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running-with-kn1ves · 3 months

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RITUAL

Synopsis: a young orc is taken by his tribe to undergo a coming-of-age ceremony

CW: kidnapping, drugging, amateur tattoo w/ needle, manhandling, ritualistic behaviors, orc tribe in modern suburbia

A/N; not my usual stuff but had a pretty fun time writing this. Req by @butter-and-too-much-bread !!

The hazy green reflection of an adolescent orc bounced off speckled glass, bulging eyes downturned to look at his own hard flesh and broad, flared nose. He couldn't help but poke around in his mouth with a thick finger, massaging his gums where two large tusks should be by now. How ironic was it, that he was a late bloomer in receiving his tusks but more than double the size of his orcmates.

He pressed sensitively to the gummy flesh beneath a small, prodding canine, next to his bottom left incisor. The tooth was fat, a thick wall of calcium and enamel that has been growing for approximately six months. The other orcs who graduated training camp with him had tusks fully grown nine months ago...

The sharp white piece barely peaked above his bottom lip to uncomfortably press against the top one, making the orc give a grunt as he turned to pick up the unzipped duffel bag crumpled on his bed.

"Daggok!" His mothers voice called, "You're gonna be late!"

Daggok snarled at the nagging as he thundered down the stairs in his work boots, reaching the kitchen by the time she finished rushing him.

"Already gone." He called back, opening the crooked door of his childhood home.

The blistering sunlight fell upon his small eyes, bringing a hand up to shield them as he stumbled forward blindly. He remembered parking on the right of the driveway curb, envisioning the blue, beat up ol' pickup truck that's been his baby since his 12th birthday.

Squinting desperately, he flared his nostrils in aggravation when a peculiarity struck him. A very real peculiarity, that felt oddly similar to a brick. The object hit him so hard he lurched backward, tripping over his own feet. Before he could fall back, two powerful hands grabbed his oversized arms, pulling them behind his back as his feet were brought together by the rough tightness of a rope.

The buzz of cicadas basking in the summer heat droned in and out of Daggoks pointed ears, the grunting of several men much louder as they steadied him with what felt like countless hands. Warm, perspirating fingers tugged at his forearms and elbows, his right shoulder and just below his jugular, pushing him down ever so slightly. He would've screamed if not for the semi-sweet, bitterly acidic washcloth shoved in his mouth, making him drool as his tusks press awkwardly against it. A blindfold was pressed against his eyes and tightly tied against his head, roughly without an inch of nurturing care.

The tangy sticky sweet flavour of the rag was beginning to slide down daggoks throat now.

Voices hushed him as he let out aggressive wails, trying to toss and turn as he felt himself lunged up like a piece of furniture being carried. He felt himself jolt as the brutes holding him stepped each foot closer to a humming vehicle, old rock music playing faintly from a misty radio.

Daggok let out a howl at suddenly being dropped, the feeling of falling scaring him moreso than the pain of hitting the back of the trunk. He heard the slam of its door in front of him, his blinded eyes now even darker as all light removed from the trunk. The last sound he could make out from the muffled cage was the sudden blast of the radio as someone stepped on the gas pedal, lurching him forward with cigarette smoke seeping into his nostrils.

The sleepy blackness of the trunks safety latch mocked him, weak gruff hands unable to escape from their binds as his head lulled back and forth, exhaustion he'd normally feel after a day of slinging boards of wood and dry wall at his father's construction site. Daggoks soft eyes closed, a muffled snore leaving his gagged mouth.

The sudden jolt of the car going over a speed bump forced daggok awake, his head hitting the trunk floor with teary eyes. He still couldn't see, could only feel the rough road that whatever car he was in could barely survive from. Every roll forward was another bump bump bump on harsh gravel, making the orc's body vibrate uncomfortably as he laid on his hands.

His mind was a string of words, consciousness so dulled he couldn't think of what to do, of how he got here at first.

It wasn't until a harsh stop of someone stomping on the breaks, his body lurching back against the trunk side of the backseat, did he remember the hazy, breath-snatching kidnapping he had experienced earlier. How long ago was that? It felt like it was the next day already, how long had his body been stuffed and cramped into this tiny trunk? He tried to kick his tied feet, flailing them to feel for anything else in the trunk that could help him. Something metal clinked against the back of his work boot. The more he kicked it, the farther it pressed against the curves of the beat-up sedan.

A car door slammed shut, then another. Two more followed, nearly simultaneously with boots trudging against a mushy, unpaved road. Daggok could smell the petrichor within the trunk, could taste the earthy, fresh dirt in his gagged mouth. They were no longer in the rural, semi-suburban neighborhood he was raised in. From the lack of rushing cars nearby, the lack of fellow-Orc chatter, Daggok wondered if they were somewhere on the outskirts of his farming town, no powerplants loud enough to roar in his ears or highways nearby to drown out the sound of the birds chirping outside of the trunk.

Is this....what I think it is? Daggok wondered to himself. Could it really be? Is it finally his turn?

He hadn't been briefed on what would occur, on when it'd happen or who would take him. The orc had only heard stories from his older cousins, his friends that had finished their apprenticeships who had all disappeared without a trace at some point or another, which they recounted from.

"They tie and gag you, sometimes using this kind of medicine that knocks you unconscious; I didn't get that though, once my head hit that cold trunk I was out." One of his buddies recounted.

He was right, Daggok confirmed. These trunks really aren't uncomfortable. Couldn't they have picked a better way to transport their soon-to-be warriorkin? He knew it was a tribe tradition, but did they really have to do it so...coldly?

Some shuffling from outside the car commenced before the click of a latch rang, the trunk opening to release a wave of bright light. Even from beneath his blindfold daggok winced, the change from the thudding darkness now blinding him even greater than the fabric on his eyes.

The gruffs of two men became more labored as they hauled his big body out of the trunk, the brush against large tusks and warm palms grabbing his thighs made Daggok shiver. A short distance had been made with the sound of a busted creaky door opening, light shifting once more.

Before he knew it, he was thrown to the floor, a flurry of dust rising to clog his throat and pores. The cold of a knife pressed against his temple, fabric ripping against his ear as the blindfold once wrapped so tightly was pulled off like ribbon.

It took a harsh moment for Daggok's dark eyes to adjust, the green of them turning to a muddy brown in the dim light.

"Get up." A rough, tusked voice sounded, a heavy boot pressed against his side.

Daggok could see the male, recognizing him as one of the few orc men his peers revered. He was... tall. It was like a skyscraper staring down at him, broad shoulders and fat tusks glaring with sheer bruteness.

The tied orcling shook with his cheek smoothed against the wood-dusted floor, adrenaline coursing through his thoughts but his feet shaking as they struggled to lift his knees.

But all of a sudden, and without warning, his panicked instinct took over. He bolted to the padlocked door viewable between the shoulders of two orcs. Like a bear stomping through the woods, he lunged toward that swinging door of metal without a forethought.

The grunts of two orcs double his size grabbed the elbows of his arms tied and pressed to his tailbone, lifting him off his hopping feet and pressing against his hot skin. Fat fingers grabbed at his midwaist, soaking in sweat and the hard ripple of his stomach, not quite defined but as solid as an iron bull. He was a weapon to be trifled with, on his way to becoming just as tall and rugged as the forefathers in front of him.

"Lef me--go!" He grumbled through the sheer gag pushed to touch his tongue.

