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There are footsteps on her bridge.
Rancilda likes to play a game with herself before she stops whoever is walking– she tries to guess who they are, what sort of person they’ll be. These footsteps are quiet but confident. Whoever they belong to knows where they’re going. They don’t quite have the weight of a human, though, or the quick-step of a dwarf or fae. It rings throughout the space instead, something distinctly magical about it.
Ah, well, magic never stopped someone from enjoying a good riddle.
She clears her throat and calls out her most fearsome “Halt! You shall not pass!” and flips open her diary– her riddles have gotten so much better now that she doesn’t have to hide them anymore, she thinks!– to find a suitable set for this occasion.
A crystal-clear voice rings through the stone. “Hello, Rancilda.”
Oh, by the goats and the stones, it’s the voice of the person who wants her dead.
She closes her book, still not quite getting out a word– she’s not quite sure how to handle this, really, and so she settles for a simple “Ella?”
Ella laughs, not unkindly. “Should I come down to you, or shall you come up to me? It’s twilight, so I think you should be alright with your aversion to light.”
“Are you going to run me through with a sword, dear sister? I haven’t harmed anyone since I found my bridge, I promise!” Rancilda fiddles with her hands, experimentally sticking one toe out from her hideyhole. It doesn’t burn. She should be fine.
Something rings through the bridge around and about and above her. The aftermath sounds quite like a foot tapping, but it’s so loud and musical and magical that she thinks it can’t be it. It’s followed by Ella’s voice again, though, promising, “I have a sword, but I wish to only use it if I must. I am here with the intention of conversation. What happens is up to you.”
Ella’s never lied to her face.
Rancilda takes a careful step out from her nook, ready to dive back in if she feels the burn of light, and sighs comfortably when she’s instead enveloped with the coolness of the moon’s nighttime. There’s a riddle! She grabs her journal, then scrambles her way up the riverbank, finally rounding onto the bridge to face her stepsister, flipping open her book as she does so.
“I just have to get this down,” she states, waving her free hand towards Ella as she scribbles down,
I shine, but do not glow.
I am worshiped, but my power is not my own.
I show in day and night, though not every hour;
And my path in time follows the guidance of another.
What am I?
She looks up.
Ella is smiling.
She’s never seen a smile on her stepsister’s face before. It suits her, Rancilda thinks. She grins back, tucking her journal away and her pencil along with it. Ella’s always been barely shorter than her– and Rancilda’s not a tall troll! Humans are so tiny, really– but she’s sitting now, leaning against the bridge’s ledge, so Rancilda has to look down even further to properly see her face.
Her dress is a light green, cut ever so informally, and her hair is pulled back into a tightly woven bun. Rancilda does not miss having hair. It was itchy and finicky and never felt right.
Nothing about the skin-suits did, except for being able to leave the house and twist fabric beneath her hands. The dress crumpling with her always felt nice, and plucking the pressure off of her legs was an added bonus.
Now she doesn’t have to worry about that! She’s got no unbreathably tight dress, and the skin her mom made her is messily packaged away, ready to be used if necessary– but, if Rancilda gets her way, necessary will be never.
“How’d you know I was here?” She sits on the ledge opposite Ella. All her height is in her legs, so now Ella, with her perfect human body, is looking down at her slightly, and all Rancilda can do is not meet Ella’s eyes and wait for a response. “I really haven’t killed any humans, I swear. Closest I’ve gotten is a very vocal bird. Sang like Putrice– pretty stinkin’ bad!”
Ella shakes her head, glancing down and pulling on her sleeve. The silver crown on her head never even made it to Putrice’s, but it suits Ella more than their sister. Would’ve faded inside her skin’s blonde hair. “I got reports of a troll in the upper regions of the kingdom, and you must know I take troll sightings very seriously.”
She brushes her skirts up for a moment, and pure starlight flickers from her legs– not enough to petrify, but enough to make Rancilda startle. Ella’s legs are a shocking sight (though Rancilda cannot recall many times where she’s seen Ella’s legs. Human customs are silly things.) of tangled glass and vine and wood and light, and Rancilda feels a lump of goat rise in her throat. “I really am sorry, dear sister,” she pleads. “I was just listening to Mother. She was– if that was your punishment, I did not want to die too!”
