“These are them,” the page said, saluting as he presented the men to Nasuada.

The young, dark-skinned queen of the rebellion had been seething at her desk, boots kicked upon it before having been interrupted by the page. She removed her feet from the desk and stood up, increasing her admittedly short stature so she may gain a better look at them.

These were all her men. Well, four men and a woman. Battered and broken. All of them she recognized as having been a part of her personal guard at some point within the last month. These were the traitors? The people she had to depend on. King Galbatorix’s spies were everywhere, and if she could not trust the people who would present her with her daily bread…

Nasuada’s eyes narrowed as she gazed at the page. Then at the group, bound and prevented from speaking due to rags in their mouths. The Varden was running low on supplies, leather, rags, twine, all sorts of things that might go into creating supplies for the war effort. Even the simple rags wasted on such filth was enough to make Nasuada cringe.

“Ungag them,” Nasuada commanded.

The page stared at her confused, but knew better than to disobey a direct order from his queen. He went to each of the five spies, and removed the gags from their mouths one by one. 

“I just want to know one thing,” Nasuada asked, walking from behind her chair and stepping before the group, hands behind her back, her beautiful, yet simple and refined clothing flowing on her body.

“Why?”

There was a mixture of abject fear, resolute stoicness, and anger that flashed amongst the members of the group. After a moment, one of the captured men sighed, and let out, “Galbatorix’s men... promised us a bounty. Promised us amnesty. We know this war is hopeless. We know--”

That man received a swift and violent kick to the temple from the young queen.

“Galbatorix is a liar and a snake. The Varden is the last bastion of hope for this continent. It is the army that my father, my friends, our friends died for! And you would betray them… betray me… for amnesty?!”

Unprompted, Nasuada delivered another kick to that soldier’s head, prompting the rest of the group to shift away, now wary of the fact that she may give any one of them the same fate for no apparent reason.

Nasuada sighed. “Traitors truly are the lowest of the low… execution isn’t enough. It needs to be a total annihilation.” Nasuada sauntered back to her desk. “A destruction so complete, everyone in the Varden will know exactly what happens in this army to those who would betray her.”

Nasuada sat herself in her seat, and began to draft something.

“Put them in holding for now,” she commanded the page, who nodded.

“And have those rags washed.”

-----

The entirety of the Varden was present. Standing upon the wide scaffold, Saphira on the ground next to him (making them roughly at equal eye level) Eragon’s eyes fell upon the massive crowd, even more numerous than those who had been present at the public whipping of his brother for insubordination. There had to be a minimum of 7,000 people gathered. This must’ve been important.

Eragon had, admittedly, been a bit confused by Nasuada’s request of him. Or, more accurately, his dragon, Saphira. Like most dragons, Saphira was as smart as any human or elf, and capable of reading and understanding language as well as communicating telepathically. She knew immediately what Nasuada wanted of her when she read the queen’s missive, and immediately agreed without hesitation. Saphira certainly enjoyed any opportunity to showcase her dominance over the humanoid races of Alagaesia, so this was quite a dream for her. As well, Nasuada was granting Saphira an opportunity to indulge in a habit Eragon had frustratingly been trying to wean her off of.

Then, a hush fell upon the crowd. Nasuada had arrived, trailing the group of five that had been sentenced. Looking down at the ground, Eragon noticed the arrival of the men, being ferried in chains one after another, naked except for their undergarments, climbing to the platform and aligning themselves in a row before the crowd, now being subject to thousands and thousands of “BOO!!” and all manner of ridicule. They were followed by Nasuada, who stepped elegantly to the staircase leading to the platform of the gallows. 

With a single look out at the crowd, they ceased their jeering. Eragon watched in awe at the brilliant way she commanded them. He felt a sense of pride knowing he was not merely looking at the queen of the Varden, and hopefully the future queen of Alagaesia, but also his only human friend. 

Nasuada spoke, and Eragon amplified her voice through magic.

“Greetings, men and women of the Varden. I have brought before you these five men and women so I may make a statement.

“These people are traitors.”

There was a general gasp and Eragon tensed. He knew the truth beforehand, but the general anxiety that now fell upon the Varden was palpable.

“They have admitted to conspiring an assassination attempt on my very life, in an effort to rid the Varden of its leadership. But I come to you today, my brothers and sisters, to give them, and Galbatorix a message:

“You have failed.”

The crowd now cheered, pumping fists and whistling at the display of strength and courage that now emanate from Nasuada. The captured spies were noticeably shaking, and Eragon turned to see Saphira peering at one of them, licking her lips. Eragon cocked a tentative half smile, before turning to Nasuada. Nasuada had turned to him, and she nodded. It was time.

Are you ready? Eragon asked his dragon.

Do you need to ask, little one?

“Some of you may be wondering,” Nasuada continued, “How do you intend to punish such a lot? Through hanging? Beheading? Torture or whipping? These are all fates more than appropriate enough for the caliber of a traitor, but I have in my mind, a better idea.”

Nasuada began to pace across the scaffolding, her boots audibly clacking on the wood, though they were mostly obscured by her ankle-length dress. She circled the group, like a bird circling its prey.

“My father, the leader of the Varden before me, once told me that to determine the worth of a traitor, one only need to look at the dirt beneath one’s shoe. Well today… I intend to honor his memory and those words.”

Now. 

Saphira closed her eyes, and the mark upon Eragon’s hand symbolizing the magical connection between human and dragon glowed. Suddenly, a light coalesced about one of the prisoners, the leftmost one, who's eyes jerked up as he realized what was happening to him. He squirmed against his bonds, trying to break free, but the light soon engulfed him until…

Nothing.

Eragon was astounded. The magic of dragons tended to be a fickle thing at best, yet Saphira had managed to use her arcane powers for… well…

“Do not be alarmed, for he has yet to meet his fate!” Nasuada said, smiling as she reached down and picked something up in her hand. Eragon’s hawk-like vision as a dragon rider allowed him to easily discern that the object now in her hand was none other than the first traitor, now free of his oversized bonds, but completely naked and trying to run around in Nasuada’s hand.

“I assure you, what you see is no mere illusion. For I hold in my hand now, the first of the men who chose to turn his blade against me.”

Nasuada crouched, revealing her hand to the first several rows of men, a group of a hundred or so people, who could more or less see that the man had been reduced to naught but an inch in size. 

“I will waste no more time elaborating upon the fate of this man. He deserves not even that little.” Nasuada dropped the man before her boot, and he stood up, hoping to run away, or possibly even slip through one of the divots between the wood and hide.

It would not work.

Nasuada hiked up her dress and visibly raised her foot high into the air, balancing perfectly as she pinpointed her mark, until…

STOMP!