A warm hand was pressed against his teeth like a mouth guard, ring finger between his lips as he tasted salty skin and the threatening but, unphazed look of an orc that was restraining him. He almost whimpered, as shameful as he thought, from how prepotent the leader of the kidnappers was; his boot came to push Daggok's chest, forcing him against the chair with a foot-shaped bruise on his swampy skin. The males leadership was so clear it almost left a bad taste in Daggoks mouth, a distinguished look of scar and missing flesh decorating the older orc as the rest of his brethren watched from the dark, golden eyes shining as they brerudgingly stayed quiet.

"Trying to leave... don't you know what'll become of you if you don't stay?"

Well, his buddy sure didn't tell him that part. He never knew anyone who successfully got away; that just, never seemed like an option. But Daggok knew the warrior wasn't looking for an answer. Still, he muffled through the heated hand gag.

"Coufn't hep it.." He shrugged, relaxing now that he could recognize a few faces from his fellow tribe that he remembered; men he had looked up to since prepubescence.

The orcling didn't really *want* to leave, not if it meant not getting his status like the rest of his peers. But what orc child could help that back-of-the-mind desire to escape his elders who clearly weren't here to play nice?

A silence only broken by the heavy exhales of orcmen and their cigarettes dying left the room quiet for a moment. Waiting. They waited to see what Daggok would do. But he stayed still, as if he had an option between the two breathing down his neck and forcing his hands behind his back.

"You're to stay here for seven days, seven nights.. your brothers are being held elsewhere, and you will not see them. Not until your Garrosh."

Garrosh. The final ceremony. The worst part, and the most gratifying. Daggok could imagine the pain of his lashings after being paraded around town, the suffering and the sensation of freedom as the last one hits him.

The musty air of the basement came back to his plump lips, the hand suffocating them now gone only ro be replaced with a slapping push to his cheek.

"are you listening? Kid, you won't be told this again. Wanna look like an idiot at your ceremony? "

Steel fingers that smelled like pine grabbed his chin, crinkled black eyes only millimeters away from him as they stood watching Daggok shrink away. The fingers pulsated forward, forcing his head to nod no with a tight grip on his jaw.

"That's what I thought."

The leader of the group, probably an industrialist by day, turned around with sweltering muscles lining his spine and girthy neck.

The leader threw an ancient-looking patched robe at Daggok, little rock-like beads lining its V-neckline. The orcling could imagine, it was just like the one each orc who had faced this ritual had worn, when they were carried out on a spit as a gagged masterpiece, or held by a dozen men with unwavering and bulging arms who had taught them their future.

"Put this on. And get up." ------

The next week was a level of hell that Daggok couldn't have possibly imagined in the months that he waited for this kidnapping. His kidnappers, the men who had raised him, lined his back with a hot, searing needle to create the crest of his tribe, one that had existed on every orc who had reached maturity in his town. He witnessed the dark scars that were leftover of orc men in their mid-age, decades having passed since they received their honorary marks and yet still as prevelant and encapsulating as ever. A majority of the week was spent resting, calloused hands occasionally rubbing in a vaseline-like substance to promote healing.

When he wasn't resting, he was put through meaningless trials to prove his worth, himself versus nine others just to withstand an uneven beating, his bare chest pressed against the biceps of an orc much too strong in the pouring rain to increase his strength.

But that seventh night finally came, and with it the eighth day of his ceremony. It was far too early when he was picked up by the scarred and burnt warrior he had come to know far more familiarly within this past week. His arms pulled and pushed each way, a million hands holding up his legs and the wide expanse of his back, fingers clenching his nape as he was hoisted above. The sun barely peaked above the horizon as a crowded footsteps could be heard, silence following him until he and the orcmen had reached a threshold, where the silence was replaced by screams of excitement and congratulation. Like he was told, Daggok remained silent, feeling his hips clenched by his leaders hands, his ankles held securely as he could hear, but not see the sounds of the townspeople of his tribe. The motor of pickup trucks revving from behind and bright yellow torches swaying in his face was a sight he could hardly behold. He was sure his mother was in the crowd of people behind or fronting him, for she would not miss the moment every orcling dreams of when they reach their age of Picking. Their Garrosh. Their warrior ceremony.

Hazy pink sky made his eyes adjust softly to the outside world, which he had not seen during the day for a week. Was it over? His kidnapping, his trial? His markings, still dulled by a pain, were cherishingly held by his fellow tribesmen, those he now held an equal ranking to.

This was it, and finally: he felt an aching pain in his gums, where his tusks had previously only barely peaked from.

#kn1ves rants #knives rants #writing #Fiction #Og fiction #Orc #Orc oc #i love orcs #Orc fiction #Fantasy #Fantasy writing #fiction writing #monster fiction #modern fantasy #orcs #tw kidnapping #tw kidnap mention

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teddybasmanov · 1 year

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Orc/elven prince thingy (drabble??)

inspired by the beginning/premise of this (very NSFW) roleplay. I should have probably posted this on the NSFW side blog, but it'd be completely ignored there and I know people here to suffer.

The premise, so that you don't have to listen/read anything on GWAG: rulers of an elven kingdom started to mess with the orcs (who presumably live somewhere on the borders) - taxing, fining, restricting their moments etc. Orcs tried to negotiate, but their words fell on deaf ears. So, a chief of an orc tribe kidnaps an elven prince to make his parents pay attention to their demands.

In the original roleplay the prince is silly and scared, which is fine, but I want him to be a politician. And for him to have trouble with his parents, of course. (Slightly inspired by a whole bunch of stuff and also my beloved Elven Prince series (still very NSFW).)

TW: kidnapping, threats of violence, mentions of fantasy racism.

Notes: I just had to get it out of my head, almost unedited.

Word count: around 600.

The scene - the orc chief's tent, the prince has his hands tied together (I'm not sure if he's supposed to be tied to a chair or not, but it's not important), the chief enters with a smug look on his face, expecting the captive to be panicking, but...

"Good evening, noble chief, to what to I owe the honour?" the prince turns to the entrance and respectfully bows his head.

The orc is a little surprised but tries not to show it: "To your parents' stupidity and stubbornness, princeling," he chuckles, expecting a disagreement, but he isn't met with one.

"I presume this concerns the latest," the elf makes the tiniest pause, choosing a word, "developments in the orc policies in the kingdom."

"Yeah, it concerns," the chief is making fun of the elf, "your parents pushing us around and ignoring us."

"And what exactly is your plan, if I might inquire, noble chief?" the prince remains uncharacteristically calm.

"Rough you up and demand your parents attention," the orc says bluntly.

"I'm afraid I'd have to disappoint you, but you'll just be making their majesties a big favour, or even two," the elf says without breaking eye-contact.

"How?" the chief breaths out, moving closer and towering over the prince, who's holding back a shudder.

"You see, noble chief, they aren't happy with both of us. You and your people weren't silently accepting mistreatment and I haven't been agreeing with their policies for a while and 'behaving as a proper elven heir should'. So, by having me here, you give them a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone - launch a crusade against you and find my body in the ruins of your camp," the elf explains.

"Why would they want you dead? Why not just have another heir? And why would you be dead in the first place - I wasn't planning on killing you," the orc is very confused.

"Due to longevity elves can't have more than one child - the rulers are supposed to be an example to their people. And lately, leaving the kingdom in my hands has become their worst nightmare," the prince huffs bitterly, "Oh, and who said you'd be the one to kill me? No one would pay attention in the heat of battle."

The orc chief stares at the elven prince in disbelief. In orcish culture hurting a child - moreover your child - is one of the worst crimes. They stand in silence for a bit.

"And what do you suggest, prince?" the orc is so surprised, he forgets to be deprecating.

