“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

C.S. Lewis

In the end, the giants did not return till the next morning. Still, it allowed us time to process the bear’s carcass, preserve the meat as best we could, cure the hide, and clean the fur to add another layer to our sledge. Magic made many impossibilities possible, and I couldn’t quite imagine how challenging our stranding would have been without it. The main problem was carrying all that we had managed to acquire. The sledge was piled high.

We were awake and waiting when they finally crested the ridgeline and descended to where they had first met us. Treading with speed and purpose, their long strides soon ate up the distance, the snow no impediment to their progress. It was going to be a challenge to keep up if they kept up that speed all the way home. It already took me two steps to every one of Namir’s. With their stride length, I would have to take at least four, maybe even five, to keep up. Namir would be pulling me on the sledge sooner rather than later. I wondered whether they would be more amenable than he was. I was all for training, but it was freezing and I could only run so fast for so long despite my excessive stats and traits.

“Ver heill ok Saell.” The leader’s voice boomed out as he approached once more. “ I apologise for the delay. There were unexpected delays due to unusual movements.” He opened. “I’m glad to see that you waited for our return.”

“Unexpected movements?” Namir quizzed.

“Of some of the more stationary beasts. Their territories are shifting.” He explained their delay.

“Do you keep track of animal’s locations?” I asked. That seemed to be a little bit of an impossible task without modern technology and tracking devices.

“Not the animals. They pass and move too quickly to keep more than a cursory note of their haunts and migrations. No, the ones we have to watch for are the magical beasts that have developed cores and abilities. They tend to stick to the locations that allowed them to rise to prominence, but some of them seem to be shifting.” He commented.

I worried that our arrival somehow triggered it, but he did not seem to think we were the cause of anything untoward. Or at least he did not mention it.

“Regardless. We are here now and keen to return home after our patrol. This will have been a couple of weeks for us, and we are all missing our hearths.” His voice boomed. “Are you ready to set forth? I hope that you can keep up. In fact, let us pull that contraption of yours.” He said as he knelt down to the sledge, attaching a rope to the bone ring at the front of our sledge and fixing it to the back of his belt, without asking. “There, that should help you keep up with us.” He said almost patronisingly of our diminutive stature.

“Yes.” I grinned in excitement. I was going to get pulled after all. I had no complaints.

“Not so fast.” Namir lifted me up out of the sledge. Seemingly disgruntled by the somewhat condescending manner in which the giant’s leader had taken control of our supplies and the group. “You’ll harm your progress to rely on others for your rescue.” He pointed out to me.

“We rescued ourselves. This is just making my life a little easier.” I argued back.

“The system measures all.” He countered. “Until we reach their village, you should make the most of the experience and pull your weight for as long as possible.”

I turned to the giant for support.

“Don’t look at me. Your kin can train you better than I can.” he avoided taking any responsibility for resolving our family dispute. “If he thinks you can keep up, then who am I to argue otherwise.” He shrugged disbelievingly.

“Keep up for as long as you can.” He smiled at Namir.

Accepting the challenge, Namir surged forward ahead of the group, and I could see the giant reassessing at least one of our abilities to keep up with their group. “Hah,” He chuckled as he stepped forward after him.

“Give it your best.” The son said supportively as his father set out after Namir, soon drawing alongside him; seeing as he was waiting for him on the ridgeline, not knowing our direction, but they did not race ahead once they aligned. They made an odd pair of walkers, the giant and the beastkin.

I was sure I looked even more distinctively different with my walking companion, the giant and the human child. Despite his smaller stature compared to his father, he still towered above me even more than the giant leader did to Namir. I was running in order to keep up with his son’s steady plod. My stats kept me from being out of breath, but I could tell this would be a long day.

The final two giants brought up the rear. Silently watching our rear trail and scanning the sides for any unexpected dangers.

“You know you never told us your names,” I commented to the giant leader’s son.

“Neither did you, Kai.” He replied haltingly, and I recalled Namir giving my name away when he called for me to step forth.

“You have me at a disadvantage then.” I pointed out.

“Yes, we do.” He replied simply as he grinned in return, either at the fact that I was running to keep up with his steady strides or at the fact that he was still continuing to obfuscate their names from us.

“Greetings, oh northern giant of the endless ice. My name is Kai, and my guardian is Namir. May I have the honour of knowing the names of my companions as we race across the endless ice of Tramontana?” I flexed a few of the social skills I had been forced to learn under the direction of Lady Acacia.

My companion stumbled as the silliness of the situation, my skills hit him or as he attempted to understand my verbose vernacular — either way, he replied. “My name is Erik Bjørnson, Son of Bjørn.” He gestured at the giant leading alongside Namir. “Trailing us is Ivar,” He looked over his left shoulder at the giant following behind us on our left. “And Ragnar.” He looked at the giant behind to the right of our trail.

“A pleasure to meet you.” I bowed my head truly in acknowledgement of that fact. I was looking forward to seeing more of their nation’s customs, skills and, most importantly, magic. Lady Acacia had been able to teach us Elvish Spellsong, Humanities spellcraft, and the most basic Dwarvish runes we had been able to lift from the ships we had pilfered. The stone glyphs of the giants had been something she had been unable to impart.

