Hannah Scheck
8-20-13
English Hour 5
Mrs. Smith

The Couple, the Witch Doctor, and the "Lucky" Dice.

Prologue: A Brief History of Trolls.

Here we begin our story, the planet known as Beforus. Here, we start with a troll. Now I suppose you would like to know what a troll is exactly… No it is not one of those ugly little creatures who live under bridges. This kind of troll is very different, alien even. These trolls have thick gray skin, and eyes which are yellow, with black pupils. All of these creatures have hair as black as night, though they can dye it, and some do. Every troll, no matter the planet is nocturnal. They have signs on their shirts, most in their blood color. No, they don't all have red blood. That would be extremely boring. These colors spread all across the spectrum, from burgundy to Tyrian purple. The closer the blood is to burgundy, the lower it is, while on the other hand, the closer it is to Fuchsia, the higher it is. These trolls go by a blood-color-caste system. These trolls also have horns that sprout from their head, somehow related to their signs on their shirts.

These trolls begin as grubs, and grow to pupatation, though at times… there are mutations. Mutations of figure, such as sprouting wings much like our main character, or a blood mutation, where the color is bright, Brighter than fire, brighter than the green sun, brighter than the Skaian sky itself. Usually, trolls with these colors are culled on sight, but there are just a few exceptions, though very rare. Each blood color has a special sort of powers. Burgundy bloods speak and control spirits, bronze bloods speak with animals, a skill called Cavalreaping. The Mustard, or Yellow bloods have psionic powers. Olive bloods specialize in hunting most of the time. Jade bloods, the rarer of the lower bloods are Rainbow Drinkers, Vampires. Those, and the mutant blooded colors are the lower bloods, the higher bloods begin at teal. The teal blooded trolls seem to specialize in affairs of the legal and justice types. Cerulean bloods are mind manipulators. Blue or Indigo bloods are the strongest, Purple bloods are… usually in some sort of cult, and speak of the messiahs. Violet bloods are sea dwellers, as are Fuchsia bloods.

All of these trolls up to this point have lived on two planets. Beforus, which was destroyed, and Alternia, also destructed. These two planets were destroyed because of a game, called Sgrub, but that is a story for another time.

Now then, let us get to our story…

Chapter One: The Witch Doctor's Hut.

We begin with a troll, her name is Rufiah Nitram. Her matesprit, or in human terms boyfriend, Horuss Zahhak sits silently beside her as the T.V. screen flashes in the unlit room. As the show ends, the young woman of 9.9 sweeps (19 human years) flicks off the television and looks over to Horuss. This young lady was representing the sign of the Taurus. Her horns stuck out much like a bull's, the colors very close to those of a piece of candy corn. Her hair was black, with the tips dyed bright red, and was perfectly spiked. She wore a tattered red T-shirt with a black stripe across the chest, her sign in her bronze blood color on the black. Her jeans were skin tight and black with little red puffs of fur going down the front. Her wings were tucked to her back, relaxed at the moment. Her eyes had just begun to have a lovely brown iris appear around the black that dominated her pupil.

Horuss looked to his darling sweet heart and his everlasting smile grew. Horuss was much higher than Rufiah in blood, and usually would never once think of dating lower on the spectrum. When he saw her though, his heart raced and it was like a fairy tale with love at first sight. Horuss was a strong troll, his long black hair pulled up into a ponytail with some in his face. His goggles, which strapped around his head in a rather intricate way prevented his hair from leaving the ponytail he had it pulled up into, and the goggles almost always covered his eyes. He was very uptight most of the time, and his clothes usually consisted of leather, shiny bronze buttons, and his tall boots, which went about half way up his lower leg. He cleared his throat before speaking in a deep, yet pleasant tone.
"Rufiah, how about we go for a small trot outside? I believe it is a wonderful night, and we could watch the stars." he said, and Rufiah's reply was as he expected.
"Yeah sure doll, that sounds pretty sweet. I can stretch out my wings for a bit too." Her own voice was kind of smooth, deeper than most of her other friends' voices. She stood and went to the door, slipping on her combat boots, and Horuss followed pursuit, putting on his shoes and going out after she did.

