Chapter 10
A Giantess meets a lamia
When Roger Tate and his young companion Freya Sigurdsdottir, were able to get away from her schooling for her first spring break.
They flew to Arizona to see George and Mia Bryce and their twins.
The girls were now nearly ten months old and proving to be quite the handful.
Lamias could sinuate much earlier than humans could walk and once they'd started sinuating, it was "gangway!" as they would slither all about the house and ranch and be everywhere and nowhere, all at once.
Fortunately, with Mia's family now in Arizona, they could help out with keeping them away from trouble.
The flight was fairly routine and the two were soon maneuvering their luggage through the crowd at Phoenix International airport.
Freya now stood several inches taller than Roger's six-foot height even though she was just ten summers old and she wore what almost amounted to a uniform amongst the kids her age.
Faded blue jeans, a sleeveless top and a faded plaid long sleeve shirt over that, on her feet were the obligatory scuffed up sneakers.
On her right elbow, a bandage covering a fresh bit of pavement rash from a tumble on her bicycle.
In short, she was fitting in.
George Bryce sat waiting for them outside at the curbside passenger loading zone, they tossed their bags in the back, climbed in the van and buckled up.
Soon, they were speeding through traffic as George headed for the freeway out of town. Roger grinned at his friend and asked, "How're my favorite nieces?"
George rolled his eyes and replied, "They're wonderful, when they're asleep. When they're awake?
Wow! You wouldn't believe the things I've had to childproof, almost every door in the house has a safety catch on it now because they've figured out door latches.
The only door that isn't safety catched is the one to our bedroom, Mia won't restrict their access to us, so I wake up all the time with little ones in bed with me."
Roger just chuckled and remarked cheerfully, "And you're lovin' every minute of it!"
He looked over at Freya and said, "You haven't met George's family yet. The twins are nearly ten months old now and very enthusiastic about getting into things!"
Freya grinned and replied skeptically, "Och! Hoo much mischief can sich wee bairns make?"
George laughed and said cheerfully, "You'll see, just you wait!"
Roger grinned at him and remarked, "Both of us have had our comfortable little lives turned upside down.
"You have Mia and your twins and her family. I have Freya here and we ended up moving into a much bigger house with high ceilings to give her headroom as she grows up."
George chuckled and remarked, "And I now live on a 10,000 acre ranch slash nature preserve. Did I tell you about our neighbor?"
"Neighbor? What, neighbor?"
"It turns out we are sharing our ranch with a young arachne girl of about twelve or thirteen."
"Whaat?! An arachne?" exclaimed Roger, "How did she get there and how did Rachel take it?"
George laughed again and replied, "She was already there when we moved in and she stayed in hiding until she realized we weren't any danger to her. Rachel? She's over the moon about this. She has me taking all kinds of notes and observing the girl as she interacts with Natalie, Mia's youngest sister and the other humans working around the ranch. She's also trying to find a school for them to attend."
Roger grinned, "Dealing with Freya and I must be a cinch for her then, of course we live in Portland near the museum and Freya doesn't stand out so much just yet. Also, she's pretty self reliant, she's already learned her way around the neighborhood and many of the local hiking trails."
Freya sat quietly gazing out the window of the van, they were outside Phoenix now and speeding along the highway out of town.
The desert lay all about then now as they traversed the narrow ribbon of pavement.
"Thaur's nae trees haur, Ah didnae ken th' desert when Ah first heard ay it." She murmured quietly.
George looked up at the mirror and grinned at her, "Wait'll we get closer to the ranch, you'll see some pretty cool things. We have our own little oasis now and can almost feed ourselves with what we can grow or hunt."
"Almost?" Asked Roger.
"You try getting between a lamia and her ice cream, it could be hazardous to your health!" Quipped George as he patted the large plug in cooler between the front seats.
Roger lifted the lid and saw several nicely frosted tubs of ice cream lying beneath a couple of slabs of dry ice, he laughed and remarked in a dramatic tone of voice, "To ensure domestic tranquility, thou shalt fetch fudge ripple ice cream!"
"You'd better believe it buddy!" replied George with a laugh.
After exiting the highway, they cruised along a wide stretch of gravel road and Roger commented, "Pretty nice grading here, lot's of neighbors I take it?"
"We've got a couple of gravel quarries nearby and this is their access road, during the week it's a little crowded with big rigs hauling rocks and gravel out of the pits."
