FSE

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Conflict was at the heart of men.

Mark had heard that once and he still wasn't sure if the old man he heard it from wasn't just referring to gender, as opposed to some supposed archaic meaning for humanity. The old man liked claiming many things, and occasionally some of them were true. Either way, whether you were working with someone, or working against others, sparks would surface just by the simple act of breathing. Sometimes, things were resolved through peer pressure. Sometimes, things were resolved by being right. Sometimes, things were never resolved.

Just like sometimes, things were resolved through violence.

The setting sun made an outline of the thing sitting on the rocky outgrowth clear, which would have puzzled and amazed him equal measures if he hadn't been one hundred percent sure, without any glimmer of a doubt that he was going to inflict violence upon.

Because, wouldn't you know it, it kind of looked like a short skinny human being.

Mark had never killed a man, not even in the worst fights in the rings. He had come close to it at times, but he was good enough at the whole fighting thing that he had never been forced to step over that particular line. Breaking others was honestly not that hard once you understood how people shattered.

But this creature, this stranger on his rock, had a spear in hand. It was a rather mishappened stick with knots making it sway here and there. There was some polish to it, it wasn't a literal tree limb attached to a knife, but the stone head on its tip would have been comical if Mark hadn't known how sharp a broken stone shard could get.

Silent as Mark was, directly behind the Goblin, it didn't take a lot to stay out of its sight. His steps didn't make much noise in the soft grass of the hill and his boots didn't crunch enough to get over the high winds that embraced them both. The sun, as it was starting to dip beyond the horizon at this time, didn't allow him to make much of it until he was fairly close.

And discovered how similar to him this native was.

Had he been more rational, his first thought would have been how badly this creature needed a trip to town. Because whoever this person was, they needed a trip to town because they were in absolute rags. Fiber that he wasn't familiar with made up its loincloth and the sheets that had been thrown upon its frame. Loose stiff folds of cloth went down like badly done togas down its neck, making it seem bigger than it actually was because good God if this creature wasn't small.

And not just in comparison to him. This native was four and a half feet, if that.

But he wasn't feeling rational and it didn't matter. It could have been ten feet and it would not have changed a goddamned thing. Not a single one. But this close, with its long green ears its small frame and its very green skin, only a single word properly described what this was.

But again, it didn't matter. At that moment, he felt a sense of surreality enter the scene and not just because he was in front of an honest-to-goodness goblin. He didn't know how this would go, be he knew how it HAD to. Two strangers, meeting in the middle of nowhere, weapons in hand, there for their own reasons.

With only murder as a result.

“Goblin?" he said, because that was how the script was written. The goblin followed his role: he was started out of vigorously scratching his ass. His head whipped around and, finally, it met Mark's eyes.

It had a large nose and, as its jaw dropped, it revealed itself to have fang-like front teeth instead of incisors. It had five fingers in its hand, just like Mark. Five toes and a big toe on its bare feet, just like a human. But oh, its pupils were the shape of an hourglass. Yellow like ember and brown like dirt.

Mark didn't know a single thing about the goblin but he knew, he knew, how this would go. There was no kindling around, but a spark was nonetheless produced.

“Hyaaa, Glaraga Ta!" the Goblin's eyes widened in alarm and it screamed as it took hold of its spear with both hands.

Mark saw this and did nothing as it jumped from the rock and ran towards him. Mark passively watched it as it fixed its spear under its armpit and pointed at Mark's chest as it came to its full speed. He watched it brace itself for an impact that it was sure it would feel. It was such a strange feeling, seeing all of this so clearly. Seeing it and feeling almost nothing.

He should have been livid. He should have been angry. He had come in here with blade in hand knowing that this would only result in violence but he didn't feel particularly one way or another. He just knew, knew what would follow.

And so, he saw it through to the end.

Mark's jacket was good thick cotton and leather. It was strong enough to walk through brambles and not get shredded. It was thick enough that repairing it required Mark to really push down on his needles. It was endurable enough that it had broken many of his falls through the hills, leaving him with mere bruises instead of broken ribs.

