Chapter 20

"Well?" Leda demanded, skin prickling under the weight of Olorin's bright eyes. She ran a hand across her brow, only mildly surprised to feel it come away damp. "Can you do it?"

Behind him, grey clouds began to creep into the edges of the window, slowly swallowing centimetres of blue sky. Each ray of sunlight blotted out was another minute lost. Another minute that Gildor or Lindir or Belwen, or all the other Edhel she'd yet to meet, could be falling to Orch blades. Could be dying.

Could already be dead.

"Yes." Olorin made a funny twist of his hand. "Although I fail to see what encasing everything in oil will do."

Of the three murky jars on the table, only one now remained. If she squinted, she could vaguely make out the shape of the floating metal. She hoped it was enough. Without the other jars, they'd only have one shot.

"It'll keep us from blowing up too."

"'Blowing up'?" He echoed.

To his credit, Olorin didn't even look worried at the prospect, only intrigued, as if they were discussing the weather and not the very real prospect of this ending in mortal injury.

His calmness should have bolstered her – it should have reinforced her three percent of an idea and filled her with confidence. Instead, the complete lack of incredulity on his face was what whittled away at her bravado.

What the hell was she doing?

Five minutes ago, when she'd blurted out her insane plan, everything had seemed plausible. They were going to get the mimic of caesium, attach it somehow to something, lob it at the mountain and wake a mythical Giant. It was so stupidly simple it was almost foolproof.

But Olorin's lack of scepticism was making her realise how ridiculous it all sounded.

Wake a Giant?

Engineer an explosive projectile using an unstable, unknown substance and somehow throw it across the width of a couple football pitches?

Then, after miraculously doing all of that without blowing herself up, she'd convince Giant – who, by all fairytale standards might like to eat her bones – to fight a war she didn't even believe in herself?

And then (if she wasn't blown up, or mid-way through having her bones chewed on by said Giant) she'd still have to survive a literal warzone long enough to find a feasible way home, despite not even fully knowing if dad had been right about when Vortice's tended to open their gates?

It was fucking insane.

It was mad. She felt mad. About as mad as Dad had been when he ranted for years about an interdimensional portal in the middle of the Bermuda triangle. Maybe this was her Gauling moment, she thought, in a measure of despair. Her crackpot moment. Maybe she was just going the same way as him.

"W-well this isn't earth." She said, doubt making her falter. "So maybe I'm wrong about everything. Maybe the substance Elrond found isn't like caesium. Maybe this won't work, and this was all for nothing, and I'll never ever get home and- and-"

He hummed, the sound saving them both from her rambling. "You are going to attempt to wake him."

"I have to try something." She said, throwing her hands up. "I know it's stupid. But there has to be a reason why I'm here. Why I keep going back to that stupid mountain."

The beginning of a smile played around Olorin's mouth, impervious to her distress, as usual. "But you do not believe in Giants, Miss Ackerman."

"No." Her teeth found her bottom lip, biting the skin it found. She'd kicked the habit for years but on the brink of giving into madness, it was back. "But you do. And four weeks ago, I still thought my dad was insane but here I am. So, if you think there's a Giant in that mountain, and I was wrong about all of this, then…then no one's ever slept through an alkaline reaction before, right?"

Olorin's small smile bloomed into something wide and feral. He reached into his robes to produce an impossibly white piece of cloth. For someone who always had dirty, broken fingernails, she found it strange he'd be capable of having anything quite so pristine on his person.

"Quite right, Miss Ackerman." He chuckled, laying the fabric on the table. "Let us begin."

Leda had held a scalpel confidently for years. From the moment she did her first clinical demonstration, to her last shift at St Philomena's before she'd chosen to go with Dr Morgan, she'd never faltered - had never lost faith in the steadiness of her own hand. But now, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a tremor. It was slight, contained only to the index and middle fingers, but it was, worryingly, there.

"All you must do is tie the cloth around the metal when I am finished." He instructed.

Why her? She wanted to ask, but Olorin began chanting a string of words under his breath, gaze trained on the jar and she clammed up. His words- or spell, sounded like a mix of the unintelligible Quenya and something older that made her bones feel like they were shifting beneath her skin.

