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*Dong*

*Dong*

*Dong*

The ringing of the village’s alarm bell in the middle of the night was followed almost at once by a loud cry:

“Pirates! Every man to your stations, the pirates are here!”

The guard was silenced by a well-placed throw of an axe from outside the wooden walls of the quaint coastal village of Arken. A few soldiers ran to the great wooden gates and were attempting to barricade it when they were pushed back by no less than a dozen large, burly men in shoddy clothing. They all carried swords and axes with them, and they gave a cry of triumph which clashed against the screams of the people in the village.

“Steel yourselves! Hold them off! Get the women and children into the keep!”

The villagers all dashed for the large, wooden building located in the centre of the town, but the pirates were swift and strong, so any chance of defending their families was diminishing. Soldiers of the town fell to the ruthless pirates and soon houses were burning that lit the night sky up. People screamed as they saw the brave men being slaughtered, and it only stopped when the pirates had the remaining soldiers and their families cornered against one wall of the village, their numbers a mere twenty. The town had been small before, but now they were on their last legs.

From the crowd of pirates, one stepped forward. He had a thin moustache that was well kept, a feature that stood out amongst his crewmates. He also wore a black trench coat over a white shirt and brown pants, and he had fine, black boots to match the coat.

“Good evening,” he said sinisterly, without a trace of warmth in his voice. “We are here to do as we pirates do. Your village has been sorely lacking in your tribute to our king. We are normally very understanding masters, but this has become too great an issue for us.”

“We only missed one crate of goods! You cannot possibly…”

The man who had protested was silenced by a quick stab to the stomach, and he fell over at the pirate’s feet. A few cries went out before he silenced them with a glare.

“As payment for your disloyalty, we will take your treasures and....a few of the new widows!”

Protests went up again as the pirates rushed forward and began grabbing some of the women of the village. They kicked and screamed, but they were no match for the men dragging them away. The pirate leader smiled at his victory, but suddenly time seemed to stand still when he was swiftly yanked dozens of feet into the air.

 

Princess Sylvie of Vandan had decided to rest for the night on the edge of a coastal forest. The full moon was shining off the sea she had been sticking close to for the past few days. Having travelled for many weeks across the lands surrounding her homeland, she had finally reached the shores and seen the ocean for the very first time in her life. It took a lot to impress a giantess like her, but seeing an endless expanse of deep blue water stretching beyond the horizon took her breath away at first glance. There were also many rivers which flowed into the ocean in this part of the world and they provided her with a good source of water, a valuable commodity that was hard to come by, especially for a young woman like Sylvie who stood over 150 feet tall.

She had nearly fallen asleep when the smell of smoke reached her nostrils. Any fire in the woods would be disastrous for the nearby villages, so she figured it was in her own and their best interest to put it out. She stood up and surveyed the area, but to her surprise the smoke was rising not from the forest, but from a village a few miles away. A forest fire was bad, but a fire that large coming from a village meant trouble. She made her way there swiftly, her feet causing the ground to shake and leaving deep imprints in the snow, but she was careful to keep silent the closer she got.

When she was a few hundred feet away, she heard screaming and talking, but she couldn’t make out the words. She hoped that her presence would go unnoticed until she was closer. As she got on her knees and crept towards the village, she could distinctly hear the words that were spoken, and when the male voice mentioned taking women with them, she knew it was time to intervene. She peeked over the wall, her form a shadow to anyone who would look up, and she moved with lightning speed to pinch what looked like the leader between her thumb and forefinger. The commotion this set off was tremendous, the other men immediately dropping their prey and backing away from the giantess. She ignored them, though, and turned her attention to the man in her grasp. She brought him close to her eyes and immediately deduced that he was some kind of pirate, a type of enemy she had run across before, not unlike a bandit of the seas.

“Well, well, well! Looks like I’ve found myself some pirates!” she exclaimed, turning the tiny man in her grasp upside-down and shaking him a bit. “What do you lot think you’re doing, terrorizing these people?”

“P-p-please! Don’t hurt me! W-we were just leaving!”

“That’s right, you were! You are all leaving this very instant!”

Sylvie ignored the screams from her prisoner as she opened up the cloak she was wearing and dropped him into an inner pocket. Then she went to work, fishing the rest of the pirates out one-by-one and stuffing them into her cloak’s pockets, as though it were a cloth dungeon. Some of the braver pirates tried to put up a fight, but their swords, bows and spears were almost laughably ineffective against the young giantess, and she disarmed with a few deft moves of her fingers. Her pockets were too deep for any of them to successfully climb out of, and even if they managed to do so, they would face a fall of well over a hundred feet before landing on solid ground.

