Chapter Text
The heartstone has lost most of its glow as it gives off a sickly orange color. Gunmar the black, the warlord has succeeded in regaining his strength as he walks around the remains of what used to be trollmarket. His soldiers parted for him as he walked through the streets of the ruined civilization. Gunmar has been looking for some way to bring about the internal night. But with his blind advisor and Ursurna being useless he searches around trollmarket to hopefully find some sort of clue.
As he walks he hears rustling in one of the alleyways between two stalls. He growls in annoyance that his guards have not captured the cowardly troll yet. He pushes a few boxes aside as he takes a step into the alley way to see a whelp? He stands there now in front of the alley as he stares at a quite big whelp. The whelp's body is covered in blackish blue fur as its little claws feel around the stone floor. Its glowing blue and black horns stick out like his horns as the whelp turns his head around frantically.
“Whelp, where is your caretaker?” Gunmar says as his voice echoes through the alley. The little whelp’s horns glow brighter as its head snaps towards the warlord. Gunmar is taken aback when he notices the whelp has no eyes. The whelp lets out chirping sounds of excitement as it attempts to stand on its two tiny legs. It begins to wobble over to Gunmar as the warlord growls in frustration.
“Disgusting whelp, do not call to me as if I would care for a blind whelp.” Gunmar said in a low menacing voice as he walked over to you grabbing your horn as you dangled in the air. Whimpering is heard as the whelp squirms to get out of the giant troll's grip. Gunmar huffs as he turns and begins to walk out of the alleyway when all of a sudden an ear piercing screech emits from the whelp as Gunmar quickly drops the whelp as he covers his ears. Gunmar watches as the whelp halts all noise as its clawed hands dig into the stone with ease as they quickly disappear into the stone floor. Gunmar quickly gets on the ground as he sticks his hand into the almost finely ground stone as he tries to grab the whelp, but all he pulled out was more stone. Gunmar roared as he turns back to the streets to see his soldiers surrounding him.
“Search the market! Find anyone who has not joined us and bring them to me!” Gunmar said as he stomped out of the alleyway pushing the guards out of the way.
(With Dictatious)
The blind troll stumbled into blinky’s library as he sat down at a wooden table with a book in hand. He opened it to see nothing. Dictatious figured there would be no difference in his destroyed vision he just hoped. He sighed as he placed the book down while his two top hands rubbed his eyes. He halted all movement when he heard a hesitant quiet chirp. A whelp? None of the gumm gumms here have any whelps that he knows of that must mean that this little one might have been left behind in the hurry of escaping trollmarket.
“Come here little, I won’t hurt you.” Dictatious said as he let out a comforting and reassuring rumble noise. He heard the whelp chirp back happily as he heard tiny little feet approach him. He felt two little clawed hands touch his leg as he used all four of his arms to pick up the whelp and place them in their lap. He nuzzles the whelp as he feels the whelps matted fur probably filled with dust and grime. This little one really needed to be cleaned but it first needed to be comfortable with.
“It’s okay little I’m here. You came to the right troll. I'll help you out little one and maybe one day you’ll help our dark lord when you're old enough.” Dictatious said comforting as he ran his hands through the whelp’s fur untangling his fur. The whelps frantic chirping turned into calm purring as the youngling leaned into Dictatious.
The calm moment was ruined when hurried footsteps entered the library as he recognized the footsteps as the soldiers as they stopped near him. The gumm gumm soldiers looked at him and then at the whelp. One of the soldiers said something in trollish as Dictatious looked at you and then at the soldier.
“I’ll go to Gunmar with the whelp, lead me there.” Dictatious said as he stood up holding the whelp with one of his lower arms as the whelp's little arms hugged his chest. One of the soldiers approached him as they gave him their arm as Dictatious sat his hand on top of it. The soldier guided him through trollmarket as the whelp whimpered nervously. Dictatious responded with a reassuring chuff sound as the whelp calmed down. They made their way inside the dying heartstone where Gunmar sat at a throne. The Warlord looks up to see the Dictatious holding a very familiar whelp. The scene before him reminds him how he used to carry around Bular when he was a whelp.
