“Corncake, as naked as the day she was born, had skin as dark as soot-covered in pale silvery lavender wounds and cuts of varying sizes the worst one being a lash that bore just above her abdomen which stretched from her left ribcage to her right, she was a literal black woman in every sense of the word with thick cracked lips, and eyes as foggy and grey as a dead fish out of water. Holes as big as boulders dot her arms and legs; they should have made her limbs unusable but somehow her biology had adapted to utilize the moth-eaten appendages. Lacking any hair atop her shiny hairless head, the color of her follicles was revealed through her almost false-looking doe-like eyelashes which were as red as the purest of garnets in the royal treasury. Corncake had tiny dainty feet, one foot missing two of her toes, whilst both were covered in callouses so thick that the bluish protrusions looked like barnacles. She looked fantastic in my queer opinion. Like some roguish alien girl from another world, and in a way, she was.”
Colossus Likes Corncakes with a Side of Fries
Corncake
Gifter was a tiny man. He had hair was yellow as wheat bathed in the rays of a glorious sunrise, and his skin was a strange shade of beige –resembling that of mud that had been allowed to dissolve in a puddle of rainwater— strange as it was though I liked it, and his thick flowing beard was so long that it required it to be tied in a tight braid. Like most of his skin Gifter was dressed in clothes that hid his body from the world, both of his stiff pants and shirts were dyed black stripped with thin horizontal bronze lines, his blouse took special interest with me as the blouse had shiny metals red, orange, blue, and suchlike pinned to his chest. I was unaware of what Gifter did when I was gone, he had to do something, but he had never mentioned what it may be. I will have to ask him what his job is, it cannot be something physical, he is too soft.
“And done!” Gifter said, as he finally moved the strange yellow rope from my ankles and stepped away, I sat down on the smooth large boulder behind me. “Thank you so much for your submission, I appreciate it. That is all I need from you today.” I nodded. I could understand what Gifter said now, when we first met I could not, I had mistaken him for prey and almost treated him as such. Something to be skinned and eaten. Ker-Klunk. Ker-Klunk. Ker-Klunk. “Ah! Here is your reward now! Please do enjoy!” I am glad I spared this strange soft man.
I looked in the direction Gifter glanced to see a familiar yet delicious sight.
Thirty wagons drawn by the animal Gifter’s people called “horses” approached. Half of them were filled with corncakes as yellow as the veggie itself and most certainly filled with some form of cream cheese filling; the other half held mountains of crisp golden sticks that I had since come to know are called “fries”. Each house was ridden by a man wearing a metal suit as shiny as the full moon itself. The outfits were supposed to act as protection, I scoffed. Protection from what? The sun? The wagons quickly circle the boulder I sat on; the horses neighing and the wheels of the vehicles creaking as they did before the riders slowly drew both to a stop. I did not wait for the riders to detach their beasts nor for them to leave their vehicles before I reached out to claim my meal. The golden piles of sweet moist pastries and hot greasy sticks calling me.
Gifter
Colossus likes corncakes with a side of fries, well to be honest I am not sure if all their kind would like such a pairing, but the specimen that I have had the greatest pleasure of meeting. Her name is not a proper name, to be honest, not by human standards. So, I call her Corncake, in my head mind you. Colossus has a culture of finding their name, which they are given at birth merely as a placeholder. She would, and has, taken offense to me trying to give her any name of my people in the past. So, Corncake is only in my head, even though I find myself tempted to call her that to her face. Just to see her sneer at me with those teeth that make me shiver in a way that, well, would not be kosher to voice here or anywhere else really.
I wheezed and snorted like a pig at the trough, watching as knights brave enough to go to war screamed like schoolgirls and ran away from the large, calloused hands of Corncake, this was too rich. She was not even touching them. “Co—Miss, you must learn to have some patience, lest you make my strongest warriors drop out of fright,” I spoke between my chortles, looking up at Corncake who was currently downing a handful of fries.
She, as she shoveled a mountain of food into her all incisor-filled maw, grunted. Her eyes pinched the corners as Corncake gave me a look that almost implored me to make her stop. I heat flared in my guts at the idea of challenging a woman who could crush me like a bug, so, I dared not act on such an instinct. Instead, I admired her. She is so beautiful.
Corncake, as naked as the day she was born, had skin as dark as soot-covered in pale silvery lavender wounds and cuts of varying sizes the worst one being a lash that bore just above her abdomen which stretched from her left ribcage to her right, she was a literal black woman in every sense of the word with thick cracked lips, and eyes as foggy and grey as a dead fish out of water. Holes as big as boulders dot her arms and legs; they should have made her limbs unusable but somehow her biology had adapted to utilize the moth-eaten appendages. Lacking any hair atop her shiny hairless head, the color of her follicles was revealed through her almost false-looking doe-like eyelashes which were as red as the purest of garnets in the royal treasury. Corncake had tiny dainty feet, one foot missing two of her toes, whilst both were covered in callouses so thick that the bluish protrusions looked like barnacles. She looked fantastic in my queer opinion.
Like some roguish alien girl from another world, and in a way, she was.
Corncake finished her meal swiftly enough, standing and turning to leave towards a gaping crater in the distance, one that she would have to climb downwards to go home. “Wait!” I stopped her before she could take a step forward. She turned her head, grunting as she did with a thin eyebrow raised in my direction. “I have a gift for you if you will have it,” I looked behind me, the guards had all sat down by now, brushing the manes of their horses. Beyond them, I could see a maid galloping over on a horse with a large leather-bound parcel under one of her arms. I looked back at Corncake, she was eyeing the maid now, curious. “I think you will like it or, at least, I hope that you like it. I spent a lot of time on it!”
Corncake
I stared at myself in the large mirror propped on an even larger tree.
Like usual Gifter was kind and generous with giving things to me. But this was the strangest gift that I had been given so far. It was one of those head coverings –a hat it was called— the fur was a dark shade of black as if it were rubbed with charcoal before being soaked in tar and as bouncy and fully looking like the white puffs in that decorated the blue sky above me. The hat snugly secured itself over my head and down to my lower neck, with some of the thick animal fur that made it up, nudging against my cheeks. On both sides of the hat that now sat atop my head, there was a set of curled horns that I realized resembled the rams, bleating beasts of Gifter’s home. When I had first breached the abyss and looked around at the nearby wildlife, the rams had been my favorite. I was found by Gifter himself, whilst I was playing with the fuzzy horned creatures. Nice to know he remembered our first meeting.
I hummed, staring down at the gloves and strangely soled socks I now wore. Both were as soft as the hat I wore. “What do you think?” Gifter asked, I looked down, the tiny man was risking his neck to stare up at me with those sparkling eyes.
For a moment, I considered responding how I usually did. But as I gave it a little more thought, I decided to try something different. I licked my lips. “…N-Nice…” I hissed, the foreign word sounding strange on my tongue as my vocal cords shifted as best to speak it.
“It speaks!” One of the guards said, I snapped my gaze over to the guards and the lone maid who stared at me with dropped jaws and enlarged shiny orbs.
“Shut the fuck up!” Gifter snapped, drawing my attention back to him as the man, stretched on his toes to take my gloved hand. Holding my palm up to him and using his smaller dexterous digits to massage the skin underneath the fabric. I shivered at the touch; a man had never touched me before not with such gentleness. “Do not mind them, please,” He crooned, making sure to apply pressure at random intervals to keep my eyes on him as opposed to the growing whispers beyond us. “You were saying? Please repeat yourself.”
I blinked, my cheeks growing hot as I forced the words out. “It…is…nice. Pretty.” Note to self. If this is the response got by speaking his native tongue, I would have to do it more often.
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