Yara had been walking through the city streets with no real purpose, but she enjoyed it. It was a day to finally get some rest and relaxation. Being one of the commanding aerial scouts, she was never afforded very many. Her tasks ranged from simple reconnaissance of new areas, searching for bandit camps, or even getting urgent messages between colonies, and they always seemed to come one after the other with no break. This is something I really needed, thought Yara to herself. Despite not doing much she was having a fine time with just walking around taking in the sights and smells of the city, that is until she felt Her come around. 

            The goddess simply known as “The Great One” was standing not far from the gates that separated the city from her domain. She was in full view of Yara, who despite seeing her many times before, was still taken aback from her sheer enormity. Shocks and thuds could be felt rhythmically as the Goddess sauntered around. Yara noticed she was getting closer and closer to the city with each earth shattering step. She saw the foot impact merely a mile away and she and everyone around her was sent tumbling to the ground. Shacks and other less sturdy buildings all collapsed in unison around Yara. She was seemingly a safe distance away from the Great One, but the reaction of even just a simple step caused a staggering amount of chaos where Yara was standing.

            The whole town watched in fear until the Goddess walked away unaware of the damage she caused. On my day off, that bitch… Yara complained in her mind, yet she immediately jumped to action helping whoever she could. It was her job as part of the warrior guild to help whoever needed, whenever she was needed. Luckily the damage seemed to be minimal, just a few people injured by some falling debris. An elderly man had his foot caught under a collapsed wall of bricks.

            “Stay calm, I’ll get this off you,” assured Yara as she ran over to the helpless man. “This might hurt a bit” she cautioned him as she pulled each brick off of his leg. The man winced in pain but the bricks were all removed now. What Yara saw made her wince.

            “This is bad,” the man’s leg was completed shattered and laid limp where it was crushed. Yara helped the man over to the nearest shelter she could find before telling him the bad news.

            “You are probably going to lose the leg, I felt it and there is nothing there. I’m sorry.” The man’s expression was strangely calm; he had a look of bliss on his face.

            “At least I got to see Her.”

            “Yeah… uh… just stay here, help will come.” What the hell?, thought Yara. She could not understand the man’s sentiment. How could anyone be happy to see that big bitch? Yara held no love for the Goddess as a result of the first time she laid eyes on her. She thought of it now, almost ten years ago and she could still vividly recall the day. It was horrible, but she was taken back to it.

            The day started bright as ever, as early morning water was collected from the globules that formed along the grass stalks. Despite the near dust like size of Yara’s people, they were extremely resourceful and efficient builders. Growing up in a colony in the great grass forest as Yara did, one was always met with the different levels of settlement. There were the businesses and trading posts built at the base of the stalks, always bustling with commerce and camaraderie. The next level up the stalks, built into the sturdy bases of the grass, were housing for many people. Ladders and makeshift stairs would allow easy access from the ground up to these abodes. At the highest level near the top of the grass stalks, would be the guard houses. They would remain ever vigilant for any kind of trouble. Within these guard houses there were areas where the flying beasts could be trained for the aerial scouts. Yara remembered always looking up and seeing the scouts going through their drills with the beasts and always had a sense of wonderment and curiosity of how it would be to fly as high as they did. She was not interested in the common womanly activities of the colonies; she always filled her head with the wonders of adventure and peril that those scouts must go through.

            Yara was only fifteen at this time but her control of the Meld was quickly becoming renowned in the settlement. Her parents were less than impressed with their daughters growing abilities, they elected to quell any notion she had of joining the guild of warriors and the aerial scouts. “It was no place for a girl” they would chastise and “You have everything you could ever want here.” True enough, Yara did have everything there. She didn’t want for food or water as it was abundant in the grass forests, and there had been peace for as long as she lived. Nothing had troubled her simple life, but she yearned for the danger and excitement. If she knew how quickly it would find her, perhaps she would have wished for a different life though.

            Yara was making her way around the market at a jovial gait just looking for something to do when she saw him. Before her stood a man renowned for his prowess in battle, perhaps one of the greatest scouts of all time Aaron Kranog. He was a tall man with an athletic muscle build. There was no extra bulk on his body to slow him down; every muscle served its purpose. Hse stared intently at him for quite some time. His piercing eyes seemed almost black under his helm and they peered directly at Yara now.

