It was so akin to jumping into the abyss - hard to find any courage at first, but no way to stop once the fall started. After all that initial shock, huge disappointment at the new body, fight with three stupid fleshbags because of bizarre clothing and struggling with the fear to step outside everything else did not feel that awful. Or maybe Barverra just had given up by the point when three girls started to drag her around the village introducing locals to her - as if those ridiculous names and bland backgrounds would hold any importance. If anything those just caused a major headache - yet another unpleasant discovery of downsides of a human body.
"I just wonder when all of this will stop," the former troll grumbled at last, sick and tired of all the talk. "What is even the point of meeting all of those fleshbags?"
All the time she had stayed in the village, she preferred to keep her distance from the vast majority of locals, not to mention that Barverra's former impression was that residents also would rather stay as far as they could. Without any doubt everyone had been afraid before - and that fear was obviously lingering even now, clearly reflected in gazes, voices and body language.
"Finding some friends?" Shorty suggested with a smile. Well, apparently that one wasn't scared at all. Barverra had already got the gist that she was the most blabbermouthed and prying one out of three. Freckles seemingly had a short temper, while Twig was obviously frightened (or shy, or even both at once - not that it ever mattered), which made both girls not that keen on keeping any conversations. Their plump companion, on other hand refused to close her mouth even for a second since they left Tabitha's house, commenting on basically everything.
"Friends..." the daughter of Gunmar suddenly sneered with an obvious disgust. "Friends are equals as far as I remember! Unless, you have changed the definition without me knowing".
It might have greatly surprised any of her enemies and probably a huge chunk of her father's associates, but the infamous Herald of Doom wasn't against the concept of friendship and camaraderie. However, in her mind only beings of equal strength and standing could be called friends. She had never met anyone like that. Sure, there was Bular, but he was her kin, a part of family. The same was true for Gunmar, with the exception that he was obviously way above her.
Therefore, even a thought of having a fleshbag as a friend was simply ludicrous.
Yet the nuance of her tone had escaped trio. Why should she have been surprised though? They had been misinterpreting things for some time by that point.
"Yes, equals!" Freckles nodded, visibly delighted. She even forgot about her own irritation only some seconds ago. "So even you have someone like that and..."
"I haven't," Barverra interrupted the girl, narrowing her eyes in displeasure. "No being in this world has managed to impress me enough to earn that place!"
And that phrase was understood wrongly again. The daughter of Gunmar even started to question mental capabilities of an average fleshbag - those three definitely had problems with speech comprehension. The pattern didn't inspire any confidence.
Twig gasped, looking at the former troll with a clear pity. Much as expected, Shorty was more vocal:
"You must be so lonely then!"
Lonely. As if it was something bad - an ability to go without any assistance was the proof of strength.
"Is it a joke?" Freckles seemed rather skeptical as if something like that was impossible to imagine. "Wasn't there anyone who helped you with things you couldn't do? Someone to compensate your weak sides and, I don't know, cover your back?"
"Weaklings don't live for too long, so you either get rid of 'weak sides' or die," Barverra scowled, getting more pissed with each passing second. "And there have never been things I couldn't do myself!"
She was sure that after such statement the trio would get the point - there were no 'friends' because no one was good enough for that, not because whatever reason they had managed to think out. It was like they implied that the daughter of Gunmar had only known the lacking life so far, which was ridiculous, no matter how much she thought about it.
It didn't work - Twig grew even sadder and then suddenly proclaimed with a surprising newfound bravery:
"Then I'll be your friend!"
It astonished even her two companions while Barverra was outright dumbfounded.
"Charlotte, what was that about?" Freckles scolded the lanky girl, visibly displeased. The former troll could swear that one would prefer to say more, but refrained.
It was easy to imagine the shy girl to go back on her words, but it seemed that previously meek and scared Twig changed into a different person as she continued with some unexpected passion:
"No, Sarah, Mellie, how can't you see? She's totally alone in this world with no one to help, no one to confide on, no one to get comfort from! And we're in this only because Elder Tabitha asked us, even though we should show more sympathy! Isn't Barverra a protector of our village, the one who gave us some peaceful times? Shouldn't we be at least slightly grateful?"
"I'm still standing here, you know," the former troll reminded coldly. Twig's words stirred something in her soul and she didn't like that. She had no need for help or comfort - the daughter of Gunmar had lived for centuries without those and didn't plan to change her ways. Relying on others? What a joke!
