Chapter 14 Ren
Ren
“Dark lords are just wizards who refuse to wear color.”
UNKNOWN
Ren heard the festival long before they saw it. Music and laughter tumbled over the hills, rising on the wind like the twinkling of a chime, building and building until it overwhelmed all else.
Pansy had warned them on the walk over from the cottage that halfling parties could get “a little wild”, as she’d put it – especially once they brought out the casks of ale.
But nothing could prepare Ren for the sight that unfurled ahead of them, sweeping across an enormous meadow dotted with tiny yellow wildflowers.
The festival was a veritable maze of stalls and tents, all packed so closely together in a haze of colorful streamers that one would’ve thought space came at a premium.
In truth, it did. Despite the meadow’s impressive size, it was barely enough to contain the full breadth of the festival.
Every single scrap of free space had been put to use, plugged with tables, chairs, decorations and, of course, food. So much food.
Although Ren had been prepared for it, the sight nonetheless registered like a kick to the chest. Not even the clan’s stores at their fullest could match the sheer scale and variety on display; and here the halflings were about to devour it all in only a day.
Granted, there were a lot of them. Ren had never seen so many halflings in one place.
It made sense; Pansy had said that this festival was for all of Halvenshire, which, as Ren understood it, included at least six other villages, several of which were quite a bit larger than Haverow.
So, the amount of food made sense, especially for something like a festival. Ren was just… envious, they supposed.
In a way, it had been easier, hiding behind the ill-fitting veil of unkind stereotype, to discount the feeling congealing between their ribs like blackened tar as mere contempt, rather than the complex tangle of want mixed with fear.
Because as much as Ren wished they could give their clan the ability to celebrate like this, they were only one goblin, and no amount of hard work would change that.
This fact was inalienable, situated well beyond the bounds of their control, and still it felt like a personal failure, one they needed to atone for.
“Are you okay?” Pansy asked, her face, creased with concern, abruptly jutting into Ren’s line of sight.
“Fine,” Ren lied. Now was not the time to bog either of them down with Ren’s personal baggage.
Nature knew that Pansy had already brought along plenty, and today her burdens were as much Ren’s as they were hers.
Unfortunately, Pansy proved, yet again, far too perceptive for her own good, and so Ren added an all-too-believable “I’m just a little nervous,” if only to erase the line of discontent that had etched itself into one corner of her mouth.
“It’ll be okay,” Pansy assured them, her lips stretching into a smile. “I’m right here with you. See?” As if to underline her point, she slipped her hand into Ren’s, fingers twining together until they were nigh on inseparable.
Ren blinked, the shock of her touch momentarily overwhelming the rush of heat that sparked against their palm. “Are you sure—”
“More sure than I’ve ever been in my life.” Pansy grinned and, with one last squeeze, pulled them down into the festival proper.
Immediately, everything stilled. In her exuberance, Pansy had sent Ren’s hood flying.
Now, it lay flat around their shoulders, leaving their face, their ears, the long strands of their hair, for once untangled to the best of their ability – everything about them that was innately, unmistakably goblin – plain to see.
As all eyes turned towards them, Ren fought against the urge to retreat knotting tight in the pit of their stomach. “Pansy…” they started to say, their voice barely managing to squeeze past the unease narrowing their throat. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea.
But Pansy’s grip on their hand only tightened. She held her chin high, marching headlong into a crowd that was about as welcoming as the roiling sea, thick with salt and scorn.
That’s right, Ren realized, eyes widening. It wasn’t Ren the other halflings were looking at; it was Pansy.
Barely hushed whispers rose from the crowd, piling up and up until they’d amassed into a deafening roar.
“Is that the Underburrow girl? What is she wearing? Is that a skull?”
“Some disgusting goblin trinket, no doubt. I always knew that girl wasn’t right.”
“You know what they say: ‘the apple never falls far from the tree’. And I’m sad to say that this tree is rotten. What happened last year with the grandmother was bad enough, but this is on another level completely.”
“Truly. We should be lucky if that goblin doesn’t immediately make off with everything that isn’t nailed down.”
“And to think I was told my fears were unfounded when I said that moving the festival from Halfend to Haverow was a mistake…”
“The Committee really should have made barring the Underburrow girl a condition for hosting.”
