Chapter 2

Djoland fought to free himself from the viscous mound of mashed potatoes and gravy but it was too late. In moments, a giant waitress had gathered up the plate and carried it to its destination. Djoland felt his bones rattle as the plate hit the tabletop with a crash. The orc laid there, stunned from the impact, pain shooting through every nerve of his body.

“Gods, but I'm hungry,” a booming, feminine voice said overhead. Djoland was still recovering when the spoon descended.

The huge metal utensil pierced the potato mash a few feet from the orc's body. With a wet slurping sound, it scooped a clump of potato bigger than he was out of the pile like a great shovel. His strength returned and Djoland tried to scramble away. But as he pushed himself up off the plate, his hand slipped in a greasy pool of gravy. Djoland fell and banged his chin on the plate, wincing and gritting his sharp teeth. The spoon returned, sliding through the muck and taking him with it.

Djoland felt himself rising at an alarming rate. The restaurant swept past him on all sides in a blur of motion. He caught a glimpse of red hair, flashing white teeth, and thick, pink lips before he was plunged into darkness.

Sliding through the mass of potato, Djoland's orcish eyes quickly adjusted to the scant amount of light. He found himself in the massive cave-like mouth of a giantess. Beside him, a row of sharp white teeth the size of stalactites violently chewed on the potatoes, sending flecks of mush to ricochet back at him. The floor undulated and rippled below like a restless beast, causing the orc to shift towards those gnashing teeth. As he landed on the lower row of the giantess' molars, Djoland's warrior instincts went into action. He barrel-rolled to the side, moments before the upper teeth came down in a deadly chomp. The enormous tongue tried to push him the other direction towards a second row of teeth, but Djoland was already rolling away.

As if it possessed a mind all its own, the tongue changed tactics. Refusing to be denied, the slippery muscle began to lift towards the roof of the mouth. Djoland and the remaining clump of potato were hoisted high until they collided with the giantess' soft palate. They then started sliding inexorably down the sloping tongue towards a yawning abyss below. As the orc approached the giant woman's throat, he realized with dread that she could likely swallow him whole. The small size of his body combined with the added lubrication of the mashed potatoes would cause him to slide right down that gargantuan gullet.

“Not today, girly,” Djoland muttered.

Reaching for his belt, he drew forth a line of rope with a three-pronged metal hook at its end. The orc warrior swung this grappling hook to the side until it caught on one of the colossal lady's back teeth. This he did not a moment too soon for a few seconds later, he plunged into the giant gullet. Djoland entered a freefall and felt huge muscles contract about his body. With a monstrous gulp, the giantess swallowed him alive.

Or attempted to, at any rate. Clinging tight to the grappling hook, Djoland only was drawn part of the way down her throat. He dangled on the end of the rope somewhere within the giant woman's esophagus. Below him, the darkness and the gurgling sounds of her body beckoned. The walls of muscle continued to squeeze around him and he was shaken by the sound and vibration as the giantess started to choke.

Raquel coughed and hacked violently when the small object became lodged in her throat. Her face began to turn blue as her air passage was blocked off. In his box seat nearby, Pixis could only watch helplessly.

“Hands above your head!” the elf called to her. “Oh, sweetheart, I told you not to wolf down your food so!”

Raquel grabbed her glass of water and began to guzzle it down, hoping to dislodge whatever was choking her. Inside her throat, Djoland held fast to his lifeline as a flood of ice water washed over him. The force of the sudden waterfall caused him to lose his grip and he tumbled downward once more. Djoland desperately grasped for the rope. He barely caught the end of it and now found himself dangling deeper still within the slippery tunnel. The water was gone now, washed down into the darkness.

Outside, Raquel's plight had been noticed by the restaurant's patrons, and the couple's waitress had quickly rushed to her aid. The other giantess stood behind her and grabbed her about the middle. With quick thrusts, she pulled upward against Raquel's abdomen until the obstruction came flying out of her mouth with a mighty cough. The tiny greenish shape tumbled through the air before landing with a splash in Raquel's glass of wine.

“Oh, thank the gods,” said Pixis. “Are you all right, honey?”

Slowly recovering, Raquel glanced at the wine with curiosity. She reached in with two slender fingers and lifted Djoland from the glass, dangling him upside down by his leg. Wine and potato mash dripped from his form as he struggled ineffectually in her grip.

“Release me, woman!” he growled defiantly.

“Bloody hell,” Raquel gasped. She brought the wiggling creature closer to her face and examined him. “It--it's alive!”

“No thanks to you, maneater!” the orc bellowed.

The dark-haired waitress leaned in closer and took a look at the upside down orc. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “What a hideous little thing,” she said. “I'm terribly sorry, miss. Your meal is on the house of course. I'll dispose of the pest for you.” She reached for Djoland with huge, manicured nails the length of his legs.

“Don't hurt it!” Raquel cried in alarm. She dropped the little orc into her palm and covered him protectively with her other hand. “It can talk! This is a sentient creature, not a bug! The poor thing was probably just hungry!”

The waitress looked at Raquel as if she'd grown a second head. But then again, this was the boss' daughter and she was not about to press the issue.

“Um, all right, miss, whatever you say. Just get it out of here quick before someone contacts the health inspector.”

Once the waitress had gone, Raquel lifted her hand to take a better look at the tiny creature. Light returned to Djoland's eyes and he glanced up at the enormous, yet strikingly pretty, cliff-like face of his captor. Long curtains of red hair hung on either side of the hand that cradled him, obscuring his view of the restaurant. A pair of violet eyes as big as his head regarded him curiously.

