Chapter 7: Dinner shouldn't be this complicated!

Blaise Zabini

Hogwarts, Great Britain

I hobbled towards the Slytherin table, the sorting hat's shout ringing in my ears. The healers said my muscle spasms should stop in a week or two… or three…

I was a bit of an outlier as far as the age of crucio victims went so they didn't know as much as any of us would like, but the usual spasms felt three times worse now that they were coupled with my Somnolent drawback. Standing around while everyone else got sorted hadn't exactly done me any favors either.

Bluntly, I had a bedtime and every fiber of my being loathed being awake past it. My vision was getting blurry at the edges. My knees wobbled. Alas, I still had the rest of the opening feast to muddle through.

I was tired, magically strained from consistent attempts to access the Sight, and appropriately cranky. I knew from experience that the food would help me stave off exhaustion for another hour or two, probably enough to get me to bed, but I'd regret all of this in the morning, if I could wake up on time at all.

The student body applauded eagerly, though the applause wasn't for me as much as it was for the feast to come.

"Episkey," I whispered under my breath as I approached the Slytherin table. A wave of healing magic bathed me like a cool river, soothing the aches enough to let me walk without problems. I took stock of what I knew about the house as I looked for a seat.

Unfortunately, that was precious little. Rowling hadn't seen fit to do much worldbuilding when it came to Harry's non-Gryffindor housemates. I wondered if that was the reason she made the houses in the first place, so Harry only ever had to interact with a tiny fraction of the student body.

What I did know was that Valencia Zabini once described her house as "a haven for jackals who think themselves nundus." I remembered that quote because she said it with a smile of fond reminiscence, one of the few honest ones I'd ever seen from her, which was a little disturbing by itself.

Annoying, but this probably was the best place I could be. I didn't just want a big library, I wanted the biggest, most comprehensive, and rarest library, one with magical secrets lost to time and treasures beyond imagination. I wanted the kind of library that'd feature in terrible Indiana Jones rip offs a thousand years from now.

And for that, I needed contacts. While it was true that most nobles today were entitled pricks, it was also true that they were nobles because, at one point or another, they deserved these titles. They weren't good lords, but many were powerful once. Rare tomes and grimoires hoarded throughout the centuries, family magics passed down from generation to generation, I wanted them all, everything locked away for posterity.

Getting them to part with their legacies was a tall order, but… but that was precisely why I was here, in the house of the ambitious.

I stumbled through a wave of drowsiness that had the cane skidding along the ground. I expected to faceplant against the brick floor, but found that my cane caught itself in the space between two bricks, keeping me upright.

Grunting in annoyance, I took the seat farthest from the other students. I ought to be making friends with my housemates, connections were especially important in Slytherin, but I just didn't have it in me. My lethargic ass could barely be bothered to shoot Violet and Parvati a smug grin after Dumbledore kicked off the feast.

There was a fair bit of theorizing about what those words meant among readers. Some said the headmaster was poking fun at the four houses by naming traits counter to their virtues: nitwit because Ravens were supposed to be smart, blubber because Gryffs were arrogant, oddment, for the overly cliquey Slytherins, and tweak for the Puffs who just couldn't let things lie.

The other, more likely in my view, theory was that the four words just happened to be the names of the four house elves on serving duty for the feast.

Truth was, I had no clue what those words meant in context either. If they were the names of house elves, I knew who to thank for not putting plates on top of my head as I rested my head on the table.

I picked myself up with a groan and began loading my plate.

The feast was a credit to the Hogwarts elves. It had everything a school full of gluttonous teenagers could possibly want. The tables groaned in protest at the sheer weight of the food and the quality was spectacular enough that there wasn't any one dish that could be called the centerpiece.

I saw a huge, roasted poultry I learned was goose, platters of bone-in pork chops seasoned heavily with rosemary, an entire prime rib with a knife that cut by itself upon request, and meat pies as wide as my shoulders. It was all fantastic, cooked to perfection in a way I'd only seen from my own elf, Pooky.

I tapped my goblet and requested that it be filled with iced water instead of pumpkin juice. The thing was too sweet and it wasn't like all wizards drank it religiously. No, as if to prove the Brits were tasteless boors no matter the presence of magic, it was mostly popular in Britain and small parts of Germany. Still, Hogwarts' terrible taste in drink aside, the feast was amazing and the sudden influx of calories was enough to perk me up for a time.

