I don't own Hilda.
By the time the quartet started traveling again, the afternoon had begun. Back in the wilderness, everything looked so... clean, unpolluted. It gave Hilda a nostalgic feeling.
"You're not going to tell me what happened back there?" Alfur inquires, having recovered without any memory of the visit.
"Nope," Raven replies, smirking at Hilda, "ought to save you the embarrassment."
"What-?"
"I don't want to face that forest giant again," Hilda murmurs, changing the subject, "he probably remembers us... should we look for him at night and take a little bit of fur while he's sleeping?"
"Remember the last time you snuck up on a big powerful creature while it was sleeping?" Alfur glares at Hilda.
"I scared him away last time," Raven assures, "if I did it once, I could do it again. That is, if he still doesn't choose to be cooperative."
"We can't just steal from and threaten people like that, even if they are rude," Alfur protests, "and even if Woodman did before, it doesn't mean we should, too."
Hilda looks down at the earth below, watching the trees go by.
"You're right."
A familiar sight causes her to nearly fall off of Raven as she jolts up in shock.
"My old house!"
The rubble was not untouched, but it still looked mostly the same as when Hilda and Johanna had left it. Tears filled Hilda's eyes the closer they got to the ground. Curious elves peeked out of their houses to see Raven.
"Geez, kid, what happened to it?" Raven asks, poking about at the broken wooden beams littering the ground.
Hilda hops down, Twig following, "An old giant accidentally stepped on it. But that's how I started to feel empathy for the elves. When I was human, and me and Mum lived here, we would-"
"Step on us all the time," Alfur finishes and smiles, though a hint of sadness was present in the way he looked at Hilda.
"I'll... just stay up here. You can look around."
Hilda and Twig start looking around the rubble of the old house, the former chatting away to the latter. Alfur makes his best attempt at hiding from the elf houses. Thankfully, they seemed too intimidated to come outside.
"What's wrong?" Raven whispers to Alfur.
"I don't want to go back." Alfur's ears droop.
"Back where?"
"...Home."
The other elves had little to no idea what was happening and seemed awfully confused. Raven felt a little uncomfortable feeling their fearful gazes from their windows. Alfur noticed there were now a few houses in what was formerly No Elves' Land, probably members of his family. He climbs onto Raven's head, hiding his face with his hat.
A small brown nitten with lighter brown patches crawls out of a space in a nearby fence, approaching the giant bird. Raven notices, but seeing as the cat was so tiny, couldn't possibly view it as more than a little annoyance.
"Alfur."
Alfur lifts up his hat, looking over to see the nitten.
When they make eye contact, their faces light up almost immediately.
Raven blinks.
"Uh... you know this-"
Alfur jumps down with his arms wide open, the nitten hopping into them and nuzzling Alfur, purring. Raven shuffles in front of them so Alfur wouldn't be noticed. Everything here was so tiny, seemed so delicate...
"Know her?! This is Runa, my kitty!" The elf holds the nitten up, "I've missed you so much, yes I have-"
Hilda and Twig return from trekking around the rubble, the latter with a dirty but intact toy ball in his mouth.
"Oh, right, right, right! Hilda, this is Runa, she can do something really neat! Watch!"
Hilda and Raven are just stunned to see Alfur so excited about something other than paperwork for a change.
"Shake, Runa!" Runa puts her right paw on Alfur's arm.
"Other paw!" Runa switches to her left.
Alfur steps away a little, "Okay, ready?" He lifts one arm, pointing at the nitten.
"Pew, pew!"
Runa pretends to get hit and plays dead before getting back up, meowing.
Hilda claps, but Twig and Raven just stare for a moment. Twig drops his toy, and it doesn't even bounce.
"Dang," Raven murmurs quietly, "wasn't expecting that last one."
"My brother taught her that. I don't know what it means, but Runa is so smart!" Alfur pets the miniature cat lovingly.
"Should we tell him?" Raven asks.
Twig gives Raven a "don't you dare" sort of look.
"Tell him what?" Hilda inquires innocently.
"I can't stay, you have to go home," Alfur tells the little creature as Raven lets him back onto his back, "thank you for covering me, Raven. Hopefully no one saw me, at least. Runa would be the only reason why I'd come back right now... They probably wouldn't be able to recognize you as an elf, Hilda."
Runa just watches in mild confusion as they start their ascent. Raven's big wings send her tumbling backwards a little, but she manages to head back through her little space in the fence. Alfur smiles down at her.
"Why didn't you want to see your family, Alfur?" Hilda asks.
"Um," the older elf looks away, "it's not something I like to talk about..."
The girl pouts.
"Okay. I can respect that..."
It didn't make her any less curious; to be denied the reason why.
The evening sun cast a deep orange glow upon everything. Raven disliked this time of day, describing it as "too melancholic".
As they flew, they watched woffs migrate around them and even a few weather spirits recognized Raven, stopping to wonder why a deerfox was hitching a ride on him.
When the sun finally set, they spotted a familiar hole near the top of a certain iron pine- where the forest giant they were looking for kept all of his winnings from gambling. Hilda, Alfur and Twig were all understandably ireful upon seeing it again. Raven was awed by all of the shiny coins- and the crown studded with sapphires and rubies shimmered in the moonlight- it was almost beckoning to him. He perches on the edge of the opening of the tree and turns into his smaller form. Twig tumbles into a pile of coins, grunting with annoyance.
"What's going on?" Alfur tries to hold Raven back.
"Even if he's a magical spirit, he's still a bird," Hilda comments, "Raven, you have to use self control. Look away."
"But it's all so... shiny..." Raven puts on the crown, eyes wide with wonder. It's too big and slides down around his neck instead, but he is still entranced by its allure. Hilda waddles through the sea of coins, still not used to being so small. She could barely move. It felt like a ball pit.
Large, thudding footsteps shook the ground, causing everyone to rise several feet in the air with every step. Coins and small furniture went flying with them.
"Ah. We're doomed," Alfur murmurs.
"No, we're not. Hide!" Hilda grabs Alfur and Twig takes Raven and they all hide near the opening of the tree, near the bark walls where there was a blind spot.
The forest giant looks around at his winnings, narrowing his eyes before walking away. He murmured to himself about seeing a flash of light near the tree- Raven's transformation. There was also a complaint about it bringing back bad memories. If elves' hearing wasn't so acute, the statement likely wouldn't have been picked up.
"That's him," Hilda says monotonously, having had their confirmation.
The four adventurers peek out of the tree to see the forest giant walking towards a flat boulder in a clearing several feet away. Yawning, he lays down on it, curling up like a cat.
"...That looks really uncomfortable," Raven comments.
"Aww, if I had to sleep on a rock, I'd be grumpy all the time, too," Alfur rests his head on his arms, ears drooping, "can't we just talk to him and be nice?"
"How are we supposed to approach this guy that already thinks I'm a thief, at night, no less, and say, 'pardon me, sir, a talking book turned me into an elf and I'm gonna need some of your fur?'" Hilda questions irritably.
There was a long silence between the four of them.
Alfur sighs.
"All right, just this once, I am granting you full permission... to steal," he whispers 'steal' as if it were a cuss.
Hilda nods her head.
"Just know that it is completely against my morals and I will not condone it again," he adds.
"Aye, aye, captain," Hilda replies.
"Little louder for the people in the back? I couldn't hear ya," Raven jokes.
"No," was the unenthusiastic answer.
next time these goofs "rob" a forest giant. see you then