The response he received made Wilhelm snort. The action left him wheezing. A moment later, he was gasping in breaths between coughs and then laughing. There was little amusing about the conversation, but it still struck him as funny, that that was the point raised. “She does. She always has.” The words rasped low against the gurgle in his chest. “She gives life, but you do not keep her in your shelter. She calls fire in then. Mother likes not the walls, so she burns them down.”

A heavy hand reached out, shaking, to scratch a nail along the wall. Bending, grating, catching grit beneath it. “Maybe the stone keeps you safe from that, but he will not stop her anger if you hold her too long.” Too much effort to pull his hand back, he let it drop onto the furs.

The troll shook his head and sighed, shutting his eyes again, they were of little use when he had no need to move or further study his surroundings. And he was tired. He could remember moments when he was younger, considering this very fact. But he knew all too well that any attempt to trap light, should it succeed, had dangerous consequences. Of course, the fact that trolls lived inside giant trees, many of them dried out and dead, and that the easiest method to capture light including tying her to a stick through fire… There were bound to be accidents, and trolls had long since learned that lesson. There were some who lived in caves and were aware of the benefits of fire, but the light still hurt their eyes, so they were careful never to take the fire so far into their homes that the light couldn’t already reach of her own accord. For his own part, Wilhelm had only met one such troll, a female who had been courteous enough to keep to his ways while she’d lived with him. Unlike this little one standing over him, whose tail was strangely energetic, she had not questioned the wisdom of letting light go where she would, and stay where she wanted. 

“Have you never wondered at the heat of her?”