But it was not armor.

The stone tip stabbed into his coat and the goblin's speed didn't give him a lot of time to move out of the way. But not a lot of time wasn't the same as none. Mark watched numbly as his body twisted on instinct, following along with the blow. The goblin transferred the inertia of his run into the tip of his spear running into his body as the stone point sunk and disappeared into Mark's jacket.

Mark's coat stretched and slid with the spear point. Mark's body turned with it as the spearpoint overcame the resistance of Mark's jacket, and managed to punch through it but…it didn't punch through Mark.

“Hya?" Goblin gasped as his spear came out through a second hole in Mark's jacket, missing him completely.

Mark looked at the Goblin.

The Goblin looked at Mark.

Mark still had his machete in his hands.

Well then.

“Ga," The goblin managed to gasp as Mark buried his machete into it's skull. It was practiced blow, one he had repeated on young trees many times. Splitting a skull was apparently much like splitting a coconut, really. At least, it felt like that as Mark's blade wedged his blade into the goblin's skull.

Blood seeped down the goblin's face as the small creature's grip on its weapon went slack.

And then it finally collapsed on the ground, unwedging its head from Mark's blade as it went.

“...well then," Mark murmured to himself again. He just took a life. He had never taken a life before. Never contemplated it, even. And yet, here he was, a native's blood in his hands. He had snuffed this light out of the world and it…it…

“It feels like nothing!" Mark wildly laughed at himself, because what else could he do?

He gingerly reached for the spear still trapped in his jacket as he pushed his unfortunate assailant away.

“Hya, Hya, Glaraga Ta!" another voice screamed and made Mark whipped his head around.

It appeared that this goblin hadn't come alone, as another one crested a small hill. But the worst part? The other screams were coming in the direction of his home.

“No," Mark informed the goblin that was running towards him, drawing his hand back on its spear. Mark had been stockpiling things in the foundation of his house for months now. He had taken good care to put it underneath a floor that he had painstakingly prepared but, ah, it didn't matter, now did it?

The goblin cast its spear once it was thirty feet away. He was aiming for Mark's center mass, but the goblin's aim was bad and Mark, well…now was the time for his next step in this macabre dance. The thrown spear managed to cut a jagged line across Mark's shoulder as he turned. His own hands were seizing the spear already stuck to his person and were setting it's center of balance squarely on his right hand.

“My turn," Mark said, not being able to keep a meaningless small smile from coming into his face as he aimed at the goblin and tossed.

He was merely repeating what the goblin did, really. And he would be the first to admit that he wasn't the greatest pitcher or quarterback. But he wasn't aiming for a little imaginary rectangle and he didn't have to guess where the goblin would be because he was still running at him!

Mark's spear did not make an arc. It flew straight right into the goblin's in the stomach, catching it just below its ribs. The stone point punched into its diaphragm and stopped it cold as it looked in shock between the spear and Mark.

“RATAG!" it bellowed in agony, to the point that even Mark's sting, as it cradled the spear in its gut and went down to its knees.

Unlike the first, this one wasn't immediately dead. But not all tempos were the same and victory for him here had the same end.

“Glaraga Ta!" more voices screamed in the direction of his house and Mark, who saw the fight expand before him, went to meet the end.

Mark said nothing as he passed by the goblin he had impaled. He should have been horrified to see the spearpoint was pointing from its back but all he could feel at that moment was curiosity and intrigue. This wasn't normal, he knew. There was something wrong with him, he understood. But god damn him if he could do anything about it.

His fingers were still tightly wrapped in his machete as he crested the hill where his house was.

Four goblins.

There were four goblins skulking around his house. Or, well, the foundation he had made. They had dug up all of the food that he had saved up, as well as many of the materials that he had gathered.

Ever since he saw his first victim lazily perched atop his rock, he knew that his dream was over. Even had the goblin been alone, well, he would not have been able to live here. Others could and would have come by when he needed to go back to town. They would have taken all his hard work and done…this.

He knew his dream was dead, but pain and tears made their way through the mask of indifference that had clouted his mind.

