That feeling was still familiar to her, so many years later. And she saw it shining in Kaita’s eyes now.
Her ears flapped in sympathy. Slowly, she lowered her boulder-sized fists, and she sat on her haunches in front of Kaita.
Sookar’s pack had helped her survive the worst pain she had ever known. But this tiny human had no one.
And in that moment, Sookar resolved that she would be Kaita’s pack, as long as she required one.
From that time on, she visited Kaita every day. She saw to it that Kaita had plenty to eat, and she did what she could to keep the area clear of predators that might threaten her. But for the most part, she spent time with Kaita, and she listened. And Kaita spoke, at first in a lifeless monotone, and then with tears, and then with increasing anger, of the wrongs done to her by Thada and the other humans of Tokana. Many of these matters were far beyond Sookar’s understanding, but that does not always matter. Sometimes one need simply listen and share in another’s grief.
And so for many months these two forged a deeper and deeper friendship, a tiny pack of two that treated each other like family. It was in that time that Kaita learned the troll tongue, which few humans have ever learned, and in exchange she taught Sookar to speak the human tongue with much greater skill. And in time, there came to be enough trust between the two of them that Sookar let Kaita acquire her form.
“Useful,” she growled, “if you ever run into others of my kind out here in the mountains.”
Of course, if she ever encountered a troll, Kaita could just as easily turn into a bird and flee. But she knew how rare it was for a weremage to have this chance, and she could hardly refuse. Over the course of weeks, Kaita took Sookar’s shape into her canon, and she was able to become a troll whenever she desired.
After some months of this life, Kaita found herself growing restless. She had shed the desire for her own life to end. Now she wanted to go about building a new future. She did not know what such a future held, but she knew it was not to spend the rest of her days as a mountain witch, alone but for Sookar.
Yet at the same time, she had no desire to leave the old troll behind. Sookar was not closely associated with any pack, and if Kaita left, it would rob her of her last small semblance of family that remained. But Sookar eventually became aware of Kaita’s hesitancy, and she urged her to go.
“You are meant to live your life,” she said, when she and Kaita at last spoke openly of the matter. “This was part of it, but there is more to come. And if you sit here waiting until I have died, you will grow as grey and knobbly as the stones of the hills.”
Kaita laughed at that, though the humor was bittersweet. And so she made ready to set forth from the mountains, and in time she left them. It was not long before the Shades found her, and the Lord lured her to his side with promises of power, and purpose, and revenge against those who had cast her out.
Many years later, Kaita returned to Tokana to further the Lord’s intentions there. She went south at once to go and visit Sookar. Unfortunately, the old troll had passed away some years before. From that time on, whenever Kaita wore Sookar’s form, she thought of it as honoring her memory. And she modified the transformation so that Sookar was young again, and hale, and hearty—the best version of the old troll that Kaita could imagine.
But the truth, which Kaita would never have been able to accept, was that Sookar’s best days were those she spent with the weremage, alone together, deep in the mountains.
THE LEGEND OF MELDIN
Listen now, child, to a tale of Meldin, the Dragon, who lived thousands of years before Underrealm was first named.
Before the time before time, before even the beginning of our world, when the sky had not yet given humanity life upon the face of the earth, a Dragon mother laid five eggs. The sun sang at their arrival, and the darkness at the edge of the world cowered in fear before them. For in these five eggs were instilled the essences that would make possible the creation of all other creatures to live under the moons, and woven into their shells were threads of Fate.
The first and greatest of the eggs held the essence of fire; the second, water; the third, earth; the fourth, the wind; and the fifth held the love of all living beings for each other and for themselves. And all the Dragons knew that one day the sky would take these essences and weave from them all the creatures that flew within itself, and crawled beneath itself, and swam to hide from itself, as well as all the plants that would grow and flourish in the light of its sun. And never had these essences been glimpsed before in all the wide world, and the Dragons wondered to see them glowing within the veins and texture of the eggs’ shells.
And one by one the Dragons came to visit the eggs, and to bow before them, paying respect and swearing fealty to these, the mightiest gifts bestowed upon them by the sky. And every Dragon loved the eggs, and they longed for the day when they would hatch and make possible the small creatures that would fill the earth with life, and movement, and joy. And every Dragon bent all their thought and wove threads of Fate to see to
