#elements of fear

This was all to say, it hadn’t seemed all that strange when he began to walk her home after their shifts, if for no other reason than to keep the conversation going. Yrsa had survived long enough on her own to not feel the need for the likes of an escort, however, it couldn’t be denied that there was an unspoken security in knowing that if something were to happen…

Well. No matter how prepared you are, having an intimidating masked giant on your side certainly couldn’t hurt.

Regardless, they weren’t walking through the woods for her own comfort or safety anyway; it was Letanno that hated the crowded routes of curious gazes. Some things were unavoidable of course, there was only so much you could do to hide a person twice the size of anyone else around, but there were enough blessedly secluded areas of Port Ulrika that they could walk most of the way between the grocery store and the place Yrsa called home without seeing another living soul.

It was nice, really, once she’d gotten over her initial nerves in his presence. It was hard to feel large heavy footfalls just behind you and think of them as anything but threatening, but Letanno had never given her a reason to actually feel threatened. He could be dismal, nervous, and a bit of a mystery to her at times, but he was pretty far from being something she would ever consider dangerous.

Maybe with time he would come to believe it himself, but Yrsa wasn’t going to hold her breath while waiting for the day to come. Something about the cloaked figure that was her newest friend told her that he wasn’t someone who would come around on that sort of thought very easily.

He still hadn’t even come close to showing her his own face.

Which was fine! It was totally and completely fine. Yrsa by no means felt entitled to seeing his face or anything like that. He was far from being the first person she’d ever met with a disability or a strange birth defect, though none had ever been as extreme as his, and she understood that the world at large could be less than kind about these things no matter how good anyone’s intentions might be. This was all to say that it wasn’t so hard for her to grasp that in many cases, it was simply easier to hide, and she assumed that had to be the case for the giant. Whatever Letanno had going on, it was apparently worth all the trouble and discomfort of covering himself from head to toe.

However, this did not stop her from developing an insatiable curiosity over it. Every time they hung out together, Yrsa found herself stealing glances at the other when she thought he wasn’t looking, each one sparking a new theory as to what in the world could be going on under the mask he was so insistent on wearing.

…

It couldn’t be that bad, could it?

She didn’t have much to go on, but nothing she could glean suggested that it would be awful. His voice — the one and only thing he couldn’t hide from her aside from his own outline — was pleasant enough, albeit much louder and larger than she was used to, even when he managed a whisper. Over the last several months she’d become more and more familiar with his sense of humor as well as the kindness that he afforded everyone from herself to the delivery drivers to anyone else. Between all of that, his polite mannerisms, and the consideration he seemed to put into every move, it wasn’t at all hard for her to see that whoever he was under the mask, he was someone rather sweet. No matter how objectively bad he might look, those good qualities would surely, easily, outweigh it.

She just needed to figure out the best way to ask.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried before, she’d tried several variations of asking through thinly veiled jokes to take the weight off of the question, but none of them had ever quite shaken out the way that she had hoped. He would only laugh and wave the idea off like an annoying housefly, joking that he was the most hideous deformed creature to ever walk the world, whatever that actually meant.

Clearly if she wanted to get anywhere with the man,  she would need to be direct.

Working up the courage or sense to be direct, however, was another issue entirely.

“You must get cold pretty easily huh?” She blurted out, eyes widening as she realized just how quickly her mouth had taken it upon itself to get the ball rolling. If she were the luckiest person in the world he somehow wouldn’t have noticed the blatant question breaking the silence in an otherwise empty patch of woods.

Sadly, Yrsa was not the luckiest person in the world, at least not this time.

“…What makes you say that?” asked the gentle voice of the giant.

“Oh, I don’t know, something about how larger bodies means more of you to keep warm, more surface area, that kinda thing.” She shrugged, ducking her head a bit to hide the quick flash of a pained expression that washed across her face. “I mean, you cover up pretty well and all even though we’re closer to summer, and it just seems like-..”

“-That isn’t because I’m cold.” He came to a complete halt with the statement, clearly clueing in that there must be something more to the question. “It’s more that-, I mean-, …well. You know, I’ve told you. You wouldn’t want to know the alternative, I don’t think. It’s for the best, really.”

“Is it?”

