“This is going about ten years back,” said Suncat.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five, don’t interrupt.”

Suncat began her story.

“It’s said that when the elves first came to be they split into two groups. One, who sided with Halmir, made the country of Lurian, where they play host to the frail goblins of the world.

The other elves pursued magic in its highest form. You may call them wizard and live rightly in fear of them. One elf on its own is terrifying but a wizard knows the world with far more detail, and they use that power for devastation.”

Suncat paused at that. She was pacing the room and Ratface didn’t want to interrupt.

“It’s a lie of course. Elves, like goblins, are unnaturally loyal to each other. It didn’t escape my notice that the experiment rooms always have another goblin to add.”

Her eyes flicked to Ratface and for a moment Ratface saw someone different standing in front of. She looked at Ratface and didn’t see a person, didn’t see a goblin, she saw a number. She looked so tired

“The Never City is a closed city. There are two races that live in it, goblins and elves. A better distinction is to say there are researchers, and assistants. That’s the city I was born in.”

She waved her hands.

“The details aren’t important but suffice to say, the better an assistant you are, the better your life, and I was the best. So good that I even was given a name, ‘Eliana the Head Researcher.’”

She clenched her hands.

“Being the best meant being the best at experimenting on your fellow goblins. The best at torturing them.”

Ratface frowned. The idea of torturing another goblin didn’t sit right with her and she knew that Suncat felt the same way. Context was missing.

“Did you know that goblins are magical creatures? They need aether, or mana, to survive. Even then most goblins are only scrounging from ambient mana. Normal goblins can’t make their own so you’re all a little malnourished. A little weaker than every other creature on this planet.”

Ratface looked at her own body, she didn’t feel like anything was wrong. Her eyes narrowed, but she got tired running faster than the rest of them. She’d been the one most out of breath in their race away from the elf even though she had been training to just run. She’d assumed she’d had the least time on the wagon and that was why she’d got tired faster. If Suncat was to be believed, it was because of lacking something she needed to live. The thought made her resentful.

Suncat watched her and only kept speaking when she’d connected the dots.

“In Never City, there is no ambient mana. It’s all funnelled into the city’s well. It isn’t a problem for the elves, but assistants are given a ration of mana every week. What do you think the prisoners get?”

Nothing, Ratface bet. Her brain struggled to imagine a city without mana. It must be cold and dead, did the sun even reach it?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“The experiments, the prisoners, only got mana from experiments so I put them through as many as I could. They were suffering, sure, but at least they were surviving. I thought if I could just cure them of their mana problem, then we’d all be safe. That was my life. It all changed the day they brought in a demon for research.”

That’d be Claudette. Ratface couldn’t imagine Abigail letting her out of her sight if she wasn’t in the Redwood. This must be why.

“She offered me a deal. Take her blood and free us both. I may have been an assistant but everyone who isn’t an elf in the Never City is a prisoner. I got a group of the researchers under me, and we all took the deal. We broke her out and burned our way out of the city. I even watched Claudette bring down one of their fancy wizards. We made only one detour, to help the experiments.”

Ratface held her breath, not wanting to interrupt, this was the last piece of the puzzle.

“It was the chance I’d been waiting for, not just freedom, but a cure to all their problems. I said as much and offered to set them free. Do you know what they told me?”

Suncat closed her eyes, unwilling to meet Ratface’s own as she confessed her sin.

“They told me to kill them, each and every one too broken by the experiments, the torture that I’d put them through.”

“I did it of course. It was there I discovered that as a demon I didn’t have the same aversion to hurting goblins as I had before.” She choked out a laugh.

“It’s ironic then, that I hurt them more as a goblin, than as a demon.”

Ratface reached out for Suncat, but the other girl stopped her.

“That’s why I won’t do an experiment on you, even to help Halmir. I couldn’t be trusted not to hurt goblins, even when I was one. I shudder to think what I’d do now that I’m a demon.”

Suncat tried to walk away but Ratface was blocking the door. There was so much in her story that Ratface couldn’t understand, and so much of it that made her furious.

Ratface drew her knife and Suncat looked resigned to the violence, she offered up her neck.

Ratface turned the knife to face herself and stabbed.

There was a cry and Suncat caught the blade. Blood dripped from her hand where she’d caught it just before it could plunge into Ratface. Ratface looked her in the eyes.

“Goblin,” she accused.

“Weren’t you listening to anything I said?” Suncat asked.

She tried to move the knife, but Ratface kept it where it was so the other girl couldn’t move. In that moment, Ratface understood Suncat’s mind. It was like the other demon goblin’s carefulness taken to extreme. The fear that they’d hurt them just by existing. The lack of trust in themselves. Ratface hated it.

“You helped me without thinking. That’s what makes you goblin.”

“Anyone would have done that.”

Ratface shook her head.

“No. I have met humans who’d kill me for saving their children. Met people who fought by my side until they saw my face. If you help a goblin, then you’re one of us. I don’t care about something as stupid as blood.”

She put the knife to the side and looked for a bandage for Suncat’s hand. Failing to find one, she ripped a bit of her own shirt and began wrapping it.

The other girl had slumped into a chair. The combination of talking about her past, and the adrenalin from catching the knife, leaving her exhausted. Ratface switched to goblin as she kept talking.

“I wasn’t there, maybe you could have done things differently, I don’t know what I would have done.”

She looked into Suncat’s eyes, forcing the other girl to understand her.

“Making a mistake isn’t a sin. You tried. You tried to give them a chance more than anyone else in there, under pressure I can’t even imagine. If you aren’t a goblin, then none of us are.”

Suncat couldn’t hold her eyes for long before she looked away. Ratface didn’t miss the tears in her eyes, but she also noticed how Suncat sat a little straighter at her words.

“So pushy,” Suncat said eventually, “who let you grow up to be so pushy?” She’d switched back to speaking goblin.

Ratface smiled. A cheeky smile she’d only use for another goblin.

“All rats are pushy,” she said.

It got her a tired laugh from Suncat.

“You’ll help with Halmir?” Ratface asked.

Suncat looked at her, then looked at Halmir. Ratface almost thought she’d say no after all this, that she hadn’t really gotten through.

“Okay,” Suncat finally said, “but tomorrow. I’m tired.”

Ratface smiled. She knew that one speech wouldn’t fix everything, that Suncat was weighed down by her past even now. She knew that.

But that wasn’t what was important. What was, was that two goblins left that building, and for the first time in a long time, Suncat wasn’t alone.