Chapter Text
Hardly any words were spoken between Ren and Bethany, as the two children busied themselves with harvesting onions and garlic from the plot of land that their uncle assigned them to. Processing the traumatic experiences they shared earlier that day, the otherwise mundane farm work proved itself as a blessing in disguise— anchoring the children’s minds on what was in front of them, as the horrid memories of hearing the assaulted goblin screaming out for her slaughtered family played again and again in their heads.
With the top of his head full of gray-hair absorbing the heat of the sunlight above, the numbing sensation that was coursing through Ren’s head felt oddly therapeutic in of itself; his subconscious faintly comparing the combination of conflicting sensations made him imagine what it would feel like staring directly down into a pitch-black abyss— seeing the repeating memory of the defiled girl screaming wearily in the opaque pool, while still feeling ground with the ever present knowledge of being safe enough along the edge of that darkness.
Their little busy hands made for light work, with how effective they were while essentially on auto-pilot. After an hour of contemplating what could have motivated someone to commit such atrocities, and wondering whether or not if Bethany’s father’s knowledge of medicine and surgical techniques would be enough to save what little life remained inside the small body of the goblin, they were eventually ushered inside by the redhead’s mother— who had came from the farm house to bring them inside.
Walking beside one another, Ren and Bethany were brought to the living room; the two best friends taking a seat on the large fabric sofa, while her pink-eyed mother with platinum blond hair used a piece of flint and steel to strike a spark that ignited the wooden logs resting inside of the fireplace.
“Mom… Is… Is she gonna be alright?” Bethany finally asked with hesitation in her voice, while sitting on the center cushion of the sofa— her fingers nervously tapping along the top of her thighs, as the orange glow of the roaring fire illuminated the cozy living room space.
Seemingly not wanting to worry either children longer than had been, Bethany’s mother turned her head over her shoulder while still kneeling down beside the fireplace; offering her what little reassurance she could with a cathartic smile, and let out a heavy sigh while carefully closing its small iron doors.
“She’s stabilized now— your father and I cleaned her up, and applied some special ointment to heal her damaged tissue,” the blond woman said first and foremost, while still having a noticeable look of solemnity on her pale face. “She’s… She’s resting in the guest bed… Poor thing.”
Empathizing with what her mother was feeling, Bethany offered her an understanding nod as she averted her eyes down to her own lap. “That’s… That’s good then…?” Bethany whispered with uncertainty in her voice, before softly lowering the tops of her eyelids down and quietly adding, “T-That means she’s gonna get better…”
“I… I certainly hope that’ll be the case for her, dear,” Bethany’s mom reluctantly remarked, with the growing glimmer of guilt behind her pink eyes slowly becoming more-and-more apparent to the children.
Beginning to grow suspicious that something was amiss, Bethany’s eyes darted upward while her head was still tilted downward towards her lap— her eyebrows slowly furrowing, as her lips began turning into a perplexed frown.
“Hope…? W-Why are we “hoping” for her to get better?” The ten-year old child asked with her eyelids narrowing at her saddened mother. “She’s going to get better… She has us to care for her— saying “hope” like that sort of implies, uh…?! I-I, uh…?!” She stammered frustratingly, and began quietly muttering incoherently before turning to look up at Ren— who had been observing the two, and who had been keeping his thoughts to himself.
“R-Ren, I-I need you to help me say what it is that I’m trying to tell mom,” Bethany requested directly to him with an expectant tone.
Reluctant to answer at first, Ren darted his eyes momentarily away from Bethany’s domineering stare, and looked over to her mother’s guilty face— silently asking permission to speak, and being given a subtle nod and a weak smile as her way of giving her blessing to do so.
“Well…” Ren began saying in an uncomfortable tone, and slowly turned his attention back to Bethany before letting out a quiet sigh.
“I think… Regarding THIS conversation,” he said with a pause, while halfways bringing his hands outward to momentarily gesture at the mother and daughter, before quickly lowering his hands back down to his lap and continuing on with, “The way your mother said, “I hope she gets better”, implies a transfer of responsibility… Which sort makes you assume—
I’m guessing— that your family doesn’t actually want to see the goblin girl’s recovery through to the end…”
“… I’m guessing that you were trying to argue about there being a… Possible conflict of interests, between you and your mother— and by extension, between you and your father as well,” Ren articulated as best as he could— having chosen his words wisely, and trying to be as unbiased about the situation as he could.
Nodding her head repeatedly while sucking in her lips, Bethany waved her finger up toward the ceiling as she turned forward to stare at her mother. “T-That’s it— t-that’s what I was t-trying to say,” she said with growing anger in her voice, and smacked her lips once as she silently awaited an explanation from her mother.
