What I Was Told By the Trolls

And their fateful decision at the edge of the Void.

Recap: Our narrator is a young maiden, unable to say her own name and cursed to wander the fairy woods until the spell on her is broken. She is followed by a talking fox (also cursed), and they are making their way north, hoping to find a way to break their spells.

So this was the Void.

I had never seen it with my own eyes. My grandfather had once described it to me as a great chasm separating the civilized lands from the barren landscape of the North.

Now I could see that it was a massive crack in the earth, jagged and yawning out nearly as far as the eye could see, with the silhouettes of foreboding mountain peaks standing vigil in the distance.

Beyond this ominous abyss were the lairs of goblins, the haunts of faeries, and a host of mysteries yet unrevealed, spoken of only in rumor and myth.

Somewhere near here was the Enchanted Lake, where I hoped a fabled potion-master could undo the spell I was under thanks to a horrible leprechaun.

I was certain he could also help Fox, who seemed to have once been a nobleman, though he was a wily one; I didn’t know how much truth he had told me. I, of course, was of much humbler birth.

However, he had been a companion to me since I met him in the land of the Swamp King, and I had just saved him from being trampled by the Wounded Knight’s horse.

I could tell he was still puzzling over it, as was I. We didn’t get along that well generally, but I guess I had become attached to him. After all, he was my only friend since I was forced to leave my family and wander the earth, a condition of my curse.

“Now,” said Fox, his tail curled neatly around his feet as he stared into the massive expanse, “how shall we get across?”

We traversed the edge for a long while, hoping to find a way down, around, or through. After a few hours, I spotted the faint stripe of a bridge hanging within the vast chasm.

But as we approached, the hunched shapes of three gnarled monsters came into view.

Fox sighed. “It’s a troll bridge.”

All I knew about trolls is that they cared for gold. They weren’t eaters of men or warriors of any renown; they were lazy creatures, sitting by bridges or mountain passes, casting rude remarks, cackling to themselves, and extracting coins from desperate travelers.

But as we arrived at the bridge, it was clear that it was in total disrepair. The bridge spanned the length of the Void, but it was riddled with broken beams, hanging by fraying threads, and gaping with deadly holes.

“Heh heh, ho, travelers!” cried the shortest one when we approached. “Cross the bridge? Ten coins each.”

“I think not,” I said. I could see them eyeing my pack and provisions with a greedy glare. “It doesn’t look like we could get across at all. Your bridge is horribly broken.”

“No,” murmured the second troll. “You simply step across the gaps. It’s an easy journey.”

“Until we fall to our deaths,” said Fox. “What happened out there at fifty meters? There’s no way we could jump that hole.”

I looked; at least a dozen beams were missing in a single spot.

“Urgh, I told you,” said the third troll to the others. “That giant ruined everything for us.”

“Everything, everything!” said the other two trolls.

“He is the one who broke all those beams,” said the third troll. “We did not break the bridge. It is all his fault.”

I could only imagine what had happened to the giant.

“Surely you can fix the bridge,” I said. “Why haven’t you done that?”

“Didn’t you hear? It’s the giant’s fault!” the second troll reiterated. “He broke the bridge; he must fix the bridge.”

“But the giant is clearly long gone,” I said, befuddled. “And it is your bridge.”

“That isn’t fair,” said the first troll. “We did nothing! We are the victims here!”

“I do not blame you!” I said. “I know it isn’t fair. But it’s apparent that the giant will not be repairing the bridge. Don’t you want people to cross? You must fix it for yourselves, regardless of what the giant did to you.”

The trolls huddled together again to talk about how they could have prevented the giant from breaking the bridge. They reprimanded themselves and discussed all their mistakes.

“It has been many weeks since we collected any money,” the third troll said at last. “The giant has made us poor!”

“You can’t go back and keep the giant from breaking your bridge,” I said. “It’s already done. But you can make choices now. The giant can’t make you poor; you will only become poor if you choose not to repair your bridge.”

They mourned over whether the bridge could be repaired at all.

“Of course it can be,” I said. “You just need to try!”

“But it’s the giant’s fault,” said the first troll.

“We’re wasting our time here,” Fox said to me. The trolls continued to commiserate over their ill fortune and despair over what the giant had done to them.

Fox and I wandered on for a little while, still hearing the sound of their complaints echoing in the chasm nearby.

Then I saw it on our side of the Void — a shimmering body of water situated in a forest grove in the valley just below us.

We had made it to the Enchanted Lake.