“There’s more to you, than you think.” The old woman tapped her staff along the floor with every step, her earlier weakness seemingly washed away after the act of worship to Abbadar.
Fighter looked back at the place of worship repeatedly as she followed Grandmother Swan, still dazed at her words. “There is for most people, you know, though few live to realize it.”
“Not to me, I don’t think. The only thing there is to me, Grandmother Swan, or at least ‘was’ to me, was a great abundance of stupid arrogance. And it destroyed everything I cherished.” Fighter replied as she fell in at Grandmother Swan’s left hand.
“Arrogance?” Grandmother Swan glanced up at the dark haired former adventurer.
Fighter shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. The goblins humbled me… goblins… I’ll never say ‘just goblins’ again…” She tightened her fists and hugged her belly. “Not after they put their spawn into me.”
She clenched her jaw and there was quiet for a bit until they passed a window overlooking the fields, and Fighter spoke again. “When I looked out there…” She swept her hand to the window toward the distant halo framed shadows of the farmers, “I thought of them all in warrior terms. Like soldiers, fighters…” She lowered her eyes to the dirt beneath her feet. “I… I was proud of my fists, my kicks, I was taught nothing but to fight to live. My first love, my Warrior, we bonded over blood and stories of the adventures we would have. I look out there, I see people I would barely have looked twice at, and thought of them in words I can’t even apply to myself anymore. A week ago I thought they were cowards hiding from adventure. Now?” She clenched her jaw and her fists and held them at her sides.
“Now?” Grandmother Swan asked tentatively.
“Now I was only able to be out there at all because it’s daylight. When the sun sets, I know that all I’ll want to do is run and hide, I want to hide and lock my door and not be seen or heard or… or… now I see only a coward when I see myself.” She shook like a leaf in the breeze while Grandmother Swan wrapped her arm around her.
“Even the bravest are frightened by the sudden. You’re not weak because of what happened. You are still ‘Fighter’. Remember, the goblins failed to kill you, and now they’re all dead.”
Fighter snorted and cast a side eye down at Grandmother Swan. “Because I was rescued. I wasn’t strong enough to save myself. They killed Wizard. They killed Warrior. Was I not even worth killing? Remember, they simply tossed me to the stone and let me lie there when they were done… was I not even worth the effort to kill? Is that why I lived and they died?”
“Even the Grim One had to be saved, long ago. Or so the story goes.” Grandmother Swan replied with the nonanswer. And the devastating question hung between them until she pointed out to the farm. “There are many moles out there, you know. Moles, as well as weeds. It’s a constant struggle.”
“I-I’m sure it is.” Fighter acknowledged the point and divided her attention between the elderly woman and the farm that lay beyond the walls of the convent.
“Do you think we get them all?” Grandmother Swan asked sharply, pulling Fighter tighter against herself.
“N-No. Not all the time.” Fighter reluctantly admitted, “But I’m not… not a mole, not a weed…”
Grandmother Swan’s fingers tightened as she spoke, and her voice cracked, but did not break. “No, but you were spared by chance. Just like those moles we miss. The Goblins live in fear of everyone, yes they’re dangerous in numbers. But they fear everyone, even their victims. They’re cowards at heart, all of them. When I was captive, I kicked one of them who came alone to use me. It fell down, scrambled to its feet, and ran away. I was chained to a wall, I couldn’t even use my hands, but he ran. I was so proud… then he returned with five of his companions. First they all beat me until I stopped moving, then they all took turns holding my legs down. Do you know what made that… different than all the other times, child?”
“N-No…” Fighter asked with eyes going wide open and now focused entirely on the stooped old woman.
“I knew I could survive. I had a chance. Yes, it was terrible, I endured it, but I survived it, when they left me, I knew they were afraid of me. They did what they did because they’re monsters, because that is how monsters make monsters. But to them, ‘I’ was a monster, a monster they’d captured, yes, but a monster nonetheless. If you had been thrown in with the other captives, they would have remained terrified of you at every step. No matter what else they managed to do to you. Remember that.”
