A/N: lol hai Avalon fandom. I haven't been here for a while. Stopped by to drop off this random super short one-shot that came to me out of nowhere a few months ago. I have no idea if anyone will like this other than me, but here it is. This is unbetaed, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes and hide my face in shame.
Sometimes, Lorren doubted.
Doubt, as it was well understood, was a natural thing. You doubted your place in the world, your family, your friends, your God and just about everything else there was to have faith in. In that rocky stage between being a child and an adult is when the doubts begin, and Lorren was told that as you aged they began to wane. He wasn't sure if that was the truth or a lie to make him feel better.
It was all normal, and all together expected from the anxious young prince who flinched at everything whilst the silver crown was atop his head. He knew half of his kingdom thought he was afraid of being king, of having so much responsibility rest on his shoulders, but that wasn't it. Not really.
It was a doubt that had been gnawing at him since before he could remember. A small seed planted in his mind when he was still in his nursery that had done nothing but grow and grow, though no one else was tending it.
"Makes you a bit sick, doesn't it?"
Lorren jumped as his father seemed to suddenly appear at his side. That was a trait they had in common, their stealth. There wasn't much else that linked them.
"Um...yes, sir." His face was burning at being caught so unaware by the man whose opinion mattered most. King Voraxx's face wasn't trained on him though, but on the hoards of men gathered on the hill, just in view of the palace windows. Rough walls had been erected around them, armed guards standing watch around the perimeter.
It was a band of traitors, goblins who had left the kingdom to join with the Dark Sorceress. They had been captured in the latest battle, and were being kept for now, until something else could be done.
Lorren pulled his eyes away from the sight to glance at his father. Voraxx was eye level with him, but dwarfed him in all other aspects, in muscle, in mass, in force, and in presence.
Voraxx didn't move, but his eyes drifted to his son. Lorren flinched again, feeling his ears involuntarily flatten to his head. It wasn't often that his father looked at him, and even less common for them to make eye contact, but Lorren preferred that. To Lorren, Voraxx was a God, and not in the way that children often revere their parents as divine. The king of the goblins was fierce and powerful, angry and vengeful, and looking into his eyes was like looking into a storm. It was a mix of calm and rage at once, baring down on Lorren and assessing all that he was. He couldn't look away though, and he wondered what it was his father saw when he looked at him.
An eternity seemed to pass and then Voraxx's eyes drifted away, back to the prisoners on the hill.
Lorren released a breath he hadn't known he was holding and followed his father's gaze back. A few droplets of water pelted the regal window, a light mist considering becoming a storm by the look of the looming gray clouds.
Voraxx turned as suddenly as he had arrived, walking off towards the door when Lorren suddenly found himself unable to hold back.
"Do you ever wonder why they do it?"
Lorren didn't look back, but his father's footsteps halted.
"I'm sorry?"
Despite what his kingdom thought, what his parents thought, Lorren was not a coward. Not always, at least. But before his father, he could feel his heart trembling. He pulled himself up taller, shoulders squared in determination.
"Do you wonder why they follow her? Why they leave us?"
There were a few hesitant footsteps as Voraxx took a few steps forward, though not to Lorren's side. His sigh was weary. "I don't know. I think…that maybe some people just have darkness in their hearts."
Lorren nodded, still staring off, but not really seeing anything. "Probably." He felt himself deflating, a curious feeling of defeat spreading through his bones.
"Yes," Voraxx agreed again, his voice containing a hint of finality. Another pause filled the room, broken by the steadily growing patter of rain. He began to leave again, and then stopped, taking one more step towards Lorren. "Was there something else?"
Lorren's ears burned purple, he was annoying his father, wasting his time on something silly. "No, nothing else sir," he said, but something was stirring inside of him, trying to rise up.
Voraxx didn't move.
"Did you ever…ever think that maybe…" he trailed off uncertainly, feeling more awkward than ever.
"Maybe…what?" His father's voice was unreadable.
Twittering with nerves Lorren focused on the men once more. "Maybe they are rebelling, because this isn't what they are suppose to be."
