Your glorious morning is started with you rolling off the couch. Goddamn it. You don't even try to get up. Your head felt like it had been hit with an anvil, the lights were too loud, and something you ate last night was having a serious battle with your stomac. This was not going to go well.
With a loud groan, you roll over to grab the blanket you keep on the couch for situations just like this. After a few minutes of groping for the stupid thing, you find it and tug it over yourself. Just as it falls over your head, you see a pair of tiny grey paws standing right next to you. Having completely forgotten about the troll, you jerk to an upright position and stare at it. Of course it's darted across the room and behind a chair by then thanks to your sudden movement. You can see it peering out at you from behind the plush white chair. And it looks absolutely horrible.
Now that you have a decent light source, you notice details that you missed last night. She's absolutely filthy and her hair is clumped an matted. Her nails are much too long with ragged edges and some almost missing from breaking. Her skinny figure is much more obvious with bones jutting out just a little too far. But that's not what you notice first. Oh no. The first thing to draw your eye is the shining choke collar around her neck. You can see the dark green bruises from where it's dug into her skin. There are bruises on her arms too that look increasingly like hand prints. Tiny cuts riddle her hands and feet. It's disgusting and horrible, enough to make you forget about your pounding headache. You can feel your mouth go dry feel the bile rising, which is not a good mix when you have a hangover by the way. It takes a moment before you can face the idea. She'd been abused where ever she was before. Abused and neglected. You hadn't been around her for long but seeing that, making that realization, fills you with a ferocious desire to protect her. If you were to ever meet the person who did it to her, you'd- you'd-... Well. You don't know what you'd do. But something would definitely happen. Hurting an animal was not okay. Ever.
You were absolutely going to make sure she got better, screw returning her. Whoever did that didn't fucking deserve her. But first, you needed your head on straight. Getting to your feet, much to your dislike, you wobble back to your bathroom which is unfortunately on the other side of the house. Couldn't you have passed out closer to it? The entire time, the little troll is following behind you, keeping a respectful distance. Getting into the shower is interesting if only because she wanted to go with you. You keep telling yourself that she's just an animal, that it's not that big a deal but between her appearance and that gleam in her eye, she's just too human. Instead, you tell her to stay put. She immediately sits down. You can only hope that she does as she's told and doesn't start ripping things up. That would suck.
One ice cold shower later and you're ready to get to work and turn up your heater! The first step is getting that disgusting collar off. It's actually pretty easy. You keep her still with more crackers while you take it off. It's worse than you thought. The fucking thing had been put on wrong. Instead of just digging into her skin like it was supposed to, this one had been put on in a way that would actually choke her. Like a noose. You can see little scars around her neck from where that exact thing must have happened before. She's completely rigid the entire time, nervously nibbling away at her cracker. You can't imagine why. If someone had done this to you, you sure as hell wouldn't want to get up close and person with the creatures that had done it to you. Instead, she's a perfect angel. You have a feeling the bruises have something to do with her behavior.
The next part, the bath, was much more interesting. You didn't want to use your tub in case she had something but hosing her down outside didn't seem like much of an option either. It was so cold you were afraid that she would get sick from her lack of body fat. You didn't have a big enough bucket to put her either. That left either the sink or Rose's old bathroom. You'd rather not have to wrestle with the faucet on the sink so Rose's bathroom it was. She follows you around as you get things ready, scrounging up wash rags, little bath toys that littered the floor of your own bathroom, tub stickies and other things you think you might need. You even score a bottle of baby shampoo that you had tucked away for some unknown reason. Once the tub is filled up with water, the real challenge begins. It's obvious that she wouldn't take well to just anyone picking her up. You hope that she'd let you since you'd been so nice but when you make a go at her, she's out of the room faster than you can blink. Damn. The first time though, she doesn't go too far. Just around the corner. The second time is a little different. That time she just 'nope's and is on top of a shelf before you even know what to do. She was fast. When you call her down, she just stares at you with her huge eyes, showing no emotion at all. However, you have her greatest weakness against her. Saltine crackers! She'd left the bag when she ran off so you take advantage of it and try luring her down with the crispy goodies. She makes it to the edge of the shelf, her head bobbing up and down like a cat's, trying to determine if she should go for it or not. She chooses not to, instead just staring at you until you give up. A sneaky idea comes to you. Dashing to your pantry, you grab the key ingredient and return to her. She's still there. Quickly, you unscrew the lid of the jar and let the fumes waif up to her. It doesn't take long before she's on the ground again with a spoon full of peanut butter in her mouth. Apparently she's never had it before and has absolutely no idea what to do with the stuff. You trap has succeeded.
