similarly, when she went against Aaliyah, Sihil was able to stall until she turned the tide with a single fruitful turn. When Hassan rematched her, however, he made a point of playing far more aggressively instead of advancing his whole board gradually, and found himself crowning his second piece before Sihil got her first, letting him win with ease. Teagan, satisfied that they had a grasp on the game's strategy and tired of observing, dove back into playing against them. Time flew by, and Teagan could tell that even the normally moody Hassan was having fun, not to mention both Sihil and Aaliyah. For the first time in what felt like forever, Teagan was at ease. She felt happier than she'd been in days just looking at Sihil smile, cheeks flushed and chin held high. By the time the last game had finished, it was pitch black out, and the final score had long been forgotten. Teagan gently placed Aaliyah and Hassan back in the bag, making sure to close it tight, but decided to leave Sihil out, letting the girl clamber once more onto her palm. Teagan splayed herself out on the ground and placed the girl on her stomach, hoping to finally win Sihil over with this absolute display of trust. Sihil could leave at any point in the night and Teagan would be none the wiser until morning.

Six. She'd killed six people in Sihil's defense now, and she was still not sure if the girl even liked her in the slightest. Teagan briefly wondered whether she was justified in her actions, but decided not to think about it at all when she felt Sihil lie down, breathing in rhythm with the rising and falling of Teagan's own chest. To know that it was the warmth of her body that kept Sihil from bearing the brunt of the cold night was relaxing. To know that she'd saved the girl from human and tomkin alike was comforting. To know that she had killed thousands just like Sihil was terrifying. A creeping sense of dread crawled Teagan's spine as she felt her loneliness and confusion grow ever tighter, constricting her mind. She was a certainly a murderer now if she wasn't one before.

Teagan's skin crawled as flashbacks ran through her mind. The cathedral at the mountaintop was just as memorable in her reverie as it was the day she set eyes on it. While it was perhaps true that the tomkins attacked first, there was a clear difference in strength. Even the firemage that singed her could inflict no serious harm - a fact that Teagan found surprising given the tales told by her father of the dangers of tomkin mages - and in retaliation for an injury that was more of an inconvenience than anything else, Teagan slaughtered indiscriminately, killing those responsible and those not all the same. Her heart quickened as she remembered carving into the helpless monk with her knife, slowly exsanguinating him for the sake of her own sadistic pleasure. It quickened further as she felt the crunch of a body as she squeezed it in her hand so vividly that it almost felt like more than a flashback. Her rampage in the lakeside village. Her slaughter in the forest village. Her murder of Sihil's comrades all the way back in Dunnehain.

By the time it was over, Teagan's heart felt ready to explode, its beat filling her ears. The heartbeat of a killer. Teagan reached out with her mind, delving into her own chest, and felt each pump as if her hand was laid across her own bare heart. Blood coursed through her body with sickening intensity, and part of her wanted it to stop. She could crush her own heart, ending her miserable existence in a painless instant. The world would be a safer place for tomkin and human alike, and Sihil, at this point the only object of her affection, would finally be freed. What was there to lose? The life of a pitiful murderer, no longer even human? Teagan held her breath as she prepared to kill one last person. As her gaze settled on Sihil, however, she hesitated. The girl was curled up under her sternum, a smile on her face. A truly genuine smile. Teagan gently laid a hand over her and closed her eyes. If she died out here, so would Sihil. Teagan would make it to Whitebreeze Keep before she judged herself. The journey couldn't be that much longer... she had read the old man's note to the last. She was on the last step.

"Good night, Sihil."

At the mention of her name, Sihil stirred from her sleep just long enough to see Teagan lay her head down on the soft grass.

"Good night." she replied in her own language, before burying her head in Teagan's soft skin and dreaming of a delicious meal.

~

Icaria silently sneered as she watched the giantess drift off to sleep. Firkon hadn't been lying: she really had a human companion. Icaria was disappointed at the idea someone would stray so far from the First Emperor's teachings as to befriend one of the sworn enemy, but figured that she would be able to make an example of the girl soon enough. Icaria was alone, having tracked the giantess to see exactly what she was dealing with. She was tempted to go and kill them both while they were asleep, but her orders were to explicitly let Firkon take credit, and she wasn't about to defy an order any time soon. That being said, if Firkon wasn't up to the task... Icaria would savor a chance to go up against such a foe. It would be a glorious fight, but not one that Icaria would lose. Not by a longshot.

She could clearly tell that the giantess wasn't normal. If the pile of dead giants only a few leagues back was any indication, this one was a mage indeed, and a powerful one at that. Icaria felt disgust well up in her heart as she continued looking at the person under the giantess' bosom, sleeping soundly as if there was nothing wrong. Such a vile relationship needed to be ended, or better, exploited, before word spread beyond Firkon's men. Once people started humanizing the giants, the First Emperor's decade-spanning plan would go up in flames. Icaria figured that the situation was perhaps more serious than she originally thought, and briefly pondered reporting back to Agopolis to consult her liege about these developments. Icaria thought about assassinating the human and leaving the giantess alive, but it would be too risky to attempt such without killing the giantess as well. Perhaps she would be granted a reprieve from following orders in such a dire situation...

No, no, no! she thought, repressing the urge to curse aloud. She had gotten this far following instructions to an exact, and knew that she invited misfortune if she took such a brazen risk. The time would come, but now was not it. Icaria had come, she had witnessed, and now it was time for her to go before she gave into this irrational impulse. She knew that when she returned, the giantess would be gone. While she alone might be able to travel here and back in only a few hours, the same could not be said for Firkon's army, laden with cumbersome giant-slaying tools and weapons as it was. If she just killed the giantess now, surely nobody else would find it before they returned, right? She just had to talk Firkon into accepting the credit, and surely that couldn't be too difficult. The man wasn't exactly a glory hound, but Icaria had faith that she could spin the story in a way that would make him think that he was partially responsible for helping Icaria kill the giantess enough, responsible enough to share in the glory.

"Shit!" Icaria cursed as quietly as she could. She was losing focus. She wasn't going to disobey her command. She was going to follow through with the objective, and that was to let Firkon lead the hunt, not to take matters into her own hands. Icaria growled to herself as she jogged back towards the town Firkon was still camped in. Even if she couldn't see the giantess dead just yet, she still had to deal with the pompous whelp Selceus and his slave giants, who would no doubt want to see Firkon dead. While it was true that Icaria's primary objective was to see Firkon rise to fame, she was also instructed to strike at the Selcenians with every opportunity she had. Their foolish boy king, Selceus III, had the audacity to proclaim himself successor to the First Emperor just as his predecessors did. Worse still, he incorporated mindquelled giants in his armies, something that would prove problematic to seeing the First Emperor's plan through. 

Icaria found herself thinking of the scene she arrived to when she came to visit Firkon. Corpses and wounded still littered the battlefield nearly a day after the giantess had departed, and countless bloodstains signalled where more bodies were once strewn, now laid to rest in unmarked graves. While she had immediately recognized that the Selcenian army was composed of ill-equipped recruits, Icaria still knew that this would be a devastating blow to Selcenian morale. If she could get the giantess to attack the Selcenians again, this time with Volkhard out of the way and Firkon ready to mop up whichever side survived... she might just be able to kill two birds with one stone.

~

Andronikos winced as Selceus hurled a goblet at him, striking him in the arm and splattering him with fragrant wine.

"You are a fool and a milksop, you bastard child of a whore and an ass! You attack a diplomatically neutral force instead of consulting me? You send one of our mindquelled giants in alone, without a controller? Very troubling! What concerns me most, however, is the fact that you somehow STILL LOST! What manner of cretin are you, capable as you are of making such an imbecilic blunder?"

"Your Lordship, there was nothing I could do! They had two giant-" Andronikos pleaded.

"Maybe if you didn't send yours in to die like the blasted fool you are, you'd have a chance to see yourself victorious, hmm? Perhaps you were not beaten enough as a child, given you are a fatherless bastard! I should have your head on a pike for this! You had best be thankful for the rest of your days that I am as merciful as I am to a cowardly dimwit such as yourself."

"Thank you for your mercy towards this undeserving lout, your Lordship." Andronikos capitulated, bowing as low as he could manage, "I will not fail you again, I swear it upon my life, no matter how worthless it may be." He was in no position to contest the words of the Basileus, no matter how harshly they were put. 

"We will see about that, Andronikos, but you had best be right for your own sake. I am revoking your status as one of my Ten Generals, and formally relegating you under the command of Strategos Komnas. Perhaps serving under the command of another general will help you learn what it takes to hold such a venerable position."

"W-wait, what?!" Andronikos exclaimed, caught by surprise, "My Lordship, that position among the Ten was granted to me by your father! I have faithfully served your line for too many winters to count!"

"I am not my father, and you would do well to remember that. I will give you a chance to redeem yourself, however. The Orestians, the ones you attacked - I want you to keep them silent. I don't care how you do it, I just want an absolute guarantee that they won't report our, no, your attack on them back to someone who might raise issue. You are extremely lucky, Andronikos: I have been in contact with the Satrap of the province their force comes from, and I have received word that all Orestian forces in the area have been called back. That means that as far as the Orestians know, this army is already miles away from here, marching back towards Orestion... so if you get rid of our problem here, they'll never suspect us. I will be granting you a sizeable force of hardened veterans, some drawn from among my own hetairoi, to accomplish this goal. I already feel as if this is a mistake, but I will put my faith in you one last time."

"Yes, your Lordship. It will be done." Andronikos answered.

"Good. If it isn't, and Orestion gets wind of this, I will make no effort to protect you from whatever fate they deem appropriate for a halfwit such as yourself. Am I clear?"

"Yes, your lordship."

"Very good! Now get out of my sight, you ignoramus. I'd find a pile of bird droppings more appealing to look at than your vacuous head."

Andronikos scurried out of the Basileus' tent, eager to drown his frustrations in wine. Selceus was harsh with his words, perhaps, but he had given Andronikos a chance to redeem himself, a chance Andronikos had no expectation of receiving after hearing of his demotion. He was determined to succeed, and he knew that there was only one way to be sure that the Orestians stayed silent. 

Teagan rose from sleep just as the sun was starting to push its way above the horizon, bathing the harsh landscape in a beautiful golden light. The aching of her wounds reminded Teagan of the events of the prior day, how she had gone from fighting alongside Hannah to killing her brother, not to mention the rest of her comrades. Teagan cracked a faint smile as she felt Sihil shift slightly on her breast, the tomkin’s meagre weight a comforting reminder of mutual trust. Trust, perhaps, and not friendship, but it was closer to friendship than Teagan had been in years.

“Hey. Wake up. We’re about to get moving.” Teagan said, putting a hand next to Sihil for the tomkin to clamber on to.

Teagan watched patiently as Sihil pushed herself into a sitting position and rubbed her half-closed eyes with a fist. She slowly but surely rolled over onto Teagan’s palm, sprawling out on her hand as one would lay down on a mattress after a long day, splaying her limbs out and falling back into a light sleep.

Teagan wasn’t so gentle when she grabbed her box, lifting it from the ground and preparing to attach it to her belt. As she started to pick it up, however, she was struck with a nasty surprise: the box was light, far too light to actually be holding any captives. Teagan lifted the lid, and sure enough, the box was empty. Not a soul from those dozens she captured remained. 

Teagan bit her lip until it grew white, suppressing the urge to smash the box under her fist, a feat of which she was sure she was now easily capable. There were no holes in the box, no aperture through which the captives within could have possibly escaped save the opening at the top… which was, as Teagan only now realized, already unlatched before she opened the box. Normally leaving the box unlocked was of no consequence, given a tomkin couldn’t even reach the lid from within, let alone lift it, but with the number of soldiers she had stuffed inside, they’d likely been able to boost each other high enough to force the lid open and vault over the side.

If that was the case, Teagan decided, it was best to get on the move. She was on the last leg of her journey, she just needed to keep heading in the same direction until she hit… well, something. Teagan wasn’t quite sure what to expect of Whitebreeze Keep. Was it a sprawling city? A massive stronghold? A dingy, wall-enclosed slum? She’d heard rumors of all three and many more descriptions, each more conflicting and unreasonable than the last. All she knew was that anything beat having to starve for days on end.

Teagan, with a huff, started to stand up. She’d barely lifted her thigh off of the damp grass before a shooting pain coursed through the right side of her body, originating at the crossbow wound given to her by Wulfric. Teagan fell back to the ground with a pained cry, waking Sihil up.

“Shit, sorry.” Teagan apologized, tentatively beginning to unravel the bloodstained cloth wrapped around the wound. She was relieved to see that the wound wasn’t festering or badly infected, a predicament that would likely prove fatal in the desolate shrublands surrounding the area, but it wasn’t looking much better either. The wound was still open, and even the slightest amount of movement would cause it to sting with eye-watering intensity.

Teagan, for the first time since she left her home, began to cry. It started off quiet, a tear sliding down her cheek, a pang of regret for the sorrow she caused juxtaposed with her intense internalized hatred of the tomkins who took everything from her. Sihil watched concernedly as Teagan’s chest began to heave and her breathing became ragged as she began to have a breakdown, her long-repressed emotions now exploding outwards in a wave of sadness.

Sihil, shimmying slowly and carefully up Teagan’s arm, made her way up to the shoulder, and from there, wrapped her arms as far around Teagan’s neck as she could manage. For so long she had despised Teagan, and there was no doubt that some part of her still did, but was it not the same for Teagan towards her? In seeing Teagan at her most vulnerable, Sihil realized that every shred of feeling she had for the giantess was reciprocated, fondness and hatred alike.

Teagan, who had buried her face in her knees, looked over to Sihil as she felt the girl give her the closest approximation to a hug one could give at her size. Teagan could feel the tomkin’s heartbeat, the rhythm of her breathing, the softness of her hair, and smiled. She was still crying, but through the grief, she was able to feel genuine compassion.

For a fraction of a second, they were as one. Hatred and love danced in their hearts, two lives defined by a past loss, a present of uncertainty, and a future of hope. Maybe it was some inexplicable part of the strange magic permeating Teagan’s very being that let them grow so close. Maybe it was the grief-stained parallel of their lives. Maybe it was just the glimmering light of love in the darkest of times. Neither of them knew, and neither cared. All that mattered to them was that instant of singular being in which the evils of the world felt, for the briefest of moments, held at bay.

And as soon as it happened, it ceased. Teagan slouched even further down, looking wistfully to the rising sun.

“I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve any of this.” 

Teagan looked quizzically to her side when she felt Sihil stiffen and retract her arms before stumbling back and nearly falling off of Teagan’s shoulder. She quickly brought her hand up to catch Sihil, and she ended up falling into a sitting position back on Teagan’s palm. Teagan noticed that her expression was one of shock, and wondered what might be the problem.

“Teagan…” Sihil said, looking at her with wide eyes and a stoic face, “I don’t believe it. You just… did you just talk to me? A full, coherent sentence, not in your language, but in mine?”

Teagan gaped. Sihil had spoken to her with clarity and pronunciation good enough that she could pass for a high-pitched human to any listener.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?! When did you… holy hell! I can’t believe this!” Teagan exclaimed, lowering Sihil gently to the ground and rubbing the tears from her eyes, “It’s not me who’s speaking your language, no! You’re speaking mine!”

“I… I am? Oh. Oh, uhm, wow. I am, aren’t I? How… I, I don’t understand what’s happening, but, wow…” Sihil trailed off, at a loss for words.

“I, uhm, I suppose I have a lot of explaining to do.” Teagan started, bowing her head almost ashamedly, “A lot of things I can’t explain have been happening to me recently, so I’m not even going to question this. For all I know, none of this is even happening, and you don’t understand what I’m saying, but… I’m going to take this opportunity to apologize. I know, now, I KNOW an apology isn’t even close to what you deserve: you deserve safety, comfort, happiness, LOVE, things that I’ve denied you by taking you with me on this journey. I can’t make that up to you. The things I’ve done to you, the things I’ve done to others to torment you, I can’t undo that no matter how much I wish I could.”

“I… I just want to know why, then - why would you do such horrid things?” Sihil asked, her voice wavering.

“As much as I want to say it, I’m not just going to tell you I was a different person then. I’m the same person who did all of that, and I still feel that wretched anguish that drove me to such cruelty burning inside me, smouldering until it can flare up again. I hated you, your kind, for the longest time, and part of me still does. These lands, all of them, they used to belong to us. At least, that’s what I was told. I never traveled far from my home, but my father told me that there were once great kingdoms out here, proud nations of proud people who lived a real life with a real home. That was taken from me, well, not by you, but by your forebears. From the day I was born, I was told to hate you. Blame you for all that I lacked. View you as an uncompromising evil, and nothing more. Maybe I would have rejected such notions sooner, if it weren’t for the fact that my village was destroyed by your armies. My father died and the rest of my family was scattered, never to reunite again. That’s what solidified my fear into hate, hate that I later exacted on those undeserving of it. It’s painful, though, and part of me still wants to justify what I did by saying that this is what they get for living in land that never belonged to them.”

“Wow… I, I’m sorry, that’s terrible, what happened to you… but there’s something I ought to explain to you. You know as well as I do that these lands aren’t our home. We’re foreigners to this landscape, forced here by circumstance beyond our control. I’ve been told of an Old Land, a world of features far less giantesque, the place from which our forebears came. I don’t know much else, but anyone alive now is probably descended from those first few that entered this place in search of a new life of freedom. We didn’t choose this. We never wanted this meagre existence, constantly living in fear. I can never forget what you did, Teagan… I can never forget the screams, the blood, the sorrow… but I can forgive. I forgive you.”

