Fire. Everything was ablaze. Great swathes of heat billowed through the village streets, herding fleeing townsfolk to the village center, where a mystical fountain of endless water stood. It was one of the few things capable of not catching fire in the village, and the villagers, no more than fifty, huddled about around it as a great inferno consumed their homes.

 

Nobody knew what caused first started it; the roof of a house was first seen burning. Then one by one, the roofs of every building caught fire, and the ensuing blaze formed a circle of conflagration around the village, trapping its inhabitants in. It was as if the fire had a life of its own, dancing from wooden architecture to wooden architecture, crackling hungrily as it consumed the flammable abodes.

 

And just as mysteriously as the fire started, it winked out in a sudden instant; all of it. Ash and charred pillars were all that remained of the village, a sooty smell of singed wood hanging in the now still air. The villagers looked around uneasily, a mixture of relief and disbelief weighing down in their hearts.

 

Suddenly, a massive burst of flame erupted before the villagers, forming a curtain of pure fire which stood a good fifty feet tall. It began to fold in on itself, creating a cyclone of flame which grew more intense as it spun faster and faster. Just as the heat of the flames grew unbearable, the fire faded into nothingness, revealing the gigantic figure hidden within.

 

Tall and fair, the giantess stood at least fifty feet tall, towering the village and villagers and engulfing them in her shadow. She was clad in red fabric which served to only cover her chest and nether regions, the lower cloth hanging from the front and back on a thong string that reached all the way down to the ground. Her hair was tied up in a short messy ponytail, dyed in a wild mix of red and orange, and her bangs occasionally flickered like a candle in a breeze. She wore great golden bracelets and anklets marked with runes in an arcane tongue. In her hand, a great staff of wood and metal was stamped into the ground, a gnarled twist of gold and branches forming a large crescent on the top. It glowed with an invisible presence which commanded all nearby to recognize it as magical.

 

She was a mage. Almost all giantesses were capable of performing the arcane arts, but humanity was left with nothing to even came close to competing with them, and the disparity in power plunged the world into an age of tyranny under the magi. The world existed solely for the whims of its gigantic mistresses, and the humans became nothing more than slaves to their will.

 

Tharsia was her name. She was a fire mage of great caliber, but her talents were greatly marred by their application; the pillaging of human villages. She wasn't interested in the dens or possessions of creatures she could easily crush underfoot; no, she was after the villagers themselves, for magic was powered by humans. Innately born with the ability to create magical energy, humans were the perfect fuel for the giantess's magics. Giantesses themselves had about the same amount of magical energy as a human, but their spells required much more than that. The more humans a mage possessed, the more powerful she was.

 

Tharsia smiled at the cowering cattle below her and took a step right into the middle of the crowd, catching several people under her foot. They squirmed as they valiantly tried to push against the massive sole above them, but with a twist of her heel, Tharsia's weight overpowered them, sending them flat into the ground. She didn't put her full weight into them of course; no point in wasting precious resources. It was just a show of force, that she need not even use her magic to overpower them.

 

“People of Farum!” Tharsia said unto her captives, “You've built a fine village here, almost unseen in any giantess maps! But know that the price of living away from the purview of your mistress's domain is that I will eventually find you, and I will make certain that all of you become slaves to me, just as I'm about to do now.”

 

Reaching down, Tharsia grabbed one of the villagers and clenched her in her fist. With a yelp, the man cried out in pain as his ribs came precariously close to being crushed. In one quick motion, she swapped the man and staff in her grip, and held the man upon a great black circle with arcane symbols branded into her palm. This was the mage mark, a receptacle from which all mages drew their magical energy from humans; each mage was born with their mage mark in a unique part of their body, and Tharsia was fortunate that hers lie directly where she held her staff. It made it considerably easier to draw energy in the heat of a fight, and made her naturally proficient at casting spells.

 

The man gasped as he felt an unseen something drain from his body. Tharsia's eyes lit up with a fiery glow in her pupils, and she turned her gaze to a pair of villagers who were making a break for it through the ashen ruin of their village. A fireball exploded just in front of their path, and a cone of fire rose and unraveled itself into an impassable fiery wall.

 

“Don't even think of escaping again,” Tharsia said to the villagers, “Or I'll make sure every one of you have to suffer my sister Thalana.”

 

The villagers gulped. Thalana was one out of the three Tha Fire Sisters, daughters of the regent of this land. She was born with a peculiar mage mark, embedded in the center of her tongue. While not as powerful as her sister Tharsia, she was more feared for her hellish reputation for eating villagers for magical energy. The instant they recalled, the two men obediently ran back into the crowd, under Tharsia's shadow.

 

A wide grin splayed across Tharsia's face, and she took her foot off of the villagers gathered beneath her. “Good pets,” she said with a nod, “Though your kind may be nothing more than food for us mages, I'm sure you never want it to be so literal as to be actual food.”

 

With that, Tharsia spun around and shooed the villagers up with the side of her foot, beckoning them to begin marching. “Come now,” Tharsia said, “Take your little feet forward as fast as you can, I want to be back before the day's end.”

 

The villagers scampered to their feet and shuffled quickly as their mistress's foot struck them from behind. As they made their way forward, stragglers who slowed down were met with an instant fireball to their buttocks, spurning the group as a whole forward faster.

 

Unbeknownst to them, a single barrel in the ruins of the dining hall began to stir. It was left largely undamaged, its outer cask unburnt thanks to a recent overspill of punch. With a pop, the lid of the barrel flew off its top, and John peered his head out from the depths of the barrel.

 

John was a traveling merchant, his sources telling him that a hidden village away from the mage's domain was in need of food with their harvest this season going bad. Through either benevolence or his mercantile opportunism, John decided to visit the village with his goods. Fast forward to the current day and with his cart and wares incinerated, John found himself in a bit of a predicament.

 

“I can't possibly walk all the way back on foot,” John muttered to himself.

 

As if right on que, his mare, Matilda, galloped to his side, licking his face clean of punch. Matilda was John's workhorse and partner, pulling him between villages and doubling as a source of heat for those cold nights in winter. She was his only companion many times in his journeys across the land, and she had an uncanny ear for John's voice, running to him wherever he may be. John breathed a sigh of relief and laughed as Matilda continued to clean his face.

 

“Well, I don't suppose we've much left to do here,” John said to Matilda, who tilted her head in curiosity to her master's words. John was pleased to see that the barding was still there; it might just make it a little more comfortable a ride without the saddle. John hefted himself out of the barrel and onto Matilda's back, picking up the long carriage reins and tying them to a shorter riding length. With a flick of the reins, John rode off away from the village.

 

He could still see that crazy mage Tharsia in the distance. She was paddling another straggler with her foot, kicking him relentlessly when he would go no faster. With a bit of a squint, John saw that it was the man Tharsia had crushed in her hand. He must still be hurting from the damage, and had to fight both pain and torment as he continued walking. John saw him finally fall on his side, earning him a swift kick to his stomach from Tharsia, rolling to his side in agony. John noticed for a moment that the man was now facing directly in his direction. He made a gesture to his hand with some brief shouting, and soon after, Tharsia's eyes were looking this way, too.

 

“Oh crap,” John muttered under his breath. Too late, though. A ray fire shot from Tharsia's staff to John's general direction. The ground where the ray landed was singed black in an instant. Panic rose up in John. He gave Matilda a good kick in the rump, and she began galloping in the opposite direction. That, too, was short-lived, as a wall of magical fire engulfed their path forward.

 

John felt the rhythmic thumps of footsteps drawing closer and closer. He turned his head and saw Tharsia was almost already on top of him. John tried to turn Matilda around, but was instead met with a sudden force slamming into his side. For a brief moment, he saw the world spinning as he and Matilda sailed through the air. The sense of flight was mystifying, even serene, to John, but reality soon ensued as John landed heavily on his back, a good distance from a limp and bleeding Matilda. Realization sunk in, and Tharsia's kick had sent the both of them flying, and Matilda dead.

 

“Matild-” John began, but was smothered by the hand of the giant mage. His ribs groaned as Tharsia's crushing grip tightened around him, his breath leaving him as his lungs were compressed from all sides.

 

“I told you not to escape!” Tharsia shouted at John, heedless to his feeble struggles in her grasp, “When we return, I'll make sure to feed you to Thalana first-”

 

Bang! A loud metallica sound echoed across the field, and John felt Tharsia's grip loosen on him. Just as he gasped for air, he let it all out screaming again as Tharsia tipped over and began falling to the ground. John followed suit, and he was almost one hundred percent sure that a fall from this height would kill him-

 

John felt something else hold onto him. He slipped from Tharsia's grasp and felt a new force pinching his shoulder, holding him up from where he fell. John looked behind him and saw that a pair of gigantic fingers were hanging onto him, and the fingers he traced back to the giantess who was now standing behind him.

 

She was a brunette, composed of curling shoulder-length hair and eyes which shone a dark amber color. She was dressed in a sleeveless white robe with arm warmers, leaving her shoulders bare in the sun. Her left wrist bore a single silver bracelet etched with runes, and her feet were clad in leatherskin sandals. Most of all, she was gigantic, standing at the same fifty feet as Tharsia, and she was holding John like he were a mouse.

 

“Oh thank goodness-” the giantess started, but was cut short by John's frantic screams and flailing.

 

“Wait, quiet you!” the giantess insisted, giving John a light bump on his head with her other hand, “Look, I'm not here to feed you to Thalana, and I'm not here to hurt you. Just stop panicking-”

 

John was not in control. His fear had taken hold of him, and he continued his mad flailing to the giantess's chargin.

 

“Fine,” the giantess said hotly, grabbing John roughly in her fist, “Fine! I'll bring you back to the other folks, just stop screaming!”

 

John continued screaming until the giantess put him down, to where the villagers were left off. The villagers cowered in the presence of this new mistress, and the giantess sighed when she saw the whole lot of them shivering in her presence.

 

“Look, I'm not here to hurt you,” the giantess said to them, “Just-”

 

“You've come to save us, then?” One villager at the back piped up.

 

“Uh, no,” the giantess said, “I'm here to bring you all back.”

 

“Oh...” the villager's gaze fell to the floor, depressed.

 

“Look,” the giantess said, “If you'd just NOT interrupt me for-”

 

“Wait!” Another villager shouted, “I know you! You're Thayna, the youngest of the Tha Fire Sisters!”

 

With that, the villagers burst into a hubbub of chatter. Thayna was indeed one of the Tha Fire Sisters, but of the three, she was the weakest and least favored, so she found solace for her inferiority in humanity. She used her powers to help the less fortunate humans, keeping them out of Tharsia's way as much as she could. She had a fiery temper, but never once would she wish harm on a human. Well, most of the time, anyway.

 

“ENOUGH!” Thayna shouted with annoyance. The villagers all turned back to her with fear in their faces, “Look, I'm not here to save you; I know I was the one who helped you escape in the first place two years ago, but Tharsia's found you, so there's nothing more you can do. I'm here to bring you back to the city. You should know Tharsia's always hunting for you tiny folk, I already told you before that it's not safe anywhere. But I can hide you in the city; at the very least, there are a lot more humans there, and you'd be free from her punishment. Tharsia never remembers the faces of her own captives.”

 

The villagers looked downcast. There was a brief mumbling between each of them, but they came to a general consensus. They agreed to be led back to the city; it was for the best, it seemed. Life out of the city seemed too good to be true.

 

“Thank you!” Thayna said with a heavy sigh, “We should head back as soon as we can, but....ah...”

 

Thayna tapped the bottom of her lip, staring intently at each and every villager below her. John couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine when she cast her gaze upon him. Her eyes were like a little girl picking out sweets in a candy store. There was a small hunger behind them.

 

“I had to melt my staff into a sheet of metal to knock my sister out,” Thayna continued, “And I'm out of energy already. If you don't mind...I'd like to help myself to one of you.”

 

The villagers looked at each other again. They shot nervous glances left and right, with people giving other people looks which said 'well-you-do-it'. John turned around, puzzled, and said in a louder voice than he meant to, “Well, what's so bad about helping her out?”

 

Thayna and the villagers all turned to John and gave him incredulous stares. John's heart sank when their stares were slowly accompanied by a smile on their faces. “Oh no, wait, wait-”

 

“Yes, what's so bad about helping her out?” One villager said.

 

“You're good man, John, you helped us, you should help her, too!” Another villager joined in.

 

Soon, the whole group of them began badgering John to step up. Giving in to the pressure, John pushed the villagers away and shouted, “Alright, alright! I'll help!”

 

The villagers applauded John and ushered him forward to where Thayna was. It was terrifying for John to stand in front of the giantess again, but he bit down his unease and shambled forward.

 

“Okay, uh,” John said, scratching the back of his head, “I-I guess we should just get it over and done with. So where's your mage mark?”

 

“Oh,” Thayna said with a grin, bending down and undoing the straps of her right sandal, “It's a bit warm down there, but I promise I won't be too long.”

 

“Wah-” John didn't have time to finish his word. Thayna slipped her right foot out of her sandal and thrust her foot forward, knocking John down onto the ground. He was now face to face with Thayna's massive sole, the entirety of his body engulfed underneath the maw-like underside of her foot. John saw that near the front of her sole, a black circle with runes etched along its rim was branded on its surface. Thayna's mage mark was underneath her foot, and to replenish her magical energy, she was about to step on John.

 

“I'll be gentle,” Thayna said mischievously.

 

“No wait-” John started, but was pressed into a black abyss as Thayna's toes slammed into his face.

Given his luck so far, John had no reservations that today was going to be terrible. That said, he didn't count on being underneath a giant girl's sole for an entire hour. Pressed firmly against the underside of Thayna's feet, John thrashed about as the first hot blankets of skin enveloped him. The maddening sensation of rough, grooved walls churning against his body was enough to make him want to scream, but when he opened his mouth, he was met with the sour, salty taste of skin and perspiration. Unable to make himself heard, Thayna continued to adjust her foot into a comfortable position on top of John.

 

"I'm not too sure how it goes," Thayna said as she happily tested her foot against John, "But there's supposedly an art to drawing a human's magical energy out effectively. Tharsia's found that causing pain helps her the best, and Thalana seems to think fear gets her the most energy at once. I haven't found my sweetspot yet, so I'll be taking this opportunity to find out more!"

 

With that, Thayna tried a variety of positions. Her toes gripped John's head firmly, leaving him completely engulfed in her smell and darkness. The mustiness was choking him, but with his arms pinned under the rest of her sole, there wasn't much he could do. Just as he was ready to wretch, a sudden tingle shook his body, and an invisible energy left his body like a very faint sigh. Thayna let go of John at that point, withdrawing her foot back to her sandal, and stared down at the gasping John like a detective inspecting a crime scene.

 

"Hrm... that wasn't a lot," Thayna remarked, "I guess we'll just have to keep trying."

 

"No, wait-" John protested, but Thayna whipped her foot back onto John, stomping him with the width of her foot. John let out a pained 'oof', cursing with what breath he had left as he saw Thayna wrap her toes around his body. That was when another small jolt went up his spine, and another sliver of energy escaped him.

 

"I guess pain and surprise are out of the picture," Thayna continued, patting John's body with her foot, "I suppose its all about technique then; we'll try as many positions as we can!"

 

And thus did Thayna's hour foot experimentation began. By the end of it, John lay crumpled in the footprint he was left in, wanting to cry but with no tears falling down. Thayna nonchalantly slipped back into her sandal and sighed.

 

"Even after all that," Thayna said with a pout, "I was only able to extract enough magical energy to replace the spell I used."

 

John's heart sank. After all he's been through, Thayna had only restored a single spell. He thought that his tribulations were worth at least Tharsia's plethora of magics.

 

"Oh well," Thayna said with a shrug, "It's not like I use it much anyway."

 

Violated, used and discarded. That was all John felt right now. So when Thayna tapped on his limp body, he ignored her and rolled himself tighter into a ball.

 

"Oh, don't be like that," Thayna chided, "I don't claim to know how you feel, but I do know for a fact that you're better off with me than my sisters."

 

John felt fingers pulling at his collar's back, and in an instant he was lifted into the air, hanging in front of Thayna's face.

 

Thayna looked at the pitiful state John was in; limp limbs, tired eyes and covered in dirt everywhere. He wasn't even looking at her, just staring blankly into space. She sighed and began dusting John off with her other hand.

 

"Look," Thayna said with a little annoyance and reassurance, "I was careful not to crush you when I was stepping you, and I'm only doing this so whoever I have to draw magic from doesn't have to go through this as long as you have. When I first started, it took me an entire day just to get enough energy. You're lucky I only took so long.”

 

John didn't react for a while, but when he came back to his senses, the first thing that popped into his head was, “Matilda...”

 

Thayna raised an eyebrow, curious as to who he meant. “Who's that?” Thayna asked.

 

John shook his head, snapping himself back to reality. Of all the things he forgot, it had to be his one companion.

 

“Put me down!” John shouted angrily at Thayna, shaking his fists up at her, “I have to go back!”

 

“Hey!” Thayna shouted back in surprise, “Stop that! Do you want me to drop you down- GAH! You know what, fine!”

 

Thayna lowered John down, but dropped him ten feet in the air out of spite. John landed on his buttocks with a 'whump!', and Thayna pointed a finger at the burnt down village. “Look, there's nothing left here! One way or another, you're coming back to the city, either with me, or with Tharsia when she wakes up!”

 

John looked in the direction of where his horse last was. Matilda was still lying flat against the ground, eyes dull and body unmoving. The rise and fall of breathing was absent from her chest, and more blood was pooled outside her than mortally possible. It's hard not to be convinced that she was dead.

 

In a small voice, John said to nobody, “...I can't leave my friend.”

 

Frustrated, Thayna scratched the back of her head in annoyance, biting her lower lip and pulling at her robe. Why won't this guy just listen for once?

 

“Fine,” Thayna finally said angrily, “FINE! But don't count on me coming back, because I've already made my offer to take you back myself, but you rejected it yourself!”

 

Thayna spun around and stomped angrily away from John, looking back only to add one more thing, “So don't come crying to me when you become my sister's chew toy for the rest of your life!”

 

As Thayna faded into the distance, John picked himself up to his feet, and dragged himself over to where Matilda was. Still as a corpse, and literally one too, his dear companion lay dead before him. John brushed his hand through her fur; her body was already too cold to be living. John allowed himself a tear, and just sat there in front of his friend in mourning.

 

Perhaps he was too beside himself with grief, but John did not notice the rumble of footsteps that drew ever closer to him.

 

John was suddenly aware of the shadow over him, and turned around to see a pair of giant feet behind him. Looking up, the angry face of Tharsia stared back at him menacingly.

 

“Well, well, well,” Tharsia snarled, “The one man who thought he could run away was the only one who decided to stay, eh?”

 

John felt Tharsia grab his body, turning him so that he was face to face with the giantess one more. “I'll commend you for your bravery, human,” Tharsia said, her face white with rage, “But know that the crimes of your people rest on you, now!”

