Footpaths, Parallel ch. 11: Confluence pt. 1
(read on Ao3)
Several seconds pass before you realize that you are not moving. You have passed into a deep and dreamlike state, your body as cold as the air around you, rustling the leaves. A laugh crawls up your throat before you can swallow it. You have come so far- but that doesn’t matter, even if you are killed or caught, you have further to go. You pull your rooted feet up from the frosty ground, you turn your frozen gaze to the trees and stagger towards them. Your feet are numb now, other than the sharp circles of pain where the bone of your heel digs into the ground. As you cross the wet grass that grows at the edge of the woods, the terrible giant- the one who had caused you all this pain- Caelum, he speaks to you.
“Please don’t leave,” pleading rumbles from the faceless dark. “You’ll die out there.”
You want to laugh again, shuddering and weak, but your chest is constricted by your arms squeezing around yourself. You feel so small here, so inhuman, before this great living thing. And even still, who is this creature to tell you how you will die? Who is he to decide by what means you live? What right does he have to sound so cursedly pathetic?
“Fuck you,” you hiss, so quiet and frightened, half locked behind your teeth. As quiet as you are, you are heard, and you watch the giant flinch back. A part of you is awed that your words can touch this creature. “Fuck you, Caelum.”
“I… Please, you have every right to hate me,” Caelum says, soft and loud like the night wind. “Hate me, but please, please stay here. You will be protected, you will be able to grow- become a whole person-“
“I am a whole person, I am more of a person than those- those who-“ those who would snatch up entire lives because they could, who would uproot villages and steal humans to use as their ‘ambassadors’. The great danger that your mother hid from you. “Who would do the things you have done!”
“We won’t hurt you, I swear on my life. You’ll be safe and warm here, please, please. We have more food than you can eat, other humans who can look out for you, you’ll never have to see me again- we can find you a home.”
“I had a home,” you eke out around the lump in your throat. “You took it from me.”
The night is so dark and so still around you; but you can feel the buzzing life of the forest at your back. The cicadas have started shrilling again, in the silence. When had you turned to face him again? This coward who shies away from you after taking so much.
“You’ve ruined my life,” you tell the giant. He says nothing to rebuff you; you can see the moon shining in his eyes and nothing more. “You did it just because you could. You’re… you’re a monster. That’s what you are.”
This cuts a ragged sound from him. You leap back as his massive form shifts, but his terrible hands do not leap out to grab you. He lowers himself until he is supine, and lays his cheek in the grass. You step back, edging under the shadows of the leaves. The giant is crying.
‘Good, let him cry!’ You think, even as some young part of you twitches to banish the watery, devastated look in his eyes. At such a scale it is quite disturbing to look at.
“I am so sorry,” his voice, even in a strangled whisper, is so much louder than anything you’ve heard before. You feel the flow of warm air carried on his breath and cringe away. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but- but please. Please, let me atone. I will do anything, I will find a way to give you what you deserve. Please let us heal you, I-“ Something in Caelum’s expression crumples and he hides his face in shadows. “I cannot stand to be the reason… I cannot… I…”
The foliage is over your head now, shading you from the world. He can’t stand it, can he? To cause your death? He would have crumbled into sobbing nothing if he had lived your life. He would have died if he stood where you stood. You are not like this towering giant, you have never felt smaller, and he uses all his power to cry over your death as you stand alive in front of him.
“I could never live here like this. Like your ambassadors.”
“You wouldn't," Caelum pleads with a slight shake of his head. “There are sanctuaries run by HPARC, they are protected spaces for humans.”
“Protected from monsters like you?”
“… I’m sorry.” Caelum whispers, his voice cracked down the middle. “I’m so sorry. It’s our fault you live in such a dismal world.”
“I want to go home. Take me home.” “You’ll die if you do.”
“What do you know?” You snarl, taking another step back towards the woods. “I’ve been out on my own for a decade, do you think I’ve always had that house? You think we all would die like insects the moment we aren’t under your protection? I never knew your kind existed before you swiped me up, how could I ever have needed you?”
Until now. Uprooted and diverted from your sandy little path. You need help now. Now you are not just isolated but alone, the way that an animal is alone. Solitary, shoeless, and almost naked in the cold.
“Just take me home.” You force out.
“You’ll die.”
