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It started with a few small items, things that were likely to be misplaced: a handful of pens and markers, one of the familiar’s pacifiers, a tube of lip balm from Barbara’s purse. Neither adult thought much of it at the time. The house was overfull with babies, and with how hectic the daily milieu tended to be, losing a few items seemed expected.
When larger items started disappearing, Walter suspected something was awry. First, it was a throw pillow from the couch. Barbara suggested that maybe they had tossed it; one of the children had spit up on the couch the week prior. It was entirely possible that they had decided saving it wasn’t worth the effort.
Then one morning, a mobile from one of the cribs turned up absent. A search of the room turned up empty – not even a stray toy or bauble that had been suspended from it was left behind. After that, it was a sauce pan from the kitchen.
The pattern of disappearances, or of thefts as Walter was beginning to suspect, seemed very familiar. He had dealt with their kind for years, after all, he knew their habits well. They just weren’t usually this bold, or successful at sneaking around in his own domicile. If he could just catch one and rough it up enough to send a message to the horde...but that was the problem. The little thieves were being quieter than a dormouse.
If he had not had enough evidence, Barbara confirmed his suspicions when the next item went missing. The blender – finally replaced months after Jim had eaten enough of the original to make it non-functional, was the next item to disappear. Its absence from the counter that morning was too conspicuous to go unnoticed.
“Do you think...maybe it’s goblins?” The spark of recognition and understanding behind Barbara’s expression was curious.
“Most likely. They tend to break into houses and steal things they take a fancy to...though why they would want a blender is beyond me.”
“Pretty sure I have an idea.” Barbara smirked and, reaching into one of the cabinets on the kitchen island, pulled out the remains of the previous Food Magic 3000. “Did I ever tell you about how we had to fight off a group of them that invaded the house when Blinky’s brother first showed up?”
“Jim mentioned it briefly when he asked me to help guard the house...why?”
“Their leader kept firing off a crossbow.” That earned a raised brow from Walter, but she pressed on before he could interject. “The rest of them were annoying, but manageable. But the one that was armed seemed like too much of a threat. So I told Jim to hit it at me.”
Her smirk had deepened by this point, indulging in the sadistic satisfaction of the memory perhaps a bit too much. “...I caught it in the blender and pressed puree.”
A look of shock crossed Walter’s face at the unexpected twist. “You what?!” His shock dissolved immediately into a sputtering laughter. Barbara laughed too at the absurdity of the memory.
“Do you think it’s revenge? For killing their leader with the last blender?” Barbara posited once they had finally calmed down.
“If anything, I think they’re trying to disarm you, my dear.”
Catching the goblins in the act was easier said than done. They had no clue when or where their unwelcome guests were entering the house, and precautionary attempts to lock the basement and bolt the windows proved ineffective. A week after setting up a handful of home monitoring cameras in the areas of the thefts, they still had little insight into the matter, though the notifications of movement in those rooms did help them intervene more quickly. They seemed to frequent Jim’s room, the nursery, a fact that alarmed both Barbara and Walter, though the children showed no signs of harm thus far. Since installing the cameras, the only additional missing item was a screwdriver, pilfered early in the week from the garage where no cameras had been installed, but easily discernible upon reviewing video footage from the outdoor camera that caught them leaving the home.
They were still uncertain how the goblins were even getting into the nursery. Whatever their point of entry, it was not visible on the camera. No more mobiles went missing though, or bottles, although it did seem things were being relocated. They had begun to notice a few errant toys in the children’s cribs, not always the same child and not always the same toys. It was clearly happening while the goblins were in the room, but neither adult could puzzle out the why behind it.
“I just don’t understand how we didn’t notice them in with the kids before,” Barbara wondered aloud early one morning after a 5am wake-up call. They had taken to corralling the goblins out through the front door after shoving them out the window proved...messy. The chase had woken several children, as it usually did, and once they were wide awake, getting them resettled took time. “Not a sound on the baby monitors. They don’t even seem upset!”
“They were taken care of by goblins for decades, some of them centuries...I doubt the children think anything strange is going on at all,” Walter reassured her, plucking the remaining bottles from Barbara’s arms and setting them in the sink to be sterilized come morning.
