#rantha

You knew they resented you. At first, you didn’t realize it, because you were a child and it happened gradually. But as their friend’s children grew up and got married or started apprenticeships, only for you to remain uselessly at home, you could see it on their faces. They knew they’d have to take care of you forever, and they loathed the idea.

You spent all your time reading because no one trusted you to do anything else. You insisted you could still do basic chores, like sweeping floors and dusting, but they heard none of it. It was confusing to you; you were asking to help, and they were refusing to let you. It wasn’t your fault you were growing weaker and more infirm since they never let you leave your bed.

You read all your books a hundred times, played all your card games, cleaned up after yourself until there was not a speck of dust in your room, but nothing could dispel the crushing boredom and madness of being alone all day.

A lot of the time, you lay in your bed and stared at the ceiling, dreaming of a life you could have had if your body hadn’t betrayed you. You could be married by now. You could have a wonderful job as an artist’s assistant or a alchemist. You could have children, or not. You could have had a choice. There was no choice now. You were what you were, and nothing would change it.

That was why this getaway sounded so amazing. You and your mother would spend a few months living in the fresh air in the country. It would be so freeing. You could go outside! You could feel grass beneath your toes. You could try and take a run for the first time. You found yourself daydreaming about how lovely it would be.

You were going to pack up your things, but your mother insisted the cabin would be fully furnished, including clothes; all you would need was a single change to wear on the trip up. You took a small bag of books and a few of your treasures anyway.

Mother had hired a carriage to take you both, a fast, bumpy thing with an impatient groom. Your mother had told you to wear your cloak to hide your arm until you had gotten out of the city, despite it being high summer and extremely hot, but you complied. You didn’t want people looking at you, either.

The journey was several days ride by carriage, and you slept most of the way, stopping only to sleep at various inns along the way. Your mother insisted you wear the cloak at all times despite the heat, and though you felt a little resentful, you complied.

On the fifth day, you were dozing in the carriage when you heard your mother call out to you.

“Wake up,” she said. “We’re here.”

You opened your sleep-glued eyes to find yourself staring at a vast expanse of forest. As you stepped out, you saw a small shack in the middle of a tiny clearing. It wasn’t exactly the luxurious cabin your mother had described, but it was well-built and charming and you were determined not to judge it too harshly.

You stepped down and followed your mother toward the shack, looking back at the carriage and expecting it to leave, except it stayed where it was with the groom tapping his foot sharply. The ground underneath the horse and carriage was all grass; you weren’t even near a road of any kind.

Your mother unlocked the door to the shack and it swung open, and you peered inside. It was sparsely furnished with a bed, a table, and a single chair, all plainly made and well worn. There was a table with a water basin and an iron stove with a neat stack of firewood sitting next to it. It was a little drab but cozy, and you thought all it needed was a few personal touches to make it feel like home.

“What do you think, my dear?” Your mother asked, watching you look around the shack.

“It’s nice,” you replied. “A little small, but I think we can make do.” You smiled at her, and her returning smile was strained.

“I’m going to go into the nearest town and buy supplies,” Your mother said. “Why don’t you stay here and start getting this place livable?”

You smiled brightly. “I will!”

Your mother smiled again, gave you a quick hug, and left the key on the table before striding out of the door and stepping back into the carriage. The groom snapped the reins and the horse jumped into action, pulling the carriage away.

You spent the next few hours doing what you could to tidy up. One handed, you managed to remove and shake out the bedclothes and remake the bed, which seemed a bit narrow for both you and your mother to share. The larder was a bit sparse, with only a bag of dried beans and a turnip or two, but your mother would bring back food. Oddly, your mother had insisted that there would be clothing waiting for you here, but you found none. There wasn’t even a closet or a dresser in which to keep clothes.

After you had done what you could do comfortably to make the shack presentable, you went out onto the small porch to wait for your mother to return.

Hours passed. The sun began to dip behind the trees and the air, while still warm, dropped in temperature. You began to worry about your mother’s well-being. Perhaps that groom was a nefarious highwayman who’d brought harm to your mother. You were twitching with nervousness.

You were being paranoid. She might have just gotten held up. You decided to go to bed. She’d be there in the morning, you assured yourself.

She had not returned by morning. It took another two days of waiting for you to realize she wasn’t coming back.

She’d left you there to die.

