In the silence of the early morning, Faye found it easy to confront herself about what had happened over the course of the previous two days. Many of the decisions she’d made since leaving earth were based on urgency and reaction. Their plans were half-formed, and it had resulted in the deaths of Dane and Dillon. They’d only gotten the upper hand on the Hob due to Dillon’s eccentric collection of gadgets, otherwise they’d all been beaten to a pulp or worse.

She shuddered at the implication.

Nonetheless, every time she thought about sacrificing the idea of running back to the portal, the less comfortable she felt. Less comfortable, but more hopeful. Hopeful that if they used their heads, and focused first on survival, the better their chances of finding said portal, and navigating their way through the thousands of soldiers to pass through it.

Then there was the wild card that nobody had really discussed.

What was going on back on Earth?

Canada would fight back against the invaders. Of that she was certain. Nothing the invaders had– not even the dragons– would be a match against a well-organized modern mechanized infantry.

But then what? What would they do once they’d won? Would they cross through the portal and bring the fight back to the invaders? Would they just roll through and obliterate them?

Faye’s entire career was built on information, and for once she found herself without even an ounce of it. She’d taken the ability to read the news every morning for granted.

The thing they needed more than anything else if they were going to get home wasn’t food or weapons. It was information.

And it was hard to get information when you were lost in the woods potentially being hunted by goblins and soldiers.

But survival came first. Then information. They’d decided the night before that they were going to pack up their things and use the temporary camp as a staging area to find the creek again. From there, they would attempt to find the road.

From there, they would attempt to find some kind of settlement. What to do at that point hadn’t been fully explored, but they all agreed that at the very least they should find a better place to operate out of. The wilderness was far too unpredictable.

Next to her, Emma and Owen slept huddled together for warmth. They didn’t have anything to warm them but the fire and the clothes on their back. Faye was still part of that huddle. She stretched her toes and winced in pain. She still had cuts all over her feet. When they found the creek, Faye would have to wash the bindings and clean her feet. The last thing she could afford was an infection.

She lost herself in the sound of the birds singing. It was surprisingly comforting and familiar. She wondered how many bird species there could be found on Earth. Besides the goblins and the dragons, everything else looked as though it would be right at home on Earth.

As she listened, she tried to pick out their songs– the caw of a crow, the melody of a sparrow. Sounds that back home she generally took for granted now reminded her of home.

She began to note a shift in the tone of the bird’s songs as the first signs of dawn rose over her head. At first, she thought it was heralding the arrival of the sun, but then she realized it was only shifting in a certain direction.

The birds were reacting to something nearby. Something that, from what she could tell, was drawing the attention of more birds.

Was she imagining it? She didn’t want to wake up the others for a false alarm, and Faye really didn’t know enough about bird song to–

Suddenly, the bush at the edge of the clearing shook as if something big was behind it. Faye froze in place for a moment, her eyes trained on the bush.

She began to nudge Owen as he slept next to her. First gently, then almost violently as a small humanoid shape emerged from the bush.

It was a goblin.

No, it was the same goblin she’d first seen near the creek. The same goblin that had met her eyes after she’d killed the Hob.

Owen and Emma both jolted awake, drawing the attention of the goblin, who once again met Faye’s eyes.

Faye quickly grabbed onto the sharpened stick she’d slept next to and used it to rise to her feet, holding it aloft.

“Stay back,” she ordered.

Oddly, the goblin broke eye contact with her.

And then it kneeled to the ground and leaned forward, pressing its forehead to the ground.

“What… what’s it doing?” Owen asked, now standing with his own stick.

Faye looked back and forth to Owen and the goblin.

The goblin suddenly started to chatter– it was an unintelligible mess, but it was clear it was trying to say something. Whatever it was, Faye couldn’t tell, but she got the sense that it was trying to show it wasn’t a threat.

Fortunately, Faye was no idiot. She scanned the area. Where there was one goblin, there’d be others. This one had to be distracting them.

Then she spotted a shape behind the first goblin, and her heart sank as she realized it wasn’t just one shape– it was several.

“There’s more in the bush,” she informed the other two.

“We should leave,” Emma said.

Two other goblins then emerged from the bush and took spots next to the first, kneeling and pressing their foreheads to the ground. Then two others.

Five goblins in total knelt on the ground before them. As far as Faye could tell, that was all of them.

She took an experimental step forward.

“Faye, what are you doing?” Owen asked.

She didn’t respond. Instead she took another step toward the goblins. They remained perfectly still.

“Hah!” she yelled. “Go on, get out of here!”

The goblins flinched, but didn’t move. One shook as if freezing, but Faye suspected it wasn’t that– the goblin was terrified.

So why kneel like that?

She took another step forward, then jabbed the blunt end of the spear in the grass only a few feet away from them.

Another flinch.

She took a moment to look back to Owen. “I think they’re surrendering,” Faye said.

“Surrendering?” Owen asked. He looked down at the goblins and observed them for a moment. “That doesn’t make sense. We were running away from them. Why would they track us down and surrender?”

The lead goblin began to chatter again, and the others followed in kind. A sixth goblin then emerged from the bush. Faye pointed the tip of her spear directly at it. It looked different from the others. It had a long grey beard and walked with a limp, but it was carrying something. A piece of yellow cloth with marks of red on it.

It stepped in front of the others, and made no attempt at eye contact with Faye, then lay the cloth on the ground in front of her. She looked down to it, then used her spear to pick it up.

The first thing to strike her was the smell– the cloth smelled terrible. Like it had been worn for weeks without a wash in between. The red markings were–

–blood. It was blood.

She quickly realized whose blood it was. She was holding the clothing worn by the Hob she had killed. She had the very same blood on her clothes.