It descended with more fury and force than a descending dragon, and thanks to Eragon’s amplification spell it truly did reverberate throughout the entire Varden camp. Not just the impact, but even the vivid squelch of flesh and bone. It was a sound many of these men were tangentially familiar with, but never in such a visceral way.

Nasuada ground her foot into the wood, the scraping sound of leather on oak creating a pleasing sound to listen to, particularly when lubricated with the blood from the body. She then turned to the next men in line, who were staring, horrified faces and wide eyes, at Nasuada.

“Y-y-you yo-you… you m-m-monster!” said the next one as he now struggled against his binds with even more force. “Y-y-y-you can’t do this to us. You c-c-can’t do this to me! W-w-we’re hu--”

In an interesting twist, Saphira channeled her magic as the man was speaking, and in a flash, he was reduced to only a few centimeters.

Nasuada smiled as she stepped to the next victim, who had tripped in the shrinking process and was now trying his best to crawl away at a speed of less than a meter per minute. Rotating her body slightly, Nasuada thought it fit to wet her other boot this time. Raising it up and casting the man in complete shadow, prompting him to try to crawl away even faster, she smirked and said to him sultrily, “The moment you thought to betray me, your humanity was forfeit.”

And like an unforgiving guillotine, her foot descended.

This time was punctuated by the ferocious cheers of her men and women, excited to see the bloodshed after weeks of not much action on the way to the capital.

That very reaction was what made the remaining prisoners realize the reality of their fate. They looked to and from one another, then to Nasuada, Eragon, even Saphira, but they got indifference at best. At worst, outright glee at their impending fates.

Then, Nasuada did something unexpected. She turned to Saphira, nodding at her to shrink the next one, then crouched down and began to unlatch her right boot. Eragon was a bit puzzled by this, before he realized what she intended to do. It was a simple thing to crush something under one’s boot. But crushing it under one’s bare foot was nothing short of an absolute display of the dominance one had over such an entity. How utterly untroubled one was by the existence of another.

Nasuada was just finishing taking off her second boot, tossing both to the side before she once again stood to height. She placed her hands on her hips and flexed her toes, cracking them on the hard wood before she laid eyes on the third victim.

“Hello. Do you have anything you would like to say? Any last words, regrets, anything you wish to take back?”

The voice was absolutely miniscule; only Eragon and presumably other elves in the audience could hear it, even barely. “I’m s-”

SQUISH!

An advantage of going barefoot that Arya could attest to was that it increased the dexterity of one’s lower extremities by tenfold. Whereas previously the buildup towards ultimately crushing the prisoners was in part because she wanted to keep it dramatic while making preparation to crush the shrunken men, now she was able to do so without any preamble, in merely moments reducing the once proud turncoat into nothing but a coin-sized mound of meat, bones now powdery grains. Nasuada was in a slight danger of slipping from the blood, but held her balance.

The crowd truly went wild. They cheered at the power Nasuada held at her feet harder than they ever had previously, and she was relishing it. The hot beating sun was beginning to take its toll on Nasuada, still dressed in her royal regalia, but now she didn’t care. Panting, she turned her attention to the fourth victim. The fifth one had apparently fainted, and the fourth was crying and pleading for his mother. Then his father. Then for any number of the dwarven gods to hear his prayer. But, after the light enveloped him, Nasuada had no choice but to say, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. No god will hear you at that size.”

Then, with masterful footwork, Nasuada plucked him up between her big and second toes, now balancing on one foot as she held the other in the air, slightly arched.

“Varden, look upon this man. I want you to know that if any of you have seditious thoughts, then your fate will be the same as his.”

Then, with noticeable effort, Nasuada began to flex her toes, squeezing as hard as she could. The man between them stopped struggling almost immediately, a combination of cutting off his airflow as well as a sound Eragon could’ve sworn was his back breaking. It didn’t matter. After several more seconds of squeezing, Nasuada accomplished her goal.

In a moment, the man splattered, coating Nasuada’s toes in the blood of the traitor, and her face lit up in a smile.

The crowd once again cheered, unbelievably inspired by Nasuada’s display of dominance. 

“Ahhh…” Nasuada said, now clearly playing up to the crowd. For a moment, Eragon was very glad that the leader of the Varden was a young, attractive, and capable woman like herself. Had it been a man like Orrin, or Ajihad, or -- gods forbid -- Eragon himself, he doubted that they would’ve received half the support that Nasuada had received as a result of this display. Men and women, elves, dwarves, Urgals and even werecats alike were united as they never had been.

Nasuada leisurely placed her boots back on without taking any time to wipe the viscera off the soles of her feet, or her toes. Now her boots, on some level, had the flesh of tiny men coating them, whether inside or out.

Now all the crowd’s ire was directed toward one person. The final spy. The woman.

Truth be told, Eragon was a bit disheartened at the idea of killing a woman, traitorhood be damned. He knew however that Nasuada, pragmatic she was, had no such qualms. She approached the final lady, having been revived from her panic-induced slumber by the thunderous cheers of the crowd. Tears were streaming down her face as all she could do was whimper and shake her head, mouthing and squeaking, “No, no, no, no, no!”

“Worry not. I will not crush you.”

Then Nasuada left. She began to descend down the platform.

Somehow, as she sat there on the wooden platform, bound, alone except for Eragon 20 feet away from her, and… a 50 foot dragon glaring at her, this only made her more nervous.

Saphira’s long-ish neck snaked to the bound woman, who now audibly screamed as the terrifying scaled beast licked its lips once again.

It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten a human.

To most average people, dragons were not more than smarter-than-average creatures that some very special people could ride. The realization then that this dragon had the power to invade this woman’s mind was enough to break her. More than she already was, at least.

The woman’s tears stopped, and her crying briefly reduced to nothing more than a croaking sound before her head and upper body were engulfed by Saphira’s maw. She raised her head up, making it easy for the comparatively bite-sized prisoner to slither down the fire-breathing lizard’s throat.

Nasuada, voice still amplified from Eragon’s spell, called out to the Varden once more:

“Let this be a lesson. To any and everybody amongst you. If you continue to fight by my side, I swear to you, we will retake Uru’baen, and we will retake Alagaesia!”

The punctuation of those phrases was enough to drive a meteoric cheer from the crowd’s throats.

“But, to anyone that harbors traitorous thoughts, seditious feelings, or the faintest hint of treachery… not even the magics of Galbatorix himself can save you.

“And to you, Galbatorix,” Nasuada screamed, knowing that with any amount of spies hiding in the crowd there was no way he wouldn’t get this message. “The day is coming when your kingdom, your rule, and everything you have in this world will be naught but dust beneath my feet. And that is a promise.”

