“Wow, where didja get that?”
“I found it. It were in a camp o’ humans. One of ‘em was usin’ it and makin’ music. I nabbed it while they were sleepin’.”
“Do ya know how te use it?”
“Well I watched the human use it so I reckon’ I just need te practice.”
“Ye need te be careful. Don’t reckon the others ‘ere will be too happy about ye playin’ music.”
“I know. I’m gonna be careful. Don’t worry.”
The two goblins gave each other big sharp-toothed grins, the one holding the musical instrument looking back down at it and holding it with the same care as a mother holds a baby. Or at least how most mother’s would hold a baby, typically goblin parents weren’t exactly the maternal type.
A loot. Funny name for an instrument…
Of course, the small goblin girl would find out that it was Lute, but it's not like she had a music coach in her village to tell her that. Her and her friend both left the woods after their conversation and scurried back to the village. Her friend went off to her own house while Crawly pulled open the window of her bedroom and slyly clambered inside, dragging the lute behind her.
At first glance, her bedroom wasn’t exactly huge, so there wasn’t much room to hide things. It was a ragged room, torn cloths lazily hung up at her window to act as curtains, splattered clumps of, now hardened, mortar that covered holes in the walls, some cockroaches scurrying across her floor, and an old, frayed, stolen mattress in the corner with a large, dirty blanket, made up of other torn blankets stitched together, laid over the top.
But she was clever. The goblin pulled up one of the floorboards of her room, revealing a hole that she had dug out and filled with things she had found and stashed away. It wasn’t a huge collection, it mostly consisted of books she had used to teach herself how to read, as well as a couple other musical instruments. There was also a tiny pouch with seven funny-shaped dice in it. She barely got to use any of the instruments since the other goblins in her village were actively against the arts or any sort of creative expression other than putting heads on spikes.
Not that she was entirely non-violent herself, but she had always felt a connection to music. As soon as she had first come across a campsite of adventurers years ago. They all looked in such terrible shape, they should have been miserable and weak but…instead one of them was playing music, and the others danced! She had never been able to forget that moment.
Her small, green, bony hands carefully lay the lute down along with the rest of her collection. One last smile crept onto her face before she lowered the floorboard back down. Just in time too, as she suddenly heard footsteps approaching her door. It slammed open, making the young goblin jump and turn to see her father looming there.
“Crawly! Wha’ ye doin’ up so late? Yer makin’ noise!”
“Sorry, jus’ couldn’t sleep.”
“I can ‘it ye ‘round the ‘ead if that’ll work for ye?”
“No, I can go te sleep.”
“Good. An’ do it quietly!”
He slammed the door behind him and stomped off to his own bed. Crawly let out a sigh of relief before making her way over to the mattress and curling up under her blanket. Within an hour or so, she managed to get to sleep.
~~~
“Ugh, this is so ‘ard te do!” Crawly growled, holding the lute while sat in the woods again.
