[fanfic] WORLD OF WARCRAFT
Jun. 3rd, 2010 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meejThis is actually mostly not mine. alificent has Levi. Many thanks to her for letting me write this. Kan'jin is mine.
WARNING: I use the popular troll dialect style herein. Squid will hate me to death. :(
This takes place right before this quest happens. :(
The sun never sets on the Netherstorm, because the sun never rises there, either. The sky is unchanging and - at the same time - always changing. Levi had written to Turgon about this before. They'd agreed that it was weird. They'd agreed that it was probably magical, and when they'd concluded this, Levi had felt better about it, and had been able to sleep without a tent between him and the sky again. It was another world, but elves were born in magic. His mother'd always said so.
He was on watch, third watch of the night. He would remember this, afterwards. He was on watch, had just passed Inkspot going the other way, and was falling into his stride, proceeding around the mana-forge. His bow was strung and his knife was sharp and oiled. He'd polished his armor. Captain Dawnstrike had gone on inspection that morning, and he hadn't smiled. Levi'd made it his business to go at his breastplate with oil and gritcloth, and hadn't had to even give anyone a frown to make them follow suit; they'd all seen the Captain's serious face after falling in. The Captain had enough on his plate these days. Levi intended to make sure that inspection was never going to be there longer than a lingering taste of lemon.
He was on watch, third watch of the night, and at first, when the troll showed up, he had a split second of thinking that he was asleep in a nightmare.
"Hey," the troll said urgently. It was a male troll. You could tell. There were tusks. It was big. Levi had an arrow nocked before he could think, and was about to loose - could feel his fingers start to uncurl - when the troll added, "Miss Lu be sendin me."
His fingers stayed. He didn't move. He was on watch, and His Majesty's Army was holding the manaforges against everyone who was showing up to disrupt the processes. There were more of them all the time, and watches had been tightened. "You have three seconds or I fire."
"Got no quarrel, elf," the troll said. It unfolded, and showed its hands. Empty. Four fingers. Two thumbs. Empty palms. Levi slowly lowered the bow in his grip until the arrow's head pointed to the ground. He was ready to pull it up again at any second. The troll was still twenty yards away, at least - far enough to make them have to raise their voices. Not so far it couldn't try anything awful.
"Who sent you?" he said, trying to think. He was an officer, he had duties here. He ought to be subduing this intruder and bringing it in for questioning. Him. Bringing him in for questioning.
The troll was tall, standing upright, but not as big as the trolls of Levi's childhood. A lot skinnier- more like an elf's proportions, less unsettling. Or maybe more - the tusks were still sharp nightmare-hooks, and the eyes were obviously all wrong, red and hot and without a pupil. He was dressed in blue ringmail and grey plates and sleeves, the colors of the sky before a storm - the proper sky, the sky at home over Eversong Woods, like thunderclouds. Levi smelled the air before rain suddenly, cutting across the acrid coppery dry of the Netherstorm so abruptly that he almost lost his grip on the bow.
Almost.
"Miss Lu," the troll repeated. His hands were still empty, and he hadn't moved, standing on a jag of rock staggered against the mutable sky, since Levi'd nocked. "Lu-see-aht. Got hair like flame. Got a cat."
Levi swallowed. "What color's the cat?"
The troll gave him a tired look. "Like Miss Lu's hair."
Levi saw his sister in his mind's eye. Couldn't picture the cat. Didn't matter. "... All right. Stay that distance. Keep your hands empty. Say what you have to say. I won't fire."
"Long talk, elf."
Levi sighed. It was always longer than he wanted it to be, these days. "All right. I'm on watch. We'll walk. Stay that distance. What does Lu say?"
The troll hesitated.
Levi began walking again, falling into the steady pace of watch. "What's your name?"
"Kan'jin," the troll said. He began loping alongside Levi, keeping the distance between them, and slouched. Levi had to keep glancing over at him, away from his checking the horizon and his sightlines; it took him a few seconds to vocalize his bother, and then he realized: the troll was wearing chainmail, but Levi never heard any clinking of metal on metal, or the shift of leather underneath. He shivered, and it had nothing to do with the biting winds or the hole in his boot. Trolls were weird, always had been.
