#that darn cloak can hold just as many plot holes as it can people so we'll just dance around it

[gerbiloftriumph]

Lost and Found (ao3):

Grandpa’s story of the goblin caves started out familiarly enough, but as he spoke, the story started to twist and change. New friends, new conversations, and new ways to use old items transformed the tale, and the young king discovered new ways to be brave in the dark tunnels beneath Daventry.

(5/?)

~*~

It took a long time for the goblins to come back to his cell to let him out the next day. For a couple hours, Graham paced nervously, worrying that the contraband shovel or the sword-frying-pan in Amaya’s cell had been the last straw. Worrying that someone had found Whisper. Worrying that someone had noticed him wandering around and thought it wasn’t right for a captive crown to get free reign of a prison. Worrying that every choice he’d ever made had been a mistake. But goblins eventually came, and this time they shoved a mop in his face and pointed to a slimy section of muddy floor.

(“Wonderful. Mopping up goop was now added to my set of prison chores.” Grandpa said.

“I’m not sure what a ‘mop’ is, but you can probably find something else for it to do.”

“You might be right about that. Let’s see.”)

Whisper was waiting for him at the top of the spiral staircase. “Goooood morning, King Graham!” he said cheerfully. He also had a huge bouquet of roses, tied with an orange ribbon he must have torn from his cloak. “Is today the day we find the beautiful Amaya?”

“Whisper, it’s dangerous for you to be wandering around out here.”

“Eh,” Whisper flapped his hand. “They adore me, you know. It’ll be fine. Come on, let’s get that big bull!” He hurried to the beanstalk, now fully grown thanks to the Hobblepots’ remarkable plant fertilizer potion.

Acorn peered over the ledge. “Hey, string bean! Man, I missed you last night. I don’t like the quiet; it’s awful up here alone. Would you help me down?”

“But the beanstalk is grown. Can’t you climb down?”  

“Maybe unlike you I’ve read Jack and the Beanstalk. I know the giant falls off cos it breaks underneath him. I need someone to test it first. I ain’t doing it myself ‘til I know it’s safe.”

Graham scaled the beanstalk, little flowers crushing under his hands. They smelled like green and earth and life and made him think of the surface. He nearly slipped a few times, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the time he’d climbed up to the clouds seeking one of Daventry’s missing treasures. At the top, Acorn sat trembling and holding onto a rock for dear life.

“King Graham! Buddy! I am so glad to see you!” Acorn let go of the rock and grabbed onto Graham, squeezing tight.

“Hey, it’s great to see you, Acorn. You okay? Ready to get out of here?”

“It will be an honor to have another adventure with you, Sire.”

Graham bit his lip, hiding a smile, and managed to nod at Acorn in a probably noble sort of way. “I concur,” he said, as seriously as he could, then the grin slipped free. It had been so long since they’d gone questing together.

Graham studied the narrow platform behind the knight. There was the duck, still glittering gold, and a bent wooden harp, also painted gold. And, delightfully, actual gold! A whole two coins, mixed with the giant’s treasures. Graham grabbed the coins, noting with vague relief they were both an older design with Edward printed on them, so he didn’t have to feel quite so guilty.

There was also a little box with a very flimsy looking padlock on it, and inside was: “Hey, my shovel! How did that get up here?”

“Turns out goblins can do this weird thing where they climb little narrow cracks,” Acorn said. “I watched them do it, they put their backs against the wall and crawl their way up. Really weird.”

And kind of familiar sounding…no. Graham shoved the thought away. Amaya had been right. Focus on the now, worry about the bigger stuff when there was time. “I guess they could have come up at any time to get their duck, but it wouldn’t have been story accurate without the beanstalk.” Stories, stories. It always came to stories, with the goblins. Hmm.

He bent to examine the padlock. Very cheap looking, the first one of its type he’d seen down here. “Locked shut. I bet it could be picked open, but too bad I don’t have a lock pick.” Although, those chopsticks the merchant was selling…it would put him one coin back from his black market goal, but. One step at a time.  

Acorn inched a little closer to the beanstalk, then flinched back. “Actually, Graham, I think I changed my mind. I think you should leave me here. For, like, ever. I think that’d be best. We can stay pen pals.”

“Huh? Oh, the heights thing.”

“Yes, the heights thing,” Acorn growled.

“What’s taking you two so long?” Whisper yelled from the ground level. “Whisper wants to find Amaya! Hurry up!”

