Archive of Our Own

The Luckstone house has been the family’s base of operations for many generations, and the time has finally come for massive renovations to make sure no one gets mithral poisoning. It’s that old. That’s why the Luckstones are currently staying at Strongtower Luxury Apartments for a bit over a month. Penny honestly thinks it’s kind of fun. She’s lived in the same house her entire life, as her dad has, so it’s exciting to be somewhere new. At the same time, the apartment is close enough to Little Branch that it hasn’t really impacted her routine at all. It’s just a new house to stay in. Penny hasn’t even started rogue classes yet and she already feels comfortable sneaking through small vents - she doesn’t really mind how cramped the apartment is. Her family’s adapting well, too - her parents have already befriended the neighbors and invited them over for dinner.

Penny’s absently scrolling through her crystal when the Gukgaks knock on the door. Her parents rush to the door, and Sklonda enters, followed by a small goblin boy. Sklonda’s already shaking Penny’s parents’ hands, telling them how much they appreciate being invited over. The boy stands behind her, looking around quietly. At first, Penny thinks he’s anxious, but at a second glance, his eyes appear more calculating than worried. He’s wearing a suit and has his tail pointed stiffly at the ground. Penny waves at him.

“Of course, I’m so glad you wanted to come over! Come sit down,” her dad is saying. “My mother is making cookies in the kitchen,” - Penny’s grandma pokes her head out of the kitchen and shouts a greeting in Halfing - “and her wife is resting in the bedroom.”

As if on cue, Penny’s nana wanders out of her room, kisses Penny on the cheek - “Hello, habibi ” - and shakes Sklonda’s hand. Then she bends down and gently pinches the goblin boy’s cheeks. She asks him a question in Halfling. The hearty, lilting language sounds musical and sweet, and the boy clearly doesn’t understand it, but his tail swishes gently.

Penny smiles. “She’s asking you your name.”

“Oh,” the boy says. He stiffly sticks his hand out. “Riz Gukgak.”

Penny’s nana smiles and shakes his hand, then walks into the kitchen to help bake cookies.

“She sounded like she was singing,” Riz says.

“Halfling sometimes sounds like that,” Penny says, moving to sit on the arm of the couch. “Y’know, some say Halfling used to be entirely sung.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Penny.” She reaches out to shake his hand, which he looks pleased by.

“Are you in high school?”

“I start at Aguefort in a couple weeks. What grade are you in?”

Riz’s eyes go wide. “I’m in sixth grade, but I want to go to Aguefort! I want to be a rogue just like my mom is and like my dad was--”. He cuts himself off and goes quiet.

Penny slides off the couch and leans down. “You okay? Want to talk about it?”

“I- I don’t know…”

“That’s okay. Just tell me if you want to.” She hops back up, and he climbs onto the couch next to her. “Y’know, I’m going to be a rogue too.”

“Wait, you are? Do you think you could teach me some rogue stuff?!”

Penny laughs lightly. “I haven’t started yet, but I’d be happy to show off to you once school starts.”

Penny’s grandma calls over to the two of them in Halfling, telling them dinner’s ready as she takes the cookies out of the oven. They smell delicious. Penny’s been practicing her grandmothers’ recipe for cookies - called fiakáin in Halfling, made with honey and browned butter - but her grandmas still have her beat.

“Oh, let’s go sit down,” Penny says. “My dad makes the best cornbread.”

Penny makes sure to sit next to Riz in case he gets bored listening to the adults talk, but for a sixth-grader, Riz is oddly engaged in the discussion. When he mentions having read something in the paper that morning, Penny takes a moment to reevaluate and realizes that the suit might just be Riz’s everyday look.

Sklonda looks like she’s having a great time. Penny notices she looks a little weary, with dark bags under her eyes, but she’s perked up since she came over. The conversation has shifted to her work. “Policing wasn’t my dream job, but it’s not exactly easy to find work as a goblin here, and it pays the bills,” Sklonda says and refills her glass of apple cider. “And now with… with Pok gone, I’ve had to work a lot more shifts, so I’m just trying to keep that up for now.” 

