Vera

By Pixis

Chapter 1

It was the storm that brought the monster.

The hurricane had been one of the worst in Piconorea’s history. Gale force winds buffeted the coastline, uprooted trees, and destroyed homes. Eerie lights filled the sky. Tsunami-like waves crashed against the shore and the port cities were flooded or decimated. Even the inland farming villages were ravaged by untold property damage. But the government feared the worst was yet to come when a fisherman reported the massive creature beached on the far side of the island.

The sea had vomited up many strange wonders in its recent upheaval. Yet this was no squid or shark or even a whale. This beast was the largest ever sighted in Piconorea. It was easily two hundred and fifty feet long and its body’s girth was considerable. But more extraordinary than this was its appearance. For despite these gargantuan dimensions, the monster resembled a human being.

More specifically, it resembled a woman. And not just any woman; when viewed from the tall cliffs overlooking the beach, the creature appeared to be a young maid of surpassing beauty. A veritable forest of curly brown hair lay strewn around the gigantic head. The vast, lovely face was still, its eyes closed in dreaming serenity. The giant woman lay on her back, facing skyward. Staggeringly colossal curves of a perfect hourglass figure formed a living landscape where once only flat shoreline had been. The mountainous bosom was particularly magnificent. On a Piconorean scale, she would have been quite voluptuous indeed. At this titanic size however, her chest dwarfed the rolling hills of the surrounding countryside.

Equally astonishing was the rudimentary clothing the monster wore. Small swatches of a dark, unknown material covered the breasts and nether regions of the giantess, leaving the majority of her flesh exposed. It was hardly more of a garment than a simple loincloth. Still, the very fact that she was preserving her modesty pointed to a human-like intelligence. And this left the Piconoreans ill at ease.

“Codswallop and poppycock!” declared Lord Osric Fallowmark, Commander of the Republican Guard of North Piconorea. “There is no conceivable way this beast is human! Why, I doubt it’s even alive! No living creature could reach such an unimaginable size. Its heart would explode or it would collapse under its own weight!”

The commander’s thick eyebrows and bushy mustache bristled below his horsehair helmet and he folded his arms over his chainmail coat. He would not allow his men to fall back into superstition.

“But my lord,” argued Edwyn Swiftbow, a young, carrot-topped lieutenant of the Guard. He and his allies were clad in similar raiment, though the horsehair adornment on their helmets was not quite as pure white or majestic. “If it’s not a giant of the Old Tales, what is it then?” Swiftbow and the commander were standing in the shadow of the gigantic woman’s thigh, taking shade from the sun as the other soldiers prepared to secure the monster.

“A war machine, Lt. Swiftbow,” the commander said, “a foul trick of the South Piconoreans.” He spat upon the ground in disgust. “This colossus is but a massive automaton in counterfeit human shape.”

“A machine?” Swiftbow repeated. “But it…it looks so real.” He reached out to touch the softness of the fleshy wall towering above him. “If it’s a machine, why would they build it to look like a beautiful woman?”

“A political statement,” replied Fallowmark. “This construct is meant to represent the heathen goddess that the Southrons pray to. No doubt their plan was to unleash it upon the cities of the North and lay waste to the secular society we so cherish. Can you imagine a more fitting instrument of terror? They would laugh as their so-called ‘goddess’ descends on our people with divine wrath. We were lucky the storm damaged their weapon.”

“No, Lieutenant, this thing is no living creature,” the commander continued. “I’d stake my life on it. Now, enough idle chatter! Return to your post and aid your fellow soldiers.”

Swiftbow’s fellows were hard at work attempting to bind the giantess to the spot with ropes and metal stakes. Machine or not, they were taking no chances. The creature’s body was too tall and too wide to fling the ropes across and even an arrow would not carry a line far enough. The soldiers were forced to set up ladders along the length of the enormous woman and climb to the peaks of a curvaceous mountain. They would then drag the lines across her body and descend down the other side where more ladders were waiting. Once they reached the top, however, they found that navigating a gargantuan female form was a perilous prospect.

The body of the giantess was a series of gently sloping hills and deep, treacherous valleys. If the men didn’t keep their footing, they could easily slip off an edge to plummet back to the beach or get lost in a narrow crevasse formed by the shape of her figure. The trench between the slightly parted thighs was one such obstacle and the soldiers carefully leaped across the gap to continue their journey.

One man underestimated the jump and slipped into the tunnel. He clawed desperately at the smooth skin but found no purchase. A fall from the height of the thigh could have meant shattered limbs or a broken neck but one of his compatriots quickly grabbed his hand. The soldier was hoisted back up and both men collapsed on the opposite leg, panting in fear.

“Mind your step, lad,” his savior cautioned. “These are dangerous curves.”

The other men paused at various points around the thigh, rolling their eyes or groaning.

“What?” the man protested. “Someone had to say it!”

Leaping across the thighs proved a hazardous endeavor and the space between the knees and calves was even greater. Rather than risking further jumps, extendable ladders were carried up onto the seemingly endless legs. These were used to form makeshift bridges between each limb. The soldiers crawled across these on hands and knees, gulping at the staggering height and the uneasy quivering of the ladders. But the men successfully made the crossing and pulled the ropes taut across the long, shapely legs.

The soldiers at the creature’s chest, however, faced an altogether different challenge. There was no easy way to cross the hugely imposing hills of her bosom, but the commander had insisted that every portion of the colossus must be bound. Climbing up the tilting slopes was all but impossible and any who tried soon lost balance and tumbled back down again. The movement of the landscape was not helping matters. The ground rose and fell in a steady pattern that the men were convinced was the giantess breathing.

“Wind fills her lungs!” the soldiers muttered. “Fallowmark is mad! This she-beast surely lives!”

Walking around the massive hillocks was right out, for the ground sloped downwards at such an angle that the men would tumble off. This left but one option: to go between. Only a thin black string connected the two patches of fabric covering the giantess’s breasts. The soldiers could slip under this and make their way through the deep valley at the center.

Yet as they entered this chasm, they were filled with trepidation. The curving walls rose like sheer cliffs on either side, lifting higher ever so slightly with each breath she took. The fabric of the tight-fitting garment had pulled the colossal breasts close together, leaving only a narrow tunnel for them to pass through. The soldiers squeezed or sidestepped their way between the huge fleshy barriers on either side. If those walls were to shift or press inward further, the men knew they’d be surely crushed to paste by their mass. They clutched their ropes tightly and hurried towards the other end of the tunnel.

Once they reached daylight, they found that the incline of the hills was more gradual. From this side, they were able to scale to the peaks and crisscross their ropes over the vastness of the woman’s chest. This unfortunately meant leaping over the crevasse they had just wriggled through. Like their comrades on the legs, they had to time their jumps perfectly or that cavern would swallow them up. And from that height, the fleshy valley seemed rather deep indeed. Luckily, the ground was rather buoyant and the men were able to bounce from one side to the other with relative ease. It was like jumping on an oversize trampoline.

“I know lady-parts when I feel them,” one man whispered, bouncing slightly in place as he tested the ground with his boot. “No machine can mimic such a thing!”

Elsewhere about her body, other soldiers set about their work. Those crossing the wide expanse of her belly had a relatively simple task. They had only to step carefully around the navel (which seemed almost as deep as a well) and they would be scot-free. It was only when the immense stomach began to rumble below their feet that the men started to panic. As her belly groaned and gurgled, the soldiers were shaken by the powerful vibrations. Some stumbled and fell. Others quickened their pace, fearing the giantess’s hunger should she suddenly awaken.

“Look at the size of this gut!” one man said, awkwardly climbing back onto his feet. “This monster could devour whole villages!”

“Keep going!” another called. “Else we’ll be the appetizers and our wives, children, and countrymen the main course!”

Lord Fallowmark insisted that each finger and toe of the “automaton” be secured, lest they lash out with destructive force. The fingers were easy enough to bind for they were resting in the sand. There was one tense moment though when a twitch of a muscle caused a man’s lower body to be caught under a massive thumb. It took several minutes for his allies to lift it and pull him free.

“Get it off, get it off!” the poor bastard cried in agony. Once he was freed, the others quickly rushed him to the medic tent.

Securing the toes meant the men had to climb up the sides of the ankles and scale each enormous foot. Like the rest of her, the giantess’s feet were pointing upwards like slender towers. Balancing up there was precarious but the soldiers clung to the joints and carefully threaded the ropes in and out between each toe. They gazed at these huge, meaty digits in awe. A full-grown Piconorean was barely as tall as the woman’s pinky toe.

The giant was clearly ticklish for the toes wriggled and twitched as the men moved about. They held fast, fearing to be thrown clear. One unfortunate became trapped between two toes as they suddenly clenched. He wriggled and shrieked helplessly as they nearly squeezed the life out of him but, blissfully, the huge digits soon released their grip. Painfully, the man was escorted down the slope of her instep and, like his comrade, sent immediately to the medics. The soldier was in agony and several of his ribs had surely been fractured or cracked.

“Her very toes can defeat us!” the militia cried ruefully. “I shudder to think what the rest of her can do. Let’s hope these bonds hold, for all our sakes.” But even as they hammered the stakes into the earth, they doubted it would be enough.

Once the last rope was in place, Lord Fallowmark ascended a ladder and joined his army atop the female mountain. He took point on the peak of one of the mighty breasts, surveying the human landmass that stretched into the distance.

“Well done, men. Fine work. Now, let us find ingress to this device and ferret out the South Piconorean scum piloting it.”

The soldiers blanched and stared in disbelief at their commanding officer. “My lord, are you suggesting we…go inside the giantess?!” Lt. Swiftbow exclaimed. This was especially worrying to him for he stood upon the precipice of the chin, close to the large, plump red lips. Each was nearly as thick as his torso. They were parted slightly, allowing hot breaths to waft up from the dark abyss beyond.

“Of course, my lad,” said Fallowmark. “But we must stop calling it a ‘giantess.’ This is no supernatural ogre of children’s stories. It is a weapon of war and should be dealt with as such.”

“But sir—” Swiftbow continued. He had been one of the few brave (or foolish) enough to question Fallowmark’s orders in the past and it had often worked to his detriment. Still, he could not let this insanity stand.

“You have something to say, Swiftbow?”

“Sir, the boys have felt the creature breathing.”

“The workings of the motors,” Fallowmark insisted.

“The outer shell is soft like human flesh!” added Swiftbow.

“A rubber and metallic alloy, no doubt.”

“My Lord Fallowmark…I can feel the heat of the monster’s breath where I stand!”

“Merely the fumes from an internal bellows, I assure you,” the commander said. “But since you are already conveniently positioned, perhaps you would care to descend into the machine and confirm this.”

Edwyn Swiftbow turned as white as a sheet. “Sir, I really don’t think—”

“You’re not paid to think, Swiftbow,” Fallowmark shot back, peering disdainfully at him. “You follow my commands. I am the Chancellor’s Right Hand. To disobey me is treason. Now which is it to be, lad? Enter the machine or swing from the gallows.”

A short time later, several men had climbed up to the giant woman’s face and fastened a length of extra rope around Swiftbow’s waist. They armed him with a torch and a blunderbuss. If he encountered the South Piconoreans Fallowmark believed lurked within, Swiftbow would be ready.

At least in theory. He struggled mightily but the other soldiers fairly tossed him through the crimson gates of the giantess’s lips. They would not be sport for the hangman this day. Holding the other end of the rope, the men began to lower the lieutenant deeper into the massive mouth.

Swiftbow looked around him fearfully, holding up the burning torch to illuminate the area. He felt as though he were spelunking in a large and oppressively humid cave. On each side of him were rows of huge white molars that could rend his body to ribbons. Each tooth was nearly half as tall as he was. At his back was the slippery wet wall of a giant tongue. Below him, the black, cavernous gullet yawned, its slick uvula dancing in the torchlight.

“Fallowmark would stake his life on this beast being mechanical,” he thought to himself. “Yet it’s my life he risks, the blackguard.”

“She’s not a machine!” Swiftbow hollered up to his fellows. “She’s real! Pull me back out!”

“Sorry, mate,” a recruit called down to him. “Better you than me.”

A glob of spittle dripped from the ceiling and onto Swiftbow’s torch, dousing its light. “You can’t do this to me! Hoist the line, damn you!”

By now, Swiftbow was beginning to enter the vast recesses of the throat. The men could barely make out his movements far below. “I’m truly sorry,” one of them called. “Orders are orders. I’ve got a wife and three kids. I can’t be going to the gallows.”

Swiftbow felt his feet touch down on the back of the mammoth gullet. They slipped on the slick saliva coating, causing him to stumble and face-plant onto the flesh of the throat. His hands groped in the darkness as he sought to push himself back onto his feet. This flailing motion caused a ticklish irritation for his enormous hostess. Within moments, a reflexive reaction was triggered and the tremendous walls of muscle began to shift. In one monstrous gulp, the giant woman swallowed Lt. Swiftbow whole and screaming.

The rope was tugged violently from the men’s hands and slipped with Swiftbow into the darkness. They turned in horrified fascination to see the massive throat bulge, marking the passage of their countryman as he vanished into the depths of that colossal body.

“Well,” said Osric Fallowmark from his perch. “That was unfortunate.”

To be continued...

Chapter 2

Vera awoke with a start as she felt something sliding down her throat. Her eyes shot open and then quickly shut again as the harsh sun pierced them. Her head was throbbing and pain wracked her body. Where was she? What had happened? The last thing she remembered was sunbathing on a lounge chair on the cruise ship deck. No…there was more. The memories flooded back. The icy winds had startled her from her nap. The sky had darkened and the crew and passengers were all shouting in terror and confusion. A storm had struck the vessel with incredible speed. Not just a storm—a hurricane. Vera recalled now the eerie lights in the sky, the fifty-mile-an-hour winds, and the huge wall of water that rose up and swept her from the deck. Something had struck her head and she knew no more.

At least she was alive. Vera thanked God for that, even if she was no longer onboard the ship. But why couldn’t she move? Hesitantly, she tried to open her eyes again. Everything was dim and hazy but she swore she could see tiny, dark shapes moving about her body. A ticklish sensation on her skin confirmed this.

“Gross,” she thought. “There’re bugs all over me!” She tried to lift a hand to brush or swat them off but found her arm was bound to the spot. For that matter, so were her legs and feet, and her midsection felt like it was wound up in thin vines or strings. What was going on?

Vera’s vision slowly began to clear and the offending insects came into focus. But they were not insects, at least not any kind she recognized. They had two arms, two legs, and curious little faces. Their heads were pink but their outer shells were colorful and oddly patterned. Almost like…clothes. Vera’s eyes opened wider as, gradually, she accepted the truth.

She was covered in tiny people.

Faced with this revelation, Vera did what any sensible person would do in such a situation. She screamed bloody murder.

“AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!”

The force of the shriek sent the soldiers gathered on her face hurtling in all directions. Some were blown off her chin, tumbling to join their allies on her neck and upper chest. Some fell off the sides of her face, plummeting past her cheek bones and into the sand, where they landed with broken bones and concussions. Two hapless men were thrown straight upward. They hung poised in mid-air for a split second before plunging down into the lady’s wide, still-screaming mouth.

Vera felt the tiny creatures hit her tongue and begin to slide. In her reclined position, the inside of her mouth was practically vertical and gravity was taking the little men straight towards her throat. Disgusted and horrified by this thought, Vera ceased her scream and quickly lifted her tongue. She caught the minuscule shapes and pressed them firmly against the roof of her mouth.

It was an odd sensation, to say the least. Vera could taste the leather of their uniforms, a tang of metal from some sort of body armor, and the salty sweat of their skin. She could feel the little creatures kicking and squirming in primal terror, trying to escape the jaws of a massive predator. She could even hear their shouting as it echoed inside her head.

There were people, tiny impossible people, inside her mouth. This was completely insane!

Pulling against the ropes binding her, Vera was able to turn her head slightly and spit the two little men onto the beach. They landed with a plop beside her face like discarded watermelon seeds.

The ropes at her neck had frayed and snapped when she turned. Encouraged by this, she tried to pull free of the bindings across the rest of her. She struggled and squirmed, causing her body to shift this way and that. She could feel the little men staggering and stumbling all over her skin as their terrain began to lurch back and forth. Some were quickly scurrying down miniature ladders or leaping wildly off her body to escape.

At last, the ropes binding her upper body and arms began to snap. When she had shed enough of them, Vera pressed her hands into the sand and pushed herself up into a sitting position. A few little men still gathered on her torso suddenly felt their world upended. They began to fall or slide off of her with high-pitched shrieks of terror.

Some clung tightly to the fabric of her bikini top, daring not to look at the considerable drop. Vera gasped as she felt a few slide straight down her cleavage, where they were swallowed up utterly. Being fairly busty, Vera was used to occasionally dropping things in there—crumbs, cereal, blueberries, once even her car keys. But tiny men? That was a new one. They tickled like crazy but Vera had to admit it felt kind of nice. She decided to leave them in there for the moment and focused on the others.

