"Oh, when you walk by every night
Talking sweet and looking fine
I get kinda hectic inside
Mmm, baby I'm so into you
Darling, if you only knew
All the things that flow through my mind"
The girl bobbed with every line, her long tapered ears fluttering at every rhyme. Sitting across from her, Licht noticed that the person sitting beside him was in the complete opposite mood, his foot tapping in annoyance at the singing, particularly at the lyrics.
It took a moment before the cheerful girl acknowledged her companion’s grumbling expression. “Goblin?”
“Hm?”
“Got something to say?”
“Me? Nothing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” Goblin denied. “Yeah, I got nothing to say. Except that I think you’re a little too cheerful.”
Ah, so he finally decided to come out with it, Licht thought, though he kept that to himself. He pretended to observe the passing scenery and listened.
“Too cheerful?”
“Too cheerful for someone who supposedly lost everything, including her literal home. It’s suspect. It's too soon for you to be singing so cheerfully.”
They were in the middle of nowhere with their privacy secured. There was no one around who would care how properly the girl mourned the loss of her home and her people. It was obvious this was just an excuse for Goblin to stop her from being so cheerful.
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Licht did not say anything, but his gaze must have spoken for him, because when their eyes met, Goblin barked, “What?!”
Since he had been dragged into it, Licht decided to voice his thought. “Just be honest. This isn’t about her being cheerful or not.”
There was no one more invested in the girl’s happiness than Goblin. The issue was what made her cheerful, or rather who.
“What is it about then?”
“We both know who we’re talking about.”
Goblin shot him a glare that would have frozen most peons and even low level highbreeds. It did nothing to Licht. For one, he knew there was no reason to fear violence from the person nicknamed Goblin. For two, he was simply used to it.
“Dude, it’s been over a century and a half. Let it go.”
“No. She’s a damn traitor. She’s always been a traitor. So excuse me if I’m annoyed to see one of us looking forward to seeing that swamp witch.”
“I wasn’t in a good mood because I was looking forward to seeing her," Theta said, "I was only looking forward to meeting with White.”
This time, it seemed, it was Theta's turn to be in denial. They had heard those lyrics. They were clearly not for White. Both Licht and Goblin gave her the same look.
Then Goblin suddenly went stiff, as he often did when in communion with his other half, except that his other half was very much present.
“Did something happen?” Theta asked when he came back to himself.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he held her gaze as a slow smile spread across his face, stretching wider and wider until his teeth showed in a bright, unguarded grin.
“Hahaha. Yes. Yes. Yes!” he rejoiced, barely containing his exhilaration. In fact, he did not contain it at all. In a split second, two Goblins appeared. One was a young female elf with short silver hair and a beauty mark on the left side of her mouth. The other was a young male elf with short silver hair and a beauty mark under his left eye. They looked eerily alike, and not only in appearance. They laughed together without restraint.
“You’re going to tell us what happened or what?” Licht asked, only to be ignored.
“Sorry, it seems you won’t be heading to the imperial capital,” one Goblin informed Theta, while the other knocked to get the carriage driver’s attention. “Stop the carriage. The Elven Queen is coming back to where she came from.”
“You’re going to explain yourself or what?”
“Do I really have to?” both Goblins replied. “She won’t be going to the imperial because she’s going to be needed elsewhere.”
That last part made Licht guess what the communion had been about. “So it’s what I think it is.”
With a vicious smile on their faces, the two goblins nodded.
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