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.Gothic Horror comes to Brobdingrag	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 2356 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift. Any resemblance to person(s) living or dead is purely coincidental.

Chapter List
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Former Lieutenant Moira Lee heard the reins stretch as the carriage driver braked to a stop.
She waited until the horses came to a full halt, then the carriage springs stopped rocking and the travel-house she was in stopped yanking back and forth. Then she released her death grip on the arms of her riding chair.
There was a seatbelt, but it tended to try to saw her in half. She stood and stretched, ignoring the great big eye in the window.
At least she'd gotten her maid to stop lifting the house before she was ready. After a moment or two to recover from the state-of-the-art, but still deplorable, vehicle, she grabbed a leather handhold and signaled.
Mitziegenden stood and gently lifted the travel-house off the stand and carried it down the steps.
There was a bustle of giant bodies, all way out of proportion to Lee. It was ludicrous to her. Even though the Queen had made her a Marchessa, she was still nearly the size of any groomsman's finger.
The luggage set aside for her use was of no practical value, but demanded by the standards of royalty. Most of it was just there to give her servants something to do.
She heard them, now and again, foisting their burdens off on the unsuspecting servants of the locals. They took outrageous advantage of the social station of their mistress and directed things like 'this trunk must be at the foot of milady's bed, aligned to the Northern Star for her worship.'
She sounded like the most arrogant and demanding of rock stars. And she tried hard not to giggle at the image.
She greeted Lord Staistchill fondly. The man had treated her very well when she was discovered and she was grateful.
Now she could express her thanks in his own language, or as much as she'd learned.
Mitzi opened the house on some table and everyone bowed to her. She went with it, rather than insist on some foreign (to them) standard of equality. It never lasted, and they couldn't understand why she'd want to be mere equals.
Instead she took Stais' outstretched finger and gave it a shake. Then she fought her way through a practiced greeting.
She still hadn't quite mastered Brobdingragian, but she was better than she had been a year ago, screaming 'Englishman' at the top of her lungs.
"My of lord Staistchill," she said. "I am so glad to be able with say thank of you!"
"It was (some word, maybe entirely?) my pleasure, Marchessa Moralee," he said. The gravelly voice shook her whole body, making her lungs echo and her ribs vibrate. She forced herself not to laugh from the tickling sensation.
"I was unable for thank of you last time we was here," she went on, "but I really did appreciate the honor and care visited to me when...um..."
"Rescued," Mitzi whispered.
"Rescued! Yes, when rescued I was! So, for thanks now, the Queen says I can give you permission, not with bowing when I enter the room."
"That's a high honor," he said with a smile.
"Every thing you people do is high," she pointed out.
There was laughter, then they moved to a banquet room where she had a thimble's worth of wine and the egg of a very small bird waiting for her.
From her POV it was a bucket and an ostrich egg, but she had worked up an appetite. There was no way she could travel after any substantial meal but it was safe to dig in now.
She begged off any after-dinner socializing, blaming the rigors of travel. "You do realize your potholes are deeper than my swimming pool at the palace?" she pointed out. They apologized furiously.
Worried that they were going to set the entire population to smoothing the roads just for her sake, she assured them it was just a joke and calmed them down.
Then Mitzi took her to their rooms. She stood on her maid's hand as they toured the suite.
Both shook their heads at the state of the luggage. One trunk was lifted off the floor with seventeen carefully place chess pawns.
A satchel hung from the chandelier with a human-sized rope ladder stretching to the floor.
Two travel bags had been stuffed under the mattress of the bed she wouldn't use, aligned oddly.
"North star?" she asked.
"I think the (something...hinges?) point to the Palace, milady."
"Ah."
Finally she was placed on a dresser where the familiar travel-house rested. Feeling kind of like Jeannie returning to her bottle, she dismissed her maid for the evening and went to unwind.
There was the tip of a candle burning in the fireplace and a jug of spring water beside her sofa. She curled up under a mouse pelt and poured a drink.
The soft light of the flame gave the place a cozy feel.
"God, I miss my iPad," she muttered.
At some time in the night there was a knock on the door. Moira sat up straight with a shock. The giants' knocks shook the house, after the steps of their approach made the place quiver.