Mark said nothing as his face became wet and the goblins gathered their shit to run towards him. Four versus one? Even with the size difference two against one would have been even due to the use of weapons. As it was? It was a bad fight. A bad, bad fight.

The goblins rushed him, but Mark sprinted towards them.

Live or die, some bets were better than others and some fights worth risking it all. But then, even if had not known that there would be more goblins here, he had known how this would end. Live or die, some fights had to be fought.

Live or die, this could have only ended in blood.

The goblins were slightly taken aback as Mark charged at them. But nobody that would so casually try to kill him would have been a stranger to pressure. They slowed down as they watched him run, and set their feet apart as they drew their spear arms. They twisted their bodies as they put as much energy into their throws as they could, and then reached for stone knives at their waists as the spears flew directly at Mark.

All the same, strangers or not, pressure and stress still had a way of spoiling one's aim. Not that it mattered, honestly, as quantity would have seen some of the spears complete their high parabolic arc into Mark's body. But they all threw the same and that meant that, good aim or not, there was a way forward.

The high arcs allowed them to throw from fifty feet but meant that only the descent was dangerous., so Mark slid under the flying spears.

“Garalag!" One of the goblins jumped back as Mark's body glided through the damp grass. The three that stood their ground readied their knives, but Mark slid and stopped just short of their reach.

But not Mark's.

“Dodge," the human advised as he swung his machete at the nearest goblin's feet.

The goblin tried to make good on his advice and jump back, but it was reacting to Mark's swing once his blade was a hand's breadth away from its shin. This poor choice meant that his machete bit into its tibia and took out one of the goblin's supports in a splash of blood.

Three versus one. Better odds if not for the worst position.

In the time that it took to de-leg this goblin, even as he collapsed, one of the other goblins was already trying to circle around him. The maimed goblin proved to be a bit of a distraction as it gasped in pain, its leg hanging by a bloody thread. The one still behind it had produced another spear from where it was and the one that had shied away was holding its knife at the ready behind them both.

So, it was either get speared through the front or get stabbed from the back.

Mark's eyes followed the circling goblin as far as he could, but the goblin with the spear was already getting ready to cast at him. He briefly wondered which should he tackle first. Wondered which provided the most danger. Which course of action guaranteed the most success.

But in the end, one thing decided his mind.

He wasn't sure how fast these goblins could be, stubby aside. But he was certain they wouldn't be as fast as a thrown spear.

So he charged the spear goblin.

“Hya!" the goblin screamed as he lost his nerve and aborted his throw. No, he instead grabbed his spear with both hands again and desperately thrust it into Mark's face to keep him at bay.

But it was an impure thrust and the goblin was backing away.

Mark stopped just short of the spear's point and swung at the leading hand holding it. The tip of his machete found two of its fingers and the goblin screamed as he dropped his spear with the hand that could no longer hold on to it.

Then he stopped as Mark buried his machete in its clavicle.

Two on one. Still encircled, but now…it was something he would bet on.

The goblin behind the newest dead goblin trembled with its knife in its hand. The screams of the goblin with the sheared tibia could still be heard, but it wasn't either of these that Mark was paying attention to.

The sound of quick short steps running in the grass behind him let him know that the circle was finally closing on him.

Mark immediately turned around, dragged his machete with him. Or, well, trying to.

The blade was firmly wedged in the dead goblin's chest bones, and he found that he was dragging its whole body. The goblin who was charging at him with its stone knife in its hand didn't care about any of that, and Mark had to deal with it somehow.

So he let go of his machete and put a hand on his coat.

“GyaHA!" the goblin at his back screamed as it pounced on him.

“Ratag?!" and then screamed again when Mark threw his now-tattered coat into it.

This didn't cancel the inertia of the goblin's jump, so it still smashed into him. Just not knife first.

Mark grunted as it hit his stomach and then went to the ground. Its limbs flailed to get the coat off of it, but Mark wasn't having any of it.

“It's over!" Marked hissed from between clenched teeth as he picked up his foot and then brought it down with all of his weight behind it, smashing it down on the goblin's shoulder.

