^^ Canaanite Warrior Elf Tamil ^^

--- Dimitri ---

I looked at Davila. "I'll go through first, and check to see if the Carriage can go through... I'd really rather not drive out of a portal and into a canyon."

She grinned. "You just wanna see the other side first."

"Guilty." I grinned back, and dove through the portal.

The world flashed a brilliant and beautiful blue, and suddenly I was looking up at a small blonde woman with pointed ears and a spear on my throat.

I grinned. "Well hello! I was worried the portal didn't work anymore! I'm Dimitri Termini of the Fell Clan! And you?" I asked.

She blinked and leaned away, looking at her companion, who looked almost exactly the same, but younger, and with only one earring and another in her hair, while the elder had close to twenty.

Then she spoke in a language I'd studied just barely, Canaanite. "A Giantling?"

"Actually, I'm half Elf, which is the reason for my size. I'm fully grown. My mother was Lila Termini, and my father is Wyler the Driven. Your names?" I asked.

The younger one smiled a bit. "He's a Halfling? I've never seen a Halfling so big, but I suppose giant blood would do that for someone-"

"Be quiet, Ran. We know not if he speaks the truth."

"I do not lie." I said simply, and then stood up, dusting myself off, despite her pointing her spear at me threateningly, and got a better look at her.

Blonde/brown hair, pointy ears, green eyes, pale complexion, and brightly gleaming silver rings holding braids into her hair, which matched the tip of her spear. She stood at about 6'6", though her boots may account for about 2 of those inches.

I flinched and dove to the side when I felt something behind me, just in time for Davila to drive the carriage through the portal, roaring out a savage challenge in our language which didn't bear translation.

I laughed at her fear-laced rage, and giggled softly as she blinked at me, confused. "Oh... sorry. I thought you were in trouble." She said simply.

I smiled and shook my head. 'Chimera? Damages?'

'Minor, sir... fixing them now.'

"Sorry about her. That's Davila, my friend. She's traveling with me. I'm a Merchant, you see, and-"

The spear was back against my throat, making Davila tense up, and grab my spear, leveling it against the smaller woman. "Take your spear away from his throat, Elf." She said softly.

The younger elf reacted belatedly, because of the speed of Davila's movement, and her sister (as I was now convinced they were siblings,) raised a hand. "Ran, enough. We will withdraw, and track them only. If they are merchants, we have no business intercepting them... We will not stop you from leaving the forest, but I suggest you do so quickly."

I chuckled. "Leave? Why would we do that? We need to speak to your Chief, so we can discuss terms of trade or passage for my caravan. We will be returning to the Giant Country repeatedly." I grinned amicably.

Davila removed my spear slowly. "So... they're not enemies?"

"Not yet. They're just cautious sentinels, which is a good thing." I shook my head. "Now go check that you didn't damage my goods with that reckless stunt of yours."

She grinned and shrugged, stepping into the carriage. The younger girl followed, warily keeping an eye on her, and I shrugged at the Elders inquisitive gaze. "I have fragile wares. Glass."

She slowly pulled her spear away. "Then... I suppose I'll lead you to the Gard... disarm yourself."

"I refuse." I smiled, then caught her spear before it was placed against my throat. "And that is getting very old." I snapped the shaft like the twig it was, and handed her the blade, which was of beautiful and strong make.

"I have no reason to disarm myself. I owe no loyalty or allegiance to you, and I've given you no insult, yet you insist on hostility. That worries me, you see... if you're this Hostile, will your peoples be as well? I cannot know this for myself, so I will reassure myself with my continued armament. Simple. Now lead on." I said simply, laying out my logic swiftly.

She opened her mouth to reply, and there was a squeak of terror, followed by a sultry moan, from inside my carriage. I froze, then frowned. "Dammit Davila, leave the poor girl alone-"

"He's a boy, and he's so adorable when he blushes!!! And tiny!!! Squeeeeeeee!" She giggled in response.

I looked at the woman next to me. "That's a male? I thought it was your sister."

