Difference between revisions of "Grothnir and Bear"

Revision as of 19:25, 5 September 2013

Grothnir's Backstory

All he'd wanted was some peace and quiet. He never understood why that was such a large request. Shouldn’t people be happy to give him a little space, what with him being eight feet tall and everything? But Grothnir's family was big, both individually and as a group. If he’d had more than a giant’s vocabulary, he would have called them boisterous and overly jovial. He might have even been tempted to go so far as "uncouth."

But he’d had a giant’s grasp of language, so Grothnir stuck with "loud.”

The villagers were worse. Really, they should have been used to giants, living up here in the mountains. And they should have been especially used to him, as he tromped their streets every day. He hated being the errand boy. Drag this anvil to your cousin’s, Grothnir. Go buy another club, Grothnir, and get enough spikes in it this time. Go get us some more boulders, Grothnir, your mother’s making a hammer.

So like the good son, he went where his father asked. It did get him out of the cave for a while. But then he had to deal with the villagers. The children threw stones. Not well, of course, but they got an A+ for effort. The women glared. The men spit. Every day. This day had started out worse. His father had yelled at him for a whole hour. The latest club he bought hadn’t had enough spikes either. His mother had swatted him with of her favorite hammers, one that definitely did have enough spikes. And then they sent him off again, to go sell wood in the village.

He wanted to hit something. He punched a spruce pretty hard on his way, but it wasn’t enough, and the needles stung his knuckles.

The villagers were in exceptional form that day, too. One of them dumped a bedpan (disgustingly full) on him. A few kids threw sticks at him, because somehow in the mountains they had managed to run out of rocks. A gangly teenager struck him in the eye with an apple. He didn’t black out, then, though it would be easier to say that he had. Instead of black, he saw red, but only because that’s the color most people bleed. It was true that his thoughts were jumbled and incoherent, but that didn’t mean he didn’t hear the cruch as he swung one of the tree trunks he was hauling through thatch roofs and pig pens. When he finally felt better and slowed down, it was over. There was nothing--and no one--left.

There were other villages, not far from this one. So he did the only smart thing--he ran. The whole mountain heard him, sure, but they couldn’t catch him. When he stopped, there were no villages, just trees and guilt. Losing one’s temper was practically a virtuous act for a giant, and violence was a treasured pastime. But the randomness of it, that he still regrets.

Life was good for a while. Fantastic, even. He found himself a quiet cave. He spent time with the animals, who were both more understanding and more understandable than people.

There were still bad days. One morning, some hunters killed a mama bear and one of her cubs before he could scare them off. The other cub was scrawny, but not hurt, so he took it home and named it “Bear” so the cub would always know what it was. Bear was easy to feed, and even easier to talk to. Bear even liked to play games, and was particularly good at dancing the Mountain Stomp.

They came for him, eventually. He outran them again, carrying Bear in his arms. He ran far enough that the scenery became unrecognizable, and then he just kept going. They put him in prison eventually, he assumed for his past crime. But he got out of that too, with a little help. He is surrounded by people now, but it’s easier than it was before. They leave him alone when he wants. They help him kill only the bad things, or at least the things that are actually a problem. They all seem to like Bear, but then again, who wouldn’t? Maybe he doesn’t need to be alone to be happy, after all.

Bear's Backstory

Bear love blackberries. Bear love dance.

Grothnir feed Bear blackberries. Grothnir teach Bear dance.

Bear love Grothnir.

Rawr.