Fate Deals the Cards

  Temperance Ch 2 Blue Bayou

  I slipped through the reeds, briars and verdure, moving stealthily on bare feet, unencumbered by clothing or gear, beyond the two spears in my hand and my flint knife, suspended from a palm fiber cord at my waist. A temporary sheath of plaited, dried marsh grass prevented any accidental circumcisions, during my hunt. I was not fool enough to leave that keen, freshly chipped edge dangling near my unprotected dangles.

  On the other side of a long berry bramble that was sadly bare of fruit, I found a wide, dark channel of murky water. Lotus, hyacinth and lilies floated on the placid surface, disturbed occasionally by the movements of something… or somethings, under the water.

  A few yards away, I began digging a hole in the mucky silt, searching for bait. It didn’t take long, the wet, rich earth and rotting plant matter yielded a bounty of wriggling worms and fat mud-leeches that came seeking goblin blood, while I snatched them up, one by one. I snacked on a few, savoring the muddy, earthy flavors and rich, unctuous slime coatings. Most I mushed between two flat rocks, wadded into a ball of disgusting goop and packed into a tightly woven basket of split bamboo. I crudely closed the top, tucking the unfinished basket weave inside, with a few small stones to weigh it down and tossed my lure in; the rest was just waiting.

  The local giant skeeters came to visit my silent vigil above the pond, keeping me nicely fed while my ball of mashed up invertebrates dangled in the water.

  The discarded wings of my snacks drifted on the current, headed for wherever the marsh drained away, far to the south. Other parts of the vile, flying blood thieves I’d kept… The awful mosquitos provided a few things, beyond a small measure of squishy bug meat; like plump, purple venom sacks, a few scraps of chitin and several needle-like mouth parts.

  When I touched those gross insect bits, ideas jumped into my mind, fully formed. The venom in the lumpy purple glands could quickly paralyze small mammals and birds, if properly preserved, prepared and injected with an appropriate needle, like the ones the skeeter provided. I could almost feel the weapon that those humble scraps would become in my hands already.

  “Blowgun…” I hissed to myself in delight. Wherever this knowledge was coming from, I was beyond grateful.

  It felt really natural too, like remembering something I’d briefly forgotten, rather than an info dump from some outside source. Either way, I had a new project on the drawing board, I just needed an assortment of hollow reeds and some more pine pitch.

  Fishing is not mentally draining, so my wandering thoughts drifted around that idea, while I softly whistled to the local songbirds, calling out and responding to their songs for the sheer pleasure of it. I felt a slight disappointment from deep inside, when the colorful, flying creatures responded with simple, animal music, rather than doing… something.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d expected them to do… Sing and dance along, maybe?

  I giggled at the idea of ‘Disney Princess’ powers and went back to concentrating on my task. I kept up my birdcalls and soft songs, drawing the local wildlife all around me and making myself a part of the environment. They would warn me if a predator approached, so long as I remained a part of the soft, natural song of the deep forest and wetlands. Maybe ‘Disney Princess’ powers were not such a silly idea, after all.

  Whistling was not nearly so taxing or dangerous as actually talking, I only sliced my lips a few times and those wounds healed with stunning quickness.

  Maybe all goblins heal super fast, but I was beginning to doubt that… I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was not right, inside, somewhere deep down I felt deeply alien; more than just being a human man in a goblin baby’s body.

  My thoughts derailed, when I felt a gentle tug on my line of braided palm fibers. A moment later, a stronger pull jerked my cord, as my prey started working on my bait basket of tough, split bamboo. I reeled my line in, slow and steady, just like back home on earth, when I supplemented my diet with foraged foods and crawdads, fished from the creek behind my camp.

  Slowly and steadily, I dragged the bait basket up into the shallows, the big, muddy brown crustacean following obediently after, my lure clenched in its huge claw. Beyond stupid and eternally hungry, I felt only a brief moment of pity, before my flint tipped spear struck from above, piercing the creature’s primitive nervous system through a small gap in the carapace, behind its head. That familiar sense of confident competency suffused me as I struck, I had preyed on these things many, many times, in some other time and place, their secrets were mine, on some level.

  The beast’s mighty fluke thrashed twice, the claws clacked open and closed a few times, then it fell still. I looped my line around the monster’s claws and dragged it out of the water, before anything bigger could steal my prey.

  On the silty shore, the mudbug was almost bigger than me and terribly heavy. Slinging it onto my back, with those terrible claws draped in front felt super icky, but I had work to do.

  Cold, wet, slippery and reeking of the river bottom, I staggered back to the thornbush bower, a quarter mile away. When my prey clattered to the earth beneath the bush, the ladies were less than impressed.

