There was once a time when things in nature were far more wild and free than any wisps of wild that we have left today. The earth was rich with magic not yet understood and secrets never to be fully unveiled. Fantasy creatures roamed the forests and the race of man was no more than a passing thought. This world was not for men; was no place for their trivial arguments and petty problems. The pink of their skin would never fit in with the dark swirls of forestry and broad expanses of slate colored mountains.
No, this land was a place for stone and rock giants, elves of every shape and size, little biting gnomes and sneering goblins, dwarves dwelled under the mountains and faeries were always getting into trouble.
Our story starts on a mountain, where things are whipped into shape and the suns ever-present rays are either cold and watery or completely scorching.
A terrible storm had swirled into existence the night before, hanging ominously over the green and slate mountain range with clouds who refused to play at shape games. Instead these clouds were great rolling masses of black and gray, tumbling over one another in a giant wave of thunderous sound. They blanketed the sky for the better part of the day, and in the evening, before all hints of sunlight could be taken away, their depths shone green and turquoise; the definite sign of what was sure to be an ugly storm.
In the wee hours of the morning, hours after the storm had started, and just as it was tossing its last bits of rain and half-hearted spindles of lightening, a terrible crack made the air shiver. The final white arch of lightning had struck against the side of the smallest of the mountain peaks. Now, as this lighting was thrown haphazardly from the gnashing mouth of the storm clouds, the wind blew just so and the rain drops pushed as hard as they could and guided that hand of lightening to a certain spot on the little peak.
It did not strike on the very tip as you would think. Instead it veered sharply in that way lightning does and splashed against a little crop of greenish-gray boulders. At this electrifying touch, a sudden electricity filled the air, rain was thrown scattered out of its cleanly precise sheets and the little mountain peak seemed to draw up and heave a shudder as it’s little crop of greenish-gray boulders clacked against each other with movement.
From the depths of these boulders and rocks emerged a hand, or a hand-like shape. One can never be completely sure with the shaping of rock giant’s limbs. For that is what emerged from the pile of rocks, the misshapen and lumpy figure, of a great stone giant.
***
He was not a stone giant actually. Not in the real definition of it. Rather he was a rock giant, made since the beginning of time and resting in a long slumber in the separated minerals and bits of earth that would one day be shaped just right by the rain and then given life by the lightning. It was true that earth giant births were rare. But once they came to be, it would be a long while before they puttered out completely. Before they let themselves be made into bridges or house foundations or even just sat down and started collecting minerals to themselves to one day be a mountain again.
After the lightning struck, our rock giant pulled himself up and out of the earth, tripping over the rocks and stones strewn about from his waking. As the rain kept beating and the mountain top was washed of any mud and grime, the giant from the baby mountain peak made his way down to the forest far below.
***
When the storm fully passed and the sun was just returning to the sky, the giant could be found sitting in a small flower field. In the dark he had been unable to see what color the flowers had been, but had gained the terrible feeling that he was crushing something beautiful as he entered the meadow. His entrance to the meadow was obvious, for the meadow itself was ringed by tightly packed trees that hung against each other and made a dense thicket. The trees were interrupted only by funny knots of joined branches that the giant would later learn to be the homes of wood sprites. The only way his bulky frame could have gotten to this secret garden was by crashing his way through the trees. A makeshift tunnel was left through the springy trees from his entrance.
The little pixies were the first to find him, after the wood sprites of course. As soon as he breached the part of the forest where the thicket started, the wood sprites that belonged to it were aware of his presence. Wood sprites are connected to the tree family they live in, and since the thicket was all one big family of the same trees, the wood sprites had gained a considerable amount of knowledge about what had broken several of their lovely little houses. They shunned him though. The only thing he knew of their presence was that they were upset, for they kept throwing bits of his fallen rocks against the back of his head; sneaking around him to collect bits of their precious branches to hoard away and give a proper funeral for.
But the pixies were the first to really come see him. As he sat, slumped and quiet among the crushed flowers, a pair of tiny feet alighted upon his shoulder. Since he had grown used to the sprites throwing rocks at him, he at first did not move at the touch. But as soon as those tiny feet, softer than a moth wing’s kiss, traveled from one shoulder to another; he began to hold this breath.
Rock giants and mineral giants in general do not need to breath, and many do not even have a nose as a feature unless it is carved out for them. But the giant felt himself go stiff. He had been merely sitting still, but now he held himself that way; gaining that same feeling of building pressure as holding one’s breath would feel.
