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Chapter 0: Two Horse Thieves
"Lokir of Rorikstead"The soldier called out, with pity, but not with care. The executioner with a feather pen.

"I'm not a rebel. You can't do this!"Cried out Lokir for mercy. He tried to run. Lokir had always been a coward. It's part of what I loved about him. That and his messy hair. If I hadn't been bound, if I hadn't been gagged, I might have talked our way out of it, saved him one last time. But no... as much as the empire loved to use our iron, and loved to spend our blood to lose their wars, they always seemed to have a fear of an orc's teeth.

Even when that orc was just a horse thief. And so I watched, wordlessly, as the arrows struck my partner down. It was the first death of a dark day. It wasn't the last. I remember the headman's axe, and I remember fire.The fire didn't stop until Ralof and I made it into the fort, already partially in ruins.

"I think we are the only ones who made it." The Nord said, even as he removed my bindings. "Narzol was it? You may as well get Gunjar's gear. He isn't going to be needing it."I froze a moment. A better orc would have yelled, or screamed. But after the dragon, I only felt quiet. I reached down and picked up Gunjar's axe.

"Yes... I am Narzol." My mind awash with fear, with anger, with anguish. They had taken Lokir.

"We can't stay here." I finally told Ralof, as the two of us heard more imperials approach. They weren't going to let us live, even as the village burned around us. Waiting in the shadows, I recognized the captain who demanded Lokir’s death, evem if another signed his execution. I waited a moment and then another moment, as for a time, my feet moved like lead, the two imperials turned on Ralof.

For a moment, the Nord must have thought me a coward."Lokir! You are not forgotten."I called out, grabbing the captain by her helmet, yanking her head back, before finally bringing Gunjar's axe down repeatedly into her side. Her armor was good and Gunjar's axe was shoddy. But I didn't mind. It meant that she didn't die quickly. Like a good forge-wife, I took my time, beating metal and bone into something respectable, something worthy of Lokir's memory.

I looked up after a time, Ralof standing over the other soldier, killed far more cleanly."She's dead. And we need to get moving." Ralof said, a little paler than before.But not without sympathy. "There will be time to mourn when we are away.""I was never good