So the next time you see a lump of moss on a stump, remember Queen Isolda. She wore no gold. She spun no courtly intrigue. She was the queen who bent her crown to the earth, and in doing so, adopted the only kind of immortality that matters—the messy, lowly, stubborn persistence of life itself.
It was during the aftermath of a skirmish—a rout, really, where the goblins scattered like roaches before the knights’ torches—that the Queen found him. He was not a warrior, nor a spy. He was a creature no larger than a badger, shivering beneath a burned-out thicket, clutching a piece of tarnished glass as if it were a diamond. the queen who adopted a goblin top
This narrative is a favorite for those who enjoy tropes with a high-stakes edge. It asks the reader: What happens when the "villain" of a fairy tale is given the seat of a hero? So the next time you see a lump
What did the queen learn from her grotesque adopted child? She was the queen who bent her crown
The story is set in the Kingdom of Golden Kine following a massive battle against a goblin horde. While surveying the battlefield, the King and Queen discover a lone goblin survivor hidden within a destroyed catapult. The Queen's Choice
Goblins, in this world, are not the green-skinned comic relief of other fantasies. They are a cursed race, living in the "Tops"—the vertical scrap-heaps and abandoned spire-cities left over from a previous age. A "Goblin Top" refers to the alpha scavenger of a tribe; the one who climbs the highest, fights the dirtiest, and possesses a cunning that borders on terrifying genius.