  Keerie dashed right out of the bower at first sight of the critter, while Rache nearly fainted in fear and horror. Interestingly, neither of them made a sound, despite their reactions to my kill. Their silent terror reactions told me a lot about their furtive old lives.

  “I guess you don’t usually eat these…” My garbled speech had improved a little thanks to my lyric practice, but it was rough and painful anyway. “Trust me, is good. Tasty. Wish had some salt.”

  “Salt…?! He brings crawling pinch monsters into our bower and demands rare spices, as though we sit at chief’s table!” Keerie sneered at me a few heartbeats later, when she found her courage and crept back under the sheltering boughs.

  Yelling at her would almost certainly slice my mouth to ribbons, so I let her have that one, but I was getting pretty fed up with her attitude. I snorted a breath of air out through my long goblin nose and wriggled my ears at her, an absolutely unserious and infuriatingly cheeky gesture in gob society, the equivalent of a human dropping trou and letting the moon rise at a rival.

  It seemed pretty mild to me, but for beings that typically went bare-assed, it did the trick. Most of Keerie turned an even brighter green, while her cheeks flushed bright pink in fury. A direct hit!

  To hide my absolute delight at cheesing her off so easily, I turned to my kill and began the job of taking it apart. I may have been humming and whistling a little something while I worked… ok, I was totally singing ‘Rock Lobster’ by the B-52’s under my breath, as I cut through the tough membranes and connective tissues holding the monster’s armor together.

  My slim, flint blade parted the flesh and tissues with ease, guided by hands that were very skilled and practiced at the art of cutting giant, monster crustaceans… Like the other crafts and skills I’d stumbled into, it felt natural, pure and practiced, as though I’d done this many times before. I could already taste the sweet mildly buttery and fishy flavor, redolent of lowlands and still, murky waters.

  When I was done, the empty carapace lay in the sunshine, spread out to dry on a few thornbushes, a little way off from our home; I had plans for that, once it was baked hard by the sun.

  The creature’s flesh lay on a few broad ginger leaves gathered from the wetlands, at least twenty pounds of glistening, translucent white bug meat stashed under our thornbush.

  “We can really eat that?” Rache asked, taking a gentle poke at the stuff with one outstretched claw. “These eat so many of us… No-gob will linger near the water, for fear of them.” She whispered, now that the awful shell was out of sight.

  “We can eat it… Promise.” I gabbled and grunted, feeling very pleased with myself. “Just need fire… I start one.”

  “No Fire!” Rache’s hand grabbed me by the ear, swifter than a striking serpent, giving a twist that brought me around to her way of thinking with a quickness. “Too much danger!” She was for sure somebody’s mother… and she considered herself mine. Some things a man just knew at first ear grip.

  “No fire.” I reluctantly agreed, eyeing my sweet, tasty mudbug with deep regret. I still had a belly full of skeeters, snatched from the air and munched down raw, but uncooked mudbug was not something I was willing to try. With deep regret, I started wrapping my kill up in those broad, fragrant leaves, hoping to save at least a little for later…

  With those thoughts in mind, the first bundle of moist, poorly wrapped meat slipped from my hands and into my shadow, vanishing away without a sound.

  Deep inside myself, I felt it land an instant later, a packet of moist, meaty stuff, tucked away somewhere that wasn’t, waiting for me to reach into my shadow and take it back out. I picked up another five pound bundle of slimy stuff and with a darkling twinkle of shadow, it was gone, resting beside the other packet, somewhere.

  “Video game inventory?” I asked, regretting my question immediately. First, because I slashed my lip really badly, and secondly, the goblin ladies had no clue what I said, so they just looked at me like I was completely bonkers.

  Keerie went back to her side of the bower, ignoring my antics entirely, having decided I was nothing but trouble… to be fair, I was feeling troublesome. Rache however; she peered over my shoulder as I worked, watching with interest and missing nothing with those huge, perceptive eyes.

  “Where did that meat go, Nameless…?” She faltered and blushed for a heartbeat before going on with her interrogation. “I mean, where did you hide that meat, little Ghnash?”

  “Dunno… Shadow, maybe?” I grunted, focused on my tasks rather than the details. The whole process felt more than natural, it felt beyond familiar or even instinctive, this gift was part of me, irrevocably mine. “It’s fine.”

  My keen little flint blade cut the stunted citrus fruits I'd harvested from a sandy little grove, not far off, filling the bower with their acidic, tangy scent. My claws shredded some herbs, a few big fists full of watercress and some wild garlic shoots into a heap of coarsely chopped mudbug, piled on my largest ginger leaves. I used a granite shard from my stone workings to grate a good handful of ginger roots into the pile, followed by my wild onions, sliced thin. When I began crushing the tough skinned, but surprisingly juicy limes over the mess, I had every-gob’s attention.

