The footprints were less distinguishable as it went into the underbrush, but they could still follow the damaged bushes and branches. Whenever the prints showed again, the impression of Henry's body remained under the right foot, his shoes at the top of her heel and his head at the ball of her foot. He was just taller than half her foot. This size was average for giants, and Henry of average height, making a decent representation of how their sizes related.

"The bitch," Rennard muttered, leading the march. "She's doing it on purpose. There's no way she doesn't feel him. I know they call us bugs, but it's just for insult." He pointed at one particular footstep, the grass sparse in that area. "Look, his body covers maybe three fifths of her foot. That's like a bird or something to us, you can feel it."

Milton followed his lead.

Rennard raised an eyebrow his way. "Will you somehow defend this?"

"What do you mean?"

"You always find a way to pussyfoot around conflict."

"No. Just go. Kradger's cabin should be ahead, I hope he's safe. His ancestry have all been old-fashioned, there's no wizardry or magic in his family line, and he's old. If she steps on him, he'll be in danger."

Rennard glared ahead. For a moment his long red hair rose and flowed as if he were underwater, and from his fingers came sparks. "I'll torch her." They saw the beginnings of another road, small and unpaved, connecting Kradger's cabin to the village further west. The side of the cabin showed itself from behind the trees, an old thing built out of planks, half of them discoloured from age. Rennard and Milton called his name. The door creaked open as Kradger peeped his head out, a wide sun hat on top.

"Mr. Kradger," Milton said, "you must have seen a giant come through here. Look, her steps are here, just passed through."

"Oh, I saw, and I felt the tremors and heard the trees. The young girl put a jolt to my heart. She did seem troubled, though, a sad face on her. What have you three been doing?"

"Nothing this time, Mr. Kradger, we swear."

Rennard spat. "She'll have more than a sad face once I'm done with her."

"You boys be careful," Kradger said, calling his dog inside which seemed to want to run with the youngsters. "And remember, don't anger the giants, not just for yourselves but for the village. I speak mostly to you, Renny." The two jogged onwards.

Her footprints led towards a larger hillside where the trees were less and the grassy landscape opened up. The trail wrapped around the hill until the beginnings of a large figure brought them to pause. She sat on a large shelf of rock protruding from the hillside, holding her own sour face with a hand. Her blonde hair had a tint of platinum and was tied into a braid, her skin pale, and her yellow frock had a pattern of red flowers embroidered throughout it.

For just a moment, Milton interpreted her sadness as a possibility that Henry had died and she grieved for her carelessness. But no, his magical potency inherently strengthened his body and made it more resilient to giants. As long as she hadn't stomped him into a stone surface and kept it to grass and soil, which they'd seen along the way, Henry would be fine. Her right foot was flat on the ground, Henry thereunder.

"Doesn't even look like she's noticed him yet," Milton said. "But I don't know what's going on. Let me talk to her, don't flaunt your magic, that's threatening." Rennard removed the glow from his fingers, through the fire remained in his expression. They stepped up together. They were far enough to require just a mild tilt of their neck to make eye contact.

Milton cleared his throat. "Excuse me, miss." She turned their way, and the face radiated innocence. Her round brown eyes were fit for a baby, her nose and mouth small for her proportions and her cheeks round. "We're sorry for disturbing you, miss, but-"

Rennard patted Milton on the chest and stepped ahead. "Listen, girl, you better start learning how to open your eyes while crying, because you stepped on our friend when you ran through the woods. He's under your foot, you clumsy shit."

She tilted her left foot to present the sole, her white skin dirtied at the toes and ball and heels. "How tiny is your friend?" she said, trying to find him somewhere in the empty one. It didn't look like mockery.

"The other fo- Are you slow in the head?" Rennard said. "There's no way you can't feel him." He turned to Milton. "She's putting on an act."

She rose up, her full height towering. "Are you making fun of me?" Her voice was sweet and childlike, and in her question, Milton couldn't hear a challenge or threat, but a genuine want to know.

