Bring your ladder

Terence’s feet left the ground before he could protest.

One moment he was mid-rant—cloak flaring dramatically as he paced back and forth—and the next, Asmund reached down and scooped him up with the casual precision of someone retrieving a very small, very irate kitten.

Terence yelped, legs kicking uselessly as he was hoisted aloft in one massive hand. “Asmund! Put me down this instant!”

Asmund didn’t. He just stared at him with the most insufferably calm expression, eyebrows raised like he was waiting for the tantrum to finish.

“You were working yourself into a fit,” Asmund said, his voice low and steady, warm as rolling thunder.

“I am perfectly composed, thank you,” Terence snapped.

“Could have fooled me,” Asmund replied mildly.

“I swear, As, if you don’t put me down—”

“You’ll what, light me on fire?”

Terence’s jaw clenched. His ears burned red, and he huffed a sharp breath, folding his arms and glaring up at the giant’s face. The effect was far less potent when he was dangling more than fifteen feet off the ground.

“…Don’t tempt me,” he muttered.

Asmund’s smile widened into a grin.

“You wouldn’t,” He said with infuriating certainty.

Terence swung a kick at his bicep.

“If someone knew how to read the map correctly, we wouldn’t be twenty miles from the nearest city and running short on supplies!”

Asmund frowned.

“Not my fault,” He grumbled. “How was I to know your Smallfolk maps are all wrong?”

Terence’s eye twitched subtly. Then his shoulders dropped and his face smoothed out into a mask of neutrality.

“Well, if they’re really so different I’d be happy to teach you,” He purred. “We can start with basic shapes, then maybe try something a bit more complicated, like colors or numb—“

Before he could finish the sentence, he was airborne.

Asmund didn’t toss him hard, or far. Just a small gentle arc, like someone tossing an apple into the air. Terence let out a squawk of indignation, limbs flailing as a look of horror flashed across his face- Before Asmund caught him again with insulting ease.

Terence went silent, breath caught somewhere between fury and panic, his heart thundering like a drum.

“…You absolute brute,” he hissed once he found his voice. “You threw me.”

Asmund cocked his head slightly, the picture of innocence.

“Mm. You squeaked.”

“I did not squeak,” Terence growled, cheeks flushed.

“You absolutely did. Tiny little mage noise.”

Terence made a strangled noise of frustration that definitely did not resemble a squeak.

“I am a scholar. A practitioner of the arcane. I command forces beyond your comprehension.”

“Of course,” Asmund said, very seriously.

And he tossed him again.

Terence shouted something garbled, that could have been “As,” but may have also been “arse”.

Asmund caught him again, calm and certain and unbearably gentle.

“You great, fat, blasted brute! I’ll hex your boots to squeak with every step!”