Kobold Isekai 2 (Patreon)

This is some stressful stuff, real hanging-off-the-edge-of-your-seat moments!

Kobold Isekai 1

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Kess’s reptilian jaw hung slightly open as she stared at the human girl.

With sun-tanned skin, blue eyes, and dirty-blonde hair, the girl stared back. She wore muddy blue jeans blown out at the knees, a white shirt with swirling mystical runes printed in red, and no shoes. In her two hands, she carried a very big green frog, its legs hanging lethargically down.

Not used to having a dagger, Kess dropped the treasure she’d been carrying and snatched a rock. Pulling it back over her shoulder, she prepared to throw it.

The human girl shook off her surprise and did the same, dropping the frog and grabbing her own throwing rock. Then, the two faced each other, neither saying a word.

The frog hopped, then hopped again, entering the stream with a splash.

After a few more seconds with only the babbling stream, bird calls, and the buzzing of insects disturbing the silence, the human girl opened her mouth. “Are you going to throw that rock at me?” she asked with a drawl.

Kess wasn’t so certain. She didn’t want to stab anyone. She didn’t want to throw rocks at anyone. She looked at the rock in her hand. It wasn’t even a particularly good throwing rock—too chalky and light, too pointy and funny shaped to fit right in her clawed hand. “I… Uh…” she managed.

The human girl slowly lowered her rock. She explained, “My mom makes me take softball.”

“What?” asked Kess, lowering her rock as well.

“I suck at throwing,” said the girl. “I’m good at catching and running the bases, but not at throwing. It never … goes where I’m trying to throw it.”

Kess tried to unpack any of this. What was a soft ball? Was it squishy like a kidney? Who’d want to throw a kidney? Catching seemed clear enough, but catching what? A kidney? And what could “running the bases” mean?

Unsure how to reply, Kess explained, “I can only throw like this, not like this.” With a pendulum action, she swung the rock back and forth at her hip to demonstrate.

“That’s underhand,” explained the blonde girl.

“What?”

“It’s called underhand when you throw like that.” She made a similar motion with her rock up at shoulder level. “The other way is overhand.”

Kess sighed. “Oh. Well, it doesn’t really hurt if you throw a rock at someone underhand. I mean, not enough to bother doing it. Smarter to run away really.”

“We’re not allowed to throw overhand in softball yet,” said the girl. She sounded disappointed. “They said they’re gonna teach that later.”

“Oh.”

Kess smiled. “But you’re good at catching and ‘running the bases’, right?”

The girl grinned wide and nodded, so Kess tossed her chalky stone underhand across the stream. The girl snatched it out of the air and held it up triumphantly, grinning with brilliantly white teeth—save for a missing one in front.

“Ha!” laughed Kess. She snatched a second stone—this one more of a pebble—and tossed it too. The girl dove for the rock but grabbed it before it hit the dirt.

Then the two were laughing and playing in the stream—Kess tossing pebbles while the blonde girl tried to catch them. She couldn’t catch every one of them—some of Kess’s throws went wild—but she got more of them than the kobold would have imagined someone could have.

Eventually, the two sat in the stream’s muddy banks, giggling. Kess still had no idea what had happened, but this was tons more fun than picking up treasure and dumping it in a pile for Zymmyrut.

“Are you a dragon?” asked the girl.

Kess choked, surprised by the question. Without looking away, she turned her shoulders slightly so the girl could get a better look. “What? I don’t have any wings,” she said.

The girl scraped some mud off her hands. “I have this book where a dragon turns into a girl,” she said, “and she didn’t have any wings, but she was still a dragon.”

Kess’s eyes went wide. “What?” she whispered. Could a dragon not have wings and still be a dragon? Could a dragon be as small as a kobold and still be a dragon?

If so, would that mean she was as authentic a dragon as her master?

“I’m Liz,” said the girl. “Well, Elizabeth technically, but I prefer Liz.” She reached across the stream with a filthy hand.

