Once upon a long time ago, before the wealth of our human ancestors stood upright on the land, there were the Ice Giants.
Hundreds of miles tall, so tall they filled the sky with their massive bodies and heads, these great landcestor spirits walked most of the Earth, leaving huge footsteps in the paths they carved through mountains and plains. Even today you can see the stripes of their passing, the boulders they dropped, and the valleys they slept in.
Time was different back then, it moved slower and wasn't measured in seconds or minutes, nor even hours. Their lifetimes were marked by hundreds of thousands of years and the distance they filled and emptied. The day we experience today was a second to the Ice Giants as they slowly rolled across the land and seas.
The Ice Giants had names that most of us today can't pronounce, like the sound of ice cracking, the crunch of snow, and the crash of icefall. If you ever walk outside in the snow and close your eyes, listen to the crunch under your boots. That is a memory of the Ice Giants.
When the Earth warmed up to an uncomfortable level, the Ice Giants left, retreating back to their homelands. Some went south, very far south, and others went North, very far north. With their passing, other life was able to grow and thrive. The warm life full of blood, hunger, and movement.
Someday, the Earth will cool again and the Ice Giants will return. It won't be in my lifetime, nor in yours, but one day, they'll walk these lands again, creaking and cracking in their forgotten voices.