She held her breath when he uncorked the jar, dipping the cloth into the depths of the murky oil. She could see the vague outline of his fingers grasping until they found purchase and she winced when he lifted, his bushy brows pushed together in a deep frown as though he too were bracing for it to explode.

But the chain reaction never came.

Instead, it was quite anticlimactic as he lay the drenched kerchief and sludge of metal on the table. No explosion, no fire. Not even a little bit of smoke. Her teeth found her lip. Either Olorin's spell was working, or her plan was about to fall apart because the reason this jar was left behind was because it was a dud.

His chant stopped and her bones stilled their movements under her skin. Their eyes met, and he made a motion for her to come closer.

His instruction was clear. Now it was her turn.

And all she had to do was have a steady enough hand to tie a piece of cloth around a potentially explosive metal, but instead, her once steady, reliable hand was failing spectacularly at the eleventh hour.

"Come on." She muttered, willing her shaking hand to still. "Come on. Come on."

"Now is not the time for hesitation, Miss Ackerman." Olorin cautioned. "It is time."

"I know. I know." She huffed. "I don't- I don't know why. I just…I'm thinking about after."

Because if this all worked, and the metal wasn't a dud, and she didn't blow up, and the Giant was real and it miraculously said yes...then what happened after?

If the Giant was as formidable as Olorin said, then unleashing it to fight would be like throwing a thousand parcels of caesium into the sea. The eschewing violence and damage would be insurmountable. And if she was the one to release It, she would, by proxy, be the cause of said predicted chaos. She'd be the root cause of all the potential destruction. All the potential death.

"Why can't you just do it?" She tried. "Why can't you just tie the cloth?"

"A giant, will not wake for a wizard alone, Leda. It must be you to make this step."

"That doesn't make any bloody sense, Olorin."

She could feel his gaze roam the side of her face. "No. It does not. But that is not what stays your hand."

She had to take three breaths before she could quietly tell the truth.

"I'll cause harm. If I do this…I'll break my oath. I'll cause harm."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod.

"Yes." He said simply.

Her mouth twisted. That was not the rebuttal she'd wanted. And, embarrassingly, her thoughts turned to dad an her bottom lip wobbled.

She'd once spoken so vehemently against him. He was the sole reason she'd pivoted her curriculum to medicine. She'd spent so long hating him. So long mad at him. So long thinking he had caused the ultimate harm. Thinking that he'd killed mum. And yet…her being there, her falling through that impossible Vortice, was the proof that maybe he didn't.

So where did that leave her and her oath to do no harm that she'd upheld for ten long years?

"Leda." Olorin's voice was soft. Soft enough that she looked up to find he had moved closer and was smiling sadly down at her. "You will still be a healer even after you make this choice. This will not change your nature. Even the just must make choices in antithesis to their beliefs. Such is a coexistence with war."

There was something familiar in his voice – in his tone. Or maybe it was the way the waning light hit the greys in his scraggly beard, but he suddenly reminded her so desperately of dad. Before the incident. When it was her and mum and dad and they were happy. Back then, when she was sad, he used to say things in that same tone. Words she couldn't or wouldn't remember now, but the intent was there.

She let that feeling wash over her. Let herself be little, a smile on her face after a day of crying at school. She let the love for dad, when he was still her hero, fill her chest.

When she looked at her hand again, the tremor was gone. It was time.

. . .

Tying a cloth soaked in oil, around a clump of metal also soaked in oil, while trying not to accidentally expose said metal (if it even was said metal and not some mystical, fantastical substance that only resembled an alkaline metal) to the air to avoid a chemical reaction, was surprisingly easy.

"We need a projectile." She said, as she wiped her greasy hands on her too-long dress, staining the grey fabric.

The tied sack oozed on Elrond's desk. The oild would warp the wood, but as the last rays of sunlight were being snuffed out across the sky, she couldn't bring herself to care much. Time was almost up. "Like a crossbow or an arrow or a rocket launcher if you have one of those. Do you have one of those? Actually. Probably not. Maybe we can fin-"

"I should have known!"

Leda whirled to face the door, heart shooting up into her throat. All of the stability she'd convinced herself she felt threatened to crumble when she saw the vengeful angel in the doorway.

A few days ago, when they'd reached a precarious truce, Glorfindel had been formidable but benign when he'd stood in the doorway and told her of the black foe and the Trees. Now, dressed in his golden armour, the intricate sun carved onto his breastplate seeming to shift in the fading light as if it were alive, the doorway almost heaved under the strain of containing him.