She peered around the wall and looked down the hall. There was a form at the doorway.
A form her size.
"Is that....you?" she asked.
"Who else would it be?" Gabrielle asked, genuinely puzzled.
Lee took a cautious step towards the door. "Every so often, I see a Neanderthal and think it's a person, a human. Someone I can talk to. Then..." She sighed.
"And the rest of the time, I'm half convinced that I imagined...you." Another step. "It seems to fit. Lonely and abused, I invent a rescuer. Lucky for me, my captor fell off a chair and broke his neck."
"Hmm." Gabrielle stood patiently at the doorway. There was no door. If Lee needed privacy there was a sash she could let down to cover all the doors and windows.
The vampire didn't seem upset to be kept waiting. Lee's next step was a bit more confident.
"You know," Gabby finally said, "someone had to teach you the word 'Englishman' so you'd be rescued."
"That's true!" the pilot said. "I hadn't thought of that. But maybe I picked it up? Overheard it?"
"It was the one word most likely to get you out of a cage of splacknuck," Gabby pointed out. "You really think you're enough of a linguist to pluck that out of random, unintelligible conversation?"
Two more steps and Lee was at the doorway. She smiled and felt a weight drop off of her shoulders. "So I wasn't crazy. And," she gestured to indicate her visitor, "I'm not crazy now."
"No, you're not. Can I come in?" Gabby hefted a mesh bag with something inside. "I brought gifts."
"I...." Lee stopped and bit her lip.
Gabby nodded agreeably. "It's the vampire thing, right?" Lee nodded. "Now you're not afraid that I'm not real, you're more afraid that I'm real?" Lee nodded.
"It's okay," the blonde said. "Really. But you have to know, if I meant you harm..." Her hand flashed and something flew past Lee's left ear.
She spun around to find a wooden splinter sticking out of the frame of the door to the dining room. The toothpick-sized shard was embedded into the frame.
"I could just stand outside and throw rocks until the house wasn't standing anymore." Lee nodded.
"Enter freely, and of your own will," she said, stepping to the side.
Gabby stepped forward. "Oh, that's so cool. This is the only house on the island that I need an invitation." She smiled and nodded her head to the Lieutenant. "I will try to be a good guest."
"Thanks," Lee said. "Um...want to step into the parlor? Can I get you a...?"
"Yes, no and don't worry." Lee stared. Gabby gathered the woman's elbow in hers and walked into the house. "Yes, I'd like to see the parlor. No, I don't need a drink. And don't worry, I've already...dined this evening."
Lee seated Gabrielle on the loveseat and took the sofa across from her. Gabby put the bag down on the table.
"I appreciate the thought," Lee said, "but I have to say, I hope you're not parting with anything important." She waved at the walls, indicating the house around them, and her general situation.
"The queen put a lot of effort into making me happy. And she's given me a title, lands and money, so lots of people are motivated to make me happy.
"So if this," she pointed at the bag, "is something I can get artisans to make or minions to provide, well, I do appreciate the thought but couldn't ask you to part with-"
Gabby smiled and pulled a pair of panties out of the bag.
"Um... Are you making a pass at me or offering me underwear?"
"I'm giving you underwear, silly-"
"Oh thank GOD!" Lee shouted.
She dropped to her knees and clutched the vampire's legs. "I tried to be nice, I really, really, really did. I know I lost everything and they try really hard, but the material's like a circus tent with twine stitches.
"Beggar's can't be choosers, I know, but it literally chaps my ass."
Gabby stroked the woman's hair as she described the full litany of grievances. Giant stitches were the size of knuckles to the two women.
Lee had begun to fear that she'd have butt calluses she could use to work wood with.
"There, there," she finally said, lifting the silly girl to a seat beside her. "I used to collect lingerie. Now, my boyfriend is...a little hard on the material."
She drew the bag closer. "I think I've got thirty pairs in here. When those wear out, I'll find another trunk for you."
"Thank you, thank you," Lee whispered.
"Now, I don't have as many of these," she went on, pulling a bra into view. "But I think we're about the same size."
Moira snorted. Gabby looked at her, then followed the human's gaze down to her jutting breasts. "Oh. Those. Well, my size when I lived in the states. Now... Well, I did say I dined tonight."