“Sihil…” Teagan breathed, bringing a closed hand to her mouth, “Thank you. You’ve probably been wondering why I haven’t killed you yet, haven’t you? Hell, even I didn’t know why I kept you with me for the longest time. Heh. Least I can do is tell you why, or at least try. I, um, I guess from the start, watching you, I felt like there was something different about you. You were so stoic, so resilient, and I wanted to break you. I wanted you to suffer just like I had, and I - gods, saying this to you makes me feel even worse about it, I’m so sorry - I wanted to make you watch as others died. Then… I guess I grew close to you. I regretted what I did. I couldn’t let you go, same as anyone else, given that you could have led an army back to me for all I know. I guess that brings me to the next part… do you want me to let you go?”

Sihil froze. She wasn’t expecting this.

“I’ve done so much, and this is the least I can do to repay you.” Teagan continued, “I don’t want you to suffer any more. I can’t undo what I’ve done, but, well, I don’t think you’d rat on me, and even if you do, it’s not like I don’t deserve whatever comes next. So, um, I guess it’s safe for me to ask… do you want me to leave you at the next city I come across? I’m pretty sure there’s still an army on my trail, so they’d probably be able to help you get back to your home. So, uhm, is this goodbye, or…?”

“No.” Sihil replied, without hesitation, “No. I can’t go back. They want to kill me.”

“I’m sorry?” Teagan asked, incredulous.

“They think I’m collaborating with you. Helping you, though I don’t see what they even think I could be doing for you… one of the men you took captive, the one that threw a sword at your eye and escaped?”

“Hmmph. I remember him.”

“He would have killed me in there given enough time, I think. His name is Firkon, and he’s the one that’s been leading the army hunting you down.”

“That’s right…” grumbled Teagan, “I remember seeing him when I got ambushed while sleeping. Thank you for saving me then, by the way. I, well, I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for you. I’m still not sure why you even bothered saving my life there, but I guess if you thought this Firkon fellow wanted your head, that might be it, eh?”

Sihil nodded.

“You know, sometimes, I still think that I should have let them kill you there, even if I died along with you. So many lives would have been saved, were it not for my cowardice… sorry, sorry, I wouldn’t do that now, it’s just-”

“No, I understand.” Teagan replied, shaking her head, “You were right to think that. I’m not going to say I was wrong in doing what I did to the soldiers who attacked me, but, well, I had no right to take my sorrow out on innocent townsfolk. So, um, if you don’t want to leave… does that mean you’re going to stick with me?” Teagan asked, trying not to let her tone reflect her exuberance at the prospect.

“It does! Teagan… back there, last night, I never would have guessed that you would’ve done what you did for me. You risked your life for mine. You killed, killed others of your own kind, in my defense. The first time, with that man with the knife, I thought you were only doing to save yourself, but… what he did to me, no, I knew that you did it for me… so thank you for that. It feels a bit strange thanking you for killing someone, but, well, it seems maybe I’ve spent enough time with you that such a thing isn’t so much of a ghastly prospect to think about.” 

Teagan shook her head and chuckled.

“It’s just all so infuriating, in a way. Why should some people be given such power over others? Were we all of the same stature, would we perhaps come to terms instead of degrading into such needless bloodshed? I, uh, I guess we’ll never know, huh? Still though, um,  in case I can’t talk to you come tomorrow morning, I want you to know something. I figure I might never get another chance to tell you, so what’s to lose, right?”

“Well, what is it? I don’t think there’s much you could say that would take me aback at this point, given the things I’ve already seen you d-”

“I love you, Sihil.” Teagan interrupted, “I love you like I would my own family, were it that I ever saw them again. I can’t tell you why. I can’t tell if you feel even slightly the same way towards me. I just feel… calmer, more at peace, more content, at least when I’m around you. That’s a feeling I had before I even got to talk to you… phew, I’m glad I got to say that. If you think I’m a fucking psycho again, I won’t blame you. I’ve tortured you, for heaven’s sake. I-”

“No, no, it’s alright.” Sihil replied, pausing to nestle herself between Teagan’s legs, “You took an arrow to the leg for me. You can say whatever you want, and to be honest, well, I think I might feel the same way towards you.”

“Really?!” Teagan squealed, her face lighting up with pure joy.

“Yeah! Yeah, I think so. It makes equally little sense, but you’ve been kinder to me than many of my own kin, as strange as that sounds. I was just going to be one face, another tiny soul in the millions upon millions that inhabit this place. Expendable. Forgettable. Unknowable, and destined to live a meaningless life, doing nothing that hadn’t been done before. Now, though… well, I don’t think many have been as close to a giant as I have and lived to tell the tale, physically, or, um, otherwise. So yes, Teagan, I… I love you too.”

“I… I don’t believe it.”

Teagan whirled around at the sound of the man’s voice. Volkhard, at the size of a tomkin, stood only a few paces behind her, eyes wide with fascination. He had dropped his weapons to the ground, and was, Teagan rightfully assumed, astounded at the sight of her talking with Sihil.

“Do I need to beat the hell out of you again?” Teagan grumbled, trying not to betray any hint of concern. She was in no condition to take him on, given that she wasn’t even able to stand.

“No, no, no, I’m not here to fight you. I’m not even allowed to, apparently. Something I don’t quite understand is going on, and whether you realize it or not, you’re at the center of it. Someone very nasty wants to see you killed, someone who I don’t think even you could handle.”

“We’ll see about that, but I’m not about to worry about some ambiguous figure I know nothing about. What’s far more perplexing to me is why you’d sneak up behind me just to blow your cover with a cliche line.”

“Who is it?” Sihil asked, unable to see over Teagan’s outstretched leg. Teagan looked down and pursed her lips.

“It’s, um… well, see for yourself.”

Teagan gently scooped Sihil up in her left hand and raised her up so that she could see Volkhard. Sihil gasped and turned back to look at Teagan.

“Another human! That speaks your language?! And you know them too?” Sihil exclaimed, looking back and forth between Volkhard and Teagan.

“Well, assuming you mean small person when you say human, not quite, but for the most part, yes. We’re… acquainted.” Teagan added the last part on begrudgingly, scowling at Volkhard as she did so.

“Yes, yes, it’s a long story.” Volkhard said, “I’m sure your story is equally as long… I’d be pleased to talk it over with you when there’s time, but right now, there isn’t. I’m sorry, what’s, um, your name? Girl, er, in Teagan’s hand?”

“I’m Sihil. Sihil of Alephasia.” Sihil warily responded, smiling just a bit forcedly, “I don’t suppose we’ve met?”

“No, we haven’t, but I’ve heard about you from a certain Legate that has a somewhat foul impression. But, in any case, with a name like that, you’re an Orestian, aren’t you? If that’s the case, you probably know about Icaria the Younger, right?”

Sihil winced as soon as the name left Volkhard’s lips, and nodded slowly.

“Well, she’s coming after your friend here, and there’s not much time before she gets here, with Firkon’s army at her back. I was sent here to just scout the area out and see if you’re still here, but, well, after witnessing what I just did, let’s say I don’t want you two dead, at least, not yet. Firkon demanded to stop and investigate the pile of dead giants a little ways back - impressive handiwork if I do say so myself, Teagan - but that won’t stop him for long. Icaria seemed certain that you’re here, and surely enough, here you are. You’d best be getting out of here as fast as you can.”

Teagan looked down to Sihil, who seemed to be quite distraught at such news. She wondered how dangerous one tomkin could possibly be that her name instilled such fear in Sihil, but she assumed that if even Volkhard was wary of her, then this Icaria was nobody to be trifled with.

“Slight problem with that.” Teagan said, glancing at her wounded leg, “I can’t quite walk. If you could be a dear and do the whole healing thing on me, that’d be greatly appreciated.”

Volkhard groaned, looked behind him as if to check if anyone was in pursuit, and then stalked grumpily forward.

“I cannot believe I’m doing this.” he muttered, clambering onto Teagan’s injured leg. Teagan winced but kept quiet as one of his boots dug into the exposed flesh, causing it to sting.

“I can’t heal this whole thing, but I can try and knit some of the muscle together. It’ll heal a bit faster, bleed less, and most importantly, you’ll be able to walk with much less pain… not to say it won’t still hurt a lot. I’d do more, but I don’t want Icaria to know I healed you… I think she’d kill me on the spot. This is going to hurt, by the way.”

Teagan barely had time to give Volkhard a quizzical glance before a sensation akin to a red hot poker embedded itself in her flesh, perhaps even more painful than the crossbow bolt that caused the wound in the first place. The pain lasted much more briefly, however, and as soon as it had exploded into being, it began to fade away. With a grunt of exertion, Teagan pushed herself up to her knees, and then from there to her feet. She limped over to her bag, seized it from the ground in the hand that wasn’t holding Sihil, and then looked back to Volkhard.

“I don’t understand you. One day you’re trying to murder me, and the next you save my life. We’re still on for that duel though, right?”

“Right.” Volkhard said, “I just don’t want someone else killing you, eh? I’ll be seeing you, then. I’d best be leaving myself anyhow - I’ve got to go tell Icaria that you weren’t here.”

With that, Volkhard and Teagan parted ways, Volkhard doubling back and Teagan continuing onwards. Once Volkhard was out of sight, Sihil looked up at Teagan.

“Who was that? You said he tried to kill you?”

“Yup!” Teagan exclaimed, beaming, “His name’s Volkhard. Fellow’s rather crazy, or so I thought, but it he was awful nice to us just then. I nearly killed him, oh, no more than a day and a half ago. Hell of a good fighter, even at your size.”

“Woah. That was Brother Volkhard.” Sihil said, “This is quite a strange day, and it’s barely even begun.”

“The area was empty, but there’s no doubt she was there. The grass was flattened in a broad imprint, so I can only assume she slept there the night before. We can’t be too far behind.”

Icaria nodded. Volkhard tried his hardest to keep a neutral, inexpressive countenance, somehow feeling that Icaria could and would easily see through his lie. After a few seconds of staring him down, however, she nodded contendently and turned around.

“Thank you, Volkhard. Perhaps I can trust you after all… maybe I’ll put in a good word with my master. You’d want to be on his good side.” Icaria paused, looked at the marching troop column behind her, and raised her voice to a call that carried over the army’s dogged march, “ Firkon! Laeron! We need to talk logistics. Come here, if you would!”

Volkhard watched as Firkon jogged to the head of the marching column of soldiers, followed hastily by a flustered and strangely out of breath Laeron. Icaria, once the two were walking alongside her and Volkhard, began to speak with them.

“Firkon, you’ve got more experience handling an army than I do. How long do you think the men can keep marching?” 

Firkon shrugged.

“These are a tenacious lot. I’d wager we could continue until nightfall at this pace, perhaps even well into the night if we slow down a bit or give the men a few breaks. That being said, I have my doubts about whether we can outpace the giantess…”

“She’s wounded, I believe.” Volkhard replied, raising a finger, “She’ll likely be slower than usual. Giants as a whole also lack our endurance, given their proportionally greater frames. We certainly can catch up to her, but the issue is not whether we can reach her, but whether we can do so before she reaches the Selcenian border. Even ignoring the skirmish of the prior day, we’ve got an entire Q’thumani scouting party among our ranks.”

“Not to mention the finest giant hunter in the city!” Laeron added, winking at Volkhard.

“Don’t worry about me. If she enters Selcenian territory, she’s free to slaughter as she pleases, given the fact that the Selcenian army is camped back at Pylis Pass in Q’thumani territory. If she continues past Selcenian lands, she’ll wind up at Agopolis.”

“Agopolis?” Firkon stammered, eyes wide.

“Indeed.” Icaria responded, her gaze darkening, “The greatest of cities. The beacon of civilization. The finest gem of the First Emperor’s crown. Normal giants daren’t set foot close to the towering walls and great oxybelai bolt throwers of the grand city, but this one… we all saw the slaughter she committed upon her own kin. Every soldier here has seen her thirst for blood, the pleasure she takes in murder and suffering, and the speed with which she kills. We do not know what the true extent of her power is, and it is best we never know. She must die before she reaches Agopolis.”

Volkhard nodded along with Icaria, but he couldn’t help but notice Laeron casting occasional glances his way, glances that betrayed an emotion Volkhard couldn’t quite understand, but one that he found worrisome. Volkhard gave no indication that he noticed Laeron’s suspicious behavior as he continued walking forwards with Icaria.

“So what do you propose we do when we reach her?” Volkhard queried, wondering what Icaria’s plan was.

“Well, we’re not slogging these ballistae along for nothing, are we? We’ll pepper her with bolts, all laced with a special concoction of mine. It won’t kill her outright, but it’ll knock her out long enough for us to slit her throat. I don’t imagine that all or even most of our shots will hit, so I’d rather not count on hitting a vital point. A tranquilizing poison is effective all the same whether the bolt bearing it strikes the head, the foot, or anything between.”

“And if she reaches the Selcenian border before us?” Firkon asked, looking back at his force. He didn’t want any more men to die at the hands of men. This was never the point of the expedition.

“We forge onwards. If we’re apprehended, we capitulate, and hope both mine and Volkhard’s presence is enough to convince them that we’re truly hunting the giantess. Of course, we may never meet any Selcenian forces at all… we’re very deep in the wilderness right now. I’m not sure if there are any settled towns ahead for days… little more than grass lives in this plain, and even that only occurs in intersticed patches. I just hope we can get to her before she stumbles across anyone else… I have her figured out, you know. The senseless slaughter, even once she’s had her fill of flesh… she leaves no survivors.”

“By the First Emperor, I pray nobody else is hurt. This has gone on long enough. How many must die for the perpetuation of one wretched  life? First humans, now other giants as well… this one scares me.” Firkon dejectedly mumbled, looking at the horizon ahead.

~

Theodosia leaned on her pike as she surveyed the rolling hills. She’d been stationed here as soon as hostilities between Q’thuman and the Empire commenced, and hadn’t seen even the slightest amount of action. She’d barely even seen the odd traveler or two trekking across the hills, given how desolate the area. She couldn’t complain, of course - she was still being paid a soldier’s wage, after all - but some part of her longed to see the world beyond the Empire’s desolate borders, to campaign under the banner of a general instead of sitting in a border outpost.

“Hey, what’s the matter? You seem down. Anything on your mind?” 

Theodosia turned around and shook her head. Rhaea was a new recruit, and technically her subordinate, but the two had given up the pretense of stiff, soldiery dialogue, driven to companionship by the lonesome frontier’s lack of other varieties of engaging activity.

“Just a bit tired. Tired of being an Akrites, that is. We could be out there, fighting, making heroes of ourselves, you know? It’s not like a city-state is going to raid the borders of our Empire, and even if it for some reason did, I doubt they’d pass at this point. There’s little more than a handful of scattered farming villages around here.” Theodosia remarked, gesturing with her free hand at the empty expanse that lay in all directions.

“Yeah, well, personally, I find that boredom is a lot less scary than getting killed.” Rhaea retorted, clapping Theodosia on the shoulder, “Three warm meals a day, no marching, a roof over our heads, and a flashy uniform that we get to keep!”

Theodosia chuckled as Rhaea dropped her pike and twirled around in her red dyed linothorax, producing a faint snapping noise as the stiffened linen strips that formed the armor’s skirt clapped against each other.

“You know linothoraces are only outdated by about about, oh, no more than 200 winters, right? This is what soldiers serving under the First Emperor wore, and they’re still giving it to us today! The generals equip us like this because even they make no mistake about the fact that we just aren’t going to be doing anything important.”

“I still don’t see the problem. I know a lot of people who would kill for a chance to get paid to do nothing.”

“Maybe I’m just not explaining it well enough.” Theodosia noted sullenly, “I guess I just want to make an impact on the world. Sitting here watching clouds make their way leisurely across the sky isn’t doing it for me.”

Rhaea shrugged.

“I don’t think killing a handful of Q’thumai soldiers is making that much of a difference either, and besides, what kind of impact is soldiering? It’s all killing, destroying, conquering. If you really want to make an impact on the world, you ought to try to learn to write. Philosophers, poets, archivists, historians, scholars - they all start by learning how to write well. Personally, once I’ve made enough money wasting my days away here, I’m going to apprentice under an engineer.”

Theodosia pondered what Rhaea said. For all the young woman’s bubbly frivolity, she made a good point. Conquests and campaigns only shaped temporary borders, and harmed just as many as they helped. She was in the middle of formulating a response when she heard a shout from atop the garrison’s tower.

“GIANTESS!” screamed the man at the post, drawing the attention of the Akritai towards a rather steep hill on the Q’thumani border.

Theodosia felt her heart quicken as she laid eyes on the approaching figure. She was a giantess, sure enough, wearing clothing that amounted to little more than bloodstained rags. Thick auburn hair covered her face, and everything about her appearance screamed savageness and unrefinement.

Theodosia was utterly taken aback when she saw the giantess talking with a girl, a regular human girl, sitting in the crook of her giant shoulder. The two appeared to be in a somewhat heated argument, indicated by the girl’s angry gesticulating and the giantess’ pursed lips and heavy brow.

Theodosia cringed as the giantess’ eyes flitted over the Akritai outpost and widened, whereupon she pointed at it out to the red-haired girl on her shoulder. Theodosia, who had been watching slack-jawed and paralyzed in terror - she’d never seen a giant before, much less under the pretense of having to fight one - was interrupted when Rhaea shook her by the shoulder.

“Theodosia! Captain! We’ve gotta get out of here!”

“B-but, the ballista, the post, t-the garrison!” Theodosia stuttered, watching as the other Akritai darted inside the barracks’ stone walls. As if that would hold against such a massive creature.

