Thrudvarg left them briefly as they ate, tottering about her cave and seeing to one thing or another. She was actually a decent host, which was maybe a mean thing for Emma to be surprised by. They had bread as well as just meat, which she claimed to make herself, and were even given honey along with big jugs of milk once they'd finished eating.

Honey. Emma hadn't liked it that much back on earth, but then she'd always had the option of gorging herself on industrially-produced chocolate and candy back there. Here the stuff was glorious, sweetness had been one of the great losses in her life and she'd not even known it.

The moments where they were left alone while Thrudvarg went off to do something else served as good opportunity to speak.

"We need to tell her." Aexilica frowned. "To warn her about Groygar, she doesn't deserve to be taken by surprise."

"No!" Astrid snapped. "You dragged me halfway across the world for this stupid plan of yours, you're not going to ruin it now over some stupid giant. It's not even a person!"

Emma frowned at that.

"Hang on, you don't think Thrudvarg is a person but you spent the last week fucking a dragon?"

Astrid's face burned as if she'd just been slapped.

"I did not do…That! What Kallvindr and I had was far more than some primitive physical attraction, we were soul mates." The girl's eyes were growing wet with tears again. God, Emma was going to fucking scalp herself if she had to hear more crying. But what came next was not that, but something even worse. Lovesick recollections.

"He used to…" Astrid smiled weakly, "used to nuzzle his head up against me, you know? He couldn't talk, but he knew how I felt about him and he felt the same way, he used physical contact to bridge the gap between us. I could practically hear his thoughts as he did. 'We may not be able to speak, Astrid, but we can still be here for each other.'...Gods, and now he's gone."

Emma was pretty sure the bimbo was just describing animal behaviour, but she was even more sure the conversation would get far longer and more irritating if she pointed it out, so she did not.

"The point is," she sighed, "that…She's nice, and I feel bad for risking her life."

Aexilica seemed pleased by that, Vari uncaring—possibly asleep, actually—and Astrid as furious as ever.

"I order you to remain silent."

Emma blinked at her. "What?"

Astrid smirked, now, seeming altogether more smug than Emma had yet seen her. That was certainly fucking saying something.

"I, your employer, order you not to tell this giantess anything that would jeapordize the plan."

Emma frowned, eyed her for a few seconds to make sure she wasn't kidding, and then nodded. More to herself of course.

"Okay, so let me explain our relationship." She replied. "Basically, you've promised me a lot of money to kill this Demigod. I'm going to do that how I please. If you don't pay me after, I'm going to kill you as well. If anyone nearby tries to stop that from happening, I'll kill them, too. I'm a really powerful wizard, and stuff, pretty much. The reason I don't do crimes is because it costs a lot more bother than it's worth. Until I stand to win a shit ton of money. Now you can choose not to give me that money once your dragon is avenged, but you can't choose whether or not you take a terminal velocity nosedive after refusing to pay me. Just so we're clear."

Astrid didn't say anything at that, getting suddenly quiet and just nodding dully. All the argument was gone out of her instantly.

Is this how men feel, able to just use size and threats of violence to get what they want from us? Awesome.

Thrudvarg returned again at long last, sitting down with a huff.

"Sorry about all the running about." She sighed. "You caught me somewhat by surprise. Now that you've all eaten and rested, would you all mind telling me what brought you to my home?"

Emma half-expected some glint of suspicion in her eye to accompany the question, but it didn't.

She did hesitate upon hearing it all the same, because now that she was staring at Thrudvarg it became patently clear to her all over again that she was, fundamentally, still at the woman's mercy. If the giantess decided Emma ought to be smushed, there wasn't a lot anybody else could do about it.

It was a remarkably strong incentive to pick her words carefully.

"There's a Demigod in this region." Emma told her. "Loose and flying around, looking for challenging fights. You know of Demigods?"

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"I do." Thrudvarg nodded. "Never met one, but I've heard stories. You think this Demigod will attack me then?"

"Yeah, that's…" Emma hesitated. "Why we're here."

It wasn't a lie exactly, they were here for the Demigod after all. Sure, they'd been planning on watching him kill Thrudvarg and then lunging in to finish him off or just fleeing if he didn't look beat up enough, but they had still come here for the Demigod. If Thrudvarg chose to interpret this as Emma's crew being here to protect her, then that was hardly Emma's fault.

Nice going Em, you've still got it.

But Thrudvarg didn't look the least bit worried, just leaning back and sighing.

"Well, it'll be an interesting experience to fight one of their kind, but nothing I've not done before."

Emma blinked at that, taking a few moments to actually process what she'd just been told.

"Uh, you…you do know what a God is, right? This is a demi one of those.

Thrudvarg smiled.

"I'm aware dear, but I've also walked this world for two hundred years and not yet found anything to match me. I don't suppose that'll change today."