Fighter’s light blue eyes blurred briefly, but she nodded in silent comprehension.
“The monster that attacks you in the dark, who draws you in to prey on you… well…” Grandmother Swan jabbed her staff hard into the stone, and the crack of noise echoed like a slap to the face. “Warrior never feared to speak to you, what you did, what you wanted, what he wanted… even if he was afraid of rejection, as most men are?” The question, curious as it was, hung between them before she answered it herself.
“Well he was not so afraid to speak his wants. But goblins, predators like them, they ‘fear’ their own prey, they are not and never will be an equal, to you or any. True, they may briefly exercise dominance over you, but they hide as often as possible. No different than the bandit who hides in ambush, or the man who lies about what he is to the world so he can act the role of a goblin when nobody else is looking. They’re all the same. Cowards. They need you to fear them, they want to put the fear into you, that they have of everyone, including you.” The old woman snatched Fighter’s wrist with startling speed.
“When you understand that, even if you don’t believe it now, you will not cry at the sight of them again, and they will flee from you even in your dreams.” Grandmother Swan gave a savage cackle that seemed out of place on such an old figure, and Fighter could only look down at the strange sight.
Desperate for a change of subject as her skin tingled, she withdrew her hand from the old woman’s grip and asked, “Will I be working in the fields then… is that what you want me to do…? I guess, this body is still good for that…” Fighter glanced down at her calloused fists. ‘I can still swing a mattock, that shouldn’t be a problem.’ She considered the subject and tried to think of all she knew about farming, and came up very short. Her lips formed a tight line and she cursed her ignorance until she saw Grandmother Swan shake her head.
“No, child, nothing like that.” Grandmother Swan replied and then resumed their walk.
Fighter followed the old woman back to the dining hall, and as if it understood where they were going and had a mind of its own, her stomach loudly growled at her, like a feral beast left hungry for far too long.
The old woman’s vicious cackle earlier was all but forgotten in the face of the kindly titter of amusement that followed Fighter’s embarrassed blush.
“Come along, we shouldn’t keep your belly waiting, it seems angry.” Grandmother Swan said and picked up her walking pace a little.
The next few hours became a blur, after dropping her at the dining hall, the old woman told her to simply retire to her quarters when she was done, and the young woman was left with other mostly young women for company. Fighter took a bowl of stew and sat down between several women around her age, but little conversation flowed.
The smell of stew, the sound of tearing bread, and in the case of those fresh from the fields, the smell of earth and sweat, dominated the hall. Fighter saw scars on the bare arms of those around her, and more than a few had marks on their faces. They chewed with the silent indifference of beasts, content only to have something to fill their bellies.
Fighter sat in silence long after she finished her stew, the moments seemingly passing like a quiet cloud in the sky, the day passing by her like a swift but silent wind.
Still, though others came and sat, they only ate and left in turn. Their simple clothing befitting field work, it was like her village, but like their voices had been taken. Occasionally a young one fell to crying, and those closest to her would draw closer, but the language of tears was the only one any seemed to know or notice.
Finally she chose to break the silence and speak to a mousey looking woman with short brown hair who sat down across from her. “Hello.” Fighter said with a quiet whisper, as if to keep from being heard.
The young woman looked up from her bowl of stew, and stared at Fighter through soft, doe-like eyes. She didn’t say anything, only looked at Fighter hollowly.
“What’s your name?” Fighter asked, and slid her hand over the table toward the girl.
“F-Farmer.” She finally answered. Then quiet stretched, she didn’t touch Fighter’s outstretched hand. “Y-You’re not.” She finally said after looking Fighter over. “Not… that it did any good, did it?”
What she meant, required no answer, Fighter’s presence in that convent, in that hall, was all the answer either needed.
