Chapter 2: No Idle Threat.
Gwendoline looked at the crowd of villagers all around her. To her right they were laughing, sharing jokes and wild conversation between each other, patting one another on the back or punching each other jokingly on the arm before continuing to laugh heartily. She grimaced at the display of peasants rough-housing and general rowdiness, she thought the vulgar display of uncouth behaviour distasteful and turned away from the scene to another part of the crowd.
To her left a group were stood silent except for a few murmurs of conversation. They barely spoke above a nervous whisper as they watched something Gwendoline couldn't see over the crowd. They had their backs turned to her and she heard a few whispers of the name 'Goldilocks'. Gwendoline's temper began to run short with this rabble of villagers and she decided to try announcing herself to the group to deliver a stern lesson to this awful lot about the proper way to act around, and address a member of the Royal family.
Gwendoline cleared her throat in as lady-like a manner as she could muster whilst still sounding forceful. The crowd ignored her, or perhaps didn't hear her, so she composed herself and stood to the fullest height she could manage before this time making a coughing noise that was clearly both loud and deliberate. Again she was ignored only this time she heard a voice cut above the whispers of the crowd
“That goldilocks is such a brat, her father should really give her a good dose of hard discipline.”
Gwendoline forgot all sense of posture and discipline. She felt like she had just been punched in the stomach as her body physically deflated and her jaw hung slack with disbelief as the disparaging comments continued
“Its not the King's fault, he has enough on his hands without having to deal with her, that Goldilocks 'as gotta mean streak in'er.” Came a second voice
Gwendoline was shaking with anger, her fists clenched at her sides and her eyes were wide and wet with tears of frustration. Her small chest heaved with the laboured heavy breaths she was having to take in order to help fight down her compulsion to simply burst into tears. Her voice cracked with emotion as she began to speak.
“Don't... Call... Me.... GOLDILOCKS!!” Gwendoline's voice rang loud and shrill as she screamed the name only her father was allowed to use for her.
Her outburst barely seemed to register on the crowd around her but they all fell silent and still, simply staring ahead of them, until with a slight almost accidental lurch they all turned slowly as one to face her. Each of them simply standing, like puppets with no tension on their strings and no individuality. Their faces were blurred as though Gwendoline were still seeing them through tears, like they were all simply slight variations of the same person with deep set eyes almost like empty dark holes and grim, unfeeling expressions to their black-lipped mouths.
Gwendoline felt incredibly self-conscious all of a sudden and took a nervous step backwards. She tried to hold their gaze, hold her head up high, but those blank, cold, dark eyes bore into her and she felt herself tremble like she was out in the cold without her cloak. The sunlight began to fade and it seemed as if a heavy cloud must have passed in front of the sun as everything around Gwendoline grew dimmer, but as she looked down at the ground around her she realised the shadow was only cast over the spot where she was standing and upon looking back up at the villagers she saw that they still stood in bright sunlight. She raised her head still further, still trembling with a bone-shaking fear as she looked up, afraid of what she might see. Her eyes grew wide at the sight which met her gaze and her mouth hung open in horror.
Coming towards Gwendoline was the mud-stained leather sole of a gigantic boot which blocked her view of the sky above, for a moment she remained still, too scared to think clearly until the first grains and bits of soil fell loose from the boots' sole to tumble onto her pristine porcelain skin. The cold touch of the dirt hitting her, tumbling down her face and body like the icy fingers of death, forced her back to reality and suddenly the need to escape overtook her every thought. She turned to run but as she took her first step her legs felt like lead, stiff and heavy, the ground seemed to have turned to thick cloying mud and was trying to suck her down.
On and on Gwendoline laboured as she tried to run through the thick gooey ground, making no progress as she began to hear the haunting echoing laughter of the crowd around her. She turned to look behind her and saw the boot coming ever closer until it touched her back and began to press down. Gwendoline screamed out and reached for the crowd searching for anyone that might help her but no-one moved, no-one came to help, there was simply the constant haunting laughter that rand out around her as she reached to one person then another. The boot pressed further and she found herself falling to her knees and crawling like a terrified child for her life, but now her hands and legs moved like they were swamped in sucking mud and still she made no progress, and still the boot came down.