His face was thunderous. "I knew that you could not be trusted! I knew that you were a blight. Our blight."

The reflexive 'I'm sorry' rose so quickly to her tongue that she almost choked on it, but as he took a heavy step into the room, she spied the answers to her 'how do we get it across the gorge' questions strapped to his back: a golden bow and quiver, filled with arrows.

Leda didn't believe in things as trivial as 'signs', but if she did, she was sure as shit that this qualified one. So instead of backing down she squared her shoulders and planted her feet, refusing to move.

"I know you hate me. I know you're suspicious." She said quickly in what she hoped sounded like truthful desperation and not the betrayal he so viciously wanted to hear. "But listen, I'm trying to help, and we need-"

"No." He shook his head. His hair, braided into two thick golden lines, flew left to right. He took another step forward, pale hand rising to hover above the hilt of the sword hanging from his waist. "I do not care what lies you have fed the Wiza-"

"Listen to me!" She shouted, cutting him off. Surprise and then disgust filled his features but she barrelled on before he could lob her head off. "Listen to me and then decide to kill me. Because if you throw me down now you'll just have to wonder if it may work."

His jaw clenched, eyes cutting to the oozing sack, to a suspiciously quiet Olorin and back to her.

He must have seen something in his gaze's journey because after a beat he ground out: "If what may work?"

. . .

"You are mad."

Glorfindel had said it three times already. His eyes were wide, catching the last of the waning sunlight that weakly filtered through the window. He'd managed to pull a few golden strands from his braids after running his hands over his head as she and Olorin confessed their plan, and they fanned like a halo around his face. "Absolutely mad."

Olorin grin was all teeth. "Quite."

Another cloud slid over the horizon. Time was running out. The storm was almost there. Leda didn't know much, but she knew that if whatever was going to happen happened, it was going to happen soon.

"We don't have time for this." She said quickly. "Can you do it?"

Glorfindel's eyebrows skimmed his hairline. "Can I shoot an arrow with an explosive weapon attached to it, through a window to a mountain my people stand near?"

She grimaced. "When you say it like that, it sounds insane."

"That is because it is!" He burst. The sudden sound accompanied by a rumble of thunder in the distance. "No. I have entertained this long enough. Olorin. We must depart. Our absence cannot be sustained." He jabbed a finger in her direction. Through the window, the last weak ray of yellow sunlight was snuffed out by the clouds. Time was up. "You would be wise to leave before we return. You will not find a warm welcome for delaying the Wizard and I."

Leda shook her head. The room filled with a sickly grey colour, and her sense of space seemed to wobble around her. Thunder, closer now, rattled again throughout the room. "No. You have to shoot it."

If she thought he looked mad before, her insubordination seemed to make his anger rise to new heights.

"Are you incapable of listening to anything anyone tells you? You are a curse!" He shouted. The walls heaved around them. His glow brightened but she refused to shield her eyes. Refused to back down, even as he loomed forward and over her. "You are a distraction. And a mar on this war. And you will kill us all. You have ruined enough-"

"Laurefindil." Olorin's calm tone cut the legs off the storm Glorfindel was brewing and the walls steadied. Even the grey light seemed to dissipate slightly. He held up his palms in peace to Glorfindel. "Trust."

"Her?" Glorfindel threw a hand in her direction.

"No, my friend." Olorin smiled sadly. "Me."

Glorfindel's chest heaved but he said nothing.

"It was you and I who emerged, new like foals, back to this land. It was you and I who drove the forces of darkness back time and time again. You trusted me then." Olorin's fingers danced in the air. Leda wondered if the sudden warmness she felt that chased off the chill was from his speech or his magic. "I am asking you to trust me again."

Wind began to whistle past the window, rustling forgotten papers on Elrond's desk. Glorfindel jaw was so tightly clenched, his muscles spasmed along his cheeks. Her heart sunk. He was going to say no. And then he was going to kill her for the trouble.

But after one last tense moment he let out a ragged sigh before plucking his bow out of its quiver.

"Attach it." He ordered.

