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Chapter 12 – Ro

I relaxed a little as Neh-then kissed me, my eyes sliding closed. He kept me pressed to his lips for a while longer before lowering me. I stayed relaxed in his hands, eyes closed. I felt him moving, but didn’t feel the need to find out what he was doing. Surprisingly, I found I did trust him. He lowered me further, and soon enough, I felt his chest under me. I snuggled into it, relaxed further by the sounds of his breathing and massive heart beating below me. His large, warm hand rested over me as I rose and fell with each of his breaths. Soon his breathing evened out and his heartbeat slowed slightly. His warm and the sounds below me eventually lulled me to sleep.

I was standing in the forest, alone but unafraid. It was an area I had hunted in previously. The dappled light danced on the forest floor as I edged through the scant brush, bow in hand and quiver at my hip. A small stream danced over rounded pebbles to my left, babbling as it wound its way through the forest.

Hearing laughter up ahead, I quickened my pace. It sounded like Neh-then, but not as booming. The sound was coming from a clearing I had never seen before. I pause, ware, and nocked an arrow. Cautiously, I pushed my way forward, my steps mercifully quiet as I moved toward the sound of Neh-then’s laughter. Moving some bushes aside, I looked into the clearing, drawing my bow. What I saw made my jaw drop. It was Neh-then, but he was the same size as me. Well, maybe a few fingers taller, but he could fit in a building now. Not only that, but he was talking to, and laughing with, my parents! Forgetting everything I had had learned about stealth and caution, I dropped my bow and arrow and ran into the clearing.

“Mama! Papa!” I called, throwing my arms around them. It had been far too long. Papa held me tighter for a split second before looking me over at arms’ length.

“Look at you,” he murmured, voice just as calm and soothing as I remembered. “My little girl, all grown up.”

I smiled at him, turning to Mama. She smiled softly, running her hands through my short hair. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem shocked it was so short or that I was wearing men’s clothes. As she inspected me, my attention turned to Neh-then. He was still wearing his strange clothes. I smiled at his short oddly-dyed tunic with its strange symbols and his short blue pants made of that weird material. Mama or Papa must have noticed because I was allowed to go to him.

I was hesitant at first. I was just so used to being able to fit in his hand with room to spare that I had no clue how to react to him like this. He just smiled at me and spread his arms. I took a few more hesitant steps forward.

“Come on, Ro,” he said, making little beckoning motions with his hands. “You know I don’t bite.”

“Neh-then?” I asked, looking between him and my parents. “Is this… all real?”

“Yes… and no,” he replied, “but what’s it matter? This is what you wanted since a few days ago. When you stopped thinking of me as a monster.”

“I never,” I started, before switching thoughts. “You’re talking perfectly.”

“I had a good teacher,” he smiled back. “Now do I actually get to hold you or are we just going to have an awkward conversation with me holding out my arms in front of your parents?”

I managed to smile back this time and step into his arms. The wrapped around me, holding me to the chest I had slept on.

“This is nice,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around him as well. “It can’t be true. My parents are dead, and you… you’re a giant. You eat at least five carts of food per meal. You can intimidate one of the Imperial ministers into letting a poacher from an unknown village go on the stipulation that she’s your guide – ”

“Doesn’t matter,” he countered. “None of that matters right now, Ro. Just let yourself have this.”

“I want to,” I told him softly, tears leaking from my eyes. “I want to so badly, but this just isn’t real, and I don’t want to be hurt anymore.”

“Ro,” he started, voice vibrating in his chest.

“Why are the Kings testing me like this? What have I done besides try to survive?” My voice rose and I clutched him tighter only to feel his chest getting larger. “No! I don’t want to lose this! Please!”

I squeezed a little, hoping against hope he would stop growing. It didn’t work; he just kept getting bigger and bigger until I was once more sitting in his hand. He lifted me closer, and I clung to his thumb. I knew it had been too good to be true. Looking over the edge of his hand, I saw my parents had disappeared. Tears streamed down my face again. I wasn’t strong enough for this. I couldn’t lose them again.

