"A weed is a plant that is not only in the wrong place, but intends to stay."

- Sara Stein

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Trollmarket was in an uproar, and Blinky was…stressed.

As trainer of the Trollhunter, he'd been hounded with questions, accusations, exclamations, and sarcastic mockery in the day following the fight, especially when Alexandra failed to appear. He knew she was injured, but even sticking her head out the door of the quarters and shouting 'Fuck off!' would have been better than her absence. The fact that she hadn't been around after such a controversial fight possibly had ruined what little reputation she had gained.

He and AAARRRGGHH had ventured up to her room with medicines a few hours after the fight, having had trouble shaking off everyone who wanted to 'congratulate' Blinky on his rather unorthodox student. Nobody answered the door, so they dropped off what they'd brought and left. They'd learned not to barge into Alexandra's room after her second morning in Trollmarket, when she nearly took Blinky's head off when he came to wake her up for training.

Eventually, though, she emerged, looking half-dead but no less eager…

Perhaps 'eager' is the wrong word…

…Looking no less determined to continue her training. She was assaulted with both well-wishers and nay-sayers, but when asked about her final decision in the battle her answers more or less amounted to "Deal with it."

As it was, she was too injured to attend physical training, so Blinky had her hidden in his library, stacks of his brother's books up to her nose as he deliberately lectured her on the finer points of troll battle cultures around the world. She studiously took her notes, absorbing everything he told her even though she had flouted a good majority of the rules about honorable fighting. He was sure she'd even bitten Draal at one times.

Blinky peered at her over the top of a dusty tome.

She claimed that she had no idea where Draal was, but the entirety of Trollmarket had seen them leave together, and when she came to train or study she smelled like him. Given their mutual dislike, Blinky would be very surprised if they turned out to be lovers, but that didn't mean that she wasn't still keeping in contact with him.

Not that it mattered. Draal was dishonored, an outcast; his actions and whereabouts were inconsequential. The problem was that Alexandra was lying in the first place. And to her trainer!

Blinky knew that she knew that he was watching her. She had to know; Blinky had never been very good at being sneaky. But she never gave any sign that she was purposefully trying to act casual, or not cause suspicion. In fact she still did things or said things that gave Blinky question, not even trying to hide her peculiarities. Like when she looked at him as if he was crazy when he suggested closing her wounds with molten metal. Did they not do anything in New Jersey?

Alexandra still hadn't told him much about her past, but Blinky – as he suspected she knew – was observant, and he'd noticed her muttering in another language during the battle, but it wasn't Trollish. He hadn't been close enough to hear.

And her battle tactics!

Blinky gently put down his book and rubbed his hands against his eyes. If he got into thinking about her fighting styles he'd never stop. He had been so absorbed with everything Alexandra for the past week and a half he'd barely had time to think about anything else. Why was she lying? How much was she lying about? Were her oddities truly a product of New Jersey, or something else? He'd never met a more elusive Trollhunter, and the problem was that she genuinely didn't seem like she was trying to hide anything; only when he dug into matters themselves did he uncover her insincerity, and it just made his head ache.

But a little part of him, the part that Vendel always groused about, was happy. He had uncovered a new mystery, and on such a high-profile subject! Which was exactly why Vendel wasn't going to know about this. Alexandra was, by every appearance, harmless and dedicated to her destined task. She wasn't gregarious by any means but the few who had come to her for help or advice had been treated courteously, and although she tended to swear like a demon she trained hard and oh great Deya he was doing it again.

AAARRRGGHH lifted his head when Blinky shuffled over and took a seat closer to his side, but otherwise stayed asleep. He loved to listen to Blinky teach almost as much as Blinky loved teaching, but he always slept better after a lecture and was more than happy to curl up and nap in Blinky's library. AAARRRGGHH was Blinky's solace and sanity, now more than ever. He was not nearly as concerned as his smaller friend about the mysteries of their new Trollhunter, and he was used to Blinky sniffing around conspiracies enough that it was old hat. Blinky used him as a sounding board and a retreat when he ran himself ragged over years of messy misunderstandings and paranoid precautions.