Emma almost found her confidence infectious, but her saner mind prevailed. Lots of people went into fights not supposing their winning streak would change. Most losers, in fact.

"Alright, then let us help you at least."

She wasn't actually sure why she'd said it, if Thrudvarg wasn't a match for Groygar then Emma getting herself caught up in that fight wouldn't end well. If she was, then it might almost be worse. The offer had just sort of come out of her, and fortunately the giant met it with a chuckle and a shaking head.

"No, dear, no, I can take care of myself thank you very much. I'd hate to see you risk yourself in such a frightening combat."

"But you'll risk yourself?" Fuck. Fuck! She was so…fucking nice. Emma's guts were twisting around with every new word, it was pissing her the fuck off. The giantess smiled again.

"I'll be fine, just stay hidden if that Demigod makes himself known and let me handle things."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgh!

"Okay." Emma said, instead of screaming and thrashing around on the flood like she wanted to. "But we'll be nearby, in case you need us."

"You're so kind!" The giantess beamed, as if it were a toddler offering her protection. Fuck it, from her perspective it probably was.

They hung around a while, digesting the food, chatting, actually relaxing. There was something oddly soothing about being in Thrudvarg's home that Emma couldn't quite put her finger on. That they got the chance to learn more about the giant was just icing.

"Born?" Thrudvarg asked, upon being questioned by Aexilica. "Ah yes, that's what you humans call it when one of you squeezes out a smaller one yes?"

Not the weirdest way to describe it that Emma had heard, she had to admit. Some people called it a miracle.

"Yeah, were…Are giants created some other way?"

"We just are." Thrudvarg replied. "One day I woke up underground and crawled my way out, formed from the earth. I've been me ever since."

Emma tried to imagine what that must have been like, but her scope was somewhat limited.

"I've heard descriptions of your people's birthing process," the giant continued, "is it truly as awful as it sounds?"

"Yes." Emma and Aexilica said at once.

Conversation continued from there.

There really was something nice about just sitting around and talking, Emma found herself lulled into a place she'd not found herself occupying for a long while. Relaxation. This hadn't been something she'd had the luxury of indulging in this world so far, maybe briefly when she was staying with Aexilica early on but not since then. Not for weeks, months. Not until her mind had unravelled and frayed, twisted and coiled up like a compressed spring with nervous energy. She hadn't realised how close she'd been to flipping her shit.

Nothing like seeing a problem fixed to finally realise how bad it had been.

But it couldn't last, of course. It was a good thing, and so the laws of physics simply would not allow it to continue for more than the briefest of periods. Before long Emma felt the cavern shake and heard a deep rumble running around them. Everyone paused, and she went cold. Thrudvarg's face grew harder.

"Stay here." She told them all, before heading up and out of the cave. Back to the surface, where the noise had originated. All of them remained where they were, eyed one another for a few moments, and then promptly hurried after her. Yeah, let everything they'd planned either live or die on the basis of a one-on-one, a likely occurrence.

The urgency of their situation made Emma realise just how deep the cave system went, and how far they had to run before they were out of it. She ended up using her Force to augment the run just out of desperation, and even then it took her the better part of a minute to finally emerge outside. What she saw then was…Terrible.

Groygar had certainly made himself known, and done so with the sort of fanfare usually reserved for the visit of a burning meteorite. Craters marked much of the ravine, stone broken apart and with long, jagged cracks sent splitting outwards from impact points.

Emma didn't see both of the combatants at first, and it took her long moments to realise why. They were too high. She craned her neck, stared upwards to see Groygar and Thrudvarg both mid-leap and dozens of metres off the ground. They passed each other in the air, swinging in unison if her eyes weren't mistaken before they both came down far apart. More rumbles came at the impacts, especially Thrudvarg's. Either she was heavier than she looked, or whatever magic was responsible for bolstering her strength involved making physics think her body had more mass. The stone broke under it.

Thrudvarg was hurt already, her stone-skin gashed open in half a dozen places and letting thick blood pour out. Groygar, for his part, was…Not unscathed. It looked like he'd taken more than one solid hit from Thrudvarg's giant fists, but where she was actively bleeding he boasted wounds no worse than a few patches of reddened skin that Emma figured would bruise. Eventually.

He was laughing of course, like he seemed always to do when not fighting at low power.

"Perfect!" The Demigod cried, throwing his head back and grinning. "You, you will feed my powers, you will send me farther along my ascension!"

The giant said nothing in response, too busy panting and staring. She was scared, Emma realised. It hadn't been long since they'd met, a few hours really, but already the sight felt odd and wrong, like watching a mountain tremble in fear. Emma had actually let herself believe, in some small part, that Thrudvarg could handle matters as easily as she herself claimed.

Groygar took a step forwards, raised his axe to throw it. That snapped Emma out of thought and into action.

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