A Guardian's Ascension (Chapter 15)

To their credit, however, for as keenly sensitive as Sophia currently felt to any hypothetical shade of nervous consternation from the villagers when it came to this weekly food quota, while she furtively scanned the throngs of puny neighbors, she perceived only gladness: more of a release from some self-placed burden they’d all suffered the last nine days without any surefire way, up until now, to please and repay their Guardian a fraction of her borderline-divine graces. For she could also sense their reverence becoming more pronounced even than what she’d felt while they watched her training from afar, now looking upon her from the valley and her cliffside throne with luster-eyed homage they might’ve reserved only for some spectral mountain-high being who’d generously stepped down from the clouds on a stairwell of light to bless their next harvest. By now, having spent more than a week fretting and contemplating and mincing to her betters as often as she could allow herself over this apparent inevitability, Sophia believed she’d come to peace with it, though she certainly desired such sublime devotion no more than she had following that first victory.

“This is wonderful, Lady Sophia. You have our promise that we will not fall short of such a reasonable and charitable request,” Elder Varkas declared. Looking like she intended to speak again, the unofficial village spokesperson only smiled and nodded, stepping aside, when Elisaben approached the front of the outspread populace. As the plainly-elated young woman craned her neck and locked eyes with her gargantuan best friend, beaming wider than ever, Sophia acquitted herself some of her tension (though not all), even if she’d at last gotten past that towering hurdle of guilt when it came to her people and gift-giving. Maybe her dear lifelong cohort, as close to her as either of the giantess’s actual siblings, would be able to serve as a conduit here, and help ensure neither the elders nor anyone else present ever dreamt of imposing obligations on themselves for Sophia’s sake.

“Soph! I mean, Lady So-” Elisaben bashfully commenced, much to the Guardian’s internal alarm.

“I promise, my recent changes did not include adding an official title to my name,” Sophia hurriedly interjected. She forced a lilting chortle. “Please, call me as you always would. And that goes for all of you here.”

“Of course. Soph,” Elisaben corrected, sounding apologetic despite the intended softening of their titanic defender’s laughter, but Sophia realized she’d only muddle things worse by belaboring this matter, and might get trapped in a feedback loop of submissive amends. So she instead listened to her friend with the same warm receptiveness as always, only hoping this flash of normalcy might make their radical divergence in scale and power more invisible. Elisaben cleared her throat and wrung her hands, then spoke in a voice much less formally restrained than the elders had, which would’ve comforted Sophia, if not for the words themselves: “You see, many of us have hoped we might do something more to help you. It pains us, to think about standing idly by while you spend day after day further dedicating yourself to our preservation. Unfortunately, we cannot stand alongside you in your toil, as you are so much greater and stronger than all of us together, but the least we can do is offer you refreshment. Please… Soph… if you would allow us to cool you down, to clean your instruments and your garments. It would be our honor.”

Sophia looked from her friend’s resolute little expression, then across the helter-skelter sea of denizens, all apparently synchronized in this same hope to effectively serve as her personal butlers and maids. For as many seconds as possible, the giantess remained optimistic that at least Elisaben was only making such a belittling offer in jest. Between the two of them, after all, Sophia had always been the quieter more-serious soul, while Elisaben delighted in carousing and sarcasm, certainly not shirking her duties at home, but also never availing herself of additional chores if there was an option instead to take impulsive plunges into ponds or paint wild caricatures of the stiffer-lipped elders. In fact, Sophia had never heard Elisaben speaking with such reserve as she was now, except during the aftermath of the village’s last unguarded incursion months ago, when her friend had soothingly dabbed at Sophia’s cuts and scrapes while both commending and scolding her bravado.

Still, it was a very different gesture to sit there that day, exhausted and stinging from her unschooled last-ditch battle tactics, and allow Elisaben to hold a cold compress over her forehead as a friend and equal; now, she had half a village eagerly waiting, many of them brandishing rags and buckets of water in anticipation of this moment, to hand-cleanse her like she was some high-borne noblewoman too lazy to handle such work herself following a dreary carriage ride home. Because certainly the Guardian had done nothing, in even her most generous open-minded estimation, to require a squadron of sponge-bathers to rinse her mud-flecked garb and weapons, or worse, her actual body – which Sophia was already feeling more than blushingly self-conscious about, visibly (and perhaps even olfactorily) ruddied and sweat-shiny as she’d rendered herself today. And for what, the giantess bitterly asked herself? To make a show. To remind them of her power by air-dancing with her sword, like a child brazenly spinning in circles until she wore herself down into a nap.

Ultimately convincing herself to accept their food was one thing, since Sophia was raised to offer meals to anyone who gave help without pay. But to lie down and allow these people to trawl her overheated earthy-redolent fifty-two-story body and wash away filth she’d only brought on herself by attempting to better embody their overinflated idea of some mythic war deity was, once more, a bridge much too far in terms of her morality, not to mention just outright humiliating. Surely even the other Guardians would agree with her there. Yet none of Sophia’s miniscule charges had broken the silence, nor did Elisaben seem about to burst into laughter at the idea of scrubbing grass stains from her friend’s giant blade or polishing those boots free of all their smeared turf and leathery-salted odor.

“As always, I… am overwhelmed by the kindness of my home,” Sophia replied, officially sick and tired now of having to vocally finesse her way out of accepting some other gross indulgence. Naturally she didn’t blame the villagers for this repeated necessity, though, but rather herself for whatever intangible fault she must’ve committed this time to accidentally earn such a particularly self-degrading brand of alms from her people. Having so evidently satiated their hunger to serve her when she’d capitulated to their meal offerings, Sophia couldn’t bring herself to make these good-hearted folks feel any more inferior by unequivocally shutting down Elisaben’s question, but also was left with too much of a sour taste to stomach this over-glorifying any longer today. “I’m afraid for now, though, I must again decline such kindness. There are matters I must see to at the Citadel. But I will return very soon, and I look forward to the tastes of our home, if you choose to gift them.”

This reminder of weekly meal deliveries seemed to stave off any collective remorse at their missed opportunity to clean their Guardian’s armor of streaked perspiration, and with their spirits obviously raised by today’s magnificent battle-toned display, the people gave Sophia a more ecstatic temporary farewell and accompanying applause than they’d even awarded her after the last real fight. And the Guardian herself, having awoken this day in hopes of transcending all that internal anguish of her idolized visage in the village’s eyes, passed through the portal now in only a more-complicated state of untethered dolor.