AAARRRGGHH practically radiated calmness and serenity; Blinky just sat and emptied his mind for a while, enjoying his friend's presence and the quiet writing of Alexandra's pen.

It was nice.

…

…But WHY did she spare Draal's life if she deeply disliked him, and where had she learned how to fight well enough to defeat him? She had been trained by the troll, true, but he had never trained her like that! She was evading, dodging, almost dancing with him, which was almost the exact opposite of how Draal had been teaching her. It was smarter, in a battle with someone her size versus an opponent the size and strength of Draal, but her knowledge of those tactics indicated that she'd fought before. Against who? When? Where?

AAARRRGGHH gently pat him on the head then, sleepily murmuring,

"Thinking too much."

Alexandra smiled at them over her book.

Blinky had long since gotten over being embarrassed by AAARRRGGHH. Everyone in Trollmarket knew he was tactile with Blinky; everyone knew he was significantly less than eloquent; everyone knew he had his good days and bad days, and sometimes just needed to be left alone. But Blinky couldn't help but wonder how Alexandra perceived his massive friend; being from such a strange place (possibly), did she find AAARRRGGHH strange as well, or was she truly as accepting as she appeared?

"AAARRRGGHH's right, you're thinking too much," she muttered. Blinky had the sudden, intrusive thought that she could read minds, but dismissed it almost immediately.

"I was merely wondering," Blinky said quietly, "Where you learned to fight a larger opponent. You certainly handled Draal well."

"Yes. Shame I don't know where he is," Alexandra replied. She was purposefully misunderstanding his statement in order to draw attention away from her fighting styles! She was hiding something!

"And I picked up a few things here and there. We're not from the most muscular or battle-ready of clans, after all. Larger opponents are a fact of life."
…Ah. So she answers the question without giving away a single shred of personal information.

Blinky was dealing with a professional.

That was his first thought, anyway.

His second was: Let's pit her against Bular.

She had no reaction, so she wasn't reading his mind.

…Just in case.

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Alexandra was nearly ready to go find one of the other Changelings in Arcadia and say 'Hey! I'm alive! Please take me back!' if it meant that she could get away from Blinky. He was honestly worse than Stricklander when it came to questions and roundabout inquiries, and now he was beginning to just ask outright! She knew that he was suspicious of her and it was stressing her the fuck out, as if she needed another reason to be stressed.

Draal was still recovering in her room, she herself was only healed enough to wobble back and forth to the library, Blinky played Twenty Questions with her every day, half of Trollmarket thought she was an indecisive coward, and at some point soon she needed to go back upstairs to finish off her affairs and get more cat supplies.

It was not the best time for her trainer to be wondering about her. She was too injured to be able to fight her way out of Trollmarket, if he really discovered who she was. Hell, she was too injured to fight her way out of the library. Blinky could probably take her down now.

Fortunately, nobody really wanted anything from her. A few people had approached her in the library, asking for advice or to settle a dispute – not everyone in Trollmarket had been dissatisfied with the outcome of the match, as it turned out – but for the most part she was left alone. She had proven herself against a formidable opponent, and even though she'd flouted the rules she still won.

Vendel, actually, had seemed the most impressed with her, and she suspected that it was because he cared about Draal. He had cornered her on her way back to her quarters one day, to question her. He had not inquired about the idiot's whereabouts, but simply asked if he was okay. Alex suspected that her 'concerned grandparent' impression actually had more root in truth than she had initially assumed. When she told him of Draal's condition he took her to his quarters inside the Heartstone and gave her a small bag of simple but powerful medicines, and then refused to interact with her further. But he had been significantly less vitriolic than any other time she'd spoken to him, and she knew he was grateful for her having spared the asshole's life.

Draal himself was taking his 'banishment' reasonably well, even though he was going stir-crazy and driving her to the limits of her patience. He actually was not that bad a roommate, but Alexandra valued her privacy, and until Draal healed she was deprived of it. It was a good thing that trolls didn't have much of a stink, because he couldn't even leave to use the baths, but Alex was ready to kick him out for just about any excuse. He scoffed at her when she stayed up reading and her only form of revenge was gotten in the evenings, when he was trying to sleep. Alexandra had had several lovers over her lifetime, but she suspected that Draal had almost none, and when she shifted on the nest he always woke up, clearly not as used to sharing a bed as she was. Alex made sure to always go to bed after Draal was already asleep, just to wake him up when she made herself the little spoon. More than once he'd grumpily shifted so that she'd had to sleep against his crystal-covered back, but it was worth it.

