The Reeve Amidst The Green (23) A Tall Order

It began over dinner, as so many incidents of this sort do.

When Charli called out “Dinner’s ready!” Oddri and Shuffa came to get plates (or in Oddri’s case, her well-loved big mixing bowl and big wooden serving spoon) and stepped into the living room to serve themselves out of the kettle and the griddle and the block-iron oven, depending on what might be served that night. But upon entering the living room, both women stopped cold to see what was before them at the dining table.

What they saw was Charli’s dining table, of course. It should have had four chairs; one hung on the wall out of the way to make room for Oddri to sit on the floor on her side, and one opposite Oddri with a thick sofa cushion to boost Shuffa up to a comfortable dining height. But tonight, what they found was five chairs. One of them, the matching one, still hung on its pegs on the wall nearby, out of the way.

The new, fifth, chair stood in Oddri’s accustomed place. It was large, squat, rough-made and unpolished, but looked far sturdier than the comparatively spindly matching chairs. It was made from cut lumber, thicker and heavier than the other furniture, and cunningly fitted together, mortise-and-tenon style. It looked more than sturdy enough to support an ogre’s weight. The seat was noticeably higher than the other chairs, sanded smooth, and its back stood considerably taller, nearly a man’s height. It was plainly built for something larger than a man.

Oddri stood and stared at it in shock.

Across the room, Charli stood at the fireplace, serving spoon and fork in hand, grinning hugely. “Surprise!” he said. “I thought it was about time you had somethin’ better to sit on than the floor!”

Shuffa looked up at Oddri’s openmouthed face. Oh, vok, Shuffa thought, this isn’t—

“Been workin’ on that all week,” said Charli, happily, obliviously. “Had a helluva time keepin’ it secret, but I wrassled it in here while you two were out on the porch. Give it a try, honey? See how it feels? You won’t have to be careful with that chair, no sir!”

Oddri looked at the chair, and at Charli, and put her bowl and spoon down on the table. Tentatively, she touched the chair. It did not shatter or crack. Finally, she took hold of the backrest, and moved it away from the table, and gently sat down in it. It made no sound of protest or strain. Oddri breathed softly and put her full weight on the chair. It held, noiselessly. It was a chair made for an ogre.

Charli beamed happily. “And if you like that, I have some ideas. Tack some cushioning and upholstery on it, make it real comfortable. Maybe build another one for the living room, for near the fire, with real arms on it, if you’re going to be livin’ here, that’ll be a fine little winter project…”

Oddri screwed up her face in agony, and gasped, and the tears came, in force, along with the sobs.

Shuffa closed her eyes.

Charli finally stopped talking.

And for a moment there was only the sound of great, soft sobs, while the tears poured down Oddri’s cheeks.

“Did… I do somethin’ wrong?” said Charli, putting down the serving fork and spoon, and moving into the dining area. “Oddri? What … did I do?”

Oddri opened her streaming eyes and looked at Charli, and for a moment tried to speak, and then brought her hands to her face and collapsed into her weeping.

Charli stood before her, thunderstruck, while she sat in her chair and cried into her hands. Shuffa came around her, headed for Charli. He’s going to fuck this up, she thought, he needs to—

“Oddri?” said Charli. “I’m … sorry! I mean, it’s just a chair, I –”

Shuffa seized his hand and squeezed, digging in her nails a little. Charli looked down at Shuffa as if he hadn’t seen her before. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I was—”

“Shut up,” said Shuffa. “Give her a minute. Give her a hundred minutes if she needs it. This is something that needs to come out.”

“I –”

“Stop,” said Shuffa. “Let her do this. Give her time.”

And Charli fell silent, and for a time, they stood, man and goblin, before the weeping ogre, sitting in her great chair.

***********************

Dint was, among others, the epitome of the self-made goblin.

Dint was slender for a goblin, lacking the broad shouldered burliness of most males, and had suffered teasing as a child for his outright skinniness. He’d filled out in adulthood, but still hadn’t been the strongest, the best hunter, the best tracker. The females hadn’t paid as much attention to him as they had to others in his peer group such as Crogg the Strong, or Mirk the Cuntwolf, or Deek the Clever.