"You mean, when you eat, you get....?" Lee's eyes were big.
Gabby's smile was as big. "I'd usually have had to go through years of victims just to go up a cup size..."
She talked about life as a vampire. Moira was a good listener, when she wasn't squeezing the bra and giggling. Gabby found it strange how comfortable she was talking about her life. But she didn't look too deeply into that gift horse's mouth.
When she was done, Moira talked about being a Marchessa. "Like being in a wardroom, really, but not quite as cutthroat..." She sat up straight and covered her mouth. "I didn't mean... I wasn't saying... Um. Forgive me, I...."
"Moira, darling, I've been called a spawn of Satan by people who were in a professional position to know. I can tell verbal assault from cliche, or from a Freudian slip." She gently drew her new friend back down to where they'd been lounging. "Don't worry about accidentally offending me."
She lowered her voice and growled, "That's Terr's job." Moira obligingly laughed.
------------
Moira woke when her maid opened the curtains to the room. The giant room. She was alone in her parlor, those shutters still closed. She'd had...or dreamed...a wonderful visit.
She'd never imagined that she'd find more in common with a vampire that had known Dracula than with... Well, anyone else she could talk to.
But that very comfort worried her. Was she going crazy and inventing an invisible friend?
She sat up. She needed to get out of her nightshirt and into the iron-maiden of a costume they-
Her foot brushed the bag of underwear. It was real. Really real! She could wear actual panties today!
But how to explain their appearance? It was still a law that 'Englishman' articles belonged to the Crown.
She could hide them, but her maid was diligent in her efforts to clean her lady's chambers. They'd be found. And she'd really rather someone else did her laundry, anyway.
She dressed as she thought things over.
--------
"A ceremony?" Lord Stais asked as he sliced off a sliver of the breakfast steak.
"I am lay leader of... Aside, one of the English superstitions," Lee explained. The giants had no word for religion. They also had no word for any sort of afterlife. But they buried their dead in rigid positions, arms folded with hands set to point to the North and East.
Their attempts to explain this certainly sounded religious to Lee, but she lacked the vocabulary to explore the idea.
She'd have to remember to ask Gabby.
"I am saying big words over the rocks where ship stopped in the sailing. For sake of their...superstition."
"Ahem." Stais seemed uncomfortable.
"Milord? Feeling free with candor."
"Well, their bodies have... I'm sure you know that the Royal College has..."
She waved the concern away. "It is their souls to resting, sir. They are may be haunting that rocky coast, unable in finding their way home. They may not knowing they are dead."
Dammit, one night speaking English and she was back to kindergarten on Brobdingtar. Aggravating!
It was a strange superstition, Stais' expression seemed to say. But he wasn't going to argue with a Marchessa. He started to rattle off the preparations.
She protested. She didn't want many witnesses. Out loud, though, she said that too many people would spoil the effect. And she wanted to give her people a day off.
The idea of a day off shocked the giants more than the ghosts. Stais designated a mere four-man escort, with two grooms and a maid-
She tried to get it down to her senior groom.
"Well," Stais said. "There is still going to be another man. Someone will have to show you where it was found." He stroked his mustache. "You know, you could go alone with Terrpragoh."
"Terr-" she fought to repeat.
"My (strange word, first one of the conversation). I trust him implicitly. He's the one that found the ship. If you are really interested in minimizing the escort, he could be the only one."
A stranger? she thought. Well, if Stais trusted him, it might be her best chance for any skullduggery.
Terr-something arrived just after lunch, looking miserable in a set of dress-up clothes one size too small for him. Lee suppressed a smile and greeted him formally.
Stais described the job he wanted Terr to do, Terr agreed and lifted the travel-cage Lee used to keep from having to stow her house for rocking and bouncing.
He walked, saying he had more experience leading horses than riding them. His hand was steady and his gait smooth. Amazingly so. Moira considered trying to hire him, just to train the staff how to carry her.
He told her all about the find, and she repeated her story about the ghosts of the ship being bound at the site. Maybe.
He gave a little shudder. Then he said something that sounded like a prayer. Moira's head whipped around when she realized exactly what he'd said.
"Oy, gevalt," had sounded loud and clear from his lips.