"Lottie's right," Shorty suddenly agreed with serious face. "Barverra, I'll be your friend as well!"
"No need," the Herald of Doom nearly groaned wondering if it was even possible to get rid of those pesky fleshbags and their outlandish ideas.
"No, there is!"
Great, now Freckles was in it as well.
"You've said, there has never been anything you couldn't do yourself, but I'm pretty sure that currently you're not capable to deal with the most things without proper help. So be grateful - you have these three kind Samaritans to lend you a hand!" Freckles looked at the former troll with some mischievous smirk.
Barverra was already hating the idea. Was it so difficult to leave her alone or something?
Even though admitting it was difficult and humiliating, Freckles was right - Barverra would never be able to navigate through everyday human life without aid. There had been trolls with some interest in human lifestyle, but no Gumm-Gumm would ever lower themselves to that kind of research. And the Herald of Doom had been no exception to the rule. Even when it came to something as basic as having a meal, the daughter of Gunmar had no idea what kind of food fleshbags could eat - their flat teeth made her doubt their ability to consume anything too hard.
In hindsight, if she were alone, she would have starved to death quite fast. Well, probably more like would have broken some teeth and got food poisoning in attempt to find something edible herself. The meddlesome trio was actually useful in preventing that pathetic outcome.
The meal the girls put before her was unusual, to say the least - there was a round object Barverra mistook for a stone at first, but reconsidered as it was too soft to be one, and a bowl full of some liquid with something floating in it - was that some kind of drink perhaps? They also gave her some peculiar stick the former troll put aside immediately - that one did not look or smell like food after all.
No matter how reluctant the female was at first, her rumbling stomach encouraged her to try. Besides, it didn't smell bad. The stone-like soft thing turned out to be actually nice, the drink in the bowl was tasty as well, though stuff floating in it nearly made her choke - why did those fleshbags make it like that to start with? Was it another one of their traditions that made no sense?
Barverra would prefer to stay alone during her meal, but no - the trio had been watching her intently all the time. Their facial expressions varied greatly though - Shorty was clearly forcing a fake smile, Twig looked mortified and Freckles didn't even try to hide a disapproving frown.
All of that was quite suspicious, to say the least. And the former troll's hunch turned out to be right on spot.
"There's a lot of work to do in the table manners department," Freckles drawled, finally losing patience.
Shorty giggled nervously trying to lighten the mood a bit:
"She's got bread right, at least... And didn't try to eat soup with hands..."
"It's our fault - we should have shown how to use the spoon first," Twig added defensively.
Barverra scowled - the trio kept talking about her as if she wasn't present and it seriously got on her nerves.
"What do trolls even eat?" Freckles exclaimed in annoyance.
"Do you really want to know?" the daughter of Gunmar grinned, finally finding the way to pay back for all the humiliation so far. The answer would certainly make the pesky girls shut up (well, at least temporary) - even though some stuff like metal or stones were pretty safe, there were things they would definitely be horrifying to discover - like that Gumm-Gumms actually enjoyed feasting on human flesh. Yet the triumph was quite short-lived as Freckles dismissed her question with a wave of hand:
"What's the point? It doesn't matter right now - just that we need to teach you one more thing in addition to everything else..."
Freckles never bothered to explain what that ominous-sounding 'everything else' even meant, but Barverra actually discovered it herself the next day - and oh boy, she wasn't that thrilled. Apparently, all inhabitants of the village had some kind of everyday responsibilities and they now expected from her to participate in that.
How had they worded it? Something in line of 'those who will not work, shall not eat', as far as Barverra remembered. Not that she found that illogical or unreasonable, but she could swear she had contributed a lot to the village protection before. Wouldn't it be nice to give her some slack right now?
In any case, it wasn't like the daughter of Gunmar would ever whine aloud because of some injustice.
The second human meal turned out to be pretty annoying as an introduction of mysterious spoon just complicated the process without any need. Barverra actually struggled with a proper grip that would allow her to put at least some food into her mouth without dropping it midway. If there were no pesky trio watching over her like hawks and giving some oh-so-useful advices, she would have thrown the damned thing as far as possible long time ago.
