Days 20 to 24 - Love. With a big L. And balloons. And hearts. You know what I mean. And departure.

M. Troll learnt the salad was to go back home to France on the following Sunday.
That filled him with happiness, because he still had days to get to know her. And she reacted so happily when he told her he had taken days off for her, that he knew he had done the right thing for them.
They spent these days together nearly non-stop. And nearly all nights too (*wink*).

They giggled a lot together while watching series, videos and just enjoying each other presence.
M. Troll's shared his passion for video games' streaming, while she convinced him to watch several series she liked with her, cuddling on M. Troll's comfy couch. The toothless head especially enjoyed these moments, because the salad always brought it a lollipop.

They had long talks about everything, including life's big projects, and they realized they had the same. That's when the salad first said that, because she was divorced and had nothing keeping her in France, she had thought about moving in a foreign country. This little sentence sounded like the most delicious song to M. Troll's ears and a dream of them playing side to side started to form in his mind.

They ate curry and pizzas. They ate brown cheese, which the salad really liked on bread with some strawberry jam (while M. Troll like his on bread with margarine and strawberry jam). She enthusiastically talked about restaurants in Paris they would try when he would visit her. M. Troll hadn't known before then that France had that huge culinary history.

They took long walks in the forest near M. Troll's home. The salad made him smile, because she was acting like a eight year-old child on a sugar rush, jumping and running excitedly. He actually enjoyed this time spent away from his video games.

They created a TSW's account for the salad, so she could play with him once back home. He showed her how the game worked, but she seemed a bit confused at first.

M. Troll also started to teach the salad her first words in his country's language. She said it was really easy compared to French.

To sum things up, they enjoyed each other greatly.

"We're meant to be!" said M. Troll, surprising himself with these words.
"I think so too!" answered the giggling salad happily.

M. Troll felt like he was caught in a delicious and magic tornado. He smiled a lot and wanted to sigh happily all the time.

Finally, when Sunday arrived, they were the happiest people in the world. Of course, they were sad too, and they cried a lot at leaving each other, even for a few weeks only.
Even sad, they knew they were the happiest and luckiest persons in the world, because they had found each other.
Their love was new, and the distance was great, but they trusted each other and believed in the  "them" they were creating.

M. Troll promised he would look at the tickets to come visit her as soon as possible. Each of his heads kissed her goodbye, and he spent long minutes at the airport recollecting himself before going back home.
On the train, he kept looking at the pictures they had taken together. He especially like one with ice creams, and another one with lollipops.

M. Troll was ready to commit, now that he had found the perfect video games playing (and one who liked to havf fun fun fun!) girly salad.

When will he go to France? Will he eat a lot?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 19 - Japanese curry

M. Troll felt each minute before he could see the salad was too long. He also felt it was too short, since he was afraid she would say something at some point that would make her less perfect (which he doubted); or that he would say something that would make her run away (he found it more likely).

Before he had met her, he found giggling silly and useless. He still thought it a bit silly, but mostly cute.

He decided to give her a gift that would make her think of him.
He bought a nice pink gaming headset for her.

When they met after his work, he gave it to her right away. Of course, she squeaked then giggled.
He explained to her very seriously he wanted to keep talking to her when she'd be back to France. He also said that he thought they were meant to be.
"Well, it's happening a bit fast, to be honest," she answered. "But I agree with you, there's something special going on between us, and we are so lucky to have this it would be sad to ignore it."

Agreeing to not talk about it anymore for this day, they went to take a nice walk in M. Troll's nice little town. They walked past his favourite japanese restaurant and he pointed at it.
"That's my favourite japanese restaurant!"

She went to the window to read the menu.
"Ah, fish, fish, fish. I'm a vegetarian," she said. "Ooooh! They have curry!"
"Curry?" he asked, confused.
"You never tried it? We must have it for dinner!"

And curry they had. Indeed, M. Troll had never tried it before, and he wondered why. Japanese curry was one of the best food he had ever tasted. Plus, now it would be forever associated to the French salad.
"I'll bring you some from Paris!" she squeaked excitedly. "I know where to find it cheap and good! I'll teach you how to cook it!"
"But, what if I want to come visit Paris?" he dared to ask, reddening. "Will you cook for me there?"