"Have you already sent a messenger to the capital?" the elf asks, cool and collected, as if nothing happened.

"No, why?"

"If you're willing to work with me, noble chief, we can turn this situation into an opportunity for both of us," the prince gives a small smile, "You didn't kidnap me - I came here myself to help work out a solution of the latest problems with the kingdom racial policies," the orc raises an eyebrow, interested, "We'll make an official statement to the elven people and then I can offer myself as an ambassador and a negotiator on the orcs' side. That'll help us push their majesties and, hopefully, earn us an ally in each other."

The chief give the elf another long look.

"Well, if we are to be allies," he reaches towards the bindings, "here," with one swift motion of an orcish knife the elf's hands are free.

"Introductions are in order," he extends his hand for a handshake, "Lorzub, chief of the orcish tribes of the north."

The prince readily returns the gesture.

#gwag #grinningpup #writing #fanfic #orc/elf #mlm fantasy #orc fiction #I don't know how to tag it #and then they become allies and friends and fall in love and then when the prince becomes the king they definitely get married #and they fuck nasty of course

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writing-to-survive · 6 months

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#119

"You're nothing at all of what I thought an alien would look like," Human says.

"What did you think I was going to look like?" Alien asks.

"I don't know. Multiple arms or heads. Maybe three eyes. Huge heads. Green skin," Human mumbles. "But you look like a human. Like me."

"You are very stereotypical. And—" Alien states.

"Sorry," Human winches.

"—saying we look like your species is an insult. The major difference between our two species is that mine is much more advanced than yours. I mean, you guys are still traveling to space in tin cans."

"I was wrong about what I thought you looked like, but I'm spot on about your personality," Human says.

"Intelligent and honest?" Alien assumes, grinning.

"A stuck-up, know it all who thinks their better than everyone else," Human corrects, wiping the smrik right off Alien's face.

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qkayoostudio · 5 days

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OUT NOW! A Tavern at Night: Firelight

Past, present, or future. What fate will the cards uncover?

After striking up conversation with a wandering terrifying mercenary in a remote tavern, he's agreed to travel together for a while before you go your separate ways.

That separation is approaching soon. To commemorate your final night together you suggest reading him his fortune; might be useful for the road ahead, right?

Except neither of you are particularly looking forward to saying goodbye..

PLAY IT HERE!

features:

♡ a cosy campfire

♡ chooseable pronouns

♡ a variety of fantasy-tarot readings

♡ multiple endings

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tanoraqui · 1 month

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In Which Space Orcs are Men

[AO3] A "what if humans are space orcs" take on Dagor Dagorath. (Aka the prophecied apocalypse of Middle Earth. Scifi story accessible to non-LotR nerds!)

Elves weren't really supposed to leave Earth. That's what they told us—the Elves, that is, told people thousands of years ago, when Elves could still be found here and there. When I was born, elves were nearly as much a fairy tale as they’d been on Ancient Earth.

Elves weren't supposed to leave Earth, the Elves said in the fairy tales, and in a few old scraps of records scattered around known space. They literally weren't made for it. They could only do it if they brought Earth with them—Arda they called it, leaves or dirt, water or a rare bubble of air, perfectly preserved in a white crystal. There are tons of tales about Elves losing their lifeline jewels—their hearts, their silimirs—and roping people into epic quests to get them back before they—the Elf—faded to nothingness.

Even the jewels weren't enough, though. That's why there are also stories about Elves who fell in love with a person or a place and stayed there until they faded, or Elves who charmed someone into following them back to Fairyland on Earth...because whatever they said, Elves didn't really live on Earth. Humans have maintained their home planet as a monitored nature reserve since like the 40th century, open only to vetted research teams and serious Human religious pilgrimages. The most confirmed accounts of Elves that exist are of their ships appearing out of nowhere, with no trace of any tech that would enable it, at random, always-changing points within 100 miles or so of Earth.

Nobody ever came back from trying to follow Elves home. Mostly Elves tried to dissuade people from trying. But there are always crazy and curious people—and Elves usually attracted those, because any Elf who left the home they were "made" for was usually crazy and curious themselves.

Those were the stories I grew up with. There was a cave near the orphans' creche which was supposed to be haunted by a faded Elf. I didn't really believe it—like I said, the last confirmed Elf was last seen like 5,000 years ago, and not even on my planet. People have met two dozen new sentient races since then. We've discovered that reincarnation is probably real (just functionally untrackable), prompting the Pan-Religious Reform Wars. The last person to see a live Elf was still traveling via natural wormholes—they literally didn't know that you could loop pi.

When the Human natal sun started to turn really red, it wasn’t that big a deal at first. It’s a very important, very sad event for any species, but it happens to everyone eventually. It happened to the Hectort just after we invented interstellar flight. There were some unusual gravatic waves around Earth’s Sol, but nothing worth noting to anyone who didn’t already care for personal reasons.

Then the Elves sent us a message.

The local Parks Service picked it up, of course. I bet the Humans meant to hush it up at first—though the Centaurian government still won’t admit anything—but someone leaked it immediately on the intergalactic net. It should’ve only been famous as a joke of a hoax, but…

It was basically just a metal box with rudimentary fire-thrusters soldered on the sides. It contained two things. The first was a recording/replaying device so antiquated that the only way they got it working is that it was already playing on loop, and didn’t stop until someone disconnected it from its power source.

The message was in Ancient Bouban, which some folklorist soon announced is the latest language an Elf could know, since the last known Elf went back to “Arda.” The voice somehow sounded melodic to every species with a concept of music, from the screeching Vesarians to the deep-sea sub-sonic Thinkers, even when translated through cheap, staticky speakers. And to most species, the speaker was audibly distraught.

They said,

This is the final message from the Firstborn of Eru to the Secondborn, and everyone else. The Battle of Battles has come, and we…are losing. If there are any who remember the ancient love and loyalty which bound our peoples, if there are any heirs remaining of Thargalax the Magnificent, of Nine-Fingered Frodo, of the noble Houses of Haleth, Hador and Beor—

The speaker drew a sharp breath, there.

—by great oaths and greater friendship I bid you now to raise your swords and ride to our aid. Ride as swiftly as you can!

We will hold for another year. We will, they said determinedly. After that, it is unlikely that…

Another, shakier breath. A smile forced into a voice which would rather weep.

Fëanáro and Nienna believe there is a way to destroy the Straight Road. If we must, if it comes to it, we will do so, and trap the First Enemy here in this dying world with us. Though I don’t know about—

Hair-aristocrat! a more distant, slightly less perfectly melodious voice called, in a language so dead that they needed computers to decode it. The walls are falling, we need to go!

If you never hear from us again, and no sudden discord arises among you, you will know we succeeded, the first speaker said quickly. If otherwise…I am sorry. Either way, I bid you all only, remember us! Oh beautiful flames, remember us, as we have ever remembered y—

There was a sudden screech of tearing metal, a defiant, musical battle-cry, and a jarring silence. Then the message restarted.

And that wasn’t even the strangest thing in the box. The strangest thing was the recorder’s power source, which was powering the whole tiny rocket mechanism as well. It was an Elf-jewel right out of a fairy tale, a fist-sized, translucent not-quite-diamond—but instead of rock or water or a much-loved scrap of plant, the only thing it held was light.

...Kind of. It isn’t normal light. It arguably isn’t light at all, as we know it—scientists now think it’s technically some sort of plasmoid aether, except it only acts like a plasmoid aether about half the time.

