Daylight faded from the backyard, though light still reflected through the sky, lending light to those with poor night-vision, and dulled senses of smell (it was astounding how primitive humans were sometimes!).
Draal snorted, stepping out into the yard. The Trollhunter was crouched beside a blanket-draped troll, a young whelp by the scent of it. "Who is this then?"
"I- I don't know. He scrambled over the fence. The daylight hurt him. Could you give me a hand?"
Draal sighed and walked out, pulling the blanket aside so he could assess the damage. A troll of Blinky's clan, the whelp had four arms and six eyes, small horns that were only just beginning to grow, the bare tips of his teeth just poking out above his lower lip, and matted hair. The lower right arm and much of his right side was sun-stained, as well as part of his face and eyes, and other glancing spots as they'd run through the trees. And that didn't even cover the multitude various nicks and scratches that were bleeding sluggishly.
Draal scented the air again and frowned, prodding a few of the wounded areas with surprising gentleness. He determined that most of the damage was on the surface, though some the deeper wounds were rather suspicious. What was so young a troll doing outside of Trollmarket, and away from their parents?
Deeming the female whelp stable enough to pick up and move around, Draal wrapped the blanket more snugly around her and scooped her up, taking care with the sun-stained wounds, moving back into the house. The warrior brought the whelp straight to the basement, setting her down before the furnace.
Jim trailed after him, concern on his features. "I have to go to Trollmarket soon. I plan to tell Blinky about him," Jim gestured at the unconscious troll, "Do you think he'll be able to help him?"
"/Her/, Trollhunter. The whelp is female, and terribly young to be wandering alone." Draal corrects, sitting beside the troll girl like an overly muscled mother hen.
"Alright, do you think Blinky will be able to help her?" Jim amends, sitting beside the wounded troll as well. If he were to guess, Jim would say the young troll was about Toby's height, features softer than Blinky's in her youth.
"I certainly hope so." Draal replies, glancing down at the smallish figure.
Jim nodded once, glanced once more at the small troll he'd rescued, and ascended the basement stairs, tidying up the house before his departure to Trollmarket.
He checked in with Draal one last time before going on his way, meeting up with Toby nearer the canal.
Blinky and Aaarrrggh were waiting underneath the bridge, having just opened the way with the horngazel.
"Blinky, Aaarrrggh!"
"Master Jim!"
"Something wrong?" Aaarrrgh asks, sniffing the air around the Trollhunter.
"Yeah, something is very wrong! A young troll just appeared in my backyard, she's hurt!"
"Well, then we mustn't delay. Let us go forth!"
Upon reaching the house, Jim first checked to make sure his mom wasn't home. The coast was clear, but he was surprised to find the troll girl on the kitchen floor, the blanket draped more haphazardly over.
Immediately dropping beside the troll whelp, Blinky pulled the blanket off; then tugged the fabric back up around her waist, clearing his throat uncomfortably. But, he examined her wounds regardless, noting areas where the sun-stained patches were lingering, or fading, the deep gouges in arm and side and face, the bleeding sluggish, but not slowing on its own.
"We must get her to Trollmarket. Vendel will have the medicines needed to heal her properly." That said, Blinky laboriously picked up the troll whelp, huffing slightly as he maneuvered back out the door. Aaarrrggh, who had poked his head inside but not fully entered, backed away to give Blinky some room.
He held out his arms, asking, "Need help?"
He opened his mouth to refuse, before seeing the wisdom in allowing his big friend to carry the young whelp. It had been some time since he had seen another of his clan, and he was reluctant to let them out of his sight. At the same time, there was no point in overtaxing himself now if his services may be required later.
Aaarrrggh took the young troll gently, maneuvering over the fence, and lumbering off towards Trollmarket with Blinky, Jim, and Toby trailing after him. Into Trollmarket they went, navigating the marketplace with little hassle and, made straight for Vendel. Blinky followed close behind Aaarrrggh, fretting quietly to himself over the state the troll whelp was in. The fact that she'd hardly stirred in all this time was alarming him, to say the least.