Olorin smiled and made quick work of attaching the parcel to the arrow tip. Leda hovered, watching anxiously, all the while feeling the heat of Glorfindel's eyes along her back. That little truce they had reached the other day was definitely over. If she lived through this, she'd have to do something about that. She rather liked not being interrogated by him each day.

"You need to strip the oil away just as before it reaches the mountain." She fretted.

Olorins mouth twisted in concentration as he tied the last ends of the wet cloth to the arrow.

"I am aware, Miss Ackerman."

"Okay, but it's just important because we don't want to hurt It-"

He sighed. "I am also well aware of risks a Giant pose."

Her hands twisted around each other. "Well, that makes one of us."

Glorfindel's voice was cold at her back. "That is the first truthful thing you have ever said."

Leda's shot him a look over her shoulder. "Look, if it doesn't work you can attach me to an arrow and shoot me into the mountain too."

His eyes flared. "Do not tempt me."

As soon as Olorin was done, he herded them out of the room. They must have looked an odd trio, the hurrying wizard, the panicking human and the angry Edhel at her back. But there wasn't anyone in the Halls of Healing that she could see.

Much sooner than she would have liked, they were by her window opening. The hallway was in near darkness. The lamps hadn't been lit, and the storm outside had darkened the sky so that what little light there was, was dim and murky.

Thunder rumbled, closer now and loud enough that the sound seemed to drum in her chest too. Olorin stood on her left, Glorfindel crowding her right. Even if she wanted to run, to take her crazy plan back, she couldn't.

For a moment, all three looked out at the expanse. It could have almost been normal. But her fingers brushed the armour on Glorfindel's leg, and all false normalcy fled.

In the distance, she her friends were fighting for their lives. And she was here. About to do something incredibly dumb.

Glorfindel reached across her to gingerly take the arrow from Olorin.

"This will not work." He said ominously.

Leda's throat tightened. Her eyes found her mountain, and she thought despairingly: Please, please, please let it work. Please let this be why I'm here.

Olorin, ever positive when everyone else was near breaking point, only gave a little smile. "Laurefindil, time is short. You must loose your bow now, old friend."

Glorfindel sighed, and then notched the arrow, pulling the string taut against his angular cheek. He made it look effortless. It was an incredible display of control. If Leda wasn't about to shit out her heart through her mouth, she might have even been impressed.

"And what will you do if you are right?" Glorfindel asked. Their eyes briefly met, and she knew she wondered if she looked as petrified as she suddenly felt. "If you are correct and the Giant wakes?"

She bit her lip until she tasted metal. She hadn't gotten that far yet and her silence was answer enough for him.

"What games the Valar do play with us." He breathed.

Time slowed as he took aim. In the grey light, he looked just as he had the first time, she'd seen him and knew, with a shaky breath, that if this didn't work, she'd face the full force of his ire.

Then he loosed his arrow and her world changed forever.

. . .

"Now, Olorin! Now!" Her voice elongated, caught in the slowed time, flying long and as high as the arrow.

Olorin muttered a string of words under his breath that made her ears pop. And as the arrow whizzed across the gorge, the heavens split open just as she spied the white cloth flutter around, caught in the whipping wind. The reaction was instantaneous, and the exposed metal ignited a meter before the rock, flaring so brightly that she had to squint.

She'd seen caesium explode before in a video on Youtube. The liquid metal had been in a small vial as large as her palm. They'd cracked the glass under water in a controlled environment in a glass tank. The reaction had been so violent that it'd shattered the tank but that was nothing compared to what happened there.

After the bright light, a boom ricocheted towards them, the sound re-starting the slowed time, speeding everything up. She rocked backwards, wobbling to right herself.

A waft of acrid smoke rolled towards them. It stuck in her throat, making her cough and eyes water. She held a hand against her nostrils, trying to filter the smell.

"If this does not work," Glorfindel said gravely. "You will have doomed us all."

A shiver ran down her spin. "I know." She whispered.

She blinked to clear her eyes, but as the seconds ticked by, all remained silent in the valley and a pit of dread began to build in her chest. Her head prickled under the weight of Glorfindel's stare, and part of her wanted to laugh hysterically at how wrong she had been. He probably wanted to throw her over the edge. At this point, she may have deserved it.

Olorin, however, was infuriatingly calm, as though the very real chance of her being wrong wasn't at all bothering him.

