Characters: Joan, Lynne, Vic, Eric, Cain
Location: The borderline of Ellewyn and Kaligar, in the Enchanted Forest
Time: Day 4 - 3:48 PM
Her hands trembling, Joan added another dash of spices to the chili and stirred. The chunks of meat and beans rolled around, dipping under the brown juice that washed over them again and again. Bubbles popped on the surface. Hot steam blasted Joan’s face. She sweated. Her strokes grew faster, wilder, more uncontrolled than before. But the rest of her body was stiff, staring straight ahead, her back to Lynne and the other ninjas, who had made themselves comfortable on a nearby rock. They weren’t watching her, but she didn’t care. She knew what she to do, what they were forcing her to do, what she couldn’t back away from.
Unfortunately, the Men knew nothing about that. They sat at Joan’s feet, rubbing their hands together in front of the roaring fire like sticks. Smelling the zesty aroma of chili through their tiny nostrils, their shoulders sagged in sweet bliss and they prodded each other, excited that they were finally about to feast. The day had been long. They were starving.
“I’m so hungry that I could eat a whole caterpillar!” Cain said, leaning back against Joan’s sandal. “Yes, sir-ree. A whole caterpillar. Without barbeque sauce even. Natural juices are way better.”
Vic put his head down next to his friend, staring up Joan’s sturdy, bare leg. “You can have the caterpillar. I’ll take the chili.” Then he cupped his hands over his mouth. “Joan, make mine extra spicy!”
Having adjusted the string on his bow, Eric aimed it at his two chums and closed one eye as if he was doing target practice. “You guys could learn a thing or two from me. While you were thinking about food, I made twenty new arrow shafts and added another three yards to my bow shot.”
“That’s the problem about elves,” Cain said, jabbing Vic in the gut. “They’re all skin and no meat. Look at him! All lanky and frail. His arms are thinner than what I pick my teeth with. I bet he’s never even had a seventeen-course buffet.”
“At least I’m not one big hunk of Dwarven meat. I could roll you up and you’d be like one fat, ugly, greasy-haired meatball.”
Joan’s stomach coiled around her intestines. From the outside, it only grumbled. She looked down at the Men, green-faced, and then dully reached for another can of pepper. She nearly dropped it into the pot.
“Well, check this out,” Vic was saying, rolling up his tunic sleeves. He flexed his biceps and stroked them like a gun. “These babies are top-grade beef. You won’t find muscles like this on any cow. In fact, you’d be lucky to find them on a wooly mammoth.”
“Just stop it!” Joan suddenly screamed, moving her foot. Vic and Cain’s head slammed into the earth. They looked up at her, but she wasn’t mad. In fact, she looked ready to cry, to rain down on them like a darkening sky.
“What’s wrong, M’lady?” Eric asked, tucking away his bow.
Glancing over her shoulder at Lynne, who was still paying her no mind, Joan bit into her lower lip. “…You guys know that I’m really thankful for what you did, right? You saved me. You saved my life. You didn’t have to. All you had to do was tell her the truth.”
“You mean like you did?” Cain scoffed.
Prying himself up, Vic folded his sleeves over his arms again. “Yeah, what was up with that, Joan? You didn’t have to lie. If you just told her you found us in the river…”
“She would’ve killed you. …You don’t get it, do you? Men are not liked here. I know you’ve never gotten this far in Neverquest, but it’s not the same as the Abbey. You have no use to these people. The only…the only chance I had at saving you was convincing Lynne that I had something more to say. If I told her everything, she would have no reason to keep any of us around. But as long as she thinks there’s something more…”
“But there is nothing more,” Vic said. “We backed you up. She thinks we’re your little chef helpers. Nice going on that, by the way. I love to cook. Not.”
Eric was a little more serious about the situation. “She killed Raven. She was ready to kill you too, Joan. I’m sure if you just told her the truth, she would’ve let all four of us walk away.”
“You just don’t get it,” Joan cried. “I wanted to save you guys. I didn’t want it to go down like this.”
“What do you mean? We’re all safe now. Except for the fact that we suck at cooking. And Cain sucks at everything else.”
Joan stamped her foot, dangerously close to the Men. “You’re not safe! You’re dinner. All three of you. You’re going to be cooked and eaten and swallowed and digested in the bellies of those bastards over there.”
