SHEA LET OUT A STRANGLED CRY. He surged forward into the space beside Telor's towering body. The little human slipped right out of his shoes and pants with the movement, and fought with his blanket-like shirt.

Out of the corner of his vision, Shea only just spotted how the elf held out his long leg; Shea's limbs were swept from beneath him, and he soared along an erratic trajectory. Shea fluttered out of his shirt as he did—like a butterfly, dazed, that fell rather than flew.

Fueled by panic, Shea extended his arms and tried for the best landing he could manage. His palms slapped down on the soft-but-firm floor of the marquee tent. He had saved himself from a rolling tumble—right beneath him, however, was Mia's destroyed, flattened visage. It stared up at him.

Shea shrieked.

Her face had no eyes. Telor had smashed them into oblivion, and only jelly remained. Her teeth were crushed along a messy line; a gruesome, clownish smile. It was a weary expression, and a mockery of what Mia's countenance was—like a face lifted from its skull, and then discarded in a heap. A soft mask lazily thrown onto the floor.

Mia was not recognizable—and yet dreadfully recognizable—in that mound of skin, which was mixed with and surrounded by the shattered fragments of her cranium, pulped brains, splattered red. Her face was so trodden on that there were whorls and lines from the print of Telor's sole flesh stamped distinctly into the tissue.

As Shea, on his hands and knees, contemplated the brutal vision, something large and heavy and soft and warm settled wholly across his backside.

Awfully, Shea knew what it was: Telor's sole, so long and wide that it covered all of the miniature human's back.

The giant's strong pulse pounded through his plush flesh: whump, whump, whump; the sole throbbed against Shea—a living blanket.

Telor's voice was downright sinister as it filled the air above him. "Did you enjoy the rabbit, little one? Did it have just the right amount of spice?"

Gods, spirits, fiends, and fae—it was the rabbit!

Shea was now so very small.

His mother's ruined face was large enough to be hung on a wall, like a ghastly quilt.

Around him, too, the tent was a vast chamber; a great dragon's lair.

The fire was more like a furious conflagration that consumed a house, than kindling lit to warm a cozy tent.

And Telor—Telor was a giant, Shea thought with fear, and could most likely, very easily, press the life from him with a single step.

Mia's ruination had been slow and painful.

Shea might be ended in an instant.

The young man could not stop his little legs and arms from how they shook—he did not realize that he pissed down one thigh until the warm liquid reached the back of his knee.

Telor's thick, rounded toes curled; they flexed across Shea's shoulders, pushed on his head.

Then Telor's foot added more pressure onto Shea, and forced him down. For a moment, Shea held this pose; his limbs wobbled horribly. Nearly a second too late he surrendered. Telor's sole pressed the youth flat against the circle of Mia's flattened face, which was like lying on a tanned hide.

It was an amazing sensation; it was a horrid sensation: Telor's expansive sole totally covered Shea. His little head was trapped on its side beneath the elf's powerful toes, and the ends of Shea's legs were held fast beneath the hard curve of Telor's heel. Together, Telor's toes and his heel kept Shea completely restrained, helpless but to squirm and wiggle beneath the soft plane of the towering man's fleshy arch.

The giant's voice was just a whisper, but to Shea's miniature ears it still sounded with a powerful rumble: "Trying to escape me, slave?"

Shea mewled with worry as the muscles along Telor's sole undulated all over his naked backside.

"After all I've done for you?"

The elf's foot lifted ever so slightly, but not so much that Shea could get free; though the boy was able to pull himself up far enough that he could gaze across the nightmarish vista of gore around him.

"Why, I made this for you!"

When Shea began to sob, Telor kicked him in the side and flipped the diminutive human onto his back.

Shea beheld Telor then as a proper colossus. The legs of the elf's colorful striped pants stretched upward like endless pillars. High above, across the muscular plane of Telor's torso, only Telor's eyes and forehead were visible: his glinting stare peeked down at Shea. Telor leaned forward, dizzyingly he loomed. The rest of his beaming visage appeared over the horizon of his chest like a menacing sunrise: smiling eyes and a grin full of shining teeth.

Shea made no move to flee as Telor raised his sole overhead. For as much fear filled Shea, he was enchanted with awe in equal measure: that he gazed upon Telor's foot from below, from a bug's perspective—it was a new experience of the man's sole entirely.

Telor was a ravishing, inexorable giant.

From Shea's diminished vantage, Telor's flesh was a large structure full of wondrous fresh detail, with arcing and swirling lines that drew intricate shapes that Shea recognized from Mia's printed skin—a mesmerizing and artful pattern.

