"Yutrin?"
Mijung sighed, wiping the sweat from her brow and resting her hand on the goblin's in concern. She didn't know why she was still talking to him after two days. A part of her still believed that he would answer. "Yutrin, please say something."
His eyes flicked to her, clouded, and his trembles didn't falter. She took the cloth off of his head, pouring more cold water on it before putting it back. It was times like this that she wished she had actually learned how to tend to the sick. When Yutrin got better, she'd need to ask him for a few lessons.
She refused to imagine that he wouldn't get better.
If he was gone, she'd be completely alone.
The sour smell of vomit and sweat was in the air. She had stopped noticing it a long time ago. Something else she had stopped noticing was the dying fire in the hearth, their source of warmth slowly being reduced to embers.
She squeezed out more drops of water on his lips, watching as his tongue flicked out to drink. She concentrated on his face, thinking about what to do next. It was possible that there was something out in the abandoned town that could help him. Maybe there was something, anything, that was more useful than some water and cloth. She had to find a way to help him.
She was careful to not admit to the real reason she wanted to leave: she hated seeing him like this. The longer she sat there, the harder it got to deny how serious it was.
She stood up, but his hand grasped her wrist.
Mijung stiffened, looking down at the dark green fingers tight on her skin, then glancing at the goblin's face.
"M-Mijung…"
It was the first time he had spoken coherently in over twenty-four hours.
She knelt by his bed, her eyes getting wide. "Yutrin? Can you hear me?"
His teeth chattered, his eyes threatening to slip out of focus again, but he spasmodically tightened his grip on her wrist. "S-Sorry… couldn't help you for long… I need to tell you how to birth and take care of the baby before I die."
The color drained from her face. "You're not going to die."
He shook his head, tremors wracking his body. "Don't deny it. I need to use the lucidity to tell you what you need to know. Not… not going to… to be clear soon…" He curled up in a ball, trying to retain heat, but his grip on her wrist didn't loosen.
"You've only been sick for a day and a night! You can't d—"
"Infection. It's gone to my blood now. We don't have antibiotics or a god to give me healing spells." The cloudiness came for a second, but he shook his head, dispersing it. "I'm going to go into septic shock. My blood pressure will drop, blood will stop getting to my vital organs, and I'll die from organ failure. Now please let me tell you what you need to know or I'm going to start panicking and I'll be no help to either of us."
She could see the fear in his eyes. He was struggling against it, but his breath was coming in short, quick gasps. Mijung was reminded of a wounded deer she had once seen as a child. The poor thing had been attacked by something, and its entire flank was practically ripped off. It couldn't even stand.
Yutrin had the same look in his eyes as that deer had.
"You're not going to die." Mijung squeezed his hand hard. "I'm going to go and find something to help. Try to stay conscious while I'm gone, okay?"
"Mijung—"
"Don't talk." She dipped the drinking cloth into the water again, giving it to him. "Suck on this for water. I'll be back before you know it."
"Mijung, please don't leave me alone!"
She pried her hand from his grip, picking up a basket from the ground and slipping on her sandals. She glanced back briefly, but the fear had taken him and made the film over his eyes grow again.
"Jaly, please, come back. You know how dangerous it is to go out… I couldn't stand it if you got hurt."
Mijung paused for a moment.
"Jaly…"
She frowned, tugging her shirt. She shouldn't be surprised. He had said he had only been barely old enough to look for a mate. Barely old enough was still old enough.
Mijung wondered what this Jaly was like.
"I'll be back soon, Yutrin."
"Jaly, don't go!"
But Mijung had already left.
"Yutrin, you'll need to loosen up eventually."
Jalyamir yawned, snuggling up to him and rolling her eyes. "If you keep on waking me up when you have nightmares, we're going to have problems."
"I'm sorry, Jaly." Yutrin smiled sheepishly, resting his face against her neck. "I promise not to do it again."
"Oh, don't promise that. I'd prefer that you wake me up if your afraid. You scare easy, but that doesn't mean that I'm not willing to give a little comfort." She kissed his cheek affectionately before crawling out of the bed. "Besides, I sleep right next to you and your whimpers can get really loud." Yutrin blushed, having the grace to look abashed. "You want anything from the kitchen?"
"No thanks."
She smiled, then was gone.
"You have a choice, child."
That woman from his first night was there again. He couldn't see her, but she was speaking from the bubbling darkness. He knew what she was talking about, even without her elaborating.
The locket around his neck got heavier on his chest.
"You know what it is," the child, also from the first night, whispered in his ear. He looked to see her, but there was still nothing but black.
He reached up, fingering the half-heart locket. He had almost forgotten that he had it. Well, he had intentionally forgotten. He didn't want to consider it. Something inside of him warned that whatever came from the locket was worse than going on to the afterlife.