"This was always madness." Glorfindel's heavy hand settled on her shoulder. "You must hide. If the Orchs breach the wall-"

"Wait- wait-" She wriggled in his hold, but his hand was like steel. "I don't understand, I thought-"

"This ends now Leda. You mu-"

"Please, Glorfindel, wait just one more second, it has to-"

"Ah." Olorin chuckled, interrupting again. He pointed to the mountain with a wrinkled hand. "There he is."

Her head whipped round, confused for a moment. Nothing seemed to have changed, everything was still.

And then her mountain split in half with a deep crack, exploding outwards.

Chunks of rocks flew in all directions. It looked like the volcano eruptions she'd seen in documentaries. Huge car sized chunks soared upwards, and downwards, sideways and forwards towards their side of the mountain.

Olorin twisted, pivoting away from the opening and she wanted to go too, but her feet wouldn't move. She tried to speak but all that came out was an embarrassing squeak. Her eyes were wide, watching a large boulder hurtle towards where she was standing. This is how she died. Proved right about the giant but not getting the chance to go back home and tell dad because she got crushed by a rock as big as a bus. Ironic, really.

The hand at her shoulder squeezed tightly, and then she was hauled off her feet, dragged to the far wall in the gloom to safety. A hand pushed her chest, and the world titled. Her back hit the floor, and then Glorfindel's face was cutting off her vision as her crouched over her, shielding her.

Objectively, it was stupid thing to do. If a boulder was hurtling towards them, his back wouldn't be strong enough to keep them from both dying, but the sound of thousands of rocks falling around them became quieter somehow in the cocoon he'd made with his body, and she thought maybe her idea of objectivity didn't apply in a land filled with witches and wizards and Giants.

Her hovered over her, hair curtaining them into their own world. Panicking, her hands clutched at his armour, scrambling for any anchor to hold onto. She must have looked mad, eyes wide and frightened, flinching at every crash of rock against rock, hands scratching his breastplate for any purchase.

Slowly, as one of his hands rose between them, wrapping around her trembling ones. His skin was cool, stinging her hot palms.

In any other circumstances she would have pulled away, spat something at him, shouted about personal space and boundaries. But for this one small moment, she'd never been more grateful to be touching another living thing.

"You are well Leda." He said.

Rocks fell around them, at times, a zing of metal sounded, and she knew that rocks were finding purchase against his body. She flinched against at the sound, and he made a noise at the back of his throat.

"You are safe." He said again, soothing. "I have you."

"I know." She breathed. And then did a strange thing. She wiggled her fingers to curl around his hand and squeezed. "I have you too."

He opened his mouth to say something but a voice like rocks caught in a landslide boomed around them.

"Whosoever has dared wake me?"

. . .

If you'd asked her a year ago if she believed in Giants, Leda would have laughed in your face. But as Glorfindel helped her up, she realised all she believed in now was her ability to lie through her teeth.

"What language does it speak?" Glorfindel asked, guiding her across the cracks in the floor and larger rocks to get to the wall where her window had been. The falling rocks had smashed it open, and the floor was jagged, cut away to a drop she didn't dare look down at.

"What?" She frowned up at him, whispering as though the Giant could hear her too. "Can't you understand? He's speaking Grey."

He looked at her like she'd gone mad. "He most certainly is not."

Olorin hummed, coming up on her left. "You can understand him?"

"I said what mortal being has dared wake me?"

Leda winced. The sound of voice was nearly intolerable.

"Yes." She said. "And he's pissed."

Olorin mused. "Well. Best explain then."

Then he snatched her arm and pushed her as close to the precipice as she could get without falling to her death.

"Talk." He commanded. "We may only have one chance. Giants are notoriously finicky."

"Notoriously wh-" her words dried up as she saw what she had done.

Her stomach swooped, breath stuttering. A huge stone man stood in the valley. His feet and lower legs hidden by the crevice. It bent, bringing what might have been a face on a human, down to the hole blasted into the rock to look at her.

Its eyes were non-existent, just two large familiar holes gouged into the circular rock for its head. She knew that pit. Knew its hold. It was the same spot that had called to her for all those days. She'd wondered, once, how deep it was, that pitch black hole. Now, staring into it up close, its depth was no easier to decipher.

