Henry woke during predawn. Ada had made three beds of mosses for them, shaded underneath a large tree which alone had generated an abundance of apples, pears, and pomegranates. Now it was withering already, the leaves yellow, the bark flaky and shriveling. The embers of their fireplace had gone cold, having burned with Rennard’s flames. The three were covered under the same piece of cloth, from Ada’s rucksack.

Henry got up, yawning, stretching. The air was child through his throat. Ada’s head was near the fireplace, her monumental body stretching out from their little campsite. He noticed the grass near her had an extra sprightliness to their green shade, a few flowerheads poking up.

Henry ambled about, and the sight of Ada’s feet caught his attention. Henry moved over to them, a wary eye at his friends, still asleep. Ada slept on her side, both her feet lying sideways, the right one atop the left. Rounding her heel, he fell out of view from his friends, able to adore the wall of feet before him. He remembered these in human size yesterday, brushing all over his face and tongue, their creamy texture melting into him. Henry’s manhood stirred under his shorts. Moving along their length brought him to her toes at last. Apart from his usual fascination with them, they felt different now. Not just pretty, they belonged to a pretty person. The character Ada showed yesterday, his friends now convinced, it made him proud to be at her side. He’d fallen in love with Ada, and it made her even prettier.

Henry snuck closer to her toes. He didn’t want to wake her, didn’t want to put her in the awkward situation of being turned on but unable to do it. They couldn’t do it in front of his friends. With utmost caution, Henry kneeled and lay his face against the underside of her third toe, grazing it with his nose. He inhaled the scent of all her walking, the dried sweat, nuzzling against it like a cat against someone’s leg. Henry dared to stick out his tongue, taste the salty dirt on the nub of her toe. It took all his willpower to resist grabbing the soft flesh with his mouth, to kiss, bite, to lose himself. This lust wouldn’t do, not around his friends. Henry whipped out his manhood, and with the mere touch of his tongue and nose, he arrived at ejaculation in less than half a minute. With a faltering moan, he allowed himself one kiss, and his seed shot out into the grass.

He heard shuffling, from where he’d slept himself. His friends had woken. Henry pulled up his shorts and rounded Ada’s other side, to enter the campsite from around Ada’s head and not her feet. Although he for a moment had wished he and Ada had some privacy, seeing Rennard rub his eyes and get up, Milton turning about and greeting the morning light, it felt right. Compared to when he had woken out alone with Ada, there had always been the questions fraught with worry, forever unanswered. Now there was nothing. They were safe and headed home.

Ada didn’t wake long after. After a breakfast of produced strawberry, tomato, and peanuts, Ada put them on her shoulders and they were back on the southern path. After an hour of that, she jogged with Henry’s energy for an hour and a half, and thereafter Ada walked for another hour. Already, they arrived at Hemden, the town closest to the border. Ada had to find herself a new dress. If she wore the current Richwood garb, she would receive questions at the border.

“Tell them you’ll get them a fruit tree at their property,” Rennard suggested.

“I’m not sure erecting a fruit tree out of nothing goes well with lying low,” Milton said, to which Ada gave an approving nod. Instead, however, as Ada asked the locals where she might find new clothes, a shopkeeper recommended one of her friends out on the farm who had torn her dress yesterday.

There, the lady in question presented the blue garb with a pattern of green flowers from the waist down. The sleeves reached the elbow, the shoulders somewhat puffed out. From the hemline at the left shin, a tear zipped all the way up to the thigh. The lady offered it at a low-price, not free, but Ada had nothing.

That was when Rennard pointed to a large, empty basket and asked if it could be traded for pomegranates enough to fill the basket. The lady accepted. Ada left the premises, away from witnesses, where she summoned the tree and filled as much as her rucksack could fill, as well as pulling the hems of her dress and stocking them up there. She returned to the lady, trading them for the dress.

Back out beyond anyone’s eyes, Ada undressed. “You boys have seen me naked enough not to blush, haven’t you?”

“I’ve seen the insides of your cunt,” Rennard said, and she chuckled. Ada’s ample bosom jiggled as she slipped the Richwood outfit over her, tossing it aside. The blue dress fit well, albeit slightly too small given Ada’s large size. With the tear up to the thigh, Ada’s bare leg flashed out as she moved. Rennard burned the brown Richwood dress to leave nothing behind.

They were on their way again.