“Ro,” Neh-then’s voice rumbled like the echo of thunder from the plains. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is!” I yelled, sobs wracking my body. “I killed her! I wasn’t good enough and I killed her!”

“No, you didn’t, Ro,” he murmured, bringing me closer to his body. “She’s still here.”

“She’s not!” I screamed, pounding on his chest. “She’s gone and it’s all my fault!”

“Ro, stop,” Neh-then commanded, pulling me away from his chest. He looked down at me, blue of his eyes soothing me slightly before I tore my gaze away. “Look at me,” he urged. Biting my lip, I complied.

There was a small smile on his face as he looked at me. “They just went back to the village, Ro,” he assured me.

“Really?” I breathed, getting lost in his eyes again.

“Yes,” he whispered back. “And they’re waiting for you. The whole village is.”

“Why would they… ?” I began before noticing Neh-then’s cocked eyebrow. I looked down at myself then. Instead of my usual tunic and pants, I was wearing a soft lavender dress with gauzy sleeves and delicate flowers embroidered near my wrists and neck. “Mama… she started this embroidery when I was young. She said it was for my wedding dress.”

“It is,” Neh-then answered nonchalantly.

“Are we?” I asked, looking up at him with hopeful eyes.

“Us? No,” he answered with a small smirk. “Kings, no.”

“But,” I began just as he stood and started walking. “But you kissed me! And I kissed you!”

“Kisses don’t lead to marriage,” he said, not even looking at me.

“But you were talking with my parents,” I pressed. “Laughing with them! There’s no one else I’d rather be with!”

He stopped suddenly, throwing me against his fingers. This wasn’t the Neh-then I knew. He looked down at me, face hard. “I agreed to attend your wedding, that’s it,” he said, ice in his voice. “Consider it a blessing from the Kings.”

“Neh-then!” I pleaded, only to have him pinch my waist and lift me from his hand. Panicking, I started to struggle. If he dropped me from here, I would die! Didn’t he see that?

“Why would I want you?” he asked, almost like he was talking to himself. “You’re barely bigger than my finger and already claimed.”

“What?” I asked as his large fingers dug into my sides.

“Treso,” he answered, holding me level with his eyes. “Or did you forget?”

“Treso is dead!” I breathed. “He got the sickness, just like Mama!”

“Wrong,” Neh-then countered, starting to walk again. I clutched the fingers holding me, not wanting to be dropped.

“I remember the pyre, Neh-then!” I yelled, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Both Mama and Treso’s bodies were burned that day, plus half the village!”

“Stop,” Neh-then commanded, eyes stern, as he whipped me back up to eye level. “You’re not getting out of marrying him. It was agreed on.”

“Neh-then,” I whimpered, looking him in the eye. “I thought – ”

“You thought what?” he snapped, cocking an eyebrow and switching his hold to dangle me by my dress. I stared thrashing as he spoke again. “Just because you taught me this language doesn’t mean I have to see you like that. I don’t, and I never will.”

“It’s my size?” I asked, remembering what he had said earlier.

He just sighed, like I was some stubborn kid who wouldn’t listen, before kneeling and putting me down. “Just go get married,” he said, voice tired. “I’m done dealing with you.”

I just stood there as he stood and walked away. It was kind of terrifying, like watching a mountain move. All the same, I started running after him. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want me; I could live with that. I just didn’t want to be alone anymore, comforted only by my memories. I felt the tremors of his steps fading fast as darkness started surrounding me. I stopped, my chest heaving as I fought to catch my breath. He had left, just like everyone else I had shared my feelings with. Mama, Papa. Treso. And now, Neh-then. I let myself fall to the ground as the world faded completely.

My eyes slowly blinked open, only to be met with Neh-then’s large, worried face. But… hadn’t he just left me? Told me to marry someone who had been dead for years? Wait. He was still here! I could… But what if he really felt that way?

“You were having a nite-mehr,” his voice startled me from my thoughts.

