It took a few days for Vaali the Giant to begin resenting Dhanjay. Initially, the excitement of being allowed into the village meant that Vaali viewed Dhanjay in a very positive way, but when he re­alised that Dhanjay saw him as no more than a working beast, the dull blanket of resentment dampened all his previous good­will.

The village within the walls was as dusty as the wild area outside the walls. The houses were small and packed together around a surprisingly deep central pond. On the periphery, just behind the wooden walls, were small farms belonging to a few of the richer villagers. The rest of the village's pastures and farms mostly lay on the flatter, south side of the village, beginning just beyond the walls. Vaali had approached the village from the North from the direction of the great mountains.

Dhanjay was expanding his farms into the forested area that bordere­d them on one side and used Vaali to uproot the trees and then carry them to his large bungalow in the village where some human labourers would begin converting them into a variety of wooden items. The portly, sweaty businessman was simultaneously increasing his output while also building a monopoly on wooden structures in the village. In return, Vaali got a shed to sleep in near Dhanjay's bungalow, slightly less-old food scraps than he had been getting and assorted knick-knacks such as pieces of cloth or wonky furniture. The last of these benefits were clearly discards or hand-me-downs and Vaali soon learned to ignore them as he was too large to make use of any of them.

His resentment to Dhanjay faded as the days passed. There were no coun­ter-offers of work from the other villagers who remained wary of the Giant and obsequious to the businessman. Also truth be told, Dhanjay’s work wasn't tiring for Vaali at all no matter how it might have appeared to the humans.

Vaali also noticed changes in his own body. Regular food and physical work had made him bulkier but also more defined. He was very pleased with these changes. He was less pleased when he saw his face in the village pond. A brutish face stared back at him. His forehead was prominent and jutted out slightly. His eyebrows were very thick and his eyes were sunken into his face. His nose was br­oad though not bulbous. His lips were fixed into a permanent frown and covered by a bushy beard that had not stopped growing in the weeks since he had awoken. His visage did not 'Fit' and gave him the same dissociative feeling that his awesome strength did.

Over time he started picking up the humans' language just by hearing it constantly spoken. He was not surprised at all by Dhanjay's dismissive way of addressing him.

"Vaali, you animal... bring wood here not there!"

"Vaali... sitting there like dumb rock."

"Vaali... only good for bad meat."

"Vaali shake mud of tree before dropping it!"

Vaali understood what the odio­us man was saying to him but wou­ld never reply. He had tried to sound out the word ‘tree’ in the human language once and he had hated the grunting, guttural noise that had emerged. Already tre­ated like a pariah, he had no wish to be mocked further.

Stray dogs were common around the village, which Vaali learned was called Bengaya. They lolled around on the dusty roads, blocking traffic and generally being a nuisance until they were pushed away or beaten by angry villagers. This cycle repeated itself without fail. A month or so into his life at Bengaya, Vaali noticed that a rick­ety looking brown stray had taken to following him around. However, the dog never came too close to Vaali and whenever Vaali looked in his direction, the dog looked away and yawned. Not sure what to make of his hanger-on, Vaali ignored the dog's presence and eventually the stray became part of the scenery for him.

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Vaali spent his nights, roaming around the village, around the farms outside the walls and just staring into the unrecognizable night sky. Often his thoughts would wander to his own situation and inevitably his inability to draw on any memories would fill him with anxiety and sadness.

The villagers finally started accepting that Vaali was somehow part of their lives, a few months after he had moved in. The adults lost inter­est in him and their children gained too much interest in him. Some of the younger children were delightful and cute. They would try to app­roach him stealthily while he was working, staying hidden behind trees until he suddenly turned around and growled. At that instant the children would laugh uproari­ously and leg it to safety.

The older children were not as nice. A gang of older boys had found in him, a nice distraction from their daily chores. It began with a few of them gathering and taunting him.

"Dumb animal!"

"Shit-covered pig!"

"Ooga Booga! Me monkey!"

Vaali felt the heat rising in his face and his heart hammered as he tried to act like he couldn't understand them After an excruciating amount time his pretence seemed to work as they got bored and wandered off. Vaali breathed a sigh of relief but he knew that there were two things that could happen, they would either ignore him like their parents did or they would escalate the bullying.

The escalation came the following day. Vaali was taking a break and facing the Great mountains, taking in the snow-capped views. He suddenly felt a small object hit the back of his head. He touched his head and felt nothing. There was also no pain so he ignored it. The next time, a larger object hit his back and was accompanied with a shout.

"Don't ignore us, you dumb animal!”

He turned around to see that the gang of boys was back and wer­e holding stones that they clearly intended to throw at him.

The boys paused and seemed to shrink for a second when he rose to his full height. But noticing that he hadn't said anything, nor was he showing any anger, they regained their confidence and began pelting him with stones while cackling and shouting.

Vaali tried to protect himself as best he could. The stones did little damage. He healed almost instantly from the tiny objects. But the damage to his ego was another matter and his shame and disgust at himself was vast.

And then, all of a sudden, there was a whirlwind of barking and grow­ling followed by a scream of pain. Vaali looked up and saw that the brown mangy stray was barking at the boys like a monster and seemed to have bitten the leader on the arm. Their boys fled.

Vaali fed the stray for the first time that night. As he patted the punning animal, he saw a group of villagers approaching him led by Dhanjay. Dhanjay looted resolved while the other villagers looked angry and were shouting. Dhanjay didn't say a word to Vaali, walked right up to him and reached for the stray.

"Don't! "said Vaali. It came out like a deep of roar of low-pitched rumbling thunder. There was silence in the village. Dhanjay had frozen mid-action and now looked terrified. The angry mob looked equally scared and started backing away.

After that day, the stray also got a small shed to sleep in. It was right next to Vaali's shed. Dharjay was far more polite with the Giant who now got fresh food and even some useful items like hewed pieces of timber and rope. Vaali now spent his nights constructing his own fittings and improving his hovel.

Life wasn't good but it was cert­ainly better than it had been.