And then Nasuada, satisfied with her speech, departed back to her quarters, the crowd going absolutely ballistic.

Eragon managed to catch up with her before she disappeared amongst the jovial and dispersing crowd.

“That was a fantastic speech!” he said, bowing lightly as he spoke.

“Thank you,” Nasuada said, eyes filled with manic determination. “And I meant every syllable of it.”

Eragon nodded. He watched as Nasuada departed before saying to Saphira, You know, for a human who can’t use magic… Nasuada can be quite scary when she wants to be.

Saphira responded, Let us be lucky she’s on our side.

Arya sighed as she leaned out the window, looking upward at the blanket of trees, searching for her dragon that had gone out on its daily exercises earlier in the day. Through the sea of green, she could see little, and though internally she knew she was not alone, Arya still could not prevent potential thoughts of that loneliness from welling up.

It had been seven weeks since Arya had last spoken with Eragon. The young, fellow dragon rider was strange, immature in many respects, and had Arya's curiosity. She felt in her heart that his decision to leave the continent and begin the order of the Dragon Riders anew was the correct one, and yet she hadn't quite met anyone like him. 

It was times like this that Arya thought back on Eragon's proposal to her during the night of the Blood-Oath Celebration. She had made the correct decision to reject him, even if it broke both their hearts. This, Arya was sure of. And despite everything...

The boredom was beginning to get to her. The unfathomable boredom of leadership. Now that she was the queen of the elves, she had so many responsibilities to attend to, and though Arya wasn't resentful, she had begun to fall into the trap so many fall into in their post-war days. Memories of her greatest successes and glories, of battle, the ability to make a true difference with only her sword and her spells. 

Arya snapped to reality. There was a knock on her door.

It must've been Arya's handmaiden. Nobody in the palace proper would know that the elf queen had her own private, gently-furnished apartment that she used as a retreat from the pressures and business of royal work, except for her handmaiden. Arya didn't lie to them -- it would've been impossible in the Ancient Language anyway, considering the magics binding those that used it -- but she simply omitted her destination when she chose to retreat to it.

Arya stepped to the doorframe, her bare soles feeling each knot and gnarl in the sung oakenwood of the floor. She opened the simple door to see a "young" elf woman dressed in light and casual garb, holding a large wad of red cloth.

"Greetings, my liege," she said, twisting one hand in front of her sternum -- the typical elven gesture of respect -- and holding out the wad with the other. "This is for you. It is a gift."

"For me?" Arya was confused, and she took the object, feeling it in her slender hands. It became clear the cloth was simply a wrapped covering, and the real gift was inside. 

"Thank you. You may leave, now."

The handmaiden curtsied and departed from the apartment. Arya disliked that she was so formal, but decades of being the Queen's daughter had gotten her used to such treatment. 

Closing the rough-hewn door, Arya soon removed the satin covering to reveal a cylindrical capsule. It was about the size of, say, a metal canteen, or a bottle, and was made of silver. A note was attached, which Arya took hold of and read quickly.

A gift, from monarch to monarch. 

-- N.

Arya's eyebrow raised at this. There were only a few monarchs in Alagaesia, and she was one of them. She doubted it was Oromis, or Orik, considering neither of their names began with an N. The only likely possibility was that it was Nasuada. 

Arya smiled. Most of her interactions with the Varden queen had been quite positive. She was similarly aged to Eragon, but possessed a certain wisdom beyond her years. This enabled her to have conversations on a far deeper level than she was wont to have with someone like Eragon. 

Arya moved the note aside before realizing there was another message written on the back.

I'm aware your kind do not eat meat. I do wonder, however, if you can make an exception for me, just this once.

This was... odd.

Arya took the capsule in her lithe hands, rolling it over. A number of lumpy objects fell into one another inside. Gems? No... there were no clanging sounds. Some sort of food? It wasn't impossible, but why would Nasuada send her food? And meat at that, in a metal capsule no less?

Not wishing to wait longer, Arya unscrewed the cap, popping it open. She placed it on a wooden table and peered inside, only to have her eyes widen.

Inside of the capsule were four shrunken men and two women, all naked. Her hawk-like elf vision allowed her to identify on all their bodies a snake tattoo, emblematic of those citizens of the Empire who had yet to swear fealty to the new order, and who chose to actively undermine Nasuada's rule. Their activities ranged from staging protests against Nasuada to even ranging full-scale terror attacks, hurting hundreds and killing a few. There were dozens of reported cases of these terrorists, all with this same tattoo. And now, for some reason, six of them occupied this capsule.

Arya remembered it now. The new Empire had made extensive use of shrinking as a punishment for crimes against the crown. Before Saphira left, she had shrunk at least thousands of similar criminals at Nasuada's bequest, always being paid in return with eating the leftover prisoners whole. Many people were rather uncomfortable with the punishment, such as Oromis and even Eragon himself, though it was impossible to argue that it didn't make quite the impression. Now that Saphira was gone, Nasuada was most-likely going to have to find another source of dragon magic to shrink the next batch of convicts, and now that Arya was a dragon rider herself, she seemed like the next best place to receive it from. Perhaps this capsule of people served as both a gift and compensation in exchange for Arya's (or rather, her dragon's) services in doling out corporal punishment.

Arya extrapolated this in nary a few moments, during which all the inhabitants could see, piled one on top of the other in the cramped cell, was Arya's massive cheek and a single green eye, robed in a few strands of night-black hair.

Without waiting, Arya overturned the entire can, pouring the motley crew out in bundles onto her hand.

Immediately, they began to stir and tremble, attempting to stand up and get their bearings. A few began to shout things in human tongue, and Arya could understand well that they had no love for her. Or Nasuada for that matter. Arya's fascination was truly piqued. That devilish woman had done quite a number on these people. 

Clenching her fist lightly, she poured the people in her palm back into the jar and sealed it. Arya opened her hand again and there was only one figure within now. It was a blond, somewhat younger than most, and likely socialized in the militarized loyalist culture of what had once been the citadel capital, Uru'baen. He reminded Arya of Eragon in an odd way, and her heart fluttered at the comparison, thinking about what she intended to do with this prisoner.

The one on her hand was terrified, standing stock still, appearing to assume a running position. But where would he go? Arya's hand was at least a meter off the ground, and the young lad's pale skin would stick out quite clearly against the dark oak wood of the apartment. So he simply stood there as Arya's pale lips parted, and her mouth began to open. She raised her hand, thumb and forefinger now plucking the young human's leg, immediately breaking his brittle stance as he now dangled above the elf's uninviting mouth, humid breath spilling out. For as much as elve's prided themselves on their cleanliness, the simple truth was that nobody wanted to be this close to any creature's mouth when they were this small. And his screams seemed to attest to that fact.

