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Aaarrrgghh was losing his mind.
Up to that moment, his life hadn’t been the easiest one, still, it had been very rewarding, at least after the rough start. He had been an unloved, bloodthirsty general for a while, but he had still been welcomed to join Trollmarket after leaving the Gumm-Gumms; he had slowly earned the trust and respect, if not affection, of everyone around him, he had found a place he could call home, and he had met the Troll who made his life truly worth living – Blinky. Blinky was his friend, his mate and his whole world. He was peculiar, and exceptional. He was so tiny, but the words he used were so big. He was the smartest Troll Aaarrrgghh had ever known, more knowledgeable than he could ever dream to be, but he didn’t show off his intellect nor held Aaarrrgghh’s ignorance against him. He shared his knowledge, and for some unknown miracle, he especially loved sharing it with Aaarrrgghh, who couldn’t help but feel honoured and amazed, even when he couldn’t really grasp the meaning of everything the other Troll said.
Blinky was his bonded mate, and Aaarrrgghh loved being bonded to him. He loved that they shared not only a house, but a life. He loved that even when Blinky was away, and Aaarrrgghh was pained by his absence, he was never truly alone, because he could always look inside himself and find Blinky in a small corner of his soul, and he could feel what he felt, and wallow in their coexistence.
He sensed when Blinky was scared, and tried to comfort him, even when he wasn’t sure Blinky could feel him. The other Troll, apart from rare occasions, tended to shield himself from their bond, he shut him off, ignored his constant presence in a way that made Aaarrrgghh feel rejected. But then Blinky would look at him, and he would smile, and the way his smile extended to his six eyes, almost twinkling in the dim glow of the candles that lighted up their house was enough to fill him with a sense of content that made him forget about everything else.
Aaarrrgghh was truly a simple Troll. He didn’t ask for anything in life but for his friends to be safe and happy; and when he said friends, he mostly meant Blinky. Other friends came and went, while Blinky was always there, a constant in his life since the conversion, and one he wasn’t going to give up.
Aaarrrgghh cared deeply for him, and he took good care of him too. Blinky wasn’t especially good at taking care of himself – which was a euphemism. Blinky had been the one to teach him the meaning of that word; he always helped him when his vocabulary failed him, which in some way could mean that Blinky took care of Aaarrrgghh too, but it was mostly the other way around. Blinky tended to forget his basic needs when it came to study and research. He forgot to sleep, and while Trolls didn’t need to sleep as much as humans, going weeks without ever resting was still harmful. So Aaarrrgghh tried to remind him to go to bed, from time to time, and when he didn’t listen, he just picked him up and cradled him in his arms until he fell asleep, still complaining.
Blinky also forgot to eat, quite often. Gathering food was already hard enough when Aaarrrgghh had to take care of himself alone. The quantity of food needed to feed a Krubera was substantial – another Blinky’s word – and if he had to take care of Blinky’s portion too, it took up most of the time he could spent in the upper world during the night. Still, he did it with pleasure. Being apart stung, but he found Blinky in their bond and put up with his absence for the few hours he needed.
The true problem, and the very same problem Aaarrrgghh was struggling with at the present time, was that no matter how much food Aaarrrgghh brought him, Blinky could get so sucked up in his research that he forgot to eat it anyway. It was in those moments that Aaarrrgghh wished he could shield himself from the bond the way Blinky seemed so capable of doing. Because it didn’t matter if Blinky couldn’t feel his hunger, winded up as he was in his books; Aaarrrgghh, through the bond, felt it as if it was his own. He had tried to tell him, tried to get him to eat, but he just didn’t budge. Didn’t even acknowledge his presence. He had tried to reach him through the bond, but he had been ignored just the same. Aaarrrgghh couldn’t do anything but keep bringing him stuff and hope he’d soon get to eat it.
“Blinky eats?” He tried once again, worried. But yet again, no different outcome. He sighed, wondering for how long he was supposed to wait before actively trying to forcefully stuff Blinky’s mouth with food.
He was almost resigned to eat on his own, not wanting to waste the perfectly good basket of dirty laundry he had most recently gathered, when he heard a knock on the door. “Come in”, he muttered. It usually was Blinky who answered the door, but he certainly wasn’t going to that time.
The door cracked open and Kanjigar peeked in. “Hey there, big guy”, he greeted him, smiling at Aaarrrgghh.
Aaarrrgghh smiled back. He liked Kanjigar, he was friendly and brave at the same time. Plus, he and Blinky went way back, they were good friends and for Aaarrrgghh Blinky’s seal of approval was enough to instantly grow fond of someone. “Hi Kan-ji-gar”, he replied. It had taken Blinky a long time to teach him to correctly articulate Kanjigar’s name. While his bonded mate had graciously allowed Aaarrrgghh to call him Blinky, as to avoid getting stuck every time on the correct pronunciation of Blinkous Galadrigal, they both doubted that Kanjigar would approve of any nickname, so lessons had been in order.