Penny’s mom puts her hand on Sklonda’s hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Riz is starting to look uncomfortable, the end of his tail swishing anxiously. He turns to Penny and whispers, “Mom doesn’t normally open up this much, especially to people we don’t know super well.”

“Really? I guess that’s just halfling culture. We’re not really secretive about the troubles we go through, we try to help others when we can. Do you need me to change the topic?”

Riz shakes his head no, but still looks a bit uncomfortable.

Sklonda’s still talking to the adults. “Things are a little tough right now, I’ll

be honest. I’ve had to work a lot of double shifts lately just to keep up.”

“Is there any way we can support you?” Penny’s dad asks. 

“I think we’ll be okay, but I really appreciate it, I’ll reach out if we ever need it.”

“Have things been okay with parenting?” Penny’s dad asks.

“We’ve been doing okay, but I’ll admit it’s been tough with all the work I’ve had to do. School started last week, but Riz still has had to be home alone a lot.”

“I can help!” Penny pipes up. “I’m a great babysitter, I’d be more than happy to help out!”

Sklonda looks surprised and relieved. Penny’s parents give her an approving look. “That would really be great,” Sklonda says. “Do you think you could start on Monday? I wouldn’t be able to pay you too much, but I’ll make sure you’re fairly paid.”

“Don’t worry about not paying much, I appreciate getting paid at all. I might be a bit busy when school starts, but I’d love to help out whenever I can! Tomorrow sounds great!”

“Thank you so much,” Sklonda says, and reaches out for a handshake. Guess it runs in the family , Penny thinks as she accepts it.

Penny’s pretty sure the noises coming from behind the Gukgaks’ door are Goblin. Okay, more than sure. What other reason could there be for the screeching? She just doesn’t want to assume. It’s not a bad sound! It’s maybe the polar opposite of Halfling, screechy echoey calls with sharp sounds instead of deep melodic Halfling. But it’s good. Like sour gummy worms when you’ve only ever had the normal variety. Different, and in a shocking way, but in a good way.

She knocks on the door, and Sklonda calls out in Common, “Hey Penny, come on in, door’s unlocked.” Penny enters to see Sklonda finishing getting ready for work. “Perfect timing, I was just about to head out.” Sklonda pats Riz on the head - “See ya soon, kiddo”, followed by something in Goblin - before giving Penny her crystal number, telling her she’ll be back at 9, and leaving.

The door closes, and Penny is left alone with Riz. He’s holding himself stiffly and not looking in her eyes. The small apartment feels too big around them.

Penny breaks the silence. “So, do you wanna play a board game or something?”

Riz breaks out of his stillness. “Oh, yeah, totally! I play a lot of board games,” he says and leads her over to a cabinet filled with games.

They select the Game of Life and sit down to play it at the dining room table.

“So, we probably won’t do this every day,” Penny says, starting to move her pink car game piece around the board. “I can appreciate the need for alone time, and besides, once I start school, I’ll probably do homework here while keeping an eye on you.”

“That’s cool, alone time’s kinda my default anyway, so I don’t really mind,” Riz says, pushing his green game piece ahead a few spaces. “Though… this is fun too.” He tries to say it casually, but Penny can tell that her doing something with Riz already means a lot to him.

They play the game for a minute. “So, were you talking to your mom in Goblin?” Penny asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Riz says, suddenly looking a little sheepish. “We tend to speak Goblin when it’s just us around. Not really anywhere else, though.”

“It sounds cool! It’s really different from Halfling, but, like, in a super cool way. Would you teach me how to say something in it?”

Riz looks pleasantly surprised, eyes widening. “Oh, sure, yeah! Uh… this is how to introduce yourself.” He makes two short high-pitched screech-whistles, and then ends it with “Riz Gukgak”. 

“Oh, I fully don’t know if I can do that,”  Penny laughs. “That’s honestly super cool, I don’t know how you make those sounds. Here, I’ll give it a shot anyway.” She clears her throat. “ ...sssKEE eev Penny Luckstone?”

She stares at Riz for a second before they both burst out laughing.

“Honestly not a bad first try!” Riz says through a laugh. “Honestly, most people that aren’t goblins or goblin-adjacent can’t really make the right sounds, so don’t feel bad about it. If you said that to a goblin they might understand you?”

