Esara glanced at the cracked stone beneath the Troll's feet. She had mentioned Salty's name but hadn't expected that type of reaction; somehow, it felt like she should've regretted mentioning his name, yet here she was, already done the deed.
"Yes? Do you know him?" She'd hesitantly asked.
What did the troll know that she didn't?
The Troll gaped.
"Salty?" he paused for a long moment, dragging the anticipation even further.
Esara listened intently.
What was he going to say?
Then.
"Who's that?" He asked.
For no reason at all, Esara felt a sting in her head, not of actual pain but something closer to annoyance.
"What?"
That reaction- she had hoped for some info about Salty. Judging by how he'd initially dropped his own cup, she'd expected that the old troll must've known because he too looked ancient.
"You don't know him?"
"Never heard of him".
"I-I see". She glanced at his shattered cup again, then up to meet his gaze.
"Why did you drop your cup?"
"I'm an old Troll; sometimes your body stops serving your purpose".
Dovregrubben perked his finger inside his pointy ears, then jumped out of his seat and got a pair of what seemed to be cleaning tools from the corner of the room. Then, after putting the trash aside, he took her cup, refilling it without her asking.
She hadn't said anything, except that the word purpose had lingered longer in her mind than she'd like to admit.
She muttered quietly to herself, "Purpose — Like how the deaths and Salty serve their own purpose". She took a moment to think; since she met Salty, the word purpose had appeared more than she was aware of. It seemed like all creatures around these parts spoke of this certain term.
"Everyone speaks of purpose down here. What exactly is a purpose?"
The troll's eyes pierced her own, as if trying to gauge her intention.
"A purpose? It's what you're destined to do; a human like you should know of it".
"Yes, I know what it means, but from what I've experienced, the term purpose seems to be different here".
Dovregrubben poured himself a new cup of his homemade herb and settled back on the boulder. Then, he smiled, almost amused by her question. Like how a grandparent had waited for their grandchildren to ask for knowledge that they were fully aware of.
"You're a local of this place, aren't you? Then I'm sure you're aware of the current circumstances right now in the abyss?"
She wasn't aware at all.
She had only strived for survival and done things purely out of instinct. Learning about her surroundings and why things were happening had never occurred to her, nor had she had any time to think about it.
"The abyss wasn't always like this. Before even old me was born, the sun used to grace itself upon all the hills. Grass used to grow here, trees were abundant, and even animals used to roam these lands".
Esara was surprised — she didn't know, and it didn't shock her as much as she thought. The ruins and sanctuaries she'd encountered earlier in her life told of an old story of a time when she wasn't alive.
Thinking of it now, it could make sense.
Dovregrubben continued. "There was a diverse land of many races... until something happened at the lower hills. My people believed that the gods who lived there had begun plotting against each other; eventually their disagreement resulted in a punishment and clad the world in darkness".
Darkness born from gods who couldn't fix their own disagreement.
She glanced at her cup.
Salty would have had something to say about that. Something about how even gods apparently needed someone to come behind them and sort out the mess they left.
She almost smiled.
Esara's fingers intertwined — leaning in.
Interesting, she thought.
"Mhm, and then what?"
"Then the forsaken was born from the gods' ill words against each other, and life soon found its end as most either died or immigrated to the shallow light and further above. The ones who decided to stay were given a purpose by Mother Gaia: a purpose to tend to the body of the abyss".
"And what is your purpose exactly, if you don't mind me asking?"
The troll smirked.
"I'm happy you asked. My grand purpose, one that has been inherited by my ancestors through generations, is..."
Alright, Troll, tell me so I can gauge what a purpose is.
"Clad these lands in green".
Esara nodded, and there was a quick moment of silence.
"I see... and what does that exactly entail?" She asked blankly.
The troll reached up and unclasped his cloak, letting it fall from his shoulders in one slow movement.
Esara stopped breathing.
His back was stone — she had expected that — but growing from it, rooted directly into the rock of him as though the rock had decided, over a very long time, to become something else: a garden. Not scraggly or sparse but full and reaching, deep green against the grey, with small buds curled at their tips like they were waiting for a sun that hadn't come in a very long time.