“A pleasure to meet you, too.” He cautiously replied, testing the words as he said them clearly, unused to conversing too much in Bussola. It may be the common tongue for the central kingdoms of the compass continents, but we were traversing its edges, and it showed if only in the limited vocabulary of our companions.

Before they had returned, Namir had suggested that we keep the fact that I could speak the giant tongue hidden a little longer until we knew whether we could trust the sincerity of our giant guides.

“Where are we heading?” I asked, then added “Going?” as he seemed to struggle to understand the first question’s verb.

“Home.” He replied simply.

I would struggle to draw much out of him without revealing my ability to speak his own tongue. But I was not quite ready to give up just yet.

"Your father is a giant, your mother?" I asked, referring to the earlier conversation by his dad.

"My mother is a giant too." He replied a little defensively.

His father had said it didn't matter, but maybe it did, despite his assurance. "Yes, but you are smaller than the others." I probed, possibly a little insensitively. He was younger, it was true, but also noticeably shorter compared to his father despite the fact that he towered over the two of us.

"And your mother?" I turned the question around.

"Half beastkin, half-elf," I answered unashamedly. If we were going to lean into Namir's idea of what my imaginary genealogy might be, I might as well make the most of it in explaining my rather unusual collection of racial traits.

"Half and half?" He questioned, raising his eyebrows, surprised. "But you look human."

"Yes, my father." I grimaced, remembering the role I was supposed to be playing. "Not the best father." my frown elicited sympathy from the young giant.

"Me too." He replied in commiseration,

I raised my brow in surprise and he seemed to realise that he had implied his father was equally 'not nice.'

"No, no. Me too. My mother is half-giant, half-dwarf." He explained away his smaller that comparison stature. At the same time, seeming to emphasise our similarities.

"Thanks." I smiled, and he nodded in our mutual understanding and somewhat similar situations.

I struggled to see how that could have come about. But it wasn't something I could politely raise in conversation with her son, especially with his limited vocabulary. Nevertheless, I had laid the groundwork for our story, so I put my head down and ran alongside them. How long would I be able to keep this up? They continued to stride forward across the desolate, icy wasteland while I slid across the top of it.

I would have to find out.

. . .

I made it up until they called a break for lunch, surprising their leader Bjørn and possibly even Namir with my ability to keep going despite my small stature and the number of steps I had to take for each of their strides. The only things that allowed me to keep going alongside them besides my high stats and supplementary traits were my skis and the ability to slide over the snow rather than plough through it. The breaks at the ends of the downhills, as well as being able to glide forward and catch up with Bjørn and Namir were always welcome whenever they came. The giants seemed to be fascinated with the idea of my skis. The sledge made sense to them, and they had seen it’s like before, but the skis were something novel and new. I was not completely sure that they would work as well for them as they did for me. After all, they were significantly heavier than I was and would require something suitably strong enough to stand up to the punishment they would receive underneath a giant’s foot. I could see many of them snapping in the future and or not being viable due to their extreme weight. Giants might have the racial trait strength on their status, but it certainly had added both size and weight to their physique.

As we sat in the lee of a stone outcropping eating a hast lunch, Namir was quizzed about my ability to keep up. “Quarter cast, you say? I would have expected him to need to be carried by now despite the unusual contraptions strapped to his feet he is using to slide over the snow. He clearly carries more than one trait and even then . . . ” Bjørn asked Namir ignoring me in favour of conversing with who he viewed as the adult and leader of our group. But even then he paused before accusing me of anything outright.

“As my daughter’s son, I know he carries super senses and vitality. A dalliance with an elf in my younger years, far from home. One of many reasons I was unaware of her existence, capture and his existence until it was too late. As for the rest, . . .” He shrugged. Turning to me continued, “It could be any realm of possibility.”

“Hmmm,” Bjørn pondered. But whatever it was he kept to himself.

I took the hint. I was clearly operating outside of the realms of possibility, even if it was Namir’s idea to start off with and only with my physical attributes.

“Can I have a lift after lunch?” I asked.

“Yes of course,” his rumbling voice warmly answered.

After eating, I buried into the bearskin rugs and wolf pelts wrapping our sledge, it was welcomingly warm and terribly tempting to fall asleep as the sledge was pulled across the icy wastelands.

Nyx, though was not willing to let me sleep until she managed to arrange herself on top of me to her liking. She had been hiding out in the sledge as it was the warmest place besides within my clothes. I had been avoiding using my magic too much in front of the others. It had made this morning’s trek a little colder than I had been used to. Nyx rapidly realised that the sledge was the warmest place to be and retreated there before the giants had even appeared when my normal bubble of warmth was not forthcoming.

Now nestled together, she endeavoured to find the warmest spot above my chest and enjoying the warmth, I, too, pulled the pelts over my head and snuggled down to sleep to the rhythmic rocking of the sledge sliding over the waves carved into the ice and snow by the wind of the endless ice.

With nothing else to occupy my mind and exhausted from the morning’s trek I succumbed to the warmth and welcomed the senseless slumber.