As night fell, Christoph looked to the horizon behind him, one he could never go to again, and was discomforted by the bright orange glow he saw there. He hoped the farm was okay and the glow was just from torches. The people of Plowman's Rest loved a good lynching, like any criminally tiny village with nothing better to do should, but they were usually reasonable folks. When they realized that Christoph wasn't there, they'd go home. Probably. Hopefully.
Best not to think about it.
Better to think on how he was going to set up camp for the night. This proved to be a very interesting challenge, as the ground was incredibly far away from his hands, not to mention that his tinderbox wasn't in his rucksack, which meant that if the twins had remembered to pack it at all, it was in the packsaddle. The packsaddle that was on his equine back.
He sighed.
In a small clearing just off the road, behind a convenient screen of trees, he carefully laid himself down and started reaching around, feeling through the various pouches he could reach with his fingertips, searching for a hard corner or a at least a flat plane... Nothing.
"Damn it," he muttered, rolling over onto his side and reaching for the strap that held the packsaddle to his back, grunting as it released and the whole contrivance dropped to the ground. "This is undignified," he grumbled to himself as he rolled around, shifting where he lay on the ground until he could see the packsaddle on the ground. He was sure he looked absolutely ridiculous wriggling around like that.
"Okay, got that," he said as he finally fished the tinderbox out and climbed back to his hooves, trotting off into the trees for firewood and kindling. In less than an hour, he had a lovely little blaze going in the center of the clearing, not afraid of being seen. He'd never once heard of bandits in the lands around Plowman's Rest, and he'd gone far enough during the day that he doubted the townsfolk would chase him this far out.
So that left him laying on his side next to a fire, warming a piece of cheese and a hunk of bread on a dented tin plate.
"Travelling sucks," he grumbled, staring into the flames, incredibly bored.
*~*~*
Several days later and Christoph was only reassured that travelling did, indeed, suck. He was lonely, he was bored, and as much as he loved being able to gallop down the road like his tail was on fire, there was only so long a body could run before he got winded, and it wouldn't do to pull a muscle in a body he barely understood.
Where would he even go if he did get hurt?
A horse doctor? A human healer? That was an uncomfortable train of thought, so he abandoned it.
Luckily, he didn't have to wait too long before finding something else to occupy his mind.
It was easily the strangest thing he'd ever seen. It looked like a barrel made of copper resting sideways on a set of six metal spider legs, with portions cut away and pipes sticking out of it. Strangest of all were the wide hips and short legs sticking out of a hole near the back, booted feet kicking this way and that as loud, tinny swearing getting louder as he approached.
"Fucking sack of kavanug corut! I spit on your ancestors! Hell I built your ancestors, so I know they were crap! Stupid fucking Headman throwing me out without any spare parts..."
"Excuse me?"
The legs jerked in the air and something heavy hit something metal very hard, resulting in a high-pitched gonnnnnng ringing out, along with more colorful swears that Christoph didn't fully understand.
"Fuck, who's there!?" the voice said eventually, after a lot of apparently fruitless banging around.
"Uh, my name's Christoph," he said when the voice gave him a moment to respond. "Do you need some help?"
"That depends, 'Christoph,'" the voice said sarcastically. "What do you know about steampowered engineering?"
"Nothing..."
"Boilers?"
"No."
"Clockwork?"
"You wind it?"
"Then fuck off, you dumb hick!"
"Alrighty then," the centaur huffed, trying to be mature but pouting anyway as he turned and started to clop away.
"Wait!"
He stopped and turned, not that the speaker could see him looking.
"... Can you pull me out? I think I'm stuck."
"Oh golly gee, I dunno," Christoph said, moving closer and putting on his best 'dumb hick' voice. "Do ya think I c'n manage such a com-plex undertakin'? I think I just might be too much of a hick ta help ya out, here!"
"Oh for fucks sake, I'm sorry, okay? Now just grab me and pull!"
