Epilogue:
Talking to Strangers
What a prize!
Cole Lewis couldn’t believe his luck.
After his taming license was revoked by the Aegis three years ago it didn’t take long for him to hit rock bottom, associating with just the kind of people reputable tamers normally avoided.
Drinking, gambling, and generally carrying on like an idiot, he owed money to a half dozen people, each one worse than the last, and if he didn’t come up with the coins, he was a dead man walking.
Which is why he thanked his lucky stars when he came across the crying Ogre in a little meadow a few miles east of the city of Greyhaven.
The enormous blue skinned girl was sitting with her legs stretched out in the grass in front of her, her face in her hands and her shoulders heaving as she wept like a broken hearted puppy.
Even just a few years ago Cole would have been at her side comforting her, his own wants and needs forgotten at the sight of a young monster girl in distress.
But that was then; that was before he knew the taste of failure, and before he knew how much the arena masters would pay for a healthy young Ogre.
Now, when he approached her, his kind words hid ulterior motives.
“Who’s there?!”
The Ogre shifted in place as she heard him coming, her hand wiping snot and tears off of her full cheeks, baby-blue eyes widened in alarm.
Cole stopped a good twenty feet away from her, with his hands held up and patting the air in a soothing gesture.
“It’s alright, I’m a friend. You’re safe with me.” He cooed gently, inwardly marveling at her appearance.
She’s got to be ten feet tall!
Her dark blue hair was in long tangled snarls framing her rounded face, the locks a darker shade than her skin. She was clad in a one-piece tunic made of white linen that went over one shoulder, leaving the other bare. The garment was open on either side, her naked cobalt skin from her thighs to her armpits standing in stark contrast to the light cloth.
A broad leather belt around her waist kept the tunic in place, while her enormous bosom was barely contained by the homespun fabric, luscious blue cleavage spilling out of the top and inevitably drawing the eye.
“Please no hurt me.” She burbled, fresh tears tracing down her cheeks.
The irony of the statement was staggering, given that she could easily crush him with a single blow of either of her enormous hands.
Cole squatted down, bringing himself lower to seem less threatening. The sheer presence of the vulnerable giant had his heart hammering in his chest, though he kept his voice calm and reassuring.
“Oh sweetheart, I would never do that! Do you maybe need some help?”
Once again she wiped at her face with an enormous sniffle, her scared eyes tracking him all the while.
“I dunno.” She gave a noncommittal shrug, still uncertain of the unkempt man’s intentions.
He had to skip more than a few meals of late to keep his creditors at bay, and he inwardly cursed when he saw her nose wrinkle at his unwashed scent.
“That’s alright, maybe we can help each other. My name is Cole, what’s yours?”
“T-Tora.” She mumbled.
“Tora, such a pretty name!”
She didn’t respond and he inwardly cursed at his own incompetence: empty words and empty deeds meant nothing to monster girls, as did empty flattery.
A real tamer’s job was to find the girls who were at least partly willing to relinquish their heartstones and convince them that they could be trusted. First and foremost in their mind must be the wellbeing of the girls in their care, which was why Cole wasn’t a tamer anymore.
If this was going to work, he had to be manipulative, had to distort and pervert everything that he had ever learned.
He stood while heaving a mournful sigh.
“Well, Tora, I can see that maybe I’m scaring you, and that’s not okay. So I’m just going to go alright? I hope that someone comes along who you can trust enough to help you out. Goodbye.”
He turned to leave, heart still hammering, though now for a different reason: if this didn’t work he didn’t know what he would do.
Purposefully walking away, he made it five or six steps before the ground shook slightly beneath him and she called out to him.
“W-wait! Please! I not know where I am...” Her voice trailed off helplessly.
Turning back, he saw her, on all fours now, one hand outstretched towards him, her face desperate.
It took him some effort not to stare at the cleavage spilling out of her tunic in that position.
“Oh honey!” He gave a helpless laugh to reinforce his harmless facade as he strolled back to her; “I can tell you that! We’re not far from a big city called Greyhaven.”
He didn’t mention that he was camping out to avoid the shady people he owed money to, or that if she simply went into the city the Aegis people there would see to her every need.
Instead he motioned for her to sit back down, then waited as she crossed one leg under the other.
“But never mind that for now, more importantly, do you have your heartstone? It’s so important that you keep it close! Greyhaven can be a dangerous place for the unwary.”
Lies.
For the unlucky like him, yes it could be dangerous, but for a helpless young Ogre the city would be about the safest place in the world: she would stand out far too much for any unsavory type to prey on her, and ever since the Ogres collectively wrecked the Aegis’s old headquarters, the local operatives would certainly take notice of one in their city!
She nodded earnestly.
“I gots my heart, is safe.”
He frowned.
“Are you sure? You can’t keep it anywhere obvious, the city is full of pickpockets.” He was right beside her now, his eyes looking right and left as if for any sign of danger.
She blinked, her brow furrowing in confusion as she leaned in closer to him.
“What’s a pockpicket?”
“A pickpocket.” He corrected; “Thieves that specialize in taking things from people’s pockets and the like. They’ll steal your heart from wherever it’s hidden and you won’t even know!”
She gasped in fright, her hand reflexively going to the simple brass cinch for her belt below her navel.
“I not want that! I hate pockpickers! What do stop them?”
It seemed the more agitated the girl became, the more her syntax suffered.
He faced his palms skywards and gave a helpless shrug.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you if I don’t know where you keep your heart.”
She scrunched up her face, evidently working through the logic of his words while he held his breath.
Finally she nodded vigorously.
“Okay. I show you, then you helping me?”