            “Sweet girl, what is it you require of me?” abruptly inquired Kranog.

            “Nothing ser, just, you don’t see a legend every day.”

            A legend eh?” Kranog’s black eyes seemed almost warm at what Yara had said. “So you know of me. You believe the stories?” Any word of deeds committed spread quickly throughout the markets and streets of the forest colony. Yara had heard of Kranog beating odds of ten to one, fighting waves of enemy by himself and even leading the defense of the marble valley colony. With so many stories at least some had to be true.

            “Yes, I do believe the stories,” assured Yara.

            “I’m surprised a girl like you has heard these stories or even takes an interest in them.” Kranog regarded her, and then simply asked, “You want to be a scout don’t you?”

            Suspiciously, Yara responded, “Yes, but, how did you know?”

            Kranog gave a chuckle, “when you have seen as much as me, you learn a few things. A woman for a scout though, I have only seen a handful of those, they aren’t unheard of, just, very uncommon.” Kranog rose to his full height now, a commanding six foot eight, and put a hand on Yara’s shoulder. “You have a fire in you, girl, You could easily become a scout if you truly wanted to.”

            Yara’s eyes filled with wonder, “Truly? You aren’t just leading me on?” She couldn’t believe it but she thought of her parents. They would immediately shoot down the idea of her training to be a scout, but she was close to being a woman now, she should make her own choices. Still she was somewhat hesitant, “I wish I could take your offer Ser, but, my parents believe it would be ill of me to take a position in the guild. Believe me, I have asked many times.” Yara felt beaten remembering the reality of the situation. Kranog assured her this time would be different though.

            “You have never had a legend come with you to ask, now have you?” He gave a genuine smile and pushed her along, “come now, let’s both ask and see if the answer remains the same.” Yara wondered what this man had seen in her. She dreamt of joining the scouts but how had he known, and what compelled him to take her under his wing.

            They were only halfway to her parent’s house when Yara felt them for the first time in her life. At first a deep rumbling, followed by another and then another. Yara did not know what had caused those but they grew stronger by the second. She was scared but she knew Kranog would protect her. The look on his face shocked her. The legend himself appeared to be unsettled. He muttered to himself, “She is coming.” Who? Yara thought, but she got her answer soon enough.

            They sky was filled with the visage of a beautiful young woman. She was miles away and miles tall, but Yara could see that her toes alone easily dwarfed the structures built in the grass. This being was wearing some strange attire that Yara did not understand nor had ever seen before. It did nothing to conceal her mid section and legs. Only her breasts and nether regions were covered by the materiel. Every step she took, the Goddess not only sent reverberations into the ground but into the great swelling mountains that hung from her. They swayed to and fro, and almost hypnotized Yara. She stood still till she noticed how fast the Goddess was coming upon them. Yara took to running trying to keep balance as each footfall shook the ground beneath her. As she was running she noticed Kranog was missing from her side.

            “C’mon, we have to get out of here,” she pleaded but he was deep in concentration. She picked up her pace again and ran as fast as she could. She had no idea how pointless her efforts were but she ran anyway. She almost twisted her leg being jerked around by the force of the Goddess’ right foot impacting miles behind her. Hundreds of screams were silenced in a split second in that part of the town. Yara had no time to grieve for them though; the sun was being drowned out by this Supreme Being preparing to crush them. Yara continued to run and looked up and saw the island that was the Goddess’ foot moving slowly in the air, hundreds of feet above her. Debris fell from the bottom while it moved forward. Many great pieces crushed buildings and even unlucky people trying to escape a similar outcome from the sole of the Goddess.

            This was it. The end. Yara dropped to her knees and gave a quick prayer for her life and all those around her. She was lucky to not be trampled by the other town’s people running scared. Thousands of people were in the mob trying to escape the Goddess but Yara saw that her luck was still strong somehow. The heel of the gargantuan foot moved past Yara hundreds of feet in front of her, a barely perceptible distance for a being on the goddess’ scale but a life saving measure for Yara.

