#e!katherine

Like the ruler of Gobland, for example. A friendly little guy, deputy for the sheriff. He will gladly welcome visitors to the caves, giving them a ride on the fully working railway system. "Safety first!" as he always says.

But the real reason is to keep them on the designated path. If they snoop around, they might see the prisoner in a cage, or the tunnels leading up to every nearby kingdom right under their nose. Truth is, the Goblin King is loyal to his people first and foremost. Even if they're underground dwellers, it doesn't mean the Goblins have to live in the dark, and when fWhip became ruler, he made it his mission to bring them closer to the outside world. So he will smile, and joke around, and suck up to whoever's necessary while counting up the gold in the vault.

And if he finds himself feeling more for the Sheriff than he anticipated- it's just a slight bump in the plans, that's all. He will never admit that to his face. "It's the highest honor for a goblin to be a deputy to a sheriff!" he throws around with another good-natured smile. Every goblin knows- your secrets are best kept deep underground.

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Like the letter under the floorboards at the Great Witch's former house. Now only Tortoise lives there, jumping around the cabin, but Shelby still goes there from time to time to make sure the letter is still there. Each time she does, she can't help but pass her eyes over the words again: A danger to society. Expelled. No longer a witch.

One little multidimensional accident and they throw her under the bus like that? She shouldn't be surprised, nobody expected her to even finish witch school.

But for someone who is such a failure, she does surprisingly well here at The Evermoore. She helps people. Even if some potions go wrong (she shudders thinking about fWhip's ear-wings), most of them work, and the grateful smile on the other Emperors' face tells her she's doing something right. So it's not a lie, not really. She is a witch, a good one at that.

But she still feels a sting in her heart whenever she has to keep up the front with the other Rulers. "Yeah, the academy loves me! they keep checking in on their top student," the lies have become second nature for her at this point.

Someday, she promises herself, she will tell them the truth. The more time she spends here, the more she starts to feel like maybe they won't exile her. Maybe they'll still want her around because of who she is, not because of some musty diploma. But until then, the lie stays.

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It's not a lie if it's true. Even though all the other rulers laugh when she says, again, that she's not cursed. 'The cursed princess' they call her. How can she begin to explain that it was only a coincidence that the day she was born the kingdom got split in half, with darkness encasing the unfortunate half of it. She gave up on that hope a long time ago, when her own villagers didn't want to come near her. Instead, she came up with a plan- she's not the reason, but she can be the solution!

So she trains at night, forsaking sleep. And in the mornings she builds houses and grand structures, trying to rebuild the kingdom that once was. Except they all turn half-black and rotting under her hands. The curse is present more than ever, she's willing to admit. But she will fight it. She won't stop until it's gone.

Then, silly things like who caused it wouldn't even matter, right? Not that she did. She didn't bring this curse upon her kingdom. She's not at fault. She's not cursed she's just not.