Chapter Text
Before he was the Sufferer, bane of the highbloods and leader of the greatest rebellion in Alternian history, he was just Portan Mesias, three sweeps old and clutching a rusty sickle for dear life and on the verge of tears because he heard a noise in the bushes. The bushes rustled again and he swallowed.
“I know you’re there!” he squeaked, readjusting his grip. “Show yourself!”
For the longest time, or maybe it was just a second or two, nothing moved. Then the bush rustled again and a little muddy hand poked out from under the leaves. Portan screamed. Someone else screamed, too and the hand vanished. By the time Portan swung as the bush with his sickle, it was totally empty.
By the next day, it was evident that the stranger’s presence hadn’t vanished. Several hives near the edge of the forest had their trash cans knocked over and rummaged through. The way this particular cluster of redblood lawnrings spread, each new handful of wrigglers had to clear a section of forest to build their hives in. Thus the oldest redbloods lived farthest away from the woods, which in the long run proved to be better for the young ones who would be culled on sight if they got into the older trolls’ way. Living so closely was not very efficient, but only greenbloods and above could afford the luxury of living alone without others of their kind. Red and yellowbloods stuck together not for protection so much, but for the cases when an angry highblood came around to hunt for sport; the more targets there were, the more could get away when the attacker’s attention was elsewhere.
While the strange disturbances continued, no one but Portan had managed to catch a glimpse of the illusive creature. His neighbors were already fantasizing about what it could be, mostly trying to outdo each other in who can come up with the most dangerous creature and then daring someone to go and cull it. Only one of two among them had ever actually killed anything and they were probably lying about it. Everyone was both thrilled at the idea and terrified to venture into the dark forest alone. After several nights of excited chatter, a party of a dozen or so decided to go take a look together. Portan argued his way into the leadership position on the basis that he had seen the thing’s enormous terrifying claws before and therefore had the most experience. Armed with makeshift spears and weapons scavenged from corpses, faces painted with wriggler blood, the small platoon of children crept into the forest just as the darkest part of the night swept over them.
Once inside, it became evident that traveling as a group like this was noisy and inefficient, so Portan ordered everyone to split up and to call for help if they ran into trouble, knowing full well that most of the party would run away from whoever was in need. Nonetheless, the young trolls set off in different directions and after several minutes were far enough apart that Portan couldn’t make out the sound of footsteps any longer, just the eerie cries of creatures he’d rather not run into. He continued like this for what felt like an hour, bending back branches and occasionally swiping his sickle threateningly at a particularly scary shadow. When his stomach began to growl loudly enough that he thought the monster might hear, he stopped, looked around, and wished his stupid scaredy-crab of a lusus were here with him before crouching down where he stood since it was a good a place as any and pulling out the sandwich he made for lunch.
Just as he was about to take a bite, the bush to his left rustled. Portan froze, sandwich hanging limply as inch from his mouth and eyes twice as big as they should be, fixed on the offending shrubbery. He wanted to scream for help but neither his voice nor his throat would obey him. After a second of tense silence, the bush moved again and this time a head popped out. Its face was so muddy it was hard at first to recognize it as belonging to a troll, but from the mud-plastered dark curls poked two orange horns that twisted toward the canopy. He looked about the same age as Portan and equally as terrified, his yellow eyes darting from the fellow troll to the sandwich and back again. He moved forward again on all fours, but his arms and clothes were too muddy to be able to make out even the color of his symbol, much less what it could be.
The second movement seemed to snap Portan out of whatever trance fear had trapped him into and he scrambled back, a feat made difficult with food in one hand and a sickle in the other.
“Don’t come any closer!” he snapped.
The troll ignored him, crawling ever so slowly all the way out of the bush.
“I’m warning you!” Portan quivered.
The troll grew closer still.
“Not one more step!!”
The troll stopped not two feet from Portan, eyes the sandwich, and then with nothing but a flicker, snatched it up and crammed half of it in his mouth at once, scarcely chewing before taking another bite.
“Hey! What the fuck!” Portan yelped. “That was mine!”
The muddy troll flinched away, curling around the sandwich like it was precious and sliding back.
“Oh no you fucking don’t!” Portan lunged at troll grabbing him by the ankle. “Give it back!”
“No!” the other managed with his mouth full.
“Give it!”
“No!”
The two rolled in the dirt, the stranger always holding the sandwich just out of reach until at last Portan managed to latch onto his sleeve, at which point he just flat out dropped it.
“Hey!” Portan growled. “Now I can’t eat that!”
Seeing an opening, the other troll wiggled out from under Portan and tackled the sandwich, brushing off the sand and shoving it into his mouth. The redblood made a face at him and got to his feet. When the other looked up at him, he had his sickle raised.
He had to kill him. That was the proper thing to do. It was what trolls did: kill other trolls. And this was probably the guy that everyone was looking for anyway, so he was going to die one way or another. Portan might as well get the glory for it, if he could keep his hands from shaking so much. The troll in front of his was just pathetic; no way he could fight back, kneeling there all muddy and skinny and scared. It would only take one swipe. Just one.
“What’s your name?” the troll asked.
“Huh?” Portan responded, clearly a master of conversation.
“Your name,” the sandwich-stealer responded. “Mine’s Markor. What’s yours?”
“Uhh...” The sickle was getting heavy, so he lowered it. “Portan.”
Markor said nothing. He just sat there. Portan felt like he had to say something.
“So... were you the one that knocked over all those waste receptacles?”
A nod.
“Why?”
“I was hungry.”
Portan stared at him. “That’s gross. Can’t your lusus feed you?”
“I don’t know where he is,” Markor mumbled, rubbing his eye. “I hope he got away from the subjuggulators. I tried to wait for him but they were after me mostly so I couldn’t wait for very long--”
“There was subjuggulators after you!?” Portan shrieked. “Why? How?”
Subjuggulators didn’t go after just anybody, mostly trolls that threatened the hemospectral order. It was their job to keep down rebellions, but there notoriously corrupt sometimes, too and killed whoever was dumb enough to wander into their court if they felt like it.
“I- I don’t know,” Markor continued. “They showed up and nicked my arm and I guess they decided they didn’t like my blood, but I bit the guy that was holding me and hid, so they burned down my hive and, and...” The longer he talked the faster he spoke until he just trailed off and rubbed his eyes furiously. At last he sobbed, “I don’t wanna get culled!”
How low on the did a guy have to be for the subjuggulators to want to get him dead? Portan looked at his own hands, pulling back the sleeve to see the strings of red running through is wrist. He had been certain he was the lowest of the low. What could possibly be lower? Well, maybe the answer sat in front of him.
“I- I guess I won’t cull you then,” he signed. “But it’s not because I forgive you or anything!”
“If it’s not you it’ll be someone motherfucking else,” Markor whined.
It was a good point. How was it fair that highbloods could just go and burn someone’s hive down for having the wrong blood color. No one could help that! It was just plain mean to pick on someone for their blood, and no way no how would Portan follow suit!
“No it won’t,” the redblood pouted. “No one is gonna hurt you ‘cause you’re coming with me!”
Markor blinked up at him. “Really?”
Portan gave him a firm nod and offered a hand. “Get up.”
The other troll examined the hand before crackling a lopsided grin and accepting. “You got it, motherfucker.”