“I remember you mentioning that before, but you don’t think they’re breaking in to take care of the babies, do you? What would they even get from it?”
“Doubtful. The goblins who worked the nursery in the Darklands were relatively well compensated...and when that wasn’t enough, I’m sure Gunmar popping a few of their clan like chicken nuggets was enough incentive to keep them in line.” He chuckled darkly at the joke, but a stern look from Barbara shut it down. “Erm...anyway, no. You’re right. They don’t have incentive to be coming ‘round for the sake of resuming their previous employment agreement. There must be something else that they’re after.”
Barbara couldn’t shake the feeling that they were missing some detail from the nursery encounters. Not something stolen, but something else being left out of place. Fatigue weighed heavy on her mind though, urging her back to bed. As though sensing that she was fading, Walter lightly gripped her shoulder to pull her out of her thoughts.
“It’s late, Barbara. We can brainstorm in the morning...go get more rest.” Placing a hand at the small of her back, he gently guided her back to the staircase.
“You’re right. It’s too early for this.” Smiling lightly, she arched forward onto the balls of her feet to press a quick kiss to his cheek. “Goodnight, Walt.”
He smiled and drew her closer to himself with the hand that lingered on her back. A chaste kiss was pressed against her forehead and then Walter, his eyes glowing dimmer with his own exhaustion, took a step back towards the guest bedroom. “Goodnight, Barbara.”
Barbara woke several hours later to the sound of shuffling down the hallway and a muffled chorus of crying from the nursery. On her bedside table, the baby monitor lay silent. Odd. She stretched and rubbed the sleep from her eyes before joining Walter in addressing the babies’ cries. No unwanted intruders this time, just a group of infants loudly voicing their morning demands.
It was while she was waiting for the formula to reach temperature and the coffee pot to finish brewing that it clicked: the baby monitors in the nursery were all switched off.
“Walt, you didn’t turn the monitors off, did you?” Barbara asked upon returning with the formula.
“No, just the camera’s audio – it was creating a feedback loop that made these awful shrieking noises.” Walter finished snapping the baby he was working with into a fresh onesie before looking up at Barbara. “Why?”
“I couldn’t hear any audio over the monitor in my room this morning. I didn’t notice they were up at all until I heard you in the hallway.” Setting down the tray of bottles, Barbara fiddled with the volume knob on the monitor in the nearest crib. It clicked back on with a soft burst of static before quieting down. She checked the next closest monitor – same result. “Walt, they’re all off.”
Grabbing the nearest to himself, he confirmed that monitor too was indeed switched off. His brow furrowed, and he turned the monitor over in his hands as he thought. “It’s obviously the goblins...but why?”
“So we don’t hear them moving around in the room?” Barbara suggested, making her way through the rest of the room and re-activating the other monitors.
“Possibly, but we aren’t hearing them move around to turn the monitors off. Those long limbs lend them a certain degree of stealth when they need to move quietly. It’s one of the reasons...” He paused, flashing her an expression flavored with guilt before continuing. “It’s one of the reasons we used them for reconnaissance and retrieval.”
Barbara mulled over that tidbit of information. “...How would you use them for reconnaissance? I could see using them for an attack – been on the receiving end of that. How could they relay information though? The only thing they ever seem to say though is, ‘Waka Chaka!’”
“Oh! No, they do have a language! It’s fairly simplistic, but sufficient for what we used them for. And they usually understand the languages of the area they’re in well enough, provided they interact with someone who speaks it regularly. You usually hear them shouting that particular phrase because it’s what they yell before they attack, like a war cry.”
Barbara frowned, this new knowledge souring as it sunk in. “I...I’m not sure how I feel about having killed something that intelligent.”
“Calling them ‘intelligent’ is giving them a lot of credit, Barbara...” His sarcasm did not appear to help the situation, as Barbara scowled at him in response. Walter sighed and attempted a different approach. “If you hadn’t killed them, I assure you that they would have killed you. Regardless of their capacity for language, they don’t demonstrate the same level of compassion or willingness to show mercy that a human might. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen any evidence that they possess the...emotional intelligence for it, if you will. The best you might get is convincing them to negotiate and outbid whoever hired them, or bribe them if they’re acting in their own capacity.”