In a couple of minutes there were only two of the invaders left uncaptured, and they hid themselves in one of the houses that wasn’t burning. Sighing, Sylvie knew that there was only one way to get them out.

“I’m very sorry, everyone,” she told the cowering townsfolk, who were equally as frightened of seeing a colossal young woman appear in their midst as the pirates were, “but if you want to be rid of these pirates, I’ll have to do a teensy bit of damage of my own.”

She knelt down next to the little house and, using only one hand, lifted up its wooden roof as though it were the lid of a box. It didn’t damage the house itself, but some of the roof’s beams fell down and trapped the two pirates inside. She dug around with her fingers and brushed the large pieces of wood off of them with little effort, then let them join their friends in one of her pockets. She smiled as she lowered what remained of the roof, seeing her work was complete, then stood to her full height and stepped outside the bounds of the village.

Standing upright, her knees were well above the tallest part of their wall, so the survivors had a clear view of her. She was wearing a long grey dress that reached all the way to her shins, and black boots for the winter weather. She also had a black velvet cloak that sported a hood, which she wore whenever it snowed to cover her beautiful golden hair. Around her waist was a brown belt on which there hung a dagger in its sheath as well as several pouches. While it was just a dagger to her, its blade could easily splinter a house if she chose to use it for such violent methods. The giantess stood there, looking down at the crowd, and they looked up at her, no-one daring to speak.

“Well...you’re welcome, I guess,” she said, feeling a little bit awkward. Then she patted her cloak where the pirates were imprisoned. “Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of these at once!”

With that, she promptly spun around on her heels and made her way to the sea. It wasn’t much of a speech, and they were obviously still terrified of her despite her heroic actions, but none of that bothered Sylvie. She wasn’t a diplomat like Belena was, her older sister who ruled over Vandan as its queen, and who was hundreds of miles away from her now. She was also not the best at building relations with humans; her brother, Valdan, was much better at this, since he was human-sized and not a giant like her. She aspired to do good to anyone she met and was always ready to rescue innocent people without a second thought, but she usually ended up scaring people with her methods. This too did not bother her, since dealing with scum like the men in her pocket was too much fun for her not to get a bit carried away with it sometimes. Being a giantess had its ups and downs, but one of the best parts of her life was getting to toy with evildoers and humiliate them to knock them down a peg. It brought her a great deal of joy to know that she was saving lives and teaching bad men a lesson at the same time. Not that she would be cruel with them, but who didn’t love sticking a bandit in your boot or tying a pirate up in your hair for a day?

She finally reached the shore, having left the village behind her, and she saw the spot where the pirates’ ship had anchored and was waiting for them. When she got close to it, however, a final surprise lay in wait for her. The handful of pirates who’d remained on the ship had seen her coming from far off, and had readied themselves to attack. A small catapult was located on the ship’s forward deck, which the pirates usually used to bombard the walls of coastal cities. As Sylvie watched, they loaded the catapult with a flaming projectile, nearly two feet in size, and then suddenly launched it in her direction. The young giantess stood completely still as the fiery ball sailed in her direction. Then, just before it would have struck her in the chest, she lifted her hand and flicked the projectile back with one finger. The pirates on deck scattered in alarm as their weapon came flying back towards them, but luckily for them it sailed clear over the ship and splashed into the water beyond.

“Ooh, that didn’t seem to work, did it?” Sylvie said, giggling. “Anyone want to try again? No? Oh well…”

She stuck her hands in her pockets. It took a moment to get a grip on all of them, but before long she had her palms facing up, in which lay a pile of pirates all lying on top of one another. She shook her head, watching them all groan from their trip and whimper under the gaze of their captor.

“You little rats! Raiding and pillaging isn’t very kind, now, is it?” she yelled at them. “Does it bring you joy to kill and steal?” A few of them shook their heads with vigour, but most of the pirates kept silent. “I could do so many things to you all...sit on you and squish you into jelly...or grind you up and make a fine soup out of you!” At that, some of the men began crying. “I could even plop you in my mouth, one by one, like little blueberries!”