Consequently, in the first days of the Goblin Market, Dint had taken what coins he had and had started his own business, Dint’s Best Meats, originally based in a wickiup in the Market, with nothing more than his little hut, a wooden counter, and a wooden bou’kan grill and smoking frame. Later, he’d built another wickiup to serve as a smokehouse, and his main stock in trade had been smoked birds, squirrel, rabbit, bullbird, and whatever game meats he could buy or trade for. Later, he’d taken to actually selling cooked meats, and after that, serving side dishes and recipes of his own invention: grilled or fried tocky, the great mushroom caps, and grilled meats, vegetables, and sauces wrapped in thin flatbread for a handy meal. And Dint had prospered.

Peecy Kreskin, the human Cheese Woman, had come to the Goblin Market to sell butter and cheese one day, and he’d helped her with some customers who weren’t good with human speech but still wished to buy cheese. He and Peecy had become friends, and in time, lovers; being human, she hadn’t found his slenderness unappealing, being on the slender side herself. Eventually, they’d traded their respective wickiups and crude counters for small human-made buildings, which now stood next to each other in the Goblin Market. Their nights were spent wrapped in each other’s arms, either in Peecy’s bed in the back of the Cheese Shop, or Dint’s kessalek in the back of Dint’s Best Meats, and their days were filled with business and trade. And they could often be found having lunch together, halfway through the long wareso, the goblin lunch and rest period at midday.

On this particular day, Dint looked forward to having lunch with Peecy; she’d spent the night at her parents’ home on the dairy farm, the way she did every third or fourth week. Dint missed Peecy; he didn’t much like sleeping alone, and she invariably didn’t come back until the early morning, with her father in a cart filled with cheese, butter, and other things to sell. But in recent months, Dint had also come to dislike the mood Peecy would be in for a day or two after her return to the Market. And sure enough, she’d been rather quiet since the restock and dropoff that morning. But she did come to Dint’s Best Meats for lunch after the morning’s business.

Dint smiled and said nothing, and served up a shredded beef wrap with spinach greens and shredded onion and cheese with the tangy cream sauce she liked, and the roasted little cherry tomatoes that she loved, and set the plate before her with a mug of beer, and sat down with her, and waited.

“We had lunch over at the Murrell Ranch,” she finally said. She picked up a cherry tomato and ate it. Dint said nothing.

“And those Murrell goblins, they’ve got to the point where if they weren’t short and green, you’d think they were humans,” she added. “Canvas pants and chaps and widebrimmed hats. The goblin babies and the human ones, running around together, havin’ such a good time. Kell and Ron wanted to show off this new thing they made, a big stone thing looks like an open topped oven, but with one of those new metal bou’kan grills on it, a big one. Like the one they have at Adii’s Sausage, now. But it’s outdoors, and it's huge, big enough for a half side of beef or more. And they roasted up a big ol’ beef for us, and opened a barrel of beer, and, well, a good time was had by all.”

“And you had so much fun, you couldn’t stand it,” said Dint lightly.

Peecy looked at him sharply. “And Papa gets to talkin’ about that youngest boy, and how he’s gonna be fifteen this year, and does he know any likely girls?”

“What was his name again?” said Dint.

“Bo,” she said. “Bo Murrell. Looks like his daddy Garn, and tryin’ to act all serious like his daddy, and just comes across like a little boy wearin’ his daddy’s hat, is all.”

“Think they’re trying to nudge the two of you together?”

“I know Daddy wouldn’t mind,” said Peecy despairingly. “He don’t think he’s done his job till I’m married off to some fella can support me proper like. He still talks about the Cheese Shop like it’s a temporary thing. How temporary’s it gonna be, with a wood frame building? And he’s gonna miss that money when it’s not coming in any more.” Peecy ignored the wrap on her plate, picked up another cherry tomato, and pushed it into her mouth.

“And Tam wouldn’t accept anyone other than a Murrell boy?”

“I don’t know what he’d accept,” said Peecy. “He got it easy, with all three of my sisters marryin’ the boys right across the fence, and I still think he’s hopin’ I’ll suddenly become a damn child molester or somethin’, long as it means I’m married off and HIS job is done. And then there’s Mama, goin’ on about my clothes and earrings and how I look like I’m nine tenths goblin now, and don’t I ever think about lookin’ for a nice fella?”

