Chapter 103
Creeper could not believe how this had happened to him. He had been there in the castle last night, simply minding his own business, when the Invisibles had rounded the corner and pounced on him like a pack of wild dogs, screaming something unintelligible about bedazzling. (?)
He found out very soon what they meant.
It was much later when they let him go, and then a little while after that, he had caught sight of his reflection in the gwythaint's water bucket and screamed something unintelligible himself.
Not one tiny area of his skin or clothing could be seen, save his eyes. The rest was layer after layer of fabricated glitter and sparkly stuff that fitted him like a glove.
No amount of washing could get any of it off. It clung to him like a second skin, and now he realized why the gwythaint had refused to approach him at first when he had gone in.
In a fury, he had searched the castle for the Invisibles all day, but they were nowhere to be found. Usually he could hear them creating some sort of mayhem and he would know to simply follow the noise, but there was nothing. It was like they had simply vanished.
Calling them everything under the sun multiple times did not do much to ease his boiling rage, particularly when they were not around to hear it.
Now he thought he might understand, just a little, of why his master seemed to be in a permanently bad mood around him. The goblin remembered the party incident all too well. His master had tracked glitter around the castle for a month or more afterwards.
His master had not called for him in months. Creeper didn't know what to think of this, but he wasn't about to complain. The less he saw of his master the happier he was, and the castle was more than large enough to stay out of his master's way.
After endless hours of searching for the Invisibles, he became aware of just how silent the castle was today. It was like it had been deserted.
He had fought with himself, conflicted, wondering if he should search for Avalina or not. If he could appeal to her for mercy, then perhaps she might be able to convince the Invisibles to remove the beastly stuff from him, but the last thing he wanted was for *anyone* to see him like this.
Cautiously, he had toured the entire castle, save for his master's chambers (Which he dared not enter) and he could not quite bring himself to enter Avalina's room either.
He checked the stable too, wondering if she and his master might be in there, (he had seen them there before) and got the shock of his life to realize the horse was gone.
He had simply stared, frozen, at the empty stable and the empty equipment racks for some time, his mind having trouble processing it.
The horse was gone.
The equipment was gone.
Avalina was gone.
They were gone.
His first coherent thought after this was that Avalina had finally ran away. His second coherent thought would be to hide as swiftly as possible so that he would not be blamed for it.
But after pondering a moment, he remembered that she and his master had been spending quite a lot of time together, and Avalina did not shrink from it as she used to, but actually all but encouraged it now, and his master seemed perfectly willing to stay in her presence.
It didn't make one bit of sense to the goblin.
Tiptoeing back into the castle, after searching it again and hovering outside the master's door for many minutes, his ear pressed to the wood, he came to the final conclusion that there was no one here.
How this was possible, Creeper couldn't even begin to guess.
But his master, Avalina, and the black monster in the stable were all gone.
The Invisibles were actually being invisible for once, and it seemed to Creeper that he was the only living creature left in the castle.
A bit overwhelmed by this information, he hesitantly wandered through the halls, wondering where everyone had gone. It felt a little odd, having been surrounded by people and suddenly finding himself as alone as he had been the days before his master's return.
Except that now, he was truly alone. The gwythaint was in the stable.
But the feeling was not as pleasant as he remembered. He had wanted nothing more than to be left alone before, but now, with nothing but the silence filling his ears where the other occupants of the castle usually did when he neared them, the feeling was nigh unsettling.
Where was everyone? This wasn't normal for everyone to simply disappear. As the day wore on he began to be more and more on edge, the reasons for which he could not begin to fathom. His nerves increased to where he took great care of not making a single sound in the suffocating silence of the castle.
Of course, after a while he had gone to the gywthaint's stable, when the idea hit.
He could leave! Right now! No one was home. He could simply take the gwythaint and leave this place forever.
But that would not work. The gwythaint's loyalty lay more with his master than it did with him. The gwythaint had returned to the castle with him, and no amount of him attempting to deter the creature had worked in the slightest.
If he was going to leave, he would have to go alone.
Packing a little roll of things, he was almost at the drawbridge, when he realized he might as well feed the gwythaint her nighttime meal before he left. The others would probably not think to do so, as caring for the gwythaint was his responsibility.
The gwythaint knew something was up and eyed him suspiciously as he dragged the hunk of meat over for her.
Creeper dragged in some fresh buckets of water for her and changed her bedding, and when he looked back over when his work was done, he noticed the meat had not been touched.
"What?" He asked the gwythaint, who was staring at him.
"You've got your food, water, clean bedding, what more do you want?"
The gwythaint only stared, her face as blank as a post, although her eyes were questioning.
"Avalina will take care of you," Creeper told her, "So don't mind me."
Getting his little parcel, he turned to depart, but as he reached the stable door he heard the gwythaint pump her wings mightily and rise off the ground.