The French salad was speechless at first, but then she hugged him (awkwardly, with the three heads).
"Of course, I'll cook for you!"

Will he go to Paris before she comes back to his nice little town?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 18 - Sugababes

M. Troll spent his night reading the stories written by the giggling salad. He found love, fun and action inside.
He was really tired on Monday morning, but it was worth it (and who isn't tired on Monday mornings, anyway?). He knew in which restaurant he and the salad would dine later this day.

The best way to describe him at work was "antsy", but his colleagues wisely ignored him, especially the one who was successful with the ladies.

After work, he bought pretty flowers to the stoic seller and put on the best clothes he had, including his glittery pink rubber boots.
He sent a message to the giggling salad to tell her where to meet him, and that he had thought of a surprise for her.

When they met, she clapsed excitedly.
"My horoscope says there'll be pleasant surprises for me today!" she exclaimed happily.

M. Troll just smiled mysteriously (an air that didn't suit the cute toothless head) and told her to close her eyes. He then guided her to a special restaurant.
She squeaked when she opened her eyes.
"Karaoke! I looooove karaoke!" she squeaked. "Can I choose a song?" she asked with the cutest face ever.

M. Troll was anxious at that, but he nodded.

He has reasons to be anxious. She pushed him towards the stage and asked for the song.

That was when he discovered the Sugababes and their most famous song, "Push the button".

Since he was willing to please the giggling salad, he sang and even looked happy to.


At the end of the song, they got a lot of applause, and everyone commented his performance.
"I'm nearly jealous!" laughed the salad.

She seemed so happy he couldn't help but smile, even if she had obviously trolled him.


After this, they dined (they had pizza) and had a lot of fun talking together and realizing they wanted the same things in life.

M. Troll was happier than happy.

At the end of the evening, he walked the giggling salad back to her hotel. She talked excitedly and seemed really happy too. M. Troll suddenly wondered when she was supposed to go back to France, but he didn't dare ask the question, because he feared the answer.

She kissed one cheek of the cute toothless head to say "goodnight".

M. Troll found himself smiling all the way back to his apartment.

When will they see each other next? Is the salad vegetarian?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 16 - Holy pizza

M. Troll had run to his house more frightened than he had ever been, on Friday afternoon.
He had to explain to his guildmates why he had not a headset, and he wasn't able to play as intended.
But he didn't blame anything or anyone but his curiosity. Why did he feel the need to get closer at all costs?

On Saturday, he went for a jog in the mountain near his apartment. A jog that was more some survival thing than a jog, to be honest.
He would have like to take his glittery pink rubber boots, but to run, it would have been foolish, so he had his orange sport shoes.

He decided to get a pizza later that day, after having taken a nice shower and played video games a lot.

On the way to his favorite pizzeria, someone gave him a flyer promoting a French Christmas market that was to happen the day after, on Sunday. M. Troll shrugged and put the flyer away in his pocket.
At the pizzeria, he took his pizza (he ordered online, as usual) and was to leave when he heard someone running behind him.
One of the heads took a look and he nearly ran away when he realized it was the salad. She looked very salady in a fancy colored dress.

"Hey!" she said. "Yesterday, you threw your headset at me! It hurt!"
She then obviously waited for an answer, without smiling.

All the three heads became as red as something can become red. The salad felt a bit guilty, because she could see this troll wasn't that used to talking to new people.

"OK! Don't worry about it!" she exclaimed, smiling happily again. "I'll forgive you if you come to the French Christmas market tomorrow!"

M. Troll remembered the flyer, weighted quickly his options, and was surprised to realize he was already nodding "yes" before the end of the weighting.

"Perfect! See you tomorrow then!" said the salad happily, before going back to her table.

The pizza M. Troll ate that day tasted like hope and happiness.

Will he buy smelly cheese at the French market? What is the salad selling?
Stay tuned! :D

Days 13 and 14 - Dating!

The girls M. Troll talked to on the Internet, the ones who didn't play video games, didn't really understand why he liked this activity so much.
Nonetheless, he invited one of them on a date on Thursday (day 14), just in case.

On Wednesday he went to see one of his colleagues, a guy who had a lot of success with the ladies.
"What should I give her on a first date?" he asked.
"Well, what does she like?" asked the colleague back.
"She doesn't like video games," answered M. Troll. "But I think she likes swimming."