Saying nothing at first, Bethany’s mother took in a deep breath of air to calm her nerves— closing her eyelids shut, and taking a brief moment to meditate. Letting out an uncomfortable and elongated exhaled breath, the blond woman slowly opened her eyelids to reveal a look of reluctant sternness that shook the confidence of her child.
“Your father and I have nothing but our sympathies for that poor creature, but we aren’t going to turn a blind eye to the fact that her being here puts us all in danger, and neither should you,” Bethany’s mother stated in a low voice— making it subtly obvious that she didn’t contrive any pleasure in having to tell her daughter such a hard truth, and that her stance on the situation wasn’t one that brought her satisfaction in the least bit.
Stunned but not surprised, Bethany’s eyes widened as she felt her heart sinking deep into her chest— an involuntary gasp quietly fleeing from her parted lips, as her shoulders rolled forward slightly.
“T…! T-That’s not…! T-That’s not r-right, mom— we can’t just abandon someone in need like that!” Bethany stammered out with her breathing growing more rapid, as her eyes began anxiously wandering around the dimly lit living room— the orange fire radiating from the fireplace giving the dark outline of her mother an antagonizing glow, as her small little fingers curled on her lap into trembling fists.
“Sweetheart, I understand-”
“-No! N-No you don’t!” Bethany shouted back at her mother— cutting her off with a fire of her own ignited behind her infuriated pink eyes. “Y-You weren’t there, mom! Y-You…! Y-You and dad…! Y-You guys didn’t see and hear t-the awful things Ren and I did! Y-You can’t understand,” Bethany argued passionately with tears welling up in her eyes, before suddenly hopping off the couch to stand defensively in front where she had been sitting.
Having expected to see a heated argument consisting of screaming and shouting transpire between the two females, Ren sat with his eyes wide open and his stomach beginning to churn nauseously with anxious thoughts. Bracing himself for the worst, Ren clenched his jaw shut and tensed up every muscle in his body for the chaos that he was dreadfully waiting to ensue.
To his bewildered surprise, no such discourse took place; even as Bethany’s mother hastily stood up to face towards her daughter in a similar hardened posture, there wasn’t a single sign of hostility across the blond woman’s stern expression— her pink eyes shedding tears that rolled down her pale cheeks, as her trembling lips began to move.
“I… I k-know… I-I know,” Bethany’s mother uttered out with a heartbroken voice; both her and her daughter’s hardened expressions melting away into shared looks of sadness, as she took a few shallow breaths before sobbing out in a choked up voice, “I-I’m so, so sorry baby that you and Ren had to see that— my poor baby…!”
Breaking down before Ren’s uncomfortable eyes, Bethany’s knees began buckling underneath her as she uttered out in a distressed voice of emotional agony, “M-Mama…!” And like that, the redhead rushed across the center of the living room— throwing herself into her mother’s arms, and burying her crying face into the blond woman’s abdomen, as the two held each other while woefully wailing out incoherent sentiments of love.
Though the raw love between a loving mother and her only child was certainly beautiful, it was an intimate moment that Ren felt awkwardly alienated from. ‘I guess it makes sense why they don’t want to risk having her here… Even if whoever hurt her doesn’t come looking for her, they’re still breaking the law by having her here…’
‘… Makes me wonder how she even got here in the first place— much less how the rest of her family did,’ Ren wondered to himself, before turning his momentarily distracted attention back to Bethany and her mother; the unpleasant call of duty within him from earlier urging him to solve the issue laid out before him.
“… Mrs. Heim,” Ren spoke aloud in a concise manner, and was doing his best to remain outwardly reassuring as he saw both the blond woman and her redhead daughter turning to look at him with their bloodshot, teary eyes.
‘Oh god… Oh god, what the hell am I doing?!’
“… Y-Yes, dear?” She asked with a sniffle, before wiping her face on her shoulder while using her sleeve to do the same for Bethany.
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up-”
“I… I know someone who can take… Who can take her off of your hands,” Ren announced confidently, with the emotional side of his brain doing its best to ignore the way his logical side was screaming at him to stop while he could.
“That “somebody” you “knew” was YOU…?!?” Bethany shouted in a hushed voice; her pink eyes filled with both concern and bewilderment, as she watched Ren while he carefully placed a few potatoes on top of the unconscious goblin’s blanket-wrapped body.
“Yeah— I’m on pretty terms with them, too,” Ren quipped back sarcastically, and let out an anxious chuckle as he continued to cover up the goblin with the produce that Bethany’s uncle was allowing him to take home.
“Ren, this isn’t a laughing matter…!” Bethany scolded with paranoia in her voice, as she immediately turned her head over her shoulder to stare out toward the slightly parted barn downs behind them. “What are you even gonna do with her…?! You can’t take her home, because of Vivi, soooo…?!”
“I’m taking her somewhere safe— like how I told your mother I would,” Ren replied, while sounding as though he was reassuring himself more than he was trying to calm Bethany’s justified worries.
