Kobold Life

Chapter 5: A New Friend

When I awoke this time, it was to a new pressure, one being applied to my face, rapidly and incessantly, directly onto the bite marks that creature had left behind. I opened my eyes just in time to view a furred arm reaching over my face to rub at one of the tooth marks above my brow ridge. The owner of said hand noticed a moment later as she pulled away giving me a chance to look at her. Black fur covered the vast majority of their body, including most of her catlike face, the rest was covered in shades of gray. She wore a dull green cloak, with what looked to be moss draped over her shoulders like a vest. Her tail swished behind her as if with a mind of its own. She carried a wooden bowl that likely contained the ointment that coated her fingers and probably faces at the moment.

"Non est bonum esse videatur quod expergiscimini", she said looking down at me.

"Ugh, why can't I understand anyone in this place," I complained as the cat woman looked mildly confused.

"You are Kobold, who speaks not Draconic?" Her voice came again, now in an approximation of English.

"You can understand me?!", I asked surprised, "none of the guards could".

She let out a short laugh, "They would not," she agreed, "they speak their common tongue, little else"

Then she continued, "You speak not the common tongue?" she asked, with barely enough inflection to indicate that it was a question, not a statement.

I tried to shake my head in response but felt the bite marks at the base of my skull flare with pain as I did so. She responded quickly rushing to put me back into the right position.

"Try to move little," she said, "need time to heal"

"Thank you," I said, "for saving me from that creature."

She paused to accept the compliment, then nodded.

"Lucky I was nearby, eat this, get some rest, I need to treat other patient" She said, handing me what looked to be a large almost glowing blueberry. My arms still worked well enough for me to take it. I bit down on it almost immediately, eager for whatever medicinal properties it had to kick in. I felt a sudden rush of fullness and vitality which helped me calm down quickly. So that's what a goodberry was like.

I turned craned my neck to follow her, and a wave of pain rushed over me, it felt like a knife was embedded to the hilt right through the slender muscles which connected my shoulders and neck. Apparently, I had been hurt worse than I thought when I hit the ground. Learning quickly not to move my neck, I let my eyes track her instead as she walked to the other side of the room. I saw another large bed with a large animal-shaped lump in its center. The green and sandy fur stood out in an instant, as I recognized her other "patient" as the creature that had nearly killed me twice now. There were bandages over the upper chest where I had pierced it with the bolt, now she worked on the shoulder, picking out pieces of the cracked pickaxe head I had hit the creature with the first time we encountered one another. It growled as she began to touch near the wound. I saw her raise her hand as if to write something on a chalkboard, but instead, she seemed to write in midair, a strange faint green light following her fingertips in a pattern I couldn't begin to make out. The cat stopped growling, as she resumed tending to it.

"You are helping the predator?" I asked

She continued her work, across the room, but responded, "I helped you. I stole a meal from this Leosel. It is fair that I should treat it as well."

"He tried to kill me," I said.

"She," the woman corrected, "and based on these wounds, you tried to kill her too."

"Well, she attacked fist" I added, only realizing how childish it sounded after it had left my mouth.

"Do you think your life more valuable than hers?" She asked.

I snorted, sending a dull pain through my chest, "Not to be rude, but yes, I value my life more than hers."