It was like a dream, but it became harder and harder to refute.  Soon, the smoke cleared, and that momentary glimpse of such an awe inspiring site was confirmed.  They were inside a bottle, in the hand of a gigantic elven warrior.  She was not heavily armored, with padded leather covering her body, her dark hair tied up in a practical bun.  The humans trapped in the jar were awed both by her size and her beauty, but even more shocking was when other titanic elves could be seen from within the glass prison.  There had been a mental block before, an understanding that they were being captured by a giant, by some ancient god.  But as the elves returned to the damaged wagons the truth became clear.

They had all shrunk.

Some of them tried in vain to clash their steel weapons against the bottles walls.  It was impossible to tell if they were magically fortified, but even if they weren’t, the blades were no match for what was effectively 4 feet of strengthened glass.  Still, fight or flight was the only emotion going through any of them, and they continued to uselessly clatter against the translucent barrier.

The bottle was placed next to several identical bottles, and they were able to dimly see some of their comrades trapped behind similar clear walls.  After some time, the stupefied silence that had paralyzed them began to wear away.

They looked about to figure out who all was trapped in the bottle, it wasn’t exactly spacious, but the 8 of them had enough room to adjust and turn around within.  Aside from Alberto, there were three of his young privates, Samuele, Simone and Dante, as well as Sergeant Pierra.  The other three were crew members from the landship that had been nearest them.  He only recognized Captain Lucrezia, a no-nonsense woman with light brown hair cut short, as he was not familiar with the enlisted members of the armored calvary.

Lucrezia was the first to try and problem solve.

“Alright…so we’ve been shrunk…and we’re prisoners of Elsira now.  Let’s remember what we’re to do when captured.”

Alberto nodded.

“As far as we know the elves won’t be able to tell where were from, if you’re tortured, you can admit to being mercenaries, but we’re just Latrian sell-swords.  Our story is that King Jadran was recruiting mercenaries, we’re from the town of Dobrava.  We don’t need to know who the local lords were or anything, I’m sure we can pass for dumb serfs.”

“Well, dumb serfs trained to use a landship.” Lucrezia grimaced.  “Remember, do your best not to break, we have to believe that Major Pasquale’s forces will get us back.”

Simone spoke up. “Get us back and what, let us live in a drawer?  The elves shrank us!  What are we going to do?!”

“We have faith in our comrades!  If we lose that, we lose everything!”  Lucrezia’s voice was stern, her eyes alight with indignation.  The other seven captives seemed to take solace in her conviction, and Simone calmed down.

Conversation was cut short as their captor stomped nearby to them, conversing in a booming, lyrical tone to an equally titanic blonde.  Their musical speech was clearly audible, but completely unintelligible to the tiny humans, except for one.

It had been on a whim that Alberto had chosen to study elven, could have been any second language to meet the requirements of his diplomatic studies.  But he had felt like taking something exotic, and with Elsira dominating it’s own continent, it had seemed like it might be useful.  Well, for the purposes of diplomacy it was not looking useful at all, but in this moment, the disappointment of his studies and how life had forced his hand at mercenary work faded, and it was with relief, and a little bit of hope, that he discovered he could follow the conversation of the titans that loomed above him.

“Dammnit, we do we have to keep these little shits safe?!  They destroyed more supplies than they’re worth, and Elluin’s dead!  Does that just not matter?!”  The blonde loudly complained.

“So what, you’re going to squish them and have even more nothing?  Remember, we’re here to tame the humans, not just wipe them out.  And these little ones will be worth quite a bit, the nobles back home are already tired of their domesticated humans, they’re willing to pay outrageous sums for wild ones brought to heel, warriors are the most valuable after human nobility.  Let’s just keep our wits about us alright?  We can’t let Elluin die in vain.”  The dark haired elf put a sympathetic hand on the blondes shoulder, the two were obviously grieving.

