"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows." - Doug Larson
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By the time Blinky and AAARRRGGHH found Alexandra again, she was in the Hero's Forge halfway through a battle text, swiping at the air with her new sword in mimicry of the illustrations in the book. Her arms and her patience were dead.
"Ah, good evening, Master Alexandra! I see that you have mastered your armor," he said with a wide grin. Alexandra relaxed her arms and smiled back.
She was extremely sore, not least from never having held anything more deadly than a fencing sword before. Her troll form was ill-used and out of practice, and she'd never been in the best of shape to begin with. Her job had been watcher, after all, not fighter.
Blinky took her smile as an answer and immediately shooed AAARRRGGHH from the Forge's floor, practically jogging for the button that turned on the death-traps.
"I suppose that now is as good a time as any to continue your training! I trust that you are well rested for the day?"
She wasn't, because she had spent all night summoning and dismissing the armor, the sword, and the individual pieces. Because trolls had vastly different routines than humans, she couldn't rest yet. To start changing her sleep patterns she couldn't rest until the following morning, which was twelve hours away. She felt like killing something.
Fortunately, she could now summon the sword with a thought, something that Blinky took notice of and immediately latched onto.
He fired a swatch of arrows at her. She gasped, shielded herself with her sword and gauntlets, and quickly ran to another part of the arena.
"Rule Number One," his voice boomed, echoing in the chamber amid the crashing of Alexandra's armor.
"Always be afraid!"
What the fuck kind of rule is that, Alexandra thought, skidding to a halt just before a huge spike landed on the floor in front of her.
"Fear makes you wary! It heightens your reflexes and keeps you alert for any potential danger!"
Ah. Well, she was a Changeling living underground with over a thousand Changeling-hating trolls, with only a suit of armor to protect her from both her neighbors and the gigantic stone blades of the Death Arena.
"Yeah I don't think that's going to be a hard rule to – shit!"
An arrow came out of nowhere and struck Alexandra in the back. Her breastplate protected her, but she still got the breath knocked out of her lungs.
"Focus, Master Alexandra," said Blinky from the sidelines.
On what?! The fifty arrows or the twenty unexpected blades?
It wasn't long before she was out of breath and shaking. She'd never been particularly athletic and her troll form hadn't gotten much use in the last decade. The Death Arena was clearly built for people who were quick and alert – and although Alexandra was both, putting both attributes into actual physical activity was hard.
Blinky finally slowed the arena down when she stumbled, although he still shot a burst of fire at her chest. She rolled out of the way, landed on her back, and stayed down.
He stopped the arena with a chuckle and walked over to her. Alexandra tried to catch her breath as he smiled understandingly and held out a hand to help her up.
The gesture did not go unmissed, although Alexandra hesitated. She didn't want to get to emotionally involved with anyone in Trollmarket, to avoid the inevitable heartbreak when her true nature came to light – but at the same time, having actual friends would be better, in the long run, than mere allies.
Alex took the hand and allowed him to pull her halfway, until she was leaning on her elbows.
"We couldn't have started a little easier?"
Blinky shook his head with toothy grin.
"Master Alexandra, that was the easiest level," he said, as she had suspected.
She dropped back to the floor. Excellent.
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By the time they stopped to eat, she honestly thought she was going to die, but her adrenalin was pumping hard. She waved away the offer to eat, knowing that if she stopped it would be damn near impossible for her to get going again. AAARRRGGHH left and came back with small meals for himself and Blinky, who directed her in basic forms and stances as well as the rules of fighting as he ate.
"Rule number two, for Trollhunters," he said between bites. "Always finish the fight!"
Alex grimaced, but moved to the next stance in the sequence she was practicing. Changelings didn't get too squeamish about killing people – it was a necessary part of the job. You had to keep people quiet, you had to get people out of the way, and if anybody saw you, if anybody knew, they had to be removed. It scraped against the peace-keeping teachings of her Quaker upbringing, but it was necessary for survival. Sometimes you just had to kill a meddlesome bastard, and there was no reason to get wimpy about it.
"Master Alexandra," said Blinky, a tad chidingly. "Perhaps you would do well to remember that you have more than one set of hands…"
Shit. Alexandra moved her second pair of arms into a defense position, where previously they had been hanging by her sides. Blinky nodded in approval, munching down on something that smelled tantalizing to her troll nose but nauseating to her human senses.