“Listen, Aaarrrgghh, do you happen to have any extra food?” Kanjigar asked, quickly getting to the point. It was clear he was in a rush. “A few outsiders just got here. They’ve travelled a lot and are quite weak, the closeness to the Heartstone is helping but we need to get something in their stomachs and glug just isn’t enough”.
Aaarrrgghh tossed him the basket of laundry, which Kanjigar was quickly to catch thanks to his Trollhunter’s quick reflexes. “Take this”, the Krubera muttered. “Brought it for Blinky, but he’s not eating”.
“Yes, I’m familiar with his behaviour”, Kanjigar sighed, looking at the studying troll. “Dictatious used to be desperate about it”.
Hearing Blinky’s deceased brother’s name, Aaarrrgghh raised his head, curiously. Blinky had never liked to talk about him. “Was Dic-tesh the same?”
“Dictatious”, Kanjigar corrected him, smiling. “And no. He was a scholar as well, always caught up in a book, but he was more capable of taking good care of himself. You see”, he explained, momentarily putting down the basket full of laundry, “Blinky and his brother lost their parents when they were whelps. Dictatious was the older brother, and he took it on himself to take care of Blinky. He was always more mature and responsible, enough to keep them both alive. I remember him complaining about this quite often, though. He had to resort to various tricks in order to get Blinky to feed himself”.
“What Dic-sushi did?”
Kanjigar decided that correcting the pronunciation of the name was lost time. “Caught his attention with unusual food, mostly”, he replied, picking up the laundry basket and preparing to leave. “Blinky quickly gets used to people offering food, enough to be able to shut them off, but whenever Dictatious did something incredibly weird or came home with absurdly strange stuff, he did notice it. I’d say, if you can’t whet his palate, try to whet his curiosity”.
With that, he left. Aaarrrgghh thought about his last words for a while. Unusual food? This was something he could do.
Blinky was extremely caught up in his book about the story of the seventh Trollhunter, Jurtiel the Juggler, the one who liked to do circus tricks using the stone pieces of his defeated enemies. He had bumped into a recount of his adventures while looking for information about stones that could unlock more powers of the amulet. He strongly suspected that Jurtiel’s peculiar abilities came from one of said stones, since he had met the youngling before he became a Trollhunter and he wasn’t certainly able to put on such a show by himself. Also, for once, he wasn’t researching just for the sake of knowledge, but he was fulfilling a task Vendel himself had assigned him. He was thrilled his leader had finally started to recognize the importance and potential of his work, and he wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to make him proud.
He was, however, forcefully distracted from his work when he stumbled upon something on the floor. The moment he stepped on it, that something proceeded to explode, startling him. “Great Gronka Monka!” He exclaimed, looking down at the weird object that had just made an attempt on his life. He picked it up, confused. “What exactly should this be?” He muttered. It seemed like a balloon, one of those wretched things humans used to decorate their so-called birthing day parties, but it was obviously shaped like some kind of Troll, a green one, with big, pointy ears and a long, beige vest. He studied the balloon more closely, and in a small corner he read a confusing sentence: “Your birthday, today is”. He thought it was quite weird that humans would misplace the words in a sentence written in their own language. It was clearly garbage. Absentmindedly, he tossed it in his mouth and munched on it, before going back to his book.
Sitting quietly in a small corner of the room, Aaarrrgghh smiled triumphantly.
The next day, Blinky found himself distracted from his work again as he tried to understand what was a cat-shaped plushie doing on his floor. It certainly wasn’t there the day before. Also, no one had ever seen a plushie in Trollmarket. It was a typically human entertainment mean, one the smaller humans liked to toss around and pretend was real. “Aaarrrgghh”, Blinky asked, acknowledging his large friend’s presence for the first time in days. “Do you, by any chance, happen to know what this fake cat is doing on our floor?”
Aaarrrgghh shook his head, feigning innocence. “No clue”, he replied, shrugging. “But cats tasty”.
Blinky looked suspiciously at the object and at his friend, then shrugged. “Well, if no one knows it’s here no one will miss it, I guess”, he muttered, before eating it.
The next day, while he was reading, he suddenly felt something cold against his stone skin. He looked up, and for some unknown reason he found himself staring at a fan. “What’s this?” He asked, looking at the rotating blades with all of his six eyes.
“Humans use it when hot. Thought you might need it while studying!” Aaarrrgghh replied, happily.
“Well, while I do appreciate your thoughtfulness, my dearest, it’s very cold in this period of the year and I feel like your present was mistimed…” He hesitated when he saw the way Aaarrrgghh’s mouth twitched in disappointment. “But I bet I could use it someway else!” He immediately added. “It will make an excellent snack!”
