They were out of supplies. All their water and food had been drunk and eaten long ago. All they had left was the thin blanket they slept on, a rope they didn’t even get to use yet, and the empty flask they used to carry water in. 

They walked through the tall grass, across the whole field. Their skin was turning redder and redder each second they spent out there in the sun, unprotected from its effects. 

“It wasn’t a wise choice to wear shorts, huh?” Inge spoke as she rubbed her sunburnt nose. Pandora looked her friend up and down and up again. Then she looked down at herself. They were dressed practically the same, except for the fact that Pandora wore jean shorts instead of cargo ones and a deep-blue tank top with a picture of sea waves on the front whilst Inge wore a green one with serpents. 

“No, apparently not,” she said. Inge chuckled as if that was the funniest response she had ever heard to a question like that. “What’s so funny?” Pandora raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Nothing, it’s just- your face is really red. It looks like you’re blushing from being flustered or something.” Inge burst out laughing at the end of the sentence. The brunette simply glared at her and carried on walking. 

“That wasn’t funny. At all,” Pandora muttered to herself which made Inge laugh even more. She put an arm around Pandora’s shoulders. “Come on, we can’t keep being so grumpy when we’re most likely going to die today!” She said cheerfully. “Right. Sorry, I totally forgot how I’m supposed to be acting when walking towards a twenty-foot-tall giant that has the intention of killing me in the most gruesome way possible,” Pandora said in the most sarcastic tone she could master. 

“Stop making your sarcastic remarks towards me or I’ll chop your head off,” Inge said. She touched the hilt of her sheathed sword as a warning. The tone of her voice suggested she was being serious. 

“Whatever.”

They continued their walk in silence. Pandora intertwined her fingers with the fingers of the arm Inge draped over her shoulders. 

It wasn’t an intimate gesture, yet it felt like it. 

Finally, they reached the forest on the other side of the field. Their whole way there, she felt the weather become colder, but she thought she was just imagining it. Now she was sure that was indeed what was happening. The ground was coated in white particles, snow. The tall trees that towered over them were white from top to bottom. 

“What’s happening?” Inge turned around in a circle as if admiring their surroundings. Pandora could see her shivering from the unexpected cold. 

“The giant … He must be a mountain kind.”

“Uh, what exactly does that mean?” Inge asked while she opened their leather bag and pulled out the thin blanket. She gestured for Pandora to come closer, and then threw it over both of them. 

“Imagine the giants you see in movies. They look like that, except for the colors. They’re usually white and blue. To resemble cold and also to fit in better with their surroundings, since they live on tops of mountains where snow falls all year long,” Pandora explained patiently. 

“Right. So we can’t tell them apart from the mountains, and they have an easier time devouring us whole,” she grumbled. “That also,” Pandora said, “though they’d never admit that, of course.”

They leaned back against a tall, wide tree. Its trunk was the size of a car. Its frozen branches rustled in the cold breeze, making some snow fall from time to time. 

Inge’s shoulder briefly brushed against Pandora’s under the blanket which made her shiver. “I’m freezing,” she stated. Inge’s gaze landed on her rosy cheeks. “We could always hold our hands. That could radiate some warmth.” 

After glaring for Inge for a few seconds, Pandora sighed and gripped her friend’s hand in hers. They stayed like that for a while, their shoulders touching and their hands intertwined. Pandora would never admit it, but she secretly enjoyed the way Inge’s freezing thumb would brush against the skin of her hand occasionally. 

Inge’s gaze was turned to the leather bag that hung on her shoulder. She stared at it as if calculating her next move. Then, finally, she spoke. “We could tie the rope we brought along around our waists. Each end around each of us. That way we cannot get separated.”

Pandora thought for a moment. “But that also means that if you fall, I will fall with you. Isn’t that a little impractical?” She raised an eyebrow in question.

“Let’s just assume neither of us will fall, okay? It’s easier that way.”

“Hmph.” Pandora didn’t argue with that so she kept her mouth shut. Instead of speaking, she fished the rope out of the bag. Inge took it from her. “It’s not the best quality, but what else is there to do?” She spoke as she examined the rope in her hands. 

Pandora was glad it was a rhetorical question since she had absolutely no idea what else was there to do. 

Inge took the end of the rope and motioned for the brunette to step closer to her. When she did, Inge wrapped the rope around her. She began tightening it around Pandora’s waist. Instead of looking down at Inge’s working hands, Pandora looked up at the face of the blonde girl. She studied the way her face looked in such a cold place. Her cheeks, ears, and nose were red from the temperature. Her eyelashes were frozen in clumps. Her lips were chapped and the skin on them half peeled off. Pandora couldn’t judge, though, because she was pretty certain she didn’t look any better. 

“Stop staring,” Inge said, smiling. Pandora wanted to argue, to say she wasn’t staring, but she knew better. She watched Inge as she tied the other end of the rope around her own waist. 

They walked up to the mountains. The rock was stern. It had a few places they could use to put their feet on or hold on to with their hands, but it would be a difficult journey. A bit of an argument went on as they could not decide who should go first. Inge wanted to go in case something would attack. Pandora wanted to be the one to go for the exact same reason. She didn’t want to put her companion in any more danger. 

Finally, after a few minutes, Pandora decided to let Inge go first. The blonde girl put her left foot on the stone and pulled herself upwards with her hands grasping onto a crack in the mountain above her head. Pandora watched, helping here and there until Inge was too high for her to reach out to help. That’s when she began climbing as well. The rope was long enough for the two of them to have a good distance between themselves.

Pandora looked up. She was secretly afraid Inge’s foot would slip from where it was resting on the slippery stone and land right on her face. 

“How much further?” She whined like a little kid on a day-long road trip. Inge did not stop to look down at Pandora. She kept climbing like her life depended on it, which it pretty much did. Pandora didn’t want to, but she had to keep going as well. “I can already see the top, don’t worry,” Inge breathed heavily. Pandora sighed. Her hand reached for a crack above her. She could barely reach it. As her hand was searching for a piece of stone to hold on to, she felt a wave of panic, thinking she’d find nothing and fall to her death, taking Inge with her. Finally, when she was sure she’d fall any second, her fingers curled around a small piece of rock that was sticking out from the rest of the stone wall. She breathed a sigh of relief. The drop of sweat that ran down the nape of her neck disappeared underneath the collar of her top. 

They claimed for another ten minutes or so. It felt like a whole eternity to Pandora, but she didn’t dare say that out loud in case Inge felt like laughing at her again. 

When she looked up again, she couldn’t see Inge anywhere. She stopped, clinging to the stone. She had to squint and that’s when her eyes finally noticed the edge of the mountain was just a few feet above her. The rope around her waist was tugging a little. That meant Inge was getting further away. Pandora decided to suppose it meant her friend was simply looking around and not being dragged away by a snow giant. 

She pulled herself over the edge. Her body plopped down on the cold stone. The snow melted at the contact with her sweaty skin. A few shorter hairs escaped from her bun and stuck to her wet face. She had no energy left to shove it behind her ears. She just lay there, staring up at the icy blue sky. 

Inge rushed over to her as soon as she noticed her lying there. It looked like the blonde still had some energy left. “Phew, I was getting worried you got stuck with your feet dangling in the air,” she said. At the end of the sentence, she let out a giggle. “Hey! I’m not that incapable!” Pandora complained. That made Inge laugh even more. She sat down in front of the brunette, grinning. “Come here, I’ll fix your hair while we rest.”