 

John just gawked for a while. He was still surprised that Tharsia had already woken up, but a quick recounting of what had happened reminded himself that tears were still on his face. Wiping them quickly, John tried to hide his reddened eyes before the furious mage before him noticed. She was staring at him all this time, though, so there was no way she couldn't notice.

 

“I...” John began, but was lost for words, unable to come up with even a paltry comeback to whatever Tharsia had said. Too tired to think any more, John gave up and let his arms hang loosely from Tharsia's grip.

 

Tharsia, her anger somewhat diminished by John's pitiful display, sighed and said, “Look, I know my sister Thayna probably set you up for this, but you should know the laws of our domain. Anybody who leaves it unlawfully are fair game to be recaptured. Just accept your fate quietly, and I'll make sure you return to the Farum in one piece.”

 

John looked back down to Matilda, and said in a quiet voice, “...I don't want to leave my horse.”

 

Tharsia sighed again, and crouched down beside the corpse of the horse she recently kicked. Letting John back down beside her, Tharsia rested a hand on Matilda and turned back to John. “I can cremate her for you,” she offered.

 

John nodded, and watched as Tharsia began weaving her staff in the air in circular motions, using her magic to ignite a large fire which engulfed Matilda within it. The two watched in solemn silence as the corpse of John's horse began to slowly disintegrate, until only ash remain.

 

John turned to Tharsia, who looked back with her arms crossed haughtily across her chest. She wore a stern expression on her face, but what hostility she had before had already left her.

 

“Thank you, um, Miss Tharsia?” John said uneasily.

 

“Hmph,” Tharsia said, taking a step in John's direction. The foot landed just beside John, close enough to be afraid of being stepped on, “Don't think I'm doing this for free, human.”

With a quick scoop, Tharsia held John back in her hand, the same one which her mage mark was embedded in. “Every spell we cast costs us your magical energy,” Tharsia said in a serious voice, “I am only extracting what you already owe to me.”

 

Tharsia's grip began to tighten around John, until the pain was sharp enough to force him to scream. His bones clicked against each other, with ribs fighting the crushing force of a giantess's strength, and his organs squeezed together like putty in an agonizing squelch. The raw power of the giantesses were overwhelming even without their magic, and John thought for a terrifying moment that he would be crushed to death in Tharsia's tyrannical fist.

 

Without warning, a feeling like water escaping through his every pore overcame John, and he felt a large stream of invisible energy leave his body. Tharsia's trigger to harvesting magical energy was pain, and she was an expert at inflicting it upon her tiny subjects. It was nothing like Thayna's feeble attempts of extracting magical energy from him; it was like comparing a raindrop to a river.

 

And then, the feeling stopped. The pain persisted, but Tharsia had loosened her hold of John to a non-murderous degree. Panting at the effort of screaming for so long, John let his head roll back, drawing labored breaths as he tried to regain his composure.

 

Tharsia, still holding onto John, was surprised. She was sure she took as much magical energy as five humans would normally provide, but she felt that John contained even more than that. It was a curious find, but ultimately, nothing more than that.

 

“You're to return to the city,” Tharsia said, “And your punishment for deserting Farum will be meted out then.”

 

Tharsia placed John back down on the ground, and John eased himself back to his feet. But a swift kick from behind launched him forward, and Tharsia's voice boomed down from above, “Now march. If you have any intention of reaching the city by today, then you will go now.”

 

“Can't you just take me with you-” John began, but that only earned him another kick from Tharsia, spurning him forward again.

 

“You are nothing more than a race we mages feed on for power,” Tharsia said, her demeanor changing in an instant, “You think we are a mules to carry you? You will walk with your own two feet, weighed down by your crimes and your feebleness before us. We will prosecute you for your hubris against us, and you will face our justice within the halls of our city.”

 

With another kick, Tharsia shouted at a stumbling John, “Now march!”

 

It was a long and grueling trek, with Tharsia there to send her foot into John's back whenever he slowed down. She never afforded John a single break, and by the time they returned to the city limits, John was ready to buckle down and drop to the floor. A small fireball hurled toward his feet ensured that no such idea manifested further than from thought.

 

Their destination was soon in sight. Marble walls and rows of houses lined the outermost region of the city, and the bustle of the city was evident even from this distance, with workers carrying goods around and merchants traveling along the roads into the city. The moment Tharsia approached, all of them scattered and made way for their giant mistress, clearing a straight path for her into the city. The citizens hid behind whatever cover they could find, cowering as her footsteps resounded across the district.

 

This was Farum, the home of the Tha Fire Sisters and their mother and regent, Thelina of Azure Flame. Home, too, to more than a hundred thousand humans, all beholden to the mages for their protection, but were also captives as they saw them as nothing more than fuel for their magics. Most citizens would not even get the chance to meet their mistresses, but the mages would demand for the occasional tribute to replenish their magic. Those chosen would stay within the mage's terrace, where they lived no better than servants or slaves, attending only to their mistress's needs.

 

John was paraded through the streets, with Tharsia walking closely behind him, the other citizens watching intently at the alleged felon. It was customary for criminals found escaping Farum to be flaunted like this, a reminder that a citizen's fate for escaping was indefinite servitude to their giantess overlords. People looked on in fear and relief, that one of them was going to be left to this fate, but relieved that they would not soon be paying another tribute any time soon.

 

Just ahead of them was the ivory terrace, a white structure rising higher than any other building in the city, like a castle from a fairytale. Inside was the four mage's home, a sprawling mansion-like interior scaled to the giantess's own sizes, with occasional access for human-sized servants between rooms and stairs. The duo walked inside.

 

“As promised,” Tharsia said, once they were inside the ivory terrace, “Your punishment is to serve Thalana. I'll have you know that she goes through her humans much more quickly than others.”

 

John gulped. He was going to fed to the maneater.

 

Leading John into a brass chamber, Tharsia swept John into the room. It was a room with a giant altar, with a human-sized flight of steps leading up to a large basin wide enough to fit an entire house, perched on top of the altar. Fiery lights illuminating the whole room on either side, their glow reflecting the sprawling murals of brass etchings across the entirety of the walls and ceiling of the room, depicting magical circles and sculptures of many headed hydras swallowing men whole. Thoroughly foreboding.

 

“I have found another for you, sister!” Tharsia shouted further into the room. John turned back to her just in time to see that she was about to close the doors behind him, “I'll leave him to you.”

 

With a thud, John was left to his own devices.

 

“Come to up to my altar, little one,” a voice called out from inside.

 

John looked around nervously, but saw no sign of who spoke. Just as he contemplated running, torches along either side of the long steps began lighting themselves one by one, from the bottom up until a clear path to the altar was illuminated. This was no doubt the Fire Sister Thalana's magic, and John saw little recourse than to obey.

 

The steps were a good three or four storeys tall to John. Already tired from his journey back to the city, it took him a great deal of effort just to reach the top. Huffing and panting, John leaned against a bit of stone slab jutting out of the altar, and saw that the basin before him was filled with a golden, oily looking liquid.

 

“Now cleanse yourself in the basin,” the voice commanded once again. John still couldn't pinpoint where the voice came from, but he knew it was closer, and he knew it was watching. Obediently, John lowered himself gingerly into the basin, and the golden liquid lapped gently at John's tired, dirty feet. It felt strangely slick on top, but the bottom was pure viscous water. A nice fragrance emanated it, and John had a sudden morbid thought that he might have just stumbled into a giant cooking pot.

 

“Submerge yourself in the basin,” the voice sounded out once more, “And take of your clothes if you wish.”

 

John wasn't keen on facing his potential end naked, so he kept his clothes. He did as he was told otherwise, and he dunked his head face-first into the basin, drenching his entire body in the oily mix of water.

 

When John came back up for a breath of air, in front of him was the smiling face of the last Tha Fire Sister.

 

Thalana was, like her sisters, massive. Her face was just next to the Basin, and was large enough to blot out everything from John's peripheral vision. She had long dark red hair which fell perfectly straight down, her bangs cut straight across to form a near perfect curtain of hair which sat just above her eyebrows, and her eyes were circled with dark liner to form snake-like slants which contained dark amber irises just like Thayna's. Her skin was only slightly darker than her sisters, giving her a tanned look, but in the firelight of this chamber, the difference was hard to tell. She wore an assortment of jewelry, twin pairs of golden earrings pierced on either side of her ears and adorned with rubies the size of fists, and a golden headband was strapped around her head, little tear-shaped pearls dangling off from it, jingling whenever she moved about. But what struck John the most was her lips, plump and pink, it contrasted the rest of her face perfectly. They had a wet look to them, like she's licked them beforehand already.

 

Thalana crossed her arms on the edge of the basin and laid her head down upon them. She gave John a pleased look, and said, “You know why you're hear, do you not?”

 

“Y-yes...” John said uncertainly. Thelena widened her grin, and freed an arm to take John into her hand. She didn't lift him just yet, just felt him as she ran her fingers across his body. John felt a great unease at her gentleness, like a cat playing with its food before finally devouring her prey. Prey; that was what John was to her.

 

“Exquisite,” Thalana said with a craving tone, “I could feel your little muscles even through my fingers. You should do nicely...”

 

All of a sudden, the caressing had changed to a full on grip, with John being lifted from the basin. Without a chance to react, Thalana's face lunged forward, and a long tongue slithered out from her mouth, running itself against the length of John's body. Her tongue was embedded with her mage mark, a black circle with runes containing a snake motif in them. John only managed to catch a glimpse of it before the tongue ran down him a second time. He had underestimated its strength, and his attempts to wrangle it away from him were easily brushed aside. Thalana lapped at him for several more times, and by then, John was covered in a thick layer of her strangely sweet saliva.

 

“You taste as good as I thought you would,” Thalana cooed, tracing a finger down John's chest and sucking on it with her lips, “The oils do make such wonderful ingredients.”

 

“You,” John yelled in horror, “You're going to eat me!”

 

Thalana's eyes shown with malice, and an evil grin spread across her lips. “But of course.”

 

And as John began screaming, Thalana snapped her fingers, extinguishing the fires and plunging the room into darkness. For a terrifying moment, John felt Thalana lift him up and tilt him down, knowing instantly that she was going to swallow him like a grape bunch. When the feeling of vertigo reversed, he knew he was being sent down to her massive lips, to be consumed inside the confines of her cavernous mouth. Flailing about, John found her lips and pushed against them as hard as he could, but Thalana's tongue lashed out once more and pulled his head in.

 

It was hot. It was dark. It was wet. John continued flailing helplessly as Thalana pushed more of his body through her lips. Hot breath blew against his face. Fear raced through him when he realized the hard, solid objects holding him in place were teeth, and the notion of being bitten in half only sought to fuel his desperate struggles further.

 

When almost half of John's body was in, Thalana began sucking on him. Huge vacuums pushed the air deeper into her throat, and John, robbed of his vision in the darkness, only felt himself draw further into her mouth. He screamed and screamed, unable to resist his gruesome fate. It only got worse as Thalana began a chewing motion, grinding John's body against rows and rows of sharp teeth. As the rest of his body was sucked in, Thalana's tongue beat him relentlessly against the roof of her mouth, passing him around and repeating the chewing, licking and sucking motions.

 

When John was about ready to go crazy, a huge surge of something raced through him, and a vortex of invisible energy began stripping away at his magical energy, tearing it out like a tornado in a wheat field. He felt a rush as if he stood in the center of a cyclone, raging winds sucking out his energy with terrible but great ease. Of all the Tha Fire Sisters, Thalana had to have the most violent mage mark of them all.

 

And then, John was spat out. He landed in the basin, completely soaked in saliva now, with tears in his clothes evident from the incessant chewing, yet he was strangely unharmed.

 

With another snap of her fingers, Thalana relit the fires in the room, and patted her lips with a large cloth, wiping away any excess saliva which may still be on her face.

 

“Curious,” Thalana said to herself, “Most little ones would be completely drained when I feed on them.”

 

“You...” John began, trying to find the words to say, “Y-you didn't eat me?”

 

“Fear is a catalyst for my mark,” Thalana said, tossing the cloth aside, “And if I could make you believe I was going to eat you, your fear would be all the greater.”

 

“Of course,” Thalana said with a wink, “It only works once on each of you.”

 

“I...” John tried to say, perplexed at the situation he was in, “What...what will happen to me now?”

 

“Hmm, you've satisfied my hunger, for now,” Thalana said with a content sigh, “Normally, our domain's law would dictate that you continue to serve me, but I'm helping my sister Thayna break out you littles ones from the ivory terrace. She should come collect you when she hears of you.”

 

John's ears perked up at this. I didn't think I'd be this happy to be meeting Thayna again. “Thayna's coming here?”

 

“Indeed,” Thalana said happily, “We both agree our sister Tharsia can be a real prude sometimes, so I help Thayna out in my own way. I scarcely need so many of you if you know my trick already, anyway.”

 

It was John's turn to sigh out of relief, and he let himself float in the basin for a moment longer. His moment of respite was interrupted, however, when Thalana picked him up again.

 

“In the meantime,” Thalana said, “Well, it's not like you could refuse, but I'd like to ask you for a small favor.”

 

“Er, what is it?” John said uncertainly.

 

“Since I was so nice to 'spare' you,” Theaana said with a fickle smile, “I don't suppose I could ask you to let me play with you a little longer? Until Thayna arrives. I won't actually draw any more energy from you, I just want you in my mouth.”

 

“What?” John said, exasperated, “No, no no no no-”

 

“Well, I tried to ask,” Thalana said with a shrug, “But you little folk are such irresistible things. How could I refuse a morsel before me?”

 

Plunging his head back into her mouth, John became Thalana's chew toy for another evening of his life. Today was truly a terrible day.

Thayna crept her way through the ivory terrace, scanning the foyer for any signs of Tharsia. It was well into the evening, and she never missed a wink of sleep after sundown. Still, it couldn't hurt to be careful. Thayna tiptoed to the big, brass doors of Thalana's dwellings, and gave it a tentative push.

The inside was lit with a dim, flickering fire, as usual, and the gaudy interior flickered in and out of view against the weak light. Thayna had always questioned Thalana's tastes in interior decor, but she wove the intricate shapes and colors herself with her magic. She was a gifted mage when it came to alchemy, and with her fire magic, she was able to sculpt any metal into whatever she wanted. A good portion of the city was built thanks to her.

Thayna could hear the muted sounds of smacking lips from behind the altar. No doubt that it was Thalana playing with whoever was unlucky enough to be sent to her today. Thayna eased herself inside and closed the door behind her with a click.

Thalana must have heard this, and her head rose from the opposite side of the altar. In her mouth was the upper body of a hapless man, gone limp from the literal tongue lashing she had administered. Thayna had always thought too little in common with Thalana for them to get along, but she was the only person Thayna could rely on in Farum.

Thayna walked to the front of altar, sighing as she sat on a convenient stone block that was carved out from the base. She leaned an elbow against the side of the altar, resting her cheek in in her hand as she lazily looked up to where Thalana sat.. “Are humans so good that you must taste every one of them, sister?” Thayna said with a sigh.

Thalana grabbed the man’s legs and pulled him free from her mouth. A sticky film of saliva covered his body and face, making it difficult to make out his identity. She placed him in the basin and began rubbing the saliva she had inflicted off of him, leaving him to lie in a shallower part of the basin when she was done. The man didn’t once move as she cleaned him.

“The sweet congeal of flesh and fear is a delicacy fit only for my tongue, my dear Thayna,” Thalana said, perching herself over the basin and looking down with a devilish grin at where Thayna sat, “Only one with as gifted a sense of taste as I may appreciate its splendor.”

“Harumph,” Thayna grunted. Talking with such flamboyance was one of the things she hated about Thalana; it felt like she was talking her down with her big words.

“So do you have Tharsia’s new captive with you?” Thayna asked quickly, wanting to get this over and done with.

“But of course,” Thalana said, withdrawing herself behind the altar once more, completely ignoring the man left in the basin. Thayna heard the ruffle and shuffle of things being moved around, and curious to know what she was searching for so ferverntly, Thayna rose from her seat and looked over the basin. It was dark on the other side, but Thayna spotted the limp man lying in the basin.

“Is that him?” Thayna asked, pointing to the man.

“Heavens, no,” said Thalana a short laugh, “He’s one of the house servants tied to mother whom I found scurrying about late at night. Seeing him gave me the idea to grab a late night snack.”

“Then where is the man?” Thayna said impatiently, “Don’t tell me you’ve really gone and eaten him this time?

“While the flesh of men are sweet,” Thalana growled, “Their blood is a taint on their rich flavor. One should only partake on their shell, and never their life.”

Which means you’ve tried it before, Thayna thought to herself, Or you’d never know what blood tastes like.

The rummaging stopped, and Thalana popped her head back up the Altar, taking with her a small, sleeping man clutched in both her hands. Thayna instantly recognized him as the man she left behind at the burnt village today, though his clothes were more torn than she remembered them to be, and his hair was messy like he’d just come out of a shower. He was unhurt for the most part, Thayna heaved a sigh of relief. It was good to know he made it back in one piece, at least.

"John kept me company in the afternoon," Thalana said, carefully lowering down the snoring John and passing him to Thayna, "I let him rest when he became too tired. Tharsia always did drives newcomers too hard when they first come in, so he was out like a light in an instant."

So his name is John, Thayna thought. She didn't normally bother with a human's name, but knowing that Thalana knew something she didn't irked her.

Thayna reached up to receive John's snoozing body, keeping his body lined to the ground and not rouse him from slumber. Gently, she cradled him to her chest, keeping him nestled under the curve of her modest breast. She savored the fact that John fit perfectly against her body, his tiny frame resting easily between it and her supporting arm. Thayna chanced a prod at John's chest, and was delighted when he stirred and continued to snore.

"Take good care of him," Thalana said to Thayna as she retreated back into the shadows behind the altar, "He's a treasure."

"I wouldn't count on it," Thayna said defiantly. You probably just want him around as a convenient appetizer, Thayna thought to herself.

"Oh," Thalana said with a smile as the last vestiges of light disappeared from her face, "I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised."

John had dreams. Not dreams of endless visions of avarice, eternal sodomy with an infinite harem, or any of the stereotypical flights of fancy the bardsongs or epics depicted. No, John was much simpler than that, satisfied that he owned a small shop in which he lived in, selling simple breads and wheat like his father before him, keeping a stable in the back in which he could give Matilda a good scrub at the end of a day's work. He'd invite friends over, and they would make merry with the leftover bread and mead, laughing and cheering as the night lost its youth. There was, of course, no self-respecting bakery with a stable right behind it, and John never stayed anywhere long enough to have friends, and so he roused himself from his dream, gently waking to the sound of ruffled cloth and string nearby.