She found and read every song and saga about Kanjigar the Courageous, which was extremely depressing but a good way to both learn about what was expected from the Trollhunter and a fantastic way to annoy Draal, especially when she read them out loud. He couldn't roar at her to shut her up, in case he was found, so they had several furious but silent fights; which – in their injured states – usually just consisted of slaps and elbowing the other off the nest.

With the way her body reacted to troll medicine it took almost two weeks for her to get into semi-fighting state, and she spent the time studying, because troll history and culture was fascinating.

She had seen the multiple television screens of static in the market, but she hadn't known that they actually acted as a sort of relaxant drug to trolls, enough that if one stared too long they would go into a daze. There was a species of troll that had sixty-six different words for 'to snore'. There had been a human family called Sturges that assisted in the war against Gunmar and his army, acknowledged and honored in the annals of troll history. She learned that the origin story of Gunmar's that she'd been fed as a child were not exactly true, but he had destroyed both his blood relatives and their records in order to make a cult around himself, and it was damned effective.

She studied biology and physiology as well. She learned about the subtle differentiations in color between males and females, which was handy because with trolls one couldn't always tell just by shape or voice. There weren't many trolls that could regenerate limbs, but apparently body modification was heavy in troll culture. Alexandra had noticed the carved tattoos, of course, but she was surprised that trolls would use gems, metal, and wood as well as everyday objects to alter their bodies. And she had no idea that she had seven stomachs. They were different than what humans thought of as stomachs, but still. Seven. She knew her troll form had two hearts, which always felt strange after a Change, but some of the information about her own biology was surprising. Apparently the reason she got so sick when she tried to be a vegetarian in the nineties was because some species of trolls actually died without meat in their diet. And trolls, apparently, did not sneeze. Something about how their nasal and respiratory passages were formed. Which was disturbing because Alexandra, in either form, could sneeze.

And she even found some info on Blinky and AAARRRGGHH. Apparently Blinky had gotten into a waiting-contest, of all things, with someone called Prothnurd the Persistent, which only ended after three years when Prothnurd keeled over and died. AAARRRGGHH was directly descended of the renowned warrior Johanna, who had ripped out Gunmar's famous eye. He was also from a clan called the Krubera, located underneath the mountains between Russia and Georgia. The book she found said that although his clan reclaimed him, he didn't remember anything from his original family. She didn't dare ask AAARRRGGHH himself; she had a feeling that that was a question that would get her fewer odd looks and more banishment than she really wanted.

By the time she was in condition to go back to the Forge, she was avoiding Blinky and AAARRRGGHH. Not only because Blinky was getting suspicious of her, but because they wanted her to go upstairs. Which, to be fair, was something Alexandra was planning on doing anyway, but they wanted her to pick a fight with Bular.

She couldn't even fathom why. Sure, she was charged with protecting the human world as well as trolls, but Bular couldn't get into Trollmarket and there were absolutely no reports of a giant stone monster rampaging the streets of Arcadia, so what was the need to go up and find him? Were they actually expecting her to be able to kill him? Historically a battle between Bular and the Trollhunter – any Trollhunter – eventually ended with the Hunter dying – tragically, horrifically, and painfully.

Kanjigar, actually, was the only Hunter who hadn't died during a fight. There was absolutely nothing Alexandra found encouraging about that.

Draal threw volume twenty-seven of A Brief Recapitulation of Troll-Lore at her face when she hesitated and hid in her room, calling her a coward. She remorselessly reminded him that his father had died after a fight with Gunmar's son, which shut him up for five minutes before he began berating her again. Blinky and AAARRRGGHH didn't dare enter her room, but they pestered her about it whenever she went out to get food.

