The silver of the waning crescent shimmers upon the water. The night breeze sways the reeds. The insects skim across the surface, thrumming as they seek a feast. The frogs rumble and bellow. The mud glistens, and then it avulses, and there is a sound that erases all others—
She lies still in the mud, silent. The insects have flown. The frogs have dived. The reeds are still.
In the dim glow, she rises from the mud. She coughs, vomits, shaking like a dog, then crawling stiffly, as if every inch of progress costs a lifetime of willpower. She crawls over the gravel, over the grass, and then to the roots of a tree. She scrabbles in the dirt and finds a small object. An acorn.
She wraps her green, sinewy arms around the trunk of the oak tree and howls like a baby being born. Soon, she is still again, and the thrum of insects and the call of frogs begins. Somewhere underneath the night’s chorus is the susurration of her breath.
My sister, echo of the mountain, I do not know if these words will ever meet your eyes. I have traveled this land for thirty days, and I have found only confusion. Some of these people are alike to humans, but I have not yet found one of our own. None have heard of our home, nor the city in which you now dwell, nor any of the storied names I could summon to mind. Nor can any of them even speculate as to how I came to be here, or how I may return.
So, I have put myself to work, as idle hands gather nothing. As with the humans of our home, the sacred dances are an exotic curiosity to their eyes, and the entertainments I learned in my travels have suited me here, as well. It earns me bread, a bunk, and enough coin to sustain myself.
Every night, I kneel in the Lady’s light and beseech her to show me the path back to you, my sister. I am weary of not hearing your voice raised in song, of not feeling the warm embrace of our brother, of not seeing the shining eyes of my niece. I even miss the braying that your wife calls laughter.
I will endure in this strange land so that I may return to you. To all of you. And to her, who you know. I ache for the absence of my heart, for I left it in her possession.
“Come now, meadowlark. A girl has got to learn to ride at some point. And old Rosette is as gentle as a warm bath, you’ll see.” The brawny, black-haired woman pulled off her riding gloves and tossed them to the waiting attendant, and patted her horse’s creamy flanks as he was led away to be watered and fed.
Elspeth turned away from her own horse and folded her arms. “Andrea, my love, there will be time enough to train Argyruth to the saddle. But today, she has hardly mastered walking.” Her wife had a good heart, but had had a strange and harsh upbringing, one which Elspeth was determined never to inflict on her daughter.
Her eyes caught two figures entering the stables. “Speaking of which…”
Andrea’s eyes followed her wife’s to the approaching figures. A red-haired woman of robust build, and a small, pale child she led by the hand. “Ho!” Leaping forward, Andrea hustled toward the two and hoisted the child into the air. “Argie! Little heart-thief! I have you now, scoundrel!”
“Mama!” The little girl squealed as she was tossed about in the air. Elspeth smiled, despite herself, and approached her daughter’s guardian. “Any trouble with her today, Janna?”
“Not at all, Lady Elspeth.” Janna made as if to salute, but thought better of it when she saw Elspeth’s expression. “She’s a true princess in the making. Bold, curious, utterly fearless. She and little Dew-of-sprout turned the nursery into a battlefield—” Seeing another expression, she hurried to clarify. “Together, El. They were answering dragons’ riddles and freeing captives. I made them little bindles with sandwiches—”
Little Argyruth, a little dizzy from her mother’s enthusiastic handling, finally noticed Elspeth. “Mommy!” Sighing a touch too dramatically, Andrea handed her over. “Here, meadowlark. Perhaps the four of us could sup together. Would you join us, cousin?”
“And Spice…” Elspeth murmured, patting her daughter’s back. “Yay! Uncle Spice!” The girl cried in agreement.
Janna folded her arms and looked away. “Well… I am sure that we would be honored to share your table, your Highness, and Spice would be happy to see his sister and niece, of course…”
“Then it’s settled.” Andrea nodded firmly. “It has been too long since we all were together, as a family.” Janna winced at this, and Andrea blinked. “What? Oh…” She turned to look at her wife.
Elspeth took a long, deep breath. “It is all right, my love. Even if we cannot be united in the flesh, I know that… that my sister is united with us in spirit.” Her lip trembled, and she turned her face away. “Wherever she may be.”
In the light of the morning, she stirs. Groaning, she pulls herself up to her knees, and looks about. She pats at her body, and looks down. The garment she wears may once have been white, but it is thoroughly suffused with dried red mud. Hissing and shaking her head, she pulls herself up to her feet, and leans against the oak tree as if it’s the only thing holding her to the earth. Extending one hand, she flexes her fingers tentatively. Sharp claws extend from the tips. She grins, and turns to run them across the oak bark, which shreds. Her grin widens.