"Got a story," the troll said eventually. "Ready for it, elf?"
"I'm ready," he said. He kept his eyes ahead, at points triangulating right and left and up.
"Long time gone," Kan'jin said, slow, "we gotta houngan, us, trollkind, jungle trolls. We gotta houngan, we gotta witch doctor, him name Jin'do, Jindo. Things be empty, he fill dem. Things be swoll up, he lance an drain dem. He Jin'do, Jin'do, spirits come to his fire an rattle. Tribes they hear. Jin'do, he Gurubashi. Been told elfs don't got tribes, got families, got what Miss Lu get to callin fuckin clubhouses."
A laugh slapped out of him, chapping his lips, shocking him.
Kan'jin grinned, in his peripheral vision, and Levi shuddered, a little, in reaction. He'd taken his mana potions start of watch, though. He was going to be fine. Not like the troll, who was skinnier than any Amani.
"Dem Gurubashi, big tribe, many trolls, got strong ghosts, de loa got love of em, He Jin'do make de voodoo for dem. We know him name, Jin'do, Jin'do, he known by de Ten T'ousand, by de True T'ousand, Jin'do, Jin'do, we know him name over wave an wind, echo in my daddy's skull, be put t'rough de magic in my brother him frostbolts, de bubblin in my mama her cauldron."
They walked. The troll kept his pace, hunched over, thinner than the Amani. Levi wondered if he were hurting for magic. You dind't see any of the Sunfury hurting for mana any more. You didn't see many trolls at all hurting for mana - just shouting over the drums.
"So we come from Durotar," Kan'jin said. His voice didn't get drowned or swallowed by the wind. Levi wondered if there were a trick to it. "So we hear de tales from de old jungle, de old empire. Vol'jin, he be hearin, he hear it. Vol'jin, he tell us go, find de whispers, hear over wave an wind."
"Who's Vol'jin?"
The troll gave him a look like he was so stupid.
"Look, I - Never mind. Whispers. I've heard whispers," Levi said. "Go on."
"We found de whispers, Leviat'rim elf."
Later Levi will remember that, the troll's tone not changing but suddenly there was his name, now. It was his story, now.
"We foun de whispers, we hear it through frond an fern. Be carried on wind, be comin through water an shadows. Shadows love Vol'jin, like Air loves me." The troll glanced sidelong at him, and Levi took his hand off the hilt of his long knife. "Same as Air loves you, Leviat'rim elf. Reckon on how it tell ya so even here in a world ain't yours."
"It's ours now," Levi said. The wings of the King's banner spread wide and welcome, in his mind's eye. If he turned his head, he'd see the red and gold over the forge, against the changing sky.
"Ya t'ink so," Kan'jin said. "Maybe. Got more on it, yeh? - We follow dem whispers to de city, and everywhere, we be hearin an angry nothin. Be like hornets made o blood an teef. Be like hate on wings. Red wings. Be red, red and brown, death an pain.
"And we hear him, by'm'by de god, we hear him, Jin'do, Jin'do. Got priests tied up in mind, de god, an we go to free dem, in dem eyes nothing, nothing.
"Got gods, elf?"
For a moment, the troll's eyes gleamed, and hundreds of years of drums from the south ripped at Levi's temples. A breeze rose out of nowhere, lifted bits of sticky hair from the back of his neck, and he went less tense.
"Heard elfs got no gods, you," Kan'jin went on. "Good, mebbe. Hakkar a damn ugly god, eat an eat and ain't never be done. Be snake, yeh? Seen a snake after it eat? Full an stretchin de skin. Hakkar he stretch, be bloat, still be roar for more.
"De priests, yeh, be feedin dem own gods to Hakkar. We go an we put dem down, we look at dem eyes, got nothing, nothing, got Hakkar peekin out de holes in de skull. Dem be sayin big t'anks, dem be free.
"De voices on de roads o Zul'Gurub be Jin'do. Remember Jin'do, me, I. Heard stories, me. Jin'do call de lightning, Jin'do hold chatter widde spirits of every tribe and dem come to his table. Heard of that, elf? You ain't never heard of that, elf. De spirits and de loa, they come, and dem say, friend. Jindo, Jin'do.