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  Well, not Sheela, she was all about her mother’s titties, which, to be fair, were awesome. I giggled a little, feeling too awkward for words, as I stirred my primitive, crawdaddie ceviche with a homemade bamboo spatula. “Ready soon. Needs some time.” I grunted, while working on a salad of wild herbs, dressed with a few slices of plum and more of that marvelous lime juice. Cooking was another one of those skills… My blade flicked and twitched carelessly across my work, leaving perfect slices and clean cuts behind in a display of effortless skill that could only come from long practice, not magical fuckery. I became certain at that point; a big slice of my life was missing, torn away and hidden from me.

  That angry, boiling pool of magma behind my belly button churned once and fell silent, when I gave it a frosty glare, literally gazing into my own navel for a few heartbeats. I needed to get that under control or someone was going to get hurt.

  “Ghnash goes walkies…” I grumbled, slipping into sloppy, slurring speech out of sheer frustration as I ducked out of the thorny shelter, into the early evening mist. I walked a few yards out into a clearing and sat on a mossy, mushroom covered log. The moss and the shrooms had no immediate value to me, beyond being comfy and picturesque.

  I lingered for a while, gazing at the stars and managing my breathing in the slow, careful patterns I’d been taught by… someone I could no longer remember. All I got was a brief flicker of a handsome, almond eyed, human face, with spiky black hair and a jawline like an anime protagonist. The meditation skills were the real deal, though. I took my boisterous, bloodthirsty urges and tied them in a snug knot, bound to my natural, creative and mischievous impulses. With a little proactive meditation work and some mindful practices, I might not go on a murder spree. Yay for mental self care!

  Wherever I’d been during my missing time, I’d come out the other side with a heap of skills, some spooky tricks and a searing desire for bloody vengeance on… someone. By the same token, it really felt like, whoever I’d become in that missing span, I wasn’t him anymore. I needed to figure out who I wanted to be; who Ghnash’Wharrgh was going to become. I was certain that eunuch slave boy was not going to be the answer, if I had any say.

  I shook off my brooding, gloomy thoughts and spent a few minutes using myself as bait to lure in more hungry mosquitos. Those venom glands didn’t hold much, I was gonna need a lot more of them. That looked like no problem, now that I had someplace to stow the nasty things. The local blood suckers were bold, stupid and horribly large, but also terribly fragile.

  I snatched another chicken sized body from the air, before the thing’s long, pointy needle could sink into my flesh, paralyzing and numbing wherever it struck.

  My claws tore its legs and wings away, sheared off its proboscis and dropped the wrecked monster bug to the earth, with several of its mutilated, helpless kin. Brutalizing a dozen of the awful things slaked my thirst for killing, so I got up and tried to slip the twitching wretches into my handy new storage gift…

  With no success. I gave a soft whistle of displeasure, having learnt my lesson at last. I was sick of biting myself! With slow, patient thought I puzzled at the issue. Everything else just slipped into my shadow, easy as can be, but these resisted my… It hit me like a ton of bricks. They were still alive, a living Animus projects an aura around the body, protecting it from occult forces. Even beings as weak willed and stupid as these produced a strong enough aura to resist being engulfed into my own.

  “Magic… auras…” I whispered, as remembered knowledge flooded me. I had been no kind of fireball throwing wizard or warrior… that much was clear. I could see it now, dimly, through a hazy veil, the workings of magic, subtle, pervasive, persuasive and sly. I could, with practice, diligence and study discover the underpinnings of this reality and manipulate it to suit my needs…

  I would need no ancient tomes of spells, this was something more natural, instinctive and organic. The why of any working dictated the how of it, in so many ways. I could almost taste the branching, nearly endless options out there. Now I just needed time, a place to work and some peace.

  With my head in a whirl and a brace of nearly dead insect horrors gripped in each hand, I strolled back into the shelter to eat crawdaddie ceviche with my new family… and Keerie.

  The goblin women squatted beside my big heap of citrus coated bug meat and herbs, looking both dubious and hungry when I slipped back inside. I tossed my suffering vermin into a corner and ignored their plight out of petty revenge, they could wait until after dinner to end their misery.

  I had a long standing grudge against skeeters from my old life. It was a bitter feud, one I planned to indulge; now that the damn things had a valuable nugget of meat and some cool venom inside, just waiting for me.

  I used my simple, talon carved bamboo spatula to serve up heaping leaves of the wet, pleasantly scented stuff to my hosts, who waited for me to go first.