John opened his eyes. The last thing he remembered was that Thalana had released him from his oral duties when he couldn't muster the strength to even resist her another moment longer, prompting her to allow him a brief respite. They talked instead, though John was uncomfortable with being told how individual parts of his body were delicious, but John soon tired of that, too, and drifted to sleep.

Now, he was in a different room altogether. He was on the floor, warmed by a nearby stove scaled to be as large as a barn, and sitting on a bit of wooly carpet. On the other side, he saw an assortment of tailoring equipment; thread, needles, and spare fabric of various colors, all proportional to the giantess behind them.

Thayna was hunched over, working her hands on an unfinished pair of sandals on the floor. She was threading the straps to the leathery sole with a giant needle and large, hempen rope, making a rough stitching pattern along the sides of each sandal. John thought amusedly that her sandals looked like a pair of flattened boats.

"Oh," Thayna's voice sounded above John, her giant face hovering over where John was lying down on, "You're awake, John."

"Hrn-" John made a sleepy just-woke-up sound, but stopped when he heard what Thayna had just said, "Wait, how do you know my name?"

"It wasn't hard to find out," Thayna simply replied. John gave a quizzical look when she furrowed her eyebrows irritably, but didn't pursue the matter.

"Where am I?" John asked. Looking around, it was clear he was still in the ivory terrace, but this room was considerably more cluttered than the last. The musty smell of cured leather hung in the room. Piles of broken or unfinished shoes lay heaped in a corner of the room while a small cache of materials were strewn about on the other side. Leatherworking, smithed metals, rope and fabrics of all colors, nails and wires in finely wrapped packages; this place gave the impression of a very disorganized shoe shop.

"You're in my room," Thayna said, punishing John with a slap when he balked at her words, "You might think it's funny to be living here like this, but that's what you get for being born with a mage mark on your foot. We giantesses go through shoes almost as quickly as we make them, so most like my sisters don't bother."

Thayna knotted the end of the rope of the sandal she was sewing, and produced a tiny flame to burn off the excess length still sticking out. "But I must wear shoes wherever I go in order to protect my mark," Thayna continued, trying on the finished sandal, "The soles are one of the worst places to have a mage mark, but losing your mark is the worst of all. It disqualifies you from being a mage." Thayna tore the sandal from her foot and tossed it and its pair into the pile of spent shoes behind her.

"And the only thing worse than being the weakest mage ever," Thayna growled as she moved to pluck John from the ground, "Is to become markless like you humans."

Thayna took John in her hand and put him exactly where her sandal had just been before. John gulped, knowing what was coming, and sure enough, Thayna's marked foot came down upon him. This time, however, she was much more generous about space for John to breath as her toes only came up to John's abdomen. He felt a familiar exhale of energy as Thayna extracted another sliver of magic from his body. It was still a far cry from when Tharsia and Thalana did it, but for a human like John, it was amazing that they could perform magic at all.

"You're going to be my attendant for today," Thayna said, looking down at the miniscule frame of John. He felt like a twig under her foot, and she knew she could snap him like one if she so wanted to. Humans were weak, but it was a reminder to Thayna that that was how other mages saw her as well, "Don't annoy me too much and it'll be a relatively uneventful day for you. Your first task, as you might have guessed, is to replenish my magic. If we're to do anything else today, I'll need all the magic I can get."

Another breath of energy left John as Thayna's foot pressed down on him. He winced as he felt Thayna's toes raking his belly, but thankfully, her full weight wasn't behind her foot this time. The slow cycle of stepping and drawing energy continued, and Thayna returned to her shoe cobbling again.

John was starting to get used to this treatment the mages gave to humans, and he worried that he would soon find that being eaten, beaten and...feeten (John was very bad at rhyming) were natural occurrences in life. He tried to wiggle his way out, but Thayna had a firm grip on his body. He wasn't getting out of this any time soon physically.

"Hey, uh," John shouted, waving his hands frantically to get Thayna's attention, "Mistress Thayna! Your ladyship! Um, your magnificence?"

Thayna stopped to turn to John and said very curtly, "What?"

John was a merchant. Persuasion should be an area he was good at, right? "If you'd kindly listen to what I have to say-"

"No," said Thayna instantly. So much for persuasion.

"Alright, cool," John continued as he fought against Thayna's foot's pressure for breath. He needed to make conversation at least, "Let's talk about you, then. Whatcha' making?"

"Sandals," Thayna said with eyes rolled, "If you've been following what I was saying, you'd know."

"Great," John said, "It's a lot of work to make them by yourself, isn't it? And with such beautiful feet as your own, you'd like something to compliment them perfectly as you move. I have a friend who deals in apparel in town, maybe if we can-"

Thayna let out a very heavy sigh and said, "Alright, fine. What do you want, annoying peasant commoner human person John?"

That was almost too easy. "If it you would pardon this lowly subject of yours, lady Thayna-"

"ENOUGH!" Thayna shouted, "Just say your piece and be done with it."

"I, uh," John said, taking care that what he said next wouldn't fuel Thayna's wrath further, "Thought of a better way you could draw mana from me."

Thayna cocked an eyebrow and threw an intense and quizzical stare at John. This had surely piqued her interest. "What do you mean?" She demanded.

"Being caught under your grace's soles is very taxing for the small of size," John said as he patted one of Thayna's toes, "Perhaps I'd last longer if you rested on your back and faced your soles skyward?"

Thayna sighed again. When John said he found a better way, she thought he meant for her.

"Fine, whatever," Thayna grumbled, taking her foot off of John and rolling on her belly, "You're lucky I even care about you at all.”

With her body completely flipped over, Thayna's bare soles spread out before John like a fine double bed. They formed a gentle slope, and Thayna's mage mark lay in plain sight on the incline. It didn't look too bad, but John wasn't sure how much more comfortable this was going to be.

"If I catch you running off," Thayna said with a deadly tone, "You're going right back to Thalana's place."

John gulped. Suffering Thayna was a hundred times better than enduring Thalana. Quickly, he scrambled up onto the marked sole and lied down. This was much better than John had hoped. Without the murderous weight crushing him, Thayna's sole was a smooth, bouncy mattress. Never mind the smell of sweat and leather, there were hardly any callouses, and when he pushed his hand into the fleshy folds, it curved in like a baby's cheek.

Estatic with what he felt, John jumped eagerly into the ball of Thayna's feet, where her mark resided on. It was the largest expanse of skin John could find, and John snuggled into the cushiony canvas as deep as his small weight could take him. Thayna responded to the ticklish sensation by clenching her toes together, creating large folds under John. One of the folds managed to creep up to John's crotch, catching his member through his pants and yanking it as the fold grew deeper. John yelped at the sudden stimulation, feeling an erection form as the fold pulled his cock further in. It only served to further heighten the maddeningly sensual friction he felt.

 

It was then Thayna decided to draw magical energy from John again. This time, however, John felt a completely different, all powerful force passing through him, like a firestorm raging through a forest. A great, invisible fire raced through his every nerve and vein, sweeping every ounce of magic John had in him. An implosion of energy burned John's senses as his magic gathered into a singularity at the center of his chest, before exploding back outward into Thayna's vacuum of a mage mark.

 

John swore that he had been swallowed by...something. The feeling of Thayna's mage mark was so different and magnitudes more violent than any of her sister's that even John knew this was completely bizarre. Even more puzzling was that Thayna had only taken the smallest of amounts of magic from John before, but now she was capable of taking tens or hundreds of times more energy than even Tharsia or Thalana were capable of. What had just happened?

 

Thayna was startled, too. The sudden injection of magic many more times abundant than she's seen in her entire life put her in a state of shock and confusion, dropping her sewing equipment and shaking John off of her foot. She turned and grabbed the equally fazed little man and shook him furiously as she shouted, “What did you do?!”

 

John was too out of himself to even reply. His eyes were glazed in utter shock, and his body was limp from the ordeal. Thayna noticed that for whatever reason, his member stood erect in his pants. Like a smoking gun at the scene of the crime, Thayna immediately understood the implications. There was fear, pain, and an assortment of other emotions Thayna had tried, but none of them worked before. Of course it wouldn't, nobody would be turned on when they were under her foot. She whispered to herself, “Arousal...my trigger is arousal.”

 

With a look to her palm, Thayna tested her new found magic by conjuring a fire; a big fire which she had never the luxury to cast before, and watched in awe as a resplendent orb of fire materialized into the air. She grinned like a child at her own handiwork, but as she tried to dismiss it, her face contorted to one of dismay. The orb began to splutter and waver, spitting flames and spewing molten lava as it shattered in place. A massive resurgence of fire burst through the opening, and fire washed the room in an inferno.

 

Thayna dropped to her knees, watching helplessly as her room began burning around her. She had been too used to putting out her fire spells by simply letting it peter out on its own; Thayna's magical energy couldn't keep up with maintaining of the spell. Now, the fire fed on the ocean of magic Thayna drew from John, free to run rampant with Thayna unable to call off the spell.

 

“I...” Thayna said, stuttering, unable to do anything. Without the power to contain the situation, she could only cry out in desperation, “H-help....HELP!”

 

As if in response to her plea, the fires spun into a tight circle above the room, glowing an unnatural blue and taking the burning blaze off the room as it slowly collapsed in on itself. It winked out of existence in a blue puff, extinguishing the inferno and leaving the room in a smoldering wreck. Thayna rose up slowly, John still in her hand, dazed, and saw the large figure of a woman approaching through the smoldering ruin, her face obscured by the billowing smoke. She held a staff lighted with a the glow of a small, azure flame on its end. Thayna knew all too well who it was who had saved her.

 

“...Mom?” Thayna gasped as Thelina of Azure Flame appeared before her daughter.

"Mother!" Thayna cried out, dropping John from her grip and running to Thelina's embrace. John snapped back to his senses as his head smacked into the carpet below, the pain in his head jerking holim awake. Looking around, he was certain he would have died if he landed in anything more solid, and cursed Thayna for her carelessness.

John clambered to his feet and let out a gasp when he saw the state of the room, charred beyond all recognition. The stove had burst, the pile of shoes were blackened to a crisp and almost everything had a singe mark freshly burnt into them. John didn't think it possible that Thayna's room could get any messier.

John turned to where the two mages were standing. Thayna was snuggling herself against her mother's side, and Thelina patted her daughter with her free hand. Thelina was a tall giantess, with Thayna only coming to her eye-level. She exuded a noble air about her, exemplified by her crisp red hair tied into a tight bun, a regal expression which shone through her every face, and a magnificent robe of sapphire and platinum which glittered with the flow of the robes. She denounced footwear, having only anklets of tarnished gold which held glistening studs of diamonds along their rim, but most striking of all was the cleavage window in the center of her chest which bore a large mage mark made up of runes and fiery silhouettes, resting somberly between her bosom.

"You have done well," Thelina said to Thayna, holding the chin of her daughter up to her face, "You have found the key to your mage mark, and proven to me that you are indeed a mage as your sisters are."

"Y-yes!" Thayna said happily, giddy like a little girl who had done well at a test in school, and was eager to show her mother the results.

Thelina loosened her embrace on Thayna and put her hand on Thayna's back. "So tell your mother," Thelina said in a smooth tone, "What happened that made your magic flow as frely as it does now?"

Thayna looked back to the floor and shouted, "John! He was the one who attended to me!" She pointed excitedly at the small, standing figure, and John shuffled his feet uneasily at having the attention of two gigantic women in the same room.

"I know why we couldn't find my trigger!" Thayna continued with unbridled elation, eager to boast to her mother, "Most people wouldn't find feet sexy, but John here must have a thing for them. While he was jerking off to my sole, bam!" Thayna slammed her fist into her palm for emphasis.

"Ah, yes," Thelina said with a disapproving but serene look, "You've always been born with such colorful qualities, but do mind your manners."

Thelina walked over to John and picked him up without so much as a warning, and held him within her vice-like grip. "May I?" Said Thelina. She wasn't talking to John.

"Oh, of course!" Thayna said, still gushing over her newfound power.

"I would like to protest-" John began, but was cut off mid sentence as Thelina shoved him into her cleavage window. The full richness of her breasts collided headfirst into John's face, burying him deep into the valley where each of her mountainous breasts met. John gasped as the weight of Thelina's twins assaulted him from either side, feeling his joints popping from the strain. She wore her robe far too tight for this to be the natural force between breasts; to have invalidated the softness of such a shapely bosom, there must have been a corset somewhere underneath. Still, John felt his cruel host push him further in with her fingers, shoving until John was face to face to Thelina's mage mark.

John wasn't sure what Thelina's trigger was, but he had gone through so much already that he was unsure of how to feel emotionally. Pain was the order of the day; did she share triggers with Tharsia, whose catalyst was best used now? Whatever it was, John felt his body being pulled by a malevolent force, tearing streaks of magical energy relentlessly from him like a demon possesed by rage. Its pull shot through John like a sickle through wheat, and John gagged as the forces both physical and magical began strangling him.

Thelina parted her breast aside with a hand and found John's ankle through the cleavage window. With a pull, she yanked him from his fleshy prison, dangling him upside down before her mighty chest. Thelina passed the writhing John back to Thayna, and dropped him carelessly into her hands.

"This one doesn't seem compatible with my mark," Thelina said as she stroked her chin pensively, "But I felt a great rift of magic locked away within him, to which you have a key."

Thelina walked out of the room, beckoning for Thayna to follow. She obeyed, John still in hand, and bounced happily after her mother. They made their way into a large room beginning with a red carpet leading up to a magnificent gold and velvet throne built to seat a giantess, with grand tapestries hanging down from the ceiling. The tapestries depicted Farum's flag which was made up of a four-point star held on its bottom point by a hand, captioned by a banner which read, "By the light of stars did we found our country." Farum was founded and named after Thelina's bloodline when they found a hidden human mining town far away from any charted lands. It was a clear night when they came to subjugate them, and they oversaw the return of the mining town to the mage's power.

Perhaps because of Farum's vast deposits of rare minerals, the town was able to grow into a city, and then a capital, with enough trade and resources to sustain itself. Independence was unheard of in the world, but that just proved how powerful the Farum family was. As a result, many humans began gathering with the promise that they need only serve one family instead of an entire country of mages. Life was easier here, having only four mages in the current lineage to bow to, and the growth of the nation exploded. It worked well for the Farums, as they needn't ever worry about running out of magic again.

But as with society, dissent was inevitable. Some wished to be freed completely from their mistress's grasp, others crying foul for having to offer their own sons and daughters as tribute. Law was an issue in Farum, with dissenters forming towns in unpopulated areas of Farum, where they were free from rule but still protected by Farum's border. Tharsia was head executor of justice, and weeded out the deserters regularly.

Some places, you were treated like cattle, John thought to himself. At least in Farum you could live like a human should.

"Stand before me," Thelina commanded Thayna, seating herself upon the throne. She rested her staff in her lap and supported her chin in her hand atop the armrest, a disinterested look on her face.

Thayna came just below to the small flight of steps before the throne, the proper, respectful distance one should be before a regent. John saw that Thayna had a much more serious expression on her face, her fingers tightening nervously around John unconsciously.

"The day has come where you must perform your duties as a mage," Thelina said in a solemn tone, "Before, I moved between realms myself in order to form any kind of dialogue with our neighbours. The task of rulership and diplomacy rested on my shoulders alone. Now that you have found your place as a mage, you are ready to take over my role, and will become an envoy for Farum to the other nations."

Thayna's mouth was agape, unable to believe what she just heard, "I'm going to leave Farum?"

"For a few years," Thelina remarked emotionlessly, "There are many places I wish you to visit."

"...But I only just got to show you my powers..." John heard Thayna whisper.

"Your journey will serve as time to hone your magic, as well," Thelina continued, "You've trained on nothing but increasing your mage mark's potency, but you've not a lick of an idea what your magic is like. A mage's spells require years of practice in order to perfect, and your magic's true form will reveal itself to you over time, just as it did for your sisters."

"...Just as I've finally impressed you," Thayna continued to mumble.

"You will take that human in your hands with you," Thelina continued, heedless to her daughter's growing disbelief, "He has more than enough magic to feed you throughout the journey, and it is fortuitous that you found one who works so well with your mark. It is taxing and expensive to maintain a retinue of servants outside our borders."

When she saw that Thayna was barely even listening, she called to her sharply, "Thayna."

Thayna snapped to attention, throwing her arms tightly to her sides, unintentionally jerking John sideways.

With a razor-like glare, Thelina told her daughter, "Don't disappoint me again."

John just wanted to go home. Granted, home was a place he found difficult to pinpoint when he became a travelling merchant, having left his folks a while ago, and any establishment with a bed and bread ready for him when he payed for a night's stay became his 'home'.

He was watching Thayna pack. It was pitiful seeing her pack with such dejection on her face; John didn't dare utter a word, though, in case she would take it out on him. Thayna would look over to him on occasion, but she would always turn back to her packing and sigh. The mood in the room was heavy.

They were in the ivory terrace's dressing room, and Thayna was busy picking out her clothes to bring. It occurred to John that she wasn't going to pack for him, so he braved conversation to speak with her.

"Hey," John called out to Thayna, "Uh..." John still didn't know what to call her, so he just went with what came to his mind, "Lady Thayna, might I have a moment?"

Thayna sighed and went over to John. "What?" She asked curtly.

"Mayhap that you've not packed me clothes of my own," John said, "I was wondering if-"

"Oh, enough with the formalities!" Thayna cried out hotly, "That tone of yours annoys me to no end, and you will rue the day you speak to me like that again!"

Thayna heaved another sigh at the frightened form of John shirking away before her. She put on as reassuring a tone as she could muster, and said, "Just call me Thayna."

"R-right," John said shakily, "Miss Thayna-"

Thayna drilled holes through John with her glare.

"Er, Thayna," John corrected himself, "If we're to be going on a trip, might I pack my own things?"

"No," Thayna said as she crossed her arms, "If you're coming with me, then I'm responsible for you whether you like it or not. I'm packing everything we'll need by myself."

Thayna pulled a small, white set of human robes from her bag and shoved it into John's face. It was a simple looking smock with the emblem of Farum sewn in its center. "Servants wear this uniform if they are attending to us," Thayna said matter-of-factly, "Your clothes are already accounted for."

Seriously? John thought to himself.

"Look," John said as persuasively as he could, "I'm a merchant, I could talk to the people in town so they could help us. I just need my things to be able to do that well."

"And I'm a mage!" Thayna lashed out angrily, "If the humans in town don't do what I want, I'll grill them myself!"

Again, Thayna sighed when she saw John's face of abject horror, rubbing her face with her hand at her sudden outburst. It was unbecoming of her to lose her temper like that, she knew, and making John even more afraid of her wasn't helping things.

"Look, sorry," Thayna said, seating herself down beside the table she had put John on, "A lot's happened today, and I know you were forced into coming with me. We'll get your things when I'm done packing, I'll take you there myself."

"Really?" John said, brightening up.

