#but Darik emerged of his own volition and here we are

[opheliathedreamer-blog]

Goblin x Reader

Summary: Valentine’s Day for goblins is understandably different than the human equivalent. Of course he still gave you chocolates and roses just to see you smile, but on the first new moon of spring, he invited you to join a celebration that was far more adrenaline-fueled.

At dusk, when your eyes fluttered open at the sound of your alarm, you rolled over with a groan and instinctively reached over to the other side of your bed. Your brow furrowed with confusion when you found it vacant. Blinking away whatever remained of the sandman’s dust from your eyes, you glanced more clearly at the room. Darik, your boyfriend of two years, was nowhere to be found. You stifled a yawn and set your feet on the floor. While running a hand through your knotted hair, you paused upon seeing two items on a nearby table that weren’t in your room the previous evening. One was a bouquet of red roses. The other was a heart-shaped container, presumably filled with chocolate.

You wondered when he had snuck out of the cabin to buy those for you. Goblins were nocturnal by nature, and you both had gone to bed half an hour before dawn. The thought of him bundling up and braving daylight for you made your heart flutter.

Although you smelled breakfast cooking and heard the sizzling of bacon, you decided to sneak a few. Dark chocolate bordeaux. Your favorite. 

Humming with pleasure, you righted yourself and shuffled over to the closet. When you slid open the oak door, however, you pinched the bridge of your nose. All of your clothes were gone save for that crop top and pair of tight leather pants that made Darik go wild on your third date. You groaned. This was parr for the course when it came to dating goblins, but that didn’t mean you still weren’t annoyed. 

“Darik!”

You heard his barely restrained cackles and could all but see his silver eyes twinkle with mischief. You rolled your eyes, shut the door, and entered the kitchen in your pajamas out of spite. 

“Good morning, love!” he called from his spot at the stove. He used a spatula to place some cooked bacon on your plate, his already piled with raw meat from your fridge. “I missed that voice of yours. It has conquered my heart like the roaring river.”

“Don’t sweet talk me.” You crossed your arms over your chest. “What did you do with all my clothes?”

He glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, shoulders shaking. A clawed hand did little to quell his snickers. Your own lips twitched at his contagious laughter until you bit the inside of your cheek. You were supposed to be mad, damn it. Prank calling you during work and rigging your fridge to play the Jeopardy theme whenever you opened it was different than taking all of your clothes.

“Darik.” Your eyes narrowed. “I’m serious.”

He placed your breakfast in front of you. “Aw, don’t look so cross. Life’s no fun at all if the unexpected stays well away.” His sharp teeth winked at you in the room’s dim lighting. “You’ll get them back once you wear that outfit I’ve picked out.”

“Or I could wear this and go stay at Nicki’s for the night,” you said nonchalantly, sliding into a bar stool. “I could make you wait for your present until tomorrow evening.”

With a half-hearted growl, he grabbed his own plate and pulled himself into the seat next to you. “You’re stone cold, you are.”

You snorted, a smile finally forming. “You’re lucky I love you.” You leaned forward and placed a kiss on his hollow cheek. “I’ll wear the damned thing. Just put my clothes back by tomorrow.”

“Whatever you say.”

“And thank you for the roses… and the chocolates. It was very sweet of you, no pun intended.”

His lips twitched upward. His long fingers caressed your temple and ran through your hair. “It ain’t the goblin way, but it’s worth it to see you smile.” He glanced downward, food still largely untouched. “Speaking of which, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Your eyes flitted over to him, giving him their full attention. He looked just as serious as he did when you gave him a key to your cabin. He was silent, contemplative. You could see his mind sorting out possible statements, wanting to choose the best possible words. His prominent brow was furrowed, already thin lips stretched to nonexistence. All that and his pointed nose brought to mind silhouettes in the books your grandparents used to read to you. But in all those stories the goblins merely wreaked havoc and were defeated by a wise woman or brave knight. Those stories never told how deeply one could love.

“My people have our own celebration similar to this one. It happens on the first new moon of each spring. My tribe’s elders will be there and mated pairs, too. One half runs into the forest and hides, and the other half has to find them.”

It sounded like a large-scale game of hide-and-seek, but you didn’t want to trivialize the celebration by comparing it to a human children’s game, so you remained silent.

“The first couple that makes it back to the elders wins something—jewelry, tools, furs, gold or silver. It changes every year. But what’s really important is what it means to the tribe and the mated pair involved. It’s a way of showing that they intend to stay together, before and after the bonding ceremony. It shows that no matter what separates them, distance or otherwise, they’ll always find a way to come back together again.” He scratched his neck. “At least, that’s how Mum explained it to me.”

It’s a way of showing that they intend to stay together. For goblin kind then, this ceremony was significant. You wondered if his parents were going to be there. You’d met them a few times before. His father seemed friendly enough and praised your skill as a healer (you were a nurse), but his mother seemed to have her reservations. You were the first relationship he’d had in decades. She could tell you meant a lot to him and murmured to you as you left the burrow not to hurt him.

A commitment like this was a big step, but one that you were excited to take. Then, perhaps after this, you could decide how to present yourself to the elders officially.

“I understand if you wouldn’t want to go. It’s April 5th, and I know the hospital can be pretty busy during spring so…” He trailed off, digits fingering his silver necklace.

“Darik, if this is important to you, then it’s important to me. I’d love to go.” You reached down for his limp hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “I’ll inform the hospital that that’ll just have to be a vacation day for me. No if’s, and’s, or but’s.”