“I already stated I was not here for revenge, Rancilda; you have no need to fear for your life– currently,” Ella simply states, releasing her skirts back over her legs. “As I received the report, I inquired with Crumb about possible troll infestations in our land. He is a sweet mouse and an honorable knight, but he is a terrible liar. He said it was you– that you made a plea to him and Sir Hop-a-lot while fleeing, and they let you go. And so, now, we have a deal to be made.”
“A deal?” Ella’s eyes are searching for hers. Rancilda pointedly doesn’t meet them, instead scribbling down another riddle:
In walls and halls and tunnels I crawl,
sweet treats do so delight me.
I am small and round and scared of by some,
though I am rid of most easily.
What could I be?
Ella clears her throat. Rancilda tucks away her journal again. “Unfortunately, yes,” Ella says. “Legally, you should be queen. But–”
That is the worst news Rancilda’s ever heard. “But I don’t wanna be queen!” she cries out over Ella’s hastily cut-off statement. “I like my bridge and my riddles and my goats! And the townsfolk are nice enough. Some of them even give me feedback on my riddles when I ask for it! I can’t do any of that if I’m queen!”
Her voice has reached the point of shrieking. A flock of birds takes flight nearby. Ella nods slowly, and Rancilda takes a large breath, letting it whistle through her teeth to try to calm herself down.
“That,” Ella replies, “is the reason for the deal. I brought the will with me– Stepmother was very clear about inheritance laws, and this does include inheritance for the crown. But you could eat it. Then you get to stay under the bridge, the country doesn’t entirely fall back onto the shoulders of Tadius, and we’ll both live our lives without anyone else dying.”
Rancilda shuts her mouth, processing.
“Wait, are you serious?”
Ella nods. “Entirely.”
Rancilda tilts her head. It sounds like a wonderful plan, in all honesty– she knows Mother only made one copy of their inheritances, so once this one is gone, there should be no worries, so long as Ella does not fuck everything up. Rancilda wouldn’t. She’s a simple troll, with simple wants. She barely talks to people.
“I’ve never eaten paper before,” she admits. “Ohh, maybe it could taste good with some river grass and fish heads.” She shuffles her journal and pencil in her claws. “Will you come down with me? I started up my cobweb collection again! They dangle very nicely over the river.”
“Alright,” Ella nods, and Rancilda vaults over the bridge, slamming down in front of her den. Behind her, she can hear the shuffling of Ella climbing down the riverbank, and as she waits, she rifles through her collection of foodstuffs, noting how the stones of the underbridge crackle as she scrapes her way further into her shelves. “How have you been faring, stepsister? You’ve been under this bridge a great while. I should hope you are not getting restless.”
Rancilda gasps, spinning around with her stored fish. Ella’s standing right behind her, skirt bunched in her fists, eyes narrowed and nose wrinkled. In the corner of Rancilda’s eye, she almost seems to glow, but as she turns to fully face her, she becomes almost too human, appearance only thrown off by her legs, poking out from beneath her risen skirt. “Oh, I have never been happier than being under this bridge! If I may be so honest, I like my fish and my stones and my riddles. I believe I told you as much. My bridge is kind to me, and I am kind to it– it’s not broken since I’ve arrived, I’ve made sure! There is caulk in the village… and there is stone in the village, and when those are not available, I use the material off my very back. Mother didn’t understand me! Now I have a whole village of people to enjoy my riddles and jokes!”
There is a moment of silence between them. The fish smells most delicious, and Ella abruptly releases her gown to pull a stack of parchment from her bag, offering it with an outstretched hand and plugging her nose with the other.
Ella never did have a particularly refined palate. What a shame. Rancilda loves her hand-plucked meals.
She snatches the stack from her stepsister and sits on the edge of her little den, feet dangling into the water in front of her. As she works on her meal, fish come up to nibble at the moss growing around her feet and ankles and calves. “Are you just going to stand there?” she shoots back over her shoulder, eyes not straying from her project. “Or if you want to stay but don’t know what you’re doin’, I got some riddles I need to test. Here–”
“No, no,” Ella cuts her off, sinking down next to her, glass-wood legs crossed. “I should– in a moment. Tell me your riddles in a moment.” She pauses again, one hand reaching up to adjust the crown on her head. “How do you dole them out to the villagers, anyhow? Do you wear a skin-suit to jump out at them as they pass the bridge, or do you simply shout at them as they walk past and hope they stop, as you did to me?”