Vera reached out and plucked a few little people off the front of her bikini before they could tumble onto the beach. She cradled three little men in her palm and lifted it higher to inspect them. Each miniature creature was about an inch and a half in height. Their skin was pale and Caucasian-like in color and their hair was fair. They wore old-fashioned chain mail and tunics and helmets with odd tassels on top. Vera chuckled at the thought but the teensy men almost looked Scandinavian.

The little men stared up at her in terror as they were brought closer to her face. They were soon cringing and curling into fetal position. Their fear stirred a sudden twinge of guilt in Vera that replaced her confusion and shock at the situation. She suddenly realized how huge and terrifying she must seem to such tiny beings. Vera cooed quietly and made kissy noises at them, as if trying to calm a small, nervous animal.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you!” she whispered, her breath rustling their hair and the horse-tails of their helmets. “My God, you’re real, aren’t you? I’m not imagining this? I can’t believe it. Tiny people. This is completely—ow!”

Vera felt a number of sharp stings on her skin. She looked down to see a number of the miniature soldiers gathered near her on the beach, muskets pointed her way. They fired another volley of almost microscopic bullets. These collided with Vera’s arm and waist but did no more damage than the bites of gnats. Still, it was rather annoying.

She turned their way and bent forward (quite forgetting the stowaways in her cleavage whose world was compressing as she leaned over). Pursing her lips, she blew a sharp breath on the cluster of soldiers, causing them to be thrown backwards and fall sprawling into the sand.

“Hey, knock it off!” she chided them. “Point those pea-shooters somewhere else!”

Satisfied for the moment, Vera turned to freeing her lower body. She lifted one leg and then the other, snapping the ropes that bound them. Tiny soldiers went sliding down the length of her legs or clung desperately to her toes as they were hoisted into the sky. Vera reached down and removed the remaining ropes from her hips and thighs, gradually untangling herself. As she did so, she casually brushed lingering little people from various parts of her.

“All right, everybody off! The Mt. Vera Fun Park is officially closed for business!”

She switched to a cross-legged position, sitting pretzel-style, and set the three “prisoners” from her hand on the ground between her legs. Her body blocked their escape on all sides. Vera did not want these creatures to all simply scurry off. If any of them were capable of speech, she wanted some answers.

As she scanned her person for stragglers, Vera was surprised to find an older gentleman with a bushy mustache clinging to her nipple through the black fabric. As her hand approached, he fearfully clutched it tighter, causing the lady to gasp at the surprisingly stimulating pressure.

“Whoa! Watch the hands, pal,” she said, plucking him off and setting him between her legs with the others. “We’ve only just met.”

She next slipped her hand down her décolletage, finally fishing about for the men who had vanished within. She plucked them one by one from her bosom, adding them to the collection between her legs. One feisty little guy attempted to scurry away from her fingers, wriggling deeper between her breasts and staying a half-step ahead of her grasp. Exasperated, she finally placed a hand on either side of her chest and squeezed inward until the little man was quite trapped. The wind and the fight were knocked out of him and the man was soon added to the burgeoning crowd below.

“People always said I had a knockout figure,” Vera laughed.

The young lady stared curiously at the mass of writhing shapes between her legs. Their tiny eyes stared back up at her, nervous and uncertain.

“Okay, little guys, can you speak?” she asked. “Habla Espanol? Parlez-vous Francais? Sprechen sie Deutsch? I don’t even know what you are. Should I try, I don’t know, Elvish or something? Come on, somebody talk to me!”

* * * *

Lord Fallowmark and a number of his men peered up at the towering giantess with fear. The rest of the soldiers who had been swept from her form were fleeing in terror back to the city. But for some reason, she had kept a few of them prisoner, trapped in the valley created between her crisscrossed legs.

The colossal creature had been barking sounds at them for some time and though at first the sheer volume had forced the men to cover their ears, gradually they were beginning to acclimate. It became clear that these were not the grunts of an incoherent beast. Some of the noises, in fact, sounded like words.

“My lord,” one soldier whispered, “can you hear it? She’s speaking! Those noises…they sound Piconorean!”

“Aye,” said another. “I’m only getting every other word or so. It’s similar to our language but in some bizarre dialect.”

“Impossible,” Fallowmark declared. “She’s not human I tell you! It defies the laws of nature!”

* * * *

Vera watched the tiny men whisper to each other conspiratorially. Eventually, they attempted to call out to her but their squeaky voices were quite difficult to make out.

“We’ll get nowhere at this rate,” Vera sighed. “You’ll have to come closer.”

Gently, she set a hand palm upward next to the crowd of minuscule warriors. When no one dared climb aboard, she simply scooped up a handful of them and lifted them up to her ear.

* * * *

It took a bit of trial and error but Vera and the Piconoreans were soon communicating. The accents and dialects were strange to both parties and here and there were words that the other did not recognize. But as far as Vera could tell, the Piconoreans were speaking English with an older, archaic flavor and an accent that was vaguely Swedish-like. It reminded her of the high school class where she’d been asked to read Beowulf.

“Okay, run that by me again. Slower this time,” she said. Vera was speaking in a stage whisper. Her normal voice’s volume was quite intolerable to the tiny creatures.

“You are in the Grand Republic of North Piconorea,” Osric Fallowmark told her. He stood at the center of her palm, surrounded by the other men she had gathered up. The lady’s delicate ear loomed above them like an awning. “And in the name of Chancellor Brogan, I hereby arrest you, giant! Come quietly and we shall not have to use force!”

Vera couldn’t help but laugh at this. “Oh, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” she giggled. “Look, I’m sorry if I gave you all a scare when I woke up but I assure you, I mean no harm. A girl’s just not used to waking tied up in a strange place. Let’s start over. My name’s Vera Kruscynski. Or ‘Vera Kruz’ if you prefer my stage name. I’m an actress, you see. Anyway, what’s your name?”

Vera shifted her hand in front of her and extended her pinky finger, attempting to “shake hands” with Lord Fallowmark. The miniature nobleman simply pushed it away. Or tried to at least; her little finger had more strength than his whole body.

“I care not who you claim to be,” he snarled, pushing and heaving his body against the finger. It refused to budge. “You are a threat to the Republic and a spy of South Piconorea.”

“A spy? Me?” Vera tried her hardest to keep a straight face as the little man continued to bluster at her and fight with her pinky.

“You will be brought in chains before the chancellor to face his judgment!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she protested. “I can’t meet a chancellor wearing nothing but a skimpy two-piece! I feel so exposed. Sure wish my luggage had washed ashore with me.”

The other soldiers had been peering off the side of her hand, eyeing the gargantuan curves of her form with awe. “This is not your usual method of dress, my lady?” one of them asked.

“Heck, no,” Vera told him. “Though Lord knows I wear enough of these. I’ve been doing some modeling lately. Just until my acting career takes off, mind you.”

“’Mo-del-ing?’” the soldier repeated, sounding out the unknown word.

“I try on different outfits and show them off,” the young woman explained.

“This is your trade? You are paid for this?” asked another soldier. “Truly the giants must be a decadent people to pay coin for the simple donning of garments!”

“Yeah, I guess we are,” Vera admitted. “But who are you calling ‘giant,’ twerp? Everybody’s my size where I come from.”

“Lies! Deception!” Fallowmark bellowed. “You come from South Piconorea, don’t try to deny it! I know not how those barbarous heathens created you. But I know that there is no ‘land of giants!’ The idea is patently absurd! There is nothing beyond Piconorea!”

“Says you, buddy,” Vera said with a smirk. She peered closer at several of the soldiers. “Say, why do you guys keep looking at my stomach and whispering like that?”

“They are no doubt wondering about the fate of their consumed comrade, Lt. Swiftbow,” Fallowmark stated.

Vera’s blood suddenly froze, as she recalled what had awoken her. “Oh, God. Did I…did I swallow one of you when I was unconscious? Why didn’t you mention this sooner?!”

“He was an impertinent instigator, always questioning my orders and my authority,” said Lord Fallowmark. “Swiftbow deserves his fate.”

“Jesus!” Vera cried. She glanced down at her midsection in horror. “There’s a little man inside me? Right now? Ewwww! Oh God, oh God—I—we should —shouldn’t we try to get him out or something?”

“Leave him,” Fallowmark commanded. “He is no use to us.”

In her panicked state, Vera was certain she could sense movement inside her. It was like the feeling of butterflies in her stomach, but this particular butterfly had a name and rank. She couldn’t process this. She had just eaten someone! Her head swam and her stomach lurched.

“Ugh, I…I think I’m going to be sick…”

* * * *

Deep inside the giant woman’s belly, Edwyn Swiftbow fumbled in the darkness. He was waist-deep in a viscous liquid and nearly choking from the foul air. He’d been thrown about violently for a time but now it seemed that his hostess had come to rest.
Swiftbow pulled a small tinderbox from his coat pocket and removed a few chunks of flint. Desperately, he struck them together in an attempt to create a spark and relight his torch. After a few tries, his efforts were rewarded. He lifted the burning brand and looked around him. Swiftbow immediately wished he hadn’t.

He could see now the vastness of the living cavern he was trapped in, the slick, grimy walls of muscle, the sickly greenish slime that sloshed all around him. Floating past him were large half-chewed chunks of whatever the giant had eaten for breakfast. Some of these particles were larger than his whole body. He pulled himself up onto a particularly large island of foodstuff and considered his options. They were few, to say the least.

“Right,” he muttered. “If this is how I go, then I would make it an end to remember! I’ll give this titanic trollop the worst indigestion she’s ever had!” Swiftbow readied his blunderbuss and aimed the gun at the slimy stomach lining. He checked how many rounds were loaded in the weapon. He would have to save one bullet for himself if he wished to avoid a slow, painful demise.

Just then, the cavern began to rumble like thunder. The ground below him shook with violent tremors and the stomach walls churned. Before Swiftbow knew what was happening, there was an explosion of brownish green and he felt himself flung upward into open space.

* * * *

Vera was hunched forward, vomiting violently onto the sand. The thought of a tiny, living creature crawling around her insides was simply too much. She coughed and sputtered, expelling her breakfast and several mimosas she’d sipped on the ship. Sure enough, when she opened her eyes, she saw one of the tiny soldiers lying in the center of the pile of spit-up. With relief, Vera noticed slight movements and twitches in the tiny form.

“Looks like—ohhh, blurgh—it’s your lucky day, little fella,” she said, rubbing her tummy and fighting another wave of nausea. “Hope you were—ugh—the only intruder in there…”

Shaking herself back to her senses, Vera slowly uncurled her legs from around the trapped little people. She pushed against the beach and, woozily, climbed up onto her feet. The young lady now stood at her full height—a mere 5’9” by her standards but at least two hundred and fifty feet to the Piconoreans. The soldiers stood before her huge boulder-like toes, craning their necks back and looking up at the monolithic figure above them. Her body blocked out the sun and her distant face was obscured by the promontory of her chest thrusting outward. The wind whipping at her hair turned it into a shifting cloudbank of brown silk. The tiny soldiers stared, gob-smacked.

“Okay then,” she said, looking down at Swiftbow. “Let’s get your friend here cleaned up and go meet the chancellor. Maybe I can convince him I’m not an enemy agent.”

“Absolutely out of the question!” Lord Fallowmark declared. “You are going nowhere until you are properly chained and in my custody! We can’t have a creature of your size simply wandering the land! Where do you think you’re going? Come back here this instant, giant! I’m not done talking to you!”

Vera walked casually across the beach, holding Swiftbow at arm’s length by a sleeve of his tunic. Behind her, Fallowmark and his men were scurrying to catch up with her enormous strides and trying not to fall into the trenches formed by her footprints.

To be continued...

Chapter 3

Once Swiftbow had been properly washed in a nearby river, Fallowmark sent several squads of soldiers into the city to prepare for Vera’s arrival. The streets were evacuated and a strict curfew was enforced. The people were told only that Lord Fallowmark had captured a monster of the Southlands and was bringing it to the chancellor’s palace to decide its fate.

Nonetheless, rumors had begun to spread. The fisherman who had first spotted Vera had already been telling wild tales. Farmers from the highlands had seen the monster from the tall cliffs. Soldiers who had escaped from Vera had said too much in their hospital beds or while calming their nerves in the local pubs. Many citizens of North Piconorea were pressed against their windows or gathered on rooftops, hoping to get a glimpse of the supposed giantess.

And what a glimpse they received. As Vera stepped carefully over the city wall, the populace caught a collective breath. The people had expected a creature of humanoid shape but not one of such striking beauty or such scandalous attire. Countless little men (and a number of women) gawked in amazement at those magnificent, mountain-like curves, at the acres of creamy bare skin, at the swirling quarter-mile of chestnut hair. Mothers covered the eyes of their children and slapped their husbands back to reality. North Piconorea had been a secular state for many generations but the people could almost believe that a goddess had come among them.

Lord Fallowmark had insisted on accompanying her and stood perched upon a bare shoulder, tied securely to a strand of hair. If he could not bind or command the giantess, he was determined to maintain some element of involvement. Swiftbow, still only half conscious following his ordeal, was cradled in the palm of Vera’s hand.

“Careful now, woman!” Fallowmark insisted. “If you destroy anything or crush any citizens of the North, you will answer to the full force of my army. Count yourself lucky that I am allowing you to move unencumbered.”

“Allowing me,” Vera repeated. “Riiiiight.”

Vera set forth down the tiny road, her bare feet cracking the cobblestones with every step. Her toes left deep depressions worse than any pothole. Each footfall sent a massive tremor through the ground, rattling the buildings and shattering a few windows. Vera tried to take gentle, baby steps but still found that the city was shaken by her sheer weight.

She shifted uncomfortably as she sensed thousands of tiny eyes upon her. She was used to being watched and ogled in her modeling career but never quite like this. On this scale, it was as if her body was being projected on the jumbo screen in Times Square. Vera had never felt so exposed. She hugged her arms about her in a fruitless attempt to cover up.

“God, this is horrible!” she thought to herself. “Leave it to me to get shipwrecked in Tinytown half-naked. Just try not to think about it. Imagine you’re on the catwalk. Strut. Own it, girl! Who cares if your ass is bigger than a house? Who cares if your boobs could crush city hall? You look good! You look—okay, don’t strut. I think I just knocked over that flagpole. And stepped on a fruit stand. And wow, is it me or does that building look kinda wobbly all of a sudden? Jesus, how far is this damn palace?”

As the street wound its way through the city, Vera’s path narrowed at times when the buildings were arranged closer together. She had to turn sideways and wriggle her wide hips between the dollhouse structures. Vera blushed as she thought of the view this was giving to those within the buildings: a gargantuan pelvis or backside brushing past their homes and eclipsing the daylight. Chunks of masonry and statuary broke off the buildings as she squeezed past, tumbling down to the street.

At last, Vera reached the outer walls of the chancellor’s palace and stepped inside the castle grounds. She sat down in a wide green courtyard (accidentally squashing some topiary bushes under her rump). Vera set the still-woozy Swiftbow on her thigh but left Fallowmark where he was, stranded a hundred feet in the air upon her shoulder.

A few moments later, a high-pitched trumpet call was sounded and Chancellor Brogan made his way out onto a balcony of the upper levels. The small, balding, middle-aged man was clad in a long ceremonial robe and carried a tiny scepter with a bright red gem at its peak.

“My Lord Chancellor,” Fallowmark called from his perch. “I bring you the much-rumored monster of the South. I have subdued her…” Vera rolled her eyes at this notion. “…and appealed to her human-like qualities. She wishes to address your most excellent personage.”

Chancellor Brogan stood near the edge of the balcony, openly leering at Vera’s curvaceous, larger-than-life figure. “Fantastic. So like a maid and yet so magnificent in size. What’s that, Fallowmark? Address? You mean the creature can speak?”

Vera scowled once again and tried to cover her chest with her arms. This only succeeded in enhancing her cleavage line, which to Brogan seemed several stories tall. She cleared her throat.

“*Ahem* Yes, your excellency. She can speak.” Brogan jumped backward in fright at the sound of that booming voice but quickly composed himself.

“My name is Vera Kruscinski,” the young woman said. “Please excuse my attire, or lack thereof. I find myself without accoutrements after the recent storm.”

“Extraordinary!” Brogan exclaimed. “She speaks Piconorean. Or at least a debased doggerel form of it. From whence do you hail, giantess?”

“Well, I’m not a weapon from South Piconorea like some people seem to think.” She shot a dirty look at Fallowmark, who withered slightly under the gaze of those huge blue eyes. “I come from a land called America. Chicago, Illinois to be specific. I’m not here to hurt anyone. I was washed ashore after falling off a ship during the storm.”

“I know not this ‘A-mare-ee-cah,’” Brogan replied. “Our explorers have sailed the seas surrounding Piconorea for many centuries and found no trace of other landmasses. We believed all other kingdoms were lost in the Great Deluge of ancient legend.”

“To be honest,” Vera admitted, “my people have never heard of Piconorea either. You must be very well hidden. Or perhaps we’re even in different planes of reality.”

“Planes of what now?” the chancellor repeated.

“I’m in a foreign world surrounded by inch-tall people,” said Vera. “I’m willing to believe anything at this point.”