“What is nite-mehr? I asked trying out the new In Galish word to distract myself.

“A bad… uhm,” he started, switching languages. “A bad seeing at night… in head.”

My head tilted to the side as I tried to figure out what he meant. “Dream?” I offered. “A bad dream.”

“Dream,” he repeated.

My mind wandered a little as he held me. So, if that had all been a dream, then why did I feel so queasy right now? It explained how he had known about Treso, though. Treso.

“You need talk,” Neh-then’s voice interrupted my thoughts again. He brought me closer to my window, but I didn’t feel like leaving his hands. Not after that nite-mehr. His hands tilted, sliding me back to my room as he spoke again, this time in In Galish, “Go have a girl chaht with Kyla.”

“Neh-then,” I said, turning to face the window, only to see just his calf. The ground shook a bit as he leaned back down to look at me. His eyes were soft, not like in my dream. But what if that was really how he felt?”

“It’s alright,” he murmured, staying in his own language. “Go on, I’ll be fine. You need to talk to someone.”

I nodded a little, not really having an argument against it. He had suggested Kyla, so I hoped she was free. Either that or I would just wander in the forest a little. Without looking back at him, I left my room, feeling the tremors of his movements seconds later. I tried to look as calm as possible as I left the inn and entered the tavern. My eyes grazed the crowd of people, some I had always known and some I had never seen before. I slid into a nearby table, idly listening to the chatter around me.

“ – Trueh climbed into his hands, I was sure Arpeleh was going to faint!” one of the strangers was saying. “I wasn’t sure of the stories before that either, but we had to get here.”

“Neunis has had an influx of visitors lately,” came Reis’ voice. “Haven’t had this much competition in a long time.”

“Oh stop, you idiot,” Muny scolded. “You know exactly why they’re here, and it ain’t your arm!”

“Aye, I know,” Reis responded. “Ro’s giant.”

“Ro?” the unfamiliar voice asked.

“Young woman born and raised in this village,” Reis answered, pride in his voice. “She’s the one who’s been chosen by the Kings to be the giant’s companion. Long as he’s here, that is.”

“Is she your daughter, then?” an unfamiliar woman asked.

Both Reis and Muny were silent. I shifted a little, wondering who would respond and how they would.

“No,” Reis finally answered, pain in his voice. “Her father we lost to the war, and Milet…”

Mama.

“Milet was taken by the sickness,” Muny finished, “just like Reis’ boys.”

That’s right. Reis lost both his sons to the sickness. I looked around the tavern again, picking out my fellow villagers. There was barely anyone who hadn’t been affected by the war or sickness. But none of us really talked about what that actually meant to us. Maybe I was just weak, then. Reis rarely ever mentioned is boys or brother. Muny didn’t seem affected by the loss of his wife, either. I doubted either of them had dreams about their lost loved ones.

“Planning your next hunt?” Kyla startled me out of my thoughts.

“I don’t think I’ll be hunting for a while, Kyla,” I answered softly, feeling the weight of my dream and Neh-then’s words.

Kyla sat across from me, giving me that look. It was the same one she gave me years ago when I lost my family and Treso. I had loved him, even if our marriage had been arranged by our parents. He had grown on me.

“Hey,” Kyla said, snapping her fingers in front of my nose.

“Sorry,” I responded. “Got lost in the past.”

“Because of Sresar?” she asked. “The questions?”

“How do you pick up their names so easily?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation away from me.

“Ro,” Kyla warned, her voice sounding like a mother’s. “Please?”

“Remember… back when the sickness had cleared… those dreams I had?” I started, not looking at her.

“The ones with your parents and Treso?” she asked, reaching for my hand.

I nodded. “I had another one last night,” I all but whispered, “but it wasn’t the same.”

Kyla stayed silent after my admission, probably unsure of what to say.

“I didn’t marry a corpse,” I pressed on, trying to sound brave. “Neh-then was in it, too.”

“The giant?!” Her voice rose slightly, drawing a few stares. I didn’t continue until they had all looked away.

