Lysandra paced the room, the cold floor creaking beneath her impatient steps. The jewels she had surrendered still rested on the desk — silent witnesses to her mistake. Beside them, the grimoire opened and closed its pages as if in protest.
She held the book, opened to the marked page, and murmured the trembling incantation. Each syllable seemed to tear away a fragment of her courage, but the air remained still. No whisper, no breeze.
Suddenly, a sharp crack shattered the silence. Dark smoke rose from the pedestal, curling in slow spirals. A wavering figure took shape in the shadows.
When the mist cleared, reality struck her fully: there stood a goblin — grotesque, vile, and disturbingly real. Its skin was a filthy green, marked with scars and dried crusts, as if it had been molded from the sludge of a forgotten swamp. Its eyes, small and yellowed, gleamed with primitive malice, sunken like wells of hunger and cruelty.
The body was thin, almost skeletal, yet agile. Dry muscles moved beneath the skin like taut cords, and its short, twisted limbs ended in hands with long fingers and black claws, grimy with dried blood. Its head was disproportionate, with pointed ears and a flattened snout that exhaled a putrid breath — a mix of rotting flesh and mildew.
It wore tattered rags, stained with dirt and fluids Lysandra preferred not to identify. And yet, something in its posture suggested obedience — a tilt of the head, a fixed gaze, as if awaiting orders. As if, despite its repulsive appearance, it had come to serve.
The stench that followed was worse than the sight. A reek of old and fresh sweat, filthy and repulsive, invaded her lungs. Never in her pampered life had she experienced such foulness.
Lysandra recoiled, her arm covering her face, eyes watering. Even so, the creature stared at her with confused loyalty, tilting its head with a raspy murmur.
She stepped back, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a scream.
"He... he's so ugly!" she whispered, her voice wavering between disgust and disbelief.
The goblin's eyes, small and yellowed, didn't just gleam with hunger — there was something else there, something Lysandra couldn't name. A strange, intense glimmer that flickered in the depths of its pupils like dying embers. It was a gaze that moved across her not as one who observes, but as one who claims.
She felt a shiver crawl up her spine, not from fear, but from an unfamiliar, unsettling sensation. That creature looked at her with an intensity that went beyond mere obedience. There was desire there — raw, instinctive, animalistic — and Lysandra, raised among silk curtains and royal protocols, didn't know how to recognize what it meant.
It was as if the goblin saw her not as a mistress, but as something to be possessed. And though she couldn't understand the name of that glimmer, her body reacted with repulsion and confusion. Instinct screamed, even if reason didn't follow.
She stepped back again, the grimoire still pressed tightly to her chest. The creature's gaze followed her, fixed, burning — not with reverence, but with a hunger she couldn't name. It was deeper, more intimate, more dangerous.
Raised behind veils of purity and books about honor, Lysandra couldn't comprehend what that gleam meant. No one had ever spoken to her about desire — not the real kind, raw and instinctive. The world she knew from books was made of formal promises, arranged marriages, and rehearsed smiles. Nothing had prepared her for the way that goblin looked at her.
And yet, her body reacted. Her skin prickled, her stomach tightened, and a silent sense of violation spread through her limbs. It was as if she were being touched without hands, invaded without movement. The contrast between her ignorance and the creature's intent created an abyss — a space where fear was not just physical, but existential.
She didn't know what lust was. That's why she didn't feel revulsion, but strangeness.
"Gouuu..."
On impulse, Lysandra raised the grimoire like a shield.
"Stay where you are! I... I command you!"
The being trembled, let out a low growl, but remained still, its eyes glowing with a mix of loyalty and hunger.
She slammed the book shut, her heart still racing. Reality settled in: that beast was her guardian. Horrible, clumsy, yet now eternally bound to her fate.
Lysandra stood frozen before the creature, her disgust crystallizing with every breath. The stench of old and new sweat seeped into her nostrils, as if she were inhaling her own contempt. Her once proud shoulders now sagged under the weight of humiliation.
She brought a fist to her chest, clutching the fabric of her dress in an unconscious gesture. Every muscle in her face tightened, carving lines of anger and shame. The princess, accustomed to luxury and pampering, felt insulted by the twisted form before her.
"Wretched, stinking abomination..." she murmured, her voice sharp. The words came out trembling, yet firm. And then her father's voice resurfaced in her mind, cold and unyielding: "I told you so." The echo of that sentence shook her from within.
Lysandra lifted her chin, fingers clenched into white-knuckled fists. Her chest heaved, her temples throbbed. In a sudden motion, she extended her arm, gesturing as if to cast away her own creation.
The creature cleared its throat, emitting a string of guttural sounds:
"gobu… goog… gou… guuuu… gobu-gobu."
She stepped back, her gaze flickering between disdain and restrained curiosity. Despite all the revulsion, something in that strangeness held her — as if the ugly guardian were an affront to her own image, yet also the only chance of not being alone.
'A friend didn't have to be beautiful, right?'