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krwordgazer wrote: Celebration of the past (of some kind) Truly seeing someone for the first time (such as through their actions) An accidental kill A child's birth WRITER’S NOTE: Please understand I took an assortment of liberties, especially in the history of the trolls – this is not intended to fit “ElfQuest Canon” but rather be a What If type story with a slightly altered history. I had considered writing it in a way that it could easily tie in with the ElfQuest history, but went against it in the end! Thanks for giving it a read! WARNING: There is sexual content and suggestions within this story. It had been another change of season once more and the elves of Stone Howl Holt still had not returned. Shadow had taken his tribe to search for more elves – for there had to be others out there. And he was right. Trollforge knew this – because before his life as a troll – he was actually one of them – but one step above. He was a High One. (1) He looked back at his “people” now – the trolls. He had shaped his body to become their guardian when the Palace crashed on the World of Two Moons, and they had been greeted by the violence of Man. Here, as a troll he had lived, so long that he ceased using magic – his body forgetting how to use it – forcing him to remain in the form of a troll – forever. He gazed through the web of caverns that had made up the troll complex; most were walking around with weapons now. There was a young troll pup by the name Guttlekraw. He was strong – sure to be a leader. Greymung was still the leader – but it wouldn’t be for long. Once fit and secure, he had become lazy and at ease – and Guttlekraw had that look in his eye – ready to one day challenge his own king for the throne – even if it meant war. It had bothered Trollforge at first – that look – but truthfully it was what the trolls needed to survive. Greymung had become too lax and it would cost them if he remained on the throne for too long. He needed the challenge from Guttlekraw to keep him in shape and on his toes. Trollforge had spent his many years teaching the trolls how to defend themselves; he had taken his knowledge as a High One, with all the wonders he had seen; slowly teaching the trolls how to be masters of metal. They forged perfect swords, perfect spears, even crossbows for distance and hunting; and eventually large javelins in the event they ever needed to defend their home underground. The trolls were celebrating the Day of the Throne; the day that Greymung had announced himself as king of the trolls nearly eight seasons ago. Most of the trolls were well into the celebration by now, intoxicated by Maggoty’s brew that she had mustered together; made of bat dung, southside moss, evergreen swamp water, dark cave mushroom and a hint of diamond dust for that sparkling look in the drink. They wouldn’t realize he was missing. By the time any of them were sober enough, they would have assumed the ageless Trollforge finally crawled away to die in one of the troll caves. Greymung would throw another celebration, probably called The Day of Trollforge – and Maggoty would once again make her intoxicating drink; and once more the trolls would drink themselves into oblivion – all but one – Guttlekraw. He sat in the throne room – across from Greymung, watching – waiting – like a vulture, perched and ready to sweep in. Trollforge snuck out of the room, easily melting through the crowd that had become extremely intoxicated on the drink Maggoty had put together. She sat there, her filthy robe pulled around her trollish figure, giggling endlessly at the stupidity of those who had taken more than one drink. Trollforge smiled inwardly. These trolls had come a long way since the fateful day the Palace had crashed on the World of Two Moons. They would do well without him – while he traveled the world in search of himself. He gathered only a scant few belongings and left the cavern. On the surface world, he was greeted by a chilling wind as the Season of White Fall was about to begin. He looked back at the troll den one more time – heaved a final farewell and began his new journey. He spent several days wandering through the forest – his food supply diminished quickly. His large size was slow moving – and in all his years as a “troll” and relying on the elves of Stonehowl Holt for food – he realized he had forgotten how to hunt. His own body was too clumsy to surprise anything that was meat – whether it was deer or rabbit. Trollforge began relying on what he had learned from Maggoty as to what berries were poisonous or not. He continued his journey even as his body became malnourished, always pushing forward. It was one fateful night, when both moons were full, like eyes in the dark, that suddenly Trollforge felt something. Something he had not felt in a very long time. Magic. A pull to his very being. He was nearly delusional when he looked up through the night’s sky and saw it – a Palace? He fell forward and collapsed his body finally unable to move anymore. The morning sun slowly woke him to more pain. His stomach felt as if it were feeding on itself; his own muscles aching so horribly that they felt as if they’d rip through his skin and leave his body. Death could not come fast enough. Strange, Trollforge thought, for someone who was immortal. As the morning sun rose higher into the sky the chill of White Fall melted away replaced by a scorching blaze. “Bury me in white