Small Lurker in Milliways

[lurkingkobold]

Here is a kobold.

To people familiar with the species, it's obviously a young one, not quite three feet tall to the adults' three and a half foot average. Its fur is blueish-grey and relatively dull, a sign that it hasn't been eating properly recently, though it's not thin. It's wearing a simple animal-skin skirt and carrying a stick, not quite long enough to serve as a walking stick, but useful for shielding itself from the worst of the undergrowth at least.

It is moving through the forest at speed, not following any path, and then suddenly it is elsewhere. After a few minutes, it notices the difference in the light; after a few more, it notices that the trees are subtly wrong - wrong species, wrong growth patterns, wrong in subtler ways that defy describing, but that tell the kobold that it is not in the forest where it grew up.

After even more minutes, it stops, having come to a clearing. There is a building, which, despite not being alarmingly large, cannot be traveled around.

The kobold does not have permission to enter the building.

The kobold cannot go back to where it was.

The kobold sits, and waits.

Comments

[lurkingkobold]

"Mage do of magic of kobold...", she pauses for a moment, to pick out a suitably attired large kobold and the three smallest ones, to illustrate. "Mage do of magic of kobold, other of magic no do of see of kobold." She pauses to think, then expands on the explanation, "trap is of magic, magic no do of see, trap no do of catch, kobold is of safe."

[scatteredstars]

"If magic traps are as common where you come from as that makes it sound, that must be very useful."

Ze looks at the figures thoughtfully.

[lurkingkobold]

She shrugs. "Trap of magic no is of many; trap of magic is of big of danger - elf do of trap; if elf do of take of kobold, elf do of eat of kobold. Elf do of big of danger, tribe do of thing of safe, important."

She picks out another figurine - again, a large one - and continues. "Kobold do of look of thing of elf. Kobold do of find, chief do of choose of place," she indicates that the figurine is the chief, "tribe do of go of place; elf no do of find of kobold, kobold do of safe. Is..."

She pauses in her explanation, and starts fiddling with the figurines, arranging the six other small ones into a line by size - she's still holding on to her own. Behind the smallest two, she places the two larger figurines that are carrying spears. She then points to each lined-up figurine in turn, starting with the smallest, and says "War of elf, war of elf, no of elf, one of elf, no of elf, no of elf."

[scatteredstars]

Tyche listens intently (and somewhat disturbedly), but looks more confused than anything at the last part. "Um," ze says, gesturing at the figurines. "What?"

[lurkingkobold]

Hm.

She takes a minute to consider this confusion, then asks, "Bar do of more of figurine of small of kobold? ...do of figurine of... tree, tree of apple?"

Another dozen kobold figurines appear, or rather eleven kobolds and one kobold egg. The new set, when combined with the six old ones, run the full range of sizes from newly hatched to just shy of adult. The kobold arranges them that way, with the egg figurine at one end of the line and an adult figurine at the other end, then turns to the set of four tree figurines and arranges them in a diamond - the one with green leaves farthest from her, the one with bare branches nearest, the one with pale pink flowers to the right, and the one with hanging red fruit to the left.

She then looks to make sure Tyche is paying attention, and draws a counterclockwise circle in the air over the trees with one finger. "One," she says, and looks back to Tyche to see if this is having the intended effect.

[scatteredstars]

Tyche looks intently at the tree figures. "Harvest?" ze asks of the left one. "Or -- Autumn?"

[lurkingkobold]

This gets a nod and a smile. Then, the kobold repeats the counterclockwise motion and "one", and gestures between the two smallest kobold figurines and repeats, "one".

[scatteredstars]

"Autumn... Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer? One year?" Tyche looks over a the kobold figurines. "One...?" Ze is clearly puzzled.

[lurkingkobold]

This gets another nod, at the season names, and a confused look at the confusion. She tries again: Tap the smallest figurine, tap the second smallest one, tap the bar top between them, "one of year". Tap the smallest figurine, tap the third smallest figurine, draw a curved line between them on the bar top, tap the imaginary line, "two of year".

[scatteredstars]

"...the distance between them, in time? Why would that -- oh! Naturally-grown biomorphs, of course. The years are age?"

This is followed by a thoughtful look at the kobold.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold understood nearly none of the words, there, but it's clear enough from Tyche's tone that ze's got the idea.

At the look, she sets her own figurine in front of a similarly-sized one - the ninth kobold in the row, just shy of the midway point between egg and adult. She then sets the spear holders up again behind the fourth and fifth kobolds, and counts out the years between the spear figurine and her own. "Four of year, tribe do of see of one of thing of elf."