“He didn’t start out one in my dream, though. He was our size.”

“Oh?” came her hesitant reply. Maybe it was a bad idea to tell her. After all, she was terrified of Neh-then, so she probably wou –

“You really trust him, don’t you?” she asked. My eyes shot up to meet hers.

“Hissen told me that you climbed right into his hand after he finagled your release,” she murmured. “You wouldn’t do that if you didn’t trust him. I don’t know if you’d let one of us do that if we could.”

“I had been forced into his hands before that,” I tried to divert her attention again, not sure if I really wanted to talk about what Zelof brought up.

“Not the point and you know it,” Kyla refused to play along. “You trust him!”

“So what if I do?” I shot back. “It doesn’t matter. Even if I trust him… I’m the size of a small doll to him.”

Kyla cocked her head to the size, like she was studying me. “He was in your wedding dream, though,” she commented softly. “I bet Treso wasn’t even in it.”

“So?” I snipped.

“So this has something to do with Neh-then and whatever that scribe said to you yesterday,” she replied, looking wiser than I thought possible. “This is more than just trust, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” I whimpered. “Zelof asked basically the same thing.”

“Tell me the dream,” Kyla insisted, getting the look again. With a small sigh, I started telling her everything I could remember. She stayed quiet the whole time I spoke. I tried to keep my voice as flat as possible, but I knew Kyla saw right through me. She always could. I felt a little relieved as I told her the end of my dream, but also a little sad. It just reminded me that I had no clue how Neh-then really saw me… or how I truly saw him.

“So, you were happy when you thought he was going to ask you to marry him,” she murmured, piecing it together. “And when he rejected you, you were hurt.”

“He’s a giant, Kyla!” I whimpered, not wanting to follow her to the conclusion she was coming to.

“It could just be that you feel responsible for him,” she offered hesitantly.

“He can hold me in the palm of his hand,” I countered. “Why should I feel responsible for something I should fear?”

“Because he proved otherwise,” she answered. “I have heard three different men talk about how Neh-then carried them and their families here. True, they were all frightened at first, but Sresar’s nephew, a boy a lot like you, willingly climbed into Neh-then’s hands.”

“Really?” My head cocked to the side. Because of how Kyla had worded it I knew she meant he had lost his father to the war. I didn’t know about the boy’s mother, but anyone who would willingly trust a stranger after losing someone to the war either had a very good reason to or a death wish. If Sresar was the man I had overheard just now, I doubted it was the latter.

Kyla nodded, rubbing her thumb over mine. “Sresar’s sister, the boy’s mother, was so scared she called Neh-then a monster.”

“At which, his big blue eyes probably showed just how much that word hurt,” I interjected with a small, knowing smile. Kyla’s face flickered with something I couldn’t quite define before she continued.

“I don’t remember them saying anything about that, but one of the other men, the one with two small children, thought Neh-then would crush them for sure because of it.”

“If he didn’t hurt a poacher like me, he’s not going to hurt innocents like them,” I countered.

“You’re so quick to defend him,” Kyla observed, sly smile on her face. “Why is that?”

“I guess because I know he won’t hurt someone without a reason to,” I began hesitantly. “He saved my life.”

“So you feel indebted to him?” she asked, turning back to how this all started. I pointedly looked away and put my hands in my lap. I prayed she would understand how much I didn’t want to talk about this.

“Stop hiding, lass,” a rough voice murmured to my left. My head snapped toward it, eyes finding Muny’s one-eyed face. “Th' sooner you admit yer feelings t' yersel' th' better off you'll be.”
“How would you know?” I snapped, lashing out without thinking.

He cocked his head to the side, giving me a look that said I should know. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?” I growled.

“That month I wasn’t mysel’,” Muny provided, obviously frustrated with me. “You know the reason or don’t you care?”

I just glared at him, not really caring and just wanting my life to go back to what it was.

