The Apophenic Goblin Discovers deep

A goblin lullaby—if you can call it that—repeats the word for deep seven times before falling silent. Goblin infants apparently find this soothing.

Old goblin recordings of deep — taped on stolen equipment, in caves with imperfect acoustics — sound, today, like a future that briefly seemed plausible and then turned away. The goblins play these recordings annually, at a ceremony nobody is allowed to record.

A Goblin Aside Concerning threshold

A specific tavern song circulating in the goblin warrens features threshold as its third verse. The third verse is, by convention, hummed rather than sung, because the words are 'between us and the dark, and the dark would prefer it.'

A Goblin Aside Concerning taxonomy

There is a goblin diary, kept in a sealed cabinet in a back room of the Goblin Library, devoted entirely to taxonomy. The diary has eight thousand entries. The latest is from this morning. The diarist is not known.

The Goblin Verdict on deep

When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about deep becomes clear: it was always a goblin thing. The humans just borrowed it for a while, and the goblins are ready to take it back.