An Offering of Bread
- William Cornwell III
- Sep 3, 2023
- 4 min read
"No one has given me an offering in centuries."
Janet paused.
She was almost certain she had actually heard the voice, but it couldn't be. She had to have imagined it. Maybe she'd spent too much time listening to those podcasts on myths and folklore. Maybe she needed to get a little more sleep at night. Maybe she shouldn't be out at three in the morning.
"We normally stay hidden, you know."
Janet jumped as she saw it. It had crawled out from underneath the cracked and worn wooden railing on the bridge she'd left the bread on yesterday. She'd brought some more today, more because there was a ton of leftovers in the hotel and she'd read about the-
"Are you a brownie?"
The small man with the dusky grey skin roared with laughter. He was at most eight centimeters tall, yet in features he resembled an old man. He had a unkempt beard of white and he wore a pair pants that seemed to have been sewn together from scraps of red ribbons and handkerchiefs.
"Brownie! What an insult to suffer after all this time. Perhaps we are truly forgotten now..."
Janet wasn't sure if she was hallucinating, dreaming, or mentally ill in some other way, but this was too... special. She didn't want to run away from it.
"I'm sorry."
The small man slowly sat down on the cracked wood by her offering of dark bread and let out a long sigh as if the small amount of work had worn him out.
"Don't be. It is not the fault of the giants like you. I am... we are the Iratxoak. We are the helpers. The ones who ask 'What do we do?' The Task-Doers. The Ever-Commanded."
The Iratxoak man took a handful of the bread and bit into it.
"Or at least we were."
Janet didn't know what to say, so she just leaned closer and examined everything she could about the Iratxoak. He looked a little stockier than a human would be if he were that size. He had thick, ropey muscles on his legs and arms... and his hands only had four fingers each.
"What's your name?"
"Nailstrike."
Janet must have shown something on her face because Nailstrike continued after a moment.
"It was my special in the tribe. We're all experts, you know. We can build anything that another creature can. You, the giants. You build the most complicated things. It's why we liked living around the things you made. As long as we were left food we would maintain the construction. As long as we were given work, we would work. Each of us an expert at one part. I can strike nails. One hit and a nail is driven straight and solid. I used to work with Nailclasp and Nailcarry. The old boys, long ago left behind."
Janet wanted to hug the little man but was too afraid that any touch might offend or injure him.
"You must miss them a lot."
"It is the will of time and her minions to sweep the old away. I am to be swept up soon enough. My sunlight dims and the stars come out."
Nailstrike looked up at the night sky. Janet followed suit.
"Our place was always a strange one, a fragile one. We knew it, but hubris, no not just hubris... a prideful disdain destroyed us. We thought we could stop our work and still be given offerings. We thought we could do nothing and get everything. For a time, we did. For a time, we lived a life of spoiled fools..."
"What happened?"
"The world moved on and we had forgotten how to move with it. We had become too lazy, too foolish, too hateful of our own young, and hateful of the giants like you. As your kind scattered away in war and wander, most of us stayed. Only a few traveled with the giants. I knew we were nothing without them. I left with the giants. I kept the offerings alive for a time... but what can a Nailstrike do without a Nailclasp or a Nailcarry?"
The Iratxoak looked away from the stars as if they offended him.
"I have such a longing to see my old home, but I know that it is as gone as I will soon be. If I were to find my way back there, I believe I would find little more than a graveyard over what was once a town. We fell long ago."
"That's so sad." Janet felt her eyes wet as she listened to the emotion in the Iratxoak's voice. "Is there anything I can do?"
"You brought me bread. You listened to my story. You didn't run in fear. You didn't try to catch me. You didn't try to kill me."
"Is that really enough?"
"It is more than expected. More than deserved."
Janet once again wanted to hug the small man. She looked down on him for a moment, then a thought flashed over her mind like spark jumping from wire to wire.
"Stay here. I'll be right back."
Janet ran back to the hotel. It took her some time to find what she wanted, but there were always supply closets, and maids there were well-known for not locking things.
As she ran back she wondered if the magic was over now. That she had her delusion and now she'd find the bridge was just a bridge and that all of this was a mistake of a tired brain.
Yet when she saw the bridge, she saw the little man sitting on the railing still. She saw him eating the bread she left. She saw him looking at the stars as if they were descending upon him like a hawk after a field mouse.
"Here!" Janet laid her procured item on the railing.
Nailstrike looked on it as if it were a world's supply of gold.
"Nailstrike!" Janet smiled as she saw his face. "Strike this nail for me!"
What followed was a moment of pure joy for both of them.
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