Days, weeks and eventually months passed since another specie's child was adopted into the Goblin family. The female Goblin tended to daily necessities such as cooking and caring for the well-being of her husband and kids. In turn, the male Goblin made sure to protect his family and bring back food on a daily basis. The children kept growing up in good health.
The little baby´s growth has been especially impressive. Only a short while ago she was still a newborn, but now she resembled a Human´s four-year-old. Furthermore, she began forming words, an unused concept by Goblins. Well, it wasn´t surprising for her to deviate from the rest of her family since she was a Demon.
Though, truthfully, because of that, the Goblin family has quite a hard time dealing with her. Not because of petty things as ´racism´. No, she was accepted by all her family long ago, even if it took the male Goblin some more time to open his heart to her.
The reason digs different roots; It´s because her character is a handful: She´s aggressive, attacking and occasionally hurting the ones around her. She´s greedy, never sharing and trying to take everything for herself. And most of all, she isn´t trusting. Not once did she rely on anybody or accept their help.
That is to say, her personality did improve over the time she lived with the Goblins. Although it did take a solid number of ´lessons´ from her mother, eventually she did learn from them: She held herself back from attacking her family, reluctantly she began sharing when she saw her mother´s eyes glare at her and finally she understood that the Goblins wouldn´t do her any harm, thus slightly relaxing her guard around them.
What I just told you may cast a negative light on the little Demon, however you have to know that she can´t really be blamed for her behavior. Rather, this current lifestyle is a stress-inducing torture for her. Yes, do you remember? Demons are aggressive and ruthless, bloodthirsty, yearning for every fight they can get. The roots of her species take deep hold of her actions, especially with her incredibly strong bloodline and in the earlier stages of her life. In fact, compared to some others of her specimen, she could already be considered relatively docile. Her kinsmen would have attacked everything besides their own species until either party was dead, yet she possesses the willpower to hold back. And day by day she´s further forced to suppress her nature by behaving like someone she is not. It´s suffocating, so much so that she can´t think clearly most of the time.
– – –
It seemed a day like any other; The Demon was sitting at the side of the cave, knees hugged and intently watching her Goblin siblings play with each other. They occasionally gave her a side-glance too, but hurriedly stopped so as they only received a deep glare in return. Keeping an eye on them, their mother was sorting some herbs as the male Goblin approached his children.
With a beaming look of anticipation on his face, he deemed that his kids have grown up sufficiently. He gathers the four together, only one of them somewhat reluctantly, before carving a large circle into the ground with the claw of his right index finger. Then he points at two of his Goblin kids and instructs them to position themselves on the edge of the circle while facing each other.
“Pa, what Ro and Re doing?” The Demon asks, some of her curiosity sparked.
At one point, she has decided to name her family members: Ro for the oldest brother of the Goblin siblings, Re for her sister and Ba for the youngest brother of the three. Ma and Pa respectively for their parents.
Her Goblin father only grunts in return, implying to simply watch. She rolls her eyes in return, crosses her arms and sits down cross-legged. The male Goblin turns his attention to his two confused children standing in the circle and pats them on the shoulders. He then makes some more noises in an attempt of explaining his intentions. Though the two seem to clearly understand as their heads perk up and their eyes light up in excitement. They vigorously nod, take on fighting stances and lock eyes with each other. The father's lips turn up into a half-smile. He takes a few steps back and releases a short roar: their signal to start.
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Immediately, Ro and Re bolt at each other: The Goblin girl jumps in the air and leaps toward her brother, her hair fluttering, making use of the momentum as she brings her claws down on him. But Ro simply takes a step back and turns his body to the side. Her attack swishes by him, he grabs her wrist in return. Shouting a short battle cry, he puts all his strength into slamming her to the floor. But Re twists her body in a rather unnatural way to recover her position mid-air. She swings her arm down in the same arch she would've been thrown with which she manages to completely escape her opponents counter-attack. The brother didn´t expect his strength to be diverted, even used against him. The lack of weight to throw makes him lose his balance. Re then body-slams Ro with full might to escape his steel grip. Ro stumbles back as an opening in his guard shows. Re doesn´t let this chance slip, she pushes forward with the intention of ending the fight right there. However, to her surprise, Ro instantly recovers his seemingly defenseless stance. It was a feint. Her eyes widen. It´s no use, she´s unable to stop now since she set everything on attacking. Ro easily blinks behind her straight-forward movement and grabs her by the neck, this time actually slamming her down on the floor and locking her movements.
The male Goblin gives off an approving noise, thus concluding the fight. Ro immediately releases Re from the lock. Re 'harrumphs' while turning away from her brother, then dejectedly looks down. Her brother only smiles and pats her head, his hand sinking into and ruffling her smooth hair, trying to cheer her up again.
The Goblin father nods his head in satisfaction as he moves his gaze to the two spectators. There, he sees the Demon breathing heavily. Her eyes seem to have lost any last bit of sanity and her body trembles in excitement, raring to go at it any second now.
“Pa, fight! I fight now! Ba, hurry, let´s go!” the Demon takes the youngest Goblin sibling by his arm and drags him into the ´arena´. The male Goblin´s face changes into one of doubt, or maybe worry is the better word, as he sees his anxious son being forced into the circle. He then looks at his other child again whose mind is dead set. He sighs and apprehensively beckons the two to their respective positions.
Ba looks up at his parent as if he was betrayed, then gulps. Getting into a fighting position he sees his craving-for-battle, frenzied sister. Their father hesitates a final time, but then gives the starting signal.
The distance between the two fighters immediately closes. Ba opens his eyes in surprise at his sister immediately being in his face. He desperately raises his arms in an attempt to guard himself, but he´s too slow. The Demon's claws tear through his blue skin as he is flung right out of the circle. He rolls on the ground as some smaller stones scratch and protrude into his back, leaving deep lines of red behind. His sister is already jumping on him again with a loud scream.
But before she can reach him, she´s caught by her father with one arm. Flailing in the air she desperately tries to get out of his grip, but his hand won’t budge a millimeter. The two spectators rush toward their injured brother and worryingly try to help him up. The mother Goblin drops what she was doing and comes rushing too. She fetches some salve made from herbs as well as a firm leaf. Carefully washing away her son´s blood with fresh water from |Water Creation| she rubs his wounds with the salve and afterward uses the leaf as a bandage. He endures teary-eyed.
After making sure that her son is fine, she turns toward her husband, yelling at him why he would allow this to happen. However, still holding his barely calmed-down daughter in hand, he only answers with a resolute and short roar. He looks his wife deep in the eyes. She stops her outburst and looks back at him with a gaze that could kill.
Some time passes before she turns her head to the left, first to break eye contact. She knows her husband, this determination of his means he knows what he´s doing. She doesn´t like seeing her children hurting, but she isn´t as shallow as to not trust him. That´s why she slowly nods her head. She takes her other three kids by their arms and drags them further into the cave.
The male Goblin releases a tired sigh. He puts some strength into his arm and hears his daughter yelp as she immediately stops flailing. Gaining her attention, he then points at a haul from his hunt, then at himself and his daughter respectively and finally at the forest. The little Demon's eyes widen in understanding.
“I come with hunting?” She asks in disbelief. He nods his head. “Really??” Again, the Goblin nods. “Yay! Pa thank!” She hugs her father with all her strength as he sees her most joyful smile yet.
Despite her horrible actions just now, seeing her hugging him so earnestly he can´t help but ever so slightly feel his heart smiling too. Yet, he shakes his head. He then sets her on the ground where she jumps up and down in excitement. “When going? When? Now?” For a third time, the Goblin nods his head.