Alex sliced her sword in front of her, backing up from an imaginary opponent as she tried to draw on fencing lessons she'd taken in the 1800's. Her arms trembled, and in her tired-yet-pumped state she started to feel a bit cranky. She had to consciously remember to move her other arms again, and wished for something to slice at.
And look, there was Draal!
Blinky looked more than a little displeased at his appearance, but Alexandra was hyped. She hadn't gotten into a fight since 1983, and her exhaustion was pushing her to the edge.
"So the training begins," Draal began, sauntering across the narrow bridge on his short little legs. "I had hoped I wouldn't miss it."
"Er, yes – good morning, Draal," said Blinky, shuffling nervously. Beside him, AAARRRGGHH drew himself up a little. Draal huffed at him.
Blinky put down the leavings of his meal and walked toward Alex, though she wasn't sure exactly what he was planning on doing. It was clear that he was wary of the larger troll, and the idea of him – armorless, short, and clearly not a warrior – coming to Alexandra's defense was both ridiculous and endearing.
A soft thud vibrated the stone behind the both of them and then Alexandra understood. AAARRRGGHH's breath ruffled her short hair as he silently backed up his bookish friend.
Draal did not look impressed.
"I was just coming to see how our new Trollhunter was getting along," he said, grinning like a jackal. Alexandra deliberately loosed her grip on her sword and fell into a relaxed stance.
"Just fine, thank you," she said sweetly. Draal sneered at her.
"I don't doubt it," he said, drawing up from his habitual slouch so that his face was finally higher than hers. "But every warrior needs improvement, which is why I came to offer my services."
He gave a shitty little bow.
"As a sparring partner."
What an asshole.
She couldn't very well refuse, and by the look in Draal's eyes, he knew it. She wasn't much of a fighter and sending him away would be both foolish and disrespectful.
A soft footstep and the distant jangle of gemstones made her look up; Vendel was watching them from a balcony.
Blinky kind of grimaced when she turned an eye on him, and he and AAARRRGGHH backed out of the ring.
Alex tapped her sword against the ground.
"I'd be delighted," she snarled at Draal.
His fist – larger than her entire head – hit her in the chest and sent her reeling back almost twenty feet, immediately.
She sucked in a desperate measure of air and rolled, just a second before a giant ball of blue spikes landed where she had fallen. A foot glanced against her thigh and made her stumble, only catching herself when she remembered she had an extra set of arms to help.
Draal was on her before she could get up, but she was ready this time, and she elbowed him in the face and neck simultaneously. He fell back, gasping for air, and she got a second to really stand up, her mind working furiously.
Armored skin, softer on the undersides, blind spot on back, vulnerable eyes, throat, groin, attack from behind or below. Fast as fuck!
Putting her observations into practice was a little more difficult, especially since it had been decades since she'd actually been in a real fight, and over a century since she'd fought in troll form.
It helped that she was pissed, though. She flailed at him with all three clawed fists and a sword, and kicked him in the crotch in order to get behind him and catch her breath. If she was in human form she could have just grabbed onto those crystal projections on his back and held on until he got exasperated and left, but her troll form was too heavy.
As it was, she stepped on something and a blade shot up out of the floor, drawing Draal's attention to that he twirled around. A hard, crystal-covered elbow smashed into her breastplate, making a tremendous flash of blue light as the armor worked to protect her. Alexandra took advantage of a temporarily stunned Draal and sliced at him with the sword, catching him on the top of his arm as he blocked. A tiny scratch appeared and instantly turned grey and hard.
Draal and Alexandra's eyes widened; if she'd hit harder, he would have lost the arm. It wasn't called the Sword of Daylight for nothing.
She almost apologized, but a two-and-a-half-foot fist nearly smashed her face in and she heartily reconsidered. She grabbed the arm and turned, unbalancing Draal's legs until he semi-tumbled over her shoulder. Given the sheer size differences between them, it really was not an effective move, but it surprised him enough that Alex could get out of the way when he rolled and came back up swinging.
Damn, but he was fast!
