“I think we’ve been here before,” Aisha said, coming to a stop at a fork in the gravel path. “We’ve already passed that rock.”
Vic, from her shoulder, looked up. “How can you tell?”
“Um, because it’s shaped like a giant turtle?”
Sure enough, the stone she was pointing to was carved, most likely by human hands, into the proverbial figure of a turtle. Its shell was combed over in clumps of seaweed-like moss and its head jutted out, high and proud, rising far over even the girls’ heads. Thick, cracked, hoary rocks made up its body, the most solid of which formed its four stout legs, which sank into the earth under the strain of the turtle’s weight. All around it, red-barked trees stretched towards the clouds, their lush bosoms of green giving way to rays of filtered sunlight.
“Oh,” Vic said. “Yeah, I guess that would be hard to forget.”
“This Enchanted Forest has gotten me all confused!” she huffed. “Siarra, you said you’ve been here before?”
Siarra didn’t answer. Her mind was elsewhere, staring off into empty space or watching the way the trees breathe in the wind or a squirrel make its way across the web of branches over her head. Malkav, Adam, and Grandpa sat on her shoulder, but she paid them no mind either, turning her head one way or the other, causing her curtain of hair to occasionally brush against them.
“Siarra?” Aisha repeated.
“…Yes,” Siarra said at last. “I was here once before.”
“You okay?”
“Mm…”
“Okay, well… Do you know how to find Terragolem?”
“That’s him.”
All eyes followed her finger over to the turtle rock, and then back to her.
“That’s a rock,” Cain said bluntly. “You need your eyes checked?”
Siarra shook her head.
“It’s obviously a statue of Terragolem,” Eric said. “All bosses in all games are egotistical and have statues built in their likeness. It’s a common theme.”
But that didn’t stop Grandpa from rising up on Siarra’s shoulder and pointing his cane at the turtle. “If my granddaughter says that is our enemy, then I shall defeat him!” As he spoke, blue flickers began to dance on the tip of his cane and then shot out, striking the neck of the turtle. Dust and gravel began to rain down as the small explosion nicked the rock statue.
“Grandpa!” Siarra snapped, twitching her shoulder so that it would knock the poor old man down. He fell facefirst into the cloth of her robe and would’ve plummeted over the side of her shoulder if the crook of his cane hadn’t caught her collar and left him dangling there.
“It’s fighting back!” Grandpa howled. “Quick, fall back! Call in the Seals!”
“You have to learn to be more careful with your magic,” Siarra scolded him, making no attempt to help him up. “You can’t just go shooting beams of light at anything that doesn’t move. Or things that don’t. Like rocks. It’s not nice.”
Malkav and Adam jumped to their feet, watching Grandpa hang from the lapel of Siarra’s robe on the shoulder opposite them. His cane was the only thing keeping him from a long fall to the ground.
“You’re going to hurt him!” Malkav yelled up at Siarra.
She shot him a nasty glare and twitched that shoulder as well. He stumbled back, to where her shoulder became her upper arm, but Adam caught him before he went over the edge.
“What was that for!?” Malkav hollered, right in Adam’s ear. Adam almost let him go.
“Don’t tell me how to treat my grandpa!” Siarra hissed. “I’m in his will and you’re not!”
Aisha reached a comforting hand towards her. “Siarra, what’s wrong?”
“Trouble brews among the ranks,” Eric said into his fist, pretending it was a microphone. “Soon we will all be at each other’s throats… It’s only a matter of time…”
Vic and Cain stared at him.
“I’m fine!” Siarra cried out in a voice that was anything but fine. “I…I just miss Frankie.”
“We’ll get him back,” Aisha assured her. “Once we find Master Luna, everything will be alright.”
By now, Adam had pulled Malkav back onto Siarra’s shoulder. Still angry and a bit shocked by Siarra’s reaction, Malkav put his hand to his chest where the beetle necklace rested and looked up to Aisha’s face, which towered before him like a billboard. “But what about the pieces of earth and water and wind and fire?”
“Master Luna surely knows where they all are and I’m sure she can obtain them with so much greater ease than we could ever pretend to imagine.” She saw skepticism in their faces. “…I know you don’t come from these lands and you’ve never met her, but trust me when I say that she truly is all-powerful. Kendira is wonderfully strong on her own, no doubt, but she—we all—pale next to the cosmic power of Master Luna.”
“It’s great that this lady is around when we need her,” Cain joked.
Aisha’s eyes flared up. “Do not talk that way about Master Luna!”
“Why? Does she ‘hear all’ too? If she did, then I have something to say.” He stood up on Aisha’s shoulder and cupped his hands over his mouth, craning his neck towards the heavens. “Hey, Luna! Why don’t you get your ass over here and help us out a little! If you can hear me, say something!”
Only a bird answered his call.
“See? Nothing. Some ‘great’ master.”
Aisha began to boil. “Sir Cain! I have half a mind to put you somewhere very uncomfortable for the rest of the journey!”
Thoughts of the map between Aisha’s robe and breasts came to Cain’s perverted mind and he smiled. “Yeah… Oh, yeah.”
“Dude, I would shut up if I were you,” Vic whispered to Cain, stooping down to reach his ear. “I’ve never seen that shade of red before.” He pointed to Aisha’s face, the blood swelling in her cheeks turning to one nasty sunburned color.
“Egads, she’s going to blow!” Eric cried out.
“I wonder who would rez us then,” Vic laughed.
“I’m sure we could find another hot Cleric in Felwinter.”
“Not one that hot,” Cain said, jerking a thumb up at Aisha. “She’s sizzling.”
“Literally.”
“I think she’s getting hotter.”
Aisha seethed. “You guys…”
“My feet are burning just by standing on her.”
“Mine too.”
“Ow, ow, ow!”
They all hopped around on hot feet.
Aisha picked up her scepter, unscrewed the cap, and dropped each of the guys (Cain, Eric, and Vic) into its five-sided, diamond-walled encasement. Without a word, she screwed the cap back on and tucked the scepter under her waistband.
“Which way?” she asked Siarra.
Siarra pointed to the left path and they continued on in wonderful silence.
Giantess World
