Ukma’s perfume was like acid in the nasal and the throat. Every day after her second helping of breakfast, her servants doused her blubbery body with it as they dressed her. It was not so much a scent as it was a burning sensation.

Yet, for its overwhelming strength, it did near nought to cover up her wretched odour. It had been eight years since her last full bath. Those women at Ukma’s level of society made an appointment at a bathhouse once a decade, the men, even less frequently. Upon first contact with giantkind, it was always the smell that delt the first blow to humanity.

Indeed, it was that oozing stench of flesh and sweat that announced Ukma’s presence to the former princess, moments before the weighty, dull thump of her footfalls joined in an unholy harmony. Gwen fixed her eyes on the deep, blood-stained wood; even contemplating the nightmarish end people in her exact position had faced was more comfortable than looking into the hungry eyes the beast whose belly she would die in.

And she knew she was about to die.

Human princesses after all were a rare commodity, and their kingdoms fell so very quickly once giantkind colonised the realm beneath the beanstalk.

Gwen cost more money than a dozen peasant villages would see in their lifetime, but to Ukma it was pocket change; her wealth was such that there was no such thing as ‘expensive’. The Borsdag family hadn’t known the meaning of the word for many a generation. She’d make the amount Gwen had cost back by the end of the day, through trading humans and wine alone. To Ukma, Gwen was nought but an appetiser. Royalty, she insisted, added a certain kick that was wasted on those less wealthy.

The air sat still and silent for a few moments, bar the giant’s heavy, strained breaths and the meagre whimpering of the Princess herself.

As she reached out to devour Gwendolyn, a grin stretched across Ukma’s face, breaking her stoic, displeased facade as her cow tongue vulgarly soaked her blood-red lips.

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