With little preamble, she dropped him into her mouth.

Immediately, the bitter taste of human skin, marred by a lifetime's worth of sweat and blood and odor and battle, assaulted Arya. The taste of death that had filled her nostrils everytime she went into combat was what it reminded her of the most, as the man in her mouth squiremed and tried his hardest to struggle against the elf's pink, moist tongue. Arya sloshed him around, filling one cheek with him, then another. Her sensitive, pointed ears could hear every scream and struggle, and considering their stance as traitors to the crown, she had no complaints over their suffering. Once the flavor had run out, Arya prepared to swallow when a realization came to her.

She had never eaten meat before. And typically, most try to chew the meat they eat. Clearly.

And with that, Arya positioned the man between her incisors, and bought them down.

Immediately, in addition to the piercing set of screams that had accompanied it, a metallic flavor began to fill Arya's mouth, titillating her taste buds. Getting a random taste of blood from steel on the battlefield was one thing, but this? She closed her eyes in rapture as the bittersweet taste of blood consumed her senses.

This. This was a delicacy.

She realized now why Saphira loved the taste of man flesh so much.

She swished the in-pieces man around in her mouth again as the juices saturated her teeth and tongue. Arya continued to crunch and chew before ultimately swallowing the mangled wad of flesh that had once been a traitor to Alagaesia.

Arya breathed a sigh of indulgence. The man was only an inch and a half tall, but the intense experience of consuming another life -- not merely to kill; she had done that hundreds of times. But to consume life -- left her more sated than she had been in a long time. The experience, with Arya standing in the center of her room, likely took only a minute or two. But emotionally? It felt like several electrifying hours. Which is saying something for an immortal elf.

Arya glanced at the canister as an idea came to her, before grabbing it and getting to work.

---

Arya sat at her table, head forward, cheek against the hardwood. In front of her was another man, older this time, with developed facial hair, standing on the wood, petrified through no fault of Arya's. While technically Arya hadn't told the other tiny humans what she'd done to their friend, she reasoned the smell of blood and the red on her lips was quite obvious.

Arya looked vaguely bored, but her elfen heart was beating fast, and she said, without raising her head to a more attentive position, "I simply would like you to walk forward, into my mouth."

The tiny man was resolute, shaking his jittering head. 

Arya repeated her request, adding, with regal intonation, "I must assure you, if you simply do what I ask, it will indeed be the most advantageous course of action you can take."

Arya felt an electric chill, traveling from the tips of her toes up into her body. And she shivered. The rest of the captives were doing good work.

The man, surprisingly to Arya, began to speak. Arya once again could make out precisely what he said, despite his small stature. "I don't know what you did to the rest of ‘em, but I'm not falling for it! You demon!"

To this, Arya did chuckle. It wasn't terribly common even amongst humans for magic users to be scrutinized by their non-magician peers. And considering Arya was an elf, the embodiment of the other, she wasn't particularly offended in the least by the insult. Of course, he couldn't have been talking about precisely what she did to his friends, as he had no way to know.

So, Arya decided to show him.

Arya pushed her stool out from the table, and reached to the floor, taking in her hands a few items. The stock-still captive on the table watched as Arya's head disappeared, then reappeared. Her hands emptied, and on the table dropped the four remaining captives, who fell in fleshy piles on the surface, fully intact but seemingly asleep.

The small bearded man's eyes lit up. His associates were alive, it seemed. He ran to meet them before smashing into a seemingly invisible wall and falling down. With confusion, the small man tried to breach this space of air roughly a foot between him and his friends, but instead found a barrier made of energy.

This was Arya's doing; the elf had mentally intoned a spell preventing the man from leaving that space. She smiled as she then raised a single pale leg up above the table, stretching it out so that one colossal, rosy foot stood as a monument before every creature on the plane, the earthy scene of twigs, flowers, and wildberries emanating and dominating the very pores of these poor souls. 

Arya was just beginning to prop her second foot upon the table as the rest of the captives began to stir, called upon by that scent. Like zombies, they each rose, one by one, and began to walk, two and two, to a sole each. The two lone women in the group -- a dark-skinned younger lady and an older pale one, walked to the left, while the remaining men traveled to the right foot. Upon reaching the massive fleshy wall, each one fell to their knees, oblivious to their companion's confused yells and screams, and spread their arms, hugging the mass in reverence.

Arya cocked a smile again as the bearded shrunken man ceased his yelling, still impossibly confused. It was well known that elves did not believe in any particularly higher power, for what could be higher than them? And it was here, now, as Arya asserted her place over this human, that this dictum became more apparent to her than ever before.

With a patient, perverted slowness, Arya began to descend her left foot, the angle of its contact with the table becoming more and more acute, the tinies not the slightest bit fazed as the doughy white skin became a pillow-like encompassing force, still silent, ever grateful. Arya's sole flattened, and the tinies were gently caressed by its weight. She then repeated this process with her right foot.

The bearded shrunken man had begun banging on the forcefield a few moments prior, and only now did Arya see fit to lower the barrier and allow him to trot up and inspect Arya's perfectly-kempt toes. The woodland scent was intoxicating, and for a moment as the man came to Arya's right foot, he felt as if touching this skin would cause him to fall through it, the table, and into the very essence of nature from which it seemed the elves were birthed.

The man tried with all his might to curl his fingers around Arya's right big toe, attempting to heave it upward, but to on avail. Panting, he trotted to the other foot, expecting better luck perhaps, but was once again met with little reaction besides some slight, invisible mirth on Arya's part.

"Your associates are perfectly fine. As fine as they can be, anyway."

And Arya raised her feet again, standing them up on the heel. There, adhered to the feet by a thin layer of sweat (and a bit of binding magic) were the four captives, spread eagle on the bottom of the soles. Their sluggish moans of pleasure and contentment were the only sounds they made.

The remaining captive did not have to speak before Arya answered his question for him, "These simple creatures did not require much time to reason out. I could glean their true nature -- and thus their true names -- quite simply. A desire to be dominated. A desire for comfort. To never again have to encounter challenge, even if the hegemony of oppression were to remain upon them forever. From there, it was a simple matter of entering their heads and... tinkering, a slight bit. Only I changed the object of their affection from that false king... to the only two objects in this world that will now ever have any power over them."

Arya stretched her right leg directly upwards, in a show of her dextrous elven flexibility, then descended it upon the table with a resounding, deathly THUMP.

An audible splatter sounded from beneath, and a pool of blood spilled out from betwixt Arya's toes.