She had seen ruins down here. Crumbled walls that had once held carvings of trees and grass and open sky — a world that used to exist and didn't anymore.
This was what was left of it. Carried on the back of an old troll in a cave, patient and quiet and still growing, waiting for the day it had somewhere to go.
Grass?
"I know what you're thinking, young Esara, and yes, it's the last remaining of the true life these hills once used to adore. We trolls are made of rocks, and we just happen to grow nature on our backs. Mother Gaia decided that we were the perfect race to spread life again".
"So you're a guardian of sorts, trying to grow sprouts across the hills?"
"Yes, that is our grand purpose, and that purpose alone makes Death understand my role and won't hurt me unless I become the forsaken who don't have any purpose at all". Then, with his own words, the Troll had learnt something new about the human woman in front of him.
"Speaking of purpose, seeing how Death was chasing you just now, it tells me that you haven't received a purpose; then in the eyes of Death, you're no different from the Forsaken". He smiled. "Don't worry, the longer you stay here in the abyss, the more time Gaia will learn about you and give you a purpose fitting perfectly for you."
Esara chuckled for once, a given purpose? It could almost make her laugh. In all honesty, she didn't believe in magic or gods; they were fairy tales. Also, she was aware that she was a human; she had her own desires, which probably wouldn't serve any good purpose at all.
"I appreciate that, and I understand your noble duty, but I'm not the type to serve any given job; I couldn't imagine myself doing work, especially with how I need to survive every hour".
"Don't we all want to survive?"
She paused. He was right.
"Yeah, I guess".
It went completely silent; there wasn't anything that she wanted to add. She'd like to meet with Salty again and continue their journey towards perfection.
Then, she remembered.
Shallow light
"I remember something; my companion mentioned that somewhere above the abyss exist lands of grass. Would that be the shallow light or whatever you mentioned?"
"Yes, that's right, the shallow light, untouched by the god's wrath, exists as a reflection of the old world; it's a beautiful place where the garden on my back is abundant everywhere, and best of all, the ill forsaken don't live there".
The last word had caught her off guard,
"The forsaken don't live there?" Like a desperate plea, she approached the Troll more closely.
"How do I get there?"
"Don't be bamboozled by my words; the shallow light might be forsaken-free, but worse things than them live there".
"Like what?" She asked.
"Creatures and men without purpose; they live with so much comfort that comfort is the only thing they know. That's what my son, who's currently there travelling, told me".
"You have a son?"
"Yes, a troll like me. He's somewhere in the shallow light, and unlike his old man, he still has his young dreams of ascending the world and seeing the legendary stars".
Then, Esarah soon regretted asking about his son because shortly after, like any proud father, he began blabbering about his son. From moments of memories that a human woman like her shouldn't have any knowledge about.
About half an hour later, Esara still sat there. At some point, she had only pondered the shallow light.
That was the perfect world she sought after, a place where she wouldn't live in fear of death.
It wasn't until a knock came from outside that the adoring speech.
The troll raised a brow, then moved toward the door with the unhurried patience of someone who had learned long ago that most things worth seeing were worth waiting for. He gripped the boulder and slid it aside with one hand.
Beyond it stood Salty.
His head was bent slightly, the way it bent when he had been looking for something and had found it. The faint light that lived inside him caught the edge of the cave entrance and held there, quiet and constant.
"There you are."
Esara stared at him from across the room.
"Salty?"
The troll glanced between them with the expression of someone doing very quick arithmetic. Then he nodded to himself, satisfied.
"Ah. So that's the friend you spoke of."
He stepped forward and extended his hand in greeting, and then stopped. Looked at where Salty's hands were not. Looked back up.
"Oh." A pause. "This is awkward." He cleared his throat and straightened. "Settle down, settle down — we were just speaking of my son."
Salty's light moved across the room and found Esara. He crossed to where she sat and lowered himself to the floor beside her without ceremony, — as if he had always been there and had simply become visible.
