She wanted to scream, to cry, to do whatever it took to get people to finallyseeher. The real her. Not this paper stand-in defined by a cluster of insurmountable flaws. Pansy looked at her parents, pleading. If they spoke up for her, maybe it would be easier to add her voice to the chorus; not just to defend herself, but also Ren, whose shortcomings, much like her own, didn’t merit this level of disdain.
Unfortunately, only silence rose to meet her.
The councilor turned towards Pansy’s parents – first, her father and then her mother – and said, with far too much vitriol, “I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: it was a mistake to give Angelica such latitude with your daughter. You shouldnever have allowed her to fill Pansy’s head with those ridiculous stories. It’s little wonder she is off cavorting with goblins. Soon, she’ll be acting just like them!” She shuddered.
“If you find me so objectionable,” Pansy said, the words sweeping through her like a frigid gale, “then maybe I shouldn’t come back to Haverow at all from now on.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Millwood agreed, before anyone else could even open their mouth to interject. “I think that would be for the best, given your continued disregard for our village’s standing. We have no use for such selfish behavior here.”
It took all of half a second for the room to erupt into a flurry of objections, shouted by Blossom and Pansy’s parents alike. Perhaps Pansy should’ve stuck around, listened to the way they rallied to her defense. These were the people closest to her; their words should have shattered the wall of ice that had enveloped her heart. And yet, the chill remained, undaunted.
So, she left, stormed out of her parents’ burrow without a word, barely hearing the shouts that unfurled in her wake. She felt cold, hollow. Her eyes burned, but no tears came. How strange, that. Shouldn’t she be crying in a moment like this?
Maybe it was because this moment had been a long time coming, the wound left behind not so much a fresh cut as a peeling scab. Pansy had known for years that she didn’t belong in Haverow. Wasn’t that why she’d left in the first place? This town, with its rigid ways and ideas, would never change for someone like her. Not unless shemadeit.
Though who was she kidding? She’d barely mounted much of a defense back there. Her voice had been such a fragile, timid thing, forming only the easiest of words, which, unfortunately, also proved the least necessary. The core of what she’d wanted hadn’t even so much as strayed from the prison of her chest.There, it continued to pulse, a single white-hot ember amid the hollow void of her defeat, a monument to her own uselessness.
Even so, Pansy wanted to try. Her gaze landed on the same Harvest Festival poster she’d seen during her last trip into town, her feet having carried her to the village square. Was there anything more halfling than the Harvest Festival? she wondered, an idea slowly solidifying at the front of her mind.
If I enter and win the Crop Competition, she thought, a single ray of hope cutting through the lightless black clinging to her insides,then maybe that’ll prove that I still belong here, that I’m as much a halfling as anyone else in town. I can’t change, but maybe Haverow can.
It was a nice thought, so who could blame Pansy for immediately clinging to it with all her might?
Yet if she was going to do this, the first thing she needed to do was get some seeds. She thought of Ren, but quickly dismissed the idea. Although they almost certainly had plenty of seeds, chances were their collection consisted entirely of “goblin” plants. And seeing how a bit of sugarfern had prompted certain individuals to completely lose their minds, Pansy suspected that her plan would be better served by more…familiarvegetables.
Blossom probably has some seeds in her shop, Pansy thought.And it’s not like she ever locks up when she goes out.
Granted, going in and taking some of Blossom’s seeds without asking wasn’t exactly a very “friendly” thing to do. But, well, Blossomowedher, and Pansy was determined to collect.
10
Ren
If you should ever lose your way,
Look to the land to guide you home.
From the moss on trees to the rush of a stream,
So long as you look and listen,
You will never be lost.
GOBLIN SONG OF UNKNOWN ATTRIBUTION, SAID TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY A MOTHER WHOSE CHILD HAS JUST LEFT HOME TO FIGHT IN A WAR, TITLED “THE WAY HOME”
As far as Ren was concerned, Pansy had a death wish. Or, to put it less dramatically, a get-horrifically-lost-in-the-dark wish.
When she’d told them she was heading back to her village to have dinner with her parents, Ren had immediately posed twoquestions: “Are you crazy?” and, “Are you trying to get lost?” Dinner, after all, implied returning home well after dark, which, again, Ren had warned hernotto do several times – all to no avail, it seemed.
“I should just let her get lost,” Ren grumbled, tapping their foot impatiently against the dirt path. It had been about an hour since they’d come all the way out here to the forest’s edge, saddled with a heavy lantern they had no use for, and Ren was starting to wonder if they, too, had completely lost their mind.
“I should be at home, tending to the garden. Instead, I’m out here playingbabysitter,” they scoffed. “And to think she told me to butt out when I told her she was acting like a fool! Can you believe that, Mushroom? The gall of it…”
Mushroom, who’d made himself quite comfortable in the depths of Ren’s hood, let out something between a squeak and a yawn and snuggled closer. Although it still wasn’t quite fall yet, the weather had reached that stage where nighttime brought with it an undeniable chill, one that Ren’s cloak staved off for the most part. For both of them.
“Why am I out here, then?” Ren blinked, their gaze dropping to their feet as a rush of warmth spread across their face. “Well, it would be poor form to win our wager by default, right? Not to mention, as Caretaker, I have a whole ecosystem to watch over here. It wouldn’t do to let the predators around here develop a taste for halfling meat.”
“Mrrmp,” said Mushroom, simple and to the point.
