Inside her home. [Epilogue]

You can't tell if you've slept for hours or days. But when you do start waking up, your senses pick up the fact that you're lying on a soft, cushioned surface, and there's a fire going somewhere nearby.

There's also a female voice humming some unknown, wordless tune in the distance. Your eyes pry open to observe your surroundings. You're surrounded on all sides with dirt and stone, now residing in some underground chamber that's connected to a larger room branching off of it. You find yourself lying on a collection of pillows piled on top of a simple blanket to serve as a place to rest. Not exactly your bed at home, but it did the job. You get up slowly, your body sore all over. You're not bruised, but your muscles strain as you stretch, shaking off the stiffness you've acquired in your sleep. You also notice you're not wearing a shirt, but that's not your biggest concern right now. A candle rests on a simple wooden nightstand nearby, illuminating your room with source of light that's easy on your eyes. You stand up, groaning with the effort. You take the time to notice in this new position that your testicles have shrunk back down, but they're still overall larger than you remember them. You make your way out of your room and into the doorway connecting it to a larger central space. Leaning on it for support, you observe this large chamber as best your groggy mind can.

For one, despite being more similar to an ant hill than a home, it's fairly well furnished.

A simple wooden table with 4 crude but adequate chairs tucked in on the sides. On the wall opposite that, a fire burns in a fireplace, now more ashes than anything as lanterns along the wall provide most of the light in here. An iron cauldron sits near the center of the big room, unattended. The far wall has ladder rungs in the form of roots protruding from the wall leading up to a hole in the ceiling where daylight seeps in. You notice more doorways leading off to who knows where, but you're more focused on the figure moving around in the dark. You focus your eyes to find your goblin attacker, Barbara, idly doing housework around her abode. Right now she's sweeping some stray dirt into a pile, the stone floor surprisingly well-kept, all things considered. You also notice the crude broom she holds is fittingly about half the size of every other broom you've ever seen.

It occurs to you now that everything is half sized. Her furniture, her clothes, even the lanterns on the wall aren't too high out of a goblin's reach. The ceiling is barely tall enough for you to avoid bonking your head into it while you were half-asleep. Although thankfully it looks like the hatch in the ceiling is plenty wide enough for you to fit, probably owing to Barbara's thick thighs needing a fair bit of room.

Barbara seems to be dressed in your plain white shirt, draping over her like a loosely fitting robe. Her hat sits on the table, her hair in a cute, messy bun on top of her head. She finally notices you standing silently and gets startled.

"Woah! Oh... phew. It's you, big guy. Don't scare me like that! My old heart can't take it."

You apologize and walk out into the light, standing over her and petting her head with ease due to her stature.

"Hm hm! I'm not a pet, you know. Not that I'm telling you to stop, either. Oh, sorry about stealing your shirt, but I believe you owe me after what you did to my dress, dear. Honestly, you younger generation have no manners!"

You apologize again for how you acted when you were overcome with both lust and a magic potion, but she just laughs it off. She explains what happened while you were passed out. She woke up first, gathered her hat, and in her words, "expelled" the leftover fluid in her body. She also borrowed your shirt owing to the sorry state of her own clothes, then brought you back here to her home hidden underneath an old tree stump. Probably one you passed several times. She also mentions how most monsters opt to hide in plain sight, either as instinct or preference. How exactly she moved an **** body that is twice as big as her and weighs 3 times as much, she didn't explain in detail. "A goblin has her secrets" she said.

"You slept like the dead this past day. I fell asleep soon after we arrived myself, only waking up half an hour before you did just now. I also noticed your little 'gift' you left in return for mine earlier."

She lifts up her dress (your shirt) to reveal her pussy, and resting just above that, the magic rune from yesterday. She doesn't know how it got there, your explanation of events from when she was passed out giving her a better idea, but not a clear answer.

"Interesting... I know some magic users can even cast spells while they're asleep depending on what they desire, but I'm no magic user. Just a potion maker."

She scoffs and grabs your hands playfully, clasping them between hers.

"Who knows, dear. Maybe I wanted to be pregnant so badly that something decided to grant my wish."

Your wish as well, honestly.

"Although by the amount of love you left in me, I doubt it made much difference in the end."

You two make idle conversation for a while after that, her sitting at table and you sitting crisscross on the floor due to the size of her chairs being... inadequate. Among other things, you tell her your name and history, exchanging questions and answers about each other's upbringing. You discover she's probably only a few years older than you despite her mature appearance and "old lady" persona. Something about goblin's shorter lifespans meaning they age differently. She mentions how most monsters separate from their parents after reaching adulthood to go off and start their own family, rarely ever running into each other again, hence why she lives alone despite having 2 brothers and 2 sisters. She also tells of how she makes visits every so often to the gnomes residing further in the forest, trading potions for whatever she needs back here. Mostly furniture or raw ingredients. Sometimes she finds the odd knickknack left behind or dropped by humans, or bought secondhand off other monsters with direct interactions with humans.

Her food supply is simply whatever she catches or forages in the daytime. She's quite nimble for her size, but that might change soon.

"Being pregnant is going to be quite the challenge, though. Maybe I'll have to pick up fishing. But then again, I'm not the biggest fan of fish... hmmm..." she says as she drifts off into thought.

You ask her what her plans are for you.

"I was going to uphold my end of the deal, dear. I'll drop you off at your village in return for helping start my new family. Simple as that."

She pats her stomach proudly, but you think over what she just said.