The final man fell to his own knees at the sound of his comrades' deaths, until... he noticed the blood. As if it had a mind of its own, it was traveling back beneath the soles. The feet. It was...

Arya raised her foot again, allowing a peak at the two women beneath it. They were splattered, true. And yet... they were not dead. In fact, the pieces of their bodies remained connected by several sinews, being rebirthed and re-knitted together, slowly, ever so surely becoming the makings of two complete humans once again.

"Unlike that false betrayer, or any number of your gods, these deities truly do have the power to grant and take away life."

And Arya's left foot, still flat and caressing, began to press down more firmly, harder, on its own, resulting in a similar SPLAT, followed by her lifting the sole up from the inner edge of the foot, as the dumbfounded, defeated final captive could see the others reforming before his eyes once again.

"They cannot live without these feet anymore, my friend," said Arya. "It's simple. The more I walk upon the bounteous land nature has given us, the more life energy my own feet absorb. And thus, the longer these young humans are going to live. My feet have gifted them that indelible gift of immortality that Galbatorix so cruelly stole from the rest of this continent for a hundred years. And all they needed to do was give up their own willpower. Their minds. Their ‘so-called' humanity."

Arya lifted her legs, repositioning them back under the table. The final sight the last man had of them was of those four comrades of his glued to their surface, mentally and blissfully dead. It was haunting. And yet, the smell of them remained. The waxy tree-like, leafy scent had permeated the table, and by extension the senses of this small man.

"By asking you to enter your mouth, you see, I'm allowing you an escape. I've no need for more such patrons of my feet. Though perhaps every time I sit down, the sweat that accumulates between... maybe that could be your sustenance if you find this arrangement disagreeable. Hm?"

The small man could only shake his head, taking steps backwards as the colossal face of the elf cocked an eyebrow. 

He turned, trying to run away, and Arya simply sighed and leveled a potent spear of mental energy at the little man's mind. 

It shattered his psychological defenses so completely and utterly. To be fair, he did offer slightly more resistance compared to his companions, but it was still not even close to the slightest struggle for the trained elf.

He stopped running. He turned around. And he began to walk toward Arya, who had since rested her chin on the hardwood and had her lips ready to part, their supple fullness smiling at the treat she was soon to enjoy.

The walk was little more than a few feet, but deep inside the subconscious of that man, he could feel something was wrong. And with every step he took, his understanding of that wrongness elevated by ten. He shouldn't be doing this. He didn't want to be doing this. And yet, why couldn't he stop? Another step. Then another. To the inviting face of the elven queen. He wasn't far now.

He collapsed upon Arya's pink lower lip, speckled with a mere drop of red here or there. He hugged it, wrapping his arms around its pillowy mass, crawling upon it. Like a blanket, he lifted Arya's upper lip up, by his own strength entirely, before somehow managing to squeeze his head into the moist blackness of her gums. The man squirmed, trying to get his bare body into the crevice. Before him, a set of pearly white, guillotine-like, beautiful teeth were there to greet him, silent and still, ready to commemorate his success at entering his new god's mouth. There, at the back of her mouth, the teeth were parted just enough, and there on her molars seemed a nice enough bed to lay in. Traversing the wet fleshy ground of the front of Arya's gums, the man traveled about the curve of her cheek, before climbing up and onto the white molars, like giant building blocks, and positioning himself along them.

Finally. He had done it.

Arya let up her puppeteering of this man just enough for a bolt of fear to travel through him, as he realized, Why does it smell like blood?

CHOMP.

Arya chewed this delicacy once again, his mind totally eradicated in the first bite, before swallowing him down to join the first of those she executed.

"Ahhhhhhhh..." sighed Arya, standing up to stretch the length of her perfectly-toned elven body. She grabbed her foot and rubbed it, absolutely loving the now ever present feeling of these bodies gifting her with their own love, appreciation, and devotion. If there was one thing humans were capable of doing far better than it seemed elves did, it was love, unconditionally and unabashedly. And these humans loved Arya's feet.

She made sure of it. And she had no intention of being lonely ever again.

Arya then prepared to leave her apartment. She did have a kingdom to run after all; though, perhaps... maybe... soon... eventually... she could pay Nasuada a visit... and bring her dragon along.

Perhaps this could be the start of their friendship being taken to newer and grander heights than ever before.

The plains were abuzz with nervous tension, and the men stood in rows by the thousand, clad in the finest, glittering black steel armor. Behind them, the monolithic walls of Uru'baen stood high, gleaming and shining, guard towers posted at regular intervals in the rock. In the city proper, its buildings of glass and stone stood similarly immovable, and the rock outcropping beneath which the castle lay was as comfortable a blanket and shield as it was an assurance that the city would not fall this day.

And yet… amidst the army, stock still in their ranks, there was doubt. And a lot of it.

It started a month prior, outside Dras Leona. The city just… disappeared. No word whatsoever. All those who traveled to the city never returned and were unable to send any information back to the King or the rest of the Imperial agents. The Empire had lost no shortage of holds through the course of this civil war, but to have an entire city of more than one hundred thousand people just up and… vanish like that? It was a cause for concern, to say the least.

And then… there were the fliers.

Three weeks prior, hundreds of thousands of leaflets found themselves drifting in the winds, blanketing the streets of Uru'baen with a message written in all the tongues of the peoples that called Alagaesia home: 

Attention, citizens of Uru'baen. This is your new queen speaking. The war is lost. If you wish to avoid summary obliteration, it is in your interest to evacuate the city posthaste. 

If you come in peace, the Varden shall welcome you. However, if you show any resistance, you shall have no hope in anything except your imminent death.

This message is not meant to warn you. This message is meant to save you.

- Nasuada, Queen of the Broddring Empire

The Varden queen referring to herself as the Queen of Galbatorix’s empire was the first hint that this was probably meant to merely psyche out Galbatorix’s forces. Most of the citizens who read the message considered it yet another attempt by the Varden at the sort of psychological warfare they had become so accustomed to using. Anyone with half a brain knew that the Varden simply did not have the numbers to maintain any hope of controlling the vast swathes of land that encompassed the kingdom. At the very least, it should not be happening as quickly as it did. It is more likely that those cities were in siege, and the Varden was somehow able to cut off all contact between the capitol and its branches. Nevertheless, as the 

And yet… there were still the unofficial accounts. Of… something. Those that got away, usually jailed swiftly by Galbatorix for disturbing the peace with their incoherent ramblings, speaking of… her. Some sort of creature. A female creature. A giant female creature, with the power to destroy buildings and nations in one single step and was wont to gulp down scores of men by the boatload. Learned men might assume they were speaking of that blue dragon Saphira that Eragon rode around on. But those who escaped often insisted it was a creature of a different variety. A more humanoid variety.