It has no detectable source within the jewel. It fully illuminates whatever space it’s in, no matter how big. Its visible radiation is a frequency, the scientists say, that matches a hyper-accelerated version of what the universe must’ve sounded like in the split second after the Big Bang.

It makes people remember things, when they see it in person or sometimes even across a holo. Some remember a similar light in a strange traveler’s eyes. Others, dreamily enchanted valleys where spring never faded, or tall castles, bright swords, and stern and glorious lords and ladies. And some of us got hit with a whole lifetime of memories in one go: an identical gem on the brow of a sober forest king, friends who slipped through trees like shadows save for their merry laughter, an impossibly beautiful gold-haired maiden dancing in a glittering cavern...

(And all the pain and loss that came with them.)

And some people just remember the sight of a distant star—in another world, in another lifetime.

Reincarnation was provable but untraceable…until now.

The Thinker ambassador on Astrolax Station 5 was the first to kick up a fuss. Most Thinkers never leave their home planet, they're too huge and aquatic. But like I said, there's always crazy and curious people. The ambassador started bellowing the second che heard the message, without even seeing the light, because, "I know him! My Wisdom! We must send aid!" That made some news, and random other people shared their own, less dramatic revelations, and soon a compilation swept the net with timestamps showing that most of them were organically independent, not just jumping on the bandwagon….

Even that might've gotten written off intergalactically. The Thinkers are big in reincarnationist circles, on account of how they claim that deep in their planetary ocean they can hear echoes of their past lives. But being mostly planet-bound means they're not really influential on a big political level. Or it would've sparked another surge of the Reform Wars, and everybody would've remembered the rock, but not the recording. Or there would’ve been a fight over this potentially infinite energy source (though that is so last giga-annum)….

But first it was shown in person to the current Director of the Admiralty of the Astral Alliance, President of the X-ee Empire and Matron of the House of S,sh, Ch’ees/i’i S,sh. I was actually there—I was Captain of her ceremonial Alliance guards, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage my career after Zanzibus. Very ceremonial, considering the X-eee have laser-proof shells and pincers and I have, what, opposable thumbs? Vestigial tusks?

I wasn’t paying attention at first, too busy being suddenly assaulted by all my own memories. So I missed the President freezing mid-step and gasping (in X-eee), “Mother.” I also missed her rising alarm call of an attempt to speak Ancient Elvish without an Elvish tongue or lips.

I sure didn’t miss her snap back to X-eee for a sharp call to attention, and everything that followed: the call to arms! The rousing of the Alliance! A tour of the galaxy, to find anyone and everyone else in whom the Light could awaken ancient memories! And for the love of X'eeh, why had nobody figured out how to get back to Fairyland with this thing yet, and every warship in the quadrant?!

If I believed in the One Behind, or in any other creator god or gods—I'm not saying I do, but if I did, if there really is something out there all-powerful and all-kind—then it'd be because out of every soul in the entire universe, the probably one in the best position to act on the Elves' message turned out to have, from a past life, two parents and a much-loved twin still in Fairyland. Like, that's insane, right?

I stayed with the Director's ceremonial guards for the whole tour, actually more than ceremonial for once—it was the weirdest mission of my life, and I've been on a lot of weird missions. Or supposedly routine missions that got weird (and usually disastrous). My friends joke that I'm cursed. S,sh requisitioned an Inquiry-class ship, so the science boffins could study the Light and jewel along the way, and we started wormholing at weft speed, hitting a new planet every week. Sometimes every day. In each major spaceport and ground-city, S,sh stood with the jewel on the highest available point and gave a recruitment speech for going to save the Elves and fight the oldest enemy of all reality.

Honestly, it seemed a little redundant? The Astral Alliance was made for this sort of rescue mission (and for escorting trade convoys). But I was...if not happy, then sure as hell more self-certain with my ancient memories restored, and most people who joined up seemed to agree. It was mostly people who remembered, when exposed to the Light, who joined—so before long, we had a whole tag-along trail of mostly civilian ships, trying to get up to Alliance Fleet standard on the road in less than a year.

Three different religious sects tried to kill S,sh for "profaning the mysteries." Five others tried to steal the jewel because we were apparently appropriating a holy object. The boffins announced that, bar the can't-prove-a-negative possibility, the evidently sourceless Light should be counted as an infinite energy source, and at least seven different groups, ruthless financiers and sustainability idealists, immediately tried to steal it for that. And I still don't know what the rival thief-queens of Likkiliani were about, except that I got tied up upside-down from a palmdar tree for two hours trying to stop one, the other paid me 700 cron then threw me off a cliff, and in the end they recognized each other from past lives and just made out on worldwide live-holo before joining our growing fleet.

It turned out they were the Director's past life's great-grandparents, and a Canid pop princess was her niece. The Thinker ambassador was some sort of ancestor, too. Crazy extended family.

Most people who remember just remember the sight of a star in the sky. A buddy of mine from Fleet Academy remembered looking up at it as a Human sailor. The historians—and you’d better bet we picked up some Earther historians on this mission as well!—say this jewel or one like it was probably astrologically conflated with the planet Venus by early Humans.

(The more time I spent around the jewel, the Silmaril, the more I remembered, of my first life and more. Lifetime after lifetime with bad luck dogging my steps, killing loved ones in my arms, destroying cities I was supposed to save… One restless, haunted night, I met a Rigilic in the cafeteria who’d been awake with some of the same nightmares, who’d been my dead older sister once.)

The tour was cut short when word came from the Earth system that there was a black hole growing in the center of their reddening sun.

No, the sun wasn’t compressing into a black hole millennia ahead of schedule—one had just spontaneously manifested within it, like it’d teleported in. No, not literally—that was impossible. We were pretty sure. No, the sun wasn’t falling into it…somehow. Yet. The black hole was only 17 quectometers wide, but it was growing at an erratic but unceasing rate. If their best estimation of the pattern held, it would consume the sun 2 months before the Elves’ deadline, and the Earth 4 to 950 minutes later.

We pulled back to Earth—well, to the dwarf planet Eros, on the edges of Earth’s star system. That’s where the nearest shipyard of any note was, and we were gathering the whole Astral Alliance. This is exactly the sort of thing the Alliance is for.

I was released back to ship duty. Zanzibus was still a black mark on my record, as was Jorab, and really everything on the AAS Endeavor…and that thing in third year of Fleet Academy… But no matter how bad my curse, I was an experienced captain and one of the best pilots in the Alliance. For this, we needed all the best.

The boffins had pretty quickly mastered limited manipulation of the Light, using modified aetheric resonators, and every day they came up with something new for us to test. They focused the Light into a laser cannon like no one has seen before. They laced it through plasma shields until a fully shielded ship glowed like a distant star. They managed to nearly replicate the Silmaril’s crystalline structure, so they could make “copies” that shone like the original for first a few hours; then, with refinement, a full week…

The one thing they couldn’t pin down with any real confidence was how to get to Fairyland. The frequency of the Light resonated with large bodies of Earther saltwater in a particular way, and models suggested that if the Light source moved horizontally along the water within a certain range of distance and velocity, the resonance would create a wormhole-like ripple in space—but wormhole-like, was the key word, and models suggested. The closest anyone had seen to that spatial distortion was in a logbook of dubious veracity from the Delta Quadrant, four hundred years ago. Alteia, my Academy buddy who’d been a Human sailor, took the Silmaril in an M-wing on a series of highly monitored test flights above the Atlantic Ocean, and space did repeatedly start to hollow in front of bom—so bo had to stop every time, rather than risk vanishing with our single, maybe-one-way ticket.