“Gya!" the small green creature screamed and flailed harder as it was smashed against the ground.

Mark viciously picked up his foot again and planted it on its back. He picked it up again and smashed it on its arm. He picked up again and slammed it on the goblin's head.

At some point, Mark heard “cracks" but didn't stop until the goblin went still.

And quiet.

And just like that, it was one on one.

This murder was neither fast nor was it clean. But it did mean that he had to immediately be on the lookout for the other one. Because he had to expect a spear to be thrown at him at any second if not the last goblin jumping on him its knife. But none of that came. And the unexpected had a way of killing.

Mark jerked his head side to side, turning everywhere to see just what the fourth goblin had in store for him but found saw nothing.

His blood was pumping, his adrenaline made staying still unsettling and the smell of blood made him twitchy. He had one more foe to beat. One last challenger. Tired and dirty as he was, wounded as these goblins had managed to make him, things didn't end until they were done. The ground or the bell, that was all there was to fighting!

But no one else awaited him.

At some point, the last goblin had run away while Mark stomped its friend to death.

“...none to one," Mark said and that same feeling of unreality returned.

He had won? He had won. Apparently, so.

But what had he won?

The goblin with the torn tibia sobbed as it tried to crawl away, but by the look of it, it had lost too much blood. The goblin he had stomped to death lay obediently dead inside his jacket and the one that had trapped his machete was still staring at the blade in disbelief.

Aside from the dying whimpers of the dying goblin, there was nothing except the sound of the wind. Well, that and Mark's beleaguered breathing.

He had won, it was true, and there was a primal satisfaction in that, but he was nowhere near the right state of mind to be able to enjoy that. The hardest fight of his life and the only thing he could do was stare at his victims and find no satisfaction in their demise. Their death, after all, did not change facts.

All the years, money and efforts that he had put into building his own place here had been for nothing.

Why did that last goblin have to run away? Why did this fight have to end? Mark didn't want to die, but when he was moving and blood was flowing like oil out of an engine, he didn't have to think. And now? Now he walked a little bit farther where his battle took place.

The hilly terrain did a good job hiding that this was practically his front porch. He only needed but to crest another terrain bump to actually get to what he had always dreamed would be his eternal home. And see his thoughts and emotions made manifest.

Food was strewn about. Construction equipment and even one of his precious power tools. He had no idea how much they had already taken, but this was already ruinous.

The first thing he had built had obviously been the foundation of his house. Even in Stoney terrain, especially if it wasn't solid stone, a good foundation was still essential and the extra space below paid dividends in building materials. In that foundation was point in fact the first thing he had completed, and that was the cellar where he stowed all his things.

The base on top of the foundation had already been marked and prepared for walls. Less useful now that the posts had been yanked out and thrown in the grass but it didn't really matter since this place would never be safe again anyway. Maybe, there was enough here for a few weeks of quiet introspection as he decided about what to do with, well, everything. But, well, he would be lying if he claimed that he didn't want to turn around and never see this place again.

He would salvage what he could. He would collect what fit into his fucking sled and, maybe, hopefully, make enough bank to bank finding another dream he supposed.

The lock on the cellar's wooden door was broken, of course, but there was no way they had taken everything, right? There should still be enough there for him to work with. There should be enough left for him to salvage from this dream.

And, indeed, there was.

It just wasn't something that he had left there.

Bright yellow hourglass pupils stared back at him.

A seventh goblin.

The adrenaline still in his system was starting to give him a headache now that his body wasn't using it, but his brain grabbed onto the go juices and made the world go slow as he reached for his machete and found that it wasn't there anymore. That's right, it was still trapped on another goblin's chest.

He had no jacket either, so stone knives and spears would have no problem finding purchase on his skin. He couldn't see this one interloper well in the dark of his cellar to boot, but he still had a massive height advantage over them and bare-handed was where skills shined anyway.

He'd be doing this the old-fashioned way then.

This seventh goblin didn't produce a weapon, however, and neither did it attack or flee from him. It flinched when Mark reached for it and grabbed into its rough woven clothes.

