The sun had barely risen when Lumberling and his group returned to Uncle Drake’s village. This ti, he wasn’t alone.
Skitz walked beside him, cloaked but upright. Behind them ca a small escort, twenty goblin soldiers, twenty kobolds, twenty cavalry boars tugging wagons of supplies. Their armor was clean. Their weapons sheathed. Their posture straight.
Still, they drew stares.
Lumberling could feel it, the way the villagers paused mid-step, the way conversations died as they passed. Mothers pulled children closer. A few hands went to tools and blades. And yet, no one moved to attack. Not with Uncle Drake walking at the front and Orrin flanking their other side like sentinels of familiarity.
"They need to see it," Lumberling had told Skitz earlier. "They need to look our people in the eye before they decide anything."
Now they were doing just that.
Celine t them near the edge of the field, one hand resting on her swelling belly. She gave a small nod of greeting and took her place beside Drake. It was ti.
They gathered near the central well. Familiar faces erged, weathered by ti, shaped by harvests and hard winters. Faces softened by months of quiet village life, but now shadowed by fear, uncertainty, and the weight of an impossible decision.
The village was small, barely a hundred souls by most counts. One hundred thirty-one, to be exact.
Lumberling stepped forward, but it was Orrin who spoke first.
His voice was strong, not loud, but clear enough to carry.
"Listen up. This isn’t a command. It’s a choice. War is creeping through the forests. Bandits, monster migrations, soldiers from both sides. You know what’s coming."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"Lumberling has built a place. Hidden. Fortified. Safe. But it’s not a normal village. You’ve heard rumors. Today, you’re seeing the truth."
He gestured behind him.
"Goblins. Kobolds. Monsters, you’d say. But these ones are trained. Disciplined. Loyal. They fight with honor. And they follow him."
So gasps. A few people instinctively stepped back. Others simply stared unblinking.
Uncle Drake stepped up next.
"I’ve seen the village myself," he said. "With my own eyes. It’s better built than this one. Organized. Guarded. Self-sufficient. I’ve lived through two wars, and if I could pick where to be when the next wave hits... it would be there."
He let that settle before adding:
"You all know . I’d never walk our people into danger. If I didn’t trust that place with my own family, I wouldn’t be standing here."
Celine nodded silently beside him. Her presence said more than words.
Still, silence reigned.
Then soone in the crowd, an older man, a blacksmith, asked:
"What if we say no?"
Orrin t his gaze.
"Then you stay. No one will drag you. But if you stay, you stay knowing you’ll be unprotected. We’ll leave supplies, yes, but not soldiers. And if the war rolls through here..."
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
"And what if we’re not sure?" another voice asked, trembling. A young woman clutching a child.
Orrin looked to her.
"Then you co," Orrin said firmly. "As acting village chief, that’s the line I’ll draw. Those who are undecided will follow my lead. And I say we go."
He paused, letting the words settle.
"I’ll take responsibility for all who follow, under my na, and in my brother’s."
That caused a stir. People turned, whispering to each other.
Lumberling stepped forward now. His voice was calm, firm.
"If you join us, you’ll live behind strong walls. But there will be rules. You won’t be free to co and go into human cities. It’s not safe for us or for you. And you’ll be asked to help, not just survive. Share your knowledge. Farming. Pottery. Weaving. dicine. Teach what you know. In return, we’ll give you food, shelter, safety."
He looked around the crowd, eyes steady.
"You’re not being asked to serve monsters. You’re being invited to build sothing with them."
Soone snorted bitterly. "Sounds like exile."
Skitz, who had remained silent until now, stepped forward and pulled back his hood. The morning sun caught his cool gray skin and sharp green eyes, making them gleam like polished stone.
"Better exile in a safe haven than death in a ruined field," he said, voice quiet but sharp as broken glass.
Silence rippled through the crowd.
And then ca the disbelief. The shock. A monster, one who looked nearly human, had just spoken their language. Fluently. Clearly.
For a mont, even the doubters had no words.
Then Lumberling stepped forward and spoke again.
"If you co, you’re one of us. If you stay, we won’t hold it against you. But the ti for pretending the war won’t touch you is over."
The crowd stood still. Then a man stepped forward, an old farr with weathered hands.