The tendency to overcomplicate things for no reason started to look like another defining trait of humankind extremely fast - after the breakfast the annoying girls dragged their new "friend" to introduce her to everyday chores. Washing clothes seemed pointless as well as repairing those. Trolls wouldn't even notice anything that minor, but fleshbags still freaked out because of some dirt and little holes. Freckles even ended with some long and boring speech about importance of keeping everything neat and then proceeded to some instructions. Not that anything of that mattered to Barverra who still failed both tasks after letting laundry to be washed away by river and injuring fingers multiple times in a weak attempt to put a patch on some skirt.
Bringing some water, on other hand, was exhausting but successful chore. Chopping wood wasn't too troublesome as well after the former troll figured out how much strength to apply to an axe swing. Besides, the look of surprise on the Freckles' face was certainly oddly satisfying.
Alas, that was the end of achievements. After some heated debate between Shorty and Freckles, the girls had come to conclusion that something like spinning yarn, sewing or even cooking were simply too much for a total newbie, so Barverra could only watch. In an attempt to comfort her Twig told that there was also growing vegetables, but incoming winter meant no agriculture work. Shorty was vehemently against trying tending to animals, so it put the end to the list of tasks.
Second day flew even faster than first one, leaving the daughter of Gunmar falling fast asleep before realizing it. Third one was as draining. Then came fourth and she just stopped paying that much attention to the count. Some chores started to become easier and Barverra even mastered that 'spoon' thing, which left her with a weird feeling of personal satisfaction.
By the end of the first week she even demanded to let her try cooking herself without any help. In hindsight, it was just a horrible idea. Sure thing, Twig and Shorty were quite supportive, but Freckles, on other hand, didn't let go of her skepticism even though she allowed to try. Probably, that one had a hunch it could be only a disaster.
To Barverra's mind, cooking didn't seem to be that complicated - she had seen one of the girls preparing some meal more than enough times, so she was pretty sure that it would be possible for her as well. Nothing looked too complicated though she questioned the need of some steps. Like cutting 'vegetables', for example - shouldn't it have been better to have bigger pieces? Big piece would be more nourishing. So what if it needed more chewing? Seriously, fleshbags just kept fussing over some stupid stuff.
The former troll looked at the vegetables once again and put all of them in a pot as they were. She could swear Twig had told her something about washing and peeling, but neither of processes ever looked that important to her. A knife also ended in the pot accidentally, but the daughter of Gunmar decided to leave it there after some consideration. Even if fleshbags were not able to chew that one, some metal flavor would cause no harm. A piece of meat followed, also uncut, so now she just needed to start some fire and wait...
Let's say, the end result was not that good, no, it was simply horrible and disgusting - no one would ever dare to call that muddy something a soup. It took Freckles a quick glance over contents to put away her bowl at once. She refrained from some sarcastic remark only because of her friends' pleading gazes. Shorty was stirring the cooking disaster with a spoon, probably contemplating if she was ready for a food poisoning, and Twig simply couldn't help staring at the knife, which ended in her bowl. Finally, the meek girl had mustered some courage to ask:
"Why is there a knife?"
"For taste," Barverra replied proudly, still waiting for the trio to try the result of her efforts. Yes, it was quite silly to deny that it looked nothing like the food they gave to her and the smell was suspiciously not that appetizing. However, it couldn't taste bad - she had used proper ingredients, after all.
"Have you tried tasting it?" Shorty asked carefully, her face suspiciously green.
The daughter of Gunmar shrugged. Seriously, fleshbags were such wusses! She got a spoonful of her soup - and turned green at once, spitting it back. Freckles and Shorty chuckled unwittingly, Twig hid her own giggle behind a faked cough.
"How can it possibly be that awful?!" Barverra yelled wishing she could get rid of that nasty taste in her mouth.
"My question exactly - how is it even possible to ruin an easy dish? That's a whole another level of a rare skill!" Freckles raised her eyebrow. "And I haven't even tried - the look alone was enough!"
With that fiasco, the daughter of Gunmar was actually banned from any cooking for a while.
Unlike her expectations, two weeks had flown surprisingly fast for Barverra, probably even a slightly tiny bit too fast - not that she would ever admit that herself.
