Kea the Goblin

Kea blushed as he lifted up his shirt. *This is a strong hooman,* she thought as her potential mate revealed his warriors body to her. *Lucky Kea! She found a strong but kind hooman for her to bond with. Gentle strength. Handsome too! Older but fit. D'heyv was very good! Not like the bad hoomans who take her away. And so big! Maybe too big! Surely he must have a mate already? What if he did not want to- Oh, many scars! Definitely strong warrior! Mmmmm... very nice! Very good, indeed! What would he do now? Maybe he wanted to... get right to it?* She blushed and bit her lips nervously but tried to stay calm and not get her hopes up too high... but she had. From the moment he caught her gently, the wonderful way he smelled... he even brought her into his home and fed her delicious food, courting her, before he gently marked her as his by licking that funny paper-cloth and bathing her in his scent in the way of her tribe. But she worried. Could she be mistaken? Hoomans were funny that way. Hoomans had strange notions and ways of expressing themselves.

He took her hand jabbering away in hooman and traced an old scar with it. Then he placed her hand on the bandaged bite she gave him. He looked onto her eyes deeply with those eyes like the blue sky and said smiling at her. "Kea-Dave good-good friends... always." Her potential mate patted his hand over her heart then hers over his repeating, "Always... Always... understand?"

She didn't understand all the words... but she understood enough. He wanted her with him forever like the mark she had put on him. He accepted her claim on him if she wanted? He valued, no... treasured it! She nodded her acceptance through happy tears. "All ways," she said accepting her strong but gentle mates proposal. He started wiping away her tears. *How can some hoo'mans be so mean and others so gentle? So nice?!* she wondered. *Doesn't matter. It may not be how the odd wolfhowl "Ahwiooo" people wanted it to happen, but it happened. I found my mate! The best one I'm sure! The one for Ke'a!*

It was like a tale that the storytellers tell! It may have started bad but now it was almost too perfect! She could feel the bonding that had begun already growing stronger between her and her mate! And then...

*Gurgling*

She flushed as her stomach made a noise. But it was only the hungry-bear noise and not the hungry-dragon noise of before. It could wait until after the "Ahwiooo" were satisfied and then... she felt herself blush at the thought of what came later and her excitement build. She'd eaten enough for that. She was a goblin. She could go days without eating if need be, then gorge... like the wolves they rode back home in her tribe.

But D'hayv, her new mate, wasn't satisfied apparently. He had heard the sound and nodded jabbering in hooman. First he quickly introduced her to the big cat guardian of the home. It must be so because he called it "Master" and she knew that hooman term so it must be special even if she couldn't see anything special about it except for its size. She nodded as she patted "Master" and made a mental note to not cook and eat it.

Then her mate whisked her to another area of his magnificent hut. She thought maybe he was impatient for making sport... and she blushed, bitting her lip. She was too after how sweet he was to her. Surely the "Ahwiooo" wouldn't be too upset if things were done just a bit out of order. After all that was why she'd come... before the "secret tree beach" thing. Which was silly. She hadn't seen any secret special trees or beaches. Just the mean hoomans and dark places before she'd escaped.

But instead her mate brought her into a room for preparing food and showed her his larder. It was full of good things to eat. She smiled and nodded to show her understanding that he was showing he'd be a good mate and provider and that she was suitably impressed. But that wasn't enough for her sweetly silly mate apparently as he immediately started preparing more food over the magic cooking-fire box to feed her. Salted and cured delicious meats and sausages! Fresh eggs cooked without the hard bits of shell! Fresh sliced and fluffy bread slightly toasted with warm butter! Spongy and warm flat cakes drizzled with sweet syrup and berries! Zesty and spicy fried potatoes! And more and more heavenly food because as soon as She'd start half finishing one plate her wonderful mate would devotedly make her more! She moaned. How much more? Did D'hayv intend to "do that" with her for days on end without rest after? Was her mate that virile?! The thought excited and thrilled her deep down but she needed to tell him she was nearing her prodigious limit... besides he needed to eat too!

Finally after waving her hands madly about then crossing her arms and pointing at his plate he seemed to understand and joined her. He filled his plate and cup with the black bitter tea. It was a potion that heightened alertness called Khaw-fey. She knew. She'd watched the "Ahwiooo" people and others consume it regularly to heighten their proformance.

She smiled watching him eat. She was right! He ate a lot! But that made sense. He was big even for a hooman. She liked his appetite. And judging from how he smiled at her he liked hers too... among other things! He kept looking at her as he tried to make hooman speech with her. He seemed to want to know as much about her as she did about him. She tried explaining to him various things but it was hard. She had barely begun her "Ahwiooo" studies before being taken so her hooman speech was limited and she was out of practice and he knew nothing of the goblin tongue.

But she was surprised that he knew what a goblin was when she tried to explain! He smiled and left momentarily from the table only to return quickly with the expensive "book" things! He showed her one full of the different races of monsters! Some of the pictures were inaccurate but that that wasn't surprising at all. Scribes in her world often drew strange or inaccurate pictures in the few books she'd seen. The books themselves were obviously well and very precisely made with fine print, crisp paper and little details. Obviously worth a fortune. Apparently he had many of them! She was even more impressed. Her mate was some kind of warrior-wiseman! Maybe even a wizard! Was "Master" a familiar? War wizards were rare and powerful. No wonder he was rich and eccentric with a big hut!

Eventually he led her away to show her something else. We're they finally going to do it! She was nervous but excited. Surely he'd be gentle with her like he was in all things so far. She needed to seal and solidify her bond with her strong but sweetly gentle hooman mate! Now that she'd found a good one she had to be brave and not let him get away... or be taken from him! She knew. Good hoomans were harder to find than she'd thought they would be!

She wasn't going to lose this one no matter what!