She shook her head. "Older brother... I'm Tamil, Warrior of the Rain-Walker Tribe... and you're in the exact center of Canaan Forest."

I nodded and looked up at the massive tree that twisted in a Helix. "Well then... how far away is your village, Warrior Tamil of the Rain-Walkers?"

She looked around, then nodded. "Two miles east, I'd say. The forest leads us home, more often than not."

"She's sentient?" I asked, and touched a tree slowly.

Magic, exactly the same as what I gave my Homunculi, pulsed through the entire forest, giving me an immediate layout, as well as a painful surge as I delved too deep.

I yelped and reared back, shaking my hand to clear the burning sensation. "Yes, she's sentient... I apologize for bruising your trees, Great Canaan." I nodded respectfully to the big tree.

Tamil hummed. "She doesn't respond... and how did you connect to her? That art was lost decades ago."

"Let me guess, with the deaths of Lila Termini's family and her abduction into Giant Country?" I asked dryly.

She hummed. "Let's get moving. Ran! Stop being a wimp and just say no!"

He moaned in response, and I tsk'ed. "Davila, stop, we've got work to do. You can ravage him later."

She grumbled but released him, and sat in the driver's bench. "Fine, but I'm taking him with me." She shrugged.

"That's fine, he probably has to keep you within his sights anyway... fly above us and alert me to any dangers, yeah?"

She glared at me. "Giant. Don't. Fly."

"You do today. Not that high, just above the treetops will be fine. Don't worry, the Carriage won't let you fall." I smiled.

"Homunculi... it's been a while since I've seen them. Where did you find them?" Tamil asked, eying the horses.

"I made them, a few days ago. Let's be going, hmm? I don't know about your forest, but mine is filled with things we don't want to have to deal with..." I hummed, and slipped into the trees, headed east.

She followed silently, and then hummed as the carriage took to the sky laboriously. "That's... new."

"Never seen a flying carriage before?" I grinned, and stepped on a log, freezing when she drew in a swift breath. I looked down, and saw an odd, scaled beast. "Hmm... whats this?"

"That's a crocodile... move slowly-"

I hauled it up by its tail, and grinned when I realized it was the same height as me, tail to teeth about 8ft long. "Looks like a thick pelt, tough, and nice teeth, too-YEEEEOW!!!" It snapped its jaws over my hand, nicking my skin with its powerful jaws. "Damn you're strong, huh? What you think, Davila? Good pelt?"

Tamil glared at me. "We do not kill for pelts."

"And meat?" I asked, sniffing the predator. "Seems nice and juicy."

"No." She said firmly.

"Good to know... you don't eat meat. I do, and my food rations are mostly meat, so don't try to stop me. This is the natural order of things. Big predators eat smaller predators." I nodded, and snapped its neck, then tossed it up to Davila, who swiftly stored it in the meat locker.

The elf stared at me calculatingly, and I chuckled. "You wouldn't fare much better than the crocodile, dear. Let's keep on." I started walking again, ignoring the marshy ground.

The water came up to my thighs eventually, but the elf was dancing along on small patches of swamp grass that wouldn't bear my weight, which annoyed me, but delighted Davila.

"Ha! And to think I wanted to walk! I've got the cushy job, here-"

I threw a handful of mud into her face, grinning, and she snarled, launching herself out of the carriage and onto my chest, tackling me into the mud.

I laughed and wrestled her happily, slathering mud on her whenever I pinned her, and she reciprocated until we were both out of breath and tired, nearly an hour later.

Both elves were staring at us like monsters from the deep, or simply savages, and we were grinning like idiots.

"That's how Giants Bond... we wrestle." I laughed breathlessly, and shook some of the mud off of myself.

Tamil reared back before some of it could hit her, and I realized she was spotlessly clean. I grinned evilly, and she glared. "No. You get me dirty, I'll bury a dagger in your ribs." She warned me.

I sighed. "There she is again with the ultra-violence."

Davila shrugged. "I could go for a bath, now. Any waterfalls around, before we go to the village looking like savages?" She asked Tamil.