Eventually, though, she had to give. Her cats were creating a good and proper stink, and she needed to terminate her lease and her job. Blinky allowed her one more day after she agreed, to finish healing. When she snuck out of her room again, her body was still sore and bruised, but it didn't hurt to handle her sword or walk anymore. She took a detour around the Heartstone, for luck or good vibes or whatever it was that the giant crystal gave her. Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were busy with a gnome problem in the middle of the market and Alexandra made sure to give them a wide berth; she wanted to go up alone. If she came across Bular, she really didn't want anyone to witness her death.

It was late morning when she emerged from Trollmarket for the second time in two weeks, and the sun felt so good that she had to stand and bask in it for a good moment, after having a very, very long look the underside of the bridge. She hadn't expected a watcher out so soon – Bular and his minions couldn't know she was a Changeling, so there was no reason that they knew of for her to be out during the day – but it never hurt to be careful.

Time passed so differently om Trollmarket; it was a pleasant, slow Saturday for the denizens above ground, a little later than Alexandra had anticipated. Things seemed to move faster in the sunlight, and Alex took an hour to walk the ten minute route from the bridge to her apartment, just watching.

Assembling the stuff from her apartment was both easy and difficult. Alex was more than practiced in packing up her entire life and hightailing it out of a town, but it was different this time. She wasn't going to re-use her human things for the foreseeable future. She wasn't just changing around her life this time, but abandoning it. The CLANK of the storage unit's door closing seemed significantly more final that it had any right to be.

Alexandra rented her unit for another six months and spent the rest of the day resigning from her job at the bookshop and checking out books from the county library, knowing that she'd probably never take them back. Her back was laden with a heavy backpack filled with cat supplies and stolen books, as well as a handy little package from her apartment. Night had fallen by the time she got back to the park by the canal, as she planned; it wouldn't look good if Blinky found out she went out and came back during the day.

She Changed in the shadow of a large elm tree, and smelled the goblin before she saw it.

Son of the bitch!

The rubbery, salty scent hit her mind like a brick to the face, and she summoned the sword before she even thought about her little package. The goblin tried to flee, but she dodged through the trees, landing a hit with the flat of her sword and sending it screaming into the canal.

It was still struggling away when she got down to it, amazingly unsplattered. A swift cut rendered it silent. She stayed perfectly still, listening for any others, for when there was one there were often many.

That's when she heard the breathing.

He's in the sewers. There was a grate right in the wall, not twenty feet from her. Bular was fucking watching her.

Alexandra dropped the sword and her backpack and tore for the side of the canal as the bars of the grate exploded outward, chunks of metal and concrete raining down at her from the right. She scrambled up the canal wall and dodged through the trees with the thundering of footsteps close, far too close behind her.

"Trollhunter!"

Oh, Lord, she had not anticipated this! Before she was even out of the park she was getting out of breath, a stitch in her side reminding her that she had broken ribs not even a week ago.

She hid behind a tractor-trailer on the edge of the park, and Bular knocked the cab over, just missing crushing her legs as she desperately got out of the way. As the trailer fell on its side she got her first glimpse of him, a steaming, jagged shadow with fiercely glowing eyes. She hadn't seen those eyes in centuries, and it reminded her to keep hers until check, lest they glow in fear.

Alexandra scampered across the street and through a small alley, forcing Bular to run around the end of the street, and she kept running as she doubled back down another alley to the street she'd just come from. Bular's frustrated roar echoed in her ears, lending her another turn of speed as she booked it toward the canal.

This is where being human might have been useful, she thought derisively, ducking into a roll down the side of the canal. Her stumpy little troll legs weren't exactly useful for sprinting, which was extremely inconvenient.

A familiar yell rang over the concrete just as Bular threw a broken tree into the canal, roaring as he did.

"Master Alexandra!"
"TROLLHUNTER!"

Alex was knocked aside by the flying tree and ended up with several nasty scratches and a twisted finger. She got back to her feet and summoned the armor, the glow of the sword fading from her eyes just as Bular landed in the canal. She was fifty feet from the opposite wall, where Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were silhouetted against the blue entrance to Trollmarket.

She was only a handwidth out of Bular's range.

She kept two eyes on him and two on the surrounding areas, in case of an unexpected minion. The unusual input made her head ache, but she had to be aware of attacks from the side.

