Theodulus Aies Olcay I May 16th, 20XX

“Welcome back your excellency.”

The dark-haired goblin bowed to me with an emotional grin and the two silver stripes atop his head triggered a ton of memories from our shared past. It had been a pleasant surprise that he had yet to go into rest but I could help but wonder why. I knew he’d stuck around after I’d went in to look after my idiot of a son but surely he should have been able to relax after my son had gotten a kid, couldn’t he?

“It's been how many years and you still haven’t kicked that terrible habit?"

He brushed back his already slicked back hair as he straightened out his back and flashed me another grin, slightly growling as he bared his teeth. Ever since we had met as children he would always growl whenever he bared his teeth, I’d never heard a reason and he had never offered one but once his child had been born and had picked up the habit I’d figured it was hereditary.

“I see you’re still as ill-tempered as ever my dear.”

“What? Gonna fight me on it?”

He held up both arms in a slightly mocking defeated stance but I chose not to pursue it. It wasn’t like I wasn’t ready to fight him but now wasn’t the time. There was also the presence of the twin goblins that had taken refuge at the side of the room as they watched us two figures they had probably only read about in their textbooks. If I chose to fight it out with Cáel I couldn’t guarantee their safety, and for all the mild manners the old man put up it was impossible to think of him as anything but the beast he fought like.

“You, come here.”

The brash one that I’d sent to get Cáel stepped out of the impromptu line they had made and kneeled in front of me.

“Your excellency.”

He’d cut it close, the deadline, and had arrived just fifteen seconds before time ran out but I wasn’t as cruel as to begrudge him that.

“And you, the other one.”

The one that had cleaned up my throne room and gotten it to a satisfactory state, I supposed I could reward him as well.

“Cáel, come help me out. It's been a couple of centuries since I did this.”

I ignored the irritating expression on his face and waited for him to stand in between the two younger goblins and hold them down. They looked relatively young so I was not sure if my irresponsible grandson would have awakened them but even if he had, awakenings had never been his strong suit.

“After so many years don’t you think you can call me by my first name now? If I didn’t know any better, I would think you didn’t like me.”

The two young ones began to fidget but under Cáel’s strong grip found that they could not move. While I could have used an Order to make them stay completely still, I just didn’t want too. If my weak half-fairy great-grandson had borne the pain of receiving a monarch’s awakening without a formal one then I was sure that these two could deal. one could even say I was being generous by asking Cáel to help them.

I muttered the spell and ripped my thumb against my horn, then pressed it against their own and looked away before they started to writhe in pain.

“Take them to the other room and leave them to their own devices. If they live through it, they can become my attendants.”

“And if they don’t?”

I scowled at his questioning of my actions and stopped myself short of baring my fangs at him. Now wasn’t the time for the two of us to go at it as we had in the past.

“Just go.”

“Hey now, is that any way to talk to your cousin?”

“As if any cousin of mine would be so frivolous.”

He blurred in and out of the room, returning without the baggage of the two young goblins and followed after me to the leisure area, not bothering to wait for my permission before flopping into the chair. I exhaled in frustration but kept myself from blowing up at the closest thing to a brother I had.

The Cáel family was an odd and unprecedented case in the goblin empire, having equal authority and power as the Olcay’s but never being able to ascend the throne. It was the result of a Deal our, well my father had made with his younger brother. In return for letting the eldest ascend the throne he got to avoid the deadly backlash that came with losing the battle, but the repercussions stretched much further than losing the right to the throne.

The Cáel family descended from that younger brother would forever subordinate themselves to the Olcay and would never be able to contend to the throne. It was a pretty selfish deal for my uncle to make for all his future generations but who'd ever said goblins were generous?

It also wasn’t all bad, since they got to keep a small portion of the powers allocated to the Olcay strand of the family but I worried what would happen if a more ambitious member of the Cáel family were to be born. It had yet to happen in the four generations since the deal had been made but I feared it was only inevitable.

