A world with no giants

by TheSexyMenhir


Rosetta

In a world with no Giants
Ch.12 "Rosetta"

Angelo rubbed his wrists where the rough rope had chafed against them. The two creatures stood a small distance away, the cream coloured one eying him carefully, and the mint coloured one looking equally tense.

Angelo took a moment to look around, giving them a chance to calm down, and himself a chance to find out where exactly the two had taken him. As far as he could tell they were still in the vicinity of The Burrow, maybe half an hour on foot away. A few trees formed a natural wall, that while not thick enough to shield from the wind, kept out most sunlight, allowing for a small clearing to form.

Aside from himself and the two beings there was little of interest, except for a turned over wicker basket, which shook and tumbled, only staying in place because of a heavy stone placed on top of it.

“Err, I’m just gonna go over there and free my friend, if that’s alright with you.” Angelo said, subconsciously falling back on the tactic tourists and white man have ever since used when they were faced by a language barrier: Speaking very slowly and very loudly.
For a moment he struggled with finding a way to convey his intentions, then he simply pointed at the basket while slowly walking towards it, keeping his eyes on the creatures and gauging their reactions.

The cream coloured one still seemed wary, it’s body tensed up, but it was the mint coloured one whose reaction was the most extreme: Her ears were suddenly pressed tight against her head, her eyes going wide, and her teeth bared. Interested, and a little shocked, Angelo took her reaction in. It reminded him of the way dogs and cats reacted when threatened. The cream coloured creature got closer to the other, and lay an arm, no, an foreleg around it, until it calmed down.

Carefully Angelo lifted the basket, jumped out of the way when an white blur shot out from under it, and then grabbed the battle ready Empress before the scene from before could repeat itself.

“Calm down! Calm down! I’m fine, see?” he said, while the hare struggled in it’s arms. After a few moments Empress had calmed down enough that Angelo could put her down again, but from the way she and the mint coloured creature eyed each other, it became clear that those two wouldn’t become friends anytime soon.

Angelo sat down across from the two creatures his legs folded and his arms outstretched. Empress lay next to him.

“Now to get the formalities out of the way.” he mumbled to himself. “Let’s start with something easy.”

He pointed towards himself and said, “Angelo.”

Then he repeated the gesture and carefully intonated the syllables, “Annn....gelll...ooooo.”

Then he pointed towards the white hare besides him, “Empress.”

And once again, “Empp...resss.”

The creatures stared at him, their ears perked up, swishing around like little radar dishes.

Once again Angelo pointed towards himself.

“Angelo.”

The mint coloured one made a few steps towards him, pointed and foreleg towards him and said, “anGggelo.”

Angelo didn’t trust his ears at first. The creature had made and sound, which he could only describe as an rolling G. Before he lost himself in amazement however, he reminded himself that there was something more important to do first.

He nodded emphatically, and once again pointed towards himself.

“Angelo.”

His finger wandered towards the white hare.

“Empress.”

The creature mimic his movements, “anGgglo, Embrrrez.”

Then it pointed towards itself and let out something that sounded like a sneeze mixed with a snore, but lacking the dissonance of both.

Angelo struggled for a moment while he tried to mimic the creatures tone, “Prrreha.”

It sounded nothing like what the mint coloured one had said, but the creature nodded nonetheless. It pointed towards the other one and said something which Angelo could only repeat as, “Iehehiehe.”

He had to grimace himself when he heard how he mangled the pronunciation. He tried again, taking his time to form each syllable, “I’eihe-I’eihe.”
It still didn’t sound like what the mint coloured one, Prreha, had said, but at the very least he now had something to call them aside from “creatures”, and as far as Angelo was concerned that was already a pretty huge step forward.

“Now what to do next?” he asked himself, only for his rumbling stomach to provide a very definite answer. While he couldn’t be entirely sure of the time he had spent unconscious, he could see that the sun had already passed it’s the zenith which meant that his last meal had been yesterday evening.

Luckily enough for him, the two creatures seemed to know what a rumbling stomach meant, sparing him the embarrassment of yet another round of pantomime. A bit of rummaging and Prreha presented a sandwich. Angelo did his best not to grimace, but the memory of eating grass was one of the more unpleasant ones (of course there had been several things which were worse, nearly being eaten by timberwolves for example, but most humans have the rather weird, and really usefull, tendency to shrug off terrible things. A broken arm? No problem, just let me swallow a few painkillers. A stubbed toe? QUICK CALL AN AMBULANCE!).

What the experience did reveal however was that apparently humans and… whatever those being were called shared the same expression when it came to disgust.

“Yes sure, let’s insult our only contact with civilisation,” Angelo muttered. Quickly he gestured at the grass and flower around them, followed by another hand covering his mouth. He only received puzzled looks at his attempted sign language. Somehow he doubted that he would get something to eat any time soon…

...

Angelo was pretty sure he knew a saying which fit the situation perfectly, something about “circles in the sand”, but aside from being hungry, in pain, and still a bit dizzy from getting knocked out, it had been quite some time since he had led any conversation that hadn’t had a mute white hare as one part of it. He simply had forgotten a lot of things which didn’t help him gather food, water, or find shelter.

Once again he pointed at the tree in front of him. “Ppit… tree.”

I sounded more like a stutter than the alien rolling sound that the creatures could produce, but Preha nodded nonetheless.

“t’Rie, Pppit,” she intonated her part of the exchange, like they had done for the past two hours or so. Aside from just getting the pronunciation right and memorizing the new vocabulary they had spent most of the time making sure that they actually were talking about the same thing; even now Angelo wasn’t sure if ‘Haeia’ meant sky, upwards, or maybe apfelstrudel.

He dreaded the moment when they would run out of things to point at and have to start with the verbs and adjectives…

A salvo of words in Preha’s alien sounding language assaulted Angelo, making him struggle to identify the different sounds, only for him to realize that it wasn’t him who was being talked to. Preha had turned to IehIeh, who was busy trying to feed, or maybe bribe, Empress. The white hare’s stare was focussed on the bag of carrots, which was held in IehIeh’s hooves just outside of her reach.

More words were exchanged between the two, but apparently they were neither talking about the local flora, nor any of the appendages any of the present people sported, leaving Angelo to guess what was being discussed. Only until IehIeh stood up and turned towards the pair’s bags, which they had brought onto the clearing as soon as it became clear that they would be talking for a while.

A almost girlish squeal, escaped Angelos lips, seeing what IehIeh had produced from the confines of the camping bags; a scroll, complete with wooden handles, hung from her mouth, one end tightly gripped between her teeth.

IehIeh and Preha stared at him, eyes wide, and ears pressed flat against their heads, but Angelo didn’t pay any attention to that. He had fallen back on the only gesture which they had been able to establish so far, simply pointing at the scroll. He felt somewhat like an infant, unable to properly express himself, but it conveyed his intent clearly enough.

Empress meanwhile took the chance to drag away the bag of carrots that lay forgotten on the ground.