"Focus on your adversary, Master Alexandra," shouted Blinky, reminding her that they had her back.

She looked him up and down, trying to find his weaknesses in a split second, but he was armored like nobody's damn business. The only places she could see were his eyes, neck, and the skin beneath his arms; otherwise, there was nothing.

Bular swiped at her with a sword nearly the length of her body, forcing her to roll away. She came back up with a chunk of concrete in each lower hand and pelted him in the face, distracting him enough to throw the sword straight at his head. He had anticipated this, and the Daylight Sword glanced off his own blades, disappearing into the air with a fizzle of blue sparks. She was already pelting toward the others when one of his swords flew at her side, slicing her lower right forearm. She picked up the thrown sword and swung with it and a newly-summoned Daylight, ducking into Bular's range as he swiftly caught up with her. He hadn't expected an attack with his own sword and she got him under his arm, but he caught Daylight by the flat of its blade and wrenched it from her hands just as the other sword swung and fucking got stuck in his armored shoulders.

His kick sent her to her back, twenty feet away.

And only six feet away from her discarded backpack.

Alexandra hoped that Bular was in the mood to brag as she hastily dug through her backpack, watching with three eyes as he smirked and stomped over to her.

"I would have thought we'd meet sooner," said Bular quietly. "It's been too long since I've had a good kill."

Yes, the evil villain monologue, Alexandra thought, desperately tossing through books and bags of cat food.

"I was washing my hair," she muttered, aware that Blinky was screaming at her to abandon her backpack and get the fuck over to the portal.

Bular snorted.

"A sense of humor," he said. "Useless."

He looked over her, lying defenseless on the hard concrete, his fiery eyes roaming over her stubby legs, her four arms, and extended horns. She tried to look fierce, and knew that she failed.

"How many jokes do you truly believe you can make before your death?"

I'm so glad he likes to talk. Aha. Her hands found the little package, and she paused.

"I've only got one thing for you," Alexandra said, her heart racing so much she almost felt nauseated. Bular, standing over her with two swords and three hundred pounds more, did not look intimidated.

"And that would be?"
Alex smirked through her fear.

"A Saturday Night Special," she said, and shot him in the right eye.

Bular screamed like a bull and stabbed at her, but his depth perception was compromised and she rolled out of the way, slicing at his exposed neck with Daylight as she picked up her backpack and booked it toward Blinky and AAARRRGGHH.

'murica, fucker, she thought, just before her helmet saved her from being brained by a piece of rebar. She both heard and felt Bular chasing after her, so much swifter despite his heavier body, the reverberations of his feet and hands shaking through the concrete. AAARRRGGHH yelled a warning and she dodged to the left, avoiding another flying blade by inches. She shrugged her pack off and tossed it to AAARRRGGHH, who unceremoniously threw it through the portal, just before the thing apparently got bored of waiting and turned back into a solid wall.

Bular and Alexandra fell into their space as he tackled her from behind, breaking her nose on the concrete and forcing the two to scramble out of the way.

"I'll drink your blood out of a goblet made from your skull!" Bular screamed, catching her head in one hand and smashing it against the ground. The helmet saved her again, but she could barely see from the sudden dizziness and double-vision and only managed to avoid being torn like poor Unkar the Unfortunate by taking another shot at Bular's armored chest, which did not wound him so much as it lightly chipped the hard armor there. But it pissed him off, and she managed to sun-stain a good chunk of his left thigh before he kicked her away.

"Don't be sore, Bular! I thought you wanted to be more like your father?"

A roar answered her. His now single eye looked as if it wanted to set her on fire, and she felt like it was succeeding. They circled each other, Alex trying to keep Blinky and AAARRRGGHH behind her as much as she could, and Alex could feel her older injuries acting up.

She was caught off guard when he lunged, not for her, but for the two trolls behind her, having correctly gauged them as Alexandra's biggest weakness. His tail smashed into her hip as she turned, sending her to one knee, but she grabbed onto his belt and hauled herself atop his back. He lost his balance when she grabbed one of his horns and pulled, but he flung her off, charging for the undefended pair.

Blinky was only saved from immediate death by his friend, who blocked him and was flung against the wall of the canal by Bular's massive forearm, chunks of concrete crashing down from the impact crater.

