Husband of the Goblin Tribe

[v2] Chapter Thirteen – In which Ark delivers a speech inaugurating the opening of the Goblin’s Guild, to better the future of the Goblin Tribe.

“Husband. Eat.”

The thing about having Vera as my live-in domestic goblin wife, is that she’s really attentive to my needs. Even if I creep into her bed late at night after mating with a drunken orc female and steal her warmth, she’ll still wake me up with a delicious piece of cooked meat and the warm and squishy feeling of my cock being pickled inside her goblin jar. This lovey-dovey wifey room-service also comes with all the milk I can drink as well. Also, even if triangular in shape, there’s hardly anything more therapeutic for a man than getting to stare at a pair of tits without any repercussions at all. In fact, my lovely Vera relishes the thought that for the few fleeting moments she’s able to, she alone commands my entire attention.

“Sometimes I think you’re too good for me.”

“Love.” She says innocently to me.

I’d say that lately, I’ve noticed Vera being much more affectionate towards me, but that’s just idiocy on my part. Vera, from the very beginning, has done nothing but love and trust me with her entire being. There’s nothing I can’t ask of her that she won’t try and give me, and I hate myself sometimes that I can’t do the same for her. It’s not that I won’t try to, but… she understands my heart better than I do my own, and better than I do hers.

But what can a man do but keep trying to be worthy of such a good woman?

I sat up and twisted my butt on the straw pile so that my back was against the wall. I opened my mouth and let Vera feed me the breakfast she had brought. I touched her face and caressed her body, and let my entire body relax as Vera took care of everything for me.

I even bet if I needed to go to the shit-pit to take a leak, she’d even hold my seed-stick so I could be lazy doing that, too.

I’m not religious. Not in this life, or my past life. But, I do remember a friend who was, a female co-worker who used to gripe about useless things. One conversation I remember us having was her saying that somewhere in one of the religious texts, there’s a passage where when god is creating a woman, it does so in order to be a man’s helper. She thought it rather sexist, but right now, I think she’s dead wrong. Almost every single one of my goblin wives is more capable than me at doing things that I should be the top dog at. Yet, Vera, among them all, is truly my assistant when I need one.

She’s always supportive, and she can be entrusted with doing all the things I need her to do, or to follow up and do all the things I sometimes overlook. She’s detail-oriented and as far as I can tell, what makes her the happiest is when I just make the time to appreciate her for all that she does. Giving her as much affection and attention as I can, so that maybe, just maybe, she feels it is all worthwhile.

I don’t know what weighs heavily in heart, but I’m sure she has a few worries that she says nothing about. Aside from occasionally improving her communication skills to be able to say two whole words reliably, and having made a mute daughter from my big-seed who, while being an excellent magician, has never once spoken a coherent word on her own, now that there is a second child growing in her belly, she must be having some kind of anxiety wondering if I might think less of her if perhaps this one also may have some kind of disability or unfavorable condition when it comes into the world a few months from now.

My deepest regret from my past life was never being able to create a family of my own. In this life, I worried it would be the case once again. Instead, I’m blessed with more than I could ever have hoped for. So what if Vera and the rest are goblins, despised by everyone else in the world? They are all wonderful women to me. What man could find peace with so many women who don’t argue and fight over them? Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Beastkin… even the Dragonkin as much as they would call themselves civilized could not have a harem of this size without endless, needless conflict between their women over attention and position. Yet, there’s none of that here. I am their Husband. That is my matter and importance here. A matter settled the moment I was brought here, before I opened my eyes in this dark cavern, and before I was raped by Prima in the kindest possible way. All I need to do to make them happy, satisfied, fulfilled in their role as my many wives is to simply take care of their sexual needs, and keep them pregnant as soon and as often as possible. In return, every single one of my needs is taken care of.

Until such times as my human way of moral living comes into conflict with their goblin way.