“I’ve survived ten years on my own, just take me home.”
“The other humans- they’ll kill you if you ever go back. You’re injured, you’re outcast-“
“Because of you.” You are screaming, your hands are coming up, hiding your face- there is something like shame, or the panic of a hunted animal. You can feel your heat draining down into the earth, now that you’ve stopped moving, and it feels like death beneath your feet.
“You could be happy here,” Caelum whispers, his face hidden in his folded arm. “You wouldn't have to be alone.”
“I was happy,” the words taste dusty and well-tread. “You took that from me too. You’ve taken everything.”
Misery, what had been a wisp in your anger, now crashes over you with enough force to collapse you. You sit down upon a dead stump and begin to cry. “You’ve stolen everything from me.”
You weep for everything you’ve lost, your cottage and your garden, your willow tree, your river, your sisters, your mother, every home you’ve ever had, you cry- and when you open your eyes you meet the watery pools of Caelum’s. Your agony catches this kindling and flares hotly in his direction.
“Stop watching me!” You shriek, waving your arms about wildly. You wish you had something heavy to lob at him. “I am not for you! Cursed voyeur! You think yourself a savior? Beast!”
He turns away, tucking his head back into his arm, but you can still hear his muffled sobbing, echoing in his chest. It is an intimate thing to hear, so loud and close, and it makes your skin crawl. You turn your face up to the sky, half hidden by the dying leaves. The stars are out now, those mysterious, reliable little lights that have been here forever, the only thing unchanging about your world.
Are they people? You wonder. Are they like me? How many places are there, just in this world? How many humans? How many giants? Does every one of them want to live as badly as you do? Are they burning with it, like a star inside their own bodies? Your sister warned you once about drinking still water, how desperate men would die if they tried it. You asked her if it was better to die of thirst, and you can't remember her answer. You cannot ask her now. Not ever again. You open your mouth to speak and you choke- tonight could be the last night you see the stars. Tomorrow will see you either dead or under someone else’s power; you can spare yourself a bit more time to look at the night sky.
Eventually, Caelum ceases his crying, just lies there in the dirt, his face hidden in his folded arm. Almost all your warmth has bled out of you, the wind cuts over your arms, through the holes in your shirt. Like an icy hand closing over the back of your neck.
“Call your people.” you rasp. Your voice is lost in the shuffling leaves. Caelum stays buried in his misery. You raise your voice up to him, miserable and forceful. “Call your people.” “What?” Caelum croaks; you hear the bones of his neck creak as he raises the weight of his head, wet, shocked eyes fixing on you. “Are you-”
“Call them,” you mutter, scrubbing your face of the tears cooling on your face. “It doesn't matter now.”
Is it bravery to fall into their hands? Is it cowardice to- even now, here, at this precipice, be unable to relinquish yourself into the hands of a frigid death? Was it cowardice or bravery when you came upon your family home consumed in flames and ran far and fast? Is that what you are? A foolhardy coward who is too afraid to take the final step into the dark, regardless of the consequences you’ll face?
Whatever you may be doesn't matter now. Caelum has retrieved something from his pocket and is speaking into it, and already you feel movement in the ground, subtle vibrations of some great beast beginning to shift across the campsite. You have made your choice, you have your answer.
Caelum does not speak to you while you wait for the other giant to arrive. You can hear his breathing, like strange wind, stuttering and stopping with the threat of tears. A blanket of numb despair settles over your shoulders, doing nothing to keep out the chill. You wish you had never found out how small and worthless humans really are in this world. You wish you had remained ignorant, when your biggest concern was preparing enough food for Winter. The vibrations take the shape of footsteps, getting closer to you, rattling through the ground and shaking the branches of the trees over your head.
Death approaches like a landslide, then halts entirely. The rumbling stops just before coming into view, the white tent concealing the massive figure you know is there. You strain your eyes through the dark, trying to catch a glimpse of a shadow or a face, trying to see which of the giants has been sent to recapture you. Instead, your eyes dart down to a tiny figure running around the bend of the tent. You cannot see their features in the dark, but you can see their shape and size, you see moonlight glinting off of worn work-denim and know who has come for you. Beech slows to a stop before you; breathing heavily through his nose, which somehow does not affect the somber way he regards you, still collapsed on a tree stump, tears dripping into the soil.
