Something Beautiful
Aryll heaved the body of the unconscious goblin onto the bed with a groan, and resisted the urge to throw herself down next to her. It had been three days since the warband had attacked the little village of Groat, and Aryll, who by chance had been passing through, had rallied the villagers in the inn. She had spent the next three long, sleepless days and nights fending off attempts to break in, of listening to their worgs scratching at the doors, or trying her damnedest to keep up a smile and keep telling the survivors that it was all going to turn out alright. And by some miracle, it had. A group of adventurers had come along, and with their help, the goblins had been defeated. Some driven off, most killed.
But not this one. Aryll knew the goblins had taken captives, so she’d stopped the adventurers from finishing off the unconscious one she’d found pinned under the body of her felled worg. She was their best chance of finding out where the villagers had been taken.
This was the room Aryll had rented the night before the attack came, and her rucksack was still sitting in the corner. She dragged herself over to it, ignored the coil of rope that hung off the side, and dug down to the other one in the velvet bag at the bottom of the pack. Her fingers worked through her mental fatigue on sheer muscle memory to tie the knots from the goblin’s wrists and ankles to the bedposts, not helped by the fact that the bed was sized for humans.
She groped at her waist until her fingers found her last healing potion. Boy, she’d had a lot more of these a few days ago. What quest had she even been on that had brought her through this little podunk town? It seemed like a lifetime ago.
The thought swam aside like her vision as she climbed onto the bed and uncorked the bottle with her teeth. Cradling the unconscious goblin’s head upright, she parted the goblin’s lips with one hand and brought the potion to them with the other. Like this, it looked like the goblin was just sleeping peacefully, and maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking, but right up close and not trying to kill her, the goblin was actually pretty cute. Even when she sputtered on the potion and jerked awake in a panic.
“Easy, easy,” Aryll said. She couldn’t understand the literal meaning of the gibberish coming from the goblin’s mouth, but she had more than enough experience to recognize, “Where am I? What happened?” in any language. “It’s okay, I’m hurt gonna not you,” she assured, paused, shook her head, and tried again. “Not gonna hurt you.” She swirled the rest of the potion around the bottle for emphasis. “D’you want the rest of this? I just wanna ask you some question. Questions.”
The goblin twisted her neck to look from the bottle, to Aryll, to her bonds, and grimaced in horror. “What are you gonna do to me?”
Aryll blinked a couple times, trying to focus her vision. Oh, yeah, huh, this probably looked pretty bad from the goblin’s perspective, didn’t it? “I’m not gonna do anythin’ to ya. I jus’ wan’ ya ta answer some questions, and then I’ll lecha go. Now d’you wan’ the resta this, or not?” She shook the bottle again.
The goblin eyed it suspiciously. “Is this a trick?”
Aryll groaned, and took a swig of the potion herself, reducing both the small amount left in the bottle and a few more of her own lingering wounds. Her head even felt a little clearer for the moment; clear enough to recognize how close she was to falling asleep on the spot, at least. She offered the potion once again.
The goblin still hesitated for a moment, but finally opened her mouth as if she was the one doing Aryll a favor. Aryll shook her head, and put the bottle to the goblin’s lips. A stray thought crossed her mind, and she couldn’t stop herself from vocalizing it. “Heh, indirect kiss.”
The goblin sputtered on the potion. Aryll couldn’t help but giggle. “Careful!” she said. “Don’t choke to death!”
“You can’t choke to death on healing potion, fool,” the goblin said, wiping her mouth on her shoulder and refusing to meet her eyes. So cute…
“Sure y’can, my uncle’s sister-in-law’s neighbor’s… niece? I think? Totally knew a guy once who died that way.” Aryll brought the bottle back to her own lips again. No point letting the last few drops go to waste. When she tilted her head back down, the goblin was blushing furiously. At least, Aryll thought that was blushing. Her cheeks were violet, but with green skin, maybe that was just how goblins did it?
“What?” she said, wondering why the goblin was staring.
“You just said that was an indirect kiss.”
“I said wha?” Ayrll yawned, rubbing her eyes as her short term memory groped around its bedside table in the dark and found nothing. “Look, you’re cute, but you’re not seducing your way outta this,” she said, plowing right over the goblin’s sputtering protest. “I jus’ wanna know two things. Why’d’ja guys kidnap the villagers, and where’d’ja take ‘em?”
The goblin’s mouth worked up and down, as if chewing on words she couldn’t articulate in her flustered state.
“Alright,” Aryll sighed, sliding off the bed. Leaning heavily on the corner post for support, she unbuckled her sword belt and tossed it into the corner, then started undoing the fly of her pants.
“What are you doing?” the goblin asked in a panic.
“Gettin’ ready for bed,” Aryll grumbled. She had gotten her pants down to her knees and hit a brick wall in getting them off, and only now put it together that it was because her calf boots were still fully laced up. “If yer not gonna talk now, then I’m goin’a sleep and we can try this again in th’ mornin’.”