“No.” Fighter answered with her eyes downcast into her empty bowl. “They got all of us.”
“Got my village.” The girl said in a trembling voice, before her shaking fingers dropped the bread into her stew and she buried her face in her hands and started to wail. The two next to her drew closer, wrapping arms tightly in the embrace of the broken struggling to draw themselves together again.
“That’s why we don’t talk.” A strawberry blonde girl to Fighter’s left whispered harshly, and Fighter’s face turned red.
“S-Sorry. I didn’t know…” She stood, took up her empty bowl, and left. She dropped it at a pickup spot and scurried back to her room. Her feet ate up ground fast as they could carry her without running, until she was at her door. She opened it, entered, then slammed it behind her. Before the sound of slamming faded from its echo over the stone, she’d cast herself beneath her blanket and curled up into a ball. She squeezed herself tight as if to make herself as small as the tears she fought to contain, and remained that way shut off from even the fading light of the outside, until she passed out into slumber.
The blackness of her dreams was no escape. The goblins came for her within, until a hand in the darkness of the real world drew her from her slumber. She cried out, her voice piercing the double night that was not only the hour, but the utter void that her room had become.
She instinctively lashed out with a punch, and the owner of the hand flew back, hard into the wall and fell with a thud.
The groan brought Fighter to her senses. “Who…?” She started to ask of the crumbled figure in the dark.
The figure was clutching her belly with one hand and pushing herself up from the stone with the other, an agonized groan coming out as she rose. “You… hit hard.” The woman said before coughing took her voice.
Fighter shot out of bed, her feet slamming onto the stone floor, she rushed to the one whose touch drew her back from dread dreams. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” She hastily apologized over and over. Her hand fell to the woman’s shoulder, and then in a more gentle hold, began to help her to her feet.
“It’s alright, it’s alright, I should have known better than to disturb you that way.” The woman replied, wiping her mouth with the back of her fist in the dark. The voice clicked.
“Swan Mother… why… why are you here?” Fighter asked, and helped the woman over to the bed.
“That’ll leave a bruise… and I think I’ll need a potion.” Swan Mother grumbled and coughed again when they sat, and the mattress sank under their weight.
“Sorry… really I just… reacted.” Fighter replied and cast her eyes down to the stone.
“It’s alright, I’ll live. Really. I came to see you because of today.” Swan Mother replied, resting a hand on Fighter’s shoulder.
“What?” Fighter asked into the dark. She bit her lip and tried to think of what Swan Mother was talking about, and came to no conclusion.
Swan Mother’s hand went out to a sconce on the wall where a half burned white wax candle sat. “Spark.” She whispered, and from her hand lept a piece of firelight that caught the wick, igniting it and casting a faint glow to the room.
“At the dining hall. You tried to speak, you did speak.” Swan Mother’s voice was devoid of rebuke, but it stung nonetheless.
Fighter’s body trembled as if still trapped in the clutches of goblins. Her head hung low, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”
“There was nothing to know, it isn’t a rule, it’s just what they don’t do, and it is what sets you apart, made you different. Just like how you were taken.” Swan Mother’s hand ran down her back, stroking her soothingly.
“It’s alright, really.” The woman’s voice became smooth as the silk worship mat. “If you were to talk to almost all of them, they’d tell the same story. A farmer girl, a village seamstress, a shepherdess whose flock was slaughtered and herself taken… the one to rebuke you… she was one of those. Tried to protect her flock, only to be made to watch the goblins eat them all before they used her. It’s almost always the same story.” Swan Mother explained, reaching her stroking arm around to Fighter’s far side, she drew the woman against herself.
“Almost?” Fighter inquired.
“Yes. I was an adventurer once. Grandmother Swan… she tells lots of stories, but there’s always more to that woman… so nobody really knows how much of any one is even remembered by her anymore. Rarities though, women like you. You went willingly into the monster’s lair, and that’s why you were different in the hall.” Swan Mother’s faint smile was cast in shadows from the candle, but it was clear, with one corner turned up, she brought a hand up to Fighter’s small chin and turned the woman’s head to meet her eyes.
