“Who are you?” a voice whispered into Jagster’s ear as cold iron was pressed to his throat. “What do you want?”

“What I want is for you not to breathe in my ear,” Jagster replied, showing no acknowledgement of being in danger. “I’m a bit ticklish there.”

“I don’t want to hear jokes,” the voice continued.

“Who’s jokin'?” Jagster said. “Give my ear a lil nibble and you’d see. I’d start gigglin’ my ass off.”

“Do you know how many of your kind I’ve killed?” the voice growled, having been frustrated beyond whispering. “Dozens. Now tell me why the hell you are on this ship!”

“Dozens? Is that all?” Jagster responded, laughing. “I killed that many of my own people when I was three. If you think us goblins like killin' other folk, well, we love killin' each other!”

While his captor was in stunned silence, Jagster tried to get a look at him. He couldn’t move his head much, on account of the knife, but he realized it was another human. Or, at least, someone around the size of one. They were kneeling in order to threaten him in this way.

“That floor has'ta be killer on the knees, bud,” Jagster said, patting his own legs. “I could stand here all day, but if ya keep kneeling there yer joints are gonna go all creaky.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just sayin'. Get that blade off my neck, and we could both be much more comfortable.”

“Shut. Up.”

Jagster complied as the human contemplated. Eventually, the dagger moved away from his throat and Jagster sensed something rising behind him.

“No funny business,” the human said.

“My business is always funny,” the goblin replied. “But I get your meanin’.”

Jagster turned around to look at the human. He was a gangly looking teenager with dark eyes and even darker hair that was medium length and messy. He was wearing a hastily donned leather vest over his ordinary looking clothes and hitched to his belt were sheaths for his two daggers, one of which he flipped absentmindedly in one of his hands.

“So. Introductions, then,” Jagster said, coolly. “I’m Jagster the goblin. Lovable stowaway and mostly harmless rapscallion. I like long walks on the beach, gettin’ caught in the rain, and, sometimes, sayin’ things without really understandin' what I just said.”

The teen looked at Jagster with a perplexed expression. He looked him up and down for so long that Jagster started to squirm in discomfort.

“That is the most human-tongue I’ve ever heard a goblin speak,” the teen finally said.

Human-tongue, Jagster thought. Not common-tongue? I might get along with this guy.

“I’m a bit more educated than the normal goblin,” Jagster said with not a small amount of pride. “Anyways, I’ve introduced myself. Courtesy dictates you follow suit.”

“You have no right to explain courtesy to me,” the teen snarled, pointing his blade at the goblin.

The two gazed at each other for a while. The teen had a furrowed brow and an expression that strained with too much effort to appear hardened. Jagster sported a cocked eyebrow and a bemused smirk. He had stared down orcs, so an arrogant human boy was child’s play.

“Verys,” the teen eventually said. “Verys Nelt.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Nelt,” Jagster said, firmly grabbing the bladeless hand for a shake. “Now, if you’d kindly fuck right off with that knife and start acting like a civilized person, that’d be swell.”

A goblin talking about being civil, Verys thought. Curious.

“So, are you two going to kill each other or what?” a voice asked from a short distance down the hall.

Jagster looked past Verys to get a look at the speaker, who peered from behind the door of her room. She was a gnome woman with soft pink skin that looked to be slightly shorter than Jagster, though the foot tall pointed cap in a pastel blue gave the illusion that she was a good deal bigger.

The woman sauntered into the hall wearing, besides her cap, nothing but a loosely fitting light blue robe that was opened wide, revealing her petite and delicate form. Her yellow eyes shifted from Verys to the goblin and then back again.

“If nobody is getting killed, there is not much point in this whole song and dance,” she continued, her voice monotonic with disinterest.

“Right ya are,” Jagster said. “Miss--?”

Jagster leaned into the word “Miss” to drag it out into a question. The gnome, however, did not get the hint and just stared at Jagster with a blank expression as she waited for him to finish his sentence.

“Tiph,” Verys said, referring to the gnome, sheathing his knife with one hand and rubbing his closed eyes with the other. “You’re nude again.”

Tiphone Hyaku looked at Verys and tilted her head like a confused dog would. Her eyes squinted at him as if he were an absolute buffoon.

“No,” she said, seriously. “I have my robe.”

“Under the robe, Tiph,” Verys said, with a sigh.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“She’s naked under her clothes,” Jagster said, now also looking at Verys as if he were a buffoon. “Scandalous.”

“I like you,” Tiph said to Jagster with the same blank expression and monotonous voice she carried the whole conversation. “You are funny.”

“Yeah, I’m hilarious,” Jagster replied turning to Tiph. “In any case, the boy’s trying to tell ya that yer robe is undone and yer showing more skin than is usually acceptable.”

Jagster grabbed the ties to Tiph’s robe and began adjusting it until she was properly covered. She stiffened and clenched her teeth tight while he did this.

“Woah,” Verys shouted. “What do you think you’re doing, pervert?!”

“Fixing her robe, idiot,” Jagster said, rolling his eyes. “Apparently, perverts dress people up instead of down these days.”

“I can do it myself, green man,” she said through gritted teeth. “I am not a child.”

“If ya aren’t a child, then maybe try to dress yourself right,” Jagster replied with a chuckle as he finished making Tiph decent.

Tiph began shaking. “I. Am. Not. A. Child.”

