“Ah! Ren,” she whined, arching up into them, “don’t tease. I’m getting moss stains all over my clothes for this.”
“Shall I play the part of the hero, then?” Ren intoned, their voice turning husky, seemingly dropping a whole octave as their fingers skimmed up her side, each point of contact another charged spark between them. “And divest you of your clothes?”
“Yes,” Pansy said, her voice hitching as Ren’s fingers, needing no further encouragement, slipped beneath the hem of her skirt to trace the white-hot outline of her thigh. “I think I’d like that very much.”
16
Ren
So begins the longest absence
On a bed of nascent roots.
Where death and life intertwine,
These seeds shall turn to shoots.
“THE RETURN TO EARTH”, A GOBLIN POEM TRADITIONALLY RECITED AT FUNERALS
The door to the cottage was open when they returned the following morning – early, because the ground was apparently too hard for overly sensitive halfling spines, even with a blanket of plush moss and a makeshift pillow in the form of Ren’s arm. Except, the door wasn’t open, Ren realized with afrigid, heart-seizing jolt, the kind that locked every joint into place. No, it had been knocked clear off its hinges.
Pansy saw it too, less than a second later, lying flat across the entryway, a once unremarkable slab of wood now cracked and splintered, all fanning out from a single, central point. Her breath catching in her throat, she stuttered to a sudden stop beside Ren, fingers tightening reflexively around their biceps.
“What happened?” she asked, voice breathless and thin. “The door…The garden!It’s all ruined!”
Multiple ten-days of hard work destroyed overnight. What had once been a flourishing garden, thick with Running Beans, slakegourd and more, had become a grave of disturbed earth and broken roots. Salvageable, perhaps – assuming the culprit hadn’t salted the ground out of spite – but not for the current season.
As Ren’s gaze swept over the damage, familiar in the worst possible way, the smell of ash and ruin tickled at their nostrils, dredged up from a memory they wished they could forget, of the day they’d lost the clan of their birth. One deep breath, then another, and all they could smell was the fading sweetness of the flower crown still perched atop their head. At last, they said, in a tremulous croak, “Dwarves.”
Pansy’s brow furrowed, the confusion that streaked across it an unknown privilege. “Why would dwarves break into our home?”
Ren’s voice was flat and toneless. “Because I live here.”
Before Pansy could open her mouth to unleash the torrent of questions no doubt churning behind her teeth, a familiar face popped out from behind the doorway.
“Pansy!” Blossom exclaimed, relief and worry tugging at herfeatures in equal measure. She rushed over to them, careful not to trip over the fallen door on her way out. “Thank goodness you’re all right – that you’re both all right,” she amended after a beat, her gaze flicking briefly over to Ren.
“What’s going on?” Pansy asked, her grip on Ren’s arm tightening as she pressed herself more firmly into their side. “Ren said it might be dwarves?”
“It’s Agvaldir,” Blossom replied, pulling a horrified sound from deep in Pansy’s throat. “He came to town with a small party of men, humans and a dwarf. Said he was going to ‘free you’ from Ren’s ‘goblin magic’ or something.” She spat the words, upper lip curling in disgust. “We tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“We?” Ren asked.
“I and some of the other townsfolk. They’re all downstairs, including your parents.”
Pansy blinked. “My parents are here?” She sounded incredulous, as if her friend had instead suggested that Wolf Banefoot himself was waiting for her.
Blossom nodded. “Unfortunately, none of us are sure what to do. We’re not fighters. Not to mention, Agvaldir is a wizard, and the men he has with him…” She trailed off, the words left unsaid, yet echoing just the same:They’re all bigger than us.
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a goblin had stood up to someone more than twice their size, Ren thought, their fingers finding the hilt of their dagger, still sheathed at their side. The steel felt strangely warm against their skin, reassuring. It was there if they should need it, though Ren sincerely hoped they wouldn’t.
“I’m going downstairs,” they declared, slipping their arm out of Pansy’s grasp. No need to drag her into danger too.
Of course, she was quick to rush headlong into it herself. “I’mgoing with you,” she declared in a tremulous voice, her chin canting up at an all-too-familiar defiant angle.Don’t try to stop me, it said.You’ll just waste your breath.
So Ren didn’t bother, knowing their efforts would be for naught.
Somehow, the inside of the cottage was worse than the outside. Floorboards had been ripped up, revealing the subfloor and joists underneath, while the rugs that had once covered them, both moss and knit alike, lay in tatters in nearly every corner. Furniture sat upended and, in some cases, broken in two. Pillows and blankets had been ripped apart, blanketing everything in a hail of torn fibers and stuffing. Hours of knitwork on Pansy’s part, gone; just like the moss inlays Ren had worked so hard to save. This time there was no salvaging any of it.
