#pickler

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You've always tailed Oliver since you were both young. Impressed by his grit, you helped managed his team and chased after him when he went pro like a good pet to its master.

But you're the good kid. The better half. You clean up after his bullshit and have enough time to chastise him on his daily routine. On paper you're his assistant. Other than that, he's not sure anymore.

You believe in him. In his strength. On his skill. In his heart. No matter how many people walk out of his apartment crying. No matter how incapable he is of believing in himself some days. You believe in him because he's your best friend.

In turn, he trusts you with everything. To set things right for him and to always be there for him, lurking in his shadow. Poised and ready to bite. He just needs to say the word.

And you discipline him when it matters. You put him in his place. You tut and he heels. You say jump and he asks you how high.

He lets you. He lets you. He lets you. And he takes the scraps he can get of you. Glimpses of your life outside of his bubble, like the laughter you rarely share with him and bruises you don't show. He wants to please you so badly it ruins him. It tears him apart. From skin to sinew to marrow.

He wants to nip at you, to lick and pick at your bones. He's good enough, isn't he? He's been a good boy, right?

Sure, they called you Aiku's dog.

“We can’t win this. We can’t beat them,” Pickler hissed angrily, but her voice broke after. “I will not let us die doing the right thing. We are going to grow old, all of us. I will not – I don’t-“

“We can,” I said softly. “You know that already. It’s what scares you. No shame in that. I know what’s ahead better than any of you, and I’m terrified. It’ll be blood and mud and grief, but don’t think for a moment we can’t do it.”

The Senior Sapper took her hands of the table brusquely, to hide their shaking.

“It’ll be to the death, Foundling,” she said, amber eyes flicking away. “To the death. Do not start this lightly.”

-Book 3, Chapter 17: Allegiance help me they’re all so young and so scared and they were going to grow old, all of them

— “I work with imperfect tools, the way all my predecessors have,” Pickler said, “but it… irks, that I know we could be better. That we could match Keter blow for blow, if we had the time and the coin.”

I hid a fond smile. Leave it to my Sapper-General to be irked by being on the lesser side in an arms race with the Hidden Horror. Even most heroes, those chosen few blessed with the belief of promised victory, usually limited their ambition to survival and eking out a win when it came to the Original Abomination. Yet Pickler of the High Ridge tribe had been forged of goblin steel tempered in Wasteland fire, kept sharp by the whetstone of the Uncivil Wars. When faced with dreadful might, the Sapper-General of Callow’s nature was not to cower but to crave to surpass it.

“War’s not over,” I said. “One day it will take us to the gates of the Crown of the Dead itself, Pickler.”

I offered her a smile.

“On that day, I expect you will find your coffers filled to burst and few requests beyond acquiescence,” I said.

“Gobbler grant me breath until then,” Pickler of the High Ridge tribe grinned, all teeth and malice, and offered a quick bow. “I’ll get started on the work, Your Majesty.” Book 6, Chapter 65: Cross-Check

and

— The dead were scattered and burning, the miraculous engines known as Pickler’s Nails – picklernagel – pounding away at their retreating mass.

Balls of pitch hit the ground, tossed by spindly catapults, spilling blackness where they landed and spreading the flames everywhere. The changes goblin engineering had made here… The Dead King’s commanders had grown wary of committing beorns to the first wave of the assault, after the fourth time they died without even touching a wall. Wary! The absurdity of that old monster’s generals being wary of anything at all had been as fine wine. -Book 7, Interlude: West I Pickler looked at the Dead King himself and said up your fucking game. And she was right. I love her

— “Don’t,” Pickler fervently said. “Don’t let us forge another closed kingdom within the kingdom. Let us into your cities, your countryside, your wilderness. Let us be part of something that does not want to eat us.”

I flinched away from the intensity of her gaze.

“They’ll hate you for it, the Matrons,” she said. “For showing them they don’t own what it means to be a goblin, that they just buried every other way and called it guidance. And I know it’s not what you want, not what Vivienne wants, that you have to think in kingdoms and favours and hard coin.”

She finished her drink, set it down.

“But we’ve stood behind you, Catherine,” Pickler said. “Not them, us. From the start, we’ve been with you. Sappers and soldiers and scouts, we’ve bled for you. And I won’t say it’s owed, because my people don’t believe in debt, but I need you to understand that I loved Robber – more than I thought, more than I knew – but there are fifty thousand like him the Eyries that never managed to flee. That are stuck and lost and will never see the light of day, know what the sun and the stars look like or even feel the wind on their face. Not unless you offer your hand to them.”

She left her chair, stood before me.

“I don’t have anything to offer you,” she said. “Nothing to bargain with. All I can say is please-”

I pushed back my chair, half-risen even as my leg ached, but I was not quick enough to stop her getting on her knees.

“- help us,” Pickler said. “Save us from ourselves, from each other.”

“I-” I choked out, at a loss for words.

“I think you might just be the only powerful person in the world who cares, Catherine,” she quietly said. “And I know you’re a queen, that you can’t afford to bend, but still I ask.”

She smiled, heartbreakingly.

“Please,” Pickler asked. “If not you, then who?” Book 7, Chapter 24: Bequeathal

— “I cannot repay you for this,” she finally said. “I do not have the years. But anything-”

“You told me,” I said, “that your people don’t believe in debt.”

She smiled, baring teeth like needles.

“For this, Catherine,” Pickler replied, “I would learn.”

“There’s nothing to pay back,” I gently said. “Even if it weren’t the right thing to do, even if there was nothing to gain, I would still have done it.”

I met her eyes.

“Because I do believe in debts,” I said. “Because you’re one of mine, Pickler, and you asked.” Book 7, Chapter 52: Mass

It was as close to admitting affection as she would ever get, I thought.

A Practical Guide to Evil Book 1 - Rat Company lineup.

I had fun making the different species and builds. As well as trying to figure the equipment differences between regular, heavy, sapper and mages.

There’s two versions because these technically work as dress up dolls, and I couldn’t quite decide on outfits for all of them.