Chapter Text
School Days! You young troll of five to six years (two to two and a half Alternian sweeps) might be nervous on this day but be certain to assure him that plenty of human children have done this for hundreds and hundreds of years and that she will return to you safely. Go over what will happen on the day of school, and be sure to make the day as normal for your child as possible. Remind him that this will be the perfect opportunity to meet other trolls his own age, and that some of them may be his life long friends! -- from Trolls: from Ages 5 - 9 years, A Parent's Guide
==>Tavros: Be five
You are Tavros Nitram, and you are very nervous because today is your first day of kindergarten. Your mom gave you a bath last night and talked to you about being polite and nice to everyone, and to pay attention to your teacher, and your dad carried you upstairs on his back and tossed you into bed so that you bounced on the mattress.
It's as close as you've ever gotten to flying and it makes you laugh so hard, that Dad laughs too.
And Tinkerbull was with you all during respite time, cuddled against your chest, which is just your favorite way to sleep, so it was easier for you to fall asleep, your thumb in your mouth, which is a bad habit that your mother had mostly broken you out of while you were awake. But during respite, things are still worrisome till you go to sleep.
Most of the trolls go to the late afternoon session of kindergarten. It was created especially for the trolls though there are some humans that go too, if their parents needed childcare more into the evening, perhaps. Or if the humans had troll siblings.
Your family has gotten on a nice schedule since they got you five years ago, though sometimes they get a grubsitter if they want to go out during the early part of the day or very late at night. School is around two in the afternoon, goes to six, and your bedtime is midnight, for now. Mom says it'll get later as you get older.
You peek open one eye, squinting against the bright afternoon sunlight, and Tinkerbull licks your face to wake you up.
“
Ugh, Tinkerbull, why...” You wipe your face with the back of your hand and pull the covers up over your head, just your horns sticking out over the covers. You've been looking forward to this day for months and months, but now that it's here, you just want to stay home.
You hear your door click open and you know your mother is standing there because you can smell her. “Tavros, sweetie...time to get up for school!” She sits on your bed hard, bouncing you, and despite yourself, you giggle. Your mother pulls down the covers from your face and smiles at you. “Come on, sweetie. You're going to be fine, grubbybaby.”
You can feel your face flushing as she calls you that old nickname, and you whine at her.
“
Moom, don't call me that when I gooo, okay?” You would be
so
embarrassed if the other troll kids heard her call you that!
“
Of course not!” She chucks you under the chin. “But I'm your momma, so I'm always going to call you grubbybaby in my head.” She leans over and blows a raspberry on your cheek and you squeak with laughter. “Even when you are a big huge grownup troll, I'll still think it in my head and maybe sometimes even whisper it in your ear and make you go all brown.”
You keep giggling and before you know it, your mother has you up and awake and getting dressed, and even though you are still nervous, you don't feel quite as scared.
Your Dad is still at work, so it's just the two of you. Your mother fixes you eggs and you sit at the table with your sunglasses on because it’s still too bright at this time of day. She puts your plate in front of you and you start eating immediately.
“I’ve packed PB&J for lunch, and a banana. I need you to eat the banana, okay, buddy?”
Your mouth is full so you go “umhum” and keep chewing. You kick your feet against the legs of the chair. You look up at the lights in the kitchen dreamily.
“Okay, you’re done with breakfast, Tav,” your mother says gently, rousing you from your slightly dazed contemplation of the lights. “Go brush your teeth, okay, then we’ve got to go.”
You slide off of the kitchen chair and go into the ablution block, brushing your teeth and combing through your short mohawk of hair between your huge horns. The horns will not fit inside of a school bus without you turning sideways or hitting another student in the head, so you will be riding in with your mother each day.
You are very okay with that. You want her to be the last thing you see when you go and the first thing you see when you come back.
But then, you’re five.
You come out of the bathroom and your mother hustles you to the door. You hop down each front step with your arms outstretched, murmuring
I can fly!
as you bounce down each one, and hurry to the car, bouncing into the backseat. Your mother has to put your head in a special harness when you ride in the car because your horns are unusually heavy and a short stop will have you smashing your head into the front seat. You don’t like it but you know it can’t be helped, plus it’s kind of nice not to have to carry your horns all on your own for a few minutes. You can move your head to look around just enough so that it isn’t uncomfortable.
