Goro: What a Small Thing Can Do

*~~I know I haven't known you very long but~~*

*~~I know I should remember how to do this without you. But I gave you something that I can't get back. I'm not the same person I was two months ago. I can't~~*

*~~Amari said that maybe in ten years~~*

*~~I never let myself think about the future. How much could I love you in ten years? How much could you love me? Apparently I'm never going to fucking know, which is why I normally don't~~*

Goro thought it would be easier if he started a letter in the middle. Which was how he ended up with a desk littered with sheets of paper with only one line written in the center of each of them.

Hansel loved Mishka more than every drop of water in the ocean, and he'd still left. It didn't matter how much he loved Goro. Fucking obviously.

#

Goro felt small.

He wasn't, not particularly—his height was about average for a half-elf or human man, near as he could tell; maybe even for a high elf. He was taller than Raef. He was taller than Mishka. He was slim, but not high elf slim. He was not a *small* person.

But he'd been a small child, and the memory of that was still implanted in some deep part of his brain. He'd been short, skinny, easy to miss. He'd hidden in tight places and it had saved his life more than once. He shot up several inches the year he turned sixteen, but by then it was too late; *small* was what had stuck.

Goro was a blip in Hansel's life. If you counted up every day Hansel had lived without knowing Goro, and maybe even tacked on the days he'd known Goro but not loved him yet, you'd have an ocean—or a lake at least—and the days he'd loved Goro were a few drops. Easy to miss, easy to lose amid everything else.

You could say one thing, which was that Goro had finally started to believe Hansel really loved him. He just wasn't sure it was enough to make a difference.

Wasn't like that for him. Hansel, his love for Hansel, had poured in so fast and so aggressively it had spread everywhere, past and present. It had taken over, become the *biggest* thing in his life, no matter how short it had been there.

He couldn't fathom how it could get even bigger after ten years. How could anything be bigger, period? What kinds of secrets were waiting at the end of ten years? What were Hansel and Mishka holding that he hadn't begun to grasp?

#

Goro hung onto the note Hansel had written Mishka, reading it over and over, like maybe the hundredth time it would shift and make him feel better.

Goro hadn't gotten a note, because he'd gotten spoken words. The living picture. The real deal. But he wished for a note instead, because notes stayed the same. They didn't change a little every time you looked at them. But trying to remember what someone had said out loud, that kind of thing kept shifting. Making you wonder and doubt yourself.

Hansel had said *I'm sorry, but—*

No, there hadn't been a *but*, Goro didn't think. Or an *I love you, but.* Just *I'm sorry. I love you.* Twice. Or three times?

Hansel had said *I need you to stand down when I ask you to. But I get it.* That had been the only *but*. And Goro sure as hell didn't get it.

He pictured himself running after Hansel, jumping and latching onto him, and fucking faking it. *Okay. I'll do it. I'll stand down when you ask me to.*

If the Griffin thing was really all—if that was the only sticking point—

Goro had to juggle "just let Hansel fucking die when there's a way to save him" with "fight so hard to save Hansel it drives him away," and hell if those weren't the shittiest fucking choices that both deserved to be dropped.

After enough ruminating about it he gave in, though. *Fine, I'll fucking forget about Griffin if that's what it takes to make you come back to me. I'll do anything for you. I'll do anything.*

He pictured himself crashing through a fucking wall to tell that to Hansel. Falling out of the sky like rain, landing on top of him, to tell him.

But he was too small to knock down a wall, obviously. Too small to be rain. When the rain fell it came with thousands of drops—millions probably—and Goro was just a few.

#

Sometimes he let Larkin drag him out of his room, but usually, he just stayed in bed. He wasn't hungry, so he didn't eat. He prayed to create water when he needed something to drink.

One night—probably the middle of the fucking night; he didn't really know what time it was—he found himself in the war room, dazed, almost like he'd sleepwalked there.

He studied the maps, looking over the notes Hansel had made. (His handwriting, familiar now primarily due to obsessive reading of the letter he'd left Mishka. He'd never written anything to Goro, that Goro could remember. He'd left Goro nothing, except the compass, but he'd sure taken a lot with him.)

Shepherd Hills. It was about five days away, if Goro was understanding things right. He sketched some copies of the maps, smaller versions. More portable. In case he decided he was reckless enough to walk there and crash through a wall, despite his smallness.

He walked into the library and eyed Ombre's fort. He was thinking of asking her for help, to make sure he'd read and copied the maps right.

