The Final Days of Springborough
Chapter 5: The Giant in Waiting

As Princess Kyrstin entered the dangerous woods of Springborough, and as Brynn of Fortis watched the cliffs of Quakenfalls, as the Knight Thomas took his licks in the castle from his sword instructor, and Jage the Pirate sailed the open seas, a small giant named Patrick was training himself for quite the life indeed. Patrick of the Lishens, a boy who was to grow into a giant, but had not had the growth spurt yet, wandered about the fields that were once wooded.

How would one know that they are a giant without actually being one? Simple enough. In the old days, when a woman could not get up anymore while pregnant, and resorted to laying in bed all day, that was a typical sign. For giants are born healthy, pink, slimy, sludgy, crying babies normal sized and everything, except for one small detail. A “giant” baby is born at about eighty pounds (or, as old timers would put it, about the poundage of a bushel of hay). Nobody quite knows what to make of this anomaly. It’s been guessed that a giant’s mass holds in the growth spurt he is to experience later in life. And as the body slowly grows like typical humans, the giant’s inner mass also grows. Newborn babies (that are to be giants) might weigh eighty pounds, but that’s nothing when three hundred pound three year olds waddle into the room.

So, Patrick, nine years old, and just north of fifty inches in height, simply looked like a lonely kid playing out in the field. But, his strength certainly set him apart. Patrick could lift fifty pound rocks with ease. He could push boulders that weighed a ton like a normal-sized man could push a wagon wheel. Patrick’s strength was easily the strength of ten of the burliest men in the land combined, and he was getting stronger every day.

It was because of this, because he was a child with super human strength, because the science of when his growth spurt would happen wasn’t really known, and because Patrick was the baby who didn’t get the same kind of supervision as older siblings do, the painful decision to put Patrick out in the field of Springborough was reached. A child with Patrick’s ability could destroy the castle from the inside-out. His sheer weight would crush all of the furniture. And if one day he awoke twenty feet tall- there wasn’t going to be a doorway or a window that he would be able to fit out of. So, one day when Patrick was seven, Queen Jenniffer and King Daniel of Springborough took their youngest son, and sat him down in the field. They told him gently: “Patrick, you are going to be very powerful one day. We need you to practice your strength out here before we can trust you in there. You are to remain within the castle’s sight, you are to always come when called, and we will see you everyday, and get you everything you need.”

And, like good parents do, the King and Queen told Patrick how much they loved him. Patrick, for being so young, showed great maturity and looked at the field with no concrete walls, looked at the sky not blocked by a ceiling, and Patrick knew, if his brother could trade places with him, Thomas would. And so Patrick smiled, and went off into his field to figure out just who he was.

The last known giant in the land of Springborough lived over a hundred years ago, and that is why nobody knew what to make of Patrick. Not many records of the giant stood the test of time, and more often than not, appeared to be more myth and fairy tales than actual facts. From what the royal family could gather, Patrick was to lead a healthy and normal life. He’d grow taller than the tallest tree. He’d have to eat a lot to maintain a healthy weight, for giants had giant stomachs and a head of lettuce would appear the size of a pea when he was at his biggest. Other things the royal family would have to figure out were such unpleasant topics as where the giant was to go to the bathroom, and who was responsible for clean-up if the giant were ever to get a stomach flu and vomit (giant stomachs could vomit enough to float a ship.)

Never before had there been a royal giant, though. The last giant, a girl giant by the name of Tinks, was chased out of town by the villagers because she was eating all of the food around Springborough. Tinks would eat sheep whole, sometimes keeping the kingdom up late at night as she hawked up bones that wedged in her throat. Stories passed down through the generations. There was talk of kids who would play at her feet and eventually get stepped on because Tinks never paid enough attention to where she was going.

So, when news came out that the third child of the royal family was to grow into a giant, a hushed murmur went through the city. “Prince Patrick, a giant?” The people would wonder out loud. “Has there ever been a more powerful person on the surface of the Earth?” Patrick, however, for being a baby that most would fear quietly in their beds, was a very cute baby who grew into a cute toddler who grew into a cute child who is still a dashing, young adolescent boy. So as nice and charming as Patrick the Giant was, he never wanted for socialization because people from all over the lands would come to chat with him in his field. Most of the time, they brought things they needed done, wagons of wood that needed cut, cement that needed broken, dirt they needed dug up. Patrick could take an apple tree by the trunk and shake it, letting bushels of apples fall to the waiting villagers hands below. The people were becoming divided between those that feared Patrick, and those that believed Patrick was to be the savior of the city. And that was quite the divide.

Patrick believed the tasks the villagers set him up to do was building his strength for his ultimate goal.

Patrick would walk about the lands of Springborough. He knew the cliffs were on the other edge of the forest, but beyond the castle on the other side, the lands went up, up, up into the sky where clouds sometime covered the green tips of the highest mountains. Patrick had no idea what was up there, but he wanted to replace out. Once, Patrick’s sister, the Princess Kyrstin, asked her father why, if they were so powerful and owned all the land, could they not live closer to the water by Quakenfalls? And King Daniel replied, in his low, serious voice, “You have to live high. Highest is the safest so you can look down and see everything that might be coming”.

As Patrick pushed boulders and shook trees, he was slowly building his muscle strength to one day throw the boulders, and to pick up the trees. After he could uproot and replant trees, he would start with bigger boulders. Once he started his giant growth, his plan was to replace a small storage shed in the village and move it, pick it up in one fell swoop, and take the entire little structure to a new place entirely. From there, when he was at his tallest and strongest, Patrick would begin to move the castle up the hill and replant the kingdom of Springborough up where the clouds overlooked the lands.

He was hoping he could do it alone without anyone really knowing what he was up to until he was done, surprising everyone, and then they would truly love him for he was keeping them all safe. But first things first, Patrick the Giant would have to grow into a giant, and he just wasn’t there yet, and he had no idea when the transition would take place. So he went about his days, helping villagers in need, working out, and walking about the grounds, making sure everything was safe and quiet, just like his mother liked things to be.

On this day, Patrick was walking about the castle grounds. He walked up the hill behind the castle, making sure to not go too far up so that he could still be seen, and the Giant looked out over Springborough, over the castle, and over his field, and over the woods, and over the cliffs, and over the waters.

Patrick saw something that made his tongue feel thick in his mouth. Far off in the distance, farther than Patrick had ever been, or seen before, he saw a dark cloud approaching.

He watched the dark cloud to make sure it was not moving too fast. Springborough had had storms before, but usually there was a change of some sort that signaled a storm was coming. Either the air got hot enough to taste or the winds picked up from carrying the clouds and sent a shiver to his bones, but this dark cloud had none of that. It simply crept toward Springborough like a cat stalking prey.

Suddenly, the Giant remembered his parents were away. Who could he tell of the storm approaching? He decided to run off and tell his sister Kyrstin. He hoped that she would know what to do.