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Gammy's Eyes

-Hapsan 92-

The largest river in the Great Wood, which nearly bisected it but for a few leagues to the west, was known to goblinkind as ‘Xan-ten-ho’, or ‘River After Life’. No species that made a home in the Wood had ever traversed it from end to end, for it passed through the Underwood, which was a place even water spiders and agile perch feared to tread (or to swim, as it were).

When the Gossamer City fell and the bearded folk vanished from the known world, goblinkind scattered along the winds. Those who went even further north were never heard from again. The ones who migrated to the east and west are as enigmatic still, but the majority, who fled due south from the horns of the icebeast, found themselves in the Great Wood. They suffered under the age of ice for many generations, but life has its ways; they survived, and made a home there until the dawn of the new millennia and the coming of the sun. Though they believed in the general benevolence of spirits, they had come to respect the wrath of nature as much as her love, and sought balanced lives in the hopes the seasons would do the same.

Though Quip the Borzoi had passed this time in a chrysalis of ice, history does not record what the Wildbun had been up to, nor was he aware himself. The void left in Rulatani’s heart by his ignorance left him often melancholic, and taciturn from his frustrations.

One night, when the hapsan breezes had begun to turn brisk, Rulatani spied the red light of Luna’s sister Rula—the darkened moon after which he was named—hanging quietly in the starry sky. He roused Quip and the Two Friends lit out after it, but she would go no further when they came across a goblin settlement. Kindled by the sight were Quip’s memories of a different age, when the icy spires of her homeland kissed the northland sky, and her ears were tended by her beloved prince. Though she knew the goblins had been mistreated and thought them often kind, she could never forget the fires of genocide on that fateful day when the walls fell, and she was deathly afraid. Inconsolable she would not go, and so Rulatani, who had vowed to follow Rula’s light wherever it led him, investigated alone.

The Wildbun, who had never seen a goblin and was taken by curiosity, observed the strange cloth they swaddled themselves in despite their amber hairs, and the curious devices they manipulated by their opposable digits. They stood and walked upon only their hinds, which were bent in reverse, and lived neither in dens, nests, nor burrows underground. Instead they made their homes from complex structures built steadfast into the largest sequoias, with sweeping balustrades and winding staircases that kept them off the ground.

To Rulatani the goblins appeared to be in festival, but no bells tolled nor banners hung, and not a voice was raised but in a mourning dirge. He watched them gather upon the banks of Xan-ten-ho, which from their settlement flowed south unto the border of the Underwood. Two of their number lay in state, lashed to a sturdy raft and adorned with offerings of fruit and wine. Nearby were moored simple fishing boats, upon which juveniles were perched among mounted balls of glowing faerie fire.

One goblin in robes of ceremony read to the crowd from an ancient grimoire about the toils of their people, and their exodus from the purgatory of the northlands. Goblinspeak was far too complex for Rulatani’s understanding, but his long ears caught it easily, and we shall relay some here for our own purposes.

“The end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end. Those who leave us this day go on to fill new roles in the circle. It is well we miss them and mourn their passing, but they mourn not, for no form is permanent, and they are ready to begin anew. Today we send the shells from which they seek to depart down the River After Life with our offerings in memoriam, that their spirits be set free in the Underland and returned to us in the bark of the trees, the birds at our ears, and the momentary smiles we experience without understanding. May what is left be reclaimed to make our soil fertile and our bellies full. In this way we help hapsan to be strong, so that never again does the icebeast raise its head.”

Rulatani saw the light of Rula focused somewhere in the crowd. Taken wholly by it he crept nearer along the banks until his hefty form could no longer be hidden by river reeds, and he was discovered. The robed elder, who was known never to be surprised by anything anymore, recoiled, and when pressed by her kin explained herself.

“I have never seen one before, but they are described in the ancient texts,” said the elder. “It is ban-tang—a hopper—and a very large one to be sure!”

“It’s so beautiful, Odona. Is it a good omen?” asked a youth, who addressed the elder with a term that means ‘grandmother’ in the common tongue.