After some time, she begins to step forward. With each step, she seems looser, lower to the ground. The mud begins to crackle and crumble and fall to the ground. In ten minutes, she has made the circuit of the pond, by which time her stride has lengthened. Bounding onto the oak tree’s trunk, she quickly scrambles up into the branches, and looks out in all directions. Seeing the telltale dust cloud of a rolling wagon, she gets her bearings and clambers back down to the ground. Taking a deep breath, she begins to walk, and then jog, and then run, in a graceful, leaping gait.
My brother, nurturer of sprouts, I hope you are well. I wonder what you would make of the vegetables of this land. They grow green and seek the sun’s light, just like ours, but none of them are quite familiar. But there are still grains to make bread, pulses and tubers to boil, fleshy fruits to roast, and so on. Many of them have a fine flavor, at that. But none of them as sweet as the produce of your garden, little brother, nor as sweet as your round cheeks when you smile.
My performances continue to earn my keep, and I have even found regular audiences in a larger city. I desire not to remain in one place for too long, though, for I cannot imagine I will find my way back to my home in the beer-halls and theaters. Perhaps I may catch the interest of one of the practitioners of sorcery, but from what I have seen, I would have to be truly desperate to rely on any of them.
There are many strange and wonderful people here, little brother, but it is a violent place, too. Bereft of the use of my natural defenses, I have learned to defend myself with steel. I am not as adept with a dagger as Andrea, but I think she would approve of my technique nonetheless. Perhaps when I return I can show her.
I wonder how you fare with your heart-given. I cannot imagine you and Janna separated, fine partners in your labors as well as in love. Has she taken you as her husband, in the human way? Have you welcomed a child into your lives? Of all the humans I have met, it is her who I could see living most happily among our people. But, of course, she would never shirk her duties as a healer, would she? I think she will labor tirelessly in that infirmary until she is too infirm herself. I hope you are always good to her, little brother; she deserves nothing less.
The Crown Princess had eagerly adopted some of the ways of her wife’s people, and she dined in their style. She had been so impressed by the betrothal feast that she sent the palace chef into the mountains to learn the cuisine. So the table was laid with broad platters of roasted vegetables and game, bowls of herbed yogurt and oil, boiled greens and roots, goat cheese, and fresh fruit. She and Elspeth and her guests stretched out on couches, eating small bites picked up with fresh leaves or between clean sticks.
Elspeth watched Janna with quiet amusement, and a little concern. “We can fetch you a plate, dear.” The doctor had been leaning awkwardly on the couch for some time, seemingly on the verge of sliding off. She had been prevailed upon to take off her heavy uniform jacket, but her trousers and blouse were not much less constricting. Elspeth wondered if she ever truly was at ease. “Or Spice can feed you. What say you, brother?”
“An excellent idea, El.” The young, green man extended an arm and hooked a piece of venison on one claw, and a chunk of charred squash on another. He dipped them in the green-tinted oil and, shaking a few drops free, brought his hand up to Janna’s lips. “For you, heart-keeper.”
“Well…” She leaned forward and, after a moment’s hesitation, took the morsels into her mouth. “Mmm.” Swallowing, she wiped her lips. “Good. I am sorry…”
“You need not be.” Andrea snagged a fresh fig with one of her daggers, tossing it in the air and slicing it in half. Catching the halves in one hand, she popped one in her mouth. “We just want you to be comfortable, cousin,” she said around the fig. Elspeth gave her a look, and then shrugged helplessly at Janna, who giggled.
Argyruth, who had been curled up against Spice’s flank and being fed little bites as the meal progressed, shook her head. “No knives at the table, mama!” She huffed indignantly. “Mommy said!”
“Of course, of course.” Andrea wiped her dagger clean on her breeches and returned it to her belt. “Although it seems unfair, when your mother and your uncle Spice have their utensils close to hand, as it were…” She reached out her hand and flexed her fingers, and then regarded her blunt, very human nails. “Unlike you and I, Argie.”
“I like it when Uncle Spice visits, mama,” the child went on, not really paying attention. “Can Auntie Rune come, too? I miss her.”
The jovial atmosphere cooled. The princess looked to Elspeth, and the doctor looked to Spice. At last, it was he who spoke. “Sprout… Auntie Rune has been traveling for some time. We hope she will return soon. But—”
“But she is doing very important work,” Elspeth interjected. “For the good of our people, and the realm—”
“Yes.” Andrea nodded. “Secret work! Of which not even I am permitted to know the details.”
