“Aw, what the hell, Tik Tik? What did you fuck this time?”
Gimmegee covers her face, waving her hand in front of her.
Tik Tik blinks, pushing the naked and swollen body up from the ground, glancing to and fro. She’s back on the lonely road, covered and filled with semen, with Gimmegee blushing wildly before her.
“Huh…” Tik Tik says, scratching her nose. “I’m not sure, but whatever it was, it was really fun!”
Gimmegee frowns as Tik Tik stumbles to her feet, the kobold oozing with the evidence of a day of debauchery, dripping from between her feet.
“You’re really something else, you know that?” Gimmegee says.
With a wave of her hand, Tik Tik removes the grime and the gunk, and the jizz from her person, leaving her scales cleansed. “Oh, were you worried about me, Gimmegee? I didn’t know you cared.”
“Laugh all you want,” the gnome says, folding her arms over her chest, “But my colleagues would not be happy if their guest professor died,” she says this with a slight cringe at the end.
Tik Tik hums to herself, slipping on each article of clothing with no natural haste. “I’ll need to cast a memory restoration spell on myself to see what happened this morning, but what about all of you?”
“Come see for yourself,” Gimmegee insists, returning to the bushes from whence she came.
When Tik Tik steps through the foliage, her hood back over her head, she finds herself in another little encampment with the rest of her party. Wafting up from the center of their camp is the savory smell of hunted game, enough to get the kobold wizard salivating.
She immediately plops herself next to the fire. After that, her slimy scribe slurps beside her, pen and paper in hand.
“So, Miss Tik,” Eshere says. “The report of last night’s events is as follows.”
Tik Tik swipes a spit-roasted creature and chomps into it, humming in delight as her friendly follower fills her in. “No, no, don’t worry about the details. Tell me about the good stuff. The wizard… is he still alive…?”
Eshere frowns. “Ah, yeah, about that…”
“Whazzup, bitches!?”
Another member of their party is popping up from the edge of the camp, Erin Sheridon. However, the human, usually so studious, is now dressed in a jacket with the most garish of floral imagery and a pair of pants ripped into shorts. In both hands are two individuals from the Death Coach—the lady in white and her porcine partner.
Eshere whispers to Tik Tik. “Turns out we had a bit of an adventure of our own. The wizard’s a ghost, and the Death Coach was going to his place to party.” Erin whoops and plops across from Tik Tik, grabbing some meat of her own and chomping on it. “And I ain’t ever felt so alive! You girls know how to party!”
“Ah, so you’re the distinguished source, huh?” Tik Tik giggles. “I feel bad I missed the initial meeting with you.”
“And you’re that kobold everyone’s talking about! Yeah, it was a shock, to be sure! Whatcha do that was so important?”
And Tik Tik strokes her chin, contemplating the answer to that question. “Something I’m going to find out.”
—
On a cold winter’s day, when the Pooka pool is blanketed by the freshly fallen snow of a winter’s storm, the scene's brightness intensifies when a white portal opens. Stepping through the portal, the fur-clad kobold scans through the landscape, her eyes covered in sun-protecting lenses. Even then, the blinding nature of the snow makes it difficult to see.
She crunches along the virgin snow, leaving the only evidence of life in this barren land until she comes across a more pronounced mound.
With a wave of her hand, the serenity of this place blasts apart when fire erupts, melting away the covering to reveal the little bench.
And Tik Tik sits there, gazing across the beautiful wintry landscape, letting the steam billow from her snout in frosty wisps. She leans back against the warmed bench, her hands on her knees, and just sits, listening, existing in that place, seemingly stuck in a beautiful moment of tranquility and cold.
But all such moments end, and soon, things will return to how they once were, but maybe not quite as much as they were.
She unfastens one button and reaches inside her coat, pulling a small scroll tied with a little golden bow from within it. She stands from her spot and pats the scroll on the bench with a mitten-clad hand.
“You made for a good story, my friend,” The kobold says, letting her hand linger there momentarily. “And although you left me forgetting everything about our encounter, I rebuilt it from every mote of my clouded memory. But I left one detail out of this retelling.”
She grips the scroll momentarily, holding it there with intensity and wit. Though she focuses her gaze on the golden ribbon, she sees nothing. Instead, she takes that time, her mind processing, wondering, questioning, and steps back.
“How silly of me,” she says, sighing with her mitten to her face. “I didn’t realize what was right in front of me. Why did you try to trick the Dullahan? Why you were so eager to keep me away to start. But I’m not stupid. But you knew that.”
She steps away, pulling her hood low over her face, though her spectacles protect her from the brightness. She lifts her arm, the white glow of the powerful artifact she crafted lighting the way back to her home's warmth and darkness.
And once again, the fey’s home is a quiet and calm beauty of nature. Never again to be graced by the old, but as the water from the bench drips onto the soil, a tiny sprout basks in the life-renewing energies, promising that though the old is gone, the new will renew what was once beautiful.