That shut them up. They stared at her, eyes bigger than their bodies, and slowly craned their heads to the spot where Lynne and the ninjas were chatting in their foreign language. A stack of wooden plates sent cold shivers like icicles up their spines.
“Well…this is a nice going-away present,” Eric said.
Cain scowled and stood up, glaring at Joan. “Thanks for ‘saving’ us, bitch. What were you ‘saving’ us for? Leftovers?”
“It’s not my fault,” she said numbly. “You guys had a choice. You could’ve saved yourselves. Instead, you chose to save me. It was a stupid thing to do. And I thank you for it. I do. But there’s nothing I can do to save you now.”
“We were willing to die with you!” Vic snapped, drawing his sword. “That’s how we go down. Like heroes. Like a team. We don’t throw our friends to the wolves. Friends don’t let friends get eaten.”
Cain slapped an arm around Vic and held him close. “Yeah, bitch. We saved you. You owe us your life.”
“I know you saved me,” Joan said. “It was a very brave thing to do, but it was the only choice that makes sense in the end. Lynne would kill you, one way or the other. She’s not going to care if you’re the prince of Penee. To her, you’re just Men.”
“And what about to you? What are we to you?”
Joan frowned and quickly shifted her eyes to the pot. “…Dinner.”
“Fantastic!” Cain said, throwing up his arms. “You know what? I hope we give you indigestion. In fact, when you go to swallow me, I hope my big Dwarven ass gets lodged in your throat and you choke to death. You stupid bitch. We put ourselves out for you! You owe us, bitch!”
“I’ll make it quick,” she said. Her cheeks were damp in tears now and she was trying her best not to look them in the eyes. “I promise. You won’t suffer. And your deaths won’t be in vain. I’ll find a way back to the real world and I’ll make sure everybody know what you did for me.”
“You can go to hell.”
Joan tried to say something else, but Cain stuck up his hand and turned away. Then she turned to Vic, but he did the same, as did Eric, until the three of them were standing there in a line, their hands in the air, like they were background dancers for a concert.
“…Fine,” she said, returning to her chili. “When I get one of you on my spoon, I’ll make sure to bite down extra hard.”
But the more she thought about, the more she realized that she couldn’t go through with it. They were Men, but they were people too, at one time. Not too long ago. Was it? She remembered seeing them in school. East Shore High. They were the nerdy ones. The ones who actually wanted to be there. The ones who would bring Gameboys instead of Playboys to hide behind their open textbooks. The ones who were always picked last in dodgeball, if they were picked at all. Sometimes the entire gym class would go by and they would remain standing on that line, waiting to be picked for one team or the other, as balls rained down around them. They were the nerds. They were a team of their own.
All the same, they were people. They had feelings. She had seen them cry. Usually after a teacher got them in a headlock. Sometimes when a six-year-old pinched them. Or when the bus ran over their hands. But they had cried. They had shown emotion. And they had shown Joan that they were willing to die for her. And what she was now? Willing to let them die? Like Raven? No. She couldn’t stop Raven from dying. No. But she could save them.
“…Go,” she said at last, jerking her head towards the darkness of the forest. “Just get out of here, you nerds.”
One by one, the Men lowered their hand and stared at her. She was crying. She wasn’t trying to hide it now. Her eyes were lowered and her tears were splashing into the bubbly chili.
“…You’re letting us go?” Eric asked when nobody else would.
“Just run,” she said. “Don’t look back. Don’t care what happens to me. There are too many dark forces at work here. Just run and don’t look back.”
“Where are we supposed to go!?” Cain grunted. “We won’t get more than a few hundred yards before those chicks chase us down and cut us up like sushi.”
“They won’t see you. You’re too small. And they won’t know you’re gone until I finish this chili. By then, you’ll be somewhere far away.”
Vic put his sword away and started to reach for Joan’s foot, but her sandal twitched and moved away, like a cornered mouse. “…You’re not doing this to be a hero, are you?”
“Why should you care? There is nothing connecting us anymore. This isn’t school. We’re not even in the same world. You should just go… Go on! Get out of here. I’ll give you time to get away.”
