Chapter 3: Scout

Rigras had one doozy of a day yesterday. He witnessed almost his entire tribe devoured by the giant troll. He himself was in a handful heading straight towards her maw when his lover, Mirgis, spoke up. She kicked at the troll’s toe for attention, and shouted that she’d do anything to spare him.

Bula chuckled at her foolish bravery, and set her up for a task with him held as hostage till it was done. The giant green-skin woman didn’t spare any of the others, though. With a collective scream they went down her throat.

Once done feasting on the couple’s tribe, Bula spun her belly ring around and stuck him inside it. He screamed as she slid it back around again after. The light of the setting sun faded out of view as the troll’s flesh obscured his vision. The inner flesh moved against the pierced half of the ring, constantly shifting in an attempt to heal itself back together.

Stuck in close proximity to her stomach, in the dark, he listened to gulp after gulp. The flesh that tried to engulf the ring muffled the noises of her voracious appetite, but not nearly enough. The goblin heard well the chuckles between handfuls, and the fresh screams as people settled into that churning, gurgling gut so near to him in his confinement.

Eventually, he heard Bula talk to Mirgis. The troll was telling his lover to do something, find something, but he couldn’t hear the details aside from knowing that if she failed, his life and hers would be over.

Bula, as Rigras knew her name to be, then let Mirgis go he presumed while he was stuck with the giant green troll. Soon as the sun set she laid down to rest, but Rigras didn’t sleep well. Even with the near pitch dark of being trapped in a ring looped through her flesh, rest was difficult. The flesh constantly tried, and failed, to heal back together. The ring in the way meant it couldn’t, but those tries filled his ears with an eerie squelching sound. The ring itself was hardly comfortable to lay in too, and though the inner-flesh of the giant’s body didn’t get his ‘cage’ wet, that didn’t help much.

By far, what kept him up most was the screams. He heard the rest of his tribe getting digested. “It burns!” many said. “Help!” said others. The usual bickerings and feuds many of the goblins had between each other died down in that gut. Instead, they tried, and failed, to fight the fleshy surroundings around them. He heard them yell about how their eyes burnt, how they felt the skin slough and dissolve from their bones. It was horrible.

The only consolation was that he wasn’t in there with them: least not yet. He worried about Mirgis too, thinking of what would happen to her--and him--should she fail in whatever task was going on.

He didn’t much sleep, and it wasn’t too long after waking up that he heard Bula swallow some other victim. All she did was scream too, and pound against the stomach walls. He heard it, though Bula didn’t seem to. The troll didn’t seem to give Ampadia heed even if she felt the cervitaur pounding around in there.

Rigras was small, 3 feet tall. He was small to other humanoids, and knew he had to seem less than half an inch to that giant 500ft troll. His tribe only fed Bula in bulk, and even then it sounded like her stomach had room to spare. He figured only someone truly cruel would gulp down just one woman like that.

He had listened to Ampadia digest alive without a choice in the matter. The goblin wasn’t exactly a knight in conduct: he had been greedy before, rude, but Bula’s cruelty was far even for a goblin like himself.

With his mind back in the then-present, he hopped out of the cage onto Bula’s palm. He knew from that tone it’d be unwise to test her patience, but it wasn’t on purpose that he did. He was just in a bit of a shock. The light from the fungus in the cave had been more than a bit jarring. It was nice to have some fresh air. Back in the ring, he had to inhale the stale air that filtered through the minor gap between the hoop piercing and the troll-flesh that constantly tried to heal together through it.

The troll snapped her now empty prison-piercing back together to hang above her navel as before. Rigras struggled to get his footing on that soft green palm, and soon as he did he stumbled. Bula jostled her palm as she rose it up. Her free hand dipped into a pool of rain water that dripped from a hole above the cave to a basin-like depression near the stone floor. A small stream also fed to it, then out to keep the water moving. She splashed him with it--presumably to clean any fluid that got on him in the cage, which was little to none thankfully. That done she lifted him to her mouth.

Those deep-green lips stretched to a 20ft wide smile. Her teeth slipped through shortly after. Then she spoke.

“Ready to go visit your lover, runt?”

Her nose twitched. Her dark green eyes widened. She slipped her tongue tip out to wet those lips of hers.

