Legend XLV – The Whispering Goblin's Kitchen

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In the remote valleys beyond the Silver Forest, tales are told of a creature known only as the Whispering Goblin, though no one knows for sure whether the name derives from its nature or from its peculiar habit of muttering while working with ingredients. Its kitchen lay hidden in an old stone house, its walls half-swallowed by ivy, yet a golden fragrance always wafted from the open window—a fragrance of spices that shouldn't even exist, and of memories that seemed long since faded. Those who once smelled it felt the warmth of bygone summers, of lost voices, and of unspoken words. The goblin himself was a delicate, narrow-chested creature with oversized ears that shimmered in the light like thin silk. His gaze was alert, almost too large for his face, yet it held a tranquility reminiscent of times long past. He often sat barefoot on a round wooden stool, as in that moment passed down through many stories: stirring a handful of smoldering herbs in a bronze bowl, their color neither green nor yellow, but something in between—like the first light over the mountains before the sun decides to truly rise. It was said that the Whispering Goblin cooked not for the stomach, but for the soul. Everything in his kitchen seemed to listen to him: the copper pots, whose muted clinking sounded like soft applause; the ceramic jugs on the shelves, leaning like ancient sentinels beneath a thin veil of dust; and even the roots and tubers lying in baskets, as if patiently waiting for their moment. When he chopped an ingredient, a golden sparkle flickered through the air, and sometimes travelers passing by the house thought they heard, for a heartbeat, the voice of an old friend. Originally, so it is whispered, the goblin was a servant of a forgotten court deep in the mountains. There, in the halls of a crownless queen, he had prepared dishes that healed stories and carried away sorrow like a cloak cast aside. But the court crumbled, the queen vanished, and the goblin remained—with nothing but his pot, a wooden spoon, and the last flame of that era, which never went out. For years he wandered through valleys and villages, and wherever he stopped, he made people quieter, softer in heart, gentler in gaze. Finally, he found the old stone house, as if it had been waiting for him. It had been only a ruin, half-overgrown, but the goblin entered it like an old friend. He set up his kitchen, a room full of shadow and light at once, and began to cook there—for no one and for everyone. Some say that he appeared only to those who had lost a piece of their memory and entered the forest without knowing what they were seeking. Then the scent and the warm light from the window beckoned her in like a protective hand. Legend tells of a young man who one day found the whispering goblin. He had lost his courage and no longer knew how to remember hope.