Back to Part One: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1g53rg9/the_testament_of_prairie_chicken_part_one/

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“So,” said Dan. “How’d you come to be here?”

“It is a long story,” said Prairie Chicken.

“We’ve got time,” said Dan, examining his mostly uneaten sandwich.

“But if you don’t wanna talk about it,” began Bill apologetically.

“Oh, no,” said Prairie Chicken. “I can talk about it. Usually, I just don’t. People come here to see the orc and fuck her, not to hear her tell stories. You are the first to ask.”

“Well, now I’m a little ashamed,” said Osric. “I just assumed your past was a closed door. But I’d very much like to hear it, if you’re willing.”

“And I,” said Venna.

“Me, too,” said Dina. Plumi said nothing, but looked on questioningly.

Prairie Chicken smiled, and began to speak.

1.     The First Part

Orc children have names. Adults don’t. Adults have numbers, to keep track of their status. Children and slaves have names, because to the males, children and slaves don’t matter. No status, you see?

I forget what my name was when I was small. I haven’t used it in so long. I had several numbers, and I have forgotten those, too. But the day I was free, I called myself Prairie Chicken, because I am plump and tasty and fun to eat. I got a good laugh from the other she-orcs about that!

But I remember the boy’s name. He was Loanth, and he was the first one other than my mother that I loved.

We were children, and we played together. Children do that. But we were special favorites to each other, and we loved each other in the way children do. We hunted imaginary buffalo together with sharp sticks, and we raised our imaginary children, for all that we ourselves didn’t know where children come from, yet. We played games, we played chase, and I remember a thousand sunlit days and starry nights out on the western plains, spent together in joy. He was my first love, Loanth, the orc boy.

Things began to change, though, with the growing up. I had my first bleeding time, and one summer, he and those born around the same time as he were taken away for the krossaaj, a secret ceremony for males only. And when he came back… he wasn’t Loanth any more. He had no name. He was 48, the number that denoted his status. And he looked at me differently after that.

Before then, I paid no attention to the males. They went hunting, they brought meat, and they fought. That was what males did. I thought it had nothing to do with me. A distant, far-away thing. But now, one that I cared about was a male, an adult, and this was changing. I don’t know what the males do on the krossaaj. Still don’t. They teach boys how to be men, I was told. I thought it had to do with hunting and fighting. But it was so much more. Loanth did not speak to me. When he looked at me, his gaze was cold and unfeeling. I didn’t know why, and it hurt me. I tried to speak to him, but he waved me away and told me I was of no importance to him! And I wondered how this sweet, wonderful boy could so suddenly become such a cold and unfeeling adult. How do you just quit… caring?

Then, one night, he came to me and told me he wanted sex. I was happy, at first. I was pleased to have his attention. Perhaps he still cared after all! Perhaps I would have my Loanth back, and we would be mated, and hunt buffalo and raise children! And I was out of my clothes so fast I would embarrass any whore you ever met!

This is where I tell you that orcs have no word for “rape.” Or, rather, they do. It is the same as the word for “sex.” The verb, that is. The boy who had been Loanth, and was now 48, raped me. There were no touchings, no preliminaries. He ordered me down on all fours, spit on his cock, and jammed it into me. It hurt, and I cried out, and he hit me, and told me to shut up. And he fucked me, and it still hurt, both in my cunt and in my heart. “How can you do this to me?” I asked him. And he told me.

He told me that I was a mere female, and that he would take his rights with me as he pleased. This was part of being an adult male. If I displeased him, I would be beaten. If I fought back, he and his friends would beat me three times over, perhaps even cripple me. He told me that women did not fight and did not hunt, and that I would never hunt buffalo. He explained to me exactly what an orc woman was for: breeding, childrearing, food gathering, and slave management. That was our only purpose. To the males, we were barely more than slaves ourselves.

I was horrified. How could this be? And how could my beautiful, beloved Loanth have grown so cold and cruel, almost overnight? And I made the mistake of asking him that. His response was to beat me, badly. “If you ever call me that name again,” he said, viciously, “I will kill you. Do you understand? I will kill you, and no one will do anything about it. You will learn my number, and as it grows higher, you will relearn it, until one day I am One. And on that day, I will choose any woman I want, and it will not be you.” And then he raped me again.

Afterwards, I went to my mother, and I cried and I anguished, and I explained what had happened. And my mother told me that he was right. He had told me nothing more than the truth, and that was how my life would be from now on. I was no longer a child. I was Woman Zero, a woman without a number, at least until a male laid temporary claim to me to breed his sons. And now, I was to wipe my tears away and calm myself, and learn how to be a proper woman. And that was my life for the next seven years.

I got over my suffering, and I learned to be an orc woman. But I didn’t like it, and I never did like it. But it was that, or die. And I wasn’t ready to die yet. I had known joy, once, and I wanted to know it again. But I will tell you, joy is difficult to come by when you live among the orcs. Because, friends, orcs are bastards. Every orc thinks he’s the ruler of all he can see, the owner of all he can seize. An orc is NEVER wrong, except when a stronger orc is more right than he is! EVERY orc is the leader, owner, commander … or will be, some day, when the time is right and he’s strong enough and ready enough. I learned things, but the main thing I learned was that I’m just not a very good orc. I hated every day of being what I was, of being a part of this cruelty and brutality and suffering. But… what can an orc do, when she cannot be an orc? Where can she go?

The last time I saw my Loanth was when he rode with the tribe into a place called Slunkbolter Town. By then, his number was Six. He was very great, very strong, a mighty warrior, with other women who wanted his status and protection. And he was killed by a goblin woman with a rope. All the males of our tribe died that day, in a fight that lasted less than ten minutes. And on that day, the women of the tribe were free… and we weren’t sure what to do about it.

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At their table, looking across at Prairie Chicken, Bill and Dan sat and stared. Dan’s sandwich was gone, as were his potato fingers, and Bill’s paper-lined basket was empty. “Um,” said Bill. “Two more beers?” Dina nodded, got up, and left the room.

“The battle of Slunkbolter,” said Dan. “I heard about that, couple years ago. So… you were free, then?”

“In a way,” said Prairie Chicken. “See, orc women don’t make decisions. They’re told what to do about anything that isn’t strictly routine. We had no idea what to do with ourselves. We didn’t know how to hunt, we didn’t know where to go, and we were terrified that the Baron’s soldiers were going to ride after us and kill us, too. But Woman One and Woman Two took over and gave orders, and we followed them, most of us. A group broke away, and attacked a farm near Goblin Town, and were slaughtered, and we put as much distance between ourselves and these murderous humans and goblins as we could!”

The humans and goblins in the room chuckled at that. Dina returned and put beers in front of Bill and Dan, and put a third in front of Prairie Chicken before taking her seat in the booth. Prairie Chicken smiled a fanged smile at Dina and lifted her mug and took a great pull at it before putting it down and resuming her speech.

“Now, we were free,” said Prairie Chicken. “We learned to hunt. We cared for the children, and for each other. We agreed that the children would be taught better ways that the brutal cruelty that had come before. We chose names for ourselves. We cast aside the old ways, and made up new ones, and this time we all agreed on them before giving them the strength of custom. And in our travels, we came across two men, human men.”

“These were the Orc Kings, right?” said Bill. “From the book?”

“Kind of,” said Prairie Chicken with a smile. “They were dirty, smelly, underfed, and didn’t look a thing like orcs. But they were males. And we took them prisoner and washed them and ravished them. Some of us like girls, but some of us prefer males, and we’d been without for a while, by then. And … they LIKED it.”

“Well, sure,” said Bill. “What’s not to like, gettin’ sexed up by a bunch of hot sexy orc girls?”

“We were still new at it,” said Prairie Chicken. “We were used to sex with orc males, and orc males aren’t very good at it. They care nothing for a woman’s pleasure. But these two humans… well, even tied down and staked out, they… they wanted us to feel good. I still remember Sparkle, losing her shit when the human tasted her cunt. And he liked it. That was a crazy night. They untied him and then everyone wanted the feel of a bearded face between their legs, and he was crazy enough to oblige us. His tongue got a workout!”

“So … they were more fun than orcs?” said Dan.

“Orcs are NO fun,” said Prairie Chicken. “They regard sex as their right. These humans, though, acted like they had found treasure. We weren’t sure what to do. Blossom had sworn no male would touch her unless they were tied down and forced to submit to HER, not the other way around. But those humans… our humans… changed her mind. They cared about our pleasure. Or whether we weren’t in the mood. Why not? We outnumbered them almost ten to one. Someone was ALWAYS in the mood. And we claimed them. And for a time, we were happy together.”

“So… they’re still out there somewhere?” said Bill.

“One of them is,” said Prairie Chicken, with a smile. “He is still our king. And father to several of our children. But the other one wanted to go back to the lands of men, and we let him go. And that’s when our chief, Blossom, grew concerned about inbreeding. Too many children with only two fathers. So… we … convinced some of the farmers out on the western frontier to help us with that. We grew friendly with some of them. Very friendly! And from them, we learned more about how to be new orcs.”

“So there were MORE humans,” said Dan.

“Oh, yes,” said Prairie Chicken.

2.     The Second Part

The Korben household was a bit of a mess at the moment. The living room was full of orcs, groping and stroking and fondling Jommie Korben. Jommie was a plump woman, but full of energy, and she lay on the rug, with Big Tits squatting on her face, and six other orcs teasing and fondling her, awaiting their turns. Sparkle toyed with Jommie’s pubic hair, but avoided touching her pussy; Jommie was already pretty wet and worked up, and the orcs knew what Jommie liked. At some point, someone would take Jommie’s right foot and someone else would take her left, and they would draw her feet far apart. Someone, probably Sparkle or Big Tits, would lie down with her face between Jommie’s legs, tickle her thighs with her nails, and tease her a bit, while Rock Face and Prairie Chicken secured her arms, holding them firmly down, perhaps pausing to tease her nipples with their tongues while Jommie pretended to struggle against them. And then Sparkle would lick Jommie’s pussy, and light her up, while whoever had her feet would begin to suck on Jommie’s toes.

This ALWAYS set Jommie off. Jommie liked the feeling of being held down, helpless, while orcs had their way with her. But something about the sensation of being eaten out while two others sucked and licked at her feet drove her absolutely mad. The orcs didn’t mind. Jommie’s enthusiasm for their visits was contagious.

In the kitchen, Cardinal lay on her back on the dinner table, naked, howling her pleasure while Jommie’s husband Gord’s cock slammed in and out of her, to Cardinal’s delight. Several other orcs sat nearby in the chairs, awaiting their turns. Tonight Finn Halloran was here, too – he’d figured out the rotation the orcs used to visit the farms, and he was holding court in the guest room, flat on his back on the spare bed, while Shiny Thing rode his cock and three other she-orcs lay on the bed with Finn, awaiting their turns as well.

“Think this will hold them,” said Blossom, who watched from the hall doorway, “until the new moon?”

Sunflower stared at the scene on the bed. Shiny Thing had her hands on the headboard and was dangling her breasts right over Halloran’s face as she rode him. His hands gripped her buns and his wet cock was plainly visible, driving into Shiny Thing’s glistening depths.

“I’d hope so,” said Sunflower. “I do kind of wish the humans lived closer to each other, though.”

“It works with the hunting pattern,” said Blossom. “But when the herds finally move back west, we may have a problem.”

“We should talk to Ray Fleet,” said Sunflower. “He and Millie have offered to let us stay. And it would be good to have a place to winter. They said we could stay in their barn, and if we helped with the farm work, we could share in their food. Among other things. And in the spring, surely the sheep will come back, or there will be a buffalo herd. Something will present itself.”

Blossom looked at Sunflower, and then back at Shiny Thing, who was bouncing up and down harder, and grimacing with the oncoming orgasm. “We could do that this winter,” said Blossom. “But I hate to depend on anyone else, even the Fleets. We’re going to need to see about a long-term plan for seeing to the tribe’s needs.”

“You worry too much,” said Sunflower philosophically. “No amount of worrying ever solved a problem. Take action when the time comes. In the meantime, enjoy! We have what we need, and our hosts are very obliging. I think I’m going to go downstairs and see if I can interest Gord in one more orc.”

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“So what were these farmers’ names?” said Bill. “None of this was in that orc book!”

“I won’t tell you that,” said Prairie Chicken. She motioned to Dina with her mug. Dina was about to rise, but Urluh rose first.

“I’ll get it,” said Urluh. “I’m getting thirsty, too.” With surprising grace for one so large, Urluh rose, reached out and took the empty mug, and headed for the taproom.

“These humans gave to us in ways we didn’t even know,” said Prairie Chicken, turning back to the young men. “Not at first. It would be a poor reward for them to suddenly have to answer nosy questions from tourists about their sex lives. Humans are more private than orcs about such things. There is a reason they were left out of the book. The group of mountain men we attacked, and took prisoner? That was all lies. They were based on the farmers, but they didn’t really exist.”

Dan looked interested. “So Dirty Dingus Burgums was based on a real person?” he said. “The one man who could please every orc in the tribe?”

Prairie Chicken laughed. “Dirty Dingus was based on a woman,” she said. “Otherwise… yes, she was much like that.”

Both Bill and Dan stared at the orc woman. Urluh returned and handed Prairie Chicken the full mug and took her seat back at the booth.

“So… what happened after that?” said Bill. “Is the tribe still out there, roaming the plains? Hunting the sheep? Or did they keep going from farm to farm?”

3.     The Third Part

Within a year of the scholar Jack getting the study grant money from the Lyceum – and the Baron’s matching funds – the Fleets’ sheep station had nearly tripled in size. The orcs proved quite adaptable in shifting from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settled agriculture, although some still visited other farms in the dead of night; Tarse, Ray and Jack were only three men, after all, though Millie’s love and enthusiasm were a wonder to behold, both as a parent, and as a lover. The tribe grew larger, at first with the last of the Orcblooded, the children sired by the he-orcs before their destruction, and then with the Manblooded, the half-orc infants fathered by the two explorers, and later, by the farmers of the western frontier … orcs with human eyes, and names like Slunkbolter, Arnuvel, Ben, Tolla, and Jeeka.

That first winter, the tribe remained on the Fleet farm, and none went hungry. A second winter was spent there, this time much more comfortably, with money from sheepskins and wool and lovely dyed yarn, and the things the orcs made from it. There was also a surprise vogue for smoked mutton; the orc women knew ways to make tough mutton considerably more appealing to the palate, and meat not needed to feed the tribe was preserved and stored, and still there was surplus to be traded. The Fleets taught the orcs canning. The orcs taught the Fleets the orcish ways to smoke and preserve meats, and to make good use of every part of the sheep.

The Flower Tribe was surprised to find themselves prospering. There were losses, as well. Sweet Clover was claimed by the Fleets and became Sweet Clover Fleet, the first orc to be married under Marzenian law. The orc woman called Really Built went to live with the teenage Warnn, of the Carsen family, a thing that at first confused Warnn’s parents, at least until they came to appreciate the value of a motivated orc who is not afraid of farm work. The Flower Tribe were no strangers to degradation and labor. They had found that any work is easier when you are free to choose to do it. And during the second winter, the orc woman Amaranth went to live with Finn Halloran on his little spread to the north. The tribe was smaller. And yet larger. And things changed.

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“Things were very different after that,” said Prairie Chicken. “Blossom and Sunflower held the tribe together, mostly. Bubble Butt looked into joining the Army, but the Baron knew what would happen with her loose in a barracks full of lusty soldiers. She wound up going back and rejoining the tribe, although I’m told that the soldiers sometimes come out to check and see how they’re doing. Cliff and her soldiers continued to see each other. And… I looked for my place. Where I could go to be an orc who … is not really an orc.”

“Seems like most of you weren’t the sort of orc that humans tell stories about,” said Bill. “My grandpappy fought orcs in the north, and the filibusters still tell stories about meeting ‘em up there from time to time. It always ends in a fight. Orcs don’t talk, they don’t negotiate, they don’t trade, and they don’t deal with each OTHER, much less non-orcs. Not like you.”

“That’s begun to change a little bit,” said Prairie Chicken. “The northern marches have men now who can speak the speech of orcs. They can talk to them. Things are changing. I have not yet heard whether this change has done them any good, but I still think sometimes about my Loanth, and how he was a sweet and wonderful boy… before he became an orc. And I wonder sometimes if there are males who think as I do… who think where can I go, what can I do, if I cannot be an orc any longer? And I hope that this orc hears the men who speak his language, and takes a chance.”

Prairie Chicken took a long drink of beer, and then continued. “To answer your question,” she said, “that was when I came to the House of Orange Lights.” She smiled. “The goblins who founded the House of Orange Lights swore to make it a safe and welcoming place, a place where fighting was forbidden, and fear was banished.” She paused. “When they made this promise to themselves, I don’t think they ever realized that someday an orc would walk in the door.”

Plumi giggled. Dina and Venna snickered politely. Urluh smiled, and Drin and Lina grinned. “We lived up to our word,” said Drin. “Even for an orc. And we were doubtful, but Prairie Chicken won our trust. She has been as good as anyone who dwells here.” Sliding out of his seat, Drin walked over to Prairie Chicken, and sat down on her right knee, which put him on eye level with her collarbone. He glanced down at her cleavage, cocked his head curiously, and slipped a finger into the decolletage and gently pulled down.

One of Prairie Chicken’s nipples appeared above the elastic. Drin looked pleased and surprised to have found a boob in her neckline and cupped it in his hand. Prairie Chicken smiled. Bill and Dan goggled.

“See, orcs and goblins didn’t get along in the old times,” Lina said matter of factly. She slipped out of her seat and walked over to Prairie Chicken’s other knee. “Like she told you. Orcs are assholes, and they’re stronger and meaner than goblins.” Lina looked approvingly at Prairie Chicken’s other, covered breast, and slipped a finger into the elastic and tugged down, freeing her other boob, and causing the elastic to slide beneath Prairie Chicken’s two exposed breasts. Lina looked at the surprised pair of guests. “She showed us,” said Lina. “She’s a different kind of orc. A new kind.” Lina slid a hand under Prairie Chicken’s boob, hefted it, and slid her tongue out of her mouth and circled the nipple with it, never taking her eyes off the two men.

Drin looked on approvingly, and leaned down to lick Prairie Chicken’s other nipple. And for a moment, the two goblins nuzzled and licked at Prairie Chicken’s breasts, while Prairie Chicken’s arms came and and encircled the two of them, holding them close.

“Urm,” said Prairie Chicken. “You two are putting the heat to the stew, and no mistake! I can’t think straight to tell a story, with you two pawing at me.”

“We’re sorry,” said Lina, turning her eyes to the breast before her, and taking the nipple into her mouth.

“Truly, this is a gesture of great trust and affection,” said Drin, still cupping the breast on his side.”

“Mmm!” said Prairie Chicken, taking a deep breath. “And they called ME wicked, once!”

The red-headed goblin barman came around the corner of the Ell Room, taking his apron off. “It’s snowing REAL good out there,” he said, getting the string over his head. He looked up and saw Drin and Lina nursing at Prairie Chicken’s breasts. “Er,” he said, and paused a moment before finding his train of thought again. “No customers in the last hour. Other than you two, I think we’re done for the night. Can I get you anything else before I shut the kitchen down?”

“Erm,” said Dan.

“Uh,” said Bill. “Uh, the wagon isn’t going to be back tonight, is it?”

“Fraid not,” said the barman. “Bringing you out was his last trip. But we’ve got rooms for the night if you don’t want to walk back in two feet of snow. We can even discount them, given the circumstances.”

“Maybe we can do better,” said Prairie Chicken. “You’ve eaten and drunk. Was there anything else you wanted to sample while at the House of Orange Lights?”

Bill and Dan’s heads spun from looking at the barman to looking at Prairie Chicken. “Ah, well, um, I was thinkin’ about maybe askin’ about your rates,” he said.

“Hey!” objected Bill. “Damn you, you beat me to it!”

Prairie Chicken smiled her fanged orc smile. “Now, now,” she said. “We don’t fight at the House of Orange Lights. And orcs are used to group activities. For ten silver coins, I’ll take you both upstairs with me, and you’ll share my bed for the night for no extra. But you have to pass a test first.”

“Uh,” said Bill.

“Test?” said Dan.

Drin and Lina, at the same time, released Prairie Chicken’s nipples and looked at the two men.

“I spent a long time,” said Prairie Chicken, “fucking orcs. And I’m done with orc males. And I’ll tell you right now that if you fuck like an orc male, I don’t have the time for you. Do you think you can do better? Especially with all night to prove it?”

“Uh,” said Dan.

“Aw, hells yes,” said Bill.

“I can do that,” said Dan.

Prairie Chicken looked down at the goblins in her lap. “What do you think?” she said. “Do we give them a chance to prove themselves?”

“I see no reason they shouldn’t be allowed to try,” said Drin. “I should think they’ll prove themselves quite heroic, considering the alternative is to be tossed out the window into the snow.”

“I bet they’ll be wanting to prove that they’re better than any old orc,” said Lina. “And we’ll be there to judge it.”

“Wha?” said Dan.

“Drin and Lina often share my bed,” said Prairie Chicken, still grinning. “They are my sweet friends, and proof that orcs and goblins can get along, and even love each other.”

“Just remember, I’m not a natural goblin,” said Lina.

“You aren’t exactly a normal human, either,” chuckled Drin.

“Oh, foo,” said Lina, sticking out her tongue at Drin. “Whose fault is that if not yours, you silver-dicked, magic-tongued green bastard?”

Urluh snorted, and grinned.

“Now, now, children,” said Prairie Chicken, trying not to laugh. “We have guests to see to. And together, we’ll see that their first night at the House of Orange Lights is memorable. Gentlemen? Will you come upstairs with us?”

END

And one more look at Prairie Chicken, shall we? Art by artbybett on Xitter: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/e4fdd3e210f470219a28a67bb57b108f

“They say there’s an orc in there,” said Dan. “And she’ll fuck you for money.”

The cart’s wheels turned and crunched the fresh snow underfoot. It was still falling, and the sun had set. The temperature was dropping sharply in the absence of the wan winter sun.

“You two sure about this?” said the goblin driver, whose name was Yuppik. “This is the last cart tonight. I’ll be back out in the morning, but not again tonight. And the rooms at the House of Orange Lights aren’t cheap.”

“We’re heeled,” said Bill. “I heard tell they’ll let you sleep in their stable.”

“Hrrmph,” said Yuppik. “Maybe if the snow’s deep enough they don’t think you can walk back to town without freezing to death. You’re taking a chance here. But it’s your chance to take.”

“Thanks for the warning,” said Dan. “Do you know if they got an orc in there?”

“They have a great many attractions in there,” said Yuppik. “Human men and goblin ladies, goblin gigolos and goblin doxies. They have the only blonde goblin, although that’s not quite true; there’s one in Goblin Town, but she’s still a little girl. They have the Knight of the Orange Lights and his ogre lady, and far more besides. And they do indeed employ an orc woman there.”

“An orc?” said Bill. “A REAL orc? Seriously? I knew about the goblins and the humans, and I heard they had an ogre, but an ORC?”

“Whatsit like, fuckin’ an orc?” said Dan.

“I never did,” said Yuppik. “Goblins and orcs don’t usually get along. They used to enslave us and eat us when they could catch us. The Flower Tribe orcs are different, but old habits and attitudes die hard.”

“But goblins work in the House of Orange Lights,” said Bill. “I heard they started the place. Why’d they hire an orc, if they don’t get along?”

“You’d have to talk to them about that,” said Yuppik. “But a lot of the normal rules don’t apply at the House. Things are very different there. But you can ask, and they’ll tell you, usually. They’re friendlier than some folks I could name.”

“Fistid Wackford didn’t say nothin’ about no orcs in those dirty books of his,” mused Bill.

“Fistid Wackford wrote those books a good four-five years ago,” said Yuppik. “Wasn’t but last year that the Flower Tribe orcs moved into the area.”

“I heard about that,” said Dan. “Didn’t they wipe ‘em out, in a big fight up the river in Slunkbolter?”

“They did,” said Yuppik. “The orcs attacked Slunkbolter Town, and the Baron’s men, the Magicians, the Knights, and even one of the ogres were waiting for them. Killed them down to the last orc. But that was just the male orcs. The females were back at camp, and they didn’t get wiped out. A while after that, they started kidnapping human farmers out on the western frontier, to have babies with. They stopped that, but they stayed in the area.”

Bill raised an eyebrow. “And the Baron’s men didn’t go wipe ‘em out, too?”

“He took an interest,” said Yuppik. “But he didn’t wipe them out. I understand they didn’t actually HURT anyone, really. There’s a bit of a story behind that, but I see orange light up ahead, and I fear I lack the time to fill you in. Grab whatever things you mean to keep; we’ll be offloading in a minute.”

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Bill and Dan had met on the riverboat down to Refuge. On the trip the two had become … well, if not friends, then certainly very chummy acquaintances. They had bonded over matters of being of a similar age, and of having saved for quite a while to visit the mysterious and sex-drenched town of Refuge, visiting during the off season to save what money they had for whatever sins of the flesh could be purchased, rented, bartered, or begged.

They had been drawn by the salacious novels of one Fistid Wackford, who had painted a terribly sexy image of the town of “Sanctuary” and its counterpart, the “City of Goblins”, as terrible, wicked, salacious places, ruled over by the incredibly horny Baron and his even hornier (and more irrepressible) wife, the Goblin Baroness of the Sanctuary District.

Wackford’s novels made it seem like a place where sex could happen by simply walking down the street. And if that wasn’t enough, the books also spoke of the mysterious House Of Blue Lamps, a raging whorehouse which also seemed to house some sort of sex cult that recruited both humans and goblins… The Refuge tourist trade had come about as a result of a great many people learning that the novels were in fact based in fact: the little town of Refuge, the nearby Goblin Town… and the far less mysterious House of Orange Lights, ostensibly a bar, public house and restaurant, but employing a number of folk of negotiable affection… in a number of genders and species.

There were other things to see in and around Refuge and Goblin Town, other places to eat and drink, but the House was the one mentioned in the Wackford novels, and it was the place that everyone wanted to experience. As Yuppik pulled forward of the House, the two young men could see the outside of the place was festooned with orange glass lanterns that didn’t flicker in the wind. The light from indoors, seen through the windows, was an even more intense orange. It gave the place a sense of warmth, and both men were more than eager for some of that, having chilled themselves proper on the way down the Old South Road.

“You’re lucky in one regard,” said Yuppik. “If you’d come here in summer, you’d be waiting in line outside for hours. You’ll have no wait tonight, it looks like. Get yourselves in there and by the fire, and ask about the mulled wine or the hot punch. It’s good, and it warms you, and you’ll want that.”

“Thanks for the information,” said Dan. The two young men ponied up the fare, and dismounted the cart, their feet crunching in the new-fallen snow, and began the trudge up to the House’s frosted courtyard.

***********************************

The first thing Bill and Dan experienced when they opened the front door of the House of Orange Lights was the wave of warmth that emerged. It was warmth on multiple levels, in that the fireplaces were going and the warm air caressed their exposed skin like a sensation of welcome. It was reinforced by the House’s orange lighting, which gave the impression of warmth, regardless of the season. The House was all about welcome, and it made a fine first impression.

The second thing they experienced was the ogre.

A great blonde woman sat behind the podium… a podium meant for ordinary people to stand behind. The great blonde woman sat on a reinforced wooden crate, and looked up when the door opened. Bill and Dan couldn’t help but notice the tusks that protruded from her lower lip, tusks the size of a big man’s thumbs. Somehow, this enormous blonde woman had found a slinky black cocktail dress made for a woman eight feet and then some tall, and damned if she didn’t manage to make it look good, in a … huge… sort of way.

Bill and Dan stood there dumbfounded. The ogre smiled. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen the reaction.

“Come in, come in!” she called gently. “Welcome! But close the door, it’s cold out there!”

Bill blinked twice, and closed the door behind them. Dan stared at the ogre.

“I’m Urluh!” she said cheerfully, smiling through her tusked mouth. “How YOU doin’, boys? Table or booth?”

“Ah,” said Bill. “Make it a table. For two.”

“Menus?” asked Urluh. “Or just drinks tonight?”

“Ah,” said Bill. “Menus, yeah, thanks.” Dan continued to stare at the ogre. She smiled again, took two menus from behind the podium, and turned and headed into the polished orange-lit interior of the House. Bill nudged Dan, who stepped forward, and then Bill made the mistake of looking up. Urluh’s dress fit her backside quite well, and it was a spectacular backside indeed, undulating back and forth as she walked. There was a lot of it. The two men followed the swaying backside into the taproom, where Urluh pulled out chairs for them at a table and placed the menus before their places.

“Beer?” she asked. “Or something else to start?”

“Uh, yeah, two beers,” said Dan, finally finding his voice. Urluh nodded, and made a two-fingered gesture at the bartender, a red-headed goblin man behind the bar that neither Dan nor Bill had noticed at all, despite walking right past him. The two men sat down, while the barman filled their mugs, and then stepped out from behind the bar to bring them. “Were you fellows here for a meal, for the entertainment, or both?”

“Both,” said Dan, with a quick glance at Bill.

“You might want a table in the Ell Room, then,” said the barman. “With this weather, we don’t have many customers tonight, and everyone’s in there where the fireplace is. Or would you rather stay here? I warn you, though, the waitresses aren’t going to find you unless you’re in the Ell Room.”

“Ah,” said Bill. “Well. And where would we find the Ell Room?”

The goblin pointed at the arch opposite where they’d come in. “That right there’s the Stage Room,” he said. “Past that, the next arch is the Ell Room. Go in there and hang a right, and follow the voices and music. Here, take these with you, and just seat yourselves; the girls will get the message.”

The two men looked at each other. Bill took a drink of beer. “All right, then,” he said. “Whatever it takes.” And the two men marched down through the Stage Room, and sure enough, up ahead, they heard the soft sounds of conversation and what sounded like someone tuning a guitar. Through the arch and into the Ell Room, they turned and followed the turn to the right, and were surprised to see a number of people gathered at the tables and booths, out of sight down the main concourse of the House. They stopped and stared. One, they recognized: Urluh, the ogre, who sat at one side of a booth, with several other women, goblin and human opposite. All of them seemed focused on two men at a table nearby. At the table sat a redheaded man in motley, holding an outlandish stringed instrument with two necks, and a goblin man in striped trousers and shirt who held a guitar, carefully tuning it. On the far side of that table, a redheaded and shirtless goblin man sat at a booth, sharing the bench with a curvaceous blonde goblin woman, and the two of them seemed more interested in each other than in the musicians. And then, sitting at a chair behind the musicians’ table, there sat an orc woman.

Bill and Dan stared. It was the first orc they’d ever seen; orcs weren’t common in Marzenie, except far away in the north. But they’d heard that a few had migrated to the western frontier, and had started doing business in the magical town of Refuge, where ogres, goblins, men and orcs and stranger things came together…

One of the human women looked up, the shorter, black-haired one. “Oh, shit,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’m sorry! We didn’t expect there would be guests at this hour, given the weather! Can I get you a table?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Bill, pointing at the table in front of them. “Is this one all right?”

“Perfectly!” said the little black-haired woman. “I’m Dina, and I’ll be your waitress tonight! Can I get you – oh, I see you have menus, already! You just sit yourselves down, and wave at me when you’re ready to order!”

“Actually,” said Dan, “Can I start with the corned beef sandwich and potato fingers? And another beer?”

“And I’d like to try the General’s Bushel,” said Bill. “And mine’s a beer, too.”

“And you shall have them!” said Dina. She turned to the musicians, and said, “We’ve got guests! Can you play something for them, while I alert the kitchen? How about Charli’s Song, for starters?” The little woman then strode from the room, back into the Stage Room, and gone.

The redheaded man in motley made a sour face, while the goblin guitarist grinned enormously. “Charli’s Song?” said the redheaded man. “Augh! Why doesn’t anyone ever want to hear The Lay of the Rose, or perhaps Calling You? Or even Promises In The Dark?”

Hilariously, all the women at the booth on the right rolled their eyes at once. Even the ogre.