“But you’ll die…” Eric said.
“One taste of my chili and Lynne will kill me anyway.”
The Men looked at each other, contemplating, thinking, their hearts torn by the impossible decision they had to make.
“Well, I’m with the bitch!” Cain said and made a break for the forest. The other Men weren’t far behind. They were whooping and cheering, waving their weapons like war flags.
Suddenly, Lynne’s arm wrapped around Joan’s shoulder. “How’s the chili coming?” Without waiting for an answer, she dipped a finger into the pot, scooped out a big piece of meat, and slurped it down, wiping her finger on her lips.
Joan’s foot crashed down in front of the Men, blocking their escape with a wall of flesh and sandal. “I-I’m almost done. I was just about to add the main ingredients.”
“That’s my favorite part.” Lynne smiled at the Men, who were lying face-up in the dirt. They had smacked into Joan’s foot and collapsed. “Make sure they don’t burn to death before you serve them. I like my Men rare. So rare that I can feel their struggles coming up, going down, and dying within.”
Joan swallowed hard. “That’s…how I like them too.”
“Glad to hear it! Finally got your appetite back?”
“Y-yes…”
The Men glared at her in indescribable hatred. She had betrayed them again. She had sold them out. She feared Lynne more than she ever feared anyone else. She wasn’t willing to die. Not if it cost her her life. She was no hero. She didn’t care about them. Just like the rest of them. None of the Women cared. Nobody ever cared. Men were hated by everyone in this world. They had no place. No place in their society. No place they were welcomed. No place they could go. No place they wouldn’t be scorned and ridiculed. Just like school. There was nobody to pick them, to lift them off the ground, to save them being the last. The forgotten. The nothing.
“Good,” Lynne said, patting Joan’s belly like a drum. “Which one do you want?”
Slowly, Joan bent down and plucked each of the Men into her palm, holding them over rising steam of the chili. Hot peppers made their eyes water. “I…I was hoping I could have two.”
Lynne laughed. “Two? You had me fooled! I didn’t think a scrawny girl like you could eat so much.”
Joan didn’t respond. Her face was frozen under a stream of tears, but Lynne didn’t seem to notice. Or care. Instead, she just laughed again and slapped Joan’s shoulder.
“Two for you then!” she said and then jabbed Cain with her pinky finger. “But save the chunky one for me. I bet he puts up a good fight.”
Cain almost bit her finger.
Still laughing to herself, Lynne walked away, leaving Joan alone with the Men, her hand shuddering over the warmth of the chili. The Men stood on her palm. They raised their weapons, ready to go down with a fight, but one look into Joan’s eyes and their hands were as shaky as hers.
“I-I’m sorry…” she cried. “I don’t want to die. Not like Raven. Not like this. You guys aren’t going to let me die. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Without another word, she flipped her hand around. The Men plopped into the chili, one after the other, and thrashed about as Joan stirred once more. Hot liquid washed over their faces. They screamed, falling back against heaps of beans and peppers, and fought with each other to keep their heads above the surface of hell.
Joan watched them like she would watch any other food as it cooked. Stoic, unemotional, and distant. She was miles away, miles above. They were nothing.
And five minutes later, when she poured the chili into seven bowls and served it, she was still miles away. She was still miles away when she watched Lynne pick up Cain in the first spoonful and swallow him in one gulp. But that’s not what bothered it. What bothered her was that Lynne was laughing the entire time. She laughed like a hyena. Her giggles came in spurts, from her nostrils and her lungs, and she sounded like she was choking even when she wasn’t chewing. But she wasn’t laughing at Cain. She didn’t even look at Cain after she scooped him up. She just laughed. At nothing. Nobody was speaking. Joan couldn’t spread her lips and the other ninjas were too busy trying to figure out how to eat without taking off their facemasks.
But she laughed anyway. She didn’t care what any of them thought. Especially not Cain. She swallowed him without thought, without regret. Even his cusses and threats and axe swings didn’t so much as faze her. She was miles away.
And so was Joan. She was miles away when, sickened by what Lynne had done, she did the same thing. First with Vic. Then with Eric. They went down without a struggle, but their eyes haunted Joan and her belly rumbled even after she was full.
She wished she was miles away.
Giantess World