You sat on the steps and cried, knowing that your family had finally washed their hands of you. It wouldn’t be so bad if they had taught you even the basics for taking care of yourself, but they had always made you stay abed, never allowed to interfere with the workings of the house. You wept bitter tears at their betrayal. What had you done wrong besides living in a broken body? Was that all it took to condemn someone to death?

You were running out of water and you were scared to leave the hut, afraid you’d get lost and never find your way back. It was your only shelter. You rummaged around until you found a flint and stone buried in a toolbox, so you were at least able to built a fire in the stove and cook a handful of beans each day to keep yourself fed, but those, too, would run out soon. You had no skill for living on your own, let alone living off an unfamiliar land with no one to help you. You truly were going to die.

A week on, just before twilight, you sat on the steps, having eaten your daily rations of beans and taking the last swallow of water, and you broke down again.

“Why?” You sobbed into the empty air of the forest. “Why did they do this to me? Was I such an imposition? Did this,” You gestured violently at your useless arm. “Make me unlovable? Have I no value at all? Surely I could have been taught. I could have learned. Was that too much trouble?”

You thought you heard something, a deep lowing, answer you far in the distance, but you convinced yourself that it was merely the wind. Sniffling, you went inside and lay down in the bed, crying yourself to sleep.

The next morning, you went out with a bucket in your hand, determined to find some water. It took about an hour, but to your surprise, you found a hidden well under a trapdoor in the ground near a rock just out of side of the cabin. It was camouflaged with overgrown vines and moss. If you hadn’t tripped over it, you might never have found it.

Now the dilemma of getting the water up. This was definitely a two handed job. You went back to the cabin and found a length of rope hidden in a basket under the bed, managing to tie a knot on the bucket handle, though it took nearly thirty minutes to do so. You had to be careful about this; this was your only bucket and rope. If you lost either of them, you were screwed.

Praying the knot didn’t come undone, you dropped the bucket into the well and was relieved to hear a splash. Then you began pulling it up, carefully gripping the rope between your knees every time you tugged up the bucket. It was grueling work for you, who had little muscle tone and no experience with any sort of manual labor, but you did it.

Well, you had water. That was one thing in your favor, but you were still running out of food and had no way of finding more. Anxiety about how much you had left ate at your mind, making the skin of your back crawl.

“Don’t panic,” You told yourself out loud. “Don’t panic. You’ll find food. You found water, you’ll find food. You can do this.”

You fired up the stove and threw the last handful of beans and final chunk of turnip into a pot of water and waited for them to cook. Tomorrow you’d have to find something or you were going to starve for sure.

The next morning dawned, and you were awakened by a knock at the door. Your heart hammered in your chest as you got up, hope that your mother had returned for you welling up in your chest, and you threw the door open to find no one there.

Confused, you looked down at the steps at your feet and blinked. There lay two largish rabbits and a basket of potatoes.

“Wha…” You gaped at this sudden gift from no one and looked around you, trying to find the generous soul who’d left them. The forest was empty.

“Uh… thank you,” you called. No one answered.

Now you had to figure out how to skin rabbits one-handed. Well, no sense in dallying. You went inside to retrieve the only knife you had and set about trying to free the meat from the fur. It took some doing, and eventually you ended up washing your feet and using them to hold the animals steady so you could strip them. You were a bloody mess halfway through, and the porch wasn’t looking too pretty either, but you were doing it.

A few hours of trial and error later, you had done it, and now needed to find a sharp stick to spear them on. There was a metal rod in the back of the hut and you stuck the meat onto it, deciding to build a cooking fire outside. You took the flint and wedged it between your toes, striking the stone against it into some dried leaves for kindling. Then you brought out the firewood out, one log at a time, and built up the coals, placing two of the potatoes in the iron pot whole and sticking the pot in the embers at the edge of the fire to allow them to roast.

You almost laughed with giddy relief as you sat there on the ground, watching your gifts cook in the fire. You fully expected to go hungry today. There were some potatoes left in the basket, so you were going to have to ration them and the meat to last as long as possible, though the urge to wolf it all down at once was strong.

A tear dripped down your face as you ate your slightly burnt rabbit meat. You wished the kind person hadn’t run off so quickly. You wanted to thank them. You wiped your face and stood, cleaning up the gory remains of the rabbit and looking for something to store the rations in.

