Finua

Chapter 18: Flameeso

We ended up staying for three days. Every morning we went out into the forest to hunt with some townspeople, and every night we stayed up washing the dishes together. The rest, as we were promised, was hospitality, which would have been made void if we had stayed until the food merchant arrived later in the week.

Washing dishes was one of the weirdest experiences in my life. Investing time and effort into a cleaner tomorrow is not a goblin's strong suit, yet here was a whole group of us, scrubbing away in a kitchen together. With a bird lady. And a bear.

When it came time for us to leave, Sheriff Hurnley addressed us all, as a group, to see us off.

"Some people would have told me I was reckless for allowing you to stay here," she said. "The tensions and the rumors can be rough on the ties that bind us. But I did, and lo and behold nothing bad came of it. I trusted you all, and your inherent goodness, and my faith was rewarded. I really hope the whole world can follow suit, and no war will come of this."

I had to suppress a laugh. We all said our goodbyes and proceeded on our way to extinguish the human race.

Past the watchtower on the peak; back down the mountain on the other side. Out of the cold, where the mountains flattened out into mere hills and the mist cleared up, just a couple of days north of Sh'raitha: the sumptuous elf city of Flameeso, built extravagantly on a hilltop, from which people would emerge, trek miles through the forest into my home, set up camp right on the edge of a goblin town which has existed there, never moving, and never hidden, for five hundred fucking years, discuss in hushed voices over campfires how relieved they are to find that all of us are finally mysteriously vanished and certainly not still living out our lives in the exact same spot we have been living for entire generations past, as if said spot hasn't been explicitly labeled as "dangerous and off-limits" for so long it's developed its own localized slang, and finally set off the next morning fully confident that they are not about to get disemboweled and eaten in the exact same way, in the exact same place, by the exact same people, as their fucking grandfathers before them, whose cruel and untimely passing was alleviated only by the comfort that his death could be used as a cautionary tale to protect the lives of those precious young ones who were now fifty feet away and closing from the spot where everyone famously disappears never to return. That's my assumption.

But the truth of the matter was that Flameeso was like Pr'ruza: a border town, right on the line where the south meets the north. And like Pr'ruza, Flameeso had its inevitable heaping share of diversity. There was indeed a goblin population living there: goblins who would rather not work in a mine and sleep in a hut on the side of a mountain. These goblins walked and worked among the elves, and of course, they were treated like complete and utter trash.

Vanessa, who was by all accounts developing a reputation which threatened to precede her, disguised herself around my shoulders and down my back like an inky velvet shawl.

Most of the goblins lived at the foot of the hill, in the boroughs preceding the more grandiose, skyscraping part of town, segregated not by law but by custom. This is where we landed. About forty miles beyond Flameeso (also forty miles into the territory of the High Queen of Berahd), the Northflow bended back into our trajectory, and it was at that port we hoped to reconnect with the Syfor Lek fleet.

For now, we just needed another inn.

"You say goblins are treated like shit up here?" Cooper asked me, out of the corner of her beak, as we all walked together through the thronging streets, past squat apartment complexes and merchant tents and brick vents billowing smoke and steam from kitchens in restaurants on every corner. What we didn't see were cars, engines, or plumes any darker than off-white coming from those vents. Technology was behind us now.