Pfft. You think you have it bad with your gene pool? Trolls--we cull anything for the smallest reason. Right after you hatch from your cocoon, you're expected to make it through the Trials in the brooding caves, and it's hard and grueling, and only then do you get a lusus. If an adult troll ever comes across you before you reach maturity, you'll be killed on the spot. If there's anything arbitrarily wrong with you, if you do the wrong thing, if you don't do a certain thing, you get culled, no questions.

And status is so fucking deeply ingrained into everything. The marks we wear. The whole fucking social hierarchy based on the most retarded fucking caste system ever. If not for Sgrub, I--

[He squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing his own temples now.]

I don't want to talk about it. But it's stupid, and no matter how much hate you do or don't feel for whatever reason, you humans still have it way fucking easy compared to us when it comes just to everyday continued living.

In any case, we've both got our fair fucking share of societal and cultural stupidity.

[In the end, though, he has to glare at her directly - the ire of it mixed with incredulity.]

You've got to be fucking retarded if you're going to hold him up as a paragon of the human race. That asshole is--do you have any idea how difficult it's been to try to not hate him like I do? Just from hearing about him, I couldn't stand him. The very first fucking time I spoke to him, just--I could not believe the sheer, complete level of loathing that filled me.

I mean, I am trying now to find his good side and all that crap, but he is far from the best out there.