One Thousand One Hundred And Ninety

Dear Diary,

Y'know, I know I've mentioned the whole 'trauma on a societal level can superficially resemble culture' thing before, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm also not sure what to do about it when that culture has been around long enough that it predates newfangled things like therapy. Or mammals.

I am not certain if any given Troll remembers the fuckin' asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. Or rather, most of them, since I suspect if one were to look at DNA, Trolls have more than a little dinosaur in them. Same with Dragons, if I'm being honest. But I am certain that whatever culture they have wound up being some kind of stunted, because without being knocked down to some kind of bottleneck, they wouldn't have allowed Human Adjacent culture to even happen. Or if they did, it wouldn't be anything like so dominant as it is now.

Or maybe I'm vastly overestimating their breeding rate. For all I know, that clutch of eggs is the only one Furtim's capable of laying this year. Or maybe this decade. Fuck, Trolls are functionally immortal, in the ageless sense at least, and I'm not gonna even talk about how similar to Maenads they are in the 'hard to kill' sense. Which means that if this is the only batch of eggs she's gonna lay this century, so long as they're not incredibly reckless, they'll keep growing indefinitely.

But the thing is, they've obviously had a long, long time to change, to adapt, to become whatever the fuck they want to become, but at the end of all that when I freed them from servitude to King Shitdick of the line of  Honey Seeking Bear, they snapped back to being a Legion like fuckin' memory material.

Then again, some of them have to have taken some hits to the head over the millennia, and they still have all their Skills, which means maybe their fuckin' brains are just that. Memory material. I mean, in senses other than the 'where you store the memories' kind of way. Which means changing is going to take longer for them.

If they even want to.

Although... They didn't seem to balk at doing anything I've told them to do. Then again, I haven't told them to do much that hasn't included fighting of some kind.

Then again, there are new ones now. New Trolls. She-Trolls anyhow, and that means they can learn new things. Maybe have some of the Trolls be something other than weapons. We'll have to see.

So last night the five little... Well, new Trolls and their mama Furtim joined us when we went to Loki and Sigyn's place for our sleepover. Marie and I made a bunch of different meat heavy stuff for the Trolls and kits, along with some stuff with eggs, cheese, and veg for the rest of the kids. I mean, there was enough meat for everybody, and arguably if they split it out enough of everything else for everybody, but...

Still kinda funny how much the kits and now the Trollettes are clearly predatory by nature, yet seem to enjoy stuff that clearly is not meat, like salads and vegetables, especially fried ones. Vegetables, not salads. Although now I'm wondering how I could fry a salad.

All that aside, I think our little trolls are finding their places in the tribe our family has become. No real surprise that three of them have joined with our more active kids. Not much of one that one of them seems to be hanging with Isadora and Hailee. I guess the one that's really surprised me is the one who seems to have attached herself to Davey. Trolls as crafters I could maybe see, since I'm pretty sure their halberds do not regenerate, which means they've got to be the ones making them. I could even see trolls as artists, maybe, since if my Temple and Altar in Troll Home are decorated in a kind of primitive fashion, all angles and ochre and sepia, they're still clearly decorated if I look for it. But Davey's none of that. Oh, she plays at making things with Daya, and she'll do running around games with Menace and her squad, or sing along with the musical kits, but mostly she's a bit of a dilettante, doing stuff to socialize with her sisters while they're doing it.

Then again, if you look at it right, that's her Mom's job. Saffron, that is. Learning enough of whatever somebody's doing to discuss it rationally, talking to people on their level, maybe with the added aspect of getting them to do shit for her. Yeah, Saffron's got me as a stick of someone's being obstinate, but I don't think I've ever caught her using me to extort somebody.

If that's the case, we might have a budding Troll politician. Or Diplomat, hopefully. Somebody who gets people to talk things out for mutual benefit rather than fighting. Which gains a whole other level of impact when the Diplomat in question is fully capable of taking whatever somebody dishes out, returning it with interest, and then sitting their ass back down at the table and telling them to talk.

Shit, that's practically my Diplomatic go-to, although I tend to just threaten, then suggest talking instead of fighting.

At any rate, kinda funny that while our five little Trolls did the same thing I remember my scaly bois doing and curling up in little bagel shapes, they didn't seem at all put out when the kits, then the rest of the girls all snuggled in around them.