“She is a brave woman,” Janna said softly. “But I know she thinks of you every day, little one. And when she returns, she will have saved up every kiss for you, so many you will wish she would leave on another journey…”
Elspeth shuddered, and got to her feet. “I need to fetch… I shall make some tea, that would be lovely…” Turning away and wiping her eyes, she hurried off toward the fireplace.
“Meadowlark…” Andrea reached out to her retreating back, and then slumped back onto the couch. “Tea would be lovely. Yes.”
The mail coach rattles and bumps, jostling her as she lays curled up between bags of letters and parcels. It is well enough; it would be foolish to sleep here. She does not know where she is, but she knows where the coach is going by its livery, and that is enough.
Her hand goes to her collar, and down. She lets out a sigh of relief. It has not been lost. She had not been of a mind to check until now, but with nothing but time…
She unpins the brooch from her breast and gazes upon it, wiping the grime from its coppery surface with her thumb. She uncovers the circle of the Moon, and then the corona of the Sun. Pressing each with her thumb, she twists, and the mechanism pops open. Undamaged. No leaks. Good.
Staring at the tiny oil painting inside, at the woman with the long golden braid, the canny smile, the piercing eyes with a hint of softness that few ever could see, she whispers one word, as tears spill and drip from her chin. Soon.
Wife-sister, daughter of steel, I need not wonder at your condition. If death or disease came to your door, you would leap upon them and throttle them until they fled. I know you could not read these words even if they were in your hands, but perhaps my sister could read them to you.
You would take more pleasure from this land than I. It is a realm of constant struggle, where one sheds blood more frequently than one bathes. There are creatures here who would test even your mettle, and strange magic, too. Perhaps here your Strife-Lord would anoint you with ever more prowess.
Truth be told, princess, these people more sorely need your nobility of spirit than your battle-might. Those who rule here are cruel, heavy-handed, capricious, and worse. The basest men and wicked abominations hold sway over thousands of lives, and even the smallest villages are ever harried by bandits, beasts, and petty tyrants. There is not one, not even the best of them, sufficient to stand tall in the presence of you or your mothers.
I wonder if the Baroness still waits at your side, tending to the affairs of the state. I know you have come to rely on her steady hand and keen mind. I only hope that she has found time to bring her child into the world. You would not begrudge her that, as a mother yourself. I dearly wish that she has not chosen to let her duties overwhelm her heart’s desire. I hope she is not waiting unduly, Andrea, for a time that no one knows.
Elspeth sat in the back of the royal carriage, tense, fanning herself to little relief from the close, warm air of the summer evening. Andrea had insisted on coming with her, of course, and when refused she had then insisted on the carriage. A stroll in the twilight would have been more pleasant, but her wife’s ears were up after her sister’s disappearance. The violence in the capital had died down over the last year, but there were still whispers of plotters among the aristocracy…
She shook her head and tried to put it from her mind. It was a pleasant enough evening, and she was out to pay a social call to a dear old friend. Nothing more.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and the curtain whisked open. “My lady.” Bowing, the attendant offered her hand.
“Thank you, Maryam,” Elspeth said, descending from the carriage. “Now, you may return the carriage, and take the rest of the evening off.”
Maryam’s ears twitched in surprise. “My lady, her Highness—”
“—can take it up with me,” Elspeth finished. “I do not know how long I will be enjoying the Baroness’s hospitality, and her carriage can return me to the palace in perfect safety.”
The young woman hesitated, and then saluted. “As you say, my lady. Moon light your way.” She hopped back up into the carriage, and after a word to the horses, it began to rattle off into the night.
Elspeth watched it go. “The last thing I will do is let one of my own sit out in the dark in a templar uniform,” she murmured. Then, a polite cough from behind.
“My lady?” The footman bowed as Elspeth turned around. “Right this way.”
“Yes, of course.” She followed the footman as he led her into the baronial townhouse, up the stairs, all the way up to the top. Not the drawing room today, then, Elspeth mused. Her private chambers. I wonder how often she leaves them.
The footman knocked at the tall oaken door. “My la—”
“Send her in,” came the voice from inside. “Thank you, Martin.”
Martin paused, and then pulled open the door. Bowing, he gestured for Elspeth to enter. “Her ladyship awaits, my lady.”
“Thank you.” Elspeth walked into the room, not entirely sure what she would find there. She waited for the door to close, and then approached the open doors to the balcony. The figure standing at the railing, looking out into the night, was tall, willowy, shapely, with a long golden braid down to the back of her thighs. In one hand she held a snifter, which she swirled contemplatively. Elspeth watched her for a moment. This was certainly the Baroness she knew, but… “Cynthia?”