"Him make it big game, him, us tired an sad, tired an soul-sad. Killed priests, elf? Killed dem as hold de gods friends, Leviat'rim elf?"
"I've killed mages who said they'd been the King's friends," Levi said. His shoulders hurt. He slowed enough to sling his bow, tighten his belt so his mail shirt's weight fell on his hips and not down over his arms and chest. The weight didn't leave him.
"Got it, den," the troll said. "Yeh? An ya look, and dere him be, Jin'do. No one be t'inkin him friend, Jin'do, Jin'do."
The troll trailed off.
They walked. The sky was purple on grey, as usual, and sometimes splashes of pink or gold the color of apples.
"We end it, quick as we could. De priests, dem sorry. Jin'do, he ain't sorry. Big talk bout de Gurubashi havin power, bein like de loa, rulin de world like it used to be. Ain't sorry, him. De eyes dem priests be empty. Jin'do, him ain't empty. HIm be filled. Ain't filled wit Jin'do. Him ain't Jin'do.
"Nobody dere. Mun Zil, she be cryin after we take de head o Jin'do, make de stack o bones. She don't cry for de priests, she cry for Jin'do. Too great to be dat terrible, yeh?"
Levi didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry," he said, finally.
"Yeh? Big t'anks, Leviat'rim elf." The troll was silent for a few seconds. "Miss Lu, she be sayin how your name, hers, be Embersong." Levi glanced at him. The troll looked as if he were chewing the gristle off this thought. "Yeh. Be de only time Fire be singin, it be embers."
Levi let them walk in silence. His glance flicked out on watch, up and ahead, noting the perimeter of the guard, the placement of the archers, the empty spaces where once there had been a thriving village. He didn't know about what Farahlon had used to be, but he remembered the village.
"Leviat'rim elf?"
"Should be 'Lieutenant'," Levi said. He was on duty.
"Not right just now," the troll said. "You got to know, Leviat'rim elf, ain't de first time I been here, dis place." The troll stopped walking. Levi stopped too, even though you didn't stop on watch.
The troll was pointing due east. And up. "Ain't de first time," the troll repeated. "Been to the floatin rock, me. Leviat'rim elf been heard de voices in the castle, de whispers o fire an air an shadow. Ain't no one dere, Leviat'rim elf."
Levi stood, still as stone. The knife in his hand - he didn't even remember pulling it out of its hard scabbard - was too heavy to raise. The troll looked at him patiently.
"Been seein statues," the troll said. "Been hearin de whispers. Dunno what elfs love. Hard to know what elfs love, 'cept here. Shadows love Vol'jin like elfs love de elf o de statue. Problem be, ain't an elf, dat t'ing. Not an elf. Elfs be one problem, dat t'ing be whole other. Stood and watched, it. Dem eyes, be green, green, but be a green ain't seen in dreamin. Be a green got brown under. Be a green be no-color, yeh? Be no one dere. Not just like Jin'do, where be seein licks o blood. Be no one. Be empty. Ya be hearin, Leviat'rim elf? No one dere. Fire scream at us, den She be singin, an we hear no echo. No one dere."
"You lie," Levi said, and oh fuck he was crying. He was amazed by this. He was too cold to cry, the tears should freeze up and explode his eyeballs. Dear Turgon, today I cried like a little girl and it exploded my eyeballs, ha ha.
"No lie," the troll said, so quiet it couldn't be anything but true, and Levi dropped the knife and just leaped at him.
"You lie," he said, and knocked the troll down, landing square on the troll's chest. It was like landing on a sack of wrenches. A thin sack. Full of wrenches. Full to the brim.
Levi raised his fist to deliver the start of as many blows as he could get in before his hands exploded.
The troll caught his fist. His grip was weird and wrong and unmovable. Levi gasped, and then began to cry in earnest.
Later he would remember this, that he couldn't not believe it, that the certainty crept in like a boy hoping his mother wouldn't notice the mud all over the floor. Later he would remember that he'd known as soon as he heard that peculiar catch in the troll's voice the first time he'd named Jin'do, hero and hero and hero.