Your mother loves to drive in the car with you because you listen to music and sing along. She doesn’t mind if you don’t know the words, and sometimes she helps you make some up. She will let you pick out the radio station or the disc you’ll listen to in the car. You’re amazed as always that she knows so much music, even the newer Alternian English language music. You’ve seen pictures of Alternia, and you think it’s a really interesting place and so different from where you live now. You wonder what it would have been like to live there.
This is really the first time you’ll be around a lot of other trolls...or other children, really. You have a few friends in your neighborhood, but they’re all human and a little older than you, and you have to be careful with them, especially around your horns. It will be nice to have friends who look more like you, even though the human children you play with are really, really nice!
It’s just that...you feel really, really bad when you hit one of them with your horns. Maybe other trolls won’t be hurt so easily...
You pull into the school parking lot, your mother stops the car, and suddenly, your stomach feels as if it’s just hit the floor of the car. Suddenly, your heart is beating madly and you feel dizzy. Your mother looks back at you, her face full of concern. “Tavros,” she says firmly, “breathe. It’s going to be all right.”
You close your eyes behind the sunglasses and remember to take deep breaths, and shrug your shoulders up and relax them. You feel better but still scared, as your mother helps you with the car seat and harness. You get out of the car and cling to her hand. “Easy, Tavros,” she says gently, and you remember to gentle your claws. She smiles down at you. “It’s going to be all right, sweetheart. Come on, let’s go meet the teachers.”
As you approach the school, there are already some other kids on the playground, with their parents standing around, waiting for the first day of school to begin...
==>be Alice Penny
You are terrified, to be quite frank. Even from this distance, you can tell that Tav is going to be one of the smallest troll children there, and well you know what sorts of things happen to smaller than average children of any race. Tavros is nervous, and he’s hopping up and down as he’s holding on to your hand. You are trying to remain outwardly cheerful, and you hope Tav isn’t picking up your nerves or fear.
In the past five years, he’s rarely been out of your sight. You know that mightn’t have been the best thing, but taking care of him and raising him has been a delight as well as a challenge.
But the one thing you will never forgive the family council for keeping from you was just how
pervasive
the hemospectrum bias is in troll culture. It has made everything a challenge--from getting medical care, to getting clothing with his symbol on them, to simply acquiring information on child care. The past five years have been a nightmare of ignored questions, disregarded letters and unreturned phone calls. True, you are quite intelligent and very good at getting what Tavros needed, but what if you hadn’t been? Would Tavros have succumbed to that first high fever as a grub? Might you have brought him to the troll emergency room two hours away only to have him be culled when you weren’t watching? Of course the “official practice” was not to cull trolls at all, but it was worrisome when the reports of such things happening to injured or ill trolls in the hospitals began coming out when Tavros was only a year or two old.
Make no mistake, you love Tavros as much as any other child you could ever have biologically,and you wouldn’t trade him for anyone or anything, but it would have been nice to know to expect such things.
The teachers look much like any other kindergarten teachers, but one is a tall troll and the other is a short, young woman with red hair. They seem to be getting along well, and so you bring Tavros up to them to introduce him to them. Both women give Tavros a warm smile, which is all the boy needs to feel welcome.
You watch Tavros as he hesitantly steps up to the edge of the well-shaded playground, wondering what he’ll do. He looks so little and lost and you fist your hand in your skirt.
Suddenly, a little girl looks up from where she’s playing with two other girls, sees Tavros, and points him out. Then she runs up to Tavros. She’s a cute little thing in a pink dress, with curving horns like a ram’s. “Hi! My name’s Aradia! What’s yours?” She grins at him, rocking back and forth on her heels.
“I...I’m Tavros Nitram, hi?” He sounds so shy and uncertain, but the little troll girl is undaunted.
“We’re playing a game, me an’ T’rezi an’ Vriska! You should come play on my team!”
He looks uncertainly over at you and you smile at him and make a ‘go on’ motion with your hands. He turns back to the girl, nods, and she grabs his hand and pulls him over--but not too fast because she can see that his horns are rather large and bulky--and the other two girls welcome him in to their circle.
You expel your breath in relief.
Thank goodness he’s found friends so quickly...