Chapter Text
Dirrow may have made their final, most reckless mistake. When their mums weren’t looking, they’d snuck off with a few of their siblings to do dares where they couldn’t get in trouble, and it’d seemed like the most brilliant idea at the time.
Now, with half a dozen humans in armour chasing after them in the middle of a crowded human city, Dirrow wanted nothing more than to be back home with their mums to yell at them. They darted under a stand selling something and sprinted back into an alley, wincing as the storekeeper screamed. The heavy steps of the soldiers followed.
Dirrow was small for their age, much smaller than the humans. They could still get away, if they just ran fast enough, rounded too many corners for the clumsy soldiers to keep up with. It was all filled with people and horses, though, and everywhere Dirrow turned it was more commotion, more angry and fearful shouting.
Dirrow was looking behind them when they dashed around the next turn, and didn’t see the wall they hit at full speed.
Ow. It knocked the breath out of them, left them winded on the cobblestone street for seconds, time they didn’t have. Gasping, they tried to pull themself upright and shoot off into the next backstreet, but there was nowhere to go but back. They’d hit a dead end.
The clatter of armour was getting louder, closer. Dirrow’s breath sped up as they saw the first soldier come around the corner, knowing they were trapped. The soldier knew it, too, by that terrible grin, full of blunt teeth and malice.
“Well, well, well, looks like the little monster’s run out of luck. Wonder what I can get for selling your hide.”
His words were gibberish to Dirrow, but they didn’t need to understand to be afraid. The man stalked closer, raising his spear, and Dirrow felt tears start to pool in their eyes. Stupid humans and their stupid cities, building traps for foolish goblins who didn’t listen to their parents.
For a split moment, fear gave way to anger, and Dirrow launched themself at the human’s legs, teeth first. Their eyes were closed, but they tasted salt and iron and heard a squeal of pain. Good. The leg kicked wildly, banging Dirrow against the ground, and they dug their teeth in harder.
The steps of more soldiers were approaching, and Dirrow knew this one could still stab them while they were clamped to his leg. They were crying for real now, tears and snot mixing with the blood on their chin. At least Dirrow hadn’t dragged Rooks with them, like they’d joked about. At least only one of the clutch was going to die.
And then there was a sound, like a whish and then a thunk , and the man made a horrible gasping noise. Dirrow looked up, as surprised to see the arrow through the human’s neck as he was. The spear clattered to the ground and Dirrow leapt back, scrambling into the corner. They watched as the soldier slowly sort of crumpled on the ground, spilling crimson all across the cobblestones. It was the colour of animal blood.
The other humans had rounded the corner by now, and there was a lot of shouting. Dirrow curled up as much as they could in the corner, but all eyes immediately turned to them anyway. There was blood in their mouth and blood on the street and that huge human was dead –
One of them yelled as they charged toward Dirrow, only to be felled by another arrow. The other four soldiers looked up at where it had been shot from, somewhere high and behind the wall Dirrow was pressed up against.
“I’ll get the archer, you take–”
“No, you won’t.” A new figure flowed from the shadows like smoke in twilight, smaller than the soldiers but much bigger than Dirrow, dressed in a black coat with sharp, spiky bits of metal. They didn’t look away fast enough to miss the glint of steel in the figure’s hand as it sunk into the soldier’s back.
They kept their eyes closed until the sounds of violence stopped, but all they could see on the back of their eyelids was the red of human blood, slowly creeping through the cracks in the pavestones. They didn’t want to die here, alone in a city full of murderers.
“Hey there, uh. It’s over. You can open your eyes.”
Someone was talking close to Dirrow, and a sob burst from their chest. It didn’t matter that this voice was a bit higher and quieter than the soldiers’, it was still a human. Maybe they were just going to take their time with it, or drag them away to a quiet place first, or they were going to lock Dirrow in a cage and show them off to their friends like a pet.
They waited for hands to grab them, ropes to be tied around their limbs, a blade to cut into their skin. They got ready to bite and claw and go down fighting.
