Weeks of unfruitful search was starting to get to her. She was getting more impatient and less hopeful by the day. After a long period of searching caves and finding nothing but angry residents that felt intruded, she was about to break down.

Like so many times before, once again, she remembered the brutally ripped-apart animal corpses laying around in the forest... in her forest. She tried very hard to stop the tears from falling down and continued on her determined walk to find the beast that had been wreaking havoc in her peaceful land.

Where could it have gone? How could something as big as a troll manage to hide for so long?

The wind answered her by blowing through the leaves, joining all the trees together and making them sing their soft and rustly song only to remind her how vast the woods were. She looked up sorrowful and down. Maybe it was time to give up? Maybe he had left? Maybe--

Her hopeless thoughts fleed away immediately as she sat down by what seemed to be a big dark hole in the ground. "I knew you could not go on without filling up your big, ugly belly." she thought and a bright light shone from her hands to reveal a huge, unmistaken troll footstep for her to follow and make sure that its owner does not leave another one.

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Thanks to my sister for the little story.
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This piece also won the fist prize and got me a nice DVD set from Gnomon "Hunter" themed challenge, thank you Gnomon!
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Photoshop CS2 (Approx. 30 Hours)