Light streamed in through the windows, illuminating the gauzy sheers that danced in a light breeze. A large, meaty hand groped at the nightstand on the other side of the bed. It clumsily located a digital clock that showed the time to be just after noon.

Douglas sat up. At some point in the night it seemed he’d fallen out of bed. He was now planted on the floor, holding a clock and blinking blearily at the rest of the room. The bedsheets were tugged to the side. He didn’t see his wife anywhere, but he smelled eggs and bacon cooking. Grinning, he hauled himself to a standing position, and the trouble he had with this told him that not only didn’t he sleep very well, but he’d probably overdone it on drinks last night. He stumbled around the bed, spotting his discarded green doublet in the middle of the room. For some reason, an armchair had been dragged to the foot of the bed. He carried it back to the corner of the room, dug a pair of flannel pajama bottoms from the closet, and hastily dressed before venturing to the kitchen.

The lighting was even brighter in here. Loretta’s back was turned to him as she tended to a hot iron skillet.

“Good morning, my delightful lover,” he cooed, cupping her shoulders and leaning to kiss her ear.

Without a word, she smacked him on the forehead before he could make contact. He reared in surprise. She thrust a tumbler of fizzy water and bitters at him, and he accepted with a meek thank-you, taking his seat at the kitchen table. He knew now that last night had gotten out of hand, and if he didn’t remember all of it, his wife was preparing to remind him.

He hated this part. It happened all too frequently for his liking.

Loretta was wearing a shimmering violet kimono. Sunlight reflected from her shoulders, and the fabric lovingly graced her wide hips. The satin glistened with every tremble of her round butt, and it trembled with every gesture. Douglas loved watching this, but some sick feeling in the pit of his stomach made him feel as though, somehow, it were inappropriate to stare. She tossed a trivet to the center of the table and rested the sizzling skillet upon this. She served herself and gave Douglas a slightly larger portion, as was their habit.

“Looks wonderful.” He smiled feebly. She only grunted, then took her seat.

In her front pocket was a small lump, which she gently pulled out. There was the tiny, naked warrior, Chocan, between her fingertips. She rested him beside her plate. He walked up to the edge and stared at the crispy bacon and sunny-side up eggs in wonder.

Douglas’ brow furrowed at the tiny man. Memories were beginning to slink back, like guilty dogs being beckoned into the room of their master. He glanced up at his wife. She did not meet his gaze, but instead sliced some runny egg and cracked off a fragment of bacon, sliding these to Chocan. With bare hands he picked up a large piece of bacon and gnawed at it as best he could. Loretta smiled and gingerly stroked his hair with a fingertip.

As delicious as the meal looked, Douglas suddenly lost his appetite. “He won, then, I take it?”

“You said as much last night.” Loretta glared pointedly at him.

“I did?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Douglas’ gaze slipped to the side. “I, um… did I hurt you?”

“You did.”

Chocan never stopped eating. Tiny hands hauled a wedge of white egg toward his mouth.

Douglas pursed his lips. “Again.”

“Again.”

Douglas nodded slightly at his wife, and she nodded slightly at him. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, the hero deserves his reward.” She smiled with unreserved warmth upon the tiny man, who grinned through yolk at her.

The large man grasped at this momentary reprieve. “Absolutely! I’m nothing if not a man of my word.” Loretta’s glance told him she agreed with half of that statement. “You, proud warrior of the Ternakan, amply deserve your riches. How does a full meal every day for a week-” his wife glared at him, “-er, a month sound?”

Indifferently, Chocan called up to him, “A portion of root vegetable, a portion of chicken, and a portion of bread, every Sunday and Wednesday for 30 days. Place it in the back of the cupboard where you found me.”

Douglas chuckled in surprise. “Is that all? After everything you’ve doubtlessly been through, you deserve much more than that.”

The tiny warrior shook his head. “Any more than that, and my tribe will have to watch a pile of food rot before our eyes. We don’t need so much. Also, too much food will attract rodents.”

The large man hadn’t thought of that. “Done and done, easily. Happily, even. In fact, why stop at a month? We wouldn’t even notice it if we fed you for years to come!”

“Thirty days, no longer,” insisted the tiny man. “We will soften and grow lazy if everything is provided for us, all the time. We need to train our warriors.” He looked up at Loretta, whose eyes glittered at him.

“You need us for your training?” Surprise smacked Douglas’ head like a spouse’s palm.

“We use you for shelter from the weather and a supply of food. In return, the Makanan Ternakan agree to provide you a sacrifice, one of our number who may prove to be a powerful warrior.”

“I had no idea this agreement was in place.”

Chocan’s tiny face went stony. “You have never asked before.” Even Loretta looked a little abashed at that.

They finished their breakfast in silence, except for Chocan’s praise of the food. He predicted that bacon would be big with his people.

Douglas chuckled. “I imagine everything’s big with your people,” he offered gamely. Loretta scowled at him.

To their surprise, Chocan burst out in laughter. “That’s true! That’s true!”

When the food was gone and the plate were put away, the tiny warrior requested to be returned. “Back in the cupboard?” Douglas asked. Loretta held her tiny warrior in her open palms, close to her chest as her husband opened the little door that contained cans of beans and tomato paste.

“Will you be back to see me?” she asked Chocan, lifting him to her face. She was apparently unconcerned with Douglas’ reaction to this. He only turned his head to the side and waited.

Chocan glanced back at him. “Once a Ternakan warrior has completed his quest, he is focused upon defense against predators. Only a new and untried warrior is sent out to forage for supplies from the giants.”

Loretta’s face fell, but she nodded slowly. Then the tiny man motioned for her to draw him closer. She piled him into one palm, drew her hair aside with the other hand and raised him to her ear. Glancing for a moment, Douglas only saw the tiny forager lean into the pearly folds of her aural canal. He couldn’t hear a thing and he knew he had no right to ask, though he had a guess as to the gist of the little man’s private message. The brightness of his wife’s expression as she lifted him to the cupboard was unmistakable. Douglas sighed heavily.

Chocan stepped out of the giantess’ warm palms and onto the artificial wood-tone contact paper in the cupboard. He nodded toward the oafish and thoroughly ashamed giant man. He waved to the beautiful giantess, whose golden hair lit up in the sunlight. She winked at him, he winked at her, and he receded between the labeled cans to a jagged hole in the paneling. From there he scaled down wood shims and descended to his tribe’s chambers.