"The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not smashing it."

Arnold H. Glasgow

Sarah couldn't pinpoint where things had gone wrong.

Wrong did not even remotely describe the situation adequately.

Disastrous. Terrible. Horrible. No Good. Very Bad. Day.

She'd expected her ad would garner its fair share of spam. A Nigerian prince here, a few ASLs there. How big are your tits? The usual emails. What she did not expect was to get none of those at all. Nothing. No sketchy attachments that made her virus detectors pop up. It didn't make sense. She'd once posted an ad for a table she wanted to sell and had very nearly salted and burned her dial up as a result. She'd prepared for the worst and instead had received a reasonable succession of completely normal and perfectly acceptable responses. Almost too good to be true.

As it turned out, it was.

After a few back and forths with each, she made arrangements to meet with them together. She decided a group interview was in her favour. Men were pack animals, always vying for dominance. Their true colours would come out if they thought they had to compete with one another. She was a genius.

After exchanging a few more emails back and forth, just to test the waters further, she was satisfied and invited all ten to her building. Her schedule was tight, and the agreed upon date was a little close to her departure for comfort, but she reasoned finding one suitable candidate and briefing him was still doable. She'd chosen her building because it had a bookable "conference room" that she decided was neutral territory. The lobby had a security desk and required all guests to be signed in and out with a photo ID. That was far more secure than any café and they still wouldn't have her apartment number. The conference room, which was more often than not used for parties on the weekends, was entirely glassed and could be seen from the front desk. It had automatic shutters if desired, but for Sarah's purposes, it was the best of both worlds. An armed witness who couldn't hear her interviewing for a fake boyfriend.

Sarah had dressed carefully on that Saturday morning. Making sure to look as average as possible. Stylish boat neck sweater – no cleavage – nice low rise jeans, leather knee boots. I am not planning to seduce you, or be seduced, makeup. She even brought her cat, deciding that their reaction to the feline would be another judge of character. She reasoned she was bringing hers and week wouldn't work with allergies. Karen would gladly offer to pay to kennel it so it wasn't a viable excuse to bow out.

And the fact of the matter was, she wanted to see her family. She just didn't want to be harangued about starting her own.

She watched through the glass as the first guy arrived. Not bad. Medium height. Sandy brown hair, thinning, but not bald. He'd lied about his height but she wasn't planning on dating him anyway. He was just attractive enough to be believable, she had standards after all, without being even remotely swoon worthy. A promising start.

The other nine arrived in a steady succession – all punctual and all falling within the spectrum of what she was looking for. Her own army of B grade actors.

She welcomed them into the room and indicated they could help themselves to the coffee she'd prepared and the scones she'd bought. At the very least she could feed them for their troubles.

For the first few minutes everything seemed fine. Better than fine in fact. They didn't seem at all bothered by one another. No alpha jock behaviour. Brief pleasantries were exchanged. Sarah jotted a few notes on a pad she'd thought to bring.

And then everything went to hell.

After outlining her needs, reiterating it was fake – no romance required, she'd asked about interests, planning to strike off any who shared something in common with her father or Karen.

They all looked confused by the question.

"Um… Chickens?" answered one finally. He was.. Charles, she thought. Odd, but still workable.

"Oh. So… do you farm them?"

"I pet them."

Sarah's brow furrowed.

"Pet… them?"

The man nodded thoughtfully. "And play with them. Brush them. Lick them-"

Sarah paused in her note taking, holding up a thoroughly chewed pen. "I'm sorry, did you say lick them?"

"I like chickens too," another interrupted. "Put me down for a chicken."

"Me too."

"Me four."

"Three's next, you idiot!"

"Four chickens is better than three if she'd giving them out!"

Sarah looked up and blinked incredulously at the bland faces arguing before her. "Wait… so you ALL like chickens?"

Ten affirmatives.

"Do you… all know each other?" She began to fear she was going to be recruited into a chicken cult.

"No." Ten heads nodded in chorus. One, having finished his scone, sniffed and then stuffed the napkin in his mouth.

"Right…" She wondering how best to shut the whole thing down immediately.

"So where are the chickens?" Asked the napkin eater.

"Well I…" Sarah trailed off as a few things happened at once. Her cat, Peaches, jumped down from the ledge it had been asleep on. She'd almost forgotten she'd brought him for the interview-turned-chicken-lovers-meeting.

Bob, she was pretty sure, jumped up and growled.

Not used to being growled at by humans, Peaches looked understandably confused.

"You don't like cats?"

Bob made a rude motion with this hands that was known both above and below ground. "My sworn enemy," he hissed in a voice that sounded more beast than man.

Peaches blinked and began licking himself.

The other candidates all seemed equally disturbed by the 7lbs of fluff in the room. One of them even fainted.

Sarah jolted out of her chair in concern. "Is he alright?"

"Probably dead," another shrugged indifferently. "Always was deathly afraid."

"Dead?" she mouthed, beginning to wonder where exactly she had gone wrong. She didn't have time to do more than fret before she heard a cacophony of snarls and growls and hisses.

She spun. One of the men, she'd lost track of who was who, looked like he was trying to unhinge his jaw – and failing – so he could swallow her understandably now thoroughly pissed off cat.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked in outrage.

