"Did you see this, Pabbie?"
Pabbie looked up from the tree stump before him and said to the other troll while waving his staff, "Look at this stump, Ond. I didn't know trees keep a record as we did." His rough hand traced around two bands of thick dark and light. "Our days of infamy have already left its mark on this place."
The troll before Pabbie held a glimmering, reflective object. Even without touching it himself, he felt a pull to gaze into it.
"Keep that away from me, you know I want nothing to do with those things."
"It's gotten worse."
"How so? It's one thing to lose all our powers, but that… thing has robbed this world of its peace. Are you saying there's more to come?"
"Yes. The shards have spread too far. We can't find them fast enough to destroy them."
"So, what's that in your hand? Are you not going to destroy that one, too?"
"We've already discussed this."
Pabbie shook his head. "All I'm saying is that the mirror wants to be whole again, and what then, if the wrong troll comes along and hoards enough pieces?"
"We know better."
"Do we? Is that what kept us from creating it in the first place?" Pabbie sighed. "Do you know what perplexes me? How you managed to find a method to destroy something so saturated in magic."
"We created the mirror; we can destroy it also."
"That mirror was made up of magic. We didn't create magic, we only manipulated it for our own uses." Pabbie looked around when the sound of rolling rocks crunched around him. Sets of dark eyes on boulder bodies watched their discussion. "This old tree had recorded decades of history. Do you see this?" He pointed to the giant light band. "We've collected this world of its magic so thoroughly, there was not a trace left. This here" — he pointed to the thick dark ring that continued all the way to the bark— "is ever since the mirror shattered and unleashed the magic trapped within, tainted and morphed for our own uses." He dragged his hand across the entirety of the stump. "These lines of dark and light have always existed, but never in such quantity."
"Those are just rain lines."
"Not in a place that hasn't seen rain ever since we've called this place our own."
Pabbie exhaled and drew out his next words. "The others are… I… we know what you've been planning. You have two choices: stop and step down, or we will force you."
"What am I planning?"
"These broken pieces… you've becoming obsessed with them. You're no longer fit to be our leader."
"I'm not obsessed, I'm driven! We've committed a horrible crime, and we need to fix it."
"No, not fix. Atone. It's beyond fixing by our own means."
"Is it not the right thing to do?"
"Not when we are so easily swayed and fragile to what the mirror was. History will only repeat itself."
"We're the only ones who can fix this!"
The snap of branches caused them to turn their heads. They saw a looming figure approach. The trolls tucked into themselves, pretending to be boulders. Fur-skin covered feet plodded by them, pausing beside the boulder of their leader. A rustle of fur, leather, and fiber stooped.
Oh no, did the human see the mirror shard?
"No, not this clearing, must be in the other one," the human said to herself out loud before leaving their clearing.
Coast clear, the trolls unfurled themselves.
They balked at the mirror piece still laying on the ground.
"This proves it," Pabbie said. "The humans don't feel the draw to the mirror as we do. I believe they are more equipped regarding these shards than we are."
"That was a fluke. The humans are too naive, but once they know what the shards are—"
"Ond, you need to step down."
"No, I know more about these glass shards than anyone else. I have to be the one to correct this."
"Ond—"
"You can't give this responsibility to the humans!" the other troll picked up the dropped shard and clutched his fist around it. "Look at what it cost us. What do you think it will cost them?"
To be honest, Pabbie didn't want to think about how much it would cost humankind. "It will…"
"It will cost them more than they would be willing to give up. And what if that human earlier was a fluke?"
"If we were to try to destroy the mirror and fail, every troll would pay the price. The humans might be luckier if there were more that didn't react to its corruption."
"It's our fault. We should be the ones to fix it."
"Not alone. We will only guide but have no other part in it." Detesting seeing the shard in Ond's hand, the power that it contained, the almost-singing and lull it gave off just being around it. The almost-taste of the words it almost-sung made Pabbie realize why Ond had this shard above all others. It contained the magic of prophecy.
The look on Ond's face showed what he intended to do with it. And it didn't take foresight to know that should that magic continue in its physical state, it could fall into the hands of another Ond.
A quick smack with his staff. A grapple on the floor to wrest the shard away. It was now in Pabbie's possession. He could already feel its power wanting to leech into him.
Ond gasped, "Pabbie—"
"Ond, step down. If you do not—"
"You wouldn't. You know the cost."
"For the good of our people? I would do anything."
Ond's rough face scowled. Pabbie responded in kind. He closed his eyes and crushed the shard. It dissipated and flowed into the air around them, a gust of wind billowed out around them before everything felt still.
Ond shook Pabbie by his shoulders, making him open his eyes.
"Why did you do that?" Ond asked, panicked.
"To spare our people. To give the humans a chance to prove themselves."
There was movement at the corner of his sight, a gleam its outline. A troll his age knew that it was a vision of the future. He knew it was a risk to dissolve the shards, a risk to taint himself. Hopefully, it was only brief and had no lasting effects. But the vision told him otherwise. Chaos. Sorrow. Darkness. But despite it all, there was a single ray of light.
The ray of light was fading.
"The humans will prove themselves," Pabbie said.
Author's Note: So um... ta da? I'm still alive. Sorry I haven't updated anything in years, but I'm back! Kinda? Hopefully my writing ability hasn't deteriorated since then. I've actually been sitting on this chapter, half-finished, for years. Sad, right? Welp, didn't want to leave it half-finished so I forced myself to write it all out despite the lack of direction I wanted this to go, but hopefully the following ones will be easier since it's finally at the point where it's more interesting.
(And for those who also follow my Death, Personified trilogy thing, it's sad to admit that I've also been sitting on a half-written chapter for that one for years, so hopefully that one is going to get TLC from me next.)