Path of Giant

There was a reign, in those far more than ancient times, a reign full of greenery, fertile soil and flowing lava that heated the earth under the crust and inside enormous volcanoes, known now as the Reign of the old Blood.

Rainfalls there were thunderous and threatening, they would sometime light a fire in the lush verdant forests. Lightning ran through the Night Sky, faster than the stars, and then was a burning hell.

The few tribes that started populating the reign had to move carefully through the night, as they despised the shining of the sun. At dawn they were forced to retreat to any cave they could find, to avoid the flaming heat and brightness of the sky, to face it only when sunset came and they could breathe again in the fresh nightly air.

Another reason for these living rhythms was the fact that their natural enemies were blind during the nocturnal hours so that they could easily be attacked by the expert hunters of the Galimilove Tribes.

Galimilove was a Goddess who resided, or at least that was believed, in the sacred Frozen Lake that was up at the far far top of the highest mountains, where a glimmering blue light seemed to cut in half the whole peak.

They wanted to see what was up there, but their goddess asked them to prove their worth to do so. She appeared in their dreams to ask for their devotion to being tested.

Their predators were humongous beasts tall as the tallest of trees, they were strong and ruthless, some were fast and their attacks were fulminous, and some were slow but ground-breaking.

Their steps could make the ground tremble, the mountains' side crumble, and the water ricochet in its basin. The tribes survived only by taking advantage of their blindness when the Sun was dull, sleeping in the blue deep ocean.

But they're one of these gigantic creatures that could give them a hard time even during the dark hours. It was a flying one. Its rumble was louder than the thunderstorms, it could be heard even under the luxuriant terrain.

It could pick you up, take you to the skies and let you fall again, making you smash to the ground and eat your remains. No one was safe after being grabbed by its ferocious beak.

Their duty to please their deity was to reach its nest and steal the last of its eggs. Only by succeeding in that terrifying task, they could be accepted in her abode. The devotion and the love they had for her were surprising, and so they went.

It was the fifth day of travel when they saw it. The nest was swarming with bugs as big as dogs, covered in a substance glowing in yellow, the beast's favourite sugary food. It was not there, yet.

They waited for the movement of those pests to cease, camping in the dense forest of cyan trees which served as their refuge for all their journey there.

The bugs ran away as the flapping of powerful wings was heard through the sky. It was coming home, so the tribe put off the bonfire they used to warm. It was not time for being caught.

They planned to wait for the daytime, while the monster would have gone on its first hunting trip of the day. They would have sneaked into its home and stole the precious egg, ran to the cyan forest and tunnelled underground till they would have hit the familiar underpass dug by their picks, back to the safety of their underworld.

To move a great number of men was not wise, so only one of them would have attempted to reach the nest and grabbed the egg and ran as fast as nobody else could since the enemies could be multiple. Those were blind only at night time. The chosen one was the younger son of the tribe leader, he was strong, but slim, fast and nimble.

His time came. He covered himself with mud to hide his smell. His muscles were warm, ready to perform. His strafes from left to right were fierce, but still elegant and in a matter of minutes he arrived at the nest. He stopped for an instant to make his heart become still again, and with a precise motion, he grabbed the egg covered in a silky layer of material, not thinking about the rotting scent of the interior of that trap, and began to run like a bullet shot from a gun, gaining speed quickly.

The flapping wings were starting to make themselves heard again in the distance, so he started to run even faster until as he was disappearing under the trees the beast was sighted by one of the tribe sentinels.

The joy was unbearable, but as the other predators noticed their prey's presence in the wild, the adventures knew that was time for them to sink back into the undersoil. No words or any other sound was allowed during the escape. They were finally leaving the nest.

They formed two long, orderly rows and silently walked and dug a new path to their safety. Their journey back home lasted ten days.

When they finally arrived at their stone camps the adventure was not yet finished as they needed to scale up the tallest mountain in their world, to see if there was a real goddess or if they risked their lives for one dream alone. Here came the time to seek the truth.

The gargantuan climbing continued for almost two weeks, as they needed to delve into a covered passageway to avoid predators, and it was the night of the thirteenth day when they finally approached the divinity's cove. What they saw was unbelievable.

She was there, sitting on her throne in her realm of persistent twilight. She existed. She ordered to position the mythic egg onto an altar that she lit with the flame in her eyes, and the egg started to hatch.

She was beautiful. Her skin was white, her eyes glacial and cerulean, her lips red as their skin tone. She offered them to rebuild their civilization up there, with her, and they're accepted. They all together prospered through the Longest Night.