Turning back around to give her best friend an unamused expression that conveyed her impatience quite well, Bethany’s eyebrows were furrowed as she told him in an urgent and hushed voice, “J-Just tell me what your plan is— there’s no point in trying to dance around it…!”
Standing beside the rusted pull-wagon that was usually used for carting around pumpkins— where the woven basket had been placed inside of it— Ren tightened his lips together, while scrambling with his rampant thoughts to formulate a half-decent response.
Raising her hand and rolling it at the wrist, Bethany leaned forward from the waist and urged Ren for the answer to her question with an anxious, “W-Well?!”
Smacking his lips with a Hail Mary of an idea popping into his head, Ren raised a hand up from his hip to snap his fingers triumphantly; looking Bethany dead in the eye to reply confidently to her, “You know about how Vivi and I have that little hiding spot, inside the living room?”
And like that, Bethany’s jaw dropped the moment she finished hearing her best friend’s grand plan— a deadpan expression soon replacing the anxious look of urgency she had moments ago.
“Y… You mean… Y-You mean the… T-The spot where you fell through that one time, and you broke the packed dirt underneath the floor…?” Bethany asked in a flat voice full of disbelief. “T… THAT “hiding spot”!?”
“Yeah, t-that’s the one,” Ren replied with an obvious hint of overturning uncertainty in his voice, and soon enough began doubting himself as he timidly asked Bethany, “It’s… It’s a pretty good hiding spot, isn’t it?”
Letting out a sigh of endearment and of infuriation, Bethany offered her best friend a pitying smile as she bluntly rebutted, “Ren… The only thing “hidden” about that hole in the ground, is the cheap plank of wood and small table that your sister put on top of it to cover it up.”
Unable to help but to let out an uncomfortable and joyless chuckle in spite of their circ*mstances, Ren smiled stressfully as he grabbed the sides of his hips.
“Y… Y-Yeah, it’s not much of a long-term hiding spot, now is it?” Ren remarked agreeingly, and lowered his face down toward the hay-covered floorboards beneath their feet.
“But, uh… U-Unless your parents are going to change their mind within the next— what, the next ten minutes?” Ren asked rhetorically, with some of his own frustration beginning to reveal itself, as he raised his head up to give Bethany a desperate glance, before continuing with, “Then that’s the best option we have available to us, Beth…”
Knowing that he meant well, Bethany found herself still holding onto her doubts— regardless of the good intentions he had. “I… I-I don’t know if-”
“-L-Look, once I smuggle her past the gate, then she’ll be somewhere that’s safe, secluded, and I’ll be close by incase there’s an emergency,” Ren argued, while counting his listed reasons with raised three fingers.
Seeking validation, Ren continued staring desperately into Bethany’s conflicted eyes as he lowered his hands down slowly to his sides. “Ren, I… I want to help her just as much as you do, but…” Bethany stressed with a joyless smile across her tightened lips, before trailing off.
“… It’s just… It’s just that I think that we gotta come up with a better solution— one that doesn’t involve you shoving her in a hole underneath your sister’s coffee table,” Bethany stated with a light sense of humor in her voice, before letting out a small, exasperated sigh, as she crossed her arms across her chest.
“And besides, just think about it for a second… Even if you do manage to slip her past the guards— assuming that they don't actually inspect what you’re bringing in, which they’re supposed to— then what about Vivi?” Bethany questioned, before gesturing with one hand toward the rusted green wagon. “How are you going to hide her from your sister?”
Furrowing his brows methodically, it didn’t take Ren long to realize that he didn’t have an argument to counter Bethany’s point. “Yeah… Yeah, you’re right— I don’t think I’d be able to keep her under wraps from Vivi,” Ren said with a soft nod, and paused briefly before letting out a quiet, begrudged groan, and shrugged his shoulders as he looked up to her.
“I’d be an impossible endeavor to keep Vivi in the dark about her… Which means I’ll have to hope for the best, and just make it known to her, instead of trying to hide… W-Whatever her name is,” Ren concluded with a nervous undertone to his other resolving voice— much to Bethany’s visible dismay.
“And what if Vivi says no?”
“She won’t.”
“But what if the guards find her?”
“I’ll have to feign innocence then, and surrender her over.”
“B-But…! T-They’ll just end up killing her then, or… Or do something w-worse to her…” Can’t we just hide her in the forest— somewhere far away from… F-From where we found her?”
“That would be… Ideal, but… In the current state that she’s in, she would be an easy target for wildlife if we place her in the wild; taking her anywhere else but indoors would be a death sentence for her, in and of itself…”
“I… I don’t want her to die, Ren— she d-doesn’t deserve that…”
“She won’t; I’ll protect her, and I’ll take care of her…”
“…”
“…”
“… Y-You promise?”
“Yeah… I promise.”
