Chapter 25
They walked slowly for several miles into the deep forest, stopping occasionally to allow Astrid to catch her breath.
They eventually came to a small meadow where several large bears were sunning themselves as they lolled about on the dry grass.
The procession stopped at the edge of the meadow, where Sigurd and two of his sons took over carrying the funerary bier.
While the bears looked on curiously, they proceeded out onto the meadow with an exhausted Astrid limping behind.
The rest stood silently while Induna's naked body was gently laid on the dry grass and Astrid with her last strength, curled up alongside her and went to sleep.
The small procession returned, their sad mission completed.
Induna would soon be joined with her ancestors in the traditional Jotun manner and Astrid would accompany her into the great beyond.
Seeing the bears begin sniffing at the two bodies, the Jotuns and their great wolves turned away and started back to their small hamlet.
With their hands clasped, Roger walked alongside Freya, silently pondering what he had seen.
He recalled a conversation with Induna, where she had remarked about the dead being given to the great bear spirit of the northlands.
He now knew the method of delivery and at the same time, realized why no Jotun burials or remains had ever been found.
The great bear spirit had eaten them through his mortal representatives, the great bears of the northlands.
It was nearly dark and they were nearly home when Freya spoke, "Tomorrow nicht, we wull hae a feest tae say guidbye tae Induna. Then we wull gang back haem tae Portland."
She smiled at him and said very softly, "An' hopefully, yer wee wuid guidwife friend wullnae show up!"
Roger glanced over at something that had moved out of the corner of his right eye, he saw the tiny woman from the night before riding on one of the great wolves as if it were a horse.
The great gray wolf walked along as if carrying a two foot tall, blonde haired, humanoid female was the most natural thing to do.
She smiled at him even though he was plainly holding Freya's hand.
Roger murmured softly to Freya, "Don't look now, we've got company."
He looked around to see if he was the only one who had seen her while he heard Freya mutter, "Perhaps she cannae smell uir mingled scents?"
"Or perhaps she doesn't care if we're together?" replied Roger.
He thought a moment and asked, "So you can see her?"
"Ay coorse Ah can see 'er, Ah'm nae blin' ye ken!" replied Freya a bit curtly.
Roger squeezed her hand a bit sharply and muttered, "No reason to be shitty about it, I was just curious you know!"
Freya squeezed his hand gently and murmured, "Sorry."
Entering the dell again Roger saw that lanterns had been hung from the trees and places had been set out for everybody at the long tables, it had been a long day and not having eaten since that morning, he was very hungry.
The wolf and its tiny rider remained close by while the Jotuns seemed to take no notice of the pairing which led Roger to comment, "I get the impression that these wood wives, as you call them, come here often, how come I never saw any of them before?"
Freya shrugged and replied, "Mebbe they finally allowed ye tae see 'em?"
He chuckled and replied, "I guess they decided I was okay after all."
She squeezed his hand and said, "They've seen ye here afore an' ye uir accepted by th' wolves."
Impulsively she kissed him on his forehead, "An' yoo're livin' wi' me!"
He laughed and merrily replied "And don't you forget it!"
After washing up and finding themselves seats at her parents table.
Roger was about to hoist his foaming jack of ale and take a sup when again, he felt a small tug on his sleeve.
His tiny 'friend' had joined him and was sitting beside him on the bench.
She smiled up at him and rubbed her tiny tummy to show she was hungry too.
Freya at this time, noticed that he was looking down at something beside him and she asked, "Whit ur ye lookin' at?"
When he leaned back and she saw the tiny wood wife sitting there, she squawked, "What ur ye daein' here, ye wee scamp?" and reached across him.
Roger quickly grabbed her arm and said firmly, "Stop! She means no harm, what's the matter with you? Look at how tiny she is, what harm could she do to me?"
Freya glared at him and hotly replied, "Ah dornt want 'er attachin' herself tae ye, 'coz yoo'll hae tae tak' 'er wi' us!"
Gudrun overheard this and asked, "Whit is gonnae oan haur? Wa ur ye arguin' at me table?"
Freya pointed at the little wood wife and declared, "Roger wants tae feed 'er!"
