Model Runt

Although his best friend had been given the name Tollia during the Branding, that peculiar goblin always referred to himself as Marcus whenever he could.

Pimya always found that quirk so strange. But it was a part of Tollia, and Pimya cherished every part of him, no matter how odd. He could handle a little disassociation in a friend.

The first memory Pimya had was of Tollia grabbing a ragged scrap of cloth and carefully cleaning away the grime and muck clinging to his body. It seemed so tedious, but in that way of his, Tollia explained—with frantic energy—that it was to prevent rot from setting in.

Personally, he didn't think it was that bad. Pimya hadn't even realised the scratch across his back, raw and oozing, was ripe for infection. Dank moss and damp stone had been his bedding, and Tollia’s careful work probably saved his life.

To think that Tollia had repeated the same meticulous process on so many others... it was astonishing.

Those were the early days.

Barely a fortnight later, when the black plague swept through the goblin hovel, Tollia had begged the overseers for something—anything—to cover Pimya’s nose and mouth. “It’s in the air,” Tollia had said, his eyes darting wildly. “It’s how the sickness spreads!”

And so, Pimya followed his advice.

By the week’s end, almost all those who listened to Tollia survived. When the black-clad shamans finally came to cleanse the camp, spraying acrid-smelling fumes into the air and chanting incantations, Tollia’s warnings were proven right.

That’s when the stares began.

The other goblins whispered, casting reverent glances toward Tollia. They treated him like a saviour. Pimya couldn’t understand why Tollia seemed to shrink under their gaze, why he avoided the praise as if it were poison.

“It’s what anyone would have done,” he always muttered, looking away.

But Pimya suspected that Tollia and “anyone” had very different definitions.

Tollia accomplished the impossible with startling ease. He knew things no goblin should know—things even the orc overseers struggled with. Pimya tried his best to keep up, but Tollia’s quick mind and nimble hands were incomprehensible.

When Pimya praised him, Tollia would only laugh and say, “It’s simple. Even a goblin whelp could do it.”

Pimya didn’t know what a “whelp” was, but he was certain he should feel insulted.

During combat drills, Tollia’s movements were refined, his instincts unnervingly sharp. He absorbed every lesson like a sponge, but he lacked the confidence to use his skills against the hobgoblin younglings in sparring matches. Pimya thought it was odd—if he were that skilled, he’d be eager to show it off. But that wasn’t Tollia’s way.

“He worries too much about things that haven’t even happened yet."

Still, Pimya knew the pressure Tollia bore. He was the golden child of their batch, the one everyone looked up to. Pimya resolved to be his rock, his safe place. What good was a best friend if he couldn’t be relied upon?

So Pimya told stories.

Stories of the mountains surrounding the hovel, of the secrets hidden in their shadowed peaks. He retold folk tales of goblin heroes—legends whispered around the cookfires—who achieved feats of martial brilliance and made unimaginable sacrifices.

Most of the stories were secondhand, gathered through the gossip of their kin. Pimya didn’t know which were true and which were myth, but that only made them more magical.

“When I come of age,” Pimya would say, “I’ll set foot on the lands of our ancestors. I’ll feast on the fiery crabs of the ash fields and walk the smoked earth of the goblin homeland. I’ll tell the tales of Goba Lanka, the goblin queen who wrestled the sleep demons of the Dark Below and banished them without sword or spell.”

Tollia would sit, enraptured, his eyes wide with wonder. Dried tears streaked his cheeks, but his smile stretched wider than the goblin war banners draped across the cavern.

Pimya knew he was doing an alright job as a friend. But it wasn’t enough to merely comfort Tollia.

Tollia inspired him to be better. To do more.

This was the one thing that kept Pimya going in the drudgery of life under the demons' rule. To become something greater.