The man had the grace to look embarrassed. "Er… eating cat?"

Sarah snatched the offended feline back. "Why are you trying to eat my cat, you absolute monster?"

"Not monster, man," he corrected proudly, gesturing at himself like he was wearing a very nice new suit. "Cats eat chickens. Cats bad."

Sarah began to suspect that he'd suffered a head injury of some sort or perhaps was mentally delayed. She caught the eye of the security officer who was staring at them open-mouthed form across the lobby. He pulled a newspaper up but she could still see him peeking over the top.

The internet was the absolute worst.

It was just porn and cat memes. And apparently crazy chicken lovers who wanted to eat cats.

"I think it's time for you ALL to leave," she said firmly, her voice quaking just ever so slightly. There were a few grumbles of protest, mostly at the lack of promised chickens, but every man stood and began shuffling towards the door. She motioned to the security guard who'd given up all pretense of not watching the daytime drama. He nodded and began signing them all out.

Sarah was already on the elevator by the time they'd filed out. She therefore completely missed the shift in their appearances as soon as the revolving doors spun - taking in a group of average looking men and spitting out a horde of anything but average goblins. They disappeared with a 'pop' before more than the odd pigeon had a chance to react.

Sarah collapsed against her door as soon as she'd shut and locked it. She filled Peaches' bowl in apology. He gave her a look that suggested more than a tin of white tuna was required to correct the slight against his person.

The calendar on her fridge was impossible to ignore.

She was leaving for home in two days. Two days and the onslaught would begin. Her entire Christmas bonus had been set aside to pay for peace. A Christmas gift to herself.

She logged into her email.

Five emails from Karen. One just had the subject line, "cutest baby names". Her head hit her desk. It was going to be worse than she thought. Curse Toby for setting them up with accounts.

And then a ping.

She tilted her head and looked up with one eye.

It was another answer to her ad. Garrett Kendrick was the sender.

She clicked to open and scanned. Sounded normal enough but so had the others. He provided an exemplary police records check, noted that he didn't have a recent picture but would be happy to present himself in person. Explained that he was new to the area and didn't have anywhere to go for Christmas. Said he was happy to negotiate the rate, but that he didn't really need the money and was looking more for new experiences and was intrigued by her strange request. He asked to meet in person.

Sarah shuddered and then noticed her phone was flashing. The machine indicated three missed calls. All from home. She deleted them unheard and wrote one line in response.

"Do you like chickens?"

Send.

Almost immediately a response pinged back. "Can't stand them. Why?"

Sarah's lips twitched. She debated about choosing a café or restaurant. Glancing outside her window she saw the weather was turning nastier. She wrote back asking if he'd mind doing the interview over the phone. She provided her number. She added that she'd already had several successful interviews but was keeping her options open.

A few minutes later an email popped up asking if the interview wasn't better in person. He said he'd tried calling already. Sarah realized that she'd forgotten to disconnect from the internet. He noted his location and said he was willing to brave the cold. Realizing it was right around the corner she agreed, telling him she'd meet him in the lobby. She hoped the security guard enjoyed his double feature.

She was still tidying her appearance when her phone rang a scant few minutes later.

"Hello?"

"Peach Champion I presume?" the voice drawled. It was as smooth as velvet. "Garrett. Just calling to say there is no need to trouble yourself coming down. The man at the desk gave me your address. I'm on my up as we speak."

Sarah frowned. That was a huge violation of policy. Before she could say anything in response, he'd hung up.

She panicked. The fact that he called her en route meant he had a cell phone. Which meant he had money at least. Unless it was stolen. Unless he was a murderer who'd stolen it from his last victim.

Relax, Sarah.

Rap, Rap, Rap.

Sarah yelped and stared at the door like it was about to burst open.

She took a calming breath and went to it, her hand stilling on the knob. She peered through the peephole. A handsome, but not too handsome, man in his thirties was waiting patiently. No weapons that she could see. He looked normal enough. His face matched his PRC at least. She'd talk to the security guard later.

She relaxed marginally and opened the door with the chain still hooked.

"I said I'd meet you in the lobby."

The man immediately looked uncomfortable. "Oh I'm sorry. I can see how this is very presumptuous. The gentleman at the desk told me to go straight up. Said you'd had a rough morning. I can just go back down if you'd prefer. Perhaps this was a mistake. You said you had other people in mind anyway."

Sarah's brow creased. He looked embarrassed and had already turned to leave. From the living room her phone rang. "No, no, it's okay. You're here now. Sorry to be rude. It's just… nevermind. Security is not usually so lax. Took me off guard. Come in." She closed the door, unhooked the chain, and pulled it open to the Goblin King himself.

Her face blanched.

"Hello, Sarah," he grinned.

AN: *drums fingers together* and so it begins.

Another shout out to Nicole Schatten for the idea to use chicken love in this. Poor Sarah. Poor Peaches.

Thank you for the love this bit of… whatever this is... is getting. You guys are golden. It's definitely going to be a borderline crack fic. With smut. Assuming Sarah doesn't kill the GK first. Rating to increase accordingly. And for those of you who jokingly (or not so jokingly) pointed out I should be working on Tanglewood… you are absolutely correct