“You reminded me of my death.”

  Zerel's brow furrowed at the statement. She had more or less expected the details of their conversation so far with regards to Lady Hilda. They had both been taken aback at the sudden reintroduction of English into their second lives, but Hilda's reaction had somehow been more panicked. The idea that Hilda had a traumatic fshback to her death seemed ridiculous, given that Zerel couldn't remember her own death, but was it really?

  Had she just not remembered hers yet?

  “What was it? How were you reminded?” Asked the goblin queen.

  “...Something Dawn said reminded me. I'm not ready to talk much about it, but it wasn't a pleasant thing. I didn't get hit by a truck or a cliché like that, if you're wondering.”

  Zerel snorted, “The idea had occurred to me, given the whole-” she waved her hand around, “deal that we have goin on here. I can't remember my death, though…”

  Hilda nodded solemnly, “I imagine you just haven't encountered the appropriate trigger for the memories. Mine have been frustratingly common.”

  Zerel wondered how to interpret that for a moment, before Dawn spoke up, “...Getting hit by a truck is a cliché?”

  Hilda had a concerned look at the snake woman, saying, “Yeah, in isekai back on earth. It was common for MCs to die from a moving truck or something very simir before their transmigration. Just a thing that a bunch of writers did.”

  “Okay,” said Dawn quietly. Both Zerel and Hilda shared A Look. Zerel made a questioning motion with her head, and Hilda shrugged, giving her the floor. Dawn only half noticed and hadn't even started to ask before Zerel spoke.

  “Dawn, did you get hit by a truck?”

  The look on the serpent woman's face was pathetic. Zerel held in a ugh while Dalia failed to do the same. The elf definitely didn't know what had been said, but she knew the look. Hilda whispered near Dalia's ear for a moment - Zerel only heard the word “carriage” - and the elf gasped and told Hilda to apologize for her.

  “Sorry about Dalia,” Hilda said, “she thought your reaction was funny without knowing what was asked.”

  With a wry smile, Dawn said, “apology accepted. I'm… not that distraught about it, actually? It's a very short memory - just a u-haul hitting me while I was getting the mail - it sounds like yours was more traumatic.”

  Zerel failed to hold in her giggles at the description. “I'm sorry, it's just-” she apologized mid-ugh. “You were hit by a u-haul and reincarnated as a lesbian!”

  Neither Hilda or Dawn got the humor in it, so Zerel had to stop and expin an earth stereotype. As with any attempt to expin a joke, they just gave her weird looks. Zerel apologized again for ughing at Dawn before getting up. She quickly became occupied with wrangling the goblin part of the expedition to break camp, and it only looked like she had kept her composure after the conversation. In truth, Zerel was embarrassed to have ughed so btantly at a woman she had been comforting just an hour or two earlier. Of course, one of her cnsfolk noticed.

  “Y’know I don't think I've ever seen you like this, Zee,” Sachi said. “You say for all these years that you don't care about the race if you can find a girl from outside of the cn to be with, but here you are. Queen of Ademhill, nervous cause you ughed at something inappropriate. No goblin would judge you for that.”

  Zerel sighed as they packed supplies and secured them to yoked poles for transport, “It's not just that, Satch. It's… other things.”

  Sachi snorted at his queen, “Some secret you're keeping between you and the serpent?”

  “Not technically. Hilda could easily have heard it. Look- Dawn had a family that she's still grieving. I don't want to push my interest on her while she's living through that… and also, both of them can actually remember their deaths. Dawn just recalled hers and Hilda is still a bit touchy about her own.”

  “That's foreboding. So you might just suddenly remember it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit, Zerel. I remember when you first started grieving your old friends. You were pretty good at putting on a face but I knew you were in a lot of pain. Happened to pass near the workshop several times while you and Ramel were talking it out.”

  “It's an awful feeling. You know it, too.”

  “Third o the cn does. Slomon's Gnoll was a tragedy. You're helping her with the grief?”

  “Yeah. She was crying this morning, remember?”

  “Just making sure you haven't changed your mind, your highness,” said the older hobgoblin as he grabbed the front side and another hobgoblin walked up to help him.

  “You know I'm not that heartless!” She squeaked, “From my own cn brother! Sheesh.”

  Sachi ughed at Zerel as they started to move and she took up her position at the front. Within twenty minutes, Zerel found that Dawn, Hilda and Sheryl were drawing closer to the front of the party, and she could hear a casual conversation between the three getting closer. Dalia was on scout duty that day, and Hilda was doing transtion between the cat and the serpent.

  As Hilda transted something about Dawn’s eyes to Sheryl, Dawn greeted Zerel again, “Hello Zerel. We wanted to talk about a few more things and I wanted you to know I'm not mad at you for ughing. Sometimes things are just funny like that.”

  Zerel put on a wry smile, “Thanks, Dawn. I can't help myself sometimes. What did you want to talk about?”

  “Well,” Dawn started, “you had mentioned returning to the home of your cn after this trip, so when I was talking to Hilda who suggested I reach some sort of agreement with the empire so they don't attack me, I realized I should involve you in the conversation since you had already offered to help me in the first pce, and I'm sure you have some interest in negotiating with the empire already, also Hilda suggested that we may want to visit her mother who is influential and could be convinced to offer us her backing if not provide sanctuary for me.”

  Zerel nodded while taking a moment to process, “Yeah… That all sounds right. I, uh, I have a diplomatic reason for the trip and we'll probably send a squad simir to our current expedition as protection for myself - in name at least. We may want to hide you, though, Dawn. Goblins is one thing - the empire ensves a handful if we really need cover - but you look like an outright monster. A lot more people won't react well to your presence.”