“No Dondro, it is not. They come from the Underwood, where the dark things roam. It is said that place was once kinder, but when the hoppers left it became what it is today. They are all gone now, so any that still linger are no more than shadows, led in thrall by the darkened moon.”

“I see only the grace of Luna above!” said one, but Odona shook her head.

“Only those who exist outside the circle, cursed to live forever, can lay eyes upon Rula.”

“What does it want?” another asked.

“There is no greater loneliness than forever,” Odona warned them.

When the goblins heard this, they began to hurl twigs, pebbles, and all manner of roughage at Rulatani that they might shoo him away. But the Wildbun, who was as stubborn as he was solid and had endured far worse, stood firm and would not be dislodged. It came to an impasse, and the people cried out in terror that he, a specter hopelessly alone, would spirit them away.

From the gathering finally emerged not a warrior or guardsman, but a dondro—a small child whose snout was not yet mottled, and whose tusks had yet to grow in. There was no one to hold her back, for she was now alone in the world; both her parents had succumbed to the hapsan fevers, and it was they who lay upon the river raft to await their journey after life. Her countenance was bright and kissed of youth, but too young was she for the tear tracks that marred it. She approached Rulatani as her parents, who had been hunters and challenged the Wood’s depths, had taught her—with fear not as her enemy, but as her guide.

“I’m called Camil,” said she in a voice that crackled like a cricket’s harp. “I’m so sorry Mister Hopper…I didn’t mean to do it. Please don’t take anyone else away!”

Rulatani inclined his massive head to one side, and his long whiskers twitched. He made no reply, and so Camil pointed at the raft where the goblin couple lay. Beside them sat a tiny being crafted to resemble goblinkind, woven from hemp and stuffed with brush.

“Otoo (papa) made Gammy, and Otaa (mama) made her alive so she could be my friend. I gave her to them so she could guide them down the river.” Camil opened her hands, producing from each a stone that glittered blue in the light of both celestial sisters. “I kept Gammy’s eyes…I didn’t want to be alone. If you’ve come to take them back, then here they are. Please don’t take anyone else instead.”

The red light of Rula shown on one stone, but not the other. Upon the former did Rulatani place his paw, and off again was he with it in his mouth, leaving the latter to collect dew in the grass. Camil watched his puffy, tawny tail vanish into the reeds, and then grew misty when she saw what he had left behind. She gathered up the remaining stone, then whispered these words to the specter who had visited the village on the day of her parents’ journey down the River After Life:

“Thank you, Mister Hopper.”

The adults gathered round to appreciate what Camil had done with fear as her guide, and her voice faded into the night.

Rulatani, who had many bumbly, roly-poly folds to his girth, tucked the stone away in one, knowing only if his mother had looked down upon it, it was a thing worth having. He hopped down the riverbank until the village fell long out of sight, then watched quietly as the raft floated by. The strange image of sackcloth looked back at him without eyes, then lolled with the ripples and toppled into dark water.

Rulatani, who knew little of time or curses, never saw it again. Meanwhile, in the bark of every tree, the song of every bird, and the momentary smiles she received without understanding, Camil the goblin dondro did.

© 2026 Scott McCloskey ("Bunzoi", "Bunzoi.com").
Image created with GIMP/CSP support; Character designs by Jessie Greenhalgh. Bunzoi is committed to the avoidance of generated text and/or images.

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To Gain Everything

-Hapsan 101-

It so happened that Rulatani and Quip, who in their early days together had yet to travel the length and breadth of the Great Wood, found themselves in regions no more than a few leagues from the border of the Underwood most of the time. Ever since the passing of the Elderbuns that place had been known as a source of nightmares, and thus most sane creatures sought to avoid it. For Rulatani’s part, he could recall little if anything of the age in which he wandered there, alone, and though he shuddered to think of it, there was a certain attraction all the same. Like moths to a flame or rats to the piper it was not a healthy attention, and he spent many clear summer nights peering towards the dark wood’s edge, lost in the memories that had made him.

