The Giant (G/T)

Part 12

When I awakened, I was sore all over, wet, and still fatigued. I groaned, and forced myself up, brushing mud off my pants. The sun was clearly visible in the sky now, and the rain had ceased, but I still shivered from the damp cold. While my current circumstances were not the best, I nevertheless considered myself lucky to be alive and undamaged. I started walking along the road again, careful to stay hidden from the occasional car that drove by.

I wondered how far I had to go. At this size, what was a short drive in a giant car could potentially take days for me to traverse by foot. Days in wet clothes, sleeping on the side of the road, living in fear. I was hungry too. I sighed. As always, I had to be strong.

I wondered if Chester was out looking for me, or if he'd be home when I got there. If I ever made it. He was probably terribly distraught. He had no clue where I was, and couldn't track me due to the rain. Finding me would be nothing short of a miracle. What if he thought I ran away? No, he wouldn't believe that. He might be able to discern with his sensitive nose that I had been taken by force, by that sadistic monster of a man.

I didn't want to be reminded of that. To distract my troubled thoughts, I took in my surroundings. While this world was dangerous to me, it was also strikingly beautiful. I saw a doe with her fawn cross the road. Since I was so tiny, the deer weren't afraid of my presence, and mostly ignored me. I passed through some wildflowers, which leaned over me as tall as human-scale trees and blossomed in all sorts of bright colors. The shadows stretched and deepened as the sun began to dip down towards the horizon behind the trees. The sunset bathed everything in orange and red before fading to a deeper blue. The sun disappeared, to be replaced by the rising yellow moon. Stars unfamiliar to me studded the heavenly firmament like sparkling diamonds.

As I trekked through the darkness of the evening, I saw a pair of large glowing eyes watching me from the woods. The eyes grew closer, unblinking. My heart started to race. A car zoomed by noisily and the eyes vanished. I gripped my chest and let out a shaky breath. I couldn't handle much more of this hell, I really couldn't. I wasn't sure if I could survive the night out here, or another day for that matter.

The traffic of cars had waned with the onset of night, but I noticed one car driving up the road, moving unusually slow. The windows were rolled down. As the car approached, it declined in speed to a crawl. Concerned, I hid in the weeds. The car stopped, and a giant got out on the driver's side. The blinding headlights left the giant in shadow. It couldn't be... my kidnapper? Had he found me? The giant stepped in front of the lights, casting a great shadow over me as he lumbered in my direction. The gigantic silhouette became larger and more menacing as he moved closer, enormous boots crunching on the road.

I wanted to run but my legs felt like they were made of lead. My mouth went dry. For an instant I feared I was going to get stepped on, but the giant stopped in his tracks. He tilted his head down, face still shrouded in darkness hundreds of feet above me.

"Jackie?"

That voice! "Chester!" I yelled. "Chester! Down here!" I ran out from my hiding spot in the vegetation, tears streaming down my face. The giant stooped over and swept me off my feet to his titanic chest.

"Jackie! I've been looking everywhere for you? Where have you been? Are you okay?"

"I-I'm okay, I'm not hurt," I sniffled. "It was horrible. I was so scared." I buried my face in his shirt. He covered me with his warm fingers.

"There, there. You're safe now. I'm here," Chester said gently, brushing me with his hand. "Let's get you home."

He carried me to the car and got in, placing me in his lap. I laid down and wrapped up in his shirt, basking in his warmth. My prayers had been answered. My savior, my love, my protector was here. I fell asleep before we ever made it to the house.

In order to prevent the evil giant from coming back, Chester was far more cautious about locking the doors and windows, both at night and during the day. While the experience had been undeniably horrific and traumatic for me, I did benefit in terms of my magical capabilities. The floodgates had been opened, so to speak, and my abilities had grown exponentially. Conjuring a lightning bolt of the magnitude to incapacitate a giant still drained all my magic for a day or two, but I could still do so reliably.

I was finally able to use blood magic as well. I had not been aware of this development at the time, but when I bit the giant's hand I had ingested a small amount of his blood too. Apparently the blood of a single giant, Chester, had not been enough. I was a little grossed out when I first used the magic successfully, and found myself with blood dripping from my hands. Chester, smelling blood, had been deeply concerned that I had injured myself. However, I ended up being the one disturbed when I learned that Chester liked the taste of the blood. He said it tasted like human blood, exactly like mine would. Sometimes, with him being so sweet and kind, I forgot he was still by nature a ravenous man-eating giant.

Unfortunately, I found manipulating the elemental essence of the magic into a specific spell was more difficult than just manifesting the raw lightning or blood on its own. I knew learning the skills would take time. I was also careful not to deplete my magic to zero, so I would not be left defenseless like before. I decided to focus on the blood magic spells first, since blood magic seemed easier for me to use now that I had overcome the initial barrier. A lot of blood-based spells sounded extremely useful too. In particular, there was a spell to conceal my scent which I urgently wanted to master, for obvious reasons. Other spells included food creation, limited to meat only, healing, and temporary growth.

Once I had recovered my magic from my ordeal, I had quick success with the healing spell, and was able to eliminate the various scrapes and bruises inflicted on my body. The spell to hide my scent was pretty simple too, and didn't require a whole lot of energy. Chester claimed he couldn't smell me at all. He said we could go out together again into town sometime, and I'd be safe, but I was too afraid to go. I wanted to master my spells first, so I could rely on them in case of emergency.

The other spells proved to be more challenging. At first, the meat I spawned with the food spell was tasteless and meager in size. Chester didn't mind though, and wolfed down every crumb, no matter how small, with delight. Gradually I improved, and was capable of manifesting larger and more tender cuts. One time, Chester was lying flat on his back on the couch, watching TV. I was sitting on his chest and got an idea.

"Chester, open your mouth for a minute," I requested sweetly. Chester raised an eyebrow at me but complied. I climbed up on his chin and laid flat on my belly so my top half was dangling over his enormous open mouth. I focused my energy and created a piece of meat, then dropped it into the deep void below. Chester closed his jaws around it and tasted it thoughtfully. This time, he raised both eyebrows in shock.

"Why, that's human meat!" he exclaimed with his mouth full. "It tastes really good too!" I bobbed on his chin as he spoke. He gulped the snack down and opened his maw again expectantly. I dropped another chunk of meat into the great cavern of his mouth. He consumed it with pleasure and opened wide, drooling hungrily.

"Now, Chester, this next piece should be the best yet, but be careful not to swallow it," I whispered. I crawled forward over his lower lip and slid my whole body into his mouth. He closed his jaws gently and cradled me on his huge tongue. As he rolled me around in his mouth, I took off my clothes so he could taste me better. He spit out the clothes and set them aside. Humming in his throat, he played with me on his tongue, teasing me by pushing me to the back of his tongue near his gullet. Then, he ran me over the slippery wall of teeth in his mouth until he had me pressed against his front teeth. He moved the tip of his tongue between my legs and worked some magic of his own. When he was done, he separated his jaws and lifted me out with his muscular tongue, balancing me on the apex above his open lips. With a calculated flick of his tongue he tossed me onto the bridge of his nose. I sat up astride his nose and gazed into his gorgeous green eyes, which were crossed in order to see me. I couldn't help but giggle at the sight, and he laughed too. With the movement of his face, I almost lost my balance and fell backwards into his mouth again, but caught myself instead. Observing my close call, Chester sat up, and this time I did fall off, but he caught me in his large hand. He curled his fingers around me and I hugged one of them in my arms happily.

"You're so much fun, you tasty little snack you," he teased, poking me with one of his other fingers. "I think it's time for us to go take a bath."