The colleague was at a loss with this information, and didn't know what to answer to M. Troll. Worse, M. Troll's three heads were looking at him with such hope he felt compelled to jump through the window. But it was Winter and snow was everywhere.
He turned away from the window, sighing, and said with what he hoped was a wise face:
"Buy her flowers. Pretty colored flowers."

M. Troll ran from the office to find flowers (which made his colleague relieved, since he wouldn't have to see M. Troll again this day).

The seller was very surprised when a crazed M. Troll barged in her shop, but years of seeing strange customers kicked in, and she smiled automatically.
"Hei, can I help you?" she asked politely.

M. Troll waved in front of her nose flowers he had just taken on a shelf.
 "I want these for a date!" he exclaimed, proud at having found pretty flowers.

The seller sighed, wondering once again why she bothered learning the language of flowers if she only had customers like this one.

M. Troll, forgetting entirely about his work, went back home to play with his new guild, full of nice people, mostly guys (sic) though. The only active girl was married to another player already. But that story made him hopeful.

***

On Thursday, M. Troll was full of joy. The girl he was to meet wasn't hostile to video games.

His day at work seemed to go so slowly to him he was in a terrible mood.
His colleagues were happy to see things go back to normal with him sheltered in his office.

When the time came, he went to the date with confidence, whistling in the streets, flowers in hand. He heard singing from one of the streets he had to cross to arrive to the restaurant. Curious and in advance, he took a look and saw a strange salad singing and laughing with people who appeared to be friends of hers.
"How weird it is," he thought. "A singing salad. She must be foreign."

He then resumed in confident walk.

The girl arrived five minutes late. He didn't like late people and told her so. She didn't seem really happy about that, but she squeaked and claped excitedly when she saw the flowers.

It started well, but it didn't end so.

During the dinner, he talked about things he knew: video games, his experience in the North with the young video games player, his work and, of course, his glittery pink rubber boots. She talked about things she knew, and they were really different.
When they talked about what they wanted in life, they realized they could have lived on different planets.

They called it a night after the appetizers.

M. Troll ordered japanese on the way home.

Who was that salad?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 12 - Back to work!

M. Troll fell asleep on his desk, still happy to have started everything he could to meet the special person he was dreaming of.

When he awoke, full of hope for the day to come, he prepared some brown cheese toasts. These days were celebration days.

  

He arrived at work with a big smile plastered on each of his heads and said hello to everyone.

His colleagues started to wonder what had happened in this troll life to make him so happy. They organized lot of meetings to see if he would talk about his private life at some point, and they even all lunched together.

For his lunch, he has brought two brown cheese sandwiches. The toothless head had a lollipop. It squeaked happily when it saw the candy, since it really was addicted to sugar, something M. Troll knew, but was ignoring as well as he could.

M. Troll's boss gave him more work and projects than usual, but he was still full of hope and happy. He answered some messages from girls that seemed nice enough, but didn't really play video games. And he got accepted in the guild he wanted to join.

Life was full of opportunities!

When he got home, later that day, he went to meet all his new guildmates.

Will the perfect girl be in that guild? Will she be somewhere else? Will he settle for a non-playing girl?

Stay tuned! :D

Days 10 and 11 - Out of the cave

On Sunday, M. Troll was ready to leave the hytte of his new guide in life. The young gamer was kind of relieved to see this nice but really weird person go back to his own life. Plus, his girlfriend was freaked out by the three heads.

M. Troll, during his trip back to his small town, realized he lacked something important that made people better and happier and more positive and more energetic and just more more more. Something that made people sing, scream, act crazy, etc.
He wasn't in love.

He had never felt the need to be before he met the young gamer, but he didn't know girls could love video games. Now that he knew that truth, he saw how beautiful the world really was.

He pictured himself with the most perfect girl he could imagine. She had to be a bit crazy, but good crazy, so he had fun all the time; she also had to love pizza, because pizza was another perfection of the world. He also wanted to find her the prettiest girl in the world, but he had no doubt that once in love, he would be able to see only her. He shyly wished their kisses would taste like magic itself.