“Ah, yes, I see,” chuckled Brogan. “Intriguing notion. Very droll.”

“My lord, you cannot believe this spurious heresy!” Fallowmark shouted, almost toppling from the shoulder. “This beast was sent from the South to destroy us all!”

“Nonsense, Fallowmark!” Brogan countered. “If this charming young lady wished to destroy us, she could have done so with ease already. She seems quite amiable to me.”

“Merely lulling us into a false sense of security, my lord,” said Osric Fallowmark. “In my opinion, she should be sentenced to death at once!”

Vera turned an icy glance on Fallowmark again. “You’re a real sweetheart, you know that, Ozzy?”

“Ozzy!” the chancellor laughed. “Oh, that’s rich! I like you, giant! As long as no harm comes to my people, you are welcome in the Northlands.”

Fallowmark could hardly believe his ears. “But, your excellency—” he began.

“I would hear more of this ‘A-mare-ee-cah,’ Lady Vera,” said Brogan. “Fortuitous that we can communicate, eh? I wonder how it is that you speak our language.”

“Don’t know,” Vera answered. “I thought you were speaking mine.”

“Perhaps it’s the tongue of the goddess,” a voice called. Everyone turned to see that Lt. Swiftbow had regained consciousness and had been listening in.

“Superstitious madness!” Fallowmark bellowed at him.

“Forgive me, ‘sir.’” Swiftbow could hardly disguise his contempt. “But isn’t it plausible that someone from the giant’s world visited our ancestors and taught them this language? Could not that be the source of the goddess legends of the South?”

“Hey, yeah!” Vera cried. “That actually makes sense. I was wondering why you guys all looked like tiny Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. You’re Lt. Swiftbow, right? Er, sorry for, you know…swallowing you alive and stuff.”

“I’ll live,” said the lieutenant, shivering at the memory. “Incidentally, you look much better on the outside.”

“Well, one does.”

Brogan was in awe. “You survived a journey to the giant’s belly and returned to tell of it? Fallowmark, this man is to be commended!”

The commander was beside himself with rage. He sat in a huff upon Vera’s shoulder, wringing a strand of hair in his fists.

“Lady Vera, you are by far the most astonishing visitor this nation has ever received.” Brogan told her, “We shall hold a feast and revel in your honor! Now, my dear, please bring Lord Fallowmark to me. I would speak with him.”

Vera untangled the little man from her hair and scooped him up. She pinched the dejected commander between two fingers and lifted him up onto the balcony. Vera then returned to talking with Swiftbow.

Chancellor Brogan placed a hand around Fallowmark’s shoulder, ushering him into the palace. “You have done well, Osric. If this creature truly desires friendship, she will be a powerful ally. A most devastating weapon for the war.”

“Yes, your excellency.”

* * * *

True to his word, Chancellor Brogan commissioned an elaborate celebration that evening. Vera remained seated in the palace courtyard as tiny men, women, and children gathered and frolicked all around her. Musicians, dancers, and jugglers were brought in as entertainment. Some of the more daring ones climbed up ladders to perform in Vera’s lap. Tiny couples danced a charming folk dance upon Vera’s thighs and tumblers did a series of flips up and down the length of her legs. One particularly nimble jester stood upon her upturned foot, leaping dexterously from toe to toe.

“Watch, my lord, as I master this footpath!” he called to the chancellor. The man successfully traversed one foot and was leaping onto the other when Vera mischievously spread her toes. The jester fell face-first into the gap between them. Vera lightly squeezed her toes together, trapping him.

“Oof, well played, my lady,” he said with some effort. “It appears I must stay on my toes to stay on yours!”

The royal chefs had prepared a banquet and dozens of servers brought steaming dishes out to a series of tables set up along the sides of Vera’s legs. There the people gathered and feasted. For the giantess herself, the chancellor had spared no expense. Wooden carts were brought in by teams of miniature horses. Each of these was piled high with food—apples, pears, and plums from the city orchards; carrots, cabbages, pumpkins, and squash from the surrounding farms; whole oxen and cows freshly slaughtered and cooked for the feast; nets of fish caught off the coast of the island; and numerous barrels of Piconorea’s finest beers and wines.

Vera had not eaten since before the storm and she was positively famished. She gratefully scooped up each cart and wagon, lifting them in turn to her lips and dumping their bounty into her mouth. The meat she chewed and munched on but many of the fruits and vegetables were so minute that she simply swallowed them whole. She sipped and slurped up the contents of the barrels, though the amount in each was negligible. Vera felt as though she were drinking from thimbles.

In her hunger and her haste, Vera became a bit careless. As the next cart of fruit was wheeled in, she snatched it up greedily, forgetting to wait until the horses were detached and the farmer was able to disembark. The pack animals dangled from the reins a few inches below her hand, neighing in alarm. As for the fruit farmer, he found himself tumbling with his crops into the gaping maw of the giantess.

The tiny man plummeted past her front teeth and landed on the wide, slippery plane of her tongue. He was nearly buried in an avalanche of apples and pears. The huge wet muscle soon shifted, pushing the fruit and their harvester between her massive teeth. With a yelp, the man rolled to the side and back onto the tongue, barely avoiding the crushing weight of the descending molars. Juice and fruit mush squirted from each huge bite, spraying the farmer’s clothes. At last, the tongue began to lift to the roof of the cavernous mouth as Vera prepared to swallow down the remainder. The little man started to slide, inching his way towards the dark gorge of her throat. He screamed in abject horror.

The whole time, the people seated in the shadow of Vera’s hips had been shouting at her in a panic. Desperately, they tried to get the giant’s attention but their squeaky voices were hard to discern. At last, Vera glanced down and saw the agitated little people. She quickly coughed up what was in her mouth, spitting it into her hand.

Vera stared at the tiny, shivering farmer, mortified. “Oops. Uh, sorry. I need to watch that. You little guys are bite-size! Right, Swiftbow?”

Seated at the table below her left hip, Edwyn Swiftbow was not amused. He growled slightly and glared up at the giant.

“A little caution please, my lady,” Chancellor Brogan said, walking towards her. “I don’t believe anyone else cares to tour your interior facilities. Unless they’re quite scenic. What say you, Swiftbow?”

The lieutenant growled again and mumbled something inaudible.

Quickly, Vera returned the farmer to earth, watching as he scurried away in terror. She wiped her hand off on the grass. When Brogan beckoned to her, she placed her other hand palm upward beside him. The chancellor gratefully climbed aboard.

“I hope the feast is sufficient, my dear. We value your friendship and would not wish to displease.”

“It’s wonderful,” Vera answered. “But you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to go on a rampage and destroy the city if the veal is overcooked or something.”

“Indeed,” said the little nobleman. “You are no uncouth barbarian of the South, whatever Fallowmark believes.”

Vera frowned. “Why do you hate them so much, the South Piconoreans?”

“The North and the South are ever on the verge of war. The Southrons are primitive pagans,” the chancellor told her, “backwards heathens still in thrall to the idiocy of religion and superstition. We have evolved far beyond such things in the North.”

“Well, sure,” said Vera. “But what have they actually done to you? Did they attack you?”

“Not yet, thankfully,” Brogan replied. “But we are ever watchful.”

“Are they trying to force their religion on you?”

“Ha!” Brogan laughed. “As if they could!”

“Did they take something from you or invade your territory?”

Brogan was at a loss. “Er…not as such.”

“Then, really, what’s the harm if they believe in a goddess and you don’t?” Vera said.

“It’s delusional and insane!” the chancellor announced. “Piconorea should be liberated from the yoke of religious dogma!”

“But if it’s not hurting anyone, I don’t see what the big deal is,” Vera argued.

“This A-mare-ee-cah of yours,” the tiny ruler began, “do they still cling to the skirts of religion?”

“Some people do, yeah,” said Vera. “We have a few different faiths actually. But our government allows for freedom of religion. One is not favored over another. You can also choose not to believe in any of them.”

“I see,” the chancellor said. “And does this work for you? The giants live in harmony?”

“Well…not always. It can be a bit of a mess when not everyone agrees on an issue. And the churches tend to get involved in politics much more than they should.”

“Ha ha! You see!” Brogan exclaimed, pointing a tiny finger. “Religion is a millstone on the neck of the world! It should be cast off! It should be obliterated! Only then shall mankind be free!”

“I suppose,” Vera said, hesitantly. “But good things can come from religion too. The extremists just ruin things for everyone else.”

But Brogan was hardly listening, still continuing his tirade. “It will take a strong hand to lead those Southern savages out of ignorance and into enlightenment. I only wish there was a clear way we could show our superior might. A powerful weapon perhaps.”

He stared pointedly at Vera, who ignored the implication and changed the subject.

“You know, I still feel embarrassed to be dressed like this. All the goods on display, as it were. Do you have clothing stores or tailors in this city?” she asked, flashing a smile. “I don’t suppose you know a place that sells anything in a Size One Million?”

To be continued...

Chapter 4

Vera spent that night in the palace courtyard. The ground was rough and uneven but she was quite weary from all her experiences. Sleep took her far more quickly than she expected in such a strange place. Unfortunately for the Piconoreans, Vera had never been an easy sleeper.

She snored terribly, for one thing, and the sound reverberated and echoed throughout the city. The windows of many homes were rattled by the racket. Vera also tended to toss and turn as she slept. Each time she shifted position, the ground rumbled below her, sending tremors throughout the area. She frequently rolled onto her side, causing her gargantuan body to slam against the courtyard wall or the battlements of the castle. On the outer wall, the night watchmen fought to maintain their balance. Inside the palace, the huge vibrations shook rooms and threw people from their beds. Plaster and stonework rained from the ceilings. Fine china and wall art fell to the floor and shattered.

The citizens of North Piconorea may have known that the giantess was not hostile, but they certainly didn’t sleep well that night.

* * * *

The following day, Vera sat once again in the courtyard with the chancellor in her hand. He was asking her many questions about the lands and culture of “A-mare-ee-cah.” Below her, Lord Fallowmark and a squadron of soldiers stood prepared to assault the giantess if she harmed their glorious leader.

“Horseless chariots of metal! Towers of glass!” Brogan exclaimed, after Vera had described her world. “Moving images that speak and tell stories! Flying metal birds carrying people in their bellies! Truly, Lady Vera, the giants are a society of wonder-workers!”

“We kind of take it all for granted,” she said. “But yeah, I guess we’ve created some pretty amazing stuff.”

“Such incredible inventions!” Brogan continued. “Perhaps, in time, we can have such devices in North Piconorea. We have always believed in the march of industry and science. And just think of the unfettered progress once we eradicate religion and irrational superstition.”

“Er, right,” Vera humored him uneasily. “Look, we’ve been at this for hours. You know a lot about my world but I’ve hardly seen any of yours. Until we figure out how to get me home, I may be stuck here for a while. I can’t stay cooped up in this courtyard the whole time.”

“A regrettable necessity, my lady,” said the chancellor. “It is far too dangerous for you to wander about.”

“Oh, come on!” she pleaded. “I’ll be careful! I promise I won’t hurt anyone. My brother used to have gerbils when we were kids and I almost never stepped on them!”

Brogan gulped nervously. “Er, almost?”

Vera giggled. “Relax, I’m just joshin’ ya,” she said. “We actually had a dog.”

“Ah. I see.” Brogan wiped his brow.

“A tiny Chihuahua that I accidentally sat on.”

“What?!”

“Kidding!” Vera said, bursting into laughter. “Oh wow, you should see your face!”

“Well,” Brogan sighed, “I suppose it’s wrong to keep you prisoner here. If we were to warn the populace in advance—”

“Great idea!” Vera cried. She placed a hand on the wall of the courtyard and twisted around to face the street. Placing her free hand beside her mouth, she called out to the city. “Attention, tiny people of Piconorea! I’d like to go for a walk and stretch my legs! Please clear the streets for your own protection! Thanks! You guys are the best!”

The chancellor had been forced to cover his ears when Vera raised her voice to its full volume. They were still ringing when he released them. “I, uh, that was not exactly the type of warning I had in mind, my lady,” he muttered.

But Vera was already standing up and preparing to step over the courtyard wall. She lifted Brogan to her shoulder and gathered up a few strands of hair to secure him.

“Here, tie these around your waist,” she said. “You can come with me and continue our chat.”

“My lord chancellor, I must protest!” Fallowmark squeaked from the ground far below. “The giant cannot be allowed loose! We would have to evacuate the streets! And I certainly will not allow her to carry you off like a mere trinket!”

“If you’re so worried, Ozzy, you can come too.” Vera stooped down (giving the soldiers quite a view of her monumental chest and multi-story cleavage) and grabbed Fallowmark by the collar of his uniform. As she bent forward, Brogan slipped from her shoulder and dangled on the end of the strand he’d been tied to. He swung loosely before her like a bead or ornament that had been threaded into her hair.

“Yipe!” the chancellor exclaimed, clinging more tightly to his silken lifeline.

“Whoops,” she said, scooping him back up and returning him to her shoulder. “Guess I’d better keep the terrain more level for you guys.”

As the little commander bellowed angrily, she set Fallowmark on her other shoulder and tied him securely in place. Satisfied, Vera stepped over the wall.

* * * *

Vera was once again wandering the streets of the capital city. She had forced herself to get over the embarrassment of her skimpy clothing. It was an unavoidable reality. There was not enough fabric in Piconorea to craft even a simple garment for her. Not unless they had a circus with a spare tent or two. She would have to resign herself to being an exhibitionist. In truth, Vera was beginning to find it kind of sexy to parade half-naked among these tiny creatures, shameless and statuesque in her goddess-like glory.

“Now, now,” she thought, “don’t let it go to your head. You’re not a god, just a girl. Man, this is starting to be fun though!”

The people who lived closest to the palace had heeded her warning and fled the streets, returning to their homes and shops. But those in the outer boroughs had not heard Vera’s request clearly. Her voice had seemed only a distant boom, a deep rolling thunder far away. Thus, as Vera walked further into the city, there were still numerous tiny citizens milling about the streets. They ran fearfully as those gigantic bare feet plodded down the road, cracking the pavement and crashing to earth dangerously close to them. The city was shaken by tremors and quakes, throwing many people momentarily to the ground. As the giant woman’s immense shadow covered them, they leaped back onto their feet and darted away in terror.

Vera took cautious little steps, scanning the ground and watching the Piconoreans scurry for their lives. As she walked close behind them, she tried not to let anyone end up underfoot. A few times, the crowd’s miniature strides were too slow and a group of them would be gathered directly in her path. At these intervals, Vera simply paused with a foot poised in the air above them, waiting until they finished their escape. Dirt, pebbles, and bits of pavement that had adhered to the bottom of her foot shook loose and rained down upon their heads. The people shielded themselves and sprinted away from the canopy of flesh overhead.

Vera couldn’t help but giggle at this scene. She felt like she was in a Godzilla movie. The young lady bent her fingers into claws and curled her lip, letting loose a monster-like snarl.

“RAAARRR!”

The tiny, fleeing people quickened their pace. Vera stifled a laugh and snorted, feeling ridiculous. “Aww, I’m just teasing you guys! Come on, don’t run away!”

“It’s pandemonium down there!” declared Fallowmark. “Cease this madness!”

“My lady, this is not wise. I, um, command you to desist!” Chancellor Brogan said. Despite his bravado, he clung tightly to her hair and pressed himself against Vera’s neck, daring not to look down from the towering height.

Vera saw a tiny woman hurrying down the road mere inches in front of her right foot. “Hmm, maybe that’s what I need—some girl talk,” she thought to herself. “I could use a break from these puffed up self-important little men.”

She considered reaching down to scoop up the miniature lady but feared toppling her passengers from her shoulders again. Instead, Vera lifted her foot and extended it towards the tiny figure. Carefully, she clamped her big and second toe around the inch-high woman, who was completely dwarfed by these digits.

Vera still couldn’t get over the size difference. The smallest extremities of her body were larger than the Piconoreans were. And the more…pulchritudinous parts of her seemed like hills or mountains. It was enough to go to anyone’s head but she tried to check her excitement and remain careful.

Vera lifted her foot, feeling the tiny woman squirm and fight against her toes. But their strength was simply too great and already the lady had been lifted too high to jump free. Vera reached down and plucked the woman from between her toes like a piece of lint. She brought the wriggling creature level with her face.

“Hi,” she said in her stage whisper. “Sorry if I startled you. My name’s Vera. What’s yours?”

The minuscule girl stared up at her in shock and suddenly fainted dead away. The little lady hung limp between Vera’s fingers.

“Oh, God. I’ve killed her!” Vera exclaimed. She held the ragdoll-like form up to her ear and listened. “Thank goodness. She’s still breathing.”

“You will leave these people in peace!” Fallowmark demanded. Vera ignored him. She placed the lady back between her toes and repeated the maneuver, gently lowering the woman back to the ground.

On a nearby rooftop, she found a cluster of young Piconoreans gathered to watch the giant in their midst. Most were teenagers or young men in their twenties. They whooped and hollered and cat-called at her in their squeaky voices. Vera stopped before the building, looming over the group.

