Chương 8: Intermission 01: Diligent Nicole

Nicole skulked. She skulked along the tunnel wall, grunting to herself. She had thoughts, which was confusing, because the thoughts were making her make noises. Thoughts were supposed to stay inside the head where they belonged. But hers kept leaking out through her throat. Every leak made her angrier, and the anger made more thoughts, and the thoughts made more leaks. The whole system was broken and she hated it.

"Tandaradei!" shouted Frank. He came around the corner of the main chamber holding a big rock above his head with both hands, his legs shaking under the weight. An extremely big rock, the size of Frank's own torso, completely unremarkable except for its size. He carried it overhead like a trophy, his arms trembling, his face shining. The other goblins murmured. It was a good rock. Everyone could see it was a good rock. The goblin king looked up from the fire and clapped his hands together once.

"Wow. For me? Very cool. Thank you, Frank," he said, taking the giant stone in one hand. He turned it over, examined it, and seemed to actually consider it.

"It's, uh, it's perfect for smashing people with." Frank skulked away, pleased. Nicole grunted again, even more annoyed now. She crawled along the edge of the wall, low, out of the way, searching. There, she found a mushroom growing from a crack near the water channel, pale, and gasped at it, plucking it carefully with both hands. She had it. She had a perfect thing to —"Tandaradei!" came a voice from the direction of the tree. Young Alice was holding something up, hopping from foot to foot.

A mushroom, almost exactly like Nicole's, except slightly bigger, and Alice was already running toward the fire with it held out in both hands, going to get there first.

"Gift!" Alice said. The goblin king took it from her, patting her head.

"Thank you, Alice. It's a lovely little mushroom." Alice giggled and ran off, and the mushroom joined the small pile accumulating beside him. Nicole snarled, annoyed, and threw her own mushroom against the wall. It splatted against the stone and slid slowly into the darkness. All of them were competing for his attention. The whole warren, every goblin in it.

"Tandaradei!" called Rick, having found something too. His voice came from the far tunnel, loud and pleased, and Nicole covered her ears with both hands and ran. She ran out toward the cave entrance, past the firelight, past the warmth, into the cold dark of the outer tunnel. She hated Rick. He was annoying. The last thing she wanted was to see him get attention. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. She scavenged the area, prowling like an animal.

The rocks were worse than Frank's rock. The mushrooms were worse than Alice's mushroom. Nicole found a good stick, straight and heavy, but Rick probably had a stick as his gift. She knew him. Everything was something someone else already had. Annoying. She hated them for being annoying. On all fours, the goblin continued to crawl the area, digging. She dug at the tunnel mouth, looking for a grub, a huge worm maybe. She dug four holes.

She found two beetles but released them because they were too small and everyone would laugh at her. A great shame would come upon her for presenting Tandaradei with tiny beetles. Her search took her out of the cave entirely, toward the forest's treeline, snuffling and digging and getting angrier with every empty handful. There, her eyes widened. She stopped. Down by a tree, she saw something, pale and speckled, sitting there like it had been waiting for her.

Excited, Nicole came running back into the cave, holding something against her chest. Small. Warm from her hands. Hers, and she had found it first, and nobody else in the entire warren had found one, and when she gave it to the goblin king, he would look at it the way he'd looked at Frank's rock, except longer, because it was better, and then everyone would know that she was the best and the favorite. But her foot snagged on the lip of a raised flagstone she had walked over a hundred times, and she fell.

She yelped, going down hard on her palms and knees, and the egg flew from her hands, tumbling end over end through the firelight. It broke as it hit the rocks, its inside splattering everywhere. Nicole, lying on her stomach, stared at it for a while before her head rested down against the ground. She gave up. Later, Nicole sat alone by the stream outside of the cave, staring into the water. She'd taken the spot at the bank where the current ran smooth, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them, staring at nothing.

Then she let out a sharp, frustrated noise and threw a rock into the sacred stream. It hit the water with a flat slap. The ripples went outward, distorting her own reflection into a wobbling green smear, and she snarled at the stream as if challenging it to do something about it. The stream settled back and kept flowing, fully unprovoked. Nicole stared at her own reflection for a moment. The water smoothed, and the goblin in it smoothed too. She looked at that goblin the way one would look at a stranger.

"It's quiet out here," said a voice. Tandaradei.

"Mind if I join you?" Nicole turned her head, watching, confused, as he sighed and sat down beside her on the bank, cross-legged.

"Not that I don't appreciate the attention," he said, "But sometimes you need a minute to just think about things in silence." He nodded his head to the cave.

"They won't give me a moment's peace in there." Nicole stared at him, then she sat back down properly, looking at the water. The two of them sat there quietly, the sounds of the forest around them. An owl, somewhere far off. The wind was working at the new leaves. The water was going past and past. Inside the cave, muffled by stone, the goblins were still shouting. Nicole opened her mouth to try to say something. To explain.

To tell him about the egg, the mushroom, and the rock that was worse than Frank's rock, and the whole terrible afternoon of it. But she couldn't. She didn't know the words. The feeling was enormous but the words for it didn't exist anywhere in her world. So she closed her mouth again and kept what felt like a ghost locked inside. Silence. Then, a small pop. Something colorful beneath her eyes. A flower. Nicole looked at it, confused, seeing his hand holding it out to her: small, blue, and white.

Confused, Nicole took it quietly. Then, slowly, the goblin smiled to herself.