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==>Orivar: 2.5 Sweeps (Five years old)
Could trolls come from the skies?
This was a question that sat on your mind the entire night as you sat in Talgan’s little boat, arms folded under your chin and your furred jacket pulled close, your face upturned towards the dark, cloudless expanse. Talgan sat behind you, quiet as ever as he picked patiently at one of his fishing nets.
Could they come from the stars? You think you've heard that once, a long time ago. Trolls lived out there and they lived in ships - but not the ships you knew about. They were bigger, they could fly like birds and then not like birds because birds can't go as high as they can. They went higher and higher until they could touch the moon and then went farther until their feet touched unfamiliar soil and trolls thrived there and made new hives where they … did something. You’re not entirely sure what, but all you know is that you know there’s trolls out there. The entire concept is mind-boggling to you and you can't even begin to imagine what it was like to visit other planets, let alone travel alongside the stars. They were so small up there, were they bigger in person? Were they like your tiny ball lamp, big enough to fit in a hand or bigger? If you looked at them up close, were they as bright as staring right into a flashlight? And were trolls hatched out there? Or are they considered aliens? What was that thing you heard about, terra farming? You don’t know what terra is, but you know farming, but apparently trolls couldn’t live without it which, duh, of course you can’t, you need food! Was terra a vegetable then?
There were more questions about the stars than there were hanging in the sky but every time you thought about asking any, your words died on your tongue. Too many questions, too little time, and the quiet lap of water against a boat and the chirp of insects created a stillness you didn’t want to break just yet. Instead, you watched.
It was the first time in a long, long time that the night has been this black. It was a rare double new moon - you just learned that word, double - and it meant both of them didn't reflect any light from the sun. This meant Alternia was especially dark and the stars were especially bright.
You think you remember a night like this once before. Maybe twice? You can’t remember quite well, but you think you’ve seen it before. Talgan said it was impossible - the last time a double new moon has happened like this, it’s been sweeps and sweeps, but you could have sworn you have.
You’ve seen the stars like this once, a very long, long time ago. It was darker then, and the blackness weighed over you even heavier than it did now and you were weightless. It was colder you think - which as far as you know, space is too! You couldn’t see your hands in front of your face and all around you hung hundreds and hundreds of lights as far as you could see. They were formless, shapeless things and you tried to jerk your way towards one but no matter how hard you struggled, they all seemed to be anchored where they were. You think you tried to reach out, tried to brush a finger against a light and only hit emptiness.
You were alone among the stars. They hung like candles, like tiny fires, lighting the darkness and yet you still couldn’t see a thing.
There should have been fear. You should have been scared, but you weren’t.
At least, not until a mass of darkness started to envelop the stars, rolling over each and every one until they blinked out of existence and it grew closer and closer and closer -
Until not a single star could be seen and the pitch black closed around you.
Behind you, Talgan grunted as he dragged his fishing net closer into the light of his lantern, angling it so he could untangle it better. In front of you, the stars were still there and twinkled and shone in the sky.
“... Talgan?” You called out finally, your voice a bit scratchy. He always demanded silence while he worked so this was the first time you spoke in almost three hours and it showed. He grunted again and you turned from the edge of the boat to face him.
“Did I come from up there?” You held your finger up to point at the sky and the thousands of lights peeking down on the two of you.
He wasn't amused. Or, maybe he was? It was hard to tell from how dim his lantern was and how bundled he kept himself. A thick beard and a scarf to cover his face didn’t make it easy to read his expression. You think he’s squinting at you with his eyebrows all creased together like he does when he’s mad but his square face isn’t twisting yet into a yell. He was confused, that much you knew but you refused to back down.
“... Th’ fuck ye mean, girl?” he asks, reaching up with a gloved hand to jam his long hair behind an ear.
You swallow and poke up again. “Up there. The stars. Is that where I came from?” His face was blank as he stares and you shift to sit up on the bench a bit straighter and your voice started to bubble with excitement.. “When I was younger, I - I remember there were lights around me, like the stars up there, but you found me on a beach. I saw them all around, I wasn’t standing on anything, and people say that you can float and fly around up there like ships, so that’s got to be the answer, right? Do you think I’m from up there - and maybe could we revisit it?” Your question trailed off, a note of hope tinting the question. Talgan saw that hope and laughed.