“Gosh, I hope my own little ones don’t turn out like that. How terrible her parents must feel.”
The deluge of cruelty was endless; each comment meted out as casually as a polite greeting, as if the serrated edge that flashed in the noontime sun wasn’t poised to cut right down to the bone.
Ren struggled to wrap their head around it.
These people knew Pansy. They were her neighbors, people she’d grown up alongside.
And somehow, in this moment, none of that seemed to matter.
She was an outsider, someone who didn’t belong – and everyone was going to make sure she knew it.
Ren wanted to say something, the desire to flee overwhelmed by another, fiercer urge.
Already, the words had gathered on their tongue, as painful to contain as a fiery coal.
A few more moments and they’d burn right through.
But the fear of making things worse forced Ren to hold on, to lock their jaw and pin the words in all their ardency behind a wall of teeth.
They looked at Pansy, the question – Should I?
– gleaming bright across their eyes, unspoken yet heard all the same.
She shook her head and closed her free hand around the skull still resting against her collarbone, framed with delicate lace from the collar of her blouse.
“It’s okay. We’ll make them eat their words soon enough.
They have no idea they’re looking at the next winners of the Halvenshire Crop Competition. ” She grinned.
Something in Ren’s chest softened, unleashing a tide that was equal parts love and sadness. I’m not the one who needs comfort right now, they wanted to say, but found themself struck by the strange sensation of looking into a mirror.
Words they’d discounted at the time floated back to the surface from whatever recess they’d been crammed into: You’d set yourself on fire if it meant keeping someone else warm.
That’s what Thorn had said the day Ren had volunteered to be the cottage’s next Caretaker.
Funny how it was only now that Ren understood them.
They gave Pansy’s hand a squeeze. “Let’s go show everyone what we can do.”
Apart from the fact that they’d nearly missed the cut-off, as noted by the middle-aged halfling tasked with minding the booth, entering the pumpkin in the competition turned out to be surprisingly straightforward.
There was, apparently, no rule against goblins entering the competition: an egregious oversight for a people so staunchly against them, but not one the halfling who dutifully registered their entry cared to interrogate – especially not after they laid eyes on the pumpkin itself.
“My word!” they declared, pushing up their spectacles with the pad of their forefinger. “That’s the biggest pumpkin I’ve ever seen! Even if you were late, I feel like I’d have to let you in just so the judges could take a gander at this beauty. How did you get it to grow so large?”
“Love and sunlight,” Pansy replied, cutting in before Ren could so much as open their mouth.
In retrospect, this was smart of her. Even if a goblin growth potion was, in Ren’s view, no different from whatever fertilizer halflings were partial to these days, chances were the entirety of Halvenshire would see things rather differently.
The bespectacled halfling gave a slow, knowing smile. “All right then. Keep your secrets. In the meantime, try not to wander off too far. I can’t imagine it’ll take too long to determine this year’s winner.” They winked.
As the pumpkin was carted away, Pansy nudged Ren with the point of her elbow. “Did you hear that?” she said, grinning. “Biggest pumpkin they’ve ever seen!”
“I was honestly more focused on the fact that they seemed unbothered by my presence.”
“Oh. Well,” Pansy shifted awkwardly beside them. “I think that their interest in vegetables didn’t leave room for much else. But to be completely fair, our pumpkin is very impressive. One might call it the king of all pumpkins – or, perhaps, the Pump-king.”
Ren snorted. “You’re terrible,” they said, smiling even as they rolled their eyes.
“I disagree. In fact, I think I’m rather clever.”
“Perhaps your genius is simply beyond me,” Ren replied with a shrug, the curl at the corner of their mouth deepening.
“Maybe it is – ooh! You’re making fun of me again! Well, I’ll have you know that—” She reared back, ready to give as good as she’d gotten, falling into the familiar comfort of their usual back-and-forth, when a voice, unerringly smooth in its tenor, promptly knocked the air from her lungs.
“Miss Underburrow,” said a startlingly tall human man – a wizard, Ren presumed, given his ridiculous, gem-studded staff and equally ridiculous colourful robes, shimmering like silken velvet in the sunlight. “How good to see you. Was that your pumpkin I just saw Horace carting away?”