A troll meditating on the meaning of life wasn't something you saw every day, even in the city of Elyka. But if any elvin gondolier had poled his boat beneath the rightmost arch of the Twilight Bridge, he'd have seen exactly that. The troll in question had made his home there; most of the gondoliers took their business passengers looking for fast, skillful transport through the middle arch, which was the cleanest and most direct, while they took the tourists looking to admire the mosaic masonry of Elyka through the left arch, where colored glass formed a runic pattern. The troll didn't care for speed: he was part rock, after all. And the ragged trousers he wore with dirty, grey-toned patches showed a disregard for art and beauty probably equal to his love for solitude, hence the camp under the rightmost arch.
Today, he was meditating on the meaning of life as he sat, legs up to his knobbly knees in the grey water, trousers hiked up to mid-thigh, back up against the piers of the bridge. A troll shouldn't think about the meaning of his life, he thought. But while I'm at it... what do I want to do with my life? I have the whole city of Elyka ahead of me to use. A single elvin gondolier poled his boat past the bridge, not going under it into the Twilight canal, as the troll thought. Elves are gondoliers, he thought. Mages are writers. Centaurs are blacksmiths, fae are goldsmiths. But no one thinks of the trolls. I could be anything, if I wanted.
Like the gondoliers that traveled the tourist routes all day, his thoughts meandered, but always came back to that thought: I could be anything. Not a troll under a bridge, but what? As the sun set, he lumbered up from his spot and waded through the water, which at its deepest was merely knee-high for him, to the banks. Easily stepping out of the water to drip onto the path, he clumped up and through the streets.
Finally he arrived in the center of the city. Gaping down the narrow street at the many lit lanterns, he noticed a tall, tall building with the marks of all trades: fae gilt made lanterns shine even more brightly than normal; elvin gondolas were docked in front of this clearly popular stop. Elyka's famed mosaics made a round stained glass window of a mage holding an orb of light blossom like a star. For this was a mage's building: centaur wrought iron supported a hanging sign over the street reading, "The Library of Elyka."
A centaur holding an iron poker glanced at him curiously as the troll began walking forwards, almost transfixed. Two fae bending over a lantern in the street flitted out of his way. An elf walking down the street with a mug of some hot drink in hand almost dropped his mug at the sight of a troll coming towards him, eyes lifted and seeing the window and only the window.
Two mages at the front door stood in the circle of light cast by a lantern. Though they did not move at the sight of the rocky troll, one said in a surprisingly soft voice, "May we help you?"
"I... am a troll. And I would like to learn to... to... write." Perhaps it was the mage's voice, the only voice directed at specifically him in such a long time. Had he ever been spoken to in Elyka? Directly? His voice seemed soft to him. Soft, not like a troll.
"A library is a mage's place," the other mage quoted. Her eyes seemed like the white glint of stars on the canal: much farther and colder than the lantern light from buildings.
"Who says it cannot be a troll's as well?" the troll found himself saying. It wasn't soft now, but the grating tone he'd always thought he spoke in. The arguing seemed to smooth the lump that was in his throat into something he could work around. Arguing and riddling were a troll's native ground, after all. That was why they lived under bridges, for passers-by had to solve a troll's riddle to get by. That was in the old days, before the cities had grown up and there was more than one bridge to get over a canal. Perhaps what the mages called "rhetoric" was not so much his gift, but he could understand arguing in riddles.
The glint-eyed mage frowned, then smiled. Then she extended an arm and barely trembled as the troll rested his rocky arm as gently as possible on hers.
"You know, mages are not only writers. To write, you must adventure. I lived under a bridge, myself, when I was younger," she said. To the look on his face that must have been skeptical, she flexed her robed arm slightly, surprising him with her strength. "A pen is a weapon of its own, beyond strength," she said, quoting again.
And the people of Elyka's library were pleasantly surprised by the elderly librarian who escorted in a troll to a private table, set a quill before him, and directed him slowly in forming his letters.
Happy reading!
~Citali
