Location: Haledon, outside the House of Sienna
Characters: Countess Olivia, Kadaj
Time: Day 4 - 8:05 PM
Countess Olivia stepped down from the carriage and stood before the great House of Sienna. “We are home, Kadaj…”
“Yes, M’lady,” he said, perched high on the ruby tiara in her hair. “We are.”
“It feels wonderful. I do so tire of riding in cages on wheels. Who needs to move faster than by the legs we were given?”
“I do not know, but it seems we live in a hurried world.”
“A world where we don’t even watch were we step,” she said, steering around a muddy puddle in the ground.
“A world where no one cares… Except for you, Miss Olivia.”
“Hm?”
“How can I put this…? You still look for the moon. It comes out every night like clockwork and everyone knows it’s there. They pass by underneath it without even thinking to look up. But you do. You see the things that others take for granted. You care when others don’t.” He paused to check for the moon, which was burning like a candlestick in the sky. “You were always there for me. When I thought the world would crush me, when I thought all hope had faded in the darkness… You came. You rescued me from my darkest hour, and you brought to me a new life… One that no Man has ever dreamed of living. Miss Olivia, I am your moon.”
Olivia slowly walked up the steps of the royal house, being careful not to step too hard or shake too much for fear of Kadaj falling from her hair. “And like the moon, you are always with me, always right over my head if I should need a light. You have saved me from my own darkness, Kadaj. I used to think these nights would never end.”
“We don’t have to let them.”
“And what we would do?”
“We could run away,” he said as they neared the giant doors.
“And where would we run?”
“To the ends of the earth.”
“And do what?”
“And jump off into space. Because where the oceans end, where the land breaks away, I have heard there were waterfalls that poured into space. And we could jump into them and maybe we would land on the moon and we could follow this earth forever, never having to be a part of it again.”
Olivia smiled. “You are a lot more romantic than I remembered.”
“I just don’t want to be a part of this world…if I’m not a part of you…”
“We will always be a part.”
“Apart, Miss Olivia. Apart… I fear, someday, you might forget what it means to be good and pure. I fear, sometimes, you might forget me and how much you mean to me.”
“How much?”
“How much what?”
“How much do I mean to you?”
“The world. You know that.”
“…And that’s why I like to think the world is round, like a heart. I like to believe that everything is connected and in harmony, that life always begins somewhere else.”
“Then why don’t we run away? We don’t have to be a part of this, you know. The war between Women and Men… We can run away from it all. We can go somewhere where people will accept us. There has to be another place where a Man and a Woman can be friends.”
“I like to think so.”
“Then how about tonight? We can go now. We don’t have to tell anybody or pack anything. We can just go. You and me. We can be lost before the dawn.”
“My, Kadaj, you certainly have changed in one day. At this moon’s hour yesterday, you were asking me to go to bed. Now you’re offering me the chance to run away. Why the sudden change of heart?”
“…It is that Sir Mundo of the Gallahorn Clan. I saw the way he looked at you. Just like the others, Miss Olivia, he is jealous of us.”
“He was not so jealous. He simply wanted to live, like you and me. What would you have me to do, Kadaj?”
“You could’ve crushed him! With your thumb, you could’ve silenced the fool once and for all.”
“Yes, I suppose I could have.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“You of all people should know the answer to that.”
Kadaj looked down. “…It is a bit hypocritical, I know.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I just find it so hard sometimes… I don’t know what I’m feeling.”
“Perhaps jealously?” Olivia smirked.
“…Perhaps. You’ve been so very good to me. I’d hate to see…your light shine on someone else.”
“Sir Mundo is a good person. The Gallahorn Clan has done a lot of wonderful things for the people of the world.”
“I’ve never even heard of the Gallahorn Clan.”
“Neither have I, but it must exist. And I bet it’s full of strong, courageous Men like you.”
“As strong and courageous as me? I think not! …Perhaps half.”
Olivia laughed and reached for the doorknocker. “You are a Man among Men, little Kadaj. I’m glad I found you.”
“As am I, Miss Olivia… If not for you, I don’t know where I’d be now. Probably living off the streets, ducking feet by day and eating garbage by night. That’s no way to live.”
“No, but a lot of Men do.”
“I’m glad I’m not one of them.”
“You were once, weren’t you?”
“Before you found me, yes. The living conditions in Penee are sad. I came over to Ellewyn to find work, to help support my family, but I didn’t realize how truly worthless we are to Women… Most Women, that is.”
“I see.”
“The first job I got was cleaning the feet of servant girls. You couldn’t imagine how degrading that was, Miss Olivia. To have to service the lower class… It was disgusting.” He paused and then nodded numbly. “But that’s how I learned my place in the world.”
“But you’ve risen up since.”
“Only because of you, Miss Olivia. You saw me as more than a servant. You saw me as…as a fellow human being, in a way that nobody has looked at me. And for that, I am eternally grateful.”
“Just don’t start cleaning my feet.”
“Your wish is my command,” he smiled.
Olivia smiled, too, and let her fingers fall from the doorknocker. “If we ran, if we could get far enough away, that would all disappear. We could wash our hands clean of the blood of our ancestors. We could live happy. But it wouldn’t stop the plight we have here…”
“What plight? If we got away, we wouldn’t have to care…”
“But there are others, Kadaj.”
“We don’t have to care about them! Let them die. When your cousin takes the throne, Men are doomed anyway. We don’t have to watch the sky fall.”
But Olivia just smiled again and knocked on the door. “I’m sorry, Kadaj. I’m just not ready for the other world…”
Giantess World