“Cáe- Votric. I’m afraid I need your help.”

He sat up at the sound of his name and dropped the cocky smile and accompanying low growl he’d kept up the entire time. He knew it bothered me, so he tended to try to keep the growl going for as long as possible.

“I’d been wondering what could have brought you out of that pseudo rest of yours. What is it this time?”

I didn’t like the tone of an older sibling getting ready to clean up a younger sibling’s mess, even if he was older than me by a couple of decades, but I bit my tongue and put up with it.

“Woah! imagine the great Theodulus biting his tongue to make someone else happy. This must be big. What is it you need? My horn? My life?”

“Just shut up while I’m trying to ask you for a favour. Do you remember Aies? The one that ran off with the fairy?”

“He’d be hard to forget considering he lost us a war.”

I winced at the embarrassment of my blood and cringed at the fact that yet another one of my bloodline was about to embarrass me.

“And you remember the kid he had too.”

“Yet another historical figure, the goblin that lost his hor-.”

His amber eyes widened as my hand tightened around his throat and he raised his hands to throw me off him, but I stopped him with an order.

“Don’t resist.”

His body fell limp and he could only watch me as his airways slowly lost function but the understanding look in his eyes and absolute lack of panic only put me in a worse mood than seeing the one person I could relax around fear me would have.

“I forgive a lot of things from you Cáel but I can’t forgive you mocking my great-grandson.”

I released him and sat back down as the other goblin dramatically crumpled to the ground. His chest heaved up and down once, and then twice before he got up and shoved out a big smile, baring his fangs and letting the barely restrained aggression slip out of him in a growl.

“I’ll forgive that because you just came back, and I was out of line for talking bad about the kid like that. But next time you use Order on me I’ll burn my life away to take you down with me.”

That. Was one of the reasons I feared the Cáel family’s ambition so much. It would only take half a step, a tiny bit less patience for him to have lost temper and forced my hand but thankfully he was able to hold himself back. For that, I also let the death threat slide. It wasn’t like it was the first and it wasn’t going to be the last.

“As long as you don’t test me like that again I don’t think there would be a reason too.”

He took a seat and stared me down for a few seconds before finally taking a few big breaths and calming down. True to form, he was quick to flare up but quicker to settle down.

“I wouldn’t be foolish to guess you’ve already met the infant haven’t you?... and considering that all the other ones are dead you’re the monarch again which means….”

“Yes, I messed up the awakening! What do you want me to say? I forgot I counted as the official monarch again since my idiot son and grandson went to get themselves killed.”

A goblin could only go through their first awakening by a blood-related family member, and they had to have that before receiving the monarch's awakening, which was a lot harder on the body because it brought forth that much more power. Having the normal bloodline awakening would usually strengthen the body enough to cushion the burden but for the kid who only had his inherently weak fairy constitution as support… he’d almost died.

I rubbed at my shortened horn as a reminder to myself not to be so reckless in the future. But the fact that even I’d had to pay such a heavy price to help him get out of the problem I put him into alive was scary to think about. I’d heard of other goblins giving up their limbs, or even their lives to make deals but as a monarch, the most I’d ever had to give up was a bit of my pride. It was a tough adjustment to make.

Even though I counted as a family member for the brat, the monarch's awakening had overpowered the regular one and had prematurely forced him into receiving it.

The memories of the kid crying on the floor and attempting to kill himself more than a couple of times made my blood run cold, but I pushed it back and focused on the present. The problem that I, his only direct family member couldn’t awaken him remained.

The only people I could turn too now were the Cáel’s, a branch of our family.

“Ah. I would love to help! It’s the least I could do for my little nephew~ The only issue is….”

He trailed off with a nasty grin.

“Don’t you think that would be a little too... boring?”

“Votric.”

I tried to warn him off doing what he was about to do but he completely disregarded me and had already started the magic before I could physically stop him.

“What do you say we make a little bet?”