Let's Play Pretend

Minna

The fortress was cold. It was always cold, but the last day or so it had gotten much worse. Even Minna's teeth were clattering. She kept complaining that as an Ice Giant, this was simply not acceptable. It wasn't even possible. And yet, there she was, covered in five layers of furs... shivering.

She had begged Eddie to lend her just a little of the magic he used to keep himself and Jenna warm and cozy, but to no avail. The only thing it had gotten her was a two hour long speech about how we don't waste magic on comfort. He was spending enough as it is on everything else. No, Minna could just "dress for the temperature and shut the fuck up".

This wasn't the Eddie she had first met, or the Eddie she had gotten Jenna for. But she had a horrible gut feeling that this... This was the real Eddie. The wizard gone bad she had heard about, but not connected to her new friend. Gullible old Minna had gone and messed up again, been loyal to the wrong person. Nothing new about that.

He had sought her out about a month back, suddenly manifesting inside her cottage in the forest outside the haven. She had been sleeping soundly until a tiny, but very heavy body fell on top of her. She reacted just like any girl would... by hurling him across the room until he crashed face-first into the wall. If he absolutely wanted to be intimate with something, that was a better option, she'd thought.

But then he hadn't gotten up again, and it had started to dawn on her that this was a human. She had never seen one in real life before, but from the fairy-tales she had heard about them she knew they didn't really handle rough play well. They lived for just about a second, and then they died from practically everything and anything.

She had stepped closer then, trying to figure out more about this intruder. He was handsome enough, in his miniature-looking way. Not a child, if one was to judge by his somewhat obvious need to shave. She had wondered if she could keep him, as a pet of some sort... By the time he woke up she had half-finished building him a cot.

He had been quite opposed to the idea of being her pet, much to her dismay. He had argued quite vehemently that people were not pets, and wizards even less so. Apparently they were just like Ice Giants except for the whole "small and breakable" thing. She didn't want to get into an argument with him, so she swallowed down her reply that that alone meant they were the exact opposite. Her kind wasn't defined much by their intel... um... smarts. Or anything else, really, except that they were all big and sturdy.

Eddie had in the end convinced her that they were more or less equals, after challenging her to an arm wrestling match and nearly winning. She had suspected him of cheating, but his size taken into account she hadn't cared too much. "By All Means Necessary" was her tribe motto, anyway. She could related to using what you had to gain the upper hand.

Over a steaming bowl of mushroom soup, Minna's specialty, he had told her that his spell had slightly malfunctioned. His intention hadn't at all been to suddenly drop by her bed. Oh no, he was a gentleman, he assured her. The plan had been to land outside her cottage, and knock like common courtesy demanded.

She hadn't pointed out that this, too, was a topic on which humans and Ice Giants differed greatly. A proper Ice Giant man would never knock on a woman's door in the middle of the night, if he wanted her respect. He'd barge in, state his business, and then leave again. Knocking on people's doors in the middle of the night was in fact very, very rude. If you were the one dropping by while they're sleeping, the least you could do would be to not force them out of bed just to open a door you damn well knew how to get yourself. Humans were weird.

There was a point to his visit, he assured her. Which felt like a bit of an insult, to her. Sure, she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but even she could figure that out on her own. You don't just go into the middle of the forest to visit a stranger unless there's actually something you want. She wasn't born yesterday!