“Hey, boys,” she said softly, careful not to blow them off the roof with her breath. “Aren’t you scared of me?”

“Are you kidding?” one said. “You’re amazing! Sexiest damn monster I ever saw!”

“If this is what all Southern war machines look like, I welcome our new masters,” said another.

“Oh, I’m not actually a war machine,” she said. “Just ask the chancellor.” The youths were astonished to see the leader of their nation perched upon the giantess’s shoulder. Brogan gave a weak wave and clung tighter to her hair.

“Hey, baby!” a third man called. “Show us those king-size bosoms of yours!”

Vera scowled. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, young man.”

“Aw, come on,” the youngster continued. “They’re halfway out already! Shake those mountains, girly!” He wiggled his torso like an exotic dancer to the laughter and delight of his friends. Vera arched an eyebrow in annoyance.

“Where I come from, a gentleman treats a lady with respect and at the very least takes her out for dinner a few times before any of that nonsense.” She reached down and plucked the inch-and-a-half-tall man off the roof, holding him tight between thumb and forefinger.

Vera lifted the man above her head and dangled him over her lips. “So what do you say, honey?” she said, her hot breath rolling over him. “Dinner first? Or at least a light snack?” She opened her mouth wide and began lowering him towards the gaping chasm. The tiny man gave a shrill shriek and began fighting against her fingers. Vera’s massive tongue slid out of her lips and started to lap at the man’s kicking legs. She slurped off one of his shoes and let it slide down her tongue into the darkness.

“Madam!” Fallowmark bellowed from her shoulder. “Release that citizen at once!”

Vera smiled deviously. “If you insist, Ozzy.” She opened her fingers and let the Piconorean drop into her mouth. As he skidded over her tongue, Vera closed her lips and sealed the youngster in darkness. Her tongue tossed his tiny shrieking form roughly around her mouth, coating him in a layer of saliva and causing him to collide against her teeth. Vera was careful not to swallow for the man was hardly bigger than a breath mint.

Fallowmark was absolutely livid. “That was not remotely what I meant and you know it, giant! Spit him out this instant!”

Reluctantly, Vera spat the man into her palm and brought it back to the building. She abruptly flipped her hand, causing him to fall a short distance onto the roof. His friends backed away cautiously, no longer amused by the giantess.

“There will be no further shenanigans of that nature!” Fallowmark told her.

“Oh, lighten up,” Vera said. “I was just playing with him. Wish I could do that to every sexist pig back home.”

“You are completely out of control!” Fallowmark shot back.

Vera was greatly offended by this. “Out of control? I am very much in control! I’m being super-careful! Have I killed anyone or destroyed anything yet? No!”

“The roadway has seen better days,” Brogan said, looking backward over Vera’s shoulder. Gigantic footprints had caused the streets to sink and crumble in her path.

“This is intolerable!” Fallowmark continued. “I order you to return to the palace, you titanic twit!”

Vera scowled and turned her head to face him. “I don’t appreciate being called names, Osric. You’ve got a lot of cheek for a man the size of my little toe. Let’s not forget what a two-hundred-foot woman could do to a speck like you.” Fallowmark paled, cringing slightly on her shoulder.

“Thank your lucky freakin’ stars that I’m a nice person,” Vera informed him, poking him in the belly with a huge fingertip. “Things could have gone very differently for you.”

“I…I retract my earlier statement,” the tiny commander said with hesitance.

“Good,” Vera answered. “But you still need a time out, little man.” With startling swiftness, she reached up and untangled Fallowmark from her hair. Before the nobleman knew what was happening, she had thrust him deep into the valley of her cleavage. The minuscule man vanished completely in her prodigious curves, leaving not a trace.

Brogan was left speechless by this turn of events. He was having serious misgivings about whether his new “weapon” could truly be controlled.

* * * *

With Fallowmark no longer aggravating her, Vera continued her exploration of Piconorea. She reached the edge of the city and stepped over the defensive wall. The lady then proceeded into the wide open countryside. Vera found it quite refreshing to be able to stretch and move more freely without the buildings all around her and the citizenry underfoot.

The area surrounding the city was mostly farmlands with a few scattered towns. Vera kept her distance from the tiny farmhouses and well-tilled fields, not wishing to endanger anyone or disturb their work. She watched the people of North Piconorea go about their day like industrious ants. Many were still cleaning up from the recent hurricane, clearing debris and rebuilding their homes. Others were hard at work in miniature factories or on their way to institutions of higher learning.

Vera knelt beside one of the small buildings and held her eye close to a window. Inside, she saw teams of researchers lost in study. Some were poring over maps and charts or studying illustrations of the stars. Some were scribbling mathematical formulas on a chalkboard, debating animatedly with their colleagues. A team of inventors was tinkering with strange devices. As a jet of air burst out of an odd machine, Vera realized that they were working on steam power. Brogan had been serious about the North’s dedication to industry and science.

“Our finest minds at work,” the chancellor said. “Mostly they create weapons for me. Er, purely defensive, I assure you! Best to be prepared, after all. We’re seeing new innovations every day!”

The researchers were puzzled as the room became darker. They turned to see an enormous blue eye completely filling the window. Those closest to the wall could even see their reflections in the membrane of the eye. After being momentarily startled by this, they flocked to the window and called out to the giantess.

“Lady Vera! How good of you to visit!”

“We were just debating about how a being of your dimensions could exist without breaking the laws of physics or collapsing under such extraordinary weight!”

“Gee, thanks,” she said, sarcastically. “And here I thought my diet was working. You guys do wonders for a girl’s self-image.”

“You must let us study you or allow us to take a few tissue samples!” the scientists called. They brandished miniature scalpels and archaic-looking syringes.

“Uh…maybe later,” said Vera, backing away from the building.

As the noonday sun rose into the sky, Vera felt a bit hungry. She looked around for a snack and settled on a lone apple tree. After making sure Brogan was secure, the young woman knelt down and uprooted the tree from the ground. She shook it over her open hand, trying to catch as many of the apples as possible (and ensuring that no apple harvesters were climbing in the branches. The incident at the banquet was still fresh in her memory). When only a few infinitesimal apples fell loose, Vera shrugged and brought her hand up to her mouth. She munched on the entire tree at once, biting off the top like a piece of broccoli. She repeated this with several more trees until her appetite was somewhat sated.

Vera set Brogan on the ground beside her and knelt before a small, bubbling river. She lowered her face until her lips touched the water and started to drink. Gallons upon gallons of fresh water (not to mention a number of tiny, unnoticed fish and frogs) were sucked through Vera’s lips and down her thirsty gullet. She stopped herself, fearing to drink the entire riverbed dry.

Vera scooped up Brogan again and continued her journey. Her giant strides allowed her to cover many Piconorean miles in only a few minutes and soon, she found herself in the vast tracts of wilderness. Dark forests were on either side of her like lines of untended shrubbery. A wide mountain range was just up ahead. Some of the mountains were only as tall as Vera was.

“My lady!” the chancellor cried in alarm. “We must turn back!”

“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked.

“These mountains form the border between North and South Piconorea,” he explained. “We are approaching enemy territory!”

“Fine with me,” said Vera. “I want to see these South Piconoreans that you seem to find so evil and barbarous.”

“I cannot cross the mountains,” Brogan insisted. “As leader of the North, I would be shot on sight or captured and ransomed. But I would not wish for such a refined lady as yourself to go unescorted into hostile lands.”

“I won’t be completely unescorted. I’ve got my little ‘bosom buddy’ with me.” Vera patted her chest where Fallowmark was imprisoned deep within.

“Very well,” Chancellor Brogan told her as she set him on the ground. “But exercise caution. Those heathens cannot be trusted!”

“I think I can take care of myself,” Vera said with a smirk. She reached up, took hold of a mountainside, and lifted a leg over it as if jumping a fence. With a hop, she hoisted herself over to the other side.

To be continued...

Chapter 5

At first glance, South Piconorea resembled the North to a great extent. Vera saw miniature towns and farmlands and a landscape much like the one she had just explored. Yet here and there, small differences could be seen.

The most striking of these were the many statues that lined the road or stood like great obelisks among the wilderness. The statues appeared to be holy idols carved in the shape of the Southern goddess. More than ever, Vera began to believe Lt. Swiftbow’s theory, for the image of the goddess resembled a Saxon princess or warrior woman of ancient history. She was beautiful with long, fair hair bound into braids. Valkyrie-like armor covered her breasts and a helmet was on her head. She wore pauldrons and greaves and other archaic protection. A sword was clutched in her hand and her face was grave. Most of the statues were quite large by Piconorean standards, though the biggest only came up to Vera’s shin.

Taking a deep breath, she approached one of the villages and prepared to make contact. To her surprise, a crowd of tiny people was already waiting for her.

“She’s come! She’s here!” they cried. A great cheer arose and the people flocked to Vera’s feet. They gathered around her, bowing low. Vera held very still, afraid she might step on someone if she shifted position.

“Um…hello,” she said, staring down at the minuscule faces. “Were you expecting me?”

The crowd parted, allowing a young woman to step forward. The inch-tall lady was dressed in a long red robe. A hood covered her head and a trailing cloak dragged behind her. The woman approached Vera’s feet, undaunted by their sheer size or the massive, boulder-like toes that dwarfed her tiny form. She put her hands together in a sign of prayer. The people bowed their heads and muttered something. Then the lady looked up and beckoned to the giantess.

Vera carefully stooped down and set her open hand beside the woman. The tiny lady stepped into it and ascended. She was lifted up until she was level with Vera’s face. The woman cast off her hood, revealing long, luxurious blonde hair. It was difficult for Vera to see her clearly but the lady appeared to be quite beautiful.

“Greetings, Honored One,” she said. Her accent was similar to that of the North but with a slight variation of longer, more pronounced vowels. “I am Regan, High Priestess and Royal Advisor to Queen Elfwina. Welcome to the sacred Southlands.” She moved her arms in a circle, offering a blessing. “Your coming was foretold to us.”

“Foretold?” Vera repeated. “You mean, like, a prophecy or something?”

Regan smiled. “Nothing so grand, I’m afraid. Our scouts brought news from the North of Your arrival.”

“Ah.”

“We knew that You would not remain in those sinful lands for very long,” Regan continued. “Our beloved Goddess was certain to return to Her chosen people.”

“Goddess? Now, hold on a minute,” Vera exclaimed. “Who said anything about me being a goddess?”

Regan frowned. “Surely, You must be She who is spoken of in our stories and scripture. You have Her magnificent stature and breathtaking beauty. Your hair and complexion are darker than the stories claim but we assumed You took new form to walk among us. No doubt that is why You are clad like a newborn babe. This avatar is newly emerged into the mortal world, yes?”

“Sorry, sweetie,” Vera said. “I hate to break it to you but—”

“This is your natural form?” Regan cried in alarm. She instantly threw herself onto her knees in the center of Vera’s palm, bowing low with arms outstretched. “Then our idols and holy texts are mistaken! Forgive us this transgression, my Goddess! Please spare our insignificant lives!”

On the plain below, the people could not hear Regan’s words but they saw her sudden act of supplication. At once, the crowd dropped to their knees and bowed to Vera as well.

“Stop that!” Vera commanded. “I’m not your goddess! I’m just a regular person like you!” She glanced down at her towering physique and the sea of people no bigger than her toes. “Well, maybe not entirely like you…”

“I see,” Regan said, rising to her feet again. The people did likewise. “You are one of Her sacred messengers! A demi-goddess sent from the heavens!”

“What? No, I—” Vera began.

“You shall be held in high esteem here in South Piconorea!” continued Regan. “All hail…uh…your pardon, Honored One, but what are you to be called?”

“My name is Vera.”

“All hail Honored Vera, Emissary of She-Who-Is-All!”

The people repeated this call, finally picking out words as Regan shouted in joy. A chorus of squeaky voices sang Vera’s praises below.

“All hail Honored Vera! All hail Honored Vera!”

“Stop!” Vera protested. “I’m not an emissary or a demi-goddess or—oh, what’s the use? All hail me. Whoopty-doo.” She made a half-hearted flourish with her other hand. “Guess I shouldn’t complain. This is certainly a warmer reception than Fallowmark and his army gave me.”

* * * *

Vera had quite forgotten about Osric Fallowmark, entombed deep within her ample chest. The commander was well and truly trapped. The huge, fleshy walls held him tight in a vice-like grip. They were far too tall and slippery for Fallowmark to climb back out. From top to bottom, her cleavage had to be twenty or thirty feet tall and he was wedged far down at the base of it with no hope of escape.

As she crossed the mountains and explored the South, Vera’s bosom had bounced and jiggled slightly with her movements. Fallowmark was thrown violently this way and that, colliding with the fleshy barriers on either side. Each time she spoke, he was shaken by powerful vibrations and each time she took a deep breath, he feared he would be squashed like a grape by the contracting walls.

“I will not forget this indignity, giant!” he thought to himself. “You will rue this day!”

There was a sudden lurch and the walls once again closed in around him, squeezing his body mercilessly. Fallowmark groaned.

* * * *

As she was ushered into the village, Vera was astonished to find that another feast had been prepared for her. She was rather grateful, for her light lunch of apple trees had not been very satisfying. Unlike the North Piconoreans, the citizens of the South did not bring the food in via cart or wagon. Everything was piled high already in a corner, prepared for Vera’s arrival. A massive wooden scaffolding towered in the air nearby and Regan requested for the giantess to be seated beside it.

“What’s this thing?” Vera asked. There were miniature ladders on either side of the construct and a wide platform at the top. It extended outward a few inches (or feet to the little people), almost like a diving board. When she sat beside the device, she found that her head was just below the platform. Vera felt her blood turn to ice.

“I sincerely hope this is not for…human sacrifice or something like that,” she said.

In the palm of Vera’s hand, Regan paled in horror. “Certainly not, O Honored One! We would never dishonor the Goddess with such a practice.”

She knelt down on the edge of Vera’s hand and motioned to one of her priests. The tiny robed man was leading a line of scruffy-looking criminals in chains and manacles towards the scaffolding. Regan shook her head and waved him off with a hurried gesture. The priest’s eyes went wide and he quickly led the prisoners back to the village jail.

“Riiiiight,” Vera said, watching them scurry off.

“An emissary of the Goddess should be pampered and waited upon like the sacred treasure that she is,” Regan explained. “Sit below the platform and the people shall feed you the feast we have prepared.”

Vera did just that, setting Regan on the ground beside her. One by one, the tiny citizens climbed up a ladder with baskets of food. They formed a line atop the scaffolding and waited patiently. Shrugging slightly, Vera tilted her head back and opened her mouth. The people tipped their baskets over and dumped fruits, vegetables, meats, and breads into the cavernous jaws. Each basket contained very little so Vera allowed the items to accumulate on her tongue in small piles. When she felt she had enough, she closed her lips and began chewing. After making their offering, the people descended down the other ladder. Vera swallowed her mouthful and the process repeated.

One man paused on the edge of the platform, trembling nervously. He leaned forward and peered into the vast recesses of the giant woman’s mouth. He stared in horrified fascination at the huge, writhing tongue as big as a whale, the sharp rows of stalactite teeth, and the wiry strands of spittle that stretched from floor to ceiling. Beyond this was only darkness and mystery. What secrets were contained in that black abyss? Vera exhaled slowly and her steaming breath wafted up and surrounded the man like a cloud.

The scouts had described the giantess of course but the man could hardly have imagined her incredible size, beauty, and majesty. Compared to this exquisite being, he was nothing. Less than nothing. She could swallow him whole in one gulp and hardly even notice. The man was suddenly filled with a swell of religious fervor. His life had no meaning, save only in servitude to the Goddess.

With a yelp, the man threw himself from the platform. He plummeted headfirst into Vera’s enormous mouth.

“Take me, Honored Vera!” he shrieked, his voice echoing in the organic cavern. “I die to please She-Who-Is-All!”

The little peasant hurtled past Vera’s teeth and tongue at breakneck speed and plunged into her throat. Vera’s head lurched upright and she began to gag. She could feel him in there, a tiny squirming presence within her gullet. She fought against her natural instinct to swallow. It would only take a quick gulp to clear her air passage and be able to breathe again. But this was a living thing, a sentient person inside her! How could she live with herself? Could she save him, like she had Swiftbow?

Vera felt her throat muscles clamp around the tiny man and he slipped a bit further down. She choked and wheezed, trying to bring him back up. With a massive and determined hack, she finally projected him upward and out into her hand.

“Are you insane?!” she screamed at him. The other Piconoreans shielded their ears. Vera looked scornfully at the tiny, wet, cowering form in the center of her palm. The number of times these little beings had ended up inside her mouth was becoming ludicrous.

“I said no human sacrifice! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Regan ran up beside her, barely visible below the lofty wall of Vera’s thigh. “Forgive us, my lady! This zealot does not act for us all! Please place him down here! Guards! Take this heretic to the jail to be flogged!”

“What? No!” Vera protested. “Don’t hurt him! I nearly choked to death trying to save him!”

The man lay prostrate in Vera’s hand, bowing before her. “Oh please hurt me, Honored Vera! I have led a sinful life! I deserve to be punished!”