Rufiah's hive was built into a tree. The blues of the bark and leaves around her made it so the sunlight was dulled greatly in the day; it looked a lot like sunshine when under water, and it was absolutely amazing. Rufiah opened her wings with a small swoosh, and they spread out, her wing span being roughly ten feet. She was a fairy and the tree was her little hollow.

"I'll meet you down there Horuss, try not to fall please, wouldn't want you getting hurt or anything." She said, and soon flew down to the ground below as Horuss began his climb down.
They reached the ground and soon began to walk. They went along in silence and after a moment the two decided on going to a nearby village.

Upon entering, they were greeted with kind smiles, and happy grins. Rufiah went over to hug a friend before re-joining Horuss and continuing their walk. The two walked, looking around shops as they went, and enjoying the little trinkets they saw. As they were walking between two stores, another troll came out, higher than Horuss in blood and around the same age as them. He had thick black curly hair, face make up with dark circles around his eyes, and stitches over his mouth that had enough slack to allow him to speak.

"Welcome to town folks. How about you two take a look inside my Witching Hut?" he asked, his voice having an odd sinister undertone to it. Rufiah and Horuss looked to each other, and then Rufiah shrugged and decided to follow the Highblood. The two entered the shop, and were greeted by a shorter troll, with a sweater that was the brightest red Rufiah had ever seen. As the young man looked to them, he had a look of slight surprise on his face.

"So you brought in two more innocent people to ruin with your little gifts?" He asked only to be answered by the highblood.
"Yes. I did. I do run a business after all Kankri." The purple blood said, and frowned.

"Well Kurloz excuse me for being wary of their wellbeing." The other replied, and leaned against the counter.

Kurloz cleared his throat and smiled at the lovely couple.

"Can I interest you two in anything? Maybe a love potion of luck or something to get revenge on one who did you wrong?" he asked, showing off a few items.

"Nah, not really, what do you have in that case over there?" Rufiah asked, and moved over to it. Kurloz's eyes lit up.

"Oh! The Lucky Dice of Marquise Spinnerette Mindfang, thirty-five boon dollars for those."

"What kind of deal is that?!" She yelled.

"It's not. It's full price." He said blatantly.

"For eight dice, are you mad?!" She seemed pretty upset.

"Oh only the best people are darling." He said with a grin. Rufiah sighed and reluctantly removed her money and handed it over, then took the dice and walked out with Horuss.

"Let's get out of here before the sun comes up." She muttered.

Chapter Two: Two Down, One to Go.

The two sat there in the living room on the floor with the dice between them. They looked at one another in silence, having an odd mental conversation until Rufiah slowly picked up the dice and rolled. They tumbled around and as they did she muttered her wish.

"I wish I had more confidence, in myself and others." And soon enough, all of the dice had landed.
"One, four, thirteen, fifteen, nineteen, twenty-four, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, oh okay then that's good… twenty-nine isn't a multiple." She smiled lightly, but didn't feel anything quite different. After waiting for a bit she looked around, looked to Horuss, and shrugged.

"Guess they're a fake, oh well then," She paused to stand, "Let's call it a night. Maybe then it'll do something." Horuss nodded in response.

"Hopefully… Otherwise you wasted thirty-five boon dollars towards a nice lunch we could have gotten." Horuss said as if it were just kind of casual. Rufiah soon left the room, rolling her eyes. Horuss on the other hand stayed in place, watching the dice which stared back up at him, longing and pleading for him to use his wish. He sighed and went to them, picking each of the eight up, and rolling, slowly speaking his own wish.

"I wish to read the thoughts of those around my person." He said, and as the dice landed they seemed to slow down as if time itself was being rearranged. He counted them up in his head. Eight, thirteen, seventeen, twenty-two, twenty-nine, thirty-three, thirty-eight… forty; his roll was a multiple of eight. He cursed silently, and soon heard his name being called. He gathered the dice and put them away, then hurried to bed with his darling matesprit.

Chapter Three: Confidence, Madness, and Death.

