#i'm pretty sure he is the least comfortable in the team with rakha by FAR

[blackjackkent]

OK, into the goblin camp. Rakha's dark urge bloodthirst was sated for a little while by killing the gobbos in the outer post, so we're not quite going in guns blazing, but if someone looks at her funny, heads are probably going to end up rolling. She's feeling very on edge after the Absolute's voice blindsided them on the bridge.

The most eye-catching (and ear-catching) thing happening in the celebration happening outside is, of course, Volo, who is being forced to sing by several of the goblins at swordpoint.

And the song is terrible.

"With fragulous crown and with scepter abrade, Dror Ragzlin short work of the innkeeper made! The inn burned to ash! The captives were many! Goblinkind had reduced them to cowering filfenny! So raiseth your goblets and drain them with pride! Dror Ragzlin, the True Soul, hath led you galide!"

Baffling. Rakha knows nothing of music - she didn't even get a chance to hear Alfira sing before the beast gutted her - but it's easy enough to see that this is meant to be entertainment, and in fact that the goblins seem to be enjoying it. But it is nonsense.

"I reckon Dror Ragzlin's the gobbo in charge," Wyll says thoughtfully, "the way this one's carrying on."

Rakha grunts. That explains some of it. Not all. "'Fragulous'?" she asks with some bewilderment. "'Galide'? I don't know this language."

She has wondered to herself on more than one occasion how she knows any language, when so much else seems to be lost to her. But the bard's strange tongue is most certainly a mystery.

One of the goblins gives her a disdainful glare. "Common, ye turnip," she snarls.

Rakha scowls. That very well might be true, and the words simply lost on her. She doesn't like the possibility much. Sometimes it feels as if for every bit of this world she starts to understand, she finds a hundred other things that spark no recognition at all.

-----

Wyll gives her a slight smile, seeing her confusion. "No fear," he says in an undertone, low enough only for her to hear. "They're no words I ever heard of either. He's making them up."

She feels herself relax just slightly at this gesture of encouragement. "For what purpose?"

"To make the goblins think he's smart, I suspect. And you, for that matter," he says with a soft laugh. "Though I don't think it will hold out for long - look there." And indeed, Volo seems to have lost the thread of his song, and one of the goblins is in the process of hustling him off the stage with a kick. "Ouch."

"As I told you," Lae'zel puts in dryly. "A master only of falsehoods. And perhaps foolishness."

-----

The rest of the courtyard is full of celebrating goblins. Rakha gathers, from overheard conversations, that they are celebrating a raid on a nearby settlement, the capture of some important prisoner. None of them seem to notice Rakha's presence particularly, which makes a certain amount of sense - Nettie did say they would likely take the tadpole infection as indication that they are all on the same side.

Two particular things catch her attention - the first is the owlbear cub they first spotted in the cave with its mother some days back. There's no sign of the large one, but the cub is being tormented by one of the goblins, who is trying to get everyone nearby into a game of 'chicken-chasing.'

Rakha has no interest in the game, and would happily skewer the goblin, but as for the little beast...

She remembers Wyll's guidance for befriending Scratch, and crouches down to its height, sticking a hand out for it to sniff.

Narrator: You notice a shiver run through his feathered coat - fear, a desperate longing for the safety of his nest. But his mother is gone - taken. All that's left are these creatures.

She snorts softly. Adrift. As I am.

Offer him your hand. He can follow your scent to your camp in the wilderness.

"Oh, thank the gods," Gale says dryly. "I did worry you might be about to lash out with another kick."

"That was not my choice," Rakha mutters. "I've no quarrel with the beast."

Wyll smiles. "He'll make a fine addition to camp, if we can get him there."

In the end it doesn't take much effort to frighten the goblins into letting the cub go. With a joyful hoot, it barrels off into the distance at top speed.

-----

The other moment of interest is a drunk goblin holding forth to several others in one corner of the courtyard - and who, seeing Rakha, decides unilaterally that they are going to have a problem.