He was much faster than her, anyway, and she knew she'd be suffering when the rush of the fight faded.
The armor sang and glowed when she got caught in the chest again, and Draal didn't move to hit her when she shakily got to her feet.
To her surprise, there was some sort of smile on his broad face.
"Not as disappointing as I thought," he said, as if that was some sort of compliment. Alexandra glared at him, and cut a glance up at Vendel, who had watched in complete silence.
He gave no indication that he was pleased or upset, but he gave her a tiny little nod before he turned and left the balcony.
A brief throat-clearing from Blinky told Alexandra that he had seen it too.
"Er, perhaps that is enough practical training for today," he said quickly, hovering on the edge of the arena. "We can get started on the studies of the Trollhunter and perhaps some lore you are not familiar with, Master Alexandra – "
"But we've only warmed up," said Draal, with a shit-eater's grin at Alex. She sheathed her sword with a snarl.
"See you tomorrow, Draal," she said firmly. "Thanks for the spar."
"Anytime I can help, Trollhunter," Draal said, sounding almost polite. Alex didn't dismiss the armor until she'd ushered Blinky and AAARRRGGHH into a corridor away from the arena, and only allowed herself to sink against the wall when they were in a darker area.
That fucker, she thought tiredly. The adrenalin from the training and the spar was swiftly being replaced with complete and utter exhaustion. Draal had analyzed her just as she did him, and he'd hit where it hurt. Her armorless hips and less-protected lower arms had taken the worst blows, though she'd been struck in the chest the most. She knew she was going to have bad bruising at the least, and her sword arm was feeling stiff, the elbow catching unpleasantly. Her knees and backside had taken damage from all the times she'd been pushed down, and her head ran from the clanging in her helmet.
Tomorrow was going to suck.
She must have looked incredibly pitiful, because Blinky let her go with only a small reading assignment and brief visit to a medicine and a food booth.
The trip back to her small cave felt like a Walk of Shame, with one of her arms held carefully, another laden with herbs and some sort of pulsing crystal, and a distinct limp in her hip. Her murderous look prevented anybody from coming and talking to her, and she absently munched on whatever it was Blinky had bought her to eat. Some sort of mushroom, it looked like.
On the very edge of the market area there was a bit of a commotion; it looked like someone had lost something. Trolls here and there were bending down to glance under stalls and peering in crevices, all the while calling, in ridiculously high voices, 'here kitty kitty'.
She gingerly stepped through the crowd, but an absent elbow caught her back and made her stumble. She bumped into a pile of crates and a furry blur shot out, clawed its way up her leg, and buried its face into her herb-laden arm.
The troll who'd bumped her politely apologized and went back to searching for the obviously escaped cat. Alex limped away in a hurry.
She got lost, briefly, but finally found her little cave and dumped her packages and the cat on the pile of leathers that was her bed.
The cat, a plump black thing with a white chest, scooted its nose underneath a fur blanket and mraowed.
Fuck it, I've got a cat, Alex thought. She was too tired and sore to deal with this now. The cat and the herbs were unceremoniously shoved to one side of the nest, and she fell asleep immediately.
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A/N: Alex tends to be a quieter person, which is why much of her dialogue is thought, not spoken. She tends to hold her tongue more often than not, especially on the more sarcastic or angry bits.
Coming up next: The return of Kanjigar (kinda), shit goes down with AAARRRGGHH, and the Adventure Of Reading, not necessarily in that order.
Alex's trouble in the ring is a shout-out to my own attempt to exercise. I've always been reasonably strong, but I loathe exercising with every fiber of my existence and my attempt to build a little visible muscle has been…difficult.
The last time I seriously exercised was in the final exam for a martial arts class I had. We got really pumped up, and then we had to stand still against a wall while the other half of the class did their final. With all the adrenalin going in me and the heart racing and everything, suddenly standing still nearly made me vomit and faint right on the floor. Like, I actually tasted bile and saw spots. That's why it's important to warm up before and to cool down after exercising, kids.
Draal's being comparatively nicer simply because she's a 'troll'. He's still insulted, but having the next Trollhunter be a troll is better than of some weak human whelp (child, basically). It doesn't help that Alex is from somewhere else, but she's still a troll, which he can accept more readily.