“Shut up, you!” Vera spat at him. “You’re not helping your case here!”

“Madness has claimed him!” Regan exclaimed. “Surely, he does not know what he is saying!”

“I have never thought more clearly in my life!” the man yelled. “Squash me, Honored One! Devour me whole! I would die for the Goddess!”

“As would I!” someone yelled from the scaffolding.

“And I!” said another.

“We are yours! Take our worthless lives!”

“Crush us with thy celestial body!”

Exasperated, Vera set the suicide jumper down on the ground and lightly flicked him in the head with her finger.

“Ow!”

“There. You’re punished,” she declared. Vera turned to angrily face the crowd. “Listen to me, all of you! Let’s get one thing straight. There will be no sacrifices! No one is getting eaten, stepped on, sat on, or whatever other sick thing you want me to do to you! If there’s any more nonsense like that, um…the Goddess will be severely displeased! She wants you all to live full and happy lives. Got it?”

The crowd murmured their assent. “Yes, my lady!” “We hear you!” “Her will be done!”

Vera sighed wearily. “I think I’ve had enough food for now. I mean offerings. Whatever.”

As the people climbed back down the ladders, a small muffled voice was heard coming from the vicinity of Vera’s chest.

“Let me out of here! I have had enough! Release me, blast you!”

The Piconoreans stared curiously at the source of this noise. Vera blushed a deep crimson and tried once again to cover herself. But hugging her arms about her only succeeded in squeezing Fallowmark even tighter, causing further shrieks and angry cries from the depths of her cleavage. Vera released, fearing she might pop him like a pimple.

Priestess Regan touched the giantess’s leg inquisitively. “Er, my lady, it appears that your divine figure is speaking to us. Is this customary for demi-goddesses?”

“Not really,” Vera said. “I forgot about this guy.” She reached down into her cleavage with two fingers and extracted Lord Fallowmark. The little nobleman gasped and drank in the fresh air.

“I have never been so humiliated!” he bellowed once he had caught his breath. “Who do you think you are, giant?! I could have died in there!”

The people gasped at his manner of dress and the sound of his accent. “A Northron!” they cried.

“Honored Vera, you had a stowaway on your person!” Regan called up to her. “A Northern spy who sought to penetrate our defenses!”

“Wait a moment, where am I?” Fallowmark asked, still gripped in Vera’s fingers. He looked at his surroundings. “Southrons! Stay away from me, you brutes! I’m warning you!”

“He’s not a stowaway,” Vera said. “I, uh, put him in there.”

Regan was shocked. “I see. But why would you shield a Northron in the sheltering confines of your sacred bosom?”

“Sacred?” Fallowmark balked. “You spend half an hour in that death trap and tell me it’s sacred!”

“Is he to be the sacrifice?” Regan asked.

“No!” Vera cried. “How many times do I have to say it? Nobody is being sacrificed!”

“But he is a blasphemer!” the High Priestess protested. “The North Piconoreans reject the Goddess’s holy scripture. They deny Her very existence!”

“Don’t care,” said Vera. “Still not killing him, damn it!”

“The Northrons lead lives of sin and decadence!” Regan continued to rage. “They follow their creed of immoral science rather than the Holy Word!”

“Because science is truth, you simple-minded heathen!” Fallowmark shouted down to her.

“Hey! Be nice, Ozzy, or you’re going back in there!” Vera said as she indicated her chest.

“The rampant secularism of the North should be wiped out!” Regan announced. “For the sake of their souls, the Northrons must be led to the Light! We have been preparing for a Holy Crusade for just that purpose.”

Vera sighed. “God, you’re as bad as the Northerners.”

“God?” Regan repeated. “What is ‘God’? A diminutive or familiar form of ‘Goddess’?”

“Er, no,” said Vera. “A god is the male counterpart of a goddess. You…you don’t have that concept here?”

Regan tittered in amusement. “Certainly you jest, Honored Vera! A male form of Goddess? How absurd! Men are not made in Her holy image. They are not Life-bringers. They cannot hold positions of power.”

Fallowmark glared down at the priestess. “Horsefeathers! Men are strong and made to rule! One day the North will conquer these lands and abolish your insane cult!”

Regan scowled. “Come down here and say that to my face, you Northern barbarian! Only the Light of the Goddess will save Piconorea!”

“You all are ridiculous!” Vera exclaimed. She sighed again and rubbed her fingers against her temples. “Look, maybe I should talk to this queen of yours. You guys are ready for a crusade and the North is preparing for a war. This has got to stop before it gets out of hand!”

To be continued...

Chapter 6

Vera spent that night in the village, or rather just outside its walls. She feared she might roll over the little houses and their occupants if she tossed and turned in her sleep. The ground was rough and the air was chilly. As she shivered uncomfortably, Vera longed for less revealing clothing or at least a blanket. She drifted off to sleep thinking of her bedspread back home covering the Southlands like tarpaulin.

The next morning, she made her way through the countryside of South Piconorea. Lord Fallowmark (who had spent the night in the village jail, much to his protests) was perched upon her shoulder and tied once again to her hair. Priestess Regan occupied a similar position on the other shoulder, navigating their course. Vera had to keep the two little people separate for they were still bickering and ready for a fight. Only the massive barrier formed by her neck kept the duo from killing each other.

Vera had followed the tiny dirt road for a time but found that she was once again destroying the path with her enormous footprints. The deep depressions left by her heels and toes were making the roadway unusable for carts and wagons. She had encountered a few such vehicles on her journey and most had either veered off the road to avoid being stepped on or successfully avoided her feet only to get their wheels caught in the ditch-like footprints she left behind. Merely walking through this land, Vera was creating quite a traffic pile-up and a number of accidents.

Mortified, she stepped off the path and helped free any wagons that were sidelined by the ditches. As she scooped up the little wagons and wains, she chuckled at a childhood memory of old computer games. “Your wagon has been wrecked by a giantess” was certainly never an obstacle in The Oregon Trail.

Once the vehicles were removed, Vera tried to smooth over the ruined road as best she could with the sole of her foot. She then took to walking in the tall grass rather than causing further damage to the public roads.

Behind her, the people of the village were scurrying to keep up with her vastly long strides. Many had chosen to accompany her on her journey to the capital, considering it a holy pilgrimage. As she passed other towns and settlements, tiny citizens emerged from their homes to get a look at the “goddess” in their midst. They flocked to her crowd of followers, swelling their ranks. Vera glanced back at the mass of miniature creatures in her wake. She was beginning to feel like the Pied Piper.

The young woman was suddenly aware of the view she was giving her minuscule acolytes. She thought of hundreds of tiny eyes peering up at her mountainous backside as it swiveled and flexed above their heads. Vera blushed and tried to concentrate on the path ahead.

“Could be worse,” she thought. “At least I’m not wearing a thong.”

As she traveled further south, she chatted casually with Regan. The miniature priestess seemed quite fascinated by the theological implications of Vera’s “sacred race.”

“And you say there are whole cities of gigantic celestials such as yourself?” the little woman asked as she sat comfortably on the wide, smooth shoulder.

“Yeah,” Vera explained. “Where I come from, everyone is this size. I’m nothing special, really. I hate to break it to you.”

“Nonsense, Honored One! All emissaries of the Goddess are to be valued and cherished. For you dwell in the Silver Cities beyond the Circles of Piconorea. You live in Her holy presence!”

“Uh, right,” said Vera nervously. She wasn’t sure how—or if—she could break it to the priestess that her “goddess” was likely just an ordinary woman of the ancient past. All evidence pointed to She-Who-Is-All being just a castaway like herself.

“Hmmph. Silver Cities. Of all the idiotic, delusional twaddle,” Fallowmark muttered from the other shoulder. Only Vera’s over-size ear could hear him but she shot the little man a dirty look just in case.

“What did I tell you about playing nice?”

“Oh dear, forgive me, ‘noble goddess,’” Fallowmark mocked sarcastically, making an elaborate flourish with his arm. “Oooh, are you going to smite me?”

Vera pursed her lips and blew a quick breath onto him. The sharp jet of air sent Fallowmark careening off her shoulder. Still tied to a strand of hair, he dangled upside down, bobbling slightly against the side of her arm. Fallowmark shrieked as he found himself suspended above a two hundred foot drop.

“You clumsy oaf! Are you trying to get me killed?!”

“Don’t tempt me,” Vera said. “You’re working on my last nerve. Now, where were we, Regan?”

Fallowmark felt the blood rushing to his head and watched as his helmet plummeted to the distant ground. “Wait! You can’t just leave me here!”

Vera grabbed the strand of hair and pulled it around in front of her. She allowed Fallowmark to dangle just above the yawning chasm of her cleavage like a pendant on the end of a necklace.

“Would you rather be sent back into the Canyon of Doom?” she asked him, lowering the strand further.

“No! Anything but that!”

Vera pulled him back up and returned him to her shoulder. “Then shut up.”

“Honored Vera,” continued Regan, “tell me more of this ‘God’ that you mentioned earlier. Such a concept is foreign to our scriptures. Does the Goddess have a male consort in the World Beyond?”

“Not exactly,” Vera said. “Where I come from, some of the, uh, celestials follow a different deity. Three of our biggest religions are centered on a male being that they call God or Allah or other variations.”

“Three different faiths with one deity?” Regan repeated. “Fascinating. They must get along splendidly!”

“Well…not all of them,” Vera had to admit. “Sometimes they argue or debate or distrust each other. In really extreme cases, there’s even conflict and terrorism and wars.”

“Wars!” said Regan incredulously. “Over religion? How foolish! You know, that could all be averted if they just followed the true faith. Ours, I mean.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” Vera told her. “You can see the dilemma.”

“Well, I hope this God you speak of at least values women as highly as our Goddess does,” Regan replied. “We are, after all, cast in the Holy One’s image.”

“Um, well…” Vera said. “In some religions back home, women can’t be members of the clergy.” Regan gasped in shock. “Religious groups also tend to get up in arms about things like abortion and birth control and…well, I guess you wouldn’t really know what that is.” Regan was staring at her quizzically. “Hmm. I probably shouldn’t even go into the whole ‘Original Sin’ debate…”

“How very backward,” Regan chided. “As you know, our Goddess values women as the makers and nurturers of new life. We are prized for our heightened intelligence and compassion. Women are the cornerstones of society here in the Southlands.”

Vera was starting to wonder if these primitive little people were as primitive as they seemed. This Goddess cult didn’t seem half bad…minus the attempted sacrifices and suicides and whatnot. That had been pretty bad actually.

At last Vera approached the capital of the South and stood outside its defensive walls. Her followers gathered at the city gates, begging the guards for entrance. Vera of course would not fit through the gates. She doubted they were wide enough for her shoulders or hips. As in the North, she would have to simply step over the wall.

Though the tremors in the earth had likely alerted the people to her presence, there hadn’t been time to properly warn them or empty the streets. She would have to be very careful.

“Um, pardon me,” she called across the knee-high wall. “I’m about to enter your city. Please clear a path for your safety. Thanks. Er, have a nice day.”

Heart pounding, Vera stepped over the wall. Sure enough, the people cleared the streets and left a wide open path for the giantess. They stood lined up in the sidewalks on either side of the main road, looking up at her expectantly. Vera was quite startled at the efficiency and speed of this maneuver.

“We have been preparing for the Goddess’s return for many centuries,” Regan explained. “There have been procedures and plans in place for this blessed day. When the scouts brought word of your arrival, the people of the capital ran numerous drills in anticipation.”

“Well, that was thoughtful of them,” said Vera. “Should I, uh, tell them I’m not the Goddess though?”

“Best not to shatter their illusions just yet,” Regan answered. “I will call the congregation together later and explain your emissary status.”

“Emissary status,” Vera repeated uneasily. “Right.”

She turned and looked at Fallowmark, peering down her nose at him. “Are you going to mind your manners while we’re here?”

“Manners? Are you mad? This is further south than any man of the North has ever been,” he said excitedly. “The perfect opportunity to learn the enemy’s secrets and assess their strengths and weaknesses!”

“Honored Vera, this Northron spy has already seen too much!” Regan exclaimed. “Are you sure you will not change your mind about a sacrifice?”

“Sorry, kiddo, not going to happen,” insisted Vera. She looked at the haughty, satisfied expression on Fallowmark’s face (she had to squint a bit to see it but the intolerable air of smugness was unmistakable).

“Just be nice when we meet the queen, Ozzy.”

“Queen? Ha!” he scoffed. “I do not recognize the sovereignty of the South! What do I care for some tribal princess squatting in her hovel among savages?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say,” Vera sighed. She turned to Regan. “I suppose we can’t have him saying rude things to Queen Elfwina, can we?”

“No indeed, my lady.”

Vera untangled Fallowmark from her hair as the little man fought and protested.

“Oh relax,” she said. “I won’t send you back to the canyon. Tell you what, let’s find another place for you.”

With her other hand, she tugged open a cup of her bikini top and dropped him in. The tiny commander landed on a canopy of dark material in a huff. Looming over him was the huge, fleshy mass of a gigantic breast, its colossal nipple almost as large as his body. He was about to scream obscenities up at her when Vera released her grip and let the bikini snap back into place. Fallowmark was now pressed tightly against the wall of her breast, his arms and legs splayed out at his sides. He wriggled and squirmed about until Vera flicked him through the black fabric with her finger. The little lump in her top held still at last.

“Ugh, I wish I had pockets in this outfit,” she lamented. “Fallowmark’s been to second base twice now and I don’t even like the guy.”

As Vera walked down the wide processional way at the center of the city, the tiny crowd cheered. They tossed garlands of flowers into her path, which were of course completely obliterated under her vast feet. The road cracked and splintered under her weight; a pity for it had seemed so well kept up. The people stumbled as the earth shook with each of the giantess’s mighty steps. In the distance, Vera could hear the ringing of church bells and a chorus of voices singing hymns to the Goddess.

At the end of the processional road was the queen’s palace. Its design was far different from the stark, practical fortress of Chancellor Brogan in the North. Queen Elfwina’s citadel was more elaborate and exotic in design. Its walls were shining white and its towers were topped with rounded domes and minarets like a miniature Taj Mahal. Marble tiles on the walls formed mosaics depicting scenes of the Goddess towering over tiny cities or holding minuscule men in the palm of her hand. Vera was unnerved by one that seemed to show condemned criminals being fed to the Goddess as a sacrifice. They were marching to their doom across a wooden platform not unlike the one she had sat below hours earlier. Below them, the head of the Goddess was shown in profile with her jaws open wide.

Just as Brogan had done, Queen Elfwina stepped out to greet Vera on a balcony. The queen was a heavy-set woman of considerable girth (as Piconoreans go). To Vera, this meant only that the lady was as big as one of her larger toes, rather than her pinky toe. Elfwina had short auburn hair that was gradually fading to gray. She was clad in a long purple robe with white fur trim. A golden crown topped with green jewels was on her head and she fairly sparkled from the many necklaces, medallions, and rings which she wore.

As she reached the end of the balcony, the queen bowed low before the giantess. “Great Goddess, we welcome you to South! If You will it, I shall abdicate and return rule to Your most holy personage, as it was in days of yore!”

She removed her crown and, dropping to one knee, offered it to Vera with head bowed. Vera knew this was only a ceremonial gesture. Even so, she tried not to giggle at the infinitesimal crown. It wouldn’t even fit on her littlest finger, let alone her head.

“Please get up, your majesty,” she said. “There’s no need for that. I have no wish to rule here. And, as your High Priestess will tell you, I’m not actually a goddess.”

Elfwina looked up in shock, rising once again to her feet. Vera knelt before the palace so that her shoulder was closer to the balcony. Once she was in range, Regan called out to the bewildered monarch.

“It’s true, my queen. Honored Vera is but an emissary of She-Who-Is-All. The Goddess has not yet come again.”

“I…I see,” Elfwina remarked. Mingled disappointment and relief filled her face. Though she had been prepared for this day since childhood, it was clear that the queen was not yet ready to give up command of her country.

“Nonetheless, this is an auspicious day,” the queen continued. “A holy messenger walks among us and the Old Tales come true! The Goddess’s Throne has been prepared for your arrival, my gracious lady.”

“Look, this is all really nice of you,” Vera told her, “but I don’t want your throne either. I’d probably squash it with this big butt of mine.”

“You misunderstand,” said Elfwina. “The Goddess’s Throne was built in days of old for She-Who-Is-All. If your Holy Mistress will allow it, we offer it to you. Come, lend me thy hand. The Throne is just beyond the palace.”

* * * *

As Elfwina directed her, Vera made her way around the palace to a wide expanse of gardens and fields. At the center of this area was a large marble throne built to Vera’s scale. The woman stared at it in astonishment. This was the first normal-sized object she had seen in several days. It must have taken years, maybe even decades, for the little people to construct such a thing.

