While waiting in the darkness for Prima to bring the next goblin or three for me to choose from, I must have fallen asleep. It really is disorienting to my circadian rhythm not having a steady source of light. I had found myself being woken up to the sound of plodding footsteps and incomprehensible chattering from outside my room, but not anything I could clearly discern and not a single one of the goblins outside had entered my room to let me know what was going on, or if there was some kind of emergency I should be prepared for.
Instead, I remained in the darkness not even knowing if it was night or day. I didn't think for a moment that Prima would let me miss a night of giving gut-loading creampies to the remaining goblin females in the tribe, so I wondered if whatever was going on out there had caused Prima enough trouble to forego selecting my goblin for the night?
I resigned myself to waiting around in darkness with some impatience until someone finally decided to enter my cavern.
"Human," a raspy elderly-sounding voice spoke, not calling me Husband as all the others had thus far, which put me immediately on high alert. "Ugly Scar. What magic did you use on her?"
"No magic." I answered the voice in the darkness.
"Lies. No goblin grows a swollen belly and has a child in one day without magic."
"Child?"
The voice didn't say strong one as I had expected it to. In fact, the way it spoke was eerily natural to my ears, as if it was speaking the human common language I had learned in this world perfectly.
"Berry gave birth?"
"I am the one asking the questions here, human. You will answer them."
I sighed.
"I used no magic. Last night I gave her big seed many times, at least six or seven times as I recall. When I woke up the next morning, she was already gone from my room. She mentioned to me previously that her room was by the shit-pit, so I went to visit her just to see if she was doing okay. I came across her hitting the wall inside of her room with a jagged stone, saying she had to dig the wall in order to widen her room to make space for her future children. I asked if I could come in and help, to which she let me, and we both worked on chipping away at the wall. After some time of doing so together, we took a break and she offered me some berries to eat and wound up falling asleep on my lap. I was at fault for wasting seed with her after that, so if you need to blame someone for that, blame me, not her. She brought me back here as soon as we were done, and I haven't done anything else but wait around here in my room for Prima to bring me the next goblin I am to choose to give my big seed to. I just woke up a little while ago and have been listening to many footsteps moving about outside my room and have had no one bother to come inside and tell me what is going on in the cave. I also figured it would be wise to not go out of my room right now for that exact same reason."
There was a momentary quiet before the raspy voice spoke again.
"You will not fool me. Human magic is wicked magic! If I discover you are lying, I will kill you."
"Look, I will offer you my own neck if I ever use any harmful magic I know on a person, goblin or not, who carries something made from my own seed."
This time the old voice sighed.
"Get up, Human. Follow me."
I got up, but as far as following her went, it was hard to do. I couldn't see anything, after all, and the one with the old raspy-sounding voice hadn't brought a torch along for my convenience. I had my hands out in front of me, feeling for any walls in front so I wouldn't walk face-first into them, and felt a leathery hand grip my wrist.
"Walk." She commanded, and I did as she asked, praying I wouldn't stub a toe on something along the way.
When I arrived at the cave-hole where Berry resided, there were two other goblins there with her, not counting the raspy voiced one that brought me, which now came to light in the presence of the luminating torch in the room, as being something of an old ugly auntie-goblin. As for the other two I didn't recognize either of them, and could only assume they were probably among the ones I would eventually need to embrace for a night.
"Berry?" I called out to her.
Berry was lying on her own straw bed that was drenched in blood around her crotch. There was a disgusting brain-like mass that was attached to the umbilical cord of the baby goblin and looked like it had a few bites taken out of it. The baby goblin in question was currently sucking milk from one of Berry's breasts.
"Husband, Berry have strong one."
She looked damn fatigued, but there was an air of happiness surrounding her at least. I wanted to dash over to her side immediately, but I held back, not sure if it would set any of the gathered goblins off. So I chose to offer words of comfort from where I stood by the entrance.
"Good for you, Berry. Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Boy? Why have boy?" Berry asked with a sudden look of confusion.
"Uh… why wouldn't it be?"
