The Jotun's were not so bad, friendly and nice even – certainly not the monsters she had been told they were. After an awkward and terrifying meeting at the fishing spot, the pair had introduced themselves as elderly sisters living on the outskirts of civilization and offered a roof with fire to cook the girl's catch. Wary but controlled by the roaring nature of her stomach, Kari had followed the siblings back home dragging her large fish by its tail and currently sat within a high ceilinged hut covered in a blanket of furs.

Kari stared longingly at the fish roasting above the fire, toasty warm and drooling with desperation to eat. Never in all her life had she been so hungry, the smell was intoxicating and her eyes only continued to grow impossibly bigger as the eldest of the sisters pulled the cooked meal from the fire and served it on a too big plate for the youngster. Kari dived upon it, hissing as her fingers burned peeling the skin away but shoveled a tender handful of flesh into her mouth despite the danger. Steam huffed past her lips as she desperately tried to blow the heat from the meat already in her mouth and swallowed the contents with several thumps on her chest to help it pass.

"You will choke, little one." The elder Jotun chuckled at the small creatures shenanigans.

"It's hot." Kari winced as the burn in her esophagus continued.

"Let it cool."

"But I'm hungry." She pouted, holding back from piling more into her gob long enough to blow several times on the steaming fish. "And it's really good."

The sisters shared a look of continued amusement, long had it been since a child was among them and as strange and small as this one was the sense of familiarity by behavior was reassuring. Even in other species, children were in many ways the same kind of mischievous folly makers with hardly any logic about them. However, the larger questions began to raise their great awkward heads and so began a series of unintelligible scowls and eyebrow raisings between the two women as they silently discussed the child messily eating on their floor. Should they keep it? Where had it come from? Why was it here?

"Little one, how come you here?"

"Huh?" Kari peered up, cheeks puffed out to accommodate what was being forced between her lips. "I dunno…" She paused to swallow before she spewed any more of her meal out with her words. "I was in asgard, in the palace library and then Loki was being mean to me so I punched him in the dick and he got really mad and threw me at the ground but it was glowing and I fell through the sky for a bit before waking up in the snow." Licking the fingers of one hand she looked around the hut as if only noticing it for the first time. "Is this Jotunheim?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Kari frowned, lost in thought for a second or two. "Garthar and Dagur said Jotunheim is full of scary monsters that want to eat children. Are you going to eat me?"

"Children are skin and bone." The younger sister laughed from across the room where she worked on darning old clothing. "Hardly worth the trouble."

"Do not tease." The older Jotun shook her head, though still smiling. "We have no need to eat you, little one, but the men would gladly squish you beneath their feet."

"Ewwww." Kari shuddered at the thought of her head making a 'pop' noise if stood upon by a frost giant.

"You mentioned a palace and Loki?" The giantess continued her line of questioning. "Prince Loki of asgard?"

"Yeah that's him. He's a dick."

"You live within the palace of asgard?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "I was sort of kidnapped and forced to stay by Odin because my grandfather is Fandral the dashing and I accidentally opened a portal inside a museum on earth and Odin was kind of mad about it at first but then he sort of calmed down because Heimdall was all like, "…further back…" and then it turned out that Fandral fucked my grandmother so I had to become a asgardian waitress, which is really hard! Asgardian men are creepers, always groping and stuff but then Loki was being mean to me, yet again, and made me drink this blue stuff and I turned into a child again which was really annoying at first but then I started playing with Garthar and Dagur out in the fields and granddad let me come live with him and Frigga is really nice and… what was I talking about again?"

The two women started laughing again, exchanging a look of amused disbelief at the girl's story; obviously the child was a little storyteller as were most youngsters. Kari pouted at the level of mirth in the air, somewhat aware she was being laughed at but too hungry to care as she went back to eating.

As life continued its passage in Jotunheim, Kari began to slowly find she did not truly mind the cold or the snow. She built snowmen, increasingly well-defined ones that grew to look like people she once knew. The Jotun sisters found space for her within their home, a warm bed often enough shared with a great hulking old wolf with a name she had trouble pronouncing and so shortened to 'Tom'. He rarely left the hut, long since seen days of adventure but would at times pad after the small girl as if she were a wayward pup escaping the nest. It amused the older women to watch the trailing affection and equally so assured the new mischief maker of their household would keep from too much trouble with the old wolf at her back.

She became helpful at fishing, the youngest sister trading her several of what the giantess would perceive as small fish for a little fur coat to keep the human warm. Was she a pet or perhaps this was like living with great aunts, Kari often mused but whatever this life was it certainly felt nicer still than any foster home she had lived in. Perhaps this was even a blessing in disguise despite the angry way it had come about through green-eyed vengeance. Punching Loki had been a good call.

The snow leopard's cubs were much bigger now, playful with her as if one of the litter as they made to pounce one another. Soon they would be taller than her slight ten-year-old frame, however, and by then her play friends would be too dangerous to allow to tackle her. Before that day came, the mother leopard left without indication and took her young further into the mountains. She had cried, a comforting embrace from the sisters in turn coaxing her to sleep that night. The loss was personal, a deeply troubling gap in a child's soul that left her heart broken as if losing a best friend because their family was moving far away. She had never had to deal with that kind of pain before, never staying put long enough as a child to bother making friends and equally always being the one that moved away.

In order to distract her melancholy ways, the elder Jotun had decided it would be best to start a little schooling. If a human child were to remain in a land of frost giants and magnificent beasts then she would need to learn its ways. There was also the added worry of other Jotun coming across her and wishing to cause harm. To counter this possible predicament, the girl's schooling had begun with the learning of a simple transformation spell, though the perfection had not been anywhere close to easy.

With enough concentration, Kari could now alter her appearance to something closer related to a frost giants – blue skinned, a reddish tint to her eyes but still the same curly brown hair and short stature. It was the best she could master as her first lesson in magic and the sisters having decided it best to give her a story that she were the offspring of a frost giantess and asgardian coupling; apparently not an unheard of occurrence. The lie worked however, the sisters taking her along with them into a larger encampment for supplies one month. It had been a fascinating experience for the girl as well as the other inhabitants that eyed her curiously. There had been other children too, though much larger in size for the same age but she found she liked them little as one of the bigger girl's had immediately attempted to bully her about the curliness of her hair.

Jotunheim was a strange, harsh and freezing world so very different from earth or asgard but after a year under the care of cheerful old giantesses and the warm embrace of an old wolf called Tom, the strangest thing yet happened. Kari thought of herself at home.