"Rap-ta-tap-tap." The knocker clanked noisily.
"What's there," a gruff voice growled from behind the door before it swung open.
"Oh, its little Yu and little Arrie, have you come to see the baby?" A bespectacled and gnarly face appeared, but in contrast to the unusual appearance of the door's owner, his eyes twinkled with kindness.
"Yes, Uncle Tommy, we want to see the new baby!" Arrie replied gaily in her bell-like voice.
"Come on in, then," the wise-looking troll opened the door wider and allow the little human children into the house. Libitina followed them in, her heart filled with questions.
The home of the troll was bigger than Libitina expected, and it had extremely tall ceilings and wide spaces to walk around freely. This was probably because the troll was huge in size relative to them. The entire home was a cave, so the walls and ceilings and any protrusions such as tables or stools were unsurprisingly also made of dirt or some wood fixtures hammered clumsily together. The rooms were round and homely, giving the many-holed house the impression of a beehive or sorts, and wooden staircases led to both upstairs and downwards into the ground, their gnarled railings and crooked elevation making for an uncomfortable journey in between floors, but very much in style with the overall ancientness and mystery of the troll's cave.
The children led the way with familiarity, and Libitina soon found herself in a shallowly lighted room. In the centre of the room was a huge cradle which the children ran towards excitedly.
Libitina approached the cradle and muffled her scream, even though no one would have heard her anyway. However, she quickly put down her hand that had jumped to her lips in shock, as she tried to pretend that she remained unfazed, even though no one would have seen her anyway, either.
In the cradle was a large brown cocoon that was almost as large as one of the children. It would have been alright if it was simply an unmoving cocoon, but tiny movements could be seen underneath the thin cocoon cover as if something was struggling to get out of it. Libitina was not looking forward to whatever that was inside it.
"Uncle Tommy, it hasn't come out yet?" the little boy looked at the bespectacled troll in disappointment.
'Why do you want it out!' Libitina screamed internally, as she played with her fingers emotionlessly. 'Leave it alone, stop encouraging it!'
"No," the troll laughed, his chest heaving, "But Yu and Arrie, you're in for a bigger surprise. It's about to be born."
The children's eyes brightened, and they immediately turned their attention to the brown cocoon.
At first, the cocoon continued to tremble occasionally, but after an hour, the cocoon finally gained a new tiny crack. There was a slimy layer beneath the crack of the cocoon, where more movement could be see beyond the sheen.
"Imago!" the troll nudged the children, "Here it comes."
The crack was opening slowly, widening inch by inch as the creature inside hacked at the walls that imprisoned it for a long time. As the chrysalis was slowly pried open from the inside, Libitina suppressed her fear for such a large insect and began to watch the entire process in fascination. Since she was only a visitor to the memory, the insect would not be able to hurt her.
Finally, the chrysalis shell was thrown aside, and the baby revealed itself to the watching crowd.
Libitina could not help but squeal softly, as is her normal reaction towards most babies. 'It is fluffy!'
With large black eyes, the baby had a cotton body and six thick and furry legs. Its wings were still wet, but Libitina could see the vibrant colours of blue, red, orange, and yellow on the shrivelled appendages. It had two antennas that twitched around nervously. While its size was unusual, Libitina noticed that unlike an ordinary moth, this creature actually had an elegant fishlike tail whose scales shone subtly every time it moved.
"Wow, its beautiful, Uncle Tommy," Arrie whispered, her hands over her mouth.
Yu reached inside his pockets and brought out a bunch of berries. "Uncle Tommy, can I?"
"Sure," the troll nodded approvingly.
Gently, the little boy rolled one of the berries towards the baby. The baby moth played around with the fruit before nibbling on it, the dark juice staining its furry mouth. Libitina was struck by the moth's likeliness to a rabbit feasting on berries.
"Uncle Tommy, its eating it!"
"Yes, it needs to eat and rest before it can become a full-fledged flying imago," the troll told the children as he placed a hand on both their shoulders. "The descendants of the sunset are precious to our tribe. We must protect them and keep them happy and safe, understood?"
"Yes, Uncle Tommy!" the children replied. Slowly, the scene of the children feeding the giant moth happily as the old troll looked over them shifted and the lines of Libitina's vision started to blur. Her eyes were drawn to the curious creature and at the last second of the memory, the baby moth looked up, and for a moment she thought that the moth was looking at her, into her eyes.
The memory faded completely into nothingness, and Libitina blacked out.