The old goblin lowered himself carefully to the ground. It seemed to struggle with it, but forced itself down.

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“It’s the… the clothes the Hob was wearing,” she said.

“Oh shit,” Owen said. “You don’t think…?”

“Think what?”

“Well we killed their leader,” he explained. “Or rather, you did.” He put down his spear and took a step forward. “If they try anything, get stabby, okay?”

Faye nodded as Owen approached the old goblin. Owen lowered himself to his haunches and reach out to touch the old goblin’s shoulder.

The goblin looked up and met his eyes, then they darted over to Faye, and then back to Owen.

Owen stepped back and allowed the old goblin to stand again. The old goblin then began to speak–

–not that they understood the slightest word it was saying, but the tone in which the goblin spoke was not of fear or hate– it was of reverence.

Faye suddenly understood.

They weren’t surrendering. Their leader was killed. Faye had killed him.

That meant they needed a new leader. And somehow they got it into their head that was meant to be Faye.

“Oh no,” Faye said. “No, no. I am not dealing with this right now.”

“It’s better than them trying to kill us,” Owen added.

“They might be able to help us,” Emma added. “Help us find a way home maybe?”

“We can’t even speak the same language,” Faye argued.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t communicate,” Owen said. “Besides, we’re going to need friends here if we’re going to make a go of this. This might just be what the doctor ordered.”

“Well then you do it,” Faye said.

“It’s not me they revere,” Owen said. “It’s you.” He looked down to the old goblin and smiled at it and gave it a thumbs up.

To Faye’s utter amazement, the old goblin flashed a toothless grin and returned the gesture. It said something else, and the other goblins slowly started to look up once more, and get back to their feet. They each looked at Faye, but were careful not to meet her eyes.

They feared her. That much was clear. That certainly wasn’t a bad thing.

She got a better look at the other goblins. The one in the center was the one she’d originally seen. He wore a pale blue bandanna over his head. Two of the others were surprisingly– and clearly female. One of the males was smaller than the others, but stood proudly before her, even if he didn’t meet her gaze. The last was huskier than the others.

Six goblins stood before her. There was something disarming about the whole thing. Awkwardness hung in the air with the whole innocence of it.

She wasn’t entirely convinced she could trust them yet, though.

“You,” she said, pointing at the main goblin. The one she’d first seen the day before.

The goblin looked up at her, then immediately away again, bowing his head in shame.

“No, no,” she said, then kneeled down a few feet away. This seemed to alarm the goblins, but she didn’t care. “Look me in the eyes,” she said to him.

She wasn’t sure if he understood what she was saying, but he seemed to get the point.

“If this is a trick, I’ll get you just like I got your friend,” she said. “Do you understand?”

“Unnn,” the goblin began. “Unnerstan.”

“Holy shit, now I’ve seen everything,” Owen commented.

“He’s just repeating after me,” Faye said. “Aren’t you?”

“Yuuu,” he replied softly.

Faye stood up again and gestured to herself. “Faye,” she said.

“Faye,” the goblin replied. He wore a wide smile, then fell again to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. The others followed in suit, each repeating her name.

“Hey,” Faye said, reaching over and pulled the goblin up. “No, no. Don’t do that.”

One by one, the goblins got up once again. This time, they seemed less awkward. In fact, she recognized the look of relief on each of their faces.

Faye pointed to Owen. “Owen,” she explained. She then turned to Emma and said her name as well.

The goblins repeated them without fail.

“You?” she asked, pointing to the goblin.

The goblin blinked in confusion. He shook his head and said something in Goblinese.

The old one then replied to him, and she watched as the goblin with the blue bandanna crossed his hands.

“You don’t have a name, do you?” Faye asked. She took stock of the goblin. The other goblins seemed to be following his lead. Even the old one, who seemed to be in a class of his own, perhaps a sage or something of the sort, seemed to defer to the one with the blue bandanna.

“Leonardo,” she said. She knelt down again and put her finger to the goblin’s chest. “You’re Leonardo.”

“Liunaaro?” it asked. It gestured to itself.

“Leonardo,” she repeated, carefully sounding out the syllables.

The goblin started to beam with pride. It was so genuine it completely disarmed Faye. The others were right. It would pay to have friends in that world, and even if they couldn’t speak each other’s language, there was nothing stopping them from putting ideas across to each other.

Leonardo started getting congratulatory slaps on the back from the other goblins. She supposed getting a name would do that to anyone, but she had to wonder– the goblins seemed to be at least as smart as a child, and were at least capable of communication. Why didn’t they have names?

“Did you seriously name him after a ninja turtle?” Owen asked.

“I think it’s cool,” Emma added. “He’s green, the bandanna… it all kind of fits, doesn’t it?”

“Leonardo?” Faye asked. 

The goblin whipped his head toward Faye. He was positively beaming.

“Do you know where the creek is?” she asked. She tried to mime water moving, but the goblin only cocked its head to one side.

She started to use her spear to draw a river. The goblin looked on with interest and started to point at it excitedly, then up to Faye. “Acha!” he exclaimed. He did his best imitation of running water, then pointed off to the south.

Faye looked back to the others. “What do you think?” she asked the others.

Owen nodded. “I think it’s worth a shot. Even if we can find the creek. But we’re going to need food as well. Supplies. Directions.” He motioned to the goblins. “And if they’re going to be hanging around, we need to factor them in as well.”

“All of us stay on our toes,” Faye said. “We don’t let them separate us, and we keep those spears handy. At least for now. Sound good?”

She got a nod from each of them, then turned back to Leonardo. “Okay little guy,” she said. “Lead the way.”