You are HER IMPERIOUS CONDESCENSION. It sounds weird, running through your head like that. But at the moment you are, perhaps, LESS ORIENTED then you have been in memory. Part of this is a relief, for mere moments ago you were under a fairly certain threat of being DEAD. You were attacked by one of the most powerful people you’d met – you knew this, because you helped train him, anticipating that this training would gain his trust.
Obviously, at least three of the four humans you helped train were in CAHOOTS. You immediately decide this merits more PRIDE in them than ANGER, their machinations having not registered during your continuing surveillance.
Even if everything feels wrong at the moment. Even if nothing is moving, you are VERY MUCH ALIVE.
Sight and sensation would be nice though.
~
“But it did take.”
“She’s not moving.”
“Such powers of observation. Would you want her to move? I certainly am not going to be the one catching her.”
~
There is no water. There is no sky. There is no dirt. There is no light, there is no dark. There is no wat- no, gurl, pull yourself together. This must stop. There must be something.
You fight away the thought that you could not possibly hear anything, try and listen. Meditate. Shut out your own thoughts. That shit.
For an unknown amount of time, it’s good for getting you from the “fight or flight” state of mind to the “bored bored bored bored bored bored” state.
But.
Something IS there.
Finding it is hard. Some metaphor you’ve heard about feeling up a trumpetstomper with your eyes gouged out comes to mind, except for the bit that you don’t even have the luxury of your own coddamn hands.
How.
They found you.
She found you.
She sung you to sleep so many nights. Showed you that the universe was all yours for the taking.
For so many sweeps. For so many sweeps her war songs filtered through your mind. They found you. You hear them again. They embrace you, as you’d never left for that coddamn corner of the universe beyond their reach.
Those songs were woven into you. Gl’bgolyb’s gift.
And Fuck any Universe that thought it could be safe from you.
~
“Ok, just so we don’t get an even more messed up troll, I just wanted to confirm – are we ‘locking up’ memories right? Or ‘removing’ memories?”
“I’d think either option would have the same net effect?” Dirk took a moment to scratch at his nose. This was something he should be able to answer, but he couldn’t.
“Honestly I’m wondering if Hope causes passive delusions. Ugh.”
“What, no, Jake’s fine. Love the boost he gives. Although some sort of brain aspect would be nice right now. Always seems we’re choosing a hard way to do things. Having god-like powers and all.”
“Could you dial back the cake-eating for a few minutes maybe?” Jane readied herself again, “I’ve gotta pay attention to giving Hitler an Art Scholarship here.”
~
A long way away… is a roar. You don’t know if it’s the quietest thing you have ever heard, or the loudest.
~
“Just…”
“It’s ‘movement’. I don’t recognize anything.”
“Then substitute. Memories are all re-assembled on the fly anyways. Give her a structure.”
~
Where were the crowds? They should be looking at you. Gazing on the apex of an alien race. Tearing each other apart with uncertainty in the months it would take the occupying fleet to get here. The scouts – this was the place, but nobody was here. Was the intelligence wrong? Had you been betrayed?
~
“Wait, wait, I think I’ve got something.”
~
It was a feast – a state dinner in all but name – unfortunately not in your honor, because you were forking over the coin for the thing. You were finally back up in your private-but-rented suite, of your private-but rented mansion, trying not to fume over just how much coin was invested in this place. A mansion, completely unoccupied, and you couldn’t move in without paying someone – and it wasn’t even bribing the neighbors? Ugh. But one must invest occasionally.
Your whole just-concluded inspection of the preparations were based on fine-tuning your feelings of revulsion.
There was far too much of a NEED for peace here. Too many displays of unity. Too many different races crawling around.
Your reputation had not preceded you and your ship, the current expedition was far too many light years from troll space. No, your lone ship had the opportunity to build it’s own reputation as it slowly worked it’s way toward the capitol – well, slowly compared to the trip to this cluster of stars. Researching the fault-lines of these races’ politics. Giving just enough time at each stop for rumors to solidify into machinations. Carefully stacking alliances – this uptight “Federation” was more than ready for war. The rooms below would be the reminder of how little they knew each other.
And then your forces would take the remains.
A few early guests milled about downstairs, being served the slimmest of Hors d’oeuvres. They looked hungry – Not your crew, they’d been embezzling food since the early hours. You couldn’t blame them. Most of them hadn’t been chosen for estate work, of all things. But they continued only to serve mostly looks of apology for the stomach growls they were hearing.
The guests’ politeness outweighed their hunger for the moment. But just arriving… Oh, the so-called man of the hour, the firestick to her striker – and he might even suspect it. She quickly radioed down to the kitchen ask why she wasn’t smelling the food yet – which, of course, was shortly responded to with the slight scent of blood wafting through the halls. A silly trick, really, but the few that would recognize the scent would appreciate it without questioning too much, and those who didn’t wouldn’t quite know why they felt as they did.
It was probably time to get dressed. The costumes of diplomacy were a little maddening in their own right – You would be quite happy to get back to your wetsuit after this performance – but oh, it was a little exciting that your own personal training regimen was about to pay off.