"Oh, this is not the way I imagined such a life as mine to end," Blinky wailed in a panic, throwing up his arms as Bular aimed both swords at his head, but Alexandra flung herself between the two and the swords landed against Daylight with a ringing clash. She kicked behind her and shoved Blinky away, grabbing Bular's swords and pulling her body forward until she was directly in his face, close enough to catch two fists against the stone-turned slice on the side of Bular's neck, making him bellow and drop her.

She wasn't fast enough to get completely out of his range, but her armor saved her from being sliced in two, and Blinky caught her when she fell backward with a wheeze.

"My many thanks, Alexandra," he said hurriedly. "Perhaps now would be a good time to retreat!"
Alex opened her mouth to reply but had to pull Blinky beneath her as Bular's sword swept over their heads, taking a good slice out of the back of AAARRRGGHH's shoulder as he ducked over them to cover them. Alex left him to look after Blinky and twirled under his arm, using her sword like a spear to try and drive Bular back.

But Bular was pissed the fuck off. She wasn't sure if any Hunter had actually managed to land a hit as devastating as her bullet to the eye.

He stabbed at her at the same time that he got another hit on AAARRRGGHH, who, Alex noticed, was moving much more stiffly than before. He and Blinky were distractions; not only did she have to defend herself, but she had to protect them as well, and now one of them was injured.

Blinky, at least, was trying to help, scrambling back and forth to gather up pieces of fallen concrete and throwing them as hard as he could at Bular's face. It actually was a decent distraction, and Alexandra managed to make the fucker back away a few feet by slicing at his back, forcing him to turn around to try and fight her.

AAARRRGGHH caught a boulder the size of his head before it could crush Alex, and then dropped it on the ground, instead of, oh, say, fucking throwing it!

"AAARRRGGHH, what the fuck? Give us a hand!"

"Pacifist!" he yelled, dodging to the side before a brick hit his shoulder.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!"

What he'd said was enough to make Alex freeze, just long enough to trip when one of Bular's sword slammed into her shin guards. The armor flashed blue, blinding everybody for an instant. When her vision came back, Bular's sword was an inch in front of her face, and she screamed when it sliced across her nose and into her second left eye.

Oh, god, the pain was immense. She'd had sand and fists in her eyes before, but this was so fucking different. Bular's laugh was nauseating as she tried to get past the shooting agony, but it was her eye and the sharp pain laced through her entire face. She swung her sword blindly and shot at where his vague, blurry shadow was, but the pain was so distracting that she missed both times. Arms grabbed hers and pulled her away, but they lost their grip when Bular snagged a claw inside her breastplate and pulled her away from the others. She lashed out desperately and elbowed him in the bleeding, glowing socket she had destroyed. The yellow glow of the portal turned to mist in her watering eyes as he dropped her painfully, and she pelted full-out to the wall. Alexandra slammed against Blinky, sending them both tumbling through the portal, and it closed up inches behind AAARRRGGHH's tail, a bellow of rage following them until it echoed into nothingness.

Alexandra lay where she fell, Blinky's weight crushing her legs, a hand pressed against her lost eye. She ground her teeth to avoid moaning when AAARRRGGHH carefully lifted her and Blinky to their feet, and she dismissed the armor with a shake of her head. Actually, her whole body was shaking.

"What the fuck," she groaned.

"An admirable effort," said Blinky to her right, sounding as shaken as she did but still patting her on the shoulder.

"You struck a fierce blow," he continued, with a hint of pride in his voice. "As well as several others. I believe I owe you my life."

Several fast, bitter thoughts ran through her head them.

Yeah, you owe me a fucking eye.

Yeah, at least you tried to help.

Yeah, no thanks to AAARRRGGHH.

The last one stuck.

"Not one single book I found mentioned you didn't fight," Alexandra said, leaning her arm against the wall of the entrance cave and glaring at the immense troll in front of her. To his credit, he looked uncomfortable.

"Don't fight…anymore," AAARRRGGHH rumbled. Alex grimaced.

"I got that."

Blinky dusted himself off and stood at AAARRRGGHH's side, appearing both defensive and confused.