“I realize, we weren’t simply unlucky all this time,” Milton said, reacting to how unhindered their current travels were, “but we were out in the middle of nowhere. Encounters with the more indecent people are bound to happen out there.”

Ada put on a guilty smile. “I’m just here pretending you boys aren’t talking about me.”

“To be fair, we were in trouble before we stumbled on you in that farm,” Rennard said. “Who knows if we would have had an easy way home otherwise. Maybe greater dangers awaited us in another world, where you hadn’t done what you did and we were left on our own.”

Ada made in impressed expression. “I appreciate the sentiment.”

They marched for the entire morning. Not one mountain in sight for the past hours, the landscape had changed to flatter terrain. Ada jogged again with Henry’s energy.

At a sign, she stopped. The border was ahead.

“Ok, rest up and put on your best behavior,” Ada said.

“It shouldn’t be much of a hassle,” Milton said. “We’re from there.”

Ada walked casually towards the giant gatehouse through which the road went. It heralded a massive flag, the Richwood symbol, announcing to any eyes afar that this was a station to cross. The fields were open and unobstructed. Crossing the border without notice was far from impossible, but the chance of being caught wasn’t worth it, especially with how pure giants were allowed to enter Humius.

“Greetings,” the guard said to Ada and the boys on her shoulders.

“Hi, madam. I am returning these three to their homes. Through a series of unfortunate events, they ended up deep and couldn’t get out.”

“Hmm.” The issue was out of the common guard’s authority, so she led them into the building and up to her officer. It reminded the boys of where it all started, the giant guardhouse at Trester, where their prank with Lily began this cataclysm.

There, the officer, a middle-aged giant, asked the boys where they were from. They detailed their village and home to her, that they were three mages in training having reached their arts. They gave the names of the schools they practiced under, if they had, in the case where Henry was self-taught, and answered other general questions that made clear they were from there. Then, at last, the officer dipped a wad of cloth into a special solvent and rubbed it over Ada’s throat to see if an offgiant’s mark hadn’t been concealed through ointments or other known means. Ada’s pale skin remained untarnished. With a document given, they were allowed through. The document detailed the date Ada had come through, at what station, a very brief summary of her visit, and the date, a week later, at which she would be expected to return to Gintessa. Giants guards in Humius would meet her and ask for the document.

“They’ve got things well-arranged,” Ada said, folding the paper and putting it in her rucksack. Just into Humius, the path remained large for a giant. “But I won’t be returning.”

“You’re really going to bet on those islands to the southeast?”

“Leeman turned out right before. And even if I’ll try to move humbly, not bring attention, if attention does come, I can stay safe from most things. I’ve got the freedom to explore options. The islands are first. So, anyway…” Ada paused before a crossroad, the large path splitting into a few smaller ones, two of them heading into the nearby village from different angles, another still large and ongoing. The signpost didn’t reach Ada’s knee, and Ada kneeled for the human signpost. Milton knew the village name.

“We’re close,” he said, exhilarated. “Trester, where we went through previously, is much further north than this is, so we’ve gone down quite a bit. What’s left is going west.” He picked the path for her, giving directions. Ada had to move alongside the road, to not outcompete the humans who traversed it and put them in a position where it was either moving aside or being flattened by her soles. The cattle weren’t startled, the horse drawing the wagons unworried. They were used to giants, but Ada still tread gently and paid respect.

Milton and Rennard watched the human-sized houses, the citizens roaming around and busy with their everyday lives. “Home.”

Off the village grounds and into the woods, Ada resumed her faster pace, her feet covering more than half of the narrow road. All the three boys felt the thrilling tingles touch their chest. It was only noon, and they would get there today.

But Henry wasn’t free of concern. Returning home had been everything that mattered, yet now, to depart from Ada put the bitter into the sweetness. He was losing something. He thought longingly of the lovesome episodes they had shared, both her giant and human form. He imagined how easy it would have been to bring her home if she truly had nowhere else to go, had she not been giant. He still wished to be with her, he wondered if she did as well. Ada had been the one who lewdly cast herself at him first, covering him in her feet, swallowing him with her pussy. Now he feared the relationship had swapped, she with her power and plenty to look forward to had forgotten him, and him obsessing over not losing her. Her silence on the topic further plagued him. She had offered to take them back, a show of kindness, and he wondered if she mirrored an ounce of Henry’s melancholy over their coming departure. The minutes, hours, they were passing, Ada getting nearer and nearer to their home, the topic yet unexplored. He wished for a moment alone with her. Perhaps the presence of Milton and Rennard was the true issue here.

