Disclaimer: This story is completely original. All characters, settings, and events are spawned from my own mixed up little mind and may not be used, copied, or adapted without my express written permission. Do not steal my story!!!
(( Pronunciation --
Kjavaeos – keeyah-vay-os
And, just as a note, I'm constantly making lists of things that I need to fix in the story, like the inconsistency between Fiz telling Toby it was the trolls and the Jade Lady's statement about Verum. If you ever notice anything like that, please feel free to either email me or review about it and let me know. I really appreciate all of your feedback, you've already caught two major bugs. Props to you guys for being awesome readers!))
20.
When the Berserker Queen finally released Toby from their little tea session, it was after about four cups of tea and quite a few stories of battles she'd fought in her heyday. Toby got the feeling that she was trying to relay something to the Princess – something about the soul of a troll or whatnot – but the brunette just ended up feeling a bit more confused than before. She believed the Jade Lady when she said that she meant no harm to Toby, but at the same time, all of her stories were filled with Princesses they'd ransomed and Knights they'd fought against. It was hard to feel camaraderie towards someone who wanted to put her through such unappealing experiences.
Toby put the dilemma of making sense of their society to the back of her mind and stepped outside of the chamber. Gaj'ja was there, waiting, and smiled widely when she saw Toby.
"Good! Gaj'ja thought Toby no be killed." Toby was unsettled by the thought that it'd even been a question. What if the Jade Lady hadn't found her quite so acceptable, would she really have killed Toby…? The brunette had a feeling she didn't want to know the answer.
"She said we only had a few hours," Toby said, glancing curiously at the guards. One was a deep shade of brown; the other, a ruddy red. Gaj'ja was much prettier than both of them, in a large, lumbering, rough sort of way.
"Yes. Scouts say Knight and others close close. Upper catacombs." Toby was rather amused at the troll's nonchalant tone.
"And it'll take them hours to get down here?"
The troll smiled widely in a way that very much reminded Toby of the Berserker Queen. "Catacombs like maze. Long long time to find way through."
"Oh," Toby replied. She must have been unconscious for that part. She looked around, one hand sliding down to grip the sheath the Jade Lady had bound around her waist, then found that the guards and Gaj'ja were all staring at her in something akin to shock.
"Kjavaeos," Gaj'ja murmured, echoed by the guards, and bowed deeply – to the sword. Toby stared.
"Is that its name?" She was by no means an expert but she was pretty sure she'd heard that most legendary swords got names. Silly practice, in her opinion, naming oversized letter openers, but she certainly didn't pretend to understand the trolls.
"Yes. Most sacred sword. Most special sword. Kjavaeos." Gaj'ja bowed again and Toby wondered, once again, why the Jade Lady had given it to her.
"Great. Anything I should know about it? Like, does it spout fire? Am I going to turn into a toad if I try and use it? Any little details like that?" Great, just great. She was a Princess being held hostage until her rescue, which everyone knew was coming and would be successful, and now she had a holy-but-in-pieces sword to lug around.
"Kjavaeos," Gaj'ja said again, and bowed. Toby was getting really irritated with all of the bowing.
"Thanks for the information."
Gaj'ja looked vaguely irritated by the sharpness of Toby's voice and folded her hands over her broad chest. The movement accented just how large and muscular she was and Toby made a mental note to rein her tongue in at least a bit more while she was here. "Gaj'ja no tell. Gaj'ja show."
She gestured to Toby, then turned on her heel and strode off through the Great Hall again. Toby balked at walking through that mass of trolls and their strange hero-worship of her, but it was either follow Gaj'ja, who seemed decent enough as far as trolls went, or stand here doing nothing in front of the Beserker Queen's chambers. No real choice there; she followed Gaj'ja.
The troll strode rapidly, obviously intent on where she was going, and soon they veered off to the side and made it to the safety of a smaller side tunnel. Toby nearly sighed in relief, but had to hurry to keep up with the azure warrior in front of her.
"Where are we going?" she asked, but Gaj'ja ignored her. They kept walking, into tunnels that were obviously far less traveled than any of the others they'd been in. The floors were rough instead of worn smooth and the pale blue fire-lights were much further between. Toby found herself picking up the pace to stay a bit closer to Gaj'ja's strong back.
Soon the tunnel they were following was barely wide enough for Gaj'ja in front of them. Toby wasn't sure how far they'd traveled, but she hadn't seen any other trolls in quite a few twists and turns. This certainly was not somewhere they frequented often and it made her wonder what Gaj'ja had to show her.
