Chapter 422 Regret

Hermit’s voice cracked like a breaking stick, shrill enough to startle the hatchlings in his arms. He spun in a panic, one leg slipping on the snow, the other somehow kicking his own shin as he flailed backward and crashed onto his rear. The wooden box of hatchlings jostled violently in his arms as he scrambled to his feet like a frantic squirrel.

“SHE GOT TREE’D! SHE GOT TREE’D! OH MOTHER-MOSS, SHE’S DEAD! SHE’S SNOW JAM!”

“She’s… strong, Hermit. Not… tree food yet…”

“NOT YET?! I’M NOT WAITING FOR A SECOND TREE!”

Hermit’s limbs were moving faster than his brain, arms flailing wildly as he sprinted crookedly toward the snow cave, almost dropping the hatchling box twice, then tripping and catching it mid-fall.

Behind them, the ground trembled again.

“WE’RE GONNA GET FLUFF-CRUSHED!” he wailed as he dove through the snow cave entrance like a thrown sack of potatoes. His knees hit the packed snow first, his face slammed into hay, and the hatchlings squealed as they were jostled like eggs in a basket.

Hermit flopped over them, arms spread protectively.

 “NOBODY MOVE! MAYBE THE AVALANCHE WILL THINK WE’RE DEAD!”

One hatchling sneezed. Another poked Hermit in the nose.

Kaka exhaled a tiny wheeze, his voice like worn-out parchment.

 “Still... better than the farm…”

The sound came like a god coughing. A deep, low growl echoed through the mountains, shaking the bones of the world. Then, all at once—a roar. A tidal wave of snow, ice, and splintered trees crashed down from above, devouring the world in white.

Inside the small snow cave, Hermit froze, eyes wide as saucers, face pressed against the hatchlings. 

“It’s here,” he whispered.

BOOM.

The cave quaked. Snow poured in through tiny cracks above. The ceiling groaned like an old beast. Hermit let out a squeal that would shame a tea kettle.

“REEEEEEEEE! WE’RE GONNA BE ICE JAM! WREEEEEEEEE!” he wailed, clutching the hatchling box tighter.

The hatchlings, no bigger than mice, were a chaotic bundle of panic. One buried its face in Hermit’s armpit. Another started trying to dig straight into the hay, feet sticking up. Two began biting each other’s ears out of sheer mindless distress, then stopped and hugged instead. One repeatedly smacked its head on the box edge going “ee-ee-ee” in a nervous loop.

“NO! DON’T DIG!” Hermit yelled.

 “WE NEED WALLS, NOT HOLES!”

A thunderclap above. The cave shuddered violently.

Kaka groaned weakly from Hermit’s back, his head tilted sideways.

 “This… this will be over soon.” 

Then came silence. Not peace—the silence of something enormous having passed.

A thick stillness swallowed everything. Snow sealed the cave entrance shut, burying them in muted darkness.

Several hours later, Hermit blinked in the dim light filtering through the snow-packed cracks.

 “We’re dead,” he mumbled.

 “I’ve died. This is death. It’s cold. And it smells like hatchling fear.”

The smallest hatchling gently tugged on his ear and squeaked. Hermit looked down. They were all watching him.

“…Okay. Okay! Okay. Okay. Hermit’s in charge. Everything’s… not fine but not the worst! We’re buried but breathing, no one exploded—yet!”

He reached out and patted one hatchling’s head with a shaky hand.

 “Good job not exploding, little gob.”

Hermit sat upright with great ceremony—his back still carrying Kaka, who slumped like a limp laundry sack—and slapped his cheeks with both hands.

“Alright, troops!” he whispered urgently, trying not to upset the delicate snow holding the cave together.

 “We’re stuck under an avalanche thing, our fearless leader Miss Helen’s probably buried somewhere in the snow like a pretty icicle, and it’s up to us to escape before we turn into frozen goblin jerky.”

Kaka groaned behind him. 

“Just leave me… with the snow… I'm slowing you down, son.”

“No! No giving up, KAKA!” Hermit shouted—then remembered to whisper.

 “No giving up... We are fighters. We are survivors. We are…” He glanced around at the hatchlings chewing hay and sneezing into their own toes.

 “...a bunch of barely functional mucus creatures. But we will prevail!”

One hatchling raised its hand like a student.

“Yes, Small Thing?” Hermit asked.

The hatchling put its whole fist in its mouth.

“Excellent input,” Hermit nodded.

He cleared a patch in the hay and drew a very crooked diagram with his cracked fingernail.

 “Okay. Here’s the box. Here’s me. Here’s snow. And here’s... uh... hope.” 

He added a small heart with a sad face.

Kaka squinted at it sideways.

 “Is that… a worm?”

“No, that’s you,” Hermit huffed.

 “This worm is hope.”

Another hatchling dove dramatically onto the drawing, rolling around and erasing half of it.

“AH—strategic sabotage!” Hermit wailed. 

“We're compromised!”

But he took a deep breath and pointed to the ceiling. 

“We dig that way. Up. Toward freedom. The sky. Master Helen. Maybe a sandwich.”

Kaka muttered, “Snow falls down, you know. You dig up, it falls on you.”

Hermit blinked. 