Entering the elder troll's quarters, Vendel rose, glancing over them, his blind gaze lingering a moment upon the troll whelp before gesturing towards the nest nearby. Aaarrrggh nodded and set her down gently, lightly nudging one of her arms onto the nest proper, rather than hanging off the side.
Jim explained how he had come to find her as Vendel examined and treated various wounds, taking care with a hand where the sun-staining had seeped in deep, and an eye on the same side that had taken significantly more damage. Aside from some nicks from some sort of blade, already long-sinced healed, the rest of the wounds were self-inflicted by the young one's own claws.
This was very troubling, as was the fact that the only clothes she had was a skirt that had been shredded to the the point of indecency, and recently at that.
Blinky's ears flattened when Vendel gave him the news, glancing at the troll whelp with obvious concern. He saw then that one of her ears was pricked towards them, obviously listening.
Vendel noticed this as well, remarking to Blinky as the six-eyed troll scampered over, "Ah, it seems our mysterious friend is awake."
Blinky gently tilted the girls face up, asking, "Can you open your eyes?" as another hand brushing over the long bristly hair, pushing it away from her eyes.
She did as he asked, though one of her left eyes was encrusted with lifeless stone and refused to open. Blue eyes, crystalline, looked up at him, recognition sparking within them, a startled intake of breath. "Blinky . . . ?"
"That is indeed I, though how you know me by sight I am curious to know." Blinky replied, suddenly intrigued but trying to remember caution in the back of his mind. Her eyes, he noted, were very unusual, the like of which he hadn't seen before in those of his clan. "For I have never seen you before this time."
The young whelp slowly shook her head, wincing sharply as more of the pain became apparent. "I don't know . . . ow. . ."
Vendel came to the side of the nest now, and the young whelps eyes sparked with recognition once again, mingled with confusion this time.
"I am glad to see you are awake. You have many wounds -most of which are very concerning- and have been unconscious for quite some time. How do you feel?"
"Stiff . . . and oddly heavy. Everything feels weird . . . and everything else looks fuzzy." she answered slowly, minutely shifting underneath the blanket, testing her body for herself as she replied.
"Hmm. Well, I saw no signs of a concussion. Can you recall how you were injured in this way? Many of your wounds appear to have been dealt by your hands." Vendel asks, leaning over her a little.
The whelps face scrunched as she struggled to recall. At last, she said, "I . . . was in pain. Everything hurt. I think . . . I tried to hold myself, I was so afraid, felt like I was. . . about to lose all of myself. Then . . . there was the sunlight. I fled and collapsed. . . someone helped me." she faltered a moment, eyes shutting, a grimace on her face. "I . . . I /think/ someone helped me. I can't remember much besides pain . . ."
Vendel nodded his head, stroking his gray beard. "Can you remember your name?"
Blinky began to remark, "Of course she does, that's-"
"No! I . . . I don't remember . . ."
Completely derailed, Blinky looked back down at the young girl, somewhere in her eighties or nineties, still just a child. A note of panic in her voice, a clear struggle as she attempted to recall her own name, and failed.
"Calm down, young whelp. There is nothing to panic over. However you came to forget, you are safe here." Vendel laid a gentle hand on one of her shoulders, halting her panic in a heartbeat. "Whomever you may choose to be, if you cannot remember, is up to you. Just know that there are those more than willing to help you, here."
The whelp nodded slowly, shifting slightly under the blankets. Vendel stood, but before he left, she spoke again, "Mabye I can't remember much . . . but I do recall someone saying 'Silver' . . . calling it out into the darkness. I . . .would like to be known as Silver, until I can figure out my own past."
Vendel raised his brows, the name unconventional among trolls, but nodded once and continued on his way. Blinky watched him go, then turned back to the young whelp.
"Silver? An unusual name, to be fair, among trolls." he remarks.
Her ears flattening somewhat, defensive suddenly. "It felt right, and I am sticking with it!"
"I am not arguing your choice, young Silver. Are you in any pain?" Blinky inclined his head, a little surprised at the vehemence of her response.
Silver shook her head slowly. "No . . ."