"TERR!" Lee shouted. Terrpragoh flinched. "She saying your name. I not connecting it to Terrgarprego, or whatever."
"I do not know what you're talking about, my lady," he said, eyes wide.
"You having a blonde girlfriend with the sunlight allergy!" Lees said cheerfully. "She was last night my parlor."
"Are you alright?" Terr asked, worry tempering his voice.
"Oh, fine! We just talking." She worked hard to convince the giant that his girlfriend had behaved herself.
She mentioned the gift, and her plans to 'find' the stuff near the site of the wreck. Terr shook his head.
"Do they look as if they might have been in the water for all this time?"
"No," she admitted.
"And the Royal Regulators already searched quite diligently."
"Do not want upsetting them," she agreed.
"But I have an idea," he said slyly.
"A good idea it is being?" she asked.
"I think... I think it is Gabbishella's idea," he said with a shrug.
-------
That evening she told everyone she was quite satisfied with the ceremony. A Navy officer, she had wanted to say some words for the sake of the sailors.
And she expressed great satisfaction with Terr, joking that she might hire him away.
"I hate to lose him," Stais said with a smile. "But he has done me a few favors. I couldn't stand in his way."
"Just joking, am," she insisted. "Except for the admiration. Really smoothing his carry."
Lord and Lady Stais' eyes met as they both tried to parse her poor Brobingtar. Lee thought about acting it out but ended up taking a long pull from her thimble.
There was music and dancing after dinner that night. Lee watched the couples from inside a thick crystal bell that attenuated the noise. Her maid danced in her place.
It was funny watching the young men that had answered Stais' summons and invitations. They'd been terrified that they'd have to dance with Lee, trying to hold up the tiny body without making some horrible faux pas.
Tearing her dress, touching her hip, dropping her in the punch. The young woman they ended up with was a relief. But on the other hand, their fathers had sent them with instructions to implore the Marchessa for a boon, or to offer favors, or at least make sure she remembered their names. The maid could not be entirely trusted in this manner.
"Witless," she reported when she carried her mistress to the punch bowl between dances. "Every one of them, a great (word, probably earthy) atop their shoulders."
"Not to arguing with you, Mitzi, but how so?"
"Easy enough to bribe me to carry their bribes to you. Bribe me more to not carry a competitor's." She dipped a glassful out, Lee dipped a snootful out of the dipper and filled a glass pitcher.
"They not offering you too enough?" Lee asked. She didn't care about money going to her maid. She was rich, though having lands and funds and servants was kind of an illusion to her. It was real, but at a distance. It didn't really affect her.
Mitzi snorted. "They're not offering me anything."
Lee thought as she was carried back to her vantage point by the dance floor. She waved, signaling to be lifted to an ear. "Dance with their fathers," she suggested. "They hinting not much need."
The quartet waited until the bell was replaced and Mitzi gave the high sign. Then she smiled and aimed for the group of men circled around the group of men talking to Stais.
Lee smiled at her retreating back and turned to the dancers.
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When Mitziegenden came into the room in the morning, Lee was already up. She was out of the house, dancing around the table.
"Be wary of the edge, my little lady," she warned.
"They have coming! They have coming!" She waved a little flag and danced in her nightshirt.
Mitziegenden glanced to be sure the door was closed and bent down. "Milady Moralee! What has happened? Who came?"
"The sailors! The sailors! Their ghosts coming in my dreaming! They thanking me!"
"That is..." She searched for a word. The Marchessa was happy, so horrible, terrifying and disgusting were out. "That is a good thing?" she guessed.
"They thanking me!" She waved the scrap of fabric. So tiny and so sheer. "They gifting me with... with..."
"Handkerchiefs?" Mitziegenden asked.
"Down wear. No, no, um. Wearing below. Wearing beneath. Uh.."
"Underwear?" But what she was waving would hardly cover the area between belly and knees. Maybe it was a liner?
She reached out with cupped hands and lifted her mistress up over the house. She looked close to see what was so exciting.
The tiny noble lifted her hem to show the pair she was wearing. "This! See? Comfort! The wonderful comfort!"
Mitziegenden gasped and held a hand over Moralee's outrageous nudity. Moralee fought the fingers back a bit. She seemed happy, but by the stars she looked cold.