“Because,” said the goblin guitarist, “The Lay of the Rose contains no one getting laid, and Calling You is a love song. And Promises is too damn dramatic for a good time; might as well play Knights Of Dragon Down. What’s your problem with Charli’s Song? Come on, play for the audience! A sprightly laughing tune won’t kill you.” The guitarist struck his strings, and found his key, and began strumming.

“Rrrrgh,” said the redheaded man. “Every time I play that song, I feel a week of my life being peeled away. Two weeks, when I’m the one who sings it.”

“Well, I’ll sing it then,” said the goblin guitarist. “For the sake of your old age!”

The redheaded man’s sour look faded somewhat, and he struck his own strings on the lower of the two necks of his instrument, which were deeper, more bass than the guitarist, and suddenly, the two came together seamlessly with a meandering tune which went on for a few bars, before the goblin suddenly opened his mouth and began to sing:

Well, Charli was drinking
At the end of his workday,
Dis-satisfaction the state of his mind…
He’d built up his farm
And bought his own freedom,
And no one to boss him or keep him in line
Why, then, the empty
Sensation within him,
Why now was Charli’s life losing its shine?

Ohh, Charli, the man with the oversized penis,
And no one to offer his gigantic love,
Charli was lonely, alone in his home-ah-ly home…

At the word penis, Dan and Bill’s mouths dropped open, and Dan had to restrain a snicker. Was THIS the sort of song you heard at the House of Orange Lights? This could work out better than they’d thought! Meanwhile, the goblin singer continued.

Nine shots of uisge
Had slowed down his senses,
So Charli was seeing through liquor’s gold haze…
He looked out the window
And saw in the cornfield
A womanly vision a-stealing his maize!
She wore not a stitch
And was quite statuesque
And Charli’s drunk self then rose up all ablaze!

Oh, Charli the man with the humungous pecker,
Had seen the nude woman out stealing his corn,
But Charli did not know the rest of the story just yet…

Dan’s elbow rested on the table, his hand firmly clamped over his mouth. Bill slugged back the last of what remained in his mug. This was already turning out to be worth the trip.

Well, Charli charged outside
Confronted the corn thief,
And she said she was sorry and turned on her heel
And Charli was struck then
With the woman’s great beauty
And invited her in for a sit and a meal,
And then from the cornfield
The woman stepped lightly
And Charli realized then that ogres were real!

Oh, Charli the man with the gi-nor-mous wanger,
Had then finally met at last, the girl of his dreams
Oddri the ogre, the eight-foot tall ogre, it seems…

Dan and Bill’s concentration was broken as plates were placed down briskly before them: a thick toasted sandwich with potato fingers and cups of dip, and a bowl of fried breaded nuggets in various shapes and colors, and, again, cups of dip for them. A moment later, they were joined by two foaming full mugs of beer.

“That was fast,” said Bill.

Dina beamed at them. “Not much to do in the kitchen tonight, boys,” she said. “We have a couple of local fellows upstairs, but aside from that, you’re our only guests at the moment. So no waiting for you!”

“Hey!” said the goblin guitarist, noting that the redheaded man had quit playing. “We were just getting started!”

“Let the nice fellows eat their meal in peace,” said the redheaded man. “I already want a drink, just having played this far.”

“But we weren’t finished!”

“Nor would we be, anytime soon,” said the redheaded man. “That was three stanzas out of a hundred and thirty-eight; I believe you added the last four, not long after Oddri’s second child was born, did you not? I say again, let the guests eat in peace. Dina, a benzwine? A big one. And don’t spare the kicker!”

The goblin wrinkled his nose at the redheaded man, but did not pick up the song again. The redheaded man rose to his feet. “And since we have guests among us,” he said, “I will make introductions. Gentlemen, you’ve already met Dina the Delightful, who is your waitress tonight, and Urluh saw you in, yes? I am Osric, the house minstrel, and this is my collegue Wolrek the Song-Singer. Over at this booth, opposite Urluh, are Venna,” he said, indicating the human woman, “and Plumi,” he added, indicating the goblin woman. He turned around and waved toward the goblin couple. “Here we have Drin the Merry and his lady Lina the Golden, the only blonde goblin known to exist! And then, back here, we have the lovely and exotic Prairie Chicken, our newest night staff. And this is the staff of the House of Orange Lights tonight, at your service!”

Bill stood. “I’m … Bill,” he said. “And I’m glad to meet you all. This place has quite the reputation, and so far, you’re livin’ up to it and then some.”

“I’m Dan,” said Dan. “And yeah, you people impress without half tryin’.”

The shirtless goblin man stood up. “We have considerable practice,” he said. “And we seek not to impress, so much, as to make our guests feel welcomed, at home, and well entertained. Do enjoy your meal, and if you have questions, feel free to ask them. The House of Orange Lights prides itself on straight answers!”

Dan took a big bite of his corned beef sandwich. It was delicious, tender corned beef with some sort of spice or spread of some kind between the layers of meat… “Are… blonde goblins… rare?” he said, looking at Lina.

“Rare as hen’s teeth!” said Lina, dimpling. “There’s only two of us, and one is a hobgoblin girl, lives with her parents in Goblin Town. The only full grown one lives at the House of Orange Lights! But I’m not natural.”

“Not a natural blonde?” asked Dan around a mouthful of sandwich.

“Oh, I’m a natural blonde,” said Lina, smiling. “Carpet matches the drapes, and all that. But I’m not a natural goblin.”

Bill and Dan stared. “What?”

The women at the far table snickered, and Drin rolled his eyes and smiled. Lina, still smiling, said, “I was born a human, but a witch put a curse on me and made me a goblin for a while. Turned out I kinda liked it. I came out here and got a job, and wouldn’t you know it, the curse wore off when the place was packed with customers for a birthday party? I shot up two feet and six inches out in every direction while I’m carryin’ a tray of drinks, and I popped RIGHT out of my clothes, titties and ass everywhere! The birthday boy LOVED it, though, and oh, MY, the tips I got that night… and nowhere to put ‘em!”

Bill and Dan stared. “Seriously?” said Bill.

“Seriously,” said Drin. “I was there.”

“But if she turn’t back into a human,” said Dan, “how’s she a goblin right now?”

“Well,” said Lina, “ever’ so often, I go back and see that witch again. We’re good friends now, and she says it’s good practice. Sometimes I try somethin’ else. While back, we tried turnin’ me into an ogre.”

Bill and Dan stared, their meals forgotten. “An ogre.”

“That’s right!” said Lina, grinning. “We had two big ole blonde big titty ogres here for a while!”

Both Bill and Dan looked at Urluh, who smiled back at them. “That… musta been interesting,” said Bill.

“Oh, it was!” replied Lina. “Didn’t work out as well as goblining, though. I can stay goblin near on a month. Bein’ an ogre only lasts eight or nine days. Tried it twice!”

“I remember the second time,” said Urluh, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Remember the man who came in and offered us gold?”

Lina’s face lit up. “Oh, YEAH!” she cried. Turning to Bill and Dan, she said, “There was this ONE fella from back east, came in and saw the two of us… and he about swooned. Offered each of us a gold coin if we’d do whatever he wanted for FIVE MINUTES, right?”

Bill and Dan stared. “Yeah?” said Bill.

“Well, gold is gold,” said Lina primly, “and I figure five minutes ain’t a long time, so we took him up on it, and he asked us to strip down right there in the taproom, right? But only from the waist up! I wasn’t expecting that, but he’s got the gold on the table, so I peeled my top off and Urluh slips the straps on her gown, and we got two big ol’ blonde big titty ogres with their tits out, and that fella looks like he’s standin’ in front o’ the gates of Heaven, right there…”

“That wasn’t all he wanted,” said Urluh, smiling.

“Gimme a minute, Urluh,” said Lina with a chuckle. “So anyway, he puts us in chairs, facin’ each other, and then he gets up and sits on Urluh’s LAP, and he tells us both to lean forward real slow… and soon, he’s sittin’ there with his head jammed between four big ole mashed-together ogre boobs, and he’s got a look on his face that says he could be happy forever if he just died right there…”

“The rest of the room wasn’t what I’d call unhappy, either,” said Dina, grinning. “Right there in the middle of the taproom! You three were the kings of the hour.”

Urluh looked thoughtful. “It was a little weird,” she said. “But he was sweet, and it made him happy. And he gave us the gold, after. It was fun.”

Lina laughed. “You know what, fellas? When you’re an ogre with your tits out in the middle of the taproom? EVERYBODY wants to buy you a drink!”

Urluh smiled. “Him, too,” she said. “I don’t think he had to buy himself another drink for the rest of the evening. That was a fun evening!”

“So bein’ an ogre was fun?” said Dan.

“It has its ups and downs,” said Lina, still smiling. “Ogres are STRONG! I could put Osric and Wolrek on that table, and then pick up the table with one hand! And I was taller than all the fellas, for a change! But I ain’t used to bein’ so tall. Whacked my head on things, and my center of gravity’s too high, so I had problems balancin’ and I tripped over my own feet a lot. But I could move furniture, manage wet bedsheets, heft a loaded wagon all by myself! That was fun.” Lina paused and looked back at Prairie Chicken. “One o’ these days,” Lina said, “I might try bein’ an orc for a while. I wonder if I’d still be blonde?”

“Truly, the House of Orange Lights is a magical place,” said Plumi. “Where nothing is ever quite as it seems!”

Bill looked at one of the breaded nuggets. He bit it in half. It was hot, and he realized that inside was a fried mushroom. He dipped it into the white sauce, and ate the other half. It was amazing, and he realized that the other nuggets were of different shapes …

“How does an orc come to get a job in a place like this?” Dan blurted.

The night staff of the House of Orange Lights looked back at him. Dina had taken her seat back at the booth with Venna, Plumi, and Urluh. “Well,” said the shirtless goblin, whose name was Drin. “Perhaps Prairie Chicken will answer that?”

“I’m sorry,” said Dan. “I didn’t mean to be offensive—”

“No offense is taken,” said Prairie Chicken. She smiled a smile with her lips closed. Dan looked her over. Her eyes were her most striking feature – orcs apparently had black eyes, and their irises were yellow, giving the impression of a gold ring in the middle of an orb of black. Her nose was almost human, but pushed back a bit, like a snout. Her hair was long and black, brushed out and luxurious, and she wore a low-bodiced human-made dress in forest green, which contrasted greatly with her ruddy red skin tone. “It is a long story. Are you here because you read the book?”

Bill and Dan looked at each other guiltily, a thing the girls noticed, and they laughed. Bill nodded. “Love Slave Of The Orcs,” he said. “By Biff Hardlust.”

Osric blinked in surprise; he apparently hadn’t heard of the volume in question. Lina and Drin laughed and Drin rolled his eyes. The women burst out laughing, and even Prairie Chicken smiled a bit, revealing her fangs for a moment, before closing her lips again. Prairie Chicken shrugged. “I liked The Coming Of The Baroness better,” she said. “But there is much in the Hardlust book that is true.”

Osric still looked stunned. “There’s a sex book out about orcs, now,” he said hollowly. “Here come the tourists again. No wonder we’ve got visitors in the middle of the week during a snowstorm.”

“They’ll be disappointed,” said Venna. “The Flower Tribe doesn’t live here, or in Refuge or Goblin Town, and they haven’t got around to building Orc Town yet. They’re kind of hard to find.”

“Except one,” said Prairie Chicken, still smiling. “Boys, I work here because it is a welcoming place. They made a place for me, here. They make me feel like family, and for an orc, that is important. And the money is good. The House of Orange Lights, where you can have human food, goblin beer, kiss an ogre, and fuck an orc, all in the same night.”

“It’s both ways,” said Urluh. “People come out here to see Prairie Chicken, even if they aren’t going to take her upstairs. The House of Orange Lights has us all together, all in the same place, working together.”

“I thought goblins didn’t get along with orcs,” said Dan.

“Normally, we don’t,” said Plumi. “Out in the Sea of Grass, we’re natural enemies. Or anywhere else we wind up in the same place. But Prairie Chicken is good people. She’s Flower Tribe, and that’s a new kind of orc. She’s sweet, she’s sexy, and she’s good for business, and she is as kind to goblins as to anyone else.”

“So,” said Dan. “How’d you come to be here?”

TO BE CONTINUED

Back to the previous entry: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1g3lr24/the_scholars_field_report_part_two_of_three/

LOG ENTRY SIXTEEN

I have written the account of the orcs’ orgy three times now, and have discarded each draft. I can’t quite nail it down in what I would call “neutral” terms. It is as if I have lost my ability to be objective about orcs. Is it the fact that there are humans involved? I was surprised to see the Fleets engaging the orc Sweet Clover in sexual congress in their bed… but I did not find it disturbing in the way I did the orgy. Was it just… that many orcs, seeking to slake their lusts? Was it the fact that the shaman was human? The fact that he took another man’s wife, right there in front of him? Or… just the fact that … humans … were behaving like orcs?

And yet, they weren’t. Everyone I’ve spoken to among the orc females is as one on the subject: male orcs are brutal, and care nothing for anything other than their own pleasure and fulfillment. The human shaman and Ray Fleet were plainly seeking to pleasure their partners as well as themselves. Is that what’s bothering me? The fact that the orc females have found human males to be more fulfilling than their own? Or the fact that the humans – even women – are finding pleasure in the barbaric ways of the orcs?

Or is it just that I found that it called to me, too?

In the two nights since the orgy, I have dreamed of it repeatedly, sometimes events from the affair itself and sometimes variations spun out of my own fevered brain. And even then, it all comes back to Scarlet Tanager, who (in the dream) I very much wish to touch, to embrace… and yet, in the alien logic of dreams, for one reason or another, I cannot!

I find myself looking at Ray and Millie Fleet in a different light. They are no longer the staid, stolid farmers I thought they were. They conceal their true nature beneath their simple demeanor and ordinary farming clothes, but on certain nights of the month, they are in many ways as orcish as their guests.

It does not help that my own perception of the orcs is changing. Blossom herself is a handsome woman, I find, as I look upon her with new eyes. She’s much older than I am – I understand that she is some thirty-six years of age, which counts as quite mature in orcish terms, as orcs tend to die by violence, and females tend to be killed or abandoned when they are no longer of use to the males. But she isn’t old. In human terms, she’s not even middle aged, and I believe she is aware of this. She still thinks of herself as a sexual being, and still desires it. Is she wrong, to do so? I look upon the other orcs, and where I once saw strange and savage unhuman creatures, potential invaders of Marzenian soil … I begin to see … people. Women. Persons facing adversity with courage and determination… and finding joy in their solutions. And I begin to question myself for judging them, for standing aside and studying them as if they were merely animalcules in a drop of water under a microscrye glass.

And then, there is Scarlet Tanager. She drifts through my dreams, independent of the other orcs. She was sending me a message, that night. She cared nothing for the other orcs, for the orgy. She was focused on me. For all that she was told not to press or interfere with me, I find her in my thoughts more and more. But she is ORC!

And if I begin to see beauty in her… what, then, am I?

LOG ENTRY SEVENTEEN

“Do you … not feel?” said Scarlet.

It was over breakfast, a few days after the orgy. She’d brought me breakfast again, and we ate sitting in front of my tent. And the question struck me like an arrow. I did feel. I had been feeling for days, in fact. And my feelings were no less uncomfortable than the question was.

I wondered why Scarlet was still here. The rest of the tribe, other than Cliff, Rain, and Aster, had headed out on another hunting expedition. Had she remained here because I was here?

I looked at Scarlet. She’d taken to wearing human-made brassieres, and one or the other of Ray’s old work shirts with the sleeves cut off, buttoned up to the point of decency. She was pleasantly buxom, but not so large that the shirts couldn’t contain her. Below the waist, though, she wore her skirt of roughspun weave and her boots of hide and thong. She wore her hair tied back in much the same way Millie did, neatly combed, but kept out of the way of the day’s tasks. The effect was a mix of orcish barbarism and human … humdrum. And yet, something about it, contrasted with her orcish complexion, her dark eyes, her unhuman gaze… brought about exotic beauty.

Beauty. In an orc. I looked at Scarlet, and I wondered that I had found her ugly, when we had first met. In point of fact, now, I looked around me, and I could find no ugliness, except perhaps in the Shaman’s antlered mask, and he had no doubt crafted it for that purpose. The orcs were unhuman, yes. But they were not ugly, any of them.

“I feel,” I said, shoveling eggs into my mouth. “I have feelings. You think that I don’t?”

Scarlet looked at me frustratedly. “You … stopped asking questions, after the moon ritual,” she said. “You stayed away from the tribe. It is like… I have interfered with you. By showing you the ritual. I didn’t want that. I didn’t mean that to happen. Have I hurt you in some way?”

“No,” I said. “You’ve done me no harm. You showed me … very much. A very big thing. I’m wondering how to work this into my field report… without… harming the Fleets’ privacy, or that of the other farmers you’re visiting. I … just…” I sighed, and took a deep breath, and decided to tell her the truth. “I have to be objective about this. I … have to write about it, without … being a part of it, without having an opinion, or judgment. I have to write about it in a way that anyone else could read and understand and consider in his own way. I have to leave my own feelings out of it.”

“You have to write it … without feelings,” said Scarlett. She seemed confused.

“Yes,” I said. I thought about it for a moment. “You just write what happened. You interpret it, yes. But when you just say what HAPPENED, then you leave it open for others to examine, to interpret, to consider alternatives. That’s how science works.”

“That’s stupid,” said Scarlett.

Surprised, I said, “What? How is that?”

“Simple,” she said. “You saw what happened. You saw what everyone did, and why they did it. But you were THERE, Jack. You have a part of the story that they will not! And you will understand in ways that they never will!”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I still don’t. I still don’t understand why Ray and Sunflower were going at it. She’s already pregnant! Why did your Shaman mount Millie? Again, already pregnant! I’m still not GETTING this, and my feelings about all of this aren’t HELPING, Scarlet! If anything, they’re getting in the WAY, because I can’t THINK straight!”

Scarlet looked surprised. “You don’t?” she said. “No one has told you?”

“You have,” I said. “You’ve been more help than anyone. But I’m still not following the reasoning behind the orgies, other than growing the tribe. I don’t understand why the pregnant ones still want sex. I don’t understand ANYTHING here other than the orcs wanting to not die out!”

Scarlet looked at me, thoughtfully. “You want to know why,” she said. “Jack, we are orcs. We had no males. We had to depend on human males at first, for the pregnants. You know this.”

“I do,” I said.

“We … did not rape,” she said. “We… convinced. We scared the farmers to cooperate. Because we are orcs. We knew nothing of human mating rituals. All we knew was that their seed would work, and we needed it. We convinced them to give it to us. But then we learned that some of them liked the giving part.”

“Yes,” I said. “You mentioned that.”

“Some were not comfortable,” she said. “But Ray and Millie… welcomed us. They offered us food to stay. They wanted to KNOW us. We didn’t expect that. And they gave us the chance to know THEM, you see?”

“Yes,” I said.

“We learned much about humans. And their ways. And their thinking. And we used much of this in our new Verities. And … well, we kept moving, but we… came back. Other humans were like this, too. Gord and Jommie Korben both wanted sex with us, and Finn Halloran loved us. The Fleets came to love us. And WE came to love THEM. They cared for us, they shared with us, they cared for our young! Jack, this was a BIG change! Don’t you get it? Orcs don’t love.”

“Uh?”

“I tell a lie,” Scarlet said. “Orcs love. We love our children. We care for each other. But to be a male, one must stop loving. He-orc cannot love. Love and domination … can’t be, together. To dominate, you must throw away love. That is the orc way. But humans don’t do that. From humans, we learned human love. And we came to be able to give it back. And from us, humans learned to throw away their uncomfortableness with the sex, to be like orcs. Millie and Ray are as orc as I am, now! Except that he’s not an asshole.” Scarlet smiled. “He is fun to fuck. He lets us dominate, but other times, he dominates. Like an orc! But … with love. With fun. You see?”

I stared at Scarlett’s yellow eyes, starting to understand. Scarlett kept going.

“At the Moon ritual? Ray fucked Sunflower because she wanted a good fucking, for pleasure, and because he loves her, and she loves him. Tarse has wanted to fuck Millie for months now. Millie wanted to pleasure Tarse, and Ray wanted Millie to be happy! She’s already pregnant! Why not? We do the rituals because we give our love, Jack! To grow closer to each other! And because fucking is FUN!”

I sat there with what I am certain was an idiotic expression on my face. What I had taken for barbaric splendor and orcish ritual protocol was, in fact, the equivalent of a block party for some extremely friendly neighbors.

“You write your report,” said Scarlet. “And you say you must do it without feelings. To say only what happened. I say to you now, how can you do that? The human words are love, loyalty, tribe, bonding together. How do you talk about these things without feelings, Jack? You were there, you SAW, and I think you FELT! I hate to make you uncomfortable, but I know you have feelings about it, in your heart, and in your dick! I know you try to write about it, and then you are unhappy, because there are feelings in the words. I say, how can you tell this story without feelings?”

“I…” I said, feeling weak and unconvincing, even to myself. “That’s… how this is done,” I said. “It’s academic styling. It’s… the custom for how this is done.”

“Like the Verities?” snapped Scarlet. “Fuck the Verities. They got in the way. We threw them away and made something new that worked! You say you are here to learn, to know. You think you can do this by watching? Watching isn’t learning. I learned that when I tried to use a bow for the first time, Jack! I learned to draw it and loose by watching. Everything else, I learned by doing, by being a part of what was going on! Is this not true of anything else?”

“I…”

“This is how akka-demmiks learn about things?” said Scarlet angrily. “Then they know nothing! Jack, you will learn nothing of orcs by sitting and WATCHING them!”

She’d sat back and drawn her legs out in front of her, still staring relentlessly at me. Still maintaining her gaze, she lay back and opened her legs, revealing her glistening slit, and, still staring at me, at ME, she reached between her legs and began to finger herself, slipping two fingers into herself and beginning to caress, to stroke, to stimulate…

“Can I learn to read by watching you read a book?” ranted Scarlet.

“I can not call to you,” said Scarlett solemnly. “Blossom and Sunflower have said that no one is to do that… to interfere with you. To … bother… your … research,” she finished, groping for the unfamiliar words. “I did wonder if you’d come out, though.”

“You watch?” snapped Scarlett. “You SEE. But you DO a thing? You KNOW!”

*“Like the Verities?” snapped Scarlet. “*Fuck the Verities. They got in the way. We threw them away and made something new that worked!**”

“You can’t know a thing,” said Scarlet, “unless you DO the thing, BE the thing!” I saw that her eyes, her strange, beautiful black and yellow eyes, were filled with tears, and as she growled at me, a single tear rolled down her cheek. And to see an orc’s tears… combined with my own emotions at the moment… I think I might have become unhinged for a second.

I put my plate aside, leaned forward, and reached out and hooked my hand around the back of her neck, behind her hair, and drew her forward, towards me. Her look of anger was abruptly replaced by a shocked expression. She didn’t move at first, but I pulled her forwards, and she came towards me.

“Do you feel?” I said, and I cocked my head and kissed her on the lips.

A part of my mind raved at me. Are you fucking mad, you godsdamned halfwit, you just laid hands on an ORC—

I kissed her anyway. Her lips were soft, and tasted slightly of butter and biscuit. I kissed her anyway. And then I released her. “Is that what an orc does?” I said. “Reaches out and takes what he wants?”

Scarlet leaned back… fell back might be more accurate … and caught herself with a hand, and sat up bolt upright. She gasped, and breathed hard for a moment, her expression one of bewilderment. “Uh,” she said. “Uh. No. Um. An orc male… would just, uh, take his dick out and, uh, shove it in my mouth. Orc males don’t really, uh, kiss. At least, uh, not very well.”

I felt my own breath hitch in my chest, and resisted the urge to pant. “Then I have learned something important,” I said, crazily, “by doing.”

Scarlet took three deep breaths, and her mouth snapped shut. She focused her eyes on me, and her expression grew intense. “You touched me,” she said, as if she were thinking aloud. “You took hold of me, and you kissed me. You said that an orc takes what he wants. You want me. You kissed me. That’s how humans start things.”

Something about her intense expression bothered me, and I realized I might have made a very serious mistake. “Uh,” I said. “I—”

“You started things,” she said, still thinking aloud, still staring at me. “You did. Not me. But you have started things, and that means I can keep them going!” Her mouth sprouted into another of those fang-toothed grins, and suddenly, she leaned forward and shoved me, knocking me onto my back. In my surprise, I fell, my legs untangling from their crosslegged position, not without Scarlett’s help.

I looked up at her. She was already up on her knees, looming over me, smiling, her breathing rapid, ragged. “You want to know what an orc would do?” she said softly. “I show you.”

Her fingers were at my trouser fastenings, and before I could fathom what was happening, she had my trousers open and had peeled me down to mid-thigh. She caught my eyes with hers, and still smiling, suddenly fell on me and took my cock into her mouth. It wasn’t difficult. I had felt myself hardening with the kiss, but the sensations of Scarlet’s mouth floored me.

“Uh!” I said. At least I think I did. I was certainly no more articulate than that.

Scarlett’s left hand cradled my balls, tickling them with her nails, while her other hand encircled the base of my growing shaft, and her lips and tongue were in constant motion, her head bobbing up and down, engulfing and releasing me. She stroked along the bottom of the shaft with her tongue, and then nibbled at the bottom of the head with her lips, and then swallowed me again, never giving me a moment to realize exactly what she was doing until she was already doing something else.

I was paralyzed. My legs were splayed out, as were my arms, and this wicked, beautiful orc knelt between my legs and took utter control of me with nothing more than her mouth and my cock. Up and down, up and down, up and down, round and round, over and under… it felt like she had five tongues, all devoted to a different sensation, and I couldn’t concentrate, her fingers squeezed my dick while her other hand juggled and tickled and teased my testicles… I’d never felt anything like it!

All I could do was breathe. And spasm. And lie there, while she worked her magic. And it was over far too soon. “I… Scarlet, I’m going to—” I expected her to let go of me, to let me shoot my seed into the air. Instead, she took me in deeper, amazingly deeper, perhaps into her throat, and milked my cock with her right hand, swallowing, swallowing, gods, gods, GODS, the SENSATIONS…

I think I might have blacked out for a moment. I opened my eyes, and she was upright again, on her knees, smiling down at me, her hand still tenderly stroking my cock up and down, wetly. Two other orcs stood over us, Cliff and Aster.

“This is what orcs do, Jack,” said Scarlet lightly. “If I were a he-orc, I would have taken you for my pleasure. But I don’t have a dick. So instead, I show you what I would do.”

“Uh,” I said. My heart was still hammering in my chest.

“Blossom will have your ass for this,” said Cliff.

“He started it,” said Scarlet. “He grabbed me and kissed me. That counts as an invitation. Ray said so.”

“Did he?” said Aster. “I think Blossom was thinking more like he would invite you to share his tent, or to actually sex with him. Does a kiss really mean that much? You moved awfully fast.”

“He grabbed me and kissed me,” said Scarlet stubbornly, still stroking my cock. “He said he wanted me. He asked how orcs did it. So I showed him.”

“Then why does he look like you hit him with a brick?” said Cliff. “He looks ambushed.”

“Uh,” I said. “No, she’s right. I started it. I … did this.”

The two other orcs looked at Scarlet, who smiled. “Hm,” said Cliff. “Well. Looks like you’re off the hook.”

Aster snorted. “I hope Shiny Thing believes you,” she said. “She’s not going to like this.”

In the distance, I began to feel the sensation of catching my breath. I also began to feel my cock stiffening again under Scarlet’s steady ministrations. Scarlet looked down at me with some tenderness. “I made you feel good,” she said. “Could you do me, now? You’ve got me very wet.”

I stared back at her. The two others stared down interestedly.

“Uh,” I said, furiously trying to think of something to say. Finally, I decided to abandon all pretense. “I would,” I said, “but … I’ve never eaten a pussy in my life…”

Cliff looked shocked. “Oh?”

“You want to learn?” said Scarlet, a little too quickly.

“I could show you how,” said Aster, a split second later.

Scarlet looked at Aster with a flicker of irritation.

LOG ENTRY EIGHTEEN

Two days later, and my notes have doubled. Scarlet was right. I’ve learned more in two days than I did in the two weeks previous. Since my … seduction? Since my seduction of Scarlet Tanager, if one can call it that, I find the entire tribe to be far less reticent and more willing to discuss orcish cultural norms and mores with me, as well as the changes wrought by the new Verities. Strangely enough, Ray and Millie have been hugely helpful in this.

“We’ve had a lot of time to learn all this,” said Ray over breakfast this morning. “Specially since we brought Clover into our marriage. But Blossom and Sunflower were pretty clear that you weren’t to be, um, unfairly enticed into havin’ sex with anyone. Not that anybody didn’t want to answer questions, but nobody wanted to cross Blossom, us included. Even by accident.”

“Some o’ these girls are insatiable,” said Millie with a smile. “Irrepressible, and shameless by human standards, and ever since Cliff found herself a soldier, they’ve all had thoughts about findin’ themselves what we’d call a sweet friend, in the goblin way. A man all their own.”

Scarlet and I sat at table with Clover, Millie, and Ray. They’d invited us in to talk, and I was pleased to see that Millie had brewed a pot of black tea! Most of the orcs didn’t care for it, but academia about runs on the stuff, and I savored cup after cup while the Fleets talked.

“But don’t the orc women share their males?” I said, gesturing at Ray.

“Yes,” said Clover. “But under the new Verities, it has to be a group decision. Ray likes all the girls, but Millie and I are the ones to speak to if you desire his services. We share him because the three of us agree that he will be shared. Just as Millie can only be shared if Ray and I agree. It is a trust thing.”

“Why was Blossom concerned about the women seducing me?” I asked.

Ray sighed. Millie and Clover giggled, and Scarlet covered her smile with one hand.
“Because,” Ray said, “anybody with eyes to see can tell – no offense intended – that you’re not used to long walks in the garden, if you know what I mean. Or even short walks. Hell, I wasn’t sure you’d ever been past the garden gate. But the orcs picked up on that right away, and about half of them started schemin’ about how they was gonna lead you around by the dick.”

I looked over at Scarlet, and she smiled a bit guiltily. “It is so,” she said. “I told you, Jack. Sex was our only way to get any power. We got good at it.”

“They did,” said Millie. “It’s how they got us snared, and others besides. And they’re really good teachers, too. They taught Ray and me tricks that made our sex life come alive again, even before Clover got involved. They taught us how to be orcs. The NEW kind of orc. Hey, you know what would be fun? If next time we all get together, Ray, you and Tarse and Jack was to blindfold me and wrassle me onto a pile of furs and all three of you was to go after me, all at once, and I could imagine you was all orcs…”

“Mill,” said Ray in a pained tone. “Give the boy a few days to adjust, all right? It ain’t like Scarlet Tanager’s not turn’t him upside down already as it is…”

“Depends,” I said to Millie. “Have the orcs taught you their secrets about blowjobs?”

“Ooof,” said Ray, sipping his tea. “HAVE they? First time she tried out some of those tricks on ME, it about unscrewed my head clean off!”

Scarlet giggled. Some part of me marveled at the fact that I’d just propositioned another man’s wife while sitting at table with them both. Was this the way of the new orcs? And how much of this did I want to include in my report? And then, I remembered a thing I’d wanted to discuss.

“Ray,” I said, “I understand that the orcs’ hunting hasn’t been as good as it might be, lately?”

“Not like it was,” he replied. “They like to hunt the bighorn sheep. They used to be able to follow them west, but now, they’re wanting to stick closer to the farms on the frontier. Feeding them still isn’t an issue… but trade isn’t as good as it was, not without the hides and the horns. And sooner or later, feeding them is going to start cutting into the bottom line. Particularly as these babes are being born.”

“I have an idea about that,” I said. “Several, in fact, that I’d wanted to discuss with you. What if I could solve the food problem AND your bottom line AND the trade issue in one mighty smite?”

Ray, Millie, Clover, and Scarlet looked at me sharply. “I’d say you’d got our attention,” said Ray.

“Start talkin’,” said Millie.