The woman turned around, her head raised high, peering down her aquiline nose at the much shorter Elspeth. “Ah, my lady—” Their eyes met. The snifter tumbled from her suddenly nerveless hand, smashing on the flagstones of the balcony. Cynthia, Baroness Talbon, slumped to her knees, stared at her wife’s sister’s face, and screamed like a deer dragged down by dogs. “Elspeth! Oh, gods!”
By the time the mail-coach stops and she scrambles out the back, the sun has dipped below the horizon. The sky is smeared in oranges and purples, and her eyes seek out the thin crescent of the rising moon. In a moment, she has her bearings, for just below the moon she sees the tall spire of Strife’s Dagger. It is not where she is from, but it is her home, because it is where her heart is kept. Lady Moon, light my way…
As the night approaches, she makes her way a little more down the road. She is not the only bedraggled, dirty wretch of her kind to walk down this road, and before long a kindly human on horseback dressed in white and blue approaches her. “Hail, sojourner,” the woman calls out.
She keeps her head down. Best not to be recognized. “Mercy, kind lady,” she murmurs. “I have travelled far to this place, to seek my beloved.”
The woman nods. “Maiden’s tears nourish you, sojourner.” She points up the road. “See where the pennants fly, in the colors that adorn me? You may find succor and shelter there, ’til the morning.”
“Thank you, kind lady.” She trudges on past the priestess, stealing one last glance as she goes.
The pennants mark the entrance to a large encampment of tents, surrounded by a tall fence. At the open gate, an armored man in red and gray leans against his halberd. He only takes a brief glance at her before waving her through.
Inside, the tents are surrounded with tired-looking people, from pale green sprouts to nut-brown elders, lining up with metal cups to receive ladlefuls from a steaming cauldron. Humans in blue and white serve the food and walk up and down to inspect their charges for injury or sickness. A few weak-looking ones are led off, on the way being joined by a healthier-looking, better-dressed one of her kind.
One of these approaches her now. “Sister, if you come with me, you can bathe, and have clean clothes.”
“Yes.” She follows him. “But I must keep these clothes. They are important.”
He glances over his shoulder at her. “You do not have to tell me that, moon-mirror.”
She stops short. “You…” Looking at him carefully, her eyes narrow. “I do not know you, brother.”
“Listen…” He looks around and leans forward, speaking in her tongue. “I do not know why you are here. Nor do I need to know. What I do know is that my daughter-of-the-body thrives and grows because of your deeds. As do many of my people of the Mossy-River-Fork.”
After a moment, her shoulders slump. “Then, brother, I will go with you. I tire, but I am not done traveling.”
(need a letter here)
We must be quite a sight, Elspeth thought, as she felt Cynthia’s tears soaking through the yellow silk of her dress. Like a heron and a… meadowlark.
“Elspeth,” came the thick voice from her lap. “Elspeth…”
“Yes, my dear friend?” Instinctively, she stroked the golden hair, teasing at the braid with her claw, as if she was untangling her daughter’s hair.
The tall woman groaned, pulling herself upright. She looked at Elspeth, blue eyes almost lost beneath red puffy lids. “I am sorry. I am so ashamed of my weakness.”
Elspeth fell silent for a moment. “You need not apologize to me, Cynthia. But… you were expecting me, were you not? You seemed to be perfectly composed, and then…”
Cynthia buried her face in her hands. “Yes. Well. It is just that…” A long sigh. “You look so much like her, you know? For a moment, it was like seeing her standing there.”
“I see.” Reaching out, Elspeth took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. “To tell the truth, I have never thought my sister and I looked that much alike. But I suppose in the eyes of a human—”
“No.” Cynthia shook her head. “I could never confuse the two of you. Every detail of her face is as vivid in my mind as those of my own. It is just your stature, you know, and…”
“The skin…”
Cynthia raised her eyes, looking abashed. “Yes, there is that. But, truly, the three of you have something in your mien that reveals your bond of blood. I do not know that seeing sweet Spice would have affected me so greatly, but it would have set my heart racing, all the same.”
“I am sorry to have upset you, dear Cynthia.”
“Not at all.” She took a deep breath, and stood up. “I am more grateful to see you than I have words to express. Both because you are my beloved friend, and…”
“… because it makes you feel her presence, just a little.”
Cynthia’s hand trembled for a moment. “Yes. Elspeth, I have not shown proper hospitality for a friend, and especially not for the princess consort. I will call to have this mess cleaned, and for tea.” She took a deep breath. “My friend, I would like to beseech of you a liberty, without intending discourtesy.”
