//------------------------------//
// The Giant 
// Story: Dreams and Dementations 
// by AShadowOfCygnus 
//------------------------------//

Midnight sun hangs over still-black waters—perfect circle, red and heavy, over a perfect mirror-plane. For hours, there has been no wind, no lap of tide against the ice; naught indeed but the red-burning sky and the velvet blackness for its partner. A hazy sheen lies here and there between.  

The stillness carries the weight of portent—anticipation, cold and malt-heavy on expectant, wordless tongues. And as the silent vigilants assemble, bedecked in their accustomed heavy furs, even the hoarfrost and coagulation seem to still their cracking, as ginger hooves find their way to their stations on the rim. Hooded cloaks and heavy brows, weathered by sun and sea—grim-faced, grime-muzzled, hoar-shod.

Silence lengthens; silence burns. Yet no words are spoken, no songs sung. Neither chantry bell nor tribal drum splits the air. This is an old kind of reverence, and an older style of ritual to accompany it. 

Time passes; how much they do not know. Here at the northernmost reach of the worldly mind, there is no time but the time of the water-clock; no night but that stolen in moments of personal exhaustion. The sun never sets, and the eyes never waver from the distant horizon. 

A hoof reaches out from beneath folds of cloak and fur—a signal, pointing west. Neither tongue nor body stirs, but the air itself seems to hold its breath as the long-awaited guest comes at last into view. 

Tall—tall perhaps as Mount Canter itself; broad—broad enough its tail is lost in fog; power—power enough in its natural courses to tear through the assembly in the space of a breath. A veritable mountain, rising from the ocean depths, bestirring not a ripple in the black-satin depths. Behemoth; Leviathan; Colossus—names and legends all, but in their hearts there cannot be room for more than one amongst the floe.  

There is not a word amongst the watchers here, as the giant glides past, nor for many long minutes thereafter, as craggy spine turns to spiny tail and finally disappears beneath the waves. All eyes turn to the mare at the wheel, herself gazing hindward at the retreating spire until—at last—the word is given and the sailors resume their stations along the galleon.

Another month; another journey; another tavern-shanty for eager ears to feast on. Here be monsters, read the maps, and none that brave the shifting ice deny it in their turn.