The Troll & The Riddle

This may be Imogene's first day on earth, but let me tell you: anyone/anything can spot a Riddling Troll when they see one.

She is not hard of seeing.

He throws his massive carny hands into the air and shouts "WAIT!!!" at her.

Almost losing the lunch she never managed to find, Imogene stops in her tracks. Dead silence fills the morning air, bouncing off dew drops that are forming along the brim of her eyelashes.

What the sweet mother of hell does this guys want?

Imogene hits the road

As Imogene trots away from her unpleasant encounter she spots a little opening by the window to squeeze through.

As she would like to get as far away as possible from the jackass she just met, she filters her 4 hooves, mane and tail through a small crack in the plaster and finds herself outside the house.

This new part of the world is breezy, warm and most importantly, doesn't smell of puppy anymore. Her nostrils fill with the possibility of finding her best friend out here somewhere among the vastness of the garden or street.

The wonder of it all strikes her so deeply she does not immediately see the hands in front of her face...

A friend for Imogene

And across the sill, a million miles away by her near sighted glance, she sees him.

Glass encased as any real beauty ought to be he sits. Calm. Sure of himself. Guarded. Perfect.

Imogene clicks over and introduces herself to the encased creature.

"Hello, I'm Imogene" she states matter of factly, she has not yet learned the art of conversation this being her first day of life and all, so we cut her some slack. "Who you be?" she questions.

"Well miss..." a purr arrives as though from underwater. "They call me ssssSalvadore ... Zeee Keeper of lost tings". He rebuffs. He's abrupt at best, rude to be more accurate and slightly accusatory for the mistake of her ignorance. He continues "Whom are you supposing to be zen?" he returns.

"I said my name is Imogene. I'm a centaur, I was born this morning under the giants bed. I'm looking for a friend to help me escape the puppies". She keeps to the points of conversation needed to gain information from this purring little wonder who so clearly is disinterested in her fancy of friendship. "If you can point me in the direction of the next friend you may see, I would be very grateful".

"I do not know deees tings!" he yells, though through his opaque prism only a few squat noises are heard, nothing like the yelp of the puppies below, still circling the bottom of the stairs, curiouser and curiouser about what is taking place on the sill.

"Well okay then Mister!" She bellows back, surprising herself with her own nerve and show of anger. "I will find one myself! Thanks for nothing sweet pea!" She turns on a hoof and saunters off. Never did ask about that arm in his prison though... not too certain the answer would be a thrill to the ears.

Needing someone

She's got it!

A friend.

This is what she needs so desperately to get through this misadventure. Its so bloody simple she nearly smacks herself! But since she has hooves instead of hands, and no record of opposable thumbs she thinks the better of masochism and just gives her little head a shake instead.

Now... who to ask?

How does one go about asking for a friend? What does one do she wonders aloud, a teeny echo from her groggy voice bounces against the glass and greets her in earnest.

If only I were a twin, she muses, not allowing the thought to spread much further into her heart. Of the few things she's learned this morning, its that she is the only one of her kind. Nothing else came out of that eggshell worth getting to know, that was for certain. But how to go about locating a lovely little friend to have?

The giants were nice enough, loud, bellowing, snoring, sharing secrets in the dark and waking each morning together. Even while incubating alone under the bed she knew they were lovely, the soft pummeling of their voices against her shell letting her know the world wasn't all bad.

But they had each other, more to the point if one of them every laughed loud enough Imogene would be deafened for life due to her stature.

No, the giants wouldn't do in the friendship department. She needs someone her size, her own age, to befriend.

A small noise rumbles...

The Window Sill

Tiny though the puppies may be to the giants, to Imogene they are everything. Every size, every shape of the small world she has ever seen in her one day of life thus far. They are eternal, massive and gawd help her, hungry.

Imogene leaps to the window sill to plot her next move.

Hair a spry, tail frozen with the knowledge that her first day on earth may be her last, she tries to imagine her way out of this.

If only she weren't alone in this world. If only there were another brain to help her transfix this emergency into comedy, change this fear into giggle, this nutty hair cut into something worth living for!