"Good! Let me or Vendel know if you feel it coming back, and he or I can give you more." Blinky smiled, but it slipped a little when Silver lifted her head just a little, peering down at her blanket-covered self.
"Am . . . I roughed up that badly? I feel like it should hurt more . . . I feel so weird." Her face screwed up slightly in confusion, but she lowered her head a few moments later.
"If you need to rest, you may. I have some other matters to attend to, but I will be by later." Blinky said softly, pulling the blanket more snugly around her shoulders.
Silver blinked up at him, then nodded and turned her head to the side, eyes closing. Blinky remained at her side for several more minutes, until her breathing was even and steady. Standing slowly, he left, glancing back at her before rounding the corner and making his way out of Vendel's quarters. Leaving the Heartstone behind altogether, the historian made of the Hero's Forge, where Aaarrrggh, Master Jim, and Tobias were training.
Or rather, supposed to be. They were taking a break by the time he arrived, and he quickly got them to work. All he said on the matter of the whelp Silver was that she would live, and recover. He ignored all other questions in favor of training once more.
FINESTSILVERFINESTSILVERFINESTSILVERFINESTSILVERFINESTSILVERFINESTSILVERFINESTSILVERFINESTSILVER
A few days later, Silver was going a bit mad laying around in bed. Where Vendel had been kind to her, distributing medicines and offering food and drink, Blinky's presence was overbearing.
Not to say that she didn't dislike the troll, but she wanted to get up and move around, and he had firmly stamped the idea out of existance, "Not until you're fully healed!" he had proclaimed, helping her to eat some kind of meet and fire-toasted mushrooms on skewers the day previous. He could never stay for particularly long, and half the time when he left he muttered something about training someone.
She was more than ready to stand up, walk around, and figure out where she was. She wanted to explore and learn, and didn't appreciate that little information had been offered to her so far.
So, one day shortly after Blinky had left and Vendel retired to his own nest, she pushed her arms underneath her and sat up with a pained grunt. The blanket falling away, she glanced over herself, the first good look she'd gotten since waking up a few days ago. Already aware of her four arms, she lifted each of them in turn now, feeling the oddness of her thick stone-skin as she slowly moved each individual finger.
It took effort on her part to move the lower set at all, predisposed to the upper one, for some reason or another. Next, she examined her stubby legs, kicking them back and forth lightly.
/Won't be able to move very fast with these,/ she noted, turning her attention to her torso and scant clothing. /Oh dear. . . did I. . . did I really do this to myself. . .?/
Largely ignoring the few lingering patches of sun-stained flesh, Silver's attention remained fixated on various gouges dug into her skin, primarily on her sides and shoulders. Probing the marks, she winced, feeling the warning throb of pain, and proceeded with greater care, testing the limits as she stretched and twisted her body. Next feeling at her face, finger brushing over her nose, her six eyes -one of which was encrusted with stone and could not see- and the errant clawmarks that were scattered over her skull, cheeks, and one side of her throat.
She truly wasn't in any shape to do anything even remotely athletic, but Silver remained resolute about her decision. Edging her way off the bed, she landed on her feet with a thump. She grabbed the edge when she wobbled, and slowly began to walk along the edge of it, recovering her balance. When she was satisfied that she wouldn't simply collapse midway through her little foray, Silver then grabbed the discarded human blanket and tied it around her waist with some difficulty.
Whatever she had been wearing before had been properly shredded, and she wasn't about to go running around half-naked. Moving with caution and near-silence, Silver followed the corridor that Blinky always seemed to take, soon finding herself outside the glowing red-orange walls of Vendel's home.
What greeted her was the sight of a simply massive cavern, stretching high up overhead, littered with crystals of various sizes and shapes and colors, all aglow with magic. Illuminated by this light, she noted the bridge that sprawled out in front of her, the dotted lights coming from small windows across the cavern to her left, and to her right, noted the darkened, empty stands of what must be the Marketplace proper.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Silver made her way down the bridge, and from there into a deep, wide crevice. It took her many long minutes worth of wandering to find the tunnel that opened out into Trollmarket. She suspected that the others lead to private homes or shops or who knows where?
