Here be Goblyns

... and on the Year 5885 of the Under Realm down below, Duchess Vanda, the youngest, most beautifully wild contender to the throne of the Goblins, decided that she had had enough with all this shit, living in dimly lit caves, eating green vegetables and crushed bugs boiled in lizard juice and training to fight the other aspiring young duchesses and princesses for the right to rip the blue heart of the former Queen from her chest and wear the crown in her place (for those are the ways of the Goblins). And she did what no other heir to the throne of the Green Folk had ever done before... She left for the Lands of the Sun, the Realm Above, the surface of the Earth, the inhabited by the Pink Cousins- what is known to them as the only Earth realm in existence...
Followed by her Honor Guard, dark and solemn Voodoo, the Goblin Shaman; fickle and frivolous Void, the empath; and feral Vader, the Berserker; she climbed up the pits that had been sealed since the time of the Sundering; and looked up on the imposing visage of the Sun for the first time...

... and it was a strange new world indeed, the Surface. People of all colors, pink, olive green, deep brown, yellowish pale, with eyes black, green, blue, black, and hair in all the colors of flowers, dresses in all the shapes of the clouds. And the Goblins looked at the people of the surface and their world and they were enchanted and amazed and took an oath, never to go back to the dark and moist Under Realm. And they agreed that they would stay close together, that they would always protect each other and always take care of each other. Because this new world, in all its' beauty, was a dangerous and predatory world, like any beautiful world. And the people of the surface were not that different from their Green Cousins after all. And there were to be unfathomable dangers in every step they took. Not the least of which would come from their own kind, once their escape had been discovered.

Because the Queens of the Goblins belong to their people and their lives are not their own to command. Listen to my words, now, surface cousin, for unknown to your people is The Way of the Goblins. And pretty damn weird it must seem to anyone who was not born deep down under, in the humongous caves of the Under Realm.

All Goblins are born male. Only a very few of them, a mere handful, selected by Selene, the mother of the Green Folk, carry within them the gift of choosing. And at the time of their coming to age, they must make use of it and choose wether they will remain males or begin the painful change to females, to become the new Queen, or die. For the Goblins can only have one fully fledged female among them. So The Way says and so it has always been. And the young duchesses, must fight each other, when they are ready for the full transformation. This is their instinct, their female nature- to eliminate all opposition, to destroy every obstacle standing in their way to the completion of their womanhood. And once the fight is over and there is only one Princess left standing, she must fight the Queen. She must prove, by arguments made of sharpened steel and hardened wood that she is strong enough to rule. She must kill the Queen and eat her heart. For that and only that will trigger the final stage of the transformation of the Princess into a Queen able to carry children and spawn new hordes of Goblins to infest the underbelly of Gaea.

Listen carefully, Cousin from Above. Because this is the reason that running away from this sacred duty is the biggest crime among the Goblins. For the Goblins need their Queen to survive as the Moon needs the Sun to shine. Without their numbers ever increasing, the Goblins will wane and die, crushed by the giant strength of the Trolls. This is why The Way indicates that the duchess, princess or Queen that leaves the Goblins will be punished by death and her heart thrown to the princesses to be fought for and eaten.

And thus it came to be that the young duchess Vanda and her guard were hunted by the Queen Voreia herself and the Royal Guard; giant Varathron, the Troll Slayer; crazy Vothros, the berserker; malicious Vitsa, the Master of The Way; hooded Vias, the High Priest of Gaea; and one-eyed Enitharmon The Weaver, the Speaker to the Dead.

And the six hunted down the four. And they found them hiding under the semblance of mundane human lives, in the ancient country of Greece, where the Sun rules and the Sea claims ten young boys and girls as her own every year, lest she becomes wild and deadly to all who sail her.

And the six stared down the four. The hunters of the escaped still freshly Green from the darkness of the caves below. And the four already turned pink in the flesh by the rays of the Sun.

And the Queen, Voreia, offered Vanda, the duchess, the chance to repent and follow her back in the home of their folk, where she herself would give her and her followers grace, and suspend their punishment. For Voreia had admired Vanda and has always treated her as her favorite, having openly stated her hopes that she would be the one to succeed her; because the Queen has always been loyal to her folk and she wanted only good to come to them once she had gone the way every other Queen has gone, under The Ways' guidance- done in by one of her own daughters grown stronger and wilder than her own, worthy indeed for a Queen of the Goblins.

But Vanda refused. All the cajoling and coercing of her Mother, did not seem to change her, and her guards' minds. And even if the Queens' words did touch her runaway children, the four of them were under Oath. And it is The Way that an oath given by a Goblin can never be broken, even if to uphold it means that the Green Folk themselves will cease to exist- because, truly it is The Way that the most sacred aspect of Goblin nature, is their power to keep their word. An oath broken is as much the end of the Goblins as any disaster. And it has never come to be that a Goblin has ever broken an oath given. Not ever. Nor will it ever be. It is The Way that there isn't even a punishment to be given for braking an Oath. Braking an Oath is a punishment in and of itself. The Oathbraker would destroy his own force of life, his very existence- and that of all Goblins with it. Indeed it is unheard of and even the most evil, depraved and fallen Goblin cannot fail himself and his Folk that badly. It simply cannot be done.

And so the Goblins fought among them. And the escaped ones slayed their pursuers.

Voodoo, killed Enitharmon and cried green bilious tears, for he had been his teacher in the ways of the spirits; and he fought no more that day, craddling the burnt husk of his master in his arms and singing a dirge of dread while the others fought on.

Vader slayed Varathron and Vothros. They had been comrades in arms in many battles. They had fought side by side against the Trolls. They had shed each others' blood in oaths of eternal friendship and now they did it again in fighting with each other, for it was their duty to that very friendship to follow their hearts and stay loyal to their Queen and his Ward. And a berserkers' honor is the fuel of his Rage. And they never give ground.

Void killed Vitsa with not much regret; they had always been enemies.

And Vanda killed the Queen. Like the Queen has always expected it to be and yet so much unlike it. Vanda killed the Queen and cut her chest open and took her heart in her hands. And because therein lied the future of Goblinkind, she gave the heart to Vias, to take it back to the Under Realm where the duchesses and princesses would fight for it ferociously.

And Vias begged Vanda to come back to them, because she had proven her right to the throne as The Way demands, she had done in Voreia and she was now the Queen. And the Goblins needed such a Queen. But the Queen reminded him of the Oath that was taken, once again. And even Vias could not think of anything to say. And he prayed for the new Queen and her safety. And he prayed for her guard. And cast Gaeas' Blessing on them, so that She would keep them safe, wherever they might roam on Her face. And he left with the Heart of the old Queen.

And the new Queen went on with her life. And so did her guard.

And they lived glamorously ever after.