He imagined himself and his girlfriend going to the movie theater, playing video games together, meeting each other for a lunch or a dinner...

He wanted to share the best moments of his life with someone special. He wanted to take care of someone and to be taken care of in return.

M. Troll was out of his allegorical cave. He was discovering the world.

***

The following day (since he got lost a lot on his way back and it took longer to get home), he arrived in the parking lot he shared with his neighbour and parked automatically. Everything he did, he did as in a dream. He was already living the perfect life with the perfect girl.

He wasn't even tired, he just wanted to meet her.
That special person meant to be with him.

He created an account on some dating websites, just in case, and also looked at guilds in his new favorite game, TSW, just in case. There can't be too many "just in case" where the perfect girl is involved, he told himself.

He spent all his day looking at pictures and profiles on the dating websites, then looking for a guild.
He sent several messages that got no answer, some that got an answer he liked and some that got an answer he disliked. He was pretty happy.
He also found a nice guild and applied. That made him happy too.

After this day that got him closer to his new dream and to new content in TSW, he felt more enthusiastic than ever.

Will he find a girl on the Net? When will he sleep?
Stay tuned! :D

Days 5 and 6 - Boots, kungfu and luggage

M. Troll was happy with his pink glittery rubber boots. So happy he kept them on to sleep.

The next day as he woke up, he wondered what it was on his feet until he remembered. At seeing his boots again, he sighed happily and thanked every divinity he could think of for this marvelous gift.

He felt super swaggy going to work with his boots on and couldn't help but stop in every office of the building to say "Hi!". Some people wondered who was this person they had never seen before, until another colleague would explain it was the IT, the one who didn't like being asked things. Then, they would just all nod.

That was the biggest event of his Tuesday.

 ***

On Wednesday, however, he had his kungfu course, that he decided to attend with the boots on.

Of course, needless to say it wasn't possible for him to walk on the tatami without taking them off or being chopped by the teacher; being an intelligent troll, he complied. Nobody would talk about the smell coming from his feet, not wanting to acknowledge it in case it would become real and stay put.
He discovered that kungfu with three arms was an easy thing, somehow, but that kungfu with three heads was hell.
He managed to hit the poor toothless head, which started to cry.

At the end of the hour and half, when the teacher asked him how it went and if he would come back (and hoping the answer would be a "never again"), he fell on his side and shook for a few minutes, under the stares of the shocked teacher.
Finally, another troll, wanting to help him and to clear the space, said aloud: "Wow! I wonder who brought these super nice pink glittery rubber boots! I may try them, since they are so beautiful."
M. Troll regained his full consciousness and jumped on the poor troll to get his boots back, in full enrage mode.

Needless to say the teacher won this fight and was more than happy to blacklist M. Troll, who he had disliked on sight.

M. Troll went to buy three ice creams, deciding to treat each of his head after such a rough experience. The toothless one had a bigger ice cream since it had received a punch. It smiled happily and thought the punch was worth it.

While he was walking in the streets of his small town, a little girl waved at him: "Hey, you have three ice creams for yourself, give me one of them."
"No, that won't happen!" he answered firmly.
"Didn't you hear you have to give girls everything they want?" she asked.

M. Troll took a minute to think about it. He had indeed heard that more than once from his friends (now all married). He was pretty sure, though, that they hadn't meant little girls in the street, and that it could be a dangerous thing to do for him.

"I'm not little!" she exclaimed after he told her his doubts. "I'm already eight!"

Convinced and more than a little naive, he gave her one of his ice creams with a sight and a cuddle, and immediately caught the attention of a passing policeman.

Will he get arrested? What about the boots if yes?
Stay tuned! :)

Day 4 - Northern lights and special rubber boots

M. Troll lived in a country where it was easy to see northern lights. However, he had never been to the North, and had only seen unusual, and quickly gone, northern lights during the Autumn 2015.
"It's Monday, let's take big decisions!" He decided to take some vacations from Thursday to the following Monday, included, to go visit the North of his country and see proper northern lights.

He was very excited at this perspective and couldn't stop himself from squeaking when his boss said "ok" for the vacations. He realized he would need gear and decided to take a trip to the shop after work.

"What an exciting week!" he thought. "First a kungfu course, then a trip to the North! I wonder how my everyday life became so exciting!"

