The trolls were a peaceful folk. Filled to the brim with culture — manifesting mostly as songs, but hey, it's what they did — but highly useless in matters of warfare. The hillfolk's days were spent on walking alongside their long-necked sheep, petting them every few seconds, signing, and chatting with one another.
The idyllic nature of their existence almost unnerved the girl as the werewolf problem had already made its way deep into her brain, pulled out a chair, and sat on it while whistling an incredibly annoying tune of persistence. How were thee people not worried? How were they so calm?! She had too much on her mind to wonder that. After a long walk in the brisk, morning air, she finally caved.
"How do we do this?" she neared the napping Knight, laid beside the nightly bonfire's remains. The man blinked twice and with a sleepy disposition scrambled into a sitting position.
"Do what?" he asked while rubbing his eyes.
"How do we catch that thing, the one from yesterday?"
Katsugi scratched his chin and closed his eyes, immersing himself in thought. Ganainm looked away to spy two flocks and their shepherds meeting on a distant hill. The two trolls greeted with a potent hug and then — with the girl being surprised she could hear it from such a distance — their songs came about. The verses and melodies, at first incompatible and separate, then mingled and mixed with one another, a new song emerging from the union. If music could give birth, this would be it.
A silent snore pulled her attention back to the Knight as she noticed his deep-in-thoughtness to be no more than an excuse for a continued nap. She then shook him awake and repeated the question.
"All right, all right," he began, chasing the girl away with a gesture. "The real question is: in what state are we supposed to catch the werewolf?"
Ganainm feared she either didn't understand the query or that she understood it a whole lot better than she'd like to.
"What... do you mean by state?" she pursued carefully.
"I mean," Katsugi turned to her, his face visibly twitching as he refrained from grinning at the subject, "is it supposed to be... whole?"
The girl thought her companion to have had a few too many drinks with their hosts two nights ago, though she had no knowledge of a brew strong enough to persist this long. As a matter of fact, she had barely any knowledge of any brews at all. The one thing that was certain, was the fact of her getting his meaning way faster than she'd ever like to.
"...I'll ask the trolls," she said, heading away towards the one that had greeted them on the Forest's edge.
The troll towered over Ganainm as she asked her question. Not knowing for what kind of gesture to take it — it, being the fact of him lowering himself when speaking with her — the girl just went on with the conversation normally.
"Here is the thing," the troll began. "We can feel whenever any of our sheep are in distress, we can also feel whenever they are about to um...pass. If and when they do, we just sort of... stop feeling them."
"And do you feel your sheep to be alive right now? The ones that are gone?"
"I can and cannot." Said the troll. "I cannot tell what state they are in, but no bond has been severed, there is not loose thread in my head. If it is not too much trouble, do catch the wolf alive. If the sheep have indeed been stolen and not slayed, we would like to recover them."
"Can't you just look for them afterwards though?" Ganainm asked and immediately reflected upon the inappropriate nature of the question. It was so wonderful when her mouth moved faster than her brain. Unless it all was an evil scheme by the two, none of which she had any control over.
The troll huffed at her.
"Hmpf. That is possible, but the Hills are vast and broad. And, do not get me wrong, my people love to walk the land, but there are limits. Though the sheep will be fed for as long as they stay in the Hills — plenty of grass around — it is almost never hunger that kills them."
"?"
"It's loneliness," he continued. "That is why we sing to them, that is why we sing at night. When we sleep. Should there be a stray sheep somewhere out in the open, lonely, cold, and frightened, it can always hear us singing. It will then know two things: firstly, that the way home is where the song gets louder; secondly, that it is not alone. A sheep is never truly lost if it hears us singing."
"I understand," said Ganainm, impressed at the confession. "We will do our best to bring them back then."
She knew not to give promises. She wasn't sure what the trolls thought of the concept, but as of yet, no oath had demanded off her. Very trusting, is what the trolls struck her as.
Back near the bonfire, she related the troll's request to Katsugi. The Knight almost managed not to look disappointed. It seemed he had grown fond of dismembering canines as of late. Ganainm took a seat beside him and stared blankly at the bonfire's remains.
"So no sword," Katsugi concluded.
"No sword," she confirmed.
Both sat in silence for a while. Then, an idea came into the Knight's mind.
"I have not seen you look into that book of wisdoms for a while," he noted, a suggestion hiding behind the veil of small-talk.
Ganainm frowned.
"That's true..." she admitted. The girl then patted all of her pockets, sack and sporran included, in search of the tiny book. She cursed under her nose, swearing she'd put it somewhere there. Then, when her leg shifted, she felt something in her boot.
It was there. The girl anything but an idea of how it got there; it didn't matter. She opened at the very beginning — like a normal person does with a book — and started flipping through it.
The more of the sayings flew through her head, the bigger the sting of hidden knowledge jabbed at her. She could feel the ridges and lumps of her brain straining as she tried remembering the distinct phrase she now searched for.
Page, after page, after page, it was nowhere to be found. At one point, the book itself seemed to be dripping with a magical presence, defying her every sense. Both of reason and sight alike. Finally, half-way through another definition, she spotted it on the next page.
To throw one's robe at a werewolf, the note read, to do something of an exceeding, of a humanly impossible level of ignorance and stupidity. Example in a sentence: Eating a rotten egg is like throwing your robe/cloak/clothes at a werewolf; do so, should you wish to smell the flowers from their roots' side.
That was it. She read the passage aloud to the Knight and he nodded at every word.
"What if," he stopped her mid-way through the exemplary sentence, "It is right? The passage, the words, I mean."
"I... am not sure I understand," Ganainm rebutted.
"Well," the Knight sat up, "what if it really is a stupid thing to do that. It may not be literal, it is a saying, after all, and what if — even if it is literal — what if that is the exact meaning? That it is stupid to do that?"
Ganainm had experience in talking with individuals — mostly those of the magical persuasion — who didn't wish her too well. Of course, she knew Katsugi wasn't against her, his actions more than proved that, but there was an unshakeable sense dwelling the depths of her person that this was the correct thing to do. This — the robe-throwing. It just... is had to be right.
What were the other options, she though. There was of course slaying the beast all together, but she'd had enough of that and the trolls were not exactly all for it. And it was them that the two were supposed to be helping. What was there left to do? Try and catch it in one's hands? The thought circled back into her mind; how was one supposed to grab pure shadow.
She exhaled loudly, praying in her mind for Katsugi's genre-awareness to manifest once more, as it did before the black obelisk. The answer was there. Staring them in the face. In a world where gods and magic roamed almost as freely as the ever-blowing wind, what other solution was there but the dumbest one?