“Soon enough I’ll be a natural.”

The two pick up the game again. As they play, Riz tries to teach her “hello” in Goblin - it takes about 15 minutes until Riz decides that “ kee ”, said loudly in Penny’s upper register, is intelligible enough. In return, she teaches him “hello” in Halfling, and he adapts to “ marhabuit ” quickly.

Riz soon starts to get fed up with the game, and Penny can’t blame him. His rolls are truly terrible, especially compared to her exceptional luck. Soon enough both of them are yelling at the board every time Riz rolls low or Penny rolls high. Eventually, it becomes clear Riz has no chance at a comeback.

“These games are honestly kinda stupid,” Riz says. “I mean, there’s no skill involved, it’s just waiting to see who has better luck.”

“Do you want to go get a more skill-based game?”

“Absolutely,” Riz says, and scrambles over to the game cabinet. By the time Penny’s put everything back in the box, Riz is standing next to her holding Fantasy Clue. “You’re not supposed to play it with only two players, but my mom and I do it all the time, it’s fine.”

“Oh sweet, I love Clue! Mysteries are really fun.”

“Same!! I really want to be a detective, I want to be a private investigator. You’re a rogue too, right?”

“Yep!”

“Have you learned any rogue stuff yet? Can you teach me?”

Penny laughs. “Not yet, I start at Aguefort next week. Well, I might know some stuff that I’ve picked up…” As she’s talking, she slips a hand into Riz’s pocket without him noticing and then holds up some of his business cards. “Like this?”

Riz grins wide. “YES! Can you teach me how to do that?”

She laughs. “Sure, kiddo. But I’ll teach you more when I start classes.”

The first assignment of Intro to Rogues is to find the class. Penny’s heard that this is a hard task, one that takes most students a full week, so she’s proud of herself for finding it on day two of school. She finds the class after unscrewing a panel in the ceiling of the bathroom and crawling through the vents, mapping out the school’s layout in her head, until she emerges in an attic she didn’t know existed. There are only a few students there already. A scrawny kenku waves at her. She takes a seat next to them. The teacher, a lithe dragonborn, introduces herself and congratulates everyone on making it to class.

Over the course of the week, the rest of the freshmen rogues locate the attic, popping in from vents and the ceiling and secret passageways. One student, having deduced the location of the class, persuades the wizarding teacher to teleport him in. Her new kenku friend tells Penny that they got in by hiding in the teacher’s handbag.

The class starts learning how to sneak by playing hide-and-seek. Penny’s great at finding places to hide - she’s had years of practice in the Luckstone house, which is large and filled with nooks and crannies. She occasionally struggles with slipping away if she’s about to get caught, though. One time, she has to frantically tuck herself into the backpack of a half-orc student with an ax and a long braid. Once she’s carried far enough away, she has to crawl out and explain herself. Luckily, the half-orc seems to find it endearing, and they exchange numbers.

Penny prefers sneaking lessons to fighting, but she still enjoys learning combat and sneak attacks. 

“It involves a lot of thinking,” she explains to her half-orc friend, who she’s learned is named Katja Cleaver. “We have to study theory and think about our attacks, unlike you guys.”

“That’s barbarians,” Katja corrects, with her deep voice and faint Orcish accent. “They do the mindless hack-and-slashing. Fighters have to think too. The difference is that we think while we’re fighting. You all have to plan before you’re in combat.”

Penny honestly loves the smart stuff. Joining the world of thieves requires a lot of study, reading up on locks and crystal tech and common security methods and codes. Rogues work well as parts of networks of thieves and as members of teams, and Penny loves studying how this hidden world works.

“ Kee !” Penny calls in  Goblin as she enters the Gukgaks’ apartment.

“ Faíle bhaysin ,” Riz responds in Halfing, looking up from his book. Faíle bhaysin directly translates to ‘welcome home’ - this isn’t Penny’s home, but Halfling doesn’t really have anything less familiar. “Your accent’s getting better.”

“Thank you!” Penny says, flopping down next to him on the couch and unzipping her backpack. “It’s been easier to get into my voice’s upper registry without straining my vocal cords.”

“So, did you learn any more cool sneak attack stuff you can teach me today?”