Imogene hits the hallway runnin'

The gossamer door hangs loosely on two ancient hinges, even new to the world Imogene can tell what isn't. She takes a tiny hoof and knocks ever so gently on the base of it....

:ckack:

Tiny noise, insignificant even enough to awake the sleeping giants, she tries her luck again in opening the door even a sliver enough to get herself through...

:CLACK!!: her hoof reverberates at her own audacity, and the shift begins...

... a wimper is let out by the bottom hinge, a giving up of sorts. Letting one world open upon the next the door slides a quarter of an inch, and subsides in its work for the day. Groaning against the top hinge, the white boards upon boards nailed together for eternity bend to Imogene's will, and swing open another whole inch.

She is through... and into the hall she stumbles, the light suddenly gone black against the skins of her eyes, naked bumbling onto the worn rug and dust up to her neck. She runs......

Toward what, she doesn't know.

Freedom, new life, questing and more.

Another worn out threadbare rug reaches under her fleeing hooves and sends her spiraling towards the top of the stairs... noises begin to ring in her ears. So fierce and uncontrollable she stops instantly and collides with the wainscoting...

"WOOF!!!!" Reeeeeerrroooof!!!

A growl, a tension, a bloody war cry of the mongrels below... her heart stuck in her throat she ceases all movement, not even her nostrils dare flare in this dire moment of truth.

The monsters have puppies.... and they are now awake.

Imogene Leaves

The enormous spread of the place astonishes Imogene. The sheer expanse of the world, how it seems to go on forever, wood paneled horizons, glass reflections ebbing the distance, she cannot comprehend the ratio. Under two ounces in weight, her size dwarfed by all solid presence in the room which makes up her entire world.

Imogene slowly trots toward the denim divide, separating her from sure freedom. At once she is up, on top of the pile, conquering the cloth with each tiny hoof. Stumbling down the backside, half entrenched in a back pocket and then back out, she makes her way down the rough blue slope to the floor again.

Exhausted, Imogene rests her head on her front legs for a moment to regather her strength. She looks behind her at the jeans I left by the nightstand and finds herself a hero in the making. Having overcome such odds she knows little will be able to stop her in her quest, her sullied gaze finds solace in the wood floor again as she herds her legs into a standing position. Sure on her feet now, rested and in the right frame of mind for adventure, Imogene starts off with a sprint toward the door.

The tiny clacking of hooves barely heard by the slumbering giants. The door to the rest of the world lies looming ahead, approaching at unbearable speed and with an agility unmatched in her size category, Imogene reaches her destination.

Imogene Walks

First one leg sprouts, then two, she is human if a little awkward. Then two more dance their way out of the shell, attached, alive - a centaur is born.

She is Imogene.

Today she will walk.

With a tiny fury of muscles rippling over her soft down coat from nape to tail, the Little Horsey Girl tests her strength. Knee bones hit pine, shell crackles under hoof - she struggles to her newly formed four. The first attempt is a stumble to her face, hair asunder, lip trembling with fear and trepidation for the coming glory. Attempt #2: Back legs stand and lock; front right hoof sinks into the woody surface of her birthplace and plants firmly; front left whimpers, shakes off excess shell and dust - and sticks.

She is up.

Raising her large head to the sky, sun dappled cheeks grow with a grin not known to the underbelly of the bed before this morning.

Imogene walks.

Adventures are surely awaiting.

Imogene walks out from under the giant slumber of birth, toward destiny, toward heroism, toward the pair of jeans left next to the night stand.

The birth

*CRACK*

... and there she was fully formed from an old discarded eggshell left under my bed. I had made breakfast in bed for Darryl one sullied spring morning and in the tryst that followed, certain decorative breakfast paraphernalia launched and fell to the ground.
Quickly rolling toward the massive dust bunnies, the only former inhabitants of the abode save the occasional loose sock or balled up kleenex from cold and flu season, the shell settles into a pouch of secrecy and waits.
Fast forward ten aching months of solitude, fortitude and the good fortune of lazy housekeeping habits, and the day finally came for the Little Horsey Girl to enter this world...