“Part of me hopes she’s failed, then I have an excuse to gobble her and you right up. Not very filling you goblins are, but you got a nice texture when I push you up with my tongue. Decent taste too.”

That wet tongue slipped out to prod Rigras. He shivered in response.

“Please.”, he stammered. “Don’t hurt us.”

Bula withdrew her tongue back inside.

“Mmmm”, she rumbled. “We’ll see. You better hope she shows up at the meeting spot with some good news. Else you and her will have to spend most of your reunion in my stomach.”

Her fingers lightly curled towards Rigras and she stomped out of the cave. The fungal light left and the outside sunlight replaced it.

--==--==--==--

I had told that goblin woman, Mirgis, to meet me at a clearing not too far from my cave.

I realize she might’ve deduced my cave’s location from that, maybe told some people, but I didn’t care if forest folk found my forest.

My natural scent--which I’ve been told isn’t bad at all--was something that kept any dumb creatures away. Humanoids without as good a sense of scent could use their brain to stay away instead.

Even if they never heard of me, my footprints should serve as warning enough to stay out, and even if they went deep in my cave they’d have a hard time reaching my shelves where I put anything remotely valuable or unique. Much of it’s too giant for their tiny selves anyways.

I loosely bent my fingers toward Rigras. He rode in my palm, level to my chest, and got to enjoy a fraction of the view my giant self experienced every day. Of course, he didn’t seem to enjoy it much. He was terrified of falling. He gently pinched at the skin of my palm to stay stable. The little green runt was probably worried about slipping out through some fingers or tumbling right off.

Of course, I wouldn’t let that happen. I didn’t want to jeopardize getting information out of my unwilling scout gobliness. Still, I didn’t want Rigras to know that, so I only subtly curled my fingers towards him. That’d be enough to catch him should he actually tumble from the vibrations of gigantic body in motion.

Still, if I messed up, I could probably get Mirgis to squeal anyways with a bit of ‘pressure’. At the same time, I couldn’t be sure. I wouldn’t want her mind to break from lost love or something, and her become some gibbering, useless person that forgot what she saw.

That happened now and then. I remember a dwarven man going mad once when my foot fell on his wife. So blinded by rage, he was, that he went into a tantrum and attacked his fellow dwarves like a wild animal. It was a sight to see. When I gulped him down later, he almost tasted a bit more wild, but I think that was just my imagination or something.

I chuckled at the thought of it, and my mind was back to the then-present as a particularly nice tree crunched under the ball of my foot. The clearing wasn’t too far now. Rigras, that cowardly goblin, still shivered in my palm. I knew he was desperate for Mirgis to have succeeded.

I wouldn’t say I was desperate, but I did want her to succeed, and I’d keep the sniveling goblin alive to give her every reason to be forward with me. I actually had hopes that someone as small and sneaky as Mirgis, even by little-people standards, could actually find that wood elf settlement I was looking for.

Wood elves...

I had only run into a few of them. They did some hit and run arrow attacks on my ankles now and then, till they wised up and figured out those didn’t work. Despite their tallness--again, for little people--they were quite the elusive sort. I only ever caught two, and they were far from cooperative. Given my size I couldn’t exactly stealthily track the elves myself.

Even after bending ones limbs every which way he didn’t talk, nor did the other I caught. Least I had no reason not to gulp them down. That alone was a reason to find the settlement: grudge aside, they were delicious. Their flavor against my tongue was a nice mix of the more mundane taste of commoner people and with some subtle sweetness to it. The fae tasted sweet, and were another very rare treat of mine as well as a thorn in my side. I figured the wood elves flavor was cause of the rumors of elves being a bit fae themselves, in a sense at least.

At my stature I reached the clearing in a few minutes. Mirgis was there and I smirked at the sight of her. I was well aware despite calling them and the elves, dwarves, and most of what else I run to “little people’ that I was actually the giant one. I knew my size and strength well and sauntered her way, eyes on her, flattening trees and shrubbery with every step.

Seeing her body stumble from my footfalls sent a pleasant tingle down my neck, shoulders and chest--among maybe another area or two.