Penny ruffles Riz’s hair. “Kiddo, we spent all of yesterday doing sneak attacks. I have to actually do my homework sometimes. You can still study with me though!”

Riz slips a bookmark into his book and climbs to sit on the back of the couch. “So what’re you working on?”

“We’re currently studying thieves’ cant!”

Riz’s tail swishes. “That’s the secret rogue language, right?”

“Kinda! Thieves’ cant is actually more like a family of languages. If it were just one, anyone could learn it, and then it wouldn’t be very helpful for thieves.”

“Makes sense.”

“So every rogue knows enough general code to communicate with other rogues, but there are a lot more branches of thieves’ cant. There are visual languages, there are ways to slip thieves’ cant into ordinary language, there are some cants only select people know. Aguefort Adventuring Academy actually has its own version of thieves cant, so Aguefort rogues can communicate secretly.”

“Woah. I can’t wait to learn that.”

Penny pulls her class materials out of her bag, putting books on thieves’ cant and charts of codes on the coffee table. Penny starts copying some symbols onto another piece of paper while Riz grabs a chart of words designed to be hidden in Common. He lies on his back and starts practicing under his breath.

Penny draws for a while, drawing each symbol a few times until it feels committed to memory. Finally, she puts her notepad away. “Do you need some help with that?” she says to Riz, who’s still muttering to himself, eyes narrowed, squinting at the chart. “I think it works best in conversation.”

“Oh, sure!” Riz gets up and sits next to her where they can both see the chart.

Penny squints at the sheet, searching for a sentence she can make. “Lovely weather we’re having - [can you understand this?],” she says slowly, slipping the cant into the Common. 

Riz scans the sheet until his eyes light up in understanding. “I think it is too - [I think I can]!”

“Wow, this is trippy.”

The two carry on an awkward conversation for a while, scanning the sheet between sentences to understand each other and formulate a coded response. The sheet has a limited vocabulary, meaning they can’t say much and are mostly talking in Common about the weather.

“Do you enjoy the… - [do you want…],” Penny starts saying, then realizes she doesn’t know how to say ‘cookies’ in thieves’ cant. She doesn’t want to revert to Common, though, so she instinctively turns to Halfling. “... fiakáin ?”

“Sure!”

“Wait, you understood that?”

“I guess? You say it basically every time you bring cookies over.”

“Huh. I usually say fiakáin when it’s a Halfling recipe, but it’s also just the Halfling word for cookies.”

Penny gets up and walks to the stove to start baking. Riz follows, climbing up to sit on the small countertop.

“That was so cool,” Riz says. “It’d be so cool to have our own secret thieves’ cant. That just the two of us can speak.” He pauses. “Can you teach me more Halfling?”

Penny grins. “Only if you teach me more Goblin.”

The Intro to Rogues class is spending the day rock climbing. They’ve rock climbed before, training for dexterity and nimbleness, but that’s been exclusively indoors. But any rogue out in the wild will need to know how to climb more surfaces than just walls designed for climbing, so the rogues have taken a field trip into the Far Haven Woods to climb actual rock faces.

Penny is standing on a small ledge, high off the ground. 15 feet to the side and a few feet up, her kenku friend sits on a larger platform, waiting for her. To get to them, Penny will have to climb across the rock face, finding natural handholds and scaling her way to the kenku’s platform. 

Being a kenku, her friend can’t speak, but they have a portable text-to-speech device that was artificed for them. They tap it a few times, using the friendly synthetic voice to say, “you can do it, you’ll be fine!”

Penny knows they’re right. On the ground beneath them are a few teachers with magic, ready to cast Feather Fall. Plus, Penny knows her dexterity is good. But she’s only been training as a rogue for a couple of weeks now, and the supervisors are spread thin between all the students, and Penny would really prefer to not take the risk of falling. 

She takes a deep breath and moves to the edge of her platform. She feels the rocks for a handhold and presses her foot into the rock face until she feels a stable place to step. She puts her weight on that foot, grabs the handhold, and starts climbing.

