"So, Danny, you haven't told me what exactly it is we're looking for out here," Sarah noted as they packed up the gear they would need on their little trip into the mountains. He really hadn't told her anything except that they were here to look for reinforcements to their cause; if she didn't know better, she'd say that he was purposefully avoiding the subject.
Even as she said it, he shifted his weight uneasily. "Well...it's hard to explain," he replied slowly, every word hesitantly said.
She placed both hands on her hips and leveled a searching look at him. "Danny Quinn, let's not forget that I work for a government facility what hunts dinosaurs and creatures from the future that show up through rips in the space-time continuum. Trust me, there's nothing harder to explain than that. So whatever it is, just tell me," she said.
He looked up at her again and sighed, shaking his head slowly. "Sarah, please…just trust me on this, okay? It'll be easier if you just see it," said the copper.
Gritting her teeth, she resumed packing up the knapsack. This whole man-of-mystery thing was beginning to get on her nerves, but it seemed like he was bound and determined not to tell her what they were looking for. So, for the time being, she would let it go. But if he thought that she would just take his word for it, he had another thing coming.
Sarah was going to kill him. Slowly and painfully. When Danny had said that whatever reinforcements they were looking for lived in the mountains, she had honestly thought he meant that meant some kind of camp or village, but no-ooo. They had spent nearly the entire day hiking through these damn mountains searching, and now that the sun had gone down, it was frigidly cold. She felt aching and sore from walking so much, she was desperately hungry, and she couldn't feel her toes anymore, it was so cold out. He didnt think to bring a bloody map? Directions? she thought as followed after the bullheaded man. Oh, wait, that's right, men don't know how to ask for directions. He decided 'what the hell, I'll just wing it.' Oh, yes, she was going to kill him. "Danny!" She hurried after him, rubbing her hands together for warmth, though it seemed a vain effort. "Danny, let's head back for the night. It's too bloody dark to see anything out here, and you might not feel the cold, but I'm freezing," she called, but he wasn't moving, still staring off ahead as if she hadn't said a word. Clenching her teeth, she marched forward and punched one shoulder with her numbed hands. "Danny, are you even listening to me?" she snapped.
"Someone's coming," said Danny.
"What?" She turned her head, following his gaze. At first, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. A small spot of green light was bobbing towards them, barely visible in the darkness. Sarah squinted, trying to make it out. The light grew brighter the closer it came, and she could just make out an indistinct figure holding onto the light, though she couldn't tell what it was. She stared hard at it, trying to will the details into visibility. All at once, the figure emerging from the darkness became clear, and she felt her stomach drop into her toes and her heart lodge somewhere in her throat. Both hands clutched Danny's arm in a death grip, too scared to even move.
It was a giant. Two of them actually, one shorter than the other. They looked like human beings, except they were some thirteen or fourteen feet tall, with rangy-yet-proportionate bodies. They both wore leather vests and trousers that only came to about mid-calf, barefoot and sleeveless, no hats or gloves or scarves; it seemed they were impervious to the cold. The taller of the two held up the lantern that cast a greenish light over them.
"Hoy, there," said Danny loudly, having to raise his voice to be heard over the wind. "It's me, Danny Quinn. Remember me?"
The shorter of the giants crouched down, putting him somewhat closer to their heights. He had a mess of thick red hair that seemed to go every direction and eyes that appeared orange in the greenish illumination of the lantern. "Danny!" the giant said in a voice like boulders grinding together, though he pronounced it more like 'Day-knee'.
"Yeah, it's me, Dena. Can we come inside? It's cold out here."
The taller giant leant closer, a frown pulling at his features as he held the lantern closer. "Who dis hurr?" he rumbled, eyeing Sarah up warily as if he expected her to sprout fangs and a tail at any second.
Danny placed a protective arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to his side. "This is Sarah, Wex. My friend," he answered.
Dena slugged Wex on the shoulder with a punch that would have shattered human bone like toothpicks, but the other giant only grunted in irritation. "Day-knee be clan friend. Come inside cavurn," he said sharply.
"Thank you, Dena," Danny called. As the two giants straightened up and started walking, he followed, drawing Sarah along with him even though she had a hard time remembering how to move her legs. Noticing her star-struck expression, he lowered his voice and said, "I told you it was hard to explain, now didn't I?"
