“Well?” the giant said, waiting for an answer. Sev tried to compute how he’d ended up here, underneath her sole, his arms lovingly crossed over her big toe. The patch of clean, glistening chunk on the side of her toe was undoubtedly his spit, the sticky stain on his trousers cuddled up into the ball of her foot was undoubtedly the work of his climax. A shift of his waist hit him with that half-aching weakness after orgasm. As the stranger above him added emphasis to her puzzled expression with a lean forward, he knew this wasn’t the time to ponder.

“Wh— Where am I?” Sev asked. How had he ended up here, from the village under Thora Thunderfoot’s mercy? Turning his neck about as well as he could to scan the environment, Sev recalled the scene of the mages being thwarted by Thora’s booming advance. And then he wondered how in all the worlds he’d ended up at that village, until he saw the ephemeral trance for what it was, a dream.

“Feigning ignorance, I see.” The giant’s knee twisted, not to pain him, but to give him a cheeky squeeze. “It’s the last resort of someone caught red-handed in shame.” The teasing smirk gave Sev hope of an agreeable encounter. The blonde had her short hair pulled together into a small tail behind the head, a brown leather vest and rucksack fit for travel, while her skirt ended above the knees. It wasn’t some nice skirt made of an elegant fabric, but rough and unwilling to fold. Although she was thin, from what Sev saw of her legs and an angle up the inside of her thighs, she was toned, a good spread of muscle filling her out.

“Wha—” Sev wanted to cower out of this, to disappear, but only his head and arms were free. “You’re standing on me!” She wasn’t truly; he could feel that most of her weight was on the other leg.

Her toes spread out and closed together, prying his arms away and patting his head. “You could say that. You could also say that I arrived at this scene, full of questions and searching for answers, seeing these unbelievable footprints and human shapes underneath them. Rhinos must have fought mages, by the looks of it. And then I see a human, mumbling something and squirming into himself, and when I nudge him with my foot to get his attention, he lunges at my toes and starts licking them like it’s his long-lost lover.” Her toes turned up as the ball of her foot pressed down, precisely finding his soaked groin. “Even fucked and went all the way there as if it were a woman. Can I ask, was it really a woman in your dreams, or also a foot?”

Sev blushed.

“Because the way you worked that toe with your mouth, the way you negotiated with its shape, I can’t imagine a woman formed like that.”

“I can’t stand for what I did in my sleep.”

“Apologies, I’m being too frivolous. I’m not sure I’ve been worshipped like that before. We’re quite late with the introduction, but I’m Velvet Rowfield.” The foot stepped off him, leaving Sev bare. He immediately balled forward and got up to hide the stain on his trousers, which made her laugh.

“I’m Sev,” he said curtly. “What happened here?”

“I hoped you could tell me. I’m a bounty hunter, and there’s nothing more lucrative than Gray Rhino contracts. They were said to be holed up nearby, making bold advances. I’ve investigated that. So have other groups.” Velvet scanned the area with her gaze, the clearing before the wooded valley prickled with large footprints. “And those other groups might have gotten too close.”

“It was only one giant,” Sev said. “The largest I’ve ever seen. Thora Thunderfoot, they called her.”

“Hmm. I suspected that, these footprints can’t be anyone else’s. How unfortunate. She’s one of the few I would not be confident against.”

“Then why are you here?”

Velvet put her hands on her hips. “I can best many others, I’d have you know. But I need some information. Wherever Thora is, there has to be valuable information.”

“I wish you all the best, but I have my own problems. I’m lost. Can you tell me where the nearest village is?”

Velvet Rowfield crossed her arms. “Not very close, I’m afraid, and it’s not a village for humans. You have nothing to do with this Gray Rhino business, yet you’ve ended up here. Did they kidnap you?”

“No.” Sev stretched his arms out. Only now could his attention afford to note that it was late evening, the skies darker and the sun setting. “Long bloody story. But I need help getting home.”

“I also need help. Quite a simple solution here, hmm?”

Sev sighed. “What do you need? What could someone like me possibly offer a bounty hunter of giants?”