Once we had them all sleeping, Furtim turned to Loki. "Lord."

I guess they hadn't really had time to formally greet one another when the kids swarmed in. Then again, I didn't really think they needed a formal greeting, but I'm all about the informal.

He just nodded and, equally formally, replied, "Prefect."

"So, uh... Five more grandkids for you!"

Sigyn just shook her head. "I know at least a few noblewomen who despair at their sons or daughters ever gifting them grandchildren. I think from now on instead of counselling patience I may insist they celebrate instead."

I shot her all the side eye. "You love it, and you know it."

"I do!" She giggled, which slowly turned into a chuckle, then nodded at the mountain range of sleeping kids and said, but this is getting a little ridiculous."

Before I could reply, Murder Mittens pronounced. "It Is."

I could see Furtim getting a little tense, so I pulled her to me and said, "you? You of all people say that, little miss eight at once?"

Marie just nodded, then with an absolutely straight face said, "Need More." While all of us stared, mouths dropping, she grinned and added, "Lots More."

That defused the tension with a laugh, at which point Sigyn reached her arms out to Furtim. "Come here, Prefect." When my Troll Lady went over to her, Mom reached up and hugged her. As she did she said, "five is a perfectly reasonable number. A normal amount of grandchildren from one child. A nicely large family."

When Marie let out a bit of a growling whine, Sigyn laughed and held out an arm. "Eight is a bit of an overachievement, but still nothing to complain of. Your other five, those you adopted, are lovely children, and you are the best kind of mother, one who sees children in need and steps into the breach without thought. Glancing at Saffron and Siobhan, she smiled beatifically and added, "having had two myself, I can fully understand 'one' being a limit as well." Finally she nodded toward Tallulah. "Four, especially spread across millennia? Also completely within reason."

Then she turned to me, shaking her head. "But twenty-six? How am I to bake enough cookies for twenty-six?" I glanced over at Marie, who had absolutely baked enough treats for twenty-six before, but she was clearly playing along, shaking her head at me. "At twenty-six, you're clearly just showing off."

Yeah, at that point I realized she'd been mostly pulling my leg, but I figured I'd play into the joke. Well, sort of. "Uh... Twenty-eight." She froze. "You forgot two?" She blinked, clearly trying to hold back laughter and disbelief both. "Vulcan and Conrad?"

She shuddered a little. "Well. I will try my best not to do so in the future. Although I'm not sure what a crossbow would do with a cookie."

"Hey, it's the thought that counts."

"Fair point."

At that point Loki pulled out a cask, one that would look like a big beer barrel on a normal sized guy, which meant that fuckin' thing had to hold a buttload of whatever.

"Four, actually." He set it on what looked to be the base of a removed stalagmite, then turned to Furtim. "Do you drink?"

She shrugged and nodded. "Socially."

"Well then." He punched a little hole near the bottom and shoved a spigot looking thing into it. "In celebration of our newest grandchildren."

Yeah, two genuine Norse Deities, a Maenad, a ten foot Troll with a liver to match, and me. We went through a lot of what was in that cask. I think it might have been applejack. Like, the stuff cider becomes when it grows up and gets itself run through a still. It tasted of apples anyhow. Mostly apples.

Yeah, by the time my brain made that connection, I couldn't help but giggle a bit. Okay, a lot.

Family therapy today was a little less maudlin than the worst ones, even if the stories Furtim told were kinda creepy at best, and a special, melancholy sad most of the time. The one that got me, especially once I realized what she was saying, was when Saffron asked her what her earliest memory was.

"I was young. Not as young as them," she nodded to the little Trolls. "But not as old as her," she nodded to where Isadora was lying down on her side listening. "The Imperator had promised an ending to the Great Dragon of the South, who had plagued us for so long, ended so many of us. We were ordered north, to prepare shelters. The day arrived for the Great Dragon of the South to awaken for her tribute. Instead, a flash, so bright it burned out my eyes. My Legion fell back, hobbled and crawled to the shelters we'd built. The entrance collapsed. We slept in the dark, we slept through the cold, we slept until someone arrived to dig us out."

She shook her head. "We awoke to the world as it is today, awakened by the ancestors of Honey Seeking Badger." Then she looked right at me. "Or, like the world was until you arrived."