The throne was covered with a layer of tiny cushions that had been sewn together by hours of embroidery and craft. There had to be several hundred of them. A tiny staircase was built into each side of the throne, leading up to the long armrests. There was also a tall wooden crane device that could lift objects up to the throne’s occupant via a pulley system. Vera goggled in amazement at the South Piconoreans’ ingenuity. There were a few cobwebs here and there that had to be cleared away but for the most part, the Southerners seemed quite prepared to entertain someone of her size.

“Please be seated, my lady,” Elfwina implored. “We will attend to your every need.”

Before long, Vera was being pampered more than she ever had been at a spa or on the ill-fated cruise that brought her to Piconorea. On each armrest, tiny people were painting her fingernails with brushes and paint-rollers. This was quite a task for she’d been growing her nails out and some were almost as tall as the little folk were. Far below, Piconoreans were gathered at her feet, attending to the same task on her toenails. Most had been forced to climb up onto her massive feet and straddle each toe to get an unobstructed path. Mischievously, she wiggled her toes now and then, causing them to cling tighter like cowboys at a rodeo.

Elsewhere about her body, servants were scrubbing her skin with minute sponges, washing off a layer of sea salt and accumulated grime from her travels around the island. Some were gathered on her shoulders, washing the smooth skin below them, as well as the huge trunk of her neck. Some were sitting on her collarbone as comfortably as if it were a bench. A few daring souls had descended further and were perched precariously on the shelf of her breasts. They were on hands and knees, scrubbing away at this colossal outcropping of flesh and steering clear of the treacherous chasm at its center.

On Vera’s lap, servants were sliding in soap suds across the planes of her thighs. This area had been lathered up so much it could have doubled as a skating rink for the little people. A few of them crested her knees and slid down her shins like skiers, leaving a trail of soapy water. Yet another detail of servants had propped up ladders in her lap to scrub the wide wall of her belly. They were armed with push-mops that could have been used on an elephant. The last regiment of attendants was clustered atop Vera’s head, lowering a tiny washerwoman on a rope to give Vera’s face a good scrubbing.

Having so many small creatures on her was an odd sensation at first. Vera had to resist the instinct to squirm and fling them away as if she were covered with ants. Once she adjusted, however, she began to find it soothing. Their presence was ticklish but the little servants were quite skilled. As the teeny sponges scrubbed away, it began to feel like a full body massage.

“Ahhh…” she sighed contentedly. “Now this is the life!”

She had no sooner said this when she was reminded of how vulnerable these little beings were. The simple act of sighing sent their world into an upheaval. The dangling washerwoman was thrown forward by the force of her breath and came swinging back to collide with a smack into Vera’s lips. The rise and fall of her chest as she breathed in sent several tiny people staggering. A few had tumbled headfirst into the valley of her cleavage, from which their compatriots were trying to retrieve them. Even the people near her stomach had been upended when a shift in her diaphragm toppled their ladders and sent them falling back onto her legs.

“Whoops,” Vera said, a sentiment she had expressed numerous times already. She peeled the washerwoman off her upper lip and returned her to the top of her head. Carefully, she slipped her fingers down her décolletage to rescue the men from their spelunking adventure. She pulled them out and gathered up the others from her chest. Vera parted her breasts and peered down into the gap.

“Everyone accounted for?” she called. “We’d better get you guys some lifelines before you’re swallowed up in here.”

Once the scrubbing was complete, Vera allowed the servants to disembark. She offered a cupped hand to anyone who required assistance getting down from the peaks of her towering form. As soon as everyone was back at ground level, she was asked to turn over so that they could wash her back.

This proved an awkward arrangement. Vera could not simply sit on the throne and be pampered when flipped around. Instead, she knelt upon it and gripped the backrest, balancing herself.

“You know, I could just find a lake and wash myself the conventional way,” she said as she hunched forward uncomfortably.

“Nonsense, Honored One,” a servant insisted. “It is our pleasure to bathe you. You should not have to exert any extra effort.”

The little people scurried up the staircases and scaled her arms dexterously. On the ground below, other servants were holding a wide blanket, spread like a canopy. One by one, the cleaning crew pushed off Vera’s shoulders and slid down her back, leaving a soapy trail. Like luge riders, they hurtled down her spine, tickling all the way, and plummeted off her tailbone. Their friends caught them in the blanket as firefighters would catch a victim leaping from a high window.

Another crew had departed the stairwell on the seat of the throne. Cautiously, they gathered below Vera’s gigantic, looming form. The servants split up, scrubbing the backs of her legs and climbing up onto the soles of her overturned feet to wash these as well. The bottoms of her feet were the dirtiest by far, as Vera had been walking barefoot through the streets and country roads of Piconorea. In time, these were washed clean and small pebbles and debris were plucked from between her toes.

The bravest among the servants climbed to the back of Vera’s heels and reached up to take hold of her bikini bottoms. They scaled the black fabric and clung to the edges, rubbing their sponges over each gargantuan cheek of her backside.

“Whoa!” Vera cried as she felt this. “What are you guys doing down there?”

“Merely being thorough, my lady.”

As soon as she was sufficiently clean, Vera was allowed to sit down upon the Throne once more. Below her, a small army of waiters was loading vast amounts of food and drink onto the pulley platforms. These were hoisted up for Vera’s perusal and enjoyment. She sipped from a metal tankard that was as large as a Piconorean cottage. She wondered if they had forged this or if it was a relic left over from the arrival of a past castaway. Whatever the case, Vera accepted it gladly. The mixture of fruit juices and alcohol within tasted a bit like a mimosa.

Vera once again found herself gobbling up large piles of fruits, veggies, and pastries, as well as entire cows and other barnyard animals that had been roasted on spits. Most of the servants had now departed. The only little people nearby were a handful of waiters that ascended the stairs with pitchers to refill her tankard. One of them carried a ladder and placed it against the side of the mug. His allies climbed up periodically and stood on the rim, pouring more “mimosa” into the huge cup.

They were so silent and efficient that, in time, Vera forgot they were there. On one occasion, she lifted the tankard before the whole crew had a chance to climb back down. One of the waiters was thrown off balance and slipped off the rim, landing in the drink with a splash. Vera raised the mug and continued to sip. As the metal chamber was upended, the waiter found himself being swept towards the huge crimson gates of Vera’s lips. He collided with these fleshy masses and held onto the upper lip for dear life as his legs and lower body were pulled inside.

Vera felt something hit her lips and quickly pulled the tankard away. The tiny waiter was still caught between her lips with only his upper body visible.

Vera mentally scolded herself. “You’d think I’d learn by now,” she thought. Still, if these little folk were going to constantly end up in her mouth, she figured she might as well have fun with it. Vera pursed her lips and sucked inward, slurping the man the rest of the way in.

“Excuse me, maître d?” she mumbled, calling down to the departing servants on the armrest. Each word sent the hapless waiter tumbling about on her tongue. “There seems to be a man in my drink.”

Vera leaned her head down near the other waiters and opened her mouth wide. The little men were astonished to see their coworker sprawled upon the giantess’s enormous tongue. Vera extended her tongue until it touched down on the armrest. She let the man roll down it to freedom. He landed in a wet heap and tried to shake himself back to his senses.

“I hope he wasn’t an added ingredient for flavor,” Vera said.

“Er, no, my lady,” the head waiter answered. He quickly did a head count of his staff, making sure no one else was missing.

“Good,” Vera told him with a smile. “Otherwise, before you know it, everyone will be wanting one!”

To be continued...

Chapter 7

All day, Vera was pampered and waited upon beyond any degree she had previously known. She had hoped to speak with the queen about the so-called “crusade” in the works but Elfwina was nowhere to be found. Her majesty was attending to other matters of state, perhaps meeting with her war council to discuss the giantess’s role in the assault on the North. Vera sighed and went back to enjoying the feast and entertainments the Southerners had prepared for her. The war could wait.

One of the more amusing diversions had been a play performed by the little people on the armrest of the throne. It was a sort of passion play, a reenactment of a story from their holy books. Most of the actors played ancestors and ancient royalty while a woman on stilts played the role of the Goddess. Even towering above the rest of the troupe, with a long white robe draping down to cover the long wooden legs, the lady could not hope to match Vera’s lofty height. Still, the illusion was sufficient for their purposes.

As the sun began to set, Vera was escorted to the ancient chambers of the Goddess. The room was built into the side of a mountain a few miles outside the city. A natural cave system had been expanded and excavated, creating a makeshift living space for She-Who-Is-All. Once again, Vera had to clear away a few cobwebs and a layer of dust that were too high for the Piconoreans to reach. But for the most part, the apartment was in readiness, prepared for the eventual second coming of the Southrons’ deity.

There was a bed (of sorts) constructed from a shelf of rock that extended out from the wall. Another tapestry of sewn-together pillows and cushions provided padding for Vera to rest on and a burlap tent had been filled with thousands of goose feathers to create a makeshift pillow. There were ancient-looking tankards and cups which she could fill from the underground stream inside the mountain. A side chamber had been converted into a miniature larder and filled with foodstuffs harvested by the people. Ceramic plates as wide as a village square were stacked neatly in a corner, untouched since the elder days. There were even a few dusty books on a high shelf of stone. Most were written in Middle English and beautifully illustrated in the illuminated medieval style. Though the spellings were foreign, Vera found that she could figure out the majority of the words.

Overall, it was the most at home she had felt since arriving on the island. True, everything was old and crumbling but at least she would no longer need to sleep in a courtyard or an open field. She could relax in comfort without fear of crushing someone’s house if her sleep was fitful.

A cluster of servants looked up at her obediently from floor level. “Is there anything else you will need, my lady?”

“No, thank you,” she said, peering down with amusement at the tiny forms standing before her toes. “I think I’ll be fine.”

The serving-men nodded and bowed deeply before the giantess. They mounted their little horses and galloped out of the cave into the gathering twilight.

When she was certain she was alone, Vera pulled open the cup of her bikini top. Lord Fallowmark was still there but the minuscule nobleman was fast asleep, snuggled against her bosom. She almost hated to wake him. Almost.

Vera reached in and plucked the little man up with two fingers. “Hey, Ozzy. You can come out now.”

Osric Fallowmark blinked sleepily and muttered to himself. “Huh? Wuzzah? Wh-where am I?” He snapped back to alertness and glared at the giant woman. “You! Again you imprison me with your colossal teats! It’s indecent and barbaric! You can’t treat a Commander of the Republican Guard like this, you half-clothed heathen!”

Vera frowned and brought Fallowmark closer to her face. “Oh, I’m sorry, my lord,” she snarled sarcastically. “Where would you prefer to ride? Up my nose? Or inside my mouth?” She snapped her huge teeth a few inches from his face, giving Fallowmark a start. “Maybe I could slip you under my tongue like a lozenge. Or, hey, I could just stuff you up my butt. Would that be better?”

Fallowmark cringed but said nothing. “No? Didn’t think so,” Vera continued. “There are worse places on the human body that a giant pair of boobs, Ozzy. Some guys would actually count themselves lucky to be where you just were.”

“I assure you, madam, the reality is far more sweaty and unpleasant than the fantasy,” Fallowmark shot back.

“Whatever,” said Vera. “Just be glad I’m letting you tag along. If these people had their way, you’d be a sacrifice gobbled up with my evening meal.”

“Indeed,” Fallowmark said, drumming his fingers in annoyance against her thumbnail. “Enjoying the worship and adoration of the masses, are you, great ‘goddess’? How long can you keep up this charade?”

“Oh hush up, pipsqueak,” Vera told him. She grabbed a tall ceramic cup from a nearby shelf and dropped Fallowmark into it. The walls were too tall and smooth for the little man to climb out. As an afterthought, she tore a tiny pillow off of the cushions of the bed and dropped it into the cup as well.

“Get some sleep,” she said, setting the cup on a makeshift stone table beside the bed.

“Sleep? What do you think I’ve been doing all day while you kept me imprisoned?! Let me out of here at once!” he bellowed. “This constant abuse will not stand, you horrid beast! Oi, giant, I’m talking to you!”

Vera sighed and picked up the cup once again. She placed it instead on the highest shelf of the cave, next to a weathered old manuscript and some decaying sewing equipment. When she returned to the bed, she was pleased to find that Fallowmark’s squeaky cries were almost inaudible.

Vera pulled a tattered blanket over her (it seemed to be formed from the sails of some ancient ship) and went to sleep.

* * * *

The following morning, Priestess Regan summoned her congregation to the yard outside the largest church in the city. Attendance was at an all-time high. Almost every citizen of the capital had turned out, hoping to hear more about the Goddess’s return. What did it mean? Had She come back to stay? To rule? Was it a sign of the End Times? Would the Holy One finally destroy those blasphemous North Piconoreans?

Regan was hesitant to begin the service without Vera present. She did not want to misrepresent the mission of the Goddess’s emissary. At once, she sent forth several of her attendant priests and priestesses to summon the giantess so that they might address the people.

This proved a more difficult task than they had anticipated. At last able to sleep in a bed, Vera was having her most restful snooze since arriving in Piconorea. Waking her would be a challenge. Clad in their red hooded robes, the tiny clergy-folk climbed up a ladder to the outcropping of rock that had been converted into a bedside table. They called out to the giantess in their high squeaky voices but she did not stir. The priests conferred among themselves, uncertain what to do.

“Someone must get closer so She can hear,” a holy-man said.

“Are you mad?” said a priestess. “What if She crushes us in Her sleep?”

“Have you a better idea?” a younger, novice priest asked.

“I don’t want to be the one to tell Lady Regan that the Goddess is sleeping in today and there will be no morning service,” an altar girl added.

“Then what shall we do?” the first man said.

After some debate, they finally chose the altar girl to venture closer and roust the Goddess from her slumber. They’d half-convinced her that speaking to the Goddess directly was a great honor for one of her station and that Lady Regan would be most pleased by her initiative; perhaps she would even reward her. In truth though, the others outranked the girl and didn’t want to be the ones to risk their necks.

The young lady stepped off the stone table and onto the vast bed. Cautiously, she crept nearer to Vera’s colossal head, which loomed over her like a hill. A contented snore rumbled like thunder from the giantess’s throat and off in the distance, the landscape of the bedding gently rose and fell with her breath.

As she got closer, the girl was forced to wade through a sea of silky brown hair. It was strewn all about the giantess’s head and in places it was almost waist-deep to the tiny lady. Once or twice, her ankle got caught in a snarl and she nearly lost one of her sandals in the silken mass. Finally, she arrived at Vera’s head and stood below the enormous ear. It was more than twice as long as the altar girl’s body (she was short for her age, barely topping half an inch in height). Sheepishly, the young woman stepped up to the large concave opening and called out.

“Er, my lady? The sun has risen and the cock has crowed. The people await You.”

There was no response from the giantess other than a slightly louder snore. The girl took another step closer and gripped the edge of the ear with her hands, leaning forward. Her face was practically inside the ear.

“Will You not awaken and greet Your worshippers? Holy One? Hullo?”

With a suddenness that surprised everyone, Vera turned over in her sleep. The giant head rolled downward towards the startled girl, who was still leaning into the ear. The little lady dropped to her knees and shielded her head as the huge ear closed over her body, trapping her inside its hollow. She was imprisoned in a small chamber of flesh and bone, caught below the weight of Vera’s head.

Muffled cries could be heard inside the ear but the words were unintelligible. The other clergy looked at each other bewildered and guilt-ridden.

“Don’t just stand there,” the priestess ordered. “Do something!”

The three remaining little people hurried to the gargantuan head and tried once again to awaken Vera. When she did not respond to their shouting, they desperately began to climb up the tendrils of hair and onto the surface of her face. One of the priests made for her other ear on the top of the now-vertical head and started bellowing into its depths. The priestess followed him but slid down a wide cheekbone onto the side of Vera’s nose. She balanced there precariously and attempted to pry open the lid of a closed eye. The last of the priests, a young man who had only recently been sworn into the brotherhood, merely paced about on Vera’s temple, uncertain what to do. This was far different from the sort of temple he had thought to serve in.

At last, the giantess stirred and groggily began to lift her head. As she sat up in bed, the little people felt the ground below them shift position. The priest at the ear tumbled forward and caught hold of the earlobe, dangling from it like a human earring. The priestess lost her footing on the nose and fell downward, reaching out to clutch at the side of a nostril. Meanwhile, the poor man on the temple had nothing to cling to and began to scramble up the forehead, hoping to reach her hair. He failed in this quest and felt himself hurtle into open space. He reached out for a handhold desperately, finally grabbing Vera’s upper lip.

Still half asleep, Vera gave a tremendous yawn. The young priest grasped her lip desperately as the humongous mouth opened wide below him. He dangled there, staring in horror into the vast recesses of a cave that could swallow him whole. He could feel a rush of air being drawn into the mouth and held on all the more tightly lest he be taken with it. Vera finally closed her mouth, leaving the man standing on her lower lip and still clutching the upper one. She sniffled slightly and the priestess was sucked into her nostril headfirst. Only the lower portion of a robe and a pair of kicking legs were left visible.

Vera snapped to attention when her nasal passage was obstructed. With confusion, she felt the tiny forms scattered about her head.