“Go and scout, try and get some information. Up the valley. I’d have a hard time getting there myself without being noticed. You wouldn’t have any trouble at all. Do it, and I’ll take you to town, to competent people who’ll see you home, wherever you’ve come from.”

Sev had to think.

“You don’t have many other options, I’m afraid. This is quite the wilderness to be in, without resources.”

For all he knew, she could be lying. But there was no certainty. The one way of finding out was to venture out on his own into this unmapped, unknown territory, and with all the craziness he’d endured so far, leaving it to the unknown didn’t seem smart.

“Fine.” He’d take what was predictably dangerous over the unpredictable.

“I’ll wait out here. Come back and call for me when you’re finished. If you don’t come back, I’ll make it a priority to rescue you while finishing my contracts.”

What surety that gave him, Sev didn’t know. Regardless, that didn’t make him confident that all would be fine if he got caught. He marched into the wooded valley, tracing Thora Thunderfoot’s conspicuous footsteps. Whatever the forest bed contained, shrubbery and humps of uneven land, they were all smashed down to the perfectly shaped ditch of her footprint. Nothing could withstand her mighty mass. Thankfully, as the evening became night and darkness grew, these predictable patterns of foot-shaped trenches guided him forward.

Sev trailed the steps for a good while, jogging alongside them, not daring to use his magic-infused speed yet. He began to hear the presence of giants, the trees and underbrush and darkness shrouding him well. Through the woods, he saw white barriers and wooden posts, lit by lanterns and braziers. A small trail led off the main aisle of this valley and snaked up the mountainside, and Sev skulked his way up there for a better view.

Once he peered over a ledge with an exceptional overview, it was as if the curtains had been pulled aside, the campsite laid bare. Numerous giant tents were erected before him, banners emblazoning the symbol of a horned rhino. They flickered dimly in the light of lanterns and torches, a few giants patrolling the areas. This had to be the camp Velvet mentioned. Was her request fulfilled now? She’d specifically asked for him to gather some information, but Sev wasn’t sure what exactly that meant. This didn’t feel enough according to her words, but whatever the request was, it wasn’t anything Sev could do safely. It was unreasonable.

Sev decided it was time to return right as he took a misstep. His left leg shot down and brought him with it over the ledge, his heart punching up in his chest. The branches and shrubs growing off the mountainside felt suddenly evasive. Sev’s desperate grasps gave him only broken twigs and confetti of torn leaves. A line of something hard caught his stomach and he spiraled around, and it too escaped his grasp before he fell from it.

The ground received him most honestly, an immediate thud. The line had been a rope, he noticed, anchored with a stake and holding up the side of a tent. A massive tent, at that, its gloomy light from within spilling out where Sev landed.

“Did you hear that? Might have been more of those human scouts.”

The voice of the giant returned the spark of fear that took him when he fell. Sev got up and ran the other way, around the tent. A loose end of the canvas sagged at the bottom of the tent, the fabric too long. Sev threw it up and went inside. He found himself under a table in a smaller part within the tent, like an anteroom. The torches were spearheaded with a magical stone that flickered in what resembled fire, as fire itself would be too risky. The larger room, within sight, boasted an enormous bed Sev saw which felt too luxurious for these parts.

Tremors came, again. They weren’t like before; they didn’t come with the same thunder. This was a quieter, muffled groan from the earth.

“They’ll know we’re here, with that mage patrol taken out.” It was her voice, the rich darkness he knew. Thora Thunderfoot entered the tent with a leisure stroll, in conversation with someone else behind her. Even though the other giant was large in all regular regards, compared to Thora she seemed so trivial.

Thora’s feet stole Sev’s attention, the literal objects of his dreams, the feared tools of war. Now they were different, however. They too were adorned like her legs and calves and ankles, but not in jewelry.

It was the mages from before. Man and woman alike was stripped naked and strung up over the upper side of her foot, their forearms and legs tied to her ankles and toes to keep them fixed. Sev couldn’t count them all before she walked into the larger room, the other giant after her. Thora half-lay on the bedside, its exquisite quality beginning to make more sense if it belonged to her, and went on about the progress of their mission, detailing what a certain interrogated official had said.

Sev’s heart fluttered. Now there was no doubt. This was exactly what Velvet Rowfield had asked for.