The troll, already reaching for another cup out of what appeared to be genuine instinct, stopped halfway through pouring and regarded the situation with his face; he didn't have a mouth to drink.
"Oh, what an awkward creation," he muttered, and set the cup down with the quiet resignation of a host defeated by circumstance.
Esara looked at Salty for a long moment. The dark outside had been vast and absolute. She had been running, hiding, swallowed by things that moved. The distance between where they had separated and where she had ended up felt, even now, impossible.
"How did you find me?"
Salty considered this the way he considered most things.
"I thought you might have gone back toward the wall we arrived at." He paused. "Why did you leave?"
The frustration arrived before she could stop it.
"I didn't leave. Death was chasing me. My lantern stopped working, and I stopped to fix it, and by the time I looked up, you were gone, and it was already hunting me —"
"I told you, Esara. Stay close"
Stay close?
She turned the words over and found them insufficient. She had understood, in a loose sort of way, that purpose offered some kind of protection down here — that Death recognised it and left it alone. But she had never understood the why. She had taken it on faith the way she took most things, because surviving had not left much room for questions.
"What is it actually about purpose that makes you free from it? What's the real reason Death won't hunt you?"
Salty and the troll exchanged a glance — the kind of glance that passes between people who share knowledge and are deciding how much of it to give away.
Then Salty spoke.
"Just as we serve a purpose, Death serves one too. They kill the forsaken so that our work becomes possible. We tend to the abyss so that their work becomes less. It is a mutual recognition — we see the worth in what they do, and they see the worth in what we do. The forsaken have no such worth, no such bond." He paused. "And neither do you. Not yet."
The last two words sat in the room.
Esara didn't answer.
Salty took her silence as her understanding, then turned to the troll.
"Do you know where Fellen is?"
The troll's expression shifted. "Fellen?"
"You heard me the first time. Yes, we are headed there. I cannot pinpoint its location — the abyss has grown darker recently. Something has changed."
The troll confirmingly nodded. "Then you are lucky. I have been there recently myself — I planted a trail of grass that leads directly to it. You will have to move quickly, though. My grass withers within two days of being planted."
Salty rose to his feet before the troll had finished the sentence.
"Should we get going, Esara?"
She took one last sip from her cup. Long and deliberate. It was still bitter, and it was still the best thing she had tasted in days, and it was almost certainly the last warm thing she would have for a while. Then she stood, faced him, and did not bother hiding the expression on her face.
The troll rose too and moved toward them, one hand raised.
"Wait — before you go. I have a question."
They both turned to him.
"Be fast," Salty said.
The troll looked at him with open curiosity. The kind of curiosity that had been sitting the whole evening quietly, waiting for the right moment.
"I have never seen anything like you. A body of crystal, shaped like a man. What purpose do you serve exactly?"
Salty was quiet for a moment.
"You wouldn't understand it, but the name Primodeen should suffice?"
The troll received this slowly. Then something in his expression settled — the particular stillness of someone who has just been given an answer that is larger than the question they asked.
"Primodeen?" he repeated quietly; for a moment, his eyes widened as if he'd figured out something.
"Your—!" He paused, regaining composure.
He was silent for a moment more.
The troll chuckled to himself.
"What an honor".
Then he reached into one of the many pouches at his waist and produced something small.
A wooden totem. Worn smooth at the edges, the kind of smooth that comes not from craft but from years of small hands holding it.
"My son is somewhere in the shallow light. This was his favourite toy growing up." The troll held it out. "If your road ever takes you there, would you bring it to him?"
Salty looked at the totem for a long moment. Something in his light was still and considering.
Then — "We'll do it. Esara, take it."
She took it from the troll's hand. It was lighter than she expected. She looked at it briefly, then tucked it carefully away.
The troll saw them to the door.
The boulder slid back into place behind them, and the warmth of the cave and the candlelight and the bitter herb drink disappeared all at once, replaced by the cold and the dark and the long road ahead.
Esara fell into step beside Salty.
Somewhere out there, a trail of grass was already withering.