--==--==--==--

Mirgis waited for hours in the clearing till she knew Bula was coming. She felt the subtle tremors under her cloth-wrapped feet even before the troll came into sight.

The adult gobliness’s memory was still stained from last night, when her tribe was handily beaten and devoured. Yet, she still managed to forget just how gigantic the troll was. Few trees stood taller than Bula’s ankles, and even fewer came close to her knees. All of them were cast aside in her those thooming steps that thudded louder and louder.

The quakes increased in ferocity, and so did the volume of the booms and the frequency of trees snapping. Mirgis almost covered her ears from it all. Her kind had cut down trees now and then for shelter or shield crafting, but in Bula’s stroll that giant had felled more than they did in a month for sure.

Eventually Mirgis started bouncing. As the memories of that brutal night came back, she became too distracted to hold her balance and stumbled over onto her butt. Bula kept walking closer. She set one gigantic green foot down into the clearing. The ped was nearly 80 feet long, and the brown-eyed goblin saw it sink a tad into the ground.

The tremors were too much for Mirgis to scramble back up. In just two more steps Bula’s toes loomed before her. One pinky toe dwarfed her by a few inches, and to reach the big toe she and her lover Rigras would need to stand on each other’s shoulders. If Bula slid her foot forward, she’d be crushed by those toes with ease.

Instead, Bula gave the digits a wiggle and sent some minor vibrations through the ground. She quickly got to her feet, then held fast as some wind shifted. Bula was leaning down. A giant hand set its back down to the ground. Mirgis turned to her frightened lover atop the giant green palm. She meekly smiled his way, head looking down at the ground.

“Up!” came that loud, feminine voice from above. Bula’s.

Mirgis obeyed, not wanting to tick off the troll and put her mate at further risk. She scrambled up fingers thick as tree trunks. It was embarrassing really: having to dig her fingers and toes into the side of fingers just to climb onto a hand, but she managed.

The gobliness didn’t have a chance to talk to Rigras. A lurching pressure knocked her and him back on their dark-green asses. Bula raised her body back up, palm with it.

Standing at her full height of more than 500ft, the giant troll brought the couple up to her face--far enough that they could see her eyes craning their necks a bit. She spoke and even at such a ‘safe’ distance her breath still brushed by the duo. It reminded them of how big she was. Goblins were small and used to feeling like it when dealing with the other humanoids of the world, but Mirgis figured she never felt as small as she did right then.

“So, you find what I asked you to, squirt? For your sake I hope you did.”

“I did!”, shouted Mirgis. Her voice was that proud sort of squeaky, one she used when finding some treasure or assignment. She had been a scout for her tribe before Bula even choose her for this role--though she suspected the troll didn’t know that. Bula probably just saw her as the smallest and most useful for the part. A quick but accurate judgment.

“Good.”, said Bula. “Let’s walk a bit then.”

Rigras opened his mouth to protest, but decided better against it. Mirgis and him started to bounce as that massive body went on the move again. The gobliness’s lover seemed to be a tad more used to this by now, so she followed his lead in grabbing at the palm flesh and holding tight.

Every step carried a boom with it, and once Bula cleared the clearing the sound of crunched trees and the like came back. Just a simple stroll caused such a racket and carried such a presence. Of course, the goblin duo were smart enough to realize Bula was doing this for more than just idle walking. She wanted to intimidate them some more.

It wasn’t like it was needed. Talking to someone with a mouth that could gulp down a tribe of goblins was intimidating enough. Mirgis suspected it was less a “need” to intimidate more so much as a “want”.

--==--==--==--

“Where is it?”, I asked the gobliness. My eyes were on them. Another batch of trees crunched under my naked heel. The feeling was pleasant. That little dark-haired goblin was smart enough to wait till the noise faded to reply.

“I’ll tell you!”, she squeaked to me. “But you got to promise again to be swell to us. I did what you said after all.”

Perhaps she wasn’t as smart as I had just given her credit for. A tree fell just as I paused my stride. I felt the sturdy trunk of it pulp beneath the ball of my right foot. That male goblin jumped from the fear the noise and my stern look must’ve put in him.

“Do you realize how easily I can end you? I wonder, how long does it take you to climb the trees I flatten to wood-scrap with every step? If you want a chance of living after that you’ll talk fast. Your tiny little lives are very much in my hand.”