If this kind of culinary genius was a spell, the elves were sorely underrated. I wanted to learn it. I made a note to visit the Hogwarts kitchens; I could probably sell the information to non-Hufflepuffs for a decent chunk of change too.

Now somewhat rejuvenated, I took the opportunity to examine my new housemates. There were four boys and five girls, as there should be. On the boys' side, there were Parkinson, Nott, and the two gorillas. The girls were made up of Malfoy, Blustrode, Greengrass, and two I assumed were Tracey Davis and Alice Runcorn. I could already see little cliques forming based on where they were seated.

Lyra, of course, had pride of place. She sat nearest to the older students, her name and wealth enough to see her welcomed there. Her platinum-blonde hair shimmered in the candlelight, making her seem like a princess from fairy tales. Millicent sat to Lyra's right and nodded along to everything she said, as was her job as the token "ugly friend." Because Lyra was the sort to have one of those.

Across from the "dark princess" herself sat Heath. He was, much like Pansy, somewhat "pug-nosed," though that was an overly harsh critique, I felt. Heath was tall for our age and had broad shoulders. Objectively, he'd never be dashing like he so desperately wanted to portray himself, but coupled with his flat-ish face, he could be ruggedly handsome if he bothered to put on some muscle, maybe a beard too.

His sorting had only been a few names after Theodore Nott's and he had wedged himself between Theo and an older boy so he could sit across from his blatant crush.

That was his problem, I felt. It wasn't as though I was a womanizer, no matter how my mother dearest wanted me to behave, but everything Heath did reeked of desperation.

Really, he was a teenager with a crush. He saw the Malfoy princess, saw how beautiful she was and how perfectly noble she behaved, and did his best to become the kind of man he thought she'd be enticed by. He considered himself as an elegant debonair who deserved the finest things in life, but like every other teenager, didn't actually know how to get them. I felt Slytherin would teach him some harsh lessons.

Then there was Theodore, though I knew he hated the name. He was a part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. In fact, the most recent genealogy of pureblood lines had been penned by Cantankerus Nott, his granduncle.

Theo was a thin boy with a plain face. He had black hair and broody, gray eyes. He kept his hair slicked back with a bit too much pomade, giving his already thin face a bit of a weasel-like look.

Of all the boys, Theo was the one Blaise had been the most wary of, and I agreed. Not only was he a noble with exceptional resources in his own right, he deserved to be a Slytherin for his cunning rather than ambition or legacy. In the quiet of his own mind, old-Blaise had admitted that the wiry boy was shrewder than he.

He too had wanted to sit with Lyra, but not because he was a horny teenager. The impression I had of him was of a politician who'd been prevented from making a useful connection by an unwanted guest.

Next to him were Vincent and Gregory. They were… There wasn't a whole lot going on upstairs. The two were happily stuffing their faces with absolutely everything within arms' reach, though they did have the bare minimum of manners pureblood society mandated of them.

Across from them, looking somewhat uncomfortable with the amount of food the two could devour, was Alice Runcorn. She was a tall girl, so thin that she made her robes look like draperies. She'd grow into the look, much like her father, Albert Runcorn, but right now, she was a bit of a scarecrow. Old-Blaise remembered her as being a bit of a wallflower, self-conscious about her height.

Her family tried to stay out of the politics of the Wizengamot in favor of cushy ministerial positions. She acted as the buffer between Lyra's clique, Theo's networking, and the other pureblood princess: fanon's favorite, Daphne Greengrass.

Admittedly, Daphne was a very pretty girl, not less than Lyra in any way. She was also blonde, but a honey-gold color to Lyra's platinum. Though not as rail-thin as Alice, she had a fairy-like figure that placed her in the perfect middle ground between adorable and gorgeous. Or, it would have been, had I not known the cause.

She and Lyra had been bitter rivals all their lives, but Daphne was doomed to lose this burgeoning social contest; the Greengrass family was in steep decline. Oh, they were wealthy, enough that they made even my mother look like a pauper. They were also nobility, with one of the few permanent seats in the Wizengamot. Power, wealth, and a drop dead gorgeous daughter who was also as smart as a whip were theirs. Maximilian Greengrass was blessed, they said.

And also horribly, incurably cursed.