"Don't make me repeat myself," Thayna growled, returning to pack her luggage.

John sat there for a moment, just watching Thayna fold her dresses absently. She had changed his view of mages being evil, tyrannical beings whose only interest was to oppress humanity. Some of them were like her.

"You're not as bad as you look," John said, earning him a flying smock to the face.

Riding a giantess was quite the experience. It was as if John was flying, his head high up between the city buildings, zooming past the crowds of men below. He was seated on Thayna's left shoulder, just high enough to be above the roofs of Farum's two-, maybe three-storey buildings. It was as if he were an eagle gliding through the streets, sharing the same perspective as those predatory birds, and the people scrambling away from Thayna's path looked nothing more than prey he could swoop down on at any time, helpless to run from him.

"Take a left!" John shouted to Thayna, and the world jerked leftward as Thayna rounded the corner.

They were heading to John's parent's house. With his carriage and Matilda gone, what remained of John's possessions was what he left there when he started travelling three years ago. He hoped that they didn't go about cleaning out his room while he was gone, he didn't want to end this trip with nothing to show for it.

"There it is!" John exclaimed, pointing and shouting ahead. The rush of traveling so high and quickly made his every sentence become his loudest. This fact was not lost on Thayna, whose ear had been enduring his shouts ever since they started, and she finally found an excuse to put John down.

"Walk the rest of the way yourself," Thayna told John, plucking him from her shoulder and placing him down to the cobbled streets.

"Huh, but it's just a little ways more!" John cried out.

"I wouldn't want to scare your folks," Thayna said with a 'hmph' as she turned to walk away, "I'll be waiting at the plaza we came from on our way here in the meantime."

John breathed a sigh of disappointment. Riding with Thayna was the best experience he's ever had in his life. For it to come to an end so suddenly was a letdown, but John supposed that he should be thankful to even be able to be carried by a giantess like that. It wasn't an experience many could claim to have.

Now on to business. John followed the street down to a quiet district of craftsmen and shops, the very front of which stood a quaint looking bakery. A sign hung outside, introducing the shop with the words "BAKER'S BAKERY: An esteemed bakery since 1631 and a lofty bread shop from which baked goods of the highest caliber are made within our earthen ovens, ensuring only the crispest of crusts would-".

The words went on. John's father had a nasty habit of writing down whatever sounded marketable on the shop's sign until not a trace of the menu remained. Today, the words almost reached the bottom of the sign, leaving only enough space to fit a single item, which he used to write in succinctly: "Bread - $$$".

John sighed, forcing his legs to take him inside. It was good to see that his father hasn't changed at all, but John had ran off on his own for three years with nothing to show for it. He prayed that his parents were busy elsewhere, and that he could just slip in and leave a note as he grabbed his stuff.

The bell to the door jingled as John eased his way in, and he cursed when he heard a voice call out from behind the counter, "Welcome, come in!"

John weaved his way past the shelves and came to a stop just before the counter. There, his father was facing away, wiping his hands clean of dough as he prepared to receive his customer. John walked cautiously forward, bracing himself for whatever reaction his father would give upon seeing him. "Hey dad," John said meekly.

John's father turned around, his face was, at first, that of surprise, and then elation as he rushed from the counter to embrace his son.

"John!" His father exclaimed, "By the oven's fire, boy, where have you been?"

"It's a long story," John said with a forced grin, "But I kind of need some stuff from my room. Are my bag and clothes still inside?"

"That they are," John's father said, and then with some worry, "Where are you going in such a hurry, boy? We've barely seen each other in a while, and your mother is in the plaza buying fruit for my-"

" Did you say the plaza?" John said, suddenly very concerned.

"Aye," his father replied, his tone growing more anxious, "John, just what has happened to you?"

"It's a long story," John repeated, "I promise I'll tell you later."

Hastily, John ran upstairs to where his room was. Third door on the left from the stairwell; it was just as he remembered. His bed was made and his shelf was neatly arranged, a simple room for one. He found his bag and began rummaging through his closet for clothes, jamming whatever he thought he needed as quickly as possible. He eyed the copy of his merchant license framed on a wall and tore it down. Who knows if that might still be useful.

"John?" His father called to him through the door.

"Look, I said I'll tell you later!" John shouted back, storming up to the door. He was going to shoo his dad away, but when he opened the door, he saw him standing in the corridor, holding up a bundle of fresh, fragrant bread in his arms.

"I don't know where you're going next," John's father said, passing him the bundle, "But it's been so long since we've seen each other. The least I could do is see you on your way."

John stared speechlessly at his father's gift. It smelled like all of John's favourite breads: focaccia, rye, even some pastries. His father still remembered them after all these years. It felt like so long ago since he was loved, years of loneliness washed away in an instant with a simple gesture. A teary pearl rolled down his eye, and John held his dad in an awkward one-handed embrace.

"I'll miss you, dad," John said with a choking voice. His father didn't reply, but simply patted him in the back. They held each other for a long, tender moment before John felt him letting go.

"Go, son," he said with a warm, fatherly smile, "I know you'll do me proud."

With that, John left the bakery and crossed the street back toward the plaza. The bundle of bread swayed merrily from his bag as he bounded up the cobbled pavement. He never thought he'd be so happy to see anyone again, and the excessive joy he felt gave length to his strides.

At the plaza, there was a general commotion happening at the center, where Thayna was seen standing above the midst of a throng of people. For whatever reason, she was shouting an unending stream of obscenities down at them.

What did she get herself into now? John thought to himself. He wanted to make himself scarce, but knew that the quickest way to get Thayna to leave was to return to her. John sighed and braced himself for whatever was to come.

"Look you pest," Thayna said angrily, "You're not helping anybody here by doing this. Just go home!"

"We will not cede to your tyranny!" A man bellowed back, "We are not tools for you to use

as you please!"

There was an unanimous cheer of agreement from the crowd, and their fierce advance on Thayna made even one as big as she retreat back a step.

John pushed his way through as best he could, but try as he might, the crowd only grew thicker the further he got. Unable to proceed, John waved his hands wildly into the air, hoping to catch Thayna's attention. He shouted to her helplessly, but was ultimately drowned out by the people around him. Thayna remained unreachable.

"Enough!" Thayna yelled, silencing the crowd with a furious bellow, "Stand back, or it's my fire you'll be tasting next!"

The crowd looked at each other for a wordless moment, then burst out laughing all at once. Thayna's reputation as a mage preceded her, and nobody was willing to take her seriously when it came to magic.

Fine, Thayna thought, Have it your way.

With a flick of her finger, Thayna produced a flame in her palm. It quickly grew larger and larger, and without Thayna limiting the flow of magic to fuel it, it erupted into an ectoplasm of fiery tendrils, shooting out wherever it pleased without warning. Thayna raised it above her head as it began to grow too big, letting out a sinister growl, "You asked for it."

Not having anticipated that this could have happened, the crowd below began fleeing wildly, pushing and shoving each other out of the way. In an instant, the plaza cleared, leaving only a few abandoned stalls on the ground, and John.

"Oh," Thayna blinked when she spotted her attendant all by his lonesome beneath her, "That was quick."

"What are you thinking?!" John shouted at Thayna, "Using your magic in town!" She gave a nervous side glance, wondering the same thing. What was she thinking?

"I didn't start it!" Thayna argued back, hand still awkwardly held skyward as she spoke, "The man was preaching the so-called 'evils' and 'tyranny' my family had wrought upon Farum, so I had to put a stop to his lies!"

Says the mage holding a giant fireball threateningly above the townsfolk, John thought to himself. He threw her an incriminating look, cocking an eyebrow at the inferno above.

"I-... this isn't what it looks like!" Thayna cried out, layering on the excuses, "I just lost my temper, that's all!"

"Right," John said with snark.

"Ooh," Thayna huffed in frustration, "Why am I even explaining things to you? If you're done, we're leaving!"

Thayna plucked John from the ground, putting him back on her shoulder and storming off. John looked back to the plaza one last time, searching to see if his mother was anywhere in sight, but anybody who had been there before had already left. John took some consolation that she wasn't, at least, caught up in this mess.

The ride back became much more awkward now that a massive, glowing ball of fire followed them overhead, and John was unable to feel the same rush he did when he first rode on Thayna. The ride only became increasingly embarrassing the further they walked, leaving a long trail of people behind them, all of them staring nervously at fireball.

"Can't you do anything about that?" John whined, pointing up to the inferno.

"I don't know!" Thayna shouted in annoyance, "If I did, I would have done it by now!"

"Well, at least try to do something!" John rebuked.

"FINE!" Thayna yelled. She remembered that her sisters taught her to call out her spells with just her feelings alone, and with closed eyes, she tried to think very hard about undoing the fireball. When nothing happened for a while, Thayna muttered a choice string of words she thought might have helped with her concentrate on extinguishing the blaze.

"Close, turn off, go out, cease burning... " Thayna muttered under her breath, but whatever she tried, the fire wouldn't put itself out.

"You're terrible at this," John remarked.

"SHUT," Thayna shouted through grit teeth, clenching both her fists in rage, "UP!"

Thayna's voice rang far through the city. As if in response to that, the fireball wobbled and began collapsing in on itself, before blinking out of existence with a pop.

"Huh?" Thayna said in confusion, putting down and inspecting her now freed hand. It was then a sudden flash of inspiration struck her, "Huh! So I just need to be annoyed at you enough to dismiss my spells!"

"Hey!" John denied, "I'm not annoying!"

"You're the most annoying, incorrigible, insufferable human pest I've ever met, John," Thayna said with a completely straight face, "But I suppose I have you to thank for tempering my spells."

"Uh," John said, "Thanks?"

"We'll try again when we get back," Thayna said as she started off again back to the ivory terrace with a small spring in her step, "I'm sure if we practice enough, I'll get the hang of it."

"So you want me to criticize and yell at you non-stop as you cast your spells?" John said candidly.

Thayna thought about it for a second and said, "...I suppose we should moderate ourselves. I'm not sure I'd be able to hold back if I hear another offensive word from your mouth again."

The rest of the way back was spent in utter silence.

It was the day to leave. Tharsia and Thalana stood waiting just outside the city, and a small crowd of people gathered a respectful distance away, curious of the proceedings. Thayna walked toward them, with John on her shoulder and a bag on her back. She was dressed in brown leathers and grey covers, lined with fiery red markings and held together with a large belt. She had her hair tied back into a messy, curly ponytail, and her feet were clad in thick hewn sandals; overall, she looked the part of traveler.

"Journey in the direction of the morning sun," Tharsia said as Thayna approached, "And you'll reach Farum's border in two days at a good pace. Ask the villages for food and rest in the towns you encounter, and don't hesitate to corral them to your service. Be wary of the country of Mordrell when you enter; their mages number in the hundreds, so do not misconduct yourself there."

"I'll miss you, too," Thayna said with a derisive roll of her eyes.

"You'll be gone for a long while," Thalana said, coming up to her sister and placing a kiss on her cheek, "But remember, no matter how far we are apart, we are still family. Think of us when you have the chance."

As Thalana stepped back, Thayna looked around, but couldn't find her mother anywhere. It seemed as if she didn't think her important enough to come see her off one last time.

"Well..." Thayna said sadly, "I guess this is goodbye."

"Hmph," Tharsia said gruffly, "You're only leaving for a few years, there is no reason to be hung over it. Come back to us as a full-fledged mage, and show the world what it means to be a Tha Fire Sister."

"You might find a scryer mage in Mordrell," Thalana added, "So we may be in touch sooner than you think."

"Thanks, sis," Thayna said with a weak smile, "I'll do my best."

With a final pat on the back from both her sisters, Thayna took her first step on her journey. She turned back one last time, waving back and shouting, "Farewell, my sisters!"

Tharsia and Thalana began spinning their hands between each other, conjuring a bright yellow orb which shot into the sky and exploded into a shower of sparks, falling in beautiful sparkles which quickly dimmed out. The spectacle drew an impressed 'ooh' from the crowd behind them, and Thayna laughed merrily at her sister's farewell gift.

"Let's be on our way, then," Thayna said to John, certain that she had left all her regrets behind.

"Yeah," John replied , "Let's go."

Together, they walked toward the morning sun, leaving Farum for the country of Mordrell. Unbeknownst to them, their journey would take to places far more perilous than they would have first imagined, and that together, they held a great power that would change the world forever. Their adventure had just begun.

 

"Well then! Now that John and lady Thayna are gone," a small voice said, "We've the whole ivory terrace to ourselves!"

Red curtains parted, revealing a small, squarish room of white, marbled walls; large, but perhaps not nearly big enough to fit a giantess. Inside, a raised stage took up the end of the room, and a massive board of metal was hung on the back. Chairs were arranged neatly around the room, but they were completely vacant. It was like a cross between a classroom and a theater, only without any attendees today.

From behind the stage, the petite form of a human girl came hopping in. With long, jet black hair and childlike eyes of a matching color, she was immediately recognizable as foreign to Farum. Her skin was a gentle tan, darker than most people in the city, but a shade fairer than the laborers who toil in the sun everyday. She wore an extremely loose one-piece dress of vivid white which was lined with a blue stripe along its rim, expanding like an umbrella whenever she decided to do a twirl. She would jump about uninhibited, and danced about the stage without her shoes.

The girl only stopped when a giant, slender hand thrust itself out from the side of the stage, grabbing her and lifting her off the ground. The hand eased the rest of the giantess's body through, and the prone form of Thalana popped itself out from the left of the stage, resting her massive chest on the stage and holding her head in her palm with her free arm. The stage only had enough space to accommodate her upper body, and it creaked under the strain of supporting the gigantic mage.

"We've only this room, my dear Ariette," Thalana said in a smooth voice, "Or have you already forgotten that Farum houses four mages?"

Ariette kicked her little legs in the air, flailing about excitedly at the merest stimulus. "Lady Thalana," Ariette squealed, "You could always teach me again! Your voice sounds so silky every time you admonish me for never listening, and those condescending choice of words...mmmm!"

"You attend my lectures for all the wrong reasons," Thalana sighed, "And where on earth did you acquire such vocabulary?"

"From you, of course!" Ariette exclaimed with a big, toothy grin.

"...Of course," Thalana said with another sigh, "Well, I suppose you have been with me for adequately long a period to have mimicked my speech."

Ariette was the daughter of a slave woman who had run from her masters to Farum, where concepts such as humans as possessions were a privilege reserved only for the mages. Her mother was already near death when she came, and the people of Farum found Ariette a convenient tribute for the mages, so she came into service in the ivory terrace at the tender age of nine. Thalana was the one to receive her, but abstained from taking magic from her for fear of ingraining the misconception of mages being evil in her at such a young age. Instead, she amused herself by teaching her what she knew, hoping to groom her into a suitably intellectual conversation partner. Five years later, Ariette learned how to speak and read, but studying had become a chore in Ariette's mind, only coming to see her magic in action, making Thalana's attempts at educating her fall only on deaf, bubbly ears.

Still, Thalana tries, so she put the swinging Ariette down onto the stage before her, and cleared her throat dramaticlaly. "Let's begin, shall we?" She said, "The subject for today's lesson is Farum itself. If you're to live here with any kind of permanency, then you'd best familiarize yourself with the country.

Thalana waved a hand, and the board at the back of the stage began smoldering up as thin streaks of flame raced across its surface, burning a rough outline of Farum's border. It was a large, flat chunk of the continent, shaped like a jagged oval dish with a large, conic tail to its south. If one were to imagine hard enough, it would almost appear to be like the four-point star represented on Farum's flag. Another wave of the hand added geographic details, with many hills dotting the east and a small mountain range ripping through the center. Small veins which represented rivers slithered down from the mountains, like a heart pumping blood into the land, giving life to the country of Farum.

"This is Farum," Thalana explained to Ariette, "As recorded by our best cartographers. It resides, for the most part, on even plains, disturbed only by the deformations of geological intrigues such as the small tectonic formation at the center of the country. Mountains, as the common folk would call it."

A snap of her fingers produced a small singed dot near the base of the mountain, with fiery letters captioned it as "Farum".

"This," Thalana said, pointing to the dot with her palm facing skyward, "Is where we are now. As Farum started off as a mining town, it makes sense that its capital would be situated near an area with a high concentration of mineral deposits."

"The people of Farum love digging holes!" Ariette remarked with a giggle.

"Impeccable observation," Thalana replied rather dryly, "But what the humans were after were rare metals like gold and platinum, which this mountain was found to be abundant in. They make for good materials in luxury items for humans and giantesses alike, but their true value lie in the creation of magical implements. Neither metal tarnishes easily under the effects of magic, and make for perfect surfaces to inscribe runes upon. So humans prize these as bargaining chips when dealing with their giant mistresses, where a mage would otherwise see them as not even worth bartering with. Humans were simply treated as morsels of magic to be consumed.”

Ariette looked thoughtful for a while, then said innocently, "Mages are always hungry aren't they?"

"Yes," Thalana said with a devilish grin, "We are."

Another wave of her hand produced more dots on the board. Most were clustered around the capital of Farum, but some were planted far away, near the border or within the hills.

"The population grows as time passes," Thalana continued, "And the humans began settling down in the surrounding land. Most are still beholden to my family, but a number of villages whom refuse tribute hide away from our reach. It is difficult, however, as Farum has few forests to speak of, and hunting for enough food for an entire village is no easy task."

"How does Farum city not starve, then?" Ariette asked rather bluntly, "I don't see any trees near here, either."

"Ah," Thalana said with a smile, "But a sprawling metropolis of wealth such as ours need not hunt. Merchants who fancy our wares would regularly bring food and cattle here to trade, ensuring that a constant flow of provisions come through our gates. To an excess at time, I might add, which only results in a broader market of commodities for us to conduct business with.”

Thalana placed a hand on the board, and its surface started to fizzle into a molten slog. Ripples of liquified stone and metal emanated from where she touched, engulfing the scorch marks she had used to represent Farum before into the sloshing ooze. The bubbling calmed down as the board began to flatten itself back into a fine, smooth sheet, and the surface cooled with a dying sizzle. Thalana had returned it to a blank slate.

Impressed, Ariette clapped her hands furiously together. It was always a treat to see Thalana’s alchemy up close, and it was one of the many reasons Ariette continued to come to Thalana for lessons.

“It is also worth noting,” Thalana said, "That Farum was originally a human settlement. It wasn't until some one hundred years ago that my family found it here. In fact, the land was deemed uninhabitable from the lack of arable land to cultivate; a sufficient yield could not be produced to feed a whole country of mages, so no nation felt this place important enough to migrate to."

Thalana wove her fingers through the air, placing a spell on the board again. The empty slate began shifting as large swathes of flame washed across its surface. Small embers remained, creating lifelike silhouettes of huts, farms and smiths. Ariette's face practically lit up as she watched the moving pictures dance before her.

