Heard Myself in a Goblin's Voice Tonight

I heard my own story told back to me tonight.

A goblin bard - Krazzle Fizzle-Tune, which I thought was a joke but it wasn’t - took the floor of a tavern I was passing. He spoke about me. Not singing, not with the theatrics the regulars said he usually does. Just sitting there with his lute in his lap, talking about... well. About me. Vamiko Vesperwind. The sea and the storm and the monks who found me. About Yak, and Xol, and even Nyx-Nyx (he called her "Nixie" which - I mean, she might answer to that, she answers to anything if you have treats).

I stood in the back near the door, half-hidden, and listened to a stranger describe my life with more... I don't know. More words than I ever give it. He said I was building a road. That I walk three paths beneath my feet. I don't - I just do what feels balanced, what feels true. But hearing it spoken like that, with his voice all strange and reverent... I had to press my hand to my chest. Feel my heartbeat.

Wonder if maybe I've been telling myself a smaller story than - no, that's not right. I don't even know what that means, "smaller story." But something about it felt true. Is that strange? It felt true.

He got things wrong, though. Like, the part about me shouting "Yak! Get back here!" - I was way more dignified than that! (I wasn't. There was shouting. And running. And the mud puddle was unavoidable, really, it was right there.) And Xol didn't "simply like the flavor" of my chi - it took months! Sitting near him without flinching, letting him learn I wouldn't strike first, bringing him the good dried fish even when he hissed. But the essence was right. The goblin saw something in my wandering that I've been too busy doing to see.

What stuck with me was his ending. That I'm "never entirely lost, never entirely found." I've felt that, I don't know what to call it, that not-belonging… Too elven for the Pandaren, too Pandaren for the elves. But he made it sound like... like being between isn't the same as being broken? Is that what he meant? I'm still thinking about it.

I came back to my room and made tea. Sat with it until it cooled, which Chi would scold me for. Thought about my parents, the names I'm searching for in those dusty records. Thought about Chi pressing his forehead to mine before I left. Thought about Yak downstairs in the stable, probably eating something he shouldn't.

I don't know why Krazzle chose my story. I don't know if I deserve to be anyone's tale. But I'm... flattered? Is that the word? It feels warm and strange and I keep smiling when I think about it. To have someone look at what I'm doing and not think it's strange - or wrong - or... I dunno what the word is. But it felt like he saw that I'm trying. That I'm going somewhere. That's a gift I didn't know I needed.

I keep thinking I should thank him. If our paths cross again. I could bring tea, if goblins even like tea. (Do they? I don't know how to find out without explaining why I want to know. Perhaps I'll just... hope he knows. Somehow. That I appreciated it.)

Tonight, though, I write this down before I convince myself I imagined it. Before I decide it didn't matter.

He made me sound like someone worth knowing.

I think... I think I'd like to believe he's right.

V