“If you can speak, you can expel the poison. Just like how their spawn was forced out of your body, you can force their poison out of your soul. Most… they won’t be able to do it. They’ll sit there in silence, work the fields, and be the walking dead until they die. But a few, a rare few, don’t hold the poison in.”
“Th-The poison?” Fighter’s guts churned with dread. “I didn’t think goblins were poisonous…”
Swan Mother froze for a moment, and a harsh laugh came out that she cut off almost as soon as it began. “No… not that kind of poison. They did… terrible things to you. And to me. And to Grandmother Swan. And so many others. And those things linger here…” Swan Mother touched the chest of Fighter, just over the heart. Her hands were firm, but gently placed, and remained there as she went on.
“That act itself was a poison that was meant to ruin you inside, ruin who you were, Grandmother Swan might have spoken of this to you at least a bit. In her roundabout way. But I tell you directly, to speak of it is to deprive it of its power. That you spoke at all, where only weeping spoke before, tells me you can do it.” Swan Mother bit the words off like hard bread to be chewed up.
‘You can do it.’ The words sent shockwaves through Fighter’s soul, and her hairs stood on end.
“What do you want me to say… what should I say…?” Fighter asked with breathless fascination, unable to turn away from the marked face of Swan Mother.
“Everything. Tell me everything they did, in brutal detail, leave nothing out, no matter how much it hurts to say, until the moment of your rescue.” Swan Mother replied, her eyes stared deeply into Fighter’s own, intense, fanatical, unblinking in the light of the dancing candle.
Like her tongue had a power and a voice and a mind all its own apart from her will, Fighter spoke. The cave. The ambush. The fight. The death. The moment of the first one, the goblin’s bloody finger tips paraded before her, her blood and tears and cries. She spoke of it all, she left nothing out, and didn’t stop except to fall into the embrace of the woman until her sobs could abate and she found the will to carry on.
Finally she reached the part where the Grim One, the Goblin Slayer, carried her out, and in the light of day it was done.
“N-Now what.” Fighter whimpered and snorted in her nose with a crude sniffle.
“Now tell me again. The same way, in every detail.” Swan Mother said without blinking at the woman. Fighter knew her own eyes were full of tears because of how blurry Swan Mother’s face had become, but even then she could see that the young woman’s expression had not changed.
“Do I-” Fighter began to ask, only to be cut off by the sharp nod.
“Expel the poison.” Swan Mother ordered.
And so Fighter began again, retelling the story from the moment they entered the cave, to the moment it all went wrong, to the moment Goblin Slayer and Priestess left the cave with her and the other captive women.
When the story was told in full, Swan Mother only said, “Tell it again. Expel the poison.”
And Fighter’s tongue seized power for itself and spilled it all again.
Again.
And again.
And again.
She retold the story, recalled the moments, the emotions, the fear and the pain and the marks that, though they were mostly gone, still pained her with the ghost of their recollection.
After the eighth time, Fighter finally asked, “H-How long must I do this?”
“Until you have expelled the poison, all of it. When you have said it so many times that your memory of their abuse becomes one of indifference, or at least, when it is no longer a thing of fear… well we burned the goblins that were in your body. This is how, with the few who have a true voice still, we burn the goblins that occupy your soul. Now… expel the poison, I will stay with you until you are ready to sleep again, and we will start again tomorrow.” Swan Mother’s firm hands clasped Fighter’s within like a clamshell concealed the pearl within.
“This is not over for you Fighter. Now go on. Expel the poison. Don’t hold it in.” Swan Mother stroked the back of Fighter’s hand, and ignored the pain in her guts. ‘She really does hit like a hammer. Perhaps… Abbadar has answered our prayers with this one.’ She thought, as Fighter began to speak once again.
