A Guardian's Ascension (Chapter 11)

The Citadel courtyard was empty when Sophia returned, and this time not a single five-hundred-foot-tall soul emerged beneath any of the archways to offer her greetings. This was a welcome non-reception, in a moment when she was so starved for solitude, but still her heart was in no way eased by the quiet, as the young Guardian took immediate refuge down the steep hills which ran behind her new home base’s looming white walls. A broad river stretched far into either horizon just at the point where the greenspace flattened out again, and in that water, Sophia was able to see the entirety of her enormous reflection, even from a decent distance. That towering semi-mirrored visage spanning almost to the opposite shore made the blonde titaness look even taller than she already was, and with that normally-enchanting shimmer on the babbling waves, her stripped-down battle attire appeared grander than ever, no matter the efforts she’d put in earlier to look more casual and still-mortal: a goal, she now realized, was probably in vain.

Sophia truly didn’t think that her long-awaited reunion with Torv could’ve taken any more painful of a turn than that surprise of learning he wanted to sever their romantic relationship. Only now did she realize that, yes, it could be so much worse: that instead Torv saw their split like an inevitability as predictable as the next sunrise. The idea of them remaining a couple was, obviously, entirely outside the realm of the possible for him. In his precious little face and in his carefully-chosen words, Sophia had sensed Torv’s heartfelt conviction in both his well wishes and understanding for her. And in knowing that truth, she felt exponentially sicker than from any undeserved grandeur she’d had showered upon her following her first incursion defense. Given the choice between outcomes, at this most aggrieved low, she might have even considered allowing the villagers to place a damn crown upon her head while they tirelessly composed songs to her glory and cooked up every edible reserve in town, if only such a sacrifice would’ve spared her this current hollowed-out feeling.

“Guardian Sophia is hurt.”

That husky-throated voice with its familiar curl of a deep and lyrical accent that Sophia couldn’t name came as a surprise, arriving as it did from around the bend of nearby cliff base where the river’s edge went jagged. Startled, though she didn’t flinch, Sophia only now noticed her svelte compatriot kneeling beside the water, but the other giantess seemingly hadn’t even turned her head when she spoke.

“Oh! Hello, Raluch,” Sophia said, having actually required a moment to recall the correct pronunciation of the raven-haired Guardian’s name, with whom she had yet to exchange more than ten words in all her months of training. Sophia put on her most amiable air, but had trouble fooling even herself. “I apologize, if I disturbed you. I didn’t realize you were… down here. If you like, I can leave you to-”

“Guardian Raluch is not needing of alone,” the veteran interrupted, albeit gently, in a voice which increasingly suggested to Sophia that this equally almighty woman knew at least six languages and probably more. Able to appear surprisingly compact while crouched over the riverside, considering she stood nearly half a thousand feet tall up at her full stature, Raluch splayed her gloved hand above the churning ripples in the water, coming within inches of touching it but still without impacting the surface. “Guardian Sophia thinks she is needing of alone. But Guardian Sophia is hurt and does not want to show.”

The breath caught in Sophia’s lungs. She stiffened her lip and tried to keep her gaze focused, though it was apparently useless trying to hide the oppressive future-rewriting fog of pure gloom currently overtaking her, when Raluch hadn’t even needed to turn around to sense it. If there was something she was supposed to say in answer to the more-worldly Guardian right now, Sophia had no idea what it was. Over and over since her somewhat-performative training time was completed outside the village, even well-after she’d bid Torv the fondest farewell she could muster, the things he’d said to her replayed mercilessly in her head, gradually excising the sincere goodness until she could only hear the words which sliced deepest: “…a partnership of equals… I could not be so delusional… to believe that someone like me… could be your equal. I… could never… be worthy of you now.”

“I am all right,” Sophia stoically lied. “Thank you, Raluch. I am only… adjusting still, to my responsibilities.”

“No,” the other Guardian replied, not harshly, but the word came out more as fact than opinion. Suddenly Raluch stood from the river’s precipice. The giantess, technically shorter than Sophia but instead holding herself like she was another three hundred feet higher, moved along the winding bank. Her appearance of severe porcelain-skinned beauty was particularly notable in Sophia’s mind, even among a Citadel full of beautiful and powerful Guardians who magnetically exuded sheer grace, and would’ve held her attention captive even if she hadn’t cut so quickly to the chase of the newbie defender’s despair. “Guardian Sophia hides the wound.”