"Be a big floatin rock up dere, Leviat'rim elf," Kan'jin said, holding Levi's fists easily. "Listen. Be empty o your kind, elf. Only t'ings I seen dere be Fire Herself, fallin down in song, an hollow men. Be hollow. Be empty. Be nothin dere. Yeh? Unnerstand? Nothing dere."
"Let go," Levi said, crying. "Just let go."
The troll let him go. He fell over, and curled up on his side, wanting to stop crying, wanting not to care that he couldn't.
He couldn't make the words happen.
"Lie," he said, through snot and tears.
"No lie," Kan'jin said. "Somebody else been lyin to you, yeh?" The troll hunkered by him, far enough away not to touch him. Levi was infinitely grateful.
"Why?"
Kan'jin looked at him. "Been tellin ya why, elf. Heard stories, me, all my life. Jin'do, Jin'do, call de lightning, call all de spirits, Jin'do, Jin'do. Dunno de elf o de statues, Leviat'rim elf. Dunno what he done, but I see elfs love him, like shadows love Vo'jin, like - dunno I ever seen anyt'ing like. Been de best elf, yeh? Got took."
Later he would remember this, the taste of dirt and tears in his mouth, the horrible ache like being punched after throwing up of crying, the sheer appalled hurt, the words ringing through his mind: Lu sent him to tell me this. Lu knew. Lu told him to tell me.
Lu believes him.
Lu knows.
The King. The Prince. No no no no no. Been the best elf. How could we have not known?
Levi got up, with difficulty. He was grateful, and not surprised, that Kan'jin didn't offer to help him, but squatted there and looked up without moving as Levi re-situated himself.
"I have to know for myself," Levi said, baldly.
The troll nodded, like he'd expected no less.
"Now you better leave before I fill you with arrows," Lieutenant Embersong said.
"Be leavin," Kan'jin said, and rose up, and up, and filled the world like the sky before it shattered into storm.
He paused, and looked over his shoulder, a gaunt nightmare shape having delivered a bolt. "Leviat'rim elf."
"What," Levi said, through swollen throat, looking through aching streaming eyes at this awful sight against a shifting sky.
"Go quick," the troll said.
"I will," Levi said, and turned, and paced out the beginning of the rest of his watch, once more around Manaforge Duro.
alificent has Levi. Many thanks to her for letting me write this. Kan'jin is mine. WARNING: I use the popular troll dialect style herein. Squid will hate me to death. :(
This takes place right before this quest happens. :(
The sun never sets on the Netherstorm, because the sun never rises there, either. The sky is unchanging and - at the same time - always changing. Levi had written to Turgon about this before. They'd agreed that it was weird. They'd agreed that it was probably magical, and when they'd concluded this, Levi had felt better about it, and had been able to sleep without a tent between him and the sky again. It was another world, but elves were born in magic. His mother'd always said so.
He was on watch, third watch of the night. He would remember this, afterwards. He was on watch, had just passed Inkspot going the other way, and was falling into his stride, proceeding around the mana-forge. His bow was strung and his knife was sharp and oiled. He'd polished his armor. Captain Dawnstrike had gone on inspection that morning, and he hadn't smiled. Levi'd made it his business to go at his breastplate with oil and gritcloth, and hadn't had to even give anyone a frown to make them follow suit; they'd all seen the Captain's serious face after falling in. The Captain had enough on his plate these days. Levi intended to make sure that inspection was never going to be there longer than a lingering taste of lemon.
He was on watch, third watch of the night, and at first, when the troll showed up, he had a split second of thinking that he was asleep in a nightmare.
"Hey," the troll said urgently. It was a male troll. You could tell. There were tusks. It was big. Levi had an arrow nocked before he could think, and was about to loose - could feel his fingers start to uncurl - when the troll added, "Miss Lu be sendin me."
His fingers stayed. He didn't move. He was on watch, and His Majesty's Army was holding the manaforges against everyone who was showing up to disrupt the processes. There were more of them all the time, and watches had been tightened. "You have three seconds or I fire."
"Got no quarrel, elf," the troll said. It unfolded, and showed its hands. Empty. Four fingers. Two thumbs. Empty palms. Levi slowly lowered the bow in his grip until the arrow's head pointed to the ground. He was ready to pull it up again at any second. The troll was still twenty yards away, at least - far enough to make them have to raise their voices. Not so far it couldn't try anything awful.