“Gya!" it screamed in a tone that was much higher than all the other ones had done and tried to scramble away as Mark grunted in surprise; it was heavier than its other kind but so much softer. Not that it should have mattered, but when he pulled on its clothes, when he was dragging it back to him, a long noisy rip followed a physical one.

The toga-like robes the goblins wore broke at this one's shoulders, revealing…something of a surprise.

To goblin still fell in front of his knees outside the cellar and the light of day revealed many things.

“Ratag Ta!" the goblin screamed as it felt in the ground, and Mark let go of the rags in his hands in shocked silence. Because what faced him now…a woman.

She was green and she was the same 4 and half feet of height as its friends. Her ears were, if possible, even larger and pointier! But that wasn't the only thing different.

Her hair was chestnut brown, her eyes were big and wide. Her nose was slightly pointy, yes, but was far smaller than the male's had been. Her lips were full, her cheeks were round and, well, she had a huge rack.

They were breasts the size of melons and they were attached to this tiny female. Her waist narrowed down to an hourglass and she had a bit of chub in her stomach. Chub that did nothing to hide the muscle underneath it.

And her hips. Good God, her hips. Had she been twice as large they would have still been huge. But at her height? They were absurd. Maybe this revealed why she hid instead of running away? There was no way she could move very fast if she had to move all of that flesh. Because her ass was proportioned to her hips and so were similarly absurd.

She stared up at him with fear in her eyes. True primal fear, like some animals had when they were trapped and Marked advanced on them. Most fought, but some knew that this was the last moments of their life. Not that she needed have worried as Mark was still too busy making a study of her tits. They were free from all obstructions and revealed to Mark dark disks with blunt bumps crowning those ripe melons. Her crotch was still covered by a loincloth, so Mark didn't lose his mind, but he still looked and looked and looked at the visual feast before him.

He, Mark, a base laborer with no prospects in life was in the same place as an almost completely naked woman. He, Mark, a man who had resigned himself to finding what meaning and purpose he could in solitude was now had a female here, in his would-be house. Mark, who had previously KNOWN that he would never know the companionship, or even friendship, of another woman after his mother was right here and now.

Standing stained by blood and at the tail end of a massacre.

His mind wasn't working. It just would not work. His heart was beating faster and harder then it had when he was fighting, when he was murdering. His hands trembled like they never had even when they had a tight white grip on the hilt of his machete. His breath was quick and getting quicker and he just did not know what was happening.

The goblin, the female, got up on shaky legs and stared at him with those fearful eyes. There was doubt there too, yes, but unlike Mark, she seemed to know what this was about. She seemed to have foreseen the next steps of this meeting. Of this conflict.

In front of Mark, she reached down her body, moving through her tits and down her appealing if chubby stomach. She moved down into her crotch and palmed the loin cloth there. She grabbed on to it's hem with her fingers and…and…and-

Her pubic hair was as brown as her hair.

The sort of bush that Mark had only ever seen in pictures or magazines was now staring him back. The goblin had pulled up her loincloth as she lowered her eyes and looked away in submission. The absurdity of the moment was overwhelmed, swallowed, by things the primordial parts of his brain noticed then.

There was her smell.

Unwashed as she was, all the goblins were, there was the picant hint of female in her aroma. With no clothes to get in the way, no loincloth, Mark took a deep breath and-

“Oh God," He hissed between his teeth as he shuttered.

He was standing, looming over her, as adrenaline and the prospect of a fight had jump-started his heart and made him slide into the aggression that made him not mind violence.

And she was right down there, naked now, offering herself to him.

He still had the blood of her friends in his clothes as well as liters of his own sweat.

And she was pulling her loincloth up while her tits hung like ripe fruit.

He had planned to do the same thing to her that he had to other goblins but, but, BUT…she was a woman. A female.

An hourglass pupil dared to dart at his face to see what he was going to do.

“Gy-ooomph!!!" the goblin woman then grunted as Mark smashed his lips into hers. He didn't know what he was doing or why he was doing it. Only, while he had never been with a woman before, a part of his brain knew that this was how it was supposed to go.

