Blech. I hate throwing in winter. Cold water, colder clay. Everything takes more effort, and that’s if your fingers haven’t been lost to the cold.

But… we need more bowls and cups. Even under ideal handling, such things chip and wear, and we have a lot of little kobolds wandering around as the women give birth. I’m so tired of kids, and I haven’t even had any of my own yet. Part of me wants to take measures to make sure I never do.

“AAAGH!”

Damn it. I had a blowout while forming the rim of the bowl. Obviously, I need a breather. I pull the batt I was using off the wheel and storm off, a crooning Lin following me in worry.

I’d reach back to stroke her, but I’ve gotta clean my hands off first. She doesn’t deserve my frustrations being worked into those beautiful scales.

Which, I discovered, weren’t green. Well, not a pure green. They seemed green at first glance, but dried into this polished iridescent color. Rhys said her species was often noted for having rainbow-colored scales and wings, but she was still just a baby. Hard to know what she’d look like as a grown dragon.

At any rate, I dumped my tools into the washbasin, and proceeded to clean everything off. Clay in the recycling basin to be re-wedged, batt and rib cleaned with my hands, along with the leather I used to wipe things down and polish finished pieces with. I was frustrated today, and that was throwing off my work. Better to just walk away from the new workshop we’d made in the dungeon and come back later… or at least find something less prone to being messed up with a disordered mind.

Reluctantly, I switched to the glazing area. I wanted to crawl under my kotatsu until midsummer, but Rhys and Zuk would yell at me if I tried. Besides, I couldn’t keep myself from trying to be constructive. Habit of needing to work to make sure everyone had enough to eat. Starving sucks.

I nodded to a few of the kobolds mixing our glaze compound. I wasn’t quite sure what was in it, aside from it being heavily toxic to breathe in. Anyone who handled the stuff wore special masks Rhys made that covered their entire faces and pumped fresh air in from an outside source.

Made a very pretty blue, though. And Rhys assured me that it was safe enough once it was mixed with water.

I arrived in the glazing room, only to find it was time to load the kilns. Well, I had hands. I walked into the first kiln and took the ware from kobolds loading in to rack up on the shelves. Cups, bowls, urns to store things in. Less of that last one since demand is low in this season, but there’s always some demand. A few planters were mixed in as well, which I rather liked. A nice herb or flower garden helped to brighten up a room nicely, added some freshness to the air, gave off a mild but pleasant aroma… and was handy when you wanted the right flavor for your food. Rhys has a nice selection going, but his red sauce needed a fair amount of basil and oregano.

Thoughts like this occupied my mind while we loaded the kilns, then fired them up. The bisqued ware hadn’t cooled enough to be glazed yet, so I just helped stoke the coal until it was burning blue-white and basked in the warm a little.

A tiny lizard joined me, as Lin curled around my shoulders in the fire. I’d been working on skills to enhance my senses a bit more, and came up with something called “Eyes of Truth.” Sounded fancier than it was, at low levels it just let you see someone’s apparent stat sheet.

Lin (D. Serpentes Aves)

Baby

Strength 5

Agility 7

Dexterity 6

Constitution 8

Intelligence 3

Wisdom 3

Charisma 15

Luck 30

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Special Attribute: Universal Elemental Affinity

Apparently, her nature of being created during my mastery breakthrough gave Lin a slight edge with elemental control and resistance. I petted her warm scales, and smiled quietly to myself at her class. I’d seen other babies, that was not normal.

An irritated head poked into the cubby I was starting to doze in. Really, had to get Zuk to stop making that face before it stuck that way.

“Got a problem upstairs, Ying. Could stand your personal attention.”

“Don’t wanna. Warm in here.”

“Seriously? And I’m supposed to be the one with a natural fire attribute. Still, if you’d rather these refugees-”

And that was all it took. Bad enough I had to suffer the cold, but others dealing with it without shelter? No. Hard no. Time to give these people a home.