Quip, who was loyal to a fault and might just as soon have talked her friend down from his morbid fascinations, found that she could not do so, for her loss was no less painful. On the contrary, she found in his behavior a modicum of affinity, for the age of ice had ended, and she could not visit the northlands across the emerald strait from where she had come. Even could she have done so, there was no reason to believe any trace of Barzan, the bearded city of ice, remained.

On the colder nights they huddled together, their eyes averted to the Rula, the darkened moon turned somber red, who guided them by riddles only they could hear.

On a warm summer’s eve, when fireflies danced among the tall meadow grasses in the larger clearings, The ‘Two Friends’ (as they were known) came across a band of foxes who were sharing a meal. Had the friends been more worldly this might have struck them as odd; foxes are solitary hunters, rarely known for their generosity in the kill. The foxes numbered half a score, and upon noticing the friends came out immediately to sniff them. Quip returned the gesture, such being considered proper and polite in canine society, but the Wildbun drew back with alarm. As a giant among his kind Rulatani was full the size of an adult fox and nearly doubled one in girth, but unlike his encounter with the stoats so many years ago, he no longer held the passions of kin to protect, and he was still working through the muddled memories that rang between his ears. Being a stubborn soul he would have faced them anyway, but Quip raised her hackles and laid upon the foxes a withering gaze.

“He is my friend,” said she to them, and added: “Whosoever of you would make sport of him will answer to me.”

The foxes thought it strange that their cousin would befriend a plump meal, but as a Borzoi Quip was many times their size, and her white fangs gleamed in the moonlight. They backed down, their ears flat against their skulls, and by way of apology invited the two friends to dinner. Quip, whose stomach had good cause to rumble of late, readily accepted. Rulatani followed suit out of politeness, but contented himself with the berries he had foraged.

The meal was a large one indeed.

“Tell me, to what do you attribute your success?” asked Quip, who had noticed more than one emaciated owl or marten of late, “I have found this region to be so sparse that I can hardly keep myself fed, much less if there were ten of me. It is as if there is no game here at all.”

The foxes wore toothy grins. Their leaders made assurances that Rulatani would remain unmolested, then led Quip away to a glen where a bold creek babbled. By its banks there was a stockade built of gathered timbers, its perimeter stalked ceaselessly by vixen guards. Within were housed flightless prey creatures by the very hundred: voles, mice, squirrels, and chipmunks were sequestered there, alongside a dozen other species. Young groundhogs and badger cubs wailed for their mothers, while a line of terrified frogs were hop-marched to the gulag from their homes along the creek bed.

“See what we have done!” The fox leaders declared. “They cannot be found because we have rounded them all up!”

Quip watched as mothers turned their young away in terror. “What have you done here? This is not hunting at all!” She declared in shock. “You have broken the chain—taken more than your fill! There will be nothing left at this rate, and we will all starve!”

The foxes lanced her with a wary gaze. Quip, who was a prudent sort, fell silent, for though she towered over them she was now outnumbered by fifty to one. Though it pained her, she turned her back on the cries of the helpless, gathered up Rulatani, thanked the foxes for their generosity, and was on her way.

The moons waned for several nights, and when they were new the Two Friends returned under cover of darkness. They slipped past the vixen guards, but when Rulatani threw aside the gulag gate, the inmates did not move.

“Fly, fly from this place,” Quip urged them. “My friend and I will spirit you to freedom, go quickly!”

“Will you not eat us too?” asked a dour red squirrel.

“I will,” Quip replied honestly.

“Then why set us free?” asked a cautious vole.

“Because this is not the way,” said Quip. She might have added more, but the vixens, whose numbers were substantial, took note of their presence and were quickly upon them.

“How dare you!” They declared. “We are only storing food, as these creatures do. We mean only to see our young through the worst days of subotal.”

“You fill the bellies of your pups but rob them of who they are,” said Quip. “Is it not already so?”

One of the vixens faltered. “My kits have still not learned to hunt. They are too old not to know.”