And after all, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. But at this point, in this world, Yutrin had to wonder if he knew either devil.
"It's not a bad price."
The woman must have been able to read his mind or something. Yutrin looked up, searching the darkness again to no avail.
"You're just given a chance to help people, to help anyone who needs it."
Yutrin swallowed, still running his fingers on the locket.
"And if you open it, you can be free of your obligations to the woman."
"Mijung?" He stiffened a little, shaking his head, but a part of him was very enticed by the offer. "No. She needs help."
"If you don't stay, someone else is already arranged to take care of her. Robin Goodfellow can take her to his home in the Wild and she'd be safe from famine, pestilence, and the wrath of the twins." The voice swirled around him, as plentiful and disconnected as the dust in the air. "The nymphs would make sure that her birthing goes smoothly. She would be taken care of. You'd be free of your responsibilities to her. You'd be free to guarantee your own survival."
Yutrin's resolve was caving at the sound of this. His heart beat fast and his mouth got dry. He could run away.
He reasoned that that sounded like much better care than he could ever provide alone, that it was actually the right thing to let her go there, but he knew that the real reason he was starting to get ready to open the locket. He had a way to run and live away from the human and reconcile his conscience with the idea.
He could be safe.
The image of her smile, the sound of her laugh, flickered in his mind. He shook it off. It was only right to give her to someone who had the resources to look after her.
And besides, a darker part of him thought, it was a real charitable act that he'd been willing to help her at all. She wouldn't have done the same for a goblin. No human would.
"…If I open this, she still gets taken care of? Prenatal care, a midwife, help with the growing baby, everything?" His heart started to beat even faster. He could escape. He'd been secretly terrified of the human killing him as soon as he stopped being useful, and now he could keep his neck and sense of morality intact.
"All of it." The woman's voice rolled through his ears like oil, sliding into his brain and going down his spine. "And the conception of the next child will be handled as well."
That made him pause, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Wait, next child?"
"Oh, she didn't tell you? I suppose she doesn't take it seriously."
The woman was nonchalant. The darkness swirled around him, lovingly holding him in an embrace that he had only known from his mother.
"She needs to bear the gods. That requires more than one baby. Robin Goodfellow—and probably his fairy friends and interested gods and spirits, knowing him—can handle the conception."
Yutrin immediately shook his head, gripping the locket tighter. "She has a husband. She'd never consent to sleeping with anyone else."
"Then I suppose they will just not ask for her consent."
The color drained from his face, his hand getting sweaty on the locket.
"Y-you're telling me that she'll be gang-raped?"
"More than once, probably. Robin is a lustful man and feels entitled, to say nothing of the company of fairies, spirits, and gods he keeps. Even when she doesn't need to be impregnated again, I doubt that they would let their present wile away the hours with looking at old books."
Nausea started in his stomach. He felt like he would throw up. "Oh… oh GOD!"
He started shaking his head so hard that he nearly got whiplash. Safety or not, fear or not, there was absolutely NO WAY he'd let anyone, even a human, go through that!
"No! No, I can take care of her! Keep those monsters away from us!"
"But what are you going to do, little one?"
He could hear the smile in the woman's voice. What kind of sick goddess was this?
"You're body is dying. If you don't open the locket, you'll be unable to help and we'll have to have Robin take her. If you open the locket, then there's no telling what you'll be willing to have happen to her to preserve yourself."
His throat constricted.
"You're in a little Catch-twenty-two, aren't you?"
He was fingering the locket again, panic starting in his chest. "There has to be a way. I can take care of her. I'll do anything."
"Oh, really?"
He felt an unknown pressure on his stomach.
"Well, there may be a way to keep Robin at bay for now."
Yutrin swallowed, struggling to be calm, and bobbed his head. "Yes? Yes?"
"Promise to take care of her. To get food and water for her and all children she has. To make sure that their health remains your priority, no matter how dangerous it becomes."
He nearly got whiplash again from nodding his head. Yes, yes, he could do that.
"And if there ever comes a time when her or one of her children's life is in danger, you will choose them over yourself and die in their place."
He stopped. He hated himself for it, but he stopped.
His entire life had been formed by running away from the humans. He had seen what they were capable of. Hell, he had felt what they were capable of, and it felt painful. He had watched family and friends be burned and destroyed by them without so much as a reason.
"A little piglet should be marked, shouldn't it?"
"P-please l-let me go…"
He'd watched his own village burn because a human woman wanting their land had accused one of the goblins of raping her. Afterwards, she decided that she didn't want their rocky, infertile land after all. His whole family save for his little sister and his twin had been killed in that massacre.