In the end of the thirteenth day elder witch Tabitha had finally bothered to appear before the daughter of Gunmar, whatever her excuse for the suspicious absence was. It was ridiculously odd, yet Barverra wasn't that eager to rip the cunning woman apart as soon as there was an opportunity anymore - it was like all the initial anger had diminished with time. Most likely, Tabitha had predicted the same, so it was the main reason why she sent three uninvolved girls instead of dealing with the troll-turned-human herself. Or maybe she was just lazy - the Herald of Doom could imagine something like that as well.
"You look surprisingly presentable, I would take you for a legit human being, if I didn't know otherwise," the witch noted taking a look at Barverra and her clothing. " My, what a contrast to your initial appearance. I've heard that you've even learned some stuff... So how have you liked this new experience? I bet it was fun!"
The daughter of Gunmar glared at her with some annoyance - true, there might have been no initial fury anymore, yet the irritation went nowhere only igniting once again after the root of all her misadventures came to visit.
"Do you find it amusing?" Barverra drawled. "These days as a fleshbag have been the most humiliating and disgraceful thing in my life... Weak, helpless, not knowing a thing, making fool of myself all the time, being laughed at by three nosy brats, failing in basically everything..."
All of that was new and unknown - her father demanded from her to be capable, fearsome and peerless and she had managed to keep that image for decades. Now it was shattered, grinded into the dust.
"I can hear 'but' in your tone, you know," Tabitha smirked with a weird confidence in her own words - and she actually was right.
"But it was fun," Barverra admitted with a sigh. She caught herself smiling - smiling! - several times during those last few days. At some moments she had nearly forgotten about her dark and gritty past as if the sunlight washed away all those gruesome memories.
"It may be just me, but you wouldn't mind to continue, would you?" the witch asked, her smirk growing wider.
The daughter of Gunmar narrowed her eyes, getting on defence at once. There had been one thing that kept bothering her after she calmed down from the initial shock following the transformation. That suspicion wasn't something that she could ignore - in the world she lived naive and trusting ones tended to go down easily and die young.
"And what is exactly your benefit in having me as a human?" Barverra asked, catching herself too late on using more general term instead of the familiar and offensive 'fleshbag'. "We had a deal that I would protect your village for twenty-five years. Do you think I am capable of that as a puny fleshbag?"
"My, and I have always thought that trolls have a great memory," Tabitha faked a shock. "Have you already forgotten what you asked in return? Or was that price fake to start with while you were just helping out of kindness? Who could imagine that the infamous Gumm-Gumm princess is such a benevolent soul?"
The Herald of Doom snorted:
"Nonsense, as if I could keep bothering with any of your kind for free! Of course, it was to get..." she suddenly stopped, realizing the implication. The elder hadn't turned her into a fleshbag simply for her own amusement (even if she got a lot of fun in the end), no, it was because of…
"Exactly," the witch nodded, finishing instead of her. "That time you asked to find you some method, which would allow you to stop running all the time. I bet you would prefer something that might help you to restore your father's glory days or at least let him out of confinement, but I am just one frail fleshbag with limited magic power, what can I do? So, I improvised, went through some old records and found you the way to blend instead".
Barverra stayed silent, quite dumbstruck by revelation that apparently she had brought the recent misadventure on herself. To be honest, back during her deal time she had never expected anything huge and assumed that Tabitha would find her some abandoned cave, protect it with some magic wards and they both would be content with that, going their separate ways. The stunt the witch pulled instead was way above any crazy expectation.
"You knew that I would never agree to accept something like that as the payment," the daughter of Gunmar uttered grimly at last. Some weeks ago the only thought of becoming a fleshbag was preposterous. Now though? She didn't even know anymore. And it seemed that the witch caught that hesitation at once.
"Well, that's why I made a gamble," she shrugged. "It turned out way better that I could even imagine as I'm still alive and with all of my limbs intact... Now the only question is if you are going to accept my method as your payment or I have to look for something else instead".
Barverra didn't answer immediately. Pride aside, there was a huge drawback to the potion - its effect lasted for two weeks meaning two weeks of vulnerability and no way to protect herself. If she ever were exposed, that would mean a certain death. If it allowed her to turned back and forth at will, she would say yes long time ago.
Either those doubts were so obvious or Tabitha actually knew how to read minds, but she suddenly added nonchalantly, breaking the silence:
"By the way, no one said that there was no way to turn back during two weeks term".
"What?" ok, now the Herald of Doom felt a sudden urge to break some bones as two weeks ago the witch actually claimed total opposite.
