"Why do ducks have feathers?” TimTom the enormous giant asked his fellows while carrying the unconscious Scholar woman.

They were walking though the North Forest, deep in Queen Sadies territory. They have been out of the Wildlands for some time now, but they were still in dangerous territory. The Twins had been hidden for a long time and as their stewards, the four of them were some of the few who knew of their true location. Unfortunately, the closest convergence point for them was in an area riddled with bandits that the Queen allowed full reign as long as they paid their dues to her. Most of the towns have been long abandoned in and around the North Forest.

“Not now… please?” Steff pleaded.

“You always say that. It is never time for you.” He replied.

“That’s because it is never time for jokes like that.” Steff said.

“I want to hear.” Mattaeo said.

“I do to.” Cameroon agreed.

TimTom turned to look down at his three companions. They were small folk, but he loved them. He gave Steff a wicked grin when the dark-skinned elf closing those blood red eyes.

“To hide their butt quacks.” TimTom said following it up with bellowing laughter.

It was the kind of laugh that was contagious, always making others around him smile with its boisterousness and innocence. Mattaeo, Steff and Cameroon stopped walking then stared at each other. They all groaned and that sent the giant in another fit of laughter.

“That was just awful.” Cameroon said.

The squat little dwarf was wearing thick plated armor covered in spikes. the spikes were covered in pitting and rust due to a monster attack the day before. Mattaeo saw the dwarf picking at the pits and took the opportunity to scold him good naturally.

“I told you not to jump on it.” He looked down at him.

“Shove it.” Cameroon replied.

“Cameroon… sometimes you need to listen to us.” Mattaeo said shaking his head.

“Can you ask the grass to not be green?” Cameroon asked him.

“What?”

“Can you complain when the sun keeps rising after you asked it not to?” Cameroon smirked at the tall human.

Mattaeo sighed after realizing what he was talking about.

“Are you trying to tell me that jumping on things is in your nature?” Mattaeo asked.

“Ahh, see Mattaeo this is where your limited grasp on my genius is severely lacking. I am saying it is not in my nature to listen to you. Jumping on things, that is just fun.”

TimTom guffawed at that along with the normally stoic elf. Even Mattaeo smiled inwardly after shaking his head. His friends were frustrating, but how could they not be after working together for nearly twenty years.

“You are really something else.” Mattaeo said to Cameroon.

“I know this, and that is what makes me to attractive for the ladies.” He said with a wink.

“Is it possible to quench your ego? Or is it just that large?” Mattaeo asked.

“We do not ask questions of things. Such majesty must remain a mystery, if only to continue to entice said ladies.” Cameroon said with another wink.

“I think you may have something wrong with your eye.”

“I think it’s the face actually, I think it may be too handsome.”

“Talking to you is like trying to ride a Sioni. You will be going in one direction, then the other in an instant. I know that you know of this, that is how you ended up stuck to that tree, remember?” Mattaeo said.

“Oh, that tree moved there you know.” Cameroon explained.

“What?” Mattaeo asked exasperated.

“Yep. It needed to be near The Cameroon.” He said.

“Okay, I think this conversation has gotten away from me.” Mattaeo said.

“Exactly my plan.” Cameroon said.

“You…” Mattaeo stated when TimTom interrupted.

“How about this one. What are vampires favorite ship?” the giant asked them all.

The big guy knew what he was doing, everyone got along, but he could see Cameroon purposely antagonizing Mattaeo. He did not want their jives to turn into actual arguing.

“Can I kill him now?” Steff asked the others.

“Steff! You are small, and I am big. I will squish you.” TimTom said as a matter of fact.

“Have you even heard of magic?” Steff asked then muttered an incantation in the tongue of the Demonic Elves. “No bounds hold me.”

