by Emma Hamm
“I’m fine.” She grunted. “Why did he put me back in here?”
A firm hand was planted on her sternum, holding her in place. The clawed tips made it very clear who was holding her. Jane stilled immediately as her heart sped up in fear. “Safe.”
She was starting to think he didn’t understand her language as well as he thought he did. “Safe in the hammock? Did you not see what just happened, Goblin? I am safer if I get up.”
He didn’t budge.
“Whoever you are, please tell him to let me up. I want to get up.”
There was a slight warble from the voice she did not know and an answering rumble from the goblin who was holding her. His arms were bands of steel around her. Slowly panic started to set in. Perhaps she was going to be eaten after all.
“Ruric. Let me up.” She said firmly.
That seemed to do it, though his hand slid from her chest a little too slowly for her liking. This time he cupped her elbow, steadying her as she placed her feet onto the floor.
“Thank you.” She muttered, dusting herself off. “Who are you?”
There was another person in here. She just couldn’t see them. It was unnerving to say the least.
“Here, perhaps this will help.” She watched as a globe was shaken in front of her, the strings of lights within it glowing brightly until the entire globe was lit up. It was as dim as the others, but it did cast the two men in front of her with a soft blue light. The goblin was as startling as ever. Those pitch black eyes sending shivers down her spine. The other man was intriguing though. Gray hair and spectacles, he had the wrinkled face of a man who had seen many years of happiness.
He nodded towards her, holding his hand out. “My name is Micah.”
“Micah. My name is Jane.” She shook his hand with a suspicious look. “I’ll ask one more time, who are you?”
Ruric crossed his arms over his broad chest, the movement making her take a step further away from him. He seemed to get larger every time that she saw him.
“I am an unofficial linguistic here Below. I wanted to come and welcome you myself. There aren’t many of us who speak the language of Above and it is always reassuring to have something that is familiar. I’m certain that you are curious as to why you are here and what is happening.”
“Somehow I doubt you’re going to explain what is happening to me entirely.” She muttered. Once again Ruric shifted, his bulk making her skitter sideways until she realized that he was picking up the globe she had dropped. Jane took it from his hands much the same way as she had the first time. A quick snatch to ensure he could not grab onto her.
“I will tell you as much as I can.” Micah paused, looking at her for a moment before adding, “If you shake it-”
“Yes I know if I shake it, it will glow.” She snapped back, frustrated at herself and this new situation. But she shook the globe anyways, perhaps a little too forcefully.
“My goodness.” At his gasp, she looked up at him. Somehow she doubted that it was her stunning beauty that had him staring at her with his mouth hanging open.
“What?”
“You’re covered in blood!”
Well of course she was. She hadn’t had a bath since she had been dragged down here. After getting her head bashed against the wall, dragged through tunnels, and who knows what else, she wasn’t surprised she didn’t look her best. The dried blood had mostly flaked off from the leak at her nose and the cut on her head. Or at least she didn’t feel it anymore.
“I haven’t exactly had a chance to bathe. I apologize if my state of dress insults you.” Was the only sarcastic reply she could summon.
“Oh my dear I didn’t mean that! I’m appalled that Ruric has not had the good taste to bring you to the baths.” She just caught the glare the old man sent in the direction of the goblin.
Strange to think that a mere human could be admonishing a goblin such as this one. Jane decided she liked the man for having the guts to do such a thing, even if he did seem to be a little too observant for her liking.
She cleared her throat. “Micah, I’m certain that he would be bringing me in that direction if you would finish what you have to say.”
Being polite had never been a strong trait of hers. Jane had grown up in a place where people who were polite got walked on. The harder she was, the better she would be treated in the end. Having someone else caring and tending for her was foreign to all that she knew. Jane didn’t know how to react to any of this other than being uncomfortable with it all.
The man blinked at her through those glasses that magnified his eyes. “Well then.”
Jane had seen that expression many times before. It was the usual response to her.
A low rumble from beside them had her flinching away from the goblin before she realized that this was a laugh. Deep as a growl, it came straight from the bottom of his barrel chest and vibrated in his throat.
It was the strangest laugh she had ever heard before.
“Strong.” He said, hooking a thumb at her.
She didn’t care for that. Whatever proud tone he had going on could end right then and there.
As if he sensed she was about to get pushy, Micah quickly started talking. “You are now in what we call Below. Every now and then humans are harvested for workers and other odd jobs. We were lucky enough to find you among them before anything happened to you my dear!”
“Lucky. Right.” She muttered, tossing the globe back and forth in her hands.
“Females are very rare here, so you should be safe most places that you go. We do suggest that you stick close to Ruric until the ceremony of course. There are others that don’t necessarily agree with the queen’s choice. You’ll be fine as long as you stick with him. He’s a good choice!”