After a long moment of none of that happening, Dirrow risked opening their eyes. The street was stained with red, and in front of them, about a metre away, sat the figure with the spiky coat. They were definitely human, Dirrow knew, with skin paler than sand and hungry-thin wrists that poked out of their coat. A huge burn scar covered the side of their neck and spilled onto their face, and Dirrow could see a funky patch of white in their dark, choppy hair. They couldn’t see any weapons in their hands, but the bodies in the alley behind them spoke volumes. If this person could take out those soldiers, a teenage goblin didn’t stand a chance.
The human wasn’t looking at Dirrow, though, and was instead making weird gestures at the sky. The archer , Dirrow remembered. They hadn’t shot the spiky one, so they must be working together.
Then the human looked back at Dirrow, and saw that they were looking back.
“Look, mate, sorry about all the blood, I guess. If you even speak Latin, which isn’t likely. Français? English? I’ve gotta get Grizzop to teach me some more languages soon.”
Dirrow didn’t know what they were saying, but they looked frustrated. Maybe they expected them to answer? To do something? They couldn’t understand!
There was a sudden clatter of someone scrambling over things, then a new figure vaulted over one of the side walls and landed just behind the human. Dirrow flinched away, but something was weirdly familiar about this one. They were hooded in a dark cloak, bow and quiver on their back, so obviously they were the archer. But they were much smaller and faster than any of the other humans, and the hood of the cloak was shaped to accommodate and hide big ears. Dirrow looked between the spiky one and the hooded one a few times to confirm. They were different shapes entirely.
“Sasha, step back, you’re scaring ‘em! Go stand guard, and I’ll talk to them.” The archer was speaking the humans’ language. But their voice wasn’t so alien.
The sitting human stood up when the archer spoke, nodded at them, and turned their back to Dirrow, moving to stand at the entrance to the little nook where Dirrow had trapped themself. The archer took their place kneeling on the bloody street, and threw off their hood.
It was a goblin. A tall, grey goblin, wearing human clothes and speaking the human tongue, but a goblin nonetheless. Alone, without a clutch, working with a human murderer in a city where they killed anyone who wasn’t human. Dirrow couldn’t decide if they should be relieved or even more afraid.
“Sorry ‘bout that. Sasha can be scary, but she’s on our side. I’m Grizzop.” And oh, thank the gods, he spoke Goblin, even if it was with a weird accent. At least Dirrow could figure out some of what was going on, now.
“I’m Dirrow,” they answered, and then, unbidden, “They were going to kill me.”
Grizzop’s hands clenched around the strap to his quiver. “Yeah, the soldiers are like that. A bunch of small-minded bigots, the lot of ‘em. You did good, Dirrow, to get away like that.”
But they hadn’t gotten away. They’d backed themself into a dead end and now… now they didn’t know what was happening.
“Are you… why are you working with a human? Why are you alone?”
“Look, I know most humans around here hate goblins, and generally avoiding them is the best way to stay alive. But me and Sasha come from a place where it’s not like that, where everybody is sort of mixed together, so she’s not going to hurt you. We’ve been working together a long time, and she’s a good friend.
“I’m alone because my clutch drowned when I was young. I grew up with humans, the nice ones, but I have a goblin mate back home.”
Dirrow narrowed their eyes and thought over his answers. It seemed very unlikely that there was a place where humans and goblins got along, and it was suspicious that Grizzop had grown up with them. Maybe they’d enslaved him, and told him they were being nice, when really he’d been stolen from his clutch.
A loud sound came from somewhere nearby, and Dirrow jumped. The human, Sasha, was still standing perfectly still at the corner. Grizzop glanced over at her, then back to Dirrow with urgency.
“Alright, kiddo, listen. You can decide if you trust us later, but for right now, we aren’t going to hurt you, and we can get you out of the city safely. Sound good?”
Dirrow didn’t know what the right decision was, but they were tired and scared and alone, and at least Grizzop was an adult who would probably protect them. He’d already shot those soldiers, after all. They agreed, and before they knew it they were being shuffled under another cloak and shepherded back through the streets. They did their best to stick closer to Grizzop than Sasha, and the other two didn’t protest the arrangement.
Dirrow wasn’t sure how exactly they’d gotten to this big house in the middle of farmland. They'd just kept their mouth shut and ears down under the cloak, to make themself less obvious, and before they knew it they were here.
