The dark wood of the tavern’s bar felt cool against Gigi’s cheek. Her ear was folded somewhat painfully under her head, but she was well past feeling it. For a fleeting moment, she looked up at her tankard of honey mead and wondered if she could tip it into her mouth from that angle without spilling it. Her common sense churned to life as she thought about trying, realizing she would just pour the drink onto her face instead. She sighed wearily, pulling her muscular frame up to drink properly.

With a grunt, she brought the bottom of the mug toward the sky. The sweet liquid drained in a flash, empty once again, and she slammed the tankard on the bar. Gigi brought one hand to cover her face while languidly pushing the mug toward her friend and barkeep, Uvara, with the other, letting loose a thunderous burp.

The brightly colored harpy picked up the tankard with her taloned fingers, the feathers under her arm rustling. She clucked her tongue and shook her head, her finely styled plumage bobbing.

“What’s wrong, darlin’? Another one of your sisters tying the knot?” Gigi grunted and put her head back on the bar. Uvara took that as her cue to pour another brew for the weary woman. “You really shouldn’t put your face there, dear.” Uvara tapped the wood with her pointer talon. “Never can be too sure what happened on here.”

Gigi slid back and pulled her head free from the bar. A fresh mug was placed before her, the amber liquid gleaming in the light of the fire. A dim glow came from the massive hearth, casting the tavern and its patrons in shadow. Gigi could just make out her own green reflection in the drink. Her dark brown eyes were bloodshot from crying on the way to the bar. Not that she let anyone see her of course. With delicate fingers, she touched the bags underneath her eyes. She felt bone-tired. Sighing, she brushed a strand of long black hair out of her face.

“Uvara, when you look at me what do you see?”

“My friend,” the harpy said with a wry smile. “And a drunk,” she winked.

“I’m serious,” Gigi said, placing her head in her hands.

The harpy nodded as her smirk faded. She puzzled over the question, thinking how best to respond with truth and grace.

“I think we are what we pretend to be, so you have to be careful what you pretend to be,” she said finally.

“What in the seven hells does that mean?”

The harpy giggled. “It means that you can be whatever you want to be, darlin’, but you ought to be real certain what it is before you pretend to be it.”

Gigi sat with the words for a moment. Turning them over like stones in her mind, feeling their heft and meaning. “I don’t want to be some goblin broodmare, and I don’t want people feeling sorry for me either.”

“Fair enough, but what is it you actually want?”

It was a simple question, but the answer was elusive. She thought she had wanted to join the army. Any army. With a hammer or even her fists, she was certain she could crack skulls with the best of them. But why would she want to serve with men who looked down on her? The rejection she had received from the knight and his men was far from the first. This had been what? The fourth army she tried to run away to? They were all the same - boys playing with swords until they found the sharp end one day.

Did she really want to just fight? No, she wanted to explore. To live a life worth living. She needed to get out of Poppy to realize her dream. Maybe she could catch a ferry downriver; there were plenty of villages along it and even an imperial city at the mouth. Unfortunately, she had little in the way of valuable possessions to pawn to make such a journey possible.

She could steal her father’s armor and sell it, but Gigi would have rather cut out her tongue than sully his memory like that. Where did that leave her? At the bottom of a bottle, she supposed. Tipping the tankard back she chugged the heavy brew as her friend looked on with concern. Gigi continued to attempt to pour cold mead on her sad heart as time winded into the night.

Her head began to buzz, pins and needles of inebriation beginning in her face. It became harder to talk without slurring her words, so she stopped speaking and simply drank. Uvara decided to cut her friend off after Gigi fell asleep at the bar for the second time. The harpy let the goblin snooze peacefully until it was time to close for the night.

Uvara gently shook the snoring Gigi. It was difficult for her to focus, half in the mountains of her dreams and half in the tavern, when she heard the dreaded words.

“Closing time, darlin’,” she whispered as if to a baby.

Gigi mumbled incoherently but managed to find her feet as she stood from the stool. She would once again be walking home. Alone.

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***

Drake lost all sense of time as he was violently pulled down the river. He had never been much of a swimmer. Outside of taking dips to bathe, he had never heard the call of deeper water. Not that he would have been allowed to follow it anyway. Wounded as he was, it became incredibly difficult to tread in the rushing current for more than a few minutes before he was at the river’s mercy.

He managed to grab onto a log that was trapped by some rocks, resting on it until the sun began to grow low on the horizon. He wondered if he might be dying, his blood seeping into the water freely, as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

He suddenly found himself underwater, no longer gripping the log, as he coughed and sucked in water, his eyes going wide as he struggled for air. The water churned with bubbles as he flailed, desperate to find any purchase aside from a watery grave. The last thing he remembered before blacking out was perhaps death would be best.

“Ring the bells, Ring the bells.”