“It doesn’t matter! There’s nothing here to defend! Give the order to retreat an-” Rhaea was interrupted as the shadow of the giantess fell over them. In only a few seconds, the giantess had closed the seemingly significant gap between herself and the garrison, and now towered over it. Theodosia’s gaze wandered over to the man who first called out the warning, who was now manning the ballista mounted on the tower. He had it trained on the giantess’ throat, but wasn’t making any movements that indicated he intended to fire. Theodosia noticed that his gaze was fixed on the girl sitting on the giantess’ shoulder.

“Can you talk?!” the man cried out, his shaky voice betraying his confusion and fear.

“I can! Hold your fire, please!” the girl responded, raising her hands in a yielding gesture. The giantess, seeing her companion do this, did the same, raising her hands to the sky. Theodosia figured she could level the tower with no more than a few swings from such arms, 

“My name is Sihil, and this here is Teagan. We are just travelers, hungry and tired.” the girl continued, “if you could furnish us with food - as much food as you can spare - we could repay you. Teagan?”

On the girl’s cue, the giantess reached into a deep pocket on the side of her immense backpack and pulled out a tiny (relative to the hand of a giantess) handful of something. She gently deposited the contents of her hand on the ground in front of Theodosia, who didn’t dare to move an inch throughout the whole process.

Theodosia felt greedy excitement overtake her fear as she beheld what the giantess had set in front of them.

Intricately decorated treasures, enough to purchase a small manor, lay scattered at her feet. Golden goblets inlaid with emerald cabochons, silver plates etched with breathtaking artistry, bronze-faced shields painted with Telaphonoi symbols, and countless other treasures of no small value were piled up in a heap at her feet. This was enough to buy all the food in the outpost ten times over.

“C-captain?” Rhaea stammered, staring at the treasure before them, “I don’t think we ought to make her wait for her food.”

This easily went against every bit of instruction Theodosia had been given when it came to dealing with giants. Asander, the man on the ballista, had a clear shot at the unmoving giantess, one that he should have by all rights taken long ago. Of course, she’d never have assumed that a giant would ever try to bargain with her, much less bribe her with the aid of a translator riding on her shoulder, and Theodosia couldn’t imagine that any of the other Akritai had dealt with anything even remotely similar either. That being said, if anyone else found out about this, the treasure would be confiscated, and the most severe punishment would fall on her, given that she was the Captain of the outpost.

Theodosia looked down, took a deep breath, waited for her quickened heart to pace itself as normal, and after that looked back up to Sihil and Teagan.

“That’s not something I can do. I’m sorry, I really am, this is extraordinary, but you’re going to need to look elsewhere for your food. We aren- um, can’t sell food to a giant. No matter the price offered.”

Theodosia could feel the eyes of the other Akritai boring into her back. Even if they split the treasure among their twenty strong garrison, each would walk away with a prize amounting to far more than a year’s wages. She’d have to explain her reasoning to them afterwards if she didn’t want a mutiny on her hands.

Sihil sighed discontentedly and shrugged.

“Well, I can’t say that I didn’t try. You’re honestly lucky I got her to go along with this plan as far as she did.”

“Wait, what?” Theodosia asked, secretly wishing that Asander would just take the shot.

“We could have demanded the food, you know, and the worst part is you probably would have handed it over. We tried to do it nicely, though - ask you, offer ample payment in return, make our neutrality clear - and you would let us starve. We’re taking it all, wheth-”

“Asander, FIRE!” Theodosia shouted, motioning at the giantess with her pike.

Theodosia heard the snapping noise of the massive ballista’s bowstring releasing, sending the iron bolt hurtling at the giantess’ exposed neck.

“There’s nothing I can do to save you now.” the girl on the giantess’ shoulder said, shaking her head pensively, “You’ve gone and killed yourselves.”

Theodosia felt sick with fear. The iron bolt fired by the ballista hovered in the air almost directly in front of the giantess’ neck, surrounded by a faint white aura. The giantess clenched a fist, and the aura faded away, leaving the bolt to drop harmlessly to the ground.

“I’m finding it hard to even feel sorry for you at this point, but even so... this saddens me. I wanted to think that we were not as consumed by blind hate as the giants to see eye to eye. Metaphorically. I hope you know this is on you.” Sihil said, sliding down the giantess’ outstretched arm and onto the palm of her hand. From there, the giantess lowered Sihil to the ground behind her.

Theodosia raised her pike as the giantess’ hand, open wide, swept towards the top of the tower, where Asander was hurriedly reloading the ballista. The rest of the Akritai - save Rhaea, who even now still stood behind Theodosia - were huddled in the outpost, ready to die like cowards. Theodosia was determined to lead by example.

As the giantess smashed the ballista to pieces, Theodosia gave the loudest warcry she could muster and buried her pike in the giantess’ left shin. The giantess yelped and pulled away, but not before Theodosia was able to dislodge her pike from the wound, keeping it from being ripped from her grip. No small amount of blood dripped from the wound, and at the sight of Theodosia landing the first blow, a handful of the other border guards ran out of the outpost, took a loose formation, and attacked. Even Asander, who had fallen from the top of the tower to the ground, had grabbed a sword from the weapon rack and joined in the fight.

Before the giantess even counterattacked, Theodosia knew that it was likely that everyone would die, She ran to the side of Rhaea, who was preparing to fight with everyone else, and leaned close to her ear.

“We’re going to go around. Seize her human friend. Follow me.”

As the fight began, Rhaea and Theodosia sprinted around the giantess, giving her a wide berth, and set their sights on the girl accompanying her, who was sitting on the ground watching the carnage unfold.

Asander, still dizzy from his fall, was the first to die. He missed a swing with his sword, stumbled forwards and fell with the massive weapon’s momentum, and found himself unable to escape as the giantess’ foot descended over him. He didn’t even have time to scream as her titanic weight fell down on him, flattening him into a revolting smear of bloody remains on the sandy soil. Theodosia saw Rhaea stumble and nearly fall as she beheld the man’s horrible death, and pulled her up by the collar of her armor just before she hit the ground.

The two continued to weave through the grass, which was mercifully just tall enough to hide them, but the rest of the border guards were losing heart without their captain to lead them. The giantess was clearly injured and deterred by their heavy pikes, the multiple bloody wounds on her legs attesting well to that, but her legs was all that anyone could reach - without the ballista, there was no way anyone could strike at her vitals. Theodosia heard Rhaea whimper tearfully as another Akrites was snatched up by the giantess, who tore away her armor and dangled her by the legs in front of a mouth so large it could swallow a horse with ease.

“No! Not like this! Please, no, no, no!” she wailed, flailing in the air like a branch in the wind.

There was a faint squelching noise as she was dropped onto the giantess’ tongue, which quickly retracted into her mouth, carrying the terrified guard with it. Rhaea slowed to a stop as she beheld the guard’s arm, still violently flailing and twitching, poke out from between the lips of the giantess, a grim and utterly futile struggle fueled by that primordial instinct for survival.

“Come on! We have to keep moving!” Theodosia fiercely whispered, trying her hardest to block out the slurping noise of the giantess sucking the guard’s arm back into her mouth.

“I… you’re right.” Rhaea responded. The two were now zeroing in on Sihil’s position, but the hardest part was yet to come. The two had to sneak up on the girl and capture her before she could draw the giantess’ attention. Hiding from the giantess was no easy task, but preoccupied with battle as she was, it wasn’t exactly the hardest, either. Theodosia dropped to the ground and began to crawl forth, quickly followed by Rhaea.

The two were able to make good headway as Sihil’s attention was captured by the conflict at hand. One of the guards, an old man by the name of Calmenion, had jabbed his pike in the back of the giantess’ ankle, inflicting an injury so deep that the giantess was brought to a knee. For his courage, the man was pinned down under the giantess’ ankle as she shifted backwards, completely engulfing his body up to his chest. When the giantess evened her weight out, the man’s lower body was ground to shreds. Blood spurted from his mouth as he coughed and gasped for air, his dying moments filled with agony. 

He had not died in vain, however. Sihil, focused intently on the battle at hand, almost disbelieving that Teagan would be threatened even in the slightest amount by such a meager force, was unaware of the two Akritai behind her until it was too late. Sihil gasped for as she was hit in the diaphragm with the heavy haft of a pike, knocking the wind out of her lungs and leaving her sprawled out on the ground.

“Get her attention!” Theodosia shouted, planting a sandaled foot on the girl’s breast and holding a pike to her throat.

“Teagan! Help!” Sihil screamed, immediately seizing the full attention of the giantess, even over the clamor of battle. Upon seeing her accomplice restrained, the giantess’ brow furrowed, and she turned to face Theodosia and Rhaea. She growled something indecipherable, prompting Theodosia to look to Sihil for a translation.

“She… she wants to know what you want from her.” the girl meekly muttered, her haughty confidence gone.

“Tell her that we want to negotiate. We’ll get an army to come apprehend her and you both, and if she moves but a step from that spot, we’ll kill you.”

Sihil dictated this to the giantess, and listened to her response. Theodosia felt her hearts sent as the girl went pale, and instead of translating back to them, shouted something else at the giantess. Theodosia prodded Sihil with her pike, drawing her attention.

“What did she say?”

“She… she doesn’t care what y-you do with me. If you… you kill me, she’ll just kill you back. If you don’t, she’ll just leave.”

Theodosia looked back up to the giantess as she heard a sudden outbreak of screams, and saw that she was grinning wickedly, holding a handful of Akritai squeezed together in one hand. 

“They were the ones hiding in the barracks.” Rhaea breathed, as quietly as she could manage. The giantess said a few more choice words, which where quickly dictated to Theodosia by Sihil.

“S-she says if you let me go, she’ll leave with the cowards, and leave the rest of you. Except… except you two.”

Rhaea and Theodosia exchanged worried glances. It seemed as if they were dead no matter what they did.

“I’m with you to the end… captain.” Rhaea said, tightening her grip on her pike. Theodosia lifted her pike away from Sihil’s neck, but kept her foot down on the girl’s chest.

“Tell her th-” Theodosia began.

She found her words lost to the breeze as a phantom force pulled her and Rhaea into the air, where they hung, suspended by that same power that had stopped the ballista bolt aimed for the giantess’ neck. Theodosia choked up as she realized that she’d failed miserably. She had no power. No strength. No method by which to resist thie fate that awaited her.

Sihil, standing up slowly from where she was pinned down, called out to the two border guards hanging in the air.

“She accepts your surrender!”

Theodosia was helpless as she was pulled into the giantess’ free hand, from wherein she was lowered with horrible delicacy and gentleness into the giantess’ mouth. The damp surface was disgustingly warm, and Theodosia fought with every ounce of strength that she had against the giant woman’s tongue, which threatened to overpower her on its own. To imagine what horrible fate awaited her in the woman’s stomach… Theodosia’s terror manifested as strength, and with a burst of raw power and a shout that left her lungs screaming for air, she managed to force her way back through the giantess’ chapped lips, using her arms to push herself out headfirst. She felt the eyes of all the remaining Akritai on her, knowing well both that they were all watching her struggle and that none were making any more to intervene. Their safety had already been guaranteed - they had no reason to die in vain.

Theodosia, who had been remarkably silent throughout the ordeal, began to scream. She screamed as the vast, sticky tongue she stood upon pulled away, carrying her back into the mouth of the giantess. She screamed as she was inexorably carried down the giantess’ throat, into pitch black darkness from which she was never to return.

Theodosia screamed until she no longer had voice with which to scream, and even when she had neither voice nor mouth nor throat with which to scream, her mind screamed out into the darkness.

No reply came.

~

Laeron was immensely grateful when Firkon gave the order to halt the march; his feet felt as if they were mere steps away from dropping away from his legs, and sweat dripping down from his forehead stung at his eyes. With a huff of breath that burned his lungs as he exhaled it, Laeron dropped to the ground, taking a seat and catching his breath while the other men conversed and dug into their rations. The last few days had been chaotic, confusing, and scary.

“Laeron! Can we talk for a minute?”

Laeron turned around and felt his heart nearly leap into his throat with panic. Volkhard stood behind him, staring at him with an intimidatingly expressionless gaze.

“Oh, uhm, uh, Volkhard! Hello, hello, yes, yes, we can talk. What, um, what’s it that you need from me? If this is ab-”

“When we were talking with Icaria and Firkon, I couldn’t help but notice that you looked nervous. Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything you need to get off your chest?” Volkhard asked, an unfamiliar edge to his normally warm voice.

“Well, there’s… there’s nothing, really. I’m just nervous about finally fighting the giantess, I suppose.” Laeron said, his smile too broad, his speech too quick, his eyes unable to meet Volkhard’s gaze.

“Ah. I can imagine why you’d be nervous, especially after witnessing the way she slaughtered those Selcenians… but we’re better trained and better equipped than them. We can do this, don’t worry. That being said...”

Volkhard rested a hand on Laeron’s shoulder, and felt the young man shirk away from him.

“...I know when someone is lying to me. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you? I’ll just ask again: is there anything else troubling you?”

Laeron trembled under the giant hunter’s gaze, and Volkhard was fairly certain he knew why the young tracker was so confoundedly silent.

“Laeron, if you think I’m going to do anything to you, please relax. I don’t care what it is, I swear that I’m not your enemy. You’re clearly hesitant to tell me something, and, well, I think I might have an idea of what it is. Let’s discuss this rationally, shall we?”

“I saw you. I saw you talk with her and I saw her talking with someone else and you healed her, Volkhard, you healed her! I don’t understand anything, I-”

“So you followed me?” Volkhard asked, curious as to why Laeron would be tailing him.

“Well, I, um… yes? I… I kind of wanted to see her. Again.” 

Volkhard shook his head and repressed the urge to chuckle.

“I could not possibly begin to fathom why you’d want to set eyes on a living, breathing, giant woman that has a penchant for devouring people whole. I don’t think she’d take kindly to the notion that she was being spied on. Unless you intended to end up as her next meal, I’d say that following me was a very, very stupid decision.”

“Maybe it was, but that still doesn’t explain why and how you were able to talk to her, or even what you were saying… gods, Volkhard, to think that the First Emperor himself was wrong about the nature of the giants! I saw the girl with her… she’s clearly somewhat sociable.”

“Sociable? What, do you want to make her acquaintance?” Volkhard joked, sitting down next to Laeron.

“You know, maybe I do! What could possibly go wrong? She saved our damn lives, Volkhard, so I don’t think we ought to repay her by killing her. Yes, I understand that she’s a murderer, but have you ever considered what it might be like for her, living in a world where here own kind have been driven to the point of extinction?” Laeron asked heatedly, surprising Volkhard with both his ideas and the conviction with which he delivered them.

“First of all… yes, Laeron, I have, more than you could EVER imagine. I was alive before their kind collapsed completely, alive to see the last vestiges of their civilization, and I know that they face now. Hell, more than that, I’m a part of what they face. I’ve killed them all, young and old, man and woman, strong and feeble.”

“Well, unless you plan to talk Teagan to death, you surely aren’t killing her from what I can tell.” Laeron retorted, grinding his heel into the sandy earth.

“Oh, don’t you worry, I plan to kill her, and she’s more than aware of that. You, on the other hand… I doubt even the gods know what you intend on doing, given that you’re apparently comfortable enough with her to refer to her by name. You’re a good kid, Laeron, and Teagan is the kindest giant that I’ve met in years - it’s a relative sort of thing - but don’t think for a second that she wouldn’t kill you to preserve her secrecy, even if you came with me. The entire reason she’s been so adept at evading us is that she so often leaves no survivors.”

“Volkhard, I… I know this is going to sound insane to you, but, well, I don’t think you’re in any position to judge me, so here goes; I’m enamored with her. Head over heels, since the moment I first saw her.”

“You’re kidding me.” Volkhard wheezed out a quiet laugh, absolutely unprepared as he was for Laeron’s statement.

“I wish I was, I really do, but I’ve never found love among humankind. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of sleeping around, but I’ve never felt the heat of passion that so many others seem to relish, at least, not with any of those I’ve yet spent the night with. But Teagan, she… she’s beautiful, breathtaking, stunning, and somehow, her ruthlessness and strength only adds to that appeal for me.”

“You’re in over your head, Laeron. She could crush you underneath a palm, for pity’s sake! Between the fact that you’d need a translator for every word you speak and the far more problematic issue that you’d have to somehow convince her not to snap you up for a light snack, I think you’re miles out of your league. That being said, if you’re so passionate about the damn thing, I can’t really stop you… I absolutely do think you’re crazy, but I have the feeling that if I don’t let you come with me when I next see her, you’d end up doing it yourself and winding up a bloody stain under some obscene part of her.”

“Not a bad way to go, if I do say so myself.”

“Oh, shut up.”

When Rhaea woke up, she saw a light blue sky, dotted with wispy clouds. A faint murmuring noise drifted past her ears as her vision sharpened, the blurriness fading from her eyes. The sun was bright. Painfully bright. Rhaea groaned and shielded her eyes.

The giantess.

She remembered the giantess. The one that pulled into the air with a thought and a gesture. The one who killed Asander, Leto, and Philitas with almost casual effort. The one who took Theodosia and ate her, swallowed her alive, gulped her down like an entertaining morsel; a sight most gruesome and so shocking that Rhaea fainted. She’d heard stories of the giants eating innumerable people whole, but to hear of it from a dramatist was so much less… terrifying.

She’d fainted, though, and that was what was most important to her now. Rhaea assumed that she’d shortly followed Theodosia into the belly of the giantess, a fate which she seemed to have mercifully suffered while unconscious. This beautiful blue sky and distant voices, then.. this could be none other than the Elysian fields themselves, the afterlife for those who had let go of their mortality. What else could it be?

