07-27-2020, 02:36 AM
Tristan twisted to watch Nimeda examine the vacant trollstone. The heart turned to stone even as he waited. It fell from his hand, unimportant now. Unless he did desire to make a garland of hearts to wear.
It wasn’t with pride that Tristan endured the examination that followed, but he understood why. When he spoke to the flickering fingers of basalt dotting the world of dreams, he saw the black souls as extensions of his own. Like long lost kin, but still apart. The snarl on his lips was his. He did not deny it.
“He told me to free him. That I owed him.” He spoke plainly. For as much as he loathed unjust prisons, he recalled the ferocity with which his uncle attacked him the day he confronted him after the Huldufolk's intervention.
His hand grazed the trollkross as he spoke. “When I reached in, I saw him. I saw all of them. Saw what we became.” His eyes widened with the sight of a horrible, yet far distant future. He shivered, knowing the fate that was his blood, and that he was powerless to prevent it.
“Nimeda, If I am a troll and I am a wolf, what room is left for a man?” Before he could answer, new images rolled like thunder. It prickled the hairs on the back of his neck moments before Thorn Paw padded near.
Even Thorn Paw’s scent was different now. He took on an odor of wariness and mistrust he recognized.
He looked the wolf in the eye, yearning to explain all that he knew. Instead, all he did was lift the basalt heart and show him what remained.
He held the stone before him, turning it over in his hand. After a moment, an image burst forth, one of a giant wolf, the size of a mountain, leaping and swallowing the sun in one huge snap of teeth. With a very real snarl, Tristan's jaws opened, and he swallowed the troll heart in one gulp. It burned going down, and then his human body disappeared, waking in a gasp.
It wasn’t with pride that Tristan endured the examination that followed, but he understood why. When he spoke to the flickering fingers of basalt dotting the world of dreams, he saw the black souls as extensions of his own. Like long lost kin, but still apart. The snarl on his lips was his. He did not deny it.
“He told me to free him. That I owed him.” He spoke plainly. For as much as he loathed unjust prisons, he recalled the ferocity with which his uncle attacked him the day he confronted him after the Huldufolk's intervention.
His hand grazed the trollkross as he spoke. “When I reached in, I saw him. I saw all of them. Saw what we became.” His eyes widened with the sight of a horrible, yet far distant future. He shivered, knowing the fate that was his blood, and that he was powerless to prevent it.
“Nimeda, If I am a troll and I am a wolf, what room is left for a man?” Before he could answer, new images rolled like thunder. It prickled the hairs on the back of his neck moments before Thorn Paw padded near.
Even Thorn Paw’s scent was different now. He took on an odor of wariness and mistrust he recognized.
He looked the wolf in the eye, yearning to explain all that he knew. Instead, all he did was lift the basalt heart and show him what remained.
He held the stone before him, turning it over in his hand. After a moment, an image burst forth, one of a giant wolf, the size of a mountain, leaping and swallowing the sun in one huge snap of teeth. With a very real snarl, Tristan's jaws opened, and he swallowed the troll heart in one gulp. It burned going down, and then his human body disappeared, waking in a gasp.