“Jeez, what a wake-up call,” she muttered, causing the young man on her lips to be thrown up and down with each word. Vera carefully reached up and removed him. She placed a finger against the side of her nose and blew a quick burst of air, shooting the tiny priestess out into her hand beside the priest. She next reached up and plucked a man from her earlobe. She was surprised to find that her other ear felt clogged, as if from wax buildup or the popping sensation of a change in air pressure. Poking a finger into it experimentally, Vera felt a small girl curled into fetal position inside. She pulled this intruder out and set all four little people on the blanket covering her lap.

“Everybody okay?” she asked. “Maybe you guys should just let me wake up in my own time, hmm?”

* * * *

After a quick trip to the larder for breakfast, Vera set out for the church to greet the people. The four little clergy members rode in the palm of her hand. She had found a tattered leather cloak, yellowed with age, in a corner of the cave and wrapped this about her shoulders. It felt good to have a little more clothing, though the combination of bikini and animal skins made her feel like a bit like Red Sonja.

Vera was soon sitting cross-legged in the churchyard with a mass of tiny people surrounding her. Her four intimidated passengers had disembarked by now. Priestess Regan was standing on a wooden stage near Vera’s legs, preaching from a small pulpit. Queen Elfwina stood behind her, flanked by her royal guards.

“Sisters and brothers of the Southlands!” Regan cried. “Know the truth that I have learned from our sacred visitor! She is not the Goddess of our scripture!” A few scattered murmurings from the crowd followed. The people seemed confused. Regan proceeded.

“Be not afraid. Though She-Who-Is-All has not returned to us, She has sent a messenger! A holy emissary from the Silver Cities where giant demi-goddesses stride the earth! Praised be the name of Honored Vera, Handmaiden of the Holy One!”

The people echoed this exclamation excitedly. “Praise Honored Vera!” “Praised be her name!” “Huzzah!”

“I know what is in your hearts,” Regan continued. “You hope for Piconorea to be united once more, for all people to embrace the true faith of the Goddess! You hope that Honored Vera’s presence is a sign of that blessed day’s approach. And indeed, it would seem that our prayers have been answered. I ask you now, beauteous demi-goddess from the World Beyond…” Regan was now looking up at Vera. “…will you lead the crusade and bring the Light of the Holy Mistress to the North? Will you punish those who reject the Sacred Word?”

Thousands of tiny eyes were now trained on Vera. Regan was all smiles and her hands were pressed together in supplication. The queen looked up at the giantess pointedly, waiting for confirmation that the war was to begin.

Vera blushed under all this attention and rubbed the back of her neck nervously. “Um…well…look, I’ve been to the North. Most of them didn’t seem so bad. Can’t you guys just live in peace?”

The crowd instantly burst into a cacophony of voices, all arguing and debating this point. Vera could only hear snippets of the high-pitched conversations.

“Peace?”

“How can she—”

“Surely, the Goddess would want—”

“They are sinners!”

“Blasphemers! They should all—”

“Death to the North!”

In the midst of this uproar, a young page boy ran up onto the stage. He bowed before Queen Elfwina and handed her a scroll. She opened the message and read it gravely. Vera looked down at them curiously but could not possibly read the tiny letters or hear what was being said.

When she had finished reading, Elfwina held up her hands, beckoning the crowd to be silent. Gradually, the debate died down. Regan stepped aside, allowing the monarch to stand at the podium, and the queen addressed her subjects with a clear, commanding voice.

“My people, peace is no longer an option,” she said. “My scouts inform me that even now, the Northern army is gathering at the border.”

Gasps and shocked mutterings came from the crowd. Vera arched her eyebrows. “Wait, what?”

“Though they encroach upon our lands, surely they will soon see the Light,” Elfwina continued. “They can no longer deny the truth of our faith. The evidence is before their very eyes!” She gestured up at Vera, proudly. “Many will no doubt convert and join the fold. And if they do not, well…we have the power of a demi-goddess on our side. They cannot hope to stand against us! Children of the South—we march to war! To war!”

The people of South Piconorea cheered. The churchyard and the surrounding streets were filled with sounds of celebration and the battle cries of impending war. Elfwina and Regan exited the stage quickly, rushing off to confer with the generals and prepare a plan of attack. Vera called out to them but even her booming voice was drowned by the crowd. She reached out to grab them but the tiny women were gone, lost in a sea of miniature humanity. Vera was about to stand up and search for them but a large mass of Piconoreans was closing in around her. She couldn’t so much as shift position or she would crush someone.

“Honored Vera, wait! Don’t go yet!” a tiny man cried. “I am a poor farmer who can no longer afford to feed my family. Will the Goddess not answer my prayers?”

“Please, Honored One!” a middle-aged woman exclaimed, dragging a small, emaciated-looking child by the arm. “My son is very ill. Can you not heal him?”

An elderly gentleman hobbled up to Vera on a crutch. “Great demi-goddess, I am crippled and blind! Only your touch can restore me!”

More and more people closed in as Vera sat there, bewildered. Many began to climb over her feet or up her crossed legs. A few made it all the way to the peaks of her knees or into her lap. And still the plaintive cries continued.

“Feed us!”

“Heal us!”

“Bring us riches!”

“Honored One, answer our prayers!”

Desperately, Vera began to brush them off her legs as one would sweep ants from a picnic blanket. The people tumbled off but continued to swarm over her.

“Please, get away! Get away!” she begged. “There’s too many of you! I don’t want to hurt someone! I’m not a goddess! I’m not a goddess!!!”

To be continued...

Chapter 8

After a few attempts, Vera was able to brush her tiny worshippers away and retreat from the churchyard. Once the Piconoreans were off her person, it only took a few brisk steps to outpace them. The little people couldn’t catch up with her giant strides and she was soon far from the city center.

Playing demi-goddess had been fun at first. She had to admit that. As a struggling actress and sometime model, Vera had rarely shied from the spotlight. This particular “role” had required no audition beyond simply being. But the charade had gone too far and it was now showing its dark side. What had started out quaint and cute was about to become a holy war. Vera had gotten rather fond of these little creatures and seeing them die in her name was the last thing she wanted.

Hurriedly, she rushed back to the Goddess’s chambers seeking her minuscule prisoner. “Ozzy! Oz—Lord Fallowmark. Look, I’m sorry for how I’ve been treating you,” she called out as she entered the cave. “But this has gotten serious. The Northern army is on its way! You’re a big hotshot with the North. You’ve got to call them off before—”

Vera stopped in front of the stone shelf. The goblet that had imprisoned Fallowmark was turned on its side. Amid the aged books and sewing implements, a large spool of thread had been unwound and now snaked its way down to floor level. Osric Fallowmark was nowhere in sight.

“Great. Just great,” Vera muttered. She sighed wearily. “Okay, I guess I kind of deserved that.”

* * * *

Like a shot, Vera sped from the cave and towards the border of the two kingdoms. She wasn’t sure yet what she would say to the Northrons but there had to be a way to stop this war. If they’d cross back into their own lands, perhaps the Southrons would no longer feel threatened. An edict from “Honored Vera” would hopefully get the Southerners to lay down their arms once there wasn’t an invading army at their door.

As she rushed across the fields and jumped the tiny stone walls of the farmlands, Vera spotted them. From this distance, they looked more like insects than ever, a vast swarm of North Piconoreans marching in formation. It seemed they had already crossed the mountains and were making their way toward the capital. The soldiers were each in full uniform with the horse-tails of their helmets dancing in the wind. Some marched on foot while others rode on horseback. Tiny beasts of burden were dragging miniature machines of war—catapults and trebuchets, large mechanized crossbows, siege towers that would stretch all the way to Vera’s knees.

The army halted when they spotted the giantess’s approach. As she quickly knelt to speak with them, Chancellor Brogan made his way to the front of the line.

“Lady Vera,” he called up to her. “Thank goodness you’re all right. When you didn’t return, we feared these Southern savages had captured you.”

“I’m fine, Chancellor,” she said. “I hope all this isn’t on my account. Now, why don’t we just turn our little army around before somebody gets hurt?”

“Don’t listen to her, my lord,” a familiar voice bellowed. “She’s in league with the South, addled and placated by their adoration.” A cluster of soldiers stood aside to allow Lord Fallowmark to come forward. A new, rather splendid-looking helmet adorned his head, to replace the one that fell from Vera’s lofty height.

“There you are!” Vera exclaimed. “Osric, tell the chancellor he and his people can go home.”

“I will do nothing of the sort!” Fallowmark insisted. “While you slumbered like a fat and contented babe, I made myself useful. I crept through the city by night and assessed the enemy camp. I know where the defenses are weakest. I know the location of the armories and food larders. What’s more, I know that these primitive pagans have not even a blunderbuss or pistol to their names! The time to strike is now! The North will take these lands and unite Piconorea under one rule!”

Vera scowled. With terrible swiftness, her hand shot down and plucked Fallowmark from the crowd.

“Why, you miserable little worm!” she spat, squeezing him tightly between two fingers. “I ought to pop you like a grape!”

There was a clicking and creaking of machinery. When Vera looked down, she saw that the war machines were all aimed directly at her. The catapults were loaded with nasty-looking spiked metal balls. The large iron arrows of the mechanical crossbows seemed big enough and sharp enough to pierce even her flesh. She’d been impervious to the Northern army’s weapons before but Vera wasn’t sure she ought to press her luck, especially when her only protection was a skimpy two-piece bathing suit and a tattered, centuries-old cloak.

“I wouldn’t do that, my lady,” Chancellor Brogan said calmly. “We had hoped you would be our ally in this war. ‘Twould be a pity to have to turn our attacks upon you. I do not wish to mar such a beautiful specimen of femininity.”

“Chancellor, there’s no need for this,” said Vera. “I’ve spent time in the South. You don’t have to be enemies! Sure, they’re a little…zealous about their religion. But if you guys stay in your own lands, just live and let live, I’m sure that—”

“It’s too late for that, Lady Vera,” the chancellor told her. “Much too late. In any case, here come the Southrons now.”

Vera spun around and saw the army of South Piconorea marching up the dirt road. They too were in full uniform, the red of their tunics matching the robes of the priests and priestesses. The Southern army had a similar mix of foot soldiers and mounted cavalry. Swords were drawn and spears were hoisted. Each soldier carried a large wooden shield emblazoned with the image of a woman’s hand holding a tiny man. As Fallowmark had noted, none of the Southrons was carrying a gun and what few devices of war they possessed looked woefully primitive compared to those of the North.

“Oh God,” Vera muttered. “This is going to be a bloodbath.” Distractedly, she dropped Fallowmark back to the ground from a higher altitude than the commander would have preferred. He tumbled down with a crash of armor and a rather comical “Oof!” Fallowmark instantly picked himself up, rubbed his bruises, and attempted to regain his dignity in front of the troops.

Vera stood up and rushed to where the Southern army was massing. “Stop this!” she yelled futilely from above. “Your Goddess commands you to stop!”

Some of the soldiers looked up at her, confused and uncertain. They turned to their fellows questioningly then looked to their commander. He in turn looked back to an elaborate horse-drawn caravan at the top of a hill where Queen Elfwina and High Priestess Regan were seated, preparing to observe the battle.

“Pay her no heed,” Elfwina declared via bullhorn. “We cannot stop. The Northrons are here to slay us and take our lands. We will beg the Goddess’s forgiveness when this is all over. But we must defend South Piconorea!”

“You heard her majesty,” the tiny general said. “Soldiers of the South—begin the attack!”

From behind, Vera could hear the rallying cry as it was echoed by Lord Fallowmark. “The battle is joined! Men of the North—attack!”

At once, there was a clamor of squeaky cries as the armies began charging towards each other. Vera watched as the minute Southrons ran past her feet and under the wide arch of her legs.

“Oh, this is ridiculous!” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. She turned and walked several paces into the field between the two armies. In just a few steps, she was ahead of the Southern soldiers, who scurried like mice behind her. Slowly, Vera began to lower herself down into the grass. The men at the front of the line halted as a shadow fell over them. They quickly turned about face and retreated as the giantess’s enormous legs and colossal backside descended towards them. Vera touched down roughly in the field, sending a tremor through the ground that toppled the little people. She lowered her upper body next and lay down on her back, stretching her arms out above her head. She pressed her hands against the side of a hill and the bottoms of her feet against another hill. Soon, her body was forming a huge, living barrier between the Northern and Southern armies. She felt like a human Berlin Wall.

“Stop this at once, you stupid little bugs!” Vera cried. “There’s no need to kill each other! This war is completely idiotic!”

Fallowmark and a handful of troops brazenly approached the enormous woman, standing in the shadow of her midsection. The height of Vera’s body completely obscured anything on the other side.

“You merely delay the inevitable, giant,” Lord Fallowmark said. “Need I remind you that we conquered your gargantuan form once before?”

“I was unconscious at the time,” she shot back. “I’d like to see you try it now.”

“I accept your challenge, woman,” the commander answered. “Bring the siege towers!” He leaned close to one of his soldiers and whispered something, then resumed barking orders to his infantry.

The tall siege towers were brought forward and set up along the length of Vera’s body. Nervously, several squads of soldiers ascended the towers and pulled levers that released metal gangplanks. These formed bridges onto her torso. They climbed down the walkways and onto the vast plane of Vera’s belly. Meanwhile, the Southrons were gathering wooden ladders, preparing the same maneuver on the other side of the giantess.

Vera wriggled and squirmed and arched her back, causing the men on her stomach to stumble about. One fell into her belly button headfirst and was stuck fast. Others slid along her torso to collide with the hills of her breasts. Vera’s hands swept along her middle and scooped up tiny men by the handful. These were soon tossed back onto the grass.

This continued for some time and the siege towers spilled more men onto her. She was beginning to wonder how long she could keep this up when Vera felt a slight tickle against her toes. She lifted her head awkwardly and saw that the remainder of the army had changed direction and marched along the length of her body. They were now climbing the steep hill near her feet, intent on simply going around her. She was about to sit up and try to stop them but her midsection was still swarming with tiny warriors.

“Your compassion is your weakness,” Fallowmark announced from somewhere near her ear. “Shift position now and the men on your form plunge to their deaths. Stop interfering in our affairs, you freakish monstrosity. You cannot stop this war.”

Vera reached out to grab him but Fallowmark was mounted on horseback and had quickly spurred his steed away. He rode with the speed of the wind towards her feet to join the rest of his army.

As Vera scooped or brushed the men off her torso, she heard the sounds of the battle at last beginning. The Northrons crested the hill and met their opponents on the other side. Gunshots echoed through the field. The crash of weapons against shields followed, along with the neighing of horses and the screams of dying soldiers.

Once the last man had been removed from her body, Vera sat up in a panic. She pushed the siege towers away and loomed above the remaining soldiers. They blanched at the sight of her anger but returned to their duties. With the passage now clear, they began to pilot the war machines towards the open area that Vera had vacated. Vera desperately placed an arm in their path but the tiny men launched a volley at the giantess with the catapults and trebuchets.

Large, spiked balls of metal hurtled at her, slashing the skin of her arms and leaving a deep gash across her cheek. Vera cried out in alarm as a second volley was launched. The spiked weapons grazed her waist, leaving more nasty gashes. A sizeable rock collided with the side of her head, bringing sharp pain and blurred vision. Vera had had enough and crawled on all fours towards the war machines. The men abandoned their posts in terror as her fingers closed around each device, crushing and splintering the wood. The few soldiers who remained on the machines were flicked away like tiddlywinks. Vera brought a balled fist onto the unmanned weapons, annihilating them.

“Goddamn it!” she screamed. “I don’t want to hurt you guys but you are seriously pissing me off!”

There was a loud clank and something whooshed through the air past her face. Vera turned and saw the huge mechanical crossbows trained upon her as they were wheeled forward. Another arrow was loosed and she quickly sidestepped it. Enormous to the Piconoreans, these arrows were almost normal-sized projectiles on Vera’s scale. They could easily pierce her naked flesh and presented an even greater threat than the catapults.

Vera hurried to the side as more arrows were sent her way. She circled around behind the crossbows and began flicking the men away from the launching mechanisms. She then brought her foot down and crushed each crossbow device with a few well-placed stomps, rendering them useless.

The young woman balled up her fists and held them threateningly above the startled soldiers. “Anyone else want to try something?” she snarled. The men shrieked and fled from the field.

Vera ran to where the battle was raging and dropped once again to her knees. With wide sweeping motions of her hands, she tried to separate the two armies. Tiny warriors were barreled over by the giantess’s fingers and sent sprawling across the field. But the orderly lines of infantry and foot soldiers had broken and the two sides were no longer clear cut. The armies mingled and merged into a chaotic mass of little shapes below her. Vera could barely tell who was who at this point. All around her, Piconoreans were dying as gunshots rang and swords flashed crimson with blood.

“Stop it, you idiots! Stop!” Vera raged at them. She fought back tears as the men continued to drop like flies all around her. Had she caused this? Had her presence ensured this war? Or was this day inevitable, the two sides on an inescapable collision course?

Vera felt the urge to charge into the heat of the battle and stomp both sides into submission. If they wanted to throw their lives away, she could certainly oblige and leave them all bloody smears beneath her feet. They deserved it, the tiny fools. But what would that achieve except more senseless death? It certainly wouldn’t stop the war or keep the two sides from hating each other. There had to be another way.