Sasha left Dirrow and Grizzop alone in a room, where Grizzop discarded his cloak and weapons. Underneath, he was wearing a metal breastplate with symbols carved into it, like some of the humans had been. Definitely weird.
The adrenaline from before was fading, and Dirrow was suddenly very, very tired. But they couldn’t go to sleep, because it still wasn’t safe. Sasha was still somewhere, and Dirrow didn’t know if she would steal them away or sell them or whatever had happened to Grizzop.
“Let’s get all that muck off you, yeah? You hurt anywhere?”
Dirrow let the older goblin take their cloak and start looking them over. They had a few scrapes and bruises, both from tripping around and being shaken while biting the soldier’s leg, but nothing too bad. Sasha came in after a few minutes holding a bowl of water and a cloth, which she placed on a table.
She asked Grizzop something, and he answered in her language. Dirrow heard their name as the two conversed, and felt a little afraid. What were they saying about them?
Finally, Grizzop turned back to Dirrow. “Sasha says it’s nice to meet you,” he translated, “and wants to know if there’s somewhere safe for you to go home to.”
“I’m not telling a human where we– where I live!” Dirrow protested.
“Ok, can you tell me?”
“You’ll just tell her!”
“I promise I won’t if you don’t want me to. You don’t even need to tell me where, just let me know whether you have somewhere safe. We can help you find somewhere, if you don’t.”
Dirrow sniffed and thought about it. So far, Grizzop hadn’t really… acted brainwashed, but he was certainly friendlier with the human than was safe. And they must know Dirrow had come from a clutch, so saying that they had one probably wouldn’t put the others in too much danger, especially if they didn’t have to say where.
“…I have a clutch to go home to.” And because Dirrow never knew when to keep their mouth shut, “I know it was stupid, to go into the city! But I was just going to run over and touch the wall, that was the dare, and then those people in armour saw me, and I couldn’t go back ‘cause then they’d find everybody else, and now the humans are going to search for us and we’re–”
“Hey, hey! It’s ok, Dirrow, it was stupid, but it’s gonna be ok. The humans from the cities don’t know about clutches, they won’t look for yours.” Grizzop’s hands were on Dirrow’s shoulders, which heaved with sobs. He crouched down to meet their eyes. “I promise, you’re gonna get back safe and sound, and everybody will be fine.”
Then he turned and said some things to Sasha, who answered, and then she left the room.
Grizzop gave Dirrow’s shoulders a final squeeze, and picked up the water and cloth. Dirrow let him wipe down their face and limbs, the water in the bowl quickly turning pink. It made them a little queasy, but Grizzop was grinning.
“You got a good bite in, didn’t you? Lose any teeth?”
Dirrow let themself try to smile back. “Nope. He was too squishy to break any.”
Grizzop laughed. “Right, you’d need an orc or a kobold for that, probably.” Dirrow wondered how many people this goblin had bitten, how many of his teeth and claws had been broken and lost and regrown. He seemed like a strong fighter. Strong enough to get away, if he was really unhappy here.
After getting cleaned up, Grizzop showed Dirrow around the house, and they ended in the kitchen, where Sasha was working on something. It was getting dark outside. Grizzop bounced over to Sasha and told her something, and she nodded.
He looked back at Dirrow. “Just telling her to leave ours raw, s’all.”
Dirrow pulled a face. “Why would you make it hot? It’d lose all the juice.”
Grizzop shot them a conspiratorial grin. “‘Cause humans have weak stomachs and get sick when it’s cold. It also lasts longer, but really they’re all just delicate little–”
“I don’t know Goblin, but I know when you’re making fun of me!” Sasha interrupted.
Grizzop didn’t look concerned about the outburst. “It’s not bad, but it’s still better our way.”
And even though it was probably another bad choice to eat food prepared by the human, Dirrow was very hungry, and Grizzop was good enough company to distract them from their anxiety while the three of them ate. Occasionally Sasha would ask for something to be translated, like what the goblins were laughing about, but mostly she kept quiet.