The little pixie pushed off of his shoulder with a flutter of her painted wings, only to then alight upon one of his great hands. Here he could observe her, and she him.
Her frame was as all pixies are, whippet-thin and lovely of complexion. Pixies may come in any hue or shade; this one was of the palest cream-green, with large dark eyes for her small head and a topping of spearmint looking hair. Her wings, as all pixie wings are, were clear and shimmery, but painted with pixie dust to look like green and brown butterfly wings; huge eye-like markings winking at the viewer from the larger two of her four wings.
From her view the hulking form before her was one of doleful amusement. She had seen rock giants before, but almost all of them were too big to clearly be seen this close, let alone distinguish them as a living thing rather than a pile of misplaced rocks. The giant she stood upon had been born from a baby mountain, one formed by the fallings of the two larger mountains of either side of it. His body was made up of green-gray boulders that were rough here and smooth there. The head of him was hardly distinguishable by the hint of a face it bore. There was a suggestion of a nose, the dents of eyes, and the fine crack of his mouth.
The little green pixie doubled over in laughter as more pixies came upon them, laughing just because. Together the small swarm of pixies walked all over the new rock giant, taking turns tunneling through a space between his arm rocks, and seeing how far they could pull his toes from their magnetic placing on his feet.
The rock giant watched them with a growing sadness, a sadness that had started when the first light came to the sky and he could see all the flowers he had crushed. He had grown from the earth itself, just like the pixies around him had been born from sleepy flowers in the waking spring season. But he felt with growing sadness just how different he was from them.
Never could he be as light as they, never so free. He would never be able to laugh with his silent mouth or sing like the wood elves that were just arriving. As the wood elves arrived, tugging along little pot-bellied gnomes who carried their various odds and ends, they began to circle around the still-sitting figure of the rock giant. To him they came close and observed with their flashing eyes and secretive smiles, a few even goading him into raising an arm for their delights of swinging from it gleefully.
As the day wore on all of his new acquaintances came and went, various other creatures coming across the scene on their way about the forest, often stopping to poke a little flower into a crack in one of his boulders or to brush away a bit of dirt left from a climbing gnome foot. The pixies collected their paints and gave him pretty little pictures of flower-like patterns on his rocks. The elves played games of stacking rocks against him, seeing how many they could balance from his knees or shoulders. One even made a considerable stack on the top of his head.
All the while the giant’s sadness grew.
As his first day ended and he ventured out of the meadow from the way he came in, he felt once again the new joy of movement. But this was bittersweet, for as the wood sprites threw his pebbles at him when he wasn’t looking, he realized just how out of place he was in the forest.
His wandering led him to a river, and while he was being trailed by many of his pixie friends, he still felt very much alone. At the river bank, he let himself drop once again, feeling the pop and crunch of the little river pebbles beneath him. For a while he stayed there, lulled into a kind of trancelike sleep that calmed his aching feelings, even though you and I both know that rock giants don’t sleep.
After a day, or perhaps even two, spent in this spot by the river, he had grown a considerable number of followers. Already there was a swallow nesting in one of his chest cavities, having packed her mud nest and twittered about her plans of decorating it to him through the evening. He was also pretty sure that a toad was holding fort under one of his feet, leaving only at night when the giant could not see him, and returning well before daylight from his hunting.
The giant didn’t mind these few friends. But he knew that if he didn’t move soon, more would eventually come, and he would be frozen to this place by their need of him. Already the swallow nest was too much of an investment in the place.
On the fourth day of his stay, as he was delving slowly into the self-discussion about whether or not he was going to lift his foot to finally see the toad, a pebble hit him on the chest.
***
Not all rock giants are big, in fact, some of them can be quite small. In particular are the river tailors. River tailors are usually the size of little pink pigs, with spindly legs of small stones and a torso made of two or three sizable rocks. They spent their days going along the river banks, picking up little pebbles and tossing them into the water. If they ever wandered from one river to another, they would pick up pebbles and rocks on their way and throw them all at once into the new river. They are the reason rivers have so many pebbles.
Just as our lonesome rock giant was sitting on his own, a rogue little river tailor had appeared down the bank; tossing petite pebbles and small stones in the general direction of the water. The stone giant watched the tailor with detached interest, finding that the little pot-bellied rock creature would throw the gray and blue rocks to this side of the river, and the lighter colored reddish and brown pebbles all the way to the other side.