"I’ll go," he said. "Not because I buy into all this monster talk... but because I believe in you, Orrin, Drake, and Celine. You’ve been protecting this village ever since the chief was drafted. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have made it this far anyway."
Others followed.
One by one. In clusters. Until nearly the entire village stood behind Orrin.
Not everyone.
A few elders chose to stay, clinging to the familiar. That was their right.
But most... most chose the future.
Orrin turned to Lumberling and gave a single nod. "We’re with you."
Lumberling nodded back. "Then let’s begin the journey."
Behind them, the soldiers began distributing supplies. Skitz moved like a shadow, directing the loading of wagons. Jen helped comfort the anxious, while Old Man Dan handed out wrapped bundles of bread and water.
It would take days to relocate them all.
But it had begun.
Not an exodus. Not a retreat.
A migration toward sothing new.
.....
After a week of steady travel, the caravan finally crested the ridge overlooking the goblin village. The villagers, 117 humans in total, stood still for a long mont, taking in the sight.
What they saw was not what they expected.
Tall wooden walls stretched wide around the settlent. Smoke rose from chimneys, and watchtowers stood like quiet sentinels. Inside, the village teed with movent, not chaos, but structured, purposeful life. And standing at the gates, waiting for them, were goblins, kobolds, and a few towering monsters in armor.
A hush settled over the group.
Uncle Drake’s hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, more out of instinct than threat. Beside him, Celine stood stiffly, still unsettled by the sight of a hundred armored monsters. Orrin, for all his calm on the surface, held himself just a little too straight, tension simring beneath the stillness.
But none of the monsters raised a weapon.
Instead, they bowed.
One by one, the figures at the gate dipped their heads or placed fists to their chests. So even waved, awkward but sincere. A kobold offered fruit to a wide-eyed child. A goblin held up a sign painted with the words: "WELCO. SAFE. HO."
Lumberling stepped forward. "Most of them still can’t speak your tongue," he said softly. "But they understand what this mont ans."
The villagers were still wary. So clutched their children closer. Others held their breath. But they stepped forward.
Because the monsters weren’t snarling. They were smiling, strangely, gently, almost shyly.
And smiles, it turned out, translated well.
The villagers were escorted to the southern quadrant of the village. Dozens of new hos were still under construction, sturdy timber fras rising between packed earth paths. But rows of canvas tents had been prepared in advance.
Water barrels stood filled, bundles of firewood stacked neatly nearby. So monsters offered fruits and dried at; others simply helped carry bags or offered seats near small fire pits.
"They’re living like us," one woman whispered. "Cooking. Building. Training. Just... different."
"Their roofs don’t even leak," muttered an old man, inspecting the tent seams.
.....
They had just finished setting down their bags.
A gentle hush lingered, the kind that cos when strangers stand among things too foreign to na.
Then it broke.
A sharp voice rose from the gathered villagers.
"I don’t care how neat the tents are," said a woman near the back. Her graying hair was tied tight, her arms crossed stiffly over her chest. Her na was Mira, a weaver’s widow, and one of the village’s eldest. "Monsters don’t build hos. They burn them."
A few murmurs echoed her words. Others looked down, unsure.
Mira pointed toward a group of goblins unloading supplies. One of them accidentally dropped a bundle of rope. He flinched when he realized she was watching and picked it up with haste, then offered it to a nearby child.
"They’re pretending," Mira snapped. "Acting kind. Waiting. And when the ti is right..."
She didn’t finish.
Her voice shook, not with hate, but fear.
Lumberling didn’t interrupt. He simply watched her, letting the silence speak first.
Jen stepped forward first. "They’ve already had every chance to hurt us," she said, loud enough for all to hear. "Back in the forest. In the dark. They didn’t."
Mira’s lips tightened. "So what? That makes them people?"
"No," Celine said, stepping beside Jen. Her voice was calm, but resolute. "It’s their choices that make them more than monsters."
Mira hesitated. Her eyes darted to the goblins helping unload crates, one of them now handing a blanket to a child.
"They offered us shelter," Celine continued. "Protection. Food. A future. And you know what else? For more than a year now, they’ve been watching over our village."
Mira blinked, confused.
