Viktor sat on padded ground slightly away from to the massive bonfire. Next to him sat Krugh, the chieftain with his consorts, whom he had introduced as Nari and Vani.

Nari was a slightly plump goblin with loose hanging robes without sleeves and circlets of wood with carved symbols around her right arm. She had a lazy but warm look in her eyes most of the time and liked to snuggle with Krugh. Her braided dark hair had some feathers and bone accessories embedded into it.

Vani was a slim but muscular goblin, having braided dark hair as well. She wore a tight-fitting sleeveless leather outfit that had bones covering her vital parts along with a woven skirt, also reinforced with a layer of bones with a slit in the middle that showed her toned legs in similar tight leather pants reaching her knees. She wore no accessories, but her visible skin was covered with blueish tribal tattoos that only left her thin face clear.

She kept more to herself, unlike Nari, while lounging on her side as she smoked her long pipe filled with some sort of dried mushroom and leaf mix.

She did chatter quietly with Fafi who was also sitting with them, but mostly ignored Viktor and the rest of her household.

Like Viktor, Fafi was a guest of honour and was now wearing a better-quality hoodless robe woven from plants that had been dyed grey somehow.

The robe was a lot more tight fitting, embracing her curves. Small bones had been used as buttons in the front, slightly off to the right, and held the robe from opening and allowing a tighter fit of the clothing.

She now wore a semi-transparent veil with some preserved flowers as accessories weaved into it instead of a mask that seemed slightly too well crafted compared to the makeshift feel of goblin apparel.

 Her hair had similar flowers in it, that was now in sideways ponytail held together with some hollowed bone accessories at the beginning and end of her hair.

Fafi was mostly sipping some fermented mushroom liquor and occasionally glancing at Viktor in a daze, who was also now fully clothed. They had barely exchanged words during their trip here and were unable to do so after the Chief had tested Viktor as the party had not died down even once since then.

Viktor wore a similarly woven black plant tunic that continued down the waist and turned into a front open skirt. Below the skirt he wore baggy trousers made of similar plant wove that seemed to be a common clothing material in the tribe. He also wore tied up leathers as boots.

All of these were gifts from the chieftain.

 The chieftain’s party was the most fully clothed group, as most goblins wore only simple clothes in their midriffs, with females also usually donning some chest bindings. They were mostly barefoot, or wore some furs wrapped around their feet with vines.

There were some other goblins in better clothing, like the chieftains twelve sons and two daughters, but the quality and completeness was below the highest society that Viktor apparently was now part of.

The chief had introduced his sons, but Viktor hadn’t much paid attention to their names, their builds were like the chieftain, with all of them at least as tall as Viktor. When it came to his daughters, Krugh had made sure that Viktor paid attention and memorised their names while heavily hinting and winking at Viktor.

Satri and Neph were apparently both daughters of Vani and held a similar aura of aloofness as their mother but with childish mischief and curiosity that had not yet disappeared despite already full members of the society.

They both were toned, like their mother, wearing similar apparel as well.

Unlike their mother, they did not have any tattoos or braided hair, but trophies hung from their leather outfits. Apparently, they were trained by their mother, who had been, before becoming a consort of the current chief, one of the warriors for the previous chief. 

Krugh went off on a tangent about Vani, talking about their days as warriors under the previous chief, and how beautiful she had been while fighting and how she had even then been an old maid without a mate, as she scared off any interested males.

Vani blushed furiously and kicked Krugh as he told how she had dragged him into her hovel and made him hers, after he had caught her eyes after a bloody scuffle with a rival tribe.

Krugh laughed as she kicked him for her sideways position and pulled her by her leg into his embrace.

Nari cooed happily as Vani arrived in Krugh’s lap and rubbed her head against Vani, who grumbled while blushing and pinching Krugh’s side.

Her daughters in front of them giggled while looking at their mother and left to join their brothers to the side of the host's seats.

Passing Viktor, they shot him enormous grins with twinkling eyes, causing Viktor to hide his face in the mug filled with fermented shroom juice, earning him giggles by the sisters and large plotting smirks from the side by Krugh and Nari while Vani had a calculative look as he glanced between her daughters and Viktor before giving Viktor a predatory smirk before laying her head onto Krughs chest and closing her eyes and smoking her pipe with a content face. Moments later Nari placed her own head in Vani’s lap as the trio of lovers cuddled.   

 

Viktor looked at the trio before turning towards the dancing goblins around the bonfire and sipped more of his drink. It tasted like fire and felt like one as it went down his throat.

The turn of the events still disoriented him. He had been mostly nodding and grunting with the chief and sat in silence drowning a drink after drink that Krug kept filling.

He should honestly be hammered, but alcohol did not to seem to affect him no more.

He sipped and watched as goblins danced and drunk, fell over and passed out.

Time moved forward. At around the darkest point, goblins cleared the centre and Vani rose and went to the bonfire and danced alone in front of the bonfire.

It was a fierce dance but different from the dance the braves danced.

Hers was graceful and light, unlike the stomping and hooting of common warriors. The tribe had gone quiet as they watched her dancing in the flickering light.

A martial dance of calm and graceful movements, her skirt dancing smoothly with her movements, creating shadows and fanning the flames occasionally while the smoke twirled around by her movements, creating shapes.

“Clap, Clap”  She clapped suddenly while lowering her back and widening her stance as her back hit the ground.

She weaved her body side to side in that position, showing off her fine control of her body.  

