Eplash

My legs burned as I struggled to keep up with the Giantkin.

Despite striking such an imposing figure, the large woman seemed to glide through the woods with ease, slipping through bush, and barely disturbing the ground with deft feet.

Even if I wanted to make conversation, it took everything for me to keep pace. Eplash said little as we travelled. Occasionally, she would hold up a hand to stop, and then cock her head, listening to the sounds of the forest. Sometimes we would continue, sometimes we would wait, and sometimes she would begin moving again, but in a completely a different direction.

After a few hours, we arrived at her camp.

"You live here?" I asked, looking around the small clearing. There wasn't much save for a lean-to, some bags, and a firepit.

"No," the large woman scoffed. "I hunt here."

I noticed she mostly spoke in clipped short sentences, as if she wasn't used to speaking to another living being. On occasion she would speak with more eloquence.

"It will not be safe here for long," Eplash continued. "We maybe have one day before they find this clearing. Those cultists don't appear to be skilled trackers, but there are many."

My stomach growled. I still hadn't eaten that day. I looked down to the rabbit carcass was dangling off my belt.

"We can rest a few hours here. Have a meal. Recover." Eplash said as she moved to the firepit.

"Is it wise to have a fire?" I raised an eyebrow. "Couldn't they track the light? The smoke?"

"Smokeless fire." Eplash said. "I assume if your mother sent you she told you of my skills in the woods."

"She didn't tell me much except to find you, Vendrix, and Beam."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "And where is your mother?"

"Gone..."

The word hung heavy in the air. Eplash went silent, poking at the now burning fire with a stick. "You still need to skin that rabbit."

I pulled out my knife and began the gruesome work. While I did so, Eplash went to a nearby stream and filled our water-skins. Once I was done, Eplash took the rabbit and hung it on a stick over the fire.

"How did you find me?" I asked as we waited for the rabbit to cook.

"Heard the dragon circling last night," Eplash said. "Knew something was up. The forest felt wrong. Didn't know it was you. Just knew I should go out and look."

After a while she inspected the rabbit. "It's done. Eat."

"Aren't you going to have some?"

She looked at me amused. She held out both of her hands in a "look at the size of me gesture."

"That would only be a snack to me," she said. With that she moved over to her lean-to and brought back a large ball of some sort of reddish blackish mixture.

"Pemmican," she said when I lifted my eyebrows questioningly. "Meat, berries, and fat. Mixed."

I guess I involuntarily made a face at that. The Giantkin gave a raucous laugh. "Soft."

I shrugged and began to slice off hunks of rabbit meat. After not eating for so long, even the gamey meat tasted like the most wonderful thing in the world. Eplash munched on her ball.

"Your mother was a great friend to Giantkin," Eplash said after we had finished our respective meals. "She and your grandfather were the first ones to come trade after the Emberstone war."

From what I knew, the Emberstone war was a bloody conflict between Giantkin and humanity that had lasted for generations. Both Giantkin and Humans claimed to be descendants of the Great Giants that had once walked the land before the modern races came into being. It was thought that the veins of rare Emberstone that ran through the mountainous divide that mostly seperated the two races were in fact the petrified corpses of those Great Giants who once ruled the world as demigods.

Emberstone itself had magical properties and was highly sought after by both kingdoms. It was extremely rare to find a deposit, and both species knew that whoever had access to the biggest supply would win the war.

In the ultimate irony, the war ended when vast deposits were discovered in Hisus, several hundred miles away. With ample supply now available to both kingdoms, and the original belligerents of the war long dead, neither kingdom felt it necessary to continue the fighting. An uneasy peace went on for a few dozen more years, and finally the human lands began to reach out. Apparently my mother and my Grandfather were some of the first to cross the border in as part of a diplomatic trade mission.

"She told me some stories," I said. "But she never went into great detail.

"We were the same age," Eplash said. She laughed caught in the memory. "But compared to me, she was tiny, like a doll. I dragged her around everywhere."

She then looked at me and then trailed off. "I'm sorry, perhaps I will save happy stories for a happier time."

I gave a sad smile, "It's ok, please go on."

Eplash continued, telling how she and my mother became fast friends and would often go hunting in the deep woods surrounding the Giantkin capital. I got the feeling there were many more stories, but they were too personal and I would never get to hear them.

"Then I came to visit her home in the Timbershot Mountains." she concluded. "I fell in love with the land, the lakes and the forests here. I now come every spring to hunt, and return to my home in the winter."

"When was the last time you saw my mother?" I asked.

"You had just been born. We kept in touch after, and then I heard that the Kingdom fell. Then nothing until now."

She went silent again.

Moments later Eplash got up and walked over to where I was sitting. Two large hands clamped down on both my shoulders.

"I should have been there for your mother," she said. "But I am now here for you, and I will be here for as long as you need me."

I was then swept up in the biggest bearhug imaginable.

"I can't breath," I wheezed.

I was only half-joking.