He pointed out the window at the dust covered bushes and remarked, "I'm surprised any of this stuff is still alive, all coated with dust like it is."
He glanced back at Freya and said cheerfully, "Don't worry dear, once we get away from this part, it gets really nice. We might even see a couple of gopher tortoises, there's a fair number of them out here now that we chased off a lot of the ravens that were killing the young tortoises!"
Freya grinned and asked curiously, "Ur they anythin' loch box turtles?"
"Nah! They're much bigger and way cooler. They dig a tunnel and stay in it at night or when they hibernate during the winter."
Turning off the main road, George deftly maneuvered the bulky van over the narrow trackway he was following and stopped at a gate in the fence stretching across the desert. Roger hopped out and held the gate open while George pulled through it and stopped, closing the gate again Roger hopped back in and they resumed their trek.
George steered the van to the left when they came to a crossroads and continued on their way.
Minutes later another gate appeared and Roger repeated his earlier performance while commenting, "Are there a lot of gates out here? I don't wanna buckle up if I just have to jump out again!"
George just grinned and replied, "The first gate was to the nature preserve and the second gate was to our ranch which lies within the preserve. The preserve itself is about 150,000 acres and there are a couple of more private ranches within the preserve. It's a quiet neighborhood!"
Roger laughed and said, "I'll bet!"
Freya suddenly exclaimed, "Och look! Ah see turtles o'er yonder!"
George stopped the van and they got out, Freya trotted with her red-gold braids flying, over to the tortoise plodding along.
She beamed happily as she picked it up and began looking it over while its stubby legs flailed uselessly.
Her pretty face was all smiles as she held it up for them to see.
George chuckled slightly and called out, "Careful where you point that, it could be loaded!" Freya made a question face and said, "Wha?!"
When a thick, yellow stream shot from the rounded posterior of the tortoise, narrowly missing her.
Freya burst out laughing and hastily set the outraged tortoise back down, whereupon it rapidly plodded away into the bushes.
Grinning like a kid on Christmas morn she asked incredulously, "Dae all ay them dae 'at?
Roger grinned rogueishly and replied drily, "Only when picked up, they'll hold it until someone picks them up and then they'll let fly. Poor things could go for years before someone picks them up."
Freya raised one red gold eyebrow and placed one hand on her hip while shifting her weight to that hip.
George chuckled and said, "I don't think she's buyin' that Rodge, I've seen that look before. Our pediatric nurse does that."
Roger chuckled slightly and replied, "She picked that up from some classmates of hers at school."
Resuming their trek, they soon left the still annoyed tortoise far behind.
Cresting the last ridge, they drove across the shallow valley and around the shoulder of rock the house sat upon at the base of a steep slope.
Out in front of the house at one side of the roomy driveway, stood a basketball hoop and backstop where two young girls were playing one-on-one.
Freya clapped her hands and cried happily, " Och, a basketball hoop, Ah loove basketball!"
Then she noticed that one girl had a massive, pythonic tail and she was rapidly flicking that tail from side to side as she nimbly dribbled the ball on the dirt surface and fended off her opponent who had way too many legs and danced about on those many legs in her attempts to retrieve the ball from her lamian opponent and defend the hoop.
Roger laughed and said cheerfully, "Now there's an interesting game, a lamia and an arachne playing some hoops!"
The young lamia briefly coiled her tail and launched herself upward to make a shot at the hoop.
As the ball left her hands, her octopedal opponent quickly gathered those many legs and leapt up, reaching out with a long, slender, chitinous arm and long fingered hand to deftly block the shot.
Freya clapped her hands and cried happily, "Well played!"
George parked the van as the two demi-human girls smiled and waved, he held up the bag of goodies he'd promised them and they came up to the van smiling.
Roger exited the van and exclaimed, "Hi Natalie!" and the young lamia squealed in delight, crying, "Uncle Roger!" as she hugged him tightly.
She turned to the the young arachne and said cheerfully, "This is my uncle Roger, he helped get us out of Algeria." glancing back at him she smiled and said, "This is my friend Zenobia, we met a few months ago. It turned out she was already living here when we moved in!" Roger smiled gently at the shy young arachne, her two main eyes and four secondary reddish eyes blinking rapidly as she avoided looking directly at him.
"Hello Zenobia, it's a pleasure to meet you at last!" he said as he extended his hand in greeting.
