Chapter 66: Icy Dream (2)
Time passed strangely in this dream-space.
Reinhard couldn’t tell if it had been moments or months, but the giant had recovered fully. It stood amid the glaciers, its form restored to its original magnificence.
The white eyes surveyed the landscape around it, taking in the endless ice and snow.
Then those eyes looked down.
The giant knelt, bringing one massive hand to the frozen ground. It pressed its palm flat against the surface, and something remarkable happened. The ice began responding to it as it started shifting and moving upward like water.
The Frost Giant lifted its hands with the snow rising up and swirling around it before it then started forming shapes at the giant’s unspoken command.
The giant seemed surprised by this, its eyes widening fractionally. It began experimenting as it started moving its hand in different patterns.
Wherever it pointed, ice would rise up before forming crude pillars and walls. The giant eyes shined as it stood, using both hands now, which led to the constructions becoming more elaborate. Towers of ice spiraled upward, their surfaces smooth while bridges arched between peaks that span impossible distances.
Honestly? Is it building houses? Or the beginning of a kingdom? Reinhard thought as he stared in awe and amazement.
The structures looked rough, jagged, and primitive in their design, but they seemed good enough to be called a home. The giant seemed to be learning as it went, each new creation slightly better and more refined than the last.
It built what might have been a throne, a massive seat carved from a single piece of ice, positioned atop the highest peak it could find.
But the giant didn’t sit.
Instead, it continued building, creating more structures that spread out across the frozen landscape. Walls and courtyards, halls and chambers, all formed from the ice. The giant worked tirelessly, never pausing, and never resting as time slowly passed.
Its massive hands constantly moved in graceful patterns that went against its size and demeanor.
Eventually, though, the Frost Giants’ movement gradually took a dip in speed. Its gestures became less precise, with the structures it created having some parts missing, uneven, and not the same size as the ones before.
Finally, it stopped and stood amid its frozen creations like a sculptor surveying their work. The Frost Giant formed its very first smile before its white eyes dimmed slightly, and the giant’s massive form swayed.
It walked back to the throne it had created a long time ago and lowered itself onto the seat. The ice groaned under its weight but held firm, and the giant lay back. It continued staring over all of its creation, the icy mountains, and the landscape, before slowly it closed its eyes.
Almost immediately after it went to sleep, something strange began happening.
Moisture formed on the giant’s body, not from melting but from within. Beads of water appeared across its ice body before they started to move across the pattern on the giant body. Then they started to trail down its body and move towards the frozen ground below.
When the water landed on the frozen ground, a small pool began forming. The pools grew larger from the constant water dripping from the sleeping giant.
Then steam began rising from these puddles, which were warmer than the surrounding environment. The puddles began rising up to take on structure and forming rough shapes that gradually became more defined.
Reinhard watched in bated breath as the shapes turned into small figures, each one perhaps a tenth the size of the sleeping giant. They were crude and rough-looking humanoids with a big bulk, thick limbs, and broad shoulders.
Then frost immediately began forming on their surfaces as they emerged, giving them the same ice-like appearance as the Frost Giant sleeping on the throne.
These smaller beings stumbled about uncertainly. They didn’t seem to have the same immediate awareness that the giant had possessed upon its birth. Instead, they moved with the awkward uncertainty of newborns, bumping into ice formations and each other.
They gradually began learning how to control their limbs through trial and error. More frost giants kept forming as the giant slept on, unaware of what was happening around it. The dripping continued, feeding the pools, and from the pools came more of these small ice-beings.
They clustered together instinctively, seeking companionship or perhaps just responding to an innate need for proximity.
The sleeping giant’s breathing deepened, and with each time it fully breathed, more moisture formed on its surface. This led to the process accelerating and for more of the giants to begin to form from it.
Time passed again in that dreamlike way, and when Reinhard’s perspective shifted, he saw the giant stirring. The massive being’s eyes flickered, then opened fully and stretched limbs that had stiffened during its rest.
As it glanced around, it paused and saw the small giants similar to it. The towering giant took in the sight of dozens of smaller ice-beings scattered across the frozen landscape around it. They had grown more numerous during their sleep, and now they filled the area, some still stumbling about while others had found stability and were exploring their surroundings.
