[Interludes Vol. 1.5] In which we finally meet Lumi, who f*cked around and was made to find out.(4/6)

Slowly, she warmed up to me, though she was no less independent than any of the other goblin children. And she still fought with them all, and still sunk her teeth into Ark whenever she got the chance.

It wasn't until Ebony's pet spider made of bones, Bitey—I believe, had paid an unannounced and unwelcome visit to our cave-hole, that I saw my daughter once more use the magic light she was possessed of, taking aim at the spider and unleashing her divine magic.

I don't know what I expected to happen, but it wasn't what did. I think Lumi was also unprepared for the outcome. Bitey, whose bones were dark in color, had been restored to a pristine white. Whiter than they originally were when it was first created. Spinning around in place, the spider then jumped and scurried out of the room, only to return some time later, dragging a dead snake in from god-knows-where and depositing it at Lumi's feet and then saluting with its front bony foreleg before scurrying out of our cave-hole.

Lumi stared down at the snake and then sat down on the ground and poked it a few times.

She prayed again, tears streaming down her eyes, before grabbing the snake and taking a bite out of it directly. Lumi looked up at me and pointed at the snake. I sat down next to her and took a bite of it myself, enjoying how delicious it was… something that was only possible because I was possessed of the goblin's instinct to eat raw and bloody meat.

It wasn't easy for Lumi to be a goblin. The part of me that had become a mother understood this. But, for me it was. Oh, there were things I hated about being a goblin, still having the memories of being a human present in my mind, but I didn't hate being a Bloodmaw, overall.

Aside from my beauty as a human woman, every other part of me had been enhanced. Including my physical properties and my senses. And so long as Ark gave me all that I wanted, there really wasn't much of a loss for me to accept being one. So what I felt I needed to do for Lumi was to find out what it was she wanted in order to be happy.

Her reply to my question was short and simple.

"Want… chapel."

A chapel. A room to pray to the Goddess Elara in.

When I next saw Ark, I brought it up to him, and he was entirely fine with it.

"I'll make her one right away."

It had occurred to me that I should have mentioned that it be a chapel dedicated to Elara, but it seems Ark was already well aware of Lumi's faith.

Ark had enlisted the help of many of his magically inclined daughters to build some kind of stone building attached to the immediate outside of Goblinhome, opposite to the playground, that came equipped with an ornately carved wooden double-door. Inside was what looked like some kind of a small church with stone benches for seating and two statues present, though one had a draping over it.

The statue with no draping was of the Goddess Elara, as elaborate as ones found in bigger towns and cities I had seen after having left my own village. What had a draping was a strange statue. It was a poorly crafted statue of a goblin, like some kind of rudimentary wall-painting by someone with no artistic skill, wearing only a loincloth and the most pronounced point of it being an open mouth full of sharp teeth readying to eat a piece of meat.

I had asked Ark what the deal was with it, and he said it was something Mint came up with that Glace and Ebony also strongly agreed with. Elara was not the Creator of the Bloodmaw. Mint felt that if there was to be some kind of church or religion present in Goblinhome, then it was necessary for there to also be some representation of the Bloodmaw's Creator, even if the chapel was only to be used by Lumi to worship and revere the Goddess Elara.

Seeing that it remained covered in her presence, as well as ridiculous to look at as an object of worship, Lumi found it acceptable, laughing mockingly at the pitiful statue.

Ebony and Mint would frequent the chapel and listen to Lumi speak about the Goddess Elara, and the three of them became somewhat friendly as a result. Ark, on the other hand, would visit the chapel when Lumi wasn't present and would remove the draping on the statue, clean the dust from it, and offer a prayer up to it, only ever asking for the continued safety, growth, and well-being of his daughters, before covering it back up. I confronted him once about it, and all he had to say on the matter was, while he didn't necessarily believe in any of the Gods, if one might be willing to listen to him, wouldn't it be the one who most had some need for him?

I couldn't find any fault in what he said.

For Ark to be the key piece in restoring an otherwise damned tribe of goblins, it might very well be the work of the Bloodmaw's Creator to have brought him here. To have the power to change me from a human into a Bloodmaw… perhaps Ark was some kind of chosen one. But I didn't believe that too deeply.

After all, Ark was an idiot. An idiot with excessively powerful magic who loved all of his children with his naively kind heart.

~~** Interlude | Lumi **~~

"Elara, have you truly forsaken me?"

I have never had reason to doubt the Goddess before now, but to find that the only magic being bestowed to me as a Saintess from the Goddess Elara was magic to heal and purify, naturally some concern would have taken root inside of me.

The one to answer my grievance wasn't my Goddess, however, but the goblin elder they called Old One.

"I wondered the same thing once before about the Creator. When the Silver Skins and the Woman of Burning Light came to my tribe's cave one day and mercilessly slaughtered my kin... My mother, Stone-feet, and my only daughter Spear-hand. I never forgot the feeling of terror and dread I felt at that human woman's magic, dressed in those white robes, able to bring the dead back to life and to command a handful of goblins to die with but a single word from her lips…"

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