“If it isn’t, it’s still a favor to you, me, and everyone else who has to look at me.” He grunted, a tone of attempted finality slipping into his words. In many instances, Yrsa would just take the hint; this was clearly something Letanno was not eager to discuss and would likely never be eager to discuss. It would be a kindness on her part to drop the whole matter entirely.

But still, her curiosity wouldn’t let it go.

“I imagine that’s gotta be hard, or harder than it needs to be, covering up every inch of yourself like that.”

“Most things are harder than they need to be here.” Letanno sighed, his gloved hands sliding into his pockets in an apparent effort to stop his own fidgeting. “That’s sorta the nature of being the beast, you know?”

“You’re not a beast.” Yrsa argued, cutting the idea off as quickly as she could. Despite the fact that he was twice her size, despite the fact that he looked as though he could rip a nearby tree from the ground without so much as a second thought or moment of hesitation, despite the incredible rumbling power that lingered behind every gentle word he spoke… she couldn’t see it, or she couldn’t allow herself to start. If Letanno was something bestial or monstrous it would be a slippery slope to calling just about anyone who wasn’t altogether normal the same. “You’re a person.”

A sigh slipped from the large man, his head tilting skyward in a way that almost conveyed an expression of waning patience or disagreement that she could recognize even without knowing the look of the face that was wearing it. She’d never known Letanno to be someone who was incredibly argumentative, even when she’d pressed him about his mask during previous hangouts, but the gesture still made her brace for a debate.

Much to her own surprise though, the giant conceded fairly easily.

“Yeah, right as always.” He agreed, his sad smile evident in the tone of his voice. “I’d still suggest reconsidering your definition of a person though, just a little.”

“Oh, hold on, let me just…” She began, pressing her eyes shut and scrunching her face in a feigned, comical take on deep thought for a solid few seconds before relaxing her expression once again. “Alright. I’ve given it some thought, and after some very careful consideration and long mental debate, I’ve decided that I’m changing nothing.” Her nose wrinkled as she shot a wide grin up to the mask. It was as expressionless as it always was, and no matter how hard she tried to look past it, she couldn’t even detect a glint of light hitting his eyes.

Nevertheless, she was still fairly confident that he must have cracked a grin back. There were few other ways to read the way he turned away with shaking shoulders, small hints of a barely suppressed chuckle making themselves audible.

“I somehow get the feeling you didn’t actually give that much thought.”

“I’m just that fast. Can’t help it.” Yrsa laughed, taking a few steps backwards to lessen the strain on her neck now that it seemed they were going to be stopped here for a moment. “Sorry friend, but you’re as human as the rest of us whether you want to be or not. Consider yourself considered.”

It could be difficult to hold the reins on a conversation with Letanno, regardless of how tight your grip might be. One moment she could hear his laugh and feel as though she’d won the lottery or some secret game show, and the next he would be back to generating a small invisible rain cloud just above his head. Already it felt as though the moment had passed them both entirely as those massive shoulders began to droop in soft resignation.

“Yeah, well, you’d reconsider if you knew better.” He huffed.

“But I don’t know better. You won’t let me know better.” She snapped back, not wanting to give him much or any room to let even more self doubt blossom. He was clearly being silly about this, overthinking his own deformities and particularities and applying that ever so charming Letanno Style Grim Logic to it all. In truth, the more he did this, the more she began to have some doubts. It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if the Big Secret was that he had a wonky eye and an acne problem to go along with his absurd size.

It would absolutely track; everything about the man was blown out of proportion, from his scale to his own thoughts.

No matter how certain she was though, it did not make his stance look any less uncomfortable. This didn’t deter her by any means, Yrsa was set in her mission to try and nudge him just slightly past his self imposed boundaries, if only to show him that an invisible shock collar wouldn’t go off if he did, but it wasn’t without an underlying sense of guilt.

‘It’s for his own good.’ She thought to herself, never considering whether or not her own curiosity could be clouding her sense of judgment.

“Look, I don’t know what you’ve got going on under there. For all I know you’re Claude Rains and you’ll take off the mask and show me that you’re actually The Invisible Man or something, but I just can’t help but feel like it isn’t nearly as bad as you’ve let yourself think it is.” She continued, her eyes fixed fearlessly on the large figure before her. If she could show him she was confident, if she could say it boldly enough, then maybe she could start to get through to him on this.

