Ever since the adult trolls left, the plan for troll life was always hazy at best. The little grubs had lusi to keep them alive, but as for their destinies, as for what they were really supposed to be, nothing was every clear. The only clues were tied up in forbidden stories, in secret journals, in forgotten histories.
And in blood.
You have known this, known it better than any other troll you had encountered. Something inside you could not forget or ignore what troll blood holds. Without schools to teach you, without adult voices to guide you, you know that blood is the only real identity behind the grey anonymity of skin. There is more of the past in blood than in hidden heirlooms, more of the future there than in vague dreams, more of the present there than the others wanted to admit. Trolls' blood holds what you are, what you were, what you will be.
What you should be.
There was a system in this blood, once, that all trolls understood. It was called the hemospectrum ,and it wasn't hard to understand. It was even color-coded for convenience. The purple-blooded were cultured, cruel, powerful, and perfect. They had unflinching certainty that the world was theirs, and when it was not, they made it so. The blues were their support, the muscle that kept the beautiful rainbow in place. The blues ensured that the other trolls kept their places, with the green serving the public, the yellow powering the stations, and the brown and dark red as the filthy, solid ground on which the society could tread. They kept very color perfectly where it should be. The purples ruled the world, but the blues kept the order. They prevented the colors from drifting apart, from becoming isolated fragments, from creating a selfish anarchy where nothing could root or grow.
You were born the essence of blue, the only color compass in a world without direction. Something in your blood cried out against your entire generation. Your peers knew their colors, but they only used them for childish taunts and otherwise forgot about them. You tried to correct them, but you could not do it on your own. Your body was strong, but you could only further break what needed to be put back together. Your command was powerful, but your attempts to organize these colored beings only drew them further away from you. You were a powerful muscle spasming violently, moving with purpose but without direction, unable to fix this broken system. It was not that you weren't intelligent, in your own way. You kept your language pristine, your knowledge current, and could even create robotic beings that could withstand your touch. You simply did not have the right kind of mind for rebuilding the system. You could enforce, but you could not plan. You could crush, but you could not dominate.
In the end, you were only Equius the blue blood. Like the horses that were your namesake, you were a proud, powerful beast. Weaker, more cunning beings had conquered and used your kind for generations, and now you needed this. For all of your strength, you were thoroughly tamed. You needed someone to ride you, to steer you, to make you carry out their will.
You needed a master.
When you turned to the only land-dwelling purple blood to be found, that glorious caste that had shaped the world according to its will, you found him a crass, intoxicated, naively egalitarian disgrace. You wanted to be his tool, but he would not have you. He had no desires, no plans to break and re-mould these disobedient fragments, no orders for you to carry out on the insolent masses. In fact, when you told him to stop poisoning himself and command you properly, he obliged as if your will was worth more than his own. It was in the throes of your frustration with him, your ache to serve him and your hatred at his unworthiness, that you saw what you had become. You were no more than a piece of an ancient machine, destined to run something that did not exist.
Needless to say, you started becoming... odd after that.