Giantess World
Siarra and Aisha continued through the Enchanted Forest without a word. With Cain, Vic, and Eric stuffed into Aisha’s scepter in the most uncomfortable of position, and the awkward silence between Malkav and Siarra, there was nothing but the chirping of midday birds to keep them company. Even Grandpa and Adam kept to themselves as they laid back on Siarra’s shoulders, while Malkav had since been handed over to Aisha for fear of what Siarra might do to him.
For hours, they marched on, leaving nothing but footsteps on the worn path. The tree-topped sky was glazed over in a crimson shade of red when the girls finally found themselves at the edge of a ravine, looking down into a snakelike river. The chasm was at least four hundred feet deep and continued on for long miles in both directions. At the bottom of the ravine, rocks as jagged as glass thrust their spiny backs out of the white rapids. The only way across seemed to be a rickety wooden bridge over the mouth of the canyon. It swayed in the breaths of the water and wind.
“I remember this,” Siarra said, her voice weak from the hours of silence. “Terragolem is on the other side.”
Aisha peered down the abyss. “Great…”
“Maybe there’s a mule ride down the canyon,” Adam suggested.
Siarra ignored his comment and tested the bridge by putting her foot on one of its wooden planks. It sagged and moaned and cracked under her weight like something old and dying, but it didn’t break. She put her full weight on it.
Nothing happened.
“I think we can make it,” she said.
Malkav wasn’t so sure. “Maybe…you should let us guys go across first. We’re smaller and we don’t weigh as...much…”
Siarra glared at him. “I’m not fat. Maybe we should just try throwing you across.”
“Just a suggestion, geez.”
“Enough of that!” Aisha snapped. “I always have room for more in my scepter.” But she didn’t really. Vic, Cain, and Eric were crammed inside the diamond encasement, their limbs knotted together, their faces scrunched against the walls, their bodies flattened to almost cartoonish proportions, but still they were alive.
“I’ll go across first,” Siarra said, putting one front in front of the other. The bridge sank. Adam and Grandpa hugged her neck and her collar to keep from being hurled over either side. She walked slowly, testing each plank of wood. Some of them broke when she put her foot down, but she quickly reared back and stepped over the hole. Her body swayed in motion to the wind. Down below, the river continued to rage, pounding against the rocky face of the gorge.
When she at last touched grassy soil on the other side, she motioned for Aisha to follow.
“…Here we go, little guy,” Aisha said wearily to Malkav, slowly sliding her foot onto the bridge. It began to quiver. So did she.
“You know,” Malkav said quickly. “I’d be happier staying on my side.”
He tried to scramble off her shoulder, but she held him tight with her thumb and forefinger. “Oh, no, you don’t. We’re doing this together.” She took another step. The rope threads began to separate. The wood began to crack.
She was about halfway across when she made a careless footstep and her leg burst through a plank in the bridge. She plunged downward, her other leg smashing through the hole, but she managed to grab hold of the bridge at the last moment. She dangled there, her feet loose in the air, as she scrambled to pull herself up onto her elbows.
Her reaction had caused her to lose grip of Malkav, who plummeted down her shoulder and snagged hold of her waist band. He could see her scepter and the horrified faces of his friends when they realized what would happen to them if Aisha let go.
But she wasn’t going to. She pried herself up, kicking her feet like a duck underwater, and swung one leg over the bridge. With a little luck, she caught the back of her knee on the crisscrossing rope railing and used that as an extra support.
“Aisha!” Siarra cried, running for the bridge and then realizing her added weight wouldn’t help any. So she stood there, at the foot of the bridge, her eyes as wide as the setting sun.
“I’ll…be okay…” Aisha gasped, struggling to throw up her other leg. Unfortunately, the long skirt of her robe was getting in the way. She kicked at it, but it was of no use.
That’s when Malkav began to feel his hands slipped. He grabbed tighter onto Aisha’s waistband, but it was slowly untying itself. He realized that a little too late, though, as the knot came undone and the waistband fluttered down the ravine like confetti. Her long skirt came with it, apparently held up solely by the waistband. Malkav screamed. Luckily, Aisha was wearing an underskirt and he managed to slip his fingers around that, his body slamming hard into her bare thigh. He ricocheted back up, twisting around on the skirt, and smacked into her thigh again.
Without the long skirt in her way, Aisha managed to swing her other leg over the rope bridge and pulled herself up. She didn’t stop for anything as she half-crawled, half-ran for Siarra on the other side. The planks of wood each snapped under her weight like she was running across a string of shells, but she didn’t care. She threw herself onto the ground when she reached the other side, gasping, nearly crushing Malkav under her thigh.
He rolled out from under her and stumbled across the grass. “Well, that could’ve went better.”
“Are you okay?” Siarra asked, stepping right over Malkav and kneeling down before Aisha.
Still breathing heavily, Aisha pulled herself up on her hands and knees and looked down at her legs. Her long pink robe had now become a pink vest and a much shorter white skirt that just skimmed about the half of her thighs. She yanked at it, trying to twist it over her knees, but it didn’t even come close.
“This is sacrilege,” she muttered. “I need my skirt back. A disciple of Dai Celesta should not be revealing this much skin.”
“Eh?” Grandpa said, and then poked Adam with his cane. “Get me my glasses, sonny. I gotta see this.”
“You’re lucky to be alive after that!” Siarra said.
Aisha shook her head and stood up. “I’m fine, Siarra. Dai Celesta watches over her people.”
“Yeah, thanks the heavens for this Dai Celesta,” Malkav mumbled sarcastically.
Aisha opened her mouth to say something, but what sounded like something rational came out as a panicked cry. “Oh, no!”
“What?”
“My scepter!” she exclaimed, running her hands across her hips, where, without the waistband, the scepter was no longer hanging. “It must’ve fallen into the river!” Without thinking, she dashed back towards the bridge.
“It’s too late!” Siarra screamed, tackling her. They rolled through the grass together and banged against the posts holding up the bridge. Poor Grandpa and Adam were thrown into the grass.
“I need my scepter!” Aisha cried.
Siarra pinned her down. “If you take one more step on that bridge, the whole thing will fall and take you with it! You don’t want to end up in a watery grave too.”
“But what about the guys inside of it? Oh, my, I never I shouldn’t have done that to them! It’s all my fault…”
Adam looked solemnly over the ravine and then at Aisha, who was in tears. “…Sister Aisha, what’s your scepter made of?”
“Gold,” she said. “Gold…and the part I put the guys in was made of diamond.”
“Well… Diamond is hard to break. So is gold. And it looks like that water is pretty deep, so I don’t think you have to worry about your scepter breaking from the fall.”
“…You think so?’
“Absolutely. The guys will be fine.”
“Right,” Siarra said, helping Aisha to her feet. “We can beat Terragolem without them, and then we’ll come back and follow the river to its end, where I’m sure we’ll find both them and your scepter.”
“Okay…” Aisha said, taking one last glance down into the howling ravine. The water seemed to mock her with its hammering waves. “…I know they’ll be safe too. Dai Celesta gave me that scepter. She watches over it like she watches over me. I can feel it…”