He was pushing into the ground then, grabbing her hands so that he could pull her against him. His chest was on her stomach as her breasts splayed into his neck, her delicious mammaries softly cushioning him as sucked and bit into the pillows that were her lips.

He was staring at the goblin straight in the eyes as he did so, her surprise clear but muted as she seemed to, carefully, return this affection?

Mark wasn't thinking now. Which meant that the melancholy, the disappointment and depressed resignation that he had been feeling up to this moment were as if they had never existed.

He was kissing a woman. A green tiny woman, yes, but one that kissed back. Her scent was alien to him, but oh so recognizably female. Her hands, which were still trembling, were on his chest and his shoulders, feeling, padding and gliding through his sweat soaked skin.

His pants, and when had he lost them?, were around his ankles now as her feet traced the line of his stomach and teased back his underwear.

Mark, because he would have lost consciousness from lack of air otherwise, broke their kiss and stared down at her.

There was still fear in those yellow eyes. But now? There was something he was sure he would never see in his life; arousal.

“Delicious," was the only thing he could say before he went down for another kiss.

His cock was as erect as it ever had been, and it was free now. The goblin's eyes seemed to widen even more as she felt around it with the soles of her feet, and she looked at Mark with shock before he brought his hips to her thighs.

And positioned his cock just at the entrance to her puss.

And why wouldn't she? Mark had a foot-long cock. Not much use except to win cock measuring contests back in Town, but it would have been hard for most women to take anyway. Or so he was told.

And this goblin was tiny.

“FuTANG!?" the goblin woman gasped as Mark's cock pushed against the dark green lips that formed her vagina, drawing gushing juices out as it pressed against her entrance. He was going to fuck her anyway. He was going to penetrate her all the way with his cock.

His weight, his size, made his spongy head force her lips apart, drawing a low moan from her, as Mark scraped the insides of her vagina through her pussy juices.

“Tia Tang, Tia Tang!" the goblin yelled as Mark expanded her insides, feeding more and more of his cock into her.

“Tang Yatag!" the female moaned as Mark's shaft widened into her pussy as his mushroom head STILL scraped at her insides. His precum and her female arousal tried and did a good job of lubing his dick, but he still had to FORCE it inside until he got to the end of this tunnel.

“More," Mark growled and grounded into her, making his glans squeeze against her cervix, making the goblin female moan and slide in the dirt.

“I need more," Mark growled as he withdrew his hips, his shaft and glans rubbing against her tight depths all the while, before he used all of his weight to smash it back in.

“Fu tang!" The goblin screamed as Mark slammed into the end of her tunnel again, her arms circling around his neck and tightly holding in.

“More!" Mark yelled as he withdrew and smashed into her again, using more speed and FORCE.

“Gya!" the goblin screeched as Mark pressed against the end of the tunnel…and felt the tunnel start to give.

His next thrust pushed the end of the tunnel even more.

The one after that made it stretched out.

And then, with lust and violence fueling his swings, Mark punched his cock into her depths.

And…broke in?

“GYA!" the goblin female screamed her heart out as Mark's cock breached a chamber somewhere inside of her.

Had he had any experience with any women before this, he would have been terrified. His breach of her uterus would have killed the moment and, in all probability, ended the sex. But the only thing Mark knew was that this female only got tighter around him, that their love juices produced the most peculiar tantalizing smell, and that he was FUCKING HER.

The goblin female arched her back as she screamed, her face flushed and her eyes doozy.

But still, they were locked eye to eye and Mark lost himself into those hourglass orbs.

He withdrew his cock, managing to squeeze his glans out of her womb before, more tenderly this time, thrusted it as far as it would go.

“Hng," the goblin only grunted as her jaw slacked and saliva almost dripped out of the corner of her mouth. She was holding tight to his neck by this time, which allowed Mark to grab her wide hips as he slammed into her cunt and womb time after time.

Again and again.

The smell of her body was an addictive aphrodisiac in Mark's nose, her sweat and hormones pushing him on and on.