"And who're you?" he shouts up towards her. "Nother pest? Think ya rule the world just cuz ya got a scary face? Hah!"

Rakha glares at him silently, irritation stirring rapidly into anger in the back of her mind. The goblin - unfortunately for him - keeps talking.

"We got the Absolute on our side now. Ya better learn yer place! Go on - kiss my foot, or I'll wipe that nasty look right off yer face!"

The anger slides into rage, like a worn and comfortable glove sliding back onto a fist. Her vision whites out at the corners and she feels the beast stir in her head.

Lae'zel hisses with similar annoyance. "End him or leave him," she snaps sharply. "But don't you dare grovel to this slug."

Rakha feels a cool smile twist her lips. In this, she and Lae'zel are very much alike. The disrespect is guaranteed to call up the rage faster than anything else. And this creature will suffer for it now - it only matters how.

Kill, says the beast. Kill. Make him bleed. Pull him apart, piece by piece by bloody piece until there is nothing left.

She feels her control slipping, the hunger suddenly surging up again, inescapable.

Ponder how it would taste to bite his toe clean off.

Yes. That would be good. Turn the tables. Pull him apart. Make him suffer. Make it hurt. Make the blood poor from his foot as he tries to fight back and dies, and dies, and dies...

Narrator: You kneel before him, eagerly feigning reverence.

Before she fully realizes it, she has moved beyond thought into movement, her knees hitting the cold, damp stone. Her head drops; she can smell the stink of the goblin, overwhelming, before everything fades out and the beast takes over completely, her jaws closing like a predator around the goblin's foot.

Narrator: But with one quick snatch, you envelop a toe in your foul maw.

(A/N: Definitely trying to take all Dark Urge choices that don't involve a companion death, but also this is GROSS lol. Ew.)

Narrator: The toe itself tastes of curd, cave-aged, with thick helpings of rancid gristle.

The goblin screams, matching the dark screaming in her head. She tastes his blood on her tongue and it is intoxicating like fine wine. The bitter flesh contrasts with it, stokes the hunger higher still. She wants more. She wants him to bleed and scream and die under her blade. He mocked her and he will suffer...

She reawakens in a blood-hungry haze. The goblin's toe is clutched in one fist, dripping hot across her palm. The goblin is still screaming with pain and rage.

"You fiend! I'll teach you some respect!"

-----

"When I said end him," Lae'zel says, unsheathing her sword as the nearest goblins close around them, "that was not what I meant."

"Now who's acting surprised when they shouldn't be?" Gale says dryly. "Ow!" he adds, as Lae'zel elbows him sharply in the ribs.

-----

Several of the goblins crowd around to join in the fray, but Rakha and Lae'zel are both of a single mind, focused on the one that started the whole business - the one currently bleeding heavily out of one foot. And when he falls, Rakha is very satisfied to see that he begs, at once.

"Wait - I yield! I yield!" he bellows, terrified, as Rakha stands over him.

Rakha could not care less. This is beyond her now, and there is only the beast, and it will not be calmed until the goblin is dead. Lae'zel clearly feels the same.

Wyll and Gale have been watching this play out with some bemusement, a little further back. Gale looks troubled, but Wyll has his eyes narrowed, and to Rakha's distant surprise, he sounds almost as angry as she feels when he speaks.

"He wants mercy. I say show it to him - decisively."

Ignore his pleading and prepare for the finishing blow.

Lae'zel smiles in satisfaction as Rakha's knife slides from its sheathe. "A fine show of force," she murmurs. "The worms shall feast tonight."

The goblin panics completely and begins scuttling away in a desperate attempt to escape as Rakha closes with him. "HELP!" he screams. Faces from all over the camp begin to turn and look towards them. "HELP ME!"

Rakha's knife slides into his mouth and pins him to the wall behind him, and a roar goes through the whole camp.

"So much for a quiet entrance," Gale says wearily. "Yes, yes, I know," he adds as Lae'zel shoots him a glare. "I should have expected it."