“I… I’m sorry, what are you-”

“Guardian Sophia hides the wound,” Raluch urgently repeated. She raised her gloved hand, the same which she’d been using to not-touch the river, and authoritatively planted it over Sophia’s heart, then shook her head. “We are not letting of wounds to fester.”

Sophia nodded solemnly. In time, she had planned to ask Sigrid and Nemora for their advice on this most recent and most exponential heartbreak. But the haze left by the dissolution of her life partnership was still cleaving to her without remorse, and to think of running immediately off to find the proverbial big girls, she was left only feeling like a child that needed her hand held to walk through a forest, especially considering it was literally only yesterday since she last had to seek desperate counsel from her mentors. How could she measure up to even a fraction of these other Guardians’ worth, Sophia fiercely interrogated herself, if she had to run off to them for aid whenever the slightest problem arose? How could her people be expected to trust her, if they only knew how uncertain she felt after just two days bearing the mantle? At the same time, however, the perceptive (but admittedly forward) Raluch was gazing into Sophia’s eyes so knowingly, with her hand still over the novice giantess’s heart and no intention to retract it until a satisfactory answer was provided, that withholding such turmoil finally became impossible.

“Torv. He… he is… was… my soul partner. We had… plans. I love him, and I know he must also love me still, and yet… he finds it so unthinkable, that he could be w-worthy of me… like this, as I am now… that he says we cannot possibly continue as we were. Into the future, together. He… truly believes… that he is so unequal to me, or any Guardian… this is a person who has gifted so much of his time and craft to those in need, who has stood up in defense of the meek before our village had a Guardian to protect it, who gave every available moment he had to me and my happiness when we were together… and yet someone like that, so good and pure and deserving, still cannot even conceive of… of…”

“Ah. Ah. Guardian Sophia shows the wound. Good,” Raluch said, her tone of voice more delicately sympathetic than her actual words. “And, Love Torv is understanding.”

“Yes, he… does understand the responsibility I have now, for our people. But still somehow it is beyond him that we needn’t be apart because of that, and… wait. You… you can’t mean-”

“Love Torv – is – understanding,” the other Guardian repeated resolutely, not changing a word, but somehow her tone spoke in greater detail this time, and Sophia processed it correctly only now.

“Raluch. You’re saying that Torv is… correct… to feel the way he does?”

Sophia’s body language direly pleaded for good news, even as she already intuited the response, to a degree that would’ve humiliated her if this matter didn’t feel so life-or-death in her indeed-wounded heart. Her voice was strained with hope that it was only a language barrier impeding her comprehension, and that Raluch didn’t really believe Torv was unworthy of their bond, though a part of Sophia also couldn’t help but ignite with ready-made outrage at the very possibility of that suggestion. She’d never regretted any of her choices since accepting the Guardians’ honor, never questioned any of her behemoth cohorts no matter how exhausting their teaching. Yet Sophia could conceive of no reality in which she’d accept anything but immediate and emphatic denial from Raluch, and wasn’t certain she could prevent herself from showing her furor otherwise.

“Love Torv remains of good. He shows value to Guardian Sophia. Love Torv is not changed. Guardian Sophia is changed,” Raluch said, as the empathetic twirl of her voice did more of the actual talking than her language. With her palm continually pressed over the younger giantess’s heart, Raluch’s speech became a lullabying hum that somehow silenced the nearby river’s gushing in Sophia’s ears. “Guardian Sophia is believing still that she is living of the old world. Her learning does not complete. Not yet complete. Guardian Sophia will forever hold seed of Smith Sophia, of Daughter Sophia, of Love Sophia. But… Guardian Sophia is remade. She is enduring long. She is holding of her people, all of her people, in her hands. Strong hands. She is all, and greater beyond. Love Torv is seeing of Guardian Sophia’s all and greater beyond already. Guardian Raluch is seeing of it in her. Guardian Sophia must find of it as well. She is near now but not of complete.”