Unnatural Magic

by C.M. Waggoner

There was a great number of things to fret about. Chief among them—beyond what in the wretched earth he was going to do once Tsira tired of his presence, a problem he was desperate to avoid contemplating—was the puzzle of Tsira’s gender. He had, in the feverish haze of their first meeting, thought of him as he, but then he had woken up one night in a state of utter, gut-liquidating panic at the realization that he didn’t actually know. He had a vague recollection of having learned from his governess when he was very small that trolls did not have ladies and gentlemen in the way that humans did, and so it was very important when one was being formally introduced to a troll to attend to which terms were used in the introduction in order to avoid causing great offense and embarrassment.

The thought of hurting Tsira by blurting out a question to which he ought to have already known the answer further liquidated his innards to the point of absolute crisis, and on many of his desperate sprints to Tsira’s tidy little outhouse, he spent a great deal of time freezing with his pants around his ankles and contemplating whether it might be best to build a sledge, ride it rapidly down the mountain, ascertain Tsira’s proper mode of address from the tradesfolk in the nearest village, and then hike back up in time for one of Tsira’s horrible suppers.

lolololol

“I’ll stay with you, of course,” Jeckran said, instantly rejecting, he realized, an opportunity to be guided back to the nearest town in order to remain in a cave with a troll who, though undoubtedly awfully kind and patient and clever and well-built, might not want to cook dreadful porridge for him in perpetuity.

THEY'RE IN LOVE!!! i am invested already

Onna picked at a biscuit in order to avoid his gaze. She found herself oddly irritated by his sheep’s eyes. She didn’t see why, in a moment of great personal trial for her, he felt such a great need to talk about his feelings for her, as if whether or not he still thought she would make someone a fine wife one day must be her greatest concern.

He supposed he could pretend that it was noble of him; a man loving someone for her qualities and not her physical appearance. It was also nonsense, of course. What he felt for Tsira was not noble admiration for her pure and virtuous spirit, and he’d spent too much time mooning over her muscles and her cheekbones and her freckles to delude himself on that point.

She sat down gingerly on the bed, as if afraid of breaking it. “I’ll sleep on the floor.” “Don’t be absurd. I imagine that the bed is big enough for both of us.” Tsira was about a foot or so taller than Jeckran, and significantly broader: it would be a tight fit—he imagined that she might hang off the end a bit—but he couldn’t in good conscience let her sleep on the floor. He could, he supposed, volunteer to sleep on the floor himself, but the fact of the matter was that he didn’t want to. The floorboards looked exceedingly uncomfortable. “Don’t mind?” He managed not to blush. “Not at all.”

THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED!!! will i ever tire of this trope no.

Jeckran had always classed listening to anecdotes from other people’s childhoods as one of the more detestable possible uses of his time, but the thought of Tsira having ever been a child who had eaten honeycomb filled him with sensations of such tenderness that he was quite embarrassed by himself. It was a confoundedly uncomfortable thing to be in love.

I remain yours truly, Haran Welder P.S. When you have the time, my supervisor and I would like to invite you to call on us at the hospital, so that you might see a little of my work.

the killer! that's my guess, anyway.

“You’re mercenaries!” Loga said. “How wonderfully romantic. I suppose that you must be the brawn, Tsira, and I daresay you provide the majority of the brains of the operation as well. What exactly is your partner’s role?” “Mostly talking posh and looking pretty,” Miss Tsira said. “And he can put a bullet through a playing card at fifty paces.” “Heavens,” Loga said, “how wonderfully virile of you, Mr. Jeckran. I may swoon.” “If you do, your grace,” Mr. Jeckran said, “I would recommend doing so in my partner’s direction. I can make no assurances that I would catch you.” His partner, for her part, seemed amused. “You flirt like that with everyone, wizard?” “Oh, no. It’s only that your partner is so wonderfully charming and pleasant to converse with,” Loga said. Onna couldn’t help but giggle, though Mr. Jeckran scowled. Loga arched an eyebrow at Tsira and gave her half a smile. “In any case, you must call me Loga, Tsira. You may carry on calling me your grace,” he said to Mr. Jeckran. “It makes all of the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”

His eyebrows drew together. Tsira couldn’t tell if it was anger or plain puzzlement. Then he said, very gently, “I’m sorry. This won’t hurt,” and Tsira dropped to the ground and rolled away from the hot bolt of magic aimed at her chest just as Onna and Jeckran came tearing around the corner. “Haran Welder!” Onna screamed out.

CALLED IT