She nodded. "Sure. Plenty. Canaan is a mountainous region, so there's plenty of waterfalls to choose from."

We reached one quickly, (though I noticed that the Carriage was flying shakily with no one with steady hands to fly it,) and I grinned, wading into the water easily, and rinsing my clothes, then stripping and placing them on a rock to dry.

Davila did the same, and I helped her wash her hair, because it was well and truly dirty, from several dips in the mud. The water turned nearly black around us for a few moments, but eventually we were clean.

I sat on the rock with our clothes, and rubbed my beard and hair. "Do you think my hair isn't civilized enough? By your standards?" I asked a bright-red Tamil, who was studying a tree with frightening intensity.

She glanced at my hair, and then hummed, turning away. "Maybe... a bit shaggy. Not unexpected from a traveler."

I nodded. "I have a knife, if you'd like to help me, Davila?"

She shrugged and smoothed my hair back, carefully cutting it all to the same length, then scraped the blade along my cheeks, jaw, and neck, to trim my beard to a respectable length and look.

"Thank you... and now?" I asked Tamil.

She blinked, shocked. "You... you look much more handsome now. Very clean-cut. Impressive, miss Davila... but could you two get dressed now?"

"We're drying off. And our clothes are soaked." I shrugged.

Davila grinned. "Well, if I have no work to do..." she chuckled and approached Ran, hugging him to her wet bosom. "Heeeey there cutie..." she kissed his cheek.

He blushed an impossible shade of red, and then struggled to get away.

She gasped and released him, letting him run ten paces. "I never thought I'd get to Chase a man!!! Wait up, baby boy, don't pull any muscles before I tweak a few!!!" She dug a foot into the stone ground, shattering it before she darted after him like an arrow.

I laughed and whistled encouragingly, then hummed at Tamil, who looked horrified. "What's wrong?" I asked.

She shook her head slowly. "You people are... odd. And what's the big deal about 'Chasing'?"

"Ah. That's a mating ritual, basically. The woman runs, and then if the man can catch her and pin her in the wrestling match that ensues, he can have her. It's purely consensual, of course, she wouldn't let him Chase her if she didn't want him." I nodded.

"Then why run at all?"

"To test the Seed, of course. If he can't catch her, he's weak, and that means his children will be weak. Of course, if they're in love, it's different, usually she'll let him win if he can't, like if he has a bad leg. His blood may be strong, but there's no way he'd catch her, if she tried... so. Like with my mother and father." I nodded.

She blinked slowly. "I meant to ask about that... so... your mother, was she well treated, before she was killed?"

"Killed? Why- she wasn't killed, she died of a disease that made her eyes Silver. Our doctors had never seen if before. She wasn't a prisoner, Tamil. She was my father's wife. She loved our home, with the great meadows of green and explosions of color, and the trees that sing." I smiled at her exact depiction of the Wood.

She blinked. "I-I'm sorry, I thought she was... abducted, you know?"

"What, that my father had taken her to his cave and raped her to beget a son? The idea would sicken him, and any other Sane Giant, of any breed... well, maybe excluding the Frost Giants. They're pretty Gnarly." I shrugged.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, different species of Giants, just like there's Humans, and Havlins, and Elves, and Dwarves. We're two sides of the evolutionary coin. Yay." I said dryly.

She chuckled softly, then blushed. "I don't know if you can hear what they're doing, but I'm not sure it's entirely appropriate-"

"I can hear every single thing for about 100 yards... unfortunately he only made it about 80. So yes. I can hear. And no, it's probably not appropriate, but she's not going to get pregnant, I don't think. He's much too weak... and on the receiving end, I think." I grinned.

She blushed again. "I-I see... well, that's good, we don't need more Halfling children in our village..." she grumbled, then her eyes widened. "Not that I have anything against Halflings, it's just!... they don't quite fit in." She hummed.

"I imagine they don't." I nodded.

