[ WP ] The hero is tasked with saving the damsel in distress from the beast . Just when he 's about to slay it , the creature responds with its dying breath : `` Kill me if you wish , but please never let her come to harm . ''

**A castle stood on a black hill, beneath a black sky. ** 
 
 A song was wandering through its ruins. 
 
 The inside of the castle had been ravaged; walls collapsed, doors torn from their hinges, every room littered with bodies. From the great hall to the pantries to the dungeons, there were corpses everywhere. Some were men in shiny armour, their bodies stuck with spears and swords. Others were grey-skinned goblins in leather breeches, their wounds just the same. 
 
 The battle had been over for hours. 
 
 If any of those poor soldiers *had* survived, they would have been most perplexed to hear the song. It spilled over shattered battlements, over the broken siege engines beyond the castle walls, out across the dark and blasted heaths beyond. 
 
 The song was coming from the top of the castle's tallest tower. There, at the peak of a winding stone staircase, was a bedroom. A bedroom filled with red drapery and silky cushions, with fine rugs and colourful flowers, with jewelry and gems and other glittering tokens of affection. But mostly, it was filled with a queen-sized bed, and with the two hulking figures slumped together at its foot. 
 
 `` S'not fair,'' sniffed one of the figures; a beast with jagged yellow tusks and slimy green skin, wearing a fine silk waistcoat and a velvet dinner jacket. `` I could've ( *hic* ) made her happy.'' His wavy black hair looked like it had been styled neatly at some point, but had long since erupted into a mess of greasy curls. 
 
 His name was Grolkor, King of Goblin Castle, and he was swigging mead straight from the bulbous bottle. 
 
 `` *I* could've made her happy,'' mumbled the figure next to him, snatching the bottle. Palaquin, was this figure's name -- a human knight, wrapped in rattling chainmail. The most famous of human knights, in fact, well known for having overcome hindrances of birth to become the fiercest fighter in the whole Kingdom of Sonder. 
 
 `` *I could've, *'' insisted Palaquin, slurring every third word. Palaquin's helmet lat discarded to one side, revealing a freckled face with short chestnut hair. `` If she had n't run to... to... to... where'd she go?'' 
 
 `` Dunno. ( *hic. * ) Somewhere else.'' 
 
 `` Right. *I could've* made her happy, if she had n't run off to somewhere else.'' 
 
 `` She said I was n't right for her!'' Grolkor sniffed, desolate. `` After all that work. After sending my best armies to give her flowers, and kidnap her from the royal palace! Why ca n't I be right for a Princess? I loved her. I'm handsome. I would've been a great husband. I'm a ( *hic* ) catch!'' 
 
 `` Too right,'' Palaquin agreed. `` Too right, you are! We both are! I mean, gods, after all that work! Coming all this way to rescue her, across the Demon Swamps and Nightmare Pits. I lost three good men in the Nightmare Pits, you know.'' 
 
 `` They're awful.'' 
 
 `` They are! They really are! Then leading all my best warriors up here to kill yours, spending all day in sweltering my armour -- and she tells me that we're not right because I do n't have -- have --'' 
 
 `` The nerve of it,'' Grolkor wailed, clapping Palaquin on the shoulder. `` Just because we're different! We could've made her happy.'' 
 
 `` Too right!'' Palaquin clapped the goblin's armoured shoulder back, and they shook each other fiercely. `` Too right we could!'' 
 
 `` If only she'd appreciated us!'' 
 
 `` If only!'' 
 
 Palaquin looked into the goblin's eyes, surprisingly deep and blue. *You know, * she thought, brain marinating in alcohol, *he's rather handsome for a goblin beast. * 
 
 Deep within those swirling eyes, she saw the exact same thought processes ticking through his head. Abruptly, they stopped clasping. 
 
 `` Another song!'' the goblin sovereign suggested, hurriedly. 
 
 `` Yes!'' Palaquin agreed, heartily. `` Another song, to lift the mood!'' 
 
 `` This one's a good one,'' Grolkor promised. `` My father used to sing it to me. It's called: *Death to stinking humans, for all their stinking loves. *'' 
 
 Palaquin sang along, as best she could. 
 
 Their voices drifted on the air, for miles and miles and miles. 
 
 
 