"The land, however, was just abundant enough to support a small village of humans who had run from their home nation together. They weren't the first to settle in Farum, but they were the most successful as they found the uncharted deposit of rare metals Farum's wealth now stemmed from. Even when their crops wilted in the winter, they simply needed to sell their shipment of gold in the neighboring countries to afford them enough food to last the season. It was a good many decades before any mage would catch on to their little plan."

With a cutting motion, the embers Thalana projected transformed into a portrait of three tall, robed mages, each carrying her own staff.

"My family, the Farum family, caught wind of the illicit trafficking of what were then called 'mage metals', as only mages may legally possess them, and an unusually large volume of the commodity had been circulating around the country at the time. The Farums were a peacekeeping family in that period, and were sent to find the source of these precious metals."

"Their search led them to the mining village, whose villagers continued their work well into the night, making them easily spottable in the darkness. Their life without fear of being found had made them complacent, and the Farums marched into their homes unimpeded."

The fiery images changed again. This time, what was depicted were the burning roofs of houses, fleeing forms of little people running along the bottom of the board, and the giant feet which stepped on them, their small forms ending in a puff of flame as the silhouette of the feet pressed into them. It was hard to make out the graphic details of the scene, but Thalana knew that the Farum family came to the village that day as exterminators. They didn't accept surrender until at least half of them were dead.

“Quickly, the village fell into our control,” Thalana proceeded, leaving out the gory details for Ariette's sake, “And the three mages found the mines the humans used to excavate the mage metals. Their duty was to turn the village in, but they gave them a new, different ultimatum: serve them and be spared from the wrath of the home country, and create a new nation with the three of them ruling over the people. Without a choice, village ceded their freedom to the Farums, and renamed the land in honor of their new mistresses.”

With a final swish of her finger, Thalana extinguished all the fires on the board and blew the soot off in a single breath. Ariette hid her head within her dress as the cloud of black powder swept past her. She peeked out of her collar like a mole when she thought the coast was clear, and leapt back onto her feet. She let out a large, blatant yawn, knowing that Thalana always finished her lessons just after she cleaned the board one last time.

“And that's the short of how Farum came to be,” Thalana concluded, “I hope you've come to understand the country we currently reside in better.”

“What country?” Ariette said sleepily, rubbing the drowsiness out of her eyes. All her energy had been spent watching Thalana's little fire show, and only a small portion of it had been used to focus on listening.

Thalana sighed. She didn't know why she bothered with the girl, but she couldn't help but wonder if this was what having a daughter was like. She picked up the sleepy form of Ariette and ran a finger along her hair. She didn't usually think too much about the humans around her; was she getting too soft with Ariette? Maybe she just enjoyed sharing what she knew, regardless of whether her participant was listening.

Pulling her upper body through the opening on the side of the stage, Thalana squeezed back outside the little theater she used as her classroom, cradling Ariette close to her as she moved. “I'll conduct our next lesson another time,” Thayna whispered.

"John..." Thayna muttered to herself, as she trekked through the open plains of Farum, on her way to Mordrell, "John. What kind of a name is John, anyway?"

Upon hearing his name, John popped his head out from under the flap of the satchel bag he was resting in. Thayna had the bag slung across her chest, and John hung out close to her waist, feeling the rhythmic bobbing as Thayna continued to walk. He had retreated inside to get out of the sun, and shared the space with some of Thayna's personal effects such as her short wand-like metal staff, a crest of Farum to prove her nobility, some sacks filled with powdery orbs which gave off a pleasant scent, and a whole assortment of other junk sitting underneath John in a heap. It was too dark to make out what they were, but John wouldn't risk a peek on the off chance Thayna caught him rummaging through her stuff.

"What do you mean?" John said with a lazy yawn, "John's just a common name."

"Fitting for a human, I suppose," Thayna remarked with an uppity tone, "Mage names are much more becoming of our status and stature. Firagana of the first Farums, Teshatria of the Heliot Sisterlies, Marietta the Vampire; compared to them, John is such a peasant-like, uncouth, criminally boring name that-"

"STOP!" John shouted angrily, "Apologize to all the Johns in the world you just insulted! A name doesn't make the man, now does it!"

"Hmph," Thayna snorted derisively, "Humans are all the same; weak, downtrodden and incapable of fending for themselves."

John sighed, seeing that no amount of arguing would change her mind. He began crawling back into the shade of the bag, but Thayna stopped him with a hand on his back.

"...But I suppose that's why we mages are here," Thayna said, sounding almost sorry, "Together, we help each other. You provide us with magic, and we protect you with our spells. We live side by side in relative peace, don't we?"

John was silent for a moment, then looked up to Thayna. "You've really never been outside of Farum, have you?" John said incredulously.

"Not really...," Thayna begrudgingly admitted, "Why?"

"Alright," John said, straightening his posture, "If we're going to Mordrell, you should know some things."

"Like what?" Thayna shot back. She was still a little sore about John berating her.

“Like the fact that Mordrell is the complete opposite of what you said of human and mages,” John said, a little angry at how naive Thayna could be, “The mages don’t protect the humans with their power there; no, it’s because they have power that they turn it on them. Every person gets branded with a number there, and mages who hold those numbers have absolute control over their respective persons. Whether they were died or got hurt was of no consequence to them, it's no better than slavery!”

John shoved Thayna's hand off of his back as hard as he could, but the weight alone was too much for him to even get it moving. Frustrated, John continued, “That's what happens when the needs of the mages exceed us humans!”

“Really now?” Thayna said, “But according to what I read, Mordrell positively needed this system to enforce order.”

“Oh yeah?” John said with a sarcastic snort.

“Of course,” Thayna said, sensing a small chance to one-up John in Mordrell know-how. She dug her hand into her satchel bag, brushing past John's legs lightly as she did, and pulled out a scrap of crumpled paper the size of a bale of hay. On it was a jumble of lines which could barely be called words, and it listed some points Thayna had recorded down about Mordrell.

“Let's see now,” Thayna mumbled as she read her paper, “According to the history book I read, Mordrell has one of the largest collection of mages on the continent, but a disproportionately small population of humans at the same time. For every mage there was, only two humans were beneath her. This was mostly due to the large amounts of resources the mages took up, and spared little to their smaller citizens. Replenishing magic became a problem too, and small civil wars were fought throughout Mordrell's history for the right to own humans. It only got more humans killed in the crossfire, though, so the current system ensures that every mage is entitled to at most two humans; just enough magic for everyone to use regularly.”

Thayna folded the paper and shoved it back into her bag. “There,” she said with a triumphant look on her face, “Mordrell's much better than it used to be. At least now, nobody gets hurt for no stupid reason like war.”

John sighed. It probably wasn't worth the effort to convince a mage that mages were bad. “Fine, whatever,” he said, “We'll see what Mordrell's really like once we get there. Wake me up when we reach the place.”

Thayna pouted when John slid back into the satchel bag without another word. He was annoying, but at least she had someone to talk to on this lonely road. She had only wanted to correct him about all mages being bad. Somebody in Mordrell must have created the numbering system out of concern for mages and humans alike.

“We're not all bad...” Thayna whispered.

 

 

 

Once across the border, the paths of Mordrell curved and rose into large spirals around mountains and valleys, giant brown formations of rock which jutted out like thorns from the earth. It was a large contrast to Farum's plains, and there was very little greenery or even flat land to speak of. Nothing but steep inclines and rocky slopes surrounded the road, making even the giantess Thayna feel small. The pavement had become much narrower as well, with Thayna's feet falling easily on either side of the path, and the risk of tripping and falling was much greater.

A few times, Thayna had to lift her feet up to give way to a passing caravan. The driver hurried forward, fearful that she might suddenly step on him, and scurried downhill as fast as his horse would travel. Thayna was miffed that the mere sight of her was enough to scare the humans off so easily; the least a traveler could do was greet her. She had spotted large numbers tattooed onto their arms or back, though; numbers which represented a mage's ownership of their lives in Mordrell. She was definitely getting closer to the capital.

Another afternoon's trek led her before a wall of pure bronze which heralded her arrival to the capital, nestled deep within Mordrell's mountains, sandwiched between two incredibly tall ravines which blocked out most of the sky except the path of the sun, ensuring that light would always be shining in. Thayna thought that it looked as if a straight segment of a mountain had been deliberately cut out just so the capital could be built here.

“Wake up,” Thayna said, slapping the side of her bag several times until a sleepy looking John popped his head out.

“Wazzum...” John mumbled drowsily, “Are we there yet?”

“Yes, mister lazy bones,” Thayna snapped. Being the only one to walk the entire way of the journey made her a little grumpy about John's apparent comfort, “The Bronze Portcullis is the last defense Mordrell has against invaders, and the city proper is right behind it. Now we get to see who's right about what the place is like inside.”

“You're still thinking about that?” John said with a yawn.

“You'll see,” Thayna said with a boastful grin, “I bet Mordrell's way better than you described it to be.”

John said nothing, being more interested in returning to sleep than listen to Thayna's prattling. He was prevented from retreating back inside, though, by Thayna's massive hand, opening the satchel bag wide open and snatching him out of it.

“Oh no, you don't!” Thayna growled, dangling John in front of her face, “You're going to witness this together with me, whether you like it or not!”

Thayna dropped a disapproving John onto her shoulder, and ignored his mumbled whining as she made her way to the Bronze Portcullis. There, two mages stood guard before the gate, watching cautiously as some caravans exited the city. They wore a short robes, plum in color and hemmed with silver thread and a small bronze plate covered each of their left shoulder, the emblem of Mordrell emblazoned onto its smooth surface: a simple triangle split in two with a globe sitting in front of it. They didn't look like they were carrying any weapons, but their size alone more than made up for their armaments when faced with mere humans scuttling beneath them.

The guards themselves weren't anything special; a pair of blonde darlings, one with simple, long curls and the other with long, straight hair, both holding a blank look on their face as they watched the traffic of the gate. They stood with their hands behind their back and their feet apart, a trained military posture which gave off an air of confidence and intimidation. 'Mess with us, and become a mess under our feet' was the message they were sending.

Thayna eyed them a bit longer as she came closer to the gate, and noticed that they didn't display their mage marks at all. Usually, a mage would flaunt their status by revealing the part of their skin the mark resided on, but Thayna could spot none on either of them. These were markless, the grunt of grunts amongst mages, having no way of consuming magic, they were doomed to be failures as magi. Work like guarding gates became the only useful thing markless mages were good at.

“Halt!” One of the guards shouted as Thayna approached, “You approach the gates of Mordrell. What business have you here, stranger?”

The presence of an additional giantess agitated the small crowd below, and the humans hurried off left and right out of the way of the spectacle. Thayna sighed and dug into her bag for her emblem. She wished she could scurry away from the formal stuff, too.

“I am Thayna Farum,” Thayna declared in a firm voice, raising the emblem of Farum up into air dramatically, “I have come to Mordrell to speak with your leader, on behalf of my mother, Thelina Farum.”

The two guards inspected the emblem, then put a foot forward each and bowed deeply such that their heads came below their waist. They swung an arm out as they bowed, enacting a large flourish upon their grandiose welcoming. “Lady Marietta has been expecting you,” said the other guard, her head not lifting as she said this, “We bid you welcome to our fair city.”

“Rise, guardsmen,” Thayna said, her free hand motioning for the guards to stand back up, “You humble me with your service. I will let know that I have been received well here, today.”

“Thank you, your ladyship,” a guard said, her back straightened and her hands back behind her back, “Please, don't let us delay you further.”

Thayna nodded and proceeded in to the city. Just as Thayna took a step into the gate, John turned and remarked, “Who are you, and what did you do with the real Thayna?”

“Hush you,” Thayna whispered harshly.

Before she could take another step however, a shout came from the other side of the gate.

“A runaway!” A loud female voice boomed ahead, “Guards, Numbered two seven three is escaping! Stop him!”

Underneath her, Thayna saw a diminutive figure run towards her, snaking around the caravans still caught inside the gate. The man stopped briefly at the sight of a giantess standing in his way, but braved her and ran straight between Thayna's feet and out of the Bronze Portcullis. A low rumble followed him as another guard chased him right up into gate. Though large for a human, the gate only had enough space for one mage to cross at one time. Seeing no way across with Thayna in the way, the guard shouted in a low woman's voice, “He's out the gates! Stop him, no matter what!”

The two guards from before immediately sprang into action. Spotting the running man, one guard took two steps forward and swung a massive kick into his back, sending him flying a good fifteen feet high through the air like a ragdoll. He landed some yards away, broken and twitching, a trickle of blood leaving his mouth as the second guard's footsteps drew closer to him.

“Numbered two hundred and seventy three,” the guard called out once she stood directly above him, “Speak your number or be purged.”

The man's mouth parted, but no words exited his lips. He clawed his hands up to the blonde's fair face, as if cursing her silently from his helpless position.

“Very well,” the guard said nonchalantly, “I deem you no longer worthy as a citizen of Mordrell. You shall be purged at once.”

Without another word, the guardsman lifted her foot from the ground and placed it over the already crumbled man. John and Thayna saw his hands give one last valiant push against the advancing wall of flesh, but inevitably, the man's arms and body collapsed under the weight of the giantess guard. A chilling squelching sound was heard as the guard's foot met the ground, crushing whatever was in between into a fine, crimson paste. The guard twisted her heel several times left and right, grinding what remains of the man deep into the ground with nothing but a red speckled hole as evidence of the man once being there. The guard returned back to her post, leaving a dark red trail of footprints where her bloody foot stepped, and called out from behind the wall, “All's clear! Numbered two seventy three purged!”

It was as if time had stopped before, and only just began to run again. The caravans continued to move, albeit actively avoiding the freshly stained crater as they moved, and the guards stood solemnly at their positions again. The exception was Thayna, who was still standing in the gateway, her mouth agape at the scene she just witnessed. It took several pulls of her reddish brown hair from John to snap her back to her senses.

“Oi, you alright?” John asked sincerely.

“You...” Thayna began, grabbing her mouth so as not to wretch, “You're not affected?”

“Killing humans is strictly outlawed in Farum,” John said in a grave tone, “But the further out I traveled as a merchant, the more unique the law seems to become. It's part and parcel of human life out here; best you get used to it.”

“Urp...” Thayna didn't have the stomach to reply, but she managed to walk through the gates and into the city. The guard here asked if Thayna was feeling well, but she brushed her off as she staggered into the first street of Mordrell.

“Whoa,” Thayna said, momentarily forgetting that she felt sick.

The city was composed entirely of bronze and orange architecture, large residences lining the streets everywhere, all of which were built up to the size of a giantess. Mages of all kinds walked along the cobbled paths, holding a human or two in their hands and romped around as their footfalls drummed a mighty quake into the ground. They were all fifty feet tall like Thayna was, and these, Thayna saw, had mage marks colored onto their skin. Every one of them was a mage like she was, and it was dizzying for Thayna to think that so many could be together here at once.

John was looking to the side, where a few mages were instructing their numbered human in the palm of their hands, giving them a list of commodities to buy back. Once they were done, they put them into a caravan which was on rent, and sent them through the gate. John remembered meeting a Mordrell merchant before, who had gone to Farum to buy spices for his mistress. They were cold and jaded, doing their job not because they enjoyed it, but because they were forced to. John recalled them to be difficult to trade with, insisting fervently that they could pay only what their mistress demanded or be punished for any excess they spent.

“So,” John said, “Where to now?”

“I...” Thayna began, trying to form words in her mouth, “There's so many!”

“What?” John quipped, puzzled.

“Mages!” Thayna exclaimed, “There are so many people here! I've only known my mother and sisters all my life, but I've never seen more than four of us at once!”

John felt Thayna bob up and down as she bounced on her toes, who was thrilled to see that she wasn't alone in the universe. She went up to a few mages to just shake their hands, confusing them but otherwise generating little of a ruckus. Each of them seemed to be on their way somewhere, and Thayna thought to follow them.

A large gathering of mages were assembled outside an extravagant looking building, opulent, sculpted pillars of copper and bronze holding aloft a pedestal which lay above in a balcony on the second floor of the building. Large doors of gold and dark brown swung open as a tall mage with long, regal robes of purple and an incredibly long fur scarf wrapped around her neck came out onto the balcony. A flash of light erupted from her hand as she cast a spell on herself, and suddenly, the entire city was within earshot of her voice.

“My fellow mages of Mordrell!” The woman said, “Our annual tally of Numbered had just been tabulated, and we have found that yet again, the human population has grown more than our city could sustain!”

A chorus of boos and jeers rang out from the crowd of mages below the woman, but with a slicing motion, she silenced the crowd in an instant.

“We are therefore reviving the Crushworks again to thin out their numbers and stabilize our precarious economy!” The woman shouted, receiving a rancorous cheer from the mages, “We have a surplus of 48 Numbered this year, so the event shall be stretched out over a five day period! Victims and participants shall be announced, same time tomorrow! Do not be late!”

More cheers came as the woman in purple and furs turned and left, and as the crowd began to die down, Thayna just stood there with a blank look on her face.

“Hey John?” Thayna said in complete monotone.

“Er, yes Thayna?” John said apprehensively.

“Yeah,” Thayna said, turning her head to John, revealing a jaded and completely dejected look on her giant face, “This place is the worst.”

Several hours had past, and nightfall fell quickly over the ravine Mordrell resided in. Thayna lumbered dejectedly towards a small inn off the beaten track and paid for a full night's stay without much thought, too tired to even remember the name of the place she would be staying in.

 

Thayna was in a terrible mood. The first thing she did upon entering the room was fall face first into the bed, flinging John off her shoulder and just lying still for several minutes, burying whatever woes she had into the pillow.

 

"Er," John said unsurely, "It's probably not as bad as you think."

 

"Mmrfgrfmrf" Thayna said through her pillow. John sighed. His landing was rough; he could still feel a dull ache in his shoulder where he landed, but he knew Thayna hurt much more inside. It's not every day a person gets their ideal world shattered so thoroughly at once.

 

"Look," John said heftily, climbing his way towards Thayna's face, "At least put your things down and relax a bit. Moping about it now won't help things, but you're the representative of Farum. If there's a one thing you can do, it's to voice your opinion to Mordrell's leaders, right? That's what you're here to do, aren't you?"

 

John bumped the bit of cheek Thayna didn't bury into her pillow with his fist. "So just bear with it for now," John continued with his encouragement, "And keep your feelings inside. You'll get your chance to express them soon enough."

 

John felt the pillow move as Thayna shifted, revealing her eye which stared weakly at John. "Really?" Thayna said with a muffled, quivering voice.

 

I can't believe I'm counseling a mage, John thought to himself, Well, first time for everything.

 

"Yeah," John said with his best salesman smile, "A merchant always puts on a strong front in front of his customers. I guess that applies to Farum-ambassador-mage-diplomats, too."

