The obsidian walls appeared again. Soojus turned his head slowly to the left and then to the right. He thought about looking left again, but decided that he already knew what he had seen and that it would be useless. He closed his eyes for several seconds and let them open again. Still the obsidian walls. He must have fallen asleep again. Fuck. Kesare was going to kill him for this. Even when you're tired you never fell asleep when you trolled with her. He knew better than that. This was going to result in at least an hour of yelling. She would probably beat him to a bloody pulp. A small grin spread along his face as he thought about it, but it disappeared quickly. If he had fallen asleep then he might as well work and there was plenty of work to do.
Soojus stepped out of his recuperacoon. He fell down as he was climbing down its side. His front landed flat against the ground. Minutes passed before he picked himself up. He had managed to fall asleep while being asleep somehow; this didn't surprise him at all. The respiteblock around him mirrored his own in his hive: sparse and yet still somehow a mess. There was a desk on the far side away from the door with papers and books scattered about. A few potted plants wilted on the desk's corner. Next to it was a shelf with a few books -- important books, books that would matter -- and several electronic devices he had scavenged from his hive stem. Of course none of this was real. It couldn't be. It was all down in his hive. This was a dream or something. That short, black thing had said what was going on here probably, but being woken up from a lifelong nap did not put him in a mood to listen to anyone.
His feet dragged along the floor in the direction of his desk and picked up the journal hidden underneath all the papers filled with scribbles and doodles of himself in rather interesting scenarios with other trolls -- no one who would be offended by such drawings ever came to his hive. The rough cover slid its way between his hands. Its yellow pages which he was so familiar with flew open as he found his way to the last page filled in it. His eyes scanned it several times before he put it back down. It told him what he needed to know and he was ready to listen this time. Soojus's ears pricked up sharply and the singing from the sky answered his calls. It was time to start at last.