"A little flesh legs? You woke me?" One of her hands flew to her ear, cupping it against the sound. If its voice had sounded like rocks crashing together before, up close, the Giant's words sounded like explosions with every syllable.

"I..." Her throat closed. She tried to step back but Olorin squeezed her shoulder to stop her. "I..."

The Giant laughed, boulders that made up its shoulders quaking. Every harsh laugh made her ears ring. "You had enough idiocy to wake a Giant and now, faced with said giant, you stutter. I will dream funny dreams of you, little flesh legs."

It started to turn. Her heart leapt and she knew her chance, and the lives of her friends and all the wrong choices she had made up until that moment depended on her making it listen.

"WAIT!" She cried. She stepped forward, unseeingly and her foot slipped. Her stomach swooped as her foot landed on nothing and she began to fall.

Glorfindel yelped behind her, and an arm wrapped around her middle pulling her back. The weight of it grounded her, and her free hand landed on the armour on his forearm, squeezing tightly.

He as there. As was Olorin. She wasn't alone. She could do this. She had to.

She didn't have a choice.

The Giants stilled, cocking its monstrous head to the side. Pebbles shifted around its mountainous face into what may have been a smile had it been human.

"I am waiting, Little Flesh Legs." It laughed.

Lead's throat was so dry, filled with fear and ash from still crumbling rock above them. She could feel it rain down on her, feel the crush of it on her hands. She didn't know what the fuck she was going to say – what was the right thing to a being up until five hours ago, she had been sure didn't exist?

"We need your help." She said in a rush, the hand from her ear to a point beyond the mountains. Maybe if she appealed to its empathy, it'd be more willing to help. "There's an army of Orchs coming. I think it's more than the Edhel can handle because I saw those who were injured trying to escape."

It took a long time to reply, each second ticking by matching every third pump of her erratic heart.

"And you would have me do what?" It asked, sounding bored. Clearly empathy wasn't going to sway It. It's body twisted. She was losing him.

She licked her dry lips, tasting ash and rock. Aright. She could change tactics. Try something else.

"I know the other Giants are sleeping here." She called. Half lying. She didn't know much about Giants, only what Olorin and even Glorfindel had said or implied. She hoped they weren't wrong. "But you're not sleeping. I saw you. That was intentional, right?"

The Giants eye holes narrowed, but he didn't refute her guess, so she shouldered on.

"If they left you awake, that must have been for a reason." Her mind whirled, filling in the gaps, leaping to assumptions and hoping to shit she guessed right. "Maybe it was to watch over them while they slept? For any threats? Like you were keeping watch."

Again, it didn't answer, and its silence was either to confirm her theories or it was just biding its time before it ate her bones.

"But the Edhel have been here for years." She rambled on. "And you haven't woken up – that must mean that you know, inherently, that they aren't a threat. That you and the others were saf-"

The Giant snarled, and her head rocked back at the roar, harshly glancing off Glorfindel's breastplate. She'd definitely have a bruise in the morning if she wasn't dead by then.

"If they were a threat I would have crushed them." It spat.

Her breath hitched. Ok. Maybe she should reel it back. Making it think of its own demise clearly angered it. And making it angry wasn't her intention. What was that stupid Jack and the beanstalk story about? Something about a golden egg? Were Giant's prideful? Faced with the impossible, that vein was worth a try.

"I know you would have." Her voice wobbled. "You're big and mighty and you're a…a warrior. You're strong."

Its pebbled mouth flattened to a line. "Flattery will not acquire the answer you want, Little flesh legs."

Ok. Prideful to a point, she noted. Less flattery she could do.

"But it's true. They would never harm you because they're good. The Edhel, they- they helped me. They didn't turn me away even when they could have. I think you knew that, even in your sleep. But the ones coming? They-"

"I know what is coming, flesh legs!" He roared. The sound made her instinctively try to run, her soft shoes slipping again on the uneven edge. Glorfindel's arm tightened, fingers curling around her side, burning the skin under her dress.

"I can smell them." The giant raged, unknowing or uncaring of Leda almost plummeting to her death again. "I can feel their heavy steps along the earth. I can feel it recoil from their evil!"

