Chapter 47: Human Zoo

  The great vents beneath the mountain hissed and moaned as hot breath rolled through the stone tunnels. A thousand generations ago, the Deep Flame had chosen this place, and the kobolds had built their homes into the bones of the rock. Low, round chambers dug by hand and claw, warmed by magma-slicked stones and lit by phosphorescent moss hanging like soft green lanterns.

  Tom-Tom woke up with dirt in his mouth. That meant it was a good day.

  He spit the dirt out (after chewing it, just in case), then rolled out of his sleeping nook in the warm moss pile behind Old Bonefire Pit. His tail twitched as he stretched. One eye was crusty, so he rubbed it with the clean side of his elbow. That helped.

  “Jraughan Toune” was busy already. Kobolds ran back and forth carrying sacks of glowing mushrooms, buckets of hot spring water, or screaming younglings. One elder was arguing with a wall. Probably about taxes.

  Tom-Tom thumped his tail at everyone. Some thumped back. One threw a beetle. Tom-Tom caught it. Ate it.

  Very good day.

  Tom-Tom padded barefoot through the central corridor, tail flicking behind him.

  He passed the Smokepit , where elders sipped bone tea and argued about bone politics. He passed the Burrow Hall , where younglings practiced scrabbling up slick cavern walls with sticky feet and wild giggles. He paused at the edge of the Singing Cavern, where a group of scale-priests chanted the Nine Scale Hymn, their voices echoing through the chamber like a low drum.

  It felt of home, and strangeness. It was both loud, and also beautiful. He loved all of it

  He moved past the upper tunnels and then crossed into the egg room, where three kobold mothers were arguing about how many days until hatching. Tom-Tom didn’t understand, so he nodded a lot and then walked away before he found himself being sat on.

  The tunnels curled downward from there, a series of spirals in the stone. He liked going down. It was cooler, quieter. And down there was the cave. The one with the strangers.

  Tom-Tom was very curious about the strangers.

  They were not kobold. They were soft-skins and tall and didn’t know how to speak properly or tail-thump hello. They didn’t even hiss politely! But they made sounds, and they smelled weird (but not bad weird), and they had things. Metal things. Shine-things.

  He liked the quiet one best. That one didn’t yell.

  He entered the holding chamber with a tall posture, showing confidence.

  The holding chamber wasn’t cruel. It was a round den with packed dirt walls, a single vent for warmth, and a small trickle of fresh water that pooled into a carved basin. Glowing fungi clung to the walls, and dry straw mats lined the floor. No bars. Just a harsh slope of smooth earth too steep to climb without claws. The many prisoners held in place by manacles and chains staked into the rock.

  He reached the slope down to the holding cave and tapped his claws on the rock. Two guards stood there with pokey-sticks. He didn’t know their names. One had no ears. Maybe ate them.

  “Tom-Tom,” he said proudly. “Wanna visit. Be friendly.”

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  “No poking,” said the guard.

  “Me? I never poke!” Tom-Tom said. He sometimes poked.

  The guard shrugged and stepped aside. Tom-Tom skittered down the slope and into the holding den.

  The Big-loud one—Garret—was lying on his back, arms behind his head, humming tunelessly. Soft-touch—Allie—she had kind hands, sat near the water basin, chewing on a strip of dried meat with tired eyes. Stuff-smasher—Devon—the skittish one, had taken apart a kobold lantern and was muttering to himself, surrounded by gears and glowing moss. The fierce-eyed girl, was silently sharpening a stick against a rock. She’d tried to stab a guard yesterday. And silent-one just sat. Always watching. Quiet. Still.

  There were more, many more soft-skins, eleven in all. Tom-Tom had not given names to all of them yet, but he would eventually.

  They all turned when Tom-Tom entered

  “Hello!” he said in his best common tongue. Which was… not great.

  They stared.

  Big-loud tilted his head. “Why the hell does that one keep coming here?”

  Tom-Tom didn’t understand. But he thumped his tail and politely hissed at him. Big-loud did not hiss back. Rude.

  He stepped closer to the group, pulling out his satchel. Inside were treasures: a crushed beetle shell, a carved bone frog, a string, a very good rock. He considered each of them, then offered the bone frog to Soft-touch.

  She didn’t take it.

  Tom-Tom frowned. “Is nice,” he explained. “I made it. Frog! Ribbit.” He pantomimed a jump, then smacked his hands together to make a ‘splat’ sound. “Funny!”

  Soft-touch said something in Human-Noise. Tom-Tom didn’t know the words, but her face was soft. So he gently placed the frog at her feet.

  He turned next to Stuff-Smasher, who was fiddling with the pieces of the lantern. Tom-Tom pointed at it. “You break?” he asked. Then pantomimed smashing it against the floor. “Boom! Break!”

  Stuff-Smasher frowned. “Fixing it.”

  Tom-Tom did not understand "fixing," so he just nodded and mimed setting it on fire.

  “Please don’t,” Stuff-Smasher muttered.

  Tom-Tom crawled a little closer and plopped down cross-legged on the dirt. He pulled out a mushroom from his bag and nibbled the top, then offered it to Fierce-eyes.

  She sniffed it, then seemed to gag and turned away. An action that was most confusing, since gagging at the smell meant it had aged properly and was ready to eat.

  “Food! Makes tummy jump. Very fun.” Tom-Tom explained. He then offered it to her again.

  Fierce-eyes frowned and shook her head. “No.”

  Tom-Tom shrugged and ate it himself. It was bitter. Then sweet. Then bitter again. His stomach rumbled inside him. “Heh. Tummy is waking up.”

  The girl with sunlight hair was watching him closely. Her hair always shone under the glow of the moss. Tom-Tom would name her Glitter-hair. Her hands were near her side, fingers twitching. Tom-Tom smiled at her. “I like you,” he said in Koboldi. “You smell like knife.”

  She blinked slowly. Just like with his fellow kobold, Red-Snout, Tom-Tom wasn’t sure if that was a good blink or a bad one. He decided it was good.

  He stood and brushed dirt off his legs. Then he bowed, nearly falling over, and chirped one more time. “I bring you more frog next time.”

  He turned and scampered up the slope, leaving the humans behind.

  But when he was gone, Allie picked up the frog figurine absently, ran a thumb over its carved back, and whispered, “I think he’s on our side.”

  Devon nodded. “I think… he’s the weirdest ally we’ve ever had.”

  Allie regarded the frog for a second, and then very quietly, slipped it into her pocket.