Well… okay, maybe if they’d been more kobolds. I was a little more hesitant to deal with a couple hundred goblins with half-frozen slimes in handcarts.

--

Two centuries. Goblins might be considered solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short… and a lot of that was true. But they did have their societies, and those societies had long memories. And the slimes their people had long been forced into a symbiotic relationship with were even better at remembering. Onze was young for the position, but she remembered well what happened two hundred years ago.

In short, betrayal. The elves were on a warpath, as their king became increasingly arrogant and selfish, taking their ancestral lands for his forest kingdom. Humans had offered a kind hand, saying they would shelter the goblins, and help them re-take their ancestral homes.

Humans, goblins learned, were natural liars. Within a year, their people were fettered as a slave race, scattered across human kingdoms where they were considered beneath even livestock, fit only to shovel garbage away and make more of themselves at the convenience of humans, sometimes even for their entertainment. Onze clutched at her belly, even now cursing the human who’d forced her into bearing a child.

And now, at the order of the human king, even what little protection they’d once had was forfeit. They were burdened with the other “monster” race the humans had enslaved, and turned out with orders to attack some empty valley well outside of human and elven lands.

Well, good riddance. If they died, they were free. If they lived, they would be free to finally show these “civilized” races what two hundred years of grudges kept alive through careful records and teachings, mother to daughter, father to son, would reap.

But it likely wouldn’t be something Onze would see. The cold was taking her warmth and strength, and soon she would take the eternal rest so many others on this march already had.

She would die soon, as would the child within her. But she would rest well, knowing that the Stillborn God would take her child without judgment, as he did any who shared his fate of dying unborn, and she would speak her own grievances before the gods as her people prepared to speak them before their enemies.

--

The pregnant goblin awoke with a start, looking frantically around at her surroundings before her eyes met mine in a panic. I simply set the tray of light broth beside her, and stepped back to the door.

My… previous assumptions about slimes and goblins might’ve been a touch prejudiced by the stuff in my head. For one thing, the goblins were pretty much evenly split male and female, same as most species I knew. Also, they were all abuse victims. Even the youngest among them had signs of malnutrition, scars from being beaten, and were warier than anyone I’d seen in my life… and I’d seen my fair share of refugees.

I’d wanted to ask their history, but they said the only memory-keeper left was the girl in front of me.

“She’s stable, and should recover fully. Even managed to save her baby, with praise from the Stillborn God.”

I nodded to the healer as she spoke to my ear and continued down the hall. Not everyone we’d managed to take in had been so lucky, and they were apparently a tenth of what had been sent to us. I could guess why.

Looking at the girl who was cautiously sipping the soup, I spoke as carefully as I could. “First, I’m not entirely human, nor was I born on this planet. Second, I would like you to recount your people’s history, so it can be added to the records of our own. And third…” I paused. This part would be the hardest.

“I want your people’s help. You were sent to try and weaken us before an upcoming invasion, and I’m guessing we can expect the humans and elves to invade in force this spring. We can probably deal with them ourselves… but I want your help. You’ve suffered under somebody’s cruelty for a long time now, and-”

“Two hundred years.”

I stopped, as the goblin woman spoke. She recounted the whole story as best as she could, every grievance, every broken promise, every injustice. I’d heard stories about this sort of thing… but that’s all they’d ever been to me before.

Looking at someone no older than I was, who had every bone in their body broken at least three times, who was a mass of scars across the surface of her skin with more beneath, whose heavily pregnant belly stood out from a frame so skinny I could literally trace her skeleton through them… I’d never seen it first hand. And I never wanted to again.

“We can’t promise retribution for every grievance, Onze. In fact, I won’t make promises at all. But I will fight to defend my home. And as long as you are our guest, you will be free to do what you want.

“Huh. Guiying? Something interesting.”

“What is it, Rhys?”

“I think I know what’s fueling the elven kingdom’s expansionist policies.”

Oh, don’t tell me…