Her innocent sapphire blue eyes were wide and pleading, and in that moment Cole hated himself.
But staying alive trumped all of his other compunctions at that point, so he smiled his most trustworthy smile and agreed.
She leaned back, fingers already working at her belt.
“Momma told me never to show. But momma not here.” She mumbled to herself logically.
Not sure if he was supposed to respond or not, he simply waited as she loosened her belt enough to get her arm into her tunic from the side and reach her fingers under where the cinch held her clothing together.
Seconds later she had her hand out of her clothing and outstretched towards him, her deep blue heartstone looking miniscule in her enormous palm. With her other hand she fumbled to redo the cinch in her belt; her eyes, and her attention, on her waist.
Lightening quick, Cole shot his own hand out and snatched the stone out of her palm.
She drew in a sharp breath, eyes widened in shock and her attempts to redo her belt one-handed ended.
Her shock quickly turned to indignation and she scowled at him.
“Hey, I no say you take!”
“Don’t m-move.” He ordered in a shaky voice.
Tora froze in place while a wave of exultation overwhelmed him at the unexpected success of the simple ploy and he laughed strangely for a couple of moments.
Fear quickly took the place of her annoyance and her words came out in desperation.
“Give back! Please! Momma said I shouldn’t-”
“Be quiet!” He snapped.
She flinched away from him as if he’d struck her and his expression softened as the last vestiges of his morality reminded him that he was a decent man once.
The internal struggle was brief, but inevitable: she was simply worth too many coins to the desperate ex-tamer.
He lifted her heart up to the sky between his thumb and forefinger, admiring the colour in the light of the sun for a few seconds before he spoke again.
“You have no idea how valuable you are, do you Tora?”
She didn’t say anything, unable to make a sound as per his orders.
“Whatever, I don’t want to hear another word about your momma. Is that understood?” His tone was hard and demanding, causing the gentle giant to whimper.
When she didn’t respond right away his eyes narrowed and he took a menacing step towards her, his fist balling around her heart as if to strike her. She flinched again, her chin ducking low and her arms coming up tight to her breasts as she curled in on herself.
“I said... is that understood?”
“Yes.” The single word came out pitifully as hopelessness filled her breast.
Rather than making him feel sorry for the girl, her despair only cemented his thinking: the sooner he got rid of her, the sooner he could get drunk and try to forget about the hurt look in her eyes.
But they weren’t alone in the meadow.
“You are a worm, speaking to a hatchling so.” A voice hissed from behind him and caused him to jump in surprise.
Somehow, neither he nor Tora saw the lean and willowy Troglodyte sneak up on them. Which was remarkable given the size of the blade she had strapped to her back; even by lizard-girl standards it was enormous.
Before their eyes her skin changed from the vibrant greens of the meadow to a rich bronze and her stealth suddenly made sense.
“You, you’re a Chameleon!”
With almond shaped eyes that were a sharp and deadly green, everything about her screamed exotic. A sub-breed of Trog with the ability to camouflage themselves into their surrounding, Chameleons were a rarity this far from the Sansee.
If they had been paying attention at all, the only thing he and Tora would have seen would likely have been the Trog’s sword on her back coming across the ground towards them.
The Chameleon’s natural hair colour was that of burnt cinnamon. And the scales on her forearms, forelegs and tail were a match for it.
She carried a simple bag over one shoulder, her small breasts concealed by an equally simple hardened leather chest-plate.
A worn and ragged red sash hung loosely around her waist, with the ends draping down well past her left knee.
Absently Cole noted that she walked on the balls of her clawed feet.
With her harsh glare on him, he opened his mouth to try to explain, but she hissed at him, a forked tongue slipping out from between her lips to taste his shock and fear in the air, the brilliant red muscle slipping back into her mouth as quickly as it came.
After a moment she nodded to herself.
“I was right, you are a worm. You die as such.” She reached one hand over her shoulder and drew her blade.
At the fatal promise, the desperate man found his words again, turning back to the wide eyed and confused giant.
“Tora! Kill her!” He said desperately while pointing towards the Trog with one trembling hand.
The Ogre didn’t move, didn’t even flinch.
No monster could be ordered to violence, even the youngest of children knew that, but in his panic the failed tamer forgot everything he ought to have remembered.
A sudden wooshing noise behind him caught his attention.
Abruptly, he was flying.
He didn’t know how or why or when, but he spun wildly in the air, the blue sky above coming into few once, then twice, then a third time.
While his body crumpled into the grass, Cole Lewis’s severed head hit the ground with an audible thump before rolling over a few times and coming to rest amidst a bed of wild daisies.
“A better resting place than you deserve.” The Troglodyte noted indifferently.
The waifish monster girl used her sash to wipe the blood from her blade before sheathing it on her back and turning to the massive blue skinned girl still sitting in the grass before her.
“Why didn’t you just kill that bastard? You could have flattened him with one hand.”
The giant sniffled and wiped her forearm over her face again in another vain attempt to clear the mess of her snot and tears.
“Momma tol’ me not to squish anyone. Not ever. Said it would make the Aegis mad at us again.”
Her eyes were on the headless man who moments ago had filled her heart with terror, a confused look on her face.
The lizard girl’s tongue flickered out quickly, tasting the young girl’s scent.
“Foolish. It’s not your fault these softskins die so damn easy.”
Uncomfortable with the notion of her mother being declared foolish, Tora didn’t know how to answer her, so instead she asked a different question.
“Who, um, who am you?”
The Trog considered the innocent faced Ogre for long enough to make her squirm in place.
Finally she sighed and looked back to the fresh corpse in the grass.
“My name is Kriss. And I am searching for my brother.”