"Human," the old goblin next to me began speaking, "Males of other races can only make female children with female goblins, just as only females of other races can give birth to male goblins. Do you not know this basic fact?"
"No. I mean, there are certainly stories of human women being captured and raped, used as goblin breeding sows and usually dying after bearing two or three litters of goblins, but there aren't any logs of what genders they spawned or stories of it ever happening to human menfolk, as far as I know."
"You… are not the first."
"I don't doubt that I am. But, I'm just as confused about this situation as you are, I imagine. I know good and well that a full-term pregnancy and subsequent birth isn't supposed to happen in a single day. For human females it takes nine moons, and that's assuming we're talking about human babies being made and not goblin ones. For that matter, I've never even heard of any kind of pregnancy magic in the first place, let alone whatever could do something like this!"
"I have talked with Prima. She says you know magic."
"I do, but I can't cast any of it without a focus orb or my magic wand in hand. Those things were taken from me presumably when I was captured, so I don't even know who has them. Hell, I don't even care who has them! Do I need them? I haven't been treated badly here. I have been given a large cavern to sleep in, I have been given fire meat to eat each morning, I was let out into the sun today and didn't even try to escape. I have given my big seed willingly to each goblin brought before me… I'm not asking for your trust, only to look at my actions and draw an obvious conclusion, that I'm not the enemy here."
"Trust Husband. Husband give big seed, now Berry has big strong one. Only one, but big strong one. Let Husband come see."
I felt the old goblin's arm tug me forward by the wrist. I took slow steps until I was able to kneel down next to Berry. The small goblin she had resting on her chest was a leathery-brown color in the torchlight, not a deep green at all like Berry or light green like the others were. I reached out gently to stroke its tiny body, the thing… no–not a thing. My precious baby girl was still covered in blood, but it was a baby all the same.
"Is it really a big strong one?" I asked Berry.
"It's twice the size a normal goblin child would be at birth." The raspy voiced goblin answered in place of my baby's mama. "It will be among the tribe's strongest hunters in fifteen moons."
"That's a good thing, right?" I asked for clarification.
"Husband give Berry name. Can give strong one… strong name?"
Berry looked at me with pleading eyes.
"A strong name? Let me think for a bit."
Berry looked to still be in a lot of pain, so I held one of her hands tightly.
"Berry, how about you help me pick one out?"
"Help pick name?"
"There's a story among my people about a Goddess we used to revere. Before becoming the Goddess of the Silvery Moon, she was first simply the daughter of the God of Thunder and Sky. She was given rule of all the forests, and beasts found within, across the whole world. She was also a mighty Huntress, using a bow and arrows made of gold and having many followers. In some human cultures her name was Diana, in others it was Artemis. Which is why I think it might be better if you help me pick the one to give her."
"Husband… Berry… greedy goblin. Want both names for strong one."
"Shall we call her Diana Artemis then?"
I thoughtfully placed my hand on my wrinkly little goblin-daughter's bald head and her body began to radiate a silver light for the briefest of moments. I was taken aback from it and pulled my hand away quickly, looking at my own palm that contained none of the silver light I saw. The residual silvery light itself was absorbed into the child Berry held.
"Human! What are you doing?" The raspy-voiced elder goblin shouted at me. "You are using wicked human magic!"
"I am not!" I yelled back. "And even if I was somehow able to use any without my magic wand or focus orb, I sure as hell wouldn't use anything dangerous around a child!"
"What would stop you, Human? That child is a goblin, not a human."
"So? Wasn't it made with my big seed? That is enough for me to want to protect it, not hurt it!" I spat back at her with hostility.
More than anger showing on her face, she seemed ultimately confused when I said that to her.
"Old One… Husband stay with Berry tonight?" Berry had asked the old-voiced goblin, trying to diffuse the situation.
"No. Husband needs to give big seed to the next goblin."
"Husband stay." Came an authoritative voice from behind the elder goblin.
"Prima!"
"Husband pick two goblins tomorrow, give big seed both. Agree?"
"I agree."