On the first day of spring, Bran­thor, the youngest of four broth­ers, finds joy in the lush land­scape and pre­pares a bar­be­cue in the back­yard, alone yet con­tent. His broth­ers, Ori­on, Rag­nar, and Kairos, tease him about being lone­ly and need­ing a wife, but Bran­thor is unboth­ered. He appre­ci­ates his free­dom, unlike his broth­ers, who strug­gle with fam­i­ly life. They speak of sleep-depri­va­tion and par­ent­ing chal­lenges, which remind Bran­thor why he prefers soli­tude.

While grilling boar meat, Bran­thor con­tem­plates the dynam­ic in his fam­i­ly. The three women—Holly, Nova, and Maren—are busy mak­ing a sal­ad, which Bran­thor finds amus­ing giv­en their small stature com­pared to the “gren­dels” they mar­ried, his family’s name. Tow­er­ing at 11 feet, Bran­thor reflects on how rare female gren­dels are since the “Shift,” push­ing his peo­ple to mate with human females, a mixed bless­ing giv­en the com­pli­ca­tions sur­round­ing hybrid preg­nan­cies.

Observ­ing the chil­dren play—his nieces Pearl and Coral, along with nephew Maverick—he feels a deep love for them but remains firm in his deci­sion against father­hood. The broth­ers chal­lenge him, sug­gest­ing his reluc­tance stems from self­ish­ness. They argue about the need for fam­i­ly; how­ev­er, Bran­thor believes love can man­i­fest in many forms, not just through mar­riage.

Pre­vi­ous trau­mas influ­ence Bran­thor’s hes­i­tance. Their moth­er died trag­i­cal­ly young, which lingers in his mem­o­ry. He does­n’t see him­self as capa­ble of nur­tur­ing or being a hus­band and is con­cerned for the well-being of any woman he may become involved with. The sit­u­a­tion wors­ens when brash moves by Mav­er­ick lead to an injury on Bran­thor’s arm, which Nova rush­es to help ban­dage, reveal­ing the car­ing dynam­ics of their bond as a fam­i­ly.

Bran­thor rec­og­nizes his broth­ers’ insis­tence to find a bride stems from gen­uine care. He loves the close­ness of his fam­i­ly and the life they’ve built in Moss­dale, sur­round­ed by an intrigu­ing blend of their gren­del her­itage and human real­i­ties. Ulti­mate­ly, he is grate­ful for the famil­ial love despite his reluc­tance to par­tic­i­pate in the tra­di­tion­al roles they expect him to ful­fill.