Goda's Slave (Lesbian, Dystopia, LGBT Fantasy)

Chapter 22: The Dance of Master and Slave

Kanna's eyes were open. She could see the outline of the clouds rushing overhead. She felt like she was suspended in some brilliantly gray void, because the watery mud that had broken her fall had also made her weightless against the ground.

The train rushed away, its wheels scraping along not far from her feet. All of the shocks had faded. She turned her head to look at the arm that half-floated in the mud beside her, and she felt relieved to find that the cuff was still around her wrist.

Kanna sensed the giant before she even saw her. She lifted her head to peer down towards the end of the tracks, and she saw a landscape of flickering light that made the curtain of rain around her glow with life. Emerging from that veil was Goda Brahm. Her image strobed with the landscape itself—pitch dark, then blindingly bright, then pitch dark again. Kanna wondered if it was really the lightning or if her own eyes had started to falter and revive in turn.

When Goda crouched down beside her, the look on the woman's face held no question. It seemed she had already accepted any reason, any explanation. It seemed that Goda did not care. It seemed that Kanna didn't have to say anything at all.

Still, she did: "Who are you?" Kanna croaked out. The effort of shouting against the blowing wind made her have to turn over and cough. Her muscles hurt when she moved, but it wasn't from the impact of the fall. She was exhausted from running, from evading—though with another forced burst of energy, she managed to get up onto her knees, to look up at the stooped form of the giant and to hold her master's gaze with dignity.

"Who the hell are you?" Kanna shouted again, her tone accusatory. "And how can I be so happy when I'm so miserable? Tell me!" She rammed both her hands hard against Goda's chest, and Goda's brows flicked up in confusion. "You know why, don't you? You know why, but you've never told me; you kept it from me like some kind of secret. Look at you! Look at that empty face! Now I know what I was seeing when I looked in your eyes, and why it terrified me: You're happy. You don't want anything. You sleep on top of rocks, you eat food that tastes like dirt, you have to scrounge your supplies from the garbage, the world wants to send you to Hell—but you're happy! You're so happy to be alive that you barely even mind if you die! What kind of a lunatic are you? How do you live like this?"

Goda merely stared at her, another crazy smile coming over her eyes. The lightning flashed again and it sent colors dancing across her face. It seemed, Kanna thought, that the giant had assumed the question was rhetorical.

It wasn't.

Kanna slammed her palms against Goda's chest yet again. She gritted her teeth. Her gaze didn't waver. "How do you do this? Why are you like this? Show me! I want to know. I have to know. I can't live the rest of my life not knowing what black magic you've tapped into that's turned you into this; it would eat away at me every day!" She heaved a loud, shaky breath. She hung her head towards the ground and pressed her hands to her face. "People like you don't deserve to be happy—not when the rest of us try and try, and grasp and grasp; not when the rest of us exhaust our spirits searching for the best life, the best food, the best pleasure, more security, more freedom, more love; not when the rest of us resist and fight against all of the evil things around us, hoping that once—just once—we'll be able to taste an ounce of contentment. You don't even try, Goda. You won't even give us that. You won't even pretend to try. That's what I hate the most about you!" She fell forward, but she caught herself with her hands, and she pressed them against the ground as she cried. "Show me why you're like this, you bastard!"

Then, through the grit of the mud, she felt a set of long fingers snaking down to clasp against her own. Kanna jerked her head up.

Goda's face was framed by the light of the sky, the water dripping down from the giant's hair and falling into Kanna's eyes. "I can't show you," Goda whispered. Goda took her by the hand and helped lift her up out of the mud, until they had both stood up to meet the freezing rain. She smiled down at Kanna with a look that Kanna hadn't seen before, a look she couldn't interpret. "But you can see for yourself."