She was shocked into silence. None of what he had said made sense to her, but it was making her think that she was in over her head.
“Ceremony?”
He was already turning on his heel and walking towards the mouth of the cave. “You’ll be fine! Ruric take her to bathe boy, the girl could use it.”
“Excuse me! You can’t just start saying things like that and then leave without explaining!”
But he did exactly that. She wasn’t about to chase after him without being able to see. She had hit the ground already today. Making a fool of herself once was enough.
“I need to go home, Ruric.” She said to the dark, wondering if it would be considered rude to ask for more light.
But he didn’t respond. As she had expected, he continued to stare at her with those fathomless eyes before he started to move. He was gentle as he cupped his hand beneath her elbow and started pulling her towards the mouth of the cave.
Ruric led her through the tunnels, trying to see what she must be seeing. It was difficult for him to understand these creatures. They were so weak compared to goblins, so incapable of doing even the smallest things because they could not see as the goblins could. How did anything survive without being able to see at least a little bit in darkness?
She stumbled along beside him. Frequently he had to stop, carefully placing his hands underneath her elbows so that she could brace herself and he could lift her.
Even goblin women didn’t have to be taken care of like this. They were more delicate than their male counterparts, but they did not need to be coddled. The few times Ruric had met a female goblin, he had been well aware they thought him of a lower status. They were harder than the legends spoke of them. They had to be now. Every female that was born was sent to another tribe to rule them. Each female had a heavy weight upon her shoulders from the day she took her first breath.
This woman was nothing like one of them. She held herself like one of his warriors. Broad shouldered and wide legged, she sometimes reminded him of the other men in the mines. Surely women weren’t like her above ground. They were meant to be softer. Were not females created to be the opposite of males?
Yet he fo
und himself admiring this one, for all that she was still covered in dirt and blood. She held herself with strength and honor. At times. He hid a grin as she cursed and kicked at a rock that had made her stumble. Perhaps not quite like a queen, but close enough to one.
He guided her to a bathing cave that had been around since he was very young. They had carved the room straight from the cliff itself. Water ran naturally from a stream above ground and gave a steady supply to those below.
Natural hot springs were diverted throughout the caves and pumped to others when needed. After so many years of living down here, the goblins had figured out how to make it comfortable for themselves.
He helped her towards one of the deeper pools and gestured at the water with his clawed hand. “Clean.”
Surely she would know what he meant by that. As much as he didn’t like Micah, the queen’s favorite interpreter, the man did have a point. Ruric himself had gone without bathing when necessary but a female shouldn’t have to.
He stepped back to seat himself on another ledge, taking his time unwinding the leather strappings that bound his feet to his knees. The entire time he watched her as she raised the light above her head and squinted in the darkness.
She couldn’t see anything at all, he realized. He’d have to make some changes to his own lifestyle to make it easier for her. She was not just under his protection but was also meant to be his mate. The word both terrified and excited him. Ruric had been among the many who never would have known what it meant to have a companion other than another male. To have the opportunity to know the soft touch of a woman?
He would treat her like a queen.
She turned towards him then, her strange eyes nearly glinting in the light of her globe. As much as his unnerved her, he found hers to be pitiful. She was like a child in that she could do nothing without his help. Those eyes were a clear example of that.
“What was the old man talking about Ruric? What ceremony?”
It was not precisely how he had wanted to break that news to her. She needed to settle into her surroundings before she knew she was going to be tied to a goblin for the rest of her life. Ruric had his duty. He wasn’t going to complain about before forced to mate with a human. But he understood that she was going to have difficulties with this.
“Clean.” He replied to her.
Speaking in this language was very difficult for his kind. Ruric understood the words well enough. Most of them he could decipher if he didn’t know exactly what they meant. But he had never before made these sounds. Never before had his lips been forced to move in such strange patterns.
At least she seemed to understand him well enough. She seemed to think that he was bartering with her. Clean herself for information.
It was the only explanation he could get for the way she stripped her shirt and pants off with lightning speed and dunked herself into the water.
She came up spluttering even as he folded the last of the leather strappings next to him and ducked his feet into the water.
He didn’t know if the others found her as beautiful as he did. To him, Jane was like some unearthly creature that he had never seen before. She was so dark compared to him, at least all the skin he had seen so far. Yet now that he could see more of her exposed, he realized she was just as pale as he was. Whatever skin had not been exposed to her sun was a completely different color than the rest.
His hands itched to touch that skin. To see whether the darker tones had a different temperature than the rest. And, if he was being honest with himself, to see if he scrubbed her hard enough that the darkness would go away.
“Ruric, the ceremony?”
He snapped out of staring at her, thankful for the moment that she couldn’t see him.
“Binding.” He managed, hating the way his lips stretched over the word.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Her arms were crossed firmly over her chest, dunked under the water as she was. “What does binding mean.”