fall,” Trollforge growled. “Let my body feel the soil.” Instead as the sun rose higher, the day got hotter. He fought to crawl for shade his own natural instinct refusing to let him die. He cursed the fact that he could not control his own body – to simply let the pain seize him and take him away to the comforting blackness of death. Then he heard it. A strange fluttering voice. “Oh! Dig-Dig hurt! Rosepetal make wrapstuff for Dig-Dig?” The voice. He had heard it before. Impossible. Had he truly died now? Was he at the Palace as he had seen in the night? He strained to look behind him. He ached everywhere. His body burned. His skin felt blistered. This was not death. He was still alive. But what he saw with his own eyes could not be denied. A red Preserver. But more startling was what was behind the Red Preserver. An Elf? A beautiful, slender, black haired woman. She was not someone from Stonehowl – she was too tall. Too slender. Could it be? A High One? Had he truly found the Palace? The Preservers? “Help me,” were the only words he could barely mutter from his mouth that had housed a swollen tongue. She looked down at him – her eyes burning with curiosity. Her hand slowly reached out to touch his face. When flesh touched flesh – her mind flashed with a thousand images. She could see a Palace – then the violence of Man – then the fleeing – the terror – then the trolls – and the evolution of trolls. “You’re from the Palace,” she said in awe. “Like myself. Like the Preservers.” The curiosity behind Winnowill’s eyes changed to something else – and in that moment, whatever thoughts she had quickly vanished and found themselves violently consumed by new thoughts that were dark and twisted. She turned to Rosepetal and snapped, “Go! Go back to the forest and make Wrapstuff! I will come for you again when we are ready, Preservers! Make more Wrapstuff! So that when we’re ready to leave we will bring it with us and start anew! Go, Preservers! Go!” She shooed them away with her hand and slowly turned back towards the troll, a thin smile on her lips, a glitter in her eyes. Blackness overtook him and his body slumped. When he awoke again, he was somewhere else. In a cavern that had been beautifully shaped by Rock Shapers. He could feel it all around him – Magic – Magic – Magic! Was he in the Palace? “Where am I?” the words barely fell out of his blistered lips. Melting out of the shadows, the same slender elf he had seen earlier came out. “Welcome to Blue Mountain,” she said, her eyes looking over his body. “My name is Winnowill.” “My name is,” he looked at her, his fevered mind still blistering like his flesh, “Smelt.” He was about to say Trollforge – but something made him think better of it – so he thought of the next closest name – Smelt – for that’s what he had done all of his life as a troll – teach the others how to make weapons. She ran her finger over his body. “I’ve not seen one of your kind, what were you doing at the base of Blue Mountain? Where did you come from?” “Far,” Trollforge answered. “Very far away.” “Are there others of your kind?” she asked. “Will they come looking for you, Smelt?” “Yes,” he said, long thoughts were difficult to form; harder still to speak them. “There are others,” he continued, “but they will not look for me.” “Good,” she said as she continued to run her finger up his arm and around his shoulder, down the other side of his arm. She stopped to look at him, a thin smile on her pale complexion. “I’ve tended to most of your wounds,” she looked at her hands, cursing that she could not heal with them after so many years within Blue Mountain and having no need of her Healing Magic – much like how Trollforge had lost his ability to shape his own flesh after remaining in the guise of a troll for so long. The hours bled into days which bled into weeks, which became months – and soon Trollforge was in near perfect health again – he couldn’t help feel, however – that he was a prisoner here. He had not seen another elf save for Winnowill. One of the days when Winnowill made an appearance, going through something she called Door – Trollforge caught a glimpse of an elf that seemed to be controlling the stone’s shaping. But that elf did not seem to be… alive. As if it’s mind were gone, a husk of a body that obeyed the mental commands of shaping stone as a doorway! This was not the Palace. It was some perverse version of it. Trollforge leaned forward, “The elf out there – the one you call Door… is he alive?” “Alive?” Winnowill looked over her shoulder, as if she could see through the sealed stone wall she had just come through moments ago. “In a sense he is alive. He is one with Blue Mountain. He serves as a Door.” “But he looks dead,” Trollforge countered. “He is alive,” Winnowill said calmly, “perhaps more so than most.” She looked at her hands again. “He still has his magic – some of us have gone so long without using it – that we have lost it.” Trollforge looked at her – he knew exactly how she felt. It was the same curse that had trapped him in this troll form. “I want to feel alive,” she whispered in his ear, stepping out of the shadows. “Can you make me feel alive?” “Me?” Trollforge looked at her, his face forward, but his eyes behind him. “How can I do that for you?” He suddenly felt her arms around him, touching his muscles. “You’re big, strong, firm,” she said, coming around him. She slowly slid the robe off her shoulder, baring her marble white skin, her soft ample breast now