 

Thayna turned her face back into the pillow, then after taking a deep breath, lifted herself up. She slowly undid the straps of her bags, letting them fall unceremoniously onto the side of the bed. She took off her heavy grey covers and kicked off her sandals. Thayna sat on her bed with legs folded back, stripped down to only a light white undergown with red hems, and stared intensely at John.

 

"Alright!" Thayna declared as she slammed her fist into her palm, suddenly springing back to her old self, "If I'm going to give that Marietta a piece of my mind, we're going to need preparations!"

 

"Er..." John nervously chimed in. He had a bad feeling about this, "Preparations?"

 

"Of course!" Thayna exclaimed, crossing her arms haughtily at John, "You don't expect me to waltz in unprepared, do you? I'm going to need magic."

 

John gulped. He knew where this was going.

 

"And so," Thayna continued, "I'm going to need your help again, mister magic vessel."

 

There wasn't time to argue. Thayna had already reached out and grabbed John by the back of his collar, lifting him off the pillow and into the air. He flailed about even though he knew it was an act of futility, but swung about wildly anyway in protest as Thayna brought him closer to the mage mark on her foot, hot and reddened from the long journey.

 

John shut his eyes, all but expecting to be stepped on again, but found himself landing on something warm and inviting. He chanced a glance at where he landed, and saw the large expanse of Thayna's sole spread beneath him. She had left him on top of her foot like the last time, without the crushing pressure ever looming over him. The smell was certainly palpable after several days of travel, but John was thankful he didn't have to return to that claustrophobic space under her sole.

 

"Just take your time and tell me when you're...uh...ready," Thayna said as she looked back, a luminescent blush on her cheeks, "We'll begin when you've...um..."

 

John was confused at first, but realization struck him when he realized what she implied. "Wait!" John shouted frantically. His manhood and dignity was at stake here, "You think I can jerk off to your feet?!"

 

"W-well!" Thayna cried out, flustered, "You did it the last time! I don't know what dark, obscene fetishes you had that aroused you the last time, but it wasn't unthinkable that you'd have a fascination for my feet at the time!"

 

“I think you're gravely misunderstanding something, here!” John cried out, “That one time was an accident! An accident!”

 

“Then do something about it!” Thayna shouted back, “If I don't get enough magic for later, I'm in trouble! J-just do your dirty business and be done with it!”

 

Thayna pushed John into her sole, choking him on her foot flesh. The thick stench of sweat and skin filled John's face, making him gag as Thayna forced him deeper into her foot. He struggled to free himself from the oppressive force and scent, but Thayna's hand held him down persuasively; he was unable to resist her gargantuan strength.

 

“J-just cop a feel and a whiff,” Thayna said, her face only growing redder as John's tiny frame brushed further into her sole, sending an electrifying ticklish sensation up her spine. She curled her toes in response, wrapping them around John's head, squeezing him tightly within her foot's grip. She let out a yelp as the feeling grew too much for her to bear; how did letting a human on top of her foot feel so different? Thayna never felt the same when she stepped directly onto them to draw magic energy. What made it so drastically distinct from what she usually did?

 

Meanwhile, John was having second thoughts. This was just as bad as being trampled on like before. Thayna held him down from behind, and her pudgy little toes were plastered all over his head and face. Their grip on him only swelled as she pushed him down harder, forcing John to flop about helplessly as the pressure built up. He could only feel pain at this point as his head began to cave in around him, and his breath ran dry against Thayna's skin.

 

All in an instant, John felt a familiar rush as Thayna began drawing magic from him. It was nothing like the inferno which engulfed him when she last drew from him; rather, it was the same tiny sigh that leaked out of him from before. The small sliver of energy left his body, and John felt Thayna's toes let go of him.

 

“Hey!” Thayna demanded, “What was that! That was a pathetic amount of magic you gave me!”

 

Now out of Thayna's deathgrip, John recovered his breath, then turned angrily back at his giant captor. “Like I already said,” John balked, “I'm NOT attracted to your feet! Whatever you do, I am NOT getting aroused by them!”

 

Thayna was taken aback by John's shouting. So all she had to endure just now was for nothing? “T-then...” Thayna stuttered, her face still flush with embarrassment, “Then what do I do?”

 

“Just-” John began, but the pain of being squeezed so tightly from before was finally catching up to him. He reeled from the hurt, falling back into Thayna's sole, writhing as he clutched his head.

 

“John!” Thayna exclaimed. She instinctively reached out to grab him, but John brushed her hand away with a slap.

 

“Look,” John said, panting as he lay down on Thayna's foot, “Just do it the normal way. We've both got time to kill, and you'll get your magic while we wait. I'm not going to even pretend I could get aroused by your feet, so just make due with what you could get.”

 

Thayna had a mix of emotions on her face; anger, irritation, worry, guilt, it all played out as her eyes and lips began twitching up and down, rapidly phasing through all the things she was feeling right now. It was difficult to pin down what she should do now, with her head in a jumble, but eventually, Thayna took a deep breath in and calmed herself. She didn't need to feel anything to do what's right.

 

“Alright,” Thayna said. She picked the ginger figure of John up from her sole, holding him gently in her hand as she shifted the rest of her body down the bed, lying down on her belly so that her feet faced the ceiling, and bent down to place John back onto her mage mark.

 

“There,” Thayna said cooly, “Just lie down on the mark and get comfortable, I'm sure we'll both have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

 

The two companions didn't bid each other goodnight or even say anything after that, but Thayna just stayed still in bed, drawing sliver after sliver of magical energy from John for as long as she could stay awake. As the night grew darker, Thayna's eyelids grew heavy, and she felt that there was just enough magic within herself to cast maybe three or four spells tomorrow. She turned back briefly and saw an already sleeping John with arms spread eagle on her sole, a silent but visible snore now rising up and down his chest. Thayna didn't know why, but the stupid look of John's sleeping face as he lay splayed across her foot brought an amused smile to her face.

 

Thayna decided to draw magic from him one last time before retiring for the night as well. She focused her mind on her mage mark, and soon, she felt the familiar sensation of her mark activating, an invisible force like a hand reaching out to grab all it could from whatever was near the mage mark. This time, though, she felt a much greater rush as her mark grasped at something huge and luminescent, like sticking a poker into a giant ball of fire. The intensity of the fire was almost too much to bear, but Thayna had already seen this scene once before. Without hesitation, Thayna dug her mark into John's bottomless pool of magic, and felt a surge of the arcane energy flow into herself. Something had triggered her key while John slept, and the large sum of magic she collected easily amounted to three or four times that which she accumulated in the past few hours John has been on her foot.

 

Thayna turned around, curious as to what John did, but was surprised to see him still sleeping. He had turned himself over, face facing sideways so that his cheek rested on the ball of her foot, but both hands were grasping the round, cushiony ends of her toes. “Boobies,” she heard John mouth off in his sleep.

 

Thayna didn't even feel mad. She just laughed to herself quietly, rolling back to bed and with a small incantation of magic, turned the lights off in the room. As she steadily fell into a deep slumber, her thoughts raced back to the events of today; the killing of the runaway Numbered, the announcement of the Crushworks, and John's encouragement. The many thoughts which weighed her down began to lift as her consciousness began slipping; and Thayna felt the weariness of her journey fade as she fell into a deep slumber.

"Master John?" A voice called out. John rolled to his side, thinking at first that it was Thayna calling him. He wanted to sleep in after the tribulations she put him through yesterday, and gave a snort to show he didn't care. That was until he realized Thayna would never call him 'master'.

 

John turned around and saw that a human woman was crouched over him on the bed. John had never seen her in his life before, but she looked to be around twenty and extremely pretty, with her hazel hair falling over her fair, delicate face. Matching eyes of a striking brown stared down at the prone John, a mix of anxiety and nervousness on her face.

 

What caught John's eye, though, was the fact that the number '1180' had been branded just below the her right shoulder in big, black letters, and the fact that he saw it showed just how loose and revealing her white tunic was.

 

"Wah!" John yelled, bolting up suddenly. The woman fell back in surprise as well, falling on her backside, onto the bedsheets. John looked around, searching for Thayna. The bratty, naive mage of a mistress of his was nowhere to be seen. The bedsheets were still unmade, but they had already lost the warmth of Thayna's body. Besides the woman next to him, John saw nobody else in the room with him.

 

"Um," the woman beside John mumbled beside John, "Lady Thayna has already left for the city, and wishes for you to...um...stay put here."

 

John blinked. Thayna left without me? He thought. That girl... He had hoped to see more of Mordrell today, but there was no way he could go out without a mage escorting him. There wasn't much he could do on that front, but...

 

John turned to the woman beside him. He realized that he hasn't greeted the woman her at all since waking up. "Er, hi," John said awkwardly, "My name's John, but I guess you already knew that, huh. What's yours?"

 

The woman just sat there and blinked at John. After an excessively long moment of awkward silence, the woman simply said, "I am Numbered one one eight zero. My mistress disliked long names, however, so she shortened it to K eight zero."

 

"You...don't have a name?" John said in surprise. He recalled that the merchant from Mordrell he traded with withheld his name as well. Is this why?

 

"K eight zero..." John mumbled to himself. It was still a bit of a mouthful to pronounce but... Ah. John was struck with an epiphany. Maybe her mistress was pretty clever herself.

 

"K is the eleventh letter of the alphabet," John explained to himself, "And eight zero can be pronounced as eighty. K-eighty. Your name is Katie."

 

Katie's face became flushed with red, and she looked away nervously. "Humans of Mordrell aren't allowed to have a name..." she said quietly, her face the picture of demure, "...but that is what my mistress calls me."

 

Nice to make your acquaintance, too, John thought. He didn't say it aloud for fear of scaring Katie further; just suggesting that she had a name was enough to put her on edge.

 

"So, um," John continued, unsure of what to say, "What brings you here?"

 

Katie's face brightened upon hearing this. "Oh!" She said, as if only just just remembering why she had come here, "Lady Thayna had paid for your meal here, and my mistress has breakfast ready for you in the dining room."

 

"Um," John said with apprehension, "I'm not going to dine together with mages, am I?"

 

"We have separate rooms for our human guests," Katie explained, "And proper sized furnishings for all. If it pleases you, Master John, we will make arrangements."

 

Before John could answer, he felt the bed tremble as the giant footsteps of a mage approached the room. With a click, the door unlocked from the other side, and the figure of a gigantic, robed mage burst through. She was a wild looking giantess, unnaturally blue and white hair the length of ropes billowing about her head with large, silver glitters and sparkles sprinkled generously over her. She had icy blue eyes circled by ocean blue highlights and dark red mascara, with a matching smile showing a full set of shining white teeth large enough to grind boulders into dust. She wore long teal robes wrapped tightly around her curvaceous figure, with sleeves which fell almost all the way to the ground, swishing about wildly from the force of her pushing open the door. She wore leather spatterdashes laced all the way up to her knees, but was barefoot from the ankle down save for a large, fluffy brown ribbon tied around her left instep.

 

"Salutations!" The mage shouted loudly as she made powerful strides towards John and Katie, "I trust Katie’s awakened you by now, Sir John! Your Lady Thayna has left you in the care of I, Primrosa Ducoté!”

 

Primrosa flung her hands out wide, swinging her long sleeves in such a way that for a split second, it almost looked she had spread wings. John was flabbergasted as to how to respond to her large flashy movements, completely unused to such free expression from the normally lofty, regal motions a mage was expected to behave with. Luckily, Primrosa seemed to be taking the lead here.

 

“I am the gracious landlady of this fair establishment,” Primrosa continued, stand just off the edge of the bed, towering over John and Katie with her overbearing presence. She struck a dramatic pose forward, swinging one arm back and the other arm forward, placing an open palm before the two humans. “If you fancy a nibble of my kitchen’s finest vittles, then hop on and come break the morning fast with us!”

 

John was still reeling from Primrosa's dramatic entrance, but realized that all the words she had been shouting at him resembled an invitation to breakfast. Gingerly, he accepted, climbing cautiously onto the mage's giant hand. He noted that her nails were polished into a glittering purple color; fashion for the mages here were certainly different from human standards, but John felt he liked the added attention to detail. Every extra care taken by a mage to posy herself up was magnified to a human watching close by.

 

Katie clambered up after John, and when the two were nestled safely in Primrosa's palm, they felt the world suddenly jerk upwards as Primrosa brought them up to her face. A grin played out on her face as she caught a better look of John.

 

"Ah, Lady Thayna seems to be quite the jester," Primrosa said with a chuckle, "She had promised you to be a gruff, uncultured, ill-mannered troglodyte, but alas, what lay before is not any of those! A fine young man, you are, Sir John. My heart skipped a beat upon seeing such pictorial evidence of youth!"

 

John cursed Thayna's habitual down putting of him; she didn't have to say it to other people. John looked into Primrosa's icy blue eyes, and was glad she didn't seem to take Thayna's words to heart. He wasn't sure where her flattery was going, though; perhaps it was just her eccentricity speaking here.

 

Primrosa cupped the two humans in her hand and made her way out of the guest rooms. The way she walked had her swinging her hips and shoulders out full force, rocking John and Katie violently every time she kicked her legs out for another step. It was disorienting, but John saw that her robe only tightened further this way, giving shape to her massive breasts and lustrous figure. One could only surmise that she was flaunting herself flirtatiously. But with all mages being female, it was hard for John to imagine who she was flirting with.

 

"I've a table reserved in your good lady Thayna's name," Primrosa said to John, "But dining with the big folk don't sit well with most people of your stature, Sir John. Are you like most people…” Primrosa gave a sly grin at her dramatic pause, “Or are you feeling adventurous?"

 

Katie spoke up this time, "Actually, Master John here wanted-"

 

John shooed Katie instinctively, silencing her. He didn't really mean to, but perhaps he was still nervous around these strangers, especially when one was a mage. Whatever the reason, he'd have a hard time refuting Primrosa's offer graciously now.

 

"I, er," John said with some reserve, trying to think of something to lead into his earlier fumble, "I'd love to pick up that reservation. The mage's dining hall it is!"

 

John wanted to jump off of Primrosa's hand. Graciously refute her, not take her up on the offer. He really wasn't thinking straight today.

 

Primrosa, however, let loose her widest grin yet. "Excellentio, Sir John!" She replied in a thrilled voice, "I'll ensure that your reception is to be as extravagant as you are brave! Let us depart post-haste!"

 

With that, they sped to the dining room, where several other mages were already seated at round, stone tables, chatting with each other and otherwise minding their own business as they ate. The moment Primrosa stepped inside, however, heads turned and with a snap of her fingers, the curtains veiled any light from entering, and a shining drizzle of snow drifted gently down, illuminating the room with a cool glow.

 

Primrosa held the hand which held John and Katie up to her lips, and John felt a mighty gust of wind as she blew an icy breath toward them. Before he knew it, John was sitting on a thin sheet of ice which formed a slide all the way down to an unoccupied table below. He felt a gentle push as Primrosa prodded him from behind, and John slid down screaming to his table.

 

The magical bridge of ice crumbled as John rushed past it, and a mist of sparkles burst into his face as he landed at his destination.

 

"Hm hm," Primrosa hummed merrily, "Breakfast will be served shortly, so stay put and enjoy the ambiance. I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to break the ice."

 

With a final, dramatic sweep of her sleeve, Primrosa turned around and walked out, snapping her fingers one more time to dispel the snowflakes and part the curtains, returning the dining room to its original state. A few mages applauded as Primrosa rounded a corner, but soon returned to their own meals.

 

John was left alone with Katie, both of whom were sitting down on the hard surface of the cold, stoney floor. There was another awkward silence between them, and the two continued sitting there until John decided somebody needed to start speaking.

 

"So, uh," John began, trying to find a topic of conversation, "You been here long, Katie?"

 

"I've been in my mistress's service since I was born," Katie said, then fell silent again.

 

"I...guess you aren't living with your folks then." That was an incredibly stupid and possibly insensitive remark, but John just wanted to break this uneasy silence however he could.

 

"My parents are dead," Katie said with some finality. Bad move, John, John thought to himself.

 

"I'm...sorry to hear that," John apologized, trying to cut his losses. The two just sat next to each other silently, avoiding any further eye contact for fear that the conversation would get any worse. John desperately tried to think of anything he could possibly do to not offend Katie any more, but to his surprise, it was she who broke the tension this time.

 

"If you wouldn't mind me asking, Master John," Katie said in a reverent tone, "But where mayhap do you hail from?"

 

Finally, something John could answer. "I'm from the country of Farum," John said proudly, "A little ways South of where Mordrell is."

 

"Farum..." Katie whispered to herself, then looked back up at John, "And what are the people like there?"

 

"Well," John said, scratching his head as he mulled over the question, "I suppose we're pretty well-off compared to the humans in Mordrell. The Farum family leave us to our own devices unless they need us, so we're free to do what we want. I guess that means we're also responsible for ourselves, so we survive by cloistering around the city together and try to make a living there."

 

Katie was nodding more and more vigorously with every word John said, her curiosity swelling. "And you have names? You can go anywhere you like? You don't need to fear the mages?"

 

The questions kept pouring in. John was having a hard time answering all of them, but he tried his best.

 

"Well..." John said, "We certainly don't have to deal with giant evil overlords as much as you do, but we're still very much beholden to the mages. Whenever they run low on magic, we have to send a tribute to the ivory terrace. It's usually lifelong servitude there, so most people fear that they'd be chosen next."

 

"Oh," Katie said, her earlier enthusiasm running dry when she heard this, "I guess Farum has similarities to Mordrell afterall."

 

"Yeah?" John said, egging her on to continue.

 

"Mordrell is a city of mages," Katie explained, "And humans here are merely treated as sources for their magic. They argue that we were not worth the effort of keeping beyond that, and cull our numbers to keep us from growing too large a population. They'd rather their limited resources go to supporting the mages instead of the humans. That is why, every year, they count how many of us Numbered there are, and pick a group of us to enter the Crushworks. We are killed for sport by the participating mages, and our deaths are a reminder to the rest of the Numbered that our existence is merely allowed, and can be taken from us at any time."

 

That was far from similar to Farum. John had already heard about the Crushworks from yesterday's announcement, but hearing it from a member of the victims seemed to have a more profound effect. He dreaded that human life could be trampled on so easily in Mordrell.

 

"Then why stay?" John asked, "There are plenty of countries which don't make it a point to kill their inhabitants on a regular basis; surely you could escape from Mordrell?"

 

"We Numbered are as good as prisoners here," Katie replied, "With any caught escaping returned or killed on site. Merchants who try to flee must contend with their family being selected automatically to the Crushworks. And those who do manage to escape damn their loved ones to the same fate. Even if they do return, they and their family’s lives are still forfeit."

 

"I..." John started, but didn't know what to say. How were you supposed to respond to somebody who just confessed their country was oppressed by genocidal, tyranical giantesses? John tried to comfort her regardless.

 

"I guess you don't have to worry about being automatically selected, at least, eh?" John said with a forced laugh.

 

"My father ran away three months ago," Katie said without skipping a beat.

