How much time passed between the Swan Mother’s departure and herself falling to the nightmare of her restless sleep, she had no idea. All Fighter knew when she awoke was that the sun was in a high position in the sky, if the light it cast on the floor was to be trusted.
A foul odor hit her nose. “I stink.” She said to herself with a measure of revulsion.
“Oh come on, Fighter. Stinking is part of the adventure!” Warrior had laughed when they came across a river on their first quest together and she’d suggested camping there so they could bathe. His boyish face, still not rough like a man’s, with nothing but a few scratches to mar his slowly hardening perfection and good looks, was fresh in her mind.
“Well, I can do without that, so I vote we camp.” Fighter had replied and stamped her foot to show she was rooting herself to the spot.
“I second the motion.” Wizard had answered, wiping her youthful brow.
Fighter touched her lips, they kissed that night in the river, when Wizard had fallen asleep, and when they slept, separately but not wanting to be, each dreamt of the day they would be legends, each thought of the day they would become one. Or so Fighter had always assumed.
“Now he’ll be… I’m the only one. Nobody remembers him now, the village we left will forget either of us ever lived in only a handful of years. ‘Oh, Warrior, Fighter, those two ran off to be adventurers, and we never saw them again.’ That’s what they’ll say, then shrug their shoulders and go about their lives. My house will fall to ruin, my father’s grave, his father’s grave, nobody will visit them. And Warrior… my Warrior… I’m the only one to know you died fighting. That you died screaming. That you died to protect people…” She drew her legs up to herself and hugged them tight, lowering her face again into the flesh that was rank with her own unwashed filth.
“Now… did they even recover his body from the cave? Is he still there? No! NO! NO!” She shouted and pounded the soft mattress with her good and broken fingers alike and slammed her head against her knees. “I’ve got to get him out… got to save him…”
She looked at the door between herself and the outside world, and froze. “Warrior… Wizard… I’ll never… ever forget you… I’ll make sure your bodies didn’t stay where they died. I’ll make sure to remember… and I’ll live to do it. The goblins didn’t kill me! So I can remember… and you’ll always be as you were. You’ll be forever sixteen.”
She still didn’t move from the bed, her whisperings heard only by herself and the walls around her. She rubbed her forehead where a bloody spot still sat, a little dried blood came off in her hand.
Her stomach rumbled and growled, the stink of her flesh seemed like a lash at her back. “I want… I want to be clean. The goblins touched me… I want to scrub their sickening touch away…” She whispered and forced her legs to slide over the side of the little single person bed. Her feet touched the ground tentatively.
The ground felt cold, she moved them a little away, into the light, it was warmer there, where the sun had been shining for a long time. Drawing her blanket up with her, she ignored the scratchy feel and bound it around herself.
‘Different from the cave.’ She thought with eyes gently closed, then with her hands at her side, she pushed herself up to stand on her feet and forced herself to walk toward the door. The sound of her feet scraping over the stone was the only noise in the room. They weren’t full steps, she slid them, rather than walked them. They moved a few inches each time, heel to midfoot, heel to midfoot, her body still ached, her body still seemed to hate her for continuing to live.
In spite of this, she fell towards the door and caught herself with her hands, lingering there for some time, she managed to slap the stone with her hands, and winced when the broken fingers, which now felt like shattered glass… shattered glass that was on fire… reminded her that they were in fact, broken.
Fighter’s eyes squeezed shut against the pain, and she rolled against the door so that she was facing the wall it would swing toward. Her ‘good’ hand fumbled for the handle, and it opened with a little click.
The door creaked as a result of too little oil on the hinges, in the hall, many candles lay in many enclaves dug into the walls and it lit the hall a dimly glowing orange that cast shadows of the dancing flames to and fro.
Fighter hesitated. ‘You can do it!’ He said in the recesses of her mind.
‘You were wrong last time. I couldn’t. I couldn’t and look what happened, father.’ She thought back at the voice, but it only repeated itself. She saw his fist in the air and face alight with pride.
‘You can do it!’ Was all the encouragement he ever offered.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and slowly moved out of her room and into the space between her room and the hall.
“I was hoping you would come out on your own.” A creaky old voice said to her.
Her head spun right, and there was Grandmother Swan standing with her arms crossed in front of her bosom.
“H-How long were you waiting…?” Fighter asked with head hanging low, her heartbeat slowing dramatically as the old woman moved closer to her and held out a withered hand.