She stomped in that pose, slightly lifting the shoulder on the same side as the stomping leg.

Around ten stomps later, she used her core to pull her upper body up and she leaped into the air.

She twirled in the air and landed on one leg with one leg raised up.

She stomped down and clapped in a steady rhythm while occasionally throwing her back downwards and rotating her midriff without stopping.

The audience joined her with steady stomping with them stomping with her on her every fourth stomp.

Other females joined her, stomping and clapping in her rhythm as they moved to her.

The females lifted their hands on the shoulders of others and closed into a circle around Vani and twirled around her while stomping.

Vani stopped in place and stopped clapping, her stomps slowly fastening, her hands swinging around, guided by the rhythm.

The circle around her closed in around her while their stomps mirrored Vani’s speed.

The audience had joined their rhythm now as the valley echoed in rapid stomps without hollering or shouting, nobody spoke as they watched the dance continue.

As the circle neared Vani, she slowly lowed herself downwards and the circle followed her downwards.

Vani disappeared into the circle as they got next to her.

With a single large stomp with both legs, the circle huddling around Vani stopped in place. As did the audience. Silence echoed in the valley and an odd tension spread through it.

“Awoooooooooooooooooo”

Vani howled into the night as she rose from the circle hiding her, spreading her hand and bending backwards as she let her lungs empty with a forlorn howl.

“”””””””Awooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo””””””””

The Tribe joined her and turned the forlorn howl into a howl of a massive pack as they howled towards the sky while the circle around Vani fell and prostrated before her while wiggling and throwing their hands up and down.

As she fiercely pulled her hands down, the howl among the tribe died down, but distant howls of actual wolves continued like an ominous echo.

Viktor stared dazedly as Vani returned to their seating, grasping for breath and sweating.

Watching and listening all of this had been… magical for Viktor.

He joined Krugh and the tribe males, hooting approvingly in a moment of passion.

Vani ignored the hooting while gracefully brushing dirt off her braided hair and marching over to Krugh and Nari, grabbing Naris braid by one hand and plucking two fingers into Krughs nostrils with the other.

She dragged them up and headed over right next to the bonfire.

Fafi came over and picked Viktor up as well as they went over to sit next to the trio, who were snuggling again next to the bonfire and watching the flames.

Snek appeared from somewhere and joined Fafi and Viktor as the rest of the tribe came over to sit next to the dying fire.

The tired goblins watched the flames and hummed a wordless chant that slowly grew in intensity. Slowly, the sound of clattering bones echoed in the dark.

 

A figure with its whole body hidden under robes and a carved mask walked over from the darkness as the chant reached into a crescendo in intensity.

Its whole robe was covered with loosely tied bones that clattered as he slowly came into view from the abyss.

It wielded a gnarled staff with a wolf skull with antlers. The goblin seemed old as it heavily supported itself with the staff.

Upon reaching the bonfire he stopped and looked over the bonfire at the chieftain who humbly bowed his head to it, followed by the rest of the tribe and Viktor who read the mood.

The masked figure mumbled quietly behind its mask, the sound slowly twirling around the bonfire like smoke.

The figure began singing in a gravelly voice. The tribe hummed along with the figure.

 

“The world was young,

The lands were bare.

Upon this time,

 The Moon met her there.”

 

“A maiden fair,

beyond compare.

She walked these lands

With her golden rays of hair. “

 

“She bought change

to the world that laid bare.

Bringing life,

to this dead sphere.”

 

“He chased her here,

With intensions clear.

For what he wished,

Was to hold her near.”

 

“Reaching here.

The Moon found,

She was nowhere near…”

 

“The maiden had left.

Leaving the world without her care.”

 

“He gathered her strands of hair

Illuminating the darkness, she left in her stead.”

 

“He gathered her strands and followed her trail,

Bringing light to us when she wasn’t here.”

 

“As he left in her trail,

he did not know,

his maiden was returning.”

 

“She returned and saw a glimpse of him holding her hair,

as he hurried towards where mountains rise to meet the air,”

 

“We whispered to her how he had saved us from the gloom,

to which end she left us to catch up on her groom.”

 

After the song, the party ended, Vani and Nari dragged a sleepy Krugh into their abode while many of the goblins stayed behind to sleep next to the bonfire.

 

Viktor had been arranged a hovel on the lowest platform level in the valley and was now guided by Fafi towards his new abode.

They walked in silence up the stairway and moving over to the first platform.

They stopped in front of an old hovel a stone throw away from the chief’s manor below and they stopped.

Fafi sighed and turned to address Viktor. “This iss it, your new home, pale one.”

“Never thought I’d bring another shaman to tribe.” She added while rubbing her robe. “Sssso much favour for bringing one kin to tribe... Fafi thought, ‘will get punished’… scout said many kin.”

Viktor wryly scratched his head “While I’m confused about all this, I hope I’m worth it all and not disappoint.”

 

Fafi snorted and laughed before saying, “You not disappoint Paley, shaman always useful in one way or other. If not, then have to wait till useful.” She shed while shrugging her shoulders and grinning at Viktor. “Or teach shaman how to be useful.” She added while removing her veil.

 

Viktor laughed, at the grinning woman. “IS that an offer to teach me?”

“Among other things. Fafi fears Paley won’t shaman properly and make fool of himself and Fafi. Without guidance.”

She grabbed Viktor’s arm and began dragging him inside.

“But before that, Fafi feel she needs to thank Paley… Among other thingsss~”