She could’ve told them.She should have. Ren had trusted her with so much; so why hadn’t she trusted them in turn?
Pansy whipped around. Her cheeks had gone shockingly pale, as if every last mote of color had been sucked from her flesh. “Ren, I promise you, I didn’t ask him for any of this. Yes, I asked him about the runes, but that was different. That was before—”
“Before what?” Ren snarled, uncaring of the way their bared fangs made the surrounding halflings gasp. They all saw a monster when they looked at Ren anyway, so why not givethem one?
“Before I fell in love with you,” Pansy whispered, glancing up at them through her lashes, a move Ren had once found so undeniably charming, but that now only sent a web of ice fanning across their guts.
Agvaldir barked out a laugh, his expression all disgust and disbelief. “You love agoblin?” he asked, only to finish with a resounding snort. “My gods, Miss Underburrow, you should be grateful that I arrived here when I did. To think that you could fall under a goblin’s spell so swiftly. Never fear, they’ll be the unwanted pest you first saw them as soon enough.”
“Ren’s not a pest!” Pansy shouted, whirling back around. Rage had splattered a fresh coat of red across her face, rendered all the more stark by her preceding pallor. “Ren’s—”
Not wanting to hear whatever was meant to follow – their heart too fragile, too unsteady, like a cold glass dumped in boiling water – Ren ripped the flower crown from their head and threw it to the floor. “I never should have trusted you,” they hissed, fixing Pansy with the iciest glare they could manage.
Her words catching in her throat, Pansy stared at them with wide eyes. “Are you…? You can’t seriously be blaming me for this. All I did was ask him if he recognized the runes. Yes, I probably should’ve told you about them too, but I was afraid—”
“And you think I wasn’t? I’m a goblin, Pansy; he’s a wizard! I have every right to be afraid. Plus, you know what sort of person he is. What did you think would happen?”
“Not this!” Pansy snapped, her hands fisting at her sides. “The cottage is my home too, Ren. I don’t understand how you could possibly think that I would ever want to see it torn apart like this.”
“But you’ll survive, won’t you? You can just go back toHaverow and weather out the winter there. Butmy clan—”
“Don’t you put that on me, Ren,” she said, biting out the words with surprising swiftness. “You know all I’ve ever wanted to do was help.”
“Well, at this point, I think we’d all be better off without your help!”
Pansy flinched, and Ren distantly wondered if they’d gone too far. Was it really reasonable to expect that Pansy should’ve foreseen all of this? But the ice in their chest had started to burn, and their own hurt eclipsed this thought not even a second later, answering their question with an emphatic,Yes.
“Fine,” Pansy said after a beat, her words coming out brittle and strained. “If I truly am such a terrible person, then maybe you should just be rid of me and go. In fact, that’sexactlywhat you should do. Far be it from me to subject you to any further consequences of my apparent stupidity!” Her voice dipped at this point, plunging straight into a vat of venom that splattered over the parts of Ren already left aching and raw.
“No need to tell me twice,” they snapped and spun away from her, doing exactly as she’d suggested even though the motion tugged at something deep in the pit of their stomach.
If Pansy called for them on their way out – regret setting in, as always, the moment reality reasserted itself – Ren couldn’t say. They’d already stopped listening.
17
Pansy
When the question of which people suffered the greatest losses during the Great War arises, it is oft answered too quickly, without giving thought to what “greatest” truly means in the circumstances. Is it the largest number in total? Or is it one qualified by proportion? The answer to our initial query changes, depending. While the Realm’s goblin population saw the largest total decrease as a result of the War, it is the Realm’s halfling population that was nearly cut by half. Yet, sobering though these two facts may be, as answers they prove equally flawed. For what the quantification of loss fails to account for is that in the realm of grief there can be no competition.
LESSONS IN LOSS: AN ELVISH REFLECTION ON LILLISHIRE AND THE GREAT WAR[TRANSLATED]
Standing there, staring into the dull black of the empty tunnel, Ren’s retreating form already long gone, swallowed by darkness as cold and desolate as the regret clotting in her throat, Pansy swore she was about to shatter. Her happiness already had.
To think that only a few short hours ago it had felt so assured, as enduring as the sun’s ever-cycling path across the sky. But now she realized that it too was nothing but a fragile, precious thing. The moment she’d slackened her grip, it had slipped through her fingers, more fleeting than a hot breath in winter. Worst of all, she only had herself to blame.
“It’s all right, Pansy,” her mother said, pulling free of the crowd. “You can come home, live with us.” Her hand touched Pansy’s elbow, familiar but not in the way Pansy wanted; the skin was too soft, too plush, the callouses she remembered nowhere to be found.
Jerking her arm away, Pansy said, in a voice like broken glass, “I don’t want to come back to the village! I want to live here! With Ren!”I didn’t mean what I said. I was just…
Angry. Stupidly angry.
“Is the spell still in effect?” asked one of the other villagers, sending all heads turning back to Agvaldir –the wretched man.
“It’s not a spell!” Pansy snapped, practically spitting the words as she whipped around, viper-quick. “Ren’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. My life is better not in spite of them, butbecauseof them. And maybe none of you will ever understand why, but surely you can understand that I’m happy! If you truly care about me, shouldn’t that be enough?”
No one had an answer for that, not even her mum and dad. Only Blossom, stepping into the void Pansy’s mother had left behind, managed a soft, “Of course it’s enough.” But her voice was a solitary one, too soft on its own to pierce through the wall of unease the rest of Haverow formed beyond.
So, Pansy continued, riding the wave of heat cresting through her chest, equal parts impassioned and vicious. “You know, Ren didn’t evenwantto live here at first. All those vegetablesout front, the ones Agvaldir and his men destroyed?Thatwas the reason Ren stayed. Because they knew without the extra food they were growing here, their clan wouldn’t survive the coming winter!”
