The child came home after the third unsuccessful hunt in a row. They had tried to catch a prize deer, but a human hunter — a man they knew was named Olaf — beat them to the kill. They had some rabbit-meat left, but the stuff was stringy. If this kept up, they'd have to eat vegetables. They hate vegetables.
They clamored up the rocky cliff to the cave where they had made their most recent home. They pushed aside the massive boulder, a task that took considerable exertion, and stepped inside the gaping maw of the cavern.
“Well, aren't you just a waste of my time?”
They spun around. They didn't know where the voice was coming from. It sounded beautiful and ugly, like gossamer flowers covered in spit and bile. Yet there was no apparent source for the noise.
“I mean, really. After all these years, I would have thought you'd manage something worthwhile.”
They spun around again, staring at the inside of the dark cave. They peered closer, their troll biology allowing them to pierce the darkness, but the front of the cave was empty. Anyways, that's not where the sound was coming from.
It was right in their ear now. “And after all that trouble, too. I'll just have to start again.”
They detected the malice, the harmful intent, and struck out with suddenly more monstrous claws. They felt the claw make contact with something — yes! —
“That's better.”
The beauty was gone from that voice, as was the ugly. It was the voice of satisfaction, and of contempt, and of wind whistling through a canyon, and of a distant inferno. The half-troll turned to see what it had swatted, and did not understand what they saw.
There was a demon there, though the half-troll had no way of knowing what a demon was. She had green skin, and fangs, and bat wings. Or maybe red skin, buck teeth, and a trident. Or maybe there was no skin at all, but scales shining every color, and enough eyes to fill out a league-standard rugby team. But right now, she looked like a human out of some distant time period, wearing what nobody would think to identify as standard twentieth-century United States drill sergeants' attire.
“Hello,” said the devil. “I am your mother. And who are you?”
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