Letanno, however, wasn’t going to make it very easy.

“It’s actually worse than I think it is.” He replied, somehow managing a breathy laugh that had no actual humor or emotion behind it. “I personally don’t think that I look that bad, or… well, I mean I never thought I was particularly good looking or anything but… it’s not me that thinks it’s bad. It’s everyone else that has the problem with it.”

“Really?” She asked with a tilt of her head, her mind trying to fill in the blanks with the absolute nothing she had to go on. “People have been that bad about it? I mean, I can understand there being some jerks here or there but-..”

“What? No, I-… it’s not just some jerks, Yrsa. It’s basically everyone.” He stammered with a slight crack of exasperation. “If it was just a few people I wouldn’t mind so much, or I probably wouldn’t cover up like this but it’s everyone. Everyone here is afraid of me and it just… it gets exhausting, Yrsa.”

The small clearing they stood in went quiet with only a warm wind shuffling brand new leaves to fill the silence. She could understand why he might want to hide, regardless of whether or not he was exaggerating, but it was still difficult to come to terms with the idea that he might not have seen a kind reaction in all his days.

“There has to be someone…” She muttered, eyes now fixed on the space between them as she continued her attempts at wrapping her head around such cruelty. “I mean, even if they’re a minority, even if it’s only been one or two people like… surely there’s been at some point in your life… I dunno. A Doctor. Your Parents. Someone. Surely someone has looked at you and didn’t see a problem.”

An uncomfortable noise slipped out of the other as she spoke, making it quite clear that a doctor, his parents, or someone important had not taken his natural existence very well at all.

It was… sad. Heart shattering really, to think that he might have lived an entire life hiding himself and living in discomfort just to make those closest to him comfortable. Suddenly it didn’t matter whether or not anyone had ever given him the chance or time of day; if the people who should have made him feel safe and comfortable had failed, why should he ever trust anyone else?

“The Paeans.” He croaked, breaking the silence with a voice that sounded as though it wanted desperately to be quieter than it was. “They’ve been… I mean it wasn’t easy or immediate but… they can look at me. They learned to look at me. Joyce doesn’t flinch so much these days and I mean… hell there was a time when Genevieve wouldn’t even let me near her daughter without being somewhere close to watch…”

“Okay, maybe not ideal, but-…”

“Lily still can’t look me in the eyes.” The words had fallen out of him so easily. Clearly, they’d spent an eternity already just barely restrained at the forefront of his mind. “I don’t… it’s not like I need her to look me in the eyes or anything but… still. I’ve seen her try and she can never actually hold it for more than a second or two. It’s too much.” One gloved hand gestured around the whole of himself as he raised his head once more. “I’m too much.”

Yrsa’s mouth opened, the starts of several different sentences flashing through her head all at once. Her own confidence and determination quickly began to wane with this new information, and she no longer felt as though she was doing him any favors. Quite the opposite, she felt almost cruel, headstrong, insistent. Letanno might have been a mystery wrapped up in several riddles, but no matter how much she wanted to unravel him to sate her own curiosity, it wasn’t worth making a man who lived in constant discomfort even more uncomfortable.

Even with her best intentions, she was contributing to the issue.

“I don’t think you’re too much.” She said, brushing away any stray thoughts in her mind about whether or not this was something of a white lie. It was true that by definition he was literally, physically, too much, but not for her. Sure, the size difference between them had taken a little practice to get used to but now? Now he was one of her favorite people to spend time with. If he was truly too much, for her or anyone, the Paeans would have kicked him out already, and she’d scramble for any reason possible to avoid him.

“Well, that makes you an outlier.”

“Mm, maybe so, but I’m willing to bet there’s more of us out there than you think.” She offered the blank, expressionless mask a small smile, hoping with all of herself it might inspire one underneath. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed this as much as I have, no matter how good I feel my intentions are. It’s just… I consider you a friend Letty, a good one, and I never want my friends to feel like they can’t be who they are around me. Life’s hard enough without having to disguise yourself in trusted company.”