"You think we were just lucky?" Celine pressed, voice rising. "No raids, no bandits, no monster attacks while the world burned around us? That wasn’t luck. That was them, guarding us from the shadows while we slept."
She looked at Mira fully now.
"They never asked for thanks. They didn’t even show themselves. And now they’re giving us more than protection, they’re giving us a place beside them. In their ho."
Mira looked down, jaw clenched, but she said nothing.
Celine didn’t wait for her approval. "They didn’t have to take us in. But they did. And if that frightens you, good. It should. Because it ans they had the power to hurt us... and chose not to."
Lumberling’s voice finally joined them, calm but steady.
"No one here is asking you to forget your fear," he said. "Only to let it be tested. Watch what they do. Not for a day. But for a month. Then judge."
Mira t his gaze. Her hands were trembling, just slightly.
Finally, she sat down on the crate beside her.
"I’ll watch," she said. "But I won’t pretend this isn’t madness."
"No one’s pretending," Lumberling said. "That’s why it might work."
.....
By the next day, integration began in earnest.
Human workers joined goblins at the construction sites. Won taught weaving and pottery to curious young monsters. A wrinkled midwife shared herb-lore with Zarn, the village healer. Children ran freely between species, chasing each other in uneven gas.
Even the elderly had tasks, storytelling, guidance, gentle work with livestock.
It wasn’t easy. Fear lingered. But kindness, routine, and shared labor dulled its edges.
A few mornings later...
Uncle Drake squinted at the training field.
Rows of goblin and kobold soldiers sat cross-legged, perfectly still.
"...What are they doing?" he asked, puzzled.
Jen approached with a grin. "ditating. Brother said it helps with discipline and focus. I tried it too, it helps you feel... sharper, inside."
Celine tilted her head, curious. "Is it really that effective?"
"Try it," Jen said.
They did. That morning, Celine and Drake joined the quiet ranks. Though stiff at first, sothing about the silence, the rhythm of breath, settled deep in their bones.
Orrin, anwhile, found his place fast. He gravitated to the loudest place in the village, the training pits.
Within a day, he was laughing with Gobo1 and Gobo2 over sparring drills and wild tactics.
"These two are idiots," he told Lumberling. "I like ’em."
Lumberling chuckled. "They like you too."
He led Orrin to the blacksmith forges where two goblins, Tarnix and Izzek, were hamring away with impressive rhythm.
"Both stubborn," Lumberling said. "But talented. You’ll get along."
Orrin’s grin widened. "I’ve been waiting to swing a hamr again."
Elsewhere, Jen introduced Celine to the wolves. Karnark showed her how to approach them properly. To everyone’s surprise, Lunira, massive, silver-gray-furred and proud, nuzzled Celine’s belly.
"She’s... pregnant?" Celine asked, wide-eyed.
Karnark nodded.
They both laughed, and sohow, a quiet bond ford in that shared mont of life waiting to arrive.
Drake, too, found sothing unexpected.
He t Grokk by accident, towering, quiet, constantly on patrol.
They didn’t speak much at first.
But when Grokk led him to the training yard and handed him a practice sword, Drake felt sothing stir.
He moved through the drills with the soldiers. Watched the discipline. The precision. It reminded him of the barracks long ago.
Afterward, he turned to Lumberling.
"I want to help train them," he said. "I may not be the man I was, but I still know how to shape fighters."
Lumberling nodded. "Then the role is yours."
But as Drake turned away, a flicker of sothing tugged at him. Pride? Relief?
Maybe.
But beneath it, sothing else lingered, he watched them bond, watched strangers settle into the life he’d carved out of war and ash.
It should have cald him.
It didn’t.
A small part of him still waited, for rejection, for betrayal, for sothing to break. Maybe it always would.
He shook the thought away, just in ti to catch Gobo2 chasing a goat that had stolen a boot. The mont cracked, light slipping in through the seams.
Days passed. Slowly, the strangers stopped being strangers.
Work humd through the village. Teaching and learning blurred at the edges. Potters shared clay, smiths shared steel, and laughter, awkward at first beca a daily sound.
They still weren’t one people.
But they were building sothing together.
And for now... that was enough.
Reviews
All reviews (0)