Zenobia shyly extended her chitinous hand and blushed as he gently took her hand and shook it slightly.
She blushed even redder at the contact, quickly scuttled behind Natalie and peeked shyly around her at him.
When Freya got out, they both looked curiously at her, to them she looked fully human. Roger laid a hand on her shoulder and said, "Girl's, I'd like you to meet my foster daughter, Freya Sigurdsdottir!"
Freya smiled shyly and said politely, "Hello!"
"Freya, this is my niece Natalie, George's youngest sister-in-law and this is Zenobia, her neighbor."
Natalie blushed and said nervously, "I first thought you were a boy with long hair, well, because..." She unconsciously smooshed her youthful bosom together, emphasizing her budding decolletage and Zenobia as her snug silken top showed plainly, was also developing nicely.
Freya shrugged and replied, "Me moon cycle has nae started yet as Ah am only a lass ay ten summers auld."
Both girls gaped briefly and Natalie blurted out in surprise, "But, you're so tall!"
The moment was interrupted by Mia emerging from the house with twins in tow, her lush bosom heavy with milk.
"Darling!" cried Mia happily, "Did you get my things?"
She swept George into her lush embrace as their tiny twins sinuated up their parents entwined bodies.
A second van pulled up alongside and parked.
Rachel Thompson stepped out and hugged both Roger and Freya while exclaiming, "Did you guys just get here?"
Then Mia swept in and glommed onto Roger exclaiming, "Roger! It's so good to see you!" Roger, feeling slightly overwhelmed, grinned at her and commented, "Girl, you don't know your own strength. I don't know how George does it!"
"With the greatest of ease!" declared George happily.
The passenger side opened and a tall, slim black woman stepped out, she had an air of authority and a military bearing about her. "Combat Medic" Thought Roger as he glanced at her.
Rachel smiled at him and said, "Roger, I'd like you to meet Roberta Johnson RN, pediatric nurse specialist. She's helping us out with the twins."
She turned to Roberta and said, "I'd like you to meet Roger Tate, he also works for the museum. Roger is a little hard to categorize, he's done a little of everything and speaks several Arabic and Sub Saharan African languages. He and George found Mia and her family and brought them here among other things."
Roger grinned at Roberta and said, "Pleasure to meet you!" as they shook hands, Roberta spoke briefly in Arabic and Roger chuckled, winked at her and replied, "I was lucky, no camel spiders ever bit me!"
Roberta grinned at Rachel and said, "I asked him if he had ever met any camel spiders?"
Rachel then gestured to Freya and said, "This is Freya, she is Roger's foster daughter, she is staying with him while she goes to school here in the U.S."
Roberta smiled at Freya and said, "A late bloomer I see, it's a pleasure to see another one, I was quite the late bloomer myself growing up."
Roger cleared his throat and said quietly, "Freya is only ten years old."
Roberta looked at her more closely and asked, "May I ask if you have a thyroid condition or an abnormal growth rate issue?"
Freya looked a bit nonplussed as she asked, "Me growth rate? Is somethin' wrong wi' me?"
Roberta smiled warmly and said gently, "Most ten year old girls are not over six feet tall. Your size is unusual, are your parents tall?"
Freya thought for a moment and said cheerfully, "Me folks arenae 'at tall, in fact, me dad is nae th' tallest man in uir village nor is me mum th' tallest woman."
She grinned and said cheerfully, "I'm still th' smallest in me family!"
Roberta held up one hand and placed the other against her forehead, closing her eyes for a moment, "Wait...What?!"
Roger chuckled and said, "Freya is another mythical being if you will, she just looks fully human, like us."
Roberta faced Roger and said tersely, "Go on, I'm listening."
Roger cleared his throat again and said, "Freya is a frost giant, one of the Jotuns of Norse mythology fame."
Roberta closed her large, expressive eyes briefly and said, "Please continue, I had to think about what you said just now. You did say 'frost giant' did you not?"
Roger grinned at her then he turned to Freya and asked her, "Sweetie, would you mind giving uncle George a hand with his things? I'll be along in a few more minutes."
Freya smiled at him and trotted off to help George and the others.
Turning back to Rachel and Roberta, Roger gave her a brief summary of his life with Freya Sigurdsdottir.
When he was finished, he stood there smiling while Roberta mulled over his tale of getting lost in the Canadian woods and encountering a village of mythical giants hidden away from prying eyes.