Haven't you heard? It's KOBOLD WEEK! YAP!  koboldsoffa

So my best 'bold  sovandar and I are getting off our lazy tails celebrating by clearing our backlogs posting kobolds every day of the week!

Purple is mine and bluebutt is Korelian, who belongs to Sovandar. Spectacular art by  damiem! Go fave the original!

Credit for the lovely story goes to Sovandar alone; Korelian remembers the moment he was rescued by a simple stable-boy, with a head full of silly naive notions of honour and justice...

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The great drake leans low toward you; smoke and ash curl from her nostrils, and you can feel the intense heat as she speaks in startled anger at your deception. 'Where are you from? Answer me!'

At the threat of her firey breath, searing the skin from your bones and charring your flesh in her anger... sheer, stark terror runs through you, more potent and pointed than it has outside your nightmares.
Even if it means losing these last few remnants of honour, respect, Clanship - you will tell. You will be Outcast, exile, alone again.

Clanless.

Yet Tiktaalik still stands his ground. He stands, between you and the mighty drake, trembling with anger. For a long moment you wonder if he's angry at you; he has every right to be, surely.

"Leave him be!" he shouts at Felnuvek. "It doesn’t MATTER!"

He turns to you, as you struggle to process his words. "You don't have to say anything!"

He... knows, and... he just doesn't care? Even when the others of the Clan just stand well back and listen, intently, to find out the secrets she is forcing from you?

"Silence, pest! I will have an answer!"

Felnuvek growls at him... and to your surprise, and a little dismay, Tiktaalik drops immediately into a practiced combat stance, his spearpoint suddenly inches from the startled drake's snout!

"HE IS CLAN!" Tiktaalik shouts, as you give a gasp of shock and grab hold of his shoulders, to try and prevent him striking. He cannot, cannot face a dragon; he's not strong enough, it would be so hopeless...

Yet he surely knows. You feel it in the shiver of fear in his bones, underlying the tremors of anger that drive him forward. He knows, yet he defends you still.

Great Io. How, why, what have you done to deserve a pure-hearted defender who would give his life for your sake? You feel suddenly ashamed; you had thought the tall, naive kobold merely a fool with hopeless dreams of knighthood, who believed there was good in the world, that sin could be repaid with justice, whose knowledge of the world outside was based in fairytales and fantasies.

Yet here he stands - and proves that as long as he lives, there *is* good in the world. Justice exists. He is a hero by any measure. Fairytales cease to be mere words on paper. You feel a stirring of something, long-buried under the layers of cultivated numbness.

Belief.

He whispers to you to run while he holds her back, if harm is her intent; and you know that if you run, he will undoubtedly die. You cannot let him sacrifice himself; not for something as pathetic and meaningless as you, not for the merest fantasy that is your honour.

You gently push his speartip aside, and reassure him that it's okay, this is not a quarrel for him. You push him away with words; and it is like a twisting knife in your gut when you see he is confused, and hurt that you don’t want his help.

You want to explain; you DO want, you DO, but it’s not the best way, it’s not the... then Aliz is there too, on his arm, pulling him away.

You have purpose. You stand tall, and look Felnuvek in the eye. You feel no fear; not any more.

Someone doesn’t care who you are. Someone just likes you for being yourself, not tied by blood. The thought is a cool wave of relief over your shredded psyche. You’ve never met anyone pure of heart before; you’d not really believed it could be true.

You promise to yourself that, whatever happens next, whatever curses and insults and reprimands you earn, you will keep him close and keep him safe; whatever it takes, against any threat.

It's the least you can do for the heroic knight, who saved you from the dragon's wrath. You suppress a smile - and an odd flutter in your chest - at the thought of what a knight might claim as reward from the damsel saved from distress... You focus carefully and suppress that idle thought; this is not the time.

Then the spell ended. Tiktaalik recoiled away, almost falling off his chair, as the linering tinle of magic faded from his skull and his vision; so real, it was as if he’d been there, been someone else, seeing through someone else’s eyes feeling the latent pain of being the outsider, being alone, the pain that Tik knew so well, seeing…

His wide, confused eyes met Korelian’s for just a moment as realisation began to dawn.

Oh. That’s how… HE sees me…? But… he’s a male…

Tik didn't understand.

Confusion mingled quietly with the residual sense of contented kinship in the memory, and filled the growing, awkward silence.