Then Earth’s moon stopped shining in the sky. Its albedo just dropped nearly to zero, from one night to the next. There was nothing wrong that anyone could figure out—nothing with the orbit, nothing with the surface rock, nothing with the artificial atmosphere. Inhabitants reported feeling colder by several degrees, but no measuring equipment recorded anything.

The black hole slightly off-center in the middle of Sol was now 844.9 zeptometers, and growing more steadily.

We didn’t have time to keep testing. We needed to raise our swords and make our ride, even if we only got one shot at it.

I was given command, for seniority, skill, and because I was the one who managed to talk S,sh out of leading the fleet herself. (If my lives had taught me anything, it was the importance of having someone, anyone, ready to be emergency backup.) Ironically, I was back on the Endeavor, with most of my old crew—though we got permission to rename the ship, in honor of the mission. A lot of people did. Alteia was now commanding the AAS Elendil on my right flank, star-friend in Ancient Elvish. That Canid pop princess had taken over a hospital ship and renamed it Rivendell. An Earth Park Ranger, of all things, remembered being my dad—briefly—and he was leading the Rangers plus my Rigilic drinking buddy on the EPSS Elfsheen.

We weren’t sure if any ship but the one with the Silmaril would get through. The fleet numbered in the hundreds in battleships alone, not counting scouts and scuttlers. Twelve races had sent ships on top of their typical Alliance Fleet tithe, and S,sh had brought about half the full force of the X-ee Empire. We all just locked tractor beams and hoped.

I was piloting as well as captaining, with the Silmaril between my forehorns. It was held in place by about a dozen wires and other connectors to the ship, like an old-timey pilot’s headset. We took off in orbit around Earth, as close as possible to the surface—not very close, in warships of Class S and higher, but within range of the oceanic resonance. A Likkilianian thief-queen stood at my shoulder, ready to advise if anything “Musical” started to happen.

Think about what you’re trying to get to, and why, the boffins had advised, so I did—bright-eyed kings and dancing maidens; lost friends, families, cities, planets and all. The jewel got warmer against my skin and shone brighter with every pulse of the engine, brighter than we should’ve been able to see through.

The silver-gold Light twisted and diffused as space did around us. But there was no familiar rippling wormhole boundary—instead, spacetime thinned to a curtain like driving rain, like Vesarian silver-glass.

A ghost appeared next to me. She looked like the oldest, grumpiest writing teacher at the crèche, though I knew that was only in my head.

“There you are,” she said, impatient and relieved like I’d been hiding in the sandbox again, rather than coming to class on time. Her sewing scissors went snip snip snip as she darted them around my body—and a chain on my soul faded into guiding threads.

Before she’d even disappeared again, I punched the engine and blasted through the silver-glass curtain.

Fairy tales said there’d be a peerlessly beautiful land on the other side, green with eternal spring, full of endless light and laughter. They said there’d be sunlit shores and shimmering waves, with welcoming docks for sea-ships, sky-ships and space-ships all…

We flew into the worst battlefield I’d ever seen, in any lifetime. It was more desperately vicious than Jerusalem V at the height of the Reform Wars, more ruined than Glaurung’s wake, more desolate than Zanzibus after the nuclears fell.

Either a massive supercontinent or a small moon had been shattered, leaving nothing but a roiling debris field. The brand-new meteoroids ranged from pebbles to rocks the size of a small space station, and included space-frozen corpses, forests, and what might have once been city blocks.

I gave the helm back to my Pilot Officer—zer had, I can admit, slightly better reflexes for dodging debris—and focused on captaining.

Most of the life signs were clinging to the larger rocks. There shouldn’t have been atmosphere for them, but walls of thunderstorm wrapped around every shard with even a single life sign—wind and water desperately hand in hand to safeguard the last of the Elves. The only thing visible through the impossible storms was the Light of a second Silmaril, on a meteoroid shaped like half a broken eggshell.

A corpse lay at the epicenter of the explosion—what might’ve been a corpse, if it wasn’t also shattered. The broken pieces of a massive stone humanoid, taller than my ship if it’d stood beside her, still bleeding lava so hot that it burned even in frozen space. Another titan knelt at the shards of its head, a figure of towering bark and leaves, wailing with grief even worse than the end of the world.

A slimmer tree-woman stood with one hand on her shoulder, comforting, and the other wielding a skyscraper-sized club spiked with incandescent wildflowers. Guarding her sister’s heartbreak, she fended off a swarm of bat-sized monsters with wings of darkness and whips of flame.

Bat-sized relative to the gods of Elves and ancient Humans. About the size of an M-wing, in flight.

Countless more of the bat-things flung themselves at the storm-bubbles, like carnivores chasing the prey hidden inside. They were fended off by an equal army of creatures with wings of light and swords of lightning, led by a towering figure who seemed to dance from one bloody battle to the next.

The biggest battle by far was the farthest away, over where the sun had been. In this dimension of stories over science, Sol was another woman-shape, smaller than the others but burning just as brightly as her star. Also just as blood-red. The light was centered on a fist she kept clenched at her chest, and instead of containing the black hole, the unseeable thing that it was here surrounded her, striking at her with a thousand hungry jaws and grasping legs, and she had only a one-handed whip of a solar flare to fend it off—

But she didn’t fight alone. A warrior tore at the Darkness’s spidery limbs with his fists, image on the cameras flickering impossibly between every hero I’d ever heard of. A snarling figure bit at it with jagged teeth, gored it with horns, shredded it with claws and talons, and generally made every ancient prey-instinct in me scream. And a queen with a crown of stars, a shield like the night sky and a sword like a streaking comet, stood dauntlessly at the sun-holder’s side.

With all that, and with the speed of even her most exhausted strikes, I thought the sun-holder could probably have gotten away if she’d tried. But I knew how a person fought when they weren’t willing to leave a friend, and a smaller, silver figure lay at her feet, unmoving and drained of light.

But even the battle for the sun wasn’t what grabbed my eye. No—all my attention, all my guiding threads of fate and the quick temper that always used to get me in trouble, before (and sometimes after) I learned to leash it in an Alliance uniform— All of that took me straight to the fight happening orthogonal to the stone giant’s corpse.

It was another one-versus-many. Morgoth, the First Enemy of Elves and Men— Master of Lies, Maker of Chains, Sonofabitch Curser of Bloodlines—towered over even his fellow gods. His shape changed constantly, sickeningly, but it was always black-armored with eyes like dying stars that hated you personally. His maul dripped with lava and every other kind of blood.

He fought against three great gray figures who moved as one. The tallest wielded a star-studded scythe with swift, efficient strokes, and wore the dark gray of corpse-shrouds. The shortest shimmered with more colors than even a Stamotapadon could dream of, and his weapon shifted likewise. The third was the clear, clean gray of skies after rain or tears run dry, and fought with only a shield—and hit harder with it than either of her brothers.

Around their heads darted the only Elves on the battlefield, in small fliers more like sea-ships than aircraft. But they moved fluidly, pestering the Dark Lord like flies, pricking his skin and threatening his burning eyes.

Until Morgoth swung his maul with a roar of fury that traveled even though soundless space. My ship and heart both shuddered. The gray gods all staggered back, and the Elves fell from the no-longer-sky—all but their leader, more fire than flesh, who wore the third Silmaril. Morgoth caught him in one massive black hand and with sharp claws plucked the jewel away, as easily as a ripe berry from a tree—

“All power to fore-cannon and fire,” I ordered—and the jewel on my brow shone bright again as several stored months’ worth of infinite Silmaril-Light slammed into Morgoth’s chest with all the force that the best scientists in the Astral Alliance could engineer.

