Polynya

“Listen, Marbles, I know it’s hard to pay attention to the words of a handsome goblin with an equally healthy amount of pink hair and a vocabulary that would make me perfect for public office, but if you had paid attention, you would have heard me say George, not Gorge.”

“So you have cousins named both Spew Gorge and Spew George?” FeeTwix asks over his shoulder. He now wears a headlamp illuminating their path. Ryuk steps a little too close to the wrong side of the walkway and some pebbles fall.

“Spew is a common goblin name, for your information.” Hiccup stops, beats his chest for a moment, swallows, and scrunches up his face. No sound this time, but anyone standing behind him, including Ryuk and Zaena, instantly suffer.

Ryuk swallows the urge to vomit, and moves to the front of Hiccup, so he is no longer downwind. Zaena whops the goblin on the back of the head, causing him to stumble forward and shout ‘Yooooy!’ when he trips on a rock.

“Son of a ficklord, Liz! Keep your fickin’ konoshlo to yourself. Fick! I thought it was a ghost!” Worry spreads across his face and Enway laughs.

“Tell us more about Spew Gorge, or was it George?” FeeTwix asks, entirely focused on tracking the wolf with his watch.

“George, rhymes with norge.”

“Norge?” Ryuk asks. “Is that a Thulean word?”

“No, Marbles, it’s the Norwegian word for Norway.”

“How do you even know that?”

“I drink healing potions and I know things, is that what you want me to say?”

“Sweden, my home country, is next to Norway,” FeeTwix adds.

“Are you guys enemies or something? I’ll tell you what, if anyone named Norge says anything funny to me, I’d fickin’ cut their balls and their chalupa, fry them up, and feed them to a troll.”

“Churro,” Enway giggles.

Hiccup tenses, takes a deep breath, and continues his story about Spew George. “Anyway, Spewy– ”

“I thought you called Spew Gorge ‘Spewy?’” Zaena inserts.

“For fick’s sake, people, let me finish my goddamn story. I swear to the Empress’ milk-filled fun bags of epic proportions that babysitting the four of you is going to be the death of me. Now where the fick was I? Marbles, I need you to start taking notes … ”

“Quiet!” FeeTwix hisses. “We’re getting closer.”

“So,” Hiccup whispers, “Spew George came across this ink shadow in Tlapa, on the far western side of Hyperborea. Tlapa is far from the Goblin Riviera, but Spewy was always a traveler and he loved adventure, unlike yours truly.”

“Spew Gorge, right?” Zaena snickers.

“Ignore her,” Hiccup tells Enway and Ryuk, both of whom are definitely not listening. “Spewy had this bright idea of challenging the ink shadow to a game of punch chest. Now sure, an orc, even a big orc– I’d challenge that ficker to a game of punch chest. But an ink shadow? Fick that. Speaking of which, you know who I’d really like to play punch chest with? Ryuk’s little fickboy doppelgänger.”

“Quiet!” FeeTwix says again.

“Anyway, like a real ficktard, Spewy swung at the ink shadow and passed right through the no good fick-faced jizz farming son of a boar turd. So then it was the ink shadow’s turn. He swung at Spewy and knocked the living goblin out of him. So now he’s dead. George, not Gorge. Funny, that. Spew George was killed by an ink shadow. The ficker not only made a necklace out of his nails, he also made a pair of cowboy boots out of his skin. I’m telling you, they’re sickos, real sickos.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Ryuk asks, suspicious of the story.

Hiccup rolls his eyes. “You never asked me.”

“Let me see,” FeeTwix whispers, still tracking the wolf. “You’ve mentioned that an ink shadow took someone’s chalupa, I think that was Spew Gorge, and you mentioned that he cursed another relative and I believe a dyck byter snake got to him.”

“Yeah.” After scratching his ass, Hiccup starts counting. “One, two … you’ve mentioned two stories I’ve told you about ink shadows and goblins related to me. Now I’ve told you three. What the fick do you want from me, Twixy, the children’s book? Do I need to add subtitles? Ink shadows are bad news, people. I don’t want to sound racist like Liz over here, but fick each and every one of them sideways. If ever there were a reason for eugenics, ink shadows would be one of them.”

“So this is about ink shadows being bad news?” Ryuk asks. “This whole story?”

“Oh come on, you act like I don’t have to listen to you whine about how you almost got to first base with Tammy back there in the Mondegreen or how you once saw a little sideboob.”

“I never said that!” Ryuk says too loudly.

“Shhhh!” FeeTwix turns to Ryuk. “We’re close,” he whispers. “Shut the fuck up, Hiccup.”

“He’s right, goblin, there is no point nor moral to your story and it’s probably made up. I think all goblin stories are made up, or at the very least, hyperbolized to an extreme degree.”

“The fick you say!?” Hiccup starts to growl.