“What is it, Raquel?” Pixis called from his box.

“It's an orc!” the giantess informed him in surprise.

“An orc!” said Pixis in horror. “Should have listened to the waitress. Kill it, quick!”

“Hullo, little fella,” the giant redhead cooed, ignoring her boyfriend for the moment. “What were you doing in my mashed potatoes?”

“None of your business, jumbo,” Djoland spat. “Now, unhand me or I'll chop off your fingers!” He drew a long dagger from his belt and brandished it with menace. Raquel simply flicked this out of his grasp with her fingertip. It fell some forty feet to clatter onto the table below.

“You do that and I might have to bite off your arm, shorty,” Raquel said. She snapped her huge teeth a few inches from the orc's face. “Let's not forget who almost ate who here. Now, come on. No funny business.”

Djoland glared at the giantess for a moment before trying to leap off the side of her hand. Raquel simply reached out with her other hand and grabbed the back of his tunic. She dangled him in the air before her.

“Hey, what did I just say?” she chided. “Look, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot here. Or, um, wrong tongue maybe?” She giggled. “My name's Raquel. What's yours?”

Seeing that he was going nowhere and that the giantess was not attempting squash him, the orc decided to play along. “I am Djoland. Formerly of Daggerclaw Tribe.” He slapped a fist against his chest in the old tribe salute, something he realized he would no longer be needing.

“Formerly?” Raquel asked, setting him back in her palm. One of her thin, red eyebrows arched prettily with the question.

“I am an exile,” Djoland explained. “A scavenger. I have quit the tribe to find my own way.”

As they continued introductions, Pixis had leaped from his box seat onto Raquel's shoulder. The elf stumbled slightly on the slippery bare skin and nearly plunged to the tabletop. But he managed to keep his footing and pushed his way through the wall of red hair to get a better look at what was happening.

“Raquel, why are you talking to it? Squish the beast at once!”

“Pix, what's gotten into you?” Raquel said. “This guy's not hurting anyone.”

“Not yet perhaps,” Pixitatonolous answered. “But he's an orc! Do you know how many elf cities have been raided by these barbarians? How many widows and orphans their kind has produced? They're monsters, Raquel! All of them! Vicious, warmongering brutes!”

“I see,” Raquel said, her brow furrowing in annoyance. “And I suppose all giants are violent, carnivorous ogres that storm the countryside and devour everything in their path?”

Pixis squirmed uneasily. “No, of course not, darling.” When her glare continued, he tried to defuse the situation with humor. “Though, um...you did almost swallow this fellow just now.”

“I expected better of you, Pix,” the giantess stated coldly. “Judging a whole species like that.”

“But Raqqy,” the elf said, exasperated. “He's an orc!”

“I am no warmonger,” Djoland barked, gruffly. “Quit my tribe to live in peace.”

“A peace-loving orc?!” Pixis cried. “Pull the other one!”

“What do you know of it, pointy-ears?” Djoland growled.

“More than you'd think,” the elf declared. Angrily, he began stomping his way down the length of Raquel's arm towards the hand holding Djoland. “My cousin Terranaculous and his family were killed in an orc raid! Your damned airships put his village to the torch! Dozens dead and left to rot in the sun!”

“Hmm. Probably Fangtooth Tribe,” Djoland stated simply. “Daggerclaw didn't use airships.”

“I don't care who it was!” Pixis was by now enraged. “They're all dead! And your filthy breed should be wiped off the face of the earth!”

“Pixis!” Raquel said in shock.

“If you won't squish this animal,” the elf lord announced, “I'll dispose of him myself!” Pixis leaped from her wrist into the palm of his giant lover's hand. Before Djoland had a chance to react, the elf had tackled him, knocking them both into a heap. With savage anger, Pixis repeatedly punched and kicked at the orc. Djoland snarled and clawed at the obnoxious elf, trying to toss his wiry opponent off. The duo wrestled back and forth across the giantess's hand, coming dangerously close to the edge more than once.

“That will be quite enough of that!” a voice boomed above them. Raquel reached down and seized Pixis in her fingers, lifting him out of her hand.

“You need a time out, mister!” she announced. Before the elf could protest, she turned him upside down and thrust him headfirst down her cleavage. Her tiny lover's legs kicked furiously but ineffectually in the air. Placing a hand over him, the giantess pushed down until the elf was swallowed up completely between her breasts. Satisfied for the moment, she ignored his ticklish squirming and returned her attention to Djoland.

“Now, where were we? Hmm...wait a moment,” Raquel said. She reached into her mouth and felt about with a finger. Moments later, she had extracted Djoland's grappling hook from her back tooth and pulled it out, offering it to the little creature.

“I believe this is yours.” The orc stared up at her warily, not certain what to make of the giantess's courtesy.

“It's all right,” she said. “I won't bite. Hard.” She winked at him and gave a charming giggle. When the orc still didn't take the rope from her, she set him and the grappling line on the side of her plate.

“Here. You must be starving.” Raquel tore a small strip of meat off one of the dragon ribs and set it beside Djoland. Eying her for a moment, the orc finally relented and dove at the succulent meat, tearing into it with his sharp fangs.

“Have all you want, little guy,” Raquel told him. “I know what it's like to be judged for what you are. When you're done, you can tell me all about this tribe of yours that you've decided to quit.”

The meat was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted. If he'd known it would be like this, Djoland would have gotten himself almost eaten a long time ago.