Big Bend (g/t)

Bonfires

Dave

Angie and I arrived at the bonfire together, having walked over from the employee housing together. John, Gus, and of course, Easton were already there when we got there. The trio sat around the fire. Well, more, Gus and John sat around the fire. Easton sat nearby. Despite the roar of the flames, I didn't think the bonfire could have been much larger than a candle for Easton. I felt myself tense as I was once again reminded just how giant the giant was.

"Well, howdy," Gus greeted, smiling at us as we approached. "Easton here was just telling us about Aphiria."

"Cool," I said, giving a polite smile as I sat down. Angie, meanwhile, looked genuinely curious.

"Ooh, what about it?" She asked. She sat closest to Easton, other than John, and had to practically lay back to meet his gaze.

"The park service there," John said. "Easton worked for them for a few seasons."

I was a little surprised to hear that. I had known Easton had a somewhat relevant degree - botany, apparently - but I'd suspected our own park had hired him mostly for PR purposes. Possibly political ones as well. That was probably still true. It did make sense that they'd pick someone with some experience in a similar job.

"They have a pretty similar set-up, I guess. You said you were the equivalent of an interpretive ranger?" Gus continued, looking over to Easton. The giant nodded.

"Yeah, I don't think I'd be cut out for law enforcement," Easton said.

"Why not?" I found myself asking.

"I'm scared of confrontation, I'm scared of guns, and I'm like 99% sure I wouldn't pass the pysch eval." Easton said. I saw Angie surpressing a laugh at his bluntness. For my part, I had some questions about all three of those statements. The first two were rooted in my perception of Aphirials, admittedly. It was hard to imagine someone the size of a building being scared of literally anything.

Of course, Easton wasn't the size of a building in his own world. That realization made it make more sense, though it was equally weird to imagine Easton being the same size as everyone around him. I'd only known him for a short time, but it was hard to imagine him as anything but imposing. Not someone who would fear confrontation, and I seriously doubted human guns could even hurt him.

"Fair enough," Gus said with a chuckle.

Gus chuckled a lot, I thought. It fit with his whole friendly old mountain man image.

"They've got you set up in a pretty nice house back there."

Easton looked in the direction of his lodging nodding. "It's really nice. I was kind of thinking I'd be sleeping outside or something. But I guess my government and yours got together and came up with this solution."

"Was it built in Aphiria then?"

Easton nodded. "Yeah."

"Makes sense. I was thinking that was really some feat for human engineers," Gus replied. "Truth be told, I've been awful curious of the logistics of this whole thing."

"Oh-well, I'm happy to answer any questions. That I can- if that's okay with John." Easton finished awkwardly.

"Go for it," John said. "You'll need any practice you can get, since you'll be working with the public soon."

"Oh, yeah, I saw the announcement," Angie cut in, sidetracking the conversation.

"Which one?" John asked with a laugh. "I think it's on every news channel."

"Official Instagram one," Angie replied. "But, yeah, people were kind of going crazy over it."

Easton laughed awkwardly, looking at the ground.