"Who sent you?" he said, trying to think. He was an officer, he had duties here. He ought to be subduing this intruder and bringing it in for questioning. Him. Bringing him in for questioning.
The troll was tall, standing upright, but not as big as the trolls of Levi's childhood. A lot skinnier- more like an elf's proportions, less unsettling. Or maybe more - the tusks were still sharp nightmare-hooks, and the eyes were obviously all wrong, red and hot and without a pupil. He was dressed in blue ringmail and grey plates and sleeves, the colors of the sky before a storm - the proper sky, the sky at home over Eversong Woods, like thunderclouds. Levi smelled the air before rain suddenly, cutting across the acrid coppery dry of the Netherstorm so abruptly that he almost lost his grip on the bow.
Almost.
"Miss Lu," the troll repeated. His hands were still empty, and he hadn't moved, standing on a jag of rock staggered against the mutable sky, since Levi'd nocked. "Lu-see-aht. Got hair like flame. Got a cat."
Levi swallowed. "What color's the cat?"
The troll gave him a tired look. "Like Miss Lu's hair."
Levi saw his sister in his mind's eye. Couldn't picture the cat. Didn't matter. "... All right. Stay that distance. Keep your hands empty. Say what you have to say. I won't fire."
"Long talk, elf."
Levi sighed. It was always longer than he wanted it to be, these days. "All right. I'm on watch. We'll walk. Stay that distance. What does Lu say?"
The troll hesitated.
Levi began walking again, falling into the steady pace of watch. "What's your name?"
"Kan'jin," the troll said. He began loping alongside Levi, keeping the distance between them, and slouched. Levi had to keep glancing over at him, away from his checking the horizon and his sightlines; it took him a few seconds to vocalize his bother, and then he realized: the troll was wearing chainmail, but Levi never heard any clinking of metal on metal, or the shift of leather underneath. He shivered, and it had nothing to do with the biting winds or the hole in his boot. Trolls were weird, always had been.
"Got a story," the troll said eventually. "Ready for it, elf?"
"I'm ready," he said. He kept his eyes ahead, at points triangulating right and left and up.
"Long time gone," Kan'jin said, slow, "we gotta houngan, us, trollkind, jungle trolls. We gotta houngan, we gotta witch doctor, him name Jin'do, Jindo. Things be empty, he fill dem. Things be swoll up, he lance an drain dem. He Jin'do, Jin'do, spirits come to his fire an rattle. Tribes they hear. Jin'do, he Gurubashi. Been told elfs don't got tribes, got families, got what Miss Lu get to callin fuckin clubhouses."
A laugh slapped out of him, chapping his lips, shocking him.
Kan'jin grinned, in his peripheral vision, and Levi shuddered, a little, in reaction. He'd taken his mana potions start of watch, though. He was going to be fine. Not like the troll, who was skinnier than any Amani.
"Dem Gurubashi, big tribe, many trolls, got strong ghosts, de loa got love of em, He Jin'do make de voodoo for dem. We know him name, Jin'do, Jin'do, he known by de Ten T'ousand, by de True T'ousand, Jin'do, Jin'do, we know him name over wave an wind, echo in my daddy's skull, be put t'rough de magic in my brother him frostbolts, de bubblin in my mama her cauldron."
They walked. The troll kept his pace, hunched over, thinner than the Amani. Levi wondered if he were hurting for magic. You dind't see any of the Sunfury hurting for mana any more. You didn't see many trolls at all hurting for mana - just shouting over the drums.
"So we come from Durotar," Kan'jin said. His voice didn't get drowned or swallowed by the wind. Levi wondered if there were a trick to it. "So we hear de tales from de old jungle, de old empire. Vol'jin, he be hearin, he hear it. Vol'jin, he tell us go, find de whispers, hear over wave an wind."
"Who's Vol'jin?"
The troll gave him a look like he was so stupid.
"Look, I - Never mind. Whispers. I've heard whispers," Levi said. "Go on."
"We found de whispers, Leviat'rim elf."
Later Levi will remember that, the troll's tone not changing but suddenly there was his name, now. It was his story, now.