Gudrun squinted at the tiny woman and said pleasantly, "Och, hello Dena, care fur some of uir food?"
The tiny creature nodded very enthusiastically and Gudrun chuckled, "Feel free tae help yerself!" she replied.
Freya gaped and blurted out, "Mom, ye ken 'er?"
Gudrun smiled at her daughter and replied gently, "Ay coorse Ah ken 'er, she helped yer grandmother keep 'er hoose clean!"
Roger at this point, lifted Dena from the bench and set her on the table beside his platter of food.
He took up his knife and cut the meat into bite sized chunks for her to eat.
She grinned hugely, clapped her tiny hands happily and sat down in a cross legged position to eat beside him.
Roger then reached over, slipped his arms around Freya and said softly, "You're still my favorite girl you know!"
Freya hugged him back and all was well between them.
Afterwards Freya pondered Gudrun's comments about Dena the wood wife and had mixed feelings about being left out.
"Wa didnae anyain tell me? Ah wouldnae hae behaved as Ah did had Ah knoon." she asked.
Gudrun smiled at her and replied gently,"We thooght ye ken about 'er. Induna relied oan 'er fur a lot ay things an' she cam an' tauld us when she died. It's nae yer fault, we assumed ye kent."
Freya looked at the tiny girl sitting cross legged on the table across from Roger and said quietly,"Ah am sorry fur me behaviur, Ah didna ken ye waur helpin' me granny an' Ah apologize."
Dena rose to her feet and stood in front of Freya with a big smile, she opened her arms wide and Freya engulfed her in her own arms.
A miniature girl getting hugged by a giantess was quite a sight to see, thought Roger as he looked on.
The next morning Roger woke in a tangle of limbs.
Freya had insisted he sleep with her the night before and somehow, tiny Dena got mixed into the equation because she had gotten into his ale and it had gone straight to her tiny head.
The result was one tipsy wood wife that got carried to bed by Freya, her newest best friend.
The little elf girl had been gently tucked into Roger's bed while he and Freya slept in hers.
At some point during the night, Roger had felt a tiny form burrowing in between him and Freya.
Disentangling himself, Roger sat up carefully and looked at the tiny form beside him.
Dena was quite naked and obviously female, an adult female as her breasts and golden tufted pubic regions attested.
In an oddly detached way he looked her over, in spite of her diminutive size she was normally proportioned and would have an athletic build if human sized.
Her size and her clearly pointed ears gave hints to her wood elf status.
Freya lying next to her seemed impossibly huge by comparison, she was just over seven feet tall now and showed no signs of slowing down in her growth patterns.
He yawned and stretched before swinging his legs out of bed to stand up and his bare feet encountered a large, warm, furry body.
Blinking in surprise he looked to see that Sasha, one of the giant wolves was also sleeping in Freya's bedroom.
Sasha raised her great gray head and regarded him silently while he dressed, picked up his shaving kit and slipped out of the somewhat crowded bedroom.
Freya and Dena remained asleep while he toddled into the bathroom to wash up a bit before breakfast.
Olaf, Freya's third older brother was still in there finishing up his morning ablutions.
He was nearly full grown now and nearing the age where he would seek out a bride.
Roger couldn't help feeling like a child next to Olaf's massive frame, like his father, he was a big, strong young man towering over Roger at ten feet tall.
Olaf smiled at him and asked in his basso profundo of a voice, "An' hoo is yer heed thes morn?"
Roger chuckled and replied, "A lot better off than Freya's or Dena's will be once they wake up!"
Olaf chuckled and replied, "Aye, Ah've ne'er seen me sister blooter'd afore, an' fa kent a wuid guidwife woods loch ale?"
Roger shrugged while lathering up his face prior to shaving and commented, "Freya did take it pretty hard when Induna died, she cried pretty much the whole time we were flying up here."
Taking the first of many strokes with his razor, "I guess getting snockered was something she needed to do."
He noticed Olaf's grin while he was shaving and said, "What? Never seen a man shaving before?"
Olaf chuckled and replied, "Cannae say Ah hae, it seems loch a bortha tae me."