“Not as long as you’re afraid of, child. Not nearly that long. Now be a dear and help an old lady walk, I’m not as vigorous, or as young, as I appear.” Grandmother Swan replied and managed a weak, wrinkled smile across her face.
Fighter intuitively took the hand and drew the old woman to her side. Managing only the slightest of smiles at the elderly woman’s jest. Her free hand held her staff, and the slight tapping of the wood on the stone was the only conversation to be had as she let the old woman guide her down the empty sanctuary’s hall.
Fighter kept her face forward, glancing at Grandmother Swan out of only the corner of one eye.
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“I was so stupid. So stupid and arrogant and… stupid.” Fighter finally broke the silence, “To think I could help anyone, to think I could be an adventurer, to think I was my father’s daughter.” Fighter spat at the stone floor of the sacred convent, and the Grandmother Swan said nothing in answer until they had passed the glob of spit by several yards.
“Why did you take my hand, just a few moments ago, child?” The creaky old voice asked gingerly.
“I… well, you needed help.” Fighter answered reflexively. “It hurt you to walk, it was hard for you…” She answered.
“It hurts you too, doesn’t it?” Grandmother Swan asked without looking up at her.
“Y-Yes.” Fighter admitted, lowering her eyes to the floor.
“But you bear the pain for the sake of an old woman you’ve never met, who you don’t know. You ignore the easy path, letting me struggle alone. You took the harder path, accepting some of my pain for yourself. That’s brave, that’s strong.” Grandmother Swan replied to her with the resolute voice of one who brooked no argument.
Fighter shook her head, “Goblins have only the strength of children, and I was too weak to stop them from…”
“They were many, they are always many. The one who had you brought here, you aren’t the first he’s sent our way. Do you think he’s so much stronger than you are?” Grandmother Swan inquired, neither looked to the other as they shuffled on, and for three taps of the staff on the stone, Fighter thought.
“I- Yes. No. Yes, well, he won didn’t he? But Warrior is dead, Wizard is dead, and I…” She trailed off.
“Am alive. You are alive. You survived what they did to you, and if he had to fight the hob with only a fist, do you think he’d have won?” Grandmother Swan asked her when they turned a corner.
“No… humans aren’t generally that strong, I mean maybe a rare human champion might be, but he didn’t seem that big to me.” Fighter answered reluctantly. “But he won… he won and I… and I…” She trailed off again and shut her lips tight.
“A roll of the dice going wrong is all it takes to tumble one of us down to hell. He knows more than most, plans more than most, that’s why he lives and others who are more than he, don’t. You just had one bad roll of the dice… don’t let that define you. Now, help this old woman with the door, would you?” Grandmother Swan pointed her staff to a large oak door at the end of the hall.
“Al-alright…” Fighter said and when they came close, she opened the door, and was bathed in glowing light from the sun.
The heat of it swept over her, and she was reminded of the chill that she felt in her room that she hadn’t even noticed.
That was when she got a look around. There were many small little brooks babbling away, small red painted wooden bridges in low rounded arcs, near each was a fruit tree with pale bark from which hung ripe red fruits, each the size of a hand, they were made of many rounded bulges in a low curve with a wide round bottom that tapered to a tip at the stem. They had a sweet flavor in season, and a sour one out of it.
‘One of my favorites.’ Fighter thought whimsically and her stomach audibly growled.
Grandmother Swan put a hand to the small of Fighter’s back as gently as she could, and Fighter refocused her eyes to take in the rest. Small steaming pools were interspersed around the grassy grounds. Large stone walls framed the area at a distance away, except for the back, where a massive mountain stood prominently at the back.
“A… are there caves there…” Fighter pointed a trembling hand at the mountain as hideous green faces and cackling laughter, filled her vision and her eyes shut again despite her desperate attempts to force them to remain open.
Grandmother Swan took the good hand of Fighter into her palm again and slowly shuffled in front of her. She reached up and cupped the taller woman’s cheeks, the wrinkles on her hands were rough as sandpaper, and yet they felt as soothing as Fighter’s own grandmother. “No… well yes, there are caves, but there are no goblins… no goblin can live within those caves. Some have tried, long, long ago. But there are vicious monsters there that eat goblins, but hide from humans. You couldn’t be safer from them unless all the goblins in the world were dead.”
That allowed Fighter to finally start to open her eyes, and she caught sight of women who, like herself, wore nothing but the blankets they had wrapped around themselves. They were standing in a circle, close enough together that Fighter could not see what they were staring at.
She could hear it though.