And then, there were the tremors. The odd, unnatural tremors that could be heard for leagues and leagues in any direction. They felt like small earthquakes, but their frequency cast their true origin into question. They felt unnatural, like… footsteps… of some sort.

These combinations of stress and fear led to many such citizens to heed Nasuada’s warning. Uru'baen had been leaking citizens by the dozens until Galbatorix mandated that no more citizens were allowed to leave the city unless on official Imperial business. That said, the fact that few had seen Galbatorix in the past month raised suspicions of its own that something larger was afoot.

It was questions like these and many more that occupied the minds of the city guard of Uru'baen, the last stronghold of Galbatorix’s army. Lances raised, swords drawn, they stood relatively assured that whatever the Varden had in store for them, the citadel would not fall. Hopefully.

FWAHOOOOOOM!

The sound of a war horn, coming in the directions of the vast open plain. The Imperial soldiers recognized the sound well. And yet, it did not come accompanied with the image of dust, thrown up by hundreds of horses arriving from beyond the valley. Or the stamps of hundreds of armored boots on the march, preparing to meet the Empire in martial combat. No, this time, the horn had a clear, single and identifiable source.

There, on the valley, was one woman, walking leisurely. Instantly, the guard captain recognized her as the Queen of the Varden. There was no man, woman, or child in Uru'baen that was not familiar with her striking, richly pigmented regal face, filled with equal capacity for beauty and terror. 

That said, currently her face was most definitely not the aspect of her visage that the troops were focused on. That would be her body. Most every patch of skin that she wore was completely bare, eschewing fabrics, and instead adorned by some form of chain, ring, necklace, or otherwise exorbitant piece of jewelry, customary of her ancestral tribe. Her bountiful breasts swung out with each step her bare feet took, and her groin was only covered by one exceptionally long adornment about her neck, hanging a golden metal disc directly before that nether region. Her backside was bare, and though the soldiers could not see from this angle, they could only imagine the beauty held within that aspect of the Varden queen. Upon her brow, a massive headpiece was situated, the ancestral heirloom of her fathers and forefathers. 

The guard captain observed her bare yet clothed visage with interest. A ploy to entice a great many of the soldiers present to likely experience second thoughts at apprehending and eventually executing Nasuada. 

Well, the guard captain scoffed. Despite the welling up he felt in his leggings, this would not work.

Even from hundreds of feet away, they could easily see the woman standing alone, patiently, holding a war horn. She tossed it aside as Galbatorix’s forces observed her with suspicion. The guard captain kicked the spurs into his own horse, which galloped forth, drifting along and trotting in a circle before Nasuada as he met the Varden Queen.

“I hope you bring terms of your unconditional surrender,” the haughty queen said, looking several feet up at the much taller man, even without the horse he currently sat upon.

“BAH! Do not make me laugh. I know not what happened at Dras-Leona, but know this, ‘Queen’. We of Uru’baen will never bow to the likes of you. Galbatorix was, is, and will be the one true king.”

Frustrated, Nasuada replied, “I did not wish for things to come to this… Do you realize that if you surrender now, the lives of not only your people, but every citizen that yet remains in Uru’baen will be saved?”

“We prepared for a battle. That is the reality of the lives we lead, in this war.”

“I promise you, sir, it will not be much of a battle. This is your last chance…” Nasuada opened her arms, saying, “I come to you, armed with nothing except my dignity as queen. I wield not even any wards, as an expression of my goodwill. All I require you to do is lay down your weapons and bow to me.”

The guard captain replied, “I’d sooner spit in the eye of my mother and call her a donkey than I would bow to you.”

Nasuada regarded the captain with sadness, before looking past him at the ranks of waiting soldiers, and then the high walls of Uru’baen itself.

“Very well. You have made your case.”

The guard captain turned his horse and began to gallop back in the direction of the troops, preparing to lead his men for the upcoming battle, when a massive shockwave struck the plains, tripping the horse and sending the soldier from his steed and into the ground below, rolling in a ball.

Getting his bearings, the captain turned to see what in blazes had caused such a blow, only to find his words leave him.

Nasuada was growing. Jewelry and all, the woman appeared to be expanding right before his very eyes. 

“By… by the gods.”

She had just hit the fifty-foot mark, meaning she was able to crush any full-grown man or horse beneath a single foot with ease. And yet, she continued, upending earth as her bare soles expanded on the ground, the gold that reflected from the adornments glittering in the midday sun and accentuating her beauty, truly making her deific in nature.

The guard captain could only run back to the troops, getting restless with some of them ready to break formation. His horse had already turned tail and was attempting to run as far away in the opposite direction of Nasuada as possible. The captain turned behind him, yelping as Nasuada’s stern face ascended further and further into the sky, not reaching the two-hundred-foot mark.

“What are blind?! Archers, start shooting the bloody girl! Ballista, go, go! Shoot her now!” screamed the captain as he sprinted as fast as he could back to his men.

“Ballista, go! Ready the arrows!” shouted the division captains, relaying the message as well as they could to the rest of the ranks before the ranged units began to charge in on horseback, drawing their bows and unleashing them at the growing Varden queen.

To their credit, most arrows did indeed hit the target, though the level of achievement for hitting a target rapidly exceeding the size of most castles was debatable. Not that it was of consequence anyway; the shafts typically broke off upon striking the gold jewelry upon her bodice, while those that did manage to hit Nasuada’s bare skin more often bounced back from the gelatinous mass that was the Queen’s soft and supple muscle and fat reserves. The troops, brave though they were, were fighting a losing battle.

“Siege weapons! Catapults! Cannons! Magicians, I don’t bloody care!” screamed the guard captain to his troops as Nasuada’s shadow only further eclipsed the group. “Fire everything we have at this woman! NOW, do it NOW! Fire on…”

The captain had been screaming so loudly and with such force, he had barely noticed the eclipse levels of darkness that had engulfed the group. It felt as though it were nighttime. And the scores and scores of warriors before him all stood stock still.

The captain looked at them, and a chill overcame him. With a nervous, tentative motion, he turned his head to look behind him.

There, hanging above the heads of thousands of men at once, was the foot of Nasuada, now just scraping the ceiling of one thousand feet tall. Like the judgement of a cruel god, or a hungry dragon, it was suspended in the air, toes twitching and wiggling, bits of dirt and mud and grass raining upon the troops, accompanied by the earthy natural scene of Nasuada’s powerful sole, strengthened by years and years of carrying herself with the utmost dignity through the southern plains of Alagaesia. Above that foot, the golden splendor of her jewelry lit Nasuada up like a pyre, or the avatar of a verified tribal goddess of the sun. Deep, deep in her hazelnut eyes, they could see a yearning in the giantess’s expression; Nasuada was biting her lip in anticipation. For all her talk of not wanting to cause any more destruction, she was clearly enjoying this.