That last threat got everyone to beg and plead for their lives, some even kissing her palm in hopes of paying for their wrongdoings. Of course, Sylvie had no intention of doing any of those wicked things, but seeing such evil men grovel was thrilling to her. After she figured they had begged enough, she stepped into the water, using one hand to hold her dress up, and when she was deep enough to where her boots were almost fully submerged, she tipped her hands to the side and watched as 25 pirates plummeted into the sea. Once they were all afloat and swimming away hastily back to their ship, she blew them a kiss and waved.

“Go back home, and don’t even dream of coming back to these people again!”

Satisfied with her work, Sylvie climbed out of the sea and began looking around for another place to sleep.


Before Sylvie arrived to liberate the town, one young pirate had been hiding in a house, counting some coins he had found under a mattress. He was about 25 years old and he had a little stubble, but he was mostly a fine-looking young man despite his clothes being distinctly pirate-like. As he counted, he heard the leader of their crew, Gorrun, giving his usual speech. The next thing he heard was a pair of boots approaching, and the door swung open.

“Roth, get your lazy keester out here or it’ll be thirty lashes tonight!”

The man slammed the door shut, and Rotham (or Roth as he was known to all around him) sighed. He detested the pirate life, or at least most of it. He was happy to have found an easy way to pay himself, but the crimes the other pirates committed were downright inhumane. They were true monsters to Roth, but he didn’t have much of a choice now. He was stuck in this way of life and saw no other option but to go along with it. However, he left the killing and the torturing to the others; he wanted no part of that. Nor did he speak out against it, since he knew that Gorrun wouldn’t hesitate to make an example of him if he came across as soft.

As he stood up to begrudgingly join the rest, he suddenly heard the other pirates screaming and running about. Then an unusually powerful but female voice sounded over the village, and Roth froze in his tracks. Running to the window, his fears were realized. It was the giantess! He had heard rumours of this newcomer to these lands, who had already struck fear into other pirates, but he never thought he would run into her. He wanted to run away and get as far away from the village as possible, but something kept him still. Perhaps she didn’t know he was there. He backed away from the window and kept to the shadows in the house. Luckily, his plan worked – for a moment. It was ruined when two other pirates ran into the house, and they pushed him back into the wall in their rush to find shelter.

He rubbed the back of his head which was now throbbing, but he could hear the giantess say something just before a crash came from above as her hand lifted up the roof. The strength of her hand was so great it could lift up the roof easily, and Roth couldn’t have been more terrified. He pushed himself into the corner, trying to stay away from the seeking fingers that entered the gaping hole. They came ever closer, pushing debris out of the way, and just by sheer luck she brushed some of it onto him and buried him, only finding the other two pirates. Being trapped under large pieces of lumber wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it beat being captured and left to the whims of a giant girl. Roth waited for a moment, and when he felt the ground rumble, he knew she was walking away.

He let out a sigh of relief and, with a grunt, he freed himself from the rubble. Blowing dust and splinters off of himself, the young man crept out of the house and ran out of the village before any angry villagers found him and enacted their own vengeance. As he ran from the village and into the forest, his only thought now was to get far away. Not just from the village and the giantess, but from the pirates too. He was done with that life if it meant being the enemy of a giantess.

 

          The next morning, Sylvie woke up with a pain in her neck. She slowly rose from her sleeping position and quickly surmised that she was in pain because she slept with her head against a rock, a huge boulder by human standards, and now she had to deal with sore muscles.

Sighing, she sat up completely and surveyed the area, her neck at an angle as she massaged it. The woods were silent all around her, with nary a sound even of birds singing. She was in a clearing, a few miles into the sea of trees, and behind her was a great cliff that rose above her head. It wasn’t perfect, but it kept her dry enough.

It was then that her stomach rumbled, so she pulled out a small vial with a red liquid inside, as well as a sack of human-sized fruit in a satchel on her belt. She’d gathered it from people she’d met on her travels who were gracious enough to share with her, but that hadn’t been for a while. She was going to have to find a new source of food soon. Luckily, the bag of fruit would last a while, so would the curious vial of liquid that she held. It contained a potion that had been made, with great difficulty, specifically for her and her sister by a society of alchemists from Rismark, in case they ever needed to make long journeys away from home. It could make any object that came from a plant grow, including fruit and vegetables, though it had no effect on animals, meat or inanimate objects. Sylvie had no idea how it worked, but it worked wonders for her.