Letanno said nothing, even his awkward fidgeting had stopped for the time being, and Yrsa could only imagine that he was either taking her words to heart or plotting a hasty escape.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” She added, “I’m not going to force you to show me your face, not that I ever could but… one day, if you’re ever ready, I’d like the chance to prove to you that you’re not the nightmare you seem to think you are. That you’re worth the effort of learning to look at you, if it really is something that takes learning to do.”

Time stretched between the two figures in that small patch of woodland. Logically, both parties were aware that only mere seconds were passing, but each of those seconds somehow managed to feel as though they’d taken the whole of an hour or a day while remaining entirely still.

It was just long enough of an eternity for doubt to creep in.

This was a mistake. The whole conversation had clearly been a mistake. It wasn’t just that she’d handled this the wrong way, it was that she shouldn’t have thought to handle it at all. They were almost to the flophouse, and if she’d held onto her thoughts for just a few more minutes they could have already gone their separate ways with cheerful goodbyes and well wishes for the evening. They could have spent the last few moments of hanging out together laughing, chattering about a shared love of a certain drink or discussing whether or not lions or elephants were louder or literally anything but this uncomfortable eternity if she hadn’t been so terribly insistent on getting to the bottom of a mystery that didn’t need solving.

And then he spoke, his voice somehow smaller and quieter than she’d ever heard him manage before.

“I don’t want to lose this.” He began, his fidgets now contained to his fingers. “Maybe it sounds sad… maybe it is sad, but… these last few months with you? Working together and getting to hang out and talk all day and everything… it’s meant a lot to me. I’ve been happier than I ever thought I’d ever be here with just… with everything, and I don’t want to risk that. I don’t want to scare you away.”

“You won’t scare me away.” She took a step forward, closing the gap between them ever so slightly as if it would help to prove her point. “No matter what you decide, I promise I won’t run, and I promise you won’t lose anything.”

The giant took a fraction of a step back from her now, as if to negate her own step forward, though to Yrsa it mostly looked as though it could be the first step of many that would lead to him leaving her if she didn’t play this carefully.

“I don’t think you can promise that.” He squeaked, somehow sounding smaller than ever as he shook his head. “I know you want to, I appreciate the sentiment, but if you knew…”

“I would still be your friend.” She finished for him, once it seemed that he was going to be unable to vocalize the awful things running through his head. “I don’t know what the awful version of me in your head might say about it, but the me out here in the real world wouldn’t stop talking to you over something you couldn’t help.”

“There isn’t an awful version of you in my head.”

“No, just the one that would call you a frightening horrible beast and run away in terror apparently.” She laughed.

“…If it helps, that’s how I imagine everyone.”

“It doesn’t, actually, but you’re at least consistent.” She widened her grin again and turned towards the treeline, content with the idea that they’d at least discussed the matter in a way that wasn’t all vague allusions or bad jokes. She’d done what she could do to let him know that he was safe to make whatever choice he wanted; ultimately the ball was in his court. “Come on, I’m practically home and you’ve got a long walk in the dark already.”

“Wait.”

It was wild to think that a single word could shift the whole of the world around you.

Yrsa paused as requested, turning on her heel with an invisible but still very blatant question mark floating over her head. Several feet away, Letanno remained planted in place, those ever-fidgeting hands now fiddling with  his hood in ways that could only lead to a single outcome.

Yrsa’s heart and stomach both raced for her throat, tangling up in one another and competing for the space as long, wiry strings of hair began to spill out from the lowered hood and over his shoulders; a jarring preview for what was to come. She made no moves and gave no reaction, hardly breathing as her eyes fixed on his movements.

Unconventional was the first word to come to her mind, but so were a lot of things about Letanno. Having strange hair didn’t feel like it was more jarring or strange than the things he couldn’t hide. Compared to his size this was practically nothing in terms of fright. If anything, she found herself incredibly curious about how it must feel, if he liked having it so long, or if it required anything special to keep it clean.

Already several thousand questions were forming in her mind, but all were withheld as she watched him fiddle with the snaps of his mask. A better version of herself, the one we all envision ourselves being in big moments, might have noticed the discomfort and hesitation in his movements and tried to stop him, but Yrsa did no such thing. She didn’t want to stop him, she wanted to prove to him that he wasn’t a monster.

