>>5809899>>5809909>>5809988>>5809994>>5810041>>5810070>>5810103You regarded the goblin critically but, in truth, you could see the good sense behind this. After all, Hawksong is a big city, with ample opportunity for a rural bandit to get into all kinds of trouble. At the very least, it would be a pain to have to trek back and forth across town looking for her every time you needed to arrange an appointment with her pet drake. It was a very practical arrangement.
Still, that didn’t mean you had to tell HER that.
“I don’t know,” you said, making a show of tapping your toe and resting your cheek on your hand. “Muffins here is already stretching the limits of my building’s pet policy. I’m not sure how they’d feel about a GOBLIN.”
Zith-Zi grinned at you, a fearsome expression on a sharp-toothed little goblin like her. “Har de har har, wise guy.”
“Well, maybe if you’re quiet, and well-behaved,” you mused. “I’m technically not supposed to sublet or house lodgers, either.”
“What, you aren’t allowed to have girls over?” she laughed, looking you up and down. “Explains a lot.”
You felt your ears heat up as she seized the initiative, and quickly stammered a rejoinder of your own, telling her: “Fine, but there are a few ground rules.”
You looked at you expectantly, and so you cleared your throat and held up one finger at a time: “One, the bed is mine. You get… I don’t know, the floor, or closet.”
“Be still my beating fuckin’ heart, we got ourselves a ladies’ man here,” Zith-Zi said, deadpan. “What’s two?”
“You have to bathe,” you said.
Zith-Zi tutted and looked to the side, fidgeting uncomfortably, and eventually asked: “Like, how often we talking here?”
You scrunched your nose. Eventually, after some haggling, you negotiated her to once every three days. She’d tried to parley, making a production of ‘saving water’, but when you in turn <summoned> a Water Elemental, she really had no argument to fall back on.
“Deal?” you asked, spitting in your hand and holding it out.
Zith-Zi looked down at your hand, eyes wide, and then cracked up into open laughter.
“Kid, I was TROLLING you!” she said between guffaws. “You don’t gotta’ do that every time. Damn, they really don’t teach you Tower brats shit, do they?”
You watched her saunter ahead of you, until she looked over her shoulder at you.
“You coming?” she shouted. “I have no fucking clue where you live, you know.”
You sighed, wiped your hand off, and hurried to catch up. You found yourself immediately regretting your decision.