            She couldn’t close her eyes to the massacre, Yara watched in horror as thousands of people looked up and saw their fait looming above. In those last seconds some screamed, some begged and others simply gave up and threw up their arms hoping to stop Her from crushing all of them. But it went unnoticed by the Goddess. To her this was just a step to get to her desired location. She had no care for what she destroyed. And so, the foot lowered and all the screams were instantly deafened out by the loudest BOOM! That Yara had ever heard. Others her were closer to the impact were sent flying in all directions. Yara’s ears succumbed to a deep piercing noise, she was fortunate to not have permanent ear damage. The ground around the heel of the Goddess began to break and mold in the shape of her foot from the force of her most uncaring step. One above all, please judge all those lost today justly, silently prayed Yara.

            The full weight of the Great One shift to the foot in front of Yara, causing a few more tremors to be felt as she now saw the great sight of the other foot moving forward in the air as chunks of earth and debris fell off it as it made its journey to an impact zone miles away with a distant thud. The tremors returned in front of Yara as the heel began to rise in the air. It was an awful sight. Buildings, earth, the grass itself and even people were stuck to the bottom of the great sole. Yara noticed the corpses of those crushed under the Goddess’ soles, some had fallen to the imprint of the foot left below while others stayed stuck to the bottom of the foot. As the great object finally pushed off the earth it was clear how total the destruction was. Buildings lay crumbled, debris and bodies lay everywhere and even the great grass stalks used to build great structures into were bent and broken and pushed aside by the uncaring step of a Titaness.

            When Yara got up, from her own soreness she walked to the edge of the monumental footprint left by the Great One. She had to strain her eyes to see to the end of it but the picture was the same all around, a complete wasteland. Whatever was under the Goddess was compressed into the ground. Disfigured bodies of the unlucky souls caught underneath lay everywhere. The Goddess was at least kind enough to give them a mass grave. Why? was the only question that came to Yara’s mind. Why so much carnage, why so much destruction? It was some cruel humbling joke to Yara, realizing how small her world was compared to the Great One’s.

            She couldn’t think of that anymore, her mind drifted to other matters, and then she remembered… Her parents! Her mind knew her parents fates were sealed with that great footstep, but her body pushed her to still try and find them. She was about to throw herself in the basin left by the Goddess before Kranog grabbed her and held her back.

            “Let go of me!” she protested kicking, trying to get him to unhand her.

            “It is no use sweet girl, they are gone, I’m sorry.” His grip was tight around her but she was still thrashing about cursing him.

            “You were supposed to protect us! Why did you just stay there? Why? You could’ve stopped her!” Yara knew she sounded like a little girl but she couldn’t help but have this outburst at Kranog. “What were you doing?”

            “I had to warn the other scouts, I am sorry. It is a powerful meld I used and it incapacitated me. As for stopping her you know a well as I there was nothing to be done.”

            “Why would she do it?” asked Yara, not truly wanting to know the answer.

            “I have my doubts she knows what she does, we were simply in her way.” He bowed his head in sorrow at that.

            Yara burst into full tears now; she thrust herself into Kranog’s arm’s seeking some sort of paternal reinforcement from him. “Mom and Dad, gone… Because we were in her way?” She hugged the gruff man closely to her. He tenderly held her there for a time; Kranog was the closest thing to a father Yara had now.

            “You’ll have to come with me now, you know that right?”

            Yara nodded, “Yes, let me be a scout, teach me all you know. Please!”

            Kranog took her hands in his and looked her deep in the eye, “Yara, you are my responsibility now, I am going to teach you all I know but, you have to promise me something.”

            She assented quickly, “I promise whatever it is, I promise.”

            Kranog nodded his approval, “You have to help those around you whenever you can. It is your duty now. Do you accept?” Yara went down to one knee, bowed her head and swore by the great one above she would do all in her power to serve her realm. “The rise Yara,” Kranog called, “You are now my apprentice.”

            Yara scanned the desolate surroundings around her and inquired, “What is our first mover Ser?”

            “First lesson is to help all in need whenever there is need, come now let’s find any survivors we can in all this debris.”

            That day finally ended playing in Yara’s head as she shook herself of chills that travelled down her back. She held both parts hate and fondness of that day. She had lost her home and her entire family in one careless move by a being far above her, but she also met Kranog that day. As much as she hated it, that first day she laid eyes on the Goddess is what shaped her into the person she is today. She remembered every lesson Kranog taught before he declared he had taught her all she knew.

            Yara was done reminiscing about the past though; she needed to take her mind off things, and what better way to do that, than with a drink.