Shortly after the fight ended, night fell over the camp. Cassandra helped wash and dress Jah'ren's wounds and when they came back out of the tent the trolls had prepared a feast in his honour.

They were led to the chief who made what Cassandra imagined to be a short speech about her friend's bravery and commenting on the fight. Then Katan, bandaged and bruised, came to kneel in front of them. Jah'ren put his hand on the other troll's head and grinned while he spoke softly. The tribe listened quietly and when he finished a shout of approval went up from the camp.

Some minutes later, as she sat down beside Jah'ren in the circle around a huge fire, Cassandra asked about it.

"Me not kill Katan. Him good fighter. No point kill. Tribe like Jah'ren."

"I've noticed," she said. "And they seem to like me too."

His eyes got something serious over them as he leaned down to speak to her.

"If Kass not with Jah'ren, they kill. Kass be careful, not trust. You still human."

She did not like the way he said it, the trolls seemed so nice and pleasant, but she knew there probably was more truth in his words than she would like to admit. As she was considering what he had said two young male trolls came over to them.

They crouched down to speak with Jah'ren who immediately shook his head. One of the trolls held out a hand to stroke Cassandra's cheek and got told off with a growl from Jah'ren. The troll smiled to Cassandra and patted her head softly. Then he turned to her friend again, obviously asking for something, but when Jah'ren just shook his head again, this time quite angrily, the two gave up and went away.

"Come sit," Jah'ren told her and pulled her arm.

Cassandra was already sitting by his side and did not understand what he meant until he lifted her into his lap. He was sitting with his legs crossed so that between them and his arms she was surrounded by a little cave of security.

"I was perfectly good where I was," she protested. "Nobody has hurt me, and I can't see what you're being so awfully protective about."

On the other side of the camp she caught the eye of the young male who had patted her head, he grinned at her while talking to his friends, who laughed.

"What exactly did they ask you?" she asked, feeling her suspicion raise.

"Nothing."

"I saw you tell them off. What did they want?"

Jah'ren sighed and placed his hand over her mouth.

"Nothing. Stop talk. Jah'ren head hurt."

After a while there was drumming and some of the young trolls danced in front of the fire. Cassandra kept silent at Jah'ren's request, because, as she reminded herself again and again, he had just put his life on the line to keep her safe and out of harm.

When the dancing stopped they were brought a large tray with different food in it. Several of these were distributed among the circle of trolls, and as the chief started eating, the rest of the tribe followed, reminding Cassandra of the goats at home, where the dominant goat always was the one to start.

She looked eagerly down at the fruit, fish, meat and trollbread. Earlier she had watched Patho make the bread, a kind of flat, round disc of dough that had been fried. The smell of food made her very hungry and she was reaching for a piece of meat when a large hand stopped her.

"Not meat," Jah'ren warned.

"Why? You are eating it," Cassandra complained.

She had eaten a lot of strange things since she met him and if she could eat his crocolisk gumbo, she figured she could eat anything.

"Not meat for Kassandra," he answered, shaking his head. "Eat fish."

She opened her mouth to protest again, too hungry to be obedient, and then a thought struck her.

"Oh, gods. It's not human, is it?" she whispered terrified.

"No," Jah'ren said, but there was hesitation in his voice. "This horse." He held up a piece of dark meat. "Kass like horse live, not dead."

"Yes," she agreed. "And the other meat?"

"Is other thing. Kass eat fish, not talk."

"I would like to know what it is all the same, thank you," she said, beginning to feel strangely suspicious against the tempting meat. "And you are eating it."

He did not answer, making it apparent that he wanted her to stop asking by placing a fine piece of fried fish in her hand.

"If it's not human, is it humanoid?" she asked, not being able to let it pass.

"Maybe."

"That means yes when you say it." She shivered by the thought. "Tell me. Please."

"Will you stop asking?"

"Yes."

"Little things, live in ground."

"Dwarf? Gnomes?"

"No. Other thing. Now Kass eat."

She gave up and chewed her fish thoughtfully while trying not to picture goblins or gnolls roasting.

After a while the dance and drumming started again, trolls always living in the moment and therefore not being inclined to pass up a chance of having fun. Cassandra watched the bodies move, it was beautiful and at the same time not like anything she had ever seen. It reminded her of the way Jah'ren moved; like there was this rhythm inside his head he was following, only audible to his ears.

There were so many things she wanted to know about the trolls, and so many questions about their way of living, but she knew she had to wait to ask them. Jah'ren was talking to a small group of trolls that had gathered around them. To Cassandra's displeasure they were almost all female. Although they had been nice to her earlier she started disliking them the second she recognized signs telling her that though her friend might think troll flirting was all easy and practical, that was only from the male point of view.

Te'tahn, who Cassandra had found pleasant earlier, now got a sour look from the girl when she laughed, over thrilled by something Jah'ren had said, and touched his hair in what he probably thought an innocent way, but Cassandra recognized flirting when she saw it.

You can't feel jealous. Because that would mean you like him, she desperately told herself, realizing it was incredibly stupid to act the way she did.