The silent troops saw this sight above, and clasped their gauntleted hands together, bowing their heads down, appealing to whatever higher power they could muster to escape this dreadful situation. Unfortunately for them, the highest power was currently the foot that was just now descending from above, the speed and force of the meteoric appendage compressing the air beneath it, causing it to smoke as it fell.

The foot collided with the contingent of soldiers, obliterating those at the epicenter of the blast, and causing a massive cascading shockwave to emanate from the source of the strike. Those not immediately crushed were thrown hundreds of feet in any direction, the poor horses trying their best to navigate away from the calamitous sight. The walls of Uru’baen -- which at this point reached Nasuada’s waist -- stammered and shook, ultimately staying stable despite the blast. But the Imperial encampment outside the city was now unrecognizable, instead replaced by piles of upended rubble and limestone.

And so, the dust began to settle. Like a colossus, poised mockingly above the subjects beneath it, Nasuada remained crouched, her face a twisted contortment of glee and triumph. She twisted her foot into the earth, clay-like at such an extreme size, and sent a few more shockwaves through the ground as a result.

Nasuada’s eagle eyes scanned the ground, looking for stragglers. Suffice it to say, the military might of the last vestiges of Galbatorix’s army had been permanently crippled. However, she was not here to merely defeat the Empire. She arrived to destroy them. And currently, like the rats they were, the remaining soldiers still alive were attempting to hide in the throes of buildings within the city limits of Uru’baen.

“Don’t think you can hide from me!” thundered Nasuada, as she now turned her attention to Uru’baen’s massive wall. Well, massive for humans. Nasuada was currently above such petty concerns. 

Nasuada crouched, gripping the top of the wall with both her hands. The material was like sand to her advanced strength, and she was able to tear through the material easily, despite being peppered with ballista and other small arms from the guard towers, easily dispatched of with a rogue flick of the finger.

Nasuada continued to disassemble the wall, ultimately reducing a large section of it into a pile of bricks and mortar, perfect for the Varden’s forces to enter through and occupy when she was done with the city.

Nasuada chuckled at the notion. 

Assuming there was anything left of the city.

Nasuada entered Uru’baen, her left foot gray and coated in dust, truly making her appear as though she were a statue of an ancient god come to life, ready to take revenge upon the populace for neglecting her worship. It crushed a city block close to the wall, the buildings exploding from the force of the impact. 

Nasuada continued her trek into the city, one foot in front of the other. Her trip ignored any pre-made paths and cobblestone streets, creating her own road where it landed. Perhaps when the war was over and the city was rebuilt, this new path could be named in Nasuada’s memory, she imagined. Fanciful dreaming, but now was not the time to ruminate on the future. She had to remain in the present. And in the present, Nasuada spotted movement on the ground.

“I see you…” she intoned sinisterly. She could be heard from throughout the entire city and beyond, but the group of tattered soldiers that seemed to be weaving through the brick buildings had to have known that she was talking about them, based upon their renewed vigor of their escape. Nasuada crouched down, placing her hands upon the ground (and subsequently crushing several more city blocks) and angling her face toward the section of the city where she saw the running soldiers.

There.

Nasuada raised her hand from its spot on the ground and dipped her fingers directly into the area of town she saw them in, ripping through stone, sand, glass and wood, and grabbing an entire segment of street and architecture. Amid the carnage, now in the palm of her hand, were several dozen members of the escaping Imperial regiment, regarding Nasuada with abject terror as she raised her hand up closer to her eye level. 

Nasuada smiled, and she opened her mouth. Angling her head down and creating a slope with her hand, the sand was the first to begin to spill into her gaping maw. Despite all that she had yet done at this point, Nasuada still found sand to be about as appetizing as anyone was going to consider it. And yet, her power trip found herself not even caring about the grainy taste, nor the bricks and glass shards that followed it. What she truly cared for was the group of men, trying in vain to grab onto the smooth skin of Nasuada’s palm. Desperately they clawed as the gradually inclining plane of her hand became more and more extreme until finally, they slid off, plummeting into the hungry queen’s gullet.

“Mmmmm…” Nasuada gulped loudly and contentedly. “I do hope the entire city witnessed that.

Nasuada got to her knees, her bare bottom feeling no chafing on the city that collapsed every time it made the slightest move. The gold had protected her from most of the more grating annoyances of the rubble, though Nasuada felt that she would be enjoying this even if she were bare naked.

“Do you see this?” Nasuada said, turning her head to nobody in particular, but to the generally intact homes and neighborhoods behind her. “I hope you’re paying attention,” she continued, bringing her left finger and drawing a circle along the curve that made up her left butt cheek.

“Somewhere, someone chose to defy me. Someone thought they could stand between the one true queen of Alagaesia and her birthright. Someone thought they could make a fool of me, or even contest me in the most miniscule of ways!” Nasuada punctuated this final sentence with a haughty chuckle.

“Well, I wish to show everyone present what defying the one true queen truly means.”

Nasuada then stood into a squatting position, lifting her magnanimous derriere dozens of feet above the collapsed neighborhood and moving it above the more intact sections.

“Goodbye,” said Nasuada.

And her ass came crashing down.

It slammed into the neighborhood with the grace and poise of a meteor, and leaving a similar mark, as a small crater formed in the wake of the massive shockwave, pushing back hundreds and hundreds of buildings nearby, and eliciting untold decibels of terrified screams, inflamed curses, and desperate prayers. Throughout the din, Nasuada could hear them all, and she could only close her eyes, wishing to bathe in this feeling until the end of time.

Nasuada reached her hands back, taking her ample ass and picking it up once again as she squat walked to the next intact area of the city. And she dropped it again.

The executioner’s ample ass was once again an unstoppable force, kicking up literal tons of dust, brick, and viscera as those who managed to escape the first blast were caught in the crossfire of the second. Nasuada smiled, laughing that she was able to cause this much damage with naught but her backside, and picked it up once again.

She reached the third intact section of the city when a strange sensation welled up within her. And a sinister smile crept across her face.

Nasuada decided she would not obliterate this quarter with her ass. At least not in that precise way.

With a preternatural gift, Nasuada aimed her asshole directly at the quarter of buildings and squares, puckering it with gusto before the feeling in her stomach and intestine escaped through the backside of the queen, culminating in a colossal fart, quite literally ripping through the entirety of the city, and could be heard for miles and miles on end. Windows shattered, birds fell out of the sky, and the more fragile huts and homes were literally blown apart from the forces of the noxious gas. But more than that, the menagerie of screams and cries of all kinds escalated… and ceased. Whether by death or mere passing out was inconsequential. The city would be nothing but ashes by the end of the day.

