5094, Winter to 5097, Summer

The winter months passed slowly, but Darcena learned to speak many words in Common. Oxana and Thraes, the woodsman, were very kind, stable, and patient with the giantgirl. They had to teach her a lot of basic life skills - especially about hygiene, but eventually they gave up on some of her other foibles. Darcena had a tendency to use her sense of smell to figure out more about the world around her, and to their surprise, she was able to discern more than the average person. It came in handy during the lean winter months, when Darcena could scent a squirrel or rabbit hiding in the woods. In trade off, though, they had to explain to many of their fellow villagers exactly why the socially-blundering and bumbling child wanted to press her face against them and inhale. As most could imagine, the many small, yet unacceptable, mannerisms that Darcena had acquired in that time before she came to the village were a barrier to her acclimating to the village. She wasn't quite liked, but rather tolerated.

The years passed. Darcena became a useful member of Thraes and Oxana's family, bringing in meat and helping Thraes out in the woods to chop wood for the townspeople. She was growing as well, lengthening until she was much taller than the couple. Her hair, which had been shorn to her scalp to rid her of lice - as well as remove years worth of twigs, dirt, and gods know what else, grew long. Oxana helped her keep the thick hair plaited; every night, they spent an hour together as Oxana brushed Darcena's hair until it shone and told her stories about the world around them. Darcena began to feel as if she belonged somewhere and she cherished that feeling.

Thraes bonded with Darcena, too. They'd head into the woods together to accomplish the day's work, and Thraes would point out various herbs and flowers to Darcena, letting her know about their healing properties. She would collect and forage for the herbs to bring back to the cottage for Oxana to use, prepare, and sell.

Many evenings the small family would light a fire and the couple would tell Darcena engaging stories about the gods and the lands. Darcena began to grow interested in Kuon, a former giantman who worked with Imaera to heal the world after the Ur-Daemon War. Thraes explained that Kuon was given the gift of immortality for his deeds and that he was the originator of the healing powers of herbs.

Over the years, things were improving for Oxana and Thraes as well. With the steady influx of meat into their diet, they both began to look healthier. Excess meat, wood, and herbs were able to be sold to the villagers, so their cottage began to have more personalized touches here and there. Oxana also had more time to tend a garden, though Darcena wouldn't touch the food that came from, and prepare for the winters. With the improved health, the couple found out that they were expecting. It wasn't the first time, but it was the first time that Oxana was healthy enough to carry a baby to full term.

Darcena began to grow anxious about being displaced in her happy family, but even worse, she began to have prodigiously-horrid waking nightmares intermittently as her anxiety grew. She started to slink off into the woods at odd hours, coming back smelling of blood and viscera. Oxana and Thraes noted the change with worried eyes, but their trust and love for the giant girl was absolute. They felt that when Darcena was ready, she would tell them what was worrying her.

Perhaps they shouldn't have trusted so much.

Oxana was sprawled near the fieldstone hearth where she often made stew and hearty loaves of oat bread. Claw marks decorated her torso and blood sparkled like jewels in the flickering light of the coals. Slack cheeks and hollow eyes pointed towards the quilted bed where Thraes slumped with one foot in Brone’s cradle. He, too, had new jewels up and down his torso and a shallow irregular puddle of blood near his outstretched hand. Written in tremulous blood-soaked letters on the roughhewn floor was a message, but Darcena could not read it. “Ware da eyes.”

Darcena knew they were both dead, and perhaps a couple hours so at this point. She could smell the differences in their body, and she couldn’t hear a single heart beat. Her horrified gaze took in the cabin, yet kept skipping past the corner where her own pallet rested. With shallow pants, her grey eyes dilated an alarming amount, she forced herself to see. Brone’s body rested in a disheveled nest of her sheets, pinpricks from claws along his rib cage, flesh incised by sharp teeth. A low howl of anguish erupted from Darcena’s mouth and she fled the cabin, swiping the spare axe from the woodpile and taking off into the woods, heading southwest.

Intuitively, she knew her time in the village was done, she was not welcome, and she would never return. It was time to find a new home.