He kissed the corner of her lips then, and made a trace that went into her neck. Even that tasted excellent, so he debased himself that delicate flesh.

He felt the pressure in his lower stomach form, and his testicles started to clench. He pressed his hips as far into her as he could go and-

“I am coming!" he moaned into her neck.

“Gya, Yatag!" the goblin moaned with him.

He pumped all the seed that his testicles could produce into her. He pumped all the sperm that could corrupt her DNA. Pint after pint, burst after burst.

Her stomach bloated a bit and then…he was done.

Mark didn't collapse on top of the goblin, but it was a near thing. Why had no one ever told him that sex made you feel sleepy? But maybe that was also the work of the adrenaline wearing off. Letting him feel scrapes and bruises that he hadn't previously noticed.

Mark found himself rolling next to her, collapsing really, as he breathed hard. His softening cock withdrew from her sloppy cunt and the green woman stared in amazement at Mark. There was an expectation there, like a fighter that wanted to touch gloves before a match. It was a stark reminder that Mark had no idea what he done, why he had done it and…what he was going to do now.

“I-I am going to get my stuff," Mark said as he looked away from her. He could feel golden eyes on his head, but he couldn't meet them at that moment.

“It would be bad to sleep out in this cold and-look, I am just going," Mark felt silly explaining but felt compelled to do so anyway. He had gone from killing to fucking. From killing her friends to suddenly being, what, her lover? Or maybe her rapist? This was so ridiculous.

So, before he could think himself into a paralysis, he got up from the ground and donned his pants again. And went out to get his shit.

His sled was where he left, past a trail of dead goblin bodies. All the things he had brought and worked hard for were still in it and that included his sleeping bag and emergency rations. He had pulled out the Machete from out of a goblin chest, and had managed to clean it with goblin rags on the way here.

He got all his stuff and brought his sled to his would be home, but his mind wasn't in any of this.

It was on the green woman who had not moved from the ground as he started going after his things. Of her leaking pussy, her huge still tasty-looking tits, and her expressive but amazed eyes. He didn't know what to make of her, or of himself or-or them, even.

But he had left her there without supervision and, hopefully, she would take the need to make sense out of his hands and leave with whatever she could carry. He didn't own her after all and…he knew he was going to remember this night for the rest of his life, but it didn't matter.

It was best if this was the only time they met.

Goblins. In this world. How had the feds not managed to find them? Certainly, a lot of the natives that they had first spotted once they got to this world were human-shaped from aerial pictures, and looked quite human even from close up, but they had all assumed that was just a quirk of the portals.

Maybe there was no reason why any other intelligent race should look like the evolved version of a furless monkey in the universe, but the portals that had opened up on Earth didn't take them to other places in the universe, now did they?

But the goblins meant that Camp and humanity weren't as isolated from the natives as they thought. As they would like.

Mark would, argh, he would go back to Camp Town and try to tell someone official about this. But not before trying to salvage something from his house.

He was getting ready to start doing so in the morning by the time he got back to his maybe-never home. He was going to set up his tent one last time on his foundation and dream about what never was.

But-

The goblin female was still there.

She had his jacket in her hand, touching the seams that separated the cotton from the fur. Right, he had decided not to “unwrap" the dead goblin inside it until he had all of his things. But the coat didn't look too bad to be honest.

There was wonder on her face as she examined it and remained there until she noticed that he was there.

Immediately she dropped the coat, and hid her hand behind her back. She only had her loincloth on, making Mark have to keep a smile off his face, but she was looking away from him even as he got closer.

“What are you doing?" he asked, even though he knew she wouldn't understand. The goblin gingerly looked at his face but didn't say anything.

“Why didn't you escape?"

The goblin peered curiously into his face, even as Mark wondered what was going on through her head. Maybe she thought that he would hunt her down if she didn't stay put?

Maybe she had traveled a long away, and without her group this was the only way to survive the cold nights?

Maybe the experience had so thoroughly traumatized her that she wasn't sure what to do?

“What a mess," Mark ran a hand through his face.

