The Hapless Harlot
The sun had long since fallen beneath the horizon when Hil checked out of work and began on her way home. The protection spell that Fish, the manager of the Chipping Hole, had casted on her uterus felt like a bout with food poisoning after about the sixth hour. She had still been struggling with the aftereffects of the magic even then, though she fought to disguise her discomfort with her usual confident stride through the night streets.
She saw no reason to keep it on all morning and into the night since, as always, she was sought after by no other patrons besides the Mayor. At the very least, her leisure time in the evening had allowed her to sulk over the truth she had been gifted while handling tertiary tasks. Where would her life go from here? Was it even worth anything at all? A life of selling her body all but for alleviating her debt?
Her father had never been especially kind to her, but it was only when he had passed on and left her to inherit the financial chains of the 50 gold coins he had borrowed prior that the floodgates of resentment finally broke open. She had lived frugally her entire life, spending her days doing odd jobs for other townsfolk for coin, then returning home to cook, clean and wash. She had done it all for the two of them, and all he could contribute after waking in the morning was gambling away whatever coin she could offer him, before finding himself back in his room with a bottle of alcohol at his side.
His death was certainly a shock to her, but the life he had been living was that of a dead man’s in everything but name for the years before her nineteenth birthday. When she found his lifeless body after coming home that day, his bottle rolled off to the side as the smell of the liquor staining the wooden floors did nothing to mask the stench of his soiled trousers, she regretted feeling this way later, but a deep relief had washed over her body.
At least he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore, she thought. Life for him had been a battle against the dice and the bottle. It was a wonder that he never fell into visiting brothels too, but Hil doubted that she would’ve taken the job if he had. She couldn’t imagine sleeping with men who were anything like that father of hers.
Hil lifted a slip of paper out of the bra she wore beneath her cheap pink dress. It was something Mayor Langley had forgotten when he’d left earlier in his hurry, and she found herself picking it up in her disillusioned daze. Her complicated feelings of disdain for him conflicted with her appreciation for his coin and left her grappling with a strange dissonance that she could not reconcile within herself.
Perhaps her pocketing of his paper was just her way of searching for a reason to humanize the man who she’d been laying with. He probably hadn’t expected her to be capable of reading if he did in fact realize that he had forgotten it. She was a mere prostitute, after all. But if there was one thing her father had left her with, it was the ability to read and write. It was this that made it difficult for her to truly hate him throughout his life, as it was a rare skill that had granted her many advantages over others throughout her time living in Rotteson.
As Hil turned into an alley a few houses away from her own home, she recalled the day of his funeral, when those men approached her at the wake told her of her father’s debt. The girl had become a storm trying everything from bargaining to yelling to crying her way out of being dragged into the financial hole she was being dragged into. The legality of their methods was dubious at best, but it was something that, as she had learned from asking about it since the incident, Rotteson as a town hadn’t expressly disallowed.
In any case, all her negotiating had bought her was a year before they would start asking for payments. She was required to pay 1% interest on the sum every month. Meaning, if she continued to earn the mayor’s favor, she would have enough to get the debt collectors off her back and enough to put food in her stomach, but there was no way for her to put any sizeable hole in the debt.
Once she was deep enough down the alley, her eyes fell back onto the words on the paper she had snuck out of the Chipping Hole. “The Harbor’s trusted Sword shall be rendered redundant due to the Stinger’s threat.”
The message meant nothing to Hil, who knew little about swords or stingers. But what she did know was that the harbor probably referred to Liberty Harbor. Just as Dawn’s Rock served as the east’s capital, the harbor fit that role for The Baening’s south. The wealth that came through this country usually arrived in the form of goods that were stolen from other countries by the harbor’s pirating population and sold in its markets, so it quickly became a gem of a city among travelers.
Even the wealthy men and women of Peregrine would occasionally journey down to purchase stolen goods at a low price, as this country’s pirates seldom knew the worth of the goods they had stolen. In fact, the books her father had let her read when she was younger were some he had procured from the harbor ages ago. All the stories about the world outside of Rotteson that she knew had only been gifted to her thanks to that place. Even at a young age, she recognized the importance of the harbor due to the wall The Tillows had placed on their country.
In any case, whatever the Harbor’s sword or the stinger could be referring to, Hil had given up on figuring it out a long time ago. With no way to reconcile or forgive him, she continued to hold onto the paper out of a bit of petty revenge against the man whose harsh words had forced her to consider giving up on her dream.
The contemplation that followed the heartbreak of Lang’s admittance of her incompetence had left her distraught. She had only sung to two people before him. One was Rise, who was long gone, and the other, her little friend who only appeared when she sang a certain song. It was one she had found in an old music book her father had gotten from the harbor. She would never forget the night he appeared after she finished the song, but she desperately hoped that if he were to appear again, that it would be that night. She needed his wisdom if she were going to navigate the next few days.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Hopping, dancing in clear view of sky,
Splashing, painting pure hue to the rhyme,
Singing, humming this tune into night,
Praying, hoping your fortune my guide.
She had hit all the notes just as was written in the score. The clumsy language of the song in no way impeded her ability to deliver its colorful sound into the darkness of the night. This was the only thing she had left now, and she would carry it out without bothering to consider failure an option. As she began to repeat the verse, a light of blue beamed out of the ground before her. She continued despite the faint ringing whose intensity only grew along with the lights as she sang the song, unperturbed by the otherworldliness of the magic before her.