  I took up my homemade chopsticks and gave my creation a taste. It really needed salt and some soy sauce… and chilis, but otherwise I was happy with the result.

  “More?” Rache asked softly, while I was still trying to chew without shredding my tongue into bloody rags. Her leaf was bare, licked clean.

  “More.” I grunted, as Keerie shoved her leaf out for another helping as well, a new and hopeful light in her eyes. ‘We need more of those limes!’ I thought, while dishing up the delicious crud for my new friends.

  /

  Having a magical, non-dimensional storage gift kicks ass! Beyond being able to donkey around awkward stuff with ease, more than having everything at my fingertips… It was fun. The only firm rules seemed to be that no one could be actually watching, when something slipped in or out of my shadow and nothing bigger than my own body, or anything alive could fit inside. Aside from those strictures, it was awesome!

  I could keep both hands free, then make whatever tool or object I needed for my project just appear, right where and when I wanted it… That meant I could blaze through simple tasks like gathering herbs and wild foods, keeping the goods safe and perfectly preserved until I was ready to produce them. Without that ability, our remaining crawdaddie meat would have gone off rapidly, or worse, drawn in a predator or scavengers.

  “Tmorrow at dawn, we move again…” Rache whispered, as we settled in to sleep that night. I curled up close, with the baby… the real baby between our bellies, cooing contentedly at her mother’s breast.

  “Sheela likes your cooking too, my strange new son.” She sighed, gazing at me with real maternal fondness. “I sorrow that you no longer need suckle from me… A mother’s sweet tragedy.” She had her other boob out, offering her gift to me, shyly, sweetly, honestly. “No need, but you may.”

  “Rache is poet.” I mumbled sleepily. “Ghnash is moved but has too many teeth…” I remember her hand, gently petting my hair, as she pillowed my head against her shoulder, softly crying as I drifted into darkness.

  /

  My eyes opened on a dream, it could be nothing else, but what a dream. I looked through a misty veil at a tall, tile roofed hotspring inn, set in a wide and splendid garden. People moved on the lawns and among the plantings, familiar forms, but with faces and names that escaped true recognition or recall… all save one. A tall, pale figure, with a short shock of coppery red hair who moved as if she were always dancing. Her every step seemed to ring with silver bells, chiming joyfully in a prayer to the heavens above. She had a name, whispered in my ears from a vast, cosmic distance. ‘Shai’.

  /

  I woke suddenly, gasping with joy, grief, sorrow, loss happiness and love, mingled with heartbreak. I knew now… I’d lived and died, and forgotten that life almost entirely, almost.

  “Shai…” I whispered as I woke, almost lost between Rache’s boobs, with Sheela lampreyed onto my thumb, again.

  I blinked away the tears of nearly forgotten sorrow and took a long slow breath, savoring what I’d found here. These two girls needed me… and I needed them. Keerie could tag along.

  We broke camp as the sun came fully up; it was a quick process, since Keerie and rache had little beside their furry belly slings and a single waterskin between them. When they said they had run away, it was for real. The girls had escaped all but empty handed. That problem I could fix, it seemed.

  I worked as we walked along, my hands flying in patterns they knew so well I could devote nearly all of my attention to the woodlands and bogs around us.

  Three pairs of palm leaf sandals appeared in my hands before we’d gone two miles, which made the next few miles pass much more swiftly.

  A loincloth for me was the next project, there were a ton of thorny things right at the wrong level for my comfort. I could deal with scratched shins, but my goods were just hanging there, vulnerable. I wasn’t going to be on any magazine covers with my fit, but at least my dick wasn’t going to get shredded on a catclaw bush.

  One crude kilt of plaited palm fronds and a couple cute, silly grass skirts later, we were a much less naked little tribe, wandering the wilderness.

  Wide brimmed, shady hats followed, woven while we ate leftovers from dinner at mid-day; they eased the strain on our big, goblin eyes, while we walked under the warm summer sun. I made knives for the ladies, sheathed in crawdaddie carapace scabbards, but they declined spears out of hand.

  “Goblin women don’t use weapons! It is taboo!” Keerie barked when I offered to make her something long and stabby.

  “Taboo to whom? Says who?” I asked haltingly. “Is nub anyone but us.”

  “Heretical…” She grumbled, once again refusing to meet my eyes. That was something I took a few miles to notice… I was almost as tall as the girls now, and far more massively built. My spindly gobbling shanks had grown and developed into muscular, lean and nimble legs, while the rest of me had kept pace… Including my tackle, which was now safely tucked away, but still a serious logistical issue. I was hauling heavy equipment without the needed certifications, so I kept bumping, sitting on, and otherwise abusing my own self, all day long.

