Over the years, Zerel had fielded many a question about her past life. The goblinless world she hailed from. All sorts of things from complicated technology to the ck of magic to the roads and people. Her cnsfolk were quite curious. One line of questioning seemed simple; what was your chief like?

  Well, Lilith the human trans woman didn’t have a chief.

  Then who was in charge? Did you have something like the emperor?

  A man called the president was more or less in charge, and he was kind of like the emperor in some ways but not in others. No, he wasn't the strongest guy in the country, either.

  Eventually the questions came to elections. Yes, her old world often chose the leaders by vote, but becoming a candidate to even be able to be voted for was often complicated. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it did allow people to switch out leaders they didn’t like to, hopefully, leaders that they did. It smoothed over power transitions by allowing people's voices to be heard. Honestly, Zerel may have slipped into some rote repetition of pro-democracy propaganda. She had expined republics and representative democracy to the best of her ability. A lot of cnsfolk found it intriguing at the least.

  Elections and electoralism were decidedly not a part of goblin civics. That was something Zerel had introduced to the cn on her own. Largely, the way goblin cns operate was decided by the strongest members. The power provided by might. She hadn't expected for Chron to have been paying attention to all the little details of her stories.

  He checked around with the other hobgoblins and the other couple of ogres in the cn, and no one else was putting in their name for chief. This didn't mean Zerel could back out, though.

  No, she was nominated.

  By Ramel, by Isra and the rest of the coven. By Sandolph and Tabree and a dozen more hobgoblins. A bunch of the younger goblins had even insisted she was an option. Zerel had accidentally made herself quite popur.

  She still didn't want to be chief, and she told several of her supporters so. Isra and Ramel made the point that Zerel was already kind of the leader of the cn. Chron had been handing her the reins for years, and it's not like Zerel had been refusing.

  The two leaders talked at breakfast in the coven workshop. They had continued regurly meeting for years to keep Chron updated on the coven. Today Zerel kicked the other girls out to talk one on one. She rarely got to talk to him directly like this; usually someone else was around. For once it was just the ogre chief and his ostensible protégé.

  “Zerel,” he said, taking a seat. “You want to talk.”

  “I want to talk,” she agreed, staring down their breakfast. Scrambled eggs, a little gravy, and meat, wrapped in ftbread. Call it a wrap or call it a burrito. Chron was already biting into one out of his three; extra portions for the ogre. Zerel had two, she wanted the extra nutrition for herself, after all. Lilith the human had been a gamer, but a poorly endowed one, and she wasn't about to lose in size with a second chance; she wanted tits. Big ones. She didn't develop magic progesterone just to have fun with Ramel.

  Her results were pretty good so far.

  “Why do this?” she asked, looking back up at Chron, “things were fine, you didn't need to be the one to force it.”

  He stared right back at her as he ate his breakfast burrito. For a long, awkward minute, they just sat there while he ate. Zerel was familiar with the tactic.

  When he was done with the first of his three bits of breakfast, he said, “I did need to force it.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth, “I liked this method of resolution quite a lot better than what someone else might have suggested. Better than the default.”

  “Fine, you wanted to have an election instead of a cage match. I still don't get why you're campaigning for me when you're a candidate too.”

  Chron smirked at her, countering, “Do you think that I want to be chief, Zerel?”

  She frowned at his question because, for some reason, it had never really come up. Chron was the chief and that had long seemed the immutable truth in Ademhill. As far as Zerel understood, she was born before his arrival and ascension and the cn had been a hidden little refugee camp before it actually needed leadership. There was maybe one of the warren mothers here, before then? Nobody really kept track of where others had come from.

  “You don't want to be chief?” She asked.

  “You don't either,” he rebutted.

  He was right. She wanted to do other things; explore the world, get hormone treatments for those who needed it, maybe meet a cute girl or two. Zerel didn't want to spend all of her time managing goblins.

  “So we're fighting over who has to be the responsible one in charge.”

  “Yes. And I'm making the argument that you are the more responsible choice. The cn has prospered whenever you're leading a project. Even when you were just brewing potions for yourself, you hunted dozens of boar and left months of preserved meat in your wake for all of us.”

  Chron sighed, “you've become one of the strongest goblins I've ever seen , Zerel. I'm worried - no, actually - we're worried that you'll just walk away from us without something keeping you here. That you're well liked is just a bonus.”

  “You think making me chief will stop me from leaving?”

  “I know it will. You're like me in that way. You can't help taking on responsibilities if they're given to you. It's interesting, actually, since I know why I'm that way, but not why you are. It must be something about your past life.”

  Chron was right about that, and Zerel hated it. Lilith's friends and found family had been worried someone would take advantage of her for it. She usually had an excuse for obvious bullshit, at least. It was something she remembered working on.

  “Besides,” he continued, “I've been doing a lot of work as the chief for a long time. I don't have other interests and goals outside of the cn. I never had the chance, Zerel. I want time to find out who I am without worrying about the lives of a few hundred runts.”

  Another small revetion about the ogre. He's been in a state of emergency for his whole life. No time for personal development other than what came from his position. It'd be sad if she didn't know she had personally helped make his job much easier. She only sort of cared. They were kind of friends, kind of family so it was hard not to feel some empathy about it.

  “Fine,” Zerel ruefully replied, “I won't go down without a fight. I'm not just a goblin. I want to help people in a different way.”

  Chron picked up his second wrap, “I don't expect any less.”

  Zerel lost. Or rather, she won. She was elected. One of a few ridiculous things that happened before she had to meet with Count Vasi.

