Travels With a Fairytale Monster

by Elizabeth Gannon

  She opened her mouth to say something to the giant, but no words would come out.

  He evidently sensed the fact that she was cold though, as he shifted slightly to the side so that she was in the sun again, then moved a step closer to her so that the warmth radiating off of his skin reached her.

  Her own skin began to heat and feel flushed in response.

  The words she’d been trying to say, but couldn’t, now became a low moan she was incapable of keeping inside.

  The giant evidently heard the sound as well and moved closer to her, his skin so warm and close that it seemed to be inside her now.

  She closed her eyes, panting for breath.

  This was… This was… so unexpected.

  The giant reached down to gently cup her face in his large hand again…

  “Hi.” She said softly. Which was utterly inane, but she wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. “Do… do you have a name?”

  The giant stepped closer still, his body almost touching hers…

  “What is going on?!?” Gate yelled.

  Taylor was so startled by the sudden reappearance of her commanding officer that she stumbled backwards, tripping in the sand and almost falling over. The giant caught her flailing hand to steady her, displaying remarkable reflexes.

  The touch of his skin sent an absolute firestorm of heat through her body and it was so shocking and so intense that she immediately pulled her hand free, causing her to stumble backwards again. “N-n-nothing, sir.” She choked out quickly, backing further away from the giant. “Just… um…”

  “The lieutenant was being a douche, so the giant guy smacked him, sir.” Ryle summarized, leaning forward on one of the railings. “And Taylor there, was just about to… um… give her thanks, to the prisoner.”

  She shot him a withering glare, which he ignored.

  Gate glared across the field where his men were trying to revive Buggane and shook his head sadly. “That man just doesn’t belong in the Guard.” He started across the plaza. “If he wasn’t so popular with the capital, I’d have gotten rid of him months ago.”

  She nodded, still fighting for control of her own mind and body. Sadly, it seemed both appeared to prefer the giant to herself at the moment, and refused to cooperate. Everything inside her was screaming that she should just ignore the crowd of people standing around and simply throw herself at the giant, ripping off her clothes on the way.

  She began to imagine what it would feel like if his strong warm hands touched more than just her face or hand…

  She stepped away again, just in case the urge grew too strong, then took a deep cleansing breath. “I would support that decision, sir.” She told him flatly. “The man is being completely unprofessional.”

  “I agree.” Gate nodded. “Sadly, we simply don’t have enough people to be picky.” He put his arms behind his back in an at rest posture. “But I’ll keep a closer eye on him. He won’t bother our gigantic prisoner again.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She absently started to straighten her jumpsuit. “That would…” She trailed off as she saw that the giant was watching her run her hands over the fabric in an effort to dislodge the sand which was clinging to it. For some reason, the knowledge that he would pay attention to something small like that, and seemed to find it captivating, made her feel strangely powerful.

  She slowed down the action, her eyes focused on him as her hands moved over her body.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Ryle rolled his eyes in exasperation and walked from the plaza. “This is just getting too weird now.”

  Gate frowned after him. “Is there something wrong with your brother?”

  “Probably.” She agreed absently, her eyes still locked with the giant’s and her hands still on her own body. “But he’ll get over it.”

  The giant licked his lips, as if they were suddenly dry.

  She smiled, a sense of victory and overwhelming pleasure filling her.

  Gate nodded. “I see.” He refocused on the giant. “As soon as we figure out a way to get this beast into its cage, we can set out for the capital.”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “Once there, the king will decide what’s to be done.”

  “Meaning, that there’s a chance that the king would… free him?” Taylor asked. “I mean, if he judged that he posed no threat?”

  “Well, I suppose it’s a possibility.” The man agreed. “I know I’d certainly feel better about myself if we could find some way to free it.” He shook his head. “Not right seeing things in chains. Terrible way to live.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gate raised his voice to the men. “Everyone come over here and see if we can’t push it into the cage. Careful not to anger it though.”

  The men advanced on the giant.

  Taylor raised her hand. “Um, sir? Perhaps if we just asked him… it,” she corrected, “perhaps if we simply tried to coax it into the cage, it would be easier.”

  “Very well.” Gate nodded, looking eager for an option which didn’t involve putting his men anywhere near the monster. “If you’d like to try.”

  She took a hesitant step forward towards the giant, giving him a small wave. “Hi.” She breathed. “I’m… uhh… Taylor? We’ve… we’ve met.” She cleared her throat. “I was wondering if you’d… umm… get into the cage again?” She held up her hands, the words coming quicker. “Just for a little while, you know, until the king frees you?”

  The giant kept staring at her.

  “It would really help me out.” She told him meekly. “Please?”

  “Dude,” Ryle called from the building, holding up the strange rod for a moment, then stuffing it into a knapsack so that the other soldiers didn’t see, “get in the cage so that we can all get on the road, huh? We got shit to do today.” He paused. “Besides, you don’t want to make her angry. She killed seven men last night. With one blow. She could take you.”