"Fine, fine," he muttered, leaning his spear against the side of the strange object and gripping those wide hips with both hands, getting an eyeful of a round ass straining against a pair of blue-gray pants.
"Enjoying the view, jackass?"
"Sorry!" Christoph let out a nervous laugh when he realized just how long he'd been staring and holding those hips, straightening up and pulling their owner free with almost no effort. "There we go, nice and- Shit!"
In his hands was a small woman. Not a little girl, she was far too curvy for that, straining her coveralls with her buxom figure, but that wasn't the surprising part. What surprised him was that her skin was emerald green and her hair was cobalt blue.
"A fucking goblin!?" he sputtered, dropping her unceremoniously into the dirt.
"Oh that's real nice," she sneered up at him, not even flinching as he snatched up his spear, the tip quivering less than a foot from her face. "Ooo, yeah, scary goblin girl here to eat your babies and fuck your goat."
"Do... Do you not?"
She stared at him for a good thirty seconds.
"You have got to be the dumbest fucker I've ever met, and I've met humans, so take that."
"Hey, I am a human..." Slowly, Christoph lifted his spear until he had the but resting in the dirt. He'd heard all about goblins, everyone had. Nasty little monsters who ate babies and caused mischief and killed people in their sleep. Except this one... Was clearly just trying to get her stuff fixed and be on her way. She seemed intelligent, outright sassy in fact.
"Last I checked, humans didn't have most of a horse for an ass, ya dumb fuck," she seethed, picking herself up.
Lacking a decent response, he just leaned on his spear and tried to process what he was looking at. She was a goblin, that much was established, but she had more than just verdant skin and cobalt pigtails to distinguish her species. She also had some very sharp teeth she happened to be baring, complete with a couple of really big ones that protruded from her lower jaw, probably giving her something of an underbite when her mouth was closed; as well as big pointy ears sticking out from the sides of her head with an upward tilt.
He had never heard of goblin females, as most scary stories about them tended not to mention gender, but he doubted that she would be a typical example. Reason being, she looked like someone had stuffed a pair of watermelons down the front of her jumpsuit, straining it to the point that the zipper in the front could go no higher than her trim waist, green cleavage threatening to spill her tits out through the opening.
The only thing claiming she wasn't naked underneath was a white band straining across the lower half of her chest, proving she was wearing some kind of shirt beneath the jumpsuit.
"You gonna keep starin', fucknuts?"
"Sorry, I've, um, never met a goblin before..." he said lamely.
"No shit," she said with a sigh as she turned back to her steel construction, aiming a kick at it. "Piece of shit."
They both jumped in surprise when a wet gurgle echoed through the upright pipes, followed by a loud bang that belched a cloud of black smoke through those selfsame pipes.
"Like I said," the goblin sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Piece. Of. Shit."
"So... Still sure I can't help?" Christoph said, watching the smoke slowly dissipate into the air.
"Shut up," the goblin grumbled, also watching the black cloud expand up into the air and fade away.
"Just saying... I should apologize for how I reacted to you before," he continued. He may have been raised with small town small-mindedness, but he thought of himself as better than that, so he was going to push himself out of his comfort zone and be a gentleman.
To a goblin.
Wow.
"So, I figured I could go with you, to wherever you're going. Or at least part way."
"Do you even know where I'm going?" she asked as he turned to look at her, her arms crossing under her ludicrous bust.
"That way?" he asked, pointing down the road in the direction he had been heading.
"Well yeah but-"
"Good enough for me since I don't actually have a destination in mind beyond, 'anywhere but Plowman's Rest.'"
"What happened in Plowman's Rest?"
"I happened in Plowman's Rest."
There was a moment where she just looked at him, scanning him up and down before shaking her head and walking away, stepping around her contraption and away from the road.
Christoph took that as a dismissal and shrugged before turning to head down the road.
"Where the fuck are you going?"