Canonically, the Greengrass bloodline had a blood curse attached to it. No one knew the cause, or if the Greengrass patriarch did, he wasn't telling. It would kill Astoria in the future, Daphne's sister was doomed to live a tragically short life, but it wasn't like Astoria was the only one with the blood, and therefore the curse, just the one who exhibited the most severe symptoms.

Members of House Greengrass, women especially, tended to be petite because of their fragile health. The potency of the curse varied from individual to individual, but not a single Greengrass woman had lived past the age of thirty-five.

Lord Maximillion Greengrass, Daphne's father, invested heavily into a cure. He hired curse-breakers from all over the world: onmyoji from Japan, shamans from Brazil, rishi from India, and more. It was a well-known truism in our circle, that he and his brother Gareth would pay exorbitant amounts of money to anyone who even remotely looked like a curse-breaker.

These rumors of poor health and inability to find a cure, along with their monetary losses, left the family greatly diminished compared to what they were. Still powerful, but like a brilliant bonfire with a very finite stock of fuel to burn.

No, Daphne was destined to lose her bout of social jockeying against Lyra, though not due to any shortcoming on her part. She was just unlucky.

Perhaps that was why she was so fiercely defensive of Tracey despite the latter's blood status. With such a devastating curse inherited through her vaunted bloodline, the philosophy of blood purity likely lost much of its luster. Her half-blood cousin wasn't a Greengrass, she was the daughter of Daphne's aunt on her mother's side, which meant there was no trace of the curse to be found with her.

Old-Blaise knew little about Tracey's parents. All he knew was that she was an orphan raised with Daphne in the Greengrass manor, and that only because of how often Tracey accompanied her cousin to social gatherings.

Tracey was the nearest to me by seating. She'd sat as far as she could from Lyra because she was conditioned to. The two cousins were fiercely protective of one another, which meant Lyra sniping at Tracey's blood status inevitably earned Daphne's bitter loathing. Tracey, for her part, tried not to cause her cousin any problems and always wore a bubbly, chipper smile while staying out of the limelight as much as she could.

It was interesting, I felt, just how much outside forces could influence this little game here at this table. Lyra's bitching at Tracey had soured the relations between the two most powerful children our age. That little argument between tweens was now shaping house dynamics in our year, and, if left unchecked, might even go on to influence national policy in Magical Britain when the two grew up.

Slytherin truly was a microcosm of the pureblood elite.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

But none of this concerned me. I was no noble and so had no inherent worth in Slytherin, despite my awareness of its political dynamics. Wealthy enough to join the circle, not powerful enough to matter, that was Blaise. Even now, I intended to be a third party, an information merchant out for myself.

I hummed happily as I placed a succulent slice of pork chop into my mouth. Layered with cranberry sauce and a dollop of gravy, the bite was everything I could ask for.

"Zabini, right?" Tracey said with a bright, cheery smile more plastic than a barbie doll.

"Good evening, Davis," I said politely but winced a little inside.

Tracey, and Daphne by extension, had good reason to dislike me. Old-Blaise was a mess of issues ranging from bigoted blood purist to mildly misogynistic. Not that he thought of women as inherently lesser, but he only had one older example of a "successful" woman and she'd gotten where she was by fucking and murdering everyone involved.

He used to treat girls like black widows in the making, projecting Valencia's predatory behavior onto tweens who didn't deserve the prejudice. Coupled with Tracey's blood status and…

Suffice to say, telling Tracey she should seduce Theo while he was young to "improve her station" hadn't been received well. Her chipper mask cracked and she burst into tears. Daphne had been so wroth with old-me that she'd shattered every window in the venue, Theo's summer house, with a burst of accidental magic before storming off to comfort her cousin. They weren't my biggest fans since.

The worst part was that old-Blaise had been genuine in his advice there. He thought she was pretty and, "If it worked for mom…"

A part of me, the older, more mature Corbin, wanted to apologize, but I stamped down on the impulse. It wouldn't seem sincere here in the house of snakes. I'd just have to make it up to Tracey for making her cry. Deeds, not words, and those in baby steps.

"Can't say I'm surprised to see you here," she said conversationally. Her voice was level, but I could hear the barely hidden distaste beneath.

"Likewise, though I think you might have enjoyed Hufflepuff more."

"Why? Are you saying I don't belong here?"