She landed gracefully in front of him, blocking the way to the door, her enlarging stomach hindering her movements only slightly.
"No!" Creeper told her firmly, trying to step around her.
"You can't come!"
The gwythaint stepped along with him, keeping him from reaching the door. She knew something was off.
"I can't take you with me!" Creeper snapped, his temper beginning to fray.
"Can't you see that? You'll bring me straight back here! Now get out of the way!"
The gwythaint moved again to block him, and Creeper tried to shove her out of the way. The gwythaint didn't move an inch, watching him with those predatory eyes that never missed a thing.
"Get out of the way!" Creeper barked, shoving harder. Why was she being so difficult?
"You can't go! I'm leaving for good, and you've got to stay here!"
It happened all at once. Creeper swung a tiny fist in the air in frustration and struck her right in the jaw as she was leaning down to sniff him.
The gwythaint threw her head up in surprise and almost leaped away from him, throwing Creeper to the floor as she moved.
Creeper realized what he had done the moment he raised his head and saw the gwythaint staring at him with a shocked expression, and instantly he felt horribly guilty.
Getting to his feet, he didn't know what to do to fix this. The very concept of apology was almost entirely foreign to him. If he couldn't even apologize to people, how was he supposed to do it with an animal?
"I. . . .I didn't mean to do that," Creeper rasped uncomfortably, taking a step toward the gwythaint.
The gwythaint immediately backed away and lifted her wings slightly in a warning.
This movement struck Creeper deep, and he did not understand why. Why did he feel like he had wronged something beyond anything else he had ever done in his life?
Not bothering to go any closer, he retrieved his parcel and went out, feeling heavy as a stone.
He was right at the drawbridge when he heard something that made his heart jump.
A long, drawn-out cry rang from the stable, sounding like a cross between the scream of an eagle and the howl of a wolf. It echoed around the buildings and the courtyard and back, again and again and again.
The silence that followed was positively mournful. Creeper stood there, frozen, what he had just heard repeating inside his head.
Gwythaints had considerable vocabulary, but he had never heard this befo. . .wait. He had. The first night after they had escaped the castle when it had been destroyed. The gwythaint, after landing, had released a cry nearly exactly like this, before the exhausted creature had taken to the air again and flown about aimlessly for hours. Creeper didn't understand until later that she had been searching for her mate.
If you ever made a friend in a gwythaint, the creature would be loyal to you for life. Or so he had heard. If you ever gave a gwythaint reason to love or hate you, it would do so with every fibre of its being. There was no middle ground with these creatures.
The call sounded again, and it felt like someone had kicked Creeper in the chest.
He looked out, toward the treeline, that called so invitingly, and then looking back toward the stable as the call echoed slowly into silence.
His eyes prickled uncomfortably and he gritted his teeth in frustration, feeling as if he was being torn in two.
The call sounded once more, even lonelier and drawn out than the last.
Creeper turned back.
Upon entering the stable, the gwythaint stared at him, watching.
"I'm. . .I'm sorry," the goblin rasped, feeling his throat tighten.
"I. . .didn't mean to do that."
The gwythaint came a little closer, looking him up and down.
"Can't you be quiet and let me leave in peace?"
The gwythaint leaned down to sniff his face, and Creeper slowly touched the place he'd hit her. Hurting a gwythaint was impossible with a fist as little as his, but it had been the pure surprise of it all that had made her leery of him.
The feeling came all at once. The goblin's eyes spilled over and he leaned against the gwythaint.
"Why, Addie?"
The gwythaint stiffened slightly, before nuzzling him in a concerned way. He had never used her name before unless the human was present.
Creeper ran his hands over the smooth, scaly hide, feeling how it went cool and warm by turns, and felt the gwythaint give a huff, sniffing him over, almost like he had seen the horse do to Avalina.
He knew he was forgiven without having to say a word.
He had been sitting just inside the gwythaint's stable, brushing her, when Addie swiveled her head up.
After a moment, Creeper heard the sound of a horse crossing the drawbridge, and peeking out the door, saw the black animal disappear into the lantern-lit stable with his two passengers.
'So, they went riding,' he thought.
'That explains a lot.'
He had slipped into the castle, intending to grit his teeth and just ask the human to appeal to the Invisibles for him, but the Invisibles had appeared from nowhere, dumped him in the floor and now Avalina couldn't stop laughing at the sight of him.
Hearing his master chuckle, with no malice in his tone, was a completely new one, and it had taken the goblin so completely by surprise he had simply stared for a moment, before his master looked his way and he quickly looked down.
Finally, when the laughter had died down, Creeper was dismissed by his master with a twitch of his hand, which he obeyed in relief.
He wasn't happy about his present appearance, but if it had gotten him out of trouble then it had obviously done him some good.
Realized I hadn't done a chapter from Creeper's view in a while. Sorry, Creeper. :(