Chapter Text
“Tell me again. How exactly did you manage this?”
“Like I said,” he insisted, struggling to keep still as the Dolorosa calmly stitched the ripped hood back onto his cloak. “I was fighting a baby musclebeast. You know, for dinner. And it got away.”
“Mm-hmm,” the Dolorosa replied, the smile apparent in her voice. “And I’m certain you were the one who frightened it off, and not the other way around?”
“O-of course!” he protested, whirling around to face her. She patiently turned him back around. He was sitting on her lap, swinging his feet anxiously, as she salvaged what she could of the ruined cloak and hood. Absently he rubbed at the deep scratch on his cheek from where he’d tripped and fallen flat on his face.
“Sorry, Rosa,” he finally admitted, his voice quiet. “I’ll be more careful next time.”
“I know. It’s all right.” She tugged experimentally at the stitching. “There. That should do it.” She lifted him up off her lap and set him down on the ground before her. She frowned, inspecting the wide gash on her grub’s face.
“That’s a nasty one,” she declared, her tone suddenly more serious. “Are you bleeding anywhere else?”
He averted his eyes, embarrassed. “No,” he muttered quietly. “I checked. I’m fine. And nobody saw me, all right? There’s not even any other trolls out here.”
She sighed wearily. “I know, love. But you have to trust me. We can’t assume that will be true forever.”
“I bet other trolls aren’t even as bad as you say,” he protested as she reached for some bandages. “I bet some would even like us.”
“Oh, some might,” the Dolorosa replied, wetting a rag and scrubbing out the dried red blood from his face. “And others wouldn’t. You can’t trust everybody. It’ll get easier for you to determine who’s a friend and who’s not when you get older.”
He scoffed, the impatient huff of an all-knowing child. “If I ever meet anybody else….”
As the Dolorosa taped a bandage to his face she put on an overdramatic expression of hurt. “With all that talk, a lusus could think you don’t even love her anymore.”
His eyes widened. “I didn’t mean that, Rosa! Sheesh.” The Dolorosa only laughed and ruffled his hair.
“I know, love, I know.” She stood up. “Why don’t you go find us some little shellbeasts for dinner? I think you should stick with hunting food your own size for a while.”
He shoved her playfully, then picked up his basket and toy sickle and immediately bounded back out into the wilderness. The Dolorosa watched him go until he was completely out of her sight, then went inside to prep the rest of the food.
---
If you knew where to look, the desert was crawling with fat, juicy shellbeasts, the kind with tiny claws and a big stinger tail. Apparently they were tricky to cook since they were poisonous if you didn’t do it right, but cooking them wasn’t his concern. Rosa did that part. All Carmine had to do was catch them.
And that was easy. They were easy to spot crawling across the sand, scurrying along with their little legs, which could never hope to outrun him. All he had to do was come up from behind and quickly lop off the tail, ridding them of the stinger and their one poisonous weapon. Then up into the basket they went, and it was on to the next one.
He was apparently all done with bad luck for the day after the incident with the musclebeast, and it was all good fortune from here on out. His basket was just about overflowing in no time. They might not even finish all this food tonight. The prospect of maybe not having to go hunting for food for one night sparked a fire in him, and he didn’t stop grabbing up the little shellbeasts even when they were quite literally falling out of the basket.
At some point, he remembered that Rosa was waiting for him, and he’d better head back before she came looking for him. He turned back, his stomach already growling with the anticipation of tonight’s assured feast.
There was a large boulder he had to pass on his way back to the hive. It usually served as a guidepost, so if he ever wasn’t sure that he was heading in the right direction, he could find this rock and know home wasn’t far.
It also happened to be the ideal spot for shellbeasts to hide.
His curiosity and overconfidence bursting, he decided to take one quick look by the rock, just to see if there were any bigger ones he could swap out for. He ran up to the boulder, and circled it once—
—there was another troll there.
Startled, Carmine stumbled backwards, falling down onto the sand and inadvertently liberating a few of his captured prey. The initial shock wore off quickly, and he realized that this troll wasn’t moving. It was asleep, or unconscious, or something. In any case, it wasn’t doing anything.
Curious, he crawled closer to get a better look. It was little, not Rosa’s size at all. More like his own size. Maybe even his own age? Inwardly he felt a swell of excitement. He’d never even seen another troll before. Had never known in what ways he and another were different, or even the same.
For one thing, this troll had four horns. He wondered if that was normal, or something mutated, like his blood. Maybe he had the same color blood. He searched the troll’s clothes for a sign, because Rosa said all trolls normally were given a sign, which they were required to wear for the first few sweeps of their life along with their blood color.
The sleeping troll’s sign was kind of…boring. It just looked like a square whose sides had been squished in. It wasn’t pretty like Rosa’s. And the sign was yellow. That meant this troll had lower blood than Rosa’s, too. Would she hate him? Would she try to cull him?