“Whisper, shush! You’ll get the goblins’ attention!”

“Whisper is using his whisper voice!”

“Fine. Oh! Wait!” Graham swirled his cloak. “Here, get in my cloak!”

“Can’t we go on a date before you start propositioning me?”

“No, gross. We figured this out yesterday. Come here.” He popped Acorn into his pocket, and the knight immediately started yelling in surprised protest. “Seriously? It’s very roomy in there. You’re fine.” Acorn felt no heavier than Whisper had, which was confusing, but nice.

Graham also gathered up the harp. He twanged the strings. It was not in tune, but he coaxed a very pathetic sounding “Greensleeves” out of it nevertheless, just to see if he could. He thought he could try to tune it, but the gold paint had probably ruined it completely, and it was still missing a string. Still. If it wasn’t nailed down…you never knew when you’d need a harp. He slipped it into another pocket.

He contemplated the duck. The duck contemplated him. He reached out to touch its glossy feathers. It pecked his hand. “Ow! Fine, never mind, sorry,” he muttered, shaking his hand.

At the bottom, Whisper was impatiently tapping his toe. “Let Whisper into your pockets too, we must find Amaya before Whisper’s flowers wilt!”

But immediately, the cloak pockets started to strain with two knights. He could sense the weight of it. He could walk, and nothing looked different per say, but there was a pull on the threads and on his shoulders that he wasn’t used to, and he sensed that the new weight would wear him down even faster than the normal cave experience was doing. This suddenly didn’t seem like a long term solution.

“I think it tops out at two,” he said, spinning in a circle. The cloak still fluttered normally, visually speaking, but the tug was odd, and he teetered on his heels, staggering a step.

Which was actually a bit of a relief. He’d been nervous about accidentally getting the entire Daventry River sucked into the fabric or something, but two humans maximum was okay. Still weird. But better. He wondered if his mom knew what she’d made. He'd have to ask her when he wrote his weekly dozen-page-long letter (ostensibly to practice his calligraphy for Royal Guard Number One’s approval, but mostly because he just liked to tell his family everything).

“Tops out at two, or does Acorn take up all the space?” Whisper said. His voice was very muffled and quiet, like he was speaking through layers of fabric.

“Are you callin’ me fat, speedy? You get over here, I’mma slim you down with my hands, give me even more room!”

Graham’s cloak fluttered as the two knights somehow tackled each other through the pockets. “Hey! Hey, stop!” Graham yelped. “That tickles! Stop! Quiet down, you two. Stop bickering! Don’t tear it!”

The fighting stopped, but he could still just barely make out irritated grumbling. “This stitchwork’s pretty impressive,” Acorn said, trying to soothe the bull with a distraction.

“Whisper thinks it could be comfier.”

“Hey, I used fabric softener,” Graham said. “And you fell asleep in there yesterday.” 

~*~

“You’re lucky I’m old and stubborn. ‘Cause I’m gonna be gripping onto this life until you bring me some food. I ain’t dying on an empty stomach, King Boy.”

“I’m looking, I promise, Muriel.”

“Starving brings out the flavor in everything,” Chester added.

(Grandpa, you told me this part already. A couple nights ago.”

“I can skip it if you like.”)

The story proceeded as it had before, for a time. Graham worked to clear goblins from villager rooms. Slowly, he created distractions, or removed goblins entirely through force, with help from the villagers when possible. He rescued more coins, climbing a rickety chair to examine a trash heap, and finding another in a bucket near a pile of straw. He reluctantly exchanged one coin for the Merchant’s chopsticks, to fetch his shovel from the contraband box, and anything else he mistakenly lost in the nightly shakedowns, which still proceeded even if the goblins didn’t return to their posts once Graham or the villagers had scared their respective guards away.

“After Wente’s outburst, I think the goblins are afraid to guard this room,” Bramble said. “But at least those goblins won’t be keeping us up at night any more with their constant giggling.”

As the guards started to clear, he was able to let Whisper and Acorn out of his pockets during the day, which was a relief. The strain on his cloak had been making him nervous; he thought the pockets were beginning to tear with the weight of it all, and he didn’t have a way to repair it here. Carrying people long distances in it was likely out of the question, even knowing it topped out at two. Imagine if the pockets split and dumped out their occupants in front of a goblin horde.