LOG ENTRY NINETEEN

Eight days later, back in Millie’s kitchen, I folded the letter back into its envelope. “They’re willing to discuss it,” I said. “The Lyceum is willing to partially fund it, with matching funds from the Baron, if I can sell the Board on the idea.”

“There’s got to be a catch,” said Millie. “What with free money and all.”

“First of all,” I said, “I’m going to have to convince the Board that an Agricultural Research Station staffed entirely by orcs is a good idea. They were apparently fascinated by my preliminary report, and they’re very much looking forward to reading the whole thing. I mean to use that as a selling point to get the funding.”

“There’s also the Baron to consider,” said Ray.

“No, he’s the easy part,” I said. “I saw him personally. He’s familiar with what the orcs are doing, and feels that they won’t be a problem so long as they’re left in peace, and they don’t get desperate. Well, keeping them from getting hungry keeps them from getting desperate. The one snag is that he’s only willing to match the funds the Lyceum provides… and if they don’t open the treasure chest, well, zero is an easy number to match.”

“What is agri-cultural ree-search stay-shun?” said Blossom. She peered curiously into the china cup of tea before her.

“In our case,” I said, “it means Ray and Millie teach you farming. The grant goes for more sheep, more pigs, more chickens, even a couple of milk cows and a bull. Enough to mean considerably more money, AND enough food to keep the tribe fed, even in the winter. There are other projects, too. I mean to invest in a loom, a big human-made model, and you’ll learn to make woolen textiles.”

Sunflower looked confused. “Teks-tyles?”

“He means cloth,” said Millie. “Human style cloth. And do what with it?”

“Well, for starters, the trading post in Goblin Town is interested in orc-made goods,” I replied. “They seem to think that the tourists would go mad for orc-made blankets and tunics. I agree. I’ve seen the patterns and art you do on the roughspun stuff you already make, and I think you could do way better with better looming equipment instead of the travel looms you use now. That would mean money for the tribe to spend on other things. All I have to do is convince the Board.”

“I’d been wanting to expand our farm,” said Ray speculatively. “And with twenty orcs helping out, we could actually make a go of it, with someone else paying for the animals and the construction materials…”

“Mmm,” said Scarlet Tanager. “This means you will have to leave us, to go talk to these people.”

“Yes,” I said. “I can do my best, and I hope to come back with good news.”

Scarlet looked at me with her piercing dark eyes. “When will you leave us?”

“I figured,” I said, “that I’d head out a bit after the full moon.”

LOG ENTRY TWENTY [FINAL FOR NOW]

It wasn’t long before sunset that I finished my excisions and revisions of the Field Report. Rather than using this log as a cover sheet and index, I decided to leave it here, and continue to add to it after my return. There’s a lot in it, and in the original draft of the Field Report that I don’t think the Board at the Lyceum really need to know about just yet… although it had occurred to me to rework it a little and go into competition with that Fistid Wackford writer fellow and his smutty novels. That’d be a way to bring in some extra money!

But for now, I mean to impress the Board to the best of my ability, to submit the Field Report, and hopefully make my name as the chief expert on this end of the continent on the subject of orcs. I’m taking a hell of a risk. I could just submit the report and bask in the accolades, rather than using it as a stake to roll the dice for double or nothing. But I owe it to the tribe, and to Scarlet Tanager in particular. She was right. I thought I knew about orcs, but the fact is, until I listened to Scarlet, I knew next to nothing. I was tempted to put her name on the Field Report, except that I’m sure the idea of an orcish co-author would cause certain high-ranking Lyceum officials to take it less seriously… and when I arrive on the Lyceum grounds, I want to be taken very seriously.

Having finished the final draft, I slipped the manuscript into my bag when Scarlet came into the room, as naked as the day she was born. I took a moment to appreciate her. An exotic beauty like none I’ve ever met before.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

I put the leather case on the dresser. “I think I am,” I said. I picked up a towel and wrapped it around my waist, and together, we stepped out into the hall, the living room, and out the front door. In the gathering darkness in the dooryard, the torches were lit and the skins and blankets laid out in the usual fashion beneath the full moon. Seated here and there were Rain and Rock Face and Big Tits and Sparkle, with Cliff and Bubble Butt and Prairie Chicken and Amaranth, Cardinal and Really Built and Aster, Shiny Thing and Ray and Sweet Clover and Millie, Waterfall, Banded Agate, Knifecat… and in their usual position at the far end sat Blossom, Tarse, and Sunflower. They all looked up at us, standing in the torchlight on the porch. All of them naked as the day they were born. All of the beautiful, to my eyes.

“I wish to address the tribe,” I said. I looked at Scarlet, who abruptly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me.

The group chuckled and whistled. “Speak,” said Blossom.

“I claim Scarlet Tanager,” I said. “In the orcish way.”

“The orcish way?” said Sunflower, curiously.

“The orcish way,” I said. “I claim her for my own while I get to know her, while we grow closer, while we learn about each other, and about humans, and about orcs. And in the orcish way, perhaps we will not grow closer, but grow apart.”

“But what if you don’t?” called Sweet Clover.

“Then maybe we will claim each other,” said Scarlett loudly, “in the human way! Who is to say? Time will tell. But for now, I claim the human Jack!”

This brought a rumble of chuckles, whispers, and smiles. “Will you share him, Scarlet Tanager?” said Shiny Thing. “Some of us don’t move as fast as you do.”

This caused a number of chuckles and growls in the crowd. “I will share him,” said Scarlet, smiling. “With love. But tonight, I get him first!”

This brought about a rumble of assent. “Who objects?” I called, hoping no one would. And there were a few murmurs, but no one objected.

“If he is to claim you from the tribe,” said Blossom, finally, “there is a price to pay. You have informed him of this price?”

“I have,” said Scarlet, in a satisfied tone. “I have prepared him to pay it.”

“Then come forth,” said Blossom. Together, Scarlet and I descended the steps, and strode across the skins and blankets in the dooryard, hand in hand, while hands, orcish and human, reached out to touch us as we walked. And as we approached Blossom, she smiled at me… and leaned back, and parted her knees, to give access.

And I knelt before my chief, and reached under her to stroke the undersides of her thighs, and felt pleasure in her anticipation, and I leaned forward to taste my chief’s cunt.

END

Part One can be found HERE: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1g2hlzo/the_scholars_field_report_part_one/
And now: On with the show!

LOG ENTRY TEN

An important shift in the former Verities involved slavery. Orcs were enthusiastic slavers, albeit careless about their slaves’ health, and indifferent to their comfort.

“So in addition to raping their females,” I asked, “did the males rape their slaves?”

“Often,” said Sunflower. “They regarded it as their right. It is how the males thought. It is also why the new Verities forbid the taking of slaves. We were close enough to slaves ourselves that we have no wish to enslave others.”

“It is true, then,” I said, “that orcs can interbreed with goblins and men?”

Sunflower actually looked uncomfortable. “Not with goblins,” she said. “Too different. But sometimes, female goblins suffered great injury in the rape.”

“Orcs could interbreed with human women?”

Sunflower looked less comfortable. “Yes,” she said. “The young were killed. They were not orcs, and the males wanted no children that were not orcs.”

“Blossom said that the Flower Tribe was a new kind of orc, though,”

“We are a new kind of orc,” said Sunflower. “But the Verities forbid rape. We’re better than that.”

“Even in the absence of males of your own?”

“We have ways to work around that,” said Sunflower with a smile. “Some among us have learned to pleasure each other sexually. It is a thing we practice, with no men to—”

“To the point of making each other pregnant?”

Sunflower stopped, and looked at me in a way I found difficult to interpret. “We are few,” she said. “And we want to live. To grow. To succeed, as a tribe, without being slaves to the males again. Is this wrong, to want to be free?”

LOG ENTRY ELEVEN

Six days since the last entry. In that time, I have found that I have learned to read orcish facial expressions, even more so than I had thought. Orcish eyes are the great impediment – a human learns to read the way another human holds his eyes. Orcs, with their dark sclera and yellow irises, are more difficult. In the last six days, I’ve noted how I am the focus of attention of each orc in my line of sight. They look at me when they think I’m not noticing. And I have yet to figure out exactly why.

The hunting party returned today. They had no bighorn skins or buffalo robes or horns. I asked Blossom how the hunt had gone, and was told that they had been successful, but had sold the skins and carcasses to the K family, and had returned thereafter.

Supper was served by the orcs, with some assistance from MF, and I noted that conversation was quiet, primarily in orcish, and that now I am observed quietly by the entire tribe when they think I am not looking.

LOG ENTRY TWELVE

A breakthrough today.

I was speaking to Scarlet Tanager, one of the lead hunters and one who is not pregnant at the moment. She mentioned “the moon rituals,” and she balked when I asked about them. “It is a new thing,” she said. “The rituals we observe at the changes of the moon. It is … a strong, serious thing.”

“Serious how?” I said.

“It is how we make the future of the tribe,” she said frankly. “It is when we have sex with the men.”

I might have startled a bit. I had assumed the ritual she spoke of was religious in nature. “Sex with the men?” I said. “What… men?”

“It changes,” said Scarlet Tanager. “It depends on where we are.”

“You just go out and FIND them?”

“Well, not exactly,” said Scarlet Tanager. “Full moon and new moon, we’re here, and there is RF. Around the quarter moons, we go visit the K’s. They’re a lot of fun. JK pretends she doesn’t like girls, but when you get her good and started? She won’t stop! She wore out BLOSSOM, once! And another time, she wore out Sparkle and [Large Breasts] at the same time!”

I was a little at sea, at this point. She seemed to be saying they were traveling and having sex… but with whom? The only name I recognized was K, a man and his wife who ran a farm some ten miles north of the F farm… in the meantime, Scarlet Tanager continued, enthusiastically.

“Half moons, we go see the C’s. There are four men there, but the C woman doesn’t like us. She stays in the house, away from us. In between we go see N and W, but only usually once a month.” Author’s note: names have been replaced with letters for the privacy of the persons involved.

“You… travel and have sex… with the human men? On the farms, here on the frontier?”

“Well, yes,” said Scarlet Tanager, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. “We only have one man. A few of our children are his, but Blossom and Sunflower worried about inbreeding. So we got the humans to help us.”

“And… this includes RF? And MF?”

“Yes, during the full moon. Last time was Sunflower’s turn, but she shared with me and Rain!”

“Sunflower is already pregnant,” I noted. “And so is Rain.”

“Well, yes,” said Scarlet Tanager. “But sex is fun. Why go without, just because men are few? And the humans like it, too. There were others, but they didn’t like us so much, so we quit going there. Now we just visit the ones who are happy to see us. Good sex, lots of trading!”

“I thought you hunted the bighorn sheep and the bison.”

“We do, when we can find them,” said Scarlet Tanager. “But we like the sex, too. Don’t you?”

“Come again?” I said. She’d taken me by surprise with the question.

“No one has had sex with you,” said Scarlet Tanager. “Blossom said to leave you be unless you asked for it. But you never have, not from anyone. The tribe starts to think you just don’t like sex. Unless you just don’t like orcs. But if that is so, why are you out here learning about orcs? I’m sorry, did I embarrass you?”

She’d noticed my expression, which I quickly erased. “Erm, no,” I said. “I … just… didn’t realize that all of this was going on. No one has mentioned it, and when you left, I thought you were going to hunt the sheep. The women who care for the children change out, each time you go?”

“Yes,” said Scarlet Tanager. “Everyone wants to take a turn. Except Sweet Clover. She belongs to RF and MF, with the married.”

“The married?”

“The human thing, where two humans claim each other. The married.”

“Sweet Clover is married to R and M?” I said, the scene from the earlier night suddenly taking new significance.

“Yes!” said Scarlet Tanager. “She liked the humans, but she liked R and M very much, and she claimed them, and they her. It’s why she wears the human clothes and lives in the house with them. Her baby is his. Of course, M’s is, too, but M likes to sex with women, too. R and M are the best humans we know, but the Ks come close. Good people! The soldier Dinsdale is good, too – he is togethering with Cliff, but they are not married. Are you writing this down?”

I realized I hadn’t kept up with my notes in my astonishment.

“See, in the old times, the males decided who claimed who. Women had no say. But now, we learned from humans the different ways. Sweet Clover wanted a human of her own, so RF and MF claimed her, and now she has two humans! But they still share R with us, at the full and new moons.” Scarlet Tanager looked at me speculatively. “Do you have someone you have claimed? A married?”

“I – er, no,” I said. “I am a scholar, and I’ve spent the last several years finishing my credentials. I … didn’t really have time for women.”

Scarlet Tanager blinked in surprise. “Years? Without sex? That sounds awful. But you have your cre-den-shills now, yes? You have time to come talk to orcs, now?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “It’s my work, now.”

“Work,” said Scarlet Tanager. “To talk to orcs. Know orcs. Write things down.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

This, at least, I was ready for. “I am a scholar,” I said. “Scholars learn things, and write them down, so others can learn from them. We know very little about orcs, because orcs don’t talk. They attack. Nothing but fighting, until the Flower Tribe came. The Flower Tribe didn’t make war on us. Instead they talked, and traded. We can learn much from you. That’s why I came. That’s why I do what I do.”

Scarlet Tanager considered. It seemed to make sense to her. “You learn orc ways,” she said. “Both the old ways and the new ways of the Flower Tribe. And you will tell the humans that the Flower Tribe doesn’t want to harm them.”

“Yes!” I said. “I will publish my writings, and then everyone can read them and know.”

“You will tell them that we want to talk to them.”

“Yes.”

“And trade with humans, and goblins.”

“Yes.”

“And have sex with them.”

“Erm.”

Scarlet Tanager cocked her head and looked at me with an expression that took me a moment. She was frankly curious, and a little confused. “The sex bothers you?” she said. “Why? Sex is good if it is not forced, yes? If you choose it?”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, I’ll take your word for it.”

Scarlet Tanager fixed her yellow eyes on me in a way that made me distinctly uncomfortable. “You don’t hate orcs,” she said. “You talk to orcs, learn about us, learn about our ways, the old and the new. But the sex makes you uncomfortable. Is it that you have never had the sex?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “It is… just that the way of orcs is very different from the ways of men,” I said. “Were the humans comfortable at first?”

Scarlet Tanager’s face relaxed. “No,” she said. “They thought we were the old kind of orcs, and that we would make them suffer. But we didn’t. We just wanted the sex. Partly for babies, and partly because we like sex. In time, some humans grew closer with us. R and M joined the tribe, even. But others did not like us, and I never did know why. I thought it was because, you know, orcs. But now you are uncomfortable in the same way that they were. You do not like sex?”

“I like sex just fine,” I said, perhaps a little defensively. “I’m … not used to talking about it. And I only just learned that you were having sex with the human farmers. You’re the first to tell me all this. It’s a lot to take in, all at once.”

“Yes,” said Scarlet Tanager. “I said the same, the first time I saw R’s cock. He is bigger than an orc!” she giggled. For some reason, this threw me off even further; the idea of an orc giggling was in some ways stranger than anything I’d seen or heard all day.

“I mean, I … am having trouble understanding so much at once.”

“I know,” said Scarlet Tanager. “I was making a joke. I hoped it would make you not uncomfortable. But it was a sex joke. I should not have done that. I am sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “You really have done me a great favor. No one else has told me what you’ve told me just now. It explains very much, and helps many things make more sense. Thank you.”

“I have helped you,” said Scarlet Tanager. “You say I have done you a favor. Will you do me a favor?”

“That would depend on the favor.”

“Will you explain… humans and sex?” she said. “How they agree to the being together? The having of sex together? And the married? Orcs do it very differently, and there is much I don’t understand.”

“Um,” I said. “Well, that’s … complicated. And long. But I will tell you what I can.”

I spent much of the rest of the day explaining human courtship, dating, getting to know one another, and the institution of marriage and how it works – how it’s supposed to work – to Scarlet Tanager. She asked a number of insightful questions, and I was forced to admit that much of what I was saying was hearsay, and ‘human Verities,’ rather than based on personal experience. I had expected to ask and learn from the orcs. I did not expect it to be the other way around!

“Humans don’t talk about the sex much,” was Scarlet Tanager’s final conclusion. “They treat it as a thing to be hidden. Some humans, anyway. Even you don’t talk about it much, and it makes you uncomfortable, like some of the other humans. It makes me glad to have R and F, and the other humans we visit. They are very comfortable talking about it. We learned much from them. We learned the idea of married. Orcs … did not do that. A male could throw his female away whenever he wanted to. But the married means that R and M and Sweet Clover will stay together till they die.”

“Married people can separate,” I added. “But they need the permission of the law to do so.”

“They can’t just throw each other away.”

“It makes you think hard,” I said, “before you make that kind of commitment to someone.”

“But there is another together,” she said. “Before the married. Where you just be together because you want to. Both of you.”

“That’s how it supposed to work,” I said. “Getting to know each other better. Learning to be together. Seeing if getting married could even work. Some people, they shouldn’t be married to each other.”

“MOST orcs were like that,” said Scarlet Tanager thoughtfully. “Before the males died. But the humans… are togethering … with goblins. Even ogres. And now, orcs.”

“New Ilrea is a place full of changes and surprises,” I admitted. “It’s one of the reasons I came out here to study the orcs. No one has ever been able to do this before.”

Scarlet Tanager looked at me curiously and excused herself not long afterwards. “I see what you mean,” she said. “It is a lot to take in. I need to think. And you need to write.”

It was a little later during dinner that I noted the orcs staring at me, when they thought I wasn’t looking. And now I wondered why a little less.

LOG ENTRY THIRTEEN

Scarlet Tanager met me the next morning while I was shaving. She’d brought me breakfast. It was a surprisingly substantial one – scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and mirches, and biscuits in gravy. “It is a human breakfast,” said Scarlet Tanager. “MF says that breakfast is important for strength and for putting the day together.”

We sat and ate together. “We are making ovens today,” said Scarlet Tanager. “MF will show us how they are made with the bricks. Orcs don’t know the baking the way humans do. We will make bread!”

“Orcs didn’t make bread before?”

“We did,” said Scarlet Tanager. “But not like the human bread. We have ideas for making orc and human kinds of food. But for this we need ovens, and there are too many of us for the house kitchen.”

“At this rate,” I said, “soon, you won’t be nomads any more.”

“There are good things about staying in one place,” said Scarlet Tanager, mopping up gravy with a bit of biscuit. “Makes it easier to manage children. Humans know ways to raise meat animals. Many changes.”

“You won’t miss the old ways?” I said. “No, I guess not…”

“New ways to follow,” said Scarlet Tanager. She smiled at me, and licked gravy off her lips. Over time, I had become less disconcerted by the orcs’ fanged smiles, but it was still a reminder of their unhumanness. On the other hand, a smiling orc is a happy orc, and with the Flower Tribe, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “It makes me think of the cock sucking.”

“This is a new thing?”

“In a way,” said Scarlet Tanager. “When the males were with us, cock sucking was … dominance. A male could stick his cock in your mouth, fuck your mouth till he cums. It was a way of dominating, of … reminding you that you were … less than he. We did it to each other, too. A woman could order a woman of less status to lick her cunt. Males thought it was a status thing. But it was more a favor. We did it as a binding thing, a growing closer thing, among women. You see?”

“I … think so,” I said. “So … women still like with women, and still lick each other’s… vaginas… but now you don’t suck … penises?”

“Oh, we do!” said Scarlet Tanager, still grinning. “But … we learned to make it a way of power. A woman can control a man by sucking his cock. Or gain power over him. Or at least influence him. But now we do it to make friends, to … make good feelings. To do a favor.”

“I came here to study orcs,” I said. “I find myself studying a tribe that’s still reinventing itself. You’re changing, even while I write down what you used to be.”

“Better now,” said Scarlet Tanager. “I have a thing to tell you. Moon ritual tonight. You want to see?”

“Urm,” I said. “The… moon… the sex with humans thing?”

Scarlet Tanager nodded. “The humans here … they don’t want you to write about it. That is why the drinks, last time, and the sleep. I think they will do it again this time. I tell you: tonight? Don’t eat or drink what you are offered at dinner time. You go back to your tent early. Say you are tired, you want sleep. But stay awake, and listen. After dark, pay attention. Stay in your tent, and don’t be seen, but pay attention.” With that, Scarlet Tanager ate the last bit of egg on her plate, took my empty plate from me, and rose and headed for the house, with the plates in hand.

She smiled at me as she left.

LOG ENTRY FOURTEEN

I took Scarlet Tanager’s advice, and did not join RF and MF and Sweet Clover for supper, as I had two weeks earlier, and begged off, saying that I was tired and felt out of sorts, and that I thought I would sleep it off. My hosts were genial about it, and I retired to my tent, and worked until close to sunset, and then slipped into my blankets and feigned sleep. In truth, I could not have slept if I’d tried; I was in fact quite excited to observe these savage rituals the orcs had developed by way of getting human farmers to cooperate with their breeding program.

It was fortunate that I’d climbed into bed. RF came to check on me a bit after dark and called to me, and even pushed my tent flap open a bit to have a look. I gave every indication of being dead to the world, and, satisfied, he let the tent flap fall back into place and left me where I lay. Once he was gone, I wasted no time in sitting up and finding my field-glasses, and peering out through the tiny gap in the tent, being careful not to get too close, lest the reflection reveal my observations.

The orcs gathered a short distance in front of the farmhouse, and stuck torches in the ground, and when full dark was upon us, lit them. Piles of blankets, furs, wool, and animal skins were laid out in mounds over about a fifteen foot area, within the square of torches. I had a fine view. And, unsurprisingly, once this was done, the orcs began to disrobe, all being quite nude before long. Counting, I noted that three of them seemed to be missing: Rain, Aster, and Cliff, the particularly tall one. I had seen Cliff near the barn earlier, and concluded that these three were responsible for looking after the children during the festivities. It made sense – Rain was close enough to giving birth, Aster had given birth quite recently, and if Cliff was involved with a human soldier, she might not want to be involved in the events to come.

I found that I could recognize the tribeswomen even at a distance, and even in their current state of nudity. I marveled at the sight. Orc women tend towards somewhere between “muscular” and “beefy,” depending on the individual. When I had first met the tribe, the one orc I could regularly recognize was Cliff, because she was tallest. Now, looking upon seventeen orcs, all of whom were nude other than one, I realized that they had all become individuals to me. The orc shaman, however, sat on a stool opposite the house, and he wore his customary blanket wrap and antlered mask. He seemed to be engaged with the females, which made me wonder about his supposed oath of silence. On either side of him, seated on piles of blankets and skins, were Blossom and Sunflower, both of whom were quite naked. I couldn’t help but notice that Sunflower was quite gravid, at least seven to eight months along.

Finally, Sweet Clover emerged from the house, and called out to the others, who settled down immediately on blankets and skins, facing the house, waiting. Sweet Clover remained on the porch. She had shed most of her garments, wearing only a short white shift. A few moments later, RF and MF emerged from the front door, onto the porch. MF wore a white shift, and RF wore nothing other than a kilt, or perhaps a towel wrapped around his waist. They smiled, and the three of them descended the steps together towards the area of skins and blankets. Upon reaching the edge of the area, all three removed their garments, to the delight of the onlookers.

I stared. My first feeling was regret that I might never know the origins of this rite, this ritualistic beginning to what resembled a barbaric orgy. Both MF and Sweet Clover were very obviously pregnant, and they approached Blossom, who stood and embraced them both… before seating herself again, and leaning back, and opening her legs wide, as did Sunflower, and both MF and Sweet Clover knelt, and lowered their faces to the chiefs’ vaginas…

A woman could order a woman of less status to lick her cunt. Males thought it was a status thing. But it was more a favor. We did it as a binding thing, a growing closer thing, among women. You see?

At this point, I saw the tattoos on MF’s back, and realized that they were the same as Blossom’s, as well as several other of the tribe’s females. Scarlet Tanager had mentioned that MF and RF had “joined the tribe,” and she had not exaggerated or overstated. While MF and Sweet Clover engaged themselves in satisfying the orc chiefs, several other females descended upon RF, who allowed himself to be borne down upon another pile of blankets, and I quickly lost sight of him beneath the tide of red bodies.

A few of the women did not participate, though, and I swept across them with my field glasses… and then, I saw Scarlet Tanager, kneeling on the furs at the edge of the sexual tableau. She was as nude as the others, and she was looking directly at my tent. I fancied she could see ME, as impossible as that would be. But her gaze was aimed directly at me.

I remained inside the tent. Through the darkness, and at that distance, she could not possibly know I was watching. But she looked at me, and cupped her breasts in her hands, flicking her nipples, caressing herself. And staring at me. She ignored the heated scene behind her, focusing herself entirely in my direction. Her red skin glowed in the torchlight, the yellow of her eyes aimed entirely at me. I found myself wondering what her nipple would feel like on my tongue, what her reaction would be to it…

It was if she knew that I was watching, and endeavored to put on a show, to tempt me to come forth and mingle with her, with them all. Her right hand strayed from her breast to slowly caress herself down her belly, down, down, to her black-furred pubic patch, and further down still, to caress and tease herself between her legs. She did this for a time before drawing her fingers back up, shining and wet, and licked them, her eyes still staring at me.

I tore my eyes away from her, with some effort. This was supposed to be a scientific investigation, not a peep show! And I saw that in the time I had watched Scarlet, the scene had changed. Ray was kneeling before the pregnant Sunflower, driving his cock into her with great enthusiasm, while Sunflower’s legs pointed at the sky, kicking and quivering with pleasure. I saw the orc shaman stand and rise to his feet, and shed his blanket and helmet, revealing not an orc, but a human man! And he strode towards another pile of blankets, upon which lay the nude, pregnant Millie Fleet, surrounded by orcs who fondled and caressed her, stroked and nibbled at her, and the shaman nudged her legs apart, and with her cooperation, eased his cock into her and began to stroke forward…

I was stunned. Millie and Ray had been the picture of the bucolic farm couple, perhaps a bit young, but perfectly respectable and proper, albeit a little odd in their willingness to host a small tribe of orcs on their property. I felt a little foolish. Hadn’t I witnessed them dallying with an orc woman in their own bed? But there seemed a great difference between that and the savage torchlit bacchanalia spread out before me… and yet, I felt a temptation to rise, to emerge from the tent, and to –

Scarlet drew my attention again. She’d sat back and drawn her legs out in front of her, still staring relentlessly at me. Still maintaining her gaze, she lay back and opened her legs, revealing her glistening slit, and, still staring, she reached between her legs and began to finger herself, slipping two fingers into herself and beginning to caress, to stroke, to stimulate… her head still raised, still staring, and in my field-glasses, I had a perfect view. I fancied that I saw her lips move, as if she was speaking to me, and I could almost hear her voice: come to me, Jack, come to me and touch me, taste me, be a part of me, fill me…

LOG ENTRY FIFTEEN

Rereading my previous entry, I am irked with myself. I very much lost any sense of scientific objectivity. Further, rather than the usual pseudonyms, I named people by their proper names. Sections of this document are going to have to be rather severely rewritten before its submission to the Lyceum!

Scarlet brought me breakfast again. She seemed very pleased with herself. I could imagine why. “Did you see?” she asked, as she settled down outside my tent, and we ate. “You saw what you came to see?”

“I did see many things,” I said, pausing to munch down a sausage. “It… was like a scene from one of those books by Fistid Wackford.”

“I don’t know reading,” said Scarlet. “Or books. What did you think of what you saw?”

I looked back at Scarlet, and wondered what to say. Scarlet, like all orcs, was… ugly. Her ruddy colored skin, her eyes – black pools from which lambent yellow circles stared at me. Her pushed-back nose, somewhere between a human nose and a pig’s snout. And those fangs, those teeth that promised violence, even in a smile!

Last night, I had seen barbarism. But it was not the barbarism one would expect from orcs. It wasn’t violent. Passionate, perhaps, but not violent. No one had been harmed. But now, I knew that humans were involved. Intimately, in fact.

“I know now that no male orcs survived,” I said. “Your shaman is human. He’s the father of some of those infants out in the barn, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Scarlet. “I didn’t expect him to get involved. He usually just watches. But he has lusted for Millie for a time, and he and Ray reached an understanding. I didn’t know about it until afterwards. Millie is already pregnant, so no risks there, and it was a great growing-closer for all of us.”

“Why?” I said. “How … did you come up with all of this? And why?”

“This is how we do things now, Jack,” said Scarlett. “We had to learn to hunt and survive, without males. We found that we could. And we had to grow the tribe, to continue. It was either that, or grow old and die. We hated the old males, but we needed new ones, whether we liked it or not. And together… with humans … we found ways. We already knew how to use sex to influence males. We used our ways, and it worked. And the humans taught us new ways, new things, new pleasures, new fun. The torches and the furs? That was Millie’s idea.”

My face must certainly have registered the shock. “What?”

“Ray and Millie had come to love us,” said Scarlet. “And we, them. And instead of just fucking, Millie wanted to make a production of it. She said, “If I’m going to be a barbarian, I want to do it with style!” It was only once a month at first, after all. And … well, it changed, until it became what you saw last night. It’s fun, it marks the dates, and it’s easier than trying to get all twenty-two of us into their bed.” She finished with a shrug, and bit off half a biscuit. She chewed, swallowed, and looked back to me. “Did you see me?”

“I did,” I said.

“What did you think?”

“I … it felt like… you were calling to me,” I said. That wasn’t what I’d meant to say, but that was what came out.

“I can not call to you,” said Scarlett solemnly. “Blossom and Sunflower have said that no one is to do that… to interfere with you. To … bother… your … research,” she finished, groping for the unfamiliar words. “I did wonder if you’d come out, though.”

“I … wanted to,” I said. “But … I didn’t want to … I don’t know. I was afraid you’d get in trouble with Blossom, or that I’d embarrass the Fleets, or … I don’t know.”

“This is the uncomfortableness that is talking about the sex,” said Scarlet, unhappily. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

We looked at each other for a moment. I didn’t know what to say. Only later did I realize that this ugly creature was changing, in my eyes. She wasn’t as ugly as she had been… she was largely just different, and I was beginning to realize the motivations that had led a number of the folk of Refuge and Goblin Town to seek the touch of other folk than their own. There is a wild, exotic newness to the ways of the unhumans, and the events of the previous night had burned themselves into my brain, to the point where I had dreamed nonstop of the savage orgy of orcs and humans, entwined in each other’s flesh, caressing, licking, sucking, and furiously fucking left and right. Much of the night, I had dreamed of Scarlet, of her nude form, so like a human’s and yet, broader, heavier, redder, different! Ugly… and yet, beautiful, in its barbarism, in its splendor! And worse, I had dreamed that something prevented me from touching her, that I could get close but my hands and my lips were blocked by an invisible barrier, and worse than that, I could see the desire, and the despair, in her eyes as she reached out for me, as well… and could not touch me.

But I couldn’t tell Scarlet all that.

“Not uncomfortable,” I answered. “It’s… just … a lot to take in. I learned a lot last night. Now I need to figure out how I’m going to record it all, is all. And I’m not sure where to start.”

THE SENSES-SHATTERING CONCLUSION: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1g3yvqk/the_scholars_field_report_part_three_of_three/

LOG ENTRY ONE

For the record: This is the official log of Jack Nertall, Scholar of the Third Rank, of the Lyceum of Ningonost. to serve as a professional and personal recording of my experiences while studying the orcs and an index to the Notes to follow. Today is a grand day! Permission has been granted (and funding approved!) for my proposed study of the Eastern Orcs known to exist in the Barony of New Ilrea!

Others have shown interest in study of these creatures, but it was my proposal which seemed to appeal most to the Board of Scholars. I can only hope that my study proves up to the trust which has been placed in me!

LOG ENTRY TWO

Upon my arrival in New Ilrea, I was warmly received at the provincial capital by the representatives of the Baron Arnuvel Gawinson, and was quickly conveyed to the presence of the Baron himself! He proved to be a surprisingly informal sort of fellow, and was most genial and helpful in providing me with the personal connections I would require for my research, starting with the works of two local scholars whose work precedes mine: one Ben Harson, who has already produced a lexicon of orcish vocabulary and a surprisingly complete grammar; I have begun studying this work in preparation for contact with the creatures.