The goblin squeaked anxiously. “An… and what, leave me like this all night?”
Aryll got her first boot off. “Well I can’t exactly take yer word y’won’ run off, now can I?”
“Nyerrrrgh,” the goblin groaned, writhing against her restraints. “Okay, fine! You win!”
Aryll sighed as she finally got the second boot off and her pants along with it, and climbed back onto the bed. Sitting cross-legged with her chin in her hands, she pinched herself on the cheek for a quick booster shot of wakefulness, and tried to focus on the tale being spun.
By the time the goblin was finished, Aryll’s face was stinging like a hornet’s nest from all the pinching and slapping she’d done to keep herself from simply toppling forward into unconsciousness. Her informant had rambled on and on about a lot of information that Aryll hoped was extraneous, because she’d only managed to absorb the jist of it, which was that a sorceress had recently seized control of her clan by blasting any opposition into cinders, and turned them on the local settlements in search of treasure, slaves, and, for some reason, a dwarf.
“We’ve got them in a cave a couple miles northeast of here, following the river to a toppled snag, and with all the losses we took in this fight, they’ll probably abandon the prisoners and just retreat. Now let me go!” the goblin finished.
“Uhkay,” Aryll groaned, teetering forward until she landed on her hands and knees, and crawled over to the bindings around the goblin’s left wrist. “Y’see? I’mma wommun of m’word. Y’r freeta go, but fair warnin’, those ‘venturers are pro’ly still up, an’ I hadta stoppem from killin’ y’ once already.” She reached for the rope and started fiddling with the knot. Crud. Either she’d been too far out of it when she tied it, or she was super far out of it now, because it should have come undone with a single tug. “Bu’ listen, if y’stay th’ night, I’ll gecha outta here in th’ mornin’, and even help y’with yer sorceress problem.”
The goblin frowned. “Why would you do that?”
“‘cause tha’ witch sounds like a bad time f’r e’eryone ‘round here.” There. She had been tugging on the wrong part of the rope. The knot came undone, freeing the goblin’s wrist. “Y’got m’word. An’ as y’know, I’mma wommun of m’word.”
That was as far as she could force her beleaguered state of consciousness to keep chugging, and as she collapsed toward the pillow, she was asleep before the end of her last sentence could stumble drunkenly past her lips.
* * *
Aryll stirred late the next morning to a pounding on her door. One of the adventurers was checking up on her.
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she called back, rubbing her eyes with a groan. She felt like she could have slept another day and a half easily. As her lids creaked open, the unexpected feeling her brain had been lagging too hard to identify without visual aid suddenly made sense. The goblin was still there. Not only that, Aryll had apparently cuddled up to her in her sleep, and the goblin’s free hand had wrapped around her back.
“You stayed,” she yawned happily, as the goblin also stirred awake, realized she’d been caught snuggling, and shyly jerked away. At least, as far as her remaining three bindings let her.
“I didn’t have much choice, did I?” the goblin grumbled, but the way she blushed and wouldn’t look Aryll in the eye made her suspect that the goblin hadn’t made much attempt. “You fell asleep right on top of the only arm you untied.”
“Sorry,” Aryll chuckled. Yeah, that was definitely just an excuse. The goblin was absolutely strong enough to pull her own arm out from under Aryll’s scant 36 pound body. “Let me get those for you.”
The remaining bonds each came loose with a single tug in the right spot, and the goblin sat up rubbing at her tender wrists and ankles, watching her warily. “So… you’re really gonna help me get rid of the sorceress?”
“Absolutely,” Aryll said, digging a fresh pair of leggings out of her pack while the fragments of last night’s conversation slotted themselves back into her brain. As she shimmied into them, her stomach rumbled, reminding her that while she’d been running the previous three days on no sleep, she’d also been running on only whatever food she could scarf between skirmishes with the raiders. Hopefully someone downstairs had made breakfast by now. “Hey, I’m gonna pop downstairs for a minute. You want some brekkie?”
The goblin frowned in confusion. “Do I want some of what?”
Aryll frowned back. “Brekkie.”
“Yeah, what?” the goblin snapped.
Delight spread across Aryll’s face as understanding set in. “Wait, is your name, ‘Brekkie’?”
The goblin fidgeted and turned deep violet. “N-no! Of course not! What kind of name is that?”
“Then what is it?” Aryll was beaming.
“...Brekogba.”
By the gods, she was adorable, Aryll thought. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Brekogba.” Aryll knew she was never using that name again. This goblin was 100% Brekkie from now on. “I’m Aryll Flynn.” She offered her hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Brekkie took it.
“Nice to meet you, too, I guess,” Brekkie said, shyly looking toward the window.
Aryll hummed happily as she left the room and skipped down the stairs. She had a feeling that this was the start of something beautiful.
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