Finally Gwendoline was reduced to lying flat on her front in the sticky dirt, the whole of her body was being pressed and smothered beneath the thick leather of the boot's sole. She reached out flailing her hands trying to find anything to drag herself free but still the boot pressed down and still the laughter echoed around her until the last sight that met her eyes came through an opening in the crowd as she witnessed the giant boy from the village, playing with her beautiful necklace, he wasn't even paying her any attention, simply playing happily with HER necklace, completely oblivious to her suffering.
Finally she was pressed fully into the mud, her terror mixing with her hatred for the boy, for a brief moment as the light dimmed beneath the huge boot she thought to herself;
“I hate him, I hate that stupid oaf! I HATE HIM!”
Then, with the last slivers of daylight fading to total chilling blackness the cracks began to ring through her body. Her limbs popped and snapped and still the terrible boot came down, her spine collapsed followed quickly by her ribs rupturing sideways, her hips collapsing and her insides being pounded flat. Gwendoline tried to scream out with pain as her head was buried deep into the dirt but the mud simply flooded into her open mouth, muffling her cries. The boot pressed her crushed insides up her body like a tube of meat being squeezed out when finally her head couldn't take any more pressure and gave out under the heavy boot with a skull-splitting, wet *SCRUNCH*
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Gwendoline awoke kicking and fighting under her heavy blankets, part of her thick soft pillow had become lodged in her mouth and she was struggling furiously amongst the tangle of sheets that had wrapped themselves around her legs. She threw back the covers and sat herself upright, panting hard as her skin glistened with sweat. Slowly her heart began to ease its wild hammering in her chest and her eyes adjusted to the bright morning sunshine that streamed through her windows, Gwendoline calmed her breathing and began to recognise the reality of being safely back in her own bedroom.
Shuffling to the edge of her wide bed she swung her legs out over the side, placing her feet on the fur rug which stretched out across the floor. Her toes took a moment to flex and wriggle in the warm fur pile before she reached for her night stand to collect her large hair brush. Gwendoline was over the initial shock of adrenaline induced by such a terrifying nightmare but her hands still trembled slightly as the events of her dream replayed in her mind. She used her palms to try to wipe the images and sleep out of her eyes before she pulled her luxurious golden curls lazily over one shoulder and started to work the morning knots out of her hair.
The dream continued to haunt Gwendoline even as her servants dressed her and she made her way to breakfast. She entered one of the more informal dining rooms in her father's castle, a small room compared to the other grander feasting halls tiny compared to her Father's main hall. Now the scuffling and dashing of servants were barely a distraction as they hurried to lay her a place at the heavy oak table she had decided to take breakfast at. They had just barely got the table set in time for her appearing, some of them looking visibly flushed and out of breath from the commotion, a few worried looks and crossed silently from face to face as Gwendoline sat down.
As the girl began her morning meal she half-heartedly picked at the various dishes in front of her. Normally the spread of soft cheeses, fruit, warm breads, honeyed meats, grape juice and her favourite herbal tea would be something to cheer her up and prepare her for the day ahead, but this morning as she reached for a warm bread roll she couldn't help but imagine that the beautiful blue sapphire necklace her maids had adorned her with today felt colder and heavier than the emerald one she normally wore. As she picked up her butter knife and split her roll she paused for a moment, her eyes scanning the table as though she had lost something.
“Where is the-..” Gwendoline began, a stormy look beginning to brew across her face before a door to the side of the room burst open.
A young maid rushed in then stopped all of a sudden, spotting Gwendoline sat at the table already. She went pale with fear and stood as calm and straight as possible, a butter dish rattling noisily in the silence of the room as she approached the table and laid it to the right of the place setting, lifting the lid off and bowing deeply before the Princess.
“I'm sorry, mi'Lady, I wasn't aware you would be dining in this room this morning.” The girl said, shakily.