The blonde suddenly turned around and leaned down, her face towering above the humans as she sneered at them.  “I wish I could be there to see you little maggots learn your place.” Her friend patted her on the shoulder again.

“Come on, we’re nearly to Lyeecia’s forces, we need to make sure they’re adequately supplied before we head back.”  And with that the angry goddess stormed off, followed closely by her comrade.  Alberto waited a moment for them to leave, he didn’t know how good elf hearing was, but he didn’t want his secret discovered by them.

“Everyone, I know a little bit of elven, I think I understood what they were saying.”  He proceeded to explain the conversation as he had heard it.

“Domesticated?  It sounds almost as if they’re going to make us into livestock!” Pierra frowned.

“Well, at least it sounds like they aren’t planning on torturing us for information, at least not primarily.  Maybe we’ll be able to safely wait for Pasquale to save us.” Lucrezia offered hopefully.  The sun had completely set, and it was by now quite dark in the bottle, as a small mercy, there was enough space that it wasn’t quite claustrophobic.

Alberto scratched at his hair for a moment considering the situation they were in.  “It’s probably in our best interest to be docile then, if they think of us as animals they won’t be expecting much from us.”  They tried to communicate as much to the captives in neighboring bottles, but two sets of glass walls drowned out their little voices, a grim reminder of how small and powerless they had become. The group began talking about how to lie low, to keep it together with whatever kind of training the elves were going to do.  The situation was still dire, but it seemed like there was a plan now, a way out of this awful situation.  That burning hope that they would be rescued from these monsters.

The wagons stopped, and for awhile there was no activity in their storage room.  After some time, a light from somewhere, possibly magic, suddenly brightened as the blonde elf from before reentered the tent.  The little captives squinted as their eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness.  Even having had hours to come To grips with their situation, it was still shocking to see something so large moving so quickly.  The elf sat down in front of them and kicked her feet up on the sides of the crates holding the bottles, the dirty bottom of her leather boot occasionally visible as she lazily rocked it back and forth.  She maintained her hateful glare from before.  She began to talk, but this time it was in common, albeit with a strange accent.

“You know, I’ve decided it’s pointless to be mad at you all.  You’re too dumb to know what you’re doing right?  To know how important an elf is?  Can’t blame you for that until you’ve been taught, after all.”  As she spoke, she pulled up a squirming little naked human.  The air seemed to freeze in place among the mercenaries as they watched.  “See this?” The spiteful elf continued.  “This is a human from Elsira.  This human knows their place, they understand how important elves are, how it’s an honor to serve us.  Just watch.”  The elf held out her long arm, tucking her chin against it and opening her palm, letting the tiny woman on her hand stand up.  

“Crawl into my mouth.”

The elf's mouth was agape, her arm forming a bridge between the helpless woman in her hand and the yawning, pristine portal to her stomach.  The woman looked up at her, tears in her eyes, but seemed strangely stoic.  She didn’t stand straight, she didn’t protest, she simply walked meekly across the green cloth of the elf’s tunic.  If she was crying, the mercenaries could not hear her.  They all watched in disgusted, disbelieving silence as the woman hefted herself over the elf’s teeth and into her mouth.

“Tuhn aroun.” The elf kept her mouth open, but the command was clear.  The woman turned around, facing her human audience.  She looked dead inside as she regarded them dimly.  And just like that, she was gone, replaced with the elf’s pearly white smile as her teeth slammed shut, sealing the woman away.  A second later and a visible lump traveled down her throat, disappearing past her collar.  She impishly opened wide and stuck out her tongue, showing the terrified captives her empty mouth.

“See?  That’s all humans are, that’s all you’re going to be.  So enjoy yourselves in those bottles, eventually, you’ll be taken out and shown your place, first hand!”  She smirked, her rapid breathing betraying the fact she was still angry and upset, then walked away, the magical light fading as she disappeared.

It was dark again, in every possible sense of the word.