You live way, way out West, and the world is your oyster. Unless, of course, that oyster makes any sudden movements, in which case it most certainly is [i]not[/i] your oyster and you must make swift arrangements to get the darn-tooting heck away from that freaky oyster. Anyway, even though you're on the lower half of the hemospectrum, you're not particularly afraid of being culled. It might be because, as heavy and unwieldy as it is, you make sure to carry your shovel with you wherever you go. It also might be because your lusus, or as you'd like to call him, Papa Prongs, is ridiculously fast even when you're riding his back and he is far from afraid to gore a threatening-looking troll to death. You know: he's done it before. 

Anyway, that's what you're doing right now. You are riding atop your lusus, far from your hive. You can see the wall now, the one that keeps the humans in their city separate from, well, the rest of everything. You've admired it fairly often, but, like every other troll, you've never been––

Hold that thought. 

And then drop it. Is that a yellowblood crawling under the wall? 

"What the..." 

A snort stops you right there, before you can swear and offend your lusus. You watch the stranger disappear into what must be a tunnel, and your vascular pump starts beating faster. Papa Prongs flattens out his ears, as if he can tell that you're thinking about following this strange, white-haired troll. Of course. He can only do so much to prevent you from being culled. 

Still, you slide off the hornbeast's back and give the creature a reassuring pat on the shoulder. His eyes are wide and worried. You give a smile, and in return get a defeated-sounding huff. It's almost as if he's asking you to be home by sundown, which of course, he is physically incapable of doing. Still, it is a comforting thought. You nod to your lusus and he turns around, bounding away at an astonishing speed. It'll be a long walk home, but that's okay. As pudgy as you are, you are a deceptively good runner. 

The tunnel is tiny, and you wonder how this other troll managed to get through. This is one of the rare cases in which your pudginess has not been in any way helpful to your cause. You look to your left, to your right, and behind you. And then you dive on in. 

This is terrible. It's worse than the trials you faced as a wriggler. At least you could fit through suffocatingly-small tunnels then. Well, you've still got it, right? Just a little farther! You can see the light! You're almost out, after bumping a horn painfully against one side of the tunnel, and...

And you are stuck. 

Panic rushes through you and your heart clenches. You struggle against your newfound earthen prison, to no avail, and you can see the white-haired troll walking ahead of you. You claw at the dirt, and it doesn't help at all. You're getting a little corn-shucking desperate, here. It shows when you call out, softly in case someone on the other side of the wall could hear, "Hey!"