When the river tailor came upon the giants resting spot, he gave pause and tipped his head back to stare up at him with a strange amount of contempt on his faceless face. The rock giant lifted a hand in a kind of wave, unsure of what to do under the circumstances. Not that there were any circumstances, that’s why he didn’t know what to do.
After several minutes of continued staring, the river tailor wandered closer and clacked one of his little foot stones against the rock giants shin. After this act of mild violence, the little river tailor began picking up pebbles again, but instead of throwing them in the river he started to throw them at the rock giant. All manners of pebbles began to shower down on the rock giant, waking the swallow in his chest and sending her spiraling away through the sky. They started sticking in his crevices, falling between his fingers and toes so that he could no longer tell which were his and which weren’t attached.
It was surprising how quickly the pebbles piled up, and soon enough the giant was beginning to worry about being stuck there to the river bank by all of the little rocks thrown by the tailor. He looked back to the tailor after several minutes of sitting there dejectedly, watching as he relentlessly threw more and more pebbles at him. Maybe it was a sign, maybe the tailor meant for him to leave.
As soon as this thought occurred to him, the rock giant shifted in his seat, sending a shower of pebbles from between his boulders and rocks. The tailor froze in his movements and watched him, throwing one more pebble as he stood and stared. With that, the giant stood, taking mild care in not stepping on where the toad was buried in the mud, and hearing the nest in his chest crack and fall apart. The pebbles rained down from him, leaving a trail as he lumbered away.
Being a sensitive rock fellow, if he had been able to, the giant would have cried as he went. He had been kicked out of the only spot that the wood sprites would not throw things at him, and the toad had lost his home, and the swallows nest was all in ruins.
***
The rock giant had no desire to be the way he was. He didn’t even know if he was a he. You see, there is no need for genders in rock giants. But all the same, he felt that if he had the choice to mold himself into a different shape, he would make himself a man.
A day or so after the rock giant had broken himself away from the river, he came upon a band of dwarves rooting amongst the forest trees. They shouted out a cry of warning as his bulky figure approached, all coming to stand and watch as he got closer and closer. Their pickaxes and shovels were held at the ready, faces ruddy and sweaty enough to stick wisp’s of their beards all over their faces.
When they came to face one another the rock giant reached out his arms and held them palm out, or something like that anyway. The gesture was clear though, and soon enough they had him helping to carry pieces of a great oak trunk along behind their perfect caravan walk.
After a few minutes travel he found the reason for their presence in the forest and above the ground (For, as we all know, dwarves are exceedingly ill tempered about being above ground unless it is in the spirit of battle or good food). Their group had come upon a fallen bridge, its opposite bases still present but infirm; fallen center littered through the slow-churning river below. He did not understand why they felt such a pressing need to fix the bridge. Everyone knows that dwarves love to build and create, but fixing things is entirely different.
The dwarven party in question had been eagerly on their way to a fire-lit party scheduled deep in the woods. There was to be all manners of creatures attending, and the delightful music was sure to inspire many a soul to kick up their heels in dance. Such a party was also sure to have quite a bit of food, which was of course the real reason the dwarves were so set on attending.
The group set right to the job at hand, and our rock giant was put first to helping them cut the oak trunks into orderly poles. Even getting down into the river later on in order to be the support for their building endeavors. Their work consisted of making nice wooden plants and cooking up soupy cement to hold the foundation together. They had ponies bring them scrub brush with which to scrub the stones clean for the supports, and spent a little time standing under the trees smoking sweet-scented pipes while they ate a lunch of bread and cheese. After the better part of the day (the process being majorly sped up by the rock giants help), the dwarves called him up from the silt-laden river with their teeth flashing through their beards; smiles bright and lighting up their beady little eyes.
The rock giant made his way up to see that they had finished, and now a lovely wooden plank and stone supported bridge stood before them.
The dwarves were so delighted with the finished product that they all danced and tumbled across it in song, repeating this a few times to roll back and forth over the fine wooden planks like marbles in a child’s palm. The rock giant looked on with a gentle feeling of pleasure deep in his mineral-based chest.
As they sang and thumped their chests with pride, they began to call him over to them. First it was one who gave pause and pointed out to the looming figure of the rock giant. Next thing he knew there were several trotting over to him on their stocky little legs. They gathered around in a ring, slapping his rocks with flat-palmed hands in a rhythm of music as they set up another small meal.