He stumbled. He dropped both the jewel and the elf-king (who’d been trying to bite him). The Lady of Mercy tossed her shield to catch them, staying low and out of sight—though she needn’t have bothered. The so-called “Lord of All” had already found his next enemy.

“All ships, move forward and join shields,” I ordered, and met his burning stare though the viewscreen. “Then broadcast me on all external frequencies.”

The wires on my forehead shimmered as we shifted Light-flow to the shields—and to my right, so did the Elendil, and to my left, the Cosmian Blade, and all around us the Minas Tirith, the Elfsheen, the Muse, the Rivendell, the Heart of Zanzi, the Longbottom Leaf… They were still soaring out of the silvery distortion behind me, tractor- and Silmaril-towed: sleek Rigilic eels-of-prey and Centaurian cruisers full of Humans eager to fight for their homeworld, Betan mine-ships and Canid X-M-wings and my own Hectoan starlighters, a full third of the X-ee navy with their X-eee–shaped six-engine dreadnoughts, and hundreds more.

“This is Captain Pel Cinia, once Túrin Turambar, of the Astral Alliance ship Gurthang,” I said. My words were broadcast from every ship on every frequency in every language that the people of Arda might know, as the Fleet assembled from forty-plus different worlds flew into position. Our Light-infused shields blazed and locked together, until we formed a seamless wall right in the Enemy’s face, with the Elves and their other allies safely behind us.

I’ve never felt more proud to recite the most cliché line in the Fleet:

“We got your distress call. We’re here to help.”

#the silmarillion #science fiction #humans are space orcs #fanfiction #my fic #dagor dagorath #not tagging characters bc spoilers (they're listed at the end of the ao3 though)

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graceofagodswrath · 1 year

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Menstrual Cycles and Aliens

“I apologize, but Williams is doing what?”

Kate sighed, brown eyes rolling at Ka’oolai’s stiff confusion. “Bleeding Niagara Falls out of her uterus. She’s gonna need a couple days.”

“Katy.” Jasmine hissed. “That is not how you explain this shit to people.”

Kate’s lips thinned in exasperation. “It makes them listen! God knows how many times I had to describe it so graphically to get all the men in my family to understand that you can’t just ‘suck it up!’”

The three sat in the dining lounge, a room on the transport ship meant for relaxation for workers on their breaks. Ka’looai, the ship’s second-in-command, had inquired about Pilot William’s ask for absence. Kate Blanche, the engineer and second roommate to De’maya, had answered in her usually blunt way. Luckily, The third roommate and Quartermaster of the ship, Jasmine Lativos, had been there to cushion Ka’looai’s immediate confusion.

Ka’looai held up their four hands to the two humans, insectoid limbs the notable deep, iridescent purple of their native race, Yamogai. They resembled a mix of a beetle and praying mantis, tall with hard, spiny exoskeletons. They displayed a variety of colors like humans (tho more vibrant), but the most common was purple.

“I apologize… I do not understand. Does Pilot Williams have an open wound? Do they need to go to the medibay?” Ka’looai’s voice sounded like the vibrating of beating wings, so they had to pronunciate other languages precisely in order to be understood. So they spoke slowly and with a deliberate concentration. This voice also gave way to an accent that made them pronounce certain letters like ‘v’s. There was a running joke with humans that Yamogai were related to Germans, as their accents were similar when speaking English.

Jasmine shook her head. “No. She’s experiencing a part of her menstrual cycle, the human female reproductive cycle.” Ka’looai cocked their head, so Jasmine continued. “Every month, we expel the inside lining of our uterus, the organ that develops a human fetus if the female is pregnant. If a female isn’t pregnant, our uterus removes the old lining of tissue and blood and gets rid of it from our body to create a new lining in case she does become pregnant. It’s the same muscle contractions as childbirth, though at a smaller fraction. This process can be extremely painful for some, if not most people, and De’maya is one of them. So she just needs some time off to deal with and recover from this experience.”

Ka’looai stared for a moment, mantis-like eyes seeming to stare through the humans souls. “I… see. I will inform the captain, then. Is there anything else we must know about this… event? I assume you two experience it as well as you said every human female does?”

Kate shrugged, long brown braid shifting in her shoulders. “Mine isn’t so bad usually. I’m one of the lucky ones. I get irritable and the occasional back pains, but I don’t need time off recuperate necessarily.”

“Irritable?”

Jasmine smiled, more of grimace for those experienced in reading human expressions. “Annoyed. Aggressive. The process increases the amount of estrogen and testosterone in our bodies, hormones that can heavily influence our emotional states. So we can be a bit…” Jasmine paused to think. “Intense.”

“Ah.” Ka’looai’s antennae twitched emphatically. “That is why I sensed the rise in strange pheromones. So this increase of chemicals affects you physically, emotionally, and mentally. I see why Pilot Williams asked for an absence then. Will the two of you require the same?”

Jasmine made an expression that Ka’looai could not understands. She bared her teeth while narrowing here eyes and scrunching her nose, dark skin wrinkling. Her hands rolled synchronously back and forth, a gesture the Yamogai recognized as a sign for uncertainty. “My cycle is more chaotic. Many factors can influence the way it is, and I tend to be influenced heavily by those.” She gestured at the other human. “Whereas Kate’s average is light and less painful, and De’maya’s average is heavy and extreme pain, mine can be either depending on my situation. If I’m stressed and haven’t taken care of myself, it’s usually pretty painful. If the opposite, I can usually function pain free. It depends.”

“What do you mean by light and heavy?”

“That refers to the amount of blood and tissue we expel. Light is very little, medium is a bit more, heavy means a lot. Some people have more lining than others. The heavier the flow can also increase the amount of pain.”

“Is this process different for every human?”

Both women nodded.

“And you still work through such obstacles?”

“Pretty much.” Jasmine confirmed.

“Interesting.” Ka’looai hummed, the sound vibrating the air rhythmically. “So human females expel a large amount of their own blood and tissue every month simply for not reproducing. And it is incredibly painful, yet some of you still function through it. No wonder females are in higher demand than males. You are a hardy species.” Their laugh sounded like the erratic buzzing of fly multiplied by ten. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Oh, there’s a shit ton if you wanna properly educate yourself on human reproduction.” Kate waved a scarred, oil darkened hand. “But Jaz gave you the basics. Hah, you may know and understand it better than the average human male.” Kate chuckled dryly and Jasmine huffed. “But that’s a debate hole that can be saved for another time.”

“If you want to learn more, read some human biology books, and we can answer any questions you have.” Said Jasmine. “Make sure they’re recent ones tho, the outdated ones are full of a lot of misinformation.”

“I see. I will do so. Human biology continues to fascinate. I have always found learning about other races to be rather intriguing, and humans never disappoint.”

“Yeup.” Kate leaned back and threw her arms behind her head. “Just don’t start making jokes about us leaving puddles and shit everywhere, or not being trusted behind the wheel.” Her eyes narrowed and she bared her teeth in a not-friendly-smile. “I will commit some “transgressions,” if so.”

