Characters: Mundo, Countess Olivia, Kadaj, Queen Isabella, Fallon, Quentin, Grandpa, Isaac
Location: Royal Box Section, the Tournament of Champions
Day 4 - 2:54 PM
It took him a while to work up the courage—an hour, actually—but Mundo finally stepped out from behind Olivia’s glass of wine to speak to her. He didn’t know what he would say, but he couldn’t wait any longer. The Tournament of Champions was ending.
Across the table, Queen Isabella clapped for joy as Jinx took the fall. “Oh, goody! This day is turning out to be simply wonderful.”
“If you say so,” Olivia sighed, throwing down her fan. “Are we done here, Bella? This sun is doing some awful things to my skin and I really must lie down.” That’s when she noticed the man standing before her. She cocked her head to the side and looked down at him, but he was a little hard to make out with a giant paper fan covering his face.
“Can you get this thing off me?” he asked.
“Most certainly,” she said, picking up the fan and setting it down next to her plate. Then she tilted her head to the other side. “Shouldn’t you be with the other Men?”
“You looked like more enjoyable company,” he smiled.
She smiled, too, and blushed through her pale skin. “Why, thank you. What a polite thing to say.”
But somebody wasn’t so happy. Grimacing, Kadaj wrapped his fingers around Olivia’s tiara and scowled down at the trespasser in his life. His blood began to boil. “Hey—who are you? What business do you have with Miss Olivia?”
“No business,” Mundo said. “This is all pleasure, I assure you.”
Olivia touched her lips. “Oh! Curse me, where are my manners? I am Countess Olivia and this is my dear friend Kadaj.”
“Which is Sir Kadaj to you, knave,” the man in her tiara declared.
Mundo paid him no mind. He nodded into the softness of Olivia’s sunburned eyes and then bowed his head in the most respectable manner he could muster. “Sir Mundo of the Gallahorn Clan at your service.”
A little lie never hurt. Besides, the formality of his title seemed to ignite something in Olivia—perhaps a side of her that she wanted to let out. A side of adventure, a side of danger and peril. Girls always did like the bad guys.
“Never heard of them,” Kadaj said.
“Maybe if you didn’t live your whole life under a rock,” Mundo jeered, pointing at the stone ruby in Olivia’s hair that, ironically, Kadaj was standing underneath. “The Gallahorn Clan is famous for their heroic deeds far and wide. We have fought evil from the darkest corners of Neverquest. Many would consider us the fiercest Men of all time. Certainly you’ve heard of us, M’lady?”
“I can’t say I have,” Olivia remarked. “But of course, I don’t get out much either. My mother likes to keep me indoors.”
“Ah, well, it is of no matter. I am honored to be here now. Even as a Gallahorn, from all the lands and seas I have traveled, I have never stumbled upon a face quite as pretty as yours, my dear. It strikes me like a thousand swords through the heart.”
“Well, I do have beautiful eyes,” Kadaj said, patting his cheeks, but neither of them gave him the slightest acknowledgment.
“I just…” Mundo looked down and realized he was on one knee, his hands folded atop each other, bowing before the countess. “I just couldn’t help myself. Standing over there, seeing you—it was like, it was like…being born again. I saw unmade beauty in your face. You have the skin of an angel and the smile of a goddess, Miss Olivia. I…I simply can’t tell you what it means to stand before you now. You have made my travels amount to nothing, worthless journeys for fool’s gold. You, you radiance brings the completeness into my life. You carry me back to my beginning, to where I belong, to where I want to go. How can I thank thee?”
Olivia stared at him with a quivering smile and then she rolled over in laughter. She couldn’t hold a straight face any longer. “I like you, Sir Mundo! You’re a funny little thing. You make me happy.”
“He makes me sick,” Kadaj muttered. “That man is no Knight or Soldier. I bet he doesn’t even know how to wield a sword.”
“I do too! I’m a Warrior!”
“You’re a Shaman. We’re not fools.”
“He’s right,” Olivia said, straightening the hem of her dress. “You’re not very good at pretending. But you are polite and I admire that.”
Mundo nodded vigorously, hopelessly, and rose. “Truth is, I just wanted to sit next to you. You are beautiful and…I always dreamed of being a Knight.”
“You don’t see many male Knights around here,” Olivia said. “Are you from Penee?”
“Penee, Miss?”
“Why, the land of the Men. Certainly you’ve heard of it in your many travels.”
“I most certainly have not.”
“It seems it is you who lives under said rock,” Kadaj sneered. “Even I know of Penee. Before I met Miss Olivia, I lived there with my family.”
“Then why don’t you go back?”
Olivia shook her head. “Oh, no. I don’t know what I would do without Kadaj. He keeps me so happy. And I…do like to smile.”
“And I love to see you smile,” Kadaj said. Then he stepped over the crystal tiara, grabbed hold of one of Olivia’s long curling stands of hair, and shimmied down to the table. “What I would also love to see is you, Sir Mundo, walking in that direction until you disappear from sight.” He pointed towards the other end of the table.
Mundo put his hand on Kadaj’s arm and pushed it back down. “Chill, man. I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“What mean you by this ‘chill’? Are you threatening me with your ice spells, Shaman? I will have you know that I am an expert fencer and—”
“Relax. It means relax.”