“Are ya’ hurt?” he asks.
“Nah,” you reply. You are hurting, but it’s nothing anyone can fix in a night and he knows it. “Not bad.”
“Are ya’ done running?”
You nod, shame swelling in your throat, and the ambassador pulls you to your feet. There he fusses over you briefly, examining the new scrapes and the dark bruise all along your right side that you’d gained since you’d last seen him. Caelum, who slowly rises behind him, wiping tears and snot from his face, goes completely ignored by Beech in favor of detailing exactly how worried he’s been while he combs through your hair for blood.
“Ya got lucky survivin’ a fall like that,” he scolds after deeming you aren't about to drop dead. Your side aches in one great swath over your side, a bruise itching like burned flesh, but none of that is going to kill you. Beech sighs, stepping away from you. “Ah think you should stay in the human apartments for now. Sendin’ ya back to the giants wouldn't be good for anyone right now. Up you get. Come on.” “What’s going to happen to me?” You ask, stumbling back toward the camp, towed along by Beech, who follows Caelum’s retreating mass around the tent.
“Well, since ah doubt you’d wanna stay here, you’ll be taken to a sanctuary once you’ve healed up. Think of it like a large village under the protection a’ HPARC, where people are safe to live and grow their commun’ties.”
“I don't want to go there either,” You mutter, clinging to his coat. “I want to rely on myself. I don't wanna trust them with that, not every day. I can’t imagine… I can’t…” Beech is silent, the tamped dirt crunches in the treads of his boots, you curl over your folded arms, anxious and cold. Animals shift and call to each other at your back, before the giant’s quiet conversation silences them. Caelum speaks to someone hidden behind the white walls of the tent, words too distorted by size and distance for you to make out.
“If you don’t wanna go to a sanctuary, then we’ll sneak you into a real town.” Beech tells you. “It’s against HPARC’s rules- technically, but yer still off book, I’d wager. We can drop ya off a few miles outsida’ town and have ya walk the rest of the way there.” “Have you done that before?” “Oh yeah, many times. Knowin’ when to break th’ rules is an important part’a my job, an’ that kinda thing can only be learned by livin’ as humans do.”
“...I didn’t know that giants even existed before I… met Caelum.” You tell him, trudging alongside Beech, keeping your eyes on the stars. “I lived in a secluded little house far away from here. No one ever told me about… anything, I guess.”
“‘ts no way to raise a kid,” Beech grunts. “Most people see a giant at least once in their life, you’re setting ‘em up for a nasty shock when they leave home.”
“I wouldn’t have left my home,” you mutter. “Not if I’d had the choice."
“Not many get to choose,” Beech slows down as the two of you approach the edge of the tent, past which giant voices whisper wordlessly 100 feet into the air. “ ‘M sorry it happened to you kid.”
You are choked by fear and a nakedness of spirit that frightens you further; you cannot reply to his kindness. Like a child, you reach out and take hold of Beech’s thick jacket sleeve; the strong, rough but worn weave of denim between your fingers awakens you.
“Now what?” You ask him softly.
“Atlas will take us to the other humans.” Your stony silence tells him well enough what you think of that.
“Ya’ve walked enough on yer injuries fer one night.” Beech argues, though from the look in his eyes you know he understands your distaste. “Atlas can carry us in less than a minute, unless ya’d prefer Caelum…”
“It doesn't matter,” you can feel the giant’s movements in the ground beneath you, in the air, so much more real seeming than the denim you cling to. “Either way it’s… it doesn't matter.”
Beech grunts and adjusts something in his ear, a small shiny black object that you had not noticed before. He whistles, short and sharp, and speaks.
“Aye, Atlas. We’re ready fer pickup. 12 o’clock, 35-odd feet from ya.”
“Heard Beech,” the response emanates from behind the tent; a male voice that is loud and full and so, so high above you- you take a half-step back, not letting go of Beech. “Approaching.”
The still darkness behind the tent splits, and a great, grasping hand materializes from the blackness. You bite down on a scream, and Beech grabs hold of your wrist, preventing you from running. The hand descends, so much closer to you so quickly, attached to the long shape of a wrist, extending into a shoulder belonging to Atlas, one of the giants who had been searching for you- the biggest one, the one who is slowly forming in the moonlight. When you can tear your gaze away from the reaching hand, you see huge eyes fixed onto you. You freeze, fearful steam rising in a white column from your mouth.