  When we encamped beneath a thicket of dense willow trees, I was exhausted, sweaty and worn to the bone. I put out the last of our ceviche, made a fresh salad from things we’d gathered on the journey and slipped off to sleep without eating. My last thought before darkness claimed me, were of Rache and Sheela… and the lives they’d fled, without any hope or expectation of finding a better place for themselves. All they had sought was survival… I decided we could do better, be better.

  I would build a new family, a clan, a tribe here… I had options, possibilities and limitless potential spread out before me. My new family was going to thrive, not just survive.

  /

  I woke from dreamless slumber to birdsong, the scent of campfire smoke and a new, female voice nearby, just outside our thicket, out of sight. She sounded reedy, dry and old beyond knowing, but there was a strength in her voice.

  I will look at your foundling boy when we are done with women’s things… Priorities, my dears…” She cackled merrily. “Let me see this daughter of yours! Is she the isekai child I sense?”

  “...isekai” That word blasted through my senses… I hadn’t been speaking English, nor any human language. Goblin speech was an assortment of chirps, grunts, barks, gestures and howls, mingled with words and phrases from a hundred languages, some human, some not.

  My ears heard clear human speech, and the native sounds at the same time, effortlessly and seamlessly translating the words, cadence, meter, rhymes and idiomatic eccentricities directly to me. I even picked up on the body language, gestures and subtle tells of my companions, when they were unguarded around me.

  Yet another wild, magical gift, functioning without effort or disruption, as if I’d always had this power.

  ‘...isekai’ That came through loud and clear, accented in the roundly clipped tones of a well educated Japanese salaryman.

  “What’s eeseekay?” Rache asked sweetly, sounding humbly respectful of this woman, whoever she was.

  “Isekai children fall from the sky, or birth from the womb with mouths full of teeth, full heads of hair and swiftly grow into toddling, surprisingly competent little runties. Once you see the signs, it is unmistakeable.” The new voice lectured cheerfully.

  “Let me see this precocious daughter of yours, though truly, I can already sense the presence of a strong isekai soul nearby! Will you apprentice her to me, to learn my arts and witchcraft? I feel her mighty soul from here, surging and pressing at the veil between worlds!”

  “Sheela is right here, slung at my belly, elder.” Rache whispered softly. “My son, Ghnash is the one you seek, I fear.”

  “A boy? No, no… Even in this benighted and forgotten realm, the outer gods could not be so cruel and capricious. Show me the girl!” A few moments of silence followed, until the old woman spoke. “Preggo, come to me! Let me peer at your belly.” She snapped at Keerie, no doubt. “Not this one either…” She grumbled a moment later.

  “As I said, honored elder… Ghnash has strange ways and odd knowledge! Look, look at the fine knife he made me!” Rache insisted. He is a good boy and obedient… I swear it.”

  Listening to them discuss me, contemplating my fate as if I were not right here was pretty infuriating, but nothing new. I’d spent time in foster care, group homes and juvenile detention; these girls were raw noobs at this game, while I was a veteran of a thousand psychic wars, to borrow a line from blue oyster cult.

  “Show me this… boy child, then. We shall see what can be salvaged from him.” The newcomer grunted, as footsteps headed my way.

  When the girls and their companion pushed through the trailing fronds of willow, I was seated in the lotus position, a benevolent and placid smile on my face, as much as my teeth would allow, anyway.

  My spears were propped against the boll of the tree and I had a spread of marshland and forest treats laid out on leaves for the honored elder. Figs, plums, berries, a salad like the ones the girls enjoyed so thoroughly and a small selection of early nuts rested beside a leaf bowl of lime juice dressed, skeeter nuggets.

  “Welcome, elder.” I said, as smoothly as I could manage, when an ancient goblin woman appeared in the dim, leafy shelter. Her dark tanned, green hued, leathery breasts dangled flat, like burnt fried eggs hung on a nail below a face composed of almost all wrinkles and very little flesh. The rest of her followed that line, boney, emaciated, skinny beyond belief, she was almost a walking skeleton, wearing a headdress of colorful feathers and animal teeth. Necklaces of colorful clay beads dangled around her neck, clattering softly as she moved closer, peering at me from beneath her feathered hat.

  “Yes, this one is an isekai. No doubt.” She sighed sadly. “When I finally pass from this realm, lord Truck-Kun will get an earful from my wandering shade!” She complained to the uncaring heavens. A breath later, her dim, rheumy eyes turned back to me.

  “Come, boy. I will slit your throat swiftly, so you may pass from this life, unburdened by sins.”

  /