The next morning, another knock on the door woke you. You shot out of the bed and unbolted door, hoping to catch whoever was there, but they were already gone. This morning, they had left you a cured ham steak, some corn cobs, and two apples.

A smile spread across your face and you laughed, a little of your anxiousness ebbing away, but at the same time, you tried not to take the stranger’s generosity for granted. If your family was any indication, people could decide they didn’t want to deal with you anymore and throw you away with no warning.

Well, all wasn’t lost, then. You decided to straighten up the hut and make it nice after breakfast. You went out to the forest not far from the house and began to pick wildflowers. You were feeling more at ease than you ever had, as fleeting as you knew it would be.

You spent the rest of the day airing out the hut, placing the flowers here and there, using water you’d pulled up from the well to wash the bed linens and the curtains, laying them on the railing to dry. It wasn’t too warm, so you sat on the porch and read from your favorite book for a while. If you were going to be living here, it was best if you started trying to make it feel like home.

It went on this way for weeks, with a charitable offering laid on the steps of the porch for you every morning and no one there to receive your thanks. Their selfless benevolence baffled you and left you emotional, especially in contrast to your family’s begrudging tolerance of you.

Once, you had even ripped your dress rather badly on a jutting nail and, after crying over it and wondering what you could possibly do to fix it since you had no needle or thread, you had left it on the railing of the cabin overnight to deal with it in the morning. Only to find it mended perfectly when you rose from sleep the next day. There was also a new pale green dress waiting for you, as well as a plucked pheasant and a large bushel of beans.

There had to be something you could do for your mysterious benefactor, some way you could repay them. The only thing you had that was of any worldly value were your emerald earrings, a gift from your grandmother before she died. One evening, after more than a month of this big-hearted caretaker looking after you, you took them from your ears and laid them on the steps of the porch, hoping they were watching.

“I want to repay your for all your kindness to me,” You said to the empty evening air. “These are all I have, but I hope that they’re worth something. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.” Then you went inside and prepared for bed.

The next morning, when you woke up, you immediately went outside to check if your caretaker had accepted your payment. Shocked, you saw that not only were your earrings still there, they were now joined by a pendant on a silver chain that complimented them perfectly.

This had been weird before, but now it was on an entirely new level. This wasn’t food or clothing or mere survival. They were leaving you real gifts now, trinkets of worth that served no purpose out here, because… why?

Enough was enough. You needed to know who this person was. You needed to be able to thank them face-to-face, at the very least. You took up the earrings and the pendant, then walked back into the house. You lay the jewelry on the table and found your knife, slitting the skirt of your dress to the hip where it had split before. You pulled it off and threw it aside, pulling on the new linen dress that your caretaker had left for you that’d you’d yet to wear. It was wonderfully soft, light, and comfortable.

After waiting a good amount of time, you took the dress you had torn out to the porch and laid it over the railing, sighing dramatically. You were overacting a bit, but you hoped they could see you. You’d just have to wait and find out.

That night, you waited anxiously for the sun to go down so that you could dowse the lights and wait out your caretaker. You sat with your back to the door and listened hard. If felt like you waited for hours, but eventually you heard a soft, careful thump as someone or something stepped up onto the porch in a way that told you they were trying very hard not to make any noise. There was a fwip as the dress was snatched off of the railing, and muffled thump as the person stepped down from the porch and back on the ground.

You scrambled to your feet and waited a minute before trying to look out. Pausing for a moment to put on the pendant, you carefully opened the door so that it wouldn’t squeak and saw a large, black mass escaping into the woods. Just as their large form disappeared behind the trees, you silently slipped out of the cabin, leaving the door open, and followed.

Looking around the first tree you reached, you saw the black shape moving steadily west. It was fast on its feet and you followed as quickly and as quietly as you were able. It was far ahead of you, and you were beginning to lose sight of it, but after a few minutes of moving straight, you saw light that you guessed was from a fire and approached it cautiously.

You crept carefully through the underbrush, trying your best not to make a sound, as you heard the crackling of the fire grow louder. You reached the edge of the circle of light, and looked around a tree that was large enough to hide you. You had to clap your hand over your mouth to keep from gasping.

It was a camp with a large canvas tent set up between two trees and a few wooden crates containing food and tools. There was a bow and quiver propped against the tree on the far side, and a spear and short sword hung on a rack. Everything looked completely normal, except for the person who occupied the campsite. There, sitting on an upturned log in front of the fire, was a gigantic minotaur.