Rufiah awoke in her recooperacoon soon after the sun went down and night began to fall. She was always up very early, and something about today just seemed wonderful. She stood and made breakfast for her boyfriend, who was still asleep of course. She looked at that cook book she had never used, always having thought she wasn't good enough. She picked it up, leafing through pages, and soon enough she was cooking something nice from the recipes given.

Horuss awoke as he smelt grub sauce, which was odd seeing as how usually he also smelt some kind of burning with it. Rufiah was good at cooking the East Beforian foods yes, but things like simple pancakes; it didn't seem natural. He got up and went to the kitchen.

"Good morning Rufiah," He paused a moment, "What are you making, Pancakes?" He asked.

"Yep, I sure am." She grinned lightly and ran a hand through her hair. "I think I'm doing pretty well too. Nothing's burnt yet."

"I may go for a walk before eating if that's okay with you darling."

"Not a problem at all babe, go right ahead. I should be done when you get back." With that he was gone.

He walked quietly along the street, going to the village again. He walked in silence until he heard a voice. He frowned, and looked around, then saw a girl glaring at him. He heard rude thoughts before they walked off. He thought it was just a coincidence and continued forward until finally he was in town square. After a few moments of just standing there though, the voice got louder, and another joined in, then another. Each voice spoke badly of him, and it made him nervous. He turned to go and ran into someone, apologizing and continuing. Then he heard harsh thoughts from their head to his. He put his hands on his head and hurried along a bit more quickly. Voices pounded around in his skull and made him dizzy, though they ebbed away as he entered the forest again. He sat against a tree and sighed, putting his fingers to his temples and gently rubbing.

"What on Beforus was that?" he quietly questioned. He stood again when the pain was gone and went back home. He looked at Rufiah as he entered, and saw her face kind of contort from happy, to worried.

"Something's wrong. I can see it… what happened doll?" she asked, and he took a seat by her before replying.

"I'll just come out with it. I used my wish last night. I wished to read thoughts, hoping it'd make things easier. Everything is wrong though. All I hear is bad thoughts about me, as if everyone I can hear hates me. I rolled a multiple of eight… So that must be why it's happening."

"Oh jeez… I feel so bad for getting my wish." She muttered. "I'm sorry I really should've let you roll first doll."

"No. You should have never bought the dice in the first place."

"What do you mean? Are you blaming this all on me?" she asked, looking at him a bit shocked.

"Yes. Actually I am. I cannot stand here with my horrid wish while you get exactly what you wanted. It's as if you never even got a wish at all. You have all the confidence you could ever want and now you're so happy while I'm suffering."

"What? I just wanted us to have fun together; I didn't think the stupid dice would work. What do you want me to do wish it was back to normal? Wish it was a dream? What can I possibly do to fix what you got yourself into?"

"Yes. I do. Wish it had never happened. Wish we had never gotten those idiotic dice. I don't care what happens but I don't want to have these horrid things going through my head for the rest of my life I will go mad." At this Rufiah rolled her eyes and grabbed the dice, rolling.

"Fine then, I wish this were all a dream, and that it never happened." Then the two watched the dice…

Eight, Eight, Eight, Eight, Eight, Eight, Eight, Eight.

The two looked at each other in silence, eyes wide and terrified. Then there was nothing.

Epilogue: Waking in the Bubble.

Rufiah awoke with a start in her recooperacoon, looking around. She climbed out quickly, getting dried and dressed. She then ran to the bathroom and looked into the mirror. Her eyes were no longer yellow, with her black pupils and brown irises. They were white, lifeless, and dead. She ran outside, almost tripping over her doormat and looked up into the sky. The sky was dark, with a bit of sheen. She was in a dream bubble, dead. What did that mean for the others? Her question was answered as soon as she looked down. There she saw Horuss, Kurloz, and Kankri all standing there waiting for her to awake, all of them having known she'd be up soon. They looked up, and each one smiled, but it wasn't a normal smile. They knew something, just as she did, as if they had all been in the dream as well. Then in the first time Kurloz had spoken in years, he simply said.

"No refunds Rufiah."

With that, Kurloz and Kankri walked away, leaving Rufiah to fly down and sob into her matesprit's arms.