Dirrow took the chance to observe her, to catch a quiet gleam of mischief in her eyes they’d missed before, the way she ate quickly and hunched over her food like someone was going to take it, how her eyes would dart to the windows and door every so often. Other than the big scar on her neck, there were a bunch of little ones all over her hands and face, and she was still wearing that big spiky coat.
“Did people try to kill Sasha, too?” they finally gathered the courage to ask, and Grizzop looked just a bit angry.
“Lots of people have tried. Nobody’s managed it yet, and at this point, they never will.” It sounded like a promise, and Dirrow let the subject drop.
After the dishes had been cleaned and put away, Sasha turned and asked Dirrow a question. They looked at Grizzop, who translated, “She wants to know where you want to sleep tonight. We have plenty of spare rooms,” he added, “but if you’re used to sleeping with a clutch, that might be uncomfortable. I know you don’t trust Sash, but you can sleep with me, if you want.”
Dirrow hadn’t thought about that. They missed their clutch terribly already, and were sure their mums were mad with worry, but they hadn’t considered it would be their first time not falling asleep in a big soft pile of their siblings. And Grizzop was right, they would never trust a human enough to sleep in the same room as them, but the older goblin seemed safe.
They nodded, and Grizzop relayed whatever information was relevant back to Sasha.
“They’re gonna room with me. Goblins usually sleep with their clutches until they’re grown up, and even then we usually tend toward groups. I’m only one person, but somebody’s better than nobody, I guess.”
“…Do you think I should keep guard tonight? In case anyone saw us?”
“If they were going to come, they would’ve done it during daylight. Get some sleep.”
It wasn’t anything like being at home, Dirrow admitted, curled up with Grizzop in the dark. No one was kicking and squabbling, there had been no goodnight from their mums, and the house creaked even when no one was moving. But Grizzop had dumped all the pillows from his bed on the floor and piled up the blankets so it was more like a den, and had happily opened his arms for Dirrow to burrow into once they were settled. He was warm, and big enough to completely wrap around the younger goblin, and when Dirrow’s heart started to race at the thought of being away from their family, Grizzop’s arms tightened around them. They squeezed back as hard as they could, and it never occurred to them that Grizzop might have needed it just as badly as they did.
That morning, Dirrow ate breakfast with Sasha and Grizzop, and wondered how long they would be stuck in this weird house. Not long, it turned out, as Grizzop and Sasha immediately started filling a bag for them with food and water and bandages. While Sasha collected some things, Grizzop sat down with Dirrow and they worked together on making a map of the area that included areas with humans (to avoid at all costs) and good hiding spots. Dirrow made sure not to mention where their home was, but checked that it was in the range of the drawing and they marked it in their head.
“I’d offer to come with you, but something tells me you’d rather go back on your own. But if you do run into trouble, and you can’t make it back to your clutch, you’re welcome to come here,” Grizzop added as he tucked the paper away in the now-full pack.
Dirrow nodded, although they had no intention of ever coming this close to humans ever again.
After maybe an hour of double checking that they had everything, and giving both Sasha and Grizzop tentative thanks for saving them, Dirrow left the house with their pack and set off for home. As the building disappeared behind them, a wide smile slowly spread over Dirrow’s face. Rooks was not going to believe this story.
Sasha and Grizzop sat at the table after the young goblin had left. Sasha had really wanted to follow them to make sure they got home alright, but Grizzop made her stay put, lest she break what little trust they’d built.
So she watched Grizzop sharpen his arrows and tend to his bow, fidgeting with a dagger.
“…Do you miss it?” she finally asked.
Grizzop looked up from his work. “Miss what?”
“Having a clutch to sleep with.”
“Didn’t have it for very long.” Grizzop did his best not to look too mournful. “Wasn’t… just wasn’t a thing with Eva.”
Sasha considered for a moment. “If you wanna, I dunno, try it again? Somebody’s better than nobody, right?” She flipped her dagger in the air and caught it, carefully not watching Grizzop’s stunned expression. “And we could’ve been leaving your meat uncooked this entire time, if I knew you wanted it like that.”
Grizzop let a genuine smile spread across his lips as he turned back to his arrow. “Yeah, Sash. That’d be nice.”