The expanse was lightly brushed with dirt from the floor, smeared with crimson, and flecked, horribly, with bits of what looked like meat. Mercifully, most of what besmirched the bottoms of Telor's foot from how he had stomped Mia had rubbed off as the elf strolled around the tent. Even still, the history of her end was written there in plain language.

Shea shook as he watched the sole lower down.

Sharp pain in his side served as a reminder of what Shea would earn with any further disobedience.

So Shea remained inert and let the giant cover his body.

Telor's soft flesh settled all across him, imprisoned him. Even still the sole had tremendous weight, and Shea was pushed down under the firm muscles that worked just beyond the plush padding.

Movement: Telor's foot slid up and down, and Shea shuddered with pleasure. Anguish and regret followed as Shea's immobility sank in.

There would be no escape, the boy knew.

And yet, though grit from Mia's demise rubbed onto Shea, Telor's foot absorbed him into another realm: the silken texture of the elf's flesh was electric against Shea's bare skin. He could not move, but he was in ecstasy—that he could not move only heightened the sensation. Telor's foot had him completely pinned; the naked sole smothered his nudity. The young man was flush with arousal, but there was a chill that would not leave him, a thought: that Telor was going to crush him.

This was how he was going to die: pressed flat like a bug beneath Telor's glorious sole.

Shea's tongue slipped out from between his compressed lips.

He lapped at the giant's salty flesh.

Shea squirmed with all of his might, which did not produce much movement at all. Not to escape—no, he begged Telor with his body.

Yet his pinned cock throbbed brashly with life. Despite how scared he was to die, Shea was endlessly excited by the size and weight of Telor's foot on top of him. All of its pleasures were amplified: its warmth enveloped; its scents were powerfully potent and drug-like. Shea could not help how he rhythmically pressed his hips against Telor's giant sole; it just felt so wildly good to be beneath that canopy of flesh.

Telor's sole shifted, and if Shea could have, he would have yelped. His worry that he might be crushed bubbled back up. But instead of lowering down and smashing him flat, Shea was at the mercy of a circular motion—a smothering, twisting pressure. Telor worked his foot side-to-side on top of Shea's little form. The length of the giant's foot was greater than Shea's height; the elf's heel swept over his legs, and the plush ball of Telor's foot rubbed across Shea's little face.

It was hard to breathe, but Shea suffered happily. Even through the coppery tang of blood, every whiff that the youth managed carried Telor's distinct musk—brine and flowered honey—and Shea wanted more. The great foot oscillated on top of Shea, and his face ended up directly beneath Telor's toes, which tumbled across the tiny slave's rapt visage. They had a potent perfume all their own—more sour, like fresh pollen, more salt—and Shea hungrily breathed in his Master's scent.

When Telor's foot lifted up and off of Shea, the little human gasped in frustration.

The warmth was gone. The air was not as sweet. That mesmerizing texture did not so totally blanket him.

Above Shea, Telor's foot drifted further and further away, as if it launched into outer space, away from the earth—Telor's face was revealed; he wore a devious smile.

Shea could not control himself at the sight of Telor: he wept.

The giant elf had not crushed him. He was still alive.

How he yearned for an order from Telor. Shea was desperate for any chance to please his Master again.

Without uttering a word, the grinning elf stepped over Shea's supine, shivering body.

The tent was even more enormous, viewed from the ground.

The hulking grace of Telor's form settled onto the nearby mountain of pillows that the elf had piled earlier. Telor appeared to be so far away, and yet when he stretched his long, long legs, he was able to comfortably place his feet on either side of Shea's body. It was an odd comfort to be between the sweeping hills of Telor's skin—to be flanked by the giant elf's beautiful feet. Shea was properly placed, between that pair.

Telor stared down at Shea from between the frame formed by his legs. The elf pursed his lips.

"I've enjoyed my time here, little one. But there are still pleasures ahead, for me. I must move on in pursuit of them."

Shea drowned in the sweet music of Telor's powerful voice.

Telor was leaving?

The confused young man imagined himself taken away somewhere with his Master. How he wanted to escape the wood, in that moment, even if it was in the captivity of the elf—to go somewhere else and forget this place, and Shea's life before Telor, forever.

Shea would have escaped from Telor, if that was possible.

Shea would have given himself to Telor, if he was allowed.

The golden man's voice was tired and imperious:

"You don't know it, of course, but there are quite a lot of your kind here, scattered throughout these woods, and across this world. Though you would not recognize them as your own, as fighting to survive in the wild has reduced them to a more primal state.