She dropped an apple on the ground, the fruit barely the size of a pea in her hands, then she tapped the vial once to let a drop fall on it. It immediately grew to the giant size of ten feet across, perfect for a light breakfast for the giantess. She took it in her palm and chomped away while she reflected on her journey.

It had been five months since she parted ways with Valdan. Her brother was somewhere far away now, off on some adventure in a distant land, similar to herself. She had packed well, taking plenty of food that wouldn’t spoil and extra bags for the food people had given her. She hadn’t planned on being given gifts, rather the original intention of the bags was to collect her own food. Unfortunately, winter had killed a lot of the food she could have foraged, but spring was fast approaching. Already, each morning she would wake to less snow. Soon enough, she felt that she could discard the cloak she still needed to wear.

She couldn’t wait for it to get warmer, since it meant she could do something that she couldn’t really enjoy up till now: bathe. Whenever she found a lake that was large enough and secluded enough, she would strip off her clothes and take a quick dip, never more than a few minutes. Her enormous size meant that she wasn’t as affected by the cold as a human would’ve been, though it wasn’t a very pleasant sensation at all. Then she’d get dry and dressed as quickly as possible, always at risk of being seen by any passers-by, though there seemed to be very few travellers in these lands. At least the cold wasn’t a problem when it came to washing her clothes; she’d brought a second outfit along with her in her bag, so that she had something to wear whenever she took a day off from travelling to wash.

She actually hadn’t prepared much for the journey at all, despite knowing she wanted to go on an adventure. The last time she had ventured far off, it was with her brother and she had nearly starved to death before making it home safely. She was sure to solve that problem this time, but in her eagerness to go, she neglected to prepare for every scenario. Honestly, that made the whole experience more fun for her. Getting to figure out how to survive, like her mother had.

Her mother…Queen Valerie. Thinking of her brought a tear to her eye, which she wiped away. Part of the reason for this journey was to follow in her mother’s footsteps: to explore and to help others at the same time. She had thought of her throughout her travels, and she found pride in knowing she carried the dagger Valerie had gifted her. It was a good weapon, and it was forged with the finest silver they had. Elegant, but deadly. If she ever ran into a beast, like the wyvern she and Valdan had encountered years ago, her mother’s gift would come in handy.

So far, she hadn’t used the dagger. In fact, a lot of her journey had been uneventful, save for the pirates. She ran into the occasional troll, but they were so small to her they were barely a nuisance. Most of them fled from her at first sight, and those who became aggressive and tried to attack her she picked up like dolls and tossed them into another part of the forest.

Eventually she had grown lonely, so much so that when she came across a bear that acted particularly fierce with her, she took it with her for a few days. It bit her dozens of times, yet she would stroke its back and play with it until it gave in and accepted its fate. When she realized it wasn’t happy with her, she put it back where she found it and became alone once more. Being by herself was something she enjoyed at first, but now she would have given anything to have Valdan as company again.

As though in answer to her wish, a clump of snow fell on her head, and she heard a man yelp as he fell past her face and into her lap.

 

Roth had run for a few hours before he fell, his knees weak and his breath gone. He didn’t know how long he had slept, or how far he had run the night before, but he knew how hungry he was. His stomach pangs woke him and he staggered through whichever part of the woods he was in for a while before he simply fell against a tree and slid onto his bottom.

“I guess my fate will be no different than that of the other pirates. It just took a little longer…”

As he sat there, he felt the ground rumble a bit and he heard some trees moving not far from him. Curiosity gave him new strength and he crept towards the source of the noise. A moment later and he nearly fell off a cliff...straight onto a head of golden hair. It didn’t seem possible, but the giant girl was back! Roth backed away from the cliff slowly, hoping his presence had not been made known, but when she gave no sign that she had heard him, he crept closer. Peering over the edge of the cliff, he saw her drop an apple on the ground and tip a vial of red liquid over it, letting a drop fall on it. To his astonishment, the apple grew large enough for her to eat, and his jaw dropped. It was a potion that could make things grow! He’d never have to go hungry again, he could give up his life of piracy and go live alone with this potion where he could not only survive but thrive. Maybe he could even use the potion to make some money on the side.

He watched for a bit longer, daydreaming about what his life could be like if he could just take that vial. Then he decided that that’s what he was going to do. He watched her stick it in a pouch on her belt, and he knew this was his moment. She seemed to be lost in thought, so he stepped closer to look for a way down to the vial. Unfortunately, he set his foot on the wrong patch of snow and it fell away, taking him with it. He hoped to fall behind her and bury himself in the snow surrounding her, but luck was not on his side. Down past her face he went, and he landed softly into her lap, her grey dress folding around him.