The other was the work of one Ramsey Grimwald, who, while he has not contacted the orcs himself, has considerable experience with nonhumans, being a resident of the famous Goblin Town, and was called upon by the Baron to transcribe the debriefings of the King's soldiers who spent time among the creatures. I have not yet had time to study either of these works, but I am hopeful that they will provide insight into the workings of these creatures' thinking and way of life.

LOG ENTRY THREE

Ten days later, due to a snag in the procedure.

I had hoped to meet with the orcs' representative before now. This has been postponed, due to the orcs' nomadic nature and arrangements. The orcs are nomadic under normal circumstances, leading a primitive hunter-gatherer existence, following herds of shovelmouths or bison. The Flower Tribe has adapted to life in the east under somewhat different circumstances -- they prefer to hunt and herd the bighorn sheep of the Sea of Grass, but they split their time between extended hunting trips and semi-permanent residency with human farmers on the western frontier of New Ilrea. They have made arrangements with said farmers to house and care for their young during these hunting trips. Precisely what the humans get out of it is unclear and will be a point of my research. The reason for the delay in my departure for the frontier is that the orcs are currently on one of their hunting trips, and my arrival on the frontier zone would coincide with their absence.

The time, however, has not been wasted. I have educated myself in the rudiments of the orcish language and I have studied extensively the notes provided me by Grimwald and Harson. They were most useful. The orcs of the Flower Tribe describe the standard orc society as "brutal autocracy" on every level. Every male orc sees himself as destined for dominance, and will attempt to dominate those around him as a matter of course. His rank in the tribe depends on his ability to do so, usually through violence, but sometimes by charm or persuasion... backed up by violence.

Orcs lack personal names -- an infant will be given one to distinguish him from others, but a male orc's childhood ends the day he can effectively exercise his will on someone else. At that point the name is abandoned, and the orc is assigned a number -- his place in the tribal pecking order. From that day on, the orc's entire life goal is to advance his place in tribal rank -- to achieve a smaller number. The leader of the tribe is "One." One's word is law. Further, the Flower tribe describes the situation as "The One's REALITY is law." That is to say, if One says that the sky is green, everyone else's job is to believe it -- or at least to pretend that one does, fervently. Failure to do so is grounds for punishment from higher ranking tribe members, ranging from death to exile to enslavement to torture.

Advancement is simple: one must defeat someone higher on the ladder than one's self, or arrange for that person's death. With the elimination or defeat of a higher ranking tribesman, everyone below him moves up a rank. Assassination of rivals is punishable by death, but only if the assassin is caught doing so.

Females and children lack ranks. Female names are analogs to male names -- Woman One is the current female claimed by One as his exclusive breeding partner. Orcs practice serial monogamy, with females being held in common until a given male chooses one to breed his children. Females can be dismissed by the male at any time for any reason, so females have a strong incentive to keep their males happy. The Flower Tribe females describe the situation as being "not quite slaves." Slavery is practiced by orcs and they sometimes enslave orcs who for whatever reason can't defend themselves or effectively rebel against their masters. Most orc slaves are non-orcs, notably goblins. According to the Flower Tribe, the slaves tend to be treated as brutally as orcs treat one another, which tends to be hard on slaves; the only incentive to do a good job is to avoid pain and death, so the life of an orc slave tends to be brutal and short. Non-orcs cannot earn status in the tribe. Orcs believe that only orcs can truly be orcs, and the role of literally every other creature that is not an orc is to serve orcs in some way... as slave, adversary to hone their skills and ferocity against... or food.

Again, this goes for ALL orcs. When two orc tribes meet in the wild, the expectation is that they will fight until one tribe dominates the other, and then absorbs the survivors. It has been pointed out that between this and a truly ghastly infant mortality rate, orc population density tends towards the minimal -- perhaps a good thing as far as other creatures are concerned.

For the Flower Tribe, this changed with the annihilation of their entire male population by the military forces of New Ilrea at the Battle of Slunkbolter Town (see notes). Orcish society is held in accordance with a set of laws, referred to as the Verities, which are assumed to be self evident to all orcs. The Verities are variable to some extent between tribes, but seem to agree that orcs are the dominant lifeform of the world, intended to dominate all of nature. Females' jobs include reproduction, food preparation, manufacturing, general support, and slave management. Males' jobs are hunting meat and war, period. Females are invariably forbidden to do male work under any circumstances, or to dominate males or each other in any way.

In point of fact, this is not entirely true. According to the Flower Tribe's accounts, females often influenced or even dominated males by way of persuasion, misdirection, or feminine wiles in general, particularly when a woman's status was on the line. Consequently, with the eradication of the males of the tribe, the current Woman One was pressed into a situation requiring considerable stretching of the Verities, and their eventual discardment in favor of a more flexible, solution-oriented culture that the orcs could live with.

This first manifested in the discarding of the system of numerical designation, and the choosing of names by the females. The females chose names reflective of flowers (Blossom, Sunflower), birds (Cardinal, Scarlet Tanager), personal features (Large Breasts, Round Buttocks), or even interesting terrain they’d seen (Cliff, Rock Face). This was significant. It was a major departure from the Verities, and it was a major element in the redefinition of these orcs from merely adjuncts to their males to being individuals in their own right ... as well as introducing the concept of “rights” in the first place; Harson in particular postulates that “rights” are simply not a thing in orc culture. Any given orc has all the rights he can seize by force, and females and children simply have none. This was changed almost immediately (see notes).

I very much look forward to meeting the leaders, whose names are Blossom and Sunflower, and beginning my study.

LOG ENTRY FOUR

It was on the twelfth day after my arrival that I first laid eyes on the orcs. They are remarkably ugly.

They are also remarkably similar-looking to one another. Orcish hair is long, straight, and black or dark brown. It is said that males can grow beards, but not mustaches. Their skin tones are remarkably uniform, unlike humans, who come in a great variety, or for that matter goblins, who are invariably green, but in a variety of shades. Orcs are dark red, perhaps best described as brick red. They are unmistakably hominid, possessing five fingers to a hand, and below the neck could pass for human in shape, were it not for their peculiar skin color.

The resemblance ends above the neck. Orcs' eyes seem somewhat smaller than human eyes, perhaps due to a tendency to large brows. Their eye construction is similar to human, but as opposed to the white of the human sclera, orc sclerae are dark colored, almost black, and their irises tend to be yellow or orange, presenting a most inhuman look. This is not aided by their teeth and their noses. Orc teeth are similar to human, but for the extended canines, giving them literal fangs on the upper and lower rows of teeth. Their noses have a pushed-back look, upturned to a considerable degree, meaning that orcs' noses tend to have a snoutlke appearance. It is not flattering, and strongly delineates the creatures' unhuman demeanor.

En route to the orc camp, I was informed that their semi-permanent home was in fact on the premises of a farm belonging to a human family, where the orcs were raising their offspring. Further, I learned that the Baron subsidized the farmers to cooperate with this, it being an easy way to keep track of the orcs' approximate location at any given time, a thing I found surprising, but certainly pragmatic. I was asked not to record the farmers' names, and must therefore refer to the location as the "F Farm," the home of a man I shall call RF and his wife, MF. Upon meeting these people, I was surprised to find that MF was with child, and quite far along, expecting to give birth within a month or so. She did not seem to find the idea of having an infant in the middle of a horde of orcs particularly worrisome, a thing I found surprising. "You get used to them," RF mentioned in passing. "They ain't bad folks, and they're raising a passel of kids of their own."

It was not long after this that I laid eyes on the orcs for the first time. They had set up their camp in the F Farm's dooryard, in between the main house and chicken house, with the barn in the background. A second barn seemed to have been erected in the recent past, off to the east of the first barn, and behind the chicken house. RF informed me that it had been erected for the orcs' use, as shelter and storage for the previous winter, and was specially insulated and reinforced for use as tribal living quarters and nursery -- the building resembled a barn simply because it was the available architectural plan, and lumber and fittings could easily be obtained on short notice.

The orcs themselves were surprisingly few in number, being only twenty. Nineteen were female, and half of them appeared to be in various stages of pregnancy to my eye. Only one male dwelt among them, their shaman, to whom I did not speak; MF informed me that he did not speak with strangers due to a vow taken to conform with some orcish notion of religion or spirituality. I saw him little; he wore a robelike garment and a wooden mask with antlers that covered his entire head. Most of my conversation on that first day was with the leaders of the tribe, two females who used the names Blossom and Sunflower. They were cordial, if a bit formal, and were quite straightforward in answering my questions, though their testimony tended to confirm what I had already acquired through Harson and Grimwald.

“You can talk to anyone,” Sunflower said. “Some speak the man speech better than others. But anyone will answer your questions.”

Blossom verified much of what Harson wrote about orcish culture. “Males created the Verities,” she said. “Partly to make solid their beliefs about the word, and partly to keep others under their authority.” She also spoke of the human concept of hypocrisy and shame, and noted that there were no orcish words for these concepts – orcish males having no concept of either.

“Males do whatever they think is best for themselves at any certain time,” Blossom said. “It is a very special male who thinks of what is best for others… even if it is also best for him.” Self-centeredness, and a desire to dominate and/or punish one’s social inferiors, seems to be a given in orcish culture. Blossom then pointed out that the Flower Tribe had discarded much of this, stating, “If you are a slave, then you are free, do you want to own slaves? Or do you find something new? The verities say if you are not orc, you can never BE orc. To break the Verities is to be orc no longer. And we have found that this is a lie. We are still orc. We are a new kind of orc.”

Their account largely backed up Grimwald’s writings. The Flower Tribe existed in culturally mandated semi-bondage up to the event of the Battle of Slunkbolter Town, where their entire male population was wiped out by a combined force of Marzenian troops and cavalry and goblin archers. This left the females with a choice: obey the Verities, which forbade them to hunt or make decisions without male input… or discard the Verities, and come up with their own solutions. They discarded the all-pervasive pecking order and chose names for themselves, and chose leaders by committee, and continued from there. And rather than attacking the humans of the western frontier, they seem to have traded with them peacefully, picking up the language and a number of useful human concepts, much like the goblins before them. Rather than integrate into human communities, though, the Flower Tribe seems to have valued their independence, though they are willing to work with individual human families like RF and MF.

LOG ENTRY FIVE

Two days into my stay, the orcs had a joyful event: the birth of an infant to one of their number, the one named Aster, who had a healthy baby boy, an event that put everyone, even RF and MF, into an ebullient mood. It also put me in mind of a question.

Looking over my notes and a calendar, I noted that the Battle of Slunkbolter Town occurred last year at somewhat before midsummer. The birth of Aster’s infant was occurring in late spring. If the males had been wiped out some ten or eleven months previous, what was the gestation period for a female orc’s pregnancy? Prairie Chicken had mentioned that gestation took “nine moons and a little more.” If this is the case, then who is the father of the infants of the pregnant orcs?

Blossom mentioned that during the previous changeover of chiefs, the new One demanded sex with all fertile females, a thing that marks the transition of a new chief, and that Aster had simply become pregnant at that time. I asked how this could have occurred, given that this had to have been at least ten months previous. Further, the remaining pregnant orcs are at several different stages of pregnancy – the most recent being perhaps two or three months, the time at which one begins to show. Is this a thing with orcs?

Blossom shrugged and said, “You would have to ask them. I don’t keep track of who is [sleeping with] who.” Which still begs the question of who there is to sleep WITH!

LOG ENTRY SIX

A week and a half since my last entry; see notes for new research material. I wish to record some curious developments.

I had noted that several of the orcs have acquired human garments, notably underwear, and often wear them. I asked about it, and MF reported that she purchased these garments in town at the Mercantile store, that they were popular with the tribe. In addition, the orc women enjoyed using human-made fabrics for clothing, particularly the orc woman Sweet Clover, who I never saw wearing anything BUT human-style clothing, despite her own advancing pregnancy, comparable to that of MF herself. It occurred to me that at least I knew who was responsible for MF’s pregnancy, at least.

I also noted that the orcs often accessed the farmhouse more or less as if they owned the place, notably Sweet Clover. When I asked MF about this, she laughed and said, “It’s no big thing. The girls are just like family, so helpful!” It made me very much wonder about the wisdom and willingness of a helpless woman to allow nonhuman savages into her dwelling at will, but not wishing to jeopardize our working relationship, I said nothing. Still, I continue to wonder.

The second event took place the day before the first full moon of the month. RF returned from town with a case of bottled drinks, and the four of us – myself, RF, MF, and Sweet Clover – sat on the porch for a time, partaking of said drinks, which were not alcoholic in nature.

I awoke the next morning in my tent. My last clear memory was of sitting on the porch with my hosts. I was told that around sunset, I had excused myself and gone to bed early, and not risen until well after sunrise; I had missed breakfast, although MF was kind enough to bring me a couple of sandwiches of egg, cheese, and bacon. I found this most curious, as well as my queasy, foggy-headed feeling upon awakening. I also noted that by midmorning, most of the tribe had dismantled their tents and yurts and was preparing to head out on another of their hunting trips; four of the pregnant females would remain to look after the children in the second barn. This would leave me with little to observe until such time as the tribe returned…

LOG ENTRY SEVEN:

I have spoken of the effects of living near humans upon the savage orcs (see notes). In the absence of the tribe, I have found myself noting a similar effect of orcs upon the human farmers in proximity to the orcs, and myself.

Sweet Clover, Amaranth, Shiny Thing, Waterfall, and Sunflower remained on the farm when the rest of the orcs moved out on the hunt. The first thing I noted was my hosts’ habit of using a number of orcish loanwords in their everyday speech – a thing they did not do at first, upon my arrival, but the longer I remain here, the more pronounced the habit becomes. Fortunately my orcish lexicon has been of use in keeping track of the conversations.

The second was that Sweet Clover seemed to spend much more time in the house than the others, who remained out in the barn with the children and infants. I examined the barn, on Amaranth’s invitation; it looks like a barn on the outside, but from indoors, it is far better insulated, cleaner, and arranged more like a spacious residence and storage facility than like a typical farmer’s barn. It seems to have been designed and built for that purpose, in particular.

“We had it built that way,” said RF. “The tribe was wanting to have a place to shelter over the winter long-term, to use as a base for their trips out to hunt the bighorn sheep and the occasional bison. We had the materials, and we traded ‘em for the barn and the right to stay in it.”

“What, precisely, did the orcs offer in exchange?” I asked. “It seems a great deal of effort and resource, erecting an extra barn.”

“The neighbors helped out considerable,” RF said. “We look after each other, out here on the frontier. And we had the materials handy. Why not use ‘em before they warped in the rain?”

I found it curious that a sheep rancher would have sufficient raw materials – including paint – available for an entire extra superfluous barn. I did not bring this up, however, instead asking Sunflower about it later.

“The Baron bought wood, and sent it out,” she said. “Many humans and goblins and even a couple of ogres did amazing things. The barn was built in a single day!”

This was the least amazing thing I had heard, having seen barnraisings before, although I can only imagine the ways two ogres could make this easier. Why was RF hiding the fact that the Baron had subsidized his barn? Sunflower seemed to have no issue with the question. “The Baron wanted to help us,” she said. “If the children are here, it means the children are safer, the tribe is more effective at hunting, and the Baron’s men know where to find us.”

This led me to wonder why RF hadn’t mentioned the Baron’s subsidy and assistance. Was there a reason for his reticence? And why was Sweet Clover spending so much more time in the house than the other orcs?

LOG ENTRY EIGHT:

Three days after the tribe’s departure, I found an answer to one of my questions, at least. Sweet Clover is a full-time resident of the F farm house. And more.

I had retired early, seeking to collate my notes and reread and reedit my journal, excusing myself after supper. I was therefore still awake somewhat after dark when I heard the sounds. It soon became evident that the sounds were coming from the back of the farmhouse, and were the sounds one might make while engaged in sexual congress. I resolved to ignore the indiscretion… until I realized that there were three voices involved.

I am ashamed to admit that curiosity overcame my sense of decorum. I slipped through the darkness to the side of the house and then around the back. Someone had left a bedroom window open, hence the audibility of the participants. But when I looked, I was surprised.

Sweet Clover, quite nude, rested on all fours on the F’s bed, with RF behind her, gripping her hips and driving into her with considerable enthusiasm. Not quite beneath her, MF lay, caressing Sweet Clover and nibbling on her breasts, reaching between her legs to caress her there, and generally assisting in the act of love that stretched before me. Both women were quite pregnant, which complicated the geometry but didn’t seem to be slowing anyone down. All three were quite engaged and most enthusiastic.

I am ashamed to admit that I stood there and stared in the window for quite some time. A wonder no one observed me, standing there in shock. Sweet Clover’s unhuman nature was all the more apparent with her lack of clothing, but neither RF nor MF seemed to find it at all offputting. The three of them switched positions on several occasions, and after all three had found satisfaction, settled down to rest, covered up, and showed every sign of drifting off to sleep, as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

I slipped away as silently as I could manage, back to my own tent in the dooryard and lay in the darkness, thinking. The sight of the three of them together had unsettled me profoundly, RF’s and MF’s pale flesh contrasting with the red of Sweet Clover’s smooth, unhuman skin. They had been intimately familiar with one another; this wasn’t a recent development. Further, both MF and Sweet Clover were in similar stages of pregnancy – perhaps six or seven months along. With shock, I realized that RF was the father of BOTH infants!

The Flower Tribe had but two males in proximity: the shaman, and RF. Were they the fathers of ALL these orcish infants? The orcs had found a way to continue their society even after the destruction of their male counterparts! My mind ablaze with unsettled speculation, I made my evening ablutions, and went to bed.

And found myself reliving the tableau I had seen in the bedroom, over and over. The orc woman rode astride RF’s torso, his penis sliding smoothly in and out of her, while MF straddled his face, the women touching and embracing… MF taking Sweet Clover’s place on all fours while Sweet Clover crouched behind RF, reaching under him to stimulate them both… and so much more…

…and in my dream, a realization bubbled up to the surface: what had happened, that night I had gone to bed early, without remembering what happened? And had the farmers and orcs had anything to do with it?

LOG ENTRY NINE

The morning after the bed incident, I awoke considerably refreshed, before I recalled the events of the previous night. That being said, all around me seemed as refreshed as I, cheerful and chipper and ready to deal with the events of the day.

It led me – emboldened me, perhaps – to speak to Sunflower about the mating habits of orcs. I attempted to approach the matter obliquely, only to find Sunflower more than willing to discuss the matter at a level of detail that surprised me, although in view of previous events, perhaps it should not have.

“The old Verities,” she said, “were simple. If a male claims you, you are his, until he doesn’t want you any more. Your name is now his number. I was Woman Two before I was Sunflower. And any male can demand sex at any time, and the woman is forbidden from resisting him. My only defense was saying I belong to Two, and if you take me, he will make you suffer! But if One had wanted me, there would be no resistance. Women were forbidden from fighting or resisting; doing so would bring down great punishment. You see?”

“Orc women are regularly raped,” I said. “Or it sounds like.”

“Yes,” said Sunflower. “There is no word for rape in our speech. There is just sex. Good sex, bad sex, painful sex, rough sex, unwanted sex. Most of what I would have called sex, you would have called rape.”

“It doesn’t sound like a way to live,” I said. “What Verities did you replace them with?”

“Well, we didn’t,” said Sunflower. “We still don’t have enough males to really have a working set of customs.”

“But so many of you are pregnant.”

“My child’s father is the Shaman,” said Sunflower, rubbing her belly proudly. “The Shaman does not rape. He too is subject to the new ways of doing things. And it’s not like he lacks for sex, whenever he wants it.”

“Is he the cause of all the pregnancies in the tribe?” I asked, thinking of RF.

Sunflower looked at me for a split second, and I realized that in that moment, I could read her facial expression. Orcs’ faces, until then, had seemed all alike to me, and only the grossest of expressions – large smiles, growls, grimaces and suchlike – had been discernible to me. But in these weeks spent with them, I had begun to appreciate the subtleties of the orcish face. “I don’t really keep track of others’ pregnancies,” she said. “I assume that most of them started before the men were killed.”

The statement was ludicrous, of course. But her facial expression hadn’t matched the statement. And almost immediately, she launched into an extended monologue about sexual techniques practiced by the orcs. “The males had no given style,” she said. “They were unconcerned with any results other than fathering sons and their own pleasures. The trouble is that if a female did not perform satisfyingly, she was subject to punishment. So we got VERY good at satisfying a male’s urges.”

“Do tell,” I replied. I was aware that I was being distracted, but I will confess that the distraction in question was most distracting.

“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling. “You are familiar with the blow-job?”

“Uh, yes,” I said. I hadn’t expected her to know the human term.

“Well, when a male is in a hurry,” said Sunflower, “he would sometimes simply use a female’s mouth to satisfy himself. It’s quick, but it’s also barely a notch above satisfying himself with his hand. So we developed ways to make it MUCH more interesting for the male in question.”

“You… don’t say.”

“Oh, yes!” laughed Sunflower. “Many things to do with the tongue – the circle trick, the long understroke, the swirling, the head job, the shaft stroke, tickling the balls, cradling the balls, adjusting the suction … you learn to experiment, to find out what the male likes. And that’s true of the actual fucking, too. A trick I learned early was to keep a male guessing. That means he’ll hold off before he comes, he’ll make it last longer. And the longer it lasts, the longer a girl likes it!” she added with a fanged grin. “And there is much more. We learned to compare notes with each other, to educate each other. We became very good at the sex. It was one of the few ways we had to gather and exert power over our masters.”

Even as Sunflower spoke, I remembered RF, furiously pumping into Sweet Clover from behind while she crooned her pleasure, and MF lay beneath her, nibbling the tips of her breasts, stroking her pubic hair and her husband’s penis, half buried in an orc woman’s cunt…

“Erm,” I said. “Well. And … there are … um. And the new Verities for such things are not… in place yet.”

“Not quite,” said Sunflower, still smiling. I had the distinct impression she was enjoying my reaction. “We have learned much from human customs. Humans are far better about sex that our males were.”

It was quite some time before it occurred to me to wonder exactly what she had meant by that last sentence.

************************************

ONWARD to Part Two! https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1g3lr24/the_scholars_field_report_part_two_of_three/

Part One is HERE: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1fxuqgj/orcwardness_a_tale_of_the_goblin_chronicles_part/

**************************************

Two blocks away, at the Town Hall, Chief Constable Barnaby strode down the hall towards the office the Baron maintained in the building. Sitting at the desk outside the Baron’s door was Ollie, his secretary, son-in-law, and wearer of multiple hats in the baronial government.

“Need to see the Baron,” said Barnaby. “It’s important.”

“Immediate?” said Ollie, looking up from his paperwork.

“We’ve got an orc running around downtown,” said Barnaby.

“An orc?” said Ollie. “How many? Or just one?”

“Just the one, that I know of,” said Barnaby. “But I thought the Baron ought to know.”

“Alone? Or accompanied?”

Barnaby closed his eyes in frustration. “There’s a soldier with her.”

“Ah,” said Ollie. “A her. With a soldier. That’d be Trooper Dinsdale and that orc girl he’s been seeing. Cliff, I think her name was. Are they up to anything illegal?”

Barnaby stared at Ollie for a moment. “Not so much so,” he said. “Making a bit of a disturbance, though. People are staring. The Baron already KNOWS about this?”

“Well, in general,” said Ollie. “Not that they were in town right NOW. Where are they, exactly?”

Barnaby fought the urge to facepalm. “The Goblin Pie,” he said. “Sampling the food.”

“Not making a ruckus?”

“Not per se, no,” said Barnaby. “Except, you know, by being an orc sitting in the Goblin Pie, drinking beer and eating slices.”

“Nobody’s caused a scene yet?” said Ollie. “Nobody’s yelled at them or taken a swing or anything stupid?”

“I am told Mirk Baker damn near chopped her up because his little boy walked up and asked her why she was red,” said Barnaby. “Megga got a grip on him, though, and disaster was averted.”

“Well, that’s Megga,” said Ollie. “Level headed to a fault. All right, I’ll let the Baron know and you head back over there and see about keeping the peace.”

“Y’think the Baron’s likely to, y’know, DO anything?” said Barnaby.

Ollie stood up. “This is Refuge, Constable,” he said. “If the hair salon can handle an ogre comin’ in to get her hair done, how much damage is one orc going to do?”

********************************

Dinsdale noted that the streets were somewhat more populated than they had been when he and Cliff had gone into the Goblin Pie. There were four constables standing not too far away, spread out some distance from each other. Furthermore, there seemed to be any number of townsfolk looking in nearly any direction other than at Cliff. Still, Dinsdale noted that no one seemed to be in any hurry to cause trouble…

“I know sandwich,” said Cliff, looking at the storefront. “That’s the two slices of man bread with the meat and cheese and vegetable between. Millie makes them for us sometimes out at the farm. What is the ice cream?”

Dinsdale and Cliff stood on the boardwalk before the new restaurant in town, the Ogre’s Kitchen, where he had just read the name of the place and the delights it offered within.

“There’s a lot of different kinds of sandwiches,” said Dinsdale. “I think this places offers a choice of different kinds. The sign says they have soup, too, different kinds. And ice cream… well… it’s kind of like the cream from the Fleets’ farm, but frozen, and sweetened.”

Cliff stared at the front of the building. “I can’t see through,” she said, looking at the front window. There was no glass. Instead, the frame held a large signboard with the name of the establishment painted on it.

“They don’t have window glass, like the other places,” said Dinsdale. “It’s a new place. Prob’ly savin’ up for a front window. You want to try this place?”

“I can’t smell it,” said Cliff. “But you say there is food? Snack?”

“Sign says so,” said Dinsdale. “This place is new, though. Never been in it.”

“We could try it if you like,” said Cliff.

Dinsdale smiled, and opened the door, and the two walked into the Ogre’s Kitchen.

And immediately within, ogre and orc saw each other, and both froze.

*************************

It wasn’t quite the noon hour yet, and there were no customers in the Ogre’s Kitchen. The tourist season was mostly past, what with the cold weather, and generally locals who wanted a sit down meal ate either at the Refuge Inn or the Goblin Pie, much to Murchiss’ irritation. But those who wanted a quick takeout meal often came to the Ogre’s Kitchen, and there were enough tradesmen, workmen, and downtown shoppers that the Kitchen was a going concern, even in the cold months. It helped that Murch had added a sideline of hot soups to the sandwiches, snacks, and treats that the Ogre’s Kitchen sold so copiously to the tourists. With the development of waxed cardboard cups with waxed paper lids, cups of hot soup could be sold and consumed hot even after leaving the premises, a thing that the housewives and working folk of Refuge found quite appealing in the course of their days… particularly when the day involved being out in the cold.

But at the moment, Murch was in the back, sliding a sheet pan of long sandwich loaves into one of the ovens in the kitchen. At the counter was his partner, the ogre Gunja. Gunja had put on a little weight since coming to Refuge with her human friend Murch. They’d met when Gunja had encountered a caravan of men out on the western plains, and Murch had been their trail cook. The two had hit it off quite well, and Murch had used his pay to set up the restaurant upon their return to Refuge. The summer business had been quite good, and Murch felt that the business could survive the winter, and Gunja had been happy to remain with him, not least because the Ogre’s Kitchen was always full of food… and ogres were perpetually hungry.

Gunja was no exception. Humans generally did all right on three meals a day; ogres preferred six, if they were going to operate on the same sized meal as humans. Murch, dear man that he was, understood this, and to hold her till lunch, he had prepared one of her favorites, a thing Murch called “the basic bacon butty,” toasted up crisp and served hot. Gunja had eaten about half of it when the door chime went ting-a-ling and the cold breeze blew in the door, and Gunja looked up to see who was coming in.

The answer had bumfuzzled her somewhat. The man in the soldier’s uniform was a known quantity; sometimes, the Baron’s men were in town, although they usually ate at the Goblin Pie. But the orc in the floral dress, on the other hand, was a bit of a surprise. Gunja was among the few in town who had ever actually seen an orc. To her, they were the “Red Ones” of the plains, and they were extremely dangerous, even more so than ogres. Ogres might well ignore you and leave you in peace if they weren’t hungry. Red Ones, on the other hand, would attack you on sight out of sheer cussedness, sometimes even if there was no way they could win a fight. The Red Ones were best avoided, in Gunja’s estimation, and the sight of one walking in the door caused her to freeze, a bolt of adrenaline coursing through her. Red One!

The floral print human-style dress, on the other hand, seemed wildly out of place on a Red One, though. Still, Red One! Gunja lurched to her feet, and drew herself up to her full eight foot plus height, and braced herself for combat…

*************************************

Cliff and Dinsdale were halfway across to the counter when the counterwoman suddenly stood up, and Cliff realized it was an ogre. A REAL ogre. And her stance was an aggressive one!

Cliff froze. She knew there were ogres in town. She’d seen one of them, at the House of Orange Lights. But that one hadn’t seemed aggressive…

Dinsdale stopped, and looked at Cliff, and then at Gunja. Gunja stood behind the counter, looking like she was about to launch herself over it. Incongruously, she still held half a sandwich in one great hand.

“Um,” said Dinsdale. “Are… you open for business?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Um,” said Gunja. The Red One stood there looking shocked, and the soldier didn’t seem threatening. What to do? For lack of any other ideas, Gunja fell back on one of her stock phrases. It took her a moment to articulate it. “Um. Can… I … help you?”

“We came in to see about sandwiches and soup,” said Dinsdale, flicking a glance back at Cliff. “My girl friend has never tried ice cream.”

Gunja blinked. This, she understood. She’d been deathly curious about ice cream, herself, out on the Sea of Grass, after Murch had told her about it. She briefly sympathized. Ice cream was not a thing anyone should miss. Still, Red One!

“Um,” said Gunja.

“I…” said the Red One. “If I should not be here… I will go.”

This remark struck Gunja like a fist across the face. A Red One, offering to leave? Red Ones did not offer to leave. Red Ones acted like they were entitled to whatever they laid eyes on, and were always willing to fight, even for things not worth fighting for. Who WAS this person, who looked like a Red One, dressed like a human, and offered to leave?

A stocky human in an apron suddenly emerged from the doorway behind Gunja. “We got customers?” he said. And then he saw Cliff. “Ah,” he said. “Oh, my…”

**********************************

Twenty minutes later, Gunja and Cliff sat at a table, a bowl of brightly colored spheroids between them. Cliff poked the pink one with a spoon. “What kind was this?” she asked, licking her lips.

“That one is strawberry,” said Gunja. “We make it with real strawberries. We mash them and blend them with the cream, and then put it in the crank engine, and it’s my favorite…”

“Strawberries,” said Cliff wonderingly. “We can find these sometimes, but not often. All the animals love them. And who would have thought of doing THIS with them?”

“The humans,” said Gunja happily. “Humans do amazing things with food and flavors. Murch taught me many things when we traveled together, and even MORE things when we settled down here with the other humans. So many flavors!”

“I know, right?” replied Cliff, enthusiastically. “Just in this morning, I have tasted so many amazing things! I thought I knew what cheese was when Millie Fleet gave me some to eat. They never told me there were so many KINDS! And all DIFFERENT!”

Murch stood behind the counter. On the other side of it stood Dinsdale. “I can’t believe you did that,” said Dinsdale. “For a moment, I thought sure we were going to have a fight.”

“Ehhh,” said Murch. “They share a language. They both speak the speech of men. All I had to do was get them talking on a subject they can bond about. And both of them are interested in food… and humans.”

“She lives here with you?” said Dinsdale, looking over at Gunja. “Where’d you find her?”

“She joined us when we were headed west to find the West Coast,” said Murch. “She stuck with us. Saved us a few times, even. We got attacked by orcs at one point, and she laid around her with her club and killed half the raiding party all by herself. We’ve been together ever since, she and I. It’s been a mighty sweet arrangement for us. How about you and Cliff?”

“She went to check out the House of Orange Lights,” chuckled Dinsdale. “We were afraid she was gonna do something crazy. She didn’t. She wanted to try the food and drink, and then she started lookin’ for a man-whore, and my mates threw me under the cart… and it worked out real nice for us both, actually.”

