Alden brought the dark-blue upon himself, charged with energy. Leila measured him, not making a move yet. Aggressively reactive was the best way to fight a giant, Alden had been taught, and that trend could be something Leila was aware of as she remained passive. That air of smugness about her might just be more of her play, however.

Alden peered at the woods behind her. Getting in there was his best shot. He took a couple of steps to the side.

“Oh no.” Leila stretched her leg out to the side and stood wide-legged, like a guard holding a door. “You wouldn’t leave a lady behind like that, would you?”

“You’ll have to do your best to hold onto me, then.” Alden sped up and dashed along the hillside. Leila moved, right upon him. She was fast. She threw a kick at the hillside, the shadow of her sole falling over him. Alden dodged down the slope, toward the woods, but Leila hadn’t committed to that stomp. Instead, she kicked off the hill, sending herself down after him, and her other foot with its beautiful anklet was aimed right at him.

Alden had to break all his momentum and turn abruptly, almost tripping. Her sole smashed the soil where he’d stood, the puff of wind laying the surrounding grass low. He hesitated, but spent a second deciding this was a chance to retaliate. He cast his arms forward, and her other foot swung by. Alden was caught in the gap between her second and third toe. She was terribly nimble.

Leila scrunched her toes, his torso caught in the fleshy clamp between the ball of her foot and the toes, while his legs stuck out. “You need to get those woods out of your mind, sweetheart.” The flesh under her toes was soft, deforming to welcome his face in its embrace.

He hated himself for loving it. That scent should have been reviling; they were to any ordinary man. But Alden indulged in it.

“Let’s not enjoy ourselves too much.” With an agile kick of her lower leg and release of her toes, Leila threw him against the hill. He slammed into the crest and rolled on top of it, getting up fast. Alden was excited, but not merely from battle. Her comment was given in jest, unaware of how true it was. He was indeed enjoying those toes too much.

“Snap out of it, you fool,” he murmured to himself, fighting his eyes off her feet. Their shape was perfectly in line with the skills she’d exhibited, a delicate slenderness showing beauty, yet rounded out with the right fillings of muscle and strength to make them capable weapons. The bony trinkets clunked around her ankle as she came towards him, her right leg flaunting its nakedness through the parted skirt. Leila came uphill.

She kicked her foot up. Dodging the kick didn’t give Alden an opening, for her foot was high up and ready to slam down, forcing him on the retreat yet again. The window for attack was low. Alden had to adjust.

The next slam of her foot, he went for a risky, small sidestep. Her toes were just a yard short of finding him in their grasp. Alden shot forward with a jab of his elbow, a blooming blue scattering over her foot.

“Ah!” Leila zipped her leg back, lost balance and fell, a flash of seriousness coming over her. She caught herself, though not too well, slipping downhill. Alden slammed both his fists into her arch, an explosion of magic causing a flexure of her foot. Knees flexing, she pulled her lower legs back and spun around, throwing herself back up. “Well, well.” The tug of her lips returned, the beginnings of a smirk. There was a certain stress to her expression now. “You’re not bad. Good, even. Why won’t you show me your art?”

That question never grew any less tiresome.

“Hmm, saving it for the right time?” Leila cracked her knuckles, adjusted her hair, pulled her brassiere in place. “You interest me, boy.”

Alden saw the younger sister, Mimmie, emptying his rucksack and going through his things. Even if he got the upper hand against Leila, which seemed unlikely, there were another pair of giant feet ready to join the fray. He wasn’t sure what a good, realistic outcome looked like for him here.

No time to think, Leila was upon him. She stomped in quick succession, ending with a powerful one. Alden hopped up on her bent knee and skipped further upwards, readying a blast at her face.

Her palm flied in from behind and slapped him into her breast, the naked upper half unconcealed by the brassiere. “Feeling playful, are we?” The buoyant flesh gave way until it didn’t, until she smushed him so hard there wasn’t any more doughy lump of tit flesh to go past. Her hand was unrelenting in its force, mashing him for a good minute. Then, she picked his leg between her thumb and index and slapped him into her breast, then squeezed him into her midline while tightening her abdomen. The packed muscle made him miss her breast. With a final whack into her belly, Leila dropped him.