Gwendoline looked the maid up and down, a pouting look on her red lips displaying her disapproval of the woman. Even before she spoke the other maids were standing nervously awaiting what might happen to the relatively new servant. The Princess set her knife down and took a breath.
“Do you think it appropriate to make such a commotion at this time in the morning? Not only forgetting your job, but apparently forgetting your place! Crashing through doors and having the audacity to address the King's daughter without being asked? Gwendoline said with an edge to her voice as hard as steel.
The maid looked horrified and tried to form an excuse, stammering and falling over her own words as she looked to the other maids for help, her eyes pleading for help but only catching sight of one of the older maids giving a slight shake of her head and putting a finger to her lips to signal the woman simply be quiet.
“I...I... I'm Sorry, mi'Lady, it won't happen again.” She finally got out before again bowing deeply, keeping her head bowed even after she had stood upright again.
“See that it doesn't, or I'll have you beaten by my Father's guards until you learn not to use your mouth at all. Now get out, you're upsetting my meal.” Gwendoline waved the back of her hand at her servant and turned back to her breakfast.
The maid bowed once more and left the room in as quiet a manner as she could manage. The Princess continued with her breakfast, but in truth her heart was neither with her food nor with the thoughts of punishing the maid who had interrupted it. She still had the images of her dream playing through her mind, the faceless crowd ignoring her, the echoing laughter, the boy... that boot... the mud swallowing her, the pain of....
“Mi'Lady... Is everything ok with your meal?” The head maid ventured as she watched the girl simply gazing into the distance, the butter knife gripped so hard in her hand that her knuckles had begun to turn white.
Gwendoline snapped out of her thoughts and turned to the maid, it took her a moment to realise why the maid was staring at her but she shook off the confusion, placing the knife down quickly and once again rubbing at her eyes with her palms to try and shake the images.
“Yes, yes. Everything is fine.” She said, trying to regain her composure as she stood and placed her napkin on her plate to indicate she was finished eating. “You may clean up.”
Moving swiftly, Gwendoline had decided on what she felt needed to be done. She had hurried back to her room and picked out a long green riding cloak and a good pair of boots, then snuck out towards the small gate she knew lay unguarded at the rear of the castle. After struggling with the heavy locking bar for a moment she slipped through and towards the stables, taking one of the prepared horses and riding out for the woods. She knew her father's lands well and she knew what grounds the Bear family tended so she believed it wouldn't be too long until she found the Giant's house.
It took Gwendoline longer than she thought to finally reach what seemed to be a large dirt road compared to the average footpath within the forest, so she followed the track believing she was finally on the right trail. Coming around a large raised outcrop of rock Gwendoline finally found a huge wood and stone cabin nestled within what looked like a heavily forested stone quarry. The house was stunning at first, like something Gwendoline had only fantasised about from stories told around the fireplace at night. Built from whole trees and huge lumps of rough-hewn stone even the strongest of her Father's knights couldn't work together to lift.
The makeshift shack stood around 40 feet in height and stretched to 60 feet wide, then back another 50 feet before seeming to disappear into the tree-laden cliff face. Gwendoline marvelled at the structure as she rode slowly towards it until she could hear a soft deep humming sound echoing from inside. Her horse gave a snort and stopped dead, bobbing its head fiercely up and down and stamping its hoof. Gwendoline struggled to keep the horse under control, digging her knees into its flank to try and steer the horse further towards the house but it simply gave a long whinny and spun on the spot, refusing to go any further. With an exhausted huff Gwendoline gave up and dismounted, tying the animal to a tree and proceeding on foot, a little more cautious, more timid now that she was seeing the area from her normal, shorter height.
The closer she got the more Gwendoline seemed to forget her noble appearance and the lower to the ground she crept, her head darted from side to side with every sound she heard. She felt like a mouse sneaking up to the house to steal a scrap of bread, desperate not to get caught but drawn ever closer by her hunger. She came to the door of the cabin, it seemed as though it were made of a section of timber palisade, the tall wooden walls built to protect whole towns from attack, and the deep soft humming came from just the other side of the formidable barrier. As Gwendoline gazed about her in wonder a sudden series of deep rumbling thuds shook her back to her senses, she began to shiver uncontrollably, images of her dream flashing through her mind.
