Lenny had a nervous flutter tickling his chest as he skulked up past the line of trees and to the open plot of grass. He’d walked a good couple of hours through the woods, and at last the massive wooden post fence was ahead of him. It marked the periphery of the plantation that was his goal. Their size did, however, give him an apprehensive pause. He’d heard of giants, that his plantation of evernuts in particular was owned by giants, but he’d never seen one with his own eyes. The barrier being that high was like an ominous warning. The peak of its beams reached fifty feet into the air, and behind them loomed the even taller evernut trees, swelling upwards in thick volumes of dark green.

“Just trying to scare you,” Lenny said to himself, steeling his courage and marching on, airing his shirt in the warm afternoon sun. The invaluable evernuts therein would be worth it. Long brown hair gathered into a braid, Lenny had his small hemp sack bunched up in his pocket. Its volume in evernuts would be enough to feed his family through an entire winter, so satiating and nourishing were they.

Lenny didn’t need to duck under the bottommost beam of the fence, slipping into the plantation. Rows of flowery bushes were before him, a pretty decoration, and he sidled through them as well. Past that, columns of enormous evernuts crisscrossed the colossal plantation area. As Lenny went in, the sense of awe made him feel like an ant. The trees reached over a hundred feet high, the topmost branches sagging from the weight of the evernuts. They were fewer at the bottom, but still there in their walnut-like brown shells that contained multiple small evernuts within.

Lenny had been so captured by the scope of it that he’d kept walking, and with a jolt of urgency he reminded himself that he was trespassing to take some evernuts. He brought his hemp pouch out, struck it open, and tried to pull the lower branches down. The evernuts were scanter down here. He had to find a better tree.

That same apprehension that took him at the sight of the post fence returned to him as he wondered why there weren’t any small ladder or giant stool used for the giants to pick the evernuts at the top.

“Not important,” Lenny said. Fill the sack and get out, it was as simple as that. However, as he rounded a tree, he saw something that left no room for thought. From heel to toe, the footprint on the ground was twice his length, at the very least. It was a bare foot that had walked here, the cleanly arched row of five globes at the front, the toes, made it clear. There was an interruption after them, a small stretch of raised land that preceded the deep ditch on the ball of her foot.

It wasn’t imagination anymore. The vision of the giant that his mind produced wasn’t much of a ghost anymore, the footprint gave it roots in reality.

A sound. It vibrated in his legs, this dim tremor through the earth, and he could make out the clear tempo of two feet marching forward, joined by a sharp yet loud clap. Flip flops, striking into her heels.

Lenny’s heart skipped, dropping his pouch and running forward. He looked over his shoulder, unsure where the sound was coming from, wondering if he should really let the pouch sit there. Even the few evernuts he’d collected would be good enough.

He tripped into a ditch, the ball of the footprint he’d been staring at. A large shape emerged out from the trees.

The woman was of age, with a few faint lines marking her face. But it didn’t diminish the sharpness of her green eyes, especially as its piercing gaze was locked onto Lenny, having no trouble finding him despite his size. Her stature was tall and proud, her yellow hair coming down in elegant locks around her chin. A broad sun hat provided shade for a face she clearly took well care of. The woman’s short-sleeved dress was beige and thin, ending at her knees with a pretty, emerald brooch shooting forward from her ample bosom. The lady had a delicate blend of rich elegance while also being well-clad for her apparent, lowly duty of patrolling these areas.

She was shorter than the evernut trees, but not by a great deal. Eighty or so feet tall, she absolutely dwarfed him.