The rain was now pounding against the glass, making the image of the men blurry and distorted.
"What do you mean?" There was a slight edge of Voraxx's voice but Lorren was gaining confidence and wouldn't be deterred.
"I mean, how much like the fairies we have become. We've adapted their customs and beliefs, their language, their food, we even became diurnal." Lorren turned around to look at his father for a brief moment, but Voraxx was stony faced. "I just…don't understand sometimes," he confessed, returning to tracing the lines of the water droplets down the glass with his eyes. "It's like we're not our own people. We're just living in the shadow of the fairies, trying to be like them."
"We are not living in their shadow," Voraxx told him sternly. "We are our own people, and we are proud of that."
"No we're not." Lorren shook his head insistently. "We keep our claws in, pretending we don't have them. We sleep at night and are up during the day even though it hurts our eyes. We don't speak our own language anymore. Did you know that some women are trying to lighten their skin to look more like fairies?" He gave a short laugh of unhappy disbelief. "We are not our own people, nothing is our own." With each word his heart was getting heavier, each confession of his inner turmoil weighing down on him, seeming even more unnatural as he heard the words aloud.
Voraxx took a deep breath. "We do…follow the fairies in some things," he conceded uneasily "but there are reasons for that."
"Reasons for giving up who we are?"
"We are not giving up who we are," Voraxx's voice was rising, echoing off the empty walls fiercely. Another deep breath and he steadied himself. "Lorren, we have a bloody and vicious history. There is a reason the fairies don't fully trust us. While I certainly do not believe we are to be a people on probation, I have to admit that if I were in their position, I wouldn't trust us much either."
Lorren felt a muscle in his shoulders tensing, a burning in his blood. "You are the king. How can you say that about your own people?"
"You have to understand, some of our ancestors were…barbaric. They hunted with their bare hands, they had executions and fights to the death for sport, they drank blood and practiced old, old, magic. We were more like animals than men."
It was time to stop talking, Lorren knew. But his blood was still running hot and something, something was absolutely snarling inside of him now. Outside lightning flashed, followed quickly by a roar of thunder.
"And then what? The fairies converted us? Fixed us?"
"No," Voraxx growled back. "They saved us. They brought us out of the darkness and into a better life. I agree, it is an embarrassing and shameful beginning for us, but sometimes pride has to be set aside for the greater good. Even for a king." He was righteous and determined, true belief hanging on every word.
Lorren said nothing; the thing stirring in him was calming down, curling up to rise another day.
"Lorren, it was a terrible time. A bloody, dark and animalistic time. We are a civilized people now, we are better off."
"I know," the prince responded with a small nod, and he did. He knew the stories of bloodshed, of terror and power that the goblins once had. He could see it when he looked at the men in behind the gate. Darkness was etched on their unsettling faces, a bloodlust unparalleled. Yet, Lorren couldn't help but get the same sense of unease when he looked at his own people, wearing fairy clothes, playing their sports, and eating their food as they walked about in the sunlight speaking a language that wasn't theirs.
"Lorren," Voraxx's voice was commanding. "I need you to tell me that you understand."
"I do," Lorren lied with more conviction "Sir." He glanced down at his boots out of learned humility, but he glanced once more at the men upon the hill and couldn't stop himself. "I just think, that we need to be our own people, and to be proud of that."
Lightning flashed brilliantly across the sky, illuminating the room and for a split second Lorren saw Voraxx's reflection in the glass. He stood as always, tall and proud with his shoulders back and head high, but in those storm clouds he had for eyes there was a flicker of something Lorren had never seen before.
Fear.
A/N: This has no context or point. I just was always fascinated by the goblin people, even though it was totally off point of the book. They are a people of darkness living in a world of light, forced subordinate to the light creatures, and feared and disrespected all the way. A fraction of their people have left the kingdom to join with the evilest woman in all the realms, and they are on the cusp of war. They talk briefly about Marlin being scared and uncertain to take the throne but oh my God Lorren. That sounds terrifying and overwhelming and I would have so many doubts and be second-guessing everything because something isn't going right. I guess I always pictured Lorren just a little bit dark.