Davila strutted back into the clearing, grinning in triumph, and dragging Ran by his collar, which was badly ripped. Her lipstick was spread across the skin we could see in patterns, and she was clearly physically sated, because she sat down and winced gently.

"Satisfied?" I asked.

"He's much bigger than he looks." She nodded, smiling.

I grinned and kissed her cheek. "Good for you, now toss him into the Carriage and let's start off again. The clothes are dry."

I dressed as she followed my orders quickly and efficiently, then dressed herself, and tsk'ed at her hair, which had become tousled. "A moment..." she disappeared into the carriage to primp herself, and I hummed.

"Now I think about it... I should change to. Make a good impression." I nodded, and leapt into the carriage, grabbing my silver scale-mail, and the sliver armor and tooled leather coat that covered it.

My sword found its sheath over my right shoulder, hanging down to the middle of my left calf, a full 7 feet of titanium carbonate, built to take any hit and stay in one piece. I'd forged it for Petrie as a hand-and-a-half, hip-sheathed sword, not the full two handed claymore it was for me, but he'd said I'd need it more, so I reworked the handle and took it with me. Lastly I combed my hair back, and twisted it into a soft braid, letting it rest on my shoulder.

(^^ ignore the man, the armor and sword are what's important. ^^)

I stepped out of the carriage slowly, and grinned at Tamil's incredulous stare. "That's right, Tamil. I can clean myself up very well, should I need to."

"I am impressed... yes. Ahem, well... follow me." She nodded and started walking northeast again. I nodded, and then commanded the carriage to follow over my shoulders.

We arrived at a large wooden gate with a dirt path in front of it, and she called up to the sentinels in Canaanite. "Visiting Merchants from Giant Country! Open up!"

The gates swung open, and the guards looked at the carriage archly. It landed at my command, and the horses rebuilt themselves, trotting forward and snorting at the Sentinels cockily. They yelped and leapt away, and I tsk'ed. "Cowards." I growled at them in concert with Tamil.

She smiled at me. "That's my job, actually."

I nodded. "I understand, I'm just a guest. Your Chief?"

She blinked. "You're not going to gape around like a fish? Most visitors do."

I laughed heartily. "No, my mother told me stories about Elf Villages, though she always told me she was human traveler in those stories... or maybe I assumed. No, the beautiful bioluminescent birds, the trees that have been sung into beautiful homes, yes... it's what I expected..."

"Even if you've heard stories, to be completely unsurprised..."

"I have an exceptionally vivid imagination." I shrugged. "She, however, will be gaping like a fish for a bit more." I nodded towards the giantess who couldn't stop staring at every new thing.

Tamil giggled, and then seemed shocked, covering it up quickly. "Ahem... yes. She can stay here with your carriage... I'll take you to the Gard."

"What is the Gard? I thought you had a Chief?" I asked curiously, following, and motioning for the carriage and Davila to stay put with the other Elf, Ran.

"We do, but the Gard is... how do I say..." she looked thoughtful.

"A meetinghouse? Main Hall? Dungeon? Prison? Courthouse-"

"Courthouse! Yes, that's the closest one. It's where the Chief and the Elders decide punishments and such. You'll meet them now, I'll use my influence to get you in as soon as possible...- but don't think I'm doing you any favors! I want you gone as much as anyone!!!" She flinched and growled out of her blushing countenance, distracted suddenly.

I laughed gently. "Sure. Thanks. I repay my debts."

We stepped into a large stairwell, and I took a step up before she grabbed my arm, and the entire tree started twisting, moving the stairs upwards at an alarming rate.

It stopped, and suddenly we stood behind a group of people all her height, and skin-color, but with varying ages, and it struck me that none of them had nearly as many rings in their hair as her. I counted, and nodded, deciding to ask.

"Why do you have 19 rings, and they have 1-3 on average, with 6 being the most I can see?" I asked simply.

She turned, presumably to answer, and a loud voice barked in Canaanite, interrupting. Immediately, six men wearing full armor and broadswords on their hips leveled pikes on my throat, surrounding me quickly and efficiently.