Why the hell would Ombre help him try to go after Hansel? Why would Larkin? Mishka would, but Mishka wasn't back yet. If it was a five-day journey, there was hardly any telling when he'd be back.

Maybe Roddy would, but Goro didn't want to go through explaining why Hansel'd left in the first place. Who knew if Roddy knew how to read a fucking map, anyway.

Goro didn't even have the heart to go see Amari, or Joan for that matter. He was too ashamed to say what he'd done.

#

*~~The thing is, you can't leave just because~~*

*~~I don't think you understand~~*

*~~Did I even stand a chance? Did I even stand a fucking chance?~~*

He was fucking running out of paper.

On his last sheet, he wrote down everything he could remember Hansel saying right before he left.

*I'm sorry. I love you, and I need you to have my back. I need you to stand down when I tell you to. But I get it. I'm sorry. I love you.*

There. Now he had a note.

Mishka's note had a *but*, too. *But I won't be able to live with myself if I let you try to save me and other people die because of it.*

Goro lay in his bed and held the two notes up side-by-side, squinting through one eye, trying to merge them. *I need you to stand down when I tell you to. But I get it. I won't be able to live with myself if I let you try to save me.*

He sat hunched over them for a while. Mishka got seven *I love yous*, Goro got two. Not a bad ratio, considering.

Nine *I love yous* hadn't been enough for Hansel to stay.

Goro crumpled and uncrumpled the Mishka letter. Amari had said Hansel's love was limitless, not something scarce he had to parcel out. Still, Goro didn't want to have to ask for more pieces. Mishka didn't. Mishka just existed, going about his business, and he got seven *I love yous* in one drop. Goro chased and followed and clung and dragged.

Amari had said need could be a sickly, unpleasant thing.

#

After a couple more days, Goro wasn't even sad anymore; he was angry. He had promised Hansel he wouldn't leave, but apparently Hansel couldn't return the favor.

He threw things and kicked the walls until his toes were bruised. And it was so stupid, so pathetic, he couldn't stop thinking *This is why he left*, until he'd made himself sad again.

He got back into bed and cried.

#

It still didn't make enough sense. Goro took to defacing the notes, crossing some words out and copying others, until he had a better version.

*I love you, and I need you to have my back. I need you to stand down when I tell you to. But I get it, and I won't be able to live with myself if I let you try to save me. I'm sorry. People I care about are going to keep getting hurt if I stay. I can't deal with it.*

Then, he yelled at it. "People you care about are going to keep getting hurt if you *leave*, idiot!" He crunched it up in his fist.

He remembered another promise he'd made to Hansel. He'd said, *Wherever that thing takes you, I'll come find you.*

"Guess I'm going on a fucking trip, then," he said to the empty room. He couldn't actually remember the last time he'd said words out loud to another person, and he needed to talk. "Idiot."

Goro was small, but he'd show Hansel what a small thing could do.

#

He packed his things, and left a note for Mishka in his study: *I hope you're still there when I get there, or I run into you along the way, but if not, don't worry. I'm coming back.*

He considered adding something about how he could take care of himself, since Mishka didn't seem to think so—he'd made that remark about bandits on the road to Skyport, once—but decided not to bother. He wasn't a fucking child. He didn't have to defend himself like that.

He left another, general all-purpose note on his door for anyone who came looking for him, and then he set off.

#

Bandits were easy.

For a start—Mishka might not have realized this—god, Goro loved the shit out of him, but he fucking *looked* like a fancy rich guy, so obviously the robbers would gravitate toward him. Goro looked like a poor clergyman, and an armed one at that; he wore his vestments and a tattered wool cloak, and he carried his shield, emblazoned with Helm's gauntlet. He was not worth the trouble; he'd put up a fight and have little worth stealing. That, and he knew a lot of thieves considered it bad luck to steal from the Church. Hah.

A few times, he picked up on the presence of people hiding just off the road, and he heard their whispers, and he passed unmolested.

But nothing was foolproof. The further Goro traveled from civilization, also known as Skyport, the more desperate and stupid people got.

The first hostile group he encountered, a trio of hungry-eyed human men, tried to get the jump on him but underestimated how good his hearing was. He ducked and weaved out of the way of their axes and shortswords, then rose up and struck the biggest one in the face, casting a spell as he did so. Festering wounds erupted across the man's body, visible on all his exposed skin—head, neck, chapped red hands.