His horns were long and flared, and black fur crowned his head and adorned his neck, fading as it went down his torso, though the skin was as black as his fur. Whether he had fur on his legs, you weren’t sure, as he was wearing a sturdy pair of trousers, though you could see hooves at the end of his legs, which were as big as serving trays and just as black as the rest of him. The only thing that wasn’t black were his eyes, they were as deep a green as the forest around him.

He had your dress in his hand, inspecting the tear closely, and in the other he held a tiny needle, already threaded, and seemed ready to set about mending the dress himself. You watched him begin to stitch your dress back together, carefully pulling the needle through with his tongue caught between his teeth, concentrating hard on his task.

You felt like you had forgotten how to breathe. You’d never seen anything like him. Granted, you’d spent most of your life in your bed, but seeing this huge creature, with his raw, colossal strength, bent over a dress as he meticulously repaired it, was something straight out of a fairy tale.

You watched him stitch in silence for a good while, completely captivated. As he tied the thread off and bit it, you stepped out from your hiding place and walked slowly toward him.

He didn’t notice you immediately, but when a twig snapped under your feet, he jumped to his with a surprised bellow. He backed away, trying to flee.

“Please, wait!” You cried, reaching out with your good arm. He halted, but stared at you, wide-eyed and apprehensive.

Slowly so as not to spook him, you walked up and stopped in front of him, looking up. He was breathing hard, as if afraid. How absurd that someone like him could be afraid of you. You looked at his face, his chest, his arms, his hands, one of which still clutched your dress. You looked around the campsite and saw crates of the same vegetables that had shown up on your doorstep. You saw furs from the meat you had been given on drying racks. There was no doubt that this man had been the one who had been looking after you, asking for nothing in return.

You rushed forward, letting out your breath, reaching out with your good arm and wrapping it around his waist. You held him as close to you as you could, weeping into the fur of his chest.

“Thank you,” You sobbed. “Thank you so much. I thought I was going to die. You save me. Thank you. I owe you my life.”

He dropped the dress and threw his arms around your shoulders, holding you to him. “I couldn’t just let you starve,” He said, his voice like stones tumbling inside a spinning barrel.

You wept hysterically for quite a long time, and he simply held you, stroking your hair and patting your back. After a while, you sniffed to a stop and he released you. He kicked up another log to the fire and sat you down on it, sitting beside you.

“I’ve been wanting to introduce myself for a while,” He admitted, taking your good hand in his. “My name is Rantha.”

You told him your name, and he repeated it.

“How is it you’re out here all alone?” He asked.

You told him your story, about how your arm suddenly stopped working and gradually withered away, how your parents hated taking care of you and made you stay in bed all the time, how your mother had told you that you’d be coming to the cabin to get away from the stress of the city life, and how she had left you behind with no intention of returning.

“What a sad tale,” Rantha said, still holding your hand, running his thumb over your knuckles. “Your family is full of monsters.”

“I was… burdensome,” You said regretfully. “I don’t blame them for resenting me, but I never thought they’d actually abandon me.”

“They’re monsters,” He repeated sternly. “You are their family. How could they do something so cruel to their own child?”

“Taking care of me was hard for them. I’m not good for much,” You said, shrugging your useless arm. “I can’t contribute or work like this. They’ve been pouring resources into me for years and getting nothing back.”

“Nothing except your love and trust, you mean?” He replied flatly. “Anyway, taking care of you is not hard. I’ve been doing it for weeks now, and it’s been no trouble at all.”

You blushed and looked away shyly.

“Your value is not derived from how useful you are to other people,” He said seriously. “You deserve to be happy and loved regardless of what you can do for the rest of the world. What have they done for you, anyway? You don’t owe anyone anything, and especially if they have no concern for your well-being. Besides, you can do plenty. I’ve seen you do all sorts of things on your own.”

“Because I had to, I didn’t have a choice,” You argued.

“What difference does that make? We all have to do things because we don’t have a choice.”

“Still, if it weren’t for you, I’d have starved weeks ago.” You fixed him with a shrewd stare. “Why did you start taking care of me in the first place? Why did you come to the cabin at all?”

He chuckled. “It’s my cabin. I built it. I went traveling to sell some furs and someone seems to have sold the cabin out from under me while I was away.”