Before she knows realizes what just happened, you take of that nasty t-shirt she's wearing and plop her in the tub. At first she tries to jump right back out but after a few minutes the warm water takes effect and she relaxes enough for you to clean her up. The entire time she keeps hold of that peanut butter and you seriously hope she doesn't get sick from it. Without the shirt, you can see even more signs of abuse. Bruises spot her back and there are even some scabbed up cuts. The longer you look at them the more you want to tear the person who did this apart. They were terrible and the little troll was nothing but sweet and polite. She didn't deserve to have been treated like this. It takes a grand total of three baths and two shampooings to get her cleaned up. It was like she'd wallowed in mud or something. Every so often she'd whimper or flinch away from you during the process so you did your best to be gentle. That's probably why it took so long. No way were you going to go scrub crazy with those gnarly bruises on her back. Some jackass put gum in her hair too so after the bath you cut her hair off short. The entire time she doesn't make much noise or struggle which you're finding increasingly distressful. What on earth happened to her? You'll have to ask her later. Assuming she could even talk. You'd heard that trolls could talk like humans but so far, you hadn't seen any proof of that. Maybe there was something wrong with her? You push the thoughts out of your head. It doesn't matter. Clean her up first. Then questions.
Clothes are a bit more difficult. Nothing in the immediate surrounding would even fit her. So you let her wait wrapped up in a towel while you look for something. After digging through your clothes and part of your sister's, it finally hits you. You had a box of Rose's old clothes in the attic! With a shout of glee, you run off to go get them. The little troll follows after you where ever you go, trailing the towel behind her. You have to tell her to stay put when you pull down the latter to the attic. You didn't want her following you up there. It was too dangerous. So, of course, she's exactly where you left her when you bring down the dusty old box. You dump the thing on the couch, coughing from all the dust. Even with the old clothes, it takes a while to pick one for her. Either they were too big, too small, or just didn't seem quite right. At last, you found something that would work for her. An old purple dress with little black cats spotting it. She's absolutely adorable in it.
By the time the whole process is finished it's way past lunch time. You don't have much in your house so sandwiches for lunch! The troll doesn't seem to mind. She just seems happy to be getting enough to eat. You take the chance and start asking her questions.
"Do you have a name?" You ask. She nods in reply, a bit too occupied with tearing into a sandwich to answer. "What is it?" It takes her a moment to answer.
"Nepeta." She's so quiet that you nearly have to ask her again. It's almost like she's afraid of saying the wrong thing and doesn't want to be heard. Which is ridiculous. It's her name. You find it unsettling.
"It's nice to meet you Nepeta." You shove the feeling off. "My name's Roxy." She just nods again. "How old are you? Or do you know?" This time she shakes her head. You take a moment to evaluate her. She looks like she'd be about 6 in human years. "Where are you from?" You can see her stiffen, like she was remembering something horrible. You're about to tell her that she doesn't have to answer when she starts talking.
"I live on the other side of town." She informs you. "Near the mall." It's quiet for a few minutes. You know where that is. Heck, you'd shopped at the mall plenty of times. It was disgusting that she'd been in such a horrible situation not even an hour away. You'd never really thought much about animal abuse before. Sure they showed those commercials on tv all the time but that didn't have anything to do with you. It always seemed like it was in an entirely different world. It seemed like it would never touch you. And now it was staring you in the face. "Are you going to make me go back, Miss Roxy?" The look on her face sends your stomach into knots. It makes your heart hurt.
"No. No I'm not. And I'll make sure you never go back there again."