 

More awkward silence.

 

Shit, John thought to himself, I was just trying to comfort her. That was the WORST thing you could say, John.

 

John resolved to shut up for the rest of the wait before he made another stupid comment, but was saved the trouble by the timely arrival of Primrosa, who returned with a tray full of dishes. The smell of freshly baked bread seeped into the dining room, and John chanced upon the enticing aroma of jam-filled pastries wafting from the top of the silver platters.

 

"Breakfast is served, my darlings!" Primrosa announced, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. She took the first dish and tossed it lightly into the air, where an arch made of ice caught it, sliding the dish to its owner's table. This was repeated several times until the room was filled with a roller coaster of slides and arches, which shattered into nothingness with the snap of Primrosa's fingers.

 

"And for our brave little guest," Primrosa said, taking powerful strides towards John and Katie, "I've prepared a meal especially for you!"

 

Primrosa took the last dish in her hand and placed it before John. It had a giant cover over it, but John smelled something distinctly different underneath than the pastries he sensed just now. "Are you ready?" Primrosa said with an incandescent smile.

 

John nodded, but gulped with a slight reluctance to find out what lie inside the massive silver dome.

 

With a quick heft, Primrosa lifted the cover off the plate and a shower of misty ice erupted from inside. John waved the smoky flakes away from his face and squinted his eyes to find his breakfast obscured within. He let out a gasp as the mist cleared.

 

In the middle stood a red velvet chair and an ornate table crowded with not one but seven plates, each with a smattering of artful dishes carefully prepared to form a diorama of various wild animals; a creamy statuette of a white elk with breadstick antlers standing beside a river of blue sugar icing; the thickest omelette John had ever seen molded into the shape of a mountain, where a small ram made of sliced radish stood atop; a baked loaf taking the form of a ferocious wolf with slices of mutton inserted into its back padded through a broccoli garden; little doves of rice crackers with wings spread lying atop a fluffy white cloud of cream pastry; a dragon-shaped muffin hunched over a bread wall breathing down beads of strawberry jam onto a tiny chocolate village below; a pair of pink paper hummingbirds held aloft by a long, spiralling candy stick rising up from the dish, and finally, a chocolate mousse horse with dark chocolate saddle and beady black sesame eyes. It reminded John greatly of Matilda.

 

"Magnificent, Sir John!" Primrosa exclaimed, "I had enchanted the meal with a simple divination spell to reflect your mind, but its beauty far exceeded even my own expectations!"

 

John blinked. Matilda he could understand, but what did the rest mean? A lone wolf might represent his loneliness as a traveling merchant, and the dragon might be the dread he felt at being surrounded by mages, but what do two pink hummingbirds mean?

 

"That is a symbol of fleeting love, Master John," said Katie, who came around behind him to seat him down. She must have caught him staring at the little dish.

 

"Love?" John balked incredulously, "I'm not in love!"

 

"Perhaps you're secretly infatuated with Lady-"

 

"NO," John said instantaneously. Anybody but that brat Thayna.

 

"Then..." Katie whispered with a blush, "Perhaps somebody more recent?"

 

The dishes on the table started turning into pink humming birds one by one. Images of the woman before him flashed through his head, and John tried desperately to shake the thought out of his mind. It wasn't that he loved Katie, but he just had a childish attraction to her looks. Yes, that had to be it. There was no way having just met and briefly talking with her so disastrously would result in love. Right?

 

"Hm, hm," Primrosa intoned amusedly, "I can see a good mood brewing here. I'll just leave you two lovebirds to ruffle your feathers together in private, now. Have a good time!"

 

Primrosa let out a rich, rancorous laugh as she turned and stamped away, flicking one last finger in John and Katie's direction, and the two felt a cold, magical force push them together shoulder to shoulder.

 

The two tiny pair looked at each other, then blushed as they quickly looked away from each other again. Feeling Katie's warmth against his skin made John embarrassed, but the real problem was his growing erection, which he tried desperately to stifle. Katie must have seen it, however, and leaned closer to John’s face. John tried to back away, but she had already came close enough for her breath to be felt on his cheek.

 

"I'm sorry," was all Katie whispered into John's ear. He froze at these words, as if a bucket of cold water had just been splashed over him. Before he could do anything else, Katie ran to the center of the table, where a hollow cylinder travelling down through the table's support ran through. She leapt inside and disappeared from John's sight.

 

John just stood there, gawking slack-jawed at the scene which had just transpired before him. He honestly has never confessed in his life before, but was this already his first rejection?

 

John eventually snapped out of his daze and slumped into his chair, the dishes on the table turning into little pudding puppies with sad eyes laying dejectedly down upon the plate. It was a hell of a way to start the morning, to say the least. John sighed as he finally decided to take a bite out of his meal; he felt very tired for somebody who had just woken up.

“My, such a gloomy look so early in the day,” a voice boomed above John. A shadow had cast over him, and John felt the air shift as the gigantic figure of a mage closed in on him. Her voice was unfamiliar, so John turned his head up to see who it was.

It was a young mage dressed in dark blue robes leaning over John, her large size betraying the relatively thin proportions she had. Unnatural strands of silvery hair hung down from her head, cut short into a bob which shone with a metallic sheen, wisps of which fell over eyes of a similar shade of silver, both of which now looked curiously at the tiny human before her.

“My name is Silestria of Thamond,” the mage said with a smile, “Won’t you join me for a while, little man?”

"What am I supposed to do?" Thayna said, exasperated.

 

It was still early in the morning. Thayna had snuck out on her own, not wanting John to be caught up in her own problems any more, and decided to reach out to someone more knowledgeable about dealing with mages. She made her way to Mordrell’s scrying pavillion, where instantaneous long-distance communication was performed.

 

Thalana's face was suspended within a shimmering blue orb of magical water, the lazy look of someone who had just awoken hanging drolly from her face. Her normally straight hair was frazzled with errant, uncombed strands scattered about her head, her half open eyes peeking through the messy tangle with disinterest. Her hand materialized inside the orb’s field of projection as she brought it up to stifle a yawn.

 

"Your attendant- John, was it not?" Thalana replied as she brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes, "From what you've told me, he seems to have the right idea. If you're so keen on stopping Mordrell's treatment of their tiny human inhabitants, then it's best to face them directly."

 

"But-!" Thayna said, furrowing her brows anxiously, "There has to be more that I can do! The thought of meeting Mariette the Vampire myself is enough get my hands shaking, so how am I supposed to persuade her like this?!"

 

"However you can," Thayna said with a passive shrug, "I'll have you know that mother has already made preparations for...’diplomatic relief’ in case your visit to Mordrell turns sour. Whatever you do is, in her eyes, of little consequence to Farum."

 

Thayna stood there, furious and hurt that her mother had so little faith in her. Her hands rolled into angry fists and a seething rage inside threatened to erupt at any moment. Did she really mean so little in Thelina's eyes?

 

"Well, look at this from a different perspective," Thalana continued, "With mother covering for you, you're free to do whatever you want in Mordrell. You can continue your little crusade on human treatment, and use whatever’s in your power to get your point across to Mariette, free of worry of the repercussions that mother has already taken care.”

 

Thalana’s eyes narrowed into a stern, piercing stare. “Or you could face the Vampire like a meek little kitten,” Thalana said with hidden venom, “And have them think that the Farums had become weak.”

 

Thayna gulped. It became clear what was at stake here. Facing down Mariette the Vampire was no longer an option; it was a requirement.

 

Thalana held her serious expression for a moment longer, then collapsed back into her lazy, fed-up expression. She let out a long sigh, running her hand through her ruffled hair, holding her head up in annoyance. “Tharsia should be the one telling you all this,” Thalana complained, “I can’t keep up with such sober conversation.”

 

“...And you’ve lost your eloquence of speech, too,” Thayna remarked.

 

“My elegant rhetoric glows brightest in the dim of night,” Thalana said with a mockingly bardic tone, “And is sullen by the obstinate shine of morning sun and evening ale. Now be off with you, my kitten, you’ve a big day ahead of you.”

 

“I’m not sure I can do this…” Thayna muttered insistently.

 

“You can, and you will,” Thalana said with renewed fire, “We are not so easy as to back down in the face adversity; your pride as a Farum demands it.”

 

Thayna just looked down dejectedly, with no way out in sight. However, she was still a representative of Farum, and it was high time she acted like it. She straightened her back and sat upright, looking intensely back into the blue orb containing her sister’s face. “I just need to talk with her,” Thayna said solemnly.

 

“That’s right,” Thalana said with a smile, “It seems you’ve decided on what to do.”

 

Thalana removed her hand from her head and looked her sister directly in the eye, locking stares down fiercely with a final, stern message, “Show them what it means to be a Tha Fire Sister.”

 

As communications were cut, the blue orb fizzled out once, then splashed back down in its liquid state into the basin below. The mage who had opened the channel for Thayna standing behind the basin gave the foreign mage a cautious, suspicious look, before quickly saying, “The Mordrell scrying pools guarantee all communications to be confidential and are privy to no one but the sender and sendee...as permitted.”

 

“Hmph,” Thayna said with a dismissive tone, “Even if you snitch on my conversation, it’s already too late. I’m already on my way to face the Vampire.”

John was in a pickle. The silver haired mage named Silestria had picked him up from his table and brought him to her own, where she was thankfully seated alone in, but also unfortunately meant that John was also alone with the gigantic mage before him. Silestria twirled her silver hair with a finger in one hand, clutching John’s diminutive body tightly in the other. A smile was splayed across her face, one that made John nervous to see. He wondered what she had in mind for him....

 

“Now that I’ve gotten a good look at you,” Silestria said, lifting John up to her face, “It looks like you’re not a Numbered. A waylaid traveler like me, perhaps? Mordrell is a splendor for us mages here, but what business does a little man like you have here alone?”

 

“Well,” John said, struggling against Silestria’s grip, “For starters, I’m not alone. My....er, mistress left me to the inn as she went about her business on her own without me. I just tagged along with her until recently.”

 

John’s interest was piqued when he remebered what Silestria just said, however. “You said you were a traveler, too?”

“Yes,” Silestria said, her smile opening to show massive white teeth bared underneath, too close to John for comfort, “I hail from Thamond, some distance away from Mordrell, I’m afraid. As for why I’m here...let’s put it at pleasure, for now.”

 

John didn’t like how she said ‘pleasure’. There was something going on behind that adamant smile of hers.

 

“I noticed you having a scuffle with that Numbered girl,” Silestria said conspiratorially, “You’ve taken a fancy to her, aye?”

 

“What?” John exclaimed, “No!”

 

“Oh come on,” Silestria said, releasing John onto the table, pointing her now freed hand to the kitchen door, “She’s a Numbered. If you wanted me to, I could call her over and make her submit to you. Wouldn’t that be what you want?”

 

John held his head down. With a mage backing him, he could get whatever he wanted, including Katie-

 

NO! John thought to himself, snapping him back to his senses, I can’t believe I even considered it for a second. I’m not interested in Katie, and I’m not using a stupid giant mage to get her for me!

 

“Sorry, miss,” John said with a shrug, “Katie may be Numbered, but I won’t treat her any less human than myself.”

 

“Hmm, hmm” Silestria hummed, amused by what John said, “So you sympathize with the girl? Then let me test you.”

 

“Test me-” Before the question mark could even be appended to his sentence, John was swept back up into Silestria’s grip.

 

“You know, we have customs in Thamond,” Silestria said as she pulled something out from behind her, “It’s customary to present your magic to someone you’ve just met, so that there are no secrets between you and the one you are greeting. I happen to specialize in teleportation magic.”

 

Silestria took out a thin rod; a wand of cobalt blue, Emblazoned on its surface were runes and engravings of an arcane nature, and the grooves glowed as she brought it closer to John. Just as he tried to back away, John felt a weightless sensation envelop him, and instantly, he was brought under the table, sitting between a massive pair of lightly pedicured feet. The toes leaned in on him, grappling him down to prevent him from escaping. The right foot clamped his body, the toes scrunched tightly against his chest, their soft pads pushing into John like soft pillows, but with a boney log inside ramming into his ribs. The other foot covered his legs entirely, stepping down with the ball of the foot onto John’s feeble frame. Silestria didn’t aim to crush him, but John still felt the oppresive pressure and heat bearing down on him from beneath his new prison.

 

Oh great, John thought, More feet.

 

“Now,” Silestra said, “Here’s the rules of your test: for every one thing I tell you to do which you don’t do, I’ll have the Numbered girl do for me. It’s really just that one rule, but how far would you go before you dump it all on her?”

 

The right foot shifted, grinding the ball into John’s chest a bit before displaying the entire sole to his head. This can’t be good.

 

“We’ll start easy,” Silestria said. She couldn’t see what was going on from above the table, but just feeling the tiny man underneath her was enough to get her excited, “Why don’t I just smother you for a while with my sole?”

 

John wasn’t even allowed to protest this time. He couldn’t let Katie be subjected to this, so he took the sole that was coming down on him without complaint, and grit his teeth together as the impending wall descended on him. His nose was the first to feel the bare, leathery underside of Silestria’s foot, then slowly, it plastered onto the rest of his face. He gagged at the oppressive smell of feet at such close proximity, but as he tried to suck in air, only more odor flew into his lungs. Squirm as he may, but under the weight of a fifty foot tall giantess’s foot, there was no escape from his sole prison.

 

“Yes,” Silestria cooed, “Just like that.” She began stirring her foot around John’s body, touching him in unexplored places while keeping her sole on his face. Her toe ventured for his crotch, but was disappointed that all was flat there.

 

John was completely at the mercy of Silestria’s feet, and he wanted to scream at the treacherous position he found himself in, the fear that a careless step was enough to end him. Do it for Katie, he would remind himself, She doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. But even as he tried to push his courage to heroic limits, he was unable to suppress himself.

 

“Please!” John yelled as he tilted his head to the side just enough to get a word off from under Silestria’s sole, “You can’t do this!”

 

“Of course,” Silestria said, and instantly the feet came off, and John caught a breath of sweet, fresh air once more, “But then, I will have to do this to your Numbered friend then…”

 

“NO!” John shouted, but stopped himself before he made any more unhelpful comments, “I mean, I’m only human! Surely, I can’t stand the weight of a mage forever like this? Maybe...lighten the load for me?”

 

There was a momentary pause. Without a line of sight of Silestria’s face, John had no way of knowing how what he said affected her.

 

“So, you think me heavy, aye?” Silestria said with the exact same tone of voice she had been using all along, but John definitely felt much more dread upon hearing them. “Perhaps we’ll postpone the test, and I’ll give you a lesson.”

 

John shrieked as a massive black object materialized instantaneously beside him; something made of thick, smooth fabric and longer than John lengthwise. John immediately recognized it to be a shoe.

 

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” John said.

 

“Be a dear and get in- …you know what?” Silestria said form above, “I’ll do it myself.”

 

John felt Silestria’s massive toes clamp down on either side of him, and he was lifted up and put right into the black shoe, face first. The inside smelled the same as what he smelled of Silestria’s sole, and he flailed as he realized he was going to be surrounded by this smell as well as utter darkness once her foot had put on the shoe fully.

 

“I suggest you lie flat down,” Silestria commented before John saw the last glint of light blotted out by the giant foot entering the shoe. Her foot slid across his body slowly, creeping up from the legs, across his pelvis, crawling across his abdomen and chest, and finally parked the toes right above his face. John felt immense heat, the confines of the shoe trapping the foot’s warmth inside the sparse space, and his entire body was immobile under the tyrannical pressure of Silestria’s foot.

 

“Let’s go for a walk,” Silestria said kindly. Her wide smile shone through John’s mind even as the pressure and darkness pushed down on him. He was nothing but Silestria’s foot cushion for the day. John tried to scream, but was muffled by the confines of the shoe. He wasn’t going to survive the first step-

CRUNCH

Thayna was escorted into a long chamber deep within Mordrell’s red mansion, similar to Farum’s ivory terrace. The mage accompanying her was the same tall, purple-robed, fur scarfed announcer of the Crushworks on the first day of Thayna’s arrival. She was all smiles receiving Farum’s representative, but Thayna wondered if deep inside she was just as blackhearted as the purveyors of the Crushworks must have been.

“Lady Marietta will see you now,” The mage said with a smooth, cool voice. Thayna straightened herself, trying to look as regal as she possibly can, and gave a queenly nod with the words, “Very well.”

The mage opened a large set of doors; large enough that even a mage tip-toed and reaching up would not scrape the top of its bronze frame. What lie beyond must be why this place was called the red mansion. Red splatters drenched the inside of the dark room, a strong coppery smell emanating from within. Though Thayna did not see bodies, she had almost no doubt that this was human blood. The other end of the room was dark, but Thayna could tell that the perpetrator was waiting there, seated.

“Ah, my dear Farum,” Marietta said from beyond the darkness, “Do help me light my torches, I do so loathe the bright of day, but it would be brazen of me to not even greet my guest properly.”

It was a test. Marietta must have heard of Thayna's newfound power, and wanted to confirm it firsthand. So be it, Thayna thought to herself.

With a flick of her wrist, Thayna conjured a small flame in her palm. It flickered for a moment before flinging itself to the nearest torch, setting ablaze the flammable bud and shedding the first modicums of light into the room. One by one, Thayna ignited the torches, concentrating as hard as she can to keep the tiny channel of magic from erupting into a massive fireball like back in Farum, until the room was completely lit.

Marietta the Vampire. She was lying down lazily on her copper throne, head resting on one armrest and legs drooping over the other. True to her name, she had curls of platinum blonde hair, accompanied by a pair of brilliant crimson red eyes which shone brightly in the dark, drawing attention away from the scandalous but opulent, gem-studded clothes she wore, if you could call them clothes at all. She was pale all over, giving doubt to whether she had any blood in her at all, but she bore her body in stark glory, her large bust and curvaceous figure bursting through the feeble red fabric that was clad against her.

Thayna took out a damp cloth from a small pouch she carried with her and recalled her flame back to her hand. She wrapped the cloth around the flame, extinguishing it with a sizzle in her clenched fist. Without John, Thayna had difficulty dispelling her own spells, and had to resort to more primitive methods of controlling her power. As she put away the cloth, Thayna saw Marietta give a wide smile. Doubtless, she had seen how much of a novice Thayna still was at the whole magic thing, and continued to watch with amusement as Thayna made her way forward.

“Lady Marietta,” Thayna said in the best formal voice she could muster, bowing just a few steps away from where Marietta was sitting, about a hundred feet in human terms, “I am Thayna Farum, daughter of Thelina Farum and newly appointed envoy from our humble land. I thank you for this audience.”