  The monster looked from Ryle, back to her, and then to the cage. He glanced back at her, his gaze burning into hers again, then slowly made his way to the cage and sealed himself inside.

  She let out a sigh of relief and quickly rushed forward to lock him inside before one of the other soldiers took the opportunity to attack him while he was cornered, and get revenge for what he’d done to Buggane.

  The giant reached forward to take her hand, his large grip completely engulfing hers.

  She looked up at him, the strange feelings rushing through her again until it seemed like she might collapse right there from the sensations. It was as if his touch connected directly to her nervous system and caused the entire thing to go haywire.

  “No.” He said in a deep, gravelly voice which seemed to make her entire body vibrate to life and grow warmer still.

  “W-w-what?” She mouthed, somehow managing to form the word into an almost comprehensible sound.

  “No.” He repeated softly. “I don’t have a name.”

  Chapter Five

  He didn’t really understand humans.

  Not in the sense that he didn’t understand their languages, because he could speak more than a few of them, just in the sense that they did things he couldn’t even conceive of.

  He’d seen a lot of things in his life. A lot of terrible acts which the humans inflicted on one another, and he never really got why they did them. What could possibly possess someone to act like that? What could be so important?

  And then he saw it.

  His grandmother had told him as much when he was a boy, before the hunters had found them. Told him about The Pyra and what one could expect when one experienced it. Wove him fantastical tales of the days when the ogres still filled the mountains and lived in peace.

  When there was enough food and space and happiness for everyone.

  When finding a mate was as simple as just going to the Gathering and looking for her.

  Before the hunters and adventurers and random humans with too much time on their hands had thinned the number
s of the ogres and all but exterminated their race from the face of the earth, thanks to Stallo, the betrayer.

  In fact, as far as he knew, it had been just himself and his grandmother for decades. Maybe more. But now the old woman was gone too.

  It was just him.

  There’d been times when he wondered why he put up with that. Why he didn’t just hang himself with his chains or starve himself in his cell. Why he didn’t just take his shot at ending his life as a weapon and moving on to whatever afterlife awaited him.

  But there was just something which prevented him, all those years. Something which seemed to be inside his head, yelling at him to go along and not make waves. To survive, no matter the cost or pain. Logically, that made no sense. He’d even known it at the time. There was no hope or chance of anything better on the horizon. He was alone and enslaved and he was slowly being worked to death, one agonizing day at a time. But he’d felt it anyway. A voice which seemed to promise something better than the life he knew, if he could just hold on a little longer. His instincts told him not to end it or let anyone else end it for him. Survive. And his grandmother had always told him that you needed to trust your instincts.

  “Your instincts are never wrong,” his grandmother had said, “they’re put there by the Sacred Mountain so that you can find your mate and your Pyra.”

  So, he had stayed.

  Lived through the pain and the loneliness and the degradation.

  Been forced to see unworthy human men wielding the Mace of the Kings, barking their orders at him.

  But he’d stayed. Survived for reasons which had escaped him all these agonizing years.

  And that had never made sense to him.

  Why would people fight and die for something like that? Why would they put themselves through decades of torture and imprisonment?

  And then he found the reason.

  The thing which made someone do all of that was- in his own case at least- a horrifically tiny human girl with red hair.

  Such a thing was so strange and otherworldly. A magical creature which seemed sent from the Mountain itself to test his strength and gauge his formerly faltering devotion to the Old Ways.

  But now he was a believer again. About the Mountain, about The Pyra, about his instincts, all of it.

  She was the reason.

  He knew it in the deepest level of his scarred soul.

  At the moment, his reason for enduring the many indignities and horrors he’d withstood, was riding next to him on her horse, trying to talk to him in her absurdly high-pitched little human voice. It was like if squirrels were talking to each other or something. Coming from her though, he found the irritating noise of human speech… calming. Certainly more pleasurable than it had any right of being, anyway. It was almost musical.

  His own experiences with humanity were… troubled however, so it was entirely possible that there existed a breed of human which weren’t mindless, brutal, squirrel-voiced savages, bent on nothing but violence, extermination, and senseless mayhem.

  If there existed such a creature, then this girl was surely one of that variety of human. A variety which evidently consisted of stunningly beautiful petite little human girls who had hair which shone like fire and had eyes the color of mountain grasses. They had sharp little minds and soft little bodies.

  He liked that variety of human.

  They were much better than the others.

  “I just don’t understand how you can’t have a name.” She repeated again, for what had to be the hundredth time in the last hour. “How is that possible?

  The girl’s green eyes seemed to sparkle with an eager curiosity but hidden sadness, and every time he looked at her, he felt like doing anything she wanted. Perhaps that was the Mace of the Kings, he wasn’t sure, but he’d certainly seen other people wield it over the years and he sure as hell didn’t think about doing to them what he wanted to do to the tiny red-haired human girl.

  There was complete innocence and a twinkling cleverness in those green eyes, and he found them hypnotic.

  “It’s not difficult.” He told her again. “I simply don’t”

  “Why?”