“You’re awake?”

Rhaea lowered her arm, still blocking her eyes from the sun as it was. A man with dark, shapely features, hair blacker than the darkest night, and an unkempt covering of stubble across his well-formed jaw looked over her, a tired expression on his face. Rhaea nodded and mumbled an answer even she couldn’t understand.

“You’re lucky… or maybe unlucky. It depends on whether you value freedom over survival, I guess. Are you hurt?”

“I… I don’t know…”

“That figures, but as far as appearances go, you don’t seem injured. You want to rest some more?” the man asked, backing away. Rhaea didn’t want him to leave. As much as she wanted to drift back into that dark and peaceful sleep that she had just arisen from, this no longer seemed like the afterlife. Rhaea’s desire to figure out her circumstance overpowered her yearning for further sleep.

“Where am I?” Rhaea groggily mumbled, forcing herself up to a wobbly sitting position.

“That’s a question I can’t answer exactly, but it’s not far from where you… must have been captured, I assume. You’re a prisoner now, it seems.”

“A prisoner? You, you don’t mean of the giantess, right?”

“On the contrary,” the man began, pointing behind Rhaea, “I mean exactly that.”

Rhaea turned around and unshielded her eyes. The giantess was lying chest down on the ground not even twenty paces away, her titanic legs swinging idly in the air, each lazy kick forceful enough to send a man flying. She was alive, then, but the man said she was a prisoner; had the giantess actually taken her captive? That seemed to be the only plausible explanation, but it made no sense to Rhaea: what would a giantess with obvious magical powers want with her?

“Why? Do you know why?”

“I wish I did.” the man replied, shaking his head, “I don’t know how long it’s been, but I’ve been her captive for long enough that I’ve lost track of the days. She keeps us like novelties, pets, nothing more than trifles for her to treat as she pleases. If you aren’t dead and aren’t in that horrid box at her waist, well, that’s the fate that awaits you.”

Rhaea closed her eyes for a second, trying to think this new revelation through. A pet. She was a pet? That was no way to live, no way at all. 

“Well, sir, I’m about to go see if I can learn a bit more from the giantess herself. If I end up dying, I hope you’d try and at least do me the honor of pouring out a draught of whatever you happen to drink next to help keep my thirst sated on my way to the afterlife. Before I go, in the case that I live through this… what’s your name, eh? I’d recognize a Q’thumani soldier anywhere! Figure I ought to get to know one of the enemy.”

“The enemy? So you’re a Selcenian, hmm? Didn’t place you for a soldier given your uniform, but I suppose good armor’s getting harder to come by these days. My name’s Hassan, Hassan ibn Jawul. May I ask yours?”

“I’m Rhaea. It’s been a pleasure, Hassan. I feel like I’m far more calm right now than I ought to be, and I’ll probably get hysterical within the next few hours, so I hope you don’t mind if I’m a bit of a pest. I find having someone to rant to in times of crisis makes the stress a bit more manageable.”

“I’m a good listener.” Hassan replied, “It’ll be nice having a new face around. I never was very talkative myself, but company helps ease the burdens of the mind. I’ll be seeing you then, Rhaea, but if you intend to talk to the giantess… you’re going to need help.”

“You mean Sihil, right? The girl that can talk to her?” Rhaea asked, looking around. She didn’t see the girl anywhere.

“I mean her indeed! Did you see her earlier? She’s got an amazing gift… it’s a shame that she insists on using it to aid the one holding her captive.”

“She’s a captive?! Gods above and below, friend, when I first saw her, it seemed to me more like she was working with the giantess! She was a cruel little mouthpiece, to be sure, but not quite as useful as a bargaining chip for my… my late captain. Ah, but that, that’s a story I’m sure we’ve both lived. You know where Sihil is now?”

Hassan pointed over to the giantess, to which Rhaea raised a querying eyebrow.

“In front of her face.” Hassan said, noticing Rhaea’s quizzical glance.

Rhaea looked again, now focusing where Hassan bid her, and surely enough saw two people sitting in front of the face of the giantess, chatting with each other and playing what appeared to be a game of sorts. One of them, a tired-looking woman with a complexion like that of Hassan and with an even sharper profile, noticed Rhaea looking at her. She tapped the person adjacent herself - undoubtedly Sihil, given her slight frame and unmistakably red hair - and pointed at Rhaea, who was walking surprisingly calmly forth. Sihil’s cursory glance at Rhaea in turn drew the attention of the giantess, who settled her gaze on the dazed tomkin as she approached. Finally, standing just a few paces from Sihil, Rhaea stopped.

“Sihil, that’s your name, right?”

Sihil nodded.

“That’s an Orestian name. You must have been stuck with her for a while, eh?”

“I’ve lost count of the days.” Sihil replied, shaking her head solemnly.

“I wish I could help you on that account, but time similarly loses its meaning when you’re hanging around a desolate border outpost for weeks on end… hey, you can, uh, you can talk to her. Could you ask her a question for me?”

Sihil nodded again.

“Can you ask her what she plans on, well, doing with me? I’d at least like to know if she intends to eat me or not. If not, well, why am I even here, huh?”

“You might not like the answer.” Sihil replied, shaking her head.

“I don’t like being ignorant either, you traitorous bitch, so why don’t you just ask her!” Rhaea snapped, inciting a wary glare from the giantess and surprising Sihil with the sudden change in her temperament.

Sihil pouted, clearly distraught by Rhaea’s hostility, and stayed silent for a tense moment before responding to Rhaea in a low, frustrated tone.

“I didn’t mean that in a way I thought you’d find offensive. I’m not your enemy, you know, I’m a captive just like you. I can’t control her actions,” Sihil paused, pointing at the giantess, “but I can absolutely try and influence them. She would have slaughtered you all without warning if it weren’t for me convincing her to try and bargain for food at first. I did nothing to you. You have neither reason nor right to hate me, especially if you’re to call me a bitch and ask a favor of me in the same breath.”

“You watched as she murdered us.” Rhaea growled.

“You attacked first, from what I could tell.”

“Because you demanded our food! It doesn’t matter if you tried to compensate us, we said no and you took it by force!”

“The alternative was her just eating you and saving your food for later. I think we’d all prefer that she eats food to people, hmm?”

“I’d prefer most if she were dead, her and the rest of her brutish kin. I’m sure you’ve had chances to kill her if she values you as a companion… but it seems you really are her companion. I can’t believe anyone would side with a murderer over your own kin, your own brothers and sisters, especially a prisoner! You’re a tool, a mouthpiece, a slave and nothing more to her. It’s already obvious to me. If for some reason you truly do think she cares about you, well, I guess there’s no point in my attempt to reason with you at all. She’s already brainwashed you with her lies.”

“You’re one to talk about lies! You judge her to be a remorseless monster and you’ve not even spoken to her. I’ve lived with her, soldier, and I’ve seen the world through her eyes. I’ve seen death, pain, sorrow, and hatred more than ever before. I’ve seen the ugliness of this wretched world as she has faced it, and I find it all… disgusting. You were born in that hatred, mired in it, and now it drives you forth to spread it with every word you spit at me.”

“I don’t need to speak with her to know I hate her! She ate my captain, ate her alive and whole, and she enjoyed it! You saw her tease the poor woman as she struggled for her life!”

“Your captain tried to kill her for the sin of starving. As I see it, her life was forfeit the moment she gave the order to fight.”

“Gods, the excuses you find to defend this creature are sickening. She delights in murder, and you admitted yourself that you can’t restrain her. I could understand if you didn’t act against her out of fear, but defending her like this to another human? You’re out of your mind! She’s eaten people, and between the number of scars she’s got and the fact that you’ve been with her since she was in bloody Orestion, I’d figure you’ve seen her eat more than a few!”

“I’m sure any one day of your emperor’s pointless war has claimed more lives than she has since the day she first captured me. I’ve come to understand now that we are all ubiquitous, mundane faces in a sea of lives so vast that the death of an individual means nothing.We call it a victory if a hundred soldiers give the lives to kill a single giant.”

“You really are insane, aren’t you?” Rhaea asked, taking a step backwards, “I don’t even know what you’re going on about now. This isn’t about wars, this is about your giantess friend being a killer.”

“Maybe I am losing my mind here, but I’ve seen enough to have figured it all out! The First Emperor’s doctrine, it was not one of benefaction and camaraderie, not in the slightest. Militant destruction of an entire race, the stamping out of insubordination and any who dare try and found their own lives separate from His Empire, the glorification of battle and the rabid instilling of these ideas into all who lives within the confines of civilization; it all adds up to the creation of something terrible.”

“Can you just ask her my question? I really don’t understand what you’re going on about… and I guess I’m sorry for calling you a bitch. You’re not at fault for any of this, and you’re barely even old enough to be considered an adult from the looks of it.”

“That didn’t quite sound like a heartfelt apology of any degree, but I guess I can’t expect it from someone I don’t know. That is. I like to meet people before I condemn them… I’ll drop it for now. Yeah, I’ll ask her your question.”

~

“So, why was she angry at you? It’s not like you had anything to do with her idiot friends getting themselves killed.” Teagan said, watching the tomkin out of the corner of her eye. She was a temperamental one, that was for sure. Maybe just eating her would be for the best, if even Sihil didn’t like her.

“She’s probably just confused, tired, and angry. She thinks you’re a murderer, after all.” Sihil replied, with a shrug, “Which, of course, is to some extent true, but I think I’ve started getting over that.”

“Getting over that?” Teagan asked, incredulous, “That does NOT seem like the kind of answer you’d have for me. Aren’t you the one pushing for me to be more merciful and all?”

“Well, sure, I certainly am, but a little bit of you rubbed off on me, I guess, just as some of me rubbed off on you - gods, I’m not sure I like that phrasing, your language is full of these euphemisms - I don’t think you go out of your way for wanton murder any more. I think there’s goodness in you, and, well, I think that goodness is somewhat exempted when everyone here is an interloper living in a world they stole. Especially when they try to kill you first. On that note, she wants me to ask you a question.”

“Huh. Well, what is it?”

“She wants to know why you elected to keep her alive. Honestly, I’ve kind of been wondering the same thing myself, and I was planning on asking you about it later. Same thing with Aaliyah and Hassan, for that matter, but I suppose that’s a different issue. What should I tell her, in the meantime?”

“Not a lot of tomkins have the gall to sneak right behind a giantess. I guess I took a bit of a liking to her bravery… and you people are beginning to grow on me. Yeah, I admire her bravado, but not enough to let her off the hook for threatening you.”

“Tomkins… where does that name even come from? It sounds childish, in a way. I hate it.”

“I can’t say I’m sure. I’ll let you know if I figure it out, although I doubt that’ll ever happen. Anyhow, you can just tell her what I said about bravery and all.”

“Well…” Sihil began, pursing her lips, “I don’t think she’ll like to hear that you decided to do this to her for threatening me. Specifically, she won’t like me because of it. I think I’ll just leave that part out, if you don’t mind. Say something about you just wanting to make another addition to your list of prisoners to get attached to.”

“Very funny. Just get on with it and tell her whatever you want, will you? She looks pretty impatient. Not that I care what she feels, but hey, I figure you might, so…”

Teagan laid back on the ground as Sihil started to talk with the other tomkin again. The sky was clouded and grey, the wind carried a moist chill, and the air was damp with the petrichorous odor of wet earth. Teagan shivered as she debated whether she should press onwards. It was obvious that it was going to rain, and exposure to such an element in the condition that she was in would be dangerous, and Teagan was well aware of it. On the other hand, travelling in her condition was perhaps equally dangerous, especially if she ended up not escaping the rain anyhow.

Her thoughts were scattered when she heard Sihil yelp. She looked down to see Sihil, mouth agape, drenched in water. As if on cue, a sprinkling of fat raindrops fell on her head, the shower lasting for only a few seconds before dissipating as soon as it came. Teagan wasn’t quite affected, but Aaliyah, Hassan, Sihil, and the new tomkin were all soaked.

“Shit. I didn’t think about you guys..You’ll get waterlogged if I leave you in the bag, and Sihil, I assume you aren’t quite comfortable going back in that box, especially given how it still has, um, residents…”

“Don’t remind me.” Sihil glumly replied, her wet hair hanging limply in front of her downcast face, “That isn’t what I want to remember when I’m freezing to death.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do with you then? You’ll freeze to death if I carry you in the open, and I’m scared I’d hurt you if I kept you all in my hands. I…”

Teagan harrumphed frustratedly and blew a strand of wet hair out of her face. The rain had returned in force, and the tomkins were shivering now, unprotected from the harsh rain.

“I… I have an idea.” Teagan said, hesitantly, looking with pity on the four huddled tomkins at her feet, “Sihil, you’re going first… let me know if this is uncomfortable.”

Before Sihil could ask any questions, Teagan gently lifted her, held her at chest height, and with a deep breath, placed the freezing tomkin in her cleavage.

“God, I can’t help but feel like this is cliche…” Teagan muttered, immediately afterwards unsure what she meant by the remark, “Well, Sihil? Is it, um, tolerable?”

“I-it’s a bit constricting, b-but it’s warm…” Sihil replied, teeth chattering.

“Alright, well, as long as you can breathe, I guess it’s the best I can do. Let’s get everyone else in, then…”

~

Sihil was oddly comforted by Teagan’s softness and the faint rhythm of her heart, but she could tell that not everyone was similarly pleased in that regard. Aaliyah kept sinking down below the surface of Teagan’s chest, and constantly had to push herself up lest she was entirely enveloped in Teagan’s bust. The soldier, her name still as of yet unknown to all, seemed extremely perturbed with Teagan’s choice of where to stow her, and would constantly shift around and mutter dejectedly.

Hassan, comparatively, didn’t seem to mind the situation too much either, as Sihil could tell from the content smile on his face and his half-lidded expression of happiness, but she attributed his happiness to neither warmth nor Teagan’s ever present heartbeat.

Sihil watched as Teagan’s broad but clearly limping strides carried her across the landscape at a rapacious pace, a view made all the more amazing when seen from such a height. Sihil had sat on Teagan’s shoulder before, but even now, the experience of being so high and moving so quickly always felt new.

What was new, however, was the bounciness of the ride. Teagan tightly covered her chest with an arm to help keep everyone still and ensure that nobody managed to slip out, but no amount of compression short of that which would crush the passengers could keep Teagan’s chest from heaving with every breath she took, no matter how slow it was. 

“What’s that?” Hassan suddenly blurted out, struggling to point at something in the distance.

Sihil strained her eyes to look at what Hassan was gesturing towards, but between the driving rain and the constant swaying of her perch, she made out nothing save a rolling green hill.

“I don’t see a thing.” she replied, shrugging, “What do you see?”

“I could have sworn I saw something bright blue peeking out from behind one of those hills, maybe a feather? Perhaps it was a bird. I suppose I have less to fear of them with such an escort as we have, eh?”

Sihil nodded. The deadly creatures that lurked about these lands were likely no more than mundane vermin to the giants. For all the pains of her journeying with Teagan, this was undoubtedly an upside.

“It was probably a bird, yeah.” Aaliyah said, giving Hassan a reassuring nod, “Best not to dwell on such things. Teagan is… more than competent, as we’ve seen. I’m more scared of her than of anything that would attack her, even if she’s trying to defend us…”

Hassan gave Aaliyah’s hand a quick squeeze and shook his head.

“No need to be afraid. If she intended to hurt us any further, she’d have done it by now. Best thing we can do is ride this out and see where it takes us.”

“That isn’t a plan I like to hear, but I guess I understand whAAH!”

Aaliyah shouted in panic as giants wielding an assortment of different weapons ranging from crossbows to giant flame-bladed swords sprang up from behind the hillside. They were dressed in extravagantly vivid colors, their overall palette consisting of bright yellow and deep purple accentuated by indigo feathers in their wide-brimmed, droopy hats.

“Du bizter einer eindringling im diezer landen! Kapituloten so kannster du zalin deiner skuld!” one of them cried out, waving their crossbow threateningly.

“What are they saying?” Aaliyah asked Sihil, eyes wide with panic.

“...Gods, Aaliyah, I have no clue at all. That’s not any language I understand.”

Teagan whirled her head around, eyes wide. She analyzed the situation as quickly as she could manage, but her hope only further shrank away as she saw the situation she was in. This was bad… really, really bad. There were eight of them in total, surrounding her from all sides. Three of them pointed heavy crossbows at her, while the other five clutched swords, ranging in size from an arm’s length to taller than those who wielded them. 

“Sitzer sie aff!” one of the crossbowmen shouted, much to Teagan’s confusion. Whatever language these people were speaking wasn’t one that she understood. 

“I, I’m not sure what you’re saying, do you, um, understand me, perchance? And can you please lower those things? It’s not like I have a weapon!”

Teagan’s ambushers exchanged glances for a quick second before one of them, a handsome man with a robustly bushy blonde beard and a stature to match, piped up in a voice accented similarly to Hannah’s.

“An outlander! Ah, there are no worries, we are all versed in your tongue, my shirtless friend. Where do you hail from? We do not see many visitors in these dark times!”

Teagan, a bit relieved by the man’s joviality, relaxed. Maybe they weren’t bandits after all, and just wanted to make sure Teagan wasn’t one, same as the three knights she encountered with Hannah.

“Oh, that’s a relief. I’m from Dunnehain; it’s a small duchy in the highlands, I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of it.”

“No, no, I know of your home, highlander, and I must say, you are truly far from it! My father did mercenary work in Cill na Naomh, or so I’m told. But enough of that, hmm? If all goes well, we’ll be on our way in a bit, and you’ll be on yours!”