Your mouth fell open in shock. “Oh, no! I’m so sorry!”

He shook his head and laughed. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. I will admit I was startled to find that a young woman had taken up residence in my house, but once I realized someone had cruelly left you to fend for yourself, I couldn’t just throw you out. But I was also hesitant to reveal myself. You were already frightened. I did not wish to frighten you further.”

“Still, I feel bad for forcing you to live out here while I just took over your home.”

He squeezed your hand with his. “I don’t mind.” He reached out his other hand to caress your face, and you surprised yourself by leaned into it. “I hadn’t intended to start a courtship ritual. It just sort of… happened… because I couldn’t let you starve. And then, once I saw how determined and resourceful you were in spite of all the adversity you faced, how could I not fall in love?”

Your jaw dropped and you picked your head up from his large palm. “Love…” you gasped. “You were… courting me?”

“Not at first,” He said ruefully. “It was compassion that compelled me to help you when I first saw you weeping on the steps. It just kind of… turned into a courtship over time.”

“You meant what you said? You actually… love me?”

“Is that so shocking?” He asked, a playful laugh in his voice.

“It’s just that… I’m like this…” You shrugged your arm again. “And you’re so…”

“Big and strange?” He asked, chuckling.

“Beautiful,” You replied, avoiding his eye.

He was quiet, and you looked up to see him staring down at you, his mouth open.

“You think I’m beautiful?” He asked.

You nodded, placing your hand in the fur of his chest and carding it upward toward his neck, making him shiver. “And a little strange, too, but that’s not a bad thing.”

“I can’t believe you’re not afraid of me,” He said, nuzzling your shoulder as if to test if you were being truthful.

You leaned into him and pressed your face into his fur. “Trust me, I’m having trouble believing that myself. But I’m not. You rescued me. How could I be scared of you?”

“I didn’t rescue you,” He said softly, his arms around you again. “I only dropped off dinner every day. I just was the delivery boy. You did everything else on your own. You’re so much stronger than you think you are.”

“I’m not,” You said, shaking your head and pulling away. “I’ve never been strong in my entire life. If I was, I wouldn’t have been such a burden to my family.”

“You are not a burden,” He insisted. “It’s not your fault you think that about yourself; you’re family has been lying to you your whole life.”

“I wish I could believe that,” you said sadly.

He rubbed a hand down your back. “Maybe one day you will.”

You looked at the crates of food settled around the campsite. There was a significant amount. “Where did you get all this food in the middle of the forest? I don’t see a cart anywhere.”

“There’s a farm nearby that a friend of mine owns,” He explained. “Him and his family are very kind people. I trade with them all the time. It’s where I got the dress.” He motioned at her attire.

“The necklace, too?” You asked, patting it.

His eyes softened when he looked at the pendant around your neck. “No, that was my mother’s.”

Your heart thumped in your chest and you stared at him with wide eyes. “You gave me your mother’s necklace?”

He winced. “Is that too forward? You didn’t know you were being courted, after all.”

“You’re serious,” You whispered. “You really want to be with me?”

“Yes,” He said matter-of-factly. “I do.”

You hated that you were such an easy crier. “Well, one thing’s for sure,” you said, sniffling.

“What’s that?” He asked in concern.

You chuckled. “You’re going to need to build a bigger bed. That one in the cabin won’t hold both of us unless I was lying on top of you.”

He looked startled, and then grinned wickedly. “I wouldn’t mind that one bit,” he replied, kissing your cheek. You turned your head and caught his lips with your own, and he returned the kiss enthusiastically. You ran your fingernails through the soft fur of his face, pulling with and against the grain, as his hands roamed your back.

“I guess we should start hauling all of this home,” You said, laying your head against his chest.

“Tonight?” He asked.

“Why not tonight?” You asked, looking up at him.

His eyes twinkled mischievously. “It’s rather late. I was thinking we could spend a night under the stars together,” He replied. “Perhaps… consummate the union.”

“You’re assuming much, aren’t you?” You said playfully.

“How much?” He asked with a grin.

You answered with a grin of your own. “Not that much. But I did leave the cabin door open.”

“Hmm,” He hummed, standing. “You wait here. I’ll take care of it.” He bent to kiss you, lingering for several seconds, gently scrapping his teeth over your bottom lip, making you moan. “You’ll be here when I get back, eh?”

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” you assured him.

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist