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.