“My lord? You requested seeing the whelp? Might ask why?” Dictatious said as the warlord stood up from his chair looking down at the old blind troll.
“Where there is a whelp that means their caretakers must be nearby meaning we have intruders. The whelp must know where their caretaker is, if not then they will be used as bait.”
Gunmar said coldly as the whelp begins to whimper again as Dictatious tries to comfort them with reassurance that the whelp is okay but the youngling only lets out a quiet trill in fear.
Gunmar keeps seeing himself with Bular when he tries to comfort the whelp when their partner never returned from a hunt. He remembers how many hours it took for him to calm Bular down enough to finally rest. Accidently though he let out a low comforting rumble of his own. They quickly responded with a happy chirp as it settled down in the blind troll's arms. Dictatious looked shocked as he couldn't believe Gunmar made that sound. The warlord quickly growls in anger as he gets up and grab’s Dictatious by the neck pinning him to the heartstone wall. The whelp in Dictatious arms falls to the floor as it cries out in distress.
“Do not mention this to anyone or I’ll pull out your tongue and feed you your fingers.” Gunmar said as he dropped Dictatious, watching his body hit the floor as Gunmar steps back. The whelps cries get more frantic and desperate as he feels around the floor trying to find anything familiar to grab and latch onto. The whelp grazes Gunmars foot as it quickly grabs onto it for dear life as he continues to let out terrified trills. Gunmar looks down at the whelp in anger but his gaze quickly softens as he sees his son in this young troll. He gently bends down and picks up the whelp placing it in the crook of his arm as he gets the youngling to lay back. The whelp's face is pointing directly at him as he hears the whelp let out a happy chirp. Gunmar goes to touch its fur but the youngling grabbed his hand and began to play with his clawed hand.
“Gunmar, may I have the whelp back?” Dictatious said nervously as the blind troll doesn’t want to get hit but also doesn’t want any harm to come to whelp. The warlord growls at the groveling troll but he huffs as he hands the whelp back to Dictatious as the old troll adjusts the whelp in his hands as he gets led out of the heartstone with the help of a soldier. He watches them leave as he sees the whelp peak around Dictatious chest and faces him. He watches as they attempt to mimic his growl as they both turn the corner. Now out of sight, Gunmar quietly laughs to himself that the whelp tried to sound scary. It was cute, no I am a warlord soon to be ruler of the surface. He can’t let this strange blind whelp cloud his mind.
Dictatious with the whelp secured he heads back to the library where he remembers finding a bucket of water that he can clean this whelp with. He arrives at the library as he places the whelp on the table and feels around for the bucket. Once found he grabbed a rag and damped it as he washed the whelps tiny furry body. The whelp fussed over the cold water but began to purr as Dictatious scrubbed its back. The old troll chuckled as the whelp tried to eat the rag.
“Oh you must be hungry. Hmm what to give, you seem old enough to consume solids. Here eat this young one. This is what humans call “silverware” It is quite tasty.” Dictatious said as he pulled out a handful of spoons and forks from a satchel on his belt. He placed all the silverware on the table as he held one spoon and placed it in front of the blind whelps mouth. The youngling sniffed it as he carefully licked it and then gently bit it. The whelp chirps happily as Dictatious continues to feed the whelp till he runs out of silverware. The young troll burps as Dictatious brings the youngling to his small nest. He places the whelp down as he lays next to him in the nest as he looks at the whelp once more.
“I wonder what your caretakers named you.” Dictatious said as he ran his fingers through the whelps fur as he purrs. The whelp face’s Dictatious as he attempts to say something but it comes out as more of a babble.
“Wa.” The whelp babbled out as he stuck his clawed hand in his mouth to grab his tongue. Dictatious laughed as a thought clicked in his mind.
“Why don’t I call you Warden little one.” Dictatious said as the whelp curled next to him as they both fell asleep.