Today's #flashfiction #TheTrollAndTheHuman

“What do you mean 'breaking and entering'?”

Santa Claus* #quote

Today I got a haircut. It got me a +1 to charisma. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

The Troll And The Human

         “Go on 'adventurer', 'hero', 'knight', kill me! Kill me if you can!” The troll yelled at me as both of bled in his cave. A cave only dirtied by the drops of blood we shed during our fighting. The troll made it into a clean home long ago, walled with clean stone like a human home. He polished the stone and put lanterns on the walls. Furniture filled his cave and I entered through a fine wooden door. “It is your job isn't it?”

         “It is my job. Kill your kind in return for killing my kind.”

         “And of course the warriors of my people say the same when we go after you.” He took a swing at me with his sword. He injured me again but that opened a chance for me to hit him. We both managed to severely injure each other. When I looked at how much I was bleeding I realized I wasn't going to get treatment in time before I bled too much and would die. But I knew that he would too since he couldn't get treatment.

          He laughed. “You know both of our legends say the other attacked first. And what killed the mother of some family right? And that's why we've been fighting? Supposedly. And all that land. I know a man in my lands who stole some land from a human and I know a human who stole some land from us, and both by force.”

         “What happened to all the yelling? Don't feel like doing it now that your dying and can't treat your wounds? Stupid troll. Then again I don't feel much like yelling either. Don't feel much like dying...or fighting...”

         “We could...” the troll began to suggest,

         “treat...?” I added...

         “each other?” he finished.

         We both laughed. It hurt to laugh. A lot. I then said, “But couldn't the one treated kill the other?”

         “We're both going to die. It's really just a matter of letting the other live.”

          I smiled. “I attacked your cave. It would be courteous to heal your wounds.”

          So I treated the wounds of the troll. A comically simple procedure when doing it someone else. And the troll did it to me. So we both managed to live through that day. And became friends. It was an oddity that captured the imagination of others. They began to realize that by allying themselves with each other was much better than dying and rampant murder. Who would have thought?