But there’s been some… modifications to that recently. If it were a scale, what was once even now skews slightly towards the goblin way, thanks in part to Mint, who believed what she was doing was absolutely necessary. I won’t fault her, but what she really did in breaking a part of my being, was give me insight into the true nature of my wives, and what it meant to be a Bloodmaw Goblin.

I’m their Husband, and it took the Monster coming out of me to show me how weak I am as a Human, yet how much strength was somehow locked within me. I have to be strong so that I can protect all of my wives and daughters. Because that is how they see me. They see in me what I cannot, or at least… could not.

What can I truly offer them as a human Husband?

Just faith.

I’m a human, and I want to stay a human. So, I will do everything in my power to remain one. I will continue to use my experience living as a human over two lifetimes to find what I can bring from humanity to the Bloodmaw, to make them more.

“Vera…”

I tilted my head to the side and lightly slapped the top of my shoulder with my hand.

“…Bite hard and drink deeply, my wonderful wife.”

She abandoned all reason at that moment and sunk her teeth into my shoulder deeper than she ever had. She had to have nicked a few important veins and probably ripped into a muscle, but I didn’t care. With Melon, the Monster showed me the power of the Origin Blood, and I knew that this wound would heal quickly.

The arm on the side of the shoulder she was now lapping copious amounts of my blood from was numb, but I was more than able to wrap an arm around her with my other, and I reached up to hold the back of her head and assure her that she was free to suck it all out of me if that’s what she truly wanted to do.

“I love you, Vera. No matter what kind of strong-one you give me your whole life over, that will never change…”

~~ A little later on… ~~

“I’m sure you’re all curious as to what I’ve been doing up here recently. Well, Goblinhome is growing, surely and steadily. We’re only going to grow further, and Goblinhome needs to prepare for it. This is why I’m announcing the formation of the Goblin’s Guild. As a Human, before I became your Husband or Daddy, I was once an adventurer. Stella was one of my companions, and we sought to make ourselves known far and wide, as well as become rich and famous. While that didn’t work out so well for us, that’s only because we were meant for greater things!”

I picked up one of the metal cards on the counter in front of me, holding it up for all the residents of Goblinhome to see.

“Whether an adult, a strong-one, or someplace in between, you are all strong. Every day you make it through, you get stronger. You will continue to get strong because that is what it means to be a Bloodmaw. To have the Origin Blood, and to pass through the Ceremonies of Blood. I am proud to be a part of that, even though I am a Human. But, the human way in me sees the possibility of the Bloodmaw becoming civilized. It took Mint pulling the goblin inside of me out for me to understand that what the Bloodmaw have over the other civilized races in the world I had come from, is true Unity. For the adults who survived the massacre and lived long enough to make strong-ones from my big-seed, who are some of the most powerful goblins that Old One has had the privilege to help bring into the world. For all the strong-ones yet to come into the world, whether from the adults who carry them inside their bellies right now, or when the time comes, from those who will become adults and await their chance to have strong-ones of their own, we will make our own civilization, the goblin way. The mightiest civilization in the world. With the Bloodmaw standing at the peak!”

Every single Bloodmaw Goblin who was present, and it was every single one who was present, let out a large roar.

“These metal cards, made by Vera, Glace—our runty but powerful Shaman, Mint—our Bloody Druid, and Myself, will be issued to all who join the Goblin’s Guild. With a drop of blood from each of you, it will show your strengths, your weaknesses, and even reflect when you have become more. It will keep a record of all the deeds you do that serve to make our Goblinhome great!”

I put the card back on the table and stuck out my hand, pointing at everyone as I swept it across the room.

“The first order is to secure our Domain. We will seek out and gather all the resources we need to make our lives easier. Resources which will become available to all goblins. New games to play, new kinds of food to eat, and new types of entertainment to enjoy. Things for goblins to have in their cave-holes that they want, and even stronger weapons and training to be had so that we do not need to fear any attacks from the orc tribes to the east of the stream, the Black-claws to the south of the big rock, or any foolish adventurers like me who came from the Black Tees to the west thinking that the Bloodmaw would be easy to subjugate!”