“You’re bandits after all then, eh? Leave me to die after you take what little I’ve got?” Teagan asked, casting her glance between the three holding crossbows. If she could get them all out of the way at once, she could manage the swordsmen, but how…

“Nonsense, nonsense! We are not banditti, although in these dark times, I cannot blame you for thinking so, haha! No, such brigands would have shot you on the spot and taken what they wish. We are a free company of Landsknekte, the Company of the Orchid! In fact, we protect these lands from banditti, thieves, marauders, and, most importantly, tomkins. We try to maintain order in this stretch of Pazsichia in the hopes that we may one day reclaim it wholly.”

“Forgive my suspicion, but there’s little profit in the business of keeping order… what’s in it for you, hmm?” Teagan inquired, still doubtful of the man’s sincerity.

“Well, banditti such as they are have a penchant for theft and murder, so when we get our hands on them, we tend to… reappropriate their stolen goods, aye? While that used to be all we needed, times have changed. There are only so many banditti out there, and the ones that remain formed up into a gang that we can’t hope to take on. What we manage to lift from loners is not nearly enough to keep us wholly accounted for; that’s where you come in. See, there is a toll for passage through this area, protected as it is by our company.”

“I don’t even have a shirt, sir, surely you can see that I lack the capacity to pay anything of value!” Teagan pleaded, “To take from me what little food I’ve squirreled away would be murder all the same. I’ll take a different route if your toll is only for the area you protect, then.”

“Wait!” the man exclaimed as Teagan started to turn around, “Perhaps I can explain better. This toll, it is nothing much, and it is payable through many means; food, fresh water, tools, clothes, shoes, service, and even information alone are all currencies we are happy to barter in, though their importance runs in that order. Other routes are far more dangerous than this one, as they run near or even through great concentrations of tomkins. If that isn’t enough to sway you, there’s a hearth, a cot, and shelter from this damn rain waiting for you at the end of this route. We can work the terms of payment out later...” he paused, scratching the back of his head and casting his gaze sideways before continuing, “...and we can probably get you a shirt while we’re at it.”

Teagan grimaced as she realized that all the men in the company were likely ogling her, and by extension, likely saw the tomkins. None of them had remarked on it yet, but Teagan knew the question was coming.

“Um, well, if there really are bandits lurking out there… what kind of payment do you people want from me, then? I stole what few rations I have from tomkins so they’re no more than a few mouthfuls. I’ve got no more fresh water than is pouring down around you right now. My backpack is the only thing I have you could even remotely consider a tool, and even that’s starting to tear at the seams… it really just comes down to service and information, and, well, I really don’t think I’d know anything about these lands that you don’t.”

“Well, for starters, we’ll take those tomkins you’ve got there off of your hands - er, your chest, rather - and from there we can talk about the rest once we’ve arrived somewhere a bit more sheltered from the rain, eh? What do you say?”

“Out of the question.” Teagan immediately responded, shaking her head.

“Oh, hoh-hoh!” the man chortled, nodding knowingly as he wagged a chastising finger at Teagan, “I understand now. It’s plain to see, really, why else would you carry them like so? These tomkins, they’re special to you, aren’t they?”

Teagan gritted her teeth and lowered her stance almost imperceptibly. Her muscles tensed as she felt energy concentrate at the tips of her fingers. The foe might be a lot more intimidating here, but if this was going to be another fight like the skirmish with Wulfric von Nieders, Teagan wasn’t about to let the first strike slip away. If she could just dispatch the crossbowmen first…

“You must use them to relieve some of your, eh, companionship needs, huh?”

Teagan’s eyes widened for a second before closing in a tight squint as she felt blood rush to her face. This wasn’t something she wanted to be so upfront about, but, well, if it avoided a fight...

“Maybe, maybe not! It’s none of your business either way! All that matters is your bargain’s off the table!” Teagan barked, causing the man to raise his hands unoffensively.

“I, uh, sorry, sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to pry, alright? Whatever you do with ‘em is none of my business!” the man hurriedly spouted, “Buuuuut, if you aren’t going to hand them over, we’ll need some other form of compensation for letting you travel this dangerous route, hmm?”

“Hey! Hey!”

Teagan looked down. Sihil was frantically waving and whispering at her, trying to get her attention. When Teagan’s glance caught her eye, Sihil went on.

“They said service, yeah? I’m sure you can help them out with your magic! You can ask for clothes and rations even after you pass through! I’m sure they’ll give you lots once they know what you can do!”

“Are you kidding?!” Teagan hissed, trying not to draw any attention to her speech, “I’m not about to let these clowns know what I can do! I was thinking of just taking them out and ‘reappropriating’ everything I can carry for myself! It’s a whole of a lot easier!”

“And a whole of a lot more dangerous!” Sihil retorted, pounding ineffectually on Teagan’s chest with a balled fist.

“Um, excuse me, young lady, are you talking to us?” the man asked, staring confusedly at Teagan, free hand on the back of his head. 

“No, no, no, I just talk to myself when I’m in a pinch, and you’re really putting me in one! I’m trying to think, eh? If you’re noble brigands like you make yourselves out to be, you’ll shut up! This’ll only take longer if you keep butting in!” Teagan snapped, noticing how cowed the man was at her previous aggression. Just as she had imagined, the man shirked back as she raised her voice, clearly upset by her disposition.

“Fine by me! Sorry!” he exclaimed, seemingly to the chagrin of his accomplices.

Teagan pondered on what Sihil said. The girl did have a point, after all. Whatever these people could possibly want out of her could be no worse than fighting them directly, right? She might not make off with as much loot, sure, but all the food in the world wouldn’t help her if she took another serious wound. Their leader also seemed to be a bit of a pushover, so she could always muscle her way through if things turned worse. Even if they did know the extent of her abilities, what could they do about it?

“Alright!” Teagan exclaimed, lifting a finger.

“Alright?” The leader of the Landsknekte sheepishly asked, wondering if Teagan was going to go on yet another tirade.

“I think I’ve got something that’d interest you. You said you’d take a service, yeah? Well, I think I’ve got a bit of a talent that you could certainly make use of. Watch this!”

With these words and a chortle, Teagan released the energy she’d been storing at her fingertips in a sudden blast of power, directed at the man’s sword. Surely enough, the behemoth blade was blown from his grasp, and landed with a splash in a puddle of mud nearly ten paces past him.

“M-my zveihander! Wha… you’re a witch!”

Teagan panicked as the crossbowmen, who had gradually lowered their implements, took careful aim at her once again. Were these backwoodsmen really so backward that they’d kill her for this?

“Hold on! I’m not a witch, okay! Don’t aim those things at me!” Teagan screamed, flailing her free arm at the crossbows pointed her way.

“Then… then… my precious zveihander, pulled from my grip, covered in grime and filth; how in the world did you do that? That sure isn’t something a normal person could do!”

“Must you overexaggerate every word you say? Get a grip, all of you! It’s magic, sure, yes, but I’m not a witch! It’s… good magic! Yeah!” Teagan exclaimed, growing irritated with the man’s irritatingly naive demeanor.

“Good… magic? Eh? That’s a thing?”  dubiously asked another one of the Landsknekte, a younger man idly twirling a rapier.

“Sure it is, you dolt! If there’s evil magic - witchcraft - then it only makes sense that there’s good magic too, right? Such accusations when I’m only trying to pay your ridiculous toll… maybe I ought to use my ‘witchcraft’ on you. It might help you understand the difference.”

“Hey, hey, wait! You have no place threatening us! I don’t care what you can do, we’ve got real weapons, so you’d best watch your damn tongue and act with some civility!” the man retorted, pointing his flame-bladed rapier at Teagan’s face.  

“Hold on, now, there’s no need for that!” the blond bearded man shouted, much to the chagrin of his accomplices, “We are all friends here, or at least, not enemies enough that we must threaten and order each other around. Besides, I think I know exactly where to put your talents to use, enough so that if you did just a night’s work for us, we’d be greatly and grandly indebted to you!”

“Your debt isn’t something I want or need. Food and clothes are, so I’d prefer those. Like you said, though, can we talk about what you’d have me do when we get out of this damn rain? I’m starting to freeze here, I don’t have a thick shirt and a broad hat like you lot.”

“Right! Well, sure, there’s a nice dry cave not too far ahead, that’ll make for great shelter. I don’t figure you’ll be able to wait out this rain, however; the Regtniktsland - the Rainless Land in your tongue - gets about one of these showers every year or so, but when they come, they’re downright torrential! If we’re lucky, this can last for over a week, and it’s pretty intense.”

“Clearly!” Teagan replied, wringing water out of her limp hair with her free hand.

“Let’s head over there, then! Just, ah, one more thing, yeah? If you try to pull anything with your magic - be it slipping away without settling your debt or laying so much as a finger on any one of us - we’ll slit your throat and use your skull as a cup. Your life really means nothing at all to us, and you’d do well to remember that. Civility is the only thing keeping our blades from running you through.”

Teagan, absolutely stunned by the man’s complete and instant change in tone and personality, was completely unable to formulate a response to the formerly jovial leader of the Company of the Orchid. Her eyes narrowed as she prepared to spring at the man and rip out his throat with her bare hands.

“It’s civility, of course, from which we will bring about civilization. Let’s get a move on, aye?”

~

Icaria shivered in the darkest corner of the cavern. The rain was awful, and between the downpour and the mud it created, traveling was extremely dangerous. Even Firkon insisted that the army set up camp as soon as they came across the hillside crevice. Most of the soldiers were still outside, disassembling the bolt throwers, so Icaria was completely alone in the furthest recesses of the hollow.

“There’s no use slinking about in the shadows, Volkhard. We’re alone.”

“One can never exercise too much caution. I’d think you the sort to be out there helping the men pack up the oxybelai, if not directing the whole operation. Sitting glumly in the darkest corner of this hole, though… not what I’d normally expect from you. What might be the matter?”

Icaria chuckled haughtily and shook her head, her raven black hair cascading around her head in limp clumps, her normally neatly bunned hair now loose.

“I can’t stand it. We were so close, Volkhard, so damn close to catching up to her, and now here we are sitting in a cave waiting for it to stop raining. This rain, I’m damn sure it’s no obstacle to her.”

Volkhard shrugged.

“She’s in unfamiliar lands. We aren’t. Every step that takes her towards Agopolis brings her closer to the heartland, closer to the network of forts and military academies that helped us seize these lands from the giants in the first place. Give it time, Icaria, give it time. I hate it as much as you do, knowing that every day we waste might spell more innocent lives lost, but it is all we can do.”

Icaria shot Volkhard a cruel glance, one that chilled him to the bone. Something stirred in her eyes, something unsettlingly cold, even to a veteran fighter such as himself. He found himself wondering if he had said anything that might have incited her anger.

“It’s cruel.” Icaria spat, pounding the damp ground with a tight fist.

“What is?”

“Fate. Destiny. Chance. Whatever it was that’s responsible for me being born a mere speck on this wretched world where others are given such power that they could perhaps be considered gods. I have spent my life training, Volkhard, training to unlock and surpass the power of the giants, and every night I fear that it was a fruitless endeavor, a fool’s attempt at evening the unjustly tipped scales of fortune.”

“You’re a human, not a giant. It’s not something that can be helped.”

“So it would seem… so it would seem. I won’t let this happenstance stop me from killing the giantess, though, not at all. As much as I want to think that I’ll still kill her as easily as I have her kin, I know that this is the greatest challenge I’ll ever face.”

“Wait, don’t you want Firkon to kill the giantess?” Volkhard asked, a bit confused by Icaria’s enigmatic remarks.

“To hell with Firkon. There’s a change of plans, Volkhard, I feel it! The First Emperor has given me instruction. No longer am I to entrust the death of the giantess to him. He is a noble man, an intelligent man, but he is only a man. Men are fallible, Volkhard, more fallible than they care to admit.”

“Are you insinuating that you are more than human?” Volkhard asked, eyebrow inquisitively raised.

“I have tempered my body and mind alike longer than any man in this company has been alive. Perhaps even longer than you have been alive, though I hesitate to count you among the likes of men. Your blood is that of the giants, as is your body. You have trained in the arcane and the martial alike, not too dissimilar to myself, but I know that you honed your body far more than I. Giants… their bodies are inferior to ours. Without their size, the strongest of giants would be akin to the weakest of men in physicality. If you, then, fight on equal footing with other giantslayers, I can only imagine what your strength is when you unveil your true nature. That, however, is beside my point. How can such inferior beings be granted such a boon in their size? Were it that I was a giant - First Emperor forgive me for uttering such words - I would be capable of wiping the rest of their race from this world with pleasure and with ease.”

“Do not dwell on things you cannot change, Icaria, and you will find yourself lamenting far less. Come now, perhaps you would care for a drink? I stole away a draught of mead before we departed from Q’thuman, and I’ve been saving it for when we finally kill the giantess. Maybe it’d be better to lift our spirits with it now - when we need it most, it seems - instead of saving it for after we’re already drunk on the sweet nectar of victory.”

Icaria chuckled again, this time far more amicably, and shook her head in decline of Volkhard’s offer.

“Inebriation dulls the mind, the body, and the spirit. The First Emperor would not have it that the executor of his will enfeebles themself so. Your offer alone is enough to raise my spirit, though. You aren’t bad… for a giant. Better company than I’ve had in some time now.”

Volkhard was taken aback when Icaria raised her head again, and for the first time that he’d seen, smiled a genuinely happy smile. This, of course, was absolutely nothing compared to the gut-wrenching leap his heart took when her hand wrapped gently around his own, free of the abrasive power present in most of her movements. After a few silent seconds had passed, Icaria awkwardly let go of Volkhard’s hand and retracted her own hand into her lap.

“Hah. The First Emperor would flay me if he knew I had even the slightest modicum of affection for a giant.”

“The First Emperor’s dead, Icaria. Been dead for some time now.”

“No. The First Emperor lives on. The man is dead, perhaps, but men are fallible. The First Emperor has become so much more than that man who died. He is an idea, a creed, a way of existence. In this regard, the death of the man who was once the First Emperor has only made the idea that is now the First Emperor stronger; it made him a martyr, and a martyr is capable of feats far greater than a man.”

“Ah. You’re pretty devoted to His cause then, aren’t you?”

Icaria’s smile widened at this statement, which Volkhard knew she took as a great compliment.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Silence reigned once more as the two leaned against the slightly damp wall of the cavern, almost completely dark save the modicum of light that reflected off of the slick ceiling. The quiet was interrupted only by the occasional rhythmic patter of water droplets on stone.

“I want you to have something.” Icaria said to Volkhard after the tramping of boots became audible, a sure sign that Firkon’s men were almost ready to set up camp.

Icaria withdrew her dagger from her belt, gave it a few lazy flips, and handed it off to Volkhard, who received it hesitantly. It was a beautiful blade, wrought from subtly blue-tinted metal and etched with a stunningly ornate grapevine pattern. Embedded in the slightly oversized pommel was a perfectly pink jewel that refracted the scant light of the cavern with surprising intensity, casting a beautiful pink tinge on the ground over which it was held in a manner similar to stained glass. Volkhard beheld the masterfully made armament with a mixture of wonder and worry, unsure if he should accept such a luxurious gift.

“This dagger, it’s, it’s beautiful! Most likely priceless as well… such a finely crafted weapon befits the armory of a king, not the belt of a soldier such as myself. I can’t accept this from you, Icaria, I have no use for such ornamental weapons, nor for anything of such a small size at all. I slay giants, not men.”

“It’s not something I’d expect you to use, Volkhard. Think of it more like a keepsake or a trinket. Admire its beauty when you’re tired, sad, or distraught. Feel its weight when you’re lonely. Let it become familiar to you, and you will find that it will serve you more faithfully than any weapon in your arsenal.”

Volkhard’s wandering gaze settled on the massive gem in the pommel. It was captivatingly beautiful, and something in it called out to him, urged him to keep it close. It was comforting.

“Thanks. I guess I’ll keep it after all, then. I’m surprised I didn’t notice how intricate it was when you had it pointed at my throat.”

Volkhard quietly tucked the dagger away into his belt and stood up as the first of Firkon’s men came into view, hauling pieces of the disassembled oxybelai. He stalked off into the the shadows as quietly as he had emerged from them, unseen by all save Icaria, who felt her heart quiver with the strangest of emotions as the man paced away. 

Night had fallen, but the oppressive downpour of rain showed no signs of stopping, sure enough. The ground - once dry and gritty as befitting a steppeland on the edge of a vast desert - was now a slurry of mud and stray blades of grass long uprooted from the viscous ground. The vexatious weather was much more tolerable when experienced from within the shelter of a cavern, with a warm fire’s comfort no less. Despite these accommodations, however, Teagan felt no more at ease now than she did when she was in the thick of the torrential deluge. If anything, she was now far more disconcerted. There was only one exit to a cave, and eight grizzled mercenaries stood between her and freedom. Sihil and the rest of the tomkins were huddled behind her, speaking among themselves in hushed tones. Teagan tried to pay them no mind, but she knew that their concerns were likely no different than her own. She still had no idea what these people wanted from her.

“I suppose it’s about time we spoke about what exactly you folks have taken such an interest in me over. If memory serves, you said you had a task for me, something about a night’s work with my talents, right?” Teagan queried with feigned forgetfulness, knowing full well that the man who had spoken to her earlier had said exactly that.

“Indeed, those were my words.” he said, scratching a fleck of dirt from the ricasso of his massive sword, “As I have also said earlier, we only demand a toll for the protection we provide from here to the end of Pazsich. We have struggled for years to purge thieving, murdering filth from these hills, and for the most part, we have always been successful. We’ve put more lowlife muggers and rapists to the sword than I can rightly keep count of, and we’re proud of it! Of course, I don’t mean to brag, for we are not perfect in that regard. For all the banditti we have slain or routed from these roads, there is one group that we have never managed to extinguish, a stain on these fair pastures that resists all of our efforts to rub it out!”

