A Guardian's Ascension (Chapter 16)

At least no longer encumbered with that impaling compulsion to start weeping the second she was alone – like she’d experienced after her future with Torv was annulled – Sophia didn’t seek asylum down by the river this time. Nor did she linger in the courtyard or refectory, where her highly-empathetic mentors might find her, get one look at her face, and accurately interpret aloud every doubt and disgrace she was shouldering. She passed other Guardians en route to her bed in the Citadel, greeting them demurely and feeling smaller than usual in their presences, no matter how welcoming they all had been since her first arrival. This time, she simply couldn’t allow another ageless monumental warrior to lullaby her into finally comprehending the fullness of her station. It was Sophia who would have to stand alone, when the need arose again to cleave through hordes of fanged wrongdoers. So she would stand alone now as well.

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            When Sophia stepped out of the portal to the frontier wreathing her home this time, she didn’t seclude herself to the forested hills as she had for almost every hour on-duty since her official vigil over the village commenced, but instead marched with steady and aspiration-driven steps into the valley of civilization. She’d of course done her best until now to limit such proximity to their cottages and workplaces, hounded by stomach pits at the thought that her sudden immediate presence, with these larger-than-life boots one step away from being wedged like dams into the comparatively-narrow canals of their roads, would automatically induce most if not all the folks below to drop their tools and pitchers and obligations without a second’s thought, in favor of spit-polishing the very dirt that the giantess would be required to walk upon. The young Guardian would’ve once done anything to keep that risk at bay. But after everything she’d been taught by her betters, as well as witnessed with her own eyes in so many living portraits silently pleading for the joyful honor of regarding Sophia as a higher power superior to them in every way – not because they were unworthy, but because her worth had become so celestial – the girl knew she could no longer afford such what-if reluctance.

Though deeply less than certain even now that what she was about to do was the “right” thing, Sophia knew she was well overdue for placing total full-measure faith in the other Guardians’ shared experiences. And perhaps even more important for this moment, as the five-hundred-foot defender arrived at the edge of town, the time had come to place even a shred of the faith in herself that everyone she’d ever known already placed in their battle-tested overseer. Here goes nothing, Sophia thought to herself, just as she saw Elisaben and a few other mile-wide-smiling villagers approach. The crowd of ready workers who’d come to greet her on the hills after her “training” concluded had naturally dispersed since she left for the Citadel, or rather escaped there to avoid being aggrandized any further, but she’d only been standing at the community’s perimeter of ankle-low thatch-roof buildings for a minute now, and already she could spy dozens of onlookers visually magnetized to her presence again. Dusk was just settling in, and most of the townspeople would be finished with their daily necessities, which did mildly soothe Sophia’s heart for what was about to transpire, but not by much. Yet she no longer allowed herself to be pre-emptively conquered by shame or doubt, either.

She’d already accepted her own idea of what it meant to be a Guardian. Now she would accept theirs.

“La-… Soph!” Elisaben self-corrected for the second time, as the number of tiny villagers behind her who looked ready to swoon with admiration for their valiant giantess swelled from single to double digits. “We thought we wouldn’t see you again until sunrise.”

The irony wasn’t lost on Sophia that, only months ago, if faced with the same burgeoning crisis of identity she’d wrestled against these previous days, Elisaben would have been among the first people from whom she sought counsel, rather than temporarily fleeing from her best friend and the village at large. The same impulse had gone for Torv, before their one-time future was rended asunder. But such thoughts were put out of the Guardian’s mind by now, too. Everything was different, and would only continue to be so.

“Well, I dealt with those matters that needed dealing with,” Sophia warmly stated, while lowering herself to a humbler seated position that nevertheless still made her loom dramatically over all the tallest structures in town combined, “and afterward, could not think of refusing my loved ones’ kindness again.”

“You mean…”

“Yes. As you saw before, I carry the day’s activity all over me. Really, I ought to be embarrassed to stand so near this way, when it must be so visible to everyone. So… if anyone here is still feeling so generous with your time and effort, I would be grateful to accept-”

Even after all her emotional preparation for the surrender of this fated moment, Sophia still had to repress that overcoming sensation of imposter syndrome when the re-amassing townsfolk practically swarmed across her shoes, as if she’d gently smushed her foot down into a squelchy mud puddle and allowed the murk to flood over the top. Another severe bout of guilt struck her at the involuntary arrival of that specific comparison in her head, but it was impossible not to see it just for a flash, as eager shoulder-to-shoulder little bodies dressed in beige and brown practically hurled themselves over whatever part of her grassily earthen-crusted boots that they could reach. At the first whiff of ultimate acceptance from their Guardian, many citizens rushed away to fetch buckets and water, while the majority that stayed and could reach the front of the growing crowd were using whatever means they had available to begin what they universally perceived as their duty, whether that meant grinding their burlap aprons on the armoring of her footwear, or picking at dried dirt-splats upon her heel by their miniscule bare hands alone. Yards behind where Sophia had chosen to sit, her spacious shield and bridge-like sword received similar desperate-to-please attention from the people. Once cleaning supplies were stockpiled at the village’s edge several minutes on, though, the process found an organizational rhythm, thanks to Elisaben and a few others who’d clearly chosen to spearhead this service. Soon, in probably-rehearsed fashion, the volunteers formed assembly lines to soap and rinse their prodigious savior’s weaponry and shoes, and did so with merriment, creating a cheerful buzz amongst themselves while busily tending their assigned positions on the giantess’s belongings.

“We don’t mean to keep you waiting, Soph. Maybe… if you could remove your boots, we might be able to work more effectively?” Elisaben entreated. Again they’d come to a moment that would’ve once halted Sophia dead in her tracks, but she’d made an unbreakable vow to herself that she would defer to her people’s every charitable request here tonight without hesitation. And luckily, it was at least becoming easier to stomach it all, the longer she smiled in gratitude and felt her people’s appreciation radiating out from each suds-soaked pass of their diminutive hands across the black-and-white finish of her epic armaments, when their minds and bodies must’ve surely been so exhausted already from the rest of the day. Their infectious devotion was pure and palpable, however, and Sophia found she only partially had to fake her enthusiasm today.

“Of course.”