"No, please, don't hurt her!"
"Get out of here! Get Little Sister out of here! The humans don't have her yet! FOR GOD'S SAKE, YUTRIN, I'M ALREADY DONE FOR!"
His twin hadn't lasted more than a year after the village.
"BIG BROTHER! HELP!"
"Stop, please! I'm begging you!"
"Hey, listen to that! He wants us to stop! Do you think we should listen to the gobbo, bro?"
"I like their squeals too much. You guys finish yourselves up, then crush her skull."
It wasn't long afterwards that humans had taken his little sister away too.
Humans. Humans were the source of all of his pain, grief, and trauma. He was sixteen years old. Any sixteen-year-old human was sucking on their silver spoon and taking their family for granted, probably planning on using goblins for target practice later on. He was already orphaned with hardly anyone to care about him, and here he was, giving care to one of the creatures that had done this. Was he willing to throw away Jalyamir's sacrifice for the sake of one of them? Humans like Mijung were responsible for his entire family's death, and his little sister… oh by the Dark One, Romy…
He owed it to his family to make their sacrifices worth something. To throw his life away for some blasted human was an insult to them.
He felt the ball of hatred and anger hardening in his stomach, then he paused, remembering who he was talking about. Mijung had been nursing him while he was sick, and she had allowed him to share her bed even when there was enough floor for him to sleep on. Sure, maybe some of it was motivated by the fact that he was the only one there, but she was a human performing a compassionate act. And the talks by the fire, the way she smiled, the few but gentle touches…
She hadn't been the one who had taken his family away. She didn't have a say in that. And if he let his hatred rule him and he abandoned her to that unspeakable fate, he was no better than those boys who had murdered his baby sister, or those men who had burned Jaly, or that woman who selfishly set the elves on his village with false accusations.
The fear of taking this deal threatened to take him over, but he held fast, calling on the love that had inspired him to be a cleric in the first place. He kept to that, letting the hatred and terror fade away. Yutrin centered himself, taking a deep breath.
If he died, it was better to die for the sake of someone in need, regardless of the species.
He'd made a promise to Mijung to never leave her. He'd keep it.
"I'll do it."
He felt an odd sense of approval permeating the darkness.
"Then it's settled."
His mind was released from the dark meeting place.
His eyes fluttered open. The illness still wracked his body and his vision was still clouded, but that wasn't what he was concerned with.
There was some great monster above him, a cloth over its head and snakes tangling at its hair. He tried to scream, but some unseen force trapped it in his throat. A dark, blurry hand reached down for him, clamping on his head and pulling it up slowly.
"By the Twelve Gods! YUTRIN!"
His eyes flicked to the side to see Mijung sprinting from the door, reaching for a fire poker. A huge, thick snake (oh God, was that connected to the monster?), lashed out before she could get there, wrapping around her torso and pulling her up off the floor. She thrashed, but his vision was too blurred to see it well.
"YUTRIN! GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU BITCH!"
The monster didn't pay attention to her. It only looked back down at him, forcing his mouth open. He tried to run, but he was completely paralyzed. It wasn't even the illness—someone was keeping him immobile.
"YUTRIN!"
The monster's arm rested on his tusks, pressing, and he felt his tusks ripping through skin, and salty blood rushed into his mouth. He wanted to gag, but his gag reflex wasn't working. Something forced him to swallow the welling stream.
For a moment, his throat was cold. Then it started burning.
The flow lessened and the monster backed away, letting its arm hang at its side. The burning flared painfully and he convulsed, waiting for a really painful death, then it passed.
The chills left. He stopped trembling. Sweat formed on his brow, breaking the fever that had gripped him. His vision cleared, and his dizziness and nausea receded.
The creature—a woman with the body of a snake forming her legs past mid-thigh and snakes for hair with a cut cloth over her head—reared back. He took a breath, eyes reflecting his confusion, but slithered out with inhuman speed before Yutrin could say anything, letting Mijung on the bed.
"Yutrin!"
She pulled him into a sitting position, cupping his face in her hands and struggling to make eye contact. "Yutrin, say something!"
He breathed, the illness melting away, and he felt like there was fire in his veins, the monster's blood mixing with his own. The taste of iron was still on his tongue, but he didn't mind. He was looking at Mijung for the first time.
She had tried to save him. She could have died for him.
And he had considered leaving her to rapists.
Her eyes were panicked. "Yutrin, say something!"
He reached up, resting his hand on her cheek. She was a good person.
For the first time, he really believed that he could keep his oath, no matter how scared he got.
"I'm glad you're okay, Mijung."
He wrapped his hands around her and hugged tightly. After a moment, she hugged him back.
They stayed like that for a while.