She tried convincing herself she was only concerned with her friend's wellbeing and the fact that she would not like him to leave her alone with the tribe, but in her heart the fire of frustration still burned every time one of them inched closer.

Trying to look like she was just moving out of an uncomfortable position she turned in his lap, sitting with her back against one bent leg and snuck her arm around his waist. The grin she got made her even angrier than before, but the arm he lay around her shoulders comforted her nonetheless.

She could feel the gaze of the female trolls upon her and then they all laughed as one of them evidently made a joke. Jah'ren laughed too, looking down at Cassandra with a humorous sparkle in the green eyes.

"What?" Cassandra asked, feeling very left out.

"She say; How we get you come sleep with us if human not let go?"

He obviously found this incredibly amusing and laughed again. Cassandra did not, and clung to him, her mind a blaze of fury and shame. Turning her head away from their eyes she pressed her face against his chest, knowing it would be too disgraceful to cry, but barely managing not to.

To her surprise he wrapped his arms tightly around her, lifting her up so she was sitting on his thigh, and let her lay her head against his shoulder. The female troll who had made the joke commented and got a giggle from the others. Jah'ren turned to her and said something, his voice firm, making all of them give Cassandra a nasty look.

In the next minutes the group dispersed, most of them joining the dancing around the fire.

"Kass said Jah'ren not charming..." he commented, still amusing himself at her expense.

"You're not." She could hear how bitter her voice was, like a child who got laughed at for not knowing better.

"Oh, not charming," he teased. "Kass still hold and be angry on girl troll."

"I just don't want to be left alone," she protested. "You were going to let them drag you off to the cave or wherever, and I would be alone with all these scary trolls."

"No, Jah'ren not go without Kass."

"Well, I am not coming either!" she said, shocked.

This got a laugh and he patted her head affectionately.

"Not what Jah'ren mean," he chuckled. "Kass not worry. I no go away."

This only made her feel worse. She knew she was acting spoiled and selfish; of course he would want to go with them, they were his kind, and they apparently adored him.

"They certainly seem to like you," she said, trying to regain her self-control.

"Yes," he sounded pleased. "They say all troll in tribe stupid, boring. I fight Katan, they say Jah'ren big warrior. Like Jah'ren. All troll in tribe young and stupid. Jah'ren fighter, woman troll like fighter."

"So they like you because you are old, can fight like crazy and has more scars than skin," she teased, her mood approving by the second.

"Yes. Not like that in human?"

Cassandra thought a while, and she had to admit it probably was just the same with humans. There certainly was something about a man who had lived and had the scars to prove it, something in the way he moved, how he talked, how he looked so knowing. She knew very well how a young girl's heart beat when a rugged warrior walked past.

"A little," she confessed.

"Jah'ren think so. And Jah'ren is that. Troll woman like."

"You know," she said, looking at her fingernails. "I would probably be okey by myself for a while. I can find Patho, she would look after me."

He did not answer, and even though she hated the fact that he probably was considering it, she had meant it.

"I mean. They are your kind, and they like you very much, and I feel bad for being in the way."

Still getting no answer she looked up at him. He was staring at the fire and the dancing shapes around it.

"No," he told her eventually, without taking his eyes from the twirling mass of bodies. "Long ago Jah'ren danced, Jah'ren go with the young girls. Not anymore. Tribe go away, Jah'ren not belong anymore." She felt his grip on her tightening. "This tribe not Jah'ren's. It belong to Katan and Pakhen and other troll. Not Jah'ren. Jah'ren alone."

"You have me," she reminded him. "And I'm your friend."

"Kass is human. Not troll. Jah'ren alone inside Jah'ren. No more troll there."

She understood what he meant, and felt sorry for him, but at the same time she knew she was beginning to be the same. Every day she moved more away from being human, not becoming like a troll, but becoming more and more herself, feeling bonds like kinship and connections of race break and wither.

"I know," she said, leaning her forehead against his chin. "We are a pair of fucked up weirdos."

"Bad word," he commented.

"Not necessarily," she laughed, but felt no inclination towards explaining that to him.

She yawned and watched the flickering shadows against the brightness of the fire until her eyes gave in to tiredness.

Jah'ren held onto the small shape, now soundly asleep, like his life depended on it. His gaze was fixed longingly at the dance, his body feeling the pull of the rhythm, his mind craving to be one of them again. Cassandra moaned and shivered slightly. He clutched her to his chest, knowing she was not only his excuse for not belonging, but also his shield against it.

Cassandra slept heavily and had strange dreams that night. She dreamed of a large, blue horse that was carrying her across the sky while it was whistling a lullaby her mother had used to sing to her. She thought she could hear voices, hushed voices, talking in trollish, and then the horse carried her again, past stars and galaxies and the moons and the suns and to other worlds.

Then the horse started running downwards, and she told it not to go so fast, because she was scared.

She also noticed she was young again, just six years old, with her pigtails and that charming little voice she knew how to use to the point where even the grumpy old hermit who lived outside the village would give her an apple if she asked nicely.

The horse ran and ran and then it turned its head and she saw it had green eyes, one of them whitened, and it said:

"You are such a silly girl. If you don't want to come, why don't you jump?"