“...Well then we dig sideways. And then turn up. Like a slope. A slope of salvation.”

He looked at the hatchlings. 

“All right. Volunteers?”

The hatchlings all raised their hands—and then used those same hands to start digging into each other’s ears.

Hermit sighed and slapped the hay again.

 “Okay, I’ll start. You just… don’t eat each other.”

He turned to the wall, clawed gently at the snow… and a spoonful of it immediately caved in and dusted him in powder.

“Gah! It’s fighting back!”

Kaka muttered, “Tell it to try harder.”

With a deep breath, Hermit began scraping in earnest, mumbling to himself.

 “Diggy diggy… savey savey… not-diey not-diey…”

Hermit’s claws were numb. His back ached. His everything ached. But he dug, whispering encouragement to himself like a deranged mole.

“Just a little more, little more, come on you magnificent green rat, you can do this…”

The hatchlings behind him made squeaky trumpet noises with their mouths, clearly convinced they were helping the war effort. Kaka drifted in and out of awareness, occasionally muttering things like “Is this a tunnel or my grave?” and “I smell carrots.”

After what felt like hours of frantic sideways-then-upwards tunneling, Hermit’s finger suddenly poked through something—air. He froze. 

“Oh. Oh-ho. Oh yes. Oh, mighty snow gods, I made a hole.”

He turned back down the cramped tunnel and shouted, “Kaka! Little gobs! I have breached the surface! I see the sky!”

With a burst of awkward enthusiasm, he pushed up with his arms, wriggling like a worm in too-tight socks until his head burst through the snow into the blinding, icy air.

Snow clung to his eyelids and his nose hairs froze instantly, but he gasped with wild joy.

“I AM FREEEEEEEZING!” 

The blizzard had stopped, the wind howling like an angry ghost and slapping his face with gusts of wind. His eyes darted around. He saw pale outlines of trees, broken branches strewn everywhere, and distant mounds that might have been boulders. 

He blinked snowflakes from his lashes. A chunk of snow slid down his neck.

“AH! COLD! COLD NECK! I REGRET EVERYTHING!”

He pulled himself a little higher, chin resting on the snow, squinting through the harsh wind.

 “Master Helen? Oh, majestic tyrant? Are you buried under here somewhere?”

Only the wind replied.

Hermit sighed, cheeks puffed, then ducked his head back into the tunnel. He grunted and wriggled, tightening the vines around Kaka like he was strapping on a very frail backpack.

 “Okay, Kaka, please don’t fall off. Or sneeze.”

Kaka muttered, “I will do my best, son.”

With an exaggerated huff, he hefted the hatchling box—now full of tiny, shivering squeakers—onto his hip.

 “Alright my precious gobbies, hang on tight.”

He pushed up through the snow tunnel, flailing and scooting, until finally his whole body emerged from the white. His breath came out in clouds. The storm had stopped completely, and vague shapes emerge in the frost-glazed landscape.

Hermit took one triumphant step out.

“I AM ABOVE THE EARTH ONCE M—”

“Look out,” came Kaka’s hoarse whisper.

Hermit blinked. 

“Huh?”

Then—WHACK.

Something heavy and wooden smashed across his face. He barely had time to register a shape in the white—a sneering goblin with evil smile and yellow eyes, swinging a crude club.

The world spun.

The hatchlings screamed, the box slipped.

Hermit crumpled into the snow like a dropped sack of spoiled potatoes, the last thing he saw was that broken, cruel grin and the blur of a second swing coming down.

Darkness swallowed him.

Suzuka's eyes fluttered open, the dull ache in her head reminding her of the blow from the tree. The world swam in and out of focus—a throbbing ache pulsed behind Suzuka’s eyes. Her vision blurred as she took in her surroundings—a crude wooden cage, rough and battered, offering little comfort. 

"What happened? "

The last thing she remembered was the crack of a tree against her skull, then darkness. Now, dim torchlight flickered against the damp stone walls, and the stench of sweat, blood, and goblin filth filled her nose.

To her side, Hermit was caught in a grim struggle, his small frame pressed against the bars as an evil goblin crouched nearby. He was on his knees, speaking in rapid, guttural Goblin-tongue. His voice was desperate, pleading. Suzuka couldn’t understand the words, but the fear in his eyes was unmistakable.

The goblin guard—thick-muscled, his jagged teeth bared in a grin—loomed over him. One clawed hand gripped Hermit’s shoulder, forcing him down, while the other unbuckled a rusted belt with a slow, deliberate click.

The goblin's twisted face was inches from Hermit's, its long tongue licking eagerly at his big ears, its sharp teeth flashing in a sinister grin. Hermit squealed, "WREEEEEEE!" his eyes filled with tears and fear, trying desperately to wriggle free, but the goblin held him firmly, reveling in his torment.

“Having fun, Hermit?” Suzuka asked, mocking, her tone dancing somewhere between teasing and dreamlike. 

"Pathetic worm," the guard sneered in broken Common, glancing at Suzuka with a leer. 

"You watch. Learn your place."

Hermit’s begging grew frantic. He shot Suzuka a look—shame, terror, a silent apology.

Her words stung—not because of their cruelty, but because she didn’t even seem to know goblins like him were bred, branded, and used.