It was like being a hands-breadth away from not wearing any clothing at all. Moralee dropped her panties from her hand and Mitzigenden automatically caught them. She pinched them between two fingers.
Even accounting for the scale gap, they were as soft as slices of clouds. The cheerfully bared maiden looked and probably felt naked.
Still, she was the most famous noblewoman outside of the Duchesses, and the Queen's favorite. Chances were, most society women would be freezing themselves by fall, trying to fashionably match the-
"Wait, wait, wait. WHO gave these to you, milady?"
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Lee jealously guarded access to the panties. She claimed they were artifacts of a religious event just short of a miracle.
There'd been another trainee in her officer course with Shoshone Indian heritage. She'd described family members having a vision quest and waking up with tokens given by the spirits they'd met.
Moira used that as inspiration to flesh out the details of Terr's idea (which he maintained was inspired by his girlfriend's personality despite her day's sleep).
Fact was, though, she just didn't want giant fingers rubbing her underwear away before she got full use out of them.
Her maid would have to learn how to launder them, and she'd probably let friends and sufficiently generous bystanders touch them now and again.
And she gave one set, panties and bra, to Lady Staistchill, honoring her hostess during the productive dream. That might spark a new fashion, maybe the Royal crafters could reproduce something, some time in the future.
For now, though, she was comfortable, and she had other things to accomplish. She asked Lord Stais for a favor.
---------
Gabrielle woke, instantly knowing where Terr was. She rose, dressed and drifted out of her refuge.
Mister saw her as she traveled across the living room. She hovered over his head and scratched his skull with her talons. Claws extended, she dug in with her vampiric strength. She scraped his skull through skin and flesh, with hands that had ripped arms completely off enemies, assassins and critics.
Mister purred and melted into the floorboards. When he was too weak to complain she left him and continued.
Terrpragoh was in the barn, cutting wood. She flew up to his shoulder, landed and nuzzled against his cheek. She stayed to the side not working the saw.
He tilted his head briefly in her direction. His work didn't pause. When he finished cutting through the wood, he let the saw down on the workbench and reached for his shoulder.
She kissed his lips when he held her to them, nibbling lightly against his skin. He kissed at her entire face, drawing in slightly.
When they finished greeting each other, he stared into her face for a moment. She looked back at him, adoring his adoration.
"So," she finally asked, "What are you making?"
"It's my new job!" he said. She looked down at the big square block of wood, then back up at him. "I'm putting a new base on the Marchessa's travel house."
"Fascinating," she said, deadpan. "Why?"
"It's my theory that a thicker base will make the thing more stable in transit."
"Uh huh..." Gabby said.
"And it'll be heavier. So that the grooms and maids won't want to carry it. That'll be my job."
"Your...." She willed herself to be still, not to rant, rage or try to twist his nose around to catch the rain. "You're going to be traveling with Moira?"
"She's hired me to be a handyman for her on this big tour. Told everyone what a big help I was with the ceremony." He shifted her to his shoulder and started doing something else with the wooden block.
"So, I'll be in charge of the house, and fixing things that go bad, and carrying the little travel cage because I do it so well."
"You've had recent practice," Gabby said. "And your performance evaluations included boobs." So now what, she'd be here making sure Mister was fed? She was only a few steps away from his jugular...
"There is that," he said cheerfully. "Now, I was going to hollow the base out. Do you want-"
"But the heavy base is your job security," she protested. "Why hollow it out?"
"To fill it with dirt," he said simply.
"That doesn't make any sense," she said to the simpleton.
"Would it make more sense if I called it your home dirt?" he asked. "Grave dirt, burial dirt, home earth?" She gasped in sudden understanding. "It was Moralee's idea. If you want to come.
"You can't see the people we visit during the day, but you'll be right by me at all times. Then, at night-"
His voice gurgled to a stop as Gabby hugged his throat. The evil undead woman fought a sniffle as relief poured over her.
"What?" he forced out. "You were thinking we'd be apart again?"
"No," she said and they both ignored the emotion in her voice. "I'm just glad you didn't want me to watch over the horses while you're gone."
"Ah," he said. The death-grip on his windpipe relaxed. He sighed. "Now, I was going to put your chamber right here..."
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.Gothic Horror comes to Brobdingrag