  Hilda grimaced, “I can try to talk our way out of trouble, but if someone with more pull or power starts shit with us, there's only so much I can do. We'll have to avoid the capital for the goblins, and hide you in a box or something for the towns.”

  Sheryl whined at her exclusion from the All-English conversation, and Zerel summarized to give a sighing Hilda a break. Dawn giggled at the cat's antics, “she can't help but be cute, huh?”

  Zerel smiled as she delivered the line to a blushing Sherry. Through a broken composure, the felind purred out, “You're cute, too.” Hilda gleefully imitated Sherry's tone to a now-blushing Dawn. Sheryl then buried her face into her girlfriend's shoulder to hide her blush.

  With her own cheeks tinged pink, Hilda apologized to a sheepish Dawn, “sorry if that was too far. I can ask her not to flirt anymore.”

  “No!” Dawn responded quickly “no, I just… I'm not used to that sort of thing. I always kind of felt like my wife and previous girlfriends were just being nice. I'd never try to voice that doubt.”

  “Oh and you believe us, now? Wow, you really were an egg or a repper or somethin. Dawn. If you could have pressed a button-”

  “Zerel!” Hilda failed to interrupt.

  “-and it turned you into a girl, and everybody remembered ya as a girl, do you think ya would have?”

  “Um. Yes, I think so. Was that a trick question?”

  Zerel smiled, “Not really a trick so much as a screening test for trans girls. Sounds like you're getting some sort of wish fulfillment, Dawn.”

  “I mean,” Dawn's face twisted in thought, “this isn't what I would have wanted from being a girl, though. I'm a monster.”

  “Dawn, you're beautiful,” Hilda insisted, “you might look different, but all sorts of people look different. Look at Sheryl! She's a cat girl!”

  Zerel continued transting to a confused Sheryl, while Dawn gave Hilda a bemused look. “Thank you, Hilda. I can see that you're dating a cat girl, yes.”

  “S-sorry,” Hilda apologized, averting her eyes.

  Dawn's voice became soft as she consoled, “No, I mean- I get it. and I think I've already said I'm… weirdly okay with this. I do worry about how others might treat me, though, and that's before my concerning origin.”

  “You and me both,” Zerel said, “I've got a cn so it's different, but I am a goblin. The cn feels like my family, so I have someone to fall back on, but it's… strange, right? Fantasy race bullshit feels fucked up.”

  “Hah, it's not that bad, it's it?”

  “No,” Hilda shook her head, “it's pretty frickin bad. like… ugh it feels wrong to analyze it when we're living it, but most fantasy worlds don't turn out great when you apply lenses reted to earth peoples. Tolkien was kinda racist.”

  “I guess I never caught that when I read,” muttered Dawn.

  “So was Lovecraft,” Zerel suggested, “I think tha’ problem was most early fantasy authors wanted easy bck an’ white contrasts so they generalized rge groups a’ people. Which is the crux of it. We're all just people, and you clearly are, too, Dawn.”

  Dawn smiled and thanked Zerel, who quickly started to summarize the oddly complicated subject to an increasingly confused Sherry. Hilda grimaced again, “this world's empires don't look very good from that lens. Goblins are considered pests, like big rats. You're clearly just another type of person, though. Putting aside my disgust at imperial institutional svery, I'm still left with disgust over the systemic annihition of people just because their traits are quote-on-quote monstrous. It's increasingly bugged me since I first remembered my past life. I wanted to know more about goblins and some of the other ‘monstrous’ people, but other than major extermination campaigns almost all records are vague about the people themselves. It's like any history of monstrous people is purposefully purged.”

  Zerel's brow creased in thought as she once again considered the grim reality of her people's pce in the world. Goblins have no history. She'd never heard of a goblin dying of old age, and to be honest, her cn was so young. Their oldest members had all been through the loss of previous cns. Ademhill had rgely dodged persecution by virtue of being in an abnormally dangerous and secluded area.

  “Goblins don't have a history. Do ya think it was always like this?”

  “Do you?” Asked Dawn.

  “No,” said the queen, “I think it was destroyed.”

  The four women were quiet and contemptiveas they continued toward the city. Sheryl had needed some additional expnation, but had sunk into her own thoughts after she understood the conversation that took pce. Zerel wasn't surprised - the former sve was also disconnected from any history or culture of her own people. Another victim of the scouring fires of imperialism, she supposed.

  By the time they had rexed back into lighter conversation, the expedition came to the northern gates of Dé Cyon. They quickly became busy surveying and exploring the city, with some help from Dawn, who only had a week more experience than the expedition. Since it was closer to their approach, they found themselves at the tower for their first major ndmark of interest. Dawn expined her own experience with the enchantments on the building, which Zerel and Isra were pleased to confirm were still working strong a millennium ter. Zerel couldn't help but wonder what other things Dawn might be able to see with her god-vision, but she put it aside to peer at the ancient tower.

  From a certain low balcony, Zerel grinned as she stared across the valley at the imposing silhouette of the temple wedged into the canyon. She could already see the future of Ademhill here in Dé Cyon, and her pns began to shape around it. Ademhill fortress was good, but this?

  This was excellent.

  SpoilerThe News Zone:

  AnnouncementHey folks, apologies for disappearing for a couple weeks. I've had some rough IRL events that I'm trying to work through while I keep writing and it managed to fully drain any buffer of writing I had left in me. I am still going to be trying to update semi-weekly but I can't make any guarantees right now. I hope you're having a wonderful October and you enjoy this chapter. See you next time!

  -ViolentR

  [colpse]