I pointed to the wall off to the side.

“As Bloodmaw, our official language is Gob. Vera, in learning the ways of Formula Magic, has increased her knowledge to the point she was able to make a written language for it. Old One with her curse of tongues says she can read it the same as what is written in the many squares of symbols that she keeps. With it, no longer does the Bloodmaw tribe need to fear losing their history. All the greatness that you Bloodmaw accomplish will be recorded for all future generations of the tribe to know. The story of Diana Artemis’ Hunt on the Black-claws which killed Beastie when she was Beast-talker. The story of Husband becoming a goblin and killing the orcs who trespassed into our domain! How each goblin saw things, how they felt when it happened, what they learned from it, how they became stronger because of it! This is where it all starts for us.”

I took a deep breath and slammed my hands down on the counter.

“Hunt, my hunters! Seek, my seekers! Make, my makers! For there is a reward in doing so. As you complete the tasks written on the wooden boards on the wall, you will earn standing. Standing is how we will conduct trades in the tribe now. And most of all, your standing can be traded to me for anything. Provide you have earned enough standing you may even use it to have me all to yourself for a single day. Whatever it is you wish to do with me, I will not refuse.”

“What if Ebony wants to make a strong-one with husband?”

“That might not happen until your body grows more, but… so long as you are past the age of being a strong one and have the right to live in your own cave-hole, trying anyway is still possible.”

“GWOH! HEAR THAT, MINT!?”

“Can Diana Artemis use standing to ask Husband for new Grand Weapons?”

“Absolutely.”

“Pepper can ask Husband to spend the whole day fishing together at the stream?”

“I would love to.”

Things quickly became noisy as all the greed my wives and daughters had quickly bubbled to the surface. I had to answer many more questions before I was able to calm them down enough to proceed with the next part.

“Alright. My lovely assistants Game and Fun will be in charge of leading you through the process of creating your Goblin’s Guild card. After that, go see Vera, who needs to record your information. After that, Old One will be in charge of explaining what requests are on the board and which are available to be taken. She and Vera will also be giving lessons on how to read Gob in the coming days, so I highly recommend you attend those.”

There was massive chaos once the whole thing began. It was like a Black Friday sale at a department store. Every single goblin managed to get registered, and Old One did her part to get things going with pointing out the nature of the requests currently available, for which every kind of goblin was needed.

I didn’t think Old One would be so willing to participate in my plans when I brought them up to her, but it seems she has become a little less hostile to me after she hit me a few times with a long wooden stick she was using as a cane two days after I had brutally uh… copulated with her while as the Monster. In the end, our goals also aligned on this one thing. She was also of the mind that the Bloodmaw Tribe deserved to be at the peak of all races, and she was willing to use me in order to see it happen. If the situation warrants it bad enough, even an angel and a devil can come to an agreement.

When pretty much all the goblins had finally dispersed, I found that my four Orc war-brides had entered into the Goblin Guild.

“It seems that whatever you were doing was a rousing success.” Orga Lush said to me while peering at the wooden planks on the wall. “At first, I thought you were making plans to go to war with someone, perhaps our tribes on the other side of the stream. But it appears to be something else. Are we allowed to be privy to it?”

“I’m not intending to keep any secrets. This is all a matter of forward planning for the growth of Goblinhome. I’m using a system common among Humans to better organize the collection and distribution of resources.”

“You are a wise War Chief to do something like that.”

“Well, it’s more a matter of making life more comfortable here. Besides, my many daughters are too full of energy, and it can be put to better use this way.”

Orga Lush snort-laughed.

“Ah, ever the problem of how to keep whelps busy! Goh-ho-ho!!”

“I would include you, but I’d rather ask you all to support me in other ways. I will continue to keep my responsibilities as pertains to you all being my war-brides, but any skills you have that can benefit the tribe overall, if and when you can, I’d appreciate if you can spread them to any of the goblins interested in learning. That is all.”