“So there’s a group of bandits you can’t handle on your own, and you want my help dealing with them, huh? If I knew you’d want me to risk my life to travel this stretch with your unneeded protection, I’d have found a different route. After all, if you need my strength to extirpate some petty thieves, I’m probably strong enough to have no need of your protection at all.”

“This rotten bunch far exceeds the likes of petty thieves in their ruthless atrocity. Their black hand has stretched its grasp over all of Paszich, and indeed, even into the highlands that you earlier claimed you hail from. It is only with the help of all the remaining noble families of Pazsich that we have managed to hold them at bay, and of those families, all have been destroyed save houses Althur and Von Nieders, slain one and all by these depraved brigands that show no mercy to their fellow man.”

Teagan’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of the name Von Nieders. Were these friends of Hannah’s group? If so, this didn’t bode well, not at all. If they knew that she’d destroyed the paltry wagon train that called itself Sudgau, they’d likely turn against her in an instant. 

“If this bunch is so terrifying, why do you think my help will be enough for you to take them on?” Teagan asked, genuinely puzzled.

Teagan’s focus was momentarily lost as she felt a slight tugging sensation on the back of her trousers. She looked behind herself to see Sihil tugging at her pants, apparently trying to quietly get her attention. Sihil’s expression conveyed urgency, but Teagan wasn’t about to talk to her in front of everyone.

“What’s the matter? Your tomkins getting away?” sarcastically inquired one of the landsknekte, a brown-haired woman with a stern face and a huge jagged scar running down her left cheek.

“Nothing of the sort. Can you answer my question, then?”

“They’re holed up in a fort.” the woman replied, “The last and only previous time we’ve tried to drive them out, we were unable to make it past the portcullis. We just need someone to open the gate for us. An impossible task for us, but if you’re able to manipulate objects at a distance as easily as you make it seem, you could probably undo the winch holding the gate without breaking a sweat.”

“So… you want me to open a gate? And that’s it?” Teagan inquired, now somewhat less averse to helping the landsknekte out.

“I think we can all agree it’s a simple task, so yes, that’s all we’d have you do for us. That being said… if you want more, you could always help us nail a few of the brigands yourself. Aside from the clothing we said we’d furnish you with, they’ve got quite a heap of stolen goods in that fortress of theirs, not to mention a few weapons from a few decades ago - better than any of the scavenged junk that most of us make do with - and, from what I’ve seen, quite an extensive collection of tomkin slaves.”

“Tomkin slaves?” Teagan blurted out, intrigued by the prospect.

“Heh. I knew that one would catch your attention, given your own little retinue and all. Last time I was there, I saw cages full of ‘em, though to what end, I don’t know. Probably food. Eating the little pests whole and alive seems to be commonplace these days, and I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it myself on the rare occasion that a tomkin strays this far out into the steppe. We’ll let you ransack their fort for all that you’re willing to carry should you help us in the ensuing fight. Interested?”

Teagan didn’t pause to consider the issue very long. No amount of shiny knick-knacks or tomkins to alleviate her ennui would be worth the risk of taking up arms against a host of marauders, especially with all the injuries she already earned at the hands of Wulfric and his lackeys. 

“I think I’ll stick with just opening the gate for you. I don’t mean to say your motive is impure here, but I have no quarrel with these people, and so I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of risking my own life and limb to kill them. I’ve seen my fair share of death and fought my fair share of fights throughout my years, and I just don’t know if I’m up to it any more.”

Teagan stopped talking as Sihil once again started to prod her in a bid for attention. Teagan tried to keep her focus and lightly swatted at Sihil, but her insistence only grew. Finally, just as she thought she was about to snap at the girl, Sihil quietly scoffed and turned around. Teagan looked back to the landsknekte with a relieved smirk, but her relief had no sooner come than it was torn from her.

“Teagan! These bandits, they’re the ones who tried to kidnap you, I know it! They’re the ones who killed Al-Valizi!” 

To say that Teagan was mortified would be putting it lightly. Sihil had shouted as loud as she possibly could in her unmistakable, high-pitched voice. Every single one of the landsknekte had focused their gaze on Sihil, some even standing to their feet and grabbing their weapons. The possibility of having to fight her way through their ranks once again came to the forefront of Teagan’s mind, and this time, the fear that weighed down on her chest and rose up her throat like bile was replaced with an almost instinctively aggressive protectiveness. She jumped to her feet and was poised to strike again when one of the landsknekte, a slender woman with a crossbow, spoke up in a firm but calm tone.

“This is an interesting development, but there’s no need to take up arms, comrades. Well, little lady, you seem to have a capable enough grasp on our language, something I’ve never seen before from the likes of yourself. I take it you two are, well, friends of sorts?”

Teagan and Sihil jointly nodded, Sihil, now exposed to the eyes of the landsknekte after Teagan stood up, stumbled slowly to the front of the boulder that Teagan was seated on.

“We’ve been travelling companions for some time now.” she said, after getting an approving glance from Teagan, “My own people are out for my blood, from what I can tell. I don’t know how long it’s been, but it’s been long enough for me to learn the language from her.” Sihil lied, not wanting to complicate the issue by bringing her seemingly spontaneous multilingual capability into the picture.

“Charming, and perhaps a sign that better times lie ahead for both of our peoples.” the scarred woman responded, “Now that I know you’ve heard all that I’ve said, I suppose I should apologize for what I said about, you know, eating your kind. It’s a harsh truth out here, especially when they’re eager to see to my own death. Hope you don’t think the same fate is in store for you.”

Sihil timidly wrung her hands and shook her head, stuttering “N-no, no, it’s nothing I’m not used to or aware of. I know the unforgiving reality of your world for your kind and mine alike; Teagan here has made sure of that. She used to be quite the sadist, at least to people like me. I’d like to think I’ve helped her conquer that.”

Sihil looked up to Teagan, who greeted her gaze with a soft smile and sad eyes, in an expression that read somewhere between desolation and joy, a bittersweet compromise between opposites. Sihil interpreted the look as an apology, appreciation, and affection, boundaries blurred between the three. The landsknekte who hadn’t settled down earlier now resumed more relaxed postures now, though their gazes still hovered surreptitiously on Sihil.

“Well, now that we’re past that little surprise, you were saying something about bandits and kidnapping, right? Did you have a run-in with these scum?” the blond-bearded man asked, showing only a modicum of genuine concern.

“Well, now that I think about it… it probably could have been.” Teagan replied, remembering the incident with no fondness, “he did say something about a boss, and you did say they’ve spread into the highlands. It’s a stretch, but I’ve got no love for bandits overall, that’s for sure. Ugh. You, uh, really don’t seemed surprised by my talkative little friend here. Are there any other like her?”

“Not that any of us know of.” responded the scarred woman, “I guess we’ve just seen so much that it’s hard to be surprised any more. When you spend your life looking at the ruins of a world you know only from the stories of your parents and the faintest memories of your earliest years, well, you become a bit uncaring. ‘Specially when you risk death on the daily.”

“...Yeah. It’s tough out there.” Teagan replied, unsure what else to add, “In any case, back to your offer, I guess I might as well stick around, spill a bit of bandit blood. I could use anything you offer, and I’m no stranger to death, as much as I want to change my ways.”

“That’s wonderful to hear. You might want to get some rest while we’re here; we’ve got a long day ahead of us. Glad to have you with us, and I’ll see to it that you’re justly compensated for every blow you strike. We’ll be pitching tents outside - you can sleep in here if you so desire, though the cold, damp stone floor might prove more oppressive than the rain.”

Teagan nodded and waited for the landsknekte to clear out, beginning to move only when the last of their footfalls were muffled by the grassy mud. Once she was freed of their presence, Teagan let down the arm she was holding to her chest, and gently lowered Hassan, Aaliyah, and Rhaea down next to Sihil, and the four immediately began to talk in hushed tones, obviously just as wary of the landsknekte as Teagan herself.

Teagan laid her head down on her backpack, adjusted herself so the hard floor didn’t press against her ribs, and resisted the urge to close her eyes and sleep immediately. She wanted to give the other tomkins a bit of time free of captivity, to treat them as more than animals, but she wasn’t about to let them get away. As it already was, she cursed herself for letting the soldiers who attacked her off as she did; it was almost a guarantee that they ran for help the moment she left.

“Sihil?”

“Yes?”

“Do you really think I’ve changed at all? I still dream of it. Killing people, and not just tomkins any more. I… I think I’m a bad person.”

“Think? Teagan, we both know what you’ve done. All that matters now is that you know that your actions were wrong. We can’t change the past… only the future. On that note, I need to ask, because I’m afraid for both your sake and theirs: what do you intend to do with Hassan, Aaliyah, and Rhaea? They’re scared, homesick, and kind people in their own ways.”

Teagan chewed her lip and rolled back to look at Sihil, replying, “Well, to be frank with you, I don’t quite know myself. The company is nice, I guess. I’ve been hellishly lonely as of late, and I find myself growing more and more afraid that I’m going to die just as alone as I’ve lived. It’s just pleasant to be around other people. Even if they hate my guts. When it’s all said and done, though, if I do somehow manage to reach my goal, I guess I’ll just let them go. Blow them a kiss, wave goodbye, maybe leave them a few of the treasures I’ve amassed, and stride off as if they’re already a part of my past. It feels safer to maintain the uncaring facade.”

Teagan felt a shiver run down her spine as Sihil’s melancholic sigh reverberated ever so faintly on the rounded walls. That a wordless vocalization, a mere breath, could carry such emotion; Teagan felt a twinge deep in her chest as the same strange, unplaceable emotion that brought her to spare Sihil in the first place once again clouded her mind. Maybe it was just dreariness?

“About that… there’s a war going on, and a pretty big one too. That’s why there are so many guards posted at these various border passages. As it stands, we’re heading deeper and deeper into land that belongs to the nation that Hassan and Aaliyah’s homeland is at war with. If you let them go here, they’re as good as dead.”

“Oh.”

“Just rethink what you intend to let them do.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“You should let them back inside your pack. It’s cold out here.”

Teagan complied readily, raising the backpack to the rock the tomkins were seated on and letting them slide inside, one by one. When all but Sihil had entered, she closed the bag, set it aside, and laid back down, now without anything to cushion her head against the hard ground. Seconds passed. Seconds turned to minutes. Teagan was only more awake now than before, and she knew the same held true for Sihil. The two sat still, listening to the patter of water on stone. Tomorrow, Teagan could die. Whether it was to a bandit or a landsknekt mattered not; run or fight, the risk was all the same. What if it did all end tomorrow? Would anyone miss her? Would the world be any worse off? If anything, it would probably be… better.

“You’re lonely.” Sihil said, breaching the silence just as Teagan had started to think of what to say next herself. It wasn’t a query, nor was it an accusation, simply a statement, an observation of the undeniable. Teagan didn’t respond. There was no need, for what could she say that wasn’t already clear?

“You crave compassion.”

Sihil hopped down from the rock she was sitting on, falling well over six or seven times her own height with little apparent apprehension or difficulty, and clambered her way onto Teagan’s left leg. From there, she stumbled her way up to Teagan’s hip. Teagan felt her chest tighten, knowing full well what was coming. She delicately lifted Sihil up in one hand while easier her trousers down to her knees with the other, nigh oblivious to the grimy and freezing stone she now sat bare-legged upon. She shivered as a tiny hand placed itself between her legs, followed by a second, followed by an entire body. Caressing, kissing, what Sihil lacked in substance and knowledge of the act, she made up for in passion. Slowly, she shouldered off the tattered garments that she’d been stuck with for weeks, wholly baring her slight frame. She was small, even by tomkin standards, and while her face was youthful and innocent, her body was imperfect; her ribs were visible, her miniature veins were conspicuously blue under her uncommonly pale skin, but this mattered not to Teagan. She was far too focused on the rapid rhythm of the tomkin’s heart, the hesitant trembling of her arms, and the slow motions with which she steadily caressed and kissed, tender yet powerful, softly yet reverently..

“A-are you sure you’re, ugh, you’re gonna, do this? I don’t know if…” Teagan trailed off, distracted by the pleasurable tension building up in her abdomen. Her abs, weary from days of strain and travel, caused her no insignificant amount of pain as they contracted, but Teagan was more than willing to ignore the pain.

“You’ll, huff, you’ll sleep easy tonight. You aren’t alone. You have me, and I have you.”

 Teagan closed her eyes in bliss as she carefully but firmly closed her legs around Sihil, enveloping the tomkin in her flesh, her warmth, her scent, her being. Teagan knew that Sihil was partial to the sensation, and wouldn’t dare to do such a thing otherwise, but some part of that deep connection she shared with the tomkin told her that it was okay, it was good, it was an act of love and compassion. Sihil squirmed ever so slightly, but that slight movement was all it took to send Teagan over the edge. Her hands clenched in fists, her eyes squeezed shut, and for a mere second, all she felt was the struggling of the tomkin between her legs, and the power that coursed through her as she restrained her with nothing more than her legs. 

When Teagan opened her eyes, panic almost immediately struck at her. She’d clenched her legs around Sihil, almost entirely heedless of the meaning behind her struggling. If she was still enjoying the experience, or even just tolerating it, she wouldn’t be fidgeting like she was. What felt like meek squirming to Teagan could be a fight for her life. Teagan spread her legs, half expecting to find a bloody mess or a broken, lifeless body. She was relieved when Sihil dropped lightly to the ground, panting, exhausted and visibly frightened but unharmed.

“Shit! Are you okay? I’m so, so, sorry, I got carried away, I should have realized-”

“It’s okay, Teagan.” Sihil reassured her, standing shakily to her feet, “It’s all right. I was prepared for something like that to happen. I’m fine. Judging by how carried away you were, I think I did well, especially given that this is, in a way, my first… experience... I just hope that you’ll be more careful in the future.”

“In the future…” Teagan whispered to herself, giddy at the implication. “I’ll try, Sihil, I’ll try. Let’s not let this get in the way of anything tonight, though, alright?”

“Tonight?” Sihil replied, “But, didn’t you just, you know, finish? Aren’t we done now?”

“Haha, so I did, Sihil, but what about you? Just because you’re small doesn’t mean I can’t try my hand at doing for you what you’ve done for me now, hmm? C’mere, you… y’know, only if you want to…”

Sihil nodded affirmatively as Teagan delicately scooped her up with a playful wink before lifting the nude tomkin to face level in her left hand. Teagan then stuck the little finger of her right hand in her mouth, moistening it ever so slightly, and ran it between Sihil’s legs. Sihil’s eyes widened as Teagan stimulated her with a finesse and delicacy she thought impossible, almost bringing her to her knees in a natural response to such sudden and intense stimulus. Teagan suppressed a giggle as she heard Sihil gasp, and leaned her face only inches away from the flushed tomkin.

Sihil felt something deep inside of her change as Teagan extended her tongue, obviously intent on using it for further sexual acts. Something in her subconscious moved ever so slightly, like a lever that unleashed a floodgate of painful memories. That tongue, that mouth, that woman in front of her who now sought to make love with childish abandon, she was a murderer. The slick tongue that proffered itself before her now had snaked forth and claimed how many lives before? This wasn’t right. Old wounds had yet to heal, and this was picking at the scabs, further agitating the already unstable. Sihil continued gasping, but it was no longer arousal that caused her heart to slam in her chest and her tongue to weigh heavily in her mouth, but rather fear.

“N-no! No, no, I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I-I’m not ready. Please.” Sihil exclaimed, stumbling back and falling onto Teagan’s soft palm.

“Hey, of course, of course, if you don’t want to go any further, I won’t press. You’re not mad at me or anything, right?”

Sihil shook her head. In truth, she didn’t know the answer to the question - she had every right and reason to loathe Teagan… so why didn’t she?

Icaria shot up to a sitting position, heart racing. The panicked shouts of the watchman were indecipherable to her as the fog of an interrupted dream still floated through her mind, scattering her thoughts. Was the giantess attacking? If so, she had made a grave mistake.

Icaria was joined by Volkhard not long after she sprang to her feet. The man was disheveled and dressed only in light sleepwear, a far cry from the normally collected exterior he presented, not to mention the grey longcoat she’d never before seen him without. 

“Selcenians!” the watchman screamed, stumbling through the cavern interior, “It’s an army!”

“Curses.” Icaria spat, rushing outside with Volkhard, “What’s a Selcenian army doing out here in these flatlands?”

“Maybe they’re looking for the giantess. Maybe they’re looking for us.”

“Damn it all, you’re probably right… that blundering idiot Firkon pulled us into a fight we can’t escape unscathed, it seems.”

“Wait, I thought you agreed with him. Didn’t you support his choice and all? The enemy has no respect for the First Emperor, after all. That doesn’t seem like something you’d take lightly.”

“It’s not, Volkhard, but picking a fight with a petty general will bring us nowhere. Assuming we do defeat him, another will rise to take his place, and as sure as the sun will rise, his replacement will be similarly impious and blasphemous. I just needed Firkon to think I supported his decision to get on his good side.”

The two exited the cavern along with a band of panicked soldiers, stepping out into the still sunless morning, and found themselves surrounded by a company of armor-clad Selcenians. Icaria reached into the supply wagon and pulled forth a beautifully intricate giantslayer’s spear, giving it a few arcing twirls before planting it in the muddy earth. She was immediately suspicious of the Selcenians’ motive - they had arranged themselves in a phalanx and held outside the cavern, rather than striking and trapping the Orestians inside. If they had meant to attack, they’d likely have done it already; everything was in their favor, from the dark of the early morning to the unpreparedness of the Orestian legionaries. Icaria, emboldened at the thought that the Selcenian forces had halted, stepped forward from the rag-tag ranks of Firkon’s men, scanning the ranks of the enemy for a commander.

