~~~
In the early morning hours, of the Sunday after Richard Johansson, Jr. returned home, Kile found the following message was returned to the back porch written in Trollish:
Give the human patriarch room.
As the humans say, don’t judge a book by its cover.
After all, we have weapons for our defense too.
If you are in eminent danger, return immediately.
Watch for Goblins if you do. We have not seen more than just the one scouting pack.
Otherwise, continue to observe until we are finished indoctrinating the human male in our possession so we can return him an advocate to our goals.
Don’t risk the mission.
Respect to you,
--your Ti’eir Dorna Scharpfen.
The Queen had used the name he had created for her and which only he knew. A tear slipped down the side of his check and he resolved to complete his mission. In Kile’s mind, that meant to him that he should make friends with Ricky and Robbie’s father too.
When Kile retraced his steps back from the kitchen to head back to Little Ricky’s room he just barely caught a glimpse of Richard Johansson doing one-armed pushups in the living room on time and threw up his glimmer immediately. Now that Father was home, the little troll was going to have to remember to stretch his magic well enough to remain in disguise all the time. It had been nice to allow Sara to see him as he was for a few weeks, but now it seemed like it was time to get back to business.
“Hey, squirt!” the boys’ father said between breaths. “What are you doing up so early?”
“I…just like looking outside.”
“Yeah?” Dad stopped and knelt up. He laughed briefly. “Me too. Hey, maybe we should go on a hike today? You, me, and Robbie? Maybe see if Mom wants to go?”
“Oh? Yes. I like that.” Kile nodded and tried hard not to seem nervous and feeling like he was failing miserably, bumbling some of the English he’d become so proficient at in the past few weeks.
“Good! Then let’s get dressed when those sleepy heads get moving this morning and get to it. Best to get your exercise done while it’s still the cool part of the day in July.”
Kile fussed just a bit. He wanted to make conversation, but couldn’t do it without kicking at the floor a bit and dropping his eyes with this big human male peering at him like King Karapace frequently did. “Yes. I like early evening time too. Lots of animals are waking up then and are nice to listen to.”
Standing upright, hands on his hips and sweating slightly, Mr. Johansson said, “Yeah. Me too. I have been out in a desert so long, it’s kind of different being in the woods. A little tough to sleep.”
Nodding his agreement again, Kile started towards the stairs to go get a little more sleep. Mr. Johansson ruffled what he thought was Little Ricky’s hair and wondered to himself silently why it felt sort of sticky.
“You know I love you, right son?”
“Oh,” the troll paused on the bottom step and looked at the human father. He nodded a couple times and mumbled, “Mmm-hmm. I love you too…Mr. Johansson.”
“Wuh?” Richard smiled awkwardly.
Kile sort of tip-toed around the couch and made his way past Ricky Jr. “Um…Dad,” he squeeked. And then as an after-thought he giggled somewhat implishly as if he’d made the slip on purpose. He’d hoped the boys’ father would just write it off as Little Ricky being weird.
While Richard watched his little boy climb the stairs awkwardly, he knew there was something out of place. Whatever it is, I’ll fix it, he thought. Mr. Johansson wanted to ensure his family was happy with him being home, in part because he was planning on telling them he was retiring from the military and was going to look for full time work as a nurse nearby while he started his Physician’s Assistant program. He’d had enough of people hurting and wanted to do what he could to make people feel well.
Kile on the other hand was wondering why humans talked so much about love and why they organized with two parents, siblings and such. His own hatching was quite typical for a mountain troll. And the elders that raised him and those that hatched with him that year as a large communal group were perfectly happy with each other. But they never really felt the need to go around hugging each other all the time and saying so many mushy things to each other. Perhaps that was one more thing he should try to understand, he decided.