Earth's Children
Rivers quivered in their wake, splitting and whirling through upturned earth to make way for them. Wheat the farmers tilled swayed with each movement, distinguishable only from an earthquake in that their towering forms swept across the land at an even, steady beat. They made no noise other than the tumbles of rock from their bodies, the creaking of trees growing from their skin of rich soil. No, they never spoke, but some could communicate. All it took was one look into their wide crystal eyes. Would have anyone lived to glance into that depth of knowledge, they would learn eternity lived in them. Through them.
They were as the Earth had built them, they were as the ancient spirits of the universe had carved them. They were the mountains themselves, brought to sentience or perhaps taken for themselves long ago.
The humans, oh how they feared these magnificent beings, these living breathing, creations of Earth, as big as the Gods such humanity dreamt and willed to existence. But these towering beasts were no ethereal creatures, though they shared a purpose: to protect the life of the world they were given.
Be that at any cost.
And the girl, in all of her fascination at watching these impossibly large creations, did not see the danger they possessed, nor the might of their strength, standing hundreds of meters tall with the strength of all the world at their grasp. She watched, with her own brown eyes the color of the soil she stood upon, as these magnificent beasts shifted across the sky, one rumbling step at a time. They spanned her small world, a line of half a dozen, for miles long.
As she watched, a statue among the titans, the wives cared for their babes while the husbands tended to their lands. The other children played in delight, so there was no one to witness those first few steps the girl took into the thicket of shrubbery and woodland trees. No one to call out or stop her from leaving the safety of her village and approach such massive things.
No one had told the girl that these beings, above the clouds as they were, would not acknowledge such a small presence among them. For what human could move a mountain?
The woods and greenery swallowed her whole, so that by the time an exhausted mother noticed the absence of one among too many children, it would be too late. A frantic voice reached out for the missing child.
But the girl, encased by the wood and leaves, did not hear. No, in her fascination she only knew what lay before her, what towered over the trees. And she gasped in true awe at their unending size. Massive indeed, for her young mind could not comprehend the full extent of their existence.
She continued, without fear or understanding, onto that open field lain flat by the creatures’ steps. Shaded under their slow forms, the young girl raised her hand and waved her greetings to the protectors of their land.
The girl did not understand her size was too small for the titans to see, their hearing unattuned to such a singular, minute voice. Continuing ever onward, the beings marched, and ignored the little girl’s words. She was not deterred, if they could not hear her, she would make them see. She did not care that their heads were high above the clouds.
The clouds were white, so she picked a plethora of flowers in any other color and further approached. She did not hear the villager’s pleas to retreat, their frantic attempts to find her in time. So far away she was, the girl would never hear the wailing of a mother’s loss.
“Hello, friends of the Earth,” she spoke as her sky changed to rock and stone, as one of the being’s moved over her and fragments of earth sailed down around her. She did not gawk or cry, did not register that she was in their path but to offer one final gift. She raised the flowers high into the crisp air, “For you.”
A cry pierced the sky.
And the world froze.
Crystal eyes broke from the path laid out before it for thousands of years. Much was kept within those eyes of universe and light. Now held in suspension to the world below it. When had it’s gaze last roamed such rolling hills and billowing trees? How far the humans had expanded their existence, with designs of wood and stone built from the remnants of what the Earth provided them.
Aye, the creature knew it would be so, for it had seen the great travesties and wonders such small beings would create. Something so small. . .
But something else had broken its attention, had pulled its path from what it had followed since the beginning, however many thousands of years ago that was. It could no longer remember how long they had been protecting these lands, this planet.
Its revolving gaze drew downward just as a rainbow of petals wafted through the open space laid before it, created by endless cycles passed through the same road. Lids of dirt held together by roots closed over those eternal eyes, opening once more to find the limp fingers of what had once been holding those flowers. Such beautiful, delicate things.
This one human was not moving, and the creature realized it had never looked into another’s eyes before. Hers were wide, holding all of its existence in their brilliant reflection. The massive creature tilted its head of earth and rock, adorned by hanging vines of every shade of green at the small wonder. She was inches from it, her fingers splayed out ready to caress the living mountain.
It shuddered from her touch, from the life buzzing through the small girl.
Hello, little one, its voice filled the child’s mind who screeched in wonder, causing the titan’s head to tilt further.
“I can hear you!” The girl cried aloud, jumping in amazement. The creature watched her twirl at its feet and did not move. Mesmerized was the gentled golem, at her dress when it flared out around the child. A perfect reflection to his knowing, earthly eyes.