I slowly tilted my palm to the side. The goblins scrambled to hold on. A scream from Rigras and a couple more seconds had Mirgis very eagerly shouting.

“Ok I’ll tell you! They are to the northeast.”

“How far?”, I ask.

“I had to walk almost all night to get there.”

“Shouldn’t take me too long then.”

“Listen, t-there’s something else you should know thought, before going.”

“Are you hiding information from me?”

I tilted my palm back level, and brought the goblins face height, though still the same distance from my body. I curled my fingers their way, as though I was gonna crush them. I wasn’t, not till hearing the info at least, but I wanted to hear it fast.

“It’s fairies!”, shouted Mirgis.

“What?”, I said. Apparently I was a bit loud since the two covered their ears. Mirgis even gave one of hers a flick as though to help get the sound out.

“Yes.”, she continued. “Well, fae at least. Pixies maybe. I followed some of the wood elves to a patch of forest and they just... disappeared into it.”

“Did you go in?”, I asked. My impatience seeped into my tone and I saw the two goblins fidget beneath it a moment.

“Of course, but I couldn’t go far. There were guards on a wall. I only poked my head in really to be honest.”

I grunted. Fae were something of a big annoyance to me, despite their size. The smallest fae I knew was but an inch. An inch! Imagine a life like that... Larger fae spirits could be giant, though as big as me I can’t say since I haven’t seen any of those more powerful sorts.

Still, pixies and sprites and the like harangued me now and then. They’d fly by and stab at my toes with swords or the like. I hardly ever felt it. That didn’t bother me, and they learned that soon. What really irked me was how they’d use magic. Not on me, but against me. They’d obfuscate parts of the woods, illusioning up fake trees and the lake to try and make me lose my way.

I used more than sight to navigate the woods, and years of experience gave me quite the memory of things. Still, it’s annoying and can slow me down at times. I’m sure they’d do worse if they could. Far as I know, they disliked me since I didn't respect nature. I probably stepped on more than a few tress they liked.

What else was I to do, though? I couldn’t exactly walk through trees like some fae and the druids supposedly could. Even then, why should I? Most trees are smaller than me so they can be crunched underfoot, like everything and everyone else that is. I’m big and they are small, so if I can break it and I want to, I will. I’m not gonna tiptoe through the Snowless Forest, my home too, just to please a bunch of fae, several of whom are so small that dozens could get stuck under a toe-nail of mine. I’m part of nature too, just one they don’t like. Sometimes I wonder if it’s envy.

In any case, the way I saw it was if they didn’t like me, they could run off out of the forest somewhere else like all the smart little folk, fae or no. I guess I might miss being able to eat the little various people now and then, but the fae being gone would be a boon and worth it.

It made sense the wood elves might collaborate with the fae. Same nature-loving goal and all. It was plausible, but it’d be annoying. I didn’t want to believe it.

“Do you have proof?” I asked Mirgis. My eyes were squinting a tad incredulously--again this was something I hoped to be false, since then I’d have an excuse to swallow the two and not have to deal with any fae while I visited the wood elves.

Mirgis nodded hastily.

“Y-yes. Here, I found this magic dust. Pixie dust. I didn’t see the pixie, but what else could it be?”

I squinted, but in the palm of a goblin it was hard to see even with my keen eyes.

“I want a closer look. Hold still.”, I said. I moved them closer to my face.

“W-wait, don’t you want to be careful? That stuff could be dangerous!” said Rigras. The male goblin finally spoke up. I snorted at the notion.

“It’d need to be really potent pixie dust, or a lot more than a goblin handful to do anything to someone as big as me.”

I brought the quivering pair closer to my face. Leaning in, I squinted at the two of them; in particular, I focused on Mirgis and what she had in her hand. I was careful breathing so as to not blow it away, well, at least till I saw that sparkling pinkish dust there. That was definitely pixie dust, which meant fae involvement.

I felt an itch in my nose; a tingling sensation. I quickly realized I must’ve inhaled a bit of the pixie dust, but I had no time to think on that before that itch in my nose built.

“Ah, Ah, Ah-choo!”