“For what purpose have you come here, and to what end do you abstain from fighting? Come forth, any of you, any who’d dare!”

A few ominous seconds passed before the formation parted in two, making way for a familiar figure to emerge from their ranks. The general that Firkon had disagreed with - to put it lightly - was standing no more than fourty paces away from Icaria, unaccompanied, unarmed.

“Icaria the Younger. Your reputation as a giantslayer precedes you… as does your fanatical devotion to the First Emperor. I suppose it is better I speak with you than that uncivil Orestian, assuming you have any command over the ragtag vagabonds amassed behind you.”

“Do not speak such offensive and arrogant words to a servitor of the First Emperor. I can strike you down where you stand at this very moment, and all of Agopolis would stand behind me should your false emperor of a liege take any issue. I will ask you again what it is that you want, and if you do not answer, I advise you to move on lest my intolerance of your ilk gets the better of my patience.”

“Fine!” the general curtly responded, clearly upset with Icaria’s defiance, “I am Andronikos Kourkouon, Despot of Eparike and former member of the Ten Generals of the Basileus. This last part is rather an issue - but I have been promised that I will be restored to my rightful position should I make assurance that not a soul among you will disclose the… incident… that occurred last we met. I’m sure neither of us would like a war between our nations, and as such, I would be happy to make you an offer to cast said incident to the wind, and let none but the wind whisper of it ever again.”

Icaria raised her eyebrows in pleasant surprise, although she still wasn’t sure whether to expect trickery on the part of Andronikos.

“An offer? Let’s hear it then. No use in wasting any more of our time.”

“But of course.” Andronikos returned, “And I know well why you value your time so. Your quarry attacked a Selcenian outpost recently. I heard, well, disturbing accounts from the survivors, accounts that would shake any man convinced of the First Emperor’s righteousness to his core. Accounts of a giantess that, for the briefest of moments, tried to show mercy and kindness. A giantess that had a companion versed in both languages, a girl perched on her immense shoulder.”

Icaria faltered. She had known that the giantess had taken captives, but this, this of all things, was terrible news indeed. If Andronikos was to be trusted, then this girl was perhaps even more dangerous to the cause than the giantess.

“As if that wasn’t enough, she’s an arcanist. Stopped a ballista bolt dead in the air with a flick of her wrist, from what I could ascertain. Now, while preserving the false truth of your venerated First Emperor means nothing to me, I too want to see this giantess dead, especially before she causes any more needless strife. My men and I will join you on your hunt, on the twofold condition that you make no mention of our previous skirmish, and you neither receive nor provide any further aid to Q’thuman.”

Icaria stared down the general. He was young for one of his position, likely a noble’s son or some other manner of aristocracy. He was impetuous and selfish, that much was obvious, but Icaria didn’t get the feeling that he was one to betray her; he laid his reasoning bare, and in truth, it was convincing.

“I don’t like the idea of allying with a Selcenian. Your Basileus has no claim over the mantle of the First Emperor. Your people are at war with Q’thuman, and no small number of our own ranks hail from Q’thumani lands. You enslave the giants, a disgusting and dangerous practice, when they should be granted the mercy of death. Despite all this… we need help. Every bit of help we can get. I suppose if you managed to get yourselves here, the ground is navigable. We should be going soon, then.”

“Understood.” Andronikos replied before turning to his men, formalizing the agreement as far as it would ever be, “Break ranks! Load supplies! We’ll be following the Orestians!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Icaria, breathing a sigh of relief as the Selcenian phalanx broke ranks and lowered their shields, jogged up to Andronikos after a brief pause, not quite finished in her dealings with the man. He was already oblivious of her presence… yet another sign that he lacked the experience that made a good general. To turn your back on the enemy after making a fresh truce was no slight mistake. Andronikos only whirled around when one of his guards pointed Icaria out to him.

“Well! Have you perhaps come to reconcile for your earlier harsh words, or is this your idea of killing me in a moment?” Andronikos chided, his words once again brazen now that Icaria was standing in the midst of his forces.

“I haven’t come to kill you, although you’re doing a fine job of tempting me. No, I’m here about what you said about the outpost the giantess attacked; you said there were survivors. Do you happen to have any of them with you now?”

Andronikos nodded, replying, “Well, sure, yeah, I figured they might be helpful when the time for battle comes. You aren’t planning on killing off the witnesses, are you? He’s a nice fellow, this one, shared a few drinks with him. I’d hate for you to cut his throat because he had the misfortune of getting in the way of your giantess quarry.”

Icaria shook her head. The thought had crossed her mind, no doubt about it, but after the loudmouthed Andronikos spoke of the happening in front of the entire Orestian legion, there were too many who had heard of the incident to be discreetly taken care of. Besides, there was no point in souring relations with the Selcenians already. Strife within the ranks of what was quickly becoming a coalition party would only slow down the effort to reach the giantess in time.

“Hello? Well? You’re not going to kill him, right?” Andronikos inquired again, waving a hand in front of Icaria’s face. Only then did she realize that she was staring at the ground, motionless and silent, for more than an uncomfortable amount of time.

“No, no, I have no intention of killing anyone. Just bring them to me, or me to them, or - just get me the survivor, damn you!”

“Fine, fine! No need to get angry, okay? Hey, you there!” Andronikos shouted, waving to one of his men, “Go fetch Akrites Ourantzis. Tell him to be quick.”

Icaria remained silent as the soldier jogged into the midst of the bustling Selcenian soldiery, having no desire to speak with Andronikos other than when absolutely necessary. He was almost infuriatingly smug, and as far as Icaria was concerned, that alone was enough to detest him. She made no eye contact with the man as she waited for the Akrites, instead looking at her feet and kicking around a clod of dried mud. 

“You… you, uh, you’re working with Volkhard?” Andronikos asked quietly, surprisingly meek compared to his bold words only a few seconds ago, “That’s quite an honor. I’ve always admired the man myself, wanted to be a giantslayer just like him when I was a child. Then I came to the cruel realization that I’m no mage, and such things aren’t learned; it’s either in your blood or it isn’t.”

“You’re wrong.” Icaria curtly replied, “Anyone can learn the arts given enough time and enough drive.”

“And yet it seems only those with magic in their blood live long enough to have that time. Besides, as the only son of a nobleman, I had no say in my destiny. Stewardship, history, strategy, diplomacy, swordsmanship, and so much more, each subject with a tutor of its own, all of this I was expected to learn as heir to the Despotate. No time for studying tomes and learning from sages in between all that.”

“I guess, but even so, there are plenty of giantslayers that don’t know a lick of magic.”

“Any as accomplished as you or Volkhard? Any capable of standing against a giant in a one on one fight?”

Icaria didn’t reply.

“I thought not. I may never be a giantslayer, but I’d at least like to meet the man who’s the greatest of them all - no offense - sadly, I don’t think he’d take kindly to a Selcenian urging him for a story or two, given the fact that he’s a citizen of Q’thuman. Not a good look, tha-”

“Y-you called for me, sir?”

The soldier Andronikos had returned, followed by another far more dingy-looking soldier who Icaria presumed was this Akrites Ourantzis that had seen the giantess up close and personal. The man was ragged, unshaven, and had deep, dark circles under his eyes, indicating restlessness. He was clearly under a great deal of stress.

“First time facing one of the giants?” she asked, hoping to calm the man down prior to her line of questioning. To her surprise, the man shook his head to indicate a negative response, his eyelids twitching noticeably before he responded.

“No, n-no, not the first. I’ve fought them before, I wasn’t always an Akrites, a border guard, I used to serve in the tagmata of Selceus II, and h-had my fair share of fighting the things. It was always after we’d injured them with towed bolt throwers, though, always, never head-on without ballistae! This one, this one, this one had magic, fell magic… we were powerless, powerless, oh so powerless! Captain Theodosia was lifted, lifted through the air, and swallowed, eaten alive, m-”

“Hey!” Icaria interrupted, seizing the panicking Akrites by the shoulders, “Get a grip! I need you to take a few breaths, calm yourself, and then tell me everything unusual about her that you noticed. Andronikos told me that she had a translator with her. Is this true?”

Ourantzis nodded.

“A scraggly red-haired girl, pale and almost as wild in appearance as the giantess herself. Theodosia tried to kill her… that’s what caused the giantess to flip.” 

Icaria pouted. This mysterious girl was growing more perplexing by the second. Could she possibly be a giant that had assimilated into human culture like Volkhard? No, that couldn’t be right, Firkon said that she was a prisoner too, before anyone else that he knew of. How, then?

“You said that this girl was acting as a translator for the giantess? What did she say?”

“She asked for provisions. The giantess offered us treasures, splendid treasures; jade sculptures, bossed shields, bejeweled chalices, and polished bronze armor tumbled from her massive hand, slipping through her fingers like grains of sand. By the First Emperor, I swear it was enough to buy a city! The giantess just wanted food, and we declined, like fools, like idiots… that we would let her starve instead of becoming rich… what fools we were.”

“You did the right thing, Akrites Ourantzis. The giants are the enemy. Never forget the words of the First Emperor: they are a foe to our very existence.”

Ourantzis shook his head silently. Icaria, without bothering to dismiss him or say another word to the ponderously intent Andronikos, stalked angrily back towards the cavern. Things were already going to hell, and she desperately needed counsel. Shoving her way past a handful of Firkon’s men, Icaria arrived at her belongings, and after rummaging through her backpack for just a bit, slowly withdrew a small amulet. On a silver chain hung a tiny pendant wrought of electrum, in the shape of an eagle with wings outstretched. Embedded in each eye was a most miniature gem, both vibrant pink. After peering around to make sure that she was absolutely alone, Icaria cleared her mind, sat down crosslegged, and clutched the amulet tightly between her hands.

“Hello, father.” she breathed, whispering quietly as the softest breeze, “I need your help.”

~

“This is the fort?!” Teagan exclaimed, as quietly as she could.

She was crouching behind a small bluff in the otherwise featureless flatlands, peeking over at what was apparently the bandit stronghold. To call it a fort was a stretch; it was more of a rubbish heap in a shape almost reminiscent of a wall, with a singular gate blocked off by a rusted portcullis, clearly taken from some other ruin and cut down to size to fit its current station.

“Indeed, this is the fort. The tomkins usually dismantle or colonize any settlements they get their hands on, so empty ruins are a rare find indeed, no matter how dilapidated. The bandits somehow found their way to the base of an old castle, and it wasn’t long until they were patching up the holes with whatever they could find.”

“And you need my help to get in? That thing looks like it’ll fall down the moment the weather gets windy!”

“If it survived last night’s rainstorm, it’ll hold up against anything we’ve got to throw at it. So, um, can you move anything, or do we need to get closer?”

Teagan squinted at the fort. She couldn’t even see the supposed winch that controlled the portcullis, let alone manipulate it. She shook her head balefully.

“Very well.” the landsknekt continued, “In that case, here’s the plan: we’re going to charge at it, and you’re going to open it up as soon as you can. Try and swerve every now and then, because I can almost guarantee they’ll have archers on the wall in no time.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan to me…” Sihil whispered in Teagan’s ear, leaning over from her perch on the woman’s shoulder, “You can stop arrows with your magic, though, right? That should help!”

“I can only stop arrows that I can see, Sihil, and I haven’t ever tried manipulating more than one object at a time. It’ll help, sure, but I don’t think I’ll last long against a barrage. Hell, even a single shot that I don’t notice is more than enough to drop me, so don’t get your hopes up. If I do happen to go down, um, try not to get squished, mkay?”

“Oh…” Sihil muttered, looking at the plummet down to the ground from Teagan’s shoulder. The fall alone wasn’t too bad, but if Teagan fell on top of her, well, she’d be incredibly lucky to survive.

“Let’s get this over with, then.” the landsknekt growled, hoisting his massive sword over his shoulder, “It’s only going to get lighter as time goes on, and the better they can see us, the better they can fill us full of arrows. Ready?”

Teagan nodded.

“Then let’s go.”

Without another word, the mercenary vaulted over the bluff, landed on his feet a few feet below, and took off running. Teagan followed along with the rest of the landsknekte, sprinting as fast as she could. Teagan’s breath quickened as instinct started to take hold of reason, anticipation of the fight to come overwhelming her senses.

“It doesn’t seem like they’ve noticed us!” Sihil jovially remarked, “Maybe they don’t have sentries on the wall?”

Sihil’s question was promptly answered as an arrow whizzed over Teagan’s head, lodging itself in the ground not even ten paces behind her. She ducked down as far as she could - more out of fear than any actual practical concern - and watched as Teagan’s vast strides carried them ever closer to the imposing structure. Teagan was managing to stop most of the arrows dead in the air, but more than a few managed to slip by, and a visceral squelch followed by an agonized scream was evidence enough that at least one of them had found its mark.

“OPEN THE GATE!” the landsknekt captain screamed as Teagan stumbled to a halt in front of the portcullis. 

“I need a sec!” Teagan shouted in reply, “Cover me! I won’t be able to block arrows!”

The landsknekte with crossbows, having already loaded bolts in preparation for the assault, began to return fire at the silhouettes on the wall. Teagan yelped and scrambled back as an arrow whistled its deadly tune before plunking in the mud at her feet. She looked up to the wall, and saw a dark silhouette peering over it, nocking another arrow to fire. With a shout and a yank, Teagan pulled back with all of her might, and her phantasmal grasp pulled the bandit off of the wall. The bandit’s scream was cut short as one of the landsknekte beheaded him the moment he hit the ground.

Teagan squinted, focusing as hard as she could in the midst of the chaos, and was barely able to make out the winch holding the portcullis in place. She focused as hard as she possibly could, and with a good deal of strain and no small amount of pounding pain in her head with every pump of her heart, managed to secure what felt like a solid grip on the thing.

“Teagan! We can’t stay out in the open like this!” Sihil shouted, clinging tightly to fabric of Teagan’s new shirt, given to her by the landsknekte.

There was an loud creaking noise as Teagan hoisted the portcullis slowly upwards, her arms trembling and her temple throbbing with exertion and pain. She was only able to lift it waist-high, but that was enough for the landsknekte, who rolled through the gap and seized the winch, letting Teagan release her hold as the rest crawled under. Her job done, Teagan fell to a sitting position, making sure to brace Sihil with her free hand.

“Teagan? Teagan! Teagan, are you alright?”

Teagan gently rubbed Sihil’s head with her thumb before she could no longer hear, before her tired eyes yielded to darkness.

She heard cries of pain, but none could stir her.

She felt Sihil’s fragile heartbeat against her neck, but even that could not rouse her.

She feared death, but for all her fear, she could not wake.

It was not until she felt an uncomfortable, wet warmth against her face and heard the tramping of boots right next to her ear that she groggily forced her eyes open, arms still shaking and incredibly sore. The landsknekt captain, the blond-bearded man with the massive sword, was leaning over her. His blood had dripped onto her from a gash on his face, and he was pale enough that Teagan knew he was bleeding even more elsewhere.

“You…” she muttered, feeling Sihil, curled up and leaning on her neck, quiver in fear, or perhaps worry.

“The battle is won.” the man bluntly stated, “Most of us are dead, but thieves… will plague this land no more. If we did not fight today, the fight would come to us… and we would have lost. Thank you for helping us win our last battle. I fear I cannot reward you, but there is a man, a sage, who lives in a ruined tower not far from here. Follow the rising sun until you come upon a brook, and follow it downstream...”

The man paused, planting his sword into the ground and using it as a crutch. Teagan knew it was likely that he was mortally wounded. This last advice he was giving her was a dying favor.

“This sage; he will help you. He has been expecting you, I think, though I only realize that now - what a fool I was. Adalina has the tomkins we promised you. Do what you wish with them. Do what you wish with anything here. Only she and I survive, and soon, it will be only her… take what you please. May fortune watch over your every step.”

“And yours.” Teagan replied, rubbing her eyes and pushing herself to a sitting position after letting Sihil amble onto her left palm. She left the captain leaning against the wall of the hold, likely in the spot where he would die. It was no concern of hers, but she couldn’t help but feel a tinge of respect for the man. 

“Teagan… what are you going to do with the people being held prisoner here? Please, please don’t tell me you’re going to hurt them. I’d like to think you’re beyond such things, but I don’t see what else you could want with them…” Sihil implored, kneeling pleadingly on Teagan’s open hand.

“There’s barely enough food out here to feed you. I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, but as I see it, each and every one of them is a trespasser in this world, and what’s more, I’m sure they would have suffered no differently were I not here. I’m sorry.”

“Wait! Please, wait, the man back there said there’s a tower ahead! Surely you might find food there?”

“I’m starving. People die every day, and judging by what I saw back in the desert, you kill far more of each other than I ever will. I hardly have the strength to walk as it is. I’m sorry, Sihil, I really am, but you can’t stop me. It’s either them or me, and I didn’t come this far to starve in some featureless windswept plain.”

Sihil felt hunger gnaw at the pit of her stomach, tiredness drag at her eyelids, and aching pain throb throughout her body. She figured that she probably looked like one big, malnourished bruise. Teagan was foraging what food she could, but Sihil could only stomach so much of the ubiquitous slightly-sweet grass that she’d been eating for longer than she cared to remember now. Over all the pain and discomfort, only the constant jostling reminded her that she was nestled on Teagan’s shoulder, clinging weakly to a stray lock of hair.