Another spoke up: “I have become slow and weak. I am always here. I go nowhere else.”

“I am fed here, but I hate living this way,” said a third. “Am I wrong to feel thus?”

“Your leaders have made you dependent on an untenable system, and have shamed you against speaking out about it,” Quip explained. “You slave away in tasks that do not suit you, existing without life, while they think only of gain. But to gain everything is to have nothing. There will be no prey left to sow seeds and spread them throughout the wood; when there is no food left for them, there will be no food left for us.” She thrust her paw at the gulag and the haunted faces therein. “Do you think they will flourish and multiply like this? We are hunters, not gatherers, and at the top of the chain we are the weakest, most dependent part for the many rungs that hold us aloft.”

“But they are our leaders,” one vixen replied. “What can we say?”

“Tell your leaders what I have told you, as it is all the moreso for them,” said Quip. “From my master I once learned the truth of it: A leader is the greatest servant of them all.”

The vixens exchanged tired glances, and as one acquiesced. With Rulatani—who was himself a prey creature—to reassure them, the inmates burst forth in a frenzied bluster, taking off for the safety of the wood.

On the morrow the vixens and their reynards confronted those who led them, and bade them be reminded of the mandate by which all rulers rule. The gulag was abandoned, and the foxes of the Great Wood became foxes again. Their pups grew up healthy and strong, taking only what they needed from the world beyond their dens.

And the Two Friends continued on their way.

© 2026 Scott McCloskey ("Bunzoi", "Bunzoi.com").
Image created with GIMP/CSP support; Character designs by Jessie Greenhalgh. Bunzoi is committed to the avoidance of generated text and/or images.

(Click above to find this story on Facebook, or listen to the audio adaptation on YouTube.)

Grimmypop!

-Lalen 67-

So it was that Rulatani the Wildbun and Barzan Quip became fast friends and traveling companions. They knew not where they went in the world, but always found themselves there together.

The remainder of their tales are recorded in the Balsamic Ballads, as performed by legendary songstress Anastasia the Whippoorwill, who is said to have known the Two Friends personally and heard each story from their very lips. Regretfully these tales are presented in no particular order save that which came to Quip and Rulatani at the time.

It so happened that Quip, who was a Borzoi and suited nicely to the cold, cared little for it, as it served to her a reminder of all she had lost. Rulatani’s bulk was proof against a hard chill, but upon learning of his friend’s discomfort, suggested they travel south at the first true signs of subotal. This they did, until the crunch of golden leaves gave way to wetlands, and those wetlands grew up into a jungle. The curious plants and giant water lilies there were new to them, and they had trouble discerning the fairest game.

You might think sustenance a mere trifle to the ageless, but aside from their persistent days they were otherwise quite mortal, being spared neither pangs of hunger nor dryness of thirst. Their wanderings in the humid south set Rulatani’s ears up and Quip’s tongue to lolling so badly that they were obliged to seek the hospitality of a wayhouse on the road one night.

This house—called the ‘Blue Cockatoo’—was nightly host to scores of avian patrons, who were prideful of their colorful plumage and curved, solid beaks. They were friendly enough, if not raucous, and repeated one another’s words such that Quip was reminded of a game the bearded folk used to play called badminton, in which nothing much happened but passing the shuttlecock around without end. They served acorn rum and cashews in bowls without utensils, for unlike ourselves, they saw neither vulgarity nor ridiculousness in eating with one’s face.

“Your pardon, Keeper,” said Quip on their third night in attendance, “but my drink has gone cold even before I received it. Might I have another?”

The keeper’s plumage rose up high on his crown, and he was heard to shout: “Grimmypop!”

The other birds took up the word, shouting it in chorus, until poor Quip felt embarrassed for even having asked. Rulatani, whose ears doubled his overall height when they were fully perked, laid his paw on the bar with some authority.

“No self-respecting creature drinks acorn rum cold!” he insisted. “What will you do about it?”

“Grimmypop!” they all said. “Grimmypop! Grimmypop! Grimmypop-pop-pop!”