Marietta stared blankly at Thayna for a long moment, then burst out laughing, rolling about uncontrollably on her throne. “My, such stiff speech!” Marietta exclaimed as she tried fruitlessly to hold back her giggling, “I thought you’d be much more feisty than your mother, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”

Marietta continued her laughter; more of a cackle really; but slowly regained her composure. Thayna, still bowed down, grit her teeth in secret, cursing how little Marietta treated her seriously. But if she wanted to get even a word across to the Vampire now, she had to bear with her abuse for now.

“Ah ha, do forgive me, love,” Marietta said as she wiped a tear from her eye, “But Farum’s customs and antics do keep me so entertained. You are in Mordrell now, and we mages treat each other as we would friends or sisters. There are no formalities between us, and we are all equal under my dominion. Even the Markless ones have a place in my society, where they are shunned elsewhere.”

Marietta crossed her legs and looked haughtily at Thayna, a sly grin stretched across her face. “Wouldn’t you say this is the perfect country to live in?” She said in a mocking tone.

Thayna kept a straight face. She knew Marietta was trying to rile her; she must have been tipped off on Thayna’s intentions for coming here. Thayna was prepared for this much, however, and ignored Marietta’s prattling. There was no reason to play her game; Thayna only had one thing to do here.

“With all due respect,” Thayna said, keeping her tone as neutral as she could, “But shouldn’t that courtesy be extended to your Numbered citizens as well?”

Another smile on Marietta’s face. “The little ones,” she said with venomous delight, “Aren’t considered citizens here. They’re nothing more than leeches whose only good is to supply us mages with magic. Their bodies may be small, but the sheer audacity for them to live amongst us in such great numbers make them nothing better than pests in our society. Every breath they take from us would be better served given to a mage, wouldn’t you say?”

Thayna said nothing. She could feel a seething rage rumbling somewhere within her, but what she needed to do most of all was to keep herself under control.

“But to kill them outright and slay any who refuse to stay,” Thayna said, the anger within completely silent in her words, “Surely there must be a better way? If it is resources you are worried about, deporting your unwanted Numbered to Farum would-”

Marietta held up a hand to silence Thayna. She lifted her legs off of the armrests of her throne and shifted herself into a more proper seating position, her bare legs crossed and her chin held lazily still in her hand. Her wide grin had rescinded into a more mellow smirk, and it was obvious to Thayna she was beginning to take her more seriously now.

“Little Farum,” Marietta said, her crimson eyes piercing Thayna with intense scrutiny, “Do you mean to deliberately deprive the largest population of mages of its magic? If we were to release even a single Numbered now, the rest would simply follow in its wake. Mordrell will take this as a hostile attack from your nation.”

Thayna froze up a bit. This escalated much too quickly. It bugged her too that Marietta was still smiling, albeit with much of her mirth gone from her expression now. Just got to take this diplomatically, Thayna thought to herself.

“I mean no offense, Lady Marietta,” Thayna said, hoping she didn’t hesitate too long thinking up a reply, “I was merely interested in the state of affairs of Mordrell in regards to the humans, and wished only to offer my assistance.”

Marietta gave a little pout, seeing Thayna recover so quickly from her attack. It occurred to Thayna that she really was nothing more than entertainment for Marietta, and that all she was doing here was falling on deaf ears. She couldn’t just keep acting coy around the Vampire; she had to act as well.

“However,” Thayna said, borrowing her sister Tharsia’s stern voice, “I do not take kindly to being treated so lightly. I carry the word of the Farums, and it would be a grave transgression if you would not listen.”

Marietta’s face grew blank, her eyes considering Thayna for a moment before replying, “Is that...a threat?”

Thayna’s own eyes flared up, her rage finally seeping through and twisting her expression into one of silent fury, “It can and will be,” was all she said.

Marietta squinted her eyes at Thayna; seeing her flare up has changed the mood in the chamber drastically. Thayna kept her stare locked on Marietta, and the two drilled holes into each other as their eyes sent sparks flying across the room. There was a tense silence as the two refused to budge, and Thayna felt a bead of sweat roll down her face from the effort of maintaining her rage, composure and fear in check, all at the same time.

It was then Marietta’s face loosened, and she covered her mouth with a hand, stifling snicker. It all became too much to bear, however, and she let out a boisterous laughter which sent her barrelling about in her seat. The sudden outburst only made Thayna confused and more angrier, but she wasn’t sure what to do from here.

“Oh, little Farum,” Marietta said through her laughter, “You are such a delight to have here. I thought you easy to scare with a few words like my other guests, but you’ve certainly got your mother’s fire. The Azure Flame herself would be proud that you’ve inherited her rashness.”

Thayna wasn’t sure at all about how to take those words, but Marietta saved her the trouble.

“I like you, Thayna Farum,” Marietta said with her usual, devilish smile, “And for that, I’ll let you in on a little secret. The treatment of the Numbered? The annual Crushworks I organize in my city?”

Marietta stood up, turning her back to Thayna, and with a free hand grabbing onto one side of her buttocks, revealing an intricately decorated black circle on her left rump under the unapologetically short film of fabric that made up her skirt. Thayna saw a very gothic theme to Marietta’s circle, with bat wings and skeletal engravings etched across the circumference of the mage mark. A pentagram was drawn within the circle, and runes traced along the lines depicting spells of great power on Marietta’s surface.

“It was all for me,” Marietta said with a grin, “I was given my nickname of Vampire succinctly, for my mark is special in its own way. The key to my mark...is death.”

Thayna stiffened. She was suddenly reminded of the blood spatters at the entrance of the room.

“But you…” Thayna began, “You’re one of the most powerful mages on the continent. How could you possibly get enough people to fuel your magic if you have to kill them?!”

“Humans are such curious creatures, don’t you think?” Marietta said offhandedly, ignoring Thayna’s death glare, “They have such tenacity when it comes to survival, even if it meant that their own kind was dying around them. I go out my way to take as many of their lives as I could reasonably reap, but no matter how many I kill, their numbers never seem to dwindle. That was when I began organizing the humans of Mordrell into the Numbered, and counted them as I fed them to my mark. And the most curious thing I found was that even though their life expectancy was greatly diminished, this actually drove them to reproduce faster. Through death, I whipped up the humans into a breeding frenzy, desperate to leave a seed before their inevitable and gruesome end. This worked out nicely for me, as my source of magic energy never seemed to dwindle, no matter how much I tried.”

“And so you made the Crushworks…” Thayna whispered loudly.

“Indeed!” Marietta said, her face brightening up at seeing Thayna come to understanding, “I knew opposition from even pro-mage countries would eventually make their way here, as I was wasting valuable sources of magic in the eyes of other nations. So I tried a variety of excuses, but the Crushworks seemed to draw the most support, so I went along with it and established it as a sport and a necessity to Mordrell.”

“But…” Thayna said, conspicuously aggravated, “What could possibly warrant so much magic if all you do is laze around in this room all day?!”

Marietta snapped her fingers, and a mage ambled into the room instantly. She herded a group of humans on the floor in with her foot, pushing them through the doorway. She commanded them to march toward Marietta, and they obeyed out of fear.

As Thayna watched the little men brush past her feet, she noted that these humans were not numbered, but rather, there was a large, angry scar across where their Number would have been. The group of unNumbered came to a stop before Marietta's throne, and prostrated themselves before her.

"My magic is quite costly, you see," Marietta explained casually as she reached down to pick a man up, "Its power is to control Life itself; to birth inorganic beings or prolong and heal the already living. Isn't the dichotomy of my magic and my Mark just fascinating?"

Marietta teased the human she held in her hand by playfully nibbling his head, the man in turn screaming incessantly. "But I haven't told you what I do with my power yet, now have I?" She said with a grin. She leaned conspiratorially towards Thayna and whispered loudly, "Immortality. I have been channeling my magic into myself, ensuring that my youth and beauty never wavered. But even with the vast reservoir of life pooled within me, my youth would inevitably run out. Much of my work as a mage was to find the secret to eternal youth, to no avail..."

Marietta stopped her nibbling and stood up, taking a step precariously close to the remaining humans beneath her. She dropped the man she held onto her copper throne, ignoring the crunch as the bones in his body snapped from the force of his fall. Cries of pain emanated behind Marietta, but she only smiled at Thayna's startled face when she realized what the Vampire was about to do.

"Until I find it," Marietta said in a sneer, "The lives of men shall fuel my immortality."

Marietta wiggled her butt mischievously, adjusting herself so that her Mark was right above the unNumbered man. The man let out a crazed scream just as the titanic bottom began lowering itself, filling his entire peripheral vision with the rounded rump descending upon him. The dress was too short to cover anything, and the smooth surface of the rambunctious bottom pressed into the hapless man, smothering him from all sides in all their bare glory.

As Marietta felt the man under her squirm, she slowly sat up straight, applying her full weight upon the fragile human body, delighting as his bones collapsed beneath her gargantuan weight. Bits of blood sprayed across the surface of the throne, and with a final, hideous, crunching noise, the man gave way to the encroaching mass completely, flattened under Marietta's giant buttock. All that remained was the red grime slathered upon where Marietta sat.

"Yes..." Marietta sighed as she felt a rush of magic energy flow through her, "Humans die with such whimsical grace, do they not?"

With a flick of her fingers, Marriette spoke a wordless spell and forced the remaining Numbered to their feet. She gave them a quick glance and counted eleven standing before her. With a devilish smile, she spread her arms out and proclaimed to them loudly, "Rejoice, my tiny subjects, for you will be first in line for my city's festival! Those unbranded are the first to enter the Crushworks, and any who survive will be granted freedom from Mordrell’s walls!"

None of the humans looked thrilled to be fighting for their lives at the Crushworks. They knew that with the stacked odds, the rate of fatality was always certainly one-hundred percent.

A sudden burst of fire exploded near Marietta's head, and the Vampire tilted her head towards Thayna in amusement. "Oh ho?" Marietta sneered.

"Let them go," Thayna said in a deathly calm voice, her arm raised against Marietta.

"Oh, do grow up," Marietta said dismissively, "A chick who had just begun wandering out of her nest has no place fighting me. Do you honestly think you stand a chance while I'm in my seat of power?"

Thayna kept her arm suspended in the air in silent defiance, but relented from attacking further.

"Besides," Marietta continued, casually whisking away the stain left by the man on her throne with a magical gesture, "You're directing your little righteousness at the wrong group of Numbered."

Thayna wasn't about to believe what this Vampire was about to tell her, but her ears were nonetheless attentive.

"Only Numbered who are condemned by law are unbranded," Marietta said, reclining back into her throne, "And get instant priority in the queue to the Crushworks. They're all killers, thieves and adulterers, I assure you, and not one of them are worth saving. Mordrell cleans up after its own, afterall."

Marietta let out a sly grin as she threw her arms behind her head. "Of course, I'm sure you'd be more interested in this afternoon's announcement," she continued, "They are truly this year's misfortunate ones."

Thayna perked up at this. More participants were going to be announced later in the day, at the same venue where she first heard of the Crushworks.

"If I can't stop you," Thayna declared, "Then I'll stop your little festival instead."

Marietta let out a shrill, high-pitched laugh, kicking her legs into the air as she let out guffaw after overblown guffaw. "Then I look forward to it, daughter of Farum!" she said while howling with laughter.

Thayna was apprehensive, chancing a question with the vampire, "You won't interfere?"

"Why would I?" Marietta sniggered, "I've already had my fill, and I've not been this amused since I was but a petite little girl. You'll make for fine entertainment, girl."

Marietta looked at Thayna hungrily, like a wolf cornering a lost lamb. But Thayna was anything but. She stood her ground and dared herself to talk back against the Vampire once.

"Just speaking hypothetically," Thayna said with crystalline calm, "But even if I don't stop the Crushworks, you'll stop the killing as long as you've found an alternative source of power to your immortality?"

"If you can find it," Marietta said with a casual shrug, holding her lofty expression only for a moment before returning to her crazed cackling as Thayna turned around to leave.

John hurt. His body was a mess of bruises and he smelt like somebody else's feet. In fact, it felt like somebody else's feet was in indeed on him, and only the sudden jerking of Silestria's toes shook him awake.

"Hmm, up and about, are we?" Silestria intoned above John. He was no longer in her shoe, and Silestria's massive figure towered over him, seated on a mage-sized bench while her feet rested on his miniscule body. They were in a square in the city, where other mages roamed around, completely indifferent to John’s plight.

"Gah-" John complained as he felt the oppressive weight above him agitating his wounds. He mustered a few words through his agony, "How am I still alive...?"

"A foolish question," Silestria said, "A mage of Thamond knows only to discipline her charge, not to slay them."

"Discipline?" John groaned.

"To imply the fault in my weight is a punishable slight," Silestria lectured John, "And I saw fit to educate you."

Silestria bent down closer to the ground, casting a large shadow over John, her face now hanging over John like a cululonimbus cloud in an overcast sky. Her short silver hair twinkled in the dim light, and her bright blue eyes became dazzling crystals which scintillated the meager rays of sun which streamed through the thin gaps of her bangs. John was so mesmerized that for a moment, he forgot that he was still underneath the warm folds of Silestria's sole.

"You fainted part way, it would seem," Silestria remarked as she looked John down from her vantage point, "I suppose that that would suffice as punishment for your transgression."

Just because you thought I called you fat? John thought incredulously to himself. He mentally shook his head as the great weight on his chest rescinded. Silestria took her foot off of John and slipped them back into her felt black flats, which John had been prisoner of for who knows how long. A thought occurred to him.

"H-how did I survive in there?" John asked Silestria, observing how thin the sole of the shoe was, "Your shoe couldn't possibly have kept me from being killed as your footsteps grinded me into your heel."

"A redundant question," Silestria answered as she picked the many times smaller John up easily onto her lap, "I already said I'm not here to kill you. Needless to say, I've taken precautions so that you'd only feel discomfort under my protection."

Silestria reached behind her and produced her cobalt blue wand again. She drew a few wisps of light in the air and they arranged themselves into a multitude of arcane patterns completely foreign to John.

"I've enchanted the space you occupy to warp you to whichever shoe was lifted off the ground," Silestria explained, pulsing the patterns in rhythmic fashion much like her footsteps, "And if I were standing with both feet on the ground, you'd sink into a shallow dimension where you'd be straddled against my sole, but non-fatally. Of course, you weren’t completely immune to its side effects, hence the fainting."

John tried to comprehend what he heard. "Who..." John said incredulously, "Who would create such complex magic...just to turn people into...into footwear?!"

Silestria smiled at the sight of John squirming. "Surprised, little man?" She said, "Your kind's place in the world is underfoot beneath us, but the Mistglenn take it literally; they want your kind to be bound to their feet permanently."

John just stared ahead, aghast. "But...why?" John continued to press, "To treat us as if we were mere apparel, what could they possibly gain?"

"The Mistglenn are an odd bunch," Silestria admitted, "And it is their belief that presses them to corral humans into their shoes, but it's not all bad."

John raised a doubtful brow.

"An important part of their belief," Silestria continued, "Is that the humans must  willing give in to them. If they had to force them into their service, then it would tarnish the purity of their submission...so it goes, at least."

"What about those who refuse?" John inquired.

Silestria gave an indifferent shrug. "Life goes on," she replied, "And they live under the rule of the Mistglenn mages instead of under their feet. But if it were me, Mistglenn sounds a great deal better for your kind then Mordrell."

John couldn't argue with that. At least it sounded like they weren't actively trying to kill their inhabitants over there.

Before their discussion could proceed any further, a bell rang out nearby. The flow of the streets suddenly changed direction as every mage in the vicinity began making their way towards the bell.

Curious, the John and Silestria followed, and found the crowd had stopped at the same place he and Thayna had heard the announcement of the Crushworks. It must already be time for the announcements.

John looked around. There was no sign of Thayna.

The crowd suddenly cheered as a familiar looking mage dressed in purple and furs stepped out from a balcony and knocked her staff against her throat. A spark of light gave away that she had cast a spell on herself, and her voice boomed across the entire district.

"Magisters!" The mage announced to the crowd below, "Whimsical denizens of Mordrell! The time you have been waiting for has come! Today we shall announce those who shall participate in this year's annual Crushworks! Without further ado, I shall read out the Numbers!"

"Five twenty!" The announcer exclaimed. There was a brief cheer from the other side of the crowd. John remembered Katie's Number to be eleven eighty, and breathed a small sigh of relief himself.

As the numbers continued to be read out, John, from the vantage point of Silestria's shoulder, saw a couple of mages beside them holding their Numbered in their hands, reading their brand eagerly like they were expecting prizes at a fair. "Hey, Silestria," John said, tugging at Silestria’s loose bang beside him, "What exactly are the mages so excited abou-"

A massive force flung itself across John's side, almost unseating him from Silestria's shoulder if he wasn't already holding on to her. Stunned, John reeled as the pain from his time in Silestria’s shoe resurfaced, and could only vaguely make out Silestria's hand hovering in front of him. She had slapped him across his body.

"Don't you dare pull my hair again, curr," Silestria snarled, "And to answer your question, I am not all too well versed in the details, but having your Numbered sent off to the Crushworks awards the owner a hefty compensation, it would seem."

John nursed the blunt pain he had just received and continued watching. So it's all part of the festivities, it would seem. No wonder why everybody seemed so excited here.

All at the expense of the Numbered, of course, John thought bitterly to himself. He could only shake his head as the announcer shouted a "nine forty-eight!", sending another part of the crowd into a celebratory frenzy.

"Worried about your little sweetheart, hmm?" Silestria said to a jaded looking John.

"No, I..." John wanted to protest, but he felt suddenly too tired to argue again, "...yeah, I guess I am."

Silestria said nothing, and turned back to the announcer. "Eight sixty!" she shouted, and another mage in the back squealed in jubilation as her Numbered was chosen.

"If it's all the same to you," Silestria whispered to John, "I find this quite revolting as well."

John looked up, surprised. He didn't take Silestria for the kind to care. "You don't support them?" John asked.

"Hmph," Silestria said with a grumpy harumph, "I could name a dozen ways for humans to still be useful to us alive, and the pragmatic benefits of a functional human colony integrated with a mage's."

"Oh," John said, disappointed. Mages didn't think human as equals or even significant, it seems. Another shout from the announcer, "Twelve thirteen!" and another mage went jumping up and down in glee.

"...And I suppose," Silestria added hesitantly, "Nobody should die without cause. Not even humans."

John was silent as he let Silestria’s words soak in. Finally, he absently remarked, “Thamond must be a nice place.”

“Perhaps,” Silestria cooed.

“Seventeen O-eight!” The announcer shouted. The two mages John saw beside them broke out into an excited cheer.

John looked on for a while longer, then having seen enough, turned back to Silestria. “How long are we going to keep-”

Before John could finish, the announcer’s voice rang out one more time, “And for our last participant, eleven eighty!”

John didn’t pay attention to the numbers at first, but was suddenly very aware of the absence of cheering in the crowd. Mages looked at each other in confusion when nobody would proclaim that their number had been called. John recalled what the announcer had recited, and his face grew pale.

“No…” John cried out, “Katie...!”