Epilogue

"Crash went the axe!" Moira declared, waving her arms out ahead of her. The bejewelled sleeves of her flowing dress twinkled with the light of all the candles arrayed around the rustic tavern, those same flames reflected in the many entranced gazes that were set upon her as she sat up on a slightly raised stage. "Crash, crash, crash!" she added, swinging down as if with some invisible weapon. "Finally, the lock broke. Snapping under the great weight of Great Chief Taruk's dwarven axe. And the door to the largest cage groaned open. The big, fat, goblin looming over Mad Old Dora now he stepped forward. And she swallowed, worried she'd set forth a beast that was soon to eat her."

"'Help me,' she demanded in her angry little voice. 'Do that. Free the others.' And whether the goblin was grateful, or just terribly stupid, he heeded the old woman's command. And soon enough the pair of them were making a great and awful racket. Hurling cages and smashing locks. More and more of the wretched creatures being set free, some even staying to help, while the rest scampered off into the darkness."

"What about the guards?" a man suddenly asked. "Surely someone heard her?"

"The scout must be keeping watch," agreed a young woman, who Moira thought was far too pretty.

"Joyto was playing tricks that day," Moira easily answered. "Travelling musicians had arrived, and the ale and wine and mead had flowed so quickly into the hands of the soldiers, who hadn't had to tire themselves out wielding their swords, that they were causing a great ruckus of their own. The scout was too busy looking for a young woman to worry about an old--a mad old one!"

"What happened then?" asked a third speaker, amidst the now bustling crowd, his disagreeable tone clearly aimed at those who had interrupted.

"Then?" Moira asked her most performative voice. "Then Mad Old Dora's hands got tired. Her fingers bled. Her elbows ached. All the muscles in her tired old frame screamed, and as they set loose goblin after goblin she began to wonder what it was she was even doing. How she'd ended up in the middle of a Great Chief's war and why, by all Eleven Elders, was she now trying to set Taruk's clan free. And she realized it wasn't about vengeance, or her own grievances, or any selfish thing that we might otherwise ascribe to a bitter woman like that. It was, of course, about..." she trailed off, spreading her hands as if to invite an answer.

"Gob!" a man screamed. "Gob," echoed others.

"Exactly," Moira agreed with a beatific smile. "A woman who had lost her family, and nearly all of her mind, had only one thing left to her. That scrawny, foolish little goblin who chose Mad Old Dora as his Chief. And--" she added loudly, cutting over what would have been yet more interruptions. "Did she find him, you all rush to ask? And dark as it was, and so bad were her eyes, would she even recognise him if he did?"

"Why wouldn't he call out?" the same pretty, annoying woman asked.

"He'd been gagged, of course," Moira dismissed, heat rising to her cheeks. Noone had asked her why Gob hadn't bothered to call out before. "Noisy little creature that he was, always screaming for 'Chief Dot', they'd had no choice. So--" She continued, noisily clearing her throat. "Mad Old Dora had all but given up hope. When she heard the faintest whisper -- for you see, Gob had managed to spit out some of the rag that muffled him -- saying, 'Dot. Chief Dot. Help, help,' she mimicked plaintively. 'Pleasing.'"

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"Then Mad Old Dora, who was a hard old woman who never smiled a day in her life, felt her lips creasing upwards in a most unfamiliar way. 'Gob,' she said, breathlessly and thankfully. Her voice, usually tired, even more tired and haggard than that. Like the sound of tree bark scraping--"

"We get it," cut in a man.

Moira scowled. "Very well," she haughtily answered. "Then the Gob and Mad Old Dora--or Chief Dot as he called her--were reunited once more, both overjoyed and blissfully happy. The end."

"What do you mean?" demanded the young woman again. And Moira wondered to herself if this is how Dorothy had seen her. As some overly pretty, overly talkative, insufferable cow.

"I mean the story has ended," Moira explained at length.

"Yes," the young woman agreed, her sharp eyes narrowed to slits. "But what happened next?"

"Oh," Moira said. There'd been so many people chiming in, she'd forgotten the last bit. "Well that depends who you ask, of course," she explained, falling back into her storytelling tone. "Some say the guards caught them before they ever left the camp, even drunk as they were. Others say the goblins, grateful for the help, had a hunger that outstripped their gratitude, and Mad Old Dora ended her days in the stomach of those she chose to save. And, of course, there are those that think Chief Dot led those goblins into the forests and made her own clan. But I like to think, even mad and old and foolish as she was, that Dora and Gob made their way to my old home out in the wilderness, and they live in peace and harmony, keeping to themselves."

"Well, which is it?" the same young cow demanded. "Surely you know the ending to your own story...?"

"Her story," Moira countered. "Dorothy's story. As I've said, we were friends once. If you're that bothered go out into the forests yourself and go and find her. I certainly won't mind if you run afoul of some hungry goblin."

"It's the last one," shouted a man from the tavern's counter. "No, wait, the second to last one. I got picked up by her clan just the other day, and she let me go."

"You saw her?" Moira asked.

"Heard an old woman's voice."

"Not much difference between a goblin's voice and an old woman's if Moira's painfully overdone description is anything to go by," declared the young cow.

Moira sniffed, shaking her head, wishing she had her own goblin to sick onto the woman. She wondered if Dorothy really still was out there. It was true enough that the goblins, who had been captured, had been freed amid the feasting. She'd only started telling folk she knew all about Chief Dot, or Mad Old Dora, for attention at first. Then she'd managed to convince people to pay her, and had to add more and more layers onto the tale. Now she was even making a good living, and travelling bards had come to ask her the details as well. She supposed she hoped that Dorothy was still out there in the end. Despite the disagreements between them, they'd been true friends once. And Moira found she missed her. Maybe that was why she kept telling her tale, so that she could feel like they were still close. And there was always the fact that if Chief Dot, or even Great Chief Dot, was still out there, that Dorothy's story would grow even larger still.

THE END