“I don’t see anything unreasonable with that request.”

Krushka was staring at me rather intensely for some reason.

“Everything okay, Krushka?”

“Krushka fine. Head noisy from drink, body feel great after mating.”

“Glad to hear it… the second part I mean.”

“Krushka only want say not refuse if Husband come Krushka wanting mate more.”

“I will definitely keep that in mind.”

“Also other matter… Orga, you speak better. Tell him.”

Orga Lush nodded before jumping in with their current situation.

“Rushk needs to go next.”

Rushk, since entering together with the others, has maintained a sour look on her face.

“Needs to go next?” I asked, emphasizing that particular word.

“Yes. Well, it would be troublesome if an old orc like me who is barely fecund anymore has a higher order than the youngest.”

“Order? I’m sorry, can you explain it a bit more to me?”

“Yes. It may be my fault for not explaining such a basic thing to you earlier, it’s something that whelps learn early in their lives. The order in which war-brides are mated with by the victor establishes their authority within the household. You may have given us each our own caves to live in, something of an extreme luxury for us, but we remain one household. As you have already mated with Grotte and Krushka, they now hold the first and second positions. I’ve been a war-bride many times, and I’m quite comfortable relinquishing my need for authority in my old age. Which is why the rest of us are in agreement that Rushk should be next. It will make things easier for all of us once it’s settled.”

“Is… there an actual problem with her going last?”

“It’s wisdom from living a long time as an orc war-bride. A youth with no authority over others will eventually cause problems. Krushka and I have both experienced being without authority before when we were younger, and Grotte does understand, though she had been given a reasonable position of authority by her first husband.”

“Is this not something that can just be… discussed and agreed to?”

Orga Lush, Krushka, and Grotte all shook their heads at me.

“Mating how decide.” Grotte answered for the group.

“I would like there to be harmony here, and I would prefer to defer to learned wisdom in this matter. But, I don’t want to force myself on Rushk if she’s not ready or willing yet…”

“Also job for Husband. Rushk war-bride. Cannot refuse first mating. Only three times each full season from spring planting. Husband ask now, Rushk must do.”

“I understand. Would it be possible to ask you three to leave for a moment while I talk with Rushk?”

Orga Lush nodded and ushered Grotte and Krushka back to their caves.

“Do you… want to refuse?” I asked Rushk.

“I don’t want to… but it is my first time being a war-bride. I have also never mated before…”

“Then, are you worried about something? I’m willing to listen and accommodate you wherever I can.”

“I…”

She halted whatever it was she was going to say and instead removed her topclothes. Her breasts were massive, but they were plain. No tattoos to see, no piercings… just a beautiful bare-chested orc.

“…look like a child. It’s shameful.”

“A child? Is it because you don’t have tattoos or piercings?”

“Yes. Does it not bother you?”

“Not at all. But it appears to bother you. I can’t say I know anything about tattooing mams or how to take care of new piercings, but I don’t mind that you are without any. Maybe it’s because I’m a human and not an orc, and therefore don’t understand the importance having such things means to you, or should mean to a Husband expecting to see something on his new war-bride perhaps, but whether you wish to remain without any, or want time to perhaps… create some before you wish to mate... whatever your choice is, I’m fine with it. Why… don’t you talk to Orga Lush about it? She seems to care about your place in our… family. I can’t imagine she wouldn’t help you find a solution that works for you.”

Rushk grumbled to herself for a little bit before reaching for her topclothes and putting them back on.

“Wait three days.”

“Alright. Take the time that you need.”

The situation was resolved for now, and I wouldn’t have to deal with it for a few days. That was good, because I was going to be extremely busy during that time and the aftermath of orc mating was no picnic.

I returned to Goblinhome, making a quick stop at Lily’s cave-hole to see my baby girl, Primrose. What I didn’t expect was to find Beastie there, holding my newest daughter in her bony arms with no Lily in sight. It… was a little bit more involved than how I described it just now.

