#augusttrolls

Another sigh and the thumping of metal on the wood frame as he did his best to maintain his boredom. Often, he would hear from other members of the faction that he put too much time into surveilling the people they were trying to help. That he was too guarded, too meticulous. He firmly believes that these trolls are so much closer to getting caught than they know, and that would be too bad.

It was the early evening, just after twilight, and this was a rather sleepy district. He knew his charge would rise and shine sometime soon. They always did the same thing when they woke up sitting in a chair right next to the window that Styx was gazing into. There was no wondering what the troll was up to, as his team was just as good at their jobs as he is -- They unearthed a search history that was almost entirely Chittr and Grubtube. Honestly, if Styx didn’t know any better he would never have assumed draft day was coming up fast for this charge --

Something else catches his eye though, in the apartment just below the one he was watching. A light flickered on and he watched as a… Tannish? Figure filled his field of view. From what he could see, she was a scrawny little thing and clearly hasn’t been eating the amount of food that called for by the adult metabolism. She probably hasn’t for a very long time, either.

 Her hair was a messy, golden matted mess that sat ontop of her head like a birds nest, and her eyes a dull green, sunken beneath the many dark circles that encompassed them. Like she hadn’t slept in the last sweep.

But most importantly, he could see that she was not a troll.

Before Styx could dwell on it any longer, he could see a hand, this one with it’s gnarled claws and grey skin obviously belonging to a troll, reaching from beyond his field of view and snatching her back.

Well now that just wouldn’t do.

See, Styx didn’t realize that he’d been holding his breath the entire time he watched the woman, but when he let go of it, it left behind an anger that burned his lungs and chest. The kind of anger that gave you tunnel vision and gripped at your heart. He also didn’t realize that he was marching out of his apartment, out of the hivestem and into the district that was slowly coming to a start for the day. He never worked in broad moonlight. He felt seen. Exposed.

The empty street blurred passed him as he made his way to his destination. Normally, he had more tact than this, but an emergency extraction never looked pretty. Aliens always called for an emergency extraction, this was something universally known throughout the faction.It was nonnegotiable.

The sound of wood splintering as the door to the apartment buckled inward and met the end of it’s existence of his boot, brought him out of his frenzy of thoughts.

The front room apartment was barebones, which was never really a surprise with trolls, but there was something especially nauseating about it. It looked as though.. It had not been very lived in for long and was not going to be very lived in for very long after this. He couldn’t focus on the feeling that the sight gave him because a sticky iron scent hung heavy in the air. He’d smelt this before. It made his stomach drop.

How could he be too late? It’d barely been minutes! Did he run into a sting? Stupid.

“Stupid stupid! See! Now look what you made me do!”

The crude sound of the pleading voice Styx of his momentary despair. Maybe it was less too late than he thought he was. 

“Sh, sh you’re okay. I told you to stay away from the window.”

He followed the sound of the voice, and that awful rusty smell in the air, quickening his pace when he realized it was coming from the master bedroom.

There he found a blueblood troll sitting on the floor and cradling the mangled body of the woman Styx’d just seen her. Her eyes were lifeless.

It appeared that Styx’s intrusion went unnoticed, and he took this time to take inventory of the room they were in -- Barebones. Nothing. A bed and a cover tossed haphazardly over it, pushed to the far corner of the room. There were no weapons near this… Animal is the word, and that meant he would be hopeless against Styx’s attack.

“Wake up, please you have to tell me where the boy is. Where did you hide him? The buyers will --”

He didn’t get a chance to finish, the thought before Styx plunged his knife straight through the bastard's eye, right into the thinkpan. He slumped over his prey as the knife was removed, and blood poured from the wound onto the ground, pooling with the musty red already staining the floors. The smell was unbearable.

Styx grabbed the cover from the bed and used his boot to move the blue blood away from the woman. Poor thing. Deserved a proper burial. Not whatever dissection the fleet would get up to when they found the two of them here. He crouched down and began to wrap the blanket neatly around her form, even taking the time to close her eyes.

He always worked in silence, and thank god he did, because if not he would not have heard the soft pitter patter of a wigglers foot fall as it made its way closer and closer to the room until suddenly stopping right in front of the door way.

Wigglers were always the worst to deal with. With a sigh, still in his crouched position, he turned to look at the wiggler. Of all the things he expected to be met with, it was not a mess of dirty blonde hair, bright green eyes, and that strange tan skin.