Also, he wasn’t entirely sure how to get people into the pockets through prison bars, if it would even work that way. He thought he’d try it only as a last resort. Squeezing them, even in his cloak, to get them through those narrow cell bars sounded…unpleasant, somehow. If he accidentally hurt someone in the process, he’d never forgive himself. Surely there had to be another way…but trying to pick the prisoner padlocks with the chopsticks did absolutely nothing.

Whisper presented his bouquet of wilted roses to Amaya with glee. He slicked back his mane and posed dramatically. “What is a lovely lady like you, doing in a place like this?”

Amaya took the roses begrudgingly through the bars. “Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

“Ohh, but of course! I could escape on my own, you know, but now that you’re here I wouldn’t want to take that away from you.”

“What a gentleman, my hero,” Amaya said flatly.

“Ahh, yes, your hero. Yes, your hero is here! And what were your other two wishes?”

“That he’d be charming and handsome. I guess not all wishes come true. Also, you’ll notice I’m still in my cell, so as far as hero worship goes….”

“Right. Right.” He leaned back and said, in his loud whisper voice, “Graham? Fix this? Your pocket thingy?”

“I’m sorry, it’s too risky. I don’t have a way to get us out out, and I’m not sure about the cloak thing, either. If someone’s gone from a locked cell, the goblins’ll definitely notice. But. I’ll figure this out. I promise.”

“Figure it out faster.” Whisper glared.

“I’m trying!”

“Not trying hard enough!”

“I’m doing my best!”

“Make your best better!”

“I have my limits!”

“Boys, knock it off. You’re making my headache worse.”

~*~

The problem was the door. The individual cell doors holding each villager were problems, sure, but…. The big door, the door leading out into the goblins’ city, and Daventry beyond. That door. It needed at least two people pushing levers at the same time to loosen the latch, possibly more based on how much resistance it gave his and Whisper’s testing fingers. But, more importantly, it needed a key.

The lock on the door out was worse than the padlock that held his own cell door at night. Sturdier. And all the wishing in the world hadn’t loosened his own padlock. Nothing short of a miracle would budge this one.

A miracle, or a key.

“Where am I going to get a key?” Graham kicked a mushroom, which exploded around his metal-capped boot. It left a glowing trace behind him as he walked, his footsteps marked. He wandered down the spiral ramp as he gestured angrily. “I’m not. Simple as that. There’s nothing we can do.” He could possibly get people out of their cells with his pocket trick, maybe, assuming it didn’t hurt them to squeeze through bars in it, but they’d never get further than that even if it worked. Never get past that door, never actually manage to leave this goblin prison.

And getting caught with people in his pockets would just lead to Graham losing his cloak—and probably losing a lot more than that, too. He wasn’t likely to ever forget the tight ropes that had bound him on his way down here, and his prison break idea would lead to a lot worse for him if he didn’t have a step two. And he definitely did not have a step two. `

He wanted to scream.

He kicked another mushroom. The cap rolled off and bounced away into the shadows, like a deflated ball. It glowed weakly.

He slumped against the wall, glaring. He wouldn’t lose his temper, wouldn’t lose his composure, couldn’t. Couldn’t. Was a king. The king. Had to hold it together. Bramble would probably hear him from here if he snapped, and that would be the worst.

His head thumped back against the stones as he leaned back. Like if he could look through all this heavy stone to the Daventry sky it would be okay. His crown clanged dully, the spikes preventing him from looking up. Flustered, he grabbed the stupid thing off his head, out of his way, and he nearly threw it across the floor with impatience and frustration, but he caught a glimpse of himself in its reflection. He was grimy and sticky with cave dirt, but the crown remained glittery, even after this, gems winking in the dim light. He froze, staring at it. At himself. He’d been avoiding the little cracked mirror in his cell, hadn’t wanted to see himself, what this place was doing to him, but even in the crown he could see too much.

He sighed. “Long live the king,” he muttered, rubbing a thumb across it. Dirt smeared. “...who was kidnapped.” Gently, gently, he replaced the crown, the weight of it pressing his hair down.

He was exhausted, he was hurting, he was hungry. He was the king. He was supposed to have all the answers. Supposed to be able to take care of everyone. All his citizens. Himself.

It’s a puzzle, Graham, it’s always a puzzle. But this puzzle was missing pieces, and he knew it. Find a way out.

But how?

He realized his gaze had drifted to the mushroom he’d kicked, the little glow in the darkness. It cast strange shadows there, the glittery glow limning the rocks. Illuminating the space beyond.