Only slightly dazed, he looked up straight into the eyes of the giantess who had taken down an entire gang of pirates...and then he realized that he was also wearing their type of clothing.

 

Sylvie looked at the man curiously. Then she looked above her, surmising that he had been watching her and had stepped a bit too close to the edge. Focusing on him again, she narrowed her eyes and leaned in to get a better look.

“Uh…who are you?” she asked, looking confused.

“Me? Oh, er, no-one important. Who are you?”

“Maybe I’m the same. Were you watching me?”

“You? No, no, no, I just…took a wrong turn, fell off. Happens a lot, I’m afraid. All right, I’ll be going then!”

The man scrambled to his feet and made for the edge of her lap, but she slapped her hand down on him to keep him in place.

“Hey!” he cried out, as she pressed him down into the fabric of her dress

“Oh no, you don’t! I know a liar when I see one. I also know a pirate when I see one…”

“Pirate? That’s ridiculous!” The man struggled underneath her palm, his upper half free, but his legs weren’t moving an inch.

“You’re wearing pirate clothes, aren’t you? And why are you so eager to escape?”

“Well, I mean, you are extremely big and scary. Now, if you don’t mind…”

The man suddenly drew a dagger from his sleeve and stabbed it into the skin of her hand. This had little effect on Sylvie, just making her wince slightly, but she quickly reacted by knocking the dagger from his hands.

“Hey, listen…” he began to say, but was cut short as Sylvie gripped his legs and lifted him, upside-down, to her eye level. His arms hung limp and his eyes widened, but he didn’t cry or scream. He was honestly quite bold. Or stupid.

“Did you really try to stab me? You’re a really stupid pirate then…”

“Stupid?! Well, what would you do then, in my position?”

“Turn myself in, maybe? You pirates are all so detestable! Killing, stealing, doing whatever you want!”

“Hey! I’m not a killer, all right? I only steal what I need to survive!”

Sylvie rolled her eyes and lifted him higher up above an open mouth she positioned right under him.

“Well, there’s only one thing I’m going to do to you now. Thieves need to be punished anyways…” She lowered him to her lips and extended her tongue.

“Hey now, let’s be rational here! I...please!” He cried out just as the tip of her tongue touched a strand of his hair, but she began to laugh hysterically instead, once again dropping him in her lap. The man landed on his chest, the wind knocked out of him, but he stood up again and looked at her, his heart racing but his anger increasing.

“You think that was funny?!”

Sylvie continued laughing and wiped a tear from her eye before she looked at him again.

“Um…yes. It was very funny! How does it feel to be helpless now? That’s how those villagers feel whenever you take what you want and kill who gets in your way!”

“I already told you, I don’t kill! I hate killing! I only steal, and I’m an honourable thief too.”

“Honourable thief? Are you really that thick?”

“I...no, I’m not arguing with a giant.”

He once again made for the ground, but Sylvie caught him in her hand as he jumped and lifted him in front of her face.

“Oh no, you’re not getting away! You could have escaped with your pirate friends, but no, you came here to either gaze at me or, as you say it, honourably steal from me. Maybe even both. So, if you think I’m letting you run off to do that to another person, you really are thick.”

As he sat there in her palm, his mind racing through all the things she could do to him, she removed a string she used to tie one of her pouches. She stuffed the empty pouch into a different one, then she sloppily tied the string around his waist. She ended up tugging a little too tight and he gasped for air, so she loosened it slightly and then smiled at her handiwork.

“Uh…what was the point of that?” he asked, looking perplexed

Sylvie didn’t respond as she lifted the rope up, making him go airborne, and then tied it behind her neck, letting him rest on her chest just above her bosom. The man struggled and tugged at the rope, but with a quick shake of her head, he lost his energy to fight.

“Really?” he yelled up at her. “You’re just going to ‘wear’ me now, like I’m some kind of jewellery or something? I deserve more respect than this! Once I get out of this, you’re dead, you hear me?”

 

Sylvie ignored him entirely as she brushed off the snow from her head, secured her pouches, and left her spot to continue the journey with her new prisoner.


Chapter End Notes:

Thanks for the support on the last story! Hopefully you're ready for another wild ride, though lighter than what has come before. 

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