Carmine frowned. He didn’t think so. She wasn’t that kind of troll. But then again…the outfit this troll was wearing was completely lacking in any taste whatsoever. That might offend her.
He decided to take his chances, and he poked warily at the unconscious troll. It didn’t move. Was it dead? Maybe it was sick. Well, if it didn’t wake up soon the sun would be up and then he’d really be in trouble…no, he couldn’t just leave the troll out here.
His decision made, he pulled the troll up and, somewhat awkwardly, through several different tries, positioned him onto his back. He picked up the basket of shellbeasts, and jogged the rest of the way back home.
---
“Rosa!” he shouted, bursting in through the front door. The hive was already full of the warm aroma of the soup the Dolorosa was preparing. “Rosa!”
“What is it, love?” she called from the kitchen. “Please use your indoor voice.”
“Come here, I have something to show you!” He laid the basket down on the floor and then somewhat clumsily dropped the sleeping troll onto the couch. He was getting more and more excited by the minute. “Rosa!” he called again.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming, what is it…” she asked, appearing from the other room. She stopped midsentence as she saw her young wriggler leaning excitedly over an unconscious troll in their living room.
“Look, Rosa, look what I found!” he announced happily. “He was outside, all by himself, and I saved him, Rosa.”
“I…um…” she stammered, approaching him warily. She studied the unconscious troll, apparently seeing things that he didn’t, pursing her lips and looking more and more uneasy as time went on.
“Well?” Carmine asked anxiously, his grin widening. “Isn’t he cool? Look, he’s got four horns! You didn’t tell me trolls could have four horns!”
“Where did you say you found him again?” the Dolorosa asked apprehensively.
“Outside, just outside there, by the big boulder!” He pointed out the window. His expression suddenly became more solemn. “I think he might be sick. He doesn’t move or wake up. Can you help him? I didn’t want to leave him out in the sun….”
The Dolorosa nodded. “Yes, I’ll help him. Did you see anybody else around?”
He exhaled loudly and insisted, “Noooo, I didn’t, okay?! But he’s my age, Rosa, maybe he’ll want to stay here with us and be my friend….”
“Let’s let him rest for now,” said the Dolorosa, interrupting him and heading back for the kitchen. “He doesn’t look particularly hurt to me, just exhausted. We’ll decide what to do then.” She turned to face her young wriggler. “Come help me, love.”
“I want to stay here and watch him.”
“Listen to your lusus and come help me in the kitchen.”
“…Urgh. Fine.” Reluctantly he grabbed up the basket and went into the next room to assist. At that moment he was even more glad for the bountiful catch, because when the other troll woke up there’d be plenty of food for him too.
---
He ate his food but was too excited to even really taste it. He kept glancing over his shoulder to the couch to see if the troll had woken up, or even moved, but each time he was met with disappointment. After supper he went outside to wash the dishes, but was a bit too haphazard about it and the Dolorosa made him go back to do it again. Finally, when all the chores were done, he was free to just sit there across from the sofa and watch the yellow-blood troll sleep.
The Dolorosa sat in the room quietly with them, working on lengthening a pair of pants that he was starting to outgrow. It was silent for a long while, the only sounds being the soft pricking and pulling of the Dolorosa’s needle, and the sleeping troll’s breathing.
Finally, finally, when the sun was at its highest point in the sky, the troll began to stir.
“He’s awake!” Carmine exclaimed. “Rosa, look—!”
“Oh, hush, love, don’t shout so loud at him,” she replied, setting her work aside and approaching them both. She sat down on the end of the couch, watching the yellow-blood come slowly back to the waking world.
---
His head was throbbing with dehydration. Muffled sounds and unfamiliar smells were filling up all his senses, almost too much to process all at once. Carefully, painfully, he opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was another troll’s eyes inches from his own face.
“Oh wow!” the other troll exclaimed. “His eyes are so cool!”
He blinked. He realized he didn’t actually recognize this troll. In fact…just where in the hell was he? He had been out on a training exercise earlier tonight, hadn’t he…? This didn’t feel like the desert, whose hive was this…?
“Oh for goodness’ sake,” came another troll’s voice. A female. An adult. “Will you calm down?”
“Hey,” said the small troll again. He backed up just a bit, enough so that his whole face was now visible. He was grinning from ear to ear, looking like he had never even known excitement before. His whole body was covered in a drab, anonymous gray cloth, and there was no sign anywhere on it. His horns were so short and nubby they were almost invisible in his mass of black hair. “Hey, what’s your name?”
He blinked. How in the hell were a wriggler and an adult here, together…?