Graham stiffened, crawled to the space. A loose rock. He jimmied it, rocked it gently, used the shovel to scrape a little dirt around it away, and felt it giving under his hands in a way the big escape door never did. He pushed it aside, and it scraped so loudly he felt sure every goblin in the entire underground was going to appear behind him, spears bristling. But he was alone. With his newfound dark tunnel.

His newfound very dark tunnel.

He stared at it, then: “Newton!” He scrambled up and ran for his cell, skidding across the damp floor and scooping up the little jar with the chirping salamander in it. “You’re a terrible book club partner,” he told the lizard sternly, then his face lit up with a grin. “But you’re about to make a really good lantern. Come on!”

He checked once more that the coast was clear, and then hurried back to his discovery. But then…then he paused, the big smile starting to fade. He held Newton out, the cool blue glow doing more than the mushroom ever could. Behind that loose rock was a deep crevice. Newton’s light only illuminated how deep it went. Graham had sort of assumed it would be shallow, a little divot in the wall hiding some prize. But this was bigger than he’d expected. Darker. A path, hardly more than a crack, really, that vanished into the gloom beyond the salamander’s glimmering light.

(“I’m not sure you should go down there,” Gwendolyn said.

“I wasn’t sure either, but if I stayed here, none of us would make it.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Grandpa and Gwendolyn watched the little mirror king. The light from the lantern shivered in the mirror king’s hands, gently shifting against his surroundings as he looked into the shadows, and the shadows watched back silently.)

“I wanted this,” Graham muttered. “I needed to find another road to explore. This is it. This is what I wanted.” But why did it have to feel so bleak? “I have to do this.”

And the king passed through the little crack in the wall, a salamander in his hands and his heart in his throat.

It wasn’t like the goblin prison was inviting. But this was instantly far worse, and Graham nearly spun around. The pressure of the rocks weighing him down never felt more obvious, the dead silence immediate and crushing. In the prison, it was never quiet. The soundscape was just different. You could always hear water dripping, or salamanders chirping, or goblins clattering around talking and laughing, or villagers speaking to each other in hushed, desperate voices.

But here, there was nothing but Graham’s hitched breathing and the sound his cloak made as it dragged across boulders. The wedge narrowed around his shoulders, pressing, and Graham struggled forward, free hand blindly scraping while he cradled Newton’s jar close with the other.

(“Grandpa? Maybe we should tell this part in the morning?”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t get any lighter then, dearest.”)

Graham popped out of the crack with intense relief, glad the space didn’t remain so tight for very long, but the darkness around him here was somehow even worse for its unknown, unseen openness. He just had one little light, one little pool of cold blue, and though Newton was doing his best, the light barely penetrated the gloom. Maybe he wasn’t the best lantern on top of being not the best book club member.

“Hello?” Graham called, softly. Not sure he wanted a response, but he had to know if he was alone. The darkness seemed to breathe, but nothing replied.

He glanced over his shoulder—the crack hadn’t been that long. It had just felt worse when he was in it. But he could see the almost cheerful mushroom glow of the main prisons just a little way behind him. Easy. He could bear to go a little bit further, to see if there was something, anything, he could use. He had to try. He wouldn’t go far.

He stepped forward.

(“I don’t know about this,” Gwendolyn said, shrinking deeper into her blankets. Her hands were shaking, looking for something to grip onto. “Are you sure you want to go that way? It seems dark, and scary, and…and you don’t know what’s down there.”

“That may be so,” Grandpa said, and he reached out, gently taking Gwendolyn’s hand in his. “But in the end, everything will be okay.”

“But how can you know that? How can you just know everything will be okay?” Grandpa realized she wasn’t just talking about the caves, not now. The whole world was in that question, every shadow, every cry in the night.

“I don’t. None of us do. But I trusted that once I knew what I was up against, I could handle it. Are you ready to continue? I’m afraid it’s going to get a bit scarier before it gets better, so I’ll let you decide.”

She frowned at the mirror, at the little mirror king blindly feeling his way along the wall, glancing back periodically. “I should try to be brave like you. We have to keep going.”

“And so we shall.”)

Graham’s mouth was dry. He tried humming quietly to himself, tried to make the sucking darkness less awful, but it didn’t help. He inched forward, squinting, but nothing revealed itself beyond his tiny light. His hand pressed hard against the wall.

His next step was in empty air, and he fell.