“What’s wrong with your clothes?”

“She says I look like I’m a goblin who grew halfway out of her dress,” said Peecy. “Like a human man wouldn’t want a girl who dressed and talked like a goblin.”

“I take it your mother isn’t aware of who’s fucking who at the House of Orange Lights?” said Dint with a grin. “Or for that matter, in Refuge? Or in Goblin Town? Seems to me that human men like goblin women just fine. And the reverse as well.”

“My mama ain’t left that damn dairy farm in years, except to go to the Murrells to socialize and see her grandbabies,” said Peecy, bitterly. “I don’t think she knows a damn thing about goblins, except that it’s so damn nice that all the field hands at the ranch dress so nice and just like humans and speak the speech of men so well. Like it’s their job to be more human or something. Dint, I think I’d been running the cheese shop for a month before she finally got it through her head that goblins aren’t just some sort of green monkey or elf or something. That they might actually be people.”

***********************

Oddri cried for what seemed like a long time, but was perhaps no more than a handful of minutes. She at one point lifted her face from her hands, and looked at Charli and Shuffa, her face a portrait of pain. She looked down at the side of the chair, and took hold of the seat on either side, and gripped it, as if she were testing its strength. The chair did not squeak, crack, or otherwise complain. It held. Oddri looked back up at Charli’s uncomprehending face, and began to cry again.

Charli took a step forward, and Shuffa seized his hand again. “Wait,” she said. “Let her do this. Let her get it out.”

And Charli waited.

And finally, Oddri took a deep breath, and composed herself somewhat, and said, “I … don’t want … to go.”

Charli blinked, his uncomprehension unabated. Shuffa held his hand, and dug in her nails again. Goblin fingernails are thicker than human nails, and can be cultivated to the point of being clawlike. But this time, Charli ignored her.

“I don’t understand,” he said to Oddri. “You don’t have to go. Did I upset you?”

Oddri took a deep, steadying breath. “You didn’t upset me. But … I will have to go. And I don’t want to.”

Charli’s confusion was growing more visible on his face. “I don’t want you to, either. Why do you have to go?”

Oddri closed her eyes again, and for a moment, Shuffa thought she was about to start crying again. Oddri didn’t. She seemed to be working at gathering her composure, or was perhaps just groping for the right man-words. And finally, she said, “I … like… being here. I like it very much. I like being … a farm girl. Being part of this place, being… part of the farm. With you. With both of you. I … have never been this happy. You made me a chair. So I don’t have to sit on the floor. So I can be social. At the table,” said Oddri, talking faster, picking up speed with each phrase, “and we talk, and we eat, and we talk some more, and we have groja, and we work together and eat and talk and laugh and, and, it will stop and I will have to go and I don’t WANT TO GO!” she screamed, rattling the windows in their frames.

“WHY?” Charli roared back, startling both Oddri and Shuffa. “WHY DO YOU HAVE TO GO?”

For a moment, Shuffa thought things were about to become violent, and she almost stepped away from Charli, but Oddri took a deep breath again, and said, “Because… I have a baby. In here,” and rubbed her stomach.

For a moment, Charli looked like Oddri HAD hit him.

Shuffa said, “That’s why you were asking what goblins did with babies.”

Oddri nodded.

“My baby?” said Charli in a tiny voice.

Oddri nodded again, and closed her eyes, her face a mask of agony.

“But why do you have to go?” said Charli, his face a portrait of confused pain.

And then it was Oddri’s turn to look confused.

And Shuffa realized. “Oddri,” she said, “what do ogres do with babies? When they find out they have one inside them? I bet Charli doesn’t know that.” And I could stand to find out myself, she thought.

Oddri looked at Charli and at Shuffa, and wiped her eyes, and looked thoughtful for a moment. “What is the man word for girl with baby inside?”

“Mama,” said Charli, who still looked like someone had hit him with a board. “Or mother.”

“That also means woman after the baby is born,” said Shuffa helpfully.

“The mama ogre,” said Oddri, “has to be careful. Ogre… boy? Man. Ogre man … when mama ogre gets big in her belly … he…” Oddri looked at Charli, and stopped and took a deep breath. “Ogre man doesn’t like her any more. He knows there is no more groja after that. He… doesn’t want to get food for mama. So he leaves. Or … makes her go. She has to take care of … herself, after that. And the baby.”