Unexpectedly, the tunnel abruptly widened, disappearing into a cavern just as large as the Great Hall. Toby wasn't sure she'd ever get used to the stark contrasts of the small tunnels to the gigantic open spaces that existed underground. This one seemed smaller, at least, because of the huge pillars that descended from the ceiling all the way to the ground. There was one central one easily as large as half a basketball court, surrounded by ones that were much smaller.
Gaj'ja walked straight to the central pillar, even though Toby could barely see it in the dim light from the blue fire at the entrance of the tunnel. Toby hesitated, then followed, finding to her surprise that the pillar was covered with deep etchings. She reached out and touched it, and was surprised to find it wet. Pulling her fingers back, she found her fingers dipped in the same blue fluid that dripped into the deep basins in the tunnel walls.
"Gaj'ja, what—" she started, turning to find Gaj'ja kneeling at the base of the stone, striking two rocks together. The sparks hit the liquid and burst into flames, the pale blue licks racing up the stone and making Toby stumble back in shock.
She gasped.
The etchings in the pillar were actually pictures, a complex design that seemed to tell a story. High up the pedestal she could see two groups of beings, tall, with long ears and large eyes. In their midst was a smaller figure, with a long sword held in one hand. Toby recognized the sword she held at this very second and gripped the hilt a bit tighter. The next panel showed one smaller group leaving the larger group, then the next showed them entering what could only be caverns. Then, the figure locked in deadly combat against a dragon, its flames twisting up her sword. Triumphant, the figure straddled a dragon laying along the ground, her sword held aloft as the others she'd been with danced and rejoiced at the dragon's death.
"I don't understand, Gaj'ja. What does it mean?" She turned to look at the troll, who was staring at the flame-lit story as if it were the most beautiful thing in the world. At Toby's question, she shook herself, then raised her thick fingers to point.
"Long long ago, trolls leave home of Esmera. Princess, Lifebringer, Warrior Queen, the Great Lady, lead us, deep into caverns so others from Esmera no find us. Only, dragon sleeping, mother of all dragons, fiercest and wickedest dragon in all Believe. Woke and killed a great many. Great Lady fight dragon, many days in battle, but Great Lady is victorious, slays Dragonmother. Since then, trolls live in peace and safety, never lost battle in tunnels."
"So this… Great Lady, she wielded this sword? But where did she get it?" Toby asked, trying to get her mind around what this meant. It was a nice story, but what did the Jade Lady want from her? To just fix the sword and make the trolls feel better? Gaj'ja shrugged.
"Kjavaeos Great Lady's sword. No know where Great Lady find it. Princess magic, Gaj'ja thinks. But Kjavaeos very special. Dragonmother's blood spilled by it, Dragonmother's heart pierced by it. All Dragonmother's magic flowed into blade. Great magic left in it."
Toby folded her arms over her chest. "If it was so great, how'd it end up broken?"
The anger that sprang onto Gaj'ja's face was so great, so terrible, that Toby took a step back before she'd even realized it. The troll slammed her fist into a side pedestal. "Betrayer! Liar, deceiver…! Slipped in Beserker Queen's chambers. Shattered sword with wicked magic!"
"Who? Who shattered the sword, and why?" Toby asked, before she even had a chance to tell herself that continuing to question Gaj'ja about something she was obviously so angry about was probably not a great idea.
Gaj'ja let out a low, rumbling growl of pure hatred. "No know. Fled scene. Disappeared. Not seen Fairy Godmother since the Betrayal, the shattering of Kjavaeos, troll's most precious possession."
Toby stared at her. "… the Fairy Godmother? The Fairy Godmother? But… I thought… I thought she was a good guy. Why would she want to do something so offensive and cruel?"
Gaj'ja growled again. "When trolls find her, we find answer in her, pull it out inch by inch."
Toby tried not to decipher those words any further, but gripped the sword in her hands, staring up at the pedestal even as the flickering flames began to fade, the story fading into darkness again. Even as the pictures disappeared, however, their imagines remained burned in Toby's mind, along with a thousand new questions.
Great, as if she didn't have enough of them already. Someday maybe she'd find some answers to go with them. That'd be nice, real nice.
Gaj'ja's long ears perked up and she looked towards the tunnel. Abruptly her anger faded away into child-like delight. She slammed one fist into another, her eyes alight.
"It time! Come, Princess, time to be rescued!" Then she turned and practically ran towards the tunnel entrance. Toby stared at her back, heaved a sigh, then followed, muttering, under her breath, "fine, but if anyone else hits me with anything, I'm feeding them to Theo."