Winter Giant

The other sages didn't need his aid.

They were trying to get the princess out of her ill state, with all the magic at their disposal. It was thought to be a simple cold, but when warts broke out along with a fever, it was quite obvious that someone malevolent had placed a curse on her. Taking joy out of her misery... It was something he could not understand. Either way, a sage like him would be of no use, unless it was to merely guard the door. He could hardly fit in the castle, with the jacket and all the blubber he had...

 So instead, he sat on the highest hill in the area, leaving giant footsteps for children to follow him up. Gentle snowflakes fell upon his nose as he sat down with a thump big enough to shake the ground. With mittened, giant hands, he rolled a snowball or two and exhaled onto them, giving life to what was once merely snow and turning it into a live, white kitten. The kitten mewed at him before he lifted it up, taking off his knitted winter cap and setting the little animal on his wild, unruly black hair. The cap went back on, but the kitten couldn't help but purr and poke its little nose out from underneath.

He sat here doing nothing in particular for days at a time, only leaving to aid with guard duty or to help ease the sorrow and sadness that swept through the populace during the winter. He did eat, but humans hardly provided enough for him to be satisfied, and he rather not startle humans with how much he WOULD and COULD eat. Their breakfast was merely a snack for giants. Ah, if only he were normal sized! Then he wouldn't have to shrink himself to fit through doors, to worry about how much food he ate in front of the tiny humans, or worry about stepping on them. All feared him from his size, from the footsteps that made the earth tremble.

As the cold, winter winds passed him by, and the kitten fell asleep in his hair, the Giant, Winter Sage Boreas wished deeply, within his heart of hearts, that he would have a friend that didn't fear him, that he could talk to using the voice that was failing from disuse, and to rely on when his own winter storm clouded his mind.