“This has happened to you before?” said Shuffa, letting go of Charli’s hand, finally.

“No,” said Shuffa. “I never had a baby. Until now.”

“Then how do you know what the ogre man will do?”

Oddri looked at Shuffa with great brown eyes, brimming with pain. “My mama told me.”

Charli coughed, and cleared his throat, and both women looked at him. “Shuffa,” he said. “Help me out here. Does a goblin man run off when his woman tells him she’s gonna be a mama?”

Shuffa looked up at Charli. “A bad one does,” she said. “A bad goblin man says it is not his baby, or that he does not believe her, or that he doesn’t want her, and he will drive her away.”

“So what’s a good one do?”

Oddri blinked back tears, looking back and forth between Charli and Oddri with a sudden flicker of hope in her eyes.

Shuffa looked not at Charli, but at Oddri. “A good one,” she said, “takes care of his woman. He helps her, and keeps her close, and brings food when she can’t forage. When the baby is born, he helps take care of it, too. And he is responsible.” Shuffa turned to look at Charli. “What kind are you?”

Charli met her gaze for a moment, his own eyes brimming, and turned to Oddri. “What kind am I, Oddri?” he said. “Good or bad?”

Oddri looked back at him. “You… make big promises,” she said at last. “But you keep them. But… this is new. This is … not expected.”

“I’m not going to tell you to go, Oddri,” said Charli, his breathing rapid, his breaths deepening. “You WANT to go, I can’t stop you. But I don’t want you to.”

Oddri’s mouth fell open. “But… when I get big… you won’t want me.”

“Who says?” said Charli, in a voice filled with hurt and anger. “You ARE big, Oddri. You’re bigger than I am! And I still want you. I wanted you ever since that first night in the corn. Hell, you’re pregnant because I wanted you. You didn’t do this all by yourself. Don’t go. Stay here. I know you want to. Stay here and have the baby. Stay here, and …” Charli wrung his hands in the air, and his voice broke. “Oddri, I said honey and groja and I MEANT honey and groja, godsdammit! STAY HERE!”

Man and ogre stared at each other for a moment, and both of them had cheeks wet with tears. And Oddri slid forward off the chair, onto her knees, and seized the standing Charli and dragged him close and squeezed him hard enough to make his back pop, and Oddri moaned into his neck. Charli whipped his arms around Oddri’s neck and squeezed hard enough to make a grown man complain… but Oddri did not. And they held each other for a long time, beside the dining table, before Oddri’s big chair.

And after a long time, Charli looked around. “Shuffa?” he said. “Shuffa? Where’d you go?”

“Over here,” said Shuffa.

Both Oddri and Charli looked around across the table. Shuffa was over at the fireplace, having moved the kettle, griddle, and block-iron oven off the fire onto the stone hearth nearby.

“What?” said Shuffa. “Someone had to keep dinner from burning to ashes while you two worked your shit out.”

************************

FROM THE JOURNALS OF BEN HARSON:

ADDENDUM: Due to experimental circumstances I had nothing to do with, I have developed a new theory: that ogres and humans are, in fact, separate branches of the same evolutionary stem. Essentially differently evolved … but related… examples of the same species.

Humans and ogres can breed without magic. At least… without the arcane sort.

**********************

Oddri had wiped her eyes and blown her nose, and by the end of the evening meal, had grown quite cheerful. “I was afraid,” she said. “I was afraid for days. I didn’t want to talk about it. But the feelings were in me, and they hurt. And when I saw Charli made me a chair… they … ran over. Like when the trough is too full, when I get in, and the water runs out on the ground, you know?”

Sitting in her chair across the table, atop her cushion, Shuffa grinned. “Charli is able to scare an ogre,” she said. “Not many can say that.”

Charli frowned. “I don’t like that you were scared, Oddri. For days, even. Next time you’re worried about somethin’, just come talk to me about it. I don’t like to think about you bein’ all scared and hurtin’ like that.”

“Not scared now,” said Oddri, shoveling down stewed barley. “Mmmm. Happy now. Better. Better now than before. I still have a home. And a new chair! And Charli is better now than he was before.”

“I am?” said Charli, around a mouthful. “How did that happen?”

