I woke before dawn fully hit, the room was lightening. Apparently, I hadn’t been dreaming. I sighed and tried to come to grips with where I was. I wondered about the man that I’d seen before and saw him beside me again in the bed. I reached to pinch my arm. Yep, I’m awake. Pain isn’t something you feel in a dream really. I stretched and looked around again. The fire had gone down to coals, and so the light coming from the skylight was all I had. I noticed a few window slits that had light peeking from behind the pelt coverings. 

With the room lit by the dawning, I watched him sleep. He’d turned towards me, and I watched as the sun finally lit him so beautifully. He looked so peaceful. His eyes opened slowly at my gesture and he smiled at me. My heart thumped again. At least this man was apparently kind. I hoped to find that was the case. I would wait and see. For now, I would be careful but I know he had been taking care of me. 

My body was very sore, as obviously I’d been bedridden for a while and my muscles were weak from lack of actual use. I had no bedsores, and my body was clean, which meant he’d been taking rather good care of me. The thought brought heat to my cheeks. Dude had seen me nude. Freya, watch over me please because I was going to die of embarrassment. 

I hadn’t seen anyone else in the house. I reached my hand to tuck the strand I noticed behind his ear. And his smile grew. “Good Morning,” I smiled at him.

He said something I didn’t understand fully but guessed to be good morning, so I tried repeating it back to him. It felt a lot like a northern European language but it wasn’t quite like anything I’d tried to speak before. He laughed softly and said some of it again, but left a piece off. I repeated it. Then he pointed to me and said the piece he’d left off, and I understood. It’d been his word for me. I smiled and said my name, “Adelheide.” pointing to myself. “Adelheide.” When he rumbled my name, I felt my heart skip a beat again. He said something after, pointing to himself, I repeated it, pointing to him. Then I repeated my own name pointing to myself. Then he said another word, nothing like what he’d said before, but the way he said it made heat rise to my cheeks. I could listen to his voice forever. A soft rumbling voice from deep in his chest. The kind of voice to melt the ice-capped heart I carried. 

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay here long, but I hope so. I don’t know if you can understand me, but I want to learn. I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore, I want to be useful.” He looked at me with confusion, gently shaking his head, knowing that communication was going to be difficult. I took a deep breath, then looked at my pelt-covered body. I wanted out of bed. 

I have never liked being waited on. I had always been the workhorse in my family. I turned myself, moving my legs to the bedside to try to stand. He moved quickly across the bed to stop me, wrapping his hands around my shoulders, shaking his head as he moved to get in front of me. How quickly such a big man moved! One moment he was lying comfortably on the other side of the bed, the next he was in front of me with his hands on my shoulders, the man was fast! I gasped in shock and looked up at him, hands moving up to shield myself. His eyes looked hurt, and I paused my movement. 

He moved to gently lift me in a princess carry, which quite frankly shocked me. I’m not small by any stretch. I am 5’10” and while large-boned is accurate, I am not light by any stretch at 320 pounds, or I was before. I had lost some weight but not that much, yet he lifted me like it was nothing. Did he bench press horses often? He didn’t even sound strained which told me this man was used to heavy lifting on the regular. My arms wrapped around his shoulders as I clung to him, still aghast that he could lift me let alone carry me across the room to sit at the table. I don’t think he was ready for me to try walking even with assistance yet. But getting to the table to eat rather than being abed was a vast improvement. 

I noticed something rather shocking, I had nothing on my butt. All I was wearing was a red-dyed homespun shirt that only barely came to my thighs and not a stitch longer. My cheeks flushed hotly at my near nudity but you would think I was covered head to toe by his reaction. I guess having seen me naked before, he wasn’t concerned but I bloody hell was. I tried hard to pull my legs up into the shirt and use it to cover my bits but as big as he was, the shirt apparently hadn't been made oversized and I couldn’t get any deeper in the shirt. But I could go to a deeper shade of beet. He looked at me, seeing what I was doing after having set me on the chair, and blushed himself before dashing to the bed and grabbing a huge pelt with long red hair covering it and wrapping me in it. The pelt was so big it trailed the floor after covering me. Whatever the animal was, it was ginormous and I was thankful. “Thank you, Grone,” I mumbled to him while hiding deeper into the pelt. 

He said something then turned and quickly went about preparing food for us, his big body lithe in the kitchen. I watched him while he worked, wondering what kind of animal skin I was wrapped in. The hair was at least seven inches long and a fire-engine red. By nature’s laws that meant it was also poisonous, bright colors being an indicator. I stroked my fingers along the hair absently, comforted by the soft silky feel. 

He glanced at me and smiled apologetically, speaking again to keep a running commentary. I liked the sound of his voice. He made me feel at ease even though I couldn't understand him. Maybe his talking made him feel better, too. What would it be like that the warm corpse he’d been taking care of suddenly woke up and no longer needed his constant care? Had he spent time talking to me while I was unconscious? I wondered what had gone through his mind while he’d taken care of me. Did he resent me? Was he happy to see me awake? He seemed it but who could say for sure? Would that joy be diminished once he got to know me? Would I be rejected yet again because I didn’t fit with the idea of what he had of me? 

I stopped myself from that line of thinking that’d been the cause of my pain for so long before waking. Stop it, Heide. You don’t have to feel unnecessary here. You can be useful, I told myself. Without having any skills or knowledge of this world, I would have to learn, right? Would Grone help me with that? Would he want me to stay once I no longer had to have his help with everything? Was he already sick of me? Was the happiness at me waking because his burden was soon to be lifted?  

He set a plate in front of me that looked amazing. The plate had what looked like neon-colored fried eggs, hot purple bacon, and a toxic green sludge that smelled like heaven. I smiled and waited for him to seat himself. Going by the pelt I was wrapped in, maybe this world didn’t actually consider bright colors poisonous. I watched him pick up a two-prong fork and stab at the purple bacon-like stuff, he lifted it, and looked at me saying “Grofess.” I repeated it, lifting the same stuff with the two-pronged fork he’d given me on my plate. “Grofess..” Then he stuffed a good chunk in his mouth and smiled, eating happily. I bit into it. It wasn’t bacon. Not even close. It was a fruit and tasted very close to fried pineapple and it was delicious. I savored the bite, letting the juices bite the insides of my mouth just like pineapple. I wondered if the rest of it would be the same, all fruit or did he have a mix of fruit and meats? I lifted the multicolored egg-like bit, and it did taste much like fried eggs. I sighed in contentment enjoying the savory flavor. I must have made a sound because Grone started laughing and I looked over at him watching me, a big goofy grin on his bearded face. “Donteer.” He said, and I repeated, pointing to the eggs. He nodded, still smiling. I looked apprehensive at the green sludgy stuff, tilting my head to the side, he hadn’t poisoned me yet so I picked up the spoon and scooped some up to eat, it was so good. The porridge from the night before. Savory and delicious, I moaned in tastebud heaven. His smile got even wider, and he settled in to eat his own breakfast, talking between bites while I savored his cooking.