By the end of the dwarf’s celebration, they were all quite content to sit for a while and smoke under the trees, sending rings of their ethereal smoke up through the forestry. After quite a spell of quiet, the dwarves turned their beetle eyes to the rock giant. Who, in the spirit of everyone around him, had let his rocks all tumble about in order to make for seats and small tables for the resting dwarves; yet still his head sat uncovered beside their rough little cook fire. Soon a trio of them was hovered around him, scraping a hand across his forehead, or picking gently at the crack of his mouth.
“Methinks ‘e ought to ‘ave a be’er face.” Remarked one.
“Aye, to look more friendly like.” Agreed another.
“What do ye think Giant? We could carve you up right nice if ye wished it so.” Concluded the third, raising his bushy black brows high enough to show off cracks through the dirt on his face.
The rock giant considered. It wasn’t like it would hurt him to be chiseled into a bit, so long as they didn’t touch at his shoulder boulder, where the lighting burn that had given him life could be seen. He let his head roll backwards and forwards again, his way of a nod.
With grunts of determination the dwarves received pen and paper from their ponies, coming back and sitting down with him to sketch up their thoughts of his soon to be face.
Together they all decided upon a simple design, the eyes were still rough and shady, not quite there under a new curve of thoughtful brows, the same was for his nose; which they made more of a gentle slope between the curves of stony cheeks. The mouth is what they changed the most, their grainy sketching’s giving the face a final look of easy friendliness with lips curved at one corner in the suggestion of a smile. They had all agreed that it was a right nice face, and that if ever he was aching for a change he would be able to come to them for a new one.
***
When they finally reached the fire, the rock giant observed the dancing elves and the drunken dwarves, all of the little gnomes scuttling under tables and feet for fallen food; pixies danced like dandelion seeds through the air, with little faeries sprinkling their mischievous dust in drinks and tugging unaware wood sprites closer and closer to the unruly flames. With the music the fire grew bright and wild, dancing around with the magic of the elves fast wood-wind songs.
The rock giant thought again to the smile carved into his face, and with a final step he let himself spread and roll, his rocks and boulders tumbling out around the fire in a wide ring. Little elves cried out in delight and rushed for their satchels, sprinkling little seeds around the ring and playing music for mushrooms to sprout up out of the ground. All together the partiers leapt up onto the newly made faerie ring, dancing around the circle in a wild display of merriment and gayety all through the night.
No, this land was a place for stone and rock giants, elves of every shape and size, little biting gnomes and sneering goblins, dwarves dwelled under the mountains and faeries were always getting into trouble.
Our story starts on a mountain, where things are whipped into shape and the suns ever-present rays are either cold and watery or completely scorching.
A terrible storm had swirled into existence the night before, hanging ominously over the green and slate mountain range with clouds who refused to play at shape games. Instead these clouds were great rolling masses of black and gray, tumbling over one another in a giant wave of thunderous sound. They blanketed the sky for the better part of the day, and in the evening, before all hints of sunlight could be taken away, their depths shone green and turquoise; the definite sign of what was sure to be an ugly storm.
In the wee hours of the morning, hours after the storm had started, and just as it was tossing its last bits of rain and half-hearted spindles of lightening, a terrible crack made the air shiver. The final white arch of lightning had struck against the side of the smallest of the mountain peaks. Now, as this lighting was thrown haphazardly from the gnashing mouth of the storm clouds, the wind blew just so and the rain drops pushed as hard as they could and guided that hand of lightening to a certain spot on the little peak.
It did not strike on the very tip as you would think. Instead it veered sharply in that way lightning does and splashed against a little crop of greenish-gray boulders. At this electrifying touch, a sudden electricity filled the air, rain was thrown scattered out of its cleanly precise sheets and the little mountain peak seemed to draw up and heave a shudder as it’s little crop of greenish-gray boulders clacked against each other with movement.
From the depths of these boulders and rocks emerged a hand, or a hand-like shape. One can never be completely sure with the shaping of rock giant’s limbs. For that is what emerged from the pile of rocks, the misshapen and lumpy figure, of a great stone giant.
***
He was not a stone giant actually. Not in the real definition of it. Rather he was a rock giant, made since the beginning of time and resting in a long slumber in the separated minerals and bits of earth that would one day be shaped just right by the rain and then given life by the lightning. It was true that earth giant births were rare. But once they came to be, it would be a long while before they puttered out completely. Before they let themselves be made into bridges or house foundations or even just sat down and started collecting minerals to themselves to one day be a mountain again.