"My friend took a vow of peace just before the Battle of Killahead," he said tightly, looking at Alex's tense shoulders, the hands curling into fists. "Surely that is common knowledge, even in as strange a place as New Jersey."
"It's not."

"Ah. Well, this is why we have a Trollhunter," Blinky said calmly, seamlessly falling into Education Mode. "AAARRRGGHH renounced the violent path ages a-"
"So, wait-"
Alexandra held up a hand and halted him. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to make sure she really understood what Blinky meant.

"So you're saying…this…all of this could have been avoided is AAARRRGGHH were to fight?"

They looked at her like they had no clue why she sounded so mad.

She realized that they actually didn't understand why she was so angry. Troll culture was so rooted in the glory in battle and fighting that she would never have considered a troll so respected to call himself a pacifist.

The use of the word stung her a little bit, because she had grown up in a society of pacifists. Unlike AAARRRGGHH, who seemed to simply refuse to participate in battle himself, her Quaker family had disagreed with all forms of violence, and it annoyed her to hear AAARRRGGHH, who sounded more hypocritical every second, putting himself in the same box as her former family.

Especially she was directly experiencing the repercussions of his decision.

"All twenty-six Trollhunters have been killed by Bular, all of them," she hissed. "And this would never have happened if AAARRRGGHH had just got up off his ass and sent Bular back to the hellpit he spawned from centuries ago!"

"Master Alexandra…" Blinky looked back to his friend, an apology in his eyes. "…You do not understand – "

"I chose," said AAARRRGGHH, quiet but firm. Alex peered at him over Blinky's shoulder.

"To what? Sit back and let every Hunter be murdered in a war you could have ended half a millennia ago?!"
"I chose," AAARRRGGHH said, somewhat more forcefully.

"You're not even a fucking pacifist!"

Alexandra does something to demonstrate her anger.

"A pacifist disagrees with violence completely; but you just sit back and let everybody else do the fighting, don't you?"
He turned away from her and she could see his shoulders shaking, his fists clenching before he moved them out of her sight, but she wanted him to take a hit; she wanted him to get angry.

Why should he be able to put aside his violent past? Why should he be allowed to disregard and be forgiven for his dark beginnings, the tortures and experiments that all of Gunmar's stolen children were forced to suffer? He had been taken, he had been changed, but he walked freely and loved openly and was loved in return – whereas if she dared the Change, she'd be murdered on the spot.

Why should he be able to sit by and watch while she was chosen to fight in a battle he could have ended before she was even born, a battle that would most likely kill her, just as it had killed every single Trollhunter before her.

Blinky tried to stop her, and she dodged him. She didn't know where she got the strength, but she shoved AAARRRGGHH on the arm hard enough to make him stumble sideways.

"I challenge you," she spat, so angry that her voice shook. AAARRRGGHH stared at her in incredulity before turning his face away.

"Not fighting," he rumbled.

"'No backing out of a challenge'," she quoted at him, making his ears dip and his shoulders hunch. The armor was summoned with a thought and Alexandra punched him hard on the arm.

"Fight me!" she yelled.
"NOT FIGHTING!"

AAARRRGGHH roared, slashing his arm a foot over her head and cracking the stone wall to her right, moving so suddenly that she didn't even have time to flinch. Standing upright he loomed head, shoulders, and chest over her and she instinctively drew her sword, but when she found his eyes – almost directly over her head – her arms froze in horror.

They were jet black, the pupils like pinpricks encased in rings of a sickening green that was spread across his tattoos as well. She had only been a small child the last time she'd seen eyes like those, but they still numbed her to her core.

AAARRRGGHH's entire body shook with heavy breath and the immense, visceral effort that he was taking not to crush her like a twig. For the first time Alexandra truly appreciated how terrifying a Gumm-Gumm AAARRRGGHH must have been, and what that really meant. How stark the differences were between the quiet, cheerful troll she was familiar with, and the enormous warrior raised in pain and violence. How much visible effort it took to hold that back.