You saw the way he stared after you in your periphery, features softening in a wide, heartfelt smile, a hand resting against his cheek like a schoolboy with a crush. It warmed your insides and made you forget all about your rude awakening.

The closer April drew, the more you and Darik buzzed with anticipation. It would be the first time you had ever participated in a purely goblin tradition and, although you were human, Darik was consistent in reminding you that he wouldn’t go easy on you.

“We ain’t cheaters, are we, love?” He teased. “Besides, it’ll be a riot to see you stumble through the dark and try to find me.”

“Can’t I be the one who hides?” you had asked.

He tapped the side of his nose. “I could smell your vanilla shampoo a mile off. It simply wouldn’t be fair.”

And so you found yourself stumbling through the woods at night. The elders, after some thought, had given you a flashlight so you wouldn’t accidentally sustain an injury, but its beam was far too small and dim to be of much help except when it came to avoiding roots on the path. Muffled laughter, crackling leaves, claws scraping against wood, and exclamations of the names of other goblins who had joined the celebration echoed around you. You walked as quickly as you dared, checking berry bushes and hollow trees for Darik’s familiar features. Hours passed and you only succeeded in uncovering a female goblin hidden in a fallen log. She chortled upon seeing you.

“Good luck finding Darik. I can’t even smell the bugger.”

Encouraging, you knew.

But still, you refused to give up.

Keeping the general direction of the rendezvous point in mind, you abandoned your westward route, having found no other signs of goblins there, and veered north. The wind whispered around you, and the ancient silence of the forest was only broken by the calls of owls and bats and the occasional whoop of triumph from goblins who had found their partner.

More hours passed. The scent of pine, oak, and evergreen would have been invigorating if your feet did not ache from running and hiking up and down unpaved terrain. Your flashlight grew even more dim, something you hadn’t thought possible. You were hardly afraid of the dark, but the thought of being stranded with no light source wasn’t a good option. You supposed you could wait until dawn to move about if it came to that, but what if you didn’t find Darik and return before then? Would the elders judge you more harshly?

You shook your head, momentarily banishing such a thought, and continued onward. After you trudged another quarter of a mile, you froze at the sound of a branch breaking on a tall pine nearby. You watched as the branch plummeted to the leaf-covered forest floor and pointed your flashlight upward. It flickered and the light died.

“Oh, no you don’t!” you hissed and gave it a few whacks with the heel of your hand. It sputtered to life, but you weren’t sure how long it was going to last.

You tried glancing into the heavily boughed tree again but saw nothing. The light was too weak to make out a distinct silhouette, but intuition warned you not to pass this one by.

“Darik?” you called, but expected no answer. Goblins weren’t allowed to speak or move unless they were officially found.

You worried the inside of your cheek and glanced around, eyes squinting in an attempt to see through the shadows. If you did what your gut was urging you to do, you could be wasting more time. No matter how high you climbed, there wasn’t enough moon or starlight to see into the surrounding trees. However, if you were right…

Sighing, you decided to take the chance. You held the flashlight in between your teeth as your fingers searched for purchase in the dark. After a few moments, you found deep enough grooves that you thought would support your body weight. You pulled yourself up and your right leg came to rest against a low-hanging branch. A few moments later and your left leg did the same.

You continued on in this way until your light permanently died, and you counted your blessings that your brother had urged you to regularly climb trees with him as a child. You spit the now useless device out and heard the snap of dry leaves announce its landing.

Grumbling, you reached forward for another handhold and felt your foot slip. You yelped and clung to the trunk. Your fingers ached and your right leg fought to right itself on a nearby branch. Several tries later and it still met nothing but empty air. The muscles in your upper arms bulged as you tried to pull yourself up in the hopes of finding another suitable branch. 

You breathed a sigh of relief when your fingertips brushed against one overhead. You tentatively placed one hand on it and then another. Your legs blindly searched for another foothold, and you readjusted your grip, brushing against something smoother and cooler than the branches and bark.

A beat passed before that something grasped your wrists and lifted you up onto the branch. Once you settled, you registered silver eyes and smelled earth, leather, and hot metal.

“Darik?” you whispered.

His arms tightly wound around you. “You found me,” he breathed.  

You smiled at the purr that vibrated in his chest as well as your own triumph, but forced your voice to remain neutral. “You’re terrible, you know that? You made me climb a very tall tree in the dark with no flashlight.”

He nuzzled the crook of your neck, lips stilling over your pulse. “Admittedly not my best idea… I thought the flashlight they gave you was of better quality. But, by the time the horns sounded, I couldn’t move. I’m sorry.”  

“Well, this certainly isn’t a human celebration…” You released an airy chuckle. “But it’s more exciting than any Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had.”

A brief silence passed between the two of you.

“Do you know how I found you?”

“The broken branch?”

You scoffed. “Besides that.”

“How?” he hummed. 

“This tree felt right. It felt like you were here.”

His hands entangled themselves in your hair. You could feel his smile against your skin. “That is what this is all about. Goblins may see in the dark and have a keen sense of smell, but it’s our hearts that guide us to each other.”

You reached out a hand and rested it against his chest, feeling his heart thrum against your fingertips. “So I passed the trial?”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

“And if this means that we intend to stay together, then we can start planning for that bonding ceremony?”

“One ‘trial’ at a time,” he chortled. 

And although your legs and arms throbbed, your hair full of twigs and leaves, your sweater torn from wayward brambles, the respectful nod the elders sent your way and the small, hopeful smile of his mother were well worth it.