“I won’t hurt you,” Atlas whispers like the grinding of the earth. “You do not need to be afraid.” His hand lowers, palm up, until it is resting on the hard dirt, a too-eagerly awaiting platform. A platform with many, many scars on the leathered skin, crisscrossing over his palms and fingers, perhaps evidence of other humans that had tried and failed to retaliate against him. Beech tugs your wrist and tows you along in small, reluctant steps to the giant figure. You approach the steep step of Atlas’ hand and are given no time to hesitate before Beech is boosting you up onto the hand. You wince away from the feeling of thick, finely ridged skin stretched like a tight carpet over what is unmistakably living muscle. You make the mistake of looking up at Altas when you falter at the feeling, and the weight of his gaze nearly sends you toppling backward, held upright only by Beech’s hand on your shoulder. You crawl slowly into the heated valley created by his palm, and scoot into the lowest point, enclosed by walls of skin. Warmth slowly seeps through your legs, but you cannot enjoy the absence of chill, entirely aware of how- if the giant should choose, he could close his hand and crush you to death in one motion. Beech, walking on the edge of the giant’s palm leans in and pulls the massive thumb over your thighs where it remains, like the safety bar of a motor car. Beech stays standing, holding himself steady on Atlas’ index with one hand like a lifelong sailor.
“Are you ready?” Beech asks of you, dark eyes peering discerningly. You nod, your throat too thick to speak. He smiles at you, you see the white curve of his teeth for a second, in the moonlight. Then he turns his face up to the giant, securing his grip. “We’re ready.”
Somehow, high above you, Atlas hears the quiet words, and the living platform shifts. You had not realized just how still the body beneath you was until it is moving again, lifting you up in a rush of cold air streaking the night-dark world into fingerpainted colors. Then you are what feels like hundreds of feet in the air, the night sky closer than it's ever been, like a painted bowl placed over the world. Atlas’ thumb stays securely over your thighs; when you look up Beech is smiling at you from where he still stands like a sailor on Atlas’ palm. Then his gaze shifts, falls somewhere to your right, and hardens. You follow his eyes and turn your head to see Caelum, standing like a scolded child in the shadow of the tent.
“...May I come with you?” Caelum asks haltingly. You struggle, for a moment, to understand who he’s asking. “Traveler?” And, well. He certainly looks less monstrous from this angle; his damp eyes are no longer quite as disturbing.
“Alright,” you say, shifting uneasily under Atlas’ thumb. The appendage exerts enough pressure to keep you from falling and no more. “You can stay for now.”
Caelum relaxes so massively and completely that you almost expect to see steam rising from his body.
“Thank you,” his voice is too loud to miss, but the words are hushed, low as the crickets and peeping frogs that still sing in the forest behind you.
“Are you ready?” Beech asks, solemn and patient. “If ya need a few minutes-“
You shake your head, clenching and unclenching your hand, uncomfortably aware of every part of your body where you are touching a stranger’s skin.
“No, I’m ready. I… I don’t want to just sit here.” Beech nods soberly, and turns to level Atlas with that same serious gaze. No words are exchanged between the two, but the hand shifts around you.
“It won’t be more than a minute.” Atlas’ voice rattles through your body, the vibrations mapping out the shape of your bones inside of you. They feel uniquely delicate, as frail as a caught bird’s. Then, with one smooth step into motion, the giant is moving at an even stride, carrying you in a steady open hand that rocks like a sailboat in a calm ocean. Beech stays standing, wrapping one thick arm around Atlas’ finger and squinting out into the night, swaying slightly up-and-down with the motion of his hand. Caelum follows behind the three of you, heard only in the steps that sound almost like human ones from your new height, crunching over the dry dirt.
“… who else is here?” You ask Beech once the silence becomes too much to bear. Your heart sinks at the thought of facing a crowd of people tonight, dirty and battered and tiny as you are. “How many other humans?”
“There’s me, another permanent resident called Mouse, and a temporary stay named Oxbow, if you include yourself, there’s four humans.” Beech pauses, scratching the back of his neck. “Or… five, I suppose, Oxbow is pregnant.”