"We foun de whispers, we hear it through frond an fern. Be carried on wind, be comin through water an shadows. Shadows love Vol'jin, like Air loves me." The troll glanced sidelong at him, and Levi took his hand off the hilt of his long knife. "Same as Air loves you, Leviat'rim elf. Reckon on how it tell ya so even here in a world ain't yours."
"It's ours now," Levi said. The wings of the King's banner spread wide and welcome, in his mind's eye. If he turned his head, he'd see the red and gold over the forge, against the changing sky.
"Ya t'ink so," Kan'jin said. "Maybe. Got more on it, yeh? - We follow dem whispers to de city, and everywhere, we be hearin an angry nothin. Be like hornets made o blood an teef. Be like hate on wings. Red wings. Be red, red and brown, death an pain.
"And we hear him, by'm'by de god, we hear him, Jin'do, Jin'do. Got priests tied up in mind, de god, an we go to free dem, in dem eyes nothing, nothing.
"Got gods, elf?"
For a moment, the troll's eyes gleamed, and hundreds of years of drums from the south ripped at Levi's temples. A breeze rose out of nowhere, lifted bits of sticky hair from the back of his neck, and he went less tense.
"Heard elfs got no gods, you," Kan'jin went on. "Good, mebbe. Hakkar a damn ugly god, eat an eat and ain't never be done. Be snake, yeh? Seen a snake after it eat? Full an stretchin de skin. Hakkar he stretch, be bloat, still be roar for more.
"De priests, yeh, be feedin dem own gods to Hakkar. We go an we put dem down, we look at dem eyes, got nothing, nothing, got Hakkar peekin out de holes in de skull. Dem be sayin big t'anks, dem be free.
"De voices on de roads o Zul'Gurub be Jin'do. Remember Jin'do, me, I. Heard stories, me. Jin'do call de lightning, Jin'do hold chatter widde spirits of every tribe and dem come to his table. Heard of that, elf? You ain't never heard of that, elf. De spirits and de loa, they come, and dem say, friend. Jindo, Jin'do.
"Him make it big game, him, us tired an sad, tired an soul-sad. Killed priests, elf? Killed dem as hold de gods friends, Leviat'rim elf?"
"I've killed mages who said they'd been the King's friends," Levi said. His shoulders hurt. He slowed enough to sling his bow, tighten his belt so his mail shirt's weight fell on his hips and not down over his arms and chest. The weight didn't leave him.
"Got it, den," the troll said. "Yeh? An ya look, and dere him be, Jin'do. No one be t'inkin him friend, Jin'do, Jin'do."
The troll trailed off.
They walked. The sky was purple on grey, as usual, and sometimes splashes of pink or gold the color of apples.
"We end it, quick as we could. De priests, dem sorry. Jin'do, he ain't sorry. Big talk bout de Gurubashi havin power, bein like de loa, rulin de world like it used to be. Ain't sorry, him. De eyes dem priests be empty. Jin'do, him ain't empty. HIm be filled. Ain't filled wit Jin'do. Him ain't Jin'do.
"Nobody dere. Mun Zil, she be cryin after we take de head o Jin'do, make de stack o bones. She don't cry for de priests, she cry for Jin'do. Too great to be dat terrible, yeh?"
Levi didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry," he said, finally.
"Yeh? Big t'anks, Leviat'rim elf." The troll was silent for a few seconds. "Miss Lu, she be sayin how your name, hers, be Embersong." Levi glanced at him. The troll looked as if he were chewing the gristle off this thought. "Yeh. Be de only time Fire be singin, it be embers."
Levi let them walk in silence. His glance flicked out on watch, up and ahead, noting the perimeter of the guard, the placement of the archers, the empty spaces where once there had been a thriving village. He didn't know about what Farahlon had used to be, but he remembered the village.
"Leviat'rim elf?"
"Should be 'Lieutenant'," Levi said. He was on duty.
"Not right just now," the troll said. "You got to know, Leviat'rim elf, ain't de first time I been here, dis place." The troll stopped walking. Levi stopped too, even though you didn't stop on watch.
The troll was pointing due east. And up. "Ain't de first time," the troll repeated. "Been to the floatin rock, me. Leviat'rim elf been heard de voices in the castle, de whispers o fire an air an shadow. Ain't no one dere, Leviat'rim elf."