“Teagan…” Sihil whispered, but she doubted that she’d been heard. How long had it been? Did Teagan already kill, no - devour - the captives? Sihil felt her gorge rise at the thought of their fate, not an uncommon nightmare of hers at this point.

She tried to force herself up to her feet, but between the jostling, wearied movement of Teagan and her own tiredness, she could only manage to push her upper body up, leaving her sore legs splayed out over the rear edge of Teagan’s shoulder.

“Glad to see you’re awake. Well, er, glad you’re feeling better, but I don’t think you woke up at a particularly good time. I’m starving, same as I assume you are, and while I scrounged up a few bland roots that should do you some good after I cook them up, it’s not nearly enough to keep me going. You of all people know what that means.”

So she hadn’t yet eaten anyone, but she seemed dead set on proceeding on with it regardless. An equally chilling prospect, and one she wouldn’t have the slight mercy of sleeping through.

“Teagan,” Sihil began again, “I don’t need to eat. Just, please, don’t fall back into your old habits… I really thought you changed. Maybe I was arrogant to think that it was because of me, but whatever caused it, you’ve started becoming more compassionate. More human. I’m scared you’re going to lose that, that it’s already slipping away.”

“Relax, kid!” Teagan exclaimed, jubilantly enough to draw Sihil’s ire at her indifference, “If you’re scared I’m going to do anything to you, forget that. I think I’ve already proven my commitment to keeping your little hide safe. Alternatively, y’know, if you’ve got a problem with me - the only one on your side, from what I can tell - not starving to death, there’s really not much I can tell you other than the fact that it’s me or them, and I don’t plan on dying just yet. Not until I figure out just how doomed this world is for my people.”

“So that’s what you’re up to?” Sihil asked, half out of genuine curiosity and half out of a desire to buy time. She bit her lower lip in frustration as Teagan’s pace kept on all the same even as she answered.

“Oh, uhm, yeah, I figure I haven’t told you what I’m after, have I? I hear there’s a place out there, a real city, still standing after all this time, as of yet undiscovered by - or at least defended from, although I find that prospect a bit harder to believe - your nasty, aggressive little kinsfolk; no offense to you.  If such a place is real, then I still have a shot at living a real, normal life, where I don’t have to feel uncomfortable every time I eat around you, given that I’ll likely have access to actual, real, DELICIOUS food. Something that might help wash away the sadistic streak I’ve grown after all these years running wild in the forest like a rabid animal with hardly a soul to talk to. You’ve helped me come a long way, no doubt, but I still feel lonely sometimes; like we’re the only two people in the world, and everyone else is just, kind of, more of an object than another person, you know? That doesn’t even apply to just your kind, everything just feels so transitory and non-permanent. A real home where I can meet real people and live a real life might help fill that hole in me. I got a little piece of paper with a crude map and directions, and while I’m fairly certain I lost it a long ways back, the directions on it are practically imprinted on my mind. There’s a brook I was told to follow, something that coincides with the piece of advice I just got, and my destination should be within reach. Finally.”

“In these lands?” Sihil asked, now wholly curious, “I thought you said it’s undiscovered. I’m no worldly person, but everyone I knew could tell you by heart that the flatlands on the outskirts of the Selcenian border are the home of Agopolis, capital of the old empire, and probably the most populated settlement. Period.”

This notion did give Teagan pause enough to stop her interminable pace towards the interior of the bandit stronghold, for which Sihil was rather pleased. It probably didn’t make much of a difference, but procrastinating seemed a better alternative to inaction.

“So you’re telling me I’m heading further INTO tomki-, ahem, your people’s lands? Not the situation I’d hoped for, but I’ve staked my life on these shaky, baseless instructions for long enough that I’m not going to give up now. I’ve developed a seemingly preternatural talent for the arcane, and made friends - I hope - with the best person I’ve ever crossed paths with; kind, virtuous, and gifted a similarly arcane talent for the linguistic. I’ve seen so much, learned so much, [i]felt [/i] so much! Even through all the pain, all the death, and all the suffering, I think this is the best thing that’s happened in the past ten years of my miserable life, and I’m not about to stop now.”

Teagan paused, out of breath from her passionate and spontaneous outburst.

“...not that I don’t appreciate the tip. I won’t let my guard down. For now, though, I’ve still got to eat.”

Teagan stepped past the bodies of the slain, until she found a small, unroofed enclave wherein the surviving landsknekt, Adalina, was sound asleep next to a sturdy-looking wicker cage filled with at least fifty huddled, despondent, and weary tomkins. A lot less than the landsknekte promised, but it didn’t take long to figure out what so harshly tolled their numbers. A ramshackle pit was dug into the mud-slicked ground directly adjacent to the cage, wherein the bodies of more than a handful of mangled and dead tomkins were entrapped in what appeared to be a makeshift gladiatorial arena, accompanied by rusty weapons and makeshift armaments likely crafted by the bandits. Sihil was sickened by the sight, wondering if she had ever beheld a worse cruelty from Teagan, and nearly coming up blank before she remembered Teagan’s earliest ventures, right after the two had “met”. Teagan popped the top off of the cage, drawing stares from the tomkins within, mostly of fear. An appropriate reaction, as Teagan’s hand immediately descended and grabbed a squirming handful of around 6 or 7 individuals without a moment’s pause.

“Wait!” Sihil exclaimed, drawing curious murmurs from the prisoners who had prior been unaware of her presence, “Let me at least, I don’t know, apologize for you. Promise them that we’ll set most of them free. Do something to, at the very least, comfort them.”

Teagan paused, gaze flitting from the cage to the pit, from there to the tomkins in her hand, and lastly, with a turn of her head, to Sihil.

“Alright.” she thoughtfully conceded, “It’s the least I, or rather you, could do. Not much, but I do feel bad, believe me. I have no qualms about doing what I will with soldiers and the like, but these people have evidently been through a lot.”

Without further ado, Sihil looked at the throng of prisoners under her, cleared her throat, and spoke, “My name is Sihil, and this here is my accom… no, my friend, Teagan.”

Sihil paused, expecting murmurs, accusations, insults, and threats. The weary-eyed prisoners offered none of these, and so she continued.

“You are free now, but as you can likely tell, we have endured great sacrifice in your liberation. Teagan is starving, and while she is extremely distressed about the need to do so, s-she… she needs… she needs to eat. I’m so sorry. I hope you can forgive me, or, at the very least, understand.”

“Done?” Teagan asked, snapping her attention, and gaze, back to the tomkins half-heartedly resisting her grasp.

“Yeah, I guess. It doesn’t feel like it did much, but I supp-”

Sihil was interrupted by a loud, attention-grabbing shout from one of the prisoners. A muscular, olive-skinned woman with a mane of unkempt black hair was waving furiously at her. Sihil looked questioningly at Teagan, who shrugged and gave her a nod of approval to entertain whatever the prisoner had to say.

“Oi! You, kid, you can talk to that thing, right?!”

“Her name is Teagan, as I said, but yes, we can talk. If you want me to talk her out of this, believe me when I say that I’ve already tried.”

“That’s crazy! The part about you being able to talk to her! But in a good way, kind of! Anyways, listen close, before she eats those poor bastards! I know these lands like the back of my hand, and I know the back of my hand pretty damn well after being stuck in this hell for so long! I swear to you, on my life and the lives of every one of my men, I can take her to a grove with enough food for a big ‘un like her before the sun moves an inch in the sky!”

Sihil paused to think. This could be good.

“That’s not a bad idea. Let me talk it over with her.”

Sihil whispered over to Teagan, conveying the situation to her, keeping her voice down to hide her emotion, even if the prisoners couldn’t understand what was being said. A few seconds of hushed communication later, Sihil leaned back over Teagan’s shoulder and looked back at the energetic woman, while Teagan set the tomkins she’d been holding back down in the cage.

“Teagan likes the sound of it too. Say, can you point out all of your aforementioned men to me? We’d like to aptly reward you for your offer.”

The woman obliged, chattering on about her prowess as a tracker, navigator, and scout, while rounding up all but around ten of the prisoners. When she was done, she looked back expectantly towards Sihil.

“I don’t suppose we’ll be gettin’ our reward until she gets a full belly, huh? And that means we’ve got to stick with you?”

“No and yes, respectively.” Sihil replied, “You’ll only get it if she doesn’t find the food that’s so conveniently nearby. If you can’t lead us to that grove in your promised instant before the sun moves, you’re her next meal, along with the lives of those you recklessly staked on such a bold claim. Do your job, and your reward is leaving intact. As for the rest of you, you’re all free no matter what happens to them. We’ll take you closer to civilization and send you on your way. We ask in return only that you keep quiet about our specific whereabouts. Your lives are in the balance, though, and should you fail, we won’t [i]need[/i] to worry about you bringing more soldiers our way. You’d better find her some food, now, and fast. ”

Sihil didn’t like speaking so harshly, especially when the groans and agonized wails of the betrayed turned into a general sense of ire focused on the blushing, trembling self-proclaimed scout, who seemed to lose all of her bravado in the time that Sihil responded.

“W-well, I guess we can’t quite refuse… no time to waste then. Not sure how you’ll take all of us with you, though, given tha-”

The woman yelped as Teagan, with a surge of reserved arcane strength, pulled the cage from the ground and into her grasp without so much as a laying a hand on it until it had already settled. Teagan was almost immediately winded by the effort, but she certainly enjoyed the reaction her stunt got from the crowd she held in her hands, secretly relishing their exclamations of wonder, fear, and surprise.

“That’ll just about do it. So you’re taking us all with you. Well, let me propose an alternative, then. It’s rather rainy, and the noise and smell are dulling my senses, so I’m not too sure if I can take you to this grove. That being said, the giants that lived here, they had to keep food about, right? They certainly devoured a few of our number, regrettably, but I’ve seen ‘em eating their fill from bowls of rice aplenty. They also even gave us a few grains, very occasionally - the victors in the pit got to eat - so I’m sure they had enough to go around. Let’s take a look around here.”

Sihil wasn’t enamored by the woman’s blithe attitude, but she had already found a degree of respect for her; it was obvious that she was lying about the grove, but in doing so, she was prepared to sacrifice her own life to try and save those of her comrades. A respectable act, if not a foolishly reckless one. Her gamble didn’t pay off, but now that she was on the spot, she proposed a far more feasible idea.

Much to everyone’s relief, a few minutes of ambling around and digging through junk yielded a few fist-sized pouches of long-grained, black rice, as well as clothes to supplement those that Teagan got from the landsknekte, and a new backpack to help her lug things around as she pleased without having to deal with the ragged holes and shoddy patches that plagued her current bag. Teagan, hoping to sate her hunger as quickly as possible, started gnawing on a small handful of the uncooked rice before putting the prisoner cage down again, and, with a hiss of breath released through her closed lips, ripping away one of the cage’s wicker walls before transferring the various objects of her old backpacks, starting with Hassan, Aaliyah, and Rhaea, who received but a brief glimpse at the world around them and an empathetic wave from Sihil before returning into a dark, soft interior much like the one they’d exited, albeit far cleaner and less rough for wear.

~

Zoe exulted in the wearied cheers and congratulations of her comrades, breathing a heavy sigh of relief as the strange and frankly terrifying giantess popped uncooked rice, rather than people, into her mouth. She watched closely as the giantess lifted a trio of people, all of them seemingly healthy and well-fed, albeit beleaguered in countenance, out of her old massive bag, and transferred them to the one she’d taken from the other giants, who were now strewn about the area, all dead, along with a few unfamiliar other giants clad in similar apparel to this Teagan character. What really caught Zoe’s eye, however, was when the giantess reached into one of the two pockets stitched into the side of her old back, and pulled something truly amazing from within; treasures of every variety, gemstones and goblets and swords and platters, bossed shields and bronze muscled cuirasses, gemstones the size of a person’s head and necklaces strung with silver beads; the sight was appallingly tantalizing, so close yet so incredibly far out of reach. That haul would put to shame everything she’d earned in her career with ease.

“Hey, kid!” Zoe shouted up to the girl perched on the giantess’ shoulder, “I didn’t catch your name yet! I’m Zoe, by the way!”

“My name’s Sihil. Nice to meet you, I suppose.” she flatly responded, seeming more than a bit uninterested in conversation. Zoe wasn’t going to let herself be so easily deterred.

“Can I ask how you got in this particular circumstance?” Zoe queried, hoping to ascertain whether it was Sihil or Teagan who was in charge. She had seen her fair share of mindless, enslaved giants, and she knew for a fact that this one acted under no such influence as that of the slavers’ magic.

“Long story. To sum it up, I can speak their language, and Teagan here really isn’t all that bad of a person. It was hard getting through to her, but I think she’s demonstrated that she means you no ill will. Spread the word, if you please… the sooner the senseless violence ends, the better,”

“That’s super neat!” Zoe shouted back, enthusiastically, “Say, though, it’s gotta be pretty dangerous travelling through these lands. I heard that a coalition force was tracking a particularly rampant giantess down, headed this way… I myself was hoping we could find some manner of work with that force when these beasts snatched us up. I figure it’s been around a week now, but to my point, I don’t suppose that’s you they’re after, is it?” 

“Probably.” Sihil responded, “Teagan isn’t popular with the Orestians or the Selcenians at this point, and I vaguely remember us having an unfortunate run-in with a Q’thumani outpost.”

Score! Zoe tried to keep a straight face, but couldn’t help grinning just a little.

“Well, I [i]did[/i] notice all that treasure your friend Teagan has stored up there, and I figure - me and my companions are mercenaries - maybe you could use an escort? We can keep up a brisk jog for good long time, and I figure we’d be able to keep up with her stride. I don’t see her using it any time soon, and frankly, I don’t see you using it either. Word travels quick, kid, and people won’t take kindly to your friend. Some people. Not me. I’m fine with it! Really!”

Zoe felt her heart pounding as Sihil and Teagan talked in that unfamiliar tongue of theirs, Sihil’s face turned away from her and Teagan’s wearing an unreadable expression. After a few minutes passed, Zoe’s impatience got the better of her, and she waved up at Sihil.

“Oi! Can you fill me in on what’s going on? What does the big gal think?”

“To be truthful,” Sihil said, a little scornfully, “She’s a fan of your idea. Me, not so much. We’re talking it over, and I’m trying my best to figure out what’s compelling her to even think of hiring an entourage of half-starved, weaponless, former prisoners. I doubt you’d do much good against whatever force they’d deem necessary to bring my friend here down. That being said, if you really do know the surrounding lands like the back of your hand, she thinks you could be helpful as a guide alone, and she’s just as keen on having you facilitate peace between us and the giants as I am.”

“Well... “ Zoe could tell Sihil was half-convinced herself, and went in for the figurative kill, “Who does that treasure belong to? I’d like to think they have the full right in dictating how it’s spent.”

Sihil turned to Teagan, talked a few seconds more, got a nod of approval and a chuckle from the giantess, and turned back.

“That settles it, I guess. You said you could keep up with her pace? Let’s put that theory to the test, and get out of this horrid place as quickly as possible.”

~

It was dusk when it was visible. Icaria was mute at the sight, striding forward the same as ever even as the structure, far too large and crude to be the handiwork of anything but the giants, came into view. Dead bodies - also those of giants - were littered about.

“Commander Icaria! Our scouts found a giantess, still alive, asleep within the structure. She’s pretty badly wounded, so if we strike now, we ca-”

“Enough, Laeron. You’re not our strategist.” Icaria scolded, “Volkhard and I will handle it alone. Get everyone else ready to continue moving.”

“Y-yes, Commander Icaria!” Laeron stuttered, shocked by her flippantly bold decision. He knew better than to question it, and wasted no time in passing on her order. Volkhard stretched his arms, twirled his spear, and entered the massive door, followed by Icaria. Laeron watched as they turned a corner and disappeared from view, tense with worry.

“Looks like this was an internecine skirmish.” Volkhard commented, gaze settling on the numerous dead, “Judging by the prints we’ve found, only one giant made it out. They were accompanied… by humans. A large group of them, no less, numbers at least twenty to thirty, although it could be far more. I think we both know that’s got to be our quarry.”

“Yeah.” Icaria noted glumly, “I think we know.”

“What do you think she could possibly be doing? She’s headed dead on for Agopolis, she’s got a small crowd at her back, and she’s leaving a mess for you to clean up everywhere she goes. At this rate, everyone’s going to hear about the arcane giantess and the girl who can talk to her, not to mention whoever that small crowd she’s gathering consists of.”

“I’d say we ought to question everyone here, but that’s out of the picture at this point. We’re running out of time. We don’t know how much time she squandered in this place, but we need to capitalize on every second of it. Let’s follow those tracks, you and I ahead of the army.”

“Understood. Do you intend on us…?”

“Us killing her by ourselves? Yes. I think I can put my faith in myself, if not you. The soldiery can clean up her ever-growing retinue of heresiarchs if we’re successful, and can help us finish the job if we aren’t. If things turn out unimaginably, and she really is capable of unleashing such strength that she survives all that, I have a last resort, and I’m fairly certain you have one too. And Volkhard?”

“Yes?”

“If I die, you’re in charge of killing her, as I’m sure you’re already aware.”

“Understood.”

“You’ll have to kill the girl, too. Wring her traitorous neck for me. She alone is the true threat.”

“Understood.”

Volkhard wondered if Icaria knew he was lying. There would, eventually, come a time where he would find out. It seemed that time was fast approaching. Today, however, didn’t seem to be that time. It was just another job, quick and easy. Volkhard shut off his mind as the surviving giantess, still fast asleep, came into view.

“For all. For us. For you, Aelia. No matter the cost.”