“How’d she get all civilized?” asked Murch. “She’s one of those orcs out sexin’ up the farmers on the west frontier, isn’t she? Do you know anything about that? I’ve been hearin’ stories, but so far I’m missin’ the part where they kill everybody and burn the place down.”

“There’s a whole lot to that story,” said Dinsdale. “Fact is, we killed all their men out at the battle of Slunkbolter… and the men are the ones who are all about the fightin’ and killin’. The women are a bit more sensible. And Cliff’s … well, she’s good company. We had some time to spend together, so I brought her into town to sample some of the local color. She’s all kinds of interested in human things. Food’s just a part of it.”

“And there you go,” said Murch. “That’s how you get people talkin’. Find common ground, and get ‘em talkin’ the same language, and if you got the right kind of people, they won’t stop.” He looked at Gunja and Cliff. They’d eaten their way through six different kinds of ice cream samples, and were still talking, enthusiastically. “I can’t say I ever thought I’d see it with an orc, though.”

“The male orcs, you wouldn’t,” said Dinsdale. “I was one of them what fought them in Slunkbolter. They were glad enough to die if they thought they could take some of you with them. Nasty bunch. But their women, now, are a fair bit cannier. And easier to get along with.”

“Good thing,” said Murch. “I hope all those folks out there on the boardwalk are as easily convinced.”

Dinsdale frowned, and turned around. The front window still had the sign boarded over it; it contained no glass. But the door did, and the door revealed no less than a dozen curious faces peering in to observe the ice cream tasting that engaged an orc and an ogre so deeply.

***********************************

Outside the Ogre’s Kitchen, a great many people had something to say.

“Yup. That’s an orc, all right.”

“And an ogre!”

“Well, you knew about the ogre, y’damn fool. It says so on the sign.”

“Y’think they’re workin’ together? They seem awful chummy…”

“They’re eatin’ food in a restaurant, y’damn fool. No harm in that.”

“But she’s an ORC!”

“And she’s an ogre, and that fellow over there is a goblin, and you’re a dam’ fool. Still no harm in that.”

“Why is she wearing a dress?”

“Well, I wear a dress when I go to market. What, I’m supposed to go out in my houserobe?”

“I thought orcs wore fur.”

“Well, she does have a wrap, it’s cold out.”

“Where’d she get a dress? Especially for somebody HER height?”

“You can get a dress lots of places.”

“Even if you’re an orc?”

“Oh, shit, they’re comin’ THIS WAY! What do we do?”

“Well, for one thing, you could clear the doorway,” said Constable Yuppik sharply.

The little crowd of people peering in the doorway became aware that perhaps standing in the doorway might be considered rude, and one by one, they began to step back and aside, and the door opened, and Murch stepped out. “Damnation!” he called out. “You know, if any of you wants a sandwich AND to peek at an orc, you could just COME IN!”

There was a moment of silence. “You got tomato soup today?” someone in the crowd asked.

“We do,” said Murch. “Goes with the toasted cheese. Make room. People are leaving.” Murch stepped back into the restaurant, and a moment later, Dinsdale and Cliff stepped out onto the boardwalk, to the amazement of the crowd.

Cliff said nothing, and looked around a little fearfully. She’d never been in proximity to this many humans before, not so close, and they were all staring at her. For their own part, the group of people were indeed staring because none of them had ever seen an orc in person, much less at such close range.

“Beg pardon, ladies and gentlemen,” said Dinsdale, loudly. “Need to get around you to the hitching post, if you please.” The people looked around, and saw the horse and shovelmouth hitched just down the street in front of the Inn, and made way, and Dinsdale took Cliff by the arm and the two of them strode down towards their respective riding-beasts.

“Sure enough, that’s an orc,” someone said.

“Y’think they’re … steppin’ out together?” said an older man.

“Sure seems like it,” said a younger fellow. “She’s wearin’ a dress and he’s in full uniform. I bet they’re, y’know, seein’ each other. In the codexical sense.”

“An ORC?” said an older woman.

“Why not?” said the younger fellow. “Crazier things happen at the House of Orange Lights every day.”

“But they ain’t got ORCS at the House of Orange Lights!” said the older woman, aghast.

“They got about everything else,” said the younger fellow. “And nobody thinks anything of it. Orcs are just the newest thing around here, that’s all. Any minute now, Fistid Wackford’s gonna publish a dirty book about ‘em.”

The older woman looked horrified.

“Beg pardon,” came a voice from the other direction. “Clear the way!” It was Constable Yuppik and Constable Temgar, side by side, trotting down the boardwalk. “We need to speak to the couple who just left this place…”

**************************************

It was perhaps forty-five minutes later that Trooper Dinsdale was escorted into the Lieutenant’s office at the garrison in Morr-Hallister, not far from town. “Sir,” he said stiffly, and stood at attention.

Lieutenant Piers looked him up and down for a moment. “Do you understand why you are here, Trooper?”

“Not entirely, sir,” said Dinsdale, “though I got my suspicions.”

“You are here,” said the Lieutenant, “because you took an orc into downtown Refuge and paraded her around in front of the citizens.”

Well, so much for askin’ forgiveness rather than permission… “Is this a violation of some sort, sir?” said Dinsdale. “I’m off duty at the moment. I wasn’t aware there was a law or policy or orders against who I spend my off time with, or where I take’m.”

“There’s not,” said the Lieutenant. “But not everyone in Refuge is aware of the orc situation, much less aware of the orcs’ general friendliness. Did you consider what might happen if someone decided to start a fight with your orc?”

“Yes, sir,” said Dinsdale. “I’d have kicked his ass.”

“I imagine you might have,” said the Lieutenant, quietly. “And did you consider how it might look to the locals that a King’s man is willing to turn against his own kind to protect an orc?”

Dinsdale paused. “Sir, the orcs aren’t going to cause trouble—”

The Lieutenant stood up suddenly. “No, Trooper, they are not. The HUMANS, on the other hand, might well decide to do JUST THAT, and justify it by stating the well known dangerousnous of orcs. DESPITE what you and I know. Did you consider THAT? All it would have taken was for one empty headed civilian with a few friends watching to start and lose a fight – or worse, win it -- and we might have had a riot to deal with. I take it that you did not consider this?”

Dinsdale’s lips tightened. “I did not consider that, sir.”

“You caused a bit of a stir, and have created some headaches for the local constabulary. As well as the Baron.”

“Sir?”

“The Baron,” repeated the Lieutenant. “As you might be aware, he is the ranking Crown representative in the Barony. Hence the name “Barony.” He is very much concerned with this matter. He is aware that the orcs aren’t going to kick up any trouble, but as you might remember, the local humans aren’t as careful. Particularly out of towners, as you might remember with that Church Knight business not long ago. You were THERE for the end of that, Dinsdale! That preacher managed to nearly start a war over the goblins. What might he have had to say about friendly orcs, Trooper? Can you guess?”

Dinsdale closed his eyes. “I can guess, sir,” he said. “I … assumed that … after those folks lost the ruckus, that the town folks might be a bit more sensible.”

“Never count on ANYONE being sensible, Trooper,” said the Lieutenant. “Including your own people. The orc woman you had with you was quite sensible. Others might well be less so. The constabulary had to pour some oil on troubled waters after they got you out of town. They aren’t happy about that. Nor is the Baron. Hence, the penalty for your actions.”

“Sir?”

“You are correct in that there are no laws or policies on the books regarding orcs or their freedom of movement in the Barony,” said the Lieutenant. “The Baron, on the other hand, is free to issue executive orders as he likes. As well as military discipline and punishments. Against my judgment, he has decided that you’ll be spending the night in the dungeons.”

Dinsdale’s eyes flicked open, and his heart grew icy. “The dungeons, sir?”

“The dungeons. One night, to make you fully aware that no further excursions into town will be made without permission. Note, however, that the House of Orange Lights is not in town, and seems to be more or less all right with orc visitors, as long as they pay their bills and behave themselves. But the Baron would like a LITTLE more time to work with the local authorities and deal with human and goblin prejudices before you go upending the local status quo for the sake of a glass of beer and a slice of goblin pie with your orc friend. Understood?”

Dinsdale’s eyes clicked forward. Only one answer for this. “Yes, sir. Understood clearly, sir.”

*********************************

A few minutes later, Dinsdale and Crake descended the stone stairs to the lower dungeons, beneath the holdfast that was Morr-Hallister. Dinsdale was familiar with them; they’d held the crazy priest a while back, and the Randish spy a while before that. Dinsdale had never expected to occupy a place here personally, though, and it made him a little sick to his stomach. Still, it was one night. It could be worse. He’d heard that some units still used flogging. It was still shameful, though.”

“Sorry to hear it, Din,” said Crake. “Way I heard it, the Lieutenant wanted to scream in your face for a while, threaten to have your stripe, and then settle for two weeks of punishment detail. Baron said one night in the dungeon, followed by reinstatement if he thought you learnt your lesson.”

“Yeah, I got it,” said Dinsdale. “No more orcs in town without permission till further notice. I think I got that part real good.”

“Well, that’s good, then,” said Crake cheerfully. “Now you just got to serve out your sentence, and we’re all good then.” They finally reached the sub-basement, and Crake took out a key and opened the door.

Dinsdale noticed that the place seemed darker than usual. “No torches?” he said.

“No need,” said Crake. “No prisoners. We got some candles lit, a ways ahead, down at the guardroom.” The two men advanced through the door, with Crake not bothering to close it behind him.

“Not gonna close the door?”

“I’m leavin’ in a minute,” said Crake. He grinned at Dinsdale. “Why, you gonna attack me and try to steal the key?”

Dinsdale looked at Crake irritatedly. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

“Smart,” said Crake, still grinning.

The two men rounded the corner around the cells, and up ahead in the guardroom, Dinsdale saw the glow of a great many candles. “Still no torches?”

“We figured candles was more appropriate,” said Crake. The two men emerged from the hallway into the guardroom, where Dinsdale was surprised to see that the furniture had been rearranged. And replaced, in some cases. The braziers for heating were glowing and well laden with coal, and the room was pleasantly warm. On the table there was what appeared to be two mugs and a little keg, two wine bottles, two plates… and a charcuterie board with sliced cold cuts and cheeses, among other things. And on the floor beside the table was a mattress tick with blankets thrown over it, and on it lay Cliff, under a blanket, who was talking with Trooper Morcar, who sat on a stool nearby. The two of them turned to look at Dinsdale, and both smiled.

“Well, here we are,” said Crake, still grinning fiendishly. “This is Jailer Cliff, who’s holding a temporary job here. She’ll be responsible for your incarceration and torture.”

Cliff smiled a fanged smile. Dinsdale stared, stunned.

“Well, our job is done,” said Morcar, rising to his feet. “Come on, Crake, back to the grind.” He smiled and nodded to Cliff and headed out the door. Crake grinned, drew out the key, and tossed it onto the guardroom table. “Do lock up when you leave in the mornin’.” And he turned and followed Morcar out to the hallway back to the stairs.

Dinsdale stared at Cliff. She smiled and drew back the blanket; she was long, lean, and quite naked beneath it. “They tell me I am jailer,” she said. “That means you have to do as I say till morning. Yes?”

Dinsdale stared at Cliff some more. “Ah,” he said. “This was the BARON’S idea?”

“And the Baroness goblin lady,” said Cliff, still smiling. “You are to remember not to go to town without permission. Me, too. But they will forget to tell my chief, if I punish you and make you remember. We must both remember. But they say we can visit the House of Orange Lights, if they say it’s okay there. And they said nothing, last time I was there!”

Dinsdale stood and stared some more.

“You do as I say?” said Cliff sweetly.

Dinsdale nodded.

“Get out of that uniform, soldier,” said Cliff, still smiling.

END

SN0WH0USE

BACK TO PART ONE: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1fzu7eb/local_customs_a_tale_of_the_goblin_chronicles/

As the last rays of daylight vanished over the western horizon, Ray looked out over his farmyard. The orcs’ tents and yurts were in place. The children had been gathered into the barn with their keepers, and the doors were closed. Torches had been stuck into the ground and lit. Piles of skins and wool had been spread around with roughspun blankets thrown over them, and most of the she-orcs were out of their clothes and looking up towards Ray with cheerful anticipation.

The scene smacked of barbaric splendor, spoiled only slightly by the chicken house in the background.

Ray noticed, not for the first time, how many of the orc women were in various stages of pregnancy. He was told that Shiny Thing was up in tonight’s rotation. Shiny Thing was some six months along. He suspected that he was the father. Shiny Thing’s sexual desires hadn’t been lessened in the least, and he’d heard she was looking forward to Ray’s performance tonight. Again, not for the first time, Ray pondered how his life had changed. He and Millie had been traditional Marzenian farmer types. Nothing more. People who had come to the frontier to realize their dreams of property ownership and prosperity brought about by their own efforts, was all. And now he was in the position of sex toy to a tribe of orc women. As was his wife. And they’d come to love it. The orcs as much as they themselves. They’d gone from “tribute” to trusted confidants, to tribe members, and perhaps even family. And tonight, Ray was going to risk that trust for the sake of one orc’s dreams and desires. He took a deep breath. If this plan works, it’ll all work out fine… Ray tried not to think about the possible results if it didn’t work*.*

The last rays of the sun sank beneath the distant horizon. Not long after, Millie stepped out the front door, wearing only her little cream-colored shift, and stood beside her husband while the orc women made appreciative noises. Their conversation dropped off sharply; if Millie was outside, then surely the event was soon to begin.

Ray looked around. Sweet Clover sat before a tent. She’d stripped to the waist, but still wore her long skirt. She looked around her unhappily. She wasn’t up for tonight’s rotation; she wouldn’t know Ray or Millie’s touch. That was for others, tonight, notably Shiny Thing. And towards the far side of the farmyard, Tarse had set up his little stool, flanked by Sunflower and Blossom, who smiled and waited for Ray and Millie to come forth.

“Ready?” said Millie.

“Ready,” said Ray, and taking his wife’s hand, the two of them descended the porch steps into the dooryard.

Seeing this, Shiny Thing grinned and stood up and headed for the left-side mount of wool and blankets and took her seat upon it, and waited.

Ray and Millie approached – and then stopped short next to the torch closest to the house. “I want to be heard by the tribe!” he called.

Several smiles vanished, replaced by confused looks. “Speak and be heard,” called Blossom from across the orcs’ layout.

“I … claim Sweet Clover as my own,” said Ray, in as strong a voice as he could manage.

Shiny Thing looked shocked. Several of the orc women exchanged confused looks. Sweet Clover’s jaw dropped in horror.

“You claim… Sweet Clover?” said Blossom. “She’s not up in tonight’s rotation.”

“No,” said Ray. “She is not. Shiny Thing is. I look forward to Shiny Thing’s touch. But I announce to the tribe that I claim Sweet Clover as my mate, to share a house with Millie and myself, to bear my children and to be mine.” Ray managed not to choke on the words. The words were carefully chosen to mirror what a male orc would say under similar circumstances.

Ray saw Sweet Clover, out in front of her tent, look at him and mouth the silent words, No, no, fuck, no!

Blossom rose to her feet and strode across the camp. Blossom wasn’t the tallest of the orcs, but she might have been the strongest. Or at least the dirtiest fighter. Ray stood firm and kept his face blank as she approached.

“You… claim her? For mate? Wife?” said Sweet Clover. “I thought… humans only had one wife. I thought you shared us for joy, for pleasure. I don’t understand.”

“In this place,” said Ray. “humans follow many different customs. Some have more than one wife. Some have more than one husband. And some join tribes of orcs.”

This brought a few chuckles.

“Millie and I are mates,” continued Ray. “But we want Sweet Clover to be ours. Sweet Clover wants us, and wants to be ours. We claim her, to share our home and bed.”

“Sweet Clover is of the Flower Tribe,” said Blossom sharply.

“So are we,” said Millie, speaking for the first time. “Is this not permitted?”

Blossom opened her mouth, and then shut it again, thinking. Finally, she said, “There are not many of us, not yet. I … dislike to lose a tribemate…”

“Then I challenge you,” said Ray.

This drew a reaction from everyone. Tarse’s face grew grim, and he looked around, suddenly. Sunflower’s hand flew to her mouth. BOTH of Sweet Clover’s hands flew to her own, and the look on her face spoke of anguish.

Blossom’s expression grew hard, and her eyes grew flinty. “You know,” she said, “that I swore that no man would ever strike me again.”

“You mentioned,” said Ray. “I don’t want to strike you. You are my chief, and I love you.”

“Then why do you put me in this position?”

“Because,” said Ray, “I don’t want Sweet Clover to think that I won’t fight you for her.”

Blossom blinked in surprise, and murmurs were heard from the surrounding orcs. This was turning into quite a series of surprises!

“You know,” said Tarse, “we’re not losing a tribemate, here, if Sweet Clover was to stay. We are binding the Fleets to the tribe. And weren’t we talking about a winter camp here, anyway?”

Blossom looked sharply back at Tarse, but said nothing. Then she looked at Sweet Clover. “Do you want Ray for your mate, Clo?”

Sweet Clover sat perfectly still, her hands still over her mouth, her eyes wide.

“Do you want him?” repeated Blossom.

“I do,” said Sweet Clover in a tiny voice. “But I don’t want you to fight.”

“Then don’t fight,” said Millie. “Let Clover come and be our wife. Set camp here this winter, and be our tribe. It’s not like she’s leaving the tribe. It’s not like anyone is. Ray and I don’t want you to stop coming.”

Blossom looked back at Clover. “Was this your idea?”

Clover nodded. “I … never had my own man before,” she said. “When we had males, they’d fuck me, but none ever claimed me. And Ray’s better than any of them were, and I … admitted to Millie that I wanted him… and … she offered to share, but I told her no, because I didn’t want you to fight!”

Blossom turned back to Ray. “I have said you are better than any orc male,” she said. “But I never thought you were crazy before.”

Sunflower snorted. “Is he crazy because he will fight for a woman?” she said. “Isn’t that what makes him better in the first place?”

Cliff stood up suddenly. “You know,” she said, “this whole business where the chief decides who can mate with who is a bunch of shit anyway. It’s what the males did when they were in charge. They aren’t in charge now. Why are we still doing it their way?”

“Do you really care where Sweet Clover sleeps at night?” said Tarse mildly. “It’s not like we won’t know where she is.”

“It irritates me to have my authority questioned,” snapped Blossom. There was silence. “On the other hand, that’s why challenges happened in the first place. And Cliff makes a very good point. Sweet Clover, you are still with the tribe?”

“YES!” said Sweet Clover. “I am Flower Tribe and my baby will be Flower Tribe! So will Millie’s, and all the rest of us! I … just … want to be …” she trailed off and looked at Ray. “Wife.”

Blossom turned back to Ray. “You … will still celebrate the moon with us? Like before?”

“I love the tribe,” said Ray. “I’m a man. Men love to get their dicks wet. Why would I change any of it?”

“You challenge me for the Chief spot?”

“No,” said Ray. “You are chief. We agree on that. But I will fight you for Sweet Clover.”

“Then I will remain chief,” she said. “But I yield Sweet Clover. She is yours. But if you ever strike her, we will fight. You’re not the only one who will fight for her, Ray.”

Millie stepped forward. “Then if anyone tries to hit Sweet Clover, the three of us will kick the shit out of him, won’t we?”

Over on the pile of blankets, Shiny Thing burst out laughing. She was quickly joined by the rest of the tribe.

Blossom turned to Sweet Clover. “You’re still not in tonight’s rotation,” she said. “I’m not going to make Shiny Thing wait.”

Sweet Clover’s face spread into a slow smile. “Shiny Thing should not have to wait,” she said. “I have plenty of time. I will wait, and I will watch in joy.”

“Does this mean we can start now?” said Shiny Thing from her blanket pile.

Millie abruptly skinned out of her shift and tossed it on the ground, and strode, nude, into the camp, and up to the left side blanket pile. “You’ve waited long enough. You just lay yourself back, Shiny,” she said. “And open those legs. I’ll see to getting you good and wet and ready, and Ray’s going to fuck you till you can’t walk straight.”

Shiny Thing grinned and lay back, her great round belly pointed at the sky, and opened her legs to Millie, as Blossom leaned forward and kissed Ray, and the orcs of the Flower Tribe murmured and laughed as the evening’s entertainment got underway.

********************************

Three days later, Ray, Millie, and Clover shared the big feather bed in the bedroom. Clover lay back and savored the feel of Ray’s cock nosing at her wet cleft, slipping up and down, seeking entry. Beside Clover, Millie lay, licking Clover’s ear, her hand cupping one of Clover’s breasts.

“I had my doubts at first,” said Millie, “but I think I’m gonna like this. Last eight months, I’ve got used to more than just the two of us. It’s nice havin’ some extra hands on me when we’re in bed.

Ray leaned forward and pressed his cock into Sweet Clover’s cunny, sliding forward slowly, coating himself in her juices and withdrawing, and then pressing forward again, a little deeper. Clover purred in pleasure. Millie chuckled, released Clover’s boob, and reached down to ruffle Clover’s thick black pubic hair with her fingernails. Ray grinned, withdrew his cock, and pushed deeper into the orc’s wet cunt.

Clover mewled in pleasure. Her arm was around Millie, and she drew Millie closer. “I love this,” said Clover. “Love this. Love you, Millie. Love you, Ray. Love you, house and bed and sheets and blankets and feathers and big dick inside me…”

“You’re already showin’,” said Ray, pushing forward. “Both of you. Won’t be long before we can’t be playin’ too hard with each other in bed. We won’t fit together so good. You’ll be gettin’ bigger, both of you.”

“Tribe will take care of you,” said Millie. “And we’ll have each other again when the kids are born. We’ll have to work around baby duty, though.

“Mmmm,” said Sweet Clover, grinning. “Babies will be born in spring. All orc women will raise babies. Together. Your human baby will have many mothers.” She spread her legs a little wider, and shifted her pelvis slightly to allow Ray better access.

“Mrs. Sweet Clover Fleet,” said Millie.

“What?” said Sweet Clover.

“That’s your name now,” said Millie, grinning. “I am Mrs. Millie Fleet, wife to Ray Fleet. And now you are Mrs. Sweet Clover Fleet. You’re my wife. I never had a wife before. I think I like it.” Millie craned her neck a bit and kissed Sweet Clover on the cheek

Sweet Clover’s response was to turn her head and kiss Millie on the lips. “Oh,” she said, afterward. “Ray likes it when I kiss you.”

“How can you tell? You were lookin’ at me.”

“Felt his dick inside me beat like a heart.”

“Nnnngh,” said Ray, pressing forward, this time all the way into Clover’s cunt. “Two of you gettin’ after it makes me even harder…”

“Does it now?” said Millie. She leaned up on one elbow and kissed Clover again. Clover responded, and the two of them held the kiss for a moment, their tongues touching, their lips moving. Ray pulled all the way out of Clover and drove wetly into her again, pulled out, and drove in again, drawing a gasp from Clover.

“Fuck her, Ray,” said Millie lightly. “Fuck your orc wife. Fuck her good. Make her cum. And then you need to fuck your other wife, ‘cause she’s gettin’ mighty wet and worked up, and she needs some attention, too.”

“Husband,” said Clover, with some satisfaction. “Fuck your wives.”

Ray grinned and began to pick up a rhythm.

And some speed.

**********************************

A short eternity later, the three of them lay in a warm tangle, sharing the afterglow.

“We should get some sleep,” said Millie. “Work in the mornin’.”

“Not so much as there might be,” said Ray. “Tribe did a lot while they were here.”

“Need to teach my wife her way around a kitchen,” said Millie. “Gonna teach Clover her first lesson about cookin’ on a stove. Scrambled eggs. Biscuits. Gravy.”

“Have I had those before?” said Sweet Clover.

“The fluffy yella things are scrambled eggs,” said Millie. “We have those for breakfast a lot. I served ‘em up for the tribe the first time you ate here.”

“First time we ate FOOD here,” said Sweet Clover with a fanged grin. Millie laughed and Ray chuckled. “Fluffy yellow cooked chicken egg. I never have cooked eggs before here. I learned to like them, the way Millie makes.”

“Mmm,” said Millie. “Already thinkin’ about breakfast. Gonna teach you scrambled eggs, and gravy and biscuits and bacon and ham steak…”

“Yes,” said Sweet Clover. “I want to learn. And I will teach you orc breakfast. Gafanhoto for starts.”

“Gafanhoto?” said Ray.

“Yes,” said Sweet Clover happily. “There are lots of them around this time of year. I see them all over the farm right now. We eat them a lot. Good with the… what is man word? Gar-lic. And Millie has many flavor spices in the kitchen. We will learn together how to make gafanhoto a human way. They don’t have much flavor, but they take the flavor of what you cook with them. You can fry them in the pan, but I like them roasted crunchy.”

“What are gafanhoto, exactly?” said Ray.

“Little animal,” said Sweet Clover. She rolled over and ran her fingernails gently across Millie’s belly playfully. “Many, many in the grasslands this time of year. They die in winter, but come back in spring. Little jumping animal, size of my thumb or smaller. Good to eat!”

Millie’s eyes widened. “Clover,” she said, “how many legs do these little animals have?”

“Six,” said Clover, matter of factly. “Legs are no good to eat. Take off legs, pull off wings, pull off head and insides come out with head. Fry up or roast what’s left, mmm good. Cook with chopped up garlic in pan!”

Millie’s eyes widened further.

Ray chuckled. “Man word is grasshoppers, Clover,” he said.

“Grass hoppers,” said Sweet Clover. “They live in the grass and they hop. We send the kids to catch them. You need a lot to make a meal, but you can cook them a lot of different ways.” Clover smiled and kissed Millie on the ear. “You show me how to make woman clothes? With the fine cloth?”

Millie’s expression relaxed somewhat. “I will,” said Millie. “We can pick out some fabrics—oh,”

“What is wrong?” said Clover.

“Well,” said Millie. “To pick out fabrics, we’ll need to go to the Mercantile in town. And I don’t know what they’re like to do when we come walking in with an orc.”

“Won’t be a problem,” said Ray. “I’ll go with you. Anybody asks, I’ll just tell ‘em the truth. You’re my wives, both of you.”

Millie looked archly at Ray. “Feelin’ mighty big, aren’t we?”

“I’m feeling all kinds of big,” said Ray, grinning. “Two of you do a lot to make a man feel big. Anybody asks, I’ll just say ‘you got a problem with my wife?’ and that’ll be the end of it.”

Millie smiled. “And what happens when somebody asks you why you hauled off and married an orc?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Ray. “I mean, I had a bunch of reasons to marry Sweet Clover, but I’ll just look ‘em in the eye and say, “Well, I knocked her up, so I HAD to marry her, didn’t I?”

END

At the Fleet farm, Ray and Millie Fleet had of late become moonwatchers.

They kept careful track of the lunar month and phases of the moon, marking them down, night by night, on the calendar in the kitchen. They did this not only because they were farmers,  but because they knew that orcs tell time by the lunar month, and that twice a month, the first night of the full moon, and the first night of the new moon, the orcs would come to them. Ray and Millie knew this. And they wanted to be ready.

It was the morning before the first night of the full moon that Millie spoke to her husband over the morning's eggs and black tea. "Can we talk?" she said.

Ray gave her the side eye. "Everything all right?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. She looked down at herself. Millie was three months pregnant, and beginning to show. She looked up again. "But there's something I want to talk about."

Ray put down his tea and his fork and looked back at his wife. "All right," he said. "Hit me."

Millie frowned. "It ain't like that," she said. "I ain't mad. Nothing to be mad about. But there is a thing." Millie took a deep breath. "You know Sweet Clover? I think she's sweet on you."

Ray blinked. "Sweet on me?" he said. "How can you tell? I mean, given our, um, relations with the tribe and all."

Millie looked irritatedly at her husband. "I can't tell if you're playin' dumb or bein' dense."

Ray rolled his eyes. "Never blame malice for somethin' that can be explained by stupid," he said. "Assume I'm dense. Millie, we're carryin' on with the whole tribe. I think I’ve had my dick in near all of those women, and I know for a fact you’ve kissed and licked about every one of ‘em. What makes you think Sweet Clover's feelin's are any different from Blossom's or Scarlet Tanager's or Rain's or anybody else's?"

Millie looked thoughtful. "Well," she said, "I remember that first night... well, not the FIRST night, but the night we declared for the tribe? The night I first caught, and we got the tattoos in the morning? You remember that?"

"Not like to forget THAT," said Ray, breaking a smile. He picked up his tea and sipped it.

Millie smiled back. "Well," she said, "I remember how Sweet Clover was so anxious to go next. Remember? She kept lookin' at me, and sayin 'me next.' And I'm pretty sure that's the night she caught, too. And I'm thinkin' it was intentional."

"Wouldn't be surprised," said Ray. "Half the tribe was wanting to do the same thing. It's why they started meetin' up with us and the Korbens and the others. What makes you think Sweet Clover's any different from the rest?"

“The way she acts when she’s around you,” said Millie. “You hadn’t noticed that she’ll take any excuse to touch you, stand too close to you? Even in the mornings, after the meets? And how she’s always wanting to come in the house? Not all the tribe is all that comfortable in the house. Banded Agate and Knifecat won’t come in at all. They say all the straight lines bother them. But Sweet Clover? In particular, I saw how she looked at the bed.”

It was Ray’s turn to look thoughtful. “I’d forgot about that,” he said. “We told the tribe that you wanted to have a baby, and that you were going to go first. And Sweet Clover was all OVER me that night, suckin’ me hard to get ready for you… but she about begged to go next. And yeah, she turned up pregnant after that…”

“She always wants in on the rotation when they’re here,” said Millie. “Sunflower mentioned that she don’t give a flip about the rotation at any other farm. But she sure wants a piece of you when she can get it.”

“Huh,” said Ray. He looked across the table at Millie. “How you feel about that?”

Millie sat back and looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m already sharin’ you with a tribe of orcs. On the other hand, it ain’t like I’m left out. And I do love it when they come for a day or two. But… well, this is gonna sound kind of strange, but I don’t regard a buncha orcs ravishin’ me and my husband as a threat to our marriage. I don’t know how I feel about one orc in particular who … well, wants my husband… for her own. Maybe. I mean, I could be talkin’ out of my hat as it is.”

Ray looked a little nonplussed. “You think I’m gonna run off with a pretty she-orc and leave you all by your lonesome?”

Millie made a dismissive gesture. “That ain’t you and we both know it,” she said. “I don’t know, though. Part of me felt safer when it was just you and me, and we were just helpin’ the girls have kids. But… we’re kind of wound up with ‘em, now. They do chores when they’re here. We have it a lot easier when they’re around. And… part of me says… it might be pretty good to have somebody here … well, more than just a few days a month.”

“You sound like you’re considerin’ takin’ her in, or something.”

“Like I said, I don’t know,” said Millie. “I’m thinkin’ aloud. I like Sweet Clover, too. She likes me. I … just wonder whether she wants you all to herself or not.”

“Doesn’t seem likely,” said Ray. “Whole tribe’s all over us when they’re here. And she’s right in the middle of it all. If she was the jealous sort, would she want to be there when I’m balls deep in you or someone else?”

“You make a good point,” said Millie. “And … I think about that Charli Buds fellow, back up north of Refuge. He’s got two wives, and he’s as happy as a frog in a puddle with it. And I wonder how I’d feel in a similar situation. I got a good man. I got a good life, and I’m about to have a baby. And… it might be easier on all of us with more hands around the house, you know? And I keep hearin’ about how they might want to raise the kids here over the winter, out in the barn. They might be around for a while. I just… well, shit, I don’t know. What about you?”

“I don’t have problems with the tribe,” said Ray. “And Sweet Clover’s as sweet as they come. Mostly I’d worry about YOUR feelin’s. If anything’s going to upset you, that’s the priority. I wouldn’t mind havin’ Sweet Clover around more often or even permanent, but not if it’s going to put you off.”

Millie’s eyes strayed to the ceiling. “I think,” she said, “that after the evenin’s festivities, I want to corner Sweet Clover and maybe have a talk with her.”

**************************************

About six miles due west of the Fleet farm, the Flower Tribe was awake, the children were fed and seen to, and then the orc women settled down for breakfast. It was Big Tits and Sparkle’s turn at the fire, and they served out the food while the other tribeswomen filed past them and settled down in the center clearing of the camp to eat.