After the lightning struck, our rock giant pulled himself up and out of the earth, tripping over the rocks and stones strewn about from his waking. As the rain kept beating and the mountain top was washed of any mud and grime, the giant from the baby mountain peak made his way down to the forest far below.
***
When the storm fully passed and the sun was just returning to the sky, the giant could be found sitting in a small flower field. In the dark he had been unable to see what color the flowers had been, but had gained the terrible feeling that he was crushing something beautiful as he entered the meadow. His entrance to the meadow was obvious, for the meadow itself was ringed by tightly packed trees that hung against each other and made a dense thicket. The trees were interrupted only by funny knots of joined branches that the giant would later learn to be the homes of wood sprites. The only way his bulky frame could have gotten to this secret garden was by crashing his way through the trees. A makeshift tunnel was left through the springy trees from his entrance.
The little pixies were the first to find him, after the wood sprites of course. As soon as he breached the part of the forest where the thicket started, the wood sprites that belonged to it were aware of his presence. Wood sprites are connected to the tree family they live in, and since the thicket was all one big family of the same trees, the wood sprites had gained a considerable amount of knowledge about what had broken several of their lovely little houses. They shunned him though. The only thing he knew of their presence was that they were upset, for they kept throwing bits of his fallen rocks against the back of his head; sneaking around him to collect bits of their precious branches to hoard away and give a proper funeral for.
But the pixies were the first to really come see him. As he sat, slumped and quiet among the crushed flowers, a pair of tiny feet alighted upon his shoulder. Since he had grown used to the sprites throwing rocks at him, he at first did not move at the touch. But as soon as those tiny feet, softer than a moth wing’s kiss, traveled from one shoulder to another; he began to hold this breath.
Rock giants and mineral giants in general do not need to breath, and many do not even have a nose as a feature unless it is carved out for them. But the giant felt himself go stiff. He had been merely sitting still, but now he held himself that way; gaining that same feeling of building pressure as holding one’s breath would feel.
The little pixie pushed off of his shoulder with a flutter of her painted wings, only to then alight upon one of his great hands. Here he could observe her, and she him.
Her frame was as all pixies are, whippet-thin and lovely of complexion. Pixies may come in any hue or shade; this one was of the palest cream-green, with large dark eyes for her small head and a topping of spearmint looking hair. Her wings, as all pixie wings are, were clear and shimmery, but painted with pixie dust to look like green and brown butterfly wings; huge eye-like markings winking at the viewer from the larger two of her four wings.
From her view the hulking form before her was one of doleful amusement. She had seen rock giants before, but almost all of them were too big to clearly be seen this close, let alone distinguish them as a living thing rather than a pile of misplaced rocks. The giant she stood upon had been born from a baby mountain, one formed by the fallings of the two larger mountains of either side of it. His body was made up of green-gray boulders that were rough here and smooth there. The head of him was hardly distinguishable by the hint of a face it bore. There was a suggestion of a nose, the dents of eyes, and the fine crack of his mouth.
The little green pixie doubled over in laughter as more pixies came upon them, laughing just because. Together the small swarm of pixies walked all over the new rock giant, taking turns tunneling through a space between his arm rocks, and seeing how far they could pull his toes from their magnetic placing on his feet.
The rock giant watched them with a growing sadness, a sadness that had started when the first light came to the sky and he could see all the flowers he had crushed. He had grown from the earth itself, just like the pixies around him had been born from sleepy flowers in the waking spring season. But he felt with growing sadness just how different he was from them.
Never could he be as light as they, never so free. He would never be able to laugh with his silent mouth or sing like the wood elves that were just arriving. As the wood elves arrived, tugging along little pot-bellied gnomes who carried their various odds and ends, they began to circle around the still-sitting figure of the rock giant. To him they came close and observed with their flashing eyes and secretive smiles, a few even goading him into raising an arm for their delights of swinging from it gleefully.
As the day wore on all of his new acquaintances came and went, various other creatures coming across the scene on their way about the forest, often stopping to poke a little flower into a crack in one of his boulders or to brush away a bit of dirt left from a climbing gnome foot. The pixies collected their paints and gave him pretty little pictures of flower-like patterns on his rocks. The elves played games of stacking rocks against him, seeing how many they could balance from his knees or shoulders. One even made a considerable stack on the top of his head.