They practically had to jog in order to keep up with the enormous strides of the giants, and Sarah was quickly out of breath and beginning to sweat beneath her parka. Dena and Wex led them towards what looked like a sheer rock face. It was like a magic trick—of course, it probably was magic, now that she thought about it. One minute there was nothing but a wall of dark rock in front of them, the next the mouth of a great cave yawned wide to greet them, the mountain swallowing them up. She gripped Danny's arm a little tighter as they were led deeper into the cave. If she'd thought it was dark outside, in here there wasn't a wisp of light except for the lantern that Wex held. The darkness felt like a living thing, pulsing and crawling about her, smothering the sound of their footsteps into a deafening silence. Danny didn't look at all alarmed by this, though, so she tried to keep herself calm, but she was definitely slipping. Just when she was about to lose it completely and run out screaming, they rounded a bend in the cave and were suddenly enveloped in warmth, light, sound, and the smell of cooking meat. Sarah's jaw dropped open in awe.
They had entered a cavern so enormous it seemed impossible. The ceiling rose so high she could barely make it out except for the fuzzy shapes of the hundreds...or perhaps thousands...of stone stalactites that dripped down like stone teeth. It stretched on so long she couldn't see the other side, either. There were giants everywhere, of all size and shape and age. There were several fires burning in several different places around the enormous chamber, in pits that'd been gouged out of the stone floors, and the giants seemed to all congregate around these different fires. The flames alone weren't enough to illuminate the cavern, though, and she was confused as to why everything was so well-lit...until she looked closer at the walls. Studding the walls of the cave, in the floor, the walls, and even the stalagmites and stalactites, were glowing stones that radiated their own soft luminance. If she listened closely, underlying all other sounds was the sound of rushing water—an underground river, perhaps, somewhere further inside the cave. "What is this place?" she asked.
Danny was shrugging off his parka and shoving it in his backpack; it was much warmer in here. "This is the home of the Holmes clan, one of the last surviving clans of cave-giants in all the UK," he replied.
"Let me guess. They are our reinforcements?" Sarah asked as she took off her own parka.
"Yep," he answered, straightening up. "These are probably the only creatures in the Real World that can take on skinchangers and nightkind together."
She swallowed hard. "No kidding," she mumbled.
He glanced over at her, and when he took in the slightly uneasy look on her face, he reached out and placed a comforting hand on her back. Even though she still felt cold, his hands were warm, soaking through her sweater. "Don't worry, Sarah. Cave giants are the smallest species of giants, and they're only dangerous if you provoke them. Most times, they're quite friendly, just not too bright. They've got big hearts and little brains. Just follow my lead, and you'll be fine."
They're the smallest species? Sarah thought in disbelief, looking up at the 14- and 15-foot tall frames that inhabited the cavern. If this lot was small, she didn't even want to know what a big giant looked like. Tying her parka around her waist, she followed after Danny as he walked through the cavern; several of the giants turned to look at them, openly staring.
Dena led them up to one of the hearths furthest back into the cavern. There were five other giants sitting around the fire: an old male with grizzled white hair, identical twin males with dark curls, a red-haired female, and a small child. Well, small compared to the adults; the giant child was maybe two inches shorter than her. "Looken 'ere!" declared Dena, gesturing with one arm. "Day-knee come t' home-cavurn, see clan an' brung a lickle froind wit 'im."
The old one lifted his head slightly to peer at them, a crooked smile at his lips. "Sat dowrn hurr, Day-knee," he said, gesturing. "Who yer froind, annymal-man?"
"This is Sarah. Sarah, this is Dena's family—his father, Tagg, his brothers, Rowan and Robin, his wife, Ika, and their son, Dunn," said Danny.
"Hello," she greeted, a tad nervous as she sat down on one of the woven grass mats beside Danny. The former copper and the grey-haired giant began conversing together, but she couldn't follow a word of what they were saying, their accents were so thick and peculiar.
Instead, she looked over at the two others that'd been named Robin and Rowan. They identical twins, it looked like, with wild blue-black curls that went every whichway and eyes such a pale shade of blue-grey they almost looked silver. The nearer of the twins—she couldn't tell if it was Rowan or Robin—leant forward to study Sarah with silvery blue-grey eyes; a gleam of strange, inhuman intelligence shone in his pale gaze. He tilted his head to the side. "Why yer no' smull loiken Day-knee, Miz Zura?" he asked, pronouncing her name just as oddly as he pronounced Danny's.
She blinked in surprise. What is it with these supernatural beings all having this odd ability to smell her? "Ah, because I am a human."