While Gwendoline had been marvelling at the size of the house, the humming had stopped and someone much bigger than her was heading towards the door from inside. The princess wanted to run, her instincts screamed at her to hide, but her pride and more importantly her sense of retribution demanded that she stand her ground. The giant wooden blockade that was the front door swung open with as much ease as hay being swept aside by a breeze and a great gaping hole opened in the front of the house. There, filling the hole as quickly as it had been opened, emerged the enormous figure of a Giantess who strode forwards at a frightening speed.
The Giantess was clothed in a long green dress which, although it had needed to be patched together out of large sheets of green cloth, had been done tastefully so the patchwork was barely visible. The hem of the dress came to just below the huge woman's knees, which Gwendoline noticed was still just above the height of her own entire body. As the princess craned her neck up her mouth hung open with a mix of shock, awe and fear, the deep-cut chest line was being forced open by an impressive cleavage and the three-quarter-length sleeves had a lovely draping lacy cuff to them, but what truly caught the small girl's breath were the woman's eyes.
The giantess had almost glowing green eyes, the emerald sparkle visible even from Gwendoline's perspective and the shine as she stepped into the sunlight only enhanced their beauty, but another deep rumble which shook the ground beneath the girl's feet brought her out of her trance. The Giantess was still moving, and coming her way! Her eyes locked onto the thick brown leather mules that adorned the giantess's otherwise bare feet as another step lightly shook the ground and the back foot came rushing forwards right towards Gwendoline.
The foot was just about to swing right into the comparatively tiny girl's body when she gave a terrified scream, half turning and dropping to her knees, her arms up over her head to shelter her from being trampled unknowingly by this goddess of a woman. From high above there was a second short, startled scream like that of a woman just noticing a bug at her feet, followed immediately by several heavy booming steps that seemed to fall rapidly all around the terrified princess as the giantess scrambled to avoid crushing the tiny girl underfoot. There was a brief silence as the ground stopped shaking and the dust settled before a voice spoke out, loud but soft, almost hypnotic in its sweet husky tone.
“Oh my! A human! What on earth are you doing down there little one?” Came the voice as it washed over Gwendoline. The giantess sounded surprised, but also lightly amused.
The princess took a moment as the words sunk into her mind, her senses were so awash with confusion, fear and adrenaline that she couldn't think straight. She slowly lowered her hands from over the top of her head and looked up to where the voice had come from, seeing that the giantess was bent over her looking down on her little body as she still huddled down on her knees on the ground. There was a small smirk on the giantess's pretty red lips and her stance allowed the thick braided rope of fiery auburn hair, as wide as Gwendoline's body, to hang down over her shoulder almost reaching next to her on the ground.
Gwendoline stood slowly, turning to face the woman who in turn stood back to her full height, still keeping her almost supernatural sparkling eyes on the princess. She managed to tear her gaze away from the giant woman for a moment and noticed the dusty patches on the front of her own pretty pale blue dress, quickly reaching down to swipe away the dirt and straighten her clothes back out before pushing the hood back on her riding cloak to reveal her abundance of flowing blond curls. Raising herself to as straight and tall a posture as she could Gwendoline took a deep breath and once more looked up to the giantess who still watched her with an amused expression.
“You...” She started, but her voice wavered still with uncertainty “You nearly stepped on me, Giant! You should be more careful!” She called up to the huge woman.
The giantess's eyebrows rose slightly and the smirk widened, but she showed no other signs of a reaction to the girl's words.
“Perhaps, little one, it would pay you not to stand on the other side of a Giant's door without making yourself known?” She retorted with the slightest hint of a sarcastic tone, as though she were speaking to a small child in a motherly voice.