The nubby-horned troll barely waited for an answer. “That’s my lusus, the Dolorosa,” he said, pointing to the adult troll at the foot of the couch. “I call her Rosa. You can too, I don’t mind. And she calls me Carmine. You can call me that too. What do we call you?”
“All right,” said the Dolorosa softly, taking hold of the wriggler’s shoulder and pushing him back. “Go get him some water, love.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back!” He leapt up and ran, stomping excitedly, out of the room. The Dolorosa sighed and turned to face him, smiling.
“You’ll have to forgive him. I’m afraid you’re the first troll he’s seen besides me in his whole life. He’s…quite excitable.”
The yellow-blooded troll nodded. He grabbed onto the back of the sofa and pulled himself up to a sitting position. The Dolorosa helped him along carefully. He winced, his head throbbing and distorting his vision.
“You’re a psionic, aren’t you?” she asked quietly. He averted his red and blue eyes and nodded. “And you’re already in service. Am I right?”
He swallowed tightly and didn’t respond.
“Mother grub…” she said softly. “You’re the youngest I’ve seen. It must be getting worse.” She shook her head, frustration in her eyes. “I was afraid of this. The highbloods are getting out of control.”
He looked anxious when she said that, as if he had somehow committed treason just by hearing it. At that moment, Carmine came racing back into the room, holding a cup filled to the brim with ice cold water.
“Here you go,” he said, holding it out expectantly. The psionic took it graciously, showing only a split second of hesitation, and downed it all in one gulp. Carmine looked positively gleeful.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Because Rosa made this amazing stew for dinner. I can heat it back up for you if you want it.”
The yellow-blood nodded, a bit warily. This troll was…certainly eager to help. It was a strange personality trait to have. Nobody was ever this interested in his comfort, unless of course they wanted something…these trolls were probably going to want something sooner or later too.
“Okay. Wait right there!” He started for the kitchen, only to stop for a moment and turn back. “Rosa am I allowed to use the stove?”
“Yes, love. Just be careful.”
It didn’t take long for the aroma of the reheated stew to fill the hive. The Dolorosa went back to her sewing for the time being, while the yellow-blood sat on the couch lethargically, trying to stay still in hopes that his headache would disappear. Whatever Carmine was putting together in the other room smelled amazing. He hadn’t realized just how hungry he was, and just how long it had been since he’d had somebody cook a meal for him at all.
He came back, holding a full bowl of the best looking food the yellow-blood had ever seen. It was a struggle to remember his manners and wait until the bowl was set down in front of him before he grabbed it and the spoon and began shoveling everything into his mouth. Everything in it was otherworldly delicious. He’d never tasted so many flavors at once, never had something so warm and made with actual care and attention, he could have cried from how good it all tasted. He didn’t even feel shame at licking the bowl when it was all done.
“Wow,” was all Carmine said when he was done, staring wide-eyed. “He really likes your cooking, Rosa.”
The yellow-blood smiled sheepishly.
“So how come you have two different color eyes? And why were you out in the desert? You never told me your name either, by the way.”
The yellow-blood didn’t answer. Carmine frowned.
“I guess you don’t talk or something. Or is it me?” He suddenly looked worried. “Rosa, did you and him talk while I was gone? Does he just not want to talk in front of me?”
She giggled softly. “No, love. He doesn’t talk at all. And you shouldn’t gawk at his eyes like that, it’s rude. They’re that way because he’s a psionic.”
“A psionic, huh?” Carmine grinned. “I’m gonna call you that, then, until you tell me different. Okay, Psionic?”
He appeared to consider it a moment, then smiled a bit shyly, and nodded. He suppressed a yawn.
“How are you still tired? You were just asleep for like a million hours….” He paused, trying to hide his own yawn as well.
“It’s far past time you were in your recuperacoon,” the Dolorosa said, putting her work away for now. “Upstairs with you.”
“Where’s the Psionic going to sleep, though? Sopor would be good for him, wouldn’t it? Hey, Psionic, do you want to share my recuperacoon? I don’t kick or anything in my sleep.” He held out his hand.
After a moment of thought, the Psionic accepted it. Carmine grinned and went running up the stairs, dragging the surprised Psionic along behind him.
“It’s not a very big recuperacoon,” Carmine explained as they stepped into his little respiteblock. He untied the hood and cloak around his shoulders and tossed it into one of the many heaping piles of clothes that littered the floor. “But you’re really skinny so you’ll fit just fine.” He hopped inside, and the Psionic followed cautiously, but once his body hit the warm, soothing green slime, he relaxed. It had been a long time since he’d slept in this stuff. He’d forgotten how nice it felt.
“I’ll show you all my stuff tomorrow,” Carmine promised, sleep already creeping into his voice. “And we can go hunting together too. I’m real good with my sickle, I’ll show you….”
He was already asleep. The Psionic smiled and shut his eyes. He wasn’t far behind.