The faint cries of tiny goblin voices, the scratchy hollow echo, and the sound plop of fluids and flesh as they were cast into the center. “The ones from you are there too.” Grandmother Swan said softly, and she stepped towards the circle.
“Wh-What are you going to do…?” Fighter asked with trepidation, her feet locking up where she stood, though every fiber of her said to turn and run.
“We are going to kill the goblins. All the goblins.” Grandmother Swan’s creaky old voice had a hard, cruel tenor, and the gentle touch stiffened on Fighter’s cheek.
“Do you want to watch them die?” Grandmother Swan asked with softness, “If you don’t… I can have you helped over to the bathing pools.”
Fighter shook her head. “I want to see. But-But help me. Please.” Fighter said in a hushed voice.
“Of course, child. Of course.” Grandmother Swan took her hand and drew Fighter with her, a stronger grip in the old fingers than Fighter expected, she followed mutely until she was brought to a small gap in the circle.
There, squalling little baby goblins looked up at their mothers with tears in their eyes, shaking with fear as those whose bodies they dropped from, looked down on them with either hatred, disgust, or fear. The many small ones were in a great big wooden washtub, but the small from the tub did not just include the viscous fluid from within the women’s bodies, or even the bodily waste of the goblins themselves, there was the scent of olive oil that had been poured over all of them and slicked the floor of the little tub.
Fighter saw ones that could only have been hers, the youngest and smallest, they kicked and thrashed a little on their sides. One of them much bigger than the other two.
Their little green limbs moved and the fast growing little monsters, some of them toddled about uncomprehendingly.
Fighter didn’t understand what it was that was happening, until Swan Mother appeared holding a bundle of short sticks in one hand, the ends of which all had small white rags wrapped around them, and a little sack that was commonly used to hold flint stones. Two other women of her order were with her, each dressed in the same blue and white dress.
She stood on the opposite side of Fighter, taking her own place so that Fighter was flanked by herself and Grandmother Swan. Then she passed the sticks one by one to the right, until each woman held a single dark wooden branch.
“Dip your torches, rag end into the oil. If one of the goblins comes close, beat it back, but do not kill it.” Grandmother Swan said in a sharp, matronly instructing tone.
A few sticks swung, knocking goblin bodies back into the oil, but most of the little monsters could barely stand in the slick that had been made for them.
The two who had come with Swan Mother took central places, and then Swan Mother jabbed the base of her torch into the dirt, then removed the flint.
She struck a spark and caught it on her torch’s oil slick rag. It caught fire immediately, and when she stood, taking it up, she passed the flame to Fighter, who passed the flame to Grandmother swan, who passed the flame to the next woman, until a ring of fire surrounded the little goblins, terrified at their first sight of the fire.
“We who were wronged, will be avenged. The seed that was thrust on us, we reject. They who defiled us, have been slain, they who would become slayers, will become the soil that enriches our crops, and with the crops we grow from their ashes, we will ensure we continue onward, leaving them forever behind us in the past, and beneath our feet in the present, where they have always belonged. Now, end their lives, and end the hold of their fathers on you.” Grandmother Swan was the first to cast her torch, but the rest were quick to follow suit.
The torches sailed through the air like birds of prey, and fell like phoenixes in a dive, landing together in the screaming horde of goblin children.
As the torches were in the air, the priestesses of the order of the White Swan whispered their spells. “...Protect us, the weak, with the powers of the earth.” Golden light shone in four directions, sealing the fire and the goblins within, they howled and screamed, the little goblin infants.
“Burn… my sons. Burn for mother…” Fighter looked at the little ones with hatred in her eyes, “Suffer like your fathers, suffer and die…” One of the goblins that had learned to walk, was struggling to free itself from the wailing of its comrades, and waddled screaming toward the edge of the basin.
It came close, to close. ‘You can do it!’ Fighter heard the voice again, and her leg kicked out instinctively, through the wall of protection, her kick caught the goblin infant in the head and sent it flying through its comrades to fall into a raging place of the inferno.
The screams began to die down, the smell of burning meat replaced the sound of dying monster spawn, and with the dying of their wails, Fighter felt a tiny smile form where she thought no true one, would ever be possible again. And it began, as soon as she realized that the little wailing ones that had been expelled from her body, had stopped screaming.
They watched, all of them, as the crackling flames roared on, long after the last scream died, the protection walls held up and contained the flames, the heat of them warmed Fighter’s heart, and though her body shook and her heartbeat raced, she could not feel anything but satisfaction.