Ka’looai’s antennae twitched. “Understood.”

~~~~~~

I’m currently going through this month’s rounds, and felt like distracting myself. Finally had the motivation to write and of course it was during a shitty time of my life. Needed me some alien feels that understand my woes better than my own family. I know this prompt has been done a lot, but I wanted to give my own take on it.

#humans are crazy #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are weird #humans are deathworlders #my writing #writing #flash fiction #my fiction #menstrual cramps #menstrual problems #menstrual pain #menstruation cycle #periods #period cramps

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marlynnofmany · 27 days

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It’s back!

If you missed it the first time around, the “human are weird” anthology is back for a second printing. (There’s even a new story included: “Black Box” by Dara Brophy.)

Here’s the blurb:

In science fiction, humans are usually boring compared to other races: small, weak, with no claws or tentacles, and no special abilities to speak of. But what if we were the impressive ones, the unsettling ones, the ones talked about by all the other aliens? What if we're weird?

If you’d like a collection of excellent stories about humans inspiring awe, fear, and utter confusion, it’s available everywhere books are sold!

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whereserpentswalk · 1 month

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It sucks trying to date as a human on a planet where humans are a minority, and all of the dominant races are ones who've had limited contact with humans. Most alien cultures either think of humans as disunitied conquerors and raiders who subjugate other races, or as a diaspora who live on other species' planets and who are useally involved in the criminal underworld. So everyone who wants to date you has all these weird fetishes, about how they're getting to fuck this dangerous amoral space monster, and you're just like, a normal person. And like, people from the more common races where you live don't ever understand that.

Both people who want to be domed by you and people who want to dom you specifically focus on the fact that you're from an exotic race that most people think of as violent. Everyone either focuses on how weird and unique you are, or how dangerous you are. And like, even when you want to do something kinky you don't really want to focus on the fact that you're human. And there's really nobody who has any fantasies about you that are wholesome or soft, even when they don't mention that you're human they never think about being sweet or kind to you. It is what it is.

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inbabylontheywept · 10 months

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"The reaper had a scythe. I have a combine harvester."

Arlach tapped his fingers nervously. He’d have gladly given up his life for the liberation of his people. A combine harvester (even a deluxe AI driven model) was a pittance compared to that. Still, he didn’t really understand what he was hearing.

“I uh… heard you’re hooking up my strawberry picker to an air defense cannon?”

The human technician assembling the gun held up a hand, finishing up some last tweaking of the wire harness. He touched two wires together carefully and swore when a shower of sparks shot out of the contact.

Set back, but not defeated, the man paused his task to answer the farmer’s question.

“See, you’re looking at this wrong. It’s an AI harvester, and it works great for strawberries, but machines don’t really see ‘strawberries’. They rate strawberry-ness. There’s a lot of ways to manage that, but it looks for a generally pointed shape, some seeds, and that nice red color. So your run of the mill strawberry generally receives an almost perfect strawberry-ness score, but something like this-”

His hands dug through all the pockets of his work suit before they finally found their target. He fished out what had been a standard ferroslug before it was painted bright red and smattered with a handful of black dots. He took a moment to admire it himself before tossing it to the farmer and continuing.

“Well, it’s not a strawberry, but it scores as one. Well enough that the machine gets positive feedback from its alignment unit every time it puts one of these babies where it's supposed to go.”

Arlach stared at him blankly.

“So what, you’re convincing it to fill a cargo container up with painted bullets?”

The technician grinned.

“There's no a limit to how fast it's allowed to fill that container up. At no point did the alignment protocol even consider that it'd be capable of throwing a 'strawberry' at mach nine. And the cargohold is important, but the rocket its attached to is more so. You know what looks a lot like a surface to orbit rocket?"

Arlach’s brain clicked.

“The hypersonic missiles they've been throwing at us.”

The grin widened. Arlach himself felt slightly awed to have found the connection.

“Will it work?”

The human nodded.

“It’s damn near the only thing that can. To shoot down something going that fast, that low, you either need a dummy missile that can brute force outrun it, or enough computing power to hack a station. The alliance is too chickenshit to send over their actual military AI's, but these myopic-type digibrains are supposed to be safe for civilian use because the idea of convincing your tractor that a bullet is a strawberry and a WMD is a cargo loader was a little too creative for the morons over at John Deere Galactic. And if that digibrain just so happens to function near the exoflop level, they're going to have a hard time sneaking anything larger than a bee through this airspace.”

The alien’s hands went over its crest as its mind reeled.

“They're not the only ones who would never think of this. It's brilliant. I never would've considered it.”

The tech shrugged good naturedly and went back to retrieve the two ends of wire that he’d dropped earlier.

“Eh, it's not coming from nowhere. There’s something of a human tradition about using farm equipment for war. I'm just lucky to be part of the next evolution in this. The reaper himself only used a scythe. Now I get to use a combine harvester.”

#hfy #humanity fuck yeah #humans are space oddities #science fiction #scifi #humans are space orcs #big fucking gun #bfg #AI theory #vaguely war in Ukraine inspired #Never pass on a chance to dunk on John Deere #humans are weird #everything can be a gun

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ameliathornromance · 3 months

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A Whole New World - Short Orc Romance

- When your Orc found you, you were in your Church with your other sisters of the cloth.

- They all prayed to the Gods.

- Gods that they wished would come, strike down these beasts who threatened your lives.

- The Church doors were difficult to get open, but your Orc did it. The doors burst off the hinges, crashed into the pews.

-Your sisters all took off running, leaving you behind.

- You tried to follow, but ended up tripping over your robes, falling on your front.

- Your Orc stormed towards you.

- You try to scramble away, desperate to escape your oncoming death, but it was no use.

- He was too big, too quick.

- You close your eyes, expecting a bludgeoning with that horrifying club he had clutched in his hand. You raise your hands above your head and cower for your life.

- Any moment now, any second now, he is going to bring that club down on your head.

- But nothing came.

“They left you.”

You squint open your eyes. Between your arms, you stare at him. His expression pained, his endless black eyes staring at you with… sympathy? You couldn’t understand what you were seeing; An orc, sympathetic?

The club slips from his hand, landing on the floor with a loud thud. Stooping to one knee, he bends down to your height. “Those who you called sisters have abandoned you.”

You dare to look around. Hoping to see a sister who was hiding behind the altar, a pillar, or anywhere. With some kind of weapon in hand, anything to help you get out of this situation alive. But it was barren. Empty of any kind of life whom had been begging for salvation.

He was right. They had. “To escape you, you who would kill me for praying for your death.” You hiss back at him. You didn’t dare believe him, wanted to retreat back into the collective opinion about Orcs. But it was too obvious to ignore his logic.

The words were harsh and sharp, the Orc did not flinch. “And who is here for you, now that I have come to take the lives of your people? Your Gods? Who you pray to, but have done nothing to protect you or your people from the raid of my brethren? Did not even force a fellow sister to stay and share in your fate, so that you would not have to go into the night alone?”

The words rang through you like the Church bell at the top of the steeple. Rooted you to the ground, the world you had built to protect yourself from the truth, crashed and burned. You couldn’t deny that he was wrong. Your so-called ‘sisters’ had abandoned you. Left you here at the mercy of this monster, not one of them had turned to try and help you back up.

A sigh escapes the Orc. “In our ranks,” he says, “we do not abandon our own.” The hand that held the club outstretches toward you. “Come. No one deserves to left alone.”