“Binding, protect.”
“Well that’s more words than you’ve managed before, but I still don’t know what you mean.”
It was as frustrating for him as it was her. Ruric felt inadequate. His lips couldn’t form the words fast enough to answer her questions, nor had he ever spoken the words this often. His throat longed for the ease of his own language. It was a pity that she could not be taught their words. Even Micah with all his experience and knowledge butchered the beauty of the goblin songs.
“I can protect.” He had to pause between each words, his tongue sliding against sharp teeth.
She sunk to her shoulders in the heated water, her foot brushing against the bioluminescent algae that coated the bottom. He watched her flinch as she was startled by the glow that came from the bottom of the pool.
It gave him a chance to look her over more. She was still dirty, but without the blood on her face, Jane was much more approachable. He admired the strong arch of her cheekbones, followed the line of her jaw with his eyes. He had only seen a few females in his lifetime. Jane was an oddity to him as well. The two of them were a strange pair.
“Why do you need to be bound to me to protect me? Is that not what you are doing now?”
He shook his head. “Others want.”
“Others want me? Or others want to protect me?”
She was asking too many questions. “Both.”
He watched as she sunk lower into the water, her braid curling around her like a snake. This species was entirely new to him, so he did not understand the expressions that played across her face. Humans would be easy to read if only he knew what each muscle twitch meant.
It was not too far of a stretch to guess that she was nervous or perhaps profoundly uncomfortable by what he had told her.
“What am I doing here.” She muttered to herself. But the sound carried across the water and he could hear her well. Ruric reached into his pocket and pulled out a small chunk of crystal. It was softer than the other stones, easy enough to carve.
“Am I in danger here?”
“No.” The words made him bristle, the muscles along his shoulders and back rippling at the thought. “Females safe.”
“Then why do you need to bind yourself to me to protect me? Why is there a ceremony?”
“No more questions.” He wasn’t certain he said the words correctly, but their meaning was clear.
She stilled in the water, looking at him with wide eyes that showed far too much of the whites for his liking. She was unnerving in the alien quality of her skin, her eyes, her hands. Even her ears made him realize how vastly different the two of them were.
He watched her carefully, wondering just how fragile she really was. There were no claws or teeth that could be used to protect herself. Surely down here there were so many things that could kill her. So many things that even he couldn’t stop from harming her if he wasn’t by her side every moment.
“Ruric?”
His eyes flicked towards her, realizing that she had been speaking and he had been gawking.
Those strange eyes rolled in their sockets. “I asked why you brought me here.”
“Safe. Clean.”
The one word answers were bound to be getting as frustrating for her as they were for him.
“I understand why I’m in the bath, I’m wondering why I was brought down here. I have responsibilities back home. I have to go Above again.”
“You stay here.”
“I can’t stay here. My family is waiting for me.”
“Family here now.” Ruric understood the need for family, but goblins considered their entire species family. It was difficult for him to imagine a world where there were so many females that people didn’t consider their neighbor family. Whatever life she had before was no longer important. She was here now and that was what mattered.
She glared at him, though he didn’t think she knew he could see her.
After that little outburst
she completely ignored him. Ruric had brought the crystal to carve so that he could give her some semblance of privacy, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. The more she moved, the more she disturbed the glowing algae at the bottom of the pool. It swirled around her in little eddies that to his eyes were as bright as her sun.
Her body was a strong as her personality it seemed. She rippled with movement even when just her arm was lifted. The water obscured much of her from his view, but when she started unravelling the tangled braid he had to catch his breath.
He had seen long hair before, theirs was white and the men usually wore it long. But never before had he seen hair the color of gold. Her hands gently washed the dirt out of it leaving behind silken strands. Ruric hardly noticed he had leaned forward until the water hit his knee.
It wouldn’t do any good for either of them to tempt fate. He would wait until the binding ceremony, continue to treat her gently, even though it went against every part of him that desperately wanted to follow the training he had been provided. He was not a soft man. He was the kind to order and obey. Yet these were soft emotions that he recognized within himself.
He couldn’t afford to have those.
The water felt good against her skin. She had been shocked to find the water warm. Not once in her life had she ever taken a bath where the water was warm. Come to think of it, she wasn’t certain she had ever been submerged in water. There wasn’t much Above for people to bathe in, though a few of the other mining towns had rivers nearby.
Heat sunk into her sore muscles. And as angry as she wanted to be at him, at her situation, she couldn’t help but lean back a little bit in the water and drift. It would be so easy for her to keep doing this. To let her mind wander until she wasn’t in a cave anymore. Until she wasn’t with a myriad of goblins around her and her future in uncertain hands.
The blue lights swirled around her. She wished she could understand where they came from. It appeared that everything was dark and still here in the darkness until it was touched. Only then did things seem to come alive.