"We only-"

"You make fun of yourself," Rennard said, "or I hope all of this is still some sick joke you're pulling, and we're the ones looking stupid for thinking someone could actually be this daft. Be happy for your size, you'd be at the bottom of all creatures without it."

She pouted. "I don't like being made fun of. The giants always do it, and I hate it. But I won't take it from you!"

"I'll send you running back home with a message singed on your leg," Rennard said, throwing a fireball straight at the girl's left ankle.

"Ow!" She hopped in place and grabbed her foot, and while she bounced those few times, Milton caught the slightest site of Henry plastered under her right sole. He tried to shout that they only wanted their friend, to check her other foot, but Rennard had closed those doors. She didn't listen, frowning at them.

A red glow over his legs, Rennard raced to the side with enhanced speed and summoned a red fiery lance. With an overhead throw he sent it flying at her. She skipped a few steps aside, but Rennard redirected it after her, sending its point into her ass. It burst on her frock in a puff of flames, and she hopped in pain again. "That hurts!" She started running after Rennard. Even though Milton was closer, she had the mind not to go after him. She could be reasoned with.

Rennard dodged one, two, three, and four of her stomps with his enhanced speed, and she kept aiming for him, as if her foot was the point of a harpoon and Rennard a fish in a puddle.

Rennard had no openings to retaliate, only time to dodge, escaping the side of a heel and then a big toe and just barely jumping aside from the ball of her foot. "Any time now, Milton," he shouted, though Milton wanted no part in a fight. He waited for the confrontation to lose its anger.

Rennard thought he saw an opening, darting out from under her and bringing about a ring of fire around him.

And then a warm and dirty roof of flesh flattened him to the ground, all the fire and glow snuffed out. "Got you! You were annoying." She put all her weight onto that foot, grinding and twisting, and while she did so she raised her right one and indeed, Henry was there, worn like some kind of a small fleshy sandal without the straps. This image in front of Milton embodied their state of inferiority. The three of them were far from masters of magic, but they had a few years of practice behind them. This girl, from her looks, had nothing, yet she not only won, but utterly dominated them. A human needed years of practice with their magic to compete with a giant who needed nothing, and even then, the human could lose to a single mistake.

"You're going to say sorry," the girl said to Rennard. Rennard couldn't get a word out, his clothes and face contorting to the merciless grind. Unable to keep his mouth shut, he tasted the acrid foot. The warm friction of the grinding flesh gave way to sweat. The only noise heard was her foot scraping soil, ripping grass, smushing his body, and the occasional choked grunt and exclamation Rennard managed to produce. The sole worked him like a lump of dough.

Another minute of grinding and twisting ensued, until at last she was content with the beating she'd given him. She kept him stuck there as she turned towards Milton, who had casually approached her.

Milton raised his hands. "Miss, I just want to talk."

"Are you friends with him?" she said, narrowing her eyes.

Answering that question would be the wrong way to go about it. "Look underneath your other foot."

Still with a suspicious look, she picked up her right foot. "Oh. Who's this bald man?" She wriggled her toes, and the waves of movement it caused across her foot made Henry's adhered body dance along, like a puppet moved by its strings. "Did I win against him too?"

"He never fought you," Milton said. "When you ran through the woods, you accidentally stepped on him. That's why we're here, we wanted to ask if you could let him go."

"Oh. He didn't do anything to me, right?"

"Not at all."

The giant hovered her foot above ground, and a closer perspective made the sight even more pathetic. Her sole had smatters of dirt and fragments of grass and leaves branches, and there among them was Henry. The girl's unknowing nature made it worse, for she had, despite her innocence, reduced him to some leftover scrap on her foot indistinguishable from literal dirt, and he wasn't significant enough to get her attention. Her demeanor carried a sincere innocence, not realizing to what extent she was humiliating them. The difference between humans and giants was just that massive.

She shook her foot, which alongside gravity let Henry come off. He fell to the grass.

Milton kneeled beside him. "Henry, how are you?"