“Oh.” Your nerves swing in another direction. Why so few people? “Were there others here before? What happened to them?”
“Most choose not ‘t stay here long. We found ‘em all someplace safe, and we’ll do the same for you.” The ride continues on, the ground rushing underneath you like a lightless ocean as you approach a tent in the center of the camp.
“Why did Mouse and Oxbow stay?”
“Oxbow was separated from her caravan an’ chose to wait out her pregnancy here, and Mouse is… Mouse.”
“Hm.”
The passing world slows and stops in front of the tent, lit warmly from within.
“We’ve arrived.” Atlas rumbles softly, vibrating through the bones you sit upon. You are here, your only source of shelter. Your only chance at continued survival and what could be a prison that you never walk out of. Atlas doesn't move and Beech doesn't speak, but you can feel both of their eyes on you.
“What’s in there?” You ask, your voice is hushed below the giant’s hearing.
“’s where they keep the human apartments. Difficult to describe, if you’ve never seen it,” Beech hums, scratching his beard. “It’s not like the transport container you came in on, if yer worried about that. We all got our own place ‘t sleep… there’s a kitchen and a pantry, we even got a walking trail with plants and runnin’ water. ‘s nicer than a lot of places I’ve lived, really.”
You stare at the mountainous tent, wind ruffling your hair and chilling you against the heat of Atlas’ hand. Neither men move, giving you a moment to breathe. Your eyes catch Caelum’s, whom you had nearly forgotten, standing shadowed behind Atlas, his miserable gaze reflecting yours.
“Promise me I won't be here forever,” you plead to Beech. “Tell me that if they do something to me… if they try to- to- you’ll-“
“I will not let them hurt you,” A hand- a human hand, settles heavy on your shoulder, silencing your begging. You shudder and reach up to clutch Beech’s wrist- his pulse is warm and steady under your fingers. He doesn't show an ounce of fear, surefooted on this swaying hand, 100 feet into the air. That trust must mean something, if Beech is still here to give it.
‘How could you stop them?’ You can’t ask it, not while sitting in a human hand spread out in dizzying perspective. You shake your head instead, a hot tear dripping from your nose. You sigh and swallow, you let go of Beech to swipe your hands through your hair.
“Alright.” you rasp, regaining hold of Atlas’ thumb. You say no more, and it is silent, but Beech must give the giant some sort of signal, because the three of you move smoothly forward. The hand not holding you lifts up, slow in its enormity, and opens the tent with a sharp, metallic sound, letting the warm light from inside the tent spill out onto you. Beech stays beside you as you move inside, bracing himself on your shoulder against the gentle sway. Atlas ducks through the entrance, into stiller, warmer air. You blink in the new light and feel your eyes fix on a warmly glowing lantern on a far shelf. If you were standing beside it you doubt you’d be able to tell what it was, it would just look like eccentric architecture- like a lighthouse in a dream. From so high up, it is not as difficult to determine your surroundings. You cast your eyes around the tent as Atlas walks further into the space, followed by Caelum, who wordlessly closes the tent behind him with another metallic sound. Beech nudges your shoulder and nods toward one wall of the tent, where stands a table that, to a giant, would be waist high. To you, it is a massive plateau, and atop it are houses, small and square and colorful, surrounding a copse of trees that jut up out of the table around a stone fountain, all enclosed by a fine mesh wall. Your eyes catch on the garish yellow slides that spill out from the sides of the table, heading to the floor, where there are two other buildings, larger than the little cabins,still dwarfed by the high ceiling of the table. The lodgings are far more generous than you’d been picturing, sure, but the idyllic nature of the settlement clashes with your unshakeable awareness of the cavernous, inescapable tent that surrounds you.
“My stomach hurts,” you mutter to Beech, scrubbing your hands over your eyes and relishing in the momentary reprieve from all this unnatural light. Beech’s broad hand rubs your shoulder, and you gaze blearily up at him.
“Things’ll look different in the mornin’,” He sounds so sure of what he tells you. His certainty is one that comes with wisdom, with long, hard years lived alone. Maybe he was where you are, once, when he was your age. When he was first taken by them maybe he spit and fought and gave everything he had- maybe he gave more than you. But he is still here. “You’ll see.”
“If you say so,” you sigh as Beech’s hand slips from your shoulder. “...I’m ready now.”