  That was such a human question to ask. Possibly the human question. “Why?” It implied an almost selfish disregard for the way things were and a shocking willingness to change them. It cast aside the Old Ways and sought to replace them with something untested and new. Something which might upset the balance between the oldest species of the world and cause utter chaos.

  The ogres didn’t work that way. The mountains moved very slowly and so did they. They didn’t ask “why.” They didn’t ask much of anything, actually, they just existed in the way they knew how.

  Still, that inability to adapt had probably brought about their own destruction, so perhaps the Old Ways had proved to be outdated in the end. Humans and their ever-changing New Ways saw no reason why they couldn’t simply take what the ogres had. Why would that be a problem? Why couldn’t they hunt the ogres for sport? Why would the ogres try to fight back? Why not rape and murder the ogre women and children? Why not?

  No, he didn’t understand humans.

  In this case though, he found it remarkably easy to overlook the girl’s humanity. Perhaps it was because he found her startlingly erotic, or perhaps it was because she was so earnest in her questions that any thought of her having a deeper hidden motivation was utterly unthinkable.

  She was asking “why?” because she wanted to know, not because she wanted to know “why not?” She wanted to understand, not change or destroy.

  “Because I’m the last of my kind, Tay-Lore.” He tried to pronounce her silly human name. Humans all had silly names which lacked meaning in their language and his own. Hers was almost lyrical in a way though. Certainly his favorite of all the human names he’d heard, but then again, he might be biased. “Generally, when you’re the last of something, you don’t often get mistaken for someone else.”

  To his surprise, the girl giggled, like his tragic circumstances were amusing. And the sound almost did make them comical. Like salve on an open wound, that happy gentle sound seemed to wash away the pain and resentment he felt. “No, I suppose not.” She finally got out.

  He found himself smiling too, overjoyed to see a happy look on the girl’s face. Humans… well… they didn’t much smile around him. Ever. Generally, they either shit themselves in fear or immediately began plotting ways to kill him. Sometimes both.

  Smiling was better.

  He could get used to smiling.

  Providing it was from her, that is. The rest of them could smile until their damned faces froze that way, and he still wouldn’t piss on them if they were dying of thirst.

  “Well, what am I supposed to call you then?” She asked, her tiny voice sounding confused.

  He absently watched the girl’s breasts bounce freely under her jumpsuit as her horse carried her along. “I don’t care.” He informed her. And it was the truth. She could have decided to call him “Cow Shit” and he would have complimented her on the choice.

  His instincts were telling him to reach through the bars and caress one of those spectacular orbs of flesh. Feel the girl’s soft body and explore it, looking for an answer as to why the Sacred Mountain had chosen humans for life, while condemning his people to degradation and slaughter. Not that he could really blame the Sacred Mountain for that decision. If it came down to the choice, he’d damn himself to slaughter and degradation if it meant preserving that girl and her sparkling human eyes.

  And the breasts. Those could get preserved as well. In fact, they’d get special attention.

  He held back though, which took a colossal amount of self-control, something the ogres weren’t especially known for. But he didn’t want to frighten the girl off. He was a monster in her eyes, and if he suddenly tried to touch her body, she would not be happy.

  But the effort of controlling himself was literally causing him to sweat from the exertion.

  “I have to c
all you something.” She tried again.

  “You do?” He frowned slightly, the soft contours of her body momentarily forgotten. “Why?”

  Why.

  Shit.

  Now she had him doing it. His grandmother had always told him to stay away from the humans. They were bad news and could corrupt young ogres. And this proved it. Well, the fact that human hunters had killed and butchered her in front of him had really proved her assertion, if you wanted to be technical, but this really drove her warning home.

  The tiny red-haired girl was leading him astray. Trying to get him to forget the Old Ways and embrace her ever-shifting world of “Why?” Corrupt him with her false and blasphemous Pyra and use him to win her human war.

  But he found that he really didn’t care about any of that. She was there either way, and looking at her was the only joy he’d experienced in an untold number of decades.

  And when you really came down to it, it didn’t matter much which side of the war he was on. Or where he lived. Or what he did. Because he was utterly alone and simply had nowhere else to go. Killing one band of humans was the same as killing another. They were all humans, after all. He could see that, even if they were too idiotic to put aside their petty squabbles and meaningless lines in the sand. So, if this small human girl wanted to try to beguile him into helping her— if that was in fact what she was doing— that was fine with him. Because at least he’d have something beautiful to look at while he did terrible things.

  And this particular human was stunning.

  He’d never found their race at all attractive, truth told. So scrawny and pale. One good winter breeze or tiny fall from a mountain cliff, and they’d be done for. Not that anyone would really miss them on an individual level, since there were so many of them. They were like insects, always skittering underfoot.

  This human though… this human… was something else entirely. Something which seemed to awaken him in ways he’d never before experienced. In fact, something which had awoken something in him. He could feel it every time he got near her, like embers beneath his skin. Like flames erupting without warning and burning his skin without mercy.