She slowly scales the rock face, carefully searching for handholds, her friend typing encouragements on their speech device. She starts to relax, breathing less heavily. It’s actually pretty fun. Finally, she’s almost there. She scans the cliff and sees a perfect small outcropping to put her foot on as she finds the last handhold to pull herself up to the platform. She springs from her current position to land on the outcropping.

As she lands, the rock starts to crumble under her. 

There’s no time for thinking. She’s seconds away from falling. She instinctively yells “ VI-KA I!” as she scrambles for a handhold.

‘Vi-kai’ is a Goblin word that Riz taught her a few days ago. According to him, it literally translates to ‘cave in’, from the days where goblins mostly lived in caves. Penny’s pronunciation isn’t perfect, but it’s screechy enough to mimic the original, meant to echo through a cave to warn anyone in it. Now the word is used as a general warning for any danger and also doubles as a curse word.

It’s this word Penny screeches as she kicks off the cliff face as the rock below her crumbles. She scrambles for a handhold and grabs onto the platform and spends a luck point of two pulling herself up to safety.

Her kenku friend rushes to her and holds onto her until her breathing is slowed. Then they break apart and stare at each other, then start laughing.

“Wow. I made it,” Penny says, breathless.

“You did! Good job!” her friend types on their speech device. “Wait. Was that Goblin? I didn’t know you spoke Goblin.”

Penny laughs. “I don’t think I do.”

Penny’s gotten a few days off from babysitting Riz. She’s been visiting practically every day since she started a little over a month ago, so it’s strange to not spend her afternoons with Riz. She’s not complaining, though. It’s good for Riz to spend time with Sklonda. Plus, she’s been making friends at Aguefort. She hasn’t spent too much time with Katja lately, but she’s been hanging out with some girls from the sorcery class, and it’s nice to get to go with them to Basrar’s after school for once.

Still, it’s nice to be back at Strongtower Luxury Apartments. The purple-grey carpets and bad lighting of the hallways are familiar now, and Penny really does love spending time with Riz.

She lets herself into the Gukgak’s apartment. “Hey, kiddo!” she greets Riz, shrugging off her backpack, sitting down on the couch, and taking out her homework folder.

“ Kee ,” Riz responds in Goblin. The word sounds deflated, less sharp than Riz’s Goblin normally does. He’s holding a detective novel open in his lap but doesn’t like he’s really reading it. His stare is a little vacant, and he’s not even annotating like he normally does.

“You doing okay, bud?”

Riz doesn’t meet her eye.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He makes a noncommittal noise.

“That’s okay! But just know that I’m here if you ever do want to talk. Now: what can I do to cheer you up?”

“Kovoi leitee fiakáin?” he mumbles.

Penny doesn’t know the exact translation of those Goblin words, but she can infer.

“Should I make some cookies?”

He nods. “Is that okay?”

“Of course. Fiakáin coming right up.” She ruffles his hair and stands up to preheat the oven.

She’s made cookies so many times at the Gukgaks’ that their kitchen feels as familiar to her as her own house’s. She quickly checks that they have all the ingredients, drops two sticks of butter into a pot, and puts it over the stove. Riz sits on the countertop like he normally does, but doesn’t say anything as she stirs the browning butter. 

“Could you get me the eggs, kiddo?”

Riz slides off the countertop to open the fridge. As he does, Penny starts singing softly under her breath. She sings all the time when baking, as do her grandmothers. Singing’s a keystone of Halfling culture. When Penny was a child, her nana told her that singing is crucial to any Halfling recipe. Penny doesn’t know how true that is - she’s no bard - but she sings anyway.

Riz hands her the eggs and climbs back up onto the countertop. Penny keeps singing a deep Halfling song, her voice rich and lilting. Her grandmothers taught her this one when she was six. Riz sits on the counter watching her sing as she cracks the eggs into a mixing bowl with the butter, sugar, and honey. As she adds the vanilla, she notices there are tears in his eyes. 

“You okay, habibi ?”

Riz sniffles quietly. “Is it okay if I talk about what’s up?”

“Of course.”

“It won’t be weird or anything?”

“Kiddo, you can tell me anything. I’ll listen.” She pats his hand and starts whisking the batter.

“It’s been a really rough week… Mom took as much time off work as she could afford to so we could try to spend as much time together as possible, and yesterday we... we went to visit my dad’s grave.”