"No, of course not. I'm sure you'll do well enough," I said placatingly. I didn't know where she ended up post-Hogwarts in canon, but she couldn't be any less worthy of being in Slytherin than Vincent or Gregory. "I simply meant that from what little I know of you, you seem like the kind of girl who values loyalty and friendship."

She studied me suspiciously with narrowed eyes, then snorted in a distinctly unladylike fashion. "You've gotten smoother."

"I have, yes. Not untrue though, I think."

"I saw you getting chummy with Potter."

"She is a very interesting person, and not just because she is the Girl Who Lived."

"Oh? Do tell," she said. Some of the acidity had melted away. Like every other child in Magical Britain, Tracey undoubtedly grew up with tales of Violet Potter's heroic deeds. Curiosity was guaranteed. Beside her, I could see Daphne incline herself towards us just a little despite her attempts to seem above it all.

I thought about what I wanted to tell them. I was very cognizant of the fact that whatever came out of my mouth next would be their first impression of Violet. I didn't intend to solve all of Violet's problems for her, but at the same time, I didn't want her to have the same antagonistic relationship her counterpart had with this house, especially since I might need her and her predestined nonsense in the future.

"Did you know she has a pet nundu?" I said with a jocular smirk. "She raised it on a strict diet of dementors and acromantulas. You know, to purge the world of darkness and whatnot."

"Lovely. Now your real take, please."

"Fine, fine, as the lady wishes. She's… sharp, sharper than her upbringing would suggest."

"What do you mean by upbringing?"

"She wasn't raised in secret by Dumbledore to be some kind of super-auror is what I mean. In fact, she knew nothing of the magical world until very recently." I saw both their eyes widen in shock at that.

Not that she hadn't been tutored by Dumbledore, most reasonable wizards didn't buy that, but that she knew nothing of the magical world at all. The general consensus was that she was being raised by a family friend of the Potters, perhaps a family on the light side of the political spectrum that Dumbledore felt could be trusted. There were even rumors that she'd been taken abroad for her safety. But the savior of the wizarding world raised in the muggle London? That was unthinkable.

It was a risk telling them this, but as I saw it, the biggest problem with Harry's school years was that he was too sheltered, locked within his clique and exposed to nothing but the Gryffindor bubble. That kind of self-imposed isolation reminded me of myself in college, actually.

Had he sought help outside, worked to make inroads with different people, his burdens would have been lightened considerably. Oh, no one else was going to kill the basilisk for him, but he might not have been labeled as the Heir of Slytherin and his year would generally have been a lot more pleasant. Likewise with the "fourth champion" fiasco in his fourth year. Harry, and Violet, would always have their detractors, but isolation allowed other people to build their own narrative, twisting the circumstances to suit their interests.

There was a chance, a good one even, that I was making Violet look weak, it might even send some vultures her way, but feigning competence rarely went well. It wouldn't take long for Violet's utter lack of wizarding knowledge to become apparent, if it hadn't already.

Silence was also an option on my part, but Lyra already had an unfavorable view of Violet and I didn't want her to poison the well so thoroughly. Maybe, if I painted Violet as a potential target to reach out to, she'd have a few allies in the house of snakes. Perhaps, dare I dream, two female friends.

"As I understand it, Violet Potter was raised with her muggle relatives," I explained. Was I meddling? Absolutely, but I was a seer. It was my narrative prerogative, nay, my place in the universe, to meddle to my heart's content. "She didn't even know magic was real until this summer."

"That's insane, why wouldn't she know about magic?" Tracey asked incredulously. "It's magic!"

Daphne hummed in thought, sucked in by our conversation topic. "Perhaps Dumbledore wanted her to grow up without her fame for the sake of humility. He seems like the sort to believe this would instill certain character virtues."

I shrugged helplessly. I wasn't going to explain to them the importance of Lily Potter's blood. I certainly wasn't going to talk about the prophecy. "Who knows? The reason isn't as important as the outcome in this case: Violet Potter knows nothing about the magical world, which led to that mess everyone saw with Malfoy before the sorting."

"Oh?"

"Like I said, she's ignorant, not stupid. You don't need to be magical to know someone's trying to use you. Malfoy's offer of friendship was probably in good faith, a mutual exchange, but Potter didn't see it that way because she doesn't know anything about blood status or why Malfoy's name is important. No prejudice, no bias, no special interests, she's a blank slate."