It was a mean one, that much you recognized. It was one he had when he heard something so monumentally stupid that he couldn’t help but laugh and your ears started to burn as he dropped the net in his lap. You duck your head, scuffing the toe of your boot against the wood of the boat.
“Girl, ye realize yeh’d be culled on site if yeh came from up top, d’ya know that?” He jabbed a finger at you, and then glanced up. A look of incredulousness lit up his face and he shook his head as he laughed again. Normally the light tones of his laughter was something you enjoyed since that meant he was happy, but right now - right now you knew he was laughing at you. “Girl, yer a mutant. People would call yeh a freak. If yeh ever made it up tae th’ stars, yeh’d be dead or soon tae be.”
“So don’t be dumb, Orivar. Th’ only things up in th’ skies are adults that would make killin’ ye a sport. Ye naever came from th’ skies, d’ya think ye’d survive up there if yeh did? D’ya really think yeh’d no be some stump o’ flesh an indigo would jus’ bury a knife intae as a shrimplin’? Ye washed up like driftwood on thae beach an’ aye picked ye up an’ kept yeh alive through th’ kindness of me own pumper. I dunno where yeh came from but ah’m guessin’ yeh lusus stashed yeh in some dirty, grimy cave ‘til he ditched yeh oan th’ beach. Yeh never came from space an’ dun git it in yeh noggin that yae shuld go up there either chasin’ sum’ pipe dream of goin’ back up top. Don’t be an idiot.” He scoffed again and turned his head back to the net, fingers picking at the knots. “Worked tae damn hard tae see yeh git yerself killed ‘fore yeh even hit six.”
The sound of his voice fades over the water and for a long moment, all you could hear was the soft lap of water against the boat and the slow, steady pump of your heart in your chest. It wasn’t that cold out a minute ago, but right now it felt like winter dropped down on you. Ice crept across your veins and your excitement from before was gone - extinguished like the light of the moons. You tilt your head down and pull at your knuckles as you try to digest his words. “...Never?” You croak out, your throat tighter than you expected.
He glances up, his eyes trained on you. The mirth fades from the corners of his olive eyes and turned back to ice. “...Never, Ori,” He clarifies, his voice a bit harder this time. “Not unless yer ready tae die. No one’s gonna save yeh from th’ Empire’s forks, girl, not anythin’ but yerself an’ that’s only if yeh ain’t a dumbfuck that goes sayin’ stupid shit that yeh dreamed up once. Yeh from Alternia, girl, hatched from th’ Mother Grub’s filthy asshole an’ hatched in slurry, probably.” He went back to his net, fingers fiddling away at it. “Prob’ly th’ only thing that kept yeh from gettin’ crushed under a heel anyway,” He grunts and you swallow.
You were excited a minute ago, but now you weren’t. You didn’t know what to say to Talgan’s words after that and after a moment, you turn away from him to look back up at the skies and you nestle your chin back into the thick wool of your arms. Silence fell across both of you again and again, the water was the only thing that kept you company. Not even the sky was comforting anymore as you watch it. The stars twinkled up above you, but they seemed colder now. They twinkle, but it almost seemed a bit mocking - like they knew that you couldn’t touch them. It was probably a dream, you thought to yourself, thinking back to your memories. Just a dream. Talgan was right after all. He was probably right about your lusus and the caves too. He told you before about how you couldn’t show your gills to other trolls, how you should stay out of sight and out of mind, but that was only until the other trolls left. Gills, even vestigial ones as he called them, had to be hidden.
But it never occurred to you that they would limit what you could do. It never occurred to you that you could never go to the places you saw in your books or Talgan’s handhusk or even the stars that you… dreamed of, or that there were trolls who would want to put a knife in you. As long as you had Talgan, you had to have been safe, right? But maybe… maybe not, because you had something that most maroons shouldn’t have.
A cold hand comes up to rub at your gills, the pads of your fingers rubbing against the filaments and for the first time, you wonder it would be like if you didn’t have them.