Quip receded into her mantle as far as her long snout would allow “It’s alright. Let it be.”

On the morrow they left that place, but wherever else they went things ended up the same. If ever they were misunderstood or misdirected and gave voice to their troubles, the birds all shouted “Grimmypop!”

Soon they became afraid to speak up at all.

On a certain afternoon while the Two Friends walked, Rulatani trod before a pair of ant colonies, where workers went about their toil. A plump anteater had come out to take her place in the circle of life, but this strange, long-eared creature stood in her way.

“Pardon me, Sir,” said the anteater, “but would you kindly make way to the fire ants’ nest?”

She made this request specifically, but Rulatani, who knew nothing of ants, instead made a path to the other. When she pointed out his error and asked him to rectify it, he might as well have burst into plumage on the spot, for he had this to say:

“Grimmypop! You complain and complain, and whine like reeds in the wind! Grimmypop-pop-pop!”

The anteater wilted with embarrassment, and abashedly she scurried away.

For a fortnight Rulatani made many booming utterances of the strange new word, and each time he did the parrots backed him up from their high branches. He renounced every indiscretion with cries of ‘grimmypop’, and his breast swelled with the comfort of belonging, for he had no kin to call his own.

Quip, who was as lonesome for her own folk as he, began to feel feathers growing in her coat too. She nearly said the word herself one day, but was interrupted by the sound of a pitiable song. Her ears swiveled towards it, and she turned Rulatani’s attention that way.

“Someone is in trouble,” said she. “Let us see if we can help.”

Amid the lilies they came upon a green-backed sparrow who was neither injured nor emaciated. They asked her what was the matter, and she explained it to them in a most maudlin tone.

“I’m called Grimmypop. It was my mother’s name and her mother’s before. It is a beautiful name you see, and I wanted very much to share it with my hatchlings, but that can’t happen now, for they would only end up a laughing stock like me. I will never give my name again. There will be no more Grimmypops.”

“Why do they use your name this way?” asked Quip.

“I do not know,” the sparrow lamented. “One of them decided that a ‘grimmypop’ is any creature who askes for correction or makes complaint, and the rest of them normalized it with their mimicry. One can scarcely refuse to use it these days, nor can anyone stand against it. I am ashamed just to be me. How can I ever fly high again, with my name to weigh me down?”

Rulatani was sore ashamed. He bade the little sparrow ride on his girthy shoulder, and hopped with her back to the Blue Cockatoo with haste. When the rum was again served cold, he made a point of it.

“Grimmypop!” said the birds. “Grimmypop-pop-pop!”

“You want so badly to belong that you make it so others cannot,” Rulatani declared. “I have done the same. Because of my words, this sparrow cannot love herself anymore.”

“It is only a joke,” said the Keeper. “You are too worked up over it.”

“A joke that brings harm is no joke at all,” quipped Quip. “What if we called all dirty and disorderly establishments ‘blue cockatoos’?”

The birds began to repeat that phrase, but the keeper cried: “No fair, no fair! My place is not like that!”

“And neither is Grimmypop,” rumbled the Wildbun. His ire was focused on himself and so he raised no paw against them, but his countenance was imposing, and the parrots parted in his wake.

“It is better to find fellowship in kindness,” said Quip, recalling a lesson given by her absent prince. “If you use a word often, make it always a good one, and never take them from where they are needed.”

The confused parrots continued to pop for some time thereafter, and so Quip, who was well-read and knew many good words, went among them and gave out better ones to use (none of which were other creatures’ names). The keeper staked his reputation on warm acorn rum, and Grimmypop gave her firstborn hatching a wondrous gift that may very well have outlived the Two Friends themselves.

As for Quip and Rulatani (who apologized and was forgiven), their plumage fell out, and they went on their way.

© 2026 Scott McCloskey ("Bunzoi", "Bunzoi.com").
Image created with GIMP/CSP support; Character designs by Jessie Greenhalgh. Bunzoi is committed to the avoidance of generated text and/or images.