He didn't refuse to fight just for his own sake, Alexandra realized then, but for the safety of everyone he cared about. His past may have been over, but it was not gone. She understood, now, why everyone in Trollmarket was so gung-ho about AAARRRGGHH refusing to fight. If he truly lost himself again, there would be nothing to stop him and Bular from destroying everything. AAARRRGGHH's presence in Deya's army, his mere absence from Gunmar's, had turned the tide of the war overnight – Alexandra could only imagine in horror what a force he could be if matched with the killer of Merlin's Champions.

They stood locked, the frozen Changeling and the looming monster, until AAARRRGGHH slowly banished the anger, tears forming in his brightening eyes. Blinky, unafraid, laid two hands on his side and they seemed to melt the tension completely out of AAARRRGGHH's body.

Alexandra had never been the subject of so shaming a glare, least not by someone who could do it with six eyes. Blinky's face clearly told her to get the fuck away from his friend. She'd disrespected a trusted member of Trollmarket. He was shaking and in tears because of her.

Her quiet, whispered sorry was ignored. Alexandra watched them for a minute, deliberating on what she should do, before she picked up her battered, bloodied backpack and left the cave, the crystal staircase appearing at her feet. The blue glow of the crystals illuminated the two she left behind, and she could see AAARRRGGHH's shoulders shaking before they disappeared from view.

The denizens of Trollmarket looked concerned at her beaten and bloodied appearance, but her face was dark enough that none of them bothered her. She dimly recognized that she wasn't creating a very open or friendly reputation, but she felt pissed-off and guilty enough that it really didn't matter, not then.

The door to her quarters opened quietly. Draal was asleep on the nest, one of her books on the musical culture of trolls across Europe open on his chest. Alex dropped her backpack on the floor. The cats scampered around her feet, and then retreated hastily to the bathroom when she yelled wordlessly and slammed her fists into the wall, cracking both it and her knuckles. Draal awoke with a startled yelp and stared helplessly as she punched and punched, only stopping when the skin broke and glowed with the crystal-skin beneath.

Alex stood for a minute, breathing heavily, absently shaking the pain out of her hands. Draal shifted on the nest, and she cut her eyes to him. He froze, caught in her glare.

"Um. What has…?"

Alex took a deep breath, and straightened up.

"You're healed enough," she said, so quietly that he had to lean forward. "Please leave."
Draal stared at her for a moment, then gently peeled the book off his chest and placed it on the floor. Eyes not leaving hers, he stood and backed out of the door, closing it with a sullen thud.

By the time Alex settled down, alone in her bed for the first time in a week, she wished she hadn't asked him to leave.

.

.

A/N: I actually love AAARRRGGHH to pieces, he's the most beautiful cinnamon roll ever, but my Alexandra is a little more hot-tempered than me. The show does actually imply, if not outright state, that the whole reason there's a Trollhunter is because AAARRRGGHH no longer fights, implying that he's the only one tough enough to actually kill Bular. I'd like to point out that – although Jim did the stabbing bit – AAARRRGGHH was the one to actually land the final blow on Bular.

Blinky also stated that he took his vow of peace directly after he changed sides, so he never fought for Deya; he just simply didn't fight for Gunmar. And he still got Deya a victory, simply because he didn't fight. How fucking powerful must someone be to be able to turn the tide of an entire war just by not fighting?

Alexandra is actually incorrect here. I don't have any idea how many Trollhunters there have been, but a decent few of them lost their lives to Angor Rot, not Bular, but Alex doesn't know that yet.

If you don't think that Blinky would deliberately pit Alexandra against Bular you haven't seen the first few episodes, because he outright shoved Jim into the Training Pit Of Death with the kid having no training, shot arrows and giant stone blades at him, and had absolutely no reaction to Jim and Toby's first encounter with Bular other than you're not dead yet, that's good! Blinky is a stone-cold guy. Literally.

I got a lot of the culture and lore of trolls from del Toro's book, from which the show was inspired. I wasn't impressed with Jim or Claire in the book, but Blinky and ARRRGH! were fantastic and so was the writing. Some things are changed around, of course, but I wanted to make a reference or six to the book, because I really enjoyed it. Blinky was an absolute joy. Read the book just for Blinky.

Do you really think that at some point in four hundred years - in America – she wouldn't have bought a gun?