within clear view of the sparkling flames within the room. “Make me feel alive,” she said, slowly approaching him. “Make me feel.” Trollforge took her into his strong arms, wrapping them around her. They kissed and slowly melted to the floor – where she moved on top of him. She felt him inside of her – and felt alive. There was something perverse – something bestial about this. It’s what she needed. She had become as dead inside as Blue Mountain – and now she was doing something different – something so unheard of – and for the first time she felt more alive than she had ever. She rocked on top of him until she felt him release within her. She smiled down at him and collapsed onto his chest. Something else happened after. She found herself sick in the weeks to come. As the days passed, she suddenly realized that her moment of perverse pleasure had led to her becoming impregnated with that troll’s child! But how was that possible? When Trollforge saw her again, she was carrying his child. He knew it. But how? He was a troll – but then – perhaps – when it came down to the genetic level – he was, after all – a High One – so would the child be born an elf as well? The months came and went – and she finally gave birth within the cavern that he had called home. To their surprise – the child was born and she called him Two-Edge – he was half elf and half troll. At first, she seemed to care for the babe – but she never took it beyond Door. She always left it with Trollforge. Until one day when she came down – there was something different about her. The smile on her thin lips was not one of joy – but one that was twisted with violent imagery. In that same moment – Trollforge saw inside Winnowill’s mind – saw the things she had been doing within Blue Mountain – and for the first time saw who she really was. She placed the young Two-Edge within a stone cage and turned to Trollforge. “I know what you are now,” she said. “I could not figure out how I came to bare a child with you – since you were a troll. But that’s not what you are, are you? It was when I was Tyldak that I suddenly realized – you were more than a troll. You were something far more – but somehow your genetics became twisted as the troll form you bare. Who are you really?” “I don’t know what you mean?” Trollforge took a step back. “Don’t you?” She said, taking a step forward. “You’d dare lie to me?” “I am not lying, my name is Trollforge,” he said – suddenly realizing his mistake. “Trollforge is it?” Winnowill snarled. “I thought your name was Smelt?” “It is,” he amended, “It’s just I was exiled among my people as Trollforge… I took the new name Smelt.” “More,” she growled, “lies!” She took a step forward. “Tell me who you really are!” Her hands touched him and suddenly pain chased through every nerve in his body. His arm went numb and useless. “What have you done?” he asked holding his arm. “Black healing,” she said. “I was the healer of Blue Mountain! I was! No one else! Just me! But I had the shapers make Blue Mountain so that we would never have to leave! Never have to see the outside world which was so vile! But within Blue Mountain we were so safe that I lost my ability to heal! I lost it. I found that I could twist flesh! And soon, that twisting flesh was just a perversion of my healing – and soon, it turned black – so foul – that now I can bring pain! Pain that I had needed others to feel so that I could heal! So now I hurt so that they need me! So that I can heal them! So that I can be who I was! But you – within you – I sense magic! Strong magic! Now that my own has returned! Now tell me who you are!” She touched him again. He howled in pain and buckled to his knees. “Who are you?” She repeated her question, taking a step closer. “Tawaim,” he said stagger back. “I am a High One.” Winnowill paused. “A … High One? From the Palace?” “Yes,” Tawaim answered. Winnowill paused considering it. “Impossible! None survived! None! Tell me who you are!” For several weeks Tawaim suffered at Winnowill’s hands – her black healing allowing the need to heal – to bring him back to health – only to repeat the process again. For several weeks, it was the same thing over and over – and the poor babe Two-Forge watched in young horror at what unfolded before him. She tortured him for several hours, healing, then hurting, healing then hurting – until finally she used her flesh shaping powers to twist and contort his body in ways that his bones would not allow – when he passed out from the pain – she would stop – wait until he awoke – and proceeded again – until finally his strong body granted him the mercy he had long sought at the base of Blue Mountain – and gave him Death. She sighed in disappointment – she had not meant to kill him – not yet, anyway. Her plaything was gone now – she would need someone else – something else – to use her magic on. Winnowill stared down at the corpse. She had killed with her hands. She didn’t even feel an ounce of remorse. She had been doing so in Blue Mountain. Voll had wanted Children – but more children would mean more room – which would mean leaving Blue Mountain – where they were safe from the outside world. She gave Voll his wish – using her healing magic to allow others to become impregnated – but then used that same black healing to turn around and murder the unborn children within the wombs while the mothers slept. She would do anything to defend Blue Mountain. Especially if it let her used her newly found talents.