“You have an odd tongue, knave.” Kadaj’s hand brushed the hilt of his rapier. “I don’t like it.”
“I do,” Olivia remarked. She put her hands under her chin and leaned forward, smiling down at the two Men. “I like to hear other languages. What else can you teach me?”
Mundo smiled. This was going perfect. “I’d be honored to teach you anything you’d like to know, M’lady. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Queen is going to keep us around for long. She…seems to want us dead.”
“Oh, Bella? She’s been in an awfully bad mood today, but I think she’s over it now.”
“Grab the Men,” Isabella said to Fallon as she stood up. “We’ll give them to Gena to kill for a victory ceremony.”
“Of course,” Fallon nodded. She reached up and unhooked the cage from the ceiling. All the naked Men inside screamed as they toppled over each other and hit a wall of metal and skin. Then the courier’s hand reached down for Isaac, Quentin, and Grandpa. Her fingers spread and they stood there, dumbfounded, as their world of light became darkened in the shadow of her gigantic hand.
Mundo held his breath. “No…”
“Leave them,” Isabella said. “They don’t deserve a death quite so painless.”
Fallon withdrew her hand. “Of course, Your Highness.”
Isabella turned to Olivia and scrunched her nose at the sight of the royal countess speaking to a worthless peasant like Mundo. “Ugh. You’ll keep an eye on them, won’t you, cousin?”
“I’d do anything Her Big-Mouth asks,” Olivia said with a roll of her eyes.
“Olivia, I swear…”
“Go. Your audience is waiting.”
“She’s right,” Fallon said. She interlaced her arm with Isabella and turned towards the doorway. “We have to present Gena with the trophy.”
Isabella glimpsed over her shoulder and zeroed in on Olivia’s dark smirk, which only made her knuckles bleed. “…Fine. We’ll be back and then we’re all going to have a very long talk.”
“And I’m sure you’ll be doing most of the speaking,” Olivia muttered as the queen left.
Mundo stared up at her, a bit confused. “You’re not like the others, Miss Olivia.”
“Hm?”
“The other girls we’ve met. Nobody seems to like us.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“I can,” Kadaj muttered.
Feeling a lot safer without Isabella in the room, the other Men decided to join the conversation. Isaac was the first to arrive, with Grandpa hobbling behind him, and Quentin even rolled a grape across the table and presented it to Olivia as a gift.
“For you!” he chirped.
Her smile grew. “Aw, that’s so sweet. I love grapes.”
“Can I, um, um…feed it to you?”
“Sure,” Olivia laughed. She lowered her arms to the edge of the table and put her head down on them, opening her mouth wide. Giggling like a school child, Quentin pushed the grape towards her. He couldn’t quite get it over the speed bump of her lower lip, though, and it rolled back down at him, smushing him against the table. Olivia couldn’t help but laugh. But Quentin got back up and tried again. This time, Olivia used her finger to pop the grape into her mouth and Quentin cheered, thinking he had done it all by himself.
“That was very good!” she said, watching the Bard in amusement, and then she swallowed the grape.
“Ha, I may be an old man, but I know the face of a kind lass when I see one,” Grandpa said, leaning his staff against Olivia’s glass of wine. “You don’t fool me for a moment, child.”
Isaac jabbed Mundo in the gut. “Hey, man, that must’ve been some pretty smooth butt-kissing to keep her from squashing you. I didn’t think you knew how to flirt.”
“Why do you think I’m on the computer sixteen hours a day?” Mundo grinned. “I’ve seen my share of dating tips. Oh, and by the way, she thinks we belong to a group called the Gallahorn Clan.”
“What the hell is a ‘Gallahorn Clan’?”
“I don’t know. I made it up.”
“What? Why?”
He shrugged. “I had to tell her something. I thought she’d respect us more if she thought we belonged to a unit.”
“Well, what are we supposed to have done in this ‘unit’?”
“Kill…stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Bandits and goblins…and…um…dragons. That sort of thing.”
“So she thinks we’re heroes?”
“Well, not exactly.”
Olivia smiled at the Men in front of her, curling up in her arms. “So, Sir Mundo was telling me about his epic adventures across the lands of Neverquest. I…would really love to hear some stories. I don’t get out nearly as much as I would like.”
“Epic…adventures?” Isaac echoed, glaring at Mundo. “What the hell did you tell her, man?”
“Come on, you can’t tell me that you’ve never lied to a girl to get her attention.”
“Well, I did try to tell Kim that I was white once, but I think she saw through me.”
“Look, when we’re this small, we need all the attention we can get. So why not blow things out of proportion? This is all fantasy anyway. We’re supposed to lie. And think about it! Olivia is royalty, man. With her on our side, we might finally get the respect we deserve. Oh, and we might live longer.”
“Well, I’m all about living longer.”
A rapier suddenly swung down between them, with Kadaj standing on the other end. “Then you better keep your distance from Miss Olivia. I don’t know who you really are or what you want with my mistress, but I will do whatever it takes to protect her from the likes of you. I got my eye on you, Sir Mundo, and I’m not blinking until I see you dead or gone from our lives.”
Giantess World