Levi stood, still as stone. The knife in his hand - he didn't even remember pulling it out of its hard scabbard - was too heavy to raise. The troll looked at him patiently.
"Been seein statues," the troll said. "Been hearin de whispers. Dunno what elfs love. Hard to know what elfs love, 'cept here. Shadows love Vol'jin like elfs love de elf o de statue. Problem be, ain't an elf, dat t'ing. Not an elf. Elfs be one problem, dat t'ing be whole other. Stood and watched, it. Dem eyes, be green, green, but be a green ain't seen in dreamin. Be a green got brown under. Be a green be no-color, yeh? Be no one dere. Not just like Jin'do, where be seein licks o blood. Be no one. Be empty. Ya be hearin, Leviat'rim elf? No one dere. Fire scream at us, den She be singin, an we hear no echo. No one dere."
"You lie," Levi said, and oh fuck he was crying. He was amazed by this. He was too cold to cry, the tears should freeze up and explode his eyeballs. Dear Turgon, today I cried like a little girl and it exploded my eyeballs, ha ha.
"No lie," the troll said, so quiet it couldn't be anything but true, and Levi dropped the knife and just leaped at him.
"You lie," he said, and knocked the troll down, landing square on the troll's chest. It was like landing on a sack of wrenches. A thin sack. Full of wrenches. Full to the brim.
Levi raised his fist to deliver the start of as many blows as he could get in before his hands exploded.
The troll caught his fist. His grip was weird and wrong and unmovable. Levi gasped, and then began to cry in earnest.
Later he would remember this, that he couldn't not believe it, that the certainty crept in like a boy hoping his mother wouldn't notice the mud all over the floor. Later he would remember that he'd known as soon as he heard that peculiar catch in the troll's voice the first time he'd named Jin'do, hero and hero and hero.
"Be a big floatin rock up dere, Leviat'rim elf," Kan'jin said, holding Levi's fists easily. "Listen. Be empty o your kind, elf. Only t'ings I seen dere be Fire Herself, fallin down in song, an hollow men. Be hollow. Be empty. Be nothin dere. Yeh? Unnerstand? Nothing dere."
"Let go," Levi said, crying. "Just let go."
The troll let him go. He fell over, and curled up on his side, wanting to stop crying, wanting not to care that he couldn't.
He couldn't make the words happen.
"Lie," he said, through snot and tears.
"No lie," Kan'jin said. "Somebody else been lyin to you, yeh?" The troll hunkered by him, far enough away not to touch him. Levi was infinitely grateful.
"Why?"
Kan'jin looked at him. "Been tellin ya why, elf. Heard stories, me, all my life. Jin'do, Jin'do, call de lightning, call all de spirits, Jin'do, Jin'do. Dunno de elf o de statues, Leviat'rim elf. Dunno what he done, but I see elfs love him, like shadows love Vo'jin, like - dunno I ever seen anyt'ing like. Been de best elf, yeh? Got took."
Later he would remember this, the taste of dirt and tears in his mouth, the horrible ache like being punched after throwing up of crying, the sheer appalled hurt, the words ringing through his mind: Lu sent him to tell me this. Lu knew. Lu told him to tell me.
Lu believes him.
Lu knows.
The King. The Prince. No no no no no. Been the best elf. How could we have not known?
Levi got up, with difficulty. He was grateful, and not surprised, that Kan'jin didn't offer to help him, but squatted there and looked up without moving as Levi re-situated himself.
"I have to know for myself," Levi said, baldly.
The troll nodded, like he'd expected no less.
"Now you better leave before I fill you with arrows," Lieutenant Embersong said.
"Be leavin," Kan'jin said, and rose up, and up, and filled the world like the sky before it shattered into storm.
He paused, and looked over his shoulder, a gaunt nightmare shape having delivered a bolt. "Leviat'rim elf."
"What," Levi said, through swollen throat, looking through aching streaming eyes at this awful sight against a shifting sky.
"Go quick," the troll said.
"I will," Levi said, and turned, and paced out the beginning of the rest of his watch, once more around Manaforge Duro.
