Puddle was, by every account of trolls that came before him, doing it wrong.
He didn’t lurk under bridges. He didn’t guard treasure with any real conviction — the coins scattered at his feet were less a hoard and more a place he’d simply set them down while he found a better page. He didn’t so much as scowl at travelers passing through the wood. Mostly, he just wanted them to be a little quieter, please, he was nearly at the good part.
The book was old — older than the satchel he kept it in, older even than the little leaf tucked into his headband, which he replaced each week when it wilted, out of some sense that a fresh one made the reading go better. Its pages were dense with tidy, cramped writing, the kind of alphabet you had to learn to love before you could love what it said. Puddle had learned it slowly, over what felt like several very patient seasons, sounding out each line until it stopped being work and started being company.
His lantern he lit not for danger, but for dusk — that particular hour when the light went too dim for reading and too early for sleeping, a stretch of time Puddle refused to simply waste. He’d prop the little flame beside him, settle into the moss with his satchel as a cushion, and keep going long after the birds had quieted.
Other trolls, when they heard of him, tended to be disappointed. Doesn’t guard anything. Doesn’t frighten anyone. Just sits there with his nose in a book. But the wood didn’t seem to mind. The moss grew thick and unbothered around him. The coins stayed exactly where he’d left them, because no one much felt the need to take from a troll who’d clearly rather you sat down and read the good part with him instead.
Puddle turned the page. Outside, the lantern light held steady against the coming dark, patient as he was — in no hurry at all to reach the end.