The first two goblins he would do nothing about. But the three here would attract scavengers and predators. The female goblin he wasn't sure what to do about, so he set his set his sled down and decided to decide after he had taken care of the above tasks.

“Traga?" the goblin female, who kept following him for some reason, pointed at the bodies of her friends when Mark slung them over his shoulders.

“Do you want to give them a proper burial?" Mark felt compelled to tell her, “I am sorry, but I am far too tired to dig graves and I need to set up a tent soon. If I don't at least get rid of their bodies, it won't be safe."

And then he set about throwing them over the edge. One by one, the bodies all rolled down the hill, until they were lost in the canopy of the forest.

Mark felt dirty after doing that, the smell of copper and iron heavy in his nose now that it had time to settle, but the she-goblin hadn't made a remark about it. He'd thought she would at least protest, or at least impede him somehow. All cultures venerated their dead, no? But she didn't do either.

Instead, she kept following him, looking and observing him as he set about setting up his tent.

“I am not going to hunt you if you leave," Mark sighed, making shooing motions with his hands, “You can go."

The goblin frowned at his hand motions, the most emotion that he had seen since they had, well, fucked.

But she stood her ground.

“What are you waiting for?" Mark asked, not knowing what he was expecting. The goblin was still glaring at him.

But she had also begun shivering.

She had tried to put the rags that Mark had ripped off back on, but it obviously wasn't-

“Here!" Mark threw her his coat, “There, now you won't die from the cold!"

The goblin girl looked at the coat in her hand in amazement, then at Mark.

“You can go now," Mark said again and, without another word, entered his tent, “Don't let me stop you."

But it was moments later before the entrance of his tent opened and the goblin, against all reason, was there.

“What do you want?" Mark asked in frustration.

“Katya," the goblin, who had wrapped his coat around her frame, simply said.

And then laid on his roll.

“Are you fucking kidding me," Mark muttered under his breath, but there was almost no light outside now. He had flashlights, of course, but they were far too precious to hand out, “Why are you doing this?"

But the goblin didn't answer. Only got more comfy in his sheets.

Mark considered throwing her out, of course, because there was nothing about this situation that he understood.

But there she was. A female, albeit a goblin one, in his sheets. So small and tiny. So soft and delicate. He didn't like to share his lodgings with others, but-

“Have it your way," Mark grunted. No, he couldn't do it. He couldn't throw her out.

Then he laid against her and the goblin girl actually scooted against him.

She was touching him again, squeezing her body against his in a way that stirred things inside of him. Things that he crushed with a will made of stone, as he got comfy with his apparent bed partner. Because, in truth, he didn't want to touch her. Because he feared that he might break her.

He didn't…he didn't want to hurt her.

His arms at least, went over her and, after that, conscious thought vanished.

The next morning, she was gone along with his coat.

He could still feel her body on his chest and his arms. He could still imagine her heat in his skin. All of that, at that moment, was a greater loss than his coat but then, that was what he wanted right?

He still had no idea what to do about that goblin.

Without her there, though, he could at least begin taking stock of things.

The goblins HAD, apparently, taken plenty of things. He had no idea for how long they had been doing it, but it was long enough that he would have to come back to town at some point to get more things.

But if he did, they would probably come back with a bigger force and take everything.

What a mess.

So he set about gathering things.

The plan had always been to stock up on everything he needed before he stayed in these hills as long as it took to make his house. This was supposed to be one of the last trips. And then afterward he would make semi-regular trips back to exchange what he caught or harvested from the mountain in exchange for things in Camp.

Now? Now even if he could build his house, he could never leave it or it would get ransacked. And even if he didn't, even if his house WAS built up and he had enough things to live here now, what stopped the goblin that escaped from returning with his friends?

The presence of a single goblin here had always meant that his dream was dead.

So the conclusion was clear, anyway. He had to leave.

The comprehension and the tepid bitter feelings of day before came back as he organized himself. On top of that, he was doing it without the bracing warmth of his cotton and fur coat, which he regretted leaving in the goblin woman's hands.

That is, until that coat returned with the woman.

A bundle of loong-rooted mushrooms in her hands.