Beastie was holding Primrose in the manner one might expect a nursing mother to hold their child. Beastie was supporting Primrose from underneath her butt while also stroking her head with a bony hand. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten used to being around Beastie, but there was a powerful sense of discontent on her face. Not towards Primrose, though. It was blatantly obvious that Beastie held no malice towards her.

Beastie, being undead or reanimated or however it looks from the outside still retains some sense of self from when she was alive. Naturally, I treat her as if she is alive, even if she is a skeleton.

“Having fun playing with Primrose, Beastie?”

Beastie nodded her head. Her jaw opened as if she was talking, but only Ebony can tell from her bones whatever it is she would try to communicate. As for me, it’s kind of like talking to Vera, but without her being able to speak a single word.

“You kind of look like a maker, holding her like that.”

Beastie’s head tilted down before she raised the hand that was stroking Primrose’s head and put it against her chest and dragged her fingers downwards, her bones clacking against one another the entire way.

“I see. I guess you want to experience it yourself, don’t you?”

Beastie nodded again.

“…want to try?”

Beastie’s head straightened quickly, and her empty eye socks stared abyssally at me.

I stuck out my arm towards her.

“I have an idea. Can you bite me only enough to draw blood?”

Beastie took a few steps towards me and I put my arm close to her mouth. She bit into it delicately and a few drops of blood formed. I pressed my finger against my arm to collect some blood on it, then I smeared in on her chest where her breasts would be if she were still alive and had flesh.

Primrose sniffed the air and began to move. Beastie had shifted Primrose to the other side of her chest where the blood smear was, where my daughter began to press her tongue against Beastie’s bone-sternum-rib-whatever in a mock breast-feeding kind of event.

Primrose had a healthy appetite, or thirst, considering it was blood, and I repeated the smearing on Beastie’s chest-bones a few more times. By then, Lily had returned to her cave-hole and saw what was going on.

“Husband came to see Primrose?”

“Well, you too.”

“Lily had to go to the shit-pit, Beastie came by on her own and wanted to see Primrose. I didn’t think there would be a problem letting her watch our strong-one.”

“Yup. It’s fine with me. No matter how you look at it, she’s still Beast-talker.”

Beastie clacked her jaws at me. She does prefer to be called Beastie over her original goblin name. Lily took Primrose from Beastie and gave her some milkies to wash all that blood down with. That left Beastie staring daggers at me.

No. It wasn’t daggers.

I know that look.

I’ve seen it countless times before.

How many times had my wives looked at me like that? How could I not know that the same thought was going through her mind as well… a thought that could never be made manifest due to boundary of life and death?

“Beastie…”

Beastie turned her head to look at Lily feeding Primrose and then back to me before fleeing. Beastie wasn’t limited by the boundaries of life. She moved at a supernatural speed. Muscles, oxygen, blood… she needed none of it. Even if I used the [Wolf Wind] magic spell I could never hope to catch up to her if she wanted to be alone.

“Did Ebony call Beastie for something?”

Lily was distracted with Primrose, so she didn’t see what I saw. Maybe even if she did, she might have failed to see it. Yet, I can remember Stella’s words vividly when Lumi was being born.

“Probably.” I replied, omitting my thoughts on where Beastie ran off to.

“I have a question about the Goblin’s Guild cards… I… don’t hunt very well, and I don’t make things like Pepper or Toy… I might not be able to get much standing… does that mean I won’t see you… as often?”

“You’re clan. If you want to see me, then come see me. That’s your privilege as a member of the Wyze clan, isn’t it? Why do you think I fought so hard against that monster just so I could let you know where you stand in my life?”

“You mean… you… and not the goblin you… bit my ear?”

“Want me to bite it again to prove it?”

“Yes. Bite it again.”

I walked over to Lily and stood behind her, holding her body against mine and moving my mouth over her ear.

“You’re mine, Lily. Every last runty bit of you.”

And then I bit her ear once again.