Damsels

An inviting warm beam pierces through the singular narrow window of the dreary concrete cell, disturbing the peaceful slumber of the inhabitant. Two long legs swing over the edge of the foam mattress and gnarled feet stomp onto the floor with enough force to make the small beam dance against the slate wall. A woman unfurls from her coiled position in the corner stretching her arms over her head. Her fists scrape against the unfinished ceiling causing debris to crumble over her matted brown hair. After extending and cracking her lengthy spine, she slumps over and hugs her growling stomach.

“It must be winter” She thinks to herself “It’s too early for my meal.” She makes one stride across her cell but it feels like it takes ages to make it to the other side. The tall hungry woman scratches her head and shakes it free of debris. Using one long pointed nail, the prisoner scratches a white mark on the wall next to where the light beam began to climb. Disappointed, she shrugs her shoulders and drags her feet back to her bed. She curls her knees into her chest as she sits teetering on the edge of her bed. Her big green eyes feel heavy from her unexpected awakening. Her head bobs back and forth as she fights the sleepy feeling creeping up on her. Her body tilts a little to the left and she shakes herself awake as she feels the weight of her head bringing her down, remembering the last time she fell, the commotion that followed and the trouble she provoked.

The fiercely large woman gives way to her exhaustion and falls onto her back, legs still dangling over the side of the bed. The jarring echo of the clanking chains lowering in the hallway snatches her from sinking into a deep sleep. “They lowered the gate, must be feeding time.” Half annoyed, half relieved, the prisoner again lifts her body into a sitting position at the edge of her bed.

“ELEANOR, “ The echoing voice of a guard booms, “ MEAL TIME.” The flaps of a small entry at the front of her cell fling open and a long metal stick shoves a burlap sack quickly into her cell. Equally as fast, the stick retracts and the flaps slam shut. The potato sack was riddled with blood stains, and the odor it emitted made Eleanor flinch.

“Am I to be so lucky with every meal?” She whispers in dismay. She extends the hand with the long finger nail and uses her talon to rip open the sack. “May as well see if anything appetizing may come of this.” She seizes in horror as the sack busts open and the contents fall out on the cell floor.

Eleanor had never seen such a delicate creature before. In a panic, she scoops up the limp body and places the fragile frame of an injured fawn down on her foam mattress. “Surely, they believed this creature was dead before sentencing her to my meal.” The hopeful Eleanor concedes to the idea of folly as she sits in the corner of her cell. She had never given any reason for anyone to think she could be capable of harm. She was a young girl living peacefully with her family in her village. When she was captured in the Army’s siege of their land, Eleanor was 10. Only able to muster up the horrific torture she endured in her early years when she was first imprisoned. “Surely any creature would buck back when they are threatened, but that doesnt make me a savage.”

Eleanor gazes over to the wall where she has etched the passing 15 years attempting to conjure any memory that would lead them to believe she was such a monster. Her people were peaceful. Her colony had only recently settled into the Emerald Valley after centuries of being nomads. Her father was a blacksmith who laid down his sword and shield on the edge of the rich green marsh and declared Emerald Valley the land of the giant folk.

From that day forward, he almost exclusively made beautiful ornate horseshoes for each of the original families. Mounted over their hearth, Eleanor’s family sigil was a celtic knotted horseshoe with abalone inlay. As the sun crossed over the valleys, the rays would catch on the abalone. Her father concocted a story about how the glimmering abalone was actually fairy-folk looking after her and how she could only see them dance in the sunlight.

Her neck is hot as the anger creeps up her spine. Despite her efforts to subdue her rage, Eleanor smashes her fist into the floor causing a hairline crack up the side of her prison cell. The room quakes disturbing the injured deer bleating in pain on the bed. Eleanor fights back the pool of water swelling in her eyes and straightens her back, using her thumb, she leans over to examine the pitiful creature in agony. The first stroke Eleanor made down the fawn’s rib cage causes the creature to flinch and twist their body in pain. The fawn’s beady black eyes gaze into the green and amber depths of Eleanor, pleading for mercy. With her heart heavy, and stomach growling, Eleanor accepts the fate of the deer, putting pressure on the fawn's chest until she can feel the breathing stop. Eleanor rationalized that letting the animal die in vain would be more selfish than consuming her. To honor the fawn, Eleanor delicately removes her venison from hide and bones. She places the remnants to dry in her cell window using them to fabricate a warm blanket and the bones to make various combs and needles for sewing. Most importantly, across from her window where the light dances up the wall, she mounts the fawn's skull as a reminder of the true monsters in her world.