Without even thinking I leaned in to sneeze into my hand. I felt a viscous wetness across palm, and quick, loud squeaks of pain hit my ears. I drew my hand away and the few strings of mucus still connected to my nose snapped off and onto my hand.

I had sneezed out whatever morning snot was still in my nose, and the resulting wad of mucus covered almost my entire palm. The two goblins writhed in it, with a bit of red blood around them from their injuries. I wiggled my fingers and felt the goo.

“Yuck.”, I said. I crouched down to some shin-height trees and wiped my hand off on their tops and the upper trunks. In the process the main one I cleaned my hand with fell over.

--==--==--==--

Mirgis and Rigras watched, legs trembling, as Bula leaned in close to inspect the pixie dust. The gobliness did her best to steady herself, not wanting to spill any of the pixie dust and risk upsetting the giant troll woman. Up close so close to that face, she was reminded how unfair the universe was.

Bula was huge. She had a mouth wide enough to suck up a handful of her kind at a time--that she saw first hand. Even just leaning in, the giant troll shook their bodies. Air brushed by Mirgis and her lover with the gentle flow of those dark green locks.

It wasn’t just the size though. Bula’s skin was a nicer shade of green than her own, Mirgis thought. If one could look past the dark green spots, there was an odd sort of beauty to the troll. Bula’s face was symmetrical, the features pleasing to the eye.

Of course, Mirgis considered herself pretty fetching for a goblin. She was young, in her early 20s, but none of that mattered. That’s not why it was no unfair.

Bula was wasn’t *just* pretty, but big *too*. Goblins lived shorter lives than most other races, getting old and their features gnarled. Mirgis didn’t know too much about trolls, but she knew they lived quite awhile--long enough that she never heard of one dying of old age.

That giant green-skinned being would live a long life with her beauty, and a size big enough to do whatever she wanted without reproach. Simply by virtue of being a giant troll, Bula would live a longer, better, and happier life, often at the expense of littler people like her.

Mirgis certainly knew that first hand.

As a goblin scout she scrounged for trinkets and materials for the tribe that hardly let her keep any for herself. What little she had for her own she used to decorate a small little hut that Bula crushed without a care under-heel. All her tribe was went down that greedy gullet of the giant. All Mirgis knew, and all her tribe worked for, was destroyed for an evening meal to Bula.

That giant face loomed in, squinting right at her. Mirgis did her best to steady under such a big and intimidating gaze, but her knees trembled just like her lover Rigras. Bula was trying to be gentle with her breaths, but even that sent Mirgis’s dark locks fluttering.

Of course, she only did it to not blow the pixie dust away. Mirgis was certainly smart enough to notice that much. Bula didn’t care about the pair much beyond their use to her, that much was clear.

The gobliness wondered if anything she noticed was something Bula didn’t. She saw those deep-green eyes widen at that sight of the pixie dust. Did Bula know she gave off a tell like that? Did it even matter?

Mirgis noticed the pixie dust fly up one of Bula’s nostrils. Bula didn’t seem to notice that right away, but her body did. She saw that nose twitch.

“Ah,”

Bula inhaled a tad and the goblins shifted forward. Rigras cried out to try and get Bula’s attention; Mirgis did too. Their cries were dwarfed by the sound of the troll’s inhales.

“Ah,”

Mirgis braced herself. Rigras moved to grab her hand, but tripped from the motion of the giant’s palm as it shifted with the heaves.

“Ah-choo!”

It all happened so fast. Bula leaned in, completely disregarding their presence and sneezed. A thick deluge of snot hit the pair and covered them in viscous muck. They each yelped in pain, but not so much from the goo itself. That hurt, but what really got the goblins was the pressure.

When Bula cupped her hand to her face and sneezed, she limited where air could escape to. Her sneeze pushed not just snot from her nose and a bit of spittle from her mouth, but also oodles of air from her lungs to force it out. A torrent of air from within Bula’s body roared out and broke the bones of the pair in the process. It was less like a current and more like a ballista going off in force.