Elspeth tilted her head. “Interesting. Well, by all means, Cynthia.”
“I am ill at ease, and would retire for the night, but I cannot…” She wrung her hands despairingly. “I need the company of a close friend, and I have precious few. Would you share tea with me in my bedchamber?”
“That?” Elspeth looked surprised. “Why, of course. Whatever brings you the most comfort.” She stood up. “Cynthia, you should not feel abashed to ask such a thing of your ‘close friend’. Which I am.”
“Thank you.” Cynthia’s shoulders sagged. “I would simply not want to… breach decorum, bring grief to Her Highness, and shame upon my family, because of my weakness.”
“You are not weak, my dear friend.” Elspeth reached out and took Cynthia’s large, pink hand in her small, green one. “You are a strong woman, one of the great pillars of this nation. You are simply human, as are we all.”
Cynthia burst out giggling. “I think Rune would be sorely vexed to hear you say that, El.” The two of them began to make their way toward the bedchamber, the baroness pulling a bell cord along the way.
“My sister is welcome to her opinions, and she has always been outspoken about them.” Elspeth looked up at her friend, a small smile on her lips. “But I know that, wherever she may be, when she dreams of returning home, it is a human’s arms that she is thinking of returning to.”
Elspeth could see the tremble in the lip, and feel in her grip the supreme force of will in holding back a flood of tears. “Thank you,” Cynthia said at last. “I hope she knows that we share the same dream.”
“She knows.”
Lore dump:
Elspeth, Spice, and Rune are goblins. They are “siblings of their father’s body” (they share the same mother and father). All three of them have lived with humans for several years. Goblins were oppressed and murdered by humans for hundreds of years, but within the past 50 years the past few human queens have begun to change this, a process that accelerated when Elspeth was sent as the first official diplomat from a goblin clan and, eventually, fell in love with and married the Crown Princess, Andrea. At this time, goblins have full rights within the realm and can be citizens; this has drawn a great number of refugees from other human-dominated lands, and we see a refugee intake camp in the story.
As Crown Princess, Andrea is also the High Priestess of the Strife-Lord, historically a god of war, but under the reforms of Andrea’s mother reframed as a god of struggle and self-improvement. A substantial amount of the state power in the realm belongs to the Temple, and the recent shift toward peace has left a lot of resources free to be used domestically. Elspeth has, with the authority of her wife and the tacit support of the Queen, designed a welfare state for human and goblin alike. In this, she has the assistance of Baroness Cynthia, a former opponent of goblin rights (and personal rival of Elspeth herself) who is now a close ally and chief steward of the aristocratic privy council.
The Strife-Lord is the tutelary deity of the realm, but there are other religions. The most common (with more adherents than the Strife-Lord, actually) is that of the Weeping Maiden, protector of pregnant women and consoler of widows, and more generally a goddess of compassion. It is these blue-and-white garbed religious who provide succor at the refugee camp, along with help from the palace (a Strife Templar guards the gate, for one thing). Goblins have their own religious beliefs, generally focused around veneration of the Moon. Goblins are somewhat nocturnal, and hunt and travel at night to avoid humans, so the Moon is “the Lady who guides the way”. They also honor the Sun, but consider her to be a sterner, more dangerous figure, and the patron of humans in the same way the Moon protects goblins.
I’m spending too much time writing about goblin culture again, so I’ll just link the most pertinent document I already wrote here.
What is relevant is that Rune, Elspeth, and Spice (eldest first; Rune is in her mid-30s and Spice in his mid-20s) all have significant vocations from a goblin perspective:
All three of them are bonded to human mates. There are Reasons for this but they are probably not remotely close to being in the scope of this story, in part because they include a lot of the bonkers metaphysical/magical stuff that I am trying to keep out.
The one obvious magical event here is Rune appearing in the pond. I hope this is clear enough, but at some point in the past she got yoinked into another world. (My D&D campaign.) This is the story of her returning.
It’s also probably worth noting that Argyruth, Andrea and Elspeth’s daughter, is a Very Big Deal because humans and goblins aren’t supposed to be able to interbreed. There is an explanation for this, but the characters won’t know it for years.
What else… there have been several rounds of anti-goblin rioting and plotting, the first one led by Cynthia’s father, Lord Talbon. He was arrested, and Elspeth’s intervention on his behalf was a significant influence on Cynthia’s change of heart. At the time of this story, a fairly significant insurrection has recently been put down. Elspeth and Andrea secretly fear that Rune has been taken hostage or killed by remnants of that group.