The young man might have just woken up, in a daze, eyelids heavy and unresponsive. His clothes were thoroughly wrinkled and soiled.

"Can you stand?"

Henry waved him off, resigning to where he lay. "Just give me a moment."

"Ops, I didn't mean to," she said, a hand over her mouth in concern. "But it's fine as long as you're not crushed into stone, right?"

"I guess. Now, about the other guy," Milton tentatively began, pointing to her other foot. "I know he's an idiot, but he was just looking out for our friend here."

The pout returned. "He has to say sorry first."

"Then he'll be under your foot for eternity," Henry said, present enough to add something to the conversation.

The girl peeled Rennard off and lay him on the ground. He enjoyed no more than two seconds of freedom before she placed her foot back on him, letting his head stick out between her big and second toe. Her toes were long and round like with most giants, made to fight humans.

"You ditzy cunt," Rennard said, a head between her toes. "You'll see soon enough, I'll-" His speech turned to incoherent babble as she squeezed his head and cheeks with her toes, and it brought her a fit of laughter.

She released the grip on his head, he returned to cursing, and she cut it off the same way. She let him go, giggling. "He's funny."

Rennard got back up. "What's funny is what I'll do to you."

Milton took him by the shoulders. "Henry's out, it's all fine."

Rennard pushed his hands off him. "Yeah, sure. Next time, do something other than stand there, huh, Milton?"

"If I did that, all three of us would be under her feet."

The girl put a finger to her chin in thought. "I don't think I can fit all three of you." She brought her feet together and wriggled her toes. "We can try. If two of you are under one foot each, maybe the third can fit across, under the toes, like two walls and a roof."

"No thank you," Milton said.

Rennard blew air through his mouth. "I hate giants."

"Me too," she said. "They're mean."

Milton and Rennard shared a look. Henry was sitting now, looking alright and gathered, and Milton's thoughts had only been on when to give the giant their farewells and be off. But he couldn't ignore all his questions surrounding her. The first question he had was, "Who are you?"

"I'm Lily. I'm sixteen, how old are you?"

"In no world is she the same age as us," Rennard said. "Acts like she's nine."

"I am sixteen!"

Milton leaned over his friend's shoulder. "She doesn't feel like the lying type."

"Hey, stop whispering." Her brows came together. "Are you saying something bad about me?"

"No, but there's plenty to say," Rennard said.

Henry walked in with some life in him, the three of them staring up at her towering height. "What are you doing out here? Gintessa is far away."

"Far to your little legs maybe, but not for me." She put her hands behind her back, scratched the heel of one foot with the other, and turned her eyes away. "I am from there, but I ran away."

"Why?" Henry continued.

She shrugged. "Giants are mean. They say I was born stupid, and then make fun of me all the time."

"Well, you know what they say..." Rennard said, and Milton stopped him with a tap to the chest.

"But I like being around humans, they aren't as mean."

Rennard snorted. "Maybe because the ones you've been around are enslaved."

"There's not that many slaves in Gintessa as you think, many of them are workers."

"Hah!" Rennard faked a loud laugh. "Workers, she says!"

"Well, it was nice meeting you," Milton said, "but we should return." She seemed saddened by their departure, though it was only Henry and Milton who moved. Rennard remained.

"Hold on there, friends," he said. He turned up to Lily. "You say you hate giants?"

"Yes."

"Then we can agree on something. You see, my friends and I were planning to strike. Nothing too evil or elaborate. We go and find ourselves some giants and pull a few pranks on them. Just to let them know."

"Did we agree?" Milton said, but Lily's face already glowed with excitement.

"Oh, I like pranks. That's a good idea, they deserve it."

"I'm asking if you'd want to join us in that mission."

Henry let on a wide smirk. "Remember the day when Rennard asked a giant for help."

"It's only for this errand," Rennard added, an urgency to defend his pride.

Lily put both her hands over her heart. "Really? You want my company?"

"Your help," Rennard said, "to show those giants a thing or two. If you hate them, show it."

"Yes!" She hopped a few times and clapped, the ground shaking. "We will show them."