“There’s the trespasser,” she said, a deep voice that fit her age. Lenny couldn’t move, captured, but this time the awe contained more fear than amazement. He understood where the footprint he was currently in had come from as she stepped up, two pretty anklets jingling with her walk. They were golden, a link of gemstones chained together and encircling the girth of her ankle. Each second toe adorned a green ring, a flagrant show of wealth. The sandals, in comparison, were rather simple, a thong strap capturing the gap between her big and second toe and securing her delicate feet into them. Her feet didn’t fit with the setting either. Lenny had expected them to be dirty and beaten. Instead, those pale, delicate peds were free any imperfections. Neither time nor this plantation had put a dent on their near perfect shape. The plated discs of her toenails reflected the sunlight with a shine, the digits aligned into a well-curved arch, just as the print on the ground suggested.

“Is that the look of someone who’s never seen a giant before?” the lady said, raising an eyebrow. She tipped her sunhat up with a flick of her fingers.

“I… uhm…” Lenny’s eyes snapped down to her feet again. They were closest to him, the things he needed to worry about the most. Strangely, this acknowledgment he had of her beauty, of her majestic demeanor, it manifested as attention onto her feet. Why had that become the eye-candy of his amazement?

“You are way out of your depth, boy. What made you think it was clever to come steal from me?”

“I wasn’t stealing.” Lenny stood up, still standing in the declivity of her footprint. “I lost my way.”

“Hmm, is that so?” The curiousness in her voice was playful, not sincere. Her right row of toes slipped back, escaping the paltry confine of the sandal strap.

Lenny skipped back to the toes of the footprint, ready to power himself up with his base magics. But the foot was in no rush, it didn’t come for him. It went sideways, the big and second toes pinching his dropped hemp sack off the ground and bringing it to him. “And what’s this, thief?”

“I…” She planted her heel on the fringe of the footprint, the sole leaning over the ditch and suspending the evidence over his head. With her toes clenched, an intricate pattern of wrinkles came into shape over her pale sole.

“You’ve got some magical proficiency to your name, don’t you, boy?”

“A little bit, madam.”

“Call me Madam Crawgate. I own this plantation you try to steal from. Normally, one of my daughters patrol these grounds, but I’ve sent her off to a short time away to be educated. Perhaps she can become a lady, despite her looks. So I’ve decided to see what she was having so fun with. And I must say…” Madam Crawgate reached under her neckline, bringing out a magical totem. It was three purple beads strung together, glowing with a soft hum. “To await the oh so predictably petty criminals who come in here, desperately seeking to plunder my riches, and chase them down, it has been a rather amusing sport.” The hemp sack was dropped as her foot slid back, resting on the ball and toes, the arch and heel on display. It all came together with her description. She was a rich giant, and indeed, from her brooch down to her toe rings and anklets, her whole being advertised her high status.

“I’m no criminal, Madam Crawgate. Promise, Your Excellence, I’ve been a good boy all my life. I just hoped I could help my family with a little bit of evernuts, just a little bit. I didn’t mean to steal.”

“A good boy, you say?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“What you’ve done is more akin to a bad boy. And do you know what I do with bad boys? I step on them.”

“It would be an honor to be stepped on by your feet. They are very pretty, my lady.”

A flash of embarrassment boiled up in Lenny. He’d wanted to compliment her, he felt there was a way to talk his way out of this, he found himself overwhelmed by her splendor, her dignified beauty, how especially her feet seemed to capture him. Somehow, all that confused mess in his head became the stupid comment that had piqued the wrong kind of attention. Lenny hoped she would look past it, but her wondering look didn’t go away.

“What was that?”

Lenny looked somewhere else, humming a clueless sound.

Her other foot moved closer, both surrounding his ditch. The two robust legs of flesh straddled him. “It would indeed be an honor for a lowly, countryside thief like you to be lying under my grace, even if it were the dirty undersides of my feet. I didn’t believe you’d acknowledge it, however. You have some magical proficiency, don’t you?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Splendid. Then your body can take a good beating.” Her left foot rose and aimed for him. “I’ll be having a fun time with you, boy.”

Although a shot of panic made Lenny alert, it quickly passed. He meant what he had said, and so he only watched, with reserved excitement, as the shadow of her foot descended on him, those mature, courtly toes eagerly grasping for his body.