And yet in those first few seconds of exposure, there were very few words that weren’t inherently monstrous flying through her mind.

The mask had fallen into his hands, and for the first time in all the months they’d known one another, Yrsa was looking at Letanno’s uncovered face.

It was… well, she didn’t want to say it was too much, but it was certainly overwhelming.

Never in a million years could she have ever prepared herself for the sight of him, even if he’d sat her down with a slideshow to describe it all in detail, broken down bit by bit. If she’d been given a puzzle with all the pieces of him, she would have still lacked the imagination to put together the face she was seeing before her now.

Incomparable. Incomprehensible. Impossible to behold.

It was like looking into the sun, only she could not find it within herself to look away despite the burning in her mind. His skin was a pale, sickly color, almost translucent and full of terrible holes and lines; she might have thought he was covered in scales if it wasn’t for the fact that it was all blatantly one piece, stretched over muscle and bone and veins and blood. As her own heart thrashed against the inside of her ribcage, practically the only muscle in her body moving at all, she couldn’t help but think of those frogs whose organs were still clearly visible from the outside.

Was he like that? If he took his shirt off — not that she would ever request such a thing — would she see the makings of a heart and stomach and intestines?

Would they be as grossly detailed as the skin that contained them? Could she keep her promise if it were the case?

She was barely holding onto her own composure, trying desperately to separate and catalog all the bizarre, horrifying bits of him until it formed a face she could understand. He had all the right pieces, and those pieces were in all the right places, and yet what she was seeing did not add up into something that made any sort of sense to her at all. The more she stared, wide-eyed and wordless, the more the wretched details of him came into focus.

She noted the way that little hairs pushed through that strange porous excuse for skin in all the wrong places, awkwardly speckling the whole of his jaw, chin, and neck with stubble in a way that felt altogether wrong, despite being recognizable. This said nothing of the odd reddened bumps and blemishes of acne and ingrown follicles that filled the spaces in between, each one practically its own mountain of wretched detail that her eyes were sorry to endure.

That face, that large, terrifying face that was staring just as wide-eyed back at her began to twist itself into an even more terrifying grimace, the many massive squared fangs barely contained by his pronounced lips bearing themselves as if he were some sort of wild beast. The little life sustaining breaths that were keeping the oxygen flowing to her brain hitched with the smallest, almost imperceptible whine, trying not to let the intrusive thoughts of what they could do to her win.

She knew better, she knew him better, but she still could not help but imagine the power behind those fangs, of what they could possibly do, and the thought alone was enough to turn her already knotted stomach several times over.

He’d been right, he’d been absolutely and completely right the entire time, though she was reluctant to admit it: he was simply too much to take in at once.

But that didn’t stop her, nor did it prompt her to run or even react.

It only kept her staring at him, eyes dancing over the billions of details until they locked onto the most important, if not the most petrifying aspect of his existence.

Two sets of eyes locked on one another, one pair small and bright red and sparkling with multitudes of unspoken emotions.

The other…

Well. The other pair were practically indescribable.

Those vast, gaping windows to Letanno’s soul were enough to pull the rest of the air from her lungs. They were deep, dark, and seemingly endless. Staring into them now, Yrsa could not help but think of that terrifying, silent pull one gets standing at the edge of a cliff, begging you to make the leap into the unthinkable despite your better judgment. If she dared look too closely, she would almost certainly find herself falling forever.

And still, despite their nature, she could not help but be awestruck by how many rich, beautiful shades of brown could exist within just two eyes.

They were as horrifying as they were wonderful.

…

Why did this feel familiar to her?

She’d never seen his face before now, that was the whole point of this, and even if she had, she certainly wouldn’t be able to forget the discomfort that permeated every cell of her being to look at him, but as she continued to gawk at the giant, she could not shake the feeling that it wasn’t the first time she’d ever looked at this face.

Her brain was as frozen as her mouth or legs, locking her into a shocked stasis, and yet little bits of mental ice began to grind away as the gears of her mind turned on a brand new thought in the midst of the horror.

She had seen this before, she had seen him before, though she hadn’t known it at the time. All at once the wretched pieces of the eldritch horror she called her friend began to come together in a single, recognizable image, mirroring the one that had shocked the whole of the community just months before.