"Then you know, then!" She tried, shouting over its grumbles. "You know that if they come, they'll desecrate your family. They'll do everything they can to kill you." She didn't know that. Not for certain. But she remembered the feel of Orch's hands around her throat. She remembered the hate in its eyes when it squeezed. "I don't know how Giant's work – but there must be a reason there's only you awake. You said something about dreaming- maybe you dream and they sleep and-"

"Ask what you will!" The Giant thundered. The ground shook and Glorfindel somehow, pulled her even tighter against him. A slither of his hair, heavy in its density, fell over her shoulder, it's weight and warmth a comfort. "I grow tired of your meandering words."

Her throat closed. Here it was. The reason she'd turned back from safety and hatched a mad plan with an insane Wizard. Here was her chance. And yet, the simple Help us, evaded her.

The Giant stared unblinkingly down at her, the vast, dark hole in the mountain that had captivated her all this time, filling her vision. She knew without it having eyeballs, that it was watching her as intently as she watched It.

Glorfindel's hair on her shoulder shifted, and then he was there, lips to the shell of her ear, warm breath cooling her clammy skin.

"Speak true, Leda, as only you can." He whispered. Like the arm around her middle, if this was any other setting, the whisper might have been too intimate. Too close. But in that moment, she was grateful.

She steeled herself and thought of Dad. Poor dad, all those miles and a world away. She'd come so far. She had to end this. So, her friends would be safe, and she could go home. Back to dad. She'd still be a healer, Olorin had said, even if she made this choice.

When she spoke, this time her voice did not wobble. "Help us. Fight with the Edhel. Push the Orcs back. Make it so they cannot return."

The Giant harrumphed. "And what do my kin and I receive in return?"

Oh no. Her resolve faltered. What could she offer a Giant who could crush her in a heartbeat? What would be important to someone who had remained half asleep for so long?

Her mouth dried. There was one thing she could offer. One thing that wasn't hers to give. But it was her best shot. If she'd been half awake for hundreds of years, she knew the one thing she'd want above anything else.

"You can sleep. Fully. With your family." She nodded, almost to convince herself to say the next promise. "You help them defeat the Orchs and the Edhel will protect you and your family while you sleep. That way you can sleep properly and dream."

Silence filled the valley, whooshing inside her ears. A mile away, Lindir was fighting for his life but as the Giant stared at her, that seemed a million leagues away.

A ridge of rocks that she took for his eyebrows lowered, and then the Giant laughed and laughed and her heart sank. All of this was for nothing.

"You offer what you cannot give, little flesh legs. You are not them. How do I know you to be true?"

How was exactly the question. If everything went well, she'd be out of this hellscape in a couple months. She had no way to know how long the Edhel would stay in their ant-hill mountain. She didn't have an answer, but she did have her truth.

"You don't. But I trust the Edhel and they're true. I trust them, and I think you already trust them too, otherwise you would have thrown me and Olorin and Glorfindel aside the moment we woke you up."

The pebbles of its mouth moved; it looked like he was thinking.

"If I sleep, you cannot call on me again. And I will not wake for elves nor wizards."

Her heart leapt into her throat. Her words were a whisper, but she knew it would hear her. "Are you saying you'll help?"

The Giant bent even further down, bringing his eye, the thing that wiggled into her head each time she looked at it, so close to her face. Now that it was awake, it no longer called to her as intensely as it did before, but the pull was still there, only softer, like it had finally found her.

"Yes." It agreed gruffly. Hope, small but burgeoning, loosened the ring of anxiety squeezing her heart. "But this I warn you: Should your Edhel betray me, should they turn or harm my kin in our rest, the Giants of Hithaeglir will come. And there will be war between us of which the Edhel will lose. They are mighty but made of flesh and we are stone and infinite."

Leda gulped. Had she just made a promise she couldn't keep? What was the lesser of two evils? That her friends died now, with no help? Or they died later, bound by a promise she had made on their behalf?

She knew the Edhel to be aloof, but kind in their own way. What if, in ten, or twenty or two hundred years they decided they didn't want to be anymore?

Selfishly, she didn't give two fucks in that moment. That, she thought, was just something else they could be mad at her about. At least if the Giant helped now, everyone would hopefully be alive in the future to be mad her.

The bands around her chest loosened and she took the first real breath she'd had in hours. "Thank you. Thank you. You don't know what it means-"

"Do not thank me yet, little flesh legs." It cautioned. "I am but one, and have just awoken. There is still a chance your Edhel will die."

