[Interludes Vol. 1.5] In which we meet Ebony, the Little Lord of Bones (1/3)

~~** Interlude | Ebony **~~

"You, Ebony, little sister goblin. Me, Button, big sister goblin. Job big sister goblin teach little sister goblin how be goblin."

"Okay! Ebony listen Button!"

Most of my sisters can remember the day they came into the world. For me, that's not the case at all. My first real memory was when I met my big sister, Button. Unlike other goblins, both Button and I have two maker goblins—Ivory and Truffle.

Truffle is a lazy goblin who is almost never angry. Her favorite things in the world are mushrooms, Husband, and her strong-ones, in that order. As for Ivory, she is usually angry about all sort of things, and is only ever lazy when she's done making things out of bones and starts drinking blue water.

While Ivory is busy making things out of bones almost every day, Truffle will teach me all about mushrooms as I lay down next to her and sometimes Button who stops in for milkies. While I like mushrooms well enough, I do like bones more. I can sometimes hear them say things like they want to be friends with me when I touch them. Ivory says I'm stupid since bones don't talk, and Truffle says that sometimes when she has a good batch of color-spin-think powder, she thinks she can hear the mushrooms talk, but the only person who seems to believe me without question, is Button.

"You hear bones talk in your head? That sounds like how Glace talks to me."

Glace is my older sister as well, and also the Shaman of the Bloodmaw Tribe. She doesn't talk aloud at all, instead using my sister to speak for her. She's also able to use special magic similar to Husband and Vera to do all sorts of amazing things. Button says she can't use magic without Glace, but I can use it a little, mostly to make bones move on their own like they want to.

Ivory gets mad at me sometimes when I use magic to make the bones in her room move. So, the only thing I'm allowed to use it on is Gogok and Shumi, the bone charms which belong to me and Button. Button says she's going to be an adult goblin soon, so she doesn't need Shu-mi as much anymore, and wants her to have a friend who will play with her.

There is one bone I want to play with the most, but Ivory never lets me. It's a special thin black bone with something wrapped around it. It's on a shelf way up high that I can't reach, and one time when I tried to, Ivory caught me and spanked my butt really hard.

I don't like being spanked, and I don't like Ivory anymore!

Button says she understands exactly what I'm feeling. She also told me that she was spanked by Ivory many times when she was a little goblin and didn't like it either.

Since I'm a little goblin, I can't leave my cave-hole by myself just yet. Truffle or Ivory will follow me to the shit-pit if I have to go, or otherwise, unless another goblin or Husband visits my cave-hole, I have to wait for Button to take me places.

One of the places I like to go is Old One's cave-hole.

Old One is really nice to me. She says I'm a special goblin, just like Husband does. Because I have bone-magic, Old One says I'm something called a Bone Lord, a goblin who uses real Bloodmaw magic, and not wicked human magic. She then tells me stories about an old goblin called Bone-eyes, who was a really old goblin back when Old One was still only a little goblin strong-one herself!

According to Old One, Bone Lords are able to listen to and command bones. This is important, since the bones of the dead still carry the memories of the time when they were alive. She says most of what she knows about Bone Lords came from Stone-foot, her maker and the former Shaman of the tribe before the silver-skins attacked and killed everyone but us who came to Goblinhome.

After learning all about the Bloodmaw Tribe from Old One, she will bring me back to my cave-hole, but not before stopping off at my older sister Melon's special cave-hole, called the kit-chin. Old One frowns at me sometimes when I order the tasty hamburger with plant-blood, instead of something that looks bloody, but Melon is quick to show Old One that there's plenty of pink-colored bloody meat inside it, and so Old One doesn't get as upset anymore.

Apparently there are goblins who are very opinionated on which is better; bloody-meat or fire-meat. I like both, but nothing beats a tasty hamburger made by Melon.

Husband also likes to visit me, sometimes bringing me to Melon's kit-chin after taking me outside the cave and pushing me on the swings. I get to meet my other sisters a lot more when I'm outside and I have a whole bunch of them!

Diana Artemis, who is going to be the next Guardian of the tribe. She's really good at hunting! I heard my other older sisters, Orchid and Lilac, tell stories about how she and Husband went hunting at night to kill a bunch of Black-claws who killed one of the adult goblins called Beast-talker and tried to kill Prima, Jewel, and Doll!

There's also Game, Fun, and Figurine (who Button says is fine to just call her Rine). Game and Fun live with Toy and make all the fun games that goblins like to play when not busy. One of the latest games was a game called bones that involved rectangles with circles on them that needed to be matched up a certain way. It's a sort of counting-game but I like anything that involves bones, even if they aren't made out of them.

Button saw me having lots of fun playing the game with Game and Fun, and not even a few days later she had managed to give me a set of my own to play with, and even played a few games with me. Button is the best big sister!

Husband had come to visit our cave-hole the day after that and showed me a fun way to play with them when I was alone. He stood the bones up in a line and placed them a certain distance apart before having me tip one at the end over, causing the whole line of them to fall over in a fast and exciting way!

He couldn't stay for long, though. As it turns out, he wanted to spend some time with me today because he would be staying in Pepper's cave-hole for a while after this. When I asked why, he said it was because I would soon have a little sister coming into the world.

Button had explained to me once that Husband has an important job he does in the Bloodmaw Tribe. He goes around to all the cave-holes and helps adult goblins make strong-ones. That's why he's called Husband. Button told me when I become older like she is, we'll also be able to make strong-ones with him.

Button and Truffle both consider Husband to be a mushroom-goblin like them, since he has a mushroom growing between his legs. I asked him if I could see it once, and he showed me, but said I couldn't touch it. From how it looked though, I think there was a big fat bone inside instead of a soft and squishy mushroom. It made me think that Husband might be a bone-goblin like Ivory and me.

Anyway, since I wasn't going to see Husband for a while, I asked him if he would do something for me.

"What Ebony want?"

I explained to him about wanting to see the special black bone Ivory kept on the shelf I couldn't reach that she never let me touch. Husband went to find it and began laughing as he held it.

"Mean this?"

I nodded.

"Not bone. Dead branch. Hmm… maybe… special tree bone?"

"Tree bone?"