Alden landed with a groan. He could bring it together again, he could get up, get ready, but he didn’t see the point in it.

“Given up?”

Alden turned over, lying on his back and staring up at the monument of beauty she was. “Pretty much.”

“Feel like talking yet?”

“Will you let me go if I do?”

Leila smiled in response. She raised her left foot and hovered it over him, fanning her lively toes out in display. The foot lowered on top of him, the ball over his chest and his head between her second and big toe. They pinched his face, smushing his cheeks together in their warm, soft flesh.

Alden had the feeling of complete surrender overwhelm him. Everything felt pointless, disowned by his reputable father, his promising future taken away from him, now a lone, mercenary outcast in a small guild trying to earn some money here in the nowhere of Wessfarrow.

Alden turned his head and kissed the side of her big toe. The kiss was the first of many, sticking his tongue out as well and tasting the dirt and grass. He didn’t care. He enjoyed it, so he would do it. What image was he preserving anyway? Why shouldn’t he do it?

The erupting laughter from Leila stung. Since he’d already thrown out his rounds of slobbering kisses and had effectively shot his pride dead, there was no going back. Stopping now wouldn’t salvage anything, so he just continued, trying to ignore the sincere character of her laughter. Leila held her mouth the way a shy girl would, even grew teary-eyed from laughter, all while Alden made out with the pulpy side of her big toe. Once he got past the soil and grass, he reached the layer of dried sweat and restored it to its former salty glory. He was ravenous. He worshipped them so aggressively that he almost forgot these were the vehicles of battle which had fought him a moment ago.

“You know,” Leila said, able to get a few words out, wiping a tear out from the corner of her eye. “I had my suspicions from the way you were staring at them, but I didn’t think it would come like this. You even seemed to have some toughness, some grit.” Leila flicked her hair. “But it seems my beauty is irresistible.”

Alden’s manhood was raging in his pants. She didn’t move her foot whatsoever, letting it rest on him and have him do it all.

“Big sis.” Mimmie joined her sister’s side. On her palm she offered the tiny emblem of the Tailglows which Alden always had in the rucksack.

Leila received the emblem, measuring it between thumb and index. “I’ve never seen this one before. They might not be part of the kingdom. Any comments?” The question was asked with a twist of her foot.

That small grind rubbed up against his manhood, and Alden squirmed with a moan. Leila noticed, twisting her ball again.

With just that, Alden came. He spurted his seed into his pants, driving his hips up into her sole, a movement done in automation. Leila burst into another round of laughter, and Alden couldn’t distract himself with worship or anything like it. He could only lie in the sedated embarrassment following orgasm, where gloomy thoughts found their way into the mind.

“He even asked me if he could kiss my feet,” Mimmie said, frowning down at him. “He’s weird.”

“He sure is.” Leila got it together again, her smile showing her teeth. “I thought there was something interesting about him. And he might have some talent, but in the end, he’s just some no-name creep. Isn’t that so?” Her toes pinched his head again, rubbing into his face now that he’d lost all his drive and was repulsed by them just as any normal person ought to be.

As the toes played with him, Alden cried. It wasn’t that she’d dominated him to the point where it hurt his feelings. This was an accumulation of everything. He’d always wanted to feel that his situation was unfair, his lack of an art a mad trick played to him by the gods, his unloving family, the reputation like a dark cloud over him. He always told himself it wasn’t his fault, that it wasn’t fair, but out here under Laila’s foot, he finally, truly felt pathetic. He wasn’t better than this.

Laila’s big toe sat on top of his head, smearing his tears. “Now, now, child. Keep it together, worse things await you. In fact, you’ll be looking back at this moment and recognize it as the peak of your time with the Sorrels.”

“Can I have my turn with him?” Mimmie said, the pout still lingering on her. “He’s going to pay for what he did.”

Leila stopped her with a palm. “He will. But it won’t be from you. You have to earn your turns, sister. Let’s take him in. Big Bertha can question him. Whatever he has to say, she’ll get it out. Should he turn out to be useless, well, they wouldn’t mind having another slave in camp.”