You do find yourself liking the company of this woman quite a bit. And your newfound paternal instincts are screaming at you to protect, love, and raise your children with every ounce of strength you have. Your heart drops at the thought of never seeing Barbara or your children once she leaves you at the village.

You look her in the eyes with confidence and ask her to come live with you in the village.

"Wha- what?! But I-"

You also add that she doesn't have to live in the village if she's more comfortable here, but no matter what, you know you can't imagine a life without her now.

"No, the town is fine! But I don't- I don't know... It's a lot to consider... do you really not mind marrying a goblin, dear? I've never thought about myself being in an interspecies relationship before... I simply thought I'd... I don't know.. fuck you, and then you'd have no interest in staying beyond that! Geez, now that I say it out loud, it sounds quite presumptuous and rude to use you like that... I'm sorry..."

You tell her there's no need to apologize, and she can take her time coming up with an answer if she'd like. It's quite a big decision to make, and not one to make lightly.

"No, if you mean what you're saying... then I have no reason to worry. You look like a far cry from the aimless young man I bumped into yesterday."

She eyes you down again, coming to a decision.

"Alright. I'll marry you, dear. I hope you know what you're getting into."

She lunges across the table and wraps her arms around your neck, pulling you in for a deep hug. Before you can even say anything, she pulls you into a series of deep kisses and small pecks alike. Not the primal kisses from before, this time just a romantic display between lovers.

After another day of staying at Barbara's place, you begin the process of heading back to the village. Your mind runs through the million different outcomes of strolling into town with a goblin girl claiming to be your wife. What if they kick you out? What if something happens to Barbara? What if she doesn't like it there? But before you know it, you find yourself walking up to the front gates, a goblin girl riding on your shoulders.

"He's back!"

The guard at the gate greets you, and several townsfolk come out to investigate as well. They're all curious about your journey, which you explain in a safe-for-work retelling of events. Getting lost, this goblin girl saving you, spending time together and falling in love, etc. You leave out the details about what activity occupied most of your time together.

Your surprised to hear that most people welcome Barbara into the town with open arms. Some people even talk about their neighbor/cousin/uncle so-and-so who left town to go live with a monster in the woods, so this clearly isn't a new event.

The days after that are hectic, in a good way. Your mom meets Barbara and gives her approval, along with the request for several grandchildren.

"Goblin or not, doesn't matter to me." she says.

Barbara settles nicely into domestic life, amazed by some of the human advancements that she was unaware of. Running water and plumbing being close to magic for her.

Barbara still needed to move some of her old furniture of tools out of her underground dwelling, which would've been almost impossible if not for the assistance of a kind ogre named Benjamin.

He's quite the imposing figure, standing twice your height and full of muscle. When you ask Barbara about him, she just answers "Oh yeah, we go way back! Although I never got a chance to see him again after I first moved in. Don't let his stature intimidate you, he's just a big softie, dear."

After that, life returns to normal as you begin a new chapter alongside your soul mate, both of you promising the face whatever adversity lies ahead together.

10 years later.

You find yourself once again being harassed by goblins poking and prodding you while you try to sleep.

"Hey! How many times do I have to tell you to leave your father alone?"

A familiar voice scolds the small hands currently urging you to wake up.

You hear them scutter out of the room while Barbara follows, but not before coming over and giving you a kiss on the cheek.

You make your way out to the kitchen where everyone has gathered, waiting for breakfast cooking on the stove.

Hilda, your daughter, runs up to you and immediately starts bombarding you with questions.

"Hey dad! When are we going out to the woods again? Can I practice more with the bow? You're gonna let me go to Maria's house later, right?"

Not sure which question she wants answered first, and not having an answer in particular to any of them, you just groan "Mmhm dear" as you pat her head. This method is always sufficient in getting her off your back first thing in the morning.

Hilda's two brothers, Daniel and David, stand on either side of Barbara, staring at her grown belly with amazement.

Barbara is heavily pregnant with twins, 10 months along with the two newest additions to the family. Where you got the time to have more kids with triplets already running around, you'll never know. Daniel and David have been very curious about their new siblings, and protective of their mother in these past few months, offering to help with housework here or there and generally being worried that she's straining herself too much. Barbara is appreciative, but shrugs off their concerns with "I got along just fine when I had you three, didn't I?", although this does little to stop the two brothers from their natural curiosity.

"When are they gonna be here, mom?" Daniel asks.

David adds in "And what's their names?"

"And are they gonna be boys like us?" Daniel bounces back with another question.

Barbara, in growing irritation, lightly smacks the boys' foreheads with her wooden spoon before answering "I don't know, but you're annoying them with all your questions."

Barbara is glowing with natural beauty during her second pregnancy, just as she did with the first. She's grown to be quite the wife and mother in the past decade, just as you've become a loving husband and father. Your fraternal triplets were a handful at first, but due to goblin aging, they grew to child-size in no time at all. Despite technically being half-goblins, they still look inside and out like their mother, as all hybrid children of interspecies pairings do. But they still have some of your traits, like Hilda getting your hair color, and Daniel having eyes just like yours.

An unintended side-effect of your marriage was an increase in positive monster-human relations in the small area around your village. Every so often somebody would go out into the woods and come back with a monster at their side, whether as a friend or as a lover. Some would move in, some would move out, but generally everybody felt a little more at-ease with going out into the woods. You couldn't have guessed how much your life would change from simply getting lost in the woods, but looking at where you've found yourself, surrounded by a loving family in a peaceful village, you wouldn't trade it for anything.

The End.