Rigras was less prepared and took a brunt of the damage. He couldn’t stop screaming, even as the snot threatened to drown him. Mirgis couldn’t feel her toes, but she could definitely feel how those limbs were cracked at the shins. One of arms was bent backwards, the other had its fingers crushed. Desperately flailing her neck, she manged to get her mucus covered face out of the snot’s surface. At that same time, a string of snot snapped from Bula’s right nostril and thwapped against the gobliness’s body. It felt like a wet whip.

With her vision blurred a bit by the opaqueness of the clear-ish snot, she saw Bula’s massive mouth move.

“Yuck”, was what the giant said.

Then the troll lowered the pair down to tree tops. Rigras yelped and screamed. His voice sounded different, and Mirgis realized her love’s chest might’ve been crushed. She turned to look at him and noticed his arm laying vaguely visible in the snot a good 5 feet away from him. The sneeze had blown it right off. It moved further from her lover as the branches clipped them from Bula’s hand. The tree fell down and another burst of pain wracked the two.

Rigras piped down moments after, finally saving his strength, though still visibly writhing in pain. Mirgis had to grit her teeth to composure herself. She shouted up to Bula, who sat on her haunches and had wiped most of the last bit of snot off her palm and onto the ground--for some other creature to stumble into no doubt.

Mirgis shouted.

“Bula. Help us!”

The giant troll tilted her head, then spoke.

“I’m not touching you two. You’re both covered in snot.”

Mirgis’s felt her heart fall like a stone. Bula still looked down, her knees looming to either side of the two in her crouch.

“I did everything you asked, you said you wouldn’t harm us then!”

“I said I wouldn’t kill you. The sneeze was an accident.”

“We’ll die here! I can’t feel my feet. Rigras can’t even breath. I don’t wanna die. Please.”

Bula shrugged.

“Maybe you should've held that pixie dust tighter then. I can’t possibly keep track of every little thing. You’re lucky you ended out as good as you did. Besides...”

Bula held up her palm, it looked clean and dry as before.

“My hand’s already clean again. I think it has something to do with how my body heals. I wouldn’t want to get snot on it again, like I said.”

Mirgis had forgotten that aspect of trolls. Not only was Bula gonna live a long live of getting her way, but she’d be scar-less all the while. She sneezes in her hand and its clean, while her and the love of her life wallow in the snot. An entire life of others dealing with her actions. Bula was above consequences like she was above the trees: towering, unassailable.

“Unfair.”, murmured Mirgis.

“What was that?”, said Bula. She looked down at the gobliness with a cocked eyebrow.

“Unfair!”, shouted Mirgis. She wiggled to free her head a tad more of the snot.

“It’s not fair! I did everything you said. I didn’t sleep to find what you were looking for, and now you’re leaving us to die. I would’ve been better off not helping you at all. You... big bully! You monster!”

Bula leaned in just a tad. She smirked.

“You have the audacity to chastise me? You’re lucky I even planned to let you go at all. I didn’t need to do anything for you. Letting you live long enough to get me that info ‘ought’ve been enough for a runt like you.”

The giant troll pursed her lips as though to spit on the pair, but she paused. Her wry smirk sent a shiver down Mirgis’s spine.

“No.”, she said. “I won’t put you out of your misery. I’m letting you go, as promised. You’re right though, those injuries look pretty bad. You probably won’t make it. It’s just proof of how fragile you are. A solid thing in my sneeze: you’re just like a booger. A little booger. A speck.”

Bula rose back up to her full height. Another gust of displaced wind hit the duo. She looked down, still smiling.

“On the off-chance you get out, you better not let me see you again or you’ll get to see the fluids inside my gut ‘stead of my nose.”

“No! No wait!”, said Mirgis. She flailed, sinking herself a bit into the snot and having to puff out to stop it from creeping in her mouth.

“Come back!” the gobliness howled. “I don’t wanna die!”

Bula simply chuckled, looked to the sun then walked north-east. She left them there.

Mirgis turned to face Rigras, who had sunk under the surface of the snot. She had turned from Bula just in time to see his struggles fade.

‘I’m next.’, she thought. Try as she might, the gobliness couldn’t free herself from the snot--certainly not with that broken arm of hers, not to mention the other busted bones. One struggle just sunk her deeper into the mucousy muck.

‘Unfair’, she thought. Her mood sunk much as her body did in the goop.