The door.

The large, immovable shape that had manifested for seemingly no reason, the anomaly that had puzzled everyone with it’s lack of answers or explanation.

The door that could fit a giant, the door that came from nowhere, the door with the image of what could only be the devil himself molded into its face.

The very same devil that stood before her now.

Sure, he lacked things like the fantastical horns and other such details that the door itself had showcased, but there was no mistaking it. The large door had appeared at the same time as the large man, it was just as frightening yet seemingly benign, it was just as confusing, and just as inexplicable.

Whether the door was made for him, or he was made for the door, there was absolutely no denying that the two were closely linked.

And that… that was hard. That was just as hard for her to understand as the details of his massive face.

The Letanno she knew wasn’t a devil or a demon, he didn’t come off as something magical or otherworldly, and he most certainly didn’t seem the sort that would have a nefarious hidden agenda. The Letanno she knew was sweet. He was polite to anyone he encountered, he was funny, he was considerate.

He certainly wasn’t trying to unleash seven different hells into Port Ulrika or whatever that door was meant for; he was just a guy who didn’t want to be seen as more of a monster than could be helped, doing his best to get by in a world that was never going to properly fit him.

It might have been laughable to consider, but there was nothing to laugh at here.

‘We could have been laughing as we waved goodbye instead of this’

Time resumed its dreadful pace very suddenly on a gasp. The warm breezes had turned to cool evening air and filled her lungs in a great rush as the sounds of a large stammering voice just above her began trying to form into words.

“This was-… I’m so sorry- I shouldn’t- I can’t-…” Letanno stammered as he backed away from her in long strides, hands already fumbling with the mask in an effort to get it on and hide in its safety once again. Yrsa wanted desperately in that moment to reply, deep down in the core of her being a small voice was crying out to him that it was okay and that she was okay and just needed a moment, but it never managed to squeak its way out of her. The sight of his huge mouth, that overly detailed and weirdly tinted skin stretching over the fangs with those strange pink lips only reinforced the ice in her bones and muscles, keeping her planted and unmoving from her spot.

“I gotta go, I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” He continued to babble, his manners still somehow overriding his shame enough to keep him from leaving without a word. “Forgive me, I tried to-…I’m so sorry.”

His footfalls shook the world around her as he stumbled off in the opposite direction, bumping into trees and cracking a few branches as he did everything in his own power to vanish as quickly as possible, leaving her alone.

All alone. Standing in the woods with nothing but the sound of distant traffic and a dying breeze to try and distract her from the tempest of thought brewing within her.

The corners of her own eyes began to blossom with tears, never quite manifesting into streaks down her face, but enough to help bring her back to the present moment in working order. Her legs woke up, taking a few steps forward as if she could possibly catch up to him, but she managed to stop herself just as soon as she started.

Even if she could catch up with him, she had no idea what to do or what she could say. While Yrsa might not have run away from him in terror, she had certainly not made the situation much better by gawking at him silently for the longest seconds either of them would ever experience. How could she possibly apologize for something like that? How could she ever convince him that it was okay, and that he could take off the-…

She stopped her own train of thought very quickly, questioning just how realistic the thought was. It was a lovely sentiment, of course, Yrsa had possessed only good intentions through this whole thing, and yet she could not help but wonder whether or not she could make herself be okay with what she had seen, regardless of the stupid, inexplicable link to the door.

Slowly, she turned herself back to the flophouse, the image of his face now etched deeply into the walls of her mind. Without something like deep hypnosis or suddenl brain surgery, she was certain she wouldn’t be able to forget the sight of him. He could wear the mask every millisecond of every moment they spent together for the rest of time, but she would always be looking just past it and imagining the uncanny vision of him that it was hiding.

Though with each passing second, and with each thunderous beat of her own terrified heart, she realized that she could be okay with that. She would have to be okay with it.

At the end of the day, Letanno was still her friend, even though she didn’t feel like much of one to him right now. He would likely need some time, they both definitely needed time now that she thought about but… it would be okay. They would be okay. She would make it up to him somehow and together they could figure out where on earth or apparently hell they were to go from here.

It was going to be okay.