A dark maroon light snaked out from the nearby trees and shot into his body. The light seemed to have been produced by the trees themselves, leaving behind a harmless stain in its bark. He began to grow in size, body, clothes and all and soon, he was even taller than Timtom. Looking down at the giant, Steff smiled with sharp needle like teeth. As well as growing in size, other parts of his body also morphed to look more like his kin. Sharp horns punctured up from his long red hair, his eyes flickered into green flames and the dark skin turned more maroon than black. Under his cloak was a bulging the other knew were his large razor like wings.

Anyone lucky or unlucky enough, depending on your perspective, to meet a Demon Elf in their lifetime would rarely see what they called their True Form. Everyone thought that the Demon Elves were evil considering their appearance and some of their people’s history. Due to that, they were nearly hunted to extinction over a thousand years ago. Their true calling as a race was as servants to gods. On Earth, many of the more nefarious gods tends to be the ones leaving behind a reputation, and over years the Demon Elves fell hand-in-hand next to them. That stigma stuck to the race even though for every one evil elf, there were ten good. Steff if the latest in a long line in his stewardship to the Twins. Even though he was sworn to them and their goodness, he was still stained by his races past deeds.

“What was that you said?” Steff asked flicking the giant’s shoulder.

TimTom looked up at the giant elf, it was always an intimidating sight to see his true form, but saw an opportunity that comes to one only once in a lifetime.

“Ahh, good. Thank you, my friend.”

TimTom, then heaved the unconscious woman from his shoulders and onto Steffs. The Elf’s eyes went wide at this, but still caught the woman; he knew he had been played by the giant. TimTom then turned around and continued to lumber through the trees.

“A blood vessel!” TimTom said then erupted into laughter once again.

It took everyone else a few moments to realize that he was finishing the joke from earlier. They all shook their heads and groaned again.

“You… are an idiot.” Mattaeo said to the giant.

“You are small.”

“is that all he can say…” Mattaeo muttered to himself.

“Listen,” Steff grunted while shifting the woman’s weight on his shoulder. “don’t fight him on that, you’ll just end up carrying some stranger in the forest.”

“That was pretty good.” Mattaeo said while trying to hide a laugh.

They continued to walk for another few hours through endless trees, Sadie’s North Forest was large, but they had to be getting closer to the portal soon.

“How much further?” Mattaeo asked Steff who was still in his True Form.

“About another hour, but… Something doesn’t feel right.” He replied.

“What do you mean by this?” TimTom asked.

“I…”

Steff had an innate connection to the Twins and their physical domain. On this plain of existence, it was in the form of a portal that would teleport them to a grove. No one knew where the grove was, not even Steff, but there were portals located in most lands that would take the stewards to the Twins lands. He had not said anything yet, but as they drew closer to the portal, it winked out of his consciousness. He was hoping that there was just some weird interference in the magic around him, but when nothing returned, he decided to tell the others.

“The portal is gone.”

“What do you mean?” Mattaeo asked.

“Exactly what I said. It is gone, or at least I can’t feel it anymore.” He replied a little annoyed.

As he began to explain this, they heard a deep growl coming from the throat of TimTom. They then heard the tearing and snapping of roots as TimTom was pulling up an entire tree from the ground. They could see that he had placed the Scholar down on the ground.

“The Twins will forgive me.” TimTom said as a prayer.

He stood there holding an entire tree as a large bat, and was staring at something through the trees. The others followed his gaze and saw what made the giant so angry. Ahead of them, they could just see a large group of bandits, around twenty in total, with twice that number locked up in cages. Three women were being dragged from the cage screaming while one was flailing for a little boy being shoved back in the cage.

“Wait!” Mattaeo said.

Nothing would get though the giant’s head when he was like this, but if he was being honest with himself, Mattaeo did not care. There were few things in this world that would crawl under his skin and make his blood boil, and when TimTom through the tree, crushing three bandits against the side of cage, he was only happy to help.

TimTom roared at the bandits in a sound only emulated by monsters, Cameroon cracked his knuckles and pulled out some spiked gauntlets, Mattaeo slid two long and skinny swords out from mid-air while green flame grew from Steff’s palm into a half moon ax made from the fire. They charged at the bandits with fire in their hearts and weapons in their hands.