Jack the Giant Killer RP

Part Two

Talon was hungry. The hunger had started like a tickle in the back of his throat when he first set foot at the bottom of the beanstalk. Now, it was a roaring and intensely savage thing. Being king did not mean that Talon had not suffered strife such as ravenous hunger. He had been the ninety-ninth son of a tribal chieftain—royal, but not king. In order to become king, he had slain many in vicious battle. A lot of those slain had been his own brother’s—equally ready to take the throne.

Only Cormac had not stood against him in bloody battle for the kingdom. Cormac the poet. Cormac the harmless—slain by this Jack who was arrogant enough to proclaim himself “giant killer”. Deep purple eyes narrowed to slits at the thought of Jack, even as the strange hunger gnawed at his belly. He would have to find something to eat soon. This terrible hunger was trying, desperately, to border on pain.

He walked a long dirt road toward a town he could see in the near distance. This road, he was told by person after person, would lead him to Jack. The humans did stare at him as he passed them. Humans were what they were called, these fairy tale creatures that had only existed in story books, before a few days ago—these tiny little imitations of giants. His mother had often told him stories of these little creatures. Mischievous they were and not to be trusted. They lived in another world just outside their own, and how he, a child, had laughed at their antics.

It seemed now that the fairy tales were true. He frowned, and the expression was so terrible that a woman who had been coming his way down the road, her eyes filled with admiration, flinched away from him and scurried off into the surrounding forest. He nearly paid her no mind, but his nostrils flared for the scent of her—quite delicious and meaty. All human smelled like this to him, and no animal smelled quite as nice.

The dirt road was filled with travelers—pitiful looking people who looked as if they had seen many horrors. Some of those people carried litters between them filled with the maimed and the dying. Women and children wept. Men cast horror-stricken eyes toward the city before them.

“You must be from some distant land,” a man said coming up to walk beside him. “Have the giants landed there too?”

He nodded curtly. “They have.”

The man sighed deeply. “So it’s everywhere then, this monstrous plague.”

“I suppose it is,” Talon replied.

The man was fat and sweaty. Most of his sweat was caused by sheer labor. He had strings of heavy silver and cold cups linked about his neck. He pushed a wheelbarrow filled with other items of similar metal. There were also rings and necklaces and chains intertwined with glittering multicolored jewels.

“I was a merchant in East Grinstead,” the man said catching him looking. “Name’s Geffron, what yours, friend?”

“Talon.”

“Are you a noble perhaps, Lord Talon? I’ve never seen silks so fine as yours. And that sword you carry, never seen it’s like either. In my business it is profitable to take notice of such things. I am known to have a good eye. And I am never wrong.”

Even this greasy fat bastard smelled good to Talon. He wanted nothing more than to be away from him. “I am whatever you want me to be.”