All the while the giant’s sadness grew.
As his first day ended and he ventured out of the meadow from the way he came in, he felt once again the new joy of movement. But this was bittersweet, for as the wood sprites threw his pebbles at him when he wasn’t looking, he realized just how out of place he was in the forest.
His wandering led him to a river, and while he was being trailed by many of his pixie friends, he still felt very much alone. At the river bank, he let himself drop once again, feeling the pop and crunch of the little river pebbles beneath him. For a while he stayed there, lulled into a kind of trancelike sleep that calmed his aching feelings, even though you and I both know that rock giants don’t sleep.
After a day, or perhaps even two, spent in this spot by the river, he had grown a considerable number of followers. Already there was a swallow nesting in one of his chest cavities, having packed her mud nest and twittered about her plans of decorating it to him through the evening. He was also pretty sure that a toad was holding fort under one of his feet, leaving only at night when the giant could not see him, and returning well before daylight from his hunting.
The giant didn’t mind these few friends. But he knew that if he didn’t move soon, more would eventually come, and he would be frozen to this place by their need of him. Already the swallow nest was too much of an investment in the place.
On the fourth day of his stay, as he was delving slowly into the self-discussion about whether or not he was going to lift his foot to finally see the toad, a pebble hit him on the chest.
***
Not all rock giants are big, in fact, some of them can be quite small. In particular are the river tailors. River tailors are usually the size of little pink pigs, with spindly legs of small stones and a torso made of two or three sizable rocks. They spent their days going along the river banks, picking up little pebbles and tossing them into the water. If they ever wandered from one river to another, they would pick up pebbles and rocks on their way and throw them all at once into the new river. They are the reason rivers have so many pebbles.
Just as our lonesome rock giant was sitting on his own, a rogue little river tailor had appeared down the bank; tossing petite pebbles and small stones in the general direction of the water. The stone giant watched the tailor with detached interest, finding that the little pot-bellied rock creature would throw the gray and blue rocks to this side of the river, and the lighter colored reddish and brown pebbles all the way to the other side.
When the river tailor came upon the giants resting spot, he gave pause and tipped his head back to stare up at him with a strange amount of contempt on his faceless face. The rock giant lifted a hand in a kind of wave, unsure of what to do under the circumstances. Not that there were any circumstances, that’s why he didn’t know what to do.
After several minutes of continued staring, the river tailor wandered closer and clacked one of his little foot stones against the rock giants shin. After this act of mild violence, the little river tailor began picking up pebbles again, but instead of throwing them in the river he started to throw them at the rock giant. All manners of pebbles began to shower down on the rock giant, waking the swallow in his chest and sending her spiraling away through the sky. They started sticking in his crevices, falling between his fingers and toes so that he could no longer tell which were his and which weren’t attached.
It was surprising how quickly the pebbles piled up, and soon enough the giant was beginning to worry about being stuck there to the river bank by all of the little rocks thrown by the tailor. He looked back to the tailor after several minutes of sitting there dejectedly, watching as he relentlessly threw more and more pebbles at him. Maybe it was a sign, maybe the tailor meant for him to leave.
As soon as this thought occurred to him, the rock giant shifted in his seat, sending a shower of pebbles from between his boulders and rocks. The tailor froze in his movements and watched him, throwing one more pebble as he stood and stared. With that, the giant stood, taking mild care in not stepping on where the toad was buried in the mud, and hearing the nest in his chest crack and fall apart. The pebbles rained down from him, leaving a trail as he lumbered away.
Being a sensitive rock fellow, if he had been able to, the giant would have cried as he went. He had been kicked out of the only spot that the wood sprites would not throw things at him, and the toad had lost his home, and the swallows nest was all in ruins.
***
The rock giant had no desire to be the way he was. He didn’t even know if he was a he. You see, there is no need for genders in rock giants. But all the same, he felt that if he had the choice to mold himself into a different shape, he would make himself a man.
A day or so after the rock giant had broken himself away from the river, he came upon a band of dwarves rooting amongst the forest trees. They shouted out a cry of warning as his bulky figure approached, all coming to stand and watch as he got closer and closer. Their pickaxes and shovels were held at the ready, faces ruddy and sweaty enough to stick wisp’s of their beards all over their faces.
When they came to face one another the rock giant reached out his arms and held them palm out, or something like that anyway. The gesture was clear though, and soon enough they had him helping to carry pieces of a great oak trunk along behind their perfect caravan walk.