Shaking hands, the kobold shared, “I’m Kess.”

“Don’t you have any clothes, Kess?”

She smiled. “I do! I stuffed them in a crack to keep them safe, and then I was…” She looked around. “This place doesn’t look familiar. I don’t know where I am.”

“You’re in my backyard,” said Liz, jerking a thumb up the hill behind her. “Well, kinda. You’re behind my backyard. I dunno if anyone owns the stream. We just come down to play and look for frogs.”

Pointing at the loot she’d dropped, Kess explained, “I was supposed to put this treasure in the hoard, but that’s back in The Quarry, and I don’t know which direction…”

“Let’s go ask my mom,” said Liz, standing back up. “She knows where everything is.”

Kess felt a wave of relief. “Oh, okay.” She looked at the treasure and frowned. “I shouldn’t really leave it here. Someone could take it.”

“I’ll help you carry it.”

# # #

Kess gawked with wide eyes as Liz led her inside the modest home. The air was fresh and cool, the floors were clean, and everywhere she looked, there was something lovely she wanted to investigate. There were no crumbling stone walls, no foul smells, no stagnant puddles, and no piles of who-knows-what dumped in the corners.

“Liz? Is that you?” her mother called from the kitchen.

“Hey Mom, would you give Kess a ride home?” her daughter yelled back.

“I’m busy cooking dinner! Who’s Kess?” She sounded confused.

“Kess is my friend. She’s a dragon!” shouted Liz. “Can she stay over for dinner?”

“If it’s okay with her parents, she can,” said Liz’s mom. “I can drive her after.”

“Dragons don’t have parents!” insisted Liz.

“Yes, I do!” said Kess with a confused look.

“Everyone has parents, honey.”

“Well, dragons don’t need permission to do anything!” retorted the girl.

Kess had to admit that her friend was right there. Zymmyrut never asked anyone’s permission to do anything.

“She does if she wants to stay over for dinner.”

Up in Liz’s bedroom, the girls dumped the treasure in the middle of the floor—necklaces, coins, rings, gems, and the jeweled dagger. “This can be your hoard, and you can lay on it,” said Liz.

Kess frowned at the sight. It wasn’t her treasure, but for the moment, that wouldn’t matter. She would return it as soon as she got back. Hopefully, Zymmyrut wouldn’t be too angry. She didn’t try to steal it.

“It’s a pretty small hoard to lay on,” said Kess. “I could sit on it, like a nest.”

“Oh, wait!” shouted the human girl excitedly. She dove into her open closet and dug around in a pile of random things until she pulled out a golden blanket. “This can be your hoard!”

Liz dumped the blanket on top of Kess’s treasure and mounded the cloth so it was thicker in the middle than on the sides. She ran her palms slowly across the golden fleece. “Look at this sea of golden coins!” she whispered with awe. “There must be millions of them!”

Kess grinned and curled up on top of the blanket. It was the softest thing she could ever remember touching. “My hoard!” she tried her best to snarl. “If anyone takes a single copper from me, I’ll…”

“Roast them with your fire breath!” giggled Liz.

Kess didn’t have any fire breath, but this was all make-pretend anyhow. The golden cloth wasn’t really a sea of coins. “Yes, my fire breath!” she agreed.

Then, Liz arranged a variety of dolls in a semicircle around the blanket’s edges. Bears, dolls, and babies readied their attacks. “The adventurers storm the dragon’s lair!” she shouted.

“I fend them off with my fire breath!” Kess opened her jaws wide and made the scariest hissing noise she could manage, focusing her attack on a teddy bear with a red heart stitched to its paw. The heart said, “I love you!” on it, but Kess pretended it was a sword.

Liz made the doll dance around. “Ah! I’m on fire! Ah! It burns!”

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZE6Ep1YiFWGIzDEdkORLwTJ4gwzu1CadEuX5mwsDJHY/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?