The coach drove up the ramp road to the second ring and turned into the driveway to the palace doors. The goblins' love of outrageous color was evident in the little park in front of the palace. Flowers of every hue covered every spot of ground, planted in beds that formed geometric patterns. It was both wonderful and overdone as only a goblin can overdo color.

"Oh," Wren smiled, "it's a new pattern. How exciting." She turned her head this way, and that, trying to take it all in. Her delight was sincere, and it impressed the goblins driving the coach.

"Yes," Magrat smiled at Wren's reaction. "The queen held a competition for the design. Only the survivors of the great wildfire last summer were eligible to enter. I found it quite satisfying that a flower gardener submitted the winning design."

This trip changed everything I thought I knew about goblins, but then I had to wonder where I even learned about goblins and other creatures. I was only six years old, and yet I had all this knowledge in my head. Before we came here, I thought that goblins were small, dirty, and wretched creatures with green skin who were dishonest and barely civilized, living in holes in the ground and grubbing about in the dirt doing subsistence farming.

I often wondered where this knowledge came from, especially since what I thought I knew about both trolls and goblins was wrong. If I was a divine beast, why didn't I have correct knowledge about other creatures? It was a puzzle. Where did this knowledge come from? Why was it wrong?

The coach rolled to a stop before I could ponder any further. Four goblin boys in all-white coats, trews, stockings, shoes, and gloves came running out to serve as footmen. I found their earnest young green faces adorable. The boy who helped Magrat adjusted her collar and fixed the drape of her robe. They weren't just for show.

The one who helped Wren down from the coach was half her height yet the grace with which he guided Wren out of the coach was lovely to watch. I was so taken up with watching that I was surprised when Magrat and Wren turned to look at me.

"Coming, Lady Fuzzy?" Magrat asked, amused.

The goblin boys looked panicked when they realized they didn't know what to do with me. I looked down from the coach door and saw that the footstool was too close to the coach for me to use it.

I had been holding off casting the mind-talking spell, but now it was time.

* The footstool is too close to the coach, * I told the two boys standing on either side of the door. Their eyes widened when they heard me speaking to their minds, but they didn't even twitch otherwise. They were well trained.

The one on my right moved it back, "is this better?" His voice was a piping soprano.

* Just a little more, please. * I do have a long back. The boy moved it back half again as far, and I stepped out. * That's just right. Thank you. *

"You are most welcome, my lady," he replied, bowing. These boys were cute, and their service was perfect. Why did I ever think that goblins were a crude race? Goblins look strange with their green skin and their round heads, and they do they have an inexplicable love of bright colors, but they have their own sense of culture and aesthetics.

The steps were carpeted, and each step was a different color. The palace itself was four stories and had a massive feel to it, squat and solid. It was built of huge blocks of marble, each block was a different color. Walking inside, the floors were a riot of colorful mosaics in geometric patterns. The walls were marble piled the same way as the outside of the palace.

* Goblins love color, don't they? *

"Yes, we do," Magrat sighed. "If you like visual art, we do have a place where people can display their creations. Goblins like art as much as they like dancing."

All these colors jammed up together at random were giving me a headache. Given how goblins like bright colors, it left me thinking that I was happy not to have been invited to any goblin dances.

Magrat opened the door to a room with a large round table with differently-shaped chairs. A large map was already spread out on top. Queen Margo in gold and white robes and an enameled gold plaque crown was talking with a human in dark blue clergy robes. The prince in a full-length tawny velvet houppelande and gold circlet was with an older red-haired and bearded gentleman in a blue knee-length houppelande. They were looking at the map with a trim-looking hobgoblin in shiny chainmail.

A herald just inside the door held up a restraining hand and cleared his throat. He wore a herald's tabard with four quarters of blue, yellow, red, and purple.

"The Lady Magrat, First Minister. Her Royal Highness Princess Roaming Wren of the Green Elves. The Divine Beast, Lady Fuzzy."

The Prince went bug-eyed, as did the two other humans. Wren in a houppelande presented a serious distraction for certain members of this meeting. I'm sure those two goblin sisters running this kingdom did it on purpose.

"Ah!" Queen Margo looked up, "Wren, darling, you look marvelous. Promise me you'll sit this afternoon with the court artist and we'll send your mother a portrait of you for the winter festival. Wren, take that chair right there. It should be tall enough for you. Bishop, if you would take the seat next to the Princess. Prince Willam, next to the Bishop. Duke Sven, you'll be next to me. Lady Magrat, take the chair on the other side of me, and Fuzzy, I thought this tall bench seat would work for you." She patted the seat.

The bench seat was a thick red cushion on a sturdy square table, as tall as the round conference table. I lightly leapt on top of it and lay down. It was comfortable, and I could see all of the map on the table but it was too close to read the fine print.

"Meow," I looked at Wren.

"Do you need your glasses, Fuzzy?" I nodded.

Most people don’t realize that all the smaller cats, including cougars, are farsighted. We felines don’t depend on our eyes for close-in work or hunting. Every one of the smaller cats has a network of whiskers. Each whisker ends in a specialized sensory nerve. Cats have whiskers all over, not just on the face, and they are sensitive enough to feel how air currents change in the cat’s immediate vicinity. It’s a sensory system as fine-tuned as sonar in bats. Cats don’t need near vision because we have something better. The downside of this is that I’m farsighted, and I need glasses if I want to read anything in print.

Everyone in the room watched as tall, elegant Wren took out one of my pairs of glasses. She perched the pinching nose piece carefully across my broad nose and then tied the black silk twine at the back of my head. I shook my head back and forth to check that they would stay on, and they did.

"Is the fit good enough, Fuzz?"

I nodded.

"Great," Wren scritched my head briefly and took her seat.

All the goblins, elves, and cougars were seated while the three humans were still gaping.

"Planning on joining us, gentlemen?" Queen Margo asked in an amused voice.