"Why do you fly so low, we are barely clearing the treetops." Takoda wondered from beside me.
"Because the Muggles have machines that can see things like this ship even when it's disillusioned," I answered absently, my thoughts elsewhere. "And while I doubt they have anything that can match our speed they probably have airbases between here and Montana that would allow them to intercept us."
"Muggles?" The big Indian asked.
I blinked and focused on him, "Oh, it's what the Brits call No-Majes," And now me, apparently.
I frowned and wondered when normal people became "Muggles" to me. I used to find the term faintly insulting since it was essentially infantilizing normal people, making them out to be somehow lesser for not having magic, and us greater for having it. It was true to an extent, I suppose, but considering how unintelligent and uncreative the average wizards was I had always thought that things evened out in the end. Besides, it was not like the gift of magic would forever be denied to them, with the knowledge of genetics and its application growing each day I doubted it would be long before some enterprising Squib or mug - none magical relative of a wizard would figure out which genes governed magic and see to it that everyone could have it.
I didn't know how I felt about that, to be honest. Magic, for all its wonder, definitely came with its own share of downsides. The most obvious was that when someone could have whatever they wanted with the flick of a wand, it tended to stifle that essential drive that had produced most of the technology in the normal world. Why exert yourself when you could have instant gratification?
Then again, it might be mitigated by the sheer influx of new magicals to the comunity, that was a very appealing thought.
"No-Majes truly have such machines" Takode questioned dubiously. "It seems passing strange to me."
"I wouldn't make a habit of underestimating the ingenuity of non-magical people, the very lack of magic forces them to come up with ingenious little things to compensate." I lectured him while feeling like a hypocrite. "Radar being one of those things."
"Radar?"
"It an acronym, it stands for Radio Detection And Ranging. It uses something like sonar, like what bats use to find their way in the dark, to see things that are too far away for the naked eye to perceive." I explained shortly.
"Humm," Takoda grunted, rubbing his chin in studied thoughtfulness. I suppressed a chuckle, this guy could not help but making a production of everything he did. Eventually, a large smile broke out on his face and he laughed boisterously. "HAH! That is truly marvelous! I had not thought that No-Maj's possessed such ingenuity, and to do such a thing without magic... truly miraculous."
"I wouldn't go quite that far," I said with poorly suppressed amusement. Trust Takoda to accept something that outlandish sounding with nary a thought.
"What kind of machines do they use to do this, have you seen them?" The big Indian questioned excitedly.
"Sure," I said and conjured up an illusion depicting a simple radar dish for Takoda to study.
"HAH! I have seen such things in my travels, I had wondered what the No-Majes used them for. I had thought they were for doing something to the sky, as they are always pointed upwards." He told me enthusiastically.
"Well, some of them are used to track the weather and look at the stars, so I suppose in a way you were right about that." I allowed with a small smile.
Takoda looked pleased with himself and laughed again. "Truly? What else do they use it for?
I thought about it for a moment before shrugging my shoulders. "They sometimes use to find things in the ground, or just figuring out what the ground is made up of without needing to dig it up. Besides that, not much else."
Takoda nodded thoughtfully. "Amazing."
"It can be." I agreed. "You know, they managed to land on the moon just a couple of years ago," I mentioned absently.
"The Moon?!" Takoda exclaimed incredulously.
"Yeah, it turns out it's not made of cheese, just a lot of dust and stone," I told him.
Takoda gave me a befuddled look. "Cheese?"
I laughed lightly. "You have to admit it kinda looks like one, big round and full of holes."
"And No-Maj's thought it was cheese?"
"No!" I said vehemently before chuckling. "It's just a children's tale!"
"But they did go there?" He asked seriously.
"Uh-huh."
Takoda looked mystefied, "How!?"
I frowned and thought about it, how do I explain it in a way that this meat-head would understand. Was fireworks a thing in the wizarding world, or did they use spells for that? I'd never thought to check. "Do you know what a No-Maj firework is?"
"Yes."
"Well, its kinda like that, only bigger, much bigger. If you want to see it you could just head down into Florida. Most of the launches are done from Cape Canaveral. If you hang around there for a while you should see them shooting one of their ships off into space. Its rather spectacular I've been told." I told him.
"You have not seen it yourself?" He wondered.
"Not in person, no. I've seen it on TV and such, but that's not really the same, any more then seeing something in a wizard picture present the true scope of things." I told him.
"TV?"
I laughed.
---
We ended up discussing various aspects of the muggle world, its inventions, and culture. Takoda's curiosity was insatiable, and he always had more questions and asked for clarifications for most of them. I was happy to accommodate him, it was nice to talk about the muggle world with someone. Most weren't all that interested in general, even Lys, who had some serious incentive to investigate various aspects of the muggle world, was laser-focused on only one aspect. Takado though was more like someone that had just found Wikipedia for the first time and proceeded to get lost in it, clicking from subject to subject until you forgot what you were originally looking for.
All the while I tried to keep us on course, which wasn't entirely easy when you had to keep close to the ground, and you had an enthusiastic giant asking you questions. But eventually, as evening was approaching we started to near our destination and I got some reprieve as Takoda was forced to take a more active role in guiding me in. Ten minutes after that I saw our destination. It was situated in a vide wally, in the middle of the Rocky Mountain mountain chain. It was a heavily forested area with two shallow creeks running through it. In the center was the Flat Top Mountain, which wasn't much of a mountain in my opinion, because it was rather... flat.
