Eternity | T.J.

This Original Title Was Too Long

This Is Like A School Talent Show... With Significantly Less Singing, And A Few More Death Threats.

     I decided not to touch my food. While the giants provided us peanuts, hot dogs, and tortilla chips covered in 'cheese' the majority of it looked barely edible, so I had to settle with a granola bar I had in my backpack.

     While we 'ate', Magnus explained what had happened to him, Blitz, and Alex, talking about how they met Tiny, what the whole thing with the bowling bag was, and why Magnus's hair was so short.

     Once he was finished, Sam shook her head." Magnus, you always get the easy stuff."

     " Easy!?"

     " Hearth, Willow, and I have been here for a day trying to stay alive. We've almost died six times."

     Hearth held up seven fingers as I said," Seven."

     " Oh, right. The thing with the toilets."

     I raised an eyebrow." How do you forget a thing like that? Especially since they almost drowned you twice."

     " Didn't the giants give you guest rights?" Blitzen asked.

     " That was the first thing we asked for," Sam explained." But these mountain Jotuns, they'll try to twist your words and kill you with kindness."

     " Like those sisters we met in January," Magnus remembered." The ones who offered to raise our seat to table height and then tried to smash us against the ceiling in it."

     Sam and I both nodded." Right. Remember what I said earlier about Sam almost drowning twice? One time was the incident with the toilets, but the first time was when she asked for a drink and the bartender dropped her in a mug of beer. Hearth had to break the glass with a runestone to free her."

     Had to watch everything we said, Hearth signed. I asked for a place to sleep, almost mangled to death in ball return machine.

     " Ouch," Alex remarked, after Sam had translated what our elven friend had said." No wonder you guys look so bad, no offense."

     " None taken."

     " That's not the worst of it," Sam continued." Trying to do prayers with Hearthstone and Willow keeping guard? Impossible. And the giants kept challenging us to rigged feats of skill."

     Illusions. Nothing here is what it seems.

     " Yep," Blitzen agreed." Same with Tiny and his bowling bag. Utgard Loki and his people are infamous for their powers of illusion."

     " So how do you know what's an illusion and what's real?" Magnus asked.

     Alex held up a chip." More importantly, can I pretend this is really a burrito from Anna's Taqueria?"

     " Probably not."

     " We have to stay sharp," Sam reminded the others." Last night, after we phrased the request very carefully, they finally gave us sleeping bags, but we had to 'prove our strength' by spreading them out ourselves. We tried for about an hour. The bags wouldn't budge. Utgard Loki finally admitted they were made from curled shavings of titanium. The giants had a good laugh about that."

     " How is that even funny?"

     Tell about the cat, Hearth signed.

     I sighed and rested my head in my hands." Before we got to eat dinner, we were told to pick up a cat and take it outside. It seemed simple enough at first, so I took up the challenge, but the dang thing wouldn't budge. I tried for about four hours to pick that cat up, making all three of us miss dinner. Turns out the cat was actually an African bush elephant, weighing around thirteen thousand pounds. Moral of the story, they like making mortals feel weak."