You wake up to the moonlight shining through the mouth of your cave.

You stretch, arching your back and yawning, your mouth wide and your fangs protruding cruelly from your gums. But when you blink your olive eyes, they are kind and thoughtful. Your thick black hair is snarled and tangled. Your face is angular and hard, weathered by your time outside. Muscles ripple underneath your skin, corded and balanced. You're quite proud of your muscles, which are a necessity in the wild. In the flickering coals, your gray skin shines, scars crossing every surface of your uncovered flesh. Furs and pelts of all sorts of animals are draped across your wiry body, shielding you from the cold and the light of multiple suns that sometimes comes through the mouth of the cave.

You soon turn to your unfinished meal from the night before, a half eaten carcass carelessly tossed on the floor. Kneeling, you rip a chunk of flesh off, swallowing. A good hunt indeed, you think as you lick the blood off of your lips.

As the moon rises higher in the Alternian sky, you creep out of your cave, glancing upwards. You live by yourself, hunting food, gathering supplies for trade. You are a KEEPER OF THE WILDS, along with others of your olive hemospectrum. Your blood provides immunities to diseases, helps digest raw food better, and allows you incredible speed and strength for one of such a lower caste. Centuries and centuries ago, the wild forests and mountains of Alternia had been given to you and the other olive bloods to guard and roam. Nowadays, you gather herbs, animals, furs, gems from the mountains and other exotic wares and sell them at markets in far off towns, or trade with the other merchants. Most of the time, the olive blooded trolls live together in clans and move with the seasons, but some choose to remain alone.

You are a young troll, only about 8 sweeps old. But the wild has hardened and trained you and you are an able fighter and one of the best hunters of your caste level – of any caste level, really. Your people hide you from the world, from the evil Empresses. But it has never even really felt like a burden to live there. You love the trees and animals, and you wouldn't want to leave for anything. But deep down, you feel... Incomplete? Unfinished? Lonely? You don't know. Sitting there, staring at the giant moon in the sky, you wonder. Inside you, you feel that your life isn't where it is supposed to be. Something is missing, something you long for with a hard, painful ache deep in your chest, but you don't even know what it is you miss.

Restless, you shift the skins on your back and leap lightly from the opening of your cave. You pounce lightly from rock to rock, stopping once to glance at your Lusus at the foot of the cave. She raises her head, blinking her white eyes at you briefly and purring, two deep, rumbling vibrations that immediately make you feel a little better. You lean close, pushing your face into her fur and breathing deeply. You croon a bit, and then scramble away off into the forest at the foot of your cave.

Once inside, you run, quietly and swiftly. This is your territory, and you love the wilds. When you run past trees and fronds of plants, you brush your hands against them. You stop to pick the fruit off of trees, tasting the ambrosia and nectar of your home. You pause once to sip the cold, sweet, clean spring water that runs and trickles through the trees, exotic flowers growing on the banks. Lazily, you bat at a few fish that swim past, but you have no hunger and so you let them wriggle on, when suddenly you hear a sound!

You stop, your head snapping up and your cat eyes dilating. Twisting your head back and forth, you try to detect the sound, which isn't very difficult.

Someone is blundering through your forest, cursing lowly underneath their breath. You can hear their ragged breathing, and the metallic taste of blood wafts through the brush. You wrinkle your nose, trying to find the color of it, but it is a color you have never tasted or smelled before. If anything, it had to be similar to the animals you hunt... But that can't be right. It is definitely a troll heading towards you.

You slide back into the trees, following the sounds. It doesn't take you long to find the source. You stop, your green eyes unblinking as you observe.

It is a male troll. He is taller than you, but how difficult is that? His black hair is curly and clings to his sweaty and clammy face. His features are strong and sharp, but currently furrow in pain and agony. He somehow looks up into your eyes, even though you are hidden behind a tree. His eyes are a bright, bright red, a red unlike anything you have ever seen before. And when you glance down, you see the same color of brilliant red blood staining his heavy cloak and hands, falling to the forest floor.

"Help me..." he rasps before slumping to the ground.

You stare at his body for a bit, paralyzed. Then he coughs up more of that strange, red blood. It spurts out of his mouth, splattering against the ground. You jump, the red liquid shining in the moonlight.

What am I doing? You think, distressed. He needs help! With a swift movement, you pick him up, slinging him over you shoulder. He isn't that heavy, really, but his blood flows out, scattering across the ground.

That needs to be fixed.

You take him to the stream, laying him down gently. Softly, you take his cloak off, ripping it into long shreds. Then you identify the wound. There are several; some are gashes and some are slices and some are punctures. You let out a distressed hiss, peeling off his clothes to reveal sculpted muscles and scars. You use the leftover scraps of the cloak and dip them in the stream, washing away the blood on his skin. With each touch, his body flinches and he gasps, pain wrenching throughout him. You bite your lip, carefully tying the bandages made from the cloak. As soon as you are done, you pick him back up and splash upstream, his blood flow staunched and your smell erased by the lively water.

You reach your cave soon, stopping by your Lusus. You let her know that she should tell you if anyone comes by. Lazily, she blinks her eyes.

Once inside, you set the troll down by the dying coals and wait for him to wake up.