As always, Skussi-Peyi was the first awake when morning came. After all, a belly full of vegetables did not encourage deep sleep the way a belly full of bloody meat did. Shaking off the snow that had fallen on him during the night and brushing frost from his eyes and breaking icicles from his nose and hair, he shuffled off towards the stream, trying to ignore the bloated, happy snoring of his older siblings.

Once there had been a time when he had tried to stop them. Better to tell the seasons to stop changing, or to freeze the sun in the sky. Skussi-Peyi was not a weakling--no troll could be--nor was he faint of heart or cowardly. But when he'd made his first attempt at stopping his vicious siblings, they'd beaten him about the head until he couldn't see straight and had had to lie down for a whole day, and thus his first attempt had been his last. Even if he was strong, his siblings were stronger.

Another time he had tried to run away. He didn't like his siblings, and they didn't like him, so why stay? He could live quite happily by himself, he knew, eating fruits and nuts and other forage from the wild. That attempt, however, had proven he'd underestimated the vow Galtroppa had made to their parents. Having sworn to look after her youngest brother, Galtroppa soundly intended to keep that vow, and had tracked Skussi-Peyi down and beaten him around some more for trying to make her look bad to their ancestors' spirits.

After that, the easiest thing had just been to be quiet, tuck his chin whenever someone lifted a fist, and make himself as untroublesome as possible. Perhaps when he was older, bigger, and stronger, he would be able to do the beating around for once and separate himself from his siblings, but until then, he'd just have to put up with it.

Reaching the stream, he bent down to punch a hole through the ice that had coated the waters once more, and cupped water in one hand to drink. But then his hand paused halfway between the stream and his mouth, icy rivulets running between his fingers as his hand hung suspended, his drink forgotten.

There was a human man standing on the other side of the narrow stream. He had dark hair, a nose pointy enough to make a troll jealous, and was wrapped in thick, fur-lined garments.

"Good morning there, kiddo," he smiled.

Skussi-Peyi blinked at this unexpected sight, his mouth hanging open in anticipation of his now-forgotten drink.

"Name's Tavarez," continued the man, still smiling as he stepped over the creek. "Didn't mean to startle you, but I figured my best chance to talk to you would be before--wow, you're a big one."

Skussi-Peyi stood up as the man neared, and even though he was a small for a troll, he loomed over the foolhardy human. "You shouldn't be here," he stated matter-of-factly, and wondered how crazy a human had to be to approach a troll like this.

"What, because of those brutish siblings of yours?" the man grinned. "I'm not worried about them."

"Well you should be," Skussi-Peyi sighed, "because they're waking up now." Sure enough, Skussi-Peyi could hear the yawns and grunts of his siblings coming back to life. He glanced back over his shoulder and stepped a bit to the side, hopefully imposing his bulk between their line of sight and the man Tavarez. "If you go now, maybe they won't notice you were ever here."

Tavarez chuckled. "But it's that decidedly un-trollish streak of yours that I'm here for." His eyes twinkled as he grinned, and there was something almost rodent-like about it. "I'll leave, but only if you come with me."

Skussi-Peyi frowned in confusion. "Come with-?"

"Skussi!" His sister's voice barked out from behind. "Just what are you talking to?"

"Is it something I can eat?"

"Shuddap, Skrumari."

"Charming bunch," Tavarez commented, showing no sign of preparing to turn tail and flee.

His siblings' heavy footfalls approached as Skussi-Peyi sadly closed his eyes and waited for last night's massacre to repeat itself.

"It's a human!" came Ísólfur's howl. "Skussi's got a human!"

Someone shoved Skussi-Peyi out of the way and he stumbled blindly into a tree, grabbing at the bark and clinging tight. He kept his eyes closed as he waited for the man to begin screaming...but nothing of the sort happened.

"Here now, can't we just sit and talk a bit?"

"Ísólfur, grab him!"

"I did!"

"Look, I only want to-"

"GRAUGH!"

"Skrumari!"

"Hey, not the coat!"

"Hold still!"

"So you can eat me? I think not."

Skussi-Peyi looked back to discover a mind-boggling sight. The wiry man danced about like a leaf, darting out of the way of his siblings' clumsy hands as if it took no effort at all. As Skussi-Peyi turned away from the tree, Skrumari roared and charged at the human, only to have the man duck down and zip through the troll's legs. Skrumari ended up stumbling into Ísólfur, who had been trying to grab the human behind, and the two males went down in a heap, snapping and cursing at each other.

"If you would all just settle down-"

Galtroppa lunged forward, and managed to hook her fingers into the lowered hood of the human's coat--only to have the man suddenly vanish!

"I said don't touch the coat!" exclaimed the man, unseen, and suddenly Galtroppa released a screech and began to hop around on one foot, clutching the other between her hands.

The largest black rat Skussi-Peyi had ever seen darted back and forth across the snow, snapping at Galtroppa's other foot. "That'll teach you!" it exclaimed with Tavarez's laughing voice. "Don't touch the coat!"

Skussi-Peyi stared in amazement as Galtroppa recovered, putting her foot back down and aiming a vicious kick at the Tavarez-rat. The rat easily leapt out of the way, though, but the momentum in Galtroppa's attack was so great that she lost her balance and crashed backwards onto her back. As she lay stunned, Ísólfur and Skrumari managed to recover from their own shock and ran forward, attempting to stomp the rat under their giant feet.