Roger laughed and retorted, "I have a scraggly beard, it looks like shit and would be an insult to bearded men everywhere, so I shave!"
Olaf could only laugh at his reply.
The two men finished washing up and headed into the kitchen to get something to eat.
Gudrun smiled at them and said, "It's nearly lunch time, woods ye, like tha' insteid?"
Roger simply shrugged and replied, "I'm fine with waiting a little bit. You might want to brew up some of that hangover tea you make, I think Freya's gonna need some!"
Gudrun smiled and said, "She had a reit tae bevvy loch she did lest nicht, she an' me mammy waur close."
"Apparently." remarked Roger, "We've had a couple of winter solstice cermonies back home and she would do the whole 'three aspects of the goddess' thing from memory. She even got one of her friends' grandmother and mother to be the crone and the matron during the ceremony."
Gudrun smiled slightly and remarked, "She always did loove tae hear 'er granny teel th' stories ay th' auld days. She reads an' speaks th' auld tongue far better than Ah dae."
Olaf who had put together an impressive sandwich from some cold meat left overs said simply,"Freya was always readin' th' auld books an' scrolls, while me brothers an' Ah waur wantin' tae gang play."
Roger grinned and commented, "She does take her school work pretty seriously, she's always among the top ten students of her school in her grades."
Gudrun beamed with pride and she said happily, "That's part of th' reason wa we asked ye tae tak' 'er wi' ye. She's too smart tae bide in thes village an' woods dae better in th' ootside warld."
"So what happens now with all of her stuff, Induna's I mean? I know this is probably not the time to be asking this I know, but she did have quite a library and there is an awful lot of lore hiding in those scrolls and books. If nothing else, I'd like to scan many of them so we can study them." asked Roger.
Gudrun shrugged and replied,"Ah cannae rightly say meself, Barbara an' Ah need tae look o'er 'er things an' see if she left onie wuid oan whit tae dae wi' 'er things."
"Gie all th' books an' scrolls tae Freya, she can reid them easily." remarked Olaf.
Gie whit tae Freya?" came a voice from the hallway outside of the kitchen.
They looked to see an obviously hung over Freya and a miserable looking wood wife named Dena with her giant lupine companion, Sasha looming over her, all standing in the doorway.
Roger smiled and said lightly, "May I introduce to you the Misses 'Death warmed over' and their giant wolf' Sasha!"
Gudrun smiled at her youngest child and filled a mug with a warm liquid she had brewed up for the occasion.
She filled a much smaller mug also with the liquid and set both of them on the kitchen table. "Haur, bevvy thes fur th' headache, an' woods ye loch somethin' tae eat?"
Freya groaned and slid onto the bench, while tiny Dena climbed up alongside her.
The two picked up their mugs and took a long drink of the warm liquid before saying another word.
Setting her mug down Freya, grimaced as the strong tasting herbal brew worked wonders.
"Ugh!" she said, sticking her tongue out, "Why's it taste sae strongly?"
Gudrun smiled at her daughter and said soothingly, "Coz it's medicine hen. It's nae supposed tae taste guid."
"Thenks mom, Ah needed sarcasm alang wi' me hangowre." grumbled a not quite ready to face the world, Freya.
A short time later Gudrun laid out a meal for them and gave a large bone to Sasha who happily began gnawing on the heavy limb bone.
Her incredibly powerful jaws crushing and splintering the bone with ease while Roger marveled at her size, he commented drily, "My neighbors would flip if they saw her."
"Why?" asked Olaf, Roger smiled at him and said, "Wolves like her don't exist anywhere but here. She's more than twice the size of our largest dog breeds and would be considered a dangerous animal."
He gestured at her and said, "Look at how easily she's demolishing that bone, that is one hell of a bite force she has!"
He grinned at Olaf and remarked, "Freya by herself has created a minor sensation. We've told people she is a Jotun, but they're not taking it real seriously because there are still taller humans out there, once she's grown taller than even our tallest individuals...Who knows how they'll react?"
Olaf frowned slightly and asked, "Hoo dae ye thenk fowks wull react when she gits e'en taller?"