"Hurrmin? Loits and loits of hurrmins be cloimbin' up an' dowrn th' mounterns, but zey nuvver foind us in home-cavurn. Safen in hurr," said giant, patting the smooth wall of the cave with one huge hand.
It took her a moment to sift through the thick, curious dialect of the giants. "Yes, it is a very…very nice cave," she agreed with a nod, and he responded with a wide grin, pleased with her answer.
After a moment, the other twin tilted his head at her. "So yur no' annymal-man loiken Day-knee?" he asked.
"No, I'm not a skinchanger. I'm just human," she replied.
The dark-haired giant nodded his large head thoughtfully. "Robin an' me trois talken to hurrmins on mounterns afore, buts allaways runs 'way from uz. Not knows why. We no' wants hurt dem, just wan' talks wit dem," he said in a mournful voice, the small frown of confusion on his face telling Sarah that he clearly didn't understand why anybody in the world would run away from him. She was really starting to see what Danny meant when he described the clan as having big hearts but small brains. Rowan was a prime example: he was quite kind and a bit childish in ways, willing to make new friends, but not quite able to understand why a normal human being would run away from a pair of 14-foot-tall giants lurking around a mountain trail.
She didn't know how long they went on talking like this, but soon she noticed that around the cavern, other families were banking the hearth fires and curling up on more of the woven grass mats to sleep. Tagg said something that must've ended the discussion, because Dena stood up and banked the fire down to low burning embers and small flames. As the other giants moved to their own places to sleep, she and Danny unrolled their sleeping bags on the floor nearby. Once she was sure nobody else was looking, Sarah punched him in the shoulder as hard as she could. Of course, it probably didn't hurt him at all, but at least he had the good sense to wince. "You bastard, why the hell didn't you tell me about this?" she hissed quietly.
"Would you have believed me?" he replied in just as quiet a voice, rubbing his shoulder. "C'mon, Sarah, don't be mad..."
"Y'know, I might not have believed you, but you could've given me some warning. I mean, just a heads-up or something," she grumbled. After a moment, she glanced back over at him. "So how exactly do you plan on getting back to London with these reinforcements, Danny? I mean, we can't exactly go walking around the middle of London with a pair of 15-foot-tall giants."
The copper offered her a small smile. "We'll use the Underground," he said; when she gave him a confused frown, he went on and explained. "I don't mean the tube, Sarah. I mean our Underground. It's this huge network of underground tunnels that go all over the UK. There's magic cast on it to keep it hidden from detection, and it's how the more...unusual members of the Real World get from place to place without attracting unwanted attention. Once we get everything sorted out, we'll pack up our gear, head down to the Underground, and start legging it back to London. That's why I said it'd take me a fortnight: it's a long ways to walk, even for a giant."
Sarah had to admit it—that was a pretty good plan. But she wasn't about to let him off the hook that easily. Turning over in her sleeping bag so her back was to him, she muttered, "Fine, but I'm still mad at you."
His soft chuckle seemed to echo in the quiet of the cavern.
Come morning, she saw that the others were already up and about, including Danny. "Why didn't you wake me up?" she muttered at him.
The copper glanced over at her and smirked. "Tried. You hit me and told me to piss off."
Sarah narrowed her eyes, briefly considering whether or not to throw one of her boots at his head, then decided against it and started packing up the rest of her kit. Near the mouth of the cavern she saw the twins loading up a small cart. Well...it was small by their standards, but it could easily seat twenty people. She figured that it was their own supplies for the trip back to London through this mysterious Underground. And then she noticed that only Robin and Rowan looked ready to travel. "Will none of the others be coming with?" she wondered as they stood and made their way across the cavern towards the giants.
"Well, a few others may come along with, but it's their choice. Most, like Dena, have children and wives to look after," replied Danny as he packed up his gear in the knapsack. He picked it up and tossed it into the cart. "Robin and Rowan have always wanted to come to London with me, and they don't mind helping me. Besides, I think Rowan might've taken a bit o' a loiken to yer, Miz Zura," he teased, affecting the giant's accent.
"Oh, sod off," she snapped at him, and he chortled.
A/N: I won't have the chance to update for a few days because of Thanksgiving plans involving my very large and obnoxious family, so I hope that this will hold you lot over until then. Also, I know I wrote the giants with a very...unusual dialogue, but in my mind, that's how they talk. If anyone needs clarification on what they said, just say so, and I'll provide translations. :)
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!