  She had been very vocal in her protests against being chief, and had tried to justify Chron as a better choice. It wasn't very convincing to the more savvy cnsfolk. The less savvy ones just figured she didn't like the title. They figured she'd like to be a queen better, so they started calling her queen. Then the hobs and the coven did ironically, eventually affecting the whole cn. Then someone told the merchant, James Renault. He told other merchants, and even Count Vasi seemed to have heard about the goblin witch queen of Ademhill whom he was to negotiate with when she met him.

  It did give her an excuse to wear the imposing bck dress donated by Mr. Renault, though. Someone had told him she favored dark clothes. She was thankful no one had produced a crown for her. Yet. There was talk of it.

  Thraes Hold was unimpressive. It was bigger than Ademhill but that was mostly because it could afford to be. The fort and manor made up for it, just barely. The manor was set behind a second, taller stone wall over the town palisade and had a sizable courtyard. It was built right into the fortifications of the well maintained, millennium-old fort.

  Dorin Vasi was a shortish man, brown eyed, bck haired and beige skinned, who wore martial finery that showed just a hint of wear. Zerel wondered if he didn't want to waste money on new clothes.

  “Queen Zerel,” he said, as she settled into the sitting room, “a pleasure to meet your highness in person.”

  She kept her expression neutral and scoffed internally, “A pleasure to meet you in person as well, Count Vasi. Please, just call me Zerel.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  The other man in the room spoke up, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am. I'm Paul, the mercenary guild master for Thraes Hold.” Zerel greeted him in kind, and the negotiations began.

  It wasn't particurly interesting, boiling down to a nonaggression agreement between the residents and mercenaries of Thraes Hold and Ademhill only . Vasi and Paul only had influence here and, technically, in the Count's actual demesne in the western region of the empire. Zerel would have to work at granting the cn immunity to the standing kill-order against goblins in the empire. They were considered vermin, and within its borders, goblins were to be exterminated if too many were found in one pce.

  Ademhill was technically within the empire, but in a way that was suspect, to say the least. The area was cimed, but few imperial citizens made it this far south to the so-called frontier. The southern end of the continent was once the location of the famed Balreli republic. The republic had been a prosperous and formidable nation a millennia ago, but it had been inflicted with a bevy of camities that led to the majority of its people taking exodus from the region. It was considered hostile, untamed wilds at this point, and apparently many imperials held superstitions about the area. Some for good reason, some not.

  The goal of the empire's frontier project was to recim the former nation’s nd. Both men were surprisingly forthcoming with information about the nd to the south, though. It seemed that neither considered common information like that to be a major bargaining chip.

  Thankfully, the cn had a solid source of income for goods from the empire through Thraes Hold. They could do jobs and trade goods with the outpost, and use the money to purchase from its merchants. Zerel found out they were pnning on keeping mum about the deal to the rest of the empire, as well. If anything just because the leaders of Thraes Hold didn't want to navigate whatever demands for military action came from the capital or elsewhere. They'd meet a few times a year to discuss issues and reevaluate their agreements. Dorin was usually out of the hold during the winter months, anyway, as he had matters of his county demesne to attend to.

  For two years, Zerel pyed the good queen, negotiating with the hold and trying to vie for less restrictions on the cn around town. Vasi seemed convinced of what Chron and Ademhill had been convinced of before. The empire would exterminate them if they became widely known and it would be bad business for all.

  She searched for other trans people to help in Thraes Hold, but there seemed to be none that would take mysterious potions offered by goblin witch queens, sadly. She also believed that the voluntary nature most presence on the frontier might result in less repressed trans folk to find. She wasn't quite sure.

  With help from the coven, she gathered all sorts of information and tried to evaluate the situation for herself, but it didn't look good. If she thought about it, the genocidal implications were a tad disturbing, and goblins weren't even the only people cssified as “monstrous humanoids”. There were kobolds and ratlings and several more.

  She did find out quite a bit about the south, too. A nd so infested with monsters that they were constantly spilling northward.

  Of note to Zerel, though, was the holy city of Dé Cyon. It had been one of the earliest casualties in the republic when a hostile godbeast took residence in the holy site the city had been built around. The Serpent of Eyes occupied the holy sanctuary and it emitted an aura over the city that most people and many animals simply couldn't withstand. Dé Cyon had been evacuated around a thousand years ago and subject to the occasional expedition to check if the serpent had left. The st expedition had been over a century ago.

  If the beast had left, then the city was free for the taking. The same was true If it could be defeated or expelled. The Ademhill cn could take the whole city for itself. It was a bit of a pipe dream if the serpent remained, though, as the cn couldn't hope to match the power of a godbeast. Unique creatures named for having deific power akin to a physical god, few had ever been recorded to die or submit to mortal power, and unlike some others the Serpent of Eyes had never shown a want or ability to communicate. The monster had always been inscrutable as far as history could tell.

  Still, the city could be a home for goblins and the other maligned people of the world. It would be ruined by time if nothing else, but the holy gorge of Dé Cyon had unique properties that would give them a strong starting point. The temple built across its entrance would be just as pristine as it was a thousand years ago, along with anything inside. It could house most of the cn while they recimed the rest of the city.

  Zerel prepared an expedition, and during that time she finally came to some revetions about what to do with the management of the cn. She appointed Chron as her regent. He was to manage things whenever she was not in Ademhill. She also deputized a couple dozen of their growing hobgoblin popution to manage various workings of a burgeoning administration. Ademhill could appoint her as queen, but she would make them learn to govern themselves.