"Oh my, you definitely misunderstood back then," Tabitha smiled sheepishly. "Like with the most potions, this one is easily neutralized with the anti-magic one. Actually, any magic cancel would do the same trick, now that I think about it".
It seemed that the idea of punching the cocky woman wasn't that bad after all. Still Barverra couldn't deny that a simple thought about some beating was far from being her normal reaction to mockery. When had she managed to become that soft?
"So, you say, that it's possible to become a troll when I want," the daughter of Gunmar drawled after deciding to leave the question of her offended pride aside. That was surely pretty convenient solution if you threw away all prejudice concerning fleshbags and everything connected to them. It created a perfect disguise, something that could be ruined only by some carelessness. Suddenly all of pieces started to fit, creating a perfect picture of the actual plan the witch had all the time.
"But for your method to work you need me acting more like one of your kind," Barverra continued confidently. "That's why you showed me solution earlier, before the term of our deal ended - to give me enough time to learn your lifestyle".
Tabitha's smile told Barverra that she hit the nail. The elder witch certainly was very careful and most likely never missed deadlines. Perhaps, she was also quite a perfectionist and just hated half-assed solutions.
The daughter of Gunmar couldn't say she hated such approach, but at least part of her was greatly insulted that the witch gave her two whole years to learn the human stuff. Not to mention that the lessons were not that hard to start with, mostly coming in form of hanging out with the pesky trio - apparently, she wasn't going to get rid of those annoyances any time soon.
Out of the three girls, Freckles was the first one whom Barverra started to call by her given name - it took less than a month. It actually made a lot of sense as Sarah possessed a strong will and stubborn nature - something that the most trolls were able to respect.
Twig became Charlotte next after another month passed. It might have been quite unexpected as her meek and quiet personality would never impress the former Gumm-Gumm commander. Still there was a thing that gained the timid girl some esteem in Barverra's eyes and it was the role she had in the village. Charlotte was a local healer, someone who dealt with saving lives on a daily basis. Barverra had grown within community where curing was considered pointless if not a waste of resources - either wound or disease was something to go away without external help or someone would put inflicted out of misery. Well, other tribes of trolls actually tried to help wounded and sick, but the Gumm-Gumm life philosophy was all about survival of the fittest.
The daughter of Gunmar had never actually questioned that way of thinking, she was sharing it after all, not to mention that she had a good share of her own 'mercy kills'. Nevertheless, Charlotte just kept talking about her views on life and death, so Barverra couldn't help starting to think more about that as well. She had seen more than enough cases where situation was not that desperate and a troll could be nursed back to health but was still finished by their own allies so that they wouldn't become a burden. The Gunmar's hordes never had problems with getting more forces, after all, with the Skullcrusher's agressive recruiting approach. Getting rid of liabilities used to be the most logical step, yet now the Herald of Doom couldn't get rid of idea that this philosophy was the actual waste of resources.
Her father had always been perfect, unrivaled troll, his outlook staying the unquestionable truth. But what if her blind worship prevented her from seeing actual facts? The thought was too uncomfortable, eerily close to an actual treason, so at that time Barverra managed to bury it in the deepest corner of her mind. It didn't matter in any case, there was no point to think about the past in the end.
It somehow took more than half of a year before the Herald of Doom started to call Shorty Melinda. To be honest, she memorized the girls name way earlier together with many other villagers' names, but calling her by nickname felt more pleasing for some reason, most likely because Melinda was too noisy and obnoxious to her liking, not to mention her sulky reactions to that.
Those two years turned out to be not that bad in the end - Barverra certainly had learned a lot, though cooking somehow still escaped her - her dishes may have started to look a little bit more presentable, but the taste still remained atrocious, no matter how many times she tried. The girls came to conclusion that it was simply not her forte and let it be.
That was also the time when the Herald of Doom got her current human name - the annoying trio proposed a surprising amount of variants all of which were turned down. Barbara, on other hand, sounded nicely to her ear and wasn't that different from her real name which made it easier to get used to. It turned out to be quite a thoughtful decision as she stuck with that one for good.
And of course, the elder witch Tabitha made her best to put some basic potion brewing stuff into Barverra's head. She didn't let her alone until the troll memorized both recipes for the human-turning and magic neutralizing potions.
Armed with a lot of new knowledge, Barbara plunged into unknown new world...