The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Forty Six: Athane

Athane.

That was what Lysander called her. She was the beast that roosted in The Hollow's highest branches in the realm where the two faerie kingdoms met, a land of perpetual autumn.

Athane's head bobbed excitedly around us, taking us in at all angles. Her face was so near I could feel the heat radiating off her skin. So disgustingly human her face was. I could see her pores, the blemishes and age spots.

"So lovely you are," She cooed, her dark eyes smiling. "That golden hair shines so brightly." With a rush of pounding feet, she circled us. The few strands of silver hair that fell by her cheeks brushed against my arm, sending a horrific chill through my very core. I bit my tongue and swallowed the scream bubbling up in my throat. Those eyes, large and colorless, as dark as twin voids, were trained on me. "I will have to find a nice sunny spot to put you on display so you can shine in your full glory." I felt her gaze roam, taking in my full ensamble of leather armor and fur. She clicked her tongue dissaprovingly, "We will have to change you out of that garish outfit though. I hope I have a gown of a nice sapphire color in my collection. With your complexion, it would look so much better than those drab old skins."

"I'm afraid I wouldn't make a very good doll." I sneered, discreetly baring my teeth in what I hoped passed as a normal prideful half grin.

She began to laugh. It was a low, slow chuckle, akin to a predator's hungry growl. "Oh, but you will once I've gotten rid of those nasty insides." She snapped forward, her mouth opening and closing just as rapidly as a beak.

"Run!" Snorri leaped before me, slashing at her nose with his claws. She grabbed him by his middle and slung him away. His body tumbled through the air, smashing through limbs with god awful snaps.

I ran, my feet quick and flying with her right on my heels, snapping with that horrid tooth filled mouth. All the while, I could hear her laughter over the pounding of my own racing heart. She had wings. She could have caught me very easily. She chose to chase. I was being toyed with and with every desperate stride, I grew angrier.

She meant to kill me, to gobble me up and spit whatever was left back out to make into some atrocious trophy to decorate her nest with. I'd be damned if I let her rob me of everything and hinder me from obtaining that which my hands greedily reached for. Mab dead at my feet, goblin banner's flying high over her castle and a future where the world trembled in our wake.

It was then, as her mouth came dreadfully near, that I realized that I had not yet properly introduced myself.

I halted abruptly, spun with an all too goblin screech, and I flung myself at her, digging my knife deep into the wrinkled flesh of her sagging cheek. She screamed at the pain of ripping, tearing flesh. She shook the entire Hollow with her screams as she thrashed about, but I clung to her, digging my fingers into the folds of her wrinkles, and I took the opportunity to twist my knife around in the open wound. "I am Matilda! Queen of Goblins and Empress of the Underground!" I bellowed, driving the knife in deeper, "I will make you and all your disgusting kind learn not to cross me!"

Her screaming stopped. Her whole body stilled. "Oh?" She chuckled in a breathless voice. "Do you truly mean that? That is a very bold claim." She said, her tone soft and raspy. "Do you even know what my 'kind' is?" One eye shifted towards me. It met my glare and peered in, pushing past my snarling mental defenses until it reached the raw human soul beneath. I felt her in my mind. Her talons scraped across my inner being, digging up foul things to expose and pick at like a carcass. "Ah, I see." Her eye widened with awe at the wonders she found. The innermost darkness, the center of those pits, began to glow with golden light. It was so bright it burned my eyes yet I could not look away. Something about their light drew me in, commanded me to look back. Everything besides those lights was blurred by a thick fog. "How very interesting. Interesting indeed." She breathed.