Role

Chapter 4

Sometimes, a child is born to a loving and caring family that gives it everything it
wants. Sometimes, the child is born to a family that while not able to give the care
the first child gets, still treats it with love and affection. Sometimes, a child is
born like Kruuank.

Kruuank's mother had given birth to two children before he came into the world, and
she was tired. A simple citizen of small Fire Giant community near the Mount, she had
silently bore her burden for many years without a word of discontent, but enough was
enough. Not only had she watched as three husbands had died to war against the vile
Storm Giants laying siege to her kind, but now she had to deal with a odd child she
had not really wanted. Her first two children, a boy named Hyrgranthor and a girl
named Mlaska, had been progressing steadily in their chosen fields, Hyr a promising
student of the war college, Mal just entering her first year under the tutelage of the
priests of the Father. But this child, this man-child she named Kruuank, meaning
lame-one, was different. An oddly quiet child, he seemed to be born deaf and dumb,
unable to cry or notice the events around him. She wondered if simply leaving the
babe out in the wilds would perhaps be the best solution, but this child was still her
flesh and blood. As it was, she knew that once the questions started about her
capacity to carry a child would be brought into question, for Kruuank's father had
died as a general in the Army, falling in glorious battle to a legion of storm giant
warriors. It was certainly not his fault for the child being born as it was, it must
be hers. And that would not stand. So she hatched a plan, and the Fire Giant named
Kruuank began his long journey into infamy.

For the first thirty years of Kruuank's life, he lived in complete solitude. Day
after day, locked in the cellar of his mother's home, forgotten by all but the Mother
who no longer considered him a son, he lived in utter obscurity. Day after day, in
darkness only shattered by a crack in the wall that allowed the faint glimer of light
to peek through, Kruuank became. Slowly, the afflictions he suffered in childhood
began to fade, and the constant toil of eating then doing nothing began to make the
Giant large. Day after day, face pressed against the wall to see the outside world,
to see civilization. Day after day.

Until one day, a day much like any other, Kruuank changed. It wasn't a gradual
change, though he had begun to question who and what he was long before...no, this was
a sudden change. A change brought on by violence. You see, Kruuank, face pressed up
against the crack, had witnessed something that would change his life. He saw his
brother. His brother, returning to greet the only person Kruuank had ever known. His
brother, gleaming armor placed upon his body so that all could see his splendor. His
brother, wielding a giant longsword wreathed in flame. His brother, receiving love
and affection from Kruuank's mother. Now, noone can say what went through the Giant's
mind at that point, for there was obviously a resemblence between Kruuank and
Hyrgranthor, and there Hyrgranthor was, everything that the Giant wished he could be.
Rage, stored from years of solitude, years of not knowing WHY, years