All his life Dictatious assumed he'd amount to nothing. The constant feeling that his life was over before it really began was a sentiment that he shared with most trolls his age. After all, with everything falling apart around them, how could they not?
They were scrambling for survival within the wreckage of their troll market. Surrounded by the bells for the departed which were constantly ringing, to the point that with each passing knell, the life they represented lost its meaning… and soon the bells were just background noise that no one paid attention to.
It should have bothered him, perhaps once it would have, but between watching his parents growing weaker and trying to keep his younger brother from seeing just how desperate the situation was, Dictatious lost the will to care.
The heartstone, once so full of warmth and light, loomed its monstrous shadow over them all, black and cold. A reminder that their world was being torn apart by a vicious civil war. He was not a Trollhunter, he had no talent for war, he had no power in this situation, and so he did what the powerless usually did, he did nothing.
He took comfort in the books he could salvage from abandoned homes. The words on the gentle frayed pages transported him to more peaceful times, to strange new lands that he wished to see. Books and the knowledge held within their bindings were the only things he seemed capable of controlling. And he wanted to control more.
So Dictatious found himself looking for more books, more than anything, more than food, more than shelter, he looked for books. He refused to believe it was an obsession, thirst for knowledge...for the pursuit of "knowing" was not wrong, it couldn't be. And if he decided that he loved books more than his own kind well… all things considered... what difference would it make?
Eventually, though even books lost their novelty, and he grew tired of reading the deeds of greater trolls. So when Damascus was chosen as the Trollhunter and demanded all able bodied trolls to join his army regardless of military talent, Dictatious Without hesitation, without consulting his parents, packed up what little belonged to him, promised his brother he'd write, and he followed the Trollhunter, Determined to write down history in the making.
He should have known better. Truly, he should have...bearing witness to history meant having to see unspeakable horrors as well as inspiring glories. He wasn't prepared to see either, not Damascus's fall nor Dreya's rise. He certainly wasn't prepared to get captured by changelings at the Battle of Barnnek.
As he was being dragged through the Darklands damp, cold tunnels. Dictatious promised himself that no matter what, he would not reveal a thing. Absolutely nothing. What he knew was for him and him look at the Gumm-gumm leader and all the promises he had made fled him.
Till the end of his days, he'd remember that moment, when he first met Gunmar's gaze. An untamable storm thrashed within that flaming blue eye.
Terrible and fascinating, that azure gaze offered him a future.
Entranced as he was Dictatious didn't even think when he offered the only thing he had.
Knowledge of Dreya, of the Amulet, of the soldiers, even of potential military alliances He and Dreya had discussed. That terrible blue eye blazed with every word and Gunmar smiled, vicious and cruel, but a smile none the less and Dictatious found he was smiling back.
He knew then, that Gunmar would win. His glorious victory was inevitable, no matter how many Trollhunters the amulet chose. And in the bowels of the darklands with all the Gumm-gumms and changelings as witnesses. Dictatious pledged his cause to Gunmar's.
It was cold, it was treacherous, it was dishonorable, it should have bothered him… perhaps once it would have. But the promise of glory and history in the making was too tempting, and Dictatious chose to not care.