Oh, you’re practically ripping off layers of clothing as soon as your lackeycastes are dismissed and your crew is notified to stay clear – no accidental deaths with someone unintentionally walking in on your warm-up thinking they have an emergency.
Even if the air is a little warm – it’s good to feel something besides ruffles on your skin. Quite unintentionally, you find your bass rubbing against your back and your shoulders rubbing against the back of your knees – you really needed to stretch. You feel stiff all over, you’ve let the tension get to you. But no, you don’t even have a hour to set aside – you do have guests.
You have to be content with warming up only for your impending performance – a few bellyrolls, undulating your abdomen like a wave – but waves quickly heighten as if a storm picked up, rolls of skin crashing off your pelvis and ribs in more and more difficult angles, deepening to the point you’re quite sure the ridge of your spine is visible underneath.
Actually, why not check that. You have mirrors – if only free-standing ones. Picking up one of your long combs to multitask the slightest bit, you start to pull hair into place as you regard yourself in the mirror. Yep. It was still you under them clothes.
You take a few deep breaths, then exhale hard. Muscles contract, and a still slightly astonishing amount of muscles and organs pull from your midsection into your vacated chest cavity. You look a little worse than your helmsman, you’d say, at least in the middle bit. And though you spinal column is defiantly visible under stretched skin, it still as a good coating of muscle to obscure the details. Oh well. You do take a moment to take your comb to a bit of a tingle inside your pelvic ridge. Then – keeping an eye on you reflection, you relax. Or try to appear to. Your belly sags back into place and the comb is gone, lost in flesh. Oh, you feel it, you see the obscuring folds of skin, but a bystander would be hard-pressed to tell just where it is.
You grab the morning’s clothing off the room’s restbox – an odd padded square you have, incidentally, tried to sleep on a few times, but honestly seems to serve better as a shelf. Marshaling hair into a relatively simple braid, starting the process of slipping into the long flowing garments, in the back of your mind concentrating on slowly propelling the comb wedged in your abdomen further up – until you pluck it out from just underneath your ribcage.
You let yourself actually relax for a moment, before pulling those stupid boots on. That brute certainly will attack, the intelligence all points to it. Presumably before the meal… his sense of honor wouldn’t let him eat your food. Little reason to wait to Avenge himself on the thousand cuts that he blames on you – and should. Your negotiations have put his cartel is on the brink of ruin, not that the public knows that yet, or even that he’s involved in a cartel.
He’s likely to eat as he gloats though – As your “corpse” would be rushed off, ceremonial dagger buried deep in your belly, which, he has been informed, is the easiest way to kill a troll, by a few of your double-agents. Presumably a short dance of death right before that – you wished you could show off a little during that, but the opportunity is not entirely likely. His history has shown he’s one for quick killings, no matter how long he stays at the scene afterwards.
And then the alliances called in, the (honestly inferior) light drive plans distributed (and leaked), and after a rush to retrofit old warships, these planets would dissolve into war. Without experience in proper mid-range light drive strategy – it would be an ugly and indecisive one.
Oh, you’d probably have to lay “in state” a few times on your trip to convince a dignitary or two, while the light drive plans were distributed, but two minutes of water is nothing like a thousand. You’d be fine – and it’d be as close as you can get to showing off. At least at that point nobody would notice if your ship went full speed between stops.
…It was a significant amount of work to put into a plan, but all the planets it would yield to troll domination. Still. Too much work to put into a strategy you’d use only once.
You really should make an honorary “killer” list.
~
“It… it’s like World War One, sort of.”
“Yeah, I have no idea what that was like. That was the atom bomb one, right?”
“Hey, don’t look at me like that, I only got history classes on it. And no, the atomic bombs were World War Two. It’s just odd that it was the one BEFORE Hitler.”
“Was it?”
“You wanna have a look? I think I can do that.”
~
He had tried not to scream. That was important. Restraint. Scored well enough on the psionic tests to blow the tests themselves out of the water.
He was, in fact, more powerful than any use he could be put to. And, on top of that, he was getting old and frail, locked away as he had been for sweeps, for crimes against the crown you could hardly even care to remember.
…He always felt better when you came. Physically better. Younger. Stronger. And you were coming more often. In a moment of lucidity, you could see his confusion come to his face. Why? Why Why Why?
~
“Is that… Problem Sleuth styling? Is she doing that?”
“You said to give her a structure.”
“…I did, didn’t I. But that was the one psychic troll, wasn’t it?”
“Rest In Peace. I hope.”
~
You had been woken up – normally, you would have considered chewing someone out for this – the crew you had picked up a few light-years back had a short enough reproductive cycle that made this was almost a necessary.
But the entire ship was screaming. Alarms from multiple directions.
Your pool room was one of your two truly secure rooms on the ship – so it took a while to get out of, twisting through a maze of your own design – though you had more than gotten used to it, these past sweeps.
The girl – or what you had always supposed was a girl – was frozen mid air – slashed open, what counted for blood in mid-spurt… but all floating, unmoving. Like the progression of time had seen fit to abandon the poor steward immediately after the deathblow.