Penny squeezes his hand.

“It’s been… a year since we lost him now.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that, kiddo. I know how hard and scary that can be. Would a hug help?”

“Maybe not right now, if that’s okay.”

“Of course it is.” Penny measures a cup of flour and adds it to the batter.

“The hand squeezes are good, though.”

She squeezes his hand again. “Is it helpful to talk about it?”

“I think so.”

“Do you want to tell me about him?”

“I… I didn’t get to see him very much cause he was a detective and he did a lot of work out of town… I don’t really know what exactly he did but apparently, he died in Bastion City while on a work trip. He… he was a detective, so he was a cool badass rogue like Mom and you and me and I really like learning from you, you’re super cool, but I wish I could have shared all this cool rogue stuff with him too.”

“That sounds really tough.” Penny whisks in a second cup of flour and some chocolate chips. “You had an important connection to him but didn’t have the time to explore it.”

Riz nods. “I just… I really miss him. I’ve just… all week I’ve been feeling… it’s… tirvak .” 

“What does that mean?” Penny asks gently.

“It’s… it’s sadness? But it’s more than sadness. Sadness is too general and plain. Tirvak is… I guess it would be despair? But that sounds so clinical.”

“A really intense sadness.”

“ Tirvak. Tirvak i gatee i ziint i… I’m sorry, I don’t know how to say any of it in Common.”

“It’s okay. Are those synonyms for tirvak ?”

“I guess. I mean, they probably have more complicated technical definitions, but they’re just… what they are. I’m sorry, I know that doesn’t help you. Common just doesn’t have strong enough words.”

“It’s okay. I’m here.”

Riz wipes his eyes.

“Would it help if I suggested some words? Halfling has really strong emotion words.”

He nods.

“Well, first that comes to mind would be brózhn . That just means sadness, but you know, Halfling doesn’t have many words that aren’t strong.”

“ Brózhn ,” Riz repeats.

“There’s also éadayas and mueranró , which are strong versions. Éadayas is more about grief, so that would work well here.”

“ Mueranró. Éadayas. Éadayas. ”

Penny starts balling up cookie dough and putting it on a baking sheet. “How does that feel?”

“That’s nice. Halfling feels really comforting.”

“It’s a really comforting language.”

“You’re really comforting.”

Penny squeezes his hand again. “I’m here.”

Riz smiles at her and starts to make balls of dough with her.

“... Arcíf afi ligeaj ,” Penny says.

“What does that mean?”

“That’s the Halfling equivalent of rest in peace.”

“Oh.” Riz makes the final ball of dough, and Penny places the tray in the oven. “... Enkee vee itli ,” Riz says. It’s sharp and full of whistles. “That’s the Goblin version.”

“ Enkee vee itli ,” Penny repeats.

Riz walks over to the couch and sits down. “ Arcíf afi ligeaj .” He starts to cry.

Penny sits down next to him and puts her hand on his. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

“Can… can I take you up on that hug?” he asks through tears.

Penny nods and wraps her arms around him and pulls him into the biggest warmest hug she can give. Riz starts crying harder, hugging her tightly, holding on to her. He puts his head on his shoulder, tears flowing.

“You can cry as much as you need to, kiddo. I’m here,” Penny says, gently ruffling his hair. She starts singing again - this time, it’s a Halfling mourning song. It’s deep and moving and it’s sad and mournful but it’s not hopeless. It’s beautiful and rich and filled with hope and love. The lyrics are about celebrating the lives of the dearly departing, remembering them as they were in life, and Penny know Riz can’t understand the words, but from the way he holds on tighter and cries harder into her shoulder, she can tell that he can feel it deep in his heart.

They sit like that for a while, Penny gently singing to Riz, until the timer on her crystal beeps. She lets go of Riz and stops the alarm. “Cookies are ready.”

Riz smiles and wipes his eyes. “Thanks, Penny,” he says as she gets up to take the cookies out of the oven. “I needed that.”