“How is your thing going with the soldier man?” asked Bubble Butt cheerfully.

“Not as well as I would like,” said Cliff glumly. She ate her meat slowly and thoughtfully, tearing off well-roasted bits with chopsticks and putting them in her mouth. She chewed and swallowed and said, “He can only come out to see me when he has two days leave together. It’s easier now that he knows pretty much where we are, but he can’t spend any time with me unless he has two nights and two days. We’re too far west of Refuge. It’s frustrating.”

“I feel for you,” said Sweet Clover. “Do you know when he will come next?”

“No,” growled Cliff. “Only the Sarge knows that. The Sarge sets the schedule. And the schedule is only a week in advance.”

“I see you are doing better today,” Bubble Butt observed of Sweet Clover. “You are not sick this morning?”

“No,” said Sweet Clover. “Hungry. And I want some more of the sour green things from the humans, for some reason. And we have none. I wish Cliff could ride into town and get more.”

“Cliff wishes she could ride into town and get more, too,” said Cliff. “And she wishes she could ride up to Morr-Hallister and demand tribute. I would shout for them to send Dinsdale out, and I would ride away with him thrown over my saddle!”

“You should tell Tarse,” said Bubble Butt. “He could ride into town and get the sour green things. Or maybe tell Ray and Millie when we see them tonight. I bet they would oblige you.” Bubble Butt didn’t see Sweet Clover close her eyes at the mention of Ray and Millie, but Cliff noticed.

“Bubble Butt,” said Cliff, “could you ask Sparkle or Big Tits if we have onions this morning? I didn’t think to check.

“Gladly,” said Bubble Butt, rising and heading back to the cookfire.

Cliff watched her go, and then turned to Sweet Clover. “Are you all right?”

“Not really,” sighed Sweet Clover. “We are seeing Ray and Millie tonight. And I’m not in the rotation.”

“You could be,” said Cliff. “Everyone who cares to be pregnant already is. We’re only going out there tonight to have fun and renew our kinship with our adopted tribemates. And maybe ask them to get some things in Refuge.”

“If we ask them,” said Sweet Clover, “they will. That is why my heart is heavy.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I wish I could ask Ray and Millie to take me as their mate,” said Sweet Clover. “But I don’t want to start shit with Millie. I don’t know how she’d feel about taking another wife with her man. I don’t think humans do that. And I really, REALLY wish they did.”

“Still thinking too much about Ray, hmm?”

“Still thinking too much about Ray. And about Millie. And about human beds and food and houses, and about … family… and what it’s like to fuck a man who talks to me afterwards, and wants to eat my pussy, and treats me like a person, and shows me how he loves his woman every time he looks at Millie. I wish he would look at me that way.”

Cliff sighed. “And the other human men don’t do this for you?”

“They don’t, not really,” said Sweet Clover. “The Chummins men are nice. Warnn is sweet, and good to fuck. All the Korbens are very good people, in all ways. And… my thoughts are of Ray. Sometimes Millie, but mostly Ray.”

“Have you talked to them about it?” said Cliff.

“I wish I could, but what’s the point?” said Sweet Clover. “I love Millie. I don’t want to upset her, and I don’t want to fight her, and I don’t want to take her man away, but what if she doesn’t believe me? We’re both pregnant. We can’t fight. And I won’t fight her anyway; she has more right to her man than I do. And I don’t know how humans handle this, anyway.”

“You love Ray partly because he talks to you,” said Cliff, “and he listens, yes?”

“He listens when I talk,” said Sweet Clover. “Orc males never listened. What could a woman have to say that was of any interest?”

“Dinsdale listens to me, too,” said Cliff. “He likes to learn more about orcs. I love him for that. And if a human male will listen to you… why would a human female NOT listen?”

“What if she is jealous?” said Sweet Clover, and this time there was pain in her voice. “What if she starts to hate me, for wanting to share her man?”

“I think if this was so,” said Cliff, “she would hate almost the whole tribe by now, don’t you think? Your baby is his, yes? And she doesn’t hate you yet? I watched her, that night he put his seed in you both. She liked watching him take you. She shared his pleasure. And you think she will suddenly become jealous, NOW?”

Sweet Clover opened her mouth to speak, and looked at Cliff. And then she closed it again. She stared at Cliff for a moment, and then turned and looked off to the east. “I can’t leave the tribe,” said Sweet Clover, finally. “We are too few. Blossom would fight him to keep me. My baby belongs to the tribe.”

“And what if we agree to creche the children in their barn for the winter?” said Cliff. “Several of us are already sold on the idea. We settle down for a few months. Would this not be a time you could test this idea? Talk to Ray and Millie about it? We ADOPTED them, remember? They, too, are tribe!”

“I am afraid,” said Sweet Clover. “I don’t want to make Millie angry. I don’t want Ray to refuse me. I don’t want Blossom to beat up Ray. And… there is just too much that could go wrong with this.”

***********************************************

In months previous, the orc females had tricked various farmers into fathering children with them. They had done this by simply waiting until dusk, and then riding up in a mob to the farm in question, waiting to be noticed, and then informing the farmers that all would be well if they’d come with the orcs. They’d be returned unhurt, safely in the morning.

Tarse, the Orc King (who wasn’t an orc at all, and often wore a mask to hide this) was quite careful not to state or imply any threat. He would simply state that if the farmer cooperated, that all would be well. And it was. And this was the way they’d first met the Fleets. And the Fleets… well, the Fleets had been a bit different from the previous humans they’d contacted. For one thing, after the all-night orgy, the Fleets had invited them back to the farm for breakfast, a most unexpected development. Since then, Ray and Millie Fleet had quickly become the Flower Tribe’s favorite stop, bumping up to twice a month.

When they came to visit, they stayed for two nights, and they didn’t ride up and wait to be noticed. They rode their gomrogs into the Fleets’ big pasture and left the beasts there to graze, and wandered into the Fleets’ farmyard and barn as if they lived there. The children were sequestered in the barn with supervision, and the rest of the orcs built fires, erected tents and yurts in the dooryard, and even wandered into the house to greet the Fleets, let them know what was there, and catch up on news and happenings since their previous visit. Ray and Millie expected this. And it’s how they managed to get Sweet Clover separated while Ray spoke with Blossom, Sunflower, Rain, Knifecat, Scarlet Tanager, and a few others in the living room.

It didn’t take a lot of effort. Everyone wanted to hear what Blossom and Sunflower and Ray and Tarse had to say. Except Sweet Clover. Sweet Clover had other thoughts. And Millie had noted these thoughts more than once. Sweet Clover was fascinated by the brass bedframe and great feather mattress and pillows in the bedroom, and once she’d figured out that she was welcome in the farmhouse, she’d made a point of exploring it more than once. Millie didn’t much mind. She’d figured out well before then that orcs had a very different concept of privacy than humans did. They were very careful about the Fleets’ possessions and things on shelves and walls and cabinets, but not so much about things like “rooms in the house one might not want to go into.”

And Millie, upon seeing Sweet Clover slip out of the living room, simply waited a few moments, and then slipped away herself, silently heading for the bedroom she normally shared with Ray. And she’d been right. Sweet Clover stood there, her back to the door, looking over the bed. It was neatly made with a fine quilted blanket thrown over the sheets and the pillows respectably fluffed up and sitting at the head of the bed.

“You like the bed?” said Millie softly.

Sweet Clover about jumped out of her boots. Millie suppressed a giggle. Sneaking up on an orc took effort, normally. Orcs were careful about watching their backs. It was a cultural trait, although it’d gotten a bit more relaxed since the males had died off. But Millie suspected that Sweet Clover was standing at the bed, imagining something that wasn’t hard to guess.

Sweet Clover jerked around to face Millie. “Uhr,” she said. “I… urm. I …”

“It’s all right,” said Millie lightly. “You can look at the bed if you want.”

“Not rude?” said Sweet Clover.

“It’s a very pretty bed,” said Millie, smiling. “I polish up the brass every so often to keep it shiny. It was my mother’s before it was mine. When Ray and I got married, we saved up for a fine feather mattress for it, and pillows to go with it, and I had the sheets in the hope chest. The blanket on top, I made myself. I’m very proud of that bed. If you want to look at it, you go right ahead.”

Sweet Clover didn’t turn completely back towards the bed, but she did turn a little towards it, and looked at it with an expression Millie couldn’t quite read. “It… looks… soft,” said Sweet Clover. “Like… to sleep on a cloud in the sky. Not like on the wool or skins. The … cloth… I don’t have all the words yet.”

“Orcs know weaving,” said Millie. “I’ve seen your blankets.”

“Yes,” said Sweet Clover. “But… our thread… is like yarn, almost. The threads here are so small. So … woven tight. How do humans do this?”

“To be honest, I don’t know,” said Millie. “I’m a knitter, not a weaver. That fabric was made in a textile mill back east. It is very fine fabric, though, and you’re right. It’s wonderfully soft. Would you like to lie down on it, and feel it?”

Sweet Clover turned back sharply and looked at Millie quizzically. “Not rude?”

Millie smiled. “Not if you’re invited,” she said. “And if you take off your boots.”

Sweet Clover looked at Millie, and finally smiled, and bent over to unlace the thongs that held her boots on. Loose, she kicked the boots off to reveal her red feet, and looked back at Millie again.

“Go on,” said Millie. “Here, I’ll turn the blanket back, so you can feel the sheets.” Millie stepped forward, leaned over the bed, and rolled back the blanket to the foot of the bed. Sweet Clover looked at the white oversheet, and back at Millie… and grinned, and climbed into the bed, and lay back, resting her head on the pillow.

“Soooo soft,” said Sweet Clover reverently. “You and Ray sleep here… every night.”

“That’s right,” said Millie, still smiling. She gently put her hand on Sweet Clover’s bare knee.

Sweet Clover glanced down at her knee, and up at Millie, and smiled. “You … fuck in this bed,” she said tentatively.

“Yes,” said Millie with a grin. “That’s why we have to wash the sheets every so often. But it’s a wonderful place to do it. Soft and comfortable.”

Sweet Clover closed her eyes “Mmmm,” she said. Millie’s grin widened, and she ran her hand caressingly down Sweet Clover’s shin… back up to her knee… and up towards the hem of Clover’s skirt.

“Move over,” said Millie, putting one knee up on the bed. Sweet Clover opened her eyes, looked up at Millie, and obligingly began scooting away from Millie, making room for Millie to climb into the bed as well. Millie didn’t miss that Sweet Clover’s eyes slid shut as soon as she was scooted to Ray’s side of the bed. Once she was lying on her side next to Sweet Clover, Millie gently put her hand on Clover’s stomach and began caressing her gently. Sweet Clover smiled, but did not open her eyes.

“Comfortable?” said Millie.

“This bed… IS comfort,” said Sweet Clover, smiling. Millie’s smile never wavered as she began moving her hand down onto Sweet Clover’s skirt.

“The piles of skins and wool the tribe uses,” said Millie, “they’re good for fucking on. Lots of support for lots of us at once. But a feather bed is different. It’s more what I’m used to. I’m glad you like it.”

“Mmmmm,” purred Sweet Clover absently.

“Oh, don’t go to sleep yet,” said Millie. She began stroking a hand across Sweet Clover’s hip and down her thigh. “You just got here.”

“This is so good,” said Sweet Clover. “I wish I could stay here.”

“On the bed?” said Millie lightly. “With your legs open and Ray on top of you, and his cock inside you?”

Sweet Clover stiffened a little, and her eyes flicked open. “Um,” she said. “It’s… comfortable, yes.”

“It’s even nicer without your clothes on,” said Millie. “You can feel the soft sheets and the mattress even better. Ray and I never sleep with clothes on. Even when all we do is sleep.”

Sweet Clover tilted her head slightly to look at Millie. Millie smiled at her, and stroked her fingers back up Clover’s thigh, slipping them beneath her skirt.

“Sometimes,” said Millie dreamily. “when Ray and I are in this bed, with no clothes on, and he touches me and we kiss, and touch, and caress, and I get so wet inside… I imagine that he’s an orc. That he wants to hold me down and fuck me with his big red dick, and take his pleasure from the helpless human girl.”

Sweet Clover remained tense; Millie could feel it beneath her hand. “You would not like it, with a he-orc,” she said. “He-orcs don’t care about your pleasure. Only theirs.”

“I know,” said Millie. “The tribe has told me all this. It’s not a thing I would want for real. But it’s a fun thing to think, just in my head. I never met any he-orcs. You’d know better than I would.”

“I think I understand,” said Sweet Clover. “The first time I had a human… it seemed wrong… but it was fun. It was different. It… the wrongness made it more fun, I think. And human man is better than orc man.”

Millie grinned broadly. “The human word for that is naughty,” she said. “A thing that you shouldn’t do… but you do it anyway… because it’s fun. And exciting.” Millie’s hand wandered farther up Sweet Clover’s skirt, and she felt pubic hair beneath her fingertips.

Sweet Clover rolled her eyes. “I … yes,” she said. “Shouldn’t. But do anyway. Because it is … exciting. Naw-tee.”

“Like when you think in your mind,” said Millie softly, “about lying on the bed in the softness with your legs open and Ray’s cock inside you? Pushing in and out and your arms around him while he drives his pecker into you and brings you pleasure, both of you?”

Sweet Clover’s eyes flicked back to Millie. Millie’s eyes drilled into Clover’s and Millie rubbed her thumb against the fabric where Clover’s vagina was.

“And he holds you,” continued Millie. “And he slides his cock into you, and you’re so wet and ready for him. And he calls you sweetheart, and lover, and all the sweet names… and you have him all to yourself, you don’t have to share him.”

Sweet Clover’s eyes widened.

“I’ve seen how you act when he’s near you,” said Millie softly. “You want him, don’t you?”

“We all want him,” said Sweet Clover stiffly. “It is why we keep coming back here.”

“But you’d like not to have to share him?”

Sweet Clover’s expression shifted. “I don’t want to angry you,” she said in a tiny voice.

“Do I look angry?” said Millie. “I can’t be angry at you for what you think, dear. But I think that is what you are thinking. Will you talk about it?”

“It will not … anger you?”

“I think it’s kind of flattering,” said Millie. “That an orc woman wants my husband. That she thinks of being a farm wife, here with him. I know you like to touch him. And I was there when he put the baby in you. I saw how you looked, how you acted. You looked like I felt, that night. And I love Ray very much. But I have come to love the tribe, too. And that includes you.”

Sweet Clover looked back at Millie, and began to relax. “It is nothing,” she said. “It can’t be real. He is your man.”

“He could be your man, too,” said Millie. She began to rub her thumb against Sweet Clover’s bulge again. “I want him. But he likes you. I like you. Is it a thing we could talk about?”

Sweet Clover stared at Millie for a moment. Millie still didn’t seem angry, but her thumb, rubbing against Clover’s increasingly warm slit, was distracting. Sweet Clover closed her eyes. “I… think about… Ray,” she said. “In this bed. In my thinkings… I am his woman. He is my man. And I wear the human clothes, like you. But when he wants me, and I am ready, we take each other’s clothes away… and we lie down in the bed… and he … makes me… more his. And it ends with him fucking me, hard, like he needs me, and I am the only thing he thinks of.” Clover’s eyes flicked back open again, and studied Millie.

Millie smiled. “I used to think those same thoughts,” she said. “I still do, sometimes. I love Ray very much. And then the orcs came… and … I thought you would kill us. Instead… you changed us. You taught me that I could share my man. You taught me that I can love with women. That I can lick your cunny till you cream. That we can share kisses and touches and loving, the same as I can with Ray, and that it’s FUN! You taught me that seeing Ray fuck you and seeing your pleasure, your wildness, could be as exciting as Ray fucking me. You all helped Ray and I make our baby. You made Ray and me part of your tribe. And I love you all for that. Do I look angry yet?”

Sweet Clover looked back at Millie, and relaxed, and turned her face to the ceiling. “I … wanted Ray,” she said. “I still want Ray. When I decided to have a baby, I wanted it from Ray. I thought when my belly started to grow… that my feelings would change. And… they did not change. I want you… I love you… but I love Ray, and I want him, and I was afraid you would be anger.”

“Honey, I’m sharin’ him with the whole tribe twice a month,” laughed Millie. “Do you think I would be mad because you love him?”

“I … don’t know humans well,” said Sweet Clover. “The woman Lola Chummins looks like she does not like it when we go there. Her men like it, but she does not. I didn’t know how you would feel, and I don’t want to hurt you or anger you.”

“Hmmph,” said Millie. “Lola Chummins needs to relax a little. Then again, I’ve met her husband. Maybe she does have somethin’ to worry about. Listen, why don’t you and I get with Ray and talk about this? Ray would love to have you here, even for just a while, while we work this out, and I like you just fine. You want to try to be a farm wife? We could try it for a while, and see if it works. There are people around Refuge who do more than one husband or wife.”

Sweet Clover’s eyes grew wide, and she turned and looked at Millie, as if she was seriously hearing her words for the first time. She took a deep breath. And then she looked back at the ceiling. “I … would… love that,” she said. “I would love you, and Ray. I would hold our babies at my tits and nurse them both and love them both and love you both… and … I can’t … make this real. It … can’t be.”

Millie frowned. “Why not?”

Sweet Clover’s head turned back towards Millie, and with eyes filled with pain, Sweet Clover told her.

**********************************

"Say what again?" said Ray.

Ray and Millie stood on the porch of the farmhouse, looking out over the dooryard. Orcs were everywhere. The children played in the area in front of the barn. Women prepared the noon meal over multiple fires. Ray in particular had been amused to think of the terror this scene would trigger in the uninitiated. To him, it was just the day before the full moon, a time of anticipation and pleasure. But Millie's story had drawn his attention and snuffed his amusement.

"It's one of the reasons she didn't bring it up," said Millie. "She wasn't sure how I'd take it... and because she's afraid Blossom won't agree to it."

"What's Blossom got to do with it?" said Ray.

"Blossom's the chief," said Millie. "Blossom's got the last say over what the tribeswomen do. If Blossom says no... that means it doesn't happen. Unless someone challenges Blossom."

"Challenges Blossom," said Ray. "You mean ... fights her."

"Either that, or Clover ... just... sticks with the tribe," said Millie. "We see her every few weeks. And she never gets her dream."

"I can NOT get over the idea that I'm an orc's dream," said Ray. "But you really think Blossom's gonna think this way?"

"Clover thinks she will," said Millie. "You got to admit, Blossom's all about holding the tribe together, growing the tribe, avoiding problems with the Baron, and tryin' to do what's best for the orcs. You really think she's going to let one of ‘em just wander off?"

"Why wouldn't she?" said Ray. "You said it yourself. They're back here every couple weeks. They're even thinkin' about raisin' the kids here over the winter. What's the big deal with letting Clover live here?"

"It's an orc thing," said Millie. "When the males were in charge, the Number One got a say in literally every marriage, yes or no, just by virtue of bein' Number One. The One could override just about any decision you’d MAKE if he felt like it! That's orc fellas for you. And orc marriages ain't even necessarily permanent. This is different. And Blossom's the closest they got to a Number One, now, and there's only twenty of them left, includin' Tarse, who ain't even really an orc. You really think she's just gonna say that Clover can go wander off as she pleases?"

Ray stood on the porch and watched the orc children playing in the barnyard. He reached back and rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. "Well, shoot-a-mile," he said irritatedly. "I hate to see this just fall apart for Clover just because Blossom wants to be all hidebound about it. It'll break her heart. What if I was to challenge Blossom when she said no?"

Millie looked worried. "I don't know I like that idea, Ray," she said. "Orcs don't fight by the rules. Blossom's a woman, sure, but she's tough and she's strong, and I'd hate to see you get hurt. And even if you won... well ... fact is, we got good relations with the orcs right now. How's that gonna be if one of you was to beat the other stupid? I just can't see any good comin' out of it, win OR lose."

"Then why the hell'd the orcs do it this way in the first place?"

"Because the orc fellas were a buncha assholes, Ray," said Millie exasperatedly. "You've talked to the Flowers as much as I have. You know that. It's why they changed a bunch of the Verities to begin with."

"But they didn't change THIS one?"

"It's not like they had a lot of fellows left to fight over."

Ray took a deep breath, and looked out in the dooryard of his farm. It was midafternoon, and the day was traveling. The festivities of the first full moon usually began not long after dark, when the children were secured.

"All right," said Ray. "I think I got an idea. Now I just need to think about it a bit..."

**********************************

ON TO THE EXCITING CONCLUSION! https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1fzu9lo/local_customs_part_2_of_2/

Cliff really liked the kissing.

Orcs knew about kissing. However, orcs hadn’t developed the art form to the extent that humans had, and the human man Dinsdale had taken it upon himself to teach Cliff some of the options and permutations. And in addition, Dinsdale had solved the height issue.

Cliff was the tallest orc in the Tribe of the Flowers, and she was sensitive about it. It had made her less than popular with the males… back when there had been males. But Dinsdale was big for a human, only a little shorter than Cliff was, and he didn’t seem to care about her height. But he understood that Cliff was sensitive about it, so he’d had her sit down crosslegged just outside of camp, and then he’d sat himself down on her lap. The boost put his lips a couple inches higher than hers, a thing she wasn’t used to… but the kissing part made up for it. And for the kind of kissing that Dinsdale liked, Cliff was willing to lean her head back a little. It was loads of fun, and usually wound up with both of them horizontal, anyway.

Cliff didn’t get to see Dinsdale as often as she liked. He was a soldier of the Baron, and as such, could only ride out to the frontier a couple of times a month. Still, it was better than nothing, and gradually, Cliff and Dinsdale came to know each other better, and to begin to explore the part of their relationship that wasn’t involved in kissing, oral sex, or furiously fucking with the kind of passion only an orc and a pent-up soldier can manage.

And this is what led to the conversation.

“So how do orcs pursue a relationship?” said Dinsdale, lying in the grass.

“I don’t understand the question,” said Cliff.

“How do orc males and females get to know each other better?” said Dinsdale. “How do they learn about each other? Explore their feelings for each other? Grow closer to each other?”

Cliff thought about it. “Mostly they don’t,” she said. “The male chooses whatever female he wants, and he… well, if he’s polite, he tells her that he’s claiming her. If he’s not, he just … what’s that man word again? Take sex by force?”

“Rape,” said Dinsdale.

“Rape, yes,” said Cliff. “He rapes her. But if she’s lucky, he provides for her afterwards. If he’s interested in … pursuing the relationship. He-orcs don’t really think of females as… being like people. Remember?”

“I just have a hard time really understanding that,” said Dinsdale. “I’ve known fellows who didn’t treat women right, but orcs take it to a whole new level.”

Cliff smiled. “One of the reasons humans are fun for she-orcs,” she said. “Human males think of she-men as being like people. You make me WANT to have you, instead of telling me I will be with you. But you make me think. You tell me, how do humans … pursue a relationship? Grow closer? How do humans do this? I know they don’t usually rape.”

Dinsdale shook his head. “No,” he said. “Most of us don’t do that. Not a good way to start things. Usually, if a man is interested in a woman, he’ll ask her out.”

“Ask her out,” said Cliff blankly. “I don’t understand.”

“He’ll ask her to go on a date with him.”

“Date,” said Cliff. “Still don’t understand. What is date?”

“Hm,” said Dinsdale, thoughtfully. “Well, he … dresses up in good clothes. To impress her. She’ll usually do the same thing. Dress up in her best. And then they’ll go do something together, something they’ll enjoy. Maybe go to a restaurant, to have dinner, or someplace with music or dancing or something. Something fun. And then, later, he’ll take her home, or maybe they’ll find a place to be together…”

“Ah, so there IS fucking,” said Cliff. “I wondered. And what is good clothes? Impressive clothes? Clothes that … make you look good? Like your uniform? And restaurant is food place… with music. Like the House of Orange Lights?”

Dinsdale laughed. “The House is a fun place for a date,” he said. “They got all kinds of good things to eat and drink, and good music, and such. Would you like to do that? Go there with me, and have a good time together?”

“Maybe,” said Cliff. “It sounds fun. Are there other places to go for fun?”

“There are,” said Dinsdale. “Depends on the kind of fun you’re looking for. There’s the Refuge Inn, they’ve got good food, but no music. There’s the Goblin Pie, they serve kind of a limited menu, but they’re real good. The Tea House is nice, but they don’t much like non-humans there, and their baked goods are all from Megga’s Bakery, anyway. Oh, there’s Megga’s Bakery, they serve treats and tea there… and then there’s that new place, the Ogre’s Kitchen. I have no idea what kind of food they serve there. They have some places in Goblin Town, too.”

“I don’t know about Goblin Town,” said Cliff. “I don’t think goblins would be happy to see an orc. Goblins tend to think orcs will kill or enslave them, and they’re usually right. But when I was in Refuge, the humans were polite to me.”

“Well, sure,” said Dinsdale. “Didn’t want to make you mad. But if you were with a human soldier, I reckon they’d calm down. If they could see we were together.”

“The date, it only happens in one place?” said Cliff. “All these places sound interesting. An Ogre Kitchen? With a real ogre? Like the one at the House of Orange Lights?”

“I don’t know for sure,” said Dinsdale. “I hear the Gawinson Expedition brought back an ogre with them, and this one fellow was … kind of wound up with her. The way you and I are. So there might be an ogre there. And if you wanted to go from place to place trying different things, I don’t imagine that would be a problem. Hell, that sounds kind of fun. As long as we stayed clear of the Tea House.”

Cliff squinted and looked pensive. “It sounds … fun,” she said. “I liked it last time I was in the human town. But Blossom says I should not go there. It might upset the town humans.”

Dinsdale thought about it for a moment. “What if a human kidnapped you,” he said. “And took you there against your will?”

Cliff looked at Dinsdale. “You would not do that,” she said.

“I might,” said Dinsdale with a smile. “If I thought you’d have a good time. And it’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission…”

********************************

The goblin Yuppik was on sentry duty that day in Refuge Town. It involved sitting in a chair atop the livery stable’s flat roof, staring off to the west, watching the roads into town, in case anyone unsavory should show up. Yuppik didn’t like sentry duty. It was boring. On the other hand, Yuppik had been there the day the Turd Devil had come marching up Main Street, and Yuppik clearly understood the importance of sentry duty. So he did it. But he didn’t like it. It was dull. Once in a great while, an unfamiliar wagon would come up the road, and Yuppik could climb down and stop it and ask to see their permissions and cargo. Problem was, most of the merchant wagons came in from the east. Very little came in from the south or west, other than people going to or from Goblin Town or the outlying farms or the House of Orange Lights, and Yuppik always recognized these people a mile away. No point in bothering them. Dull, dull, dull.

Yuppik spotted the couple coming in from the west easily enough. It took him a moment to register them. The one on the right wore the uniform of a Baronial Huscarl, and he rode a horse. One of the Baron’s men. Routine.

The other one rode a shovelmouth beast. That was unusual. And the rider had long, streaming black hair, and seemed to be wearing a dress, and her arms were brick red, as was her face, and her legs and… she was an orc.

An orc.

Yuppik stared. A soldier and an orc were riding into town.

“Well, shit,” said Yuppik. He stood up and headed for the rope that he would climb down into the alley and then run to the constabulary…

*********************************

“I forget the man word,” said Cliff. “The cloths that hang in front of the windows.”

“Curtains,” said Dinsdale.

Cliff and Dinsdale slowed their mounts to a trot as they came up on Main Street, and turned left.

“Yes, curtains,” said Cliff. “Millie wants new curtains. She made me clothes out of the old ones. Are they fine? Good for a date? They have flowers all over them!”

Dinsdale grinned. “You’re dressed like a human woman,” he said. “Floral print. That ought to confuse everyone.”

“Human dress,” said Cliff. “For human date in human town. This is already fun.”

“As fun as an orc date?”

“I told you,” said Cliff. “Orc date is we beat each other up and then winner fucks the loser. Or not. We could have done that back out at camp. I already like this better.”

“Yeah,” chuckled Dinsdale. “Violence on a date, for humans, is generally a sign that you’re doin’ somethin’ wrong…”

*********************************

When the little bell rang as the door opened at Megga’s Bakery, Mirk the Baker looked up. Megga was in the back, tending the baby, and there were only a couple of customers in the place, having tea at the fairy-iron tables near the front windows. It took Mirk a moment to realize what he was looking at. A man in the uniform of the Baron’s hobelars, and an orc woman wearing a floral print dress. The sight was incongruous enough that it took Mirk a moment to process.

Mirk was a goblin. Born in the southern forests, he had become a townsman when he had become smitten with the beautiful (but quite short) human woman Megga Baker. But beneath his civilized façade, he was still a hunter of the Tribe of the Stag’s Antlers. Mirk had never actually seen an orc, before, but the tales and descriptions had lived through a dozen generations, and Mirk could have sworn he felt his heart stop when he saw the creature’s brick red skin and batlike ears. Across the generations, his ancestors’ instincts screamed threat, floral print dress or no.

“Good morning!” the soldier said, strolling up to the counter with the orc in tow. “We would like to begin with a couple cups of the hot brown tea, NOT the black, and sweetened, with lemon. And let’s go with a plate of the pigs in blankets and two slices of the apple pie, please. Oh, and do you have Goblin Kisses? I’d like a few of those as well.”

“What are Goblin Kisses?” asked the orc.

“Ah,” said Mirk, his brain jogged into action by the question. “Little sweet biscuits with chocolate filling, kind of like cookies,” he said, with his brain screaming at him for being an idiot and not finding a knife to defend himself and his family with.

“Oh,” said the orc. “I never tried chocolate. Dinny, is it good?”

“I guess you’re going to try it and tell me so,” said the human soldier with a smile. He put silver down on the counter.

“Pigs. Apple pie. Chocolate,” said the orc. She looked at the human. She didn’t look like he was going to tear his throat out. Mirk took his eyes off the orc long enough to glance at the silver coin. A different set of instincts took over, and he took the coin, calculated the cost of the order, dropped the coin in the cash drawer, and made change. Putting it on the counter, he said, “If you’ll have a seat, I’ll bring your breakfast in a moment.”

The soldier smiled, scooped up the coins, and directed the orc to another of the tables, thankfully well away from the table where young Ram Burchard sat with Bella Corning, both staring at the orc like a dragon had just walked in and ordered a croissant. Behind the counter, Mirk served up the order – tray, four plates, one plate of pigs in blankets, one plate with four Goblin Kisses, and two plates with the apple pie, still warm from the oven, and then he began setting up two cups of the hot brown tea. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the orc, and nearly scalded himself pouring the tea, but finally walked the tray out to the strange couple as if they were simply two more townsfolk. “If there’s anything else, sir, just call out,” he said, putting the tray down. He took a little pride in the fact that his voice didn’t waver.

“Oh, this smells GOOD,” said the orc. It looked at the tray. “How do I do this? I don’t know the man way.”

The soldier chuckled. “Just pick up the plate with the pie – that’s the triangle thing – and you see the little fork? You eat with that. Just cut off a bite, stab it, and put it in your mouth.”

The orc did so, a little awkwardly, and her eyes got huge. She said nothing, rolling the bite of pie around in her mouth. She seemed like she didn’t want to chew it. If she chewed it, she’d have to swallow it, and then it would be gone.

“Um,” said the soldier. “Can I help you with something?”

Mirk realized he was still standing two feet from the table. “Oh!” he said. “Your pardon, sir. I’ll leave you to your breakfast.” It took more effort than it should have to turn his back on the orc and walk back behind the counter. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ram Burchard and Bella Corning, still staring at the orc.

“I… never ate anything like this,” said the orc in a stunned voice. “What are the other things?”

“These are the pigs in blankets,” said the soldier. “They’re meat in a little bread roll. And these are the Goblin Kisses, the chocolate cookies.”

Decisively, the orc reached for a cookie, picked it up, and bit it in half. Chocolate filling smeared her lips, and she licked it away as she chewed, thoughtfully. “These are… very good,” she said. She ate the other half of the cookie. Then she picked up her fork again. “I think they’d be even better if they were still hot like the pie.” She cut another bit from the slice of pie, put it in her mouth, and made an ecstatic face as she tasted the pie again.

