Aoife

They just kept on yelling at me. It had been almost an hour, and they still wouldn’t give me a break.

I really, REALLY wanted to go to bed.

“How could you bring them here!?!”

“What were you thinking?!?”

“I thought you said you wanted Cyrus dead!”

On and on and on and on and on.

They were justified in their anger. Those humans had slaughtered them. They’d completely decimated the goblins, tearing their family apart. They were allowed to be angry, furious even, that I’d allowed them both to stay, but I’d be damned if I let them kill a pair of captured teens. It was hardly even past noon, but fuck I was tired.

“Cyrus is a genocidal maniac who deserves death, Matt and Chelsea are a pair of teenagers who were manipulated and abused by the exact same power that made you trust Cyrus to begin with. We are not killing them.” It was practically a script at this point. I’d said basically the exact same thing 5 times already.

“Knew we shouldn’t have trusted her!”

“There need to be consequences!”

“We should just pack up and leave!”

On and on and on.

“Can we please just talk about this later?” I wanted this to be over. I wanted to go home. Instead, I was camped outside one of the smaller houses on the outskirts of our village. Willow and the plants had carried the two teens inside, and naturally, the goblins saw it happen. I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t try something rash, so I couldn’t leave, so they just kept yelling.

The chorus of rasping voices continued, bowling over any protest or argument I might have made. I didn’t even have backup either. Erica was out hunting, Willow was taking care of our new arrivals, and I had no idea where Cass went. I just sat there, bearing it alone.

Until suddenly… I wasn’t alone. 

Evelyn was sitting on the house’s steps beside me. She looked like a mess. Her chaotic hair and slapdash attire made it clear she’d just woke up. She was leaning towards me, an arm around my shoulder, her cold skin tickling my neck.

“Is it true?” Her voice was rough and dry. Her grip on my shoulder tightened as she used me for support. This can’t have been how she’d want to be reunited. “Is what Cass told me really true?”

“I think so. There’s a 19 year old boy named Matt in this house. He has brown hair, and…” I looked at her closely. “I think he has your nose.”

“I see…” She was quiet for a moment, and for just an instant, the shouting and the anger seemed to fade a bit as well. Eventually, as if she’d only just remembered they were there, Evelyn turned her eyes towards the gathered crowd. “Just so you know, that’s my son you’re trying to kill.”

That shut them up. Every last mouth slammed shut, and every single pair of eyes snapped to the weary vampire. She did her best to muster up a smile for them.

“It’s ok. I get it. He killed your people, so you want to kill him back. It’s not unreasonable. Even if he wasn’t fully in control, even if he wasn’t totally himself, I won’t expect you not to hate him, and I won’t ask you to forgive him… Just like he doesn’t have to forgive me.” Her grip on me tightened even further as she rested her full weight in my arms, the effort of supporting herself was just too much. “I killed my wife, his mother, and he tried to kill me back. It wasn’t unreasonable of him. Even if I wasn’t in control, even if I was starving, He doesn’t have to love me anymore, and he doesn’t have to forgive me. If he dies though- If you kill him, it wouldn’t be that unreasonable for me to hate you, would it?”

The silence when she finished was deafening. Her words were left hanging in the air. I found myself reciprocating her hold on me, wrapping both arms around her waist as the moment stretched on. Not a single voice, not even a whisper, dared to shatter this calm, not until Evie spoke once again.

“I should never have killed Maria. If I hadn’t, none of this would have happened, but it did, and I have to live with that. Matt never should have hurt you, but he did, and now he’s living with that. You want to hurt him, and I don’t blame you, but somebody has to end this. At some point, someone has to decide that death isn’t the answer. I don’t know if I have that kind of strength, so right now, more than anything, I’m hoping with everything I have that you do. You can hate him all you like, you can curse him till your dying breath, but please don’t kill my boy.” Her voice broke on that last word, and bloody tears began to stream down her face. She pressed her head into my shoulder, and I held her tight, watching the goblins carefully.

After another lengthy pause, a quiet moment punctuated by the sound of Evelyn’s muffled sobs, the goblins began to whisper among themselves once again. Some voices seemed angrier than others, but still they all kept quiet, their fury stifled, if only for now, by a mother’s grief.

“I lost my son already. He was taken from me by the very same boy you’re trying to protect. I won’t forgive him.” It was Terry, their eyes shining with both tears and righteous anger. I tensed up subconsciously, my body readying itself to act in case they tried something. “I will never forgive him, but I’m not going to put you through that same pain for the sake of my satisfaction. Just… promise me something, vampire.” Evelyn removed herself from my shoulder to look at them, wiping the blood from her eyes. “Promise me that as soon as you’ve found someplace safe, as soon as you have somewhere else to go, you’ll take your boy and leave. He occupies enough space in my nightmares, I don’t want to deal with him in my waking life as well.”

“Ok

… 

I promise.”