A Guardian's Ascension (Chapter 22)

Torv, obviously having steeled himself for exactly the concern Sophia had just headed off, appeared both marginally more relaxed and also stricken harder by that sense of guilt he’d been wearing under the surface ever since he declared that their future together was not only dissolved, but outright impossible. Grimacing, shamefully hiding his gaze for a moment, he then honorably looked the giantess straight in the eye before uttering: “I’m sorry, Soph. For any pain I caused you.”

The Guardian nodded in thankful acceptance, glad to have heard these words for the sake of the lovelorn heartache inevitably gifted to her before, even though her recently-expanded insights as a higher power meant she sincerely no longer needed to hear it. She believed his sorrow and also his position, regardless of whether he’d apologized aloud. It reminded her that she’d chosen correctly when she chose him. But she still had yet to arrive at her purpose.

“Everything you told me before was true. I see that now. Our paths have diverged. We will not be bonded in the way we once thought. Who could have imagined that I would be… here… after all? But you also promised that you would help in any way I asked. Like I said, I would not hold you so literally to that promise, if you disagreed, but I would like you to hear my proposal. Will you?”

“Of course. I can’t offer much, but no cost that I have available to give would be too great, whether it was paid in my labor or possessions. I mean that, Soph.”

“Thank you. Though I would never ask either of those from you, and you know it,” the Guardian continued, her voice descending into a subtly enchanting drawl. “What I ask, instead, is that you try to understand, once again, who and what I am now. I suppose that seems absurd to say, considering you seemed to grasp my position long before I myself did. I am… above all of you now. None of our people, you least of all, is of any lesser worth. It is just that I am greater now, and nothing more. All of that remains true, because I am and always will be a Guardian. But… I am also still me. And I have… needs. Of the heart, of the soul. Of the body. Needs that you once met, and that we met in one another. That allowed me to feel whole, whether it was my duty to forge blades or to drive them into the hearts of dragons. And while both our lives have been changed now from what we once imagined, those needs will always remain, in some part. And they cannot be met by anyone else. For that reason, what I propose, Torv, is that you make a life for yourself. Flourish. Work. Love. Marry. Have a family. And know that no harm will ever come to you or anyone we care for again, because I will always be here to guard you all. Only… once a month, for one night… I would ask that you return to me. Not as soul partners, but so that I might feel whole as your Guardian. And as myself.”

It took Torv a moment to absorb and process all that Sophia had just divulged with such prophetic grace, and then another longer moment on top of that to comprehend exactly what she was asking of him. Other than a slightly hung jaw, his little face remained stoic, but the Guardian knew him well enough to still read in precise detail the montage of emotions and thoughts cycling through her one-time lover’s head. Sophia saw him reliving their whole prior relationship in a few seconds, reconciling and wrestling with the way he once saw her and the way she actually was today. She could’ve narrated Torv’s every individual notion right now, and more importantly, knew what his conclusion would be before she’d even made him the offer. Though of course Sophia wouldn’t have pressured him any further if, in defiance of all odds, he’d refused this request of twelve nocturnal visits a year for the holistic gratification of the village’s five-hundred-twenty-seven-foot-high champion, she was so certain of his ultimate response that she didn’t even have to breathe a sigh of relief when he arrived at his inevitable answer a minute later and then nodded with nervous but resolute approval.

“Yes, Soph. I gave you my word, and I meant it. Anything you’d ask of me is already yours.”

“In that case…” the Guardian hushed, with a note of honeyed sultriness intertwining her tone in a way it hadn’t since the last time she and Torv were alone together behind a closed bedroom door at much closer statures. Naturally, given Sophia’s current size and power, there was now a gentle distant-thunder vibration even in her seductive whispers. “…your duties in the village are finished for the day. Aren’t they?”

“Y-Yes,” Torv stammered, not out of fear, but rather the unavoidable rapture at once again experiencing his former soul partner’s unmissably intimate presence, only now on a scope grander than any he ever imagined taking it in. No matter what fleeting internal conflict he might’ve felt upon being asked to become the giantess’s paramour once a month for the rest of his days, no one alive would’ve been immune to such a presence. Torv took a stumbling step forward on the creasy terrain of her palm, his comparatively pebble-weighted footsteps causing the plush flesh of her hand to sink almost imperceptibly below him before reshaping. “They are.”

“Then I would choose to name tonight as the first of our reunions,” Sophia declared, still softly and magnetically, but also with earned authority. She took a deep breath, then lowered her palm to the vast gray plain of her bedspread, making a gangplank of her fingers down onto the downy landscape. Less timid now, and simply obeying the giantess’s unspoken directive – for he could already tell that was how this arrangement would and should work – Torv dismounted from Sophia’s fingertips. With both hands free again, the Guardian withdrew just far enough from the bed for her puny audience to view almost her entire armored war-ready visage from where he stood, and without another word, began to disrobe. The heavier plates were removed one at a time and placed back upon a towering post that approximated a mannequin, leaving her trimmer black-and-white garb still to doff. But before Sophia tucked back even a swathe of fabric covering her bare body, she nodded to Torv with an invitational smile: “Come, now. It has been a while, yes… believe me, I’ve felt it… but surely you haven’t forgotten how to get undressed in front of me?”