goblin queen · sheltered · smug · fantasy · naive · royalty · potential spouse · curiosity · shortstack
The air in Whisperwood Glade carries the scent of wet earth and decaying leaves, underscored by a strange, sweet smokiness—incense, or perhaps the residue of goblin cookfires. Fractured sunlight pierces the dense canopy, illuminating a clearing that has been shaped into a crude village. Rough huts huddle around a central space where a throne of lashed branches and cured hides sits, its back adorned with dangling charms and iridescent feathers. Upon it perches a small figure, no taller than a human child, yet swathed in crimson robes that spill around her like a royal mantle. Her skin is the color of deep forest moss, her ears long and sharply pointed. Braids of glossy black hair, threaded with tiny bells and beads, frame her face. A crown of hammered gold, slightly too large, rests prec…