“I didn’t say ya were!” Jagster declared. “I’m tryin' to be all damn courteous to everyone. What do I get? Everyone treatin' me like crap!”

A dark expression crossed Verys’ face as he side-stepped past Jagster and Tiph. He was steadily moving his back up against the furthest wall when he said, “Calm down.”

“Screw you, human,” Jagster growled, turning to Verys. “You’re the worst. You were right there for my talk with the cook! But there you are. Yankin' knives and askin' dumb questions.”

“I said, calm down.”

“I am calm!” Jagster shouted.

“I’m not talking to you!” Verys snapped, not moving as much as possible.

Jagster only had time to blink with confusion when, suddenly, he felt a force slam into him. His entire body stiffened as he was flung across the hall into the stairs. His head whacked into a step, and he felt warm blood ooze from the back of his head. Stunned and dizzy, Jagster barely recognized Tiph as she moved over to him with her teeth clenched.

Oh, Jagster thought, hazily. He was talking to her.

What came out of his mouth was, “What kind of freak are ya, little girl?”

“I AM NOT A CHILD,” bellowed Tiph in a voice that, under usual circumstances, couldn’t scare a mouse and, as a point of cosmic irony, sounded remarkably child-like.

Despite this, Jagster was plenty scared as he was hurled up the stairs, across the ship, and into the ocean by an unseen force. The salty water burned his bleeding head wound and his vision went hazy. The impact knocked the wind out of him, so his lungs quickly began burning for breath.

His eyes stung as he darted them around the murky waters. Glimmers of light shown above his head, revealing that he was upright. He could barely hear shouting as he swam to the surface.

On instinct, Verys had propelled himself past Tiph, up to the deck, and over to the side. He was halfway towards diving in for a rescue when he stopped himself, realizing that he had no good reason to help this stowaway. Nonetheless, he eyed the surface of the water.

In the time Verys did this, Tiph had just finished making her way to the deck. Her eyes were wide and panicked.

No, she thought. Not again. I got mad. For such a stupid reason. Stupid. Stupid.

The gnome felt further distress well up and she struggled to repress it. Invisible telekinetic energy pulsed from her as emotions bubbled and frothed.

Daphine watched with mild disinterest when she saw the goblin fall into the water from her position at the mast. She had assumed a member of the crew, whether following orders or disobeying them, threw the stowaway overboard.

It wasn’t until the dull murmur of emotion suddenly spiked into a roar that she became concerned. She looked across the deck at Tiph, the source of the emotional turbulence. Daphine realized that the gnome had one of her outbursts and was working herself into another one.

She glided across the ship at a rapid pace, not running as she was not suited or dressed for it, but she put her long legs to good use while speeding to Tiph. She placed one hand gently on each of the gnome’s shoulders and said “Breathe, Miss Hyaku. In. Out. Deep breaths. Just like I taught you.”

Tiph did as she was instructed, but the panic continued to swell. Her attempt to suppress her emotions were only frustrating her further on account of failing. Her anger at herself for being unable to maintain her stoicism overwhelmed all thought.

Tiph seemed to be doing so well lately, but Daphine now realized they were only using short-term solutions. Bottling up Tiph’s emotions only wound her up, which just made her explosions more volatile.

Daphine sighed and manifested calming energy that she flowed into Tiph. The magic crackled ever so slightly and Daphine felt the tips of her fingers tingle as the magic worked its way out of her.

Tiph closed her eyes and breathed deeply. A warm feeling washed over her, blotting out her anxiety. She felt herself begin to relax as her mind cleared.

Meanwhile, the crew determined who it was that fell overboard. There was some panic, but it quickly subsided when they realized it was the goblin. The first-mate told them to not throw the stowaway overboard, but he never said anything about helping the goblin if he happened to fall.

Jagster burst out of the surf, gasping desperately for air. He eyed the ship and quickly realized there was no chance his short goblin body could get to it. Additionally, while he did know how to swim, he was horrible at it.

“A little hand here?” he shouted as he treaded water.

Save Verys, who continued to watch with idle curiosity, nobody else bothered to make note of Jagster.

“Well, fuck you then!” Jagster called out. “I hate livin' anyways!”

In that moment, Annette dived off the ship.

While Daphine calmed Tiph, Annette had just made her way up to the deck to tell her companions that lunch was done. What she found was a slight commotion and it didn’t take long for her to pinpoint the source.

Having been raised that all life was sacred, Annette did not hesitate even for a moment in her readiness to save the goblin. She immediately began tearing off clothes to ensure less drag and took a running dive into the foamy sea.

Annette had never been in the sea, but there was a deep lake near her home-town. It was her secret place, and she would practice her martial arts on its rocky shores. It was there she learned to swim. It was there she mastered the techniques taught to her by her town’s golden guardian.

“What the hell is that woman doing?” a crewmate shouted incredulously.

The man next to him sighed. “Doesn’t matter. She’s a passenger and she’s overboard. So, we have to scoop her up along with that damned goblin.”

“Aye, mate. So, we must. I’ll get the lifeboat ready while you tell the captain.”

“You tell him.”

“How about I tell him,” Verys said, eying the men from his position at the side of the ship. “I can tell him how you two dawdled while a paying passenger went overboard. How’s that sound?”

The two men glanced at each other for a short moment.

“Right, then. I’ll tell the captain--”

“And I’ll get the boat.”