Now within Trollmarket itself, she began to poke around in some of the shops as she wandered, curious about troll customs and traditions that she could not remember. She didn't see the harm in it, but stuck to the shadows as much as possible regardless, her still-healing wounds making her cautious by habit. Why this habit existed, she could not be sure, but she kept to it vigilantly nonetheless.
A small mrow caught her attention, and she followed the noise into one of the closed down stands. There were some cages with cats inside, some knives, and rolls of leather and slabs of thin rock. Most of the cats were asleep, but one was awake and pawing at the crude bars, meowing and meowing in distress. Silver crept up to the bars and gently pet the cat with one finger through the bars, gazing over it and the surrounding area in an attempt to figure out what was wrong.
At last, she spotted the fluffy pile of small kittens, tucked in the back of the cage. Slowly shifting around, Silver tried to look where the mother cat was looking. A small white with kitten with black spots and stripes had escaped the cage, scrawny and tiny compared to its larger siblings. Moving over to it, she gently picked it up and moved back to the cage, where the mother watched anxiously.
The kitten opened its mouth in a silent mew, revealing it's tiny pink mouth, and the little white face that was covered with a blotch of black, smack-dab over it's eye. Her own eyes widening, Silver gently pet its head, doing her best to soothe it.
Glancing at the mother cat and then back down at the small kitten, Silver only said, "I'm sorry," and left, holding the kitten close with her right upper arm. With her lower left out of commission, encrusted far to heavily with stone to function properly, the troll whelp used her two remaining hands to retie the blanket, so that it had a small pocket on her hip.
Slipping the kitten within and keeping her hand over it, Silver continued to make her way through the marketplace, seeking out anything else of interest along the way. However, in the course of things, she ended up getting completely turned around and, for all her wandering, couldn't find her way back to Vendels' dwelling. Finally deciding to try and get a better viewpoint, Silver scrambled up a set of stair that lead into a darker corridor and turned about.
The massive cavern was just as impressive as before, if not more so. Spotting the giant, glowing red-orange crystal and the bridge leading up to it, the troll whelp assumed that it must be Vendel's home. How to find her way back was a problem, but something else was nagging at her at present.
A bone-deep hum, pulsing through her frame ever since she had awoken here, foreign and strange but not unpleasant. Gazing now upon the massive gem, Silver would have sworn she saw it brighten, for just a moment.
Startling at a sudden noise behind her, Silver spun on her heel and gazed upon the cavern behind her, aglow with soft blue light. Venturing in, she gazed up at the spiral staircase of glowing blue crystals, going up and up. Her ears pricked when she heard voices and realized that someone was coming. Glancing around rapidly for some place to hide, Silver scuttled off and found such a place just behind a row of televisions some distance off, crouched and huddling in on herself.
A voice that she recognized as Blinky's filtered to her ears through the soft static hiss of the T.V.'s, with the occasional lower rumble of the person accompanying him. When they had passed, she waited several more minutes before even daring to wander out, going in the exact opposite direction to avoid them. She was no where near done with her little adventure, certain that Blinky would try and tie her to the bed when he found out.
She continued her exploration of the marketplace, doing her best to map out the place in her mind. However, as she had started out lost to begin with, she couldn't very well become unlost now.
Close to an hour later, feeling exhaustion weigh upon her frame, Silver sat down in a small nook within the cavern wall, at the farther edge of Trollmarket. Taking out the sleeping kitten and holding him close in her lap, she sighed, petting it's soft fur gently.
"Hm. I don't know how to get back to Vendel's dwelling. I don't know a lot of things . . ."
Trailing off sullenly, Silver brightened suddenly, holding the scrawny kitten up to her face, nuzzling it gently.
"I'm going to call you Inkblotch. You look just like a piece of parchment that some scribbled and spilled ink all over." she declared.
The newly named Inkblotch opened his eyes, a bright amber color, and mewed softly. Snuggling the kitten close, Silver yawned and half-curled on her side, dozing off. . .