“I’m so glad I could help,” Penny says. “Us rogues have to look out for each other.” She takes the cookies out of the oven, slides them onto a cooling rack, and sits back down on the couch. “Alright, homework can wait,” she says, sliding her homework folder back into her backpack. “I’m here for you right now. Now, how does getting some blankets and eating cookies and watching a silly movie sound?”

“That sounds really great.”

Penny gets up, tosses a blanket to Riz, and goes to put the warm cookies on a plate. “Have you seen Fantasy Big Business?”

“What’s that about?”

“It’s this movie about two sets of cúplaman - twins - who get switched at birth, so they think they’re fraternal twins, and one set lives in the country and the others are city slickers and they realize that they fit better into the other family.”

“That sounds...“ Riz trails off.

Penny laughs. “I didn’t say it was good. But it’s fun, and it’s silly, and it stars Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, and it’ll be nice to get cozy and watch something like it.”

Riz laughs softly. “That sounds really nice.” He wraps his blanket around himself and grabs a cookie as soon as Penny sits back down. The cookies are still a little too hot for Penny, but he scarfs one down anyway.

The movie, as expected, isn’t good . It’s not winning any Oscars. But Penny turns the lights off and hugs Riz, whose cheeks are still wet from tears, but who’s smiling, and she sits next to him and they laugh at all the bad jokes, and when Sklonda texts to say that she might be home a little late, she’s running a bit behind on work, Penny texts back to ask if she can order pizza, and Penny and Riz spend the late afternoon eating an early dinner of cheesy pizza and fresh-baked fiakáin . 

They’re near the end of the movie, and Penny can tell that Riz is getting sleepy. It’s not very late, but Riz is in 6th grade and he’s had a mentally exhausting few days. He’s curled up on the couch, tail gently swishing, eyes struggling to stay open. As Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin run around a Bastion City hotel, Penny turns the volume down a bit so that it’s easier for Riz to rest and pulls his blanket over him.

“ Kay tila ,” Riz mumbles. Like most goblin words, they’re full of sharp things and pointy sounds, and still the phrase sounds so soft tumbling out of his mouth. Penny doesn’t need to look it up to know that it means ‘I love you’ in Goblin.

“You too, habibi .”

Riz falls asleep as the movie ends. She quietly does her homework on the couch with him, listening to him snore softly. Sklonda texts to say she’s on her way home and Penny replies to tell her to enter quietly so as not to wake Riz up.

She doesn’t need to look up what ‘ kay tila ’ means, but she does it anyway, and finds that it’s generally used for family members.

-----

Four years later, Penny has survived the worst year of her life, has been freed from the palimpsest she’d spent the school year in, has flown on a griffin across Solace, and is about to kill a dragon. As she slides off the griffin outside Aguefort, Riz is there waiting for her. She wonders if he’s grown taller over the course of the year, or if she’s just remembering how small he was when they first met. Still, the other freshmen standing behind him tower over him. Penny realizes they’re his adventuring party. He’s made some friends. He has some blood on him - maybe dragon blood, maybe his own - but he’s grinning so wide. 

Penny runs to him and pulls him into the biggest hug she’s been able to give anyone since she was captured last summer. Her muscles feel a little weak from disuse, but she holds him as tight as she possibly can, picking him up and spinning him around.

“You cracked the case, bud!” she says. She’s smiling so wide that her jaw hurts.

“We did it!”

She hugs him tighter. Riz starts explaining everything about his year, his energetic voice rising like there’s no one around to hear them. He keeps slipping into Goblin, and Penny can’t figure out everything he’s saying, but there will be time for details later. Right now, she can hear in his screeches and whistles how happy he is. And she can’t think in Common either and slips into Halfling, her voice lilting and musical and rich, and she uses every Goblin word that comes to mind, even when she’s not sure she’s using it correctly, and he responds with his own slightly-incorrect Halfling. No one else would be able to understand either of them right now, but they understand each other perfectly.

Finally, the other Maidens - her new adventuring party, Penny thinks - pull her away to go kill the dragon that ruined her senior year, but she holds Riz tightly for one more moment.

“ Kay tila. Kay tila ,” she says, her eyes watering.

“Meet at my apartment after this?” Riz asks as Katja starts to literally pull Penny away.

Penny walks into the gym, turning around to holler in reply, “I’ll make fiakáin !”