“Oh, I don’t wanna put that thing back on if I don’t have to,” Rancilda replies. “Everything is in the wrong place! It’s all tight and itchy… ” She pokes at one of her teeth absentmindedly, fiddling with the wrapped fish in her hands– only half the parchment has been used up for a single trout. She’ll get to have another one.
Ella nods, her hands now worrying in her lap. “So no skin-suit. I suppose that is good. But people do cross this bridge in the daytime, do they not?”
“They do, yeah.” She shoves the entire fish in her mouth, holding up a hand to say wait a moment. She swallows it, and then continues: “the first people that crossed the bridge just kinda stopped when they heard my call for them to halt! I think they all enjoy the riddles too. There are some kids who come by, almost every day, who ask for more riddles.”
“What do you do when they get it wrong?”
Rancilda pauses in her wrapping of the second fish. She’s done a great many things. “Throw stuff at them. Threaten them. Steal their hats. Eat their goats.” Ella glances behind herself, towards the hat corner. Rancilda’s quite proud of it. She’s got a good variation of them now, feathered bard’s hats and farmer’s braided straw and noble ladies’ bows all collected in one area. It’s rivaling her cobwebs. “I don’t see the point in eatin’ them, since they’re the ones answering my riddles three.”
“Ah,” is all Ella replies with. There’s a moment of quiet between them again as Rancilda finishes wrapping up the second fish and shoving it wholly into her mouth. “Well. That is good, I suppose. Have you let the townsfolk know that?”
“I need them to keep answerin’ my riddles, don’t I? If they figure it out, good on them, but I want them comin’ back!” She grins, unwedging the fish spine from her teeth. “I’ve got a good thing goin’, Ella, and no Mom to get mad at me about it. There’s a whole village of people who listen to me!”
Ella smiles at her. Putrice and Mother never smiled at her. Ella didn’t listen to her all that much in the house, unless Rancilda was growling out orders. Now Ella is looking her in the face– not in the eyes, if Rancilda can help it, but in the face is quite kind of her. It feels respectful. “I am glad you’ve found that comfort, stepsister. In all honesty, the reports I received about your existence were from visiting nobles to this village– none of the residents have mentioned your existence.”
“Does that mean something?” Rancilda’s still hungry, she’s found, so this question is muttered around a mouthful of toad.
The reply is clear and genuine. “It means none of them are bothered by your existence. They must enjoy your riddles, Rancilda. I am glad you’ve found this bridge.”
“Of course they like my riddles!” That had never occurred to her, the idea her town could dislike her when she’s not even eaten one of them. “They’re my calling. Here, I’ll read you one! I–”
“Oh, no, no, please,” Ella waves a hand, pushing up to standing. “It is quite late for me, I must admit, and to bed I should go. Perhaps tomorrow I shall cross this bridge once more, and you can offer me one then?”
“It is not a long riddle,” Rancilda promises, standing up as well. She begins to recite it before her stepsister can get out another word.
I beat, I call, I’m shared with none.
To others I’m quite hard to hear.
But I am alive, and, as such,
Death– losing blood– is the one thing I fear.
Ella’s brow furrows just slightly for barely a moment before she snaps her fingers. “A heart, I believe,” she guesses, eyes brightening.
Rancilda lets herself bare the widest smile she can muster. “A heart it is! You are welcome to pass, but two riddles more you must solve in your next visit!” Ella smiles back, offering a hand for a handshake, and Rancilda accepts, awkward though it is. She’s never shaken a human’s hand as herself. She’s never shaken a human’s hand at all. The closest she got was holding hands with the prince at the ball.
Ella is holding Rancilda’s one hand with both of her own, a simple gesture that doesn’t even feel like a shake, and then she is stepping back and away, hiking her skirt up again to march around the hat pile and back up the riverbank.
“It is good to see you happy and not bloodthirsty,” she calls over her shoulder. “I am glad not to use my sword.”
And then she is gone.
Rancilda is– touched, she supposes this feeling is.
She’ll write another riddle tonight, she thinks, based on a sister that is kind.