Odin
The sign on the door said “Jotunn-Land Foster Care,” and showed a laughing diapered blue child. Odin sighed before walking in. He was a proud man of the People, once tribal lord and now Home-King, as they knit their empire together. But much had been lost in both Jotunn Wars, and he sought now for resources that were scarce in both realms, and needed in his. Magic.
The First Jotunn War had been devastating. The Jotunns, long thought to be a friendly neighbor, were inspired to take over the Homeland in deepest winter, when the People hunkered down in their separate villages, their separate winter camps (a long tradition meant to spare any hunting ground from over-exploitation); one by one the camps had been swallowed up by parties of Jotunn raiders. Odin was a child then; his family and comrades burned out from their village, escaping into the woods, in the snow and cold; and many had not survived. It took an alliance of the People with the Van to counter the Jotunn magic Fimbul-Winter, to bring back springtime, and to save his Homeland.
In the Second Jotunn War, the People could apply the hard-won lessons from the First War, notably that the key to stopping the Jotnar was to stop their magicians. A Jotunn magician could channel the magic of the land, could bring cold, rain, snow, prolonged winter; and Jotunns were most comfortable fighting under those conditions, in their hot and impenetrable bilgesnipe armor. The rare, lightly-protected magicians usually accompanied troop leaders. (This was because magicians traded sides at will in Jotnar internecine conflicts, and were considered sacrosanct in those struggles; a leader watched his magician to make sure her luck stayed with him, and would not harm a hostile one who might in the future join him.) So the first move of the People, when they attacked Jotunn-land, was to slay as many magicians as they could find. Odin had lost an eye in that war; had gained a young wife in placating his Vanir allies.
If the First War had been overwhelming for the People, the Second had been even harder for the Jotnar. Whole cities, once mighty, had been razed; most of the young men and women, gone to war, had not returned. In the end, the old, the young and the maimed were left to defend the Jotunn-Home-Cities. Afterwards, a select group of the People handled the recovery of Jotunn-land, trading cash and effort for raw materials the People needed; stripping Jotunn-land bare in the process. It was not recovery but exploitation.
Exploitation of the Jotnar as well as their land: Jotunns were not allowed into many professions they had held before; were only hired as expendable laborers (at very low wages). Jotunn centers of higher learning were closed, then all schools were closed to them. The fast-growing entrepreneurial class of the People included those born in the Homeland, those born in Jotunn-land, and their half-bred children. Jotnar were allowed to be servants, even bed-servants, but were not permitted to own land or structures, to have a voice in political assemblies, or, eventually, to walk alone at night, even with a permit signed by one of the People. Many Jotnar still lived in the crannies of the cities, supplementing their bare living allowances by scrounging relics, dealing in vices, or even selling their selves or their children into slavery. The People tried to keep track of them all (at least the living ones), especially those Jotunns who slinked into the cities from the wild.
So the Jotnar suffered, and the People prospered. But now, a generation after their success in the War and their occupation of Jotunn-land, the one resource the People needed was less-favorable weather. Van magicians could turn the world into springtime, but they could not turn springtime off. There were no Jotunn magicians left to provide countermanding winter to Vanir Spring; to turn flowers into fruit and green sprouts into harvestable grain. The deer once born grew no older; there was no fall rut to breed more deer. The Land had no summer, no winter, no autumn harvest; only eternal spring. The People lived on birds and sprouts, flowers and insects. They starved, surrounded by beauty.
Only Home-King Odin himself, with his own paltry magic, could find the sought-for magicians after crossing the river to Jotunn-land. But in the civilized, People-controlled cities, there were no magicians to be found. Perhaps some were left in inaccessible fastnesses in the wild mountains; perhaps he would spend the rest of his life hunting rumors and phantoms while the People starved. This quest was not the King’s only responsibility, after all, and it was time to return to Odin’s own Fort-city.
Odin walked into the foster-care center with a heavy heart. It was time to give up his quest and come home. He owed his wife, Frigga, a magnificent present for the difficult birthing of Thor, his heir, years before; perhaps these cheery children would inspire him?
The proprietor greeted him in the front room, then showed him to other rooms where pen-fuls of well-fed blue children were separated by age. They all had smiles as they waved around soft toys, Odin saw; the rooms resounded with their happy laughter.
“The oldest one is—what, five?” Odin asked. Thor would be five soon.
“Oh, we can’t keep them that long,” the other man said. “The demand is too high.”
“Still…”
“What are you here for?”
“Oh, I’ve been away for too long, and my wife has earned a very special present,” Odin said.
“Very special?”
“Yes.”
“You have a price range in mind?”
“Price isn’t relevant,” Odin assured him.
“Then I may have something special; just arrived.” The owner of the shop led Odin through a previously closed door; down a sterile hallway with glass windows into food-preparation areas and the like; and finally through a rough door into a back storage area. There was a wooden pen, like a high-sided tray, lined with straw, and holding a sleeping, naked baby.
Odin looked at the boy—yes, a boy; longish black hair already, blue skin, closed eyes with black lashes, and raised welts covering his skin. “A hunter just brought this in. A wild Jotunn.”
“Can I see?” Odin asked, and the proprietor lifted the boy up by his armpits, turned him back to Odin, then back around; awakened red eyes stared at Odin alertly.
“Still small, I’m afraid; would you like him prepared?”
“No, thank you; we live days away from here.”
“Fattened up, at least?”
Odin barely listened, looking for familiarity in the raised welts. Magelines, they were called. He remembered the Jotunn Mage King, Laufey of the Forest, who had taken his eye in one of the early fights in the Second War; perhaps these lines were similar.
“Well? I have others interested in him. The mayor has a banquet…”
“No, no need. I will take him now, as he is. And a blanket.”
Here is the other thing about the Jotunn Wars: in the privations of the First War, the starving soldiers of the People decided that the Jotnar were not real People as they were. Instead, it was acceptable behavior to eat Jotunns when no other food presented itself. The second discovery, made soon after and refined over time: that Jotunns were delicious.
Males past puberty developed a ripe flavor, an easily acquired taste; the women were more delicate on the palate, and mages, most of whom were women, tasted of truffles. Jotunn children were more exquisite still, the younger and fatter the better.
Odin had finally found himself a mage. If he could keep the child alive long enough, surrounded by the long-toothed People, the Asgardians—it might grow up to help Odin save his realm.
A/N: Inspirations: Swift’s “Modest Proposal.” Famous cannibals on ranker.com (Albert Fish, notably, who mailed his recipes to the parents of children he’d stolen and eaten). The Donner party, some of whom were said to be addicted to cannibalism. Sawney Bean and his family. The Alferd Packer Restaurant and Grill at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Also, slavery in America. Anyone who considers another person “subhuman.”
Several American Native tribes, among others, named themselves was “The People” or “The Real People,” for instance the Comanches in S.C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon (they weren’t cannibals, but a neighboring tribe was).
Ursula LeGuin, in Vaster Than Empires and More Slow: “You have not thought things through.”