"So she just saw someone muscling in on the conversation."

"That's my take. Or maybe she just doesn't like being told what to do. Either way, Malfoy's introduction rubbed her the wrong way."

"And how did you make it into her good graces? Don't tell me it's the ol' Zabini charm," Tracey snarked.

"I wouldn't say I'm in her good graces," I said, diplomatically ignoring the jab. "I happened to stumble on Potter and the Patil twins on the train. She was talking to the twins normally so I did the same, that's all."

"And the rumors of you being a seer?"

"Rumors? I proved that over the sorting, didn't I? Can you still say they're rumors?"

"You guessed, most of us are legacies," Tracey scoffed, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "That's not the Sight; you're just lucky."

I was starting to get annoyed. I didn't have the mental bandwidth at the moment to deal with her backhanded sniping so I grunted and started to eat again. "Think what you want, just know my services are for sale."

X

Tracey Davis

Hogwarts, Great Britain

Zabini was Zabini. Handsome face, flawless tan skin, and wavy brown hair that framed big, soulful, brown eyes. He was easily the best looking boy in our year, though that wasn't saying much given the competition. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in him before, but that pretty face was all a lie; he was as bad as the rest of them. Beneath the surface, he was a conniving, smug arse who thought the best thing I could amount to in life was someone's bed warmer.

The prat didn't even know me!

Ugh, just thinking about him made my blood boil, but I couldn't lash out. I had to wear a pretty smile so Daphne wouldn't have to protect me. Again. My cousin had enough on her plate without fixing my social fuckups.

Why did he sit here anyway? I would have thought he'd be off brown-nosing Nott or trying to get in Malfoy's knickers like Parkinson. They were the ones with real clout, not us.

Maybe he considered Daphne an easier mark than Malfoy. After all, what he said about me applied to him too: The only thing the Zabinis lacked was a noble name.

I was ready to cut in if he started sniffing around Daphne, she deserved better than this prat, but he didn't say a word to us. Instead, he started to gorge himself at a rate almost as impressive as Crabbe and Goyle. Then I saw the bags under his eyes and my anger was replaced with confusion.

This… This wasn't the Zabini I remembered. A year ago, he was a superficial fop who probably spent more on his hair than I did. He'd never let himself look so worn down.

I felt my cousin nudge my thigh with her leg. She looked at me meaningfully before glancing down towards his lap.

What was she… the cane. He had a cane, and seemed to actually need it unlike Lord Malfoy. There wasn't a whole lot that could keep a wizard down; either it killed us outright or healing magic took care of the problem. Sure, healers were expensive, but the Zabinis could afford the best.

Which reminded me, there was a rumor going around that some pureblood house went extinct in Portugal. Nott was complaining because it affected some arrangement or other that his father had with the Portuguese house, not enough to truly change things, but enough that Lord Nott had been quite annoyed. The way he told it, a relative of Madame Zabini's ex-husband went crazy and crucio'd someone.

She was arrested? Died? I didn't care enough to pay attention, but if Zabini was the victim, that'd explain why he walked around like a cripple. I wanted to be a healer and I read that crucio damage was supposed to be some of the hardest for healing magic to overcome.

I felt a little bad for him. He was a jerk, but he didn't deserve to suffer because his mother was an awful human being. The things he said weren't really like him either. He was the sort to give backhanded compliments and do his best to make himself sound more clever than he was. Not taking the opportunity to brag wasn't like him.

It was terrible of me to think, but I wondered if getting crucio'd gave him a bit more perspective.

I eyed the cane and nodded back at Daphne. She'd noticed too, of course she did. She was smarter than me. Better with the training wand too. All I had over her was better health.

Blood purity. Bollocks.

The feast ended with a Merlin-damned rendition of the Hogwarts school song, sung at any tune we wished. It was pandemonium and the sheer gall Dumbledore had to call that music had to be a miracle in its own right. Or maybe, when you got so strong enough, you just didn't have to give a damn about anyone else's opinion. He probably did something eccentric every once in a while just to see if anyone would call him on it; I knew I would.

I couldn't help it; I was jealous. I wanted that kind of power. I wanted to find a cure for Daphne and Astoria, tiny menace that she was. I wanted to make everyone who looked down on me sorry. I wanted to be so strong that people would fear even uttering the word "half-blood" in my presence.