“Have you ever tried?” Barbara asked, tone slightly accusatory. The urge to press him further rose in the back of her mind as her annoyance increased, to remind Walter that the Trollmarket trolls had accused he and the other changelings of similar emotional and character failings out of prejudice and unwillingness to give them the chance to prove otherwise.
“To get them to show mercy?” Walter unknowingly interrupted her spiraling thoughts, the tone of his voice turning incredulous. “I’m sure in the heat of the moment, I’ve asked them to stop attacking when I’ve been their target. I’ve certainly witnessed their victims beg for mercy and get none.”
Barbara took a deep breath and turned away from him briefly to set down the rapidly cooling tray of bottles. She knew that he was not dismissing her concerns, knew that this was a knee jerk reaction...knew that she was still processing what she knew of Walter’s sordid history. Knew that she was still working through her own damaged sense of trust in him. But she also knew that he was not the person he had been and that he was making the effort to continue learning and changing...which is how she concluded that she was being unfair.
Mollified, she turned back to look at Walter and found he had begun fidgeting, his expression strained and anxious. “Barbara, I know I don’t have the best track record when it comes to interpersonal relationships, particularly with people I treated like lackeys...but-”
“No...Walt, no. I’m sorry, that was rude.” She crossed the short distance between them and took his hands in hers. “I overreacted and let my anger get the best of me. It was uncalled for...”
“No, Barbara – there is nothing uncalled for about challenging how I’ve treated others in the past.” Walter insisted, placated, running a thumb soothingly over the back of her hand.
“But there is in jumping to conclusions.” She paused as Walter, ever quick to comfort and reassure, cautiously pulled her closer. Wrapping an arm around her and caressing the back of her head soothingly, his claws ghosted feather light over her scalp in rhythmic motions. “We still have a lot to work on.”
He hummed in agreement. “Yes...but thank you for giving me the opportunity to do it.”
The two lingered briefly in silence, before a shrill wail cut across the room. Barbara sighed and slipped reluctantly out of their embrace. Selecting a bottle from the abandoned tray, she tested the temperature against her wrist. “Not as warm as usual...but they hopefully won’t mind. We should probably hurry, before she starts a choir in here.”
Chuckling quietly, Walter grabbed a different bottle and different baby. “Agreed, this might not be a cathedral, but they’re certainly no Tabernacle Choir.”
They did not have to wait long for the next break-in. That same evening as they ate dinner, a notification for “motion detected, nursery” pinged on Walter’s smartphone. A low growl rumbled in his throat as his annoyance peaked. Barbara stopped him abruptly as he made to get up.
“Hold up, Walt. Before we go up there...can we turn on the video and the audio feed from the camera?” Barbara requested, pointing at his phone with her fork. “Something’s going on we aren’t getting. We’re missing part of the puzzle.”
“...You’re right. We need more information so we can put an end to this permanently.” He clicked the notification and switched on the live-streaming video and audio. No interference came from the camera’s speakers in response – the baby monitors were once again off.
In frame, they watched a lavender-colored goblin pulling its arm back from inside one of the cribs. Behind it, one of the familiars was precariously pulling herself up using the bars of the crib. She made a fussing noise, waving a pudgy arm through the bars at the goblin, which quickly alighted on her crib instead. The baby babbled, as though attempting to communicate.
The goblin spoke, incomprehensible to Barbara, but next to her Walter started and blinked several times in surprise. On the video feed, the baby babbled again and strained against the bars of the crib in the direction of the camera, pointing at something below it. The goblin responded with a longer sentence this time, gesturing one spindly arm towards the door.
Walter pushed back from the table and stood in one fluid motion, alarm easily readable on his face. “They’re trying to barter with the familiars.”
“What?” Barbara was not sure what to do with that information, her brain getting stuck on the obvious issue: “They’re babies. What...what?”
Watching as the baby continued gesturing emphatically at her target, Walter slowly turned the interaction over in his head, attempting to process what in the world he was witnessing. “I mean, she’s not saying anything in Goblinspeak back. Just gest...”