Milton pointed across the woods. “Just cut across here, over that hill.” Ada ignored the road according to his suggestion, ascending the hillock and down the other side, pushing past the chest-high trees.

An interruption to the trees came, stepping onto a road. “This is it!” Rennard called. Activating his base magics, he hopped down, then Milton, then Henry. This was where Lily had come stampeding over them.

Rennard stared down the familiar road. “We’re here.”

“Would this be a good place to leave you?” Ada asked.

“It’s perfect. We’re immensely grateful. Forget everything in the past.”

“I won’t.” Ada put her hand on her heart. “I know you didn’t exactly pop into my life and feed me the miracle stone, but it was the storm of events that came with you, and it’s correct to say that without you, none of this would have happened. Without you, I’d still be in that farm, drudging away another terrible and mundane day.”

Milton half-bowed. “What’s more satisfying is seeing how much you’ve changed.”

Although she spoke to everyone, her eyes crossed Henry’s. “I’ll remember you three. Now, I will go eastwards. If I am ever lost, I’ll pass by, trying not to be a burden.”

“Please do come by.”

“Well then.” Her feet twisted, turning, facing the other end of the road. “Farewell.”

Watching those pale, dirt-stained soles he had made so much love to, which carried them so far, kick one step after the other farther and farther down the road, it consumed Henry with an emptiness. For a second, he forgot how close home was, forgetting this was the anticipated moment, how they had spent their nights dreaming of being here. And here he was, a pit within him, a hollowness consuming all meaning.

Milton and Rennard were on their way back, their steps springy, speaking of what they would say. Henry trailed after.

“Go after her.”

Henry snapped up. Both his friends had stopped, looking him in the eyes. “Huh?”

Milton just repeated himself. “Go after her.”

Rennard groaned. “Come on man, she’s getting away. Go and have your private goodbyes, we’ll wait here.”

Henry spent another second before it clicked. And when it clicked, he turned on his arts and bolted down the path. As long as she kept it at a leisure walk, he would catch up. The road would turn ahead, wrapping around the hill Milton had told her to take a shortcut over. The path showed a steady rhythm of her footsteps, which Henry didn’t think he’d need, but they helped him notice when they stopped appearing.

Henry halted, backed up. Where the footsteps ended, few trees to the side were slightly bent over, entangled in one another, a few branches broken. He recognized the giant’s path well. Proceeding down that way, her shapely feet had left decent impressions there as well. They led out to a grassy openness against a hillside, where they had confronted Lily after Henry had stuck to her sole.

And against that hillside, Ada sat, hands on her knees, watching the skies thoughtfully.

He jogged over the grass with less urgency, and she noticed him. “Henry? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Ada bent forward and extended her palm, and Henry got on. She brought him up, holding him under her chin and before her breast. “You’re not going home?”

“I am.”

“Oh.” The deflation in her voice was clear, one of disappointment. “For a moment, I thought you decided to come with me. It really would have been a wish come true.”

“Yeah… for me too, in some ways.”

Ada brought up her other hand with a halting gesture. “Henry, no, don’t let me convince you of anything or make you guilty. You should be going home.”

“I know. But there’s also a time to leave home. And at that time, I would want to be with you.”

“This isn’t the end,” Ada said. “Far from it. I can visit. No, I will visit. You can be sure of it. I’ll have to play my cards right here, but as it looks, I’m a free woman now.”

“When will you visit?”

“I don’t know, but I will.” Her face flied forward to him, smacking a swift kiss onto his torso. “This is but a temporary separation, think of it that way.”

Henry smiled. “Honestly, this is all I wanted. It felt like we never got our chance to talk, to give our farewells.”

“Right? I thought so too, but I didn’t want to split you from your friends. It feels good to have gotten a word in. But remember, you shouldn’t be the one seeking me out, I’ll be in far less danger than you out in the road. Trust that I’ll come.”

“I will.”

“And Henry.” Ada kissed him again, and this time her lips lingered close to him. “I love you.” Her breath was warm on his chest.

“I love you too.” He kissed her upper lip, she his face and shoulders. They kissed for several seconds until she released him with a deep, final smooch.

Ada placed him on the ground. “Farewell for now, Henry.”

“Farewell.”