Growing Pains

                                    

                                          
Hey lovely people :3
I must say I enjoyed writing this chapter although it feels a little rushed? Idk I'll let you decide :3
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Careful. He had to be really careful. Growing now would be an instant give away and if Rebecca (or her family) learned about the secret her fiance spent the past three years trying to conceal, everything would be over before it even started. The slightest mishap would be fatal. 
Living in a dystopian-like world, humans were forced to hide their cities with spells and every other accessible form of witchcraft from the 50 feet tall giants who devoured them on spot. And then there were the 2 inch tall, tiny thieves who stripped them of their supplies and raided their cellars. Size shifters were meant to end up in the crossfire. Humans will always fear what is unknown to them, his late grandfather, who had been similarly “blessed” with this curse in his times, once told him. The curse seemed to pass on to every other generation and even if its power flowed through his father's veins, the older man wasn't aware of that fact because he had no way to wield it. But then the curse within Eric had been awoken on his 14th birthday and his parents were bound to know. To be more precise, they had walked in their teenage son's room just to find him extremely confused and almost 12 feet in height. Eric had been lucky back then since not everyone favored shifters and his parents could have been among those people. They had helped him keep his secret for years. But Eric eventually matured and had to leave the nest and carve his own path. He met Rebecca when they were 19 and they clicked right away. Shortly after, they became a couple and this is how he found out about his girlfriend's family's giant slaying origins. Of course, Eric never came to regret his decision but he couldn’t help feeling a bit fearful with all those what-if's that passed through his mind. 
As time passed, Eric chose to put his fears aside and propose to the woman he loved. So here he was, after 3 years of relationship, finally having the joy of calling Rebecca his fiance. Preparations for the wedding had already started and the couple hoped to tie the knot within the next year. But for the time being, he was sitting uncomfortably in his seat as he dined with his future wife and in-laws. Every second was a torture, as the tiniest movement caused his joints to crack and pop, as if they seeked some relief in growing. Unfortunately for him, Thanksgiving landed on the worst day possible: the full moon. And as he ate his turkey with slow and calculated movements, while having the country's best giant slayer sitting in the opposite seat, Eric used all his concentration at the task at hand: preventing his growth for another hour or two. 
Over the years Eric learned better control over his size shifting abilities and he could even hold them for a long while before eventually having to shift during full moons. But his composure appeared to shrivel under extremely stressful situations such as this one so he could only hope that his own powers wouldn't betray him. 
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When Eric checked his watch for probably the 100th time that night, the index suggested it was eight minutes past ten. He had grown incredibly fidgety and all his muscles were under immense pain and pressure. He avoided directly participating into the family conversation unless a question was aimed at him. It had been over three hours since the moon had gotten up and the shifter's dysphoria was growing by the second. When he cracked his sore neck in an attempt to provide some relief to his aching muscles, Rebecca noticed and tenderly placed a hand on his knuckles that rested by the table.
 “Tired?” she whispered to her fiance and Eric replied with a pained “Yeah”. “I've had a long day at work,” he added after a moment, which was not entirely a lie, as his boss asked him to take some work at home with the sweet promise of an overtime. And that moment, Rebecca threw the question like a godsent: “Should we get back home?”