Our goal was a large village situated in the crossing of the two creeks, that I would later find out was named McDonald Creek and Mineral Creek, which I immediately noticed had a very strange architectural peculiarity. They had very pointy roofs, or at least the end of the roofs end into a large spike-like structure. The rest of the house looked fairly normal, white plastered Tudor style buildings. The whole village had a rudimentary stone wall surrounding it, which I found to be a bit odd. And even had what looked like a small keep. Or a big one, because as we neared it, it became readily apparent that these were not structures built for humans. They were built for something that was at least twice as big. I suddenly had an inkling of what I was about to see.
"Set us down at the other side of the creek by that bridge." Takoda indicated. "We don't want to startle them too badly, some of the denizens can be a bit prickly at times."
"Prickly?" I asked while following his directions. "Prickly as in mildly annoyed, or prickly as pulling your arms off and beating you to death with that?"
Takoda burst into riotous laughter and slapped me on the back, "You have such way with words my friend, but do not worry, they know me and my people and are our friends."
"Swell..." I muttered and rotated my shoulder to get the feeling back into it.
We settled the Jumper down just beyond the creek and then exited the ship while reassuring the restless passengers. Once we got out I followed Takoda over to the bridge where he leaned against the railing of the enormous stone bridge and settled in to wait. I didn't feel comfortable enough to do that so I just stepped off the path and into the shadow of the bridge so I was mostly out of sight.
We didn't have to wait long before a large half-giant exited one of the larger houses nearest to the creek. He was dressed in a dark red lumberjack shirt and blue pants with a large unadorned apron wrapped around his waist. His hair was dark and cut short and he was clean-shaven besides a truly impressive handlebar mustache, he had a strong jaw and a hawkish nose.. For some reason, he was holding a large stain in one hand and a rag in the other. When he caught sight of Takoda he stopped and squinted at him darkly for a moment before opening his mouth.
"Takoda, you little runt, what are you doing here!? And what is that?!" he asked and gestured with his large stein towards the Jumper.
"Baugi, my friend! Long has it been since I saw you last. It gladdens my heart to see you well." Takoda yelled excitedly.
The now named Baugi gave the big Indian a flat look before he stuffed the rag into his belt and marched over, reach over and grabbed Takodas head with his big meaty hand, and then lifted the Indian clear off the ground so he could look him in the eyes. I looked on in astonishment, too stunned by this unexpected turn of events to even summon my magic. Takoda seemed at ease though, from what I could see anyway. He wasn't struggling or anything like that.
"Runt." He said seriously. "I've told you before, if you can't speak normally then you won't be speaking at all" he growled before he dropped the big Indian to the ground. Takoda landed easily before pushing back his headdress and giving Baugi a rueful look.
"Always spoiling my fun." He mock-complained in a perfectly normal voice.
"I fucking knew it!" I yelled and stabbed a finger at him. "I fucking knew no one could be that hammy. You motherfucking ass!"
"Oh that's true enough, it's just the way he talks that is put on." Baugi said, turning his attention to me. "And who might you be? And how did you run into this maniac?" he asked and gave Takoda a giant-sized slap on the back, which sent the large Indian crashing to the ground.
I crossed my arms over my chest and gave Takoda a pointed glare, to which he merely smiled and shrugged his shoulders unapologetically. "Drew, and I ran into this guy trying to commit suicide by giant monster."
"I could have managed without you." Takoda protested as he rolled over on his back and sat up.
"The hell you would. You don't have a big enough flight form, the only thing it had to do was go airborne and you were shit out of luck!" I retorted scathingly.
Takoda jumped to his feet and took his superman pose and flashed me a self asured smile. "It would have tired eventually, and then I would have had it."
"Or. Or it would have set you on fire and had you for brunch." I shot back.
"Alright, alright, boy. Thats enough of that. What are you knuckleheads doing here?" Baugi interupted.
Takoda gave me a smug look before turning his attention to the Ettin. "We came to speak with Hymir."
"About what?" A new voice asked causing the three of us to turn to look at the Ettin now standing at the other side of the bridge. He was even larger then Baugi and had arms that looked almost ridiculously large in compared to the rest of his body, which just showed how large they were. His skin was deeply tanned and resembled old leather more than skin, something I had ample opportunity to ascertain seeing as he was almost completely naked saved for a mass of belts, cloth, and buckles that served as a loincloth. He didn't even have shoes on. His face was weathered and had an age to it that surpassed even Dumbledore, and like Dumbledore, he had a big long beard, though it only covered his face and neck. Beyond that, and his eyebrows, he didn't have a hair on him. He was carrying a huge log on his shoulder like it didn't weight more than a sack of laundry. A huge ax, that still looked small in comparison to this giant man, was hanging off his waist.
"Hymir!" Takoda exclaimed happily before rushing over and hugging the Ettin.
"Young hunter. I'm glad you are well. What brings you to our humble village?" Hymir rumbled formally. "Did you finally slay your quarry?
"I did." He confirmed, making no mention of my help. "But in doing so I discovered that it had been keeping some worthy beings in bondage. I freed them, but they have been kept for so long that they have no place left to return to."
"We freed them." I muttered.
"So you brought them here, hoping I would find a place for them here." Hymir finished thoughtfully. "How many are there?"
"Some fifty women and children," Takoda told him.
Hymir sighed and closed his eyes before he set the great log down on the ground, I felt the earth tremble faintly as he did. "You do not ask for a small thing, young hunter."
"I know, but they are strong, I don't believe they will be a burden if you just give them a chance. I believe they are willing to work hard to find a place that they can call their own." Takoda said earnestly.
"And you believe they can find it here?" He asked and at Takoda's resolute nod he sighed again and then gave the Indian a fond smile. "Well then, why don't we go and have a look at them."