“You keep your promises,” said Oddri. “Again. And Shuffa said about good and bad goblin men. And you are a good goblin man, but you are human. Are humans like that? Some send a woman away, but others keep their promises?”

“Yeah,” said Charli. “Fact is, human men are JUST like that. Good ones and bad ones. And I ain’t gonna be a bad one. I got to live with myself, after all. But I’m the same fella I was yesterday, Oddri. I just wish you hadn’t had to hurt like that for so long.”

“Better now,” Oddri repeated.

“You know, Oddri,” said Shuffa, mopping up stew with a biscuit half, “your mama told you that ogre men were like that. Are they all like that?”

Oddri thought a moment. “Mama said they were,” she said. “But I have met other ogres. They didn’t seem bad. But I didn’t have a baby with them, either.”

“Did it ever occur to you that your father was just an asshole?” asked Shuffa.

“No,” said Oddri. “I never knew him. I just knew what my mama told me.”

“Y’know,” said Charli, “I bet that ogre men aren’t much different that way than human and goblin men. Some are good, and some not. Otherwise, ogre women… well, they’d have a tougher time raisin’ kids. Fewer of them would survive. I bet some ogre men are good fellas, and take care of their women and kids. It could just be that Oddri’s papa didn’t, is all.”

“I never thought about that before,” said Oddri. “I didn’t know that humans and ogres could have babies together, either. I spent all winter with five men once. No babies. Otherwise I would have been … more careful… with Charli.”

“Have you thought about being a father?” said Shuffa, cleaning her plate and looking at Charli.

“Ain’t had much time to think about it, yet,” said Charli. “But… well, shit… I want Oddri. I want her around. Hell, Oddri – and you, for that matter -- are the best things to happen out here since I paid the place off. I want her to help with the chores, and I want to have groja, and … well, she makes me happy. And now… well… now she’s got my baby. And I know I don’t want to be alone out here again. And, well, fuckit, I guess we’ll do fine with more little farmhands. I ain’t gonna run Oddri off like that. And I reckon there will be groja again at some point.”

“Bet on it,” said Oddri, resting her spoon in the empty bowl, and licking her lips.

“All right, then,” said Shuffa, sliding out of her seat. “I’ll be back in the morning to help with the dishes.”

“Where you going?” said Oddri, looking up.

Shuffa looked up, to see both Charli and Oddri looking at her with surprise. “I thought… you’d want to be alone together,” said Shuffa. “You … both had … a bad time, there…”

“You’re leavin’?” said Charli.

“Don’t go,” said Oddri.

Shuffa blinked. “You … don’t want to be… alone together?”

“It ain’t warm out there,” said Charli. “You don’t have any skins or blankets out in that wickiup.”

“Stay here,” said Oddri. “Please? I want you both for snuggle tonight.”

Shuffa looked at Oddri, and then back to Charli.

“I don’t know what it is with me,” he said. “First I got all these beautiful women wantin’ to come stay with me, and then, all at once tonight, they all wanna run off. What am I doin’ wrong?”

Oddri burst out laughing. Charli looked at Shuffa.

“You stayin’?”

Shuffa thought for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “I think I will.”

************************

In preparation for bed that night, Charli had stood behind Oddri as she sat on the great mattress tick and had combed out her hair, and had plaited it loosely into a thick braid that ran down her back, to keep it from getting tangled in the night. And then, Oddri had insisted that Shuffa sit down while Oddri had brushed out and combed her own, shorter hair, while Charli had washed his face and stripped down and warmed the mattress tick with the little covered pan filled with the leftover dying coals from the fire. Shuffa had liked that, the first time he had done it; goblins had never thought of such a thing, not having metal pans to do it with, and it was a fine thing to climb into a warmed bed under warmed covers on a cold night. And soon the three of them had settled into their accustomed places and positions, and the touching and caressing had begun.

Shuffa had never felt like a third wheel before, but tonight, amidst the touching and the cuddles, she couldn’t help but feel like she was a little superfluous. Charli had his woman, his happily pregnant farm girl. What did he need with a goblin woman, one considerably older than he? And yet, both Charli and Oddri held her and touched her and caressed her skin, nuzzled her hair, nibbled her long pointed ears. Shuffa held and touched and kissed back, feeling the whole time like she wasn’t quite the same part of their lives that she had been in nights past.