Mirk stood behind the counter, staring at the orc. He about jumped out of his shoes when he realized that his wife, Megga, was standing next to him.

“That’s an orc,” whispered Megga.

“Yes,” whispered Mirk.

“Why hasn’t anyone called the soldiers?” whispered Megga.

“Take a look,” whispered Mirk. “She brought one in with her.”

“Yuppik and Temgar are on the boardwalk,” whispered Megga. “Why don’t they come in?”

Mirk made a strangled noise. Megga looked around frantically. Mirk reached for and found a bread knife lying on the shelf inside the bread case, seized it, and turned towards the end of the counter—

Megga grabbed his arm. “No!” she hissed desperately—

--as their first child, little Morus, toddled towards the newcomers’ table. He’d come out behind his mother and escaped everyone’s notice. Until now.

********************************

“You’re red,” said the baby. “Why are you red?”

Dinsdale and Cliff stopped talking and looked down. Standing a few feet from their table was what appeared to be a goblin toddler. It had soft tawny-colored hair, and very strange-looking eyes; rather than yellow eyes with black slit pupils, the child’s eyes looked more like a human’s, complete with blue irises.

Cliff looked at the child, swallowed, and cocked her head in confusion. She looked up at the human woman and the goblin man behind the counter, and then down at the child again. Realization struck, and she gasped, and almost reached out to pick the child up, before it occurred to her that this might be viewed as a threat, and she stopped herself.

“Are you… a goblin?” she said to the child.

“Hobgoblin!” said the toddler, pointing to himself. “Mama is a human. Daba is a goblin. Why are you red?” he repeated.

Cliff noticed when the little one pointed to himself that his hand had five fingers, rather than the three fingers and a thumb that was normal for goblins. “A child of human and goblin?” she said. “I didn’t know you could do that,” she marveled.

“Mama and Daba do that,” said the toddler. “Twice. I have a baby bruvver. But why are you red?” he repeated again, this time with some frustration.

“I am an orc,” said Cliff. “Orcs are red. Like goblins are green.”

“Whussa orc?” said the toddler. He stepped forward and reached out and touched Cliff’s bare leg, and Dinsdale noticed that the human woman was physically restraining the goblin man, who looked like he wanted to charge around the counter into the fray. Dinsdale leaned over in his chair and addressed the child.

“Orcs are a new kind of people,” he said. “Like goblins and humans and ogres. Have you seen ogres?”

“Miz Oddri comes in sometimes,” said the toddler. “She can eat a whole cake by herself!”

“You should go back to your mama now,” said Dinsdale. “I think she’s worried about you.”

The toddler looked back over his shoulder. “Oh,” he said. He looked back at the orc. “Okay. I love you. Bye-bye.” And with that, he toddled back towards and around the end of the counter to where his parents stood.

*********************************

Behind the counter, Mirk stood, frozen, gripping a bread knife, ready for battle, but badly confused by what he had just seen. Megga bent and scooped up little Morus, who put his arms around her neck, none the worse for wear. “There are new people now!” he crowed. “And they’re red!”

“I see,” said Megga, staring at the strange couple. The soldier was biting his lip, trying to keep from laughing. The orc woman had both hands over her mouth, and looked somewhere between embarrassed and horrified. They couldn’t have looked less threatening if they’d gotten up and started ballroom dancing, right there in the bakery.

“My son walked up to an orc,” whispered Mirk hollowly.

“And is none the worse for wear,” said Megga. She handed the child to Mirk. “Here, take him in the back. I’m going to see if our guests need their tea freshened up.”

**********************************

Out on the boardwalk, Constable Yuppik and Constable Temgar stared in the windows, and slowly released their grip on their sword hilts.

“Do you think one of us ought to run out and inform the Baron?” said Temgar. “Like last time?”

“There’s a soldier sitting right there,” said Yuppik. “I’d think the Baron already knows. And if there’s only one soldier, I would THINK that the orc isn’t likely to kick up any shit.”

“Are you all right if I run tell Barnaby?” said Temgar.

“I … think I will be,” said Yuppik. “And I do think he’ll want to know. But get back here as soon as you can.”

**********************************

The chime on the bakery door rang again as Cliff and Dinsdale walked out. Cliff carried a small bag of baked goods. “I feel bad,” she said. “I didn’t mean to frighten them.”

“It’s all good,” said Dinsdale easily. “You didn’t do anything wrong. No harm done. And I left a good tip. And they were pretty nice afterwards, weren’t they?”

“Hobgoblins,” said Cliff. “You could tell. They were goblin and human. It makes me wonder what the tribe’s babies will look like, by this time next year. This place… is so… I can’t talk about how I feel. I don’t have the words. It’s… so … new. But in a good way. So many surprises!”

“Are you having fun?” asked Dinsdale with a smile.

Cliff smiled a great toothy smile back at him. “Yes,” she said. “What will we do next?”

**************************************

Next was the Refuge Inn, a place that Cliff marveled at, and at which the human and goblin staff stared back at Cliff with barely concealed horror. But all that happened was that Dinsdale and Cliff had glasses of sweet wine, and shared a grilled cheese sandwich. “I know this!” said Cliff. “This is the yellow stuff at the House of Orange Lights! You dip the crunchy things in it! The word is cheese? Where does it grow?”

Next was the Goblin Pie, where the goblin waitresses stood paralyzed while an uncharacteristically silent and wide-eyed goblin woman Bekk the Mountain-Chested provided the two of them with slices of sausage pie to sample.

“I think I’m starting to figure this out,” said Cliff. The two of them sat at a booth and ate their slices with mugs of beer. “Humans and goblins… mix things together. Layer them, or make new things out of them. I’m used to eating food that’s just one kind of food. Meat, nuts, seeds, fruit, roots, and like that. But… you … do things to the foods. And make new kinds of food out of them.”

“Right,” said Dinsdale. “The crust of the pie? This is wheat seeds, ground into powder and mixed with other things. You spread the dough into a circle. Then you spread it with tomato sauce, and sprinkle the grated cheese over the top, and put slices of sausage on top of that, and then bake it in an oven. I know they do other things to it, too, but that’s what goblin pie is.”

“I never even saw an oven till I was in Millie’s kitchen,” said Cliff thoughtfully. “We do a different thing with hot rocks from a fire, and then you put the food on the rocks and cover the whole thing. But we move around, and we couldn’t take an oven with us. This is so different.”

“Yeah,” said Dinsdale. “But is it fun?”

Cliff looked up and locked eyes with Dinsdale. “You KNOW it is,” she said, with a fanged smile.

*******************************

Neither the Refuge Inn nor the Goblin Pie were free of customers when Dinsdale and Cliff walked in. And the customers stared. A number of the humans had lived in Refuge their entire lives, and while they had heard of orcs, they had no idea what one looked like, and stared in wonder at the statuesque red woman who walked in with her soldier.

The goblins, however, had sharper memories, and while most had never seen an orc, the descriptions passed down to them had been considerably more detailed.

And where Dinsdale and Cliff lighted to try a food or a drink or to look at a thing, the conversations boiled around them.

“Is that an orc?”

“That’s an ORC!”

“Shh, keep yer voice down, you don’t want to piss it off.”

“I didn’t even know there WERE orcs around this part of the country!”

“I heard tell there was some survivors from the fight out at Slunkbolter Town.”

“There was a fight out at Slunkbolter Town?”

(sigh) “A mob o’ orcs attacked Slunkbolter Town, chasin’ the Treetail Goblins. But the Baron’s men knew they was comin’, and they had the landsknights and the regulars and the Magicians ready, and more’n a hundred goblin archers. Them orcs never had a chance.”

“So why’s there one in here drinkin’ wine?”

“Only the male orcs got kilt. The females was somewhere else, waitin’ for ‘em. They’re still out there somewhere.”

“Drinkin’ WINE? Somebody sold alcohol to a orc? Ain’t that illegal?”

“I ain’t sure there’s any actual laws on the books about orcs.”

“So all the girl orcs are out somewhere to the west? Why ain’t the Baron took out the troops and put paid to ‘em?”

“I heard the farmers out to the west have been tradin’ with ‘em.”

“Tradin’? Since when do orcs trade? They kill you and take what you want and burn whatever’s left!”

“Well, I seen Chummins bringin’ in bighorn skins and raw wool and the horns, and I know he ain’t no hunter. Where’s he gettin’m if he’s not tradin’?”

Not long after at the Goblin Pie, the house was surprisingly silent. The Goblin Pie was known for its cheerful raucousness, normally, but the conversation that morning was surprisingly subdued. It made it easier for the three counterwomen’s goblin ears to track what was being said at the table where the soldier and the orc drank beer and sampled goblin pie. Goblins were renowned for their hearing, after all. They had the ears for it.

“Well, she likes the sausage,” said Grola softly.

“Well, I don’t like her,” said Teej irritatedly. “I can see Yuppik, Temgar, and Anra looking in the windows, and you’ll notice no one else has come in since those two walked in. They’re costing us business.”

“And that’s assuming she doesn’t tear the place apart for some reason,” said Grola.

“I don’t think she will,” said Bekk, her great breasts resting on the counter behind which the three goblin women stood. “Why would she bring a soldier with her if she was going to go berserk? And if she did, he’d be obligated to do something about it, and the constables are right outside. If someone asked me what I thought, I’d say it looks like those two are on a date.”

Teej and Grola turned and stared at Bekk. “A date,” said Teej.

“With an orc?” said Grola. “Seriously?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” said Bekk. “But… well, this is Refuge. Teej, you’re married to a human. You were one of the first to DO that. And let’s not forget Charli Buds, out on his farm, who has a goblin wife AND an ogre wife. I never dreamed I’d see that. And kids with both of them!”

“But she’s an orc!” hissed Teej.

“Yeah,” said Bekk. “But her boyfriend’s a good tipper. She’s well behaved. I mean, she’s not what I’d call pretty, most ways. But I of all people am not in any position to disrespect other people’s romantic decisions, don’t you think?”

“That soldier could have any single girl in town,” said Grola. “Human OR goblin. And he’s stepping out with an orc. I don’t get it. And that’s assuming you’re right, and they’re on a date.”

“Maybe she’s negotiating peace with the soldiers, and he just invited her to eat while they do it,” said Bekk speculatively. “I’m still trying to figure out where she got the dress. Maybe she has a really sweet personality?”

“I’ve never heard of an orc who had a personality that was anything other than raging and homicidal,” sniffed Grola. “That’s kind of what makes them orcs, isn’t it?”

“Wait a minute,” said Teej suspiciously, rounding on Bekk. “You just said, ‘she’s not what I’d call pretty, most ways.’ You think she’s pretty in OTHER ways?”

“Well,” said Bekk philosophically. “She’s an orc. That much is obvious, and that does nothing for me. But… well, she’s very toned. She has nice boobs.” Bekk sighed. “And even I have to admit, she has an ass to die for.”

**********************************

Our conclusion is HERE: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1g2bbgv/orcwardness_part_two_of_two/

The next thing Dinsdale knew, he was flopped out on the bed in the room upstairs, with his dick in an orc’s mouth.

His mates had settled the tab with the barman, and the orc woman had hustled him up the door in the wake of the little shirtless goblin man, who’d unlocked a room, and the moment the two of them were inside, the orc woman had been peeling him him down. She seemed remarkably eager, for some reason. Had Morcar been telling the TRUTH about these insatiable orc women and their sexual appetites? And before he’d known it, he was face up on the bed with his pecker sliding between some remarkably disturbing orc teeth. But it wasn’t bad. She genuinely seemed like she was trying to stimulate him, rather than eat him. And truth be told, she wasn’t doing a bad job, as his cock rose to attention under the assault of her lips and tongue.

Her head bobbed up and down on him, and as she licked and sucked, she began stripping her top off, and was soon nude to the waist. Her hands were everywhere, stroking his thigh, tickling his balls, and her mouth… rrr, that mouth.

Dinsdale looked at her. He was getting a blowjob from an orc. Her hair was growing less kempt as her head bobbed up and down, and her ears were now visible; they didn’t look a thing like human or even goblin ears, looking more like webbed bat wings or duck feet than anything. And her red-maroon skin color was a glaring reminder that this woman was anything but human. Hell, he didn’t even know her name.

But even stone cold sober, Dinsdale was finding it difficult to be critical in the reception of what was turning out to be a world class blow job. The orc woman really seemed to know what she was doing, and her tongue was never still for a moment, and her hands remained in constant motion. Rrrrrgh!

And Dinsdale made a command decision. He reached for her waistcord, and yanked the bow knot holding her trousers up, and it popped loose, and her trousers slid lower on her hips. The orc woman suddenly looked up in surprise, his cock sliding free of her mouth. “Uh?” she said.

Dinsdale looked her in the eye. “What’s your name?” he asked.

The orc looked even more surprised. “I… I am … Cliff,” she said softly.

“Well, Cliff,” he said back, “I’m Dinsdale. Listen, why don’t you get out of those things, and take a seat up here on my face where I can do you some good? I mean, you suck a dick real good, but I’d think you’d get bored with just that after a while.”

Cliff’s eyes widened, and her face broke into another of those horrifying fanged orcish smiles. But this time, Dinsdale didn’t find it as threatening as he had the first time he’d seen it. Just the opposite, really. With some alacrity, she shed her trousers and footgear, and climbed atop Dinsdale, her legs conveniently parted over his face, and lowered herself onto him.

*************************************

It was sometime in the early afternoon that Cliff rode away from the House of Orange Lights, headed west for the frontier, gaily waving back at the five soldiers, and the little shirtless goblin man with the ripped abs. They’d had to teach her about waving. She’d wondered why they were waving at her, and asked, “Is it okay to go?”

“Well, how was it?” said Ozzle, when he judged her far enough away to ask.

Dinsdale stared after her. “If you’re so damn curious, why didn’t YOU volunteer?”

“Well, YOU were the one on his feet in a split second,” said Mordecai.

“I thought she was gonna do somethin’ violent,” said Dinsdale.

“Did she do anything violent?” leered Renmort.

“Fuck you,” said Dinsdale.

“So are orcs all that different from anyone else?” said Crake, looking down at Drin. “I mean, in the sack, that is.”

“In point of fact, I cannot honestly answer your question,” said the goblin. “My carnal experience ranges far and wide, in the time I have served the House of Orange Lights. I have many human sweet friends whose charms delight me in every way, and I know many goblin girls whose talents in the arts horizontal can dazzle and bewitch the strongest of men. I have enjoyed the company of ogres and can testify to their splendid and expansive pleasures as well. But friend Dinsdale has today done something I have not.”

“You never fucked an orc?” said Renmort.

“I have said just that,” said Drin. “Although I also admit to a burning curiosity as to friend Dinsdale’s experience. I have been propositioned in every way, I think, and have seduced my share, but never have I seen anyone stand up in the Stage Room and ask who will fuck them.”

Dinsdale stared off into the distance. Cliff and her gomrog grew smaller and smaller against the distant grassy horizon. “It was… different,” he said. “She was… assertive.”

“Took charge, did she?” said Renmort.

“Not exactly like that,” said Dinsdale. “But she knew what she wanted. And she’s big and strong enough, I didn’t feel like I was gonna hurt her. And… well, she wanted what she wanted, and she reacted kinda wild when I surprised her.”

“YOU surprised HER?” said Crake.

“Yeah,” said Dinsdale. “She never had a human before. And not a lot of orcs before, either. And orcs apparently kind of… well, the orc men tend to be kinda focused on their own dick, you know? That’s what she said.”

“Sounds like what I’d expect,” said Ozzle.

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Mordecai. “Those orc girls are goin’ from farm to farm out west kidnappin’ fellas and jumpin’ on their dicks. And she told you she never did a human?”

Dinsdale sighed. “Orc fellas don’t ask, when they’re horny,” he said. “They just take, whether the gal’s interested or not. Cliff didn’t wanna be like that. She watched, sure, but she never got herself any. Even after some of those farmer boys started likin’ it. She didn’t wanna force herself on nobody. That’s why she came here to the House. She heard that a fella would treat you right and ride you to heaven if you just paid them; apparently their king talked about the House. So did Morcar, when he was standin’ in for the guy, that one time. So she came out here, and … well, sounds like she about fell in love with the place. But she didn’t know how things worked, so she stood up and asked. And I feel kind of shitty about that.”

Five pairs of eyes focused on Dinsdale. “What did YOU do to feel shitty?” said Ozzle.

“She stood up all sudden,” said Dinsdale, “and right away, I think she’s gonna attack that minstrel fella. I was on my feet, ready to draw sword and take’r head off before she can do her evil vicious orc business, you know? And then… well, everything went all sideways.”

“Reckon it did,” chuckled Crake.

“Took you a bit to catch up,” snickered Renmort.

“Fuck you some more,” growled Dinsdale. “But after that… well… fact is, she… just wanted some lovin’, you know? And more than that. You know how you talk a girl up? Tell her how pretty she is, how silky her skin is, and so on? And how girls love to hear it, even when they don’t believe a word of it?”

“Yeah,” said Renmort. “Pourin’ on the sugar.”

“It is a thing every woman likes to hear,” said Drin softly. “Even if they don’t believe it. Especially when they don’t believe it.”

“Well, we’re layin’ there after round one, talkin,” said Dinsdale. “Turns out she’s only, like, nineteen. And I start pourin’ on the sugar. I figured she’d think it was fun. Or funny. But… fellas, I swear, she looked at me with those big brown eyes, and I think she was about to cry.”

“What?” said Mordecai.

“Yeah,” said Dinsdale, still staring off at the horizon. “She’d been talkin’ about orc men, and how she liked humans better, and I got to tellin’ her how pretty she was, and how red skin was so smooth and pretty and stuff, and she looked at me like she was gonna cry, and all of a sudden, I remembered what she said about orc fellas. And I realized that nobody ever told this girl she was pretty before. Or sexy. Or… desirable.”

“You thought she was pretty?” said Renmort.

“Well, shit, I dunno,” said Dinsdale. “I only seen one orc in my whole life. I ain’t got a whole lot of basis for comparison. But I can tell you, she’s built about like any human woman, aside from bein’ all toned up fulla muscle and a couple inches taller than me. And she got an ass to die for.”

“Does she, now?” said Drin.

“Oh, yeah,” said Dinsdale. “Smooth and round and absolutely godsdamn perfect, and so firm… I swear, I could squeeze that ass all day… and the rest of her’s mighty well turned, too. And … well, I kissed her, and she went a little crazy. She grabbed me and forced me down and stroked my dick hard while she was jabberin’ at me in her own language, and when I was stiff, she about jumped on, right there, and started ridin’ like breakin’ a horse.”

“Shit,” said Renmort. “So wha’d you do?”

“Well,” said Dinsdale. “I figured if she liked it rough, well, she’s an orc. She can take it. Ain’t gonna do her no hurt. So I let her get good and worked up and then I grabbed her and rolled her over so she was on the bottom and I started slammin’ it to her real good, and she about came unglued. Snarled and growled in my ear, and wrapped her arms and legs around me so hard, I thought I was gonna squirt into the next room like a watermelon seed, you know? And so I’m holdin’ back, and she starts comin’ apart at the seams like she’s cummin’, so I held off and kept a steady rhythm till she’s startin’ to relax, and then I let go, and she hangs on like I’m the last man she’s ever gonna see… and when I finally stop movin’ she kisses me, and says, “You waited for me to gienak,” and then she hugs me so hard I think I got bruises.”

“Gienak?” said Renmort.

“The orcish word for orgasm?” said Drin.

“Yeah,” said Dinsdale. “She didn’t know the human word. Turns out orc girls ain’t used to gienak when there’s a fella involved. Not unless he’s a real stallion, you know. But she’s all amazed that I figured it out and waited for her before I let go, myself. Apparently, that makes me a real winner, in an orc’s book.” Dinsdale continued to look at the horizon, for all that Cliff and her gomrog were gone.

“It is, after all, the only considerate way,” said Drin, sagely. “I wonder if we will see her again? Or her tribemates?”

************************************

“Where have you been?” called Blossom, as Cliff dismounted her gomrog and removed the harness. “And what is all this?” she added, looking at the bags and packages festooning the gomrog’s backside.

“I went to visit the human town,” said Cliff. “I … bought some things. With the money.” She removed the slung bags, and nudged the creature, urging it to join the herd. It needed no further encouragement, and wandered towards its herdmates, and lowered its head to crop at the grass. “There are many more things there than Tarse brought back! So much! Come and see!”

Around the small camp, the rest of the orcs took notice, particularly at this last remark, and the women and children gathered round. Seeing the small ones, Cliff grinned and fished a little muslin bag out of one sack, opened it, and removed a small brown round thing, and looked at little Zugzug. “Open your mouth,” she commanded, and when Zugzug did so, she popped the round thing in. “Taste it.”

Zugzug’s little eyes grew wide. “OH!” he cried. “SWEET!”

The other children and toddlers crowded forward, and Cliff laughed and distributed maple drops among them, completely missing Blossom’s glowering expression. Noting this, both Tarse and Sunflower closed on the two of them.

“Sweet Filfolio and all his wacky creations,” said Tarse. “You went into TOWN? And they didn’t KILL you?”

“No,” said Cliff. “It was early. There weren’t many humans around, but the mur-kann-teel place you told me about was there. I think I surprised them, but I remembered what you told me about money, and they calmed down when I showed it to them. After that, it was easy.”

“Shit,” said Tarse. “It figures. Eoin Bellsong, the guy at the counter? He was tellin’ me about the first time he saw goblins walk into his store. Magicians, ogres, and now orcs… dammit, sweet one, you took a hell of a risk. Those town folks aren’t like the Fleets and the Korbens and the other farmers! They don’t know us! They think we’re still like the other orcs! They see an orc, they see an enemy!”

“I did nothing threatening,” said Cliff. “I talked the man talk. They did nothing threatening. They traded me money for the things. And they gave me other money back! It was just as Tarse said! And look at the wonderful things I brought!” she added, picking up two more bags and opening them. The other orc females crowded forward, looking, oohing, and ahhing over the contents. Scarlet Tanager seized, lifted, and examined a bolt of checkered cloth, while Sweet Clover hefted a five pound canned ham and peered at the picture of a pig on the label.

“You should not have gone,” said Blossom heavily. “Not without checking with the rest of us.”

“AI!” said Cliff, suddenly. “And I saw the House of Orange Lights! It was just as Tarse described it! And like Morcar said! And it was even more amazing inside!”

Sunflower’s mouth fell open in surprise, as did Tarse’s, and Blossom’s expression shifted a few further degrees in the direction of apoplexy. “You went to the HOUSE of ORANGE LIGHTS?” said Tarse.

“I did!” said Cliff, joyfully. “It was everything you said it was! Goblins and humans, and an ogre woman! The food, the drinks—”

“They have an OGRE there?” said Sunflower, in shock, jerking her head to stare at Tarse.

“How the fuck did you get inside and not die?” said Tarse wonderingly. “That place has been attacked before! Why didn’t the ogre rip you in half?”

“The ogre didn’t show up till I was sitting at a table,” said Cliff, smiling. “I showed them money, and they brought me sweet drinks and wonderful things to eat. And there was a singing man there, and you have to hear him to believe the songs he sang! And—”

“Isn’t this the place you said was run by GOBLINS?” snapped Blossom. “They could have filled you with arrows while you sat there listening to the music man!”

“But they didn’t,” said Cliff, plaintively. “The goblins were the ones bringing me the drinks and the foods. And I paid them. And they smiled, and acted like I was a human. There was no violence, not even when the ogre or the soldiers showed up.”

“Soldiers?” said Tarse, suddenly. “What soldiers?”

“They came in a while after I did,” said Cliff. “They sat down at a different table to hear the music man. They wore the same clothes that Morcar did; that’s how I knew they were soldiers. And later I fucked one of them, and —"

“I. Have. Heard. Enough,” snapped Blossom. “Cliff, you did something stupidly dangerous. You could have been killed. You could have caused the humans and goblins to come out here looking for the rest of us, and I am not sure that his will not happen, even now. They might have let you go so they could track you and find the rest of the tribe, did you think about that?”

“But they know we’re out here,” said Cliff. “Surely Morcar told them. He spent six DAYS out here with us! And they haven’t come out after us yet. Why WOULD they? We aren’t hurting anything. And if they wanted to know more, why would they not seize me and torture me until I told them? Instead, they gave me salty crunchy things and sweet fruit drinks! And the human Dinsdale –"

“STOP!” bellowed Blossom, closing her eyes, and kneading her forehead with her fingers. “I want to talk to Ray and Millie Fleet before we decide what to do about this. Or maybe the Korbens. Of all the humans, them I would trust to speak truth to us. Until this happens, no one goes anywhere near the humans. In fact, from now on, where one of us goes, we all go. No more riding off singly, no more sneaking away!”

Cliff’s face sprouted an expression of dismay. “But it was safe! I—”

“The tribe will decide ‘safe!’” growled Blossom, opening her eyes and fixing Cliff in her glare. “NOT one girl, who does not think before she acts! We are FAR from safe! We are talking to a FEW humans, and trading with them, but there are MANY humans in this Refuge place, and I am sure some of them would not welcome orcs! And the goblins, even LESS so! Until we get things settled down, NO ONE goes near the humans! Understood?”

“She’s right,” said Sunflower. “Cliff, you did a foolish thing. I am glad for the presents you brought, but they were not worth the risk to your life. Or to the tribe.”

“True,” said Tarse.”

“And YOU! I want to talk to you about some of those stories you’ve been telling,” growled Blossom, turning on Tarse. “And where did she get money?”

“I gave her a coin,” said Tarse, with an embarrassed shrug. “She thought it was pretty. I never dreamed she’d go try and SPEND it…”

As Blossom, Sunflower, and Tarse began a somewhat heated discussion, Cliff stood in the midst of a number of toddlers, still happily sucking on their maple candies, and Cliff felt the joy of the day turn to ashes in the pit of her heart.

“I don’t get it,” said Sweet Clover, still looking at the canned ham. “There is a whole pig in this thing? Will it burst out if we open it? And is it alive in there?”

***********************************

The following day after the changing of the guard at Morr-Hallister, the newly off-duty wall guards strode together into the dining hall for dinner.

“What’s to eat?” called Crake.

“Fall-apart beef and potato in gravy!” called the goblin cook, Borti, from the serving window. “Biscuit! Roasted feather-root! And hot… juicy… cherry tart!” she added, licking her lips.

Renmort laughed. “Hot juicy cherry tart!” he called. “Second best treat in the kitchen!”

Borti grinned back “You sit,” she called. “Dinner in two minutes! I call you!” And with that, she turned and vanished into the steam of the kitchen.

“Who’d have thought,” said Crake, seating himself at a table, “that the best food in the Army would be served by a big titty goblin? I can’t remember the last time I had to suffer through a plate of shit on a shingle.”

“Best godsdamn post in the Army,” said the sergeant, who sat at the same table. “And I should godsdamn know. Dinsdale, what the hell’s eating you? Up on the west wall, I couldn’t decide if you were lookin’ for the Horde, or if they coulda marched right in playin’ a brass band and you wouldna noticed.”

“He’s thinkin’ about that extra spicy orc pussy he had for lunch yesterday,” snickered Renmort. Dinsdale looked at Renmort irritatedly, but said nothing.

“Renmort, quit bein’ an asshole,” said the Sarge. “Dinsdale, is he fulla shit or what?”

“He’s an asshole, but he ain’t exactly wrong,” said Dinsdale, seating himself on the far side of the table.

“Seriously?” said Tonk. “Fucked an orc in a whorehouse, and now you’re all smitten?”

“You didn’t see this orc,” said Dinsdale. “And you didn’t talk to ‘er.”

“Somehow,” said Renmort, “I can’t imagine an orc havin’ a lot to say.”

“Shows what you know,” said Morcar. “Orcs got lots to say. Them women about talked me half to death. They ain’t used to bein’ listened to. And fact is, they wasn’t dull, even with their clo’es on.”

“Had some conversations with ‘em?” said the Sarge. “In between all the fuckin’, I take it?”

“Quite a lot,” said Morcar. “They was kinda glad to have a different human around. Ast me a lot of questions about human things, human girls, how humans do stuff, and about the House of Orange Lights.”

Renmort rolled his eyes. “Figures they’d be interested in the House.”

“Cliff never saw anything like it before,” said Dinsdale. “They’re plains people. Hells, deep fried food’s a new thing, to them, till they got metal pots and pans and stuff. And you’ve eaten at the House before. Cliff had never tasted human or goblin food, much less the dishes they serve out there. It all seemed like magic to her.”

“You’re startin’ to sound like a man who’s got bit by the sugar bug,” said Crake.

“I dunno,” said Dinsdale. “Shit, I spent, what, a couple hours with her? And … hell, she came on full force. No bein’ coy, no teasin’, just asked if I wanted to fuck. Enthusiastic! And then she starts tellin’ me about her life like I’m her best friend instead of some guy she met in a bar half an hour ago. Nothin’ fake about her. And then she wants to fuck some more. I talk about how the House seemed like magic to ‘er? She wasn’t like any girl I ever met, either. And I wouldn’t mind spendin’ a little more time with ‘er, get to know ‘er a little better, orc or no orc.”

“Only in Refuge,” said Tonk. “Humans and goblins fallin’ in bed together, a knight and an ogre gettin’ hooked up, and now our Dinsdale’s got a thing for an orc. You don’t see this back east.”

“Yeah, but you don’t get Army food like this back east, either,” said Crake. “Borti’s wavin’! Dinner’s served!” He rose from his seat, followed by most of the men, who stepped lively towards the serving window. But Dinsdale and the Sergeant remained on their benches.

“Sarge?” said Dinsdale. “Not to bother you… but… after dinner, could you check and see if I got any accumulated leave time?”

**********************************

The following night at the orc encampment, as the stars came out one by one overhead, Sweet Clover sat down at Cliff’s fire. Cliff was sitting nearby, restitching the sole of a fur boot that needed repair.

“You can only stay miserable for so long,” said Sweet Clover.

“Says you,” said Cliff archly, driving another stitch.

“You’re just doing this to yourself,” said Sweet Clover.

“You’re doing a fine job of raising my spirits,” said Cliff. “Going to kick me in the teeth next? Perhaps set me on fire?”

“Cliff, you haven’t lost anything,” said Sweet Clover. “You have the same everything you had a week ago. Moping isn’t going to solve anything. Is it the human man you fucked? In a few days, we’ll be over at the Korben place, and there will be a human man. Why does it matter? You never want in on the rotation anyway. Until now, I wondered if you even LIKED men. I still remember when Eight tried to take you, and you knocked his teeth out. What have you lost, to mourn so?”

“I have lost everything,” said Cliff, drawing out the thread, and dropping another stitch.

“How you figure?” said Sweet Clover.

Cliff sighed, and put down the boot and needle and thread. “You want to hear this? Fine. You asked for it. You mentioned Eight. Eight was a pig. The only reason he was Eight was because he could kick the shit out of Nine. And that’s what we were. We were orcs. We were the females, the ones who kept things running so the males could beat the shit out of each other and out of us, and out of anything else they could reach. And that’s all we were. That’s all we did. You following me so far?”

“I was there, Cliff,” said Sweet Clover. “I remember. And it got better than that.”

“Yes,” said Cliff. “It did. The males died, trying to kick the shit out of a bunch of goblins, and finding more than they could handle with the humans. I was Woman Thirty-Six, then. I was one of the strongest orcs in the tribe,” she said, flexing her arms. “I could beat up, or at least hold off, more than two thirds of the males in the tribe. I was taller than any of them. And they hated me for it. And that was why I was Woman Thirty-Six. Still with me?”

“You could have been nicer to the males,” said Sweet Clover. “You could have had better status.”

“That’s how Blossom did it,” said Cliff. “She was all right with sucking a dick to get a male to like her. I didn’t have the patience for that. I didn’t want to take a faceful of shit from some male who had to reach up to slap me. And maybe I was wrong, to be that way. But that’s how it was. The males didn’t want me, and I … was ugly. And alone.”

“You’re not ugly,” said Sweet Clover.

