My first trip to the village of the knife-goblins was strange.

The trade was tense.
The learning, slow.
But it was a beginning.

I returned every thirty moons.
No more. No less.

They didn’t wait for me with smiles.
But they didn’t chase me away either.

I observed.
Imitated.
Asked a little.
And learned by watching.

I learned to move in silence.
To hide beneath the underbrush.
To sharpen a branch.
To sense danger by the scent of the wind.

I returned home to the little ones.
Taught them games that were also protection.

Walking without breaking leaves.
Recognizing footprints.
Crouching when hearing steps.
Building hideouts among roots and stones.

They played.
They learned.
They grew strong.

The moons passed.
Bodies stretched.
Voices changed.

The cave felt larger without growing.
Because we… were growing.

The crops improved.
The routine was calm.

And I kept traveling.
Not only to the knife-goblins.
Also to other tribes. Other races.

Each connection was the fruit of choices.
Of searching.
Of the will to understand.

They didn’t seek me.
I sought them.

I learned to listen without knowing the words.
To trade without a shared tongue.
To watch how they fought, how they healed, how they told stories.

And when I returned, I told what I had learned.
I planted knowledge as I once planted roots.

The little ones weren’t so little anymore.
They didn’t hunt.
But they knew how to defend themselves.
They knew how to hide.
They knew how to endure.

The tribe wasn’t a village.
It was a shared promise.

And after a strange moon—round, heavy…
Returning alone.
Tired, but at peace.

That was until I felt it.

That pressure in my chest.
The trembling in my slime.

I stopped cold.

The wind brought a sound.
Faint.
Uneven.

Footsteps.
A broken branch.
And then… water falling.

I hid quickly.
Under the ferns.

And then I saw it.

A creature.
Big.
With pale skin and parts covered in metal.
Hair only on the top of its head.
A curved back.

Peeing beside a tree.

Unaware.
Alone.
Real.

Not like the beasts.
Not like the goblins.
Not like the sprites.

One of those creatures.

I clenched my teeth.
My fingers tightened around the cloth of the weapon I carried.

I was no longer a child.
I wasn’t unarmed.

But my heart…
still trembled.