I'll Never Tell

Paranoid

Norns, she couldn't feel her face anymore. The muscles in her thighs burned as she endeavored to move forward through the snow, each lunge draining what little energy she had left. She estimated that without the protection of a cave, she had an hour until her body succumbed to the elements. The Dökkálfar were not built for the cold.

With a grunt, Petra tugged her hood and scarf closer and forced herself to take another step. She squinted as snowflakes pelted the deep blue-gray skin of her cheeks, her eyes scanning for anything resembling a shelter. The girl's heart stopped when she caught sight of a faint black mass outlined against the sky. A place to keep warm? Maybe she had a chance at making it through this storm. From the dregs of her energy stores she summoned the willpower to trudge forward.

Several hundred feet of slogging through the snow and she found herself facing a dense tree line. It wasn't a cave, but it was better than nothing. If she was lucky, the pines would block some of the wind and cold, which she loathed. She rather loathed her entire situation, but that didn't change anything.

Being cast out of Svartalfheim wasn't the worst thing to ever happen to Petra. That was a tie between losing at a juvenile game of hnefatafl, the penalty of which was having to kiss a Eldjötnar boy that tasted like stale sulfur, or watching her mother condemned to death and dismembered by trolls. Both were awful experiences to which her banishment to Jötunheim didn't compare.

However, being stuck on a frozen rock wasn't pleasant. Petra sighed, breath exiting her lungs in a puff of steam as she peeled back branches, slowly making her way into the forest. Immediately the gusts died down, and she became aware of her wind-burned cheeks. She moved slowly, eager to get out of the storm but with such little remaining stamina that each step felt as if it were her last.

When a twig snapped, she froze. She knew very little of the beasts on Jötunheim, but she was quite sure she wanted nothing to do with them. Tree limbs rustled, two wet thumps sounded, followed by a hearty thud. A celebratory hoot and a cry pealed from her right and, with as much grace as a body packed in layers could, she turned with her hand on the hilt of her dagger. She didn't know how to use it, but she wasn't going to die without a fight. Hooves battered the snow and a pair of mounted blue-skinned riders emerged, arrows drawn.

Frost Giants. Known for their short tempers and brutality, not unlike her own people. They looked at one another in confusion when Petra wasn't an animal, but kept their bow arms high.

"Hva er du?" inquired one of the men.

"What?"

"Hva er du?" the same rider asked suspiciously.

"I don't understand you."

"Det er dumt. Det er en Dökkálfr." said the other giant, motioning at her.

The first man grunted with a nod. He lowered his bow, which prompted the other to strike him and point at Petra. They argued in a foreign language, one clearly adamant that she was a threat while the other seemed nonplussed.

Exhausted and slightly baffled, she squeezed her eyes shut and regrouped.

"Do you have heat? Fire? Food?" she asked uselessly.

The giants stopped their arguing long enough to stare calculatingly at her, and the first man nudged his horse a few steps forward.

"You alone?" he asked.

Ah, they spoke the common tongue. Her tense shoulders relaxed, which only informed her of how sore her body was. Hesitant to admit her vulnerability, but desperate for help, she nodded.