Broken Chains

Puck had never been the strongest Gremlin. Neither the cleverest nor the most courageous for that matter.

At everything Puck did he was mediocre at the very best.

Day after day the other Gremlin’s mocked him and hurt him, without him ever striking back in any other way then silently cursing them and his whole life.

But when Puck talked with Zephyrian about Zephyrian’s life and all the other stories the sword had to tell, something changed. When Zephyrian told Puck about all the ups and downs, from the most glorious wins to the most terrible defeats, one thing remained constant.

The heroes and heroines in those situations never graveled, they never backed down. Yeah, now and then somebody had to give in to try to win later, but they all had a code of honor and a certain pride in them.

Perhaps a small or even a big part of that glory came from Zephyrian subjective descriptions, but that didn’t matter here and now.

What mattered was that Puck had finally come to a decision. He didn’t want to go on with his life as he had till now, so something had to change.

It was on a normal workday in the mushroom fields when Puck finally took the first action which would become a snowball that wouldn’t stop rolling.

Puck had already three hours of work behind him, and the first break of the day was nearing. The thing was though, Puck hated breaks.

At every break all the Gremlin’s came together to eat, drink and have some fun. Fun meaning in this context making fun of Puck.

As such Puck often decided not to come to the breaks and instead stay somewhere in the fields and nibble a little bit on the most edible mushrooms. So also, today.

But as Puck sat there and took his break, a subdued sound reached his ears and Puck smelled bad news. There was a subdued Gremlin shattering somewhere near him.

Then Puck heard a stone rolling over the ground somewhere in his proximity.

This normally would be the moment when Puck decided to run, as it was clear the other Gremlin’s were sneaking up on him again.

But at that moment Puck made that fateful decision. He wouldn’t run today.

Slowly and shaking a little bit from fear and adrenalin Puck stood up. It was yet to be decided how bad this would get. If it were just some of the average boring Gremlin workers, only bad jokes and one or two thrown stones would await him.

But not if it where them…

Them…, that was the group of Gremlin’s that had already chased Puck the day he found Zephyrian. It was a group of five Gremlin’s that had made it their personal mission to make Puck’s life as terrible as possible.

One of them, their leader, was even worse than the rest. It was he that held the others together and brought them back to their purpose of torturing Puck when they had forgotten Puck for a day or two.

Holden, unfortunately, wasn’t only their leader because he was stronger and bigger than the others, although he also was that too. No, he was also the mind of the operation.

And as Puck looked around himself, seeing a badly hidden Gremlin foot here and the scalp of another Gremlin there he became sure that it was exactly that group.

Afterall, who else would put in that much work? The other Gremlin groups did neither have time nor interest to take that much time in surrounding and cornering him.

Another impulse to run ran through Puck’s body, and he nearly gave in. But he knew, if he ran today, he would run tomorrow too. He would run for his whole life. Once he perhaps would have been willing to do so, but not anymore.

And so, Puck simply stood there. Around him the uneven and rocky tunnels and caverns, above him a low ceiling and in his nose the scent of the mushrooms he worked with day in day out.

It took another five minutes of Puck simply standing there, saying nothing, doing nothing, simply waiting for the inevitable before the attackers showed themselves.

On a loud shouted “go”, suddenly all the Gremlin’s that had been trying to hide till now jumped up and started running toward Puck.

Puck could see the surprise in their eyes when he didn’t react by running away. Instead, he simply kept standing at that same spot.

This wasn’t to say, Puck was calm, he thought he had more fear in him in that moment than in his whole life till now, but he didn’t run, and that was what counted.

First Puck simply had imagined himself standing there, and waiting, ignoring them completely and simply taking all the beating they wanted to dish out today. But there was a small voice in Puck’s head that wanted to do things differently.

What if he not only stayed without running, but also fought back?

The notion was terrifying, to fight back was to give his attackers more fuel. And Puck had no delusions, even if he could ditch out a great hit with his claws through surprise, that wouldn’t be enough against five enemy's.

But still, suddenly, when the other Gremlin’s where already slowing down all around him, seemingly willing to just attack with their voices for their time being, that small voice in the back of Puck’s head got louder and louder.

Suddenly that voice won over completely and Puck started moving.

The attacker’s seemingly having expected something like that started to close of all routes of escape. But that was no problem.

Without hesitating anymore, Puck ran toward Trim, the smallest and weakest of the other Gremlin’s.

Puck had no delusions, even with surprise on his side he would have no chance against someone like Holden.

Trim, even though smaller than the other Gremlin’s was still bigger than Puck. He had a big toothy smile on his face when Puck ran toward him.

That smile left quickly, as Puck attacked instead of fleeing. He lifted his left arm and racked the claws of his left hand over his enemy's face.

Trim fell, and suddenly a path to escape was open. But Puck wouldn’t run, not today, and as such he turned around.

A maniacal grin was plastered on his face, as he had gotten revenge on his enemies for the first time.