Gwendoline bristled at this, she had never been spoken to in such an informal manner, not even by her own mother, and she certainly wasn't about to start being talked down to by a peasant woman, even one as big as this, she was after-all still her Father's daughter!
“Do you not know who I am? I am the Princess of this land! I may go wherever I please!” Gwendoline shouted up impetuously, stomping her foot and balling her hands into fists by her side as she scowled up.
The giantess looked somewhat surprised for a moment but quickly regained her composure, if anything she now displayed a hard, cold expression now that her little guest had revealed her identity. She stared down at the smaller girl for a moment as if analysing and weighing up her words, causing the princess to loose some of her stern demeanour. She faltered a little under the hard gaze as if she expected to see the giantess once more raise her foot and this time finish her off. The woman shifted suddenly and one foot stepped back, Gwendoline flinched, her heart pounding as she expected the worst.
The giantess gave an unexpectedly elaborate curtsey, her hands delicately pulling the sides of her skirt out a little to give the proper respectful gesture as the warm and gentle expression came back to her face.
“Princess Gwendoline,” She said with her head bowed, still in a curtseying posture “I did not recognise you huddled under your cloak, I meant no disrespect. My name is Lady Catalina.” she finished as she stood back up.
Gwendoline was not so ignorant that she missed the thinly veiled jab at her cowardice, but she felt as though she were being tested so she kept her temper in check and took another deep breath to make sure her voice was heard to be firm.
“I believe, Catalina, the to be a 'Lady' of my Father's lands, one must be married to a lord. I didn't know your husband was a Lord, I've never seen him at court? He seems like he would be rather difficult to miss.” the princess said with fake curiosity, trying to appear surprised to hear the details of the conversation, but utterly relishing in the sight of seeing such a huge and powerful creature put into such an uncomfortable, subservient position.
Catalina paused, anger rising in her but it was quickly subdued.
“My husband, Bram, was a Lord in the courts of the Giants, he served the nobles for almost 120 years... Princess.” Catalina said as she spoke Gwendoline's title almost as a deliberate after-thought.
Gwendoline was quick with her confident retort, as though she had foreseen the direction of this conversation already and had carefully planned the outcome.
“The Giant's court was disbanded over 50 years ago now, Catalina, I'm afraid the titles held back then do not carry any weight in the human courts... You Giants may age differently, but it doesn't mean you are above the laws and indeed the social complexities of these lands!” Gwendoline said, taking an obvious posture of triumph from her spiteful response.
Catalina's emerald eyes seemed to blaze for a moment, they shifted from side to side scanning the edge of the woods, looking for what appeared to her to be an obvious trap, but she could see no evidence of it. Nobody else was around. Just a s single horse tethered to a tree further up the track. She looked down at the girl below her, trying to calm the raging storm in her heart, her anger demanding she show this little human creature what the weight of a giantess could do to one so fragile. She took a slow breath before giving a small, accepting nod of her head in a bowing gesture to the Princess.
“You are of course correct, Princess.” Said Catalina struggling to maintain a calm tone “But if I may ask, what has brought you to our humble home?” she finished, the soft lips pulling back into another warm smile.
“Your... Son... Tried to steal my necklace, and broke it when I tried to take it back, I believe you owe me compensation and I want to know how you intend to go about repaying me for it!” Gwendoline said, still standing as tall as she could, but not failing to notice that she still only reached to half way up Catalina's shins.
The smile evaporated form Catalina's face immediately but again she kept her cool despite the fire building inside of her.
“Perhaps you might come inside, Princess, we can discuss this in more comfortable conditions.” Catalina suggested, stepping to the side and making a polite sweeping gesture towards the open door.
Gwendoline nodded her acceptance of Catalina's terms and strode as calmly and quickly as she could into the house. She tried to avoid making the journey awkward because of her comparatively slow ability to cover the distance next to the huge strides of the giantess. Catalina deliberately waited for Gwendoline to step through the doorway first before giving one more thorough check of the forest around them, ensuring that the princess really had come alone before entering the house herself and closing the door.
End of Chapter 2