“It was because I wasn’t letting mysel’ feel. Same as drinkin’ poison an’ Kings curse me If I let Milet and Drekken’s only daughter do that to hersel’, hear me?” His voice rose with every word, anger radiating off him.

Both Kyla and I were speechless. There were times I forgot that Muny was my mother’s cousin and had been one of my father’s best friends. My head slowly bowed as his words sunk in. That was the reason he had been so quiet that month? Because he wasn’t letting himself grieve for Fymo? At the time, I had been busy trying to figure out how to survive without my parents and Treso. I had cried often, mostly when I was alone.

“What if what I feel is wrong?” I murmured. “Or unnatural?”

This time, it was Kyla who reacted to the question. She roughly hauled me to my feet. Keeping a grip on my upper arm, she marched me to her parents’ small house. She released me, motioning for me to sit at the table.

“Nothing you feel is unnatural, Ro Brekken-mehe,” she said after I sat down, her tone hard.

“Kyla,” I started, only to be cut off by her holding up a hand.

“No feelings are unnatural,” she reinforced. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you’re beating yourself up about Neh-then.”

“How could I not?” I murmured, holding my face in my hands. “I was so scared when he found me. I thought he was going to eat me.”

“Do you still?” she asked. It didn’t sound like she was overly concerned about my answer.

“No,” I mumbled. “I would already be dead if he was going to do that.”

“But you wish he had,” Kyla pressed, surprising me. “That way you wouldn’t have to worry like this.”

“Kyla!” I yelped.

“Am I wrong?”

“But… if he had… if he was a man-eater… everyone would be in danger,” I whispered. “And–”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about that,” Kyla countered. “He would have–”

“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop it! Neh-then would never do that!”

Kyla recoiled, eyes wide. She was looking at me like I was a complete stranger, and I didn’t blame her. I rarely raised my voice like that, but there was something about people thinking poorly about Neh-then that just irked me.

“Neh-then is kind and gentle,” I began hesitantly, feeling the floodgates open. “Sure, he can be a bit clueless, but he learns from his mistakes.”

Her face didn’t change for a while, but eventually, her eyes blinked slowly, the look within them ganging. “You like him,” she whispered.

“What?” I yelped. “No I don’t! How could I?”

“You like him,” she repeated, a small smile growing on her face.

“He’s. A. Giant,” I insisted. “How. Could I. Like. A. Giant?”

“Now, where have I heard that before?”

“Kyla,” I scolded.

“Let’s see, replace ‘giant’ with ‘rich man’s son’,” Kyla grinned slyly.

“Neh-then is not Treso,” I murmured.

“You’re right,” she agreed, surprising me. “Neh-then isn’t Treso, but that doesn’t mean you can’t like him. Besides, you are the one choosing Neh-then.”

I cocked my head to the side at her words. If I really did like Neh-then, it was because I chose to, right? I shook my head. That couldn’t be it. Neh-then was just the first man to see me as a woman in a long time.

“No?” Kyla asked. “If I was in your position, I wouldn’t be defending him as quickly as you do.”

“I’m with him all the time,” I groaned. “He…”

“Grew on you?” she guessed. “You’ve said that one before, except you didn’t choose to spend time with that one.”

“Neh-then is not Treso!”

“I’m not saying he is,” Kyla huffed, clearly getting angry with me. “Ro, I talked to him.”

“What?” I gasped. “You… you talked to him?”

“He cares,” was her answer. “Treso didn’t. The fact that you could find something to love in that man has always surprised me.”

“It was the only way I could live with the arrangement,” I replied softly. “But he wasn’t worth it really.”

“Your parents were just trying to do the right thing for you,” Kyla murmured, “but I wish it had been with a different family.”

I nodded. After the sickness had passed, Treso’s family had left. Just left. No sympathy, no remorse. I sighed, rubbing my forehead. This conversation just kept spiraling. We would talk about how I felt about Neh-then, then get on something else and just circle back around. And I didn’t like the conclusion it was coming to. Even if I did like him, there was no way he could like someone who could fit in the palm of his hand… could he?