You felt fine – that was the most important thing – but you immediately started thinking of the implications. After all these sweeps, you were certainly in troll home space. Too close to Alternia to have been forgotten. You might be myth, a thing grubs were told about to keep them in line – but you would be known.
If any trolls still lived from 612 sweeps ago, it would be a Violetblood. Maybe a new Tyrian… drat. You had left one of those to tend to Gl’bgolyb’s immediate needs, hadn’t you? Which had allowed the last excursion to go such a distance from home. A total pushover in seadweller form, but disaster is a great thing to change people’s minds on the requirements of leadership. This could very well be her doing. But. Older violetbloods were sure to turn back immediately, the sissies. It would be a land siege.
Or… it WAS the Vast Glub, all those sweeps back, and not some weapon you still could still only conceive the outlines of. And this was an entirely unknown force.
There were dozens on the bridge – slain, floating mid-drop.
The controls were alive. Complaining. Your ship was trying to enter orbit – but nothing was happening.
There was something on deck. Raising the shutters – yes. The external shield had been powered up – atmosphere vented into the space – a thing that only happened when ambassadors were welcomed. And there was something on the deck. Green and grey. Flashing odd colors. Looking very much like a Troll. Waiting.
There was a quick attempt to rouse some sort of communication from the surface, but you gained nothing in response except static and suspicions.
She was a Burgundy, dressed in green. Surprisingly mature. She was floating – in fact, she seemed to be floating above a hole in your ship… underlit by something bright green. Some visible aura coursed over skin and colthes… so many colors… but even as the troll started to open her mouth to speak, you were certain of one thing – she was scared to death, even as she tried to hide it.
You brought out your 2x3dent. That worked for you.
~
“That is… what even was that?”
“The memories were associated, but don’t know how. There are more…”
“Don’t follow up random associations, or we’ll be here forever.”
“Well… what am I supposed to look for, then?”
Dirk gave himself a moment, “The trident. Or whatever it is. Old associations from that.”
~
You had seen that shade of blood before. By now, there wasn’t a shade you hadn’t seen. But this… The Queen shared your color. Tyrian. It was both a relief and a shock. This… was meant to happen. You had needed to kill her. Her domain was now yours.
But… it had been so easy. You took a moment to swing around your 2x3dent, giddy enough from the ease of your victory to be careless. There were other queens, separated by the great depths of the oceans. Other eventual threats. But she… she was supposed to be tough. Yet she almost ended up being nothing. If they all ended up being so inferior to you – well, then that just proved that it was your destiny to rule.
And besides, Gl’bgolyb didn’t need all these “keepers”, these “defenders”. You could manage her all on your own. She sang her war-songs only to you. She was YOUR lusus naturae.
The guards looked on as you effortlessly swung around, one trident tip embedded in almost as much floor as troll. Frozen in fear. You smiled as you looked into each of their eyes.
Glancing back and forth among them selves, they eventually decided to kneel, to the last troll. That would do.
Next, the rabble.
~
“What was… Glub-glub?”
“You’re the one on the controls. But from what I picked up, the monsters on Jake’s island were supposed to be… troll pets? Or the other way around.”
“Right. No…” Jane’s breath caught in her throat, “No parents.”
“You know, he’s probably -“
“I know. But I think that gives me an idea where I can finish this.”
~
You are rowing over the waves, your little dinghy – well, it had tipped over a few times due to the waves, which was annoying. But all the violet-bloods had said you’d be safer out of the water, so you just flipped the vessel back over, bailed out the the water like you had been shown, and started rowing again.
You were getting pretty good at rowing, you thought.
You also thought this was probably the longest you’d ever been out of the water. And they even said you should go to the “dry” land… what even did that mean? The water just stopped somewhere, at the end of the world?
The stars were so bright – the air was rosy and warm. The moons were setting, and the sun would rise… soon enough, and you’d tip the dingy over and sleep under it – it got way to hot and bright then. But it wasn’t quite that time yet.
Your weren’t even looking at the waves anymore when the dingy bumped into something – it was big. White. Rising a few hands above the waves – so solid. Was this “dry” land? Carefully, you get out of the boat, flopping onto the white mass. You start to hear-
~
Jane and Dirk looked at each other, eyes questioning, and then sure, “Alright, pretty boy, I’ll hold it there while you stab.”
~
No, this was stone. Meenah could feel it – rough – and dry? Two figures floated over her. In air, like it were water. They… they weren’t trolls. They said things that Meenah couldn’t understand. But… were they friends.
It was smokey and dark all around them. And she knew the tone of their voices, even if she didn’t know the words.
They had to escape.
~
They carried her up. Above the smoke, through a twisted yellow maze of tunnels, and into the dark night sky. The moon… was not a troll moon. It hardly shone.
They swam up, and up, to a ship. Floating in they sky like them. It was Huge. It was red.
Red like her dinghy.
___
So your friend doesn’t want the worst person you’ve ever met dead. What are you to do?
Maybe you could just… reach over and…
Illustrations by Jesseth. MorbidOptimist helped with troll-naming some things.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/14951096
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