"Don't suppose you could help out a bit here, could you?" called the rat, darting between the brothers so that dim-witted, eager Skrumari brought his foot down on Ísólfur's toes. The larger troll howled in pain, and gave such a clout to Skrumari's head that the other was knocked face-first to the ground.

Skussi-Peyi gave himself a violent shake, coming out of his bewildered stupor as Ísólfur continued his mad pursuit of the man-turned-rat. The youngest troll stared helplessly for a moment, but then a flash of inspiration hit him. Running past Skrumari and leaping over Galtroppa's still-prone and groaning form, he returned to the unsettled mound of snow that had been his "bed", and dug around until he found what he was looking for.

He turned around to rush back, and discovered Tavarez was scampering towards him, perhaps understanding his plot, with Ísólfur in roaring pursuit. Skussi-Peyi spread his feet to brace his weight, and lifted his find high in the air.

Tavarez ran about in an arc, leading Ísólfur on a track that led the single-minded troll right past his smallest sibling--and Skussi-Peyi brought the heavy metal milkcan down on Ísólfur's head with all the force he could muster.

The empty milkcan clanged loudly, and Ísólfur dropped like a stone.

When the metal echo had died away, all was quiet again but for the grunts and groans of the larger trolls, which was soon joined by Tavarez's laughter as the rat-man was suddenly a man once more.

"Good hit!" he cheered, coming over and clapping his hand on Skussi-Peyi's arm as the young troll dropped the milkcan, which had dented so much it was now bent into a V-shape. "I'll bet that felt good."

"No, not really," Skussi-Peyi grunted. "He'll just hit me twice as hard when he gets up again. You should go now."

"After all that?" Tavarez grinned. "Heck no! I like you even more now, and now I'm definitely not leaving without you! What's your name again? Scuzzy-something?"

"Skussi-Peyi," grunted the smallest troll, eyeing the strange rat-man with confusion once more. "Why do you want me to go with you? And where?"

"Well, my friend Skussi-Peyi, do you know anything about dragon-bonding?"

Skussi-Peyi shook his head. "I know dragons, but not...bonding."

"Well then, imagine this," Tavarez grinned. "Imagine having a dragon as your best friend for life. Imagine being joined at the mind and knowing each other better than anyone else you've ever known. Can you imagine that?"

The young troll attempted to. "Not really."

The rat-man chuckled. "Well that's fine, plenty of other people can't either. But see, I know a place that has a lot of baby dragons waiting to hatch, and it's in sore need of people to be there for the dragonets to look over and think about bonding. Now most of the eggs are, I'm told, the type that would more like these brutish siblings of yours, but there's a smaller, special, nicer batch that I think you could qualify for. Soooo...I want you to come with me so I can set you up to stand for those eggs, and we'll see how you do. What do you say?"

Skussi-Peyi frowned thoughtfully, slowly making sense of this strange dragon-bonding concept. Finally he decided, why not? He really had nothing going for him as things were now, and certainly didn't have a friend. His thoughts focused on the "friend" aspect of Tavarez's explanation, as that was the easiest part of it to understand, and also appealing. It would be nice to have a friend.

"Alright," Skussi-Peyi nodded. "I'll go with you."

Over where she'd fallen, Galtroppa finally got her wind back and sat up with a groan. "You're not," she growled, "going anywhere. You...ouch...stick with us."

"I don't think you're in much of a position to stop him," Tavarez chuckled, not unpleasantly.

Galtroppa managed to get back to her feet, shaking her tusks at the rat-man. "He is my brother and I am sworn to look after him until we join our ancestors, so he doesn't go anywhere I can't watch over him!" She hissed at Tavarez, but did not seem inclined to try and attack him again. He had gotten the better of her once, and Galtroppa was smart enough to leave him alone after that.

"Well if I'm not leaving without him, and you don't let him go where you can't see him, then I guess you'd better come with us too!" Tavarez smiled.

Galtroppa scowled at him, eyes narrowed. "Ísólfur and Skrumari, too."

"Of course, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, too," Tavarez chuckled, eyeing the other males as they started to pull themselves together as well. "Suppose you all can even go off and stand at the 'regular' clutches if you want."

Galtroppa grunted, not understanding, but not particularly caring, either. The only thing she cared about was her vow and her standing with their ancestors. "Fine. Where do we go?"

"Frosting little brat hit me!" Ísólfur groaned at their feet, rubbing a giant knot that had risen on the back of his head.

"And I'll hit you again if you don't shaddup!" Galtroppa spat.

Tavarez smirked at the exchange, but did not comment on it. "I'll have to go get a friend of mine to snare you all a lift on dragonback, so if you'll all just wait here for a couple hours--I'll have to find someone with a really big dragon for all four of you--I'll come back with your ride. Promise you won't run away?"

Galtroppa scowled, but then grunted. "Fine, we promise. Ancestor's honour."

"Very good," Tavarez smiled, then turned to Skussi-Peyi and clapped his arm again. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Skussi-Peyi. I'll be back before you know it."

The rat-man bowed and turned away, walking off into the woods with no particular direction. Skussi-Peyi watched him for a moment, and then looked back up at his sister with mixed uncertainty and suspicion. It wasn't like her to agree so readily to someone else's idea.

Galtroppa stared back down at him, and they stared at each other for a while, but it was surprisingly Galtroppa that broke the stare to look over at Ísólfur, finally rising to his feet. She eyed the lump on the back of his head, then looked back at Skussi-Peyi with a nod of approval.

"About time you started acting like a troll," she smiled.