Hopping, dancing in clear view of sky,
Splashing, painting pure hue to the rhyme,
Singing, humming this tune into night,
Praying, hoping your fortune my guide.
She had run through the verse around five times until she finally allowed her voice to slowly taper off. The spot of light that had grown into a blinding radiance dispersed sharply and shattered at the climax. Small orbs of light scattered about, and some hung like particles of dust in a ray of sunshine around the new entity before Hil. It was a green creature that couldn’t have been taller than four heads, his absurdly lengthy arms sprawled out before the crystal ball at his feet. His wide, oval head donned a gray, pointy cap that matched the shade of the robe that fit his small torso.
“Oh, is HilHil! Such good surprise, yes.” The creature grinned, licking his lips. “Always pleasure to hear your singing, yes. What Mr. Goblin do for you tonight?”
She didn’t know who the creature was exactly, or why he had been familiar with the Vulturian language. The book in which she’d learned the song was written almost entirely in monster language, so she had assumed that some adventurer must have stolen it off a rather sophisticated monster a long time ago. Mr. Goblin’s song just happened to be the only one she had been able to learn as it had been written in Vulturian.
It might have been possible that singing the other songs in the book may have led to summoning other monsters much less friendly than he was, so she had decided since meeting him that she would avoid even so much as humming any of the scores in the book despite her inability to sound the words. After all, it was by mere chance that Mr. Goblin happened to be as friendly as he was.
She had met him one day in the very same alley they were currently standing in while she was singing the song to herself. Though she had attempted to run away, as one would expect to do after being greeted by a monster in the middle of the night, he explained to her that he meant no harm. He said that he liked the way she sang his song and claimed that he would come to her side whenever she wished so long as she sang it.
She had tried multiple times since then, but he had only shown up once in every ten attempts since, which was partially why she had chosen to sing that day in a location that had been proven to work before. The creature had been a mystery to her ever since their first encounter. But what she did know was that he possessed a power that most humans, and most goblins, according to her very little knowledge of goblins anyway, could only dream of.
“Mr. Goblin please.” She held his deceptively large hands. “I need you to look into my future. My dreams.”
The goblin looked up at her with concern in his face. “HilHil’s dreams…?”
“Yes! I want to sing, Mr. Goblin. I want to explore the world and sing to the people of Vulturia. If I can’t do that then there’s no point to anything. I mean, what else is there in life for me? I have no one but myself, and this is all I want. I took the job at the brothel because you suggested it, Mr. Goblin. You said good things would happen if I took that job. But nothing good’s come of it. No, I’m worse off than before. I want to die, Mr. Goblin. If my life from now on is destined to be controlled by the brothel and my debt and Mayor Langley, then I’d rather just die right this second. Please tell me if there’s something to look forward to, Mr. Goblin. Please…”
Tears were running down Hil’s cheeks. She had been dealing with a lot on her own since Rise left Rotteson. All she had was him, and he would only answer to the song every now and then. It was her fourth time meeting him since after her father died, and her third time asking him for a favor. The first time, he predicted that Rise would move to Peregrine city. The second time, he told her that the only way to handle her father’s debt was to work at the brothel.
Mr. Goblin pulled his hands away and folded his arms while nodding sternly. “Hmm yes, yes. HilHil very upset, yes. Mr. Goblin understand. Want me see future, yes?”
“Yes, please,” she pleaded.
Mr. Goblin nodded, then clasped his hands together and shut his eyes. Then, a strange energy began to swell like ferocious winds on the inside of his crystal ball. As far as Hil knew, the monsters who had invaded from the monster continent were incapable of using magic. Though magic was rare in The Baening due to low literacy rates within the country, all humans were at least capable of it due to their ability to convert life energy into ‘mana’ within their bodies, which allows a person to manipulate the ‘essence’ of the world.
No other living things should be capable of such a thing. The only exceptions to this rule were Neruhim, the Great Dragon who had headed the invasion of Vulturia from Dragolia and currently resided in Astra, and a species of monster known as fairies, whose tiny, winged bodies resembled that of human’s. There was another type of magical monster known as a witch, whose unique relationship with blood allowed them to manipulate it as a magic user would the essence of the world.
But for some reason, Mr. Goblin was an exception even among these exceptions. He was a goblin, a creature who was infamously weak and incapable of magic, yet he could somehow wield magic that she had never heard of being used in a practical setting. But he had done it. He predicted that Rise would leave before even she knew. There was no room for Hil to doubt his ability anymore.
“It done,” Mr. Goblin said. His tongue hung from his mouth from exhaustion.
“And?” Hil asked, stepping forward. “What… should I do?”
“Hmm. Go back work, yes.”
“Go… back? You mean to the brothel?”
“Yes yes, go back work yes. In next week, fated meeting happen yes. Good things, purpose. HilHil have all.”
“In ten days? What about my dream? Will I sing?” Hil asked, her eyes wide.
“Sing, yes. But fated meeting more important. Will change course of life for good, yes.”
A tear trickled down her face. There was something coming. Her life would change for the better. All she needed to do was stay the course and things would turn out okay.
“Oh, thank you Mr. Goblin! That’s just what I wanted to hear!”
Hil found herself hugging the goblin before she knew it. If the townsfolk knew that she’d been that close to a monster, she might have been arrested and tried for the crime of conspiring with enemies of humanity. She had already gotten an earful from Rise when she suggested that she had met with Mr. Goblin. But at the very least, she owed the green creature at least this much. If she had a fated meeting on the horizon within the next ten days, then she would just have to suffer with the brothel work for a little while longer.