Rennard and Milton were on the windowsill of the Charmer’s room, looking out. The area was nestled between mountains, hidden in an enormous dead end. Here the mountains were lusher than where they were caught. The trees, many of them giant-sized, were rich with leaves, most of the surfaces moss-covered with plenty of flowers growing from them. There were wooden buildings thereabout, larger and smaller ones. Young giants sparred on the field, kicking and performing rehearsed drills on one another, some practicing archery on targets, others fencing. The Charmer’s house overlooked the practice fields, perched on a shelf of the lush mountains.

“You two will grow strong under my wing,” the Charmer said, standing behind them. “This is one of the five places I travel between. Here, promising prospects are trained for the Gray Rhinos. You are lucky, humans are rarely considered among the promising ones. They often have… other uses.” They recalled the boxes filled with humans being shipped off in her previous abode. “What I want for you two is training of raw power.” She raised Rennard’s chin with an index finger. “I want your flames to carry a fierce bite.” Her other finger went to Milton. “And I want your tethers to be as strong and durable as possible. Your value would be immeasurable if you could ever bring about ropes that wouldn’t break to a giant’s strength. There was a man like that once, but the kingdom had him killed, considered too dangerous.” That brought a visible fear over Milton, but the Charmer got on her knees and was quick to allay. “Don’t worry, we are not the kingdom, we are the Gray Rhinos, a widespread group across Gintessa. While loyal to me, you’ll forever have a home with the Rhinos. With us, your usefulness is rewarded and cherished, not punished. We find value in everything, and the kingdom doesn’t like that kind of thinking.” The Charmer stood again. “Now, do you see that young lady over there, practicing her kicks near the cliffside?”

They noticed her in the distance. “Yes, mistress.”

“That’s Hilda. She will be responsible for you. If you need to train against someone, she’ll be there. I’d recommend you specifically, Milton, to train your tethers with a giant, let them try and break them, then construct new ones. I wouldn’t recommend the same for you, Rennard. They’d be quite annoyed to constantly feel your flames. If you wonder about food, sleeping, cleaning, ask Hilda. The girls will certainly find a pair of human recruits interesting, so you might have to endure a temporary fame. Well then, off you go. The day has just begun.”

The two jumped off the windowsill and landed before her. About to walk off, Milton couldn’t resist touching her ankle, then hugging it. “Mistress, when will we see you again?”

“Don’t be greedy, sweethearts,” she said. “Off with you, and make me proud.”

“Yes, mistress.” The two boys were aware of the charm, that just two days ago they’d never behave like this. But it didn’t matter. Their days of sobriety was a fargone, different time, as if recalling one’s silly behaviour when younger.

They navigated through her many hallways and found the main door, left ajar. After leaving, the door closed. They came out to a soil path hemmed in by moss wounding its way down the mountainside. The trees were birch of Gintessa, about a hundred and fifty feet tall. The noon sun shone brightly, warm and welcome, the mountain air clean.

“To learn how to fight giants,” Rennard said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve wanted that for a long time. And when you think about it, in Humius, the oppressive presence of the giants comes from the kingdom. Not these Gray Rhinos. Seems to me like the Rhinos are fighting the good fight.”

“Makes sense. And we never hear of the Rhinos in Gintessa. It’s probably the kingdom making sure we don’t know.” They neared the end of the path, opening up to the field of training giants.

Rennard pointed past a few trees. “I think the girl was that way.” They already got the attention of several giants, all of them young, between fifteen and twenty-five years old. Moving where they remembered Hilda to be, they encroached on some of the training grounds, its surface hard-packed soil.

The attention on them was almost a tangible thing, brimming, a confrontation inevitable, and at last it came. A shadow overtook them, a large brown foot decisively placed before them and ordering them to stop. Following her toned leg, up the knee and naked thigh, the copper-skinned giant wore a thin loincloth, standing over them. “You boys sure do stand out despite being so small.” Her larger breast covered loosely and a chiselled face were the primary signs of a more mature age, above twenty. The forehead and stomach sheened from sweat, a few strands of hair breaking loose from her braid. The young lady got on her haunches, dwarfing them. “I’m Alluere, pleased to meet you.” She extended her finger, which they took turns shaking.

“Any chance we can get some clothes around here?” Rennard said. “Not sure if it’s normal for us to be naked like this.”

“There’s no human clothes here. Something makeshift could be done, but truth be told, clothes are just annoying here. Warm sun, constant training, the sweat is unending.”

“And it’s pure coincidence that you’re staring at our cocks like a hungry dog?” Rennard said.

Alluere laughed, a hearty smile showing her teeth. “Sassy, I like it. Listen, if you need help, you come to me, alright?”

“Mistress told us to go to someone named Hilda.”

“Hilda? That quiet girl? Huh, maybe the Lady is trying to teach her responsibility, get her to open up. But if you find her lacking, come to me.” She winked.

“Mistress said we should be with Hilda, though. Is she that way?”

“She is. You sound stupefied or something, must be the doing of the Lady's magic. Whatever. I’ll have plenty of time to get through those thick skulls.” Alluere sprung back up and left, her loincloth flapping about and revealing glimpses of her womanhood.

