She Walks in Beauty

III. Friend and Fang

Once she was past the great storm that circled her home and out onto the Sea of Glass, Rúna took a form she felt more comfortable in. One of the great winter wolves was more agile a form than the behemoth of a bear she'd been to charge through the blizzard. The skies here were clear, perfect blue,  a beautiful backdrop to the mountains of Ash Kordh rising to the south. They were breath-taking things, some so tall that one could gasp for days at the summit and still die for want of air. More than anything else, that was the true landmark of passage into Ash Kordh: passing beneath the great peaks and into the untamed, primordial wilderness. Rúna looked forward to it.

There had been seals enough on the way that she was well fed and insulated against the cold that forever shrouded the frozen ocean. The slight crunch of snow beneath her paws was a reminder that she had come far already, though she had yet to see a person. Only animals roamed here, though Ghurgha was not far. The city of orcs and northerners would be her first opportunity to observe the little folk, though she was wise enough to know it would be weeks at least  of observing from the outskirts. The forms were not so different from her own true one, not when stacked against the difficulty of flying or swimming as primary modes of travel, and yet they would need just as much study if not more. She spoke the tongues of the little folk fine, but the manner of speech, the posturing and behaviors of a culture, those were nuances that were not transmitted merely by changing her shape.

For all the bold nature of giants, Rúna could temper her curiosity with caution. She had been taught well to avoid discovery by the little folk. The world beyond Stormhenge had all manners of danger for creatures as magical as her people. People either seeking to destroy or command a giant were not difficult to find in the south. The only reason they had been open during the Great War was the fact that they had numbers. One giant armed for war could be overcome. Challenging ten thousand of them was an entirely different beast.

Rúna pulled in a puff of air and paused in her step. She was almost to the woods that marked the beginning of solid ground beyond a shoreline. Ghurgha was further west and south, where the ice shelf thawed enough for ships to travel six months of the year. At least another three days, even if she pushed hard.

It didn't make sense this far from anyone, on the frozen and desolate shores far from the warmth of civilization, for there to be one of the little folk. Her nose honed in on the smell. Remnants of dirt and sweat, faint traces of smoke, and...tears.

Rúna padded towards the copse of trees nearest the ice. Ghurgha could wait. For all the size of her paws, the size of dinner platters, they made very little sound. Her white fur blended with the ice and the horizon. She would have been a complete ghost except for her dark eyes and dark nose.

Kneeling beneath one of the frozen pines, curled in on herself, was a human woman. Rúna didn't know how they aged, but this one seemed past her middle years. Her flame-colored hair was threaded with grey and hardship had worn lines into her visage. She was painfully thin, clearly starving to death, and also dangerously exposed.

The woman looked up to see a winter wolf standing before her and started to cry, though no tears fell. She had exhausted them already, perhaps days and days ago, leaving only harsh sobbing.

Rúna's heart ached. She knew nothing about this woman, but no one deserved to die alone in the raw elements.  She didn't shift out of her form, but she approached until so close the woman should have run. Instead of dropping her pack to attack, she carefully placed it beside the woman. Rúna was geared as a warrior, though all of that was tethered to her by magic, hidden in a place without sight or space. This contained only her spare clothes, spare camping supplies, a pouch of salt and another smaller one of black pepper, and a bedroll. She had also taken the time to dry and salt a fair bit of fish, just in case there came a shortage of seals.