"I know." She whispered.

Its bottomless eyes bore into her. "Do you know, little flesh legs?"

Foreboding zinged through her, but there wasn't any time left to dwell on whatever that meant.

The Giant straightened slightly from its crouch, its large head blanketing them in shadows. A crack of thunder sounded above, and behind the Giant, a spark of lightning zinged through the valley. A patter of rain fell, splashing against her cheeks, making her blink up at the benevolent monster she had woken.

"Give me your protector and the wizard. I shall take them to the front." Now It sounded uninterested.

She got the distinct impression that though this was fantastical and impossible and horrifically stressful for her, to the Giant, it was entirely only a Tuesday. After al the panicking and planning and hyperventilating and fighting, the end result of exactly what she wanted was almost…boring.

Leda turned in Glorfindel's grasp, wriggling in his vice-like hold until they were chest to chest.

"He said he'll help." She said quickly. The tightness of his face bled into something strange. "He said you and Olorin should go with him. "

Tactfully, she left out the part where she had promised his people would do no harm to the Giants for the rest of time. She wasn't sure how well that would go down. His arm did not immediately move from her and when it did it was slow, reluctant. He pushed her behind him, helping her step up and over the rubble of rocks onto more steady ground behind.

The giant stretched its black stone arm down, opening his large palm.

Olorin didn't even question the gesture.

"You have done well, Miss Ackerman." He said cheerfully and then, without as much as a goodbye, defied all the laws of gravity assigned to old human men to leap the distance onto the Giant's palm.

Glorfindel wasn't quite so eager to leave her side. He stepped towards her and leaned close to push something into her hand. When she looked, she saw it was a small blade. The feel of it made her so nervous she tried to immediately give it back, but he would have none of it.

"For your protection." He shook his head when she tried again to push it back into his hands. "Do not fight me on this." He said sternly, and whether it was because he'd saved her from falling or if it was the simple fact that he'd…believed in her (mainly Olorin) enough to help with her crazy plan, but she didn't fight him. She'd chuck it in the corner as soon as she could but to his face, she relented. "Go to the Halls of Healing. Stay with Mereneth and do not move."

Maybe the truce wasn't as dead as she'd thought. "I will."

"You have aided us." He said quickly. Behind him, the Giant's hand hovered, waiting. He had to go. "Do not fear." He looked like he wanted to say more, another whip of lightning ripped through the clouds. It reflected in his eyes and made them bone white for a second.

"Be careful." She breathed. "Don't die."

His eyes widened a fraction. "I will try."

And then, like Olorin, he defied her understandings of gravitational pull on beings with mass, and leapt onto the Giants hand, nimble and weightless as all Edhel were.

"You are mad, little flesh legs." The giant said as he turned stood straight, rising to his impossible height. Neither Olorin nor Glorfindel wobbled from the movement. "But that is why I awoke. Little flesh legs always do have the best adventures. I shall dream soundly of this fight and my siblings will relish the tale."

It climbed with better agility a being its size should have, out of the crevice and up and over the mountain. Its head disappeared into the storm clouds an then its chest and lastly, the hand carrying Olorin and Glorfindel.

Glorfindel was a tiny gold spec getting smaller and smaller by the nanosecond. And even when they disappeared, and there was no way that he could physically see her any more, she knew, without a doubt, that he was still watching her.

Leda stood for a few minutes amongst the destruction the Giant had left, feeling as she often did at the end of a twelve hour shift, wired and exhausted at the same time. That is, until she heard the deep scrape of the Halls of Healing stone door open. She turned, finding just about the last person she wanted to see.

Mereneth's face was paler than usual. "What," she spat. "Did. You. Do?"

I have no excuse other than this year has been hard and I am very sorry. I got in my head and got obsessed with editing and then suddenly it'd been 5 months. I've missed you. I hope you're all well?

I STILL have comments to reply back to. I'm sorry if I haven't replied to yours. I read and appreciate them all and I'm still so grateful that you're willing to even read far enough into the story to comment. Thank you for always challenging me, and questioning me and supporting me. I've said before that it feels like we have a little community, and I know I'm slow at updating and I'm sorry for that. If you're returning or new, thank you. I'll see you soon.

Novaer,

Aobh xx