“Man…” Milton watched the girls’ drills with an open mouth. “They’re fighters. Imagine, if they were our size, they’d beat us. And they have that size to go with it. What do we have that they don’t?”

“Get that attitude out of here,” Rennard said. “We’re here to get strong.” They found Hilda beyond a few giant birches in a more secluded area of the training grounds, kicking at one of the sturdier trees dressed in cushions at a few intervalls for low, medium, and high kicks. If she missed the cushions, her kick would meet bark, and the bruises on the front of her lower legs revealed a few of those instances.

“Oh, it’s her,” Rennard said, recognizing the girl from yesterday who entered the Charmer’s room to refill the tea.

“Oh, it’s her.” They both had a realisation. A good first impression wasn’t possible anymore. Hilda wore a pair of simple brown shorts covering from waist to upper thigh alongside a bandeau for a small set of breast.  Despite a massive tree, comparable to olhoms, it shook to her kicks even in her fatigued state. She spun in a roundhouse and struck the upmost cushion, the one for the head, skipped back on her tip toes, lunged forward with a backward sweep to the midsection hitting once, twice. Milton called her name to get her attention, and she first glanced them, finished a few more kicks, then stopped.

Panting, she wiped a hand over her forehead. “So you’re here.”

“As delighted as you are,” Rennard said.

“Which one of you is the one with fire arts?”

Rennard raised his hand.

“The red-haired one, that’ll be easy to remember. There are modrocks around that corner, you can practice your flames on them. They absorb magic very well, so you can hit them freely, unlike other material.”

Rennard snorted. “As if I don’t know what modrocks are.”

“Whatever. And the other guy, you had some magic with ropes?”

“The art of the tethers, yes.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought of ways we can work with that. Also, I should say that I’m responsible for you, which means that you’ll do whatever I tell you to.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Milton said. “We do whatever mistress tells us to.”

“Obviously. It’s not my word over the Lady’s, but here, when we train, during our daily routines, if I tell you to do something, you do it.”

The two boys shared a look and didn’t say yes.

“Ugh, whatever. You can go to the modrocks, Fire Boy. If you two aren’t putting in your best efforts at all times, you won’t fit in. Well, you already don’t fit in, but you’ll fit in even less if you don’t work hard.”

“There’s no worry there,” Rennard said, patting his own chest. “This man’s far from lazy.” He marched over to where she’d indicated the modrocks to be, leaving Milton and Hilda alone.

“Mistress said your name is Hilda. I’m Milton.”

“Call me madam, not Hilda.”

“How old are you?” Milton said.

“Sixteen.”

“We’re the same age then.”

“So?” With two large strides, a surge of wind from her steps brushed his hair as she planted her slender toes a yard in front of him. He had to lean back just to make eye contact. “Do you notice a difference? We’re not very equal. Respect your elders and superiors is what they say. I’m your superior.”

“I get it.” Her toes curled in and raked the soil, so abrupt it made Milton recoil. Looking up at her expression made it easy to recognize the irritation. “I get it, madam.”

There weren’t many signs of appreciation. Hilda taking a step back eased the tension, giving him space. “I’ve gone through the most intense parts of my drills, so you came at a good time.” She pointed down at her feet, somewhat red from constant use. “Tie my ankles together with your ropes.”

Milton lunged both his arms forward, a white glowing ball forming between her feet. Rotating his arms, the ball of light gained firmer texture. Then he spread his arms apart, and two tethers spawned from the glowing ball and found an ankle each, wrapping around and tying them together.

Milton could see how she too benefitted from it as workout as she abducted her left leg to tear them apart. But with one gentle pull, it didn’t come off, making Hilda stare in wonder. Her leg jerked harder, the tether taut but unbroken. With a grunt and her left abductor muscles tight, the tether snapped at last.

“I know I’m tired,” she said, trying to hide her amazement. “But those ropes are stronger than I thought. I can understand what potential the Lady sees. Do it again.” Hilda took turns with her legs as Milton kept recreating the tethers, trying to make them as strong as possible each time, again and again and again. At one point, he actively held against and tried to make the rope retract the opposite way she was pulling, and the increase of difficulty for Hilda made her question.

“I can steer the ropes after they’ve been created, madam.”

“That’s good, that’s very good.” With that, a broader curiosity was opened, and she questioned and they explored the aspects of his tether. He bound his tethers to two high points so they made a form of swing, and Hilda tested her weight on it to see how much they could hold. Putting a moderate amount of her weight onto one foot made it tear. There was an area for lifting heavy things, boulders and fallen trees, where she had him hoist them up the cliffside with the tethers.

The training went on for a few hours, and then Hilda said, “Listen, you’re definitely not going to be fighting against giants on your own. You’ll have a supportive role from the side.”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, you could be behind me It’s not like you’ll fight any giant on your own, I will be, but you’ll help. Honestly, I can’t think of many giants that I’d lose to in a fight if you hinder them with your tethers.”

“Understood.”

“However, you could end up in a bad position sometimes, and we should still practice around some of that. You need to have some competence in dodging.”