And she would have, but it was going so fast, and she could not see anywhere to jump to. Afraid to fall off she held onto the horses green mane as it fell towards an ocean of red.

On the thin border between sleep and waking she still felt like the horse was carrying her, and forced her eyes open only to find that she was right.

Her head was hanging over Jah'ren's shoulder, arms around his neck and legs around his waist. Realizing the dream had been more than a stupid allegory of her life at the moment, but also somewhat true, she loosened her fingers from where they were tangled in his hair.

"Good morning," he said, stopping to let her down.

"Where are we?" she asked, still confused. "What has happened? Where are the trolls?"

"We leave in night. Patho say; Go! Or Pakhen, chief, not let go. They want Jah'ren to come to tribe, need warrior."

"But you could have stayed." It was the only thing she could think of to say.

"Maybe," he shrugged. "But not want to. They fight. Not live like me. And Kass could not stay."

"But won't they come after us?"

"Not." He stretched, back creaking. She wondered how long he had been carrying her. "Patho sister to Pakhen. She say Jah'ren and Kass go. Hurry go, or Pakhen not let go."

She nodded gravely. The chief of the tribe had seemed like a strict and unpleasant woman, even more so when she had to see her son defeated by this strange troll who walked into her camp from nowhere with a human by his side. Patho had been right, they had been wise to leave while they had the chance, and she suddenly felt a huge relief to be away from the tribe.

"Have you carried me all night?" she asked, trying to massage the blood back to her limbs.

"You sleep, trolls dance. I go talk to Patho, she tell me leave, gave me weapons back. Say; Take you little human child and run. I run, and then tired, and walk."

There was a new tiredness in his face, exhaustion, but also something else. Cassandra took his hand carefully.

"You want to rest? I can stand guard and you can sleep a little."

He shook his head and told her he could go on.

"But you were much wounded yesterday. You look tired."

"Kass good, but no, I can walk. Wounds okey."

Deciding there were no point in arguing with him she continued to hold his hand as they walked. He was silent and looked tattered and thoughtful.

"What was that they called you?" she asked, trying to keep him from thinking of whatever it was making him sad. "Karne Patcho?"

"Kath'arn e partho," he said, and she loved the sound of his voice when he spoke his own language. "It mean I am wild one. It mean One without home."

"Oh," Cassandra said, accidentally discovering the reason for the sober look. "I thought it meant you were a great warrior or something. I'm sorry."

"No worry. I know I am Kath'arn e partho. A wild one."

"You are not particularly wild," she smiled, trying to lighten his mood. "You are actually getting quite tame, and I think with a better hygiene you'll make an alright pet."

She poked her finger into his ribs and remembered some of them were broken just a moment to late.

"You my pet," he smiled, but with teeth clenched from pain. "And not touch there."

Apologizing, she took his hand again.

"Wild one mean I have no tribe. Mean I am traitor in troll ways. Mean I can not go back to homeland."

"But why? What happened to your tribe?"

"Tribe kill Jah'ren."

She waited for something more, but when he said nothing she could not let it be:

"You are not dead, so they can't have killed you. What do you mean?"

"Jah'ren say; No good in Horde. Chief kill many many troll of tribe when he said we join Horde."

"He killed some of the tribe because he wanted to join the Horde and they did not? He sounds crazy and evil."

"No, troll ways. Chief decide, or not chief. Kill to say him chief."

"And you didn't want to join the Horde?"

"No, Jah'ren say not hunter way. Not troll way."

"Live, hunt, forest, sky. Right? That is hunter way."

"Yes," he agreed happily. "Tribe hit Jah'ren when not coming. All hit Jah'ren and then throw in cave, say: Die. Live. No one care. Jah'ren dead to tribe. Never come back. We kill."

"That is awful!" she exclaimed shocked.

"No. Troll way. Tribe is family, tribe is everything. If not with tribe, dead. Jah'ren lay dead in cave long time."

"But weren't there someone who could help you? Your family? Mother and father or siblings? They could stay with you, couldn't they?"

He laughed, but she could not see what could be funny about it all.

"I say; tribe is family."

"But you have a father and mother at least," she said, not letting this go. Not even trolls could have such loose bonds between parent and child.

"Yes," he nodded. "Mother say to father; not kill Jah'ren. Not kill son. And Jah'ren not dead like other troll."

"They did not kill you because your father said so? Could he not stay with you?"

"Father chief. Chief go with tribe."

Cassandra did not know what to say to that. It was all strange to her, she tried to think that it was the right way to do things in a troll tribe, but she could just not get her mind to agree that it was right. It was so sad she sniffled, turning her head away not to let him know she was about to cry.

"Not sad, Kass. Jah'ren know what happen when he say no. Jah'ren not sad."

"Yes, you are," she protested. "You just don't want to admit it. I can see it in your face."

"Okey," he smiled. "Okey, Jah'ren sad. But now new tribe. Fucked up weirdo tribe."

"Don't say that," she laughed. "You have no idea of how horrible the sounds."

******

I know there was a lot of cuteness. And I'm sorry, but there's gonna be more. ;D

She's getting there, she just needs to see why her heart beats so fast when he's around. It's not easy. :D