Chapter 10 Ren
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 two questions: “Are you crazy?” and, “Are you trying to get lost?” Dinner, after all, implied returning home well after dark, which, again, Ren had warned her not to 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 playing babysitter,” 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.
Ren’s head swiveled back around. “What’s that’s supposed to mean?” they demanded, eyes narrowing. “Did Pig teach you that? Barely a few months old and you’ve already learned to talk back? Nature preserve me…” They sighed.
At least their wait might soon be over. Someone was coming towards them, a dark, halfling-sized shape cresting over the last gently rolling hill. Actually, who were they kidding? It was definitely Pansy. Who else would be daft enough to enter the forest at this hour?
“Finally!” Ren groaned, dragging themself towards her. “You made me wait long enough.”
“R-Ren?” Pansy squeaked, jerking back slightly in surprise. She did, however, manage to remain completely upright this time, a definite improvement over her usual flailing.
They rolled their eyes. “Who else would it be? You know any other goblins willing to drop everything on your behalf?”
“My—” Pansy frowned. “I didn’t ask you to come all this way.”
“No, you asked me to sit around and do nothing while you got horribly lost – as if I could tolerate such a thing.” Crossing their arms, Ren let out what was supposed to be an especially put-upon huff, meant to prune back the vulnerability that flourished at the heart of their words.
But with every last mote of accompanying heat lost to the reddening tips of Ren’s ears, the performance fell flat.
So obviously manufactured that even Pansy had doubtless noticed.
Except, maybe she hadn’t. Because there was no laughter, no teasing; none of the things Ren had braced themself against. Instead, Pansy’s expression crumpled, as quick and sudden as the side of a mountain after a heavy rainfall.
Her features twisted and pulled, fighting a losing battle against the emotion creeping up her throat in a blood-red flush.
“Am I really such a burden? Someone who only serves to make the lives of the people around me worse?” she asked, her voice cracking as she wiped ineffectually at the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
“I mean, I must be, considering a goblin and a halfling are in agreement. First Councilor Millwood; now you.”
Ren froze. This was not how they’d expected things to go. When it came to the matter of her ill-advised nighttime jaunts, Pansy was supposed to wave Ren off or, ideally, admit they were right. Instead, Ren had struck a nerve – and an especially sensitive one at that.
Probably because I’m not the first one to hit it today.
Just their luck. Now, they were every bit the “cruel, mean goblin” that showed up in far too many halfling bedtime stories – always as the villain, of course.
Normally, such a thing wouldn’t bother Ren – halflings could think what they wanted – but knowing that Pansy had been hurt to this extent – well, it just didn’t sit right with them.
Letting out a breath, Ren steeled themself for what had to come next. “I’m sorry,” they said. “That’s not what I was trying to imply.”
“Yes it was.” Pansy sniffed, a petulant edge to her scowl.
“No, it wasn’t. I just—” Ren clamped their jaw shut, exhaling forcefully through their nose as they grappled with the ongoing challenge of translating their feelings into words. “This forest is dangerous at night, and I wanted you to recognize that.”
She blinked at them, her lashes gleaming with tiny pearls of moisture. “Were you actually worried about me?”
“Why does this surprise you? Haven’t I already shown plenty of concern for your safety?”
“Well, you’re always so… gruff about it. Maybe, if you worded it more nicely…”
“Fine.”
“And delivered it better, too.”
Ren gave her a sharp look, eyebrows arching in a way that clearly said, Don’t push your luck. Still, they relented. “I’ll keep that in mind for the future. Now, who’s this Councilor Millwood you were talking about?”
“A miserable busybody who spends so much time with her nose crammed into other people’s business it’s a wonder she even manages to come up for air.
” Pansy sniffled, wiping again at her eyes, this time with slightly more success.
Mostly because she’d stopped crying. “If she was just another overly concerned old woman, she’d be easier to ignore.
But she sits on the village council, so you can say she’s one of our leaders.
Anyway”– she waved a hand, as if trying to soften the blow of what followed – “she kicked me out of town.”
Ren’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean she kicked you out?”
“Exactly what I said. Look, can we start walking? It’s a little chilly just standing here. And please,” Pansy begged, “don’t tell me I should’ve worn a jacket.”
“Well, you should have,” Ren said to Pansy’s audible dismay as they fell into step beside her, lantern held high to illuminate the path ahead. “I’d offer you my cloak, but I’m afraid it’s already spoken for.”
Right on cue, Mushroom poked his head out of Ren’s hood, earning a wet hiccup of a laugh from Pansy.
“I guess the rumor I heard about goblins hating cats was massively overblown,” she said, dabbing weakly at her eyes. “So much for getting you out in ten days.”
“Ten days? You could at least have given me more credit than that,” Ren groused through a smile.
Pansy only shrugged, as if to say, Maybe.
“You know,” Ren said after a long pause, filled with only the sound of dirt crunching beneath their heels, “if you want to talk about what happened – even if it’s just to complain – I’m willing to listen.”
Pansy gaped at them, her eyes near-perfect mirrors of the full moon overhead. “You want to hear me complain?”
Now it was Ren’s turn to shrug. Another maybe to follow the first.
“Honestly, there’s not much to say,” Pansy said once she’d managed to wind her jaw back up.
“Councilor Millwood found out that I’ve been living with a goblin and promptly hit the roof.
Called me selfish – an infection even, like I’m going to poison the village with my wild ideas of using goblin ingredients.
” She snorted, kicking at a stray pebble with the toe of her boot.
“But that wasn’t even the worst part,” she continued, her tone turning mournful.
“My parents agreed with her. Sure, they protested when she told me to stay away from Haverow. But not because they thought what I was doing was fine or anything. No, they just want me to come back home – like they always have – completely ignoring the fact that the village hasn’t been home for me for a long time.
To be honest, maybe it never was.” She sighed.
“You feel like you don’t fit in,” Ren said soberly.
Pansy nodded. “Yeah. I’m too”– she waved a hand – “different. Weird. Too much like my grandmother, I guess. Because I’m curious and ask questions and want to see things beyond the familiar and the usual.”
“I take it your grandmother wasn’t very popular either?”
“Well, she spent most of her life outside of Haverow. She was an adventurer, you see,” Pansy said, her expression creasing apologetically.
Evidently, she knew as well as Ren did what that implied, the bloody history shared between their two peoples, of wars fought in other people’s names rather than their own.
“Given how much your village seems to hate goblins, I would’ve thought that this would make her rather popular,” Ren said, blunt as always. No point tiptoeing around something they were both acutely aware of, especially if the goal was to have an honest conversation.
“I never said my village made a lot of sense,” Pansy replied with another shrug, easier than the last. “She did the exact same things as the local wizard. And yet he gets all the praise while she just gets criticized.”
“Why?”
“Because she was a halfling,” she said simply, as if that was all the explanation needed.
“So, you’re expected to stay in the village?” Ren asked, trying their best to understand. “And do what?”