Whether her presence had caused this war or not, Vera was determined to end it.

She got on her feet and stood to her full height. Some of the soldiers paused, mid-battle, and gazed up in awe as the towering, two-hundred-fifty-foot woman rose above them. Her shadow eclipsed the entire field, plunging them into partial darkness. They stared up at her with trepidation and fear, uncertain which side the giantess would take in the conflict. More than ever, Vera felt like a goddess. She was a Valkyrie, soaring above doomed warriors. She was the Morrigan, spreading her raven wings over the battle-plain.

Vera lifted a foot over the clashing armies and could hear the gasps of the tiny figures below. Some of them flinched, believing they would be snuffed out. Instead, the giantess stepped over the entire battle with a graceful hop. She landed on the other side with a tremendous quake that threw the Piconoreans off their feet. Vera proceeded past them to the hill where Queen Elfwina and her entourage were watching from a distance.

The queen looked up from her lavish horse-drawn coach as the giant woman approached. “Honored One, do you still oppose us?” she asked. “Why do you not strike? With your power, you could turn the tide of this war!”

“That’s just what I’m doing,” Vera said. She stooped slightly and reached into the cushioned interior of the coach. She grabbed the startled queen between thumb and forefinger and hoisted her into the air.

The royal guards hurtled a few ineffective spears at the giantess which bounced off her arm like blunt toothpicks. Undeterred, Vera turned around and hurried past the battlefield, shaking the soldiers once again with her thunderous footfalls. As Elfwina struggled and kicked and spat royal decrees, Vera proceeded to the Northern army’s camp. She made her way past the crushed remains of the war machines and found Chancellor Brogan cowering behind a large rock. Stooping down a second time, she swept the tiny man into her other hand.

With the two heads of state clasped between her fingers, Vera headed back to the site of the battle. The men were still fighting and dying but between attacks, they cast curious glances at the giant woman. What was she up to?

“Listen to me, all of you!” the gargantuan lady announced. Stage whisper abandoned, she was using the full volume of her voice. The soldiers momentarily ceased fighting and clutched their ears in pain. “I have the chancellor and the queen at my mercy! End the war this instant or else I…I’ll swallow them both!”

“Oh, I say! M-my lady!!!” Brogan babbled.

“Honored Vera, spare me!” Elfwina declared from her other hand. “I have only ever served the Goddess faithfully!”

There was a murmur that spread among the two armies. Some feared for their glorious leaders while others doubted the veracity of the giantess’s claims.

“Think I’m kidding?” Vera challenged. “Ask Lt. Swiftbow, if he’s here and still alive. You little fellas can survive inside me longer than one might expect. But you’re not invulnerable.”

On the plain below, Edwyn Swiftbow removed his bayonet from the chest of a fallen Southron. Stoically, he wiped off the blood with an edge of his tunic.

“It’s true,” Swiftbow said. “Though it’s not an experience I’d recommend.”

“Let’s get a few things straight,” Vera told the assembled armies. “I am not a goddess or a demi-goddess or a savior. I am not a weapon of glory and conquest. I’m just an ordinary girl. But whatever I may or may not be I’ve gotten pretty attached to you little guys, at least when you’re not being ignorant morons. Look, you don’t realize how good you had it! Two nations, one for people of science, the other for people of faith? It’d be a perfect set-up, if you’d all just let each other be!”

“Back home, we don’t have that luxury,” she continued. “We’re all thrown together in one place. And it’s a big ugly mess sometimes. We fight, we bicker, we hate, we pass laws to marginalize one group or another. But you know what, we’re trying. And the least you people can do is try as well. You don’t have to agree with each other. You don’t even have to like each other! But fighting and killing like this isn’t going to solve anything. End this now.”

She looked down at a cluster of Northrons. “That’s the enlightened, logical thing to do.” She turned to the Southrons. “That’s what your Goddess would want for her people.”

The soldiers looked around and muttered amongst themselves in confusion. Some considered Vera’s words. But Osric Fallowmark was unimpressed.

“Naïve, sentimental bollocks!” he spat, riding his horse amid the two militias. “Are you really going to listen to this rot? ‘Oh, let’s all hold hands and sing and love each other because the nice giant lady told us to!’ You call yourselves soldiers?! You weak, detestable, lily-livered—”

“All right, so maybe impassioned heartfelt speeches aren’t my strong suit,” Vera said. “I was only ever so-so as an actress. If you won’t end the war for your own sakes then I’ll make you an offer. I can give you something much better than conquest of Piconorea.”

“And what would that be, Lady Vera?” Brogan asked, still clutched between two fingers.

“Another world,” the giantess answered. “Think of it, Chancellor. Imagine all those wondrous technologies and inventions I described. Imagine towers of steel a thousand times taller than the tallest castle on this island. Think of all you could you learn from a society centuries more advanced than yours. And you, Queen Elfwina, imagine seeing the Silver Cities of your legends. You could walk among giants and gods and learn the secrets of the World Beyond. You could see the land that birthed the Goddess herself.”

Brogan and Elfwina dangled from Vera’s fingers, lost in thought. Stars were in their eyes as they pictured the kingdom of the giants and all the promise it contained.

Vera brought her hands close to her face and addressed the miniature nobles. “I can’t take you there on my own. You two need to pool your resources and find a way to get me home.”

The queen and the chancellor glanced at each other. At once, the spell was broken as the old rivalries returned to the surface.

“Work with these savages?” Brogan said. “Never! The North must prevail!”

“I would sooner die than ally myself with such blasphemers!” Elfwina declared. “Long live the Southlands!”

Vera closed her eyes and scrunched her brow in frustration. “Are you serious?!” she shrieked. “What is it gonna take?!”

“The giant is weak and soft,” Fallowmark told his troops. “She will not make good on her threat to the chancellor. Northmen, resume the attack!”

“Belay that order!!!” Vera snarled at the Northerners with such ferocity that they halted. “You think I’m bluffing, Ozzy? Is force the only thing you respect? Fine. I’ve tried reasoning with you. Let’s see if these two would be more inclined to begin peace talks inside my belly!”

Vera roughly transferred the chancellor and queen into one hand and held them high above her. She tilted her head back and opened her mouth as wide as it could go. A gaping chasm framed by sharp white daggers loomed below the horrified rulers. They watched with terror as a huge, writhing tongue larger than they were rippled and undulated in the dark. The furnace-like heat of Vera’s breath swept over them.

Vera opened her fingers and released the miniature dignitaries onto her tongue. Elfwina and Brogan skidded along the slippery surface towards the darkness beyond. The young woman closed her lips and began manipulating her two tiny hostages, sloshing them back and forth on her tongue and sending them ricocheting off her teeth. She could hear their frightened screams like an echo inside her head.

“Okay, you two,” Vera mumbled quietly. Each flick of her tongue caused them to be thrown violently about and even a whisper was a deafening roar. “Less screaming and more peace treaty or it’s down the hatch for both of you.” Brogan and the queen were tossed this way and that and bounced off the roof of Vera’s mouth, landing with splash in a puddle of saliva.

Fallowmark continued to be unconcerned. “Release them, giant! You’re not fooling anybody. You haven’t the stones to go through with it.”

“Well, Kruscynski,” Vera thought to herself. “How far are you willing to take this?”

She looked down at Fallowmark, riding his steed before her toes, and gave him a mischievous wink. Vera tossed back her head and let her hostages slide into her throat. She could feel their ticklish kicks within her gullet and the vibrations of their screams. In a single tremendous gulp, she swallowed both the leaders of Piconorea whole.

A collective gasp spread across the battlefield. Even Fallowmark was speechless. Vera leaned over the crowd and opened wide, showing that her prisoners were indeed gone. She rubbed her bare belly and flashed the little soldiers a wicked smile.

Vera looked down and patted her tummy. “Not sure if you can hear me in there,” she said, “but as you can see, the kid gloves are off.” Her belly gave a sudden gurgle and she clutched a hand against it. “Ooh, watch out for those sweet rolls, guys. They haven’t been sitting well since breakfast.”

A few of the Southrons dropped to their knees in worship. A sacrifice had been chosen as in the stories of old. Others charged at Vera, screaming in challenge, and fought side by side with the Northrons as they attacked the giantess’s feet and ankles.

“At least they’re not fighting each other anymore,” Vera sighed.

Unaffected by the little people’s assault, Vera casually massaged her throat. Though they were only an inch tall, swallowing both Brogan and Elfwina together had been a bit of a task. It was like gulping down large pills or vitamins without water, and if the supplements in question were squirming and fighting her the whole time. Vera had found it rather unpleasant but she would now have to do something even worse if this plan was to succeed.

Ignoring the ankle-level attack, Vera walked several paces from the battlefield. She crouched behind a large hill, opened her mouth, and thrust two fingers down her throat. Vera coughed and gagged and sputtered. She hacked and wheezed. For a moment, she feared she wouldn’t be able to do this. But after a few attempts, she brought up the contents of her stomach and spewed them across the grass. Brogan and Elfwina lay in the mess, shivering and horrified but still alive.

“Ugh, that was vile,” Vera muttered. She turned to her abruptly liberated snacks. “I suppose it was worse for you two though. So, have we made a decision? Will you sign a treaty or do I have to send you back down there? Not sure I could do this trick again, or if I’d even want to. Maybe I’ll just leave you in there next time.”

The two rulers were wide-eyed and as white as sheets. “I’ll sign! I’ll sign!” Brogan squeaked.

“W-we agree to your terms, Honored One!” Elfwina added.

“I hoped you’d say that,” Vera told them. Though she’d been forced to strong-arm (strong-stomach?) an armistice, it was a start.

* * * *

In the weeks that followed, North and South Piconorea came together in an uneasy alliance. Families mourned the losses of the battle and the old hatred and mistrust still burned strong. But a treaty had been signed and the two nations were forced to begrudgingly tolerate each other. The chancellor and the queen had ordered the finest minds of the land to begin research into a method of returning Vera to her home. Whether this was spurred by the promised secrets of the giant-world or by fear of the giant in their midst, none could say.

Truth be told, many citizens of both North and South wanted the giantess gone. As time wore on, keeping Vera fed became an ever-increasing challenge. Though she tried to take smaller portions and ration what was available, the island risked a food shortage if she remained for much longer. And after hearing how she had treated their illustrious leaders, the Piconoreans didn’t want Vera to consider an alternative food source.

Whatever the motivations, there was a free exchange of ideas between the two nations for the first time in centuries. The priests and priestesses of the South consulted their scriptures and history chronicles, seeking clues for what had brought the Goddess to Piconorea millennia ago. The scientists and inventors of the North studied the weather patterns and the eerie phenomena of the hurricane that accompanied Vera to their land. Both groups convened on neutral ground to compare notes and theories under the ever-watchful eyes of the giant woman.

“In all the stories of the Goddess’s arrival,” a priestess said, “there are reports of mysterious lights in the sky—dazzling displays of green and red and purple.”

“Yes, this is an observable event,” a scientist insisted. “We surmise it’s caused by the planet’s magnetic field. It can be spotted quite frequently off the coast of the island.”

“Our scripture describes this as a mystic portal,” continued the priestess. “A doorway to the Silver Cities.”

“Superstitious tomfoolery,” another man of science scoffed. “But perhaps not far from the mark. My theory is that Lady Vera is from a separate dimension, one where everything is scaled differently than our own.”

“Ha! A different plane of reality!” Vera exclaimed. She sat beside the balcony where the miniature “think tank” was holding this discussion. “I totally called that from the start.”

“Er, yes. The lights could be a side effect of some sort of tear in space and time,” the scientist proceeded. “Magnetic and atmospheric forces thrown into upheaval.”

“But if those lights appear in the sky so frequently, why haven’t more, um, ‘giants’ come through to Piconorea?” Vera asked.

“In the holy books, the Goddess describes an empty waste in the borderlands at the edge of her queendom,” said a priest.

“Hmm, yes. The other side of the anomaly must be somewhere remote,” the first scientist theorized, “a place little traveled by Vera’s people. And I’d venture to say that this ‘portal,’ if it exists, is small by the giants’ standards. A single castaway can evidently pass through but perhaps not an entire sailing vessel.”

“If I were to swim out to these lights,” said Vera, “could they take me home?”

“It’s possible,” the scientist acknowledged. “But this is all just supposition.”

“Then I ‘suppose’ we ought to test it,” Vera told him.

* * * *

To test the safety of the mysterious lights, the scientists of the North loaded several lab animals onto a boat. Sailors steered it towards the colorful aurora on the first night the lights were spotted. They abandoned ship as the vessel approached the so-called “portal” and hurried back to shore in lifeboats. However, a large line had been attached to the ship and Vera held the other end of this as she sat upon the beach miles away. She felt like a little girl sailing a toy boat down a river.

After sufficient time had passed, Vera hauled the ship back in and the scientists climbed aboard to view the results. The animals didn’t seem to have suffered any adverse effects. Whether they had been to the “other side” was unclear but the lights at least didn’t seem to be harmful. The time for a human trial had come.

Though it took most of the accumulated lumber on the island, the Piconoreans constructed an enormous raft for the giantess. Even with the scale of this undertaking, Vera barely fit atop it. It was much like lying on a surfboard. Still, it was better than swimming out into uncharted waters alone.

Both the North and the South insisted that Vera honor her promise and take an expedition of Piconoreans with her. The little people wanted to see what was beyond the lights, to see the lands of the Goddess and the wondrous works of Vera’s people. Much to her surprise, Lord Fallowmark volunteered to lead the Northern contingent, perhaps for the glory and fame promised by the assignment. Chancellor Brogan recommended Lt. Swiftbow as Fallowmark’s second-in-command, due to his ingenuity and survival skills against a giant in the past.

The two were hesitant to work together and eyed each other suspiciously. “Sabotage me again,” Swiftbow warned, “and I’ll have Lady Vera eat you. You know she’ll do it, man.”

“We shall see, Swiftbow. We shall see.”

The Southern contingent was headed by none other than Priestess Regan. She could not resist the chance to see the world of the Goddess and all of their stories come to life. She chose some of her finest acolytes to accompany her.

“I’m sorry I lied to you, Regan,” Vera said, holding the priestess in her hand as preparations for the journey were being made. “You called me a demi-goddess and I never outright denied it. Guess I didn’t have the heart to tell you.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Honored One. You ended the war and brought cooperation between the South and the North,” Regan answered. “I still believe that the Goddess sent you to us, whether you know it or not. You were the savior we needed.”

Vera only agreed to take as many little people as she could safely stow in her bikini top. It was embarrassing and overly familiar once again but there was little room on the raft and she didn’t want anyone washed overboard. In all, there were nine members of the expedition—four from the North, four from the South, and one gigantic guide on her way home.

She paddled her way out into the cold ocean waters to the sounds of cheers and farewells on the shore behind her. The little people’s heads and shoulders poked above her bikini line. Many shielded themselves against the spray of the surf or fought to climb higher as the mountainous bosom pressed against the raft.

In short order, Vera reached the lights. All around her was a glittering swirl of color, a veritable kaleidoscope of shapes and hues. Everyone aboard the vessel felt an odd tingle as they entered the swirl. The hairs on their arms and the backs of their necks stood on end and a vague hum could be heard in the background. Vera ignored this and continued to paddle into the heart of the aurora. By now, the light was nearly blinding.

After a few moments, the lightshow subsided and they were once again in the open ocean. The night was dark and silent. Vera glanced behind her but could see no sign of Piconorea, nor hear the voices of the tiny folk. She clutched the bag of food and supplies the little people had provided her (a gunny-sack procured from the Goddess’s chambers). If they had indeed crossed over and this area was as remote as the stories claimed, it might be a while before they could sight land.

After several hours, they had seen nothing but empty sea and a thick mist. Vera’s tiny companions were becoming rather agitated.

“We should turn back,” Fallowmark said. “There’s nothing here. I was a fool to agree to this. ‘Mystic portal,’ my arse! More Southern nonsense.”

Regan shot him an angry glare from her perch in the other cup. “Your servants of science believed just as firmly in the lights. Have a little faith, my lord.”

“Faith! Bah!” Fallowmark shot back. “I’ve no more faith in this expedition than in a sea monster arriving to devour us!”

Suddenly, there was a deafening “HROOOOOO” and a massive black shape emerged from the mist. Vera and her tiny charges screamed in unison until the outline of a huge ship came into focus. A huge, properly proportioned, normal-human-sized ship! Vera’s heart practically leaped with joy. The ship sounded its foghorn once more and a light was cast down at the little raft.

“Hello down there!” a man’s voice called. The deep tones were so odd and foreign after weeks among people who sounded like tiny chipmunks. “Is someone in the water?”

“Yes! Hello! I’m here!” Vera cried. “Oh, thank God!”

She whispered to the little people and stuffed a few of them back down into the bikini. “Stay down and keep quiet,” she said. “We’re on our way.”

As the crewmen lowered a rope ladder into the water, Vera could hardly contain her excitement. She was going home.