After a few minutes travel he found the reason for their presence in the forest and above the ground (For, as we all know, dwarves are exceedingly ill tempered about being above ground unless it is in the spirit of battle or good food). Their group had come upon a fallen bridge, its opposite bases still present but infirm; fallen center littered through the slow-churning river below. He did not understand why they felt such a pressing need to fix the bridge. Everyone knows that dwarves love to build and create, but fixing things is entirely different.
The dwarven party in question had been eagerly on their way to a fire-lit party scheduled deep in the woods. There was to be all manners of creatures attending, and the delightful music was sure to inspire many a soul to kick up their heels in dance. Such a party was also sure to have quite a bit of food, which was of course the real reason the dwarves were so set on attending.
The group set right to the job at hand, and our rock giant was put first to helping them cut the oak trunks into orderly poles. Even getting down into the river later on in order to be the support for their building endeavors. Their work consisted of making nice wooden plants and cooking up soupy cement to hold the foundation together. They had ponies bring them scrub brush with which to scrub the stones clean for the supports, and spent a little time standing under the trees smoking sweet-scented pipes while they ate a lunch of bread and cheese. After the better part of the day (the process being majorly sped up by the rock giants help), the dwarves called him up from the silt-laden river with their teeth flashing through their beards; smiles bright and lighting up their beady little eyes.
The rock giant made his way up to see that they had finished, and now a lovely wooden plank and stone supported bridge stood before them.
The dwarves were so delighted with the finished product that they all danced and tumbled across it in song, repeating this a few times to roll back and forth over the fine wooden planks like marbles in a child’s palm. The rock giant looked on with a gentle feeling of pleasure deep in his mineral-based chest.
As they sang and thumped their chests with pride, they began to call him over to them. First it was one who gave pause and pointed out to the looming figure of the rock giant. Next thing he knew there were several trotting over to him on their stocky little legs. They gathered around in a ring, slapping his rocks with flat-palmed hands in a rhythm of music as they set up another small meal.
By the end of the dwarf’s celebration, they were all quite content to sit for a while and smoke under the trees, sending rings of their ethereal smoke up through the forestry. After quite a spell of quiet, the dwarves turned their beetle eyes to the rock giant. Who, in the spirit of everyone around him, had let his rocks all tumble about in order to make for seats and small tables for the resting dwarves; yet still his head sat uncovered beside their rough little cook fire. Soon a trio of them was hovered around him, scraping a hand across his forehead, or picking gently at the crack of his mouth.
“Methinks ‘e ought to ‘ave a be’er face.” Remarked one.
“Aye, to look more friendly like.” Agreed another.
“What do ye think Giant? We could carve you up right nice if ye wished it so.” Concluded the third, raising his bushy black brows high enough to show off cracks through the dirt on his face.
The rock giant considered. It wasn’t like it would hurt him to be chiseled into a bit, so long as they didn’t touch at his shoulder boulder, where the lighting burn that had given him life could be seen. He let his head roll backwards and forwards again, his way of a nod.
With grunts of determination the dwarves received pen and paper from their ponies, coming back and sitting down with him to sketch up their thoughts of his soon to be face.
Together they all decided upon a simple design, the eyes were still rough and shady, not quite there under a new curve of thoughtful brows, the same was for his nose; which they made more of a gentle slope between the curves of stony cheeks. The mouth is what they changed the most, their grainy sketching’s giving the face a final look of easy friendliness with lips curved at one corner in the suggestion of a smile. They had all agreed that it was a right nice face, and that if ever he was aching for a change he would be able to come to them for a new one.
***
When they finally reached the fire, the rock giant observed the dancing elves and the drunken dwarves, all of the little gnomes scuttling under tables and feet for fallen food; pixies danced like dandelion seeds through the air, with little faeries sprinkling their mischievous dust in drinks and tugging unaware wood sprites closer and closer to the unruly flames. With the music the fire grew bright and wild, dancing around with the magic of the elves fast wood-wind songs.
The rock giant thought again to the smile carved into his face, and with a final step he let himself spread and roll, his rocks and boulders tumbling out around the fire in a wide ring. Little elves cried out in delight and rushed for their satchels, sprinkling little seeds around the ring and playing music for mushrooms to sprout up out of the ground. All together the partiers leapt up onto the newly made faerie ring, dancing around the circle in a wild display of merriment and gayety all through the night.