He thought a bit more and asked, "Jist hoo tall can ye wee folk gie?"
Roger thought for a moment and replied, "Seven foot tall basket ball players aren't all that unusual these days and there are several individuals over eight feet tall.
"The tallest man ever, was just under nine feet tall, but he needed leg braces just to stand up. Freya is so much bigger than her school mates that she plays basket ball and volley ball with the senior women's teams at our local university.
"Those ladies are all well over six feet tall and strong to boot, so she does get a thumping now and then."
Olaf grinned at his younger sister and commented drily, "Guid, she needs a wee humility noo an' again!"
Freya merely stuck out her tongue at him in reply.
Having recovered her composure Freya asked, "Noo whit waur ye talkin' abit givin' tae me?"
Olaf shrugged and replied, "Ah mentioned givin' ye all ay granny's books an' scrolls 'coz yoo're th' one who can reid them."
Freya was about to reply when Roger interjected, "Perhaps this should be discussed when all of the family is present, that way everyone gets a say in this."
Olaf merely shrugged and remarked, "Ah see wee reason tae change me min', Freya has always taken 'er learnin' mair serioosly than Ah did."
Gudrun who had sat quietly listening spoke up, "Roger is reit, we shoods wait until we ur all gaithered tae discuss thes. Loch me son, Ah think it shoods gang tae Freya."
Roger said quietly, "It's not like we could haul it all away, the floatplane I borrowed can only carry a few hundred pounds of cargo and I think her library is bigger than that."
He looked over at Freya and said, "We can take a few small items like a keepsake or something, but the family does need to discuss this as a family."
He squeezed her hand and continued, "We'll look through some of her things this afternoon if you'd like."
Freya smiled at him weakly and muttered, "Ah'm nae really ready tae gang ben me granny's things. Nae wi' 'er sae recently deid an' gain loch she is."
Roger glanced over at Dena the wood wife, she was sitting in a cross legged position near Freya and listening to the discussion while eating her meal and occasionally sipping at her own little mug.
She smiled brightly at him, looking for all the world like a doll come to life.
Naturally he smiled back at her, she was a little cutie he admitted to himself.
Taking his eyes off of her, he asked Gudrun, "What about her and Sasha? Weren't they living with Induna?"
Gudrun smiled and replied, "Och aye they lived wi' 'er an' took care ay 'er an' Astrid. Dena cooked an' cleaned whilst Sasha guarded them all."
"So what happens to them now?"
"A wuid guidwife an' a guardian wolf wull attach themselves tae a new hoosehauld if they ur welcomed thaur. They'll be fine, yoo'll see!"
Roger chuckled softly and muttered half to himself, "I'll bet she would look amazing in some of those doll clothes I've seen for sale. They're just her size and cost like the dickens!"
Freya looked at him oddly and said in surprise, "They makes fine clase fur 'er? Yoo've ne'er mentioned 'em afore!"
He grinned at his ever growing companion and replied, "I never mentioned them because, I did not know little cuties like Dena existed. I wonder if she is related to the little creatures that untied my net bag and ate all of the berries I'd picked?"
Freya smiled and remarked with a twinkle in her eye, "Ah'd forgotten about 'at. Ye did hae quite th' look in yer eye!"
Roger shrugged and remarked, "You would have a look in your eye too, if you'd been looking forward to eating something other than an energy bar, only to find someone had eaten your berries."
Gudrun said softly, "Ye seem tae loch uir wee Dena, ye dae realize 'at she an' Sasha hae a bond atween them an' a body gaes whaur th' other a body wills?"
He smiled slightly and remarked, "I admit I do like her and if I had a place suitable for her and Sasha, I'd be working on how to get them both back to Portland, Oregon."
"Jist wa isnae yer place suitable fur Sasha an' Dena?" asked Olaf.
"It's not the size of the house. Hell, the whole house has twelve foot high ceilings and sits on a two acre lot right up against a large parcel of woodland of about twenty-five acres..."
Roger suddenly grinned and exclaimed happily, "I have an idea...Let me go make a call or two, we may have a solution!"