Walter trailed off as comprehension dawned on him. Oh. Well, he hadn’t anticipated that.
“Yeah, she’s only what, 6 months developmentally? She obviously can’t use words. She’s trying to show him what she wants...I think. But how-”
“They were in the Darklands for decades, Barbara, some of them centuries. Their physical development might have been paused...but most of them were “paused” in a key developmental stage. I just...don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that they would still learn, even if they couldn’t develop the motor skills to use what they learned.” Turning to look at her directly, Walter fixed Barbara with a look of bewilderment. “It offered to get her a toy if she let it have something it wants in return. Barbara...I think she understood what the goblin was saying.”
Barbara furrowed her eyebrows, perplexed, and looked back at the video feed. The goblin was now holding a stuffed rabbit, pointing and gesturing with the other hand seemingly for clarification. It did not seem to be what the girl wanted, as she pouted and resumed making grabbing motions in the direction below the camera – where the toy chest was located, Barbara realized. The goblin jumped fluidly from the crib and quickly returned with another toy, this time a ball. It took three more tries for it to identify the correct object its customer requested: a plush dog that made a rattling noise when shaken.
The first part of the transaction complete, the goblin spoke again, and this time Walter yelped in alarm, immediately scrambling out of the room and towards the stairs. Barbara stood too, concerned with his reaction.
“Walter, what’s going-”
“The exchange was for the meat cleaver!!” Walter shouted back, already at the top of the stairs. Barbara raced to grab the broom. So much for diplomacy.
In the nursery, Walter slammed the door open just in time to see the goblin leap towards the far corner of the room and dart under one of the cribs. With a snarl that alarmed several of the children, he dove after it, snatching hold of a leg just as it reached the central air vent, the metal grate that normally covered it removed and off to the side. The goblin scraped and scrambled at the vent frantically, but the difference in strength was too great by far. His other hand grasping its body firmly at the back of its neck, Walter tore the goblin away from the vent.
Broom in hand, Barbara surveyed the situation from the doorway. Two of the children had started whimpering, tears likely impending. A handful watched their other caretaker with interest, confused by the sudden action and loud noises. The girl who had bartered with the goblin, innocently naive to what type of bargain she had participated in, was hugging the dog plush wide-eyed but silent.
Walter emerged from underneath the crib at the far corner of the room, a bit disheveled but triumphant. The goblin, who was now within reach of the cribs, latched onto the bars of the nearest one and tried to pull itself free. The baby inside, now past the tipping point, burst into tears and started wailing at the top of his lungs. Walter winced and shot Barbara an apologetic look, but she waved him off. “Two problems, two of us. You take care of the one you’re holding, I’ll settle the baby down.”
Once the baby was taken care of, once the goblin was taken care of, Barbara and Walter met back at the dining room table.
“You left quite the impression,” Walter started, smirking and looking somewhat proud. “The current Fragwa considers you a threat, so much so that she’s too afraid to launch an attack while you’ve got things like the blender and kitchen utensils at your disposal.”
“You’re joking.” Barbara said in disbelief, searching Walter’s face for some indication he was making the story up.
“She saw you poor the previous leader out of a blender, as she put it ‘like a smoothie.’ You’re a master of intimidation tactics.” Walter’s smirk deepened, and Barbara groaned, covering her face in her hands.
“Please tell me you figured out how to make them stop. The last thing I need is a war with a bunch of angry murder muppets.”
That elicited a laugh from Walter; if he was laughing about this, surely it would not come to a fight, Barbara reasoned.
“Fortunately, yes,” he confirmed, setting down a small satchel on the table. Inside were a handful of their missing objects, though Barbara noted that several were missing. “I was able to negotiate with them and establish a truce. I offered to let them keep the blender, the pan, and a couple other small things. You did not want that chapstick back, trust me.”
She had a feeling that she did not want him to elaborate.
“In exchange, they aren’t allowed to approach the house or anyone who resides here, on or off the property.”
That was a relief, although one question lingered on her mind. “Why do you think they wanted to keep the blender? Didn’t trust me with it?” Because she absolutely intended to replace it.
“As I said, you left quite the impression. She was both impressed...and inspired by your use of it in battle.”