Eleanor can’t be sure how much time passes from her last meal, but she is aware of the warmth growing in the corner of her room where the beam of light glows brighter.

“Spring?” She wonders as she extends her hand across the cell to feel the warmth of the sun. The clanking of heavy chains yanks her from her trance and the bellowing voices of the guards bounce down the corridor, “ELEANOR, MEAL TIME.” Once again, Eleanor patiently sits at the edge of her bed, as her meal is violently shoved into her room with a stick, dismissively rolling her eyes as the stick is violently pulled back out. “Cowards.” She chuckles.

Eleanor reaches her hand toward the shrewdly patched sack, her finger ready to pierce it open, when she realizes that the sack is pristine: No blood, no odor, just many pointed angles jutting against the seams. The sack jerks and a wail of agony causes Eleanor to pause. As she delicately opens the sack she reveals a bruised and bloody guard or at least someone dressed as a guard.

Eleanor quickly places the soldier on her bed, frantic to identify any injuries. Her green eyes widen as the skull of the fawn creeps into her peripheral.She angrily swings back to the injured soldier fully intent on crushing their skull, refraining from her actions at the sound of a wet cough and the wheezing breath of her victim. “They intend for me to kill you.” She anguishes as she leans over to inspect the body.

Eleanor’s compassion triumphs her doubts and she begins tending to what look like surface wounds. While her guest had incurred many lesions and was riddled with purplish bumps and yellow bruises, there was no sign of fatality. Although she experienced a brief sense of relief her mind swelled with agony and panic. Eleanor concluded in her present predicament there was no sense in being blinded by hysterics. She could only be in the present and deal with what was in front of her right now, an injured soldier sentenced to Death by Giant.

A few sleepless nights pass as Eleanor stands vigilant over the guard. Each night, feeding water to the limp body, and singing the handful of lovely songs she learned as a child. The errant groan or whimper would easily disturb her many attempts at sleep.

One morning, she is pleasantly woken from a deep slumber by the dancing of the warm beam of sunlight from her window. In a fluster, Eleanor immediately checks on her patient, fearful that something terrible may have happened while she slept. Standing paralyzed on Eleanors mattress, a distressed young woman with short wispy black hair slowly backs into a corner in terror. Eleanor extends her hand to the trembling character and gently smiles. “You’re awake, and you're a girl.” The confused Eleanor curls her fingers back into her palm when she realizes her visitor has not yet accepted her pleasantries as a sign of peace.

“You’re the giant.” The young scamp drops her guard as she slowly approaches Eleanor, unaware of the acute hearing capabilities giants possess.

“I am A giant.” Eleanor corrected, clearly offended. “I’m Eleanor, I didn’t know they let girls be soldiers.”

“Well, they don’t. I’m Victoria, I believe you are supposed to have eaten me.”

“Because I’m a monster?” Eleanor’s demeanor quickly shifts in defense of herself and away from any concern she had for her prisoner.

“No. It’s just what they said would happen when they caught me. I’m not a soldier Eleanor. I’m from your village. Well, sort of. I am from where your village used to be.” Victoria shies away from her words as they leave her mouth. “We want to free you Eleanor. We can’t return you to your people, but we can at least return you to your land.”

Victoria proceeds to elaborate on how they found the fragments of horseshoes with ornate jewels and iron work. Victoria’s father remembered the friendly giants and how Eleanor’s father specifically made many contributions to their neighboring village. Victoria recalls seeing horses bigger than castles trotting down into her village from the mountains and how the clip and clop was accompanied by the glimmering light from the bejeweled horseshoes.

“I volunteered to help you escape. I infiltrated the academy when I was younger, but as Victor, several of us did. However, I am the only one left. I managed to keep my identity hidden for so many years and only recently was I discovered. They didn’t want the blood of a woman’s death on their hands, but I believe it was because they didn’t want the embarrassment of a woman infiltrating their military for 6 years. They savagely beat me with their batons and in my disoriented state, I heard their plan to bring me to you as your meal and declare to the villagers that you ate those who came to free you.”