***

Gigi looked up at the stars as she walked the dirt path back to the bakery and her bed. The moon was full and the symphony of light that surrounded it brightened the night. Summer was ending and a tinge of autumn chill was starting in the air. She couldn’t feel it through the thick false warmth the alcohol provided.

She came to a bend in the road, a clearing in the thick foliage that was a straight shot to the river on one side that brought back childhood memories. She had walked it a thousand times as a girl. She wondered if the hydrangeas were still in bloom; the yellow petals with the red freckles were her favorite. Before she knew what she was doing, she was walking down the path toward the river.

The hydrangeas were, in fact, not in bloom. However, she had forgotten all about her quest when she heard splashing. It wasn’t a fish; it was too wild and frantic. Gigi looked out at the water to find the culprit, seeing clearly with the excellent night vision goblins possess. That was when she saw it, the thrashing under the water.

It suddenly stopped, the surface of the water becoming a little more smooth.

Strange. Her drunken mind worked feverishly to figure out what she was looking at. Then it clicked into place like a gear in a clock. Someone was drowning. Panic ensnared her mead-addled brain and she dove into the river.

The current was strong, but she was stronger. Looking back and forth under the water, she found it. Or rather, him. ‘It’ was a nude human man. She wondered if perhaps he had been swimming and got swept up with the current? It seemed impossible any human would be dumb enough to swim in the rushing streams of the Poppy River, but she was apparently looking at one such individual.

With great skill and speed, she swam toward the unconscious man. Gigi speared the man with a tackle, feeling something inside the man crack. Whoops. Perhaps she had been too enthusiastic. Undeterred, she hooked his arms and began to head for the surface, the man sagging with dead weight. She kicked harder before breaking the surface with a gasp, pulling his head up with her.

She pushed against the current, holding onto her catch with one hand, ensuring his nose and mouth stayed above water. Finally, she was able to pull them both ashore on the rocky inlet that rose above to the grove. She stood in the shallows, water shedding from her leathers, as he lay on the ground in front of her. She flipped her long black hair back with her hand to clear it from her eyes, then looked at the man’s face for the first time. He had a strong jaw, a shaved head, and numerous scars on his tattooed body. Goblins were no strangers to flesh and ink, but she had never seen anything like what covered the man.

Gigi was so lost in looking over the symbols, she realized only a moment later he wasn’t breathing. That isn’t good. She stared dumbly for a second waiting for a breath that wasn’t coming. What was she supposed to do? Her mind still hazy from drink, ‘Press on his chest’ came through the drunken brain fog.

“Oh yeah,” she said, “just like this.”

She placed her hands on his sternum and pressed down hard, harder than she meant to. Gigi felt a crack in his chest and jumped back. What had she done? Humans are practically made of glass. She looked down at her hands in horror. Had she just killed this poor man? He coughed and began to hurl up water from the river.

Thank the old ones he wasn’t dead. He was, however, violently coughing and wheezing shallow breaths in and out before he passed out again, but this time his chest was raggedly rising and falling. Gigi wasn’t certain what she had broken, perhaps a rib or two, in her rescue. However, she still thought she had done pretty well; he wasn’t dead after all.

She turned back to the unconscious human. What was she supposed to do with him now? Gigi couldn’t just leave him out here. She had never seen this man before and her delivery routes made her at least acquaintances with virtually every resident in the village. Her ears drooped. The adrenaline was beginning to fade from her system, and her body was still burning off the copious amount of alcohol she had subjected it to. Gigi was tired.

Whoever this was, it would have to wait until morning. If she couldn’t leave him out here, she would just bring him home. Simple enough. Gigi bent down and, with a grunt, scooped up his prone form. Throwing him over her shoulder, he groaned in pain. She winced.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

It wasn’t an easy or comfortable task, but Gigi managed to bring him back to the bakery. Fishing the key out of her waterlogged satchel, she let them in the backdoor. She was careful to enter sideways so as to not hit his head. Even drunk, she instinctively made as little noise as possible through the empty halls. If she were to wake any of her siblings, or god forbid her mother, she was in no state to explain anything.

Luckily not a soul was stirring in the house at the late hour. She looked around her room. Where in the seven hells would she put this guy? Gigi supposed the floor was fine, but she had also, maybe, accidentally, broken some of his ribs. Perhaps he deserved the bed.

She gently placed him on the bed and pulled the comforter over him. Gigi was still soaked, beginning to freeze and chafe in the wet leather. Her fireplace was dead, and she had no desire to fix that. Instead, she merely peeled the wet leather off and tossed it to the ground. Quickly she found a house dress and the extra furs from her closet. Sluggishly tossing the furs on the ground, she collapsed into them.

An hour later she awoke. Freezing and confused, she surveyed the spinning room. Why was she on the floor? Grunting, she stood and pulled back the comforter before rolling into her bed. She discovered it was warm and occupied. That was impossible though; she was probably just having the dream again. This is fine. It is a pleasant dream. She curled into the sleeping form and began to lightly snore.