They snorted, nostrils flaring around the halfling’s heavily spiced scent, tantalizingly sweet even from a distance. “Is that supposed to mean something? Move your foot so I can try and salvage what you just broke.”
The halfling didn’t budge, which was hardly a surprise. She clearly had no concept of what now lay at her feet, the ruined tatters of moss scattered about her like bits of a desiccated corpse.Ren knelt down anyway, well aware that doing so pushed them into range of the halfling’s kick. But getting a boot to the face seemed a small price to pay if it meant scooping each green tuft into the safety of their palm.
Thankfully, the halfling’s curiosity overshadowed her capacity for violence – at least for now. “What are you doing?” she asked, as if Ren hadn’t already answered her question a second ago. Why couldn’t halflings justlisten?
They let out a harsh exhale, not even looking up as they continued to retrieve bits of moss. “All of this? Came from up there. My clan planted the spores years ago in the grooves lining each of the support beams. That’s where they should’ve stayed, by the way; but apparently, destroying my mushroom farm wasn’t enough for you.”
Confusion streaked across the halfling’s brow; and yet, there was something else, too, a glimmer in her eye that Ren might’ve called interest if they hadn’t known better. Because, surely, no halfling would care one whit about goblin agricultural techniques.
Then again, maybe they would. If there was anything else as constant as the halfling penchant for running roughshod over everything, it was their love of food, made manifest in pantries so well stocked one would’ve thought these halflings were anticipating a several-centuries-long siege. But those didn’t happen to halflings, “peaceful”, “jovial” people that they were.
Obviously, whoever had popularized that belief hadn’t found themselves on the wrong end of a halfling adventurer’s sword. But, admittedly, neither had Ren, too young to have even constituted a spark in their mother’s eye the last time a dark lord had plunged the Realm into chaos. Still, something dark simmered in their belly as they looked upon this particular halfling, herobnoxiously bright clothing as damning as her cluelessness.Ugh. Why couldn’t she justleave?
“I’m talking about those logs you knocked over on your way in,” Ren explained, even though she didn’t deserve it. “But at leastthatI can fix. This”– they gestured around themself – “maybe not, and definitely not completely. This probably comes as a surprise to you, but cultivating edible moss isn’t something you can do on a whim, especially like this.”
The halfling’s cheeks pinked. “Well, you shouldn’t have been doing it here anyway,” she declared with a huff, arms crossing over her chest. “This is my grandmother, Angelica Underburrow’s, house. A house which she passed down to me, Pansy Underburrow. So, like I said, this ismy house.” She spoke the last two words emphatically, as if that would somehow render them true.
Ridiculous.
“If this is your grandmother’s house, then why hasn’t she lived here in over twenty years?” Ren asked, finally straightening back up.
The halfling – Pansy – scowled as she plucked a bit of moss from the front of her sweater. She gave it a quick sniff, then flicked it over to Ren. “Because she was old and needed help. That’s why she moved back to town – to Haverow. Now, you have your moss; so, you can go back to… wherever it is you came from.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ren replied, standing as tall as they could manage. Thankfully, this put them at least an inch above Pansy. “Your grandmother left this place to rot. If not for my family, it would be exactly as you said: full of holes and missing pieces. Instead, it’s thriving. Look at how muchlifethere is now!”
Bellflower. Creeping thyme. Stonecrop. Selfheal. Impossible to name every plant that coiled along the walls or from in-between the floorboards. Then there were the animals: the fireflies that slept inside paper lanterns repurposed to serve as their nests; the mice with questionable taste that lived in an old, halfling-style armchair too soft for Ren’s liking; and, of course, there was Pig, currently snoring downstairs, no doubt.
Somehow, none of this mattered to Pansy.
“This sort of mess belongs outside, you know.” She scowled. “Not to mention, no one asked you to do anything in the first place.”
Ren stared at her, incredulous. “What does asking have to do with any of it?”
“Oh, right. Yes. Of course. Silly me.” Pansy bopped the heel of her palm against her temple. “I’m speaking to a goblin. You lot never ask; you simply take!”
“Better than letting go to waste what others could use!” Ren snapped back, teeth flashing as fire roared inside their chest. “My clan needed a place to live. This house was empty. Clearly, no one was using it; so, why shouldn’t they?”
“Because. It’s. Not.Theirs.”
“Fine. So, a perfectly good home falls into disrepair such that no one can use it. You honestly think that’s better?”
“I—” Pansy snapped her mouth shut, brow furrowing as she considered Ren’s words. Whatever heat had ignited between them suddenly cooled, quelled by the need to think rather than simply feel. “Stealing is wrong,” she declared at last, albeit without her earlier fervor.
Ren sighed. “At least you had enough sense to actually stop and think about it. Surprising for a halfling. Doesn’t changethe fact that you’rewrong, which, for the record, is far less of a shock.”
Fresh crimson streaked across the bridge of Pansy’s nose. “Wrong or not, this is still my house, and I fully intend to live in it.” As if to drive her point home, she slipped the vast assortment of bags from her shoulders and allowed them to fall to the floor with a resoundingthump.
“What a coincidence,” Ren remarked, their tone a touch too biting to be considered droll. “Because I was thinking the exact same thing.”
Pansy’s eyes bulged. “No! Absolutely not. You need to leave. Go be with your”– she gestured vaguely with one hand – “clan – or however you prefer to call it. I’m certain you’ll be far more comfortable there anyway. This is clearly ahalflingburrow, not a cave. Hardly suitable for a goblin like yourself.”
Ren’s chest constricted at the thought of returning to their clan. If only such a thing were possible. But duty bound them to this cottage, and here they would stay. How shameful it would be to return now, after only a day, rendering their word barely worth the breath that had fueled it.
Swallowing around the lump that had knotted in their throat, Ren said, “I’m quite comfortable here, actually. You’d be surprised how cave-like a so-called ‘burrow’ can be. But thank you for your concern.”
Pansy huffed. “I’m trying to be nice here—”
“Oh, are you?” Ren cocked their head to the side, ears perking up in mock surprise. “I honestly couldn’t tell. Because where I come from, we don’t call someone who barges in unannounced, breaks things that aren’t theirs and insults others ‘nice’; we call them a—”