“Why do they make me out to be such an ogre? I’m strong, but I’m not violent. They burned my village to the ground. They killed my family and my neighbors. Now they want to strip what little humanity I retain despite the cruelty I have endured.” Eleanor somberly hangs her head. “When is enough enough?”

Victoria reacheds to console Eleanor but the skull of the fawn mounted on Eleanor’s wall startled her. “You ate the deer?”

“Yes. I ate the deer. The poor creature was in misery. I wasn’t going to just let her suffer. I also felt the smell of a rotting corpse would be off putting in such small quarters. I hung that in her honor. I made combs and knitting needles from her bones, and the blanket that kept you from freezing to death is her pelt. Did they intend for me to kill her?”

Victoria solemnly nods her head yes. “Just to see if you would do it. If you were hungry enough would you kill for your meal?” Her beady black eyes gaze up to meet the warmth of green and amber pools of Eleanors’. “They want you to be the monster they keep in their pocket.”

“I’m being trained like a hound?” Eleanor scoffs in disgust. Unable to disguise her rage any longer, Eleanor slams both fists into the floor causing the concrete to billow up in a cloud of dust around her. Victoria stands frozen at the edge of the crater-sized imprints left by the hand gently extended to her only moments before.

“You can break these walls, Eleanor. You are so strong, and it’s okay that you are angry. You can free yourself Eleanor, you have the strength.” Victoria steadys her voice as she races toward Eleanor. “If you prop me up I can find where the walls are weakest and you can punch through them like snow.” Confident in the big voice of her small friend, Eleanor props Victoria up on her shoulders and paces the edges of the room while the small soldier knocks, listening for hollow sound. “Here.” She instructs Eleanor who would then use her talon to mark an X for her target.

The two stand in the beams of sunlight bouncing off the wall. Eleanor tucks Victoria into her long braids and wraps the deer pelt around her to shield her from the dust and debris. Eleanor takes a deep breath and imagines her mother and father as they playfully danced in the valley, and her sisters and brothers frolicking between the mountains. She pulls her arm back, and with ease and grace, obliterates her first target. Continuing to conjure images of her happy life before her capture, Eleanor delivers another blow dead center of her second target. She hears the panicked pitter patter of the soldiers sounding alarms as she blasts through her third target with some peril to her long fingernail. Through her blows, she sees the small dots of black and red scurry to draw the gates to the arsenal. Men are frantically shoving each other off the bridge as they clamor to safety. She aims at her final target and with the swift upward motion of her fist, the entire cement wall collapses at her feet with clouds of dust caking her body.

Eleanor steps out of the rubbish and on to the fresh river bank, wiggling her mangled toes in the running water, washing them free of the chalky dust. She takes another step and firmly places both feet into the muddy floor of the river. With her hair tucked tightly on top of her head to keep Victoria guarded, she submerges into the water and traverses downstream toward the village.

The villagers gather around the marshes as they hear the disturbances unfold up in the hills from the armory. They all halt and stand in reverence when Eleanor’s green eyes surface from under what they thought was a garbled mess of moss and tree branches. The collective gasp alerts Victoria of their safe arrival and she pops out of the tangled nest of Eleanor's hair. The auspicious crowd parts as the two heroes make their way to land.. Two small children race up to the giant’s feet, blissfully unaware of any perile. “Victoria!” They both scream “You did it Victoria, you saved her!” they gleefully continue.

Eleanor gently lowers Victoria to the ground to greet her siblings for the first time in 6 years. The children were just born when Victoria set off on her journey, only being told stories of their brave sister and how one day she will return home on the shoulders of a giant.

Eleanor wishes she had the clamoring affections of her friends and neighbors to welcome her home. Although she is happy she has escaped, her homecoming is bittersweet. She slinks off into the forest surrounding the river as Victoria is being lauded by her community. Basking in the excitement of her escape wasn’t enough to erase the longing of a hug or friendly smile. The sun begins it’s dance behind the mountains and the trees as the sleepy Eleanor posts up against the trunk of a particularly large pine just as a family of deer trotts across her path. As she looks past where the deer crossed, she notices an unusually large imprint in the mud. At first it looks like a crater, but Eleanor is elated when she sees it’s the imprint of a horseshoe.