"My people visit, from time to time. Human servants are out of fashion, as I said, but that's not the whole truth—no, your kind was cast out for your disobedience; your inferiority. But, oh, I'm still quite fond of you little humans. Others may enjoy you for sport, or hunt you to please their hatred—I do not judge them for following either whim—but I think you do make such delicious, adorable pets."

Suddenly Telor's massive form leaned over Shea—a face so painfully handsome, adorned with a flawless, winsome grin.

Telor's leg moved.

His foot hovered over the human.

The elf's toes formed a wall of flesh just above Shea's head. They blocked out his vision of the giant man's face, save for the barest glimpses offered between them. Shea's face was trapped in an alcove formed by Telor's graceful, arched digits, and the youth was awash in their heat, and tart perfume. As Telor's voice trailed on, Shea wandered along with his Master's words, lost in the dreamscape of his imagination.

"A tireless, noble mother and her precious, adorable son. It's rare that I come across humans who live as if they are people. What a charmed existence you've had, against all odds—and with no concept of just how fragile it all was. Don't remember your father, I imagine. Do you even know what a father is, child? Or do you think that magic spawned you in your mother's womb? If your mother told you of him, you may have known to fear me."

Telor purred as his huge toes flexed and relaxed atop Shea's mystified face; his voice overwhelmed Shea with the mysteries of his history.

"Now I will divine your arcane beginnings: your mother ran away from something terrible—terrible someones; my people. She never told you what happened, or of us, but she reassured herself that you two could hide, if you kept to yourselves. No, she never talked about the past, or the people she used to know, before you were born. She never told you of the world beyond your little thicket. To think, she might have been right: you two may have never been discovered, had you not followed my song to the lake, or wandered into my tent."

Telor's words mixed in the air, like a spell: this aura mingled with his potent aroma, and the plush warmth of Telor's flesh—the human surrendered to the energy the elf cast. His tongue obediently slipped from between his lips and he licked at the giant toes that drifted in and out of reach. As Shea lapped at Telor's salty-sweet skin, his reality narrowed, and there was nothing beyond Telor's irresistible foot.

The elf's powerful voice called from the very heavens:

"It's a shame, really. How utterly broken your kind is. What you've become. No more towns or cities for you lot—no grand designs. Usually I find your ilk living like wolf packs in caves, or like grubs in holes and ditches. And so often feral! Good for little more than a bit of fun.

"If only your soul found this life earlier, little one—found me. Oh," and Telor's tone dipped into his sugared baritone as he continued, "I have no doubt that you would have fit right in amongst the human servants I had.

"How they adored me—they followed me around like happy pups; unfailingly attentive. Why, I had so many of your kind as slaves I lost count! Of all sizes, for all purposes. And they were loyal to their very last moments, every one of them."

Telor's voice drifted off, lost to a euphoric moan.

Shea dreamed of these faraway cities. Not that his kind had built long ago, but of the grandeur of the elves. At one time, someone like him might have strolled along after Telor, his servant, his pet—that's what Shea wanted, more than anything, and as he held that fantasy in his mind he knew that he would do anything to make it a reality. Surely, his chance for such a life had not come and gone before he was born.

Shea could not bear the thought that it was too late!

As Shea licked Telor's toes, he ached to be away from the awful forest. It was not his home, now. He wanted to leave; he needed to: he needed to be Telor's.

Shea was so drunk on such dreams that when Telor's toes left him he lapped at the air, and afterward mewled like a dopey cat in the absence of his Master's comforting flesh. When Shea opened his eyes, though, his blood ran cold: the giant loomed over him, and his face lowered as if to better inspect Shea—and that way that he grinned.

"Are you loyal to me, doll?" Again, Telor's voice sank to its depths: "'Til the very end?"

Like one of the forest's massive trees, Telor's body moved above Shea. The elf's sole, as long as Shea was tall, slid by overhead and filled the youth's view for several beats of his heart.

Shea braced for the end.

The crimson-hued surface soared on, and with quaking footfalls Telor lumbered away. With nothing else to focus on, Shea's eyes went to that small hole in the distant peak of the ceiling then, as the devious elf left him to wait, and breathe, and wonder what would happen to him.

"Pet," Telor's sonorous voice intoned, finally, and the sound of it unfroze Shea's dormant limbs. "Come."

As Shea gathered himself up, his lower lip snared between his teeth, Telor added one more word: "Crawl."