We got up and I saw Zabini lean heavily on his cane. He looked a little more alive than when the feast started, but it was clear that walking down to the common room, wherever it was, wouldn't be pleasant.

Daphne caught my eye and motioned towards him. I was confused for a moment, then she raised a shoulder and gestured subtly in his direction.

My eyes widened in panic. It was a wonderful thing, being best friends with your cousin. We could hold entire conversations without words. Most of the time, I loved our closeness. She was like a sister to me, someone I'd do anything for… unfortunately…

I don't want to, I screamed with my eyes.

Do it anyway, she said back, stoic as ever.

Please don't make me do this, I begged.

I tried the puppy eyes, the same that let Astoria get away with bloody murder. Alas, I wasn't as petite or cute and Daphne wasn't Aunt Selene. She remained frostily unmoved.

Resigned, I lagged behind the rest of the Slytherin procession until I was rubbing shoulders with Zabini. Then, I grabbed the cane from his hand and steadied him with my arms.

He looked at me in genuine shock. He hadn't expected that, though to be fair, I hadn't either.

"Thank you," he said softly. None of the casual arrogance I was used to was present. I felt his arm tremble in my grip and watched as he grit his teeth.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it," I grumbled without any heat.

I looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to us. No good deed went unpunished and I really didn't want to be associated with him more than necessary.

Sad then that a pair of emerald eyes met my own. Violet Potter stared back at me from the Gryffindor contingent, eyes widened in surprise.

She looked… muggleborn. A pureblood princess wouldn't be caught dead with hair that messy. Or a choker that had been clearly torn from some other garment. Or those sloppy piercings. Sure, she wasn't a pureblood, but the Potter name carried weight and expectations for decorum, that she either wasn't aware of or didn't give a damn about.

Then her eyes narrowed in a focused glare, not at me, but at my cousin who'd joined me in studying her.

I saw what Zabini had been saying. The girl was sharper than her dress suggested. Ignorant, but not stupid.

Was this why Daphne wanted me to help Zabini along? Being associated with the Girl Who Lived was certainly a form of clout. The Potters had no Wizengamot seat of their own, but that didn't matter with her potentially being a Black heiress too. And, her fame being what it was, she had something arguably as important as a lordship.

As we walked, my eyes found Daphne's. She gave me a subtle nod, so small that anyone else might have missed it. Confirmation. Inroads with Potter.

I hadn't even realized this was a possibility. "Trust Daphne" had been my motto for a while now, and I was reminded just how brilliant my fae-like cousin really was.

I knew then, whatever Slytherin had in store for us, the two of us would be all right.

Author's Note

Whooh, that was a lot of introductions to make. Hopefully it wasn't too much of a slog to read through.

Obligatory bitching about pumpkin juice? Check. Tracey Davis is the token half-blood in Slytherin? Check. Slytherin house full of hyper-competitive teenagers? Check. Blonde Daphne? Check. Tracey is related to Daphne somehow? Check. We're ticking so many tropes this chapter!

Runcorn is one of the students in Harry's year that was never shown in the books or movies. I think it's the only name that wasn't given a first name either. So, like with much of the lore, I made her up.

We know of three people with the Greengrass curse: Astoria, Cereus, and some unnamed ancestor. Other than that, we know very little about it.

I feel like Tracey is a very under-utilized character. She's always just "Daphne's +1," not really a person in her own right. I'm taking the chance to flush her out a bit, as well as old-Blaise's personality.

Old-Blaise was a product of his environment. We saw in previous chapters that people treated him warily because of his mother, but here we see that Blaise poisoned the well on occasion as well. Both are true.

Animal fact? Sure. The longest snake in the world is not in fact the anaconda. It is the reticulated python, a snake native to Southeast Asia. They beat out the green anaconda by 2 feet (anaconda 30', python 32'), though most are "only" about 20 feet in length.

Like the anaconda, they can and will eat damn near anything with a pulse, including gators. Their size, strength, and appetite has made them a major invasive species in Florida as adults have no natural predators. This means that they can be killed at will without a permit, assuming you have the landowner's permission.

This chapter, and pretty much all of Troll, has been the result of my commissioners riding me for more of this so thanks for keeping me motivated guys. Likewise to the rest of you patrons. I hadn't expected to see so many votes on my potential ideas thread, but at this rate, I might have to start another story… maybe…

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.