“What’s wrong?” asked Oddri, in the dark.

“Is something wrong?” said Shuffa, tensing.

“You don’t feel right,” said Oddri. “You are not in the mood for the cuddles?”

“You tensed up when she asked that,” said Charli. “IS something wrong?”

Shuffa sighed. “Tonight,” she said, “you two finally admitted that you love each other. And that is good. And … I don’t want to ruin that.”

“Ruin it how?” said Charli.

“What is love?” said Oddri.

Silence in the dark for a moment.

“You don’t know that word?” said Shuffa.

“I think I heard it somewhere,” said Oddri. “But I don’t know what it means. Charli and I love each other?”

“Means strong feelin’s for each other, honey,” said Charli. “Means we care for each other, we hurt when the other hurts. We want to help each other, talk to each other, make each other better.”

“Oh,” said Oddri. “The man word is love. For the feelings. Yes, I love you. I have strong feelings for you. But I love Shuffa, too.”

“What?” said Shuffa.

Charli chuckled. “You hadn’t noticed?” he said. “Oddri’s mighty affectionate, and not just to me. And it ain’t just a groja thing. Hell, I saw it.”

Shuffa thought about several occasions where Oddri had picked her up and hugged her, or had nuzzled her on top of the head, or touched or patted her atop the head, or the behind, or… “You love me?”

“You make us all better,” said Oddri. “You’re smart. You know things. More to talk about. More social. Learn about goblin things. You make food in different ways than Charli. Make groja in new ways. Charli likes to fuck you. Charli likes to hold you. So do I. You made Charli shut up while I was crying, so I could think and talk. You cared. You helped. Many ways, you help, all the time. It was good here, with Charli. It’s better with Charli… and you.”

Shuffa lay on her back in the dark, her head pillowed on Oddri’s great arm. On her other side, she felt Charli move, and felt his hand on her stomach.

“You ain’t ruinin’ nothin, Shuffa,” said Charli softly. “Fact is, I think you helped out a lot, tonight. Maybe without you here, things wouldn’t have gone so good, between Oddri and me. I didn’t understand, and she didn’t know how to explain. You were the only one with enough sense to stand in the middle. And it ain’t like anyone’s askin’ you to leave. It ain’t like you’re not pullin’ your weight. And it ain’t like nobody wants you here.” The hand on her stomach moved up to cup one of her breasts gently.

She said her feelings ran over, thought Shuffa. Like when you get in the trough, and it’s too full, and the water runs out onto the ground. She trusted me. She trusted Charli. And it worked, negoksa, it worked. Would it work… for me? The trusting? I trusted someone once, twice, and oh, how I paid for it…

Shuffa reached up, under the covers, and took Charli’s hand in her own, pressed it against her breast. Charli didn’t move away, didn’t let go. Shuffa turned her head, and looked at Charli. She could see his face in the darkness, looking blindly at her; his night vision was nowhere near as good as hers. And still, unseeing, he looked into her eyes. Turning her head the other way, she could see Oddri looking at her as well.

I used to hate humans, thought Shuffa. I thought they shit on my whole world, changed it into something I didn’t understand, and then I fucked them because no one else would have me, and now… and … now… what do I have, here? What do I have, with this man and this ogre? They’ve given me so much, they didn’t even ask for any of the mustard money, and now they ask me to stay here, to be a part of what they have…

And in Shuffa’s heart, like a key turning in a lock, a connection clicked, and a decision was made, a rubicon was crossed.

And as if he had heard the click of her heart, Charli said, softly, “I didn’t want Oddri to hurt, or to not feel like she could talk about what was botherin’ her. I don’t want you to, either. If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to. But if you need someone to listen, I know we both will, for you.”

Shuffa took a deep, sobbing breath. “You’ve given me … a lot,” she said. “I hate to ask for anything more.”

“What do you want?” said Oddri.

And Shuffa told them.

https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/2c153c9ba0e2676ff2f3ce7b6f64f719

Back to Chapter 22:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/109ltac/the_reeve_amidst_the_green_22_under_pressure/

Ahead to Chapter 24!

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/10dr0e0/the_reeve_amidst_the_green_24_weighty/