He tried to concentrate at work, even if it was harder than hard. His colleagues waved in front of his three faces, screamed, sighed and even danced to get his attention. No need to say they weren't successful. It was his less productive day in a long time.

Finally, the time to leave the office came, and he ran straight to the best shop in town selling sport equipment. He had a nice list found on the Web and he selected everything he needed: a tent, a big backpack, a thermos for his beloved coffee, some kind of coffee maker to travel, etc.

Then came the time to choose clothes. He discovered, he who was a t-shirt and jeans kind of troll, that he loved glittery things. Loved, not liked. He even bought a glittery jumpsuit for cold weather that made the shop assistant's eyebrows reach the sky.

While looking for shoes, all of a sudden, his eyes caught the most marvelous thing he had ever seen.

The. Most. Marvelous.
The. Most. Glittery.
The. Pinkiest.

Pink glittery rubber boots.

He was surprised to find tears on each of his three heads' cheeks when he touched them. The world seemed to spin and angels started to sing. He remembered the smell of his favorite cake as a child...

Pink glittery rubber boots.
The last pair.

He ran to them, even if it felt like flying toward his destiny. When he touched them and tried them, he couldn't contain a squeak of sheer happiness.

Meanwhile, the clerk waved at this colleague to come watch this weird scene, not that unusual in this busy little shop.
"I told you we would sell all of them," he said to his colleague, proud because he was the one who had bet on the success of these boots, against all odds.

M. Troll had a real epiphany. He took a picture of him in his glittery gear and posted it on Facebook. It instantly became a buzz, but he was too pink glittery rubber boots-centered to notice it.

Will he sleep with his boots? Will he see the northern lights?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 3 - Sunday morning... and afternoon... and evening

Day 2 - Did you say "trumpet"?

M. Troll, like a lot of trolls from his country, was a three-headed troll.
His cutest head was the toothless one. It ate a lot of ice cream.

His three-headed troll status made people ask him a lot of questions like: Do they each have a brain? Do you have one or three stomach? Are you three persons and not just one?
Each time, he sighted and tried to explain that of course, he was just one person with one stomach; that having three heads was as confusing as being divided on a question for a one-headed person, nothing more.
Said one-headed persons, being open-minded, always nodded when he answered that, all the while thinking: "Yeah, of course, it's the same, heh. But I, I only have one head, so I'm not really arguing with myself creepily."
Well, it was true M. Troll was arguing aloud, because he liked the sound of his heads' voices.

***

Every day, the heads took a turn drinking morning coffee or eating a yogurt as breakfast. Life was simple, life was nice.

Until one day, a dilemma on a subject brought the two toothful heads to "argue".

"Hey," said the head on the left, "did you see this orange trumpet wanting to be king of the world?"
"Haha!" laughed the head in the middle. "He wants to be President of another country, not king!"
The toothless head, on the far right, licked happily an ice cream.
"President, king, it's all the same! He's orange and I heard he's against abortion! Being against abortion is bad," insisted the head on the left.
"Do you even know what is an abortion?" asked the head in the middle.
The toothless head started to feel uneasy, because it did share a brain with the other two, even if it was physically separated, and it didn't like being confused. It was maybe more separated from the toothless head than from the other two, nobody was sure of that, a fact that made this head more gentle.
"Well, I know it's something I still want to be able to do one day, when I'll feel ready," answered the head on the left while making a face that was supposed to mak it look intelligent.
The head in the middle snorted, and even the toothless head glanced at the head on the left at that sentence.

For once, the toothless head thought that maybe the other two didn't get a biggest share on the brain, as it had always thought. It smiled happily and resumed licking the ice cream.

M. Troll concentrated hard on the pleasure felt by the toothless head to chase the political argument away. He had never known he could have conflicting opinions on politics.
To change his mind, he signed up for a kungfu course that was to take place a few days later, and he logged in his favorite video game, where he dedicated himself to kill a monster that brought to his mind a movie happening in Manhattan. (Big monsters either pop up in Tokyo or New York, easy, heh?)

The sad part of this story is that he realized that maybe it was a bad idea to start trumpet courses or to cross path again with this instrument...

Will he like kungfu? Will he start playing trumpet?
Stay tuned! :)