The giant stood slowly, its movements careful as if afraid of crushing the smaller beings. It approached the nearest cluster, kneeling down to examine them more closely. The small ice-beings looked up at their creator with eyes that mirrored their own, brilliant blue-white orbs set in faces of ice and frost.
One of them opened its mouth, and sounds emerged.
They weren’t words that Reinhard could understand, more like a series of growls and guttural syllables. The small frost giants were trying to communicate, to establish some connection with the giant that loomed above them.
The towering giant’s eyes widened, not expecting there to be anything other than it alone in this frozen land. Now it found itself surrounded by beings that had somehow come from it while it was slumbering.
The giant stood again, backing away from the smaller beings. It then closed its eyes before Reinhard saw images flashing through his mind and then realized the giant was somehow watching what happened when it slept.
The tower frost giant’s eyes turned toward the distant boundary, toward the realm of flames beyond. An idea seemed to be forming in its mind, some connection between the heat and the sweating that had created these new beings.
It started walking toward the boundary, and some of the smaller ice-beings followed. Their movements are more coordinated now than they had been upon first forming, and the towering giant didn’t seem to notice or care about its followers.
It was focused entirely on the realm ahead, on the heat and flames that had caused it such discomfort before.
The giant crossed the boundary, and immediately the melting began again. Water streamed down its body in sheets as the heat worked against the ice. But this time, the giant seemed to welcome it. It understood now what the heat could do, what it could create through the interaction with its ice-form.
It pressed deeper into the realm of flames than it had dared before, ignoring the discomfort and pain of being reduced. The giant stood amid the rivers of magma and burning stone, letting the heat wash over it. The melting intensified, and with it came a massive amount of sweating that dripped down to the ground.
A pool of water quickly formed in this environment, and the heat caused rapid evaporation of the pool of water. But before the water could evaporate entirely, it started to take form as new beings began forming faster than in the frozen realm.
The giant watched with satisfaction as more and more of the small ice-beings came into existence around it.
But something was wrong.
The beings that formed here, in the realm of flames, were not the same as those born in the frozen land. They emerged from the heated pools already weakened, their ice-bodies unable to solidify properly in this environment.
They stumbled forward, but their movements were sluggish, and they seemed to be crying out.
One of the newly formed beings took only a few steps before its legs gave out. It collapsed, and its body immediately began melting more rapidly. Within moments, there was nothing left but a puddle of water that quickly evaporated into steam, and then others followed it.
They were forming and dying almost simultaneously, unable to survive in the very environment that gave them birth.
The giant, so focused on the creation process, didn’t notice at first. It stood there, letting the heat continue its work, watching as more beings emerged from the pools. But then it saw one fall, saw it melt away to nothing. Its white eyes tracked another as it stumbled and collapsed, its form melting and turning into steam entirely.
Realization crashed over the giant as its eyes widened.
It released its first-ever roar that echoed across both realms, a sound of rage and anguish that made the very air vibrate. The giant spun around, its eyes frantically searching for the beings that had been forming, and saw that most were already gone.
But a few still remained, stumbling about at the edge of the hot zone where the temperature was slightly more bearable.
The giant lunged forward with surprising speed for something so massive. It scooped up the surviving beings in its enormous hands, cradling them against its chest despite the pain. It then began gathering as many as it could find, holding them close as it turned and ran back toward the boundary.
The giant’s movements were frantic now, all grace abandoned in favor of speed. It crashed through the turbulent zone where ice and fire met, not slowing even as the environmental transition caused its own body to shift and crack.
Steam poured off its form in clouds as it carried its precious small ice-beings away from the deadly heat.
Only when it was deep within the frozen realm did the giant slow, and it carefully set down the beings it had rescued. They were in poor condition, with much of their ice bodies melted away, but they were alive.
The cold immediately began working its restorative magic as it began rebuilding what the heat had destroyed.
And then everything froze before shattering as darkness took over.
The giant knelt among them, its white eyes dimmed with something that might have been sorrow or regret.