Nasuada let go of her ass, rubbing it and loving herself as she did so. It had done a good bit of work, after all. And Nasuada collapsed backwards, the sweat accumulating from both the midday sun, her recent exertion, and the conductive metal in contact with her skin. Upon laying to her full length, Nasuada spread her arms out above her head, fanning out her armpits, and began to roll across the paper-thin town centers, shops, bridges, and homes, until she was now on her stomach. She could not imagine how she must have looked to people, a colossal face, a mouth leading to an endless abyss to nowhere, the golden headgear giving her a truly godlike appearance. Whatever happened, this was sure to be either the best time of some of their lives, or the worst.

Either way, it would be the last time of their lives.

Nasuada leaned on her elbows, lifting her breasts up above the city streets, allowing them to hang freely, their bases carving paths of destruction wherever they met the ground. Nasuada lowered her face closer to the ground, attempting to get a better picture of the scene below. There, close to her, she could see a church of sorts, and through the window she saw it was hosting a cadre of people of all ages, huddled together in fear.

Nasuada licked her lips, and she raised her breasts high up into the air, cupping one into her hand, before letting go and subsequently smashing the church with complete impunity. Nasuada could feel the sad, delicious squelches as the people popped one by one upon meeting her massive milky mahogany mammaries. 

Nasuada continued to carve her path of destruction. She destroyed a university here, a plaza there, a keep here, a stray straggler running off there, and she loved absolutely every moment of it. Her heart continued to beat. She had never felt this alive. She could not believe that she was able to have her revenge against the empire which took everything from her, in so visceral a way. Just the thought of having this much power, her power… it made Nasuada… hot.

“Oh…”

Nasuada was seated on the ground, and her hand instinctively traveled down. It moved aside the disk hanging from her neck, and revealed her dripping nethers, with gallons and gallons of delectable nectar spilling out.

“Oh…” This was it. Nasuada could not contain herself.

She buried her hand in her vagina, the sticky fluid coating her fingers and palms as she recklessly stimulated herself. She would occasionally use this hand to reach out and grasp at any parts of the nearby city that had not been utterly annihilated, hoping desperately that there were people in there, and stuffing the remains into her inflamed nethers. The strength of the muscle could carelessly crush and compress and of the larger pieces anyway, though she never was able to feel the ant-like people that she wasn’t even certain she had captured. Oh well, the point was that they were there, and in their dying breaths, drowning in Nasuada’s queenly nectar, they would live out the last moments of their lives serving their soon to be coronated queen, one way or another.

“Oh, oh!” Nasuada’s labored breaths sped up, and she began to finger herself more rapidly. Yes. Oh, hell yes. The liquid was dripping out more and more, flooding what had once been a public square and was now spreading out into the connected cobblestone paths, congealing the rubble into a gelatinous mass while choking and suffocating any unlucky enough to find themselves in its sticky depths. And it would continue until finally, the queen reached a state of ecstatic climax, followed by a burst of the most extreme spurt of her fluid thus yet, followed still by a gentle dribble.

Nasuada slowed her fingering, though not completely. She lay back on the ground, one hand still inside herself. Chills were overcoming her body.

As Nasuada attempted to regain control of her breathing, she sat up.

The city was in shambles. At this point, there was not a single part of Uru’baen untouched by Nasuada’s martial might. With one notable exception.

“The citadel,” Nasuada said, out loud. The castle and military center of Uru’baen was erected at the deepest part of the city, beneath a massive rock overhang that functioned as a shield of sorts. There lied Galbatorix’s throne. Or so they said.

Nasuada smiled once more, standing to her full height so the remaining citizens could appreciate the glory of their new queen once again. With slow, purposeful steps, she walked to the citadel before raising one foot, stretching a bit but ultimately managing to set it upon the top of the rock outcropping.

“I claim this city, Uru’baen, not just for me, but for all the oppressed peoples of Alagaesia. Let it be known that if you are to oppose my rule, from here on until forever more, your fate will be the same as the fate of this once-beautiful city. And upon its destruction, I fully intend to make it beautiful again!”

And with a difficult stomp, Nasuada’s foot began to shift the rock, causing cracks to spread out through the cliff overhand. Nasuada’s muscles tensed and bulged, and she realized for the first time in this siege, she had to truly push herself to the limit. Even so, she continued, her bare-naked leg still dripping cum, and becoming even more of a waterfall the harder Nasuada flexed, until finally, a thunderclap sounded, and the stone outcropping broke into pieces, falling upon the castle built on hubris and crushing it to rubble. One last final storm of dust spread out from its epicenter, finally coating Nasuada completely in the grey particles.

Nasuada climbed up on top of the newly created cliff face and turned around to observe her handiwork, her bare ass mooning anyone who might have happened to be behind her. She could not care, for she could do nothing but smile warmly at the destruction she had caused. 

Were there any survivors? Likely, a few. However, one thing Nasuada knew for sure was that, for as long as she was alive, nobody who would hear the story of the golden goddess… none of them would ever defy her or her newly formed kingdom again.

Taking a deep breath, Nasuada crouched down, pressing her hands to the grass beneath her, and collapsed into a massive heap. The siege had taken more energy than she expected.

---

“Look, there!” cried Eragon, and Saphira angled to approach the sleeping giantess. As they passed the destroyed city, Eragon’s own heart skipped a beat. This new strategy of employing Nasuada to lay siege to cities had been effective before… but this… this felt entirely different.

Never mind that now. Saphira alighted upon the cliff edge close to Nasuada’s toe. Eragon dismounted and pressed a hand to it, tapping into the massive energy signature the sleeping giant was emanating.

“Mm hmm… yes, she’s still alive.”

Do you want me to return her to this size?

Eragon looked to Saphira, then back to the destroyed city. He sighed, and replied, “Yes… I think that would be best.”

With a lump in his throat, Eragon took one last look at the sleeping face of Nasuada, the one to whom he had sworn fealty, and realized with blood running cold, “The war is over. But I know not if we truly won.”

Saphira had no interest in such pontificating, quickly returning Nasuada to a far more manageable size. Eragon carried the sleeping queen upon Saphira’s back, strapping her in as the trio prepared to set off and return to tell the Varden of their good news.

Before he gripped Saphira’s reins, Eragon took one last longing look at the peaceful young queen, as a deep sadness overtook him.

“Sleep well, your highness. Sleep well… and sleep long.”

And with that, Saphira departed, leaving nothing left of their visit excepting a burning city and a handful of crippled survivors.