He dropped like a stone, but the other fucking idiots still didn't get the hint, and they each took another swing at Goro. The shortsword got him on his right forearm, but the ax blade lodged in his shield, so Goro kicked the man and inflicted wounds on him, too.

He dodged one last swing from the shortsword, hopping backward and calling a bolt of holy light down on its owner. Then he healed the cut on his arm, shaking his head at the three corpses. Seriously. Fucking morons.

They had nothing on them, not even a copper.

#

The second hostile group was a lot bigger—a dozen in total—and better-armed.

So Goro reached into his pocket, grabbed his Mask amulet, and turned himself invisible.

He left footprints in the snow. But by the time the bandits recovered from their surprise enough to notice, he was already off the road and into the woods, where it was much easier to disguise his tracks. They couldn't even form a united front—a handful of them crashed into the woods after him, others were yelling for them to get away because he was obviously some kind of demon.

Goro ducked into a hollow tree trunk, still invisible and thoroughly out of sight. One of the bandits tromped by, straight past him, cursing under his breath. "Mask. Where'd he go?"

*Nice try, buddy. Mask likes me better than you.*

He stayed there until the bandits had left the area. Silent.

Small.

#

Food and drink weren't a problem, since he had that spell that could get him both. He was even able to offer it up as an incentive at the households where he sought shelter at night. A humble cleric of Helm, footsore and weary, looking for a warm bed (or pile of straw) out of the cold, and—see, he even had some simple but nourishing food to share.

Most nights, he was able to find someone who'd take him in. Farmers, mostly—families probably not unlike Hansel's. On a couple of occasions, he was turned away from the only homes he could find, likely because the sensible people inside picked up on him being a shifty motherfucker, no matter how honest his intentions may have been at the time.

On those nights, he didn't sleep. Just kept walking. It was too cold to do anything besides.

#

He crouched on the ground, map laid out across his knees, wrist held level while he turned the ring on the compass.

He muttered to himself, reciting the names of hills and rivers and cardinal directions as he tried to puzzle out which path to take at this fucking fork.

He should've brought the original maps with him. His copies weren't as good, and the way he'd drawn the configuration of hills he was looking at now, across the valley he stood on the edge of, it just didn't look quite right.

Next thing he knew, he was crying. He folded the map up in a hurry so he wouldn't get tears on it and make the ink run.

He sat on his ass in the snow, face in his arms, and sobbed. He was so close. So close. Only a day away, if his estimates were right. And he was thinking of turning back, because of this goddamn fork in the road.

Because if he took the wrong way—if he fucked this up, and got lost, hours from the nearest village and days from home—it would be the final proof. Proof he was useless, that he wasn't enough. Too small. If he were the size of the sun, he could just fucking turn over and find himself wherever he needed to be.

If he promised to come find Hansel, and then got lost himself—well, it was hard to imagine anything more pathetic than that.

He was fucking cold, and exhausted. He hadn't slept in over a day, just been walking and walking and walking. It had been several hours since he last ate anything, but the thought of trying to shove something down while the sobs and tears kept coming out didn't work.

Supposing he did get lost. Took the wrong path, wound up on some abandoned road, lost the trail. He imagined he'd keep walking until he collapsed, and the snow would fall and cover him, his black hair and his black cloak making him indistinguishable from a fallen log.

Small, and easy to miss. A blip in the lives of everyone he'd ever known, his greatest legacy being that he'd helped start a fucking apocalypse.

What would happen, though, to all the love he carried around? That was the funny thing about hateful little Goro Flatflower; somehow, his love for other people had become who he was. He was awash in it. He was made of it. If he died it would flow out in waves and maybe it would melt the fucking snow. Maybe it would melt the whole fucking earth, like he really was the sun.

It felt like that much love. It felt like a whole sun's worth.

Goro climbed to his feet, jaw clenched and tears still spilling from his eyes. Too many thoughts fighting for dominance in his head, everything from—

*I promised him I'd come find him.*

To that image of himself dead and cold on the forest floor, to—

*I can't die. It's impossible for me to die. I'm fucking immortal; I'm nothing but thoughts and feelings.*

To wondering, what if he showed up at Hansel's parents' doorstep, and Hansel fucking turned him away, told him to go back, to—

*You can't hide from the motherfucking sun, Hansel Granger.*

He unfolded his map, checked it one last time, and chose the path he thought was the right way.

He kept walking.