“Guess it’s ok too”, replied Aaarrrgghh, nodding defeatedly as if it hadn’t been his goal from the beginning.
Smiling, Blinky quickly disassembled the fan and started munching on the blades.
The next day, it was the turn of a whole stamp collection. Blinky got distracted by the weird licking sounds coming from Aaarrrgghh, and when he asked him what he was doing the Krubera showed him the tiny pieces of paper he had gathered. “Humans lick these. Thought they tasted good, but not too much”, he explained.
“Perhaps they taste better if you eat them, instead of just licking them”, Blinky speculated, taking one and gulping it down. “Yes. Definitely scrumptious”, he confirmed.
“Scrum-shoe?” Aaarrrgghh repeated, confused.
“Scrumptious. It means tasty. May I…” Said Blinky questioningly, pointing at the rest of the stamps.
“Yes, you have it. Don’t like them anyway”, Aaarrrgghh replied, watching Blinky feeding on the stamps with content approval.
The next day, Aaarrrgghh brought Blinky two entire paint buckets, and convinced him to drink them under the pretence that it was an experiment to determine whether grey paint tasted better or worse than blue paint. He arrived at the conclusion that they both tasted good on their own, but together they were exceptional.
Then, the following day, Aaarrrgghh offered him a golden necklace. Hanging from it, a pendant depicting half a heart. “Humans give this to each other when love each other!” He explained, and Blinky smiled tenderly at the show of affection. He tried to wear it, but Aaarrrgghh stopped him. “What Blinky doing?” He asked.
“Well, my considerable friend, I would assume human mates wear these so that they can think of each other when they look at it”, he explained.
“Oh”, replied Aaarrrgghh. “Didn’t know. Came in a couple and I ate mine. Feel guilty now”.
“No, don’t!” Replied Blinky, hastily. “Of course, I’m sure they’re meant for eating as well! Look”. With that, he threw it in his mouth. “Delicious”, he commented. Aaarrrgghh smiled at him, happy.
It went on for a couple of weeks, until Blinky finally finished his research and made a full report of his discoveries to Vendel. Coming back to the house, he thought about eating something, since he was always starving after spending weeks studying, but weirdly found out that this time he was quite sated.
It was only then that, thinking back to the past days, he understood what Aaarrrgghh had been doing.
Going back home, affectionately thinking of his mate, he was surprised to find him staring at a small bonfire in the middle of the living room – thankfully quite away from his books, even though he was scared to assess what Aaarrrgghh had exactly used as a fuel to lit it. “What are you doing, old friend?” He asked, confused.
“Wanted to cook”, explained Aaarrrgghh, pointing at a bunch of ingredients resembling colourful plants humans occasionally ate. “See if Blinky likes human food. But got hungry and ate the pan”.
“Oh”, replied Blinky, chuckling. “Don’t worry about it. These – I think they’re called fruits – are tasty even when raw”, he exclaimed, picking up something long, yellow and curved and eating it, peel and everything. “Thank you for taking such good care of me, old friend. I’m sorry I ignored you these last weeks”.
“Used to it”, shrugged Aaarrrgghh, picking up a yellow fruit himself and following Blinky’s example. He had to admit the external part was delicious, while the squishy pulp in the middle was a bit too sweet for his taste.
“That I bet you are, but still, it’s the first time you find a way to do something about it other than just wait for me to come to my senses or faint from exhaustion”, considered Blinky, stepping on the bonfire to extinguish the flames before they reached his desk. Aaarrrgghh, thankfully, helped him, sitting on the flames and immediately suffocating them. “Kan-ji-gar told me that’s what Dic-sushi did”, he explained as he did so. “Gave it a shot”.
Blinky smiled, tenderly. “Whatever did I do to deserve you, dear friend?” He whispered, stroking softly Aaarrrgghh’s green mane. The Krubera just smiled, tenderly bumping his horns against Blinky’s. “Take a walk with me, tonight?” He offered.
Blinky chuckled, nodding. “Of course, dear friend. And I’ll find food for the both of us, as to repay you for all of your courtesies”.
And so he did, always true to his word. The quantity of food he had to gather to feed the Krubera for a single night was almost the same quantity Aaarrrgghh had gathered for him throughout the last weeks, but Blinky would never dare to complain. Sure, the small Troll loved studying, researching, proving his usefulness and loyalty to Vendel, but on top of it all, the thing he loved most in the world was seeing Aaarrrgghh happy; and Aaarrrgghh was never as happy as when they were together. Or when he ate. And as Blinky felt his pure joy resonating in their bond, he couldn’t help but be happy as well, wallowing for a few moments in the illusion that their life was perfect and that nothing would ever come between them to ruin it.
Then time went by, and things went down.