“You’re kind to say so,” said Cliff. “And if you had a dick, that would be even more meaningful. But you don’t. But the males are dead. And things changed. And we had names, and we could fight and hunt and take care of each other. And suddenly, I was important. My size and strength had meaning, and I had status, you see?”

“Still with you,” said Sweet Clover.

“And then things changed again. We got Hatch and Tarse, and we had males again. We could control the males, this time. We were still in charge. But… I remember all the times a male tried to take me whether I wanted it or not. And … I won’t be that way. I never had Hatch or Tarse. Or the man Warnn, or any of the farm men. I didn’t want to take a man against his will.”

“Even after they started to like it?” said Sweet Clover.

“It still didn’t feel right,” said Cliff. “But Tarse told us about the House of Orange Lights, a place where you could make a money trade, and find a man who would fuck you. Willingly. Happily! And then Morcar told the same story. And then Tarse came back with all the wonderful things from the mur-kann-teel, in the human place. And I felt the change beginning to happen again.”

“I think I see where you are going with this.”

“Do you?” said Cliff bitterly. “I never saw anything like Refuge, or the House of Orange Lights, ever. I can barely describe it. Humans and goblins and ogre, all working together, in a place of orange magic, making magic food and drink and playing magic music. It was like nothing I could ever have imagined. It was like living inside magic.”

“And then the human fucked you.”

“He did,” said Cliff. “He was shy at first. I thought it was cute. He livened up after I sucked his dick hard, though. And then… he said that I shouldn’t get bored sucking his dick, and he told me to sit on his face.”

“He ate your pussy?” said Sweet Clover with a smile. “The way Ray does?”

“Clo, I … again, I can’t describe it,” said Cliff. “Dinsdale ate me like I ate the delicious things in the music room. He licked me, he sucked me, he savored me, and I thought I was going to die and go live among the gods in heaven. I never felt like that in my life. I creamed all over his face, and then he rolled me over and fucked me, hard… but not hard like an orc. He had his own way of doing it. He’d slide in me a little, and then THRUST, hard, slapping us together, making his balls slap against my ass… and then pull out… and do it again. And again. And I felt the cream coming again, and he fucked me till I did, and then he gave me his seed, and we lay there and held each other and talked.”

“Like a woman?” said Sweet Clover speculatively. “Like a woman with a dick? You make it sound nice.”

“Nice doesn’t begin to cover it,” said Cliff sadly. “He told me … he liked how I tasted. That I didn’t taste like a human. He liked me better than a human girl. I couldn’t believe I was hearing that. He told me how beautiful my ass was. My ASS! He sat there telling me how sweet and round and smooth and beautiful my ASS was. And my skin, how it was smooth and clean and red, not like his, and the freckles on my shoulders were pretty, and… he … told me … how beautiful I am…”

“Easy, Cliff,” said Sweet Clover sympathetically. “I told you that you aren’t ugly.”

“No other male ever told me I was beautiful,” said Cliff, looking up, her eyes wet. “No female, either. But this human’s almost as big as I am. He made me feel… not like a freak. It’s like he didn’t care that I’m still a little taller than I am, as long as my tits are round and my arms are strong and my hair is so soft and beautiful… I can… I … I want to hang onto those words. I remember how I felt when he spoke them. He made me believe them.”

Sweet Clover looked at Cliff for a moment. “You have feelings for the human?”

Cliff paused. “I don’t know,” she said. “We only were together for a few hours. We fucked and we talked and we fucked some more and we talked some more and I never wanted it to end. And then the goblin man showed up and told us that the room time was done. We had to go. And… he stood outside and watched me ride away.”

“You sound like you have feelings for him.”

“I shouldn’t,” said Cliff. “Perhaps I would feel differently if he hadn’t spoken. If he’d just fucked me. Like an orc.”

“I have feelings for the man Ray,” said Sweet Clover.

Cliff jerked her head up. “Ray?” she said. “The human? MILLIE’s human?”

“Yes,” said Sweet Clover. “He likes me. Maybe not like he likes Millie, but I think he likes me. And he … I don’t know. I think I have his baby in me. I want to. But I want more than that. I want to live in his human house with him and Millie, and sleep in their bed with them, and when our children are born, I want both of them at my tits, mine and Millie’s. I know that’s crazy, but… those are my feelings. And if your feelings are crazy, they are no worse than mine.”

Neither woman spoke for a moment. “You make me feel a little better about feeling this way about a human,” said Cliff.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Sweet Clover. “Ray belongs to Millie. My wants will never happen.”

“Neither will mine,” said Cliff bitterly. “I want to talk to Dinsdale some more. We didn’t have enough time. We … could know each other better. He makes me want to know more about humans. So does the House, and the Refuge Town. There is so much happening there, that we don’t know! There is MAGIC there, and things we can’t even imagine… and… because Blossom is worried about humans… now I have lost it all. And I can never go back.”

“I guess we have that in common,” said Sweet Clover. “But it makes me feel a little better, to share these miseries. I hope it helps you, too.”

“You … are a good friend, Clo,” said Cliff, with a hint of a smile. But her eyes were still damp.

And it was then that the sound was heard all over camp.

**********************************

“What?”

“What?”

“What the hells was THAT?”

“I COME FOR TRIBUTE!” shouted a voice from the darkness. It sounded like it was coming from the east. Towards the east side of the camp, Blossom seized her knife and spear, and kicked dirt over her fire, plunging her campsite into darkness, and dusting Tarse and Sunflower with dirt as well.

“I COME FOR TRIBUTE!” came the voice again. Blossom squinted and leaned forward. She could make out shapes in the darkness, off to the east, just outside the ring of light made by the orcs’ campfires.

“The fuck?” said someone. It sounded like Scarlet Tanager.

“The humans… come to US for tribute?” said Prairie Chicken.

Blossom looked at Tarse, on the other side of the dying fire. “Can they DO this?”

“Why not?” said Tarse. “We did. Used the same trick on the farmers, when we first started.”

“Well, yes,” said Blossom, glancing in the direction of the shout. “But you never said they’d do it BACK to us! Does this work both ways?”

“I can’t say I’d expected them to TRY it,” said Tarse, staring off in the direction of the shout.

Rock Face squinted, and blocked her eyes from the light sources with her hand. “There’s … only one of them.”

“One?” said Sweet Clover, craning her neck. “Fuck. You’re right. One, on a horse.”

“Are we supposed to be intimidated?” said Cardinal, confusedly.

“TRIIIBUUUUUTE!” cried the voice, again.

Cliff’s head jerked up from her boot repair. Did that voice sound familiar?

Blossom rose to her feet, and bellowed into the darkness, in the speech of men, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

The voice immediately answered. “CLIFF!” it cried.

Thirty-nine sets of orcish eyes swiveled to focus on Cliff, who sat next to her fire, mouth hanging open. “Dinsdale?” she said, in a tiny voice. “You… found me?”

“BRING ME CLIFF!” called the voice.

“WILL YOU BRING HER BACK IN THE MORNING?” called Blossom. “UNHARMED?”

Cliff gasped in surprise.

There was a pause. “DO I HAVE TO?”

“YES!” called Blossom, with some irritation. “UNHARMED!”

“YOU THINK I RODE ALL THE WAY OUT HERE SO I COULD PUNCH HER IN THE FACE?” called the voice. “NO HARM TO CLIFF!”

Blossom turned and looked at Cliff, who still sat by her fire, paralyzed between stunned surprise and the beginnings of joy. “Well?” called Blossom. “I give up. They DID ride out here and find us. And there’s only one of him, and all he seems to want is you. Will you be his tribute?”

Cliff stared up at Blossom, and nodded.

“Well, go on, then,” said Blossom. “He’s going to stand there and shout all night if you don’t.”

Cliff stood up. “DINSDALE?” she called.

“CLIFFYYYYY!”

Cliff stopped. "YOU CAME FOR ME?" she called.

"YES!" came the reply.

"WHY?" she said.

And there was silence for a moment. Gods, girl, did you just manage to fuck this up? thought Sweet Clover.

"WE..." came the voice. "WE ONLY HAD A LITTLE TIME," the voice said. "I ... WANT MORE. I CAME OUT HERE... FOR MORE TIME. WITH YOU." Pause, again. “EVEN IF I HAVE TO BRING YOU BACK, IN THE MORNING.”

Cliff took a step, and then another, and then she was running across the camp, and out of the circle of firelight. By this time, Sweet Clover and Cardinal in particular had been staring into the dark long enough that they could make out Dinsdale’s silhouette, standing next to his horse, and they watched Cliff charge towards him and end in something that was part hug and part flying tackle that took both of them to the ground, where they fell in a great tangle and remained for a time.

“Well,” said Sweet Clover. “So much for staying away from the humans. Does this mean we can go into town now?”

“Don’t start,” said Blossom. “I still want to talk to Ray and Millie first.”

“We could ask Cliff’s human to talk to the Baron,” said Tarse.

Blossom and Sunflower turned and stared at him.

“Why not?” said Tarse. “Soldiers are in the same fort with the Baron. Baron knows we’re out here conquering the humans one at a time, making them ours, kind of. Or at least earning their welcome. Will it surprise him that one of his soldiers has conquered one of our orcs? Will it surprise YOU?”

Blossom and Sunflower stared at Tarse. “What are you talking about?” said Sunflower.

Tarse looked back at them. “Three seasons ago,” he said, “you were Woman One and Woman Two. You were orcs. Nothing more. Damn little status, and no power other than what you could trick a One or a Three or a Two into giving you.”

Tarse paused. “Then you were Blossom and Sunflower, and you’re a lot more now than you were then. And now… you’ve conquered humans. Ray and Millie are orcs now, you said so yourselves. But they’re human, too. They’re part of us. So am I. I was human. Now I’m orc. But I’m still human. The humans have conquered you right back. We’re all more than we were before we came together, don’t you think?”

Blossom and Sunflower looked at each other, and back at Tarse.

Tarse gestured back at the camp. “Twelve of us are pregnant,” he said. “At least eight of them with infants that are half human. Are they still just orcs? Or more?” Tarse’s gaze strayed back to the writhing pile on the ground, just outside the firelight in the darkness. “Baron knows about this,” he said. “He saw it happen with goblins. I’m seein’ it happen with orcs. What will the tribe be, in another season or two? What will WE be?”

Sunflower looked at Tarse. Then at Blossom. Then at the writhing thing that was Cliff and Dinsdale. And then she looked down at her own stomach, and rubbed it. “I have your baby in me, Tarse,” she said. “But you’re kind of freaking me out a little.”

“Change is like that,” said Blossom. “I felt the same way when I realized that I was the One of a totally different kind of tribe. It freaked me out, too.”

“How did you cope with it?” said Sunflower softly.

“Like any orc does,” said Blossom. “By focusing on something I can control, as opposed to something I can’t. Tarse? Come over here and eat my cunt till I scream with pleasure?”

Tarse looked at Blossom. Blossom leaned back and lifted her skirts. Tarse stood, and moved over towards Blossom, and knelt down, and lowered his face between her knees.

“And wipe that damn grin off your face,” said Blossom.

END

Back to Part One: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1fuqcdt/the_seduction_of_cliff_a_tale_of_the_goblin/

Given the nature of orc society, orc women come in three flavors, as a rule: scheming, submissive, and combative***.***

Cliff was of the last sort.

When Cliff chose her name, someone asked her why. She smiled and said, “Because I am tall and strong, like stone, and to lose a fight with me is risky.” It wasn’t a bad choice for a name, as orcs go. Cliff stood six foot seven, tall even for an orc, and towering for an orc woman. She was lean and muscular; a life on the Sea of Grass will do that for you. She wasn’t aware that her name was, in the speech of men, a name of masculine gender, and no one had ever told her. Would you?

Cliff was the first orc to walk into Refuge Town. She caused a bit of a stir. Refuge was a rather cosmopolitan place – a human settlement on the western frontier adjoining the goblin settlement called Goblin Town – and humans, goblins, and even the occasional ogre could be seen on the streets of the little village. But orcs were something new. Orcs were savage and warlike, and not well thought of in the lands of men, and they were feared and despised by goblins.

Cliff wasn’t exactly aware of this. Her tribe, the Tribe of the Flowers, consisted entirely of females and children and one gleeful human who ruled as their (largely ceremonial) king. They’d been doing business with human farmers out on the New Ilrean frontier for some time, and she’d heard stories of the wonders to be had in Refuge Town, and finally, one day, she rode her gomrog east along the river until she found the place.

People stared, of course. On the other hand, people didn’t want to be SEEN staring. No one wanted to offend an orc. And the few people who saw Cliff that morning promptly wondered: we’ve been doing business with goblins and ogres for years. Are we doing business with orcs, now? Cliff’s demeanor helped with this; she rode up main street like she owned the place, for all that she’d never been there before. She was quite impressed. Orcish architecture had largely perfected the tent and the yurt, but wooden and stone buildings were quite beyond them. She’d seen the buildings on the various farms to the west, but an entire town of them? Amazing!

She fixed on a man who seemed to be looking at her. “You!” she called.

The man froze.

“Where is the mur-kann-teel store?” she said, in the speech of men.

“Ah,” the man said. He pointed across the street, down towards the end of the block. “It’s right there. Big white building.”

Cliff smiled. She shouldn’t have. Orcs’ canine teeth were far longer than humans, and what was a friendly smile to an orc tended to seem like a prelude to an attack to a human. “Thank you!” she said, and turned her gomrog and spurred it to a trot, and steered it towards the mercantile store, leaving the man staring in her wake.

This is how Cliff became the first orc ever known to have gone shopping.

*****************************

A couple of hours later, Cliff rode her gomrog out of Refuge, feeling very pleased with herself. She had purchased a great many things at the Mercantile Store, and they had packed them and wrapped them in brown paper and twine, and she’d had to buy bags to store them in, and now they were hung across the back end of her gomrog beast.

All she had had was a single gold coin, obtained from the Orc King, the man called Tarse. But apparently, a gold coin bought a great deal; the man Eoin at the mercantile had explained gold and silver and copper to her, and she’d been quite astonished. The humans were surprisingly generous. And now a little leather bag hung at her hip, jingling with the leftover coins that the man Eoin had given her with her purchases.

She’d noticed that several people in metal hats with swords had turned up as she’d selected her purchases. There had also been two goblins in tall, pointed hats. But they hadn’t bothered her or spoken to her, for all that they’d seemed like they’d watched her. And she’d left in peace with her purchases. The buying of things was so easy! And no one had argued with her or tried to fight her or given her a hard time in any way!

Perhaps Tarse had been wrong. Perhaps the orc women of the Tribe of the Flower could live peacefully with these humans. Perhaps even the goblins. It wasn’t like the Flowers were going to start any trouble. Cliff enjoyed the warm feeling in her heart. Her tribemates would love the things she was bringing back; Tarse had brought things from the mur-kann-teel once before, but there was so much more, when you were actually there to see!

Cliff looked back over her shoulder. The town was fading into the distance behind her. It seemed a shame. She’d expected things to be more difficult. And she was still here, and still had human money. What else might she do, before returning to her tribe? She thought about it. What else had Tarse talked about? Or the other humans? Ray and Millie had talked about Refuge… and the Korbens, and the four men at the Chummins place… oh, and the man Morcar, who had been their king for a while when Tarse went into town… what did they do in Refuge?

They had all, at one point, mentioned the House of Orange Lights. It had been described as a place of magical beauty and orange light, a place where wonderful food and drinks were served, of beautiful music and songs, and where if you had money… men and goblins would have sex with you. And where WAS this place?

Abruptly, Cliff turned around, and headed back to Refuge. She needed directions.

************************************

Five constables stood at the intersection of River Road and Main Street in Refuge, and discussed the situation.

“Well,” said Chief Constable Barnaby, “I’m glad you didn’t shoot her. Still, we need to up our game, here, people. An orc just wandered into town, and what did we do about it?”

“Sir,” said the goblin constable, Yuppik, “we were in the roof emplacements. We did have crossbows in place. We were ready. But most of what we do is keep watch, and occasionally climb down to confront pushy merchants and suchlike. By the time we figured out whether to shoot her or NOT, she was already in the Mercantile! I do think we need to address the civic orc policy. Like, maybe we should HAVE one. In advance.”

“Being a goblin myself, I hate to say this,” said Rayle, “but what next? Do we need to have an elf policy? Trolls, maybe? Dwarves? Pixie fairies? I never dreamed we’d see orcs in Refuge, much less one that just rode IN like that. We’d have known what to DO if she’d SCOUTED the place first… we’d have SEEN her… but she just rode right up, asks directions, hitches her critter at the post and then walks into the Mercantile. Yuppik damn near shot her just for asking directions.”

“She was an ORC!” snapped Yuppik. “You never dreamed we’d see orcs? I never dreamed I’d see one asking DIRECTIONS! How’d she learn the man speech, anyway? I thought orcs didn’t speak any language but their own!”

“I’m really starting to think,” said the human woman Anra, “that we need to bother the town council for the next meeting. We need checkpoints, tollbooths, road barriers, more constables … SOME damn thing.”

“I dunno what the big deal is,” said Jiff. “Hell, we didn’t get this het up the first time an ogre walked into town.”

“The first time an ogre walked into town,” said Barnaby, “we didn’t have sentries. I didn’t know there was an ogre in town till I stepped outside and saw the hairdressers washin’ her hair out on the boardwalk. And by then, there wasn’t a lot I coulda done about it.”

“Well, sending Temgar out to get the soldiers was kind of a waste of time,” said Yuppik. “She left peaceful enough…”

“Whoa!” called Rayle, staring down the River Road. “She’s turning around! She’s coming BACK!”

************************************

In the vestibule of the House of Orange Lights, something of a staff meeting was taking place. It consisted of a young man, an older man with a great black mustache, a shirtless goblin man, and a blonde ogre woman in a cocktail dress, It was the sort of thing that would have been incongruous anywhere... other than the House of Orange Lights.

"There is an orc in the stage room," said Addan, unbelievingly. He was the younger of the two humans, and the well-known Knight of the Orange Lights, and the House was his fief, granted by the Baron himself. As such, this gave him standing in staff meetings, for all that he had nearly nothing to do with the running of the place.

"There is," said Drin. Drin was a goblin man, known for his lovely abs and flirtsome ways, and was the unofficial floor manager, among other things. "She has so far made no trouble. We have some of the Baron's men keeping an eye on her."

"I can take her, if need be," said Urluh. Eight and a half feet of ogre, Urluh was the usual door greeter, as well as the bouncer and unofficial head of security. She had been away from her podium when the orc had come in, a fact she bitterly regretted.

"I am not certain you will have to," said Fatoon, the swarthy, mustached manager of the House of Orange Lights. "So far, all she has done has order drinks and food and moon over Osric and his singing. At least, it looks like she's mooning. Either that, or she's thinking about eating him. It's hard to interpret that smile of hers. And we have armed hobelars in the room with her. I greatly mislike the idea of assaulting a peaceful customer. Especially since she seems to be paying for things."

"So far," said Drin. "She seems to think it's pay as you go. But paying, she is. I'm thinking she's one of those new orcs we've been hearing about, the ones interacting with the farmers out on the frontier. Where else would she get money?"

"Well, there's always looting," said Addan. "I understand that's a thing with orcs..."

"There is also that king of theirs," said Fatoon. "If the rumors are anywhere near correct, their king is a human, one of those filibusters with the Gawinson expedition. They say he came into town a few months ago and cashed in his bank account to buy things for the orcs. Is it not possible that she wound up with some of the money? There's a shovelmouth at the hitching post loaded with parcels from Bellsongs' Mercantile."

“I am not hugely concerned with where her money came from,” said Drin. “What concerns me is what she is likely to do when she runs OUT of it.”

“Particularly if she’s drunk,” said Addan.

“Give me some credit,” said Drin. “She has had nothing but benzwine, fruit juice cocktails. The idea of providing an orc with alcohol was simply more than I could take. I told Eddro to keep it to the flavored drinks with no kicker.”

“All right, then,” said Urluh, flexing her arms and cracking her knuckles. “What do we DO with her?”

It was then that the shout was heard from the stage room.

************************************

Cliff sat at her table before the stage and took a deep drink of her drink and tried to figure out what was in it. It was fruit juice, obviously... probably a blend... but she already knew there were fruit juices in there from fruits she had never tried, and perhaps never even imagined.

On the table before her were five plates, mostly cleaned. The goblin servers had called them "appetizers," and they had contained foods the likes of which even the gods had never imagined. There had been crunchy strips that dipped in some kind of thick yellow goop that had been fantastic. There had been little fried meat things wrapped in a ball of crumbs, served with other things to dip them in. There had been vegetable bits with other dipping sauces, and there had been these INSANE salted meat things, red strips of crunchy fried meat, glazed with some manner of crispy sweet coating... did ALL these town humans and goblins eat like this? Always? No, no, this was the House of Orange Lights, the place that Tarse and Morcar had spoken of in reverent tones. Surely, these goblins and men knew strange and magical food secrets, and this was why this place existed! Cliff was a little afraid. She'd eaten all the amazing food, and worried a little that it might make her sick, what with all the wonderful rich flavors and the drink, but aside from feeling a bit full, she wasn't sick at all. The food wasn't as heavy as one might think, and the delicious sweet drink didn’t seem to cloud her mind at all. Idly, Cliff wondered if that was what the word "appetizers" meant – wonderful food that didn’t make you sick if you ate too much?

Cliff remembered hearing the humans' stories about the House of Orange Lights. Blossom had scoffed at the idea. She said that this House of Orange Lights sounded like a myth, the sort of place you went to after you died if you led a good life... but it was true. All of it. The sights, the smells, the drinks, the food...

Cliff looked at the music man who sat on the stage and played his stringed instrument and sang the man songs. It wasn't totally unfamiliar. Orcs had music. Admittedly, most of theirs was without musical accompaniment, other than drums, rasps, and single-stringed bow instruments, and it tended toward the dirgelike, but it was music.

This human music, though ... it was different. It was complex, with multiple layers, and the singing man's voice was downright hypnotic. It was as if he was communicating emotion through song, in ways that Cliff had never heard before, never even imagined. Orc songs tended to be more percussion-based, rhythmic chants. Melody was a thing, albeit in a rather primitive form; songs had no more than two or three chords. THIS man's song, in comparison, was a thing of complication, of layered, enmeshed beauty, a woven tapestry of sound, a thing she had no reference to describe; it had to be experienced. Cliff had never heard anything like it. And the singing man was kind of pretty, too, with long red hair and colorful clothes.

It added to the amazing experience. The house was lit by flickering candles in orange glass lanterns shaped like pumpkins on the tables, but the walls bore orange glass lanterns that didn't flicker... that seemed to glow as if by magic. Every inch of the place's interior was polished wood, glazed with some kind of transparent material, with colorful rugs on the floor. The other customers had seemed a little put off by her presence at first, but they'd given her room, and she'd given them no reason for concern; she hadn't made trouble, and she'd paid for everything they'd brought her. She was, in fact, wondering about the value of her remaining coins. She suspected there would be trouble if she didn't have enough coins to pay for whatever came next, so she'd stopped ordering drinks... but by the same token, she very much did not want this amazing experience to end. No, not yet.

The goblins of this place -- the ones with the orange hair -- had been nervous at first. But they'd settled down when she'd put money on the table, and she'd gone out of her way to seem nonthreatening. She had noted, however, when the warrior humans came, the ones who all dressed alike, and came and sat in a table in the back of the stage room. Were they here to keep an eye on her? Had the goblin people called them, somehow? Well, they hadn't started anything yet, and they weren't interfering with her. Perhaps they, too, were just here to enjoy the beauty and the music and the food and drink...

Cliff sat back and drank in the flavor of the place. It even SMELLED good.

And then she remembered the other thing the House of Orange Lights was known for. It was a thing that Tarse had spoken of, and Morcar as well, when he had been asked. Cliff wondered about it. It cost money, of course, but she still had some of the silver coins left. How did one go about getting this service? Was there a special protocol, some sort of custom? And who, exactly, provided the service? Cliff had become aware that some of the humans and goblins of the House of Orange Lights actually worked here, bringing food and drink and taking away empty vessels and dishes... and others who seemed to be like HER, who came here to enjoy the foods and drinks and things. Who provided these services? Was it the goblin girls with the orange hair who carried the trays around? The red haired goblin men who made the drinks and cooked the food? There had been one little shirtless goblin fellow who seemed likely, but he was nowhere to be seen, and goblins seemed rather small for that, anyway. She had heard that humans worked here, too, but other than the singing man, she was having difficulty telling who worked here and who didn't. How did one go about accessing this service? Did one just … ask?

And being an orc, Cliff decided to simply approach the matter in a straightforward manner.

“I am horny!” cried Cliff, standing up. “Who will fuck me?”

**************************************

In the back of the stage room sat five of the Baron’s huscarls, their beer growing warm in their mugs as they stared at the back of the orc who sat at the front of the room. She had eaten several appetizer plates and consumed several mugs of whatever it was she was drinking, but seemed no worse for the experience. She didn’t act drunk. She seemed to be having a pretty good time.

“Well,” said Trooper Crake, “what do we do, exactly?”

“That’s a hell of a good question,” said Trooper Renmort. “I reckon we can take her. But so far, she ain’t done anything but throw coins at Osric occasionally. I kind of don’t want to stop her. Havin’ her in here has got to be playin’ hell with his tips.”

“Yeah,” said Trooper Ozzle. “And I thought the House was supposed to be a safe place for everybody, as long as they behave. Don’t that include orcs?”

Trooper Dinsdale looked up. “You ever seen an orc before?”

“No,” said Ozzle. “And neither have you. Mordecai saw’m, though, out on the frontier farms.”

“They wasn’t doin’ much out there,” said Mordecai. “Other than sexin’ up the farmers.”

Dinsdale snorted derisively. “My grandpa fought orcs in the north,” he said. “Told me all about ‘em. They’re merciless. Complete bastards. Godsdamn monsters. Only good orc is a dead orc. And I still don’t get why we ain’t killed this one yet. Or arrested her. Restrained her at least. Come on, there’s FIVE of us.”

“Cause Fatoon said not to do anything till she made trouble,” said Crake. “And Mordecai ain’t wrong. And they ain’t bad lookin’ when you get used to those turn’t up noses of theirs. Whoo, I saw those orcs up to some things out on the frontier that gave me some shimmy in the jimmy! And those new orcs ain’t the same as your grandpa’s orcs, Dinny.”

“Yeah,” said Ozzle. “We used to think goblins was pretty bad till we got to know the local ones. Who’s to say orcs is any worse?”

“That ain’t what my grandpa told me,” said Dinsdale. “Merciless killers. He fought ‘em durin’ the last northern incursion, and he told me—”

Suddenly, the orc rose to her feet, and took a deep breath. Dinsdale was on his feet immediately, reaching for his sword hilt. Ozzle grabbed his hand, stopping him. “Godsdammit, Dinny, wait a—”

The orc shouted “I am horny! Who will fuck me?” And then, the movement catching her eye, she turned her head and looked right at Dinsdale.

*************************************

Dinsdale and the orc woman stared at each other.

It didn’t help that only four tables in the Stage Room had customers in them, and one was full of seated soldiers, and one was where the orc was standing.

Dinsdale looked at the orc woman. Barbarically dressed, in skins and bound sheepskin boots held together with leather straps. Her hide tunic left her freckled, tattooed arms bare. Her skin was a sort of dark red color, her hair was long, thick, and black, and she was quite tall, a couple of inches taller than Dinsdale himself. Small brown eyes. She had a bulky build, heavy with muscle. Her nose had a pushed-back look that made it look a little snoutlike from a human perspective. She didn’t look old, but she didn’t look human at all. But she did look very female…

“You,” she said. “Soldier man. You like to fuck?”

“Ah,” said Dinsdale, his mind completely thrown off track. He’d seen the orc rise, and had risen himself, ready for combat, hand ready to draw steel, and then Ozzle had stopped him, and then the orc’s challenge to him had been completely unexpected, and downright discombobulating. “Ahm,” he said, completely lost.

“Just you?” she said, completely misinterpreting Dinsdale’s confusion. “Or all five? I don’t know if I have enough money for all five. How many coins for a soldier?”

“Oh, we’re good,” said Ozzle.

“I’m too drunk,” said Mordecai.

“Took a vow,” said Crake.

“Not till midsummer’s eve,” said Renmort.

“Ahm,” said Dinsdale, dimly aware that he was being thrown under the cart. The orc smiled at him. Dinsdale was unaware of the enlarged nature of orcish canine teeth, and what passes for a happy smile to an orc can look very much like a prelude to homicide to a human, which threw Dinsdale’s composure even further off base. Dinsdale’s instincts screamed at him to draw sword, but his croggled realization that the orc wasn’t actually hostile, that she seemingly just wanted to fuck, seemed to conflict with his self-defense instinct. Troopers Morcar and Crake had told stories about the prodigious sexual appetites of the Flower Tribe. It was all terribly confusing, and Dinsdale was already juggling entirely too much mental baggage too quickly, and having to keep it all in the air at once.

“Ah, urr,” he said.

She was an ORC!

But she did have nice titties…

***********************************

Cliff looked at the human. He wore a soldier’s uniform. Did the soldiers fuck for money? This one was kind of pretty, by orc standards. Broad shouldered, heavy across the chest, thick arms… yes, he was pretty! Perhaps this would work out like the food and drink had! Perhaps she should say something sexy. What would a human find sexy? Cliff thought back on the night they’d helped Ray and Millie make a baby…

“I suck your dick, make you feel good!” she said, brightly.

“Ah,” said the human.

“Oh, you’re in for a treat,” one of the other soldiers said. “Dinsdale here likes to eat pussy. He’ll lick you till you scream with pleasure!”

Cliff’s smile grew wider. That certainly sounded pleasant! “The tables are too small,” said Cliff. “On the floor?”

“Ah,” said one of the soldiers. “No, you rent a room. They have rooms upstairs for that. Check with a waitress. You can go upstairs together, they have beds in the rooms.”

“Ahhh,” said the standing soldier.

Yes, he was kind of pretty. And apparently rather shy, judging from his limited vocabulary. Still, Cliff’s ideas of sex were largely orcish ideas of sex, and orcish males didn’t generally go in for a lot of small talk. In fact, if this soldier had been an orc, he’d already have tried to pick Cliff up and peel her clothes off by now. This soldier was a human, though, and Cliff appreciated his demure demeanor. It made things that much … naughtier, really. Cliff was going to fuck a human! She felt a gleeful shiver of anticipation in her belly. Cliff wasn’t a virgin, but Cliff had been one of the major advocates for changes in the verities, with the passing of the males. And Cliff had watched many times when her tribemates had molested various farmers… and she’d found it exciting… but Cliff hadn’t pushed to participate.

But Cliff hadn’t been kidding about being horny. Cliff had little experience with sex. Few orc males had wanted a female as tall and broad as Cliff was. She knew she wasn’t attractive, and was un-orcishly sensitive about it. Those that HAD been interested … had had to deal with Cliff’s attitude. Cliff had a rather un-female idea that sex should at least be consensual and had been downright combative on the occasions when someone had decided to press the issue. This had essentially terminated Cliff’s sex life, as far as most orc males went; those that could take her could find someone easier, and those that weren’t sure didn’t want to risk losing a fight with a woman. Other than an occasional interlude with a willing male or an eager female, Cliff didn’t have much of a sex life.

It might have changed when they’d started pressuring the farmers for “tribute.” It had started out awkward, but some of the farmers had been willing, and then later eager, and finally, downright enthusiastic. But Cliff wasn’t sure about the humans. Again, she knew she wasn’t pretty, not compared to the radiant beauty of Blossom, Sunflower, Rock Face, or Prairie Chicken. She’d participated in the cheerful molestation of Millie Fleet – who’d been most enthusiastic herself – but never with any of the others. But these humans, here… they didn’t seem to want a fight… they’d been generous with their goods, for the human money… could Cliff actually just… BUY sex? With money? With a willing male?

The time had come to find out.

AHEAD TO PART TWO: https://www.reddit.com/r/orc34/comments/1fvjql6/the_seduction_of_cliff_part_two/