Anger had risen, spiteful and raging within your very soul. At that moment, as much as you didn’t want to admit it, the Orc was right. Your mind drifts back to what the Church had taught you about them, the Orcs. That they were monsters, born from the core of the Earth. Where Magma bubbled and boiled, where nothing should be able to survive. How your Church commanded that your sisters swear loyalty to one another. To protect each other and Holy Ground from defamation of the filth that rose from the Earth. To do it together. To die together, if it came to it.

The Gods had abandoned you and your sisters had left you. You gave your life for Gods who did not care.

This Orc, monster of the deep Earth, had shown you more decency in that moment. Than Gods or humans had done in the time you had been at the Church. Spite riddles through you. You take his calloused, rough hand.

- Travelling in an Orc caravan was not easy. They were loud, smelly and stupid. All except the Orc who had come for you.

- He was quiet, preferred to watch his others fight, drink and be rowdy with one another.

- At first, the rest of the group had ostracised you. “Humans are no good.” They would snarl. “Weak and useless.” But, after repairing a few of their clothes and cooking meals, they warmed up to you.

- They were kind to you... In their own way. Like the time when they left a whole dead sheeps’ carcass in your tent. The note left with it read: “For dinner this eve. Make or else.” Panicked, you went to find your Orc friend, who explained that this wasn't a threat. Far from it, as a matter of fact.

- They spoke to you that way because they spoke to their own like that.

- "My bretheren see you as one of us now." Rovi - the name of your Orc friend - explained.

“They’re quite the group.” You observe. You had thrown out your robes as soon as you could and replaced them with something that was far from Holy. Trousers and tunic that you had sewed together yourself and hair let down to your waist.

“Indeed.” Rovi agrees. He slurps the rest of the soup from his bowl. Fire crackles in the fire pit, the nights sky blankets the whole group of Orcs who proceed to play fight and snarl. This was apparently, a common pass time for Orcs, who beat the living snot out of each other as a show of comradery. “They will never hurt each other though.” Rovi assures you, putting the bowl beside himself. “We do not do that, unlike humans who abandon their own, kill their friends and steal for survival.”

You did not judge his impression of humans. Surely, you’d feel the same way too if a bunch of humans started chasing after you, desperate for your head. One thing, you could not understand for the life of you, was why Rovi had taken you in. Despite his obvious dislike for humans, he still offered you a place in his camp. Maybe It was as simple as he said: “No one deserves to left alone.”

Biting your lip, you tell him, “thank you for inviting me into your camp.” You meant it. If it weren’t for him, you would still be slaving away for Gods who had no interest in you.

Your Orc huffs, “better than being with humans who abandon their own.” He looks away from you. Back to the jeering crowd of his fellows, watching them clasp each others hands and pat each other on the back. A show of congratulations on a good fight.

- Your romance with him started when there was when you returned to your own tent.

- On your bed, was a small pouch of gold.

- Being in an Orc camp, you observed their customs and cultures. Often, when courting others, they would leave a small bag of gold in their crushes living quarters. A sweet, but simple gesture. Orcs loved their gold, even if they did not flaunt it. To do so was, frowned upon and compared to the Lords who wore those stupid puffy trousers and powdered tall wigs.

- You did not know who the pouch had come from, but you immediately thought that your Orc friend had been the one to do it. But you had to double check. And so you would gauge his reaction to it.

“Look!” You rushed over to him. Waving the bag of gold up to him, you beamed, “someone likes me! I found it on my bed when I got back from washing in the river!”

Rovi, returning from a hunt and carrying a, poor dead stag on his back, looked at you, then the open bag, gold glittering in the sunlight. “Was there a note?” He asked you, dropping it to the ground.

The rest of the hunting party grumbled annoyances at him, dragging the meat away. Rovi ignored them.

“No, there was just this bag. I wonder who it could be!” Your eyes dart across the camp, looking to the cooks, who were now busy skinning the stag, to other Orcs who were busy tending to a fire and talking in their mother tongue and to those who were busy trying to read from tiny human books they stole from villages.

“Best not to think about it,” Your Orc mutters. “Small pouch of gold like that? They can’t be that interested in you.” And with that, he lumbers off.

You frown. You thought for sure it would be him. His reaction made your heart sink in your chest. Sighing, you walk back to your tent, tossing the small bag onto your desk and clambering onto your bed. You sigh. If it was not him, then who could it be?

Unfortunately, you had noted that there was a fair amount of guess work that had to happen when it came to this as well. Usually, it went over well – the admired knew who their admirer was, and they got together. But, in rare instances, where the admired got their guess wrong: The admirer would challenge the guessed person to combat and they would fight. Not a play fight. An actual battle.

It was rare, but not rare enough to avoid being discussed by the rest of the camp. You had never seen one yourself, and if you could, you’d like to avoid it at all costs. You like everyone in the camp, care about them all , you didn’t want anyone to get hurt. One had to assume, that if two Orcs vied for the same person... You didn't want to think about that.

- You had thought long and hard about who it could be. You had become close with everyone in the camp, it wasn’t like there was anyone who stuck out to you.

- Truth be told, disappointment stirred in your gut.

- You had hoped that it would Rovi who had been the one to give you that pouch. He was kind and caring, even if he was a bit rough around the edges. He gave you a whole new life, it seemed almost right that you would fall for him. After he was able to show you the rest of the world, when you may have stayed with the Church for the rest of your days.

- The next day, you went to go and do what you had to do by the river, coming back to your tent and your jaw dropping.

A pouch – you couldn’t even call it that – a sack full of gold had spilled out onto the floor in your tent. You wondered if you’d gone mad. Startling you, a cheer erupted from outside your tent. What the Hell is going on?!

You ran out and into the main area, where a ring of tall, hulking Orcs had formed. You stood on tip-toes, jumped to try and get a look at the brawl that had just started, but had to resolve to pushing your way through the rambunctious crowd. Once the other Orcs realize who it was trying to get through, they bark at their others: “Get out of the way! Let (Y/N) through! It about her after all!”

About you? More desperate now, you finally found your way to the edge of the ring just in time to see Rovi swing a right hook, directly into the jaw of his other. The other Orc goes flying, his landing in front of you sent shudders through the floor. You recognise him immediately as Barrow, a chef who you often spent time with in the kitchens. He was an Orc of very little brains, but he made a mean rabbit stew. He made some inappropriate jokes to you occasionally, but apart from that, he kept mostly to himself.

“That’s all you offer?!” Rovi roars, “pathetic!”

Barrow was out cold, your Orc friend’s chest heaving up and down. “What’s going on?!” You shout over the jeering Orc crowd.

Rovi’s face, goes from a furious, angry scowl, to soft at the sight of you. Rather harshly, he kicks Barrow out of the way and kneels down to your height. “I’m afraid I haven’t been up front with you,” he begins.

The rest of the Orcs are still watching, but now quiet. Your ears rang with the silence, so used to their loud and obnoxious shouting that it was unsettling to hear silence.

“I know that humans are more upfront with their courting practices so allow me to conform to your culture… And I couldn’t allow Barrow to offer you something so insignificant and small as one pouch of gold… So... Would you be mine, (Y/N)?”

Stunned into silence, you bit your lip. Smiling, you ask, “so the extra large sack of gold was you?”

Rovi grumbles and looks away from, a small dusting tinge dusting his orc green cheeks. “Well, I had to do something…” He mumbles. “I had to do something to show you I am superior… if this one hadn’t beaten me to it.” He shoots another dirty look at Barrow, who seems to have awoken in a daze. “The combat was necessary to tell him to back off.”

“I think the gold was more than enough.” You wrap your arms around his muscular shoulders and pull him close. “Thank you for everything, Rovi.”

He freezes for a moment and then returns your gesture, holding you tenderly in that moment. The both of you don’t even hear the crowd of Orcs erupting with cheers and shouts of happiness.

It’s just the two of you. And that’s all that matters in that moment.

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