“Dodging attacks? I agree. So, how do we do?”

Hilda hesitated for a moment, then avoided eye contact. The fatigue and intense drills were over an hour behind her, and she’d drank plenty of water and splashed it on her face, so the red tints on her cheeks were nothing other than blushing. “I’ll try and stomp you, and you’ll try and dodge. That makes sense, right? Giants always stomp humans when fighting them.”

Milton shrugged. “Makes perfect sense, don’t see the need for explaining.”

“In case you’d think it was weird.”

“Why would it be?”

“Whatever. I’ll go easy. Ready?”

Milton’s body shone white. “Ready.” Her dirty sole descended quite predictably. Milton dove out the way. His only experience being Ada’s frantic stampeding, Milton was instantly on his legs again, watching. But both of Hilda’s feet remained on the ground, unhurried, and only once he’d gotten up and was fully ready did the same foot rise, almost theatrically, and go for him again. Milton had no trouble hopping aside. He noticed her foot tapping the moss gingerly, a far cry from the tremors of steps taken in battle, the steps which shook the earth and left depressions, which completely snuffed out sunlight and any trace of the outside world to those caught underneath.

“Pause,” Milton called. “Aren’t you being overly careful? That’s not how you or any giant goes after a human they fight.”

“You want to get stepped on?”

“No, but if I had to choose I’d rather want it to happen in practice than sometime serious. So it has to be realistic here, helps me improve. I mean, look around, look at your shins, no one’s sparring without a bit of hurt. It’s fine.”

“Suit yourself. Ready?”

“Ready. Come o—”

Hilda’s foot snapped forward like a snake. Milton felt the side of her big toe grazing his ear as it sussed past him and cracked the ground. Before he got up, the same foot immediately swept after him, punting him away. The moment he stopped rolling, he looked up, and it was too late. Hilda’s sole flattened him. He groaned with a compressed mouth, about the only action he could take thereunder.

“I can’t hear you,” she said, keeping him there. After all her training, there was a fine layer of dirt on her sole, and the hot suffocating kiss of her foot was giving some of it to him. She raised her foot at last, Milton somewhat stuck to it. Hilda wiggled her toes to have him fall off. “You shouldn’t spend so much time looking at what I’m going to do. It’s obvious what I’m going to do: step on you. If you stay in one place for just a few seconds, you can expect a foot right where you stand. You should try and move without thinking too much about where. Just move. So, ready?”

“A second,” Milton stammered, brushing his hair. They went again, and he fared better than last time, although stomped eventually. They went a third and fourth time, and then Milton said, “Alright, I think that’s enough.”

“Already? Don’t be lazy.”

He watched her in question.

“We’ve barely gone at it. It’s over when I say so.” And so they went a fifth and sixth and seventh time, and before anyone knew it, what had first been treated as something minor, Milton’s dodging skills, had received over half an hour for itself.

During perhaps the thirtieth time under her foot, Milton grumbled loudly.

Hilda stepped off him. “Said something?”

He gasped, his body sweating. “Haven’t we taken it too far?”

“I thought you wanted this.”

“To an extent, yeah, but…”

“How about when you licked my foot?”

Milton half sat up, frowning. “What? When did I do that?”

She pretended to wipe sweat from her forehead, perhaps to try and play off her blushing cheeks as a result of the heat. “Yesterday. I went into the Lady’s room to take some plates and fill up on refreshment, and you got on your knees and worshipped my toe.”

“Oh, that. We were quite literally dying of thirst, and there was a drop of the liquid on you. So I drank it.”

Hilda narrowed her eyes, hands on her hips. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s the truth. What other explanation is there?”

“That you worshipped my foot because you’re weird. And now, when we were sparring, you asked me to go harder. It’s like you wanted to be stepped on. Again, pretty weird.”

Milton forced a laugh to perhaps help her see how ludicrous the suggestions were. “First, I was thirsty, and two, I argued for a more efficient way to train. What are you talking about?”

Hilda waved a hand. “Whatever you say.”

“Now that I think of it, what were you doing back there? I was well out of it then but I remember now. You stood on us for a good minute, grinding us under your feet. And I’ve noticed these subtle things you do now, standing on me a bit longer, grinding me sometimes, a bit too ‘touchy’ with your feet. I thought I was reading too much into it, but now it all adds up. If anyone enjoys it, it’s you.”

“You were well out of it then, and you still are. Maybe you dreamed of that happening because you like it.”

“So you’re telling me you did not stand on me and my friend in that room?”

“I’m telling you that you’re weird, end of story.” She marched past him. “I’ll go and get something to eat, stay here.”

“What is it with her?” Milton mumbled. He got up, rubbing his skin. Her feet did a number on him, leaving dusty toeprints all over his chest and face and arms, and she somehow claimed he enjoyed it.

Moving a short distance away, he saw his friend in the distance. Considering how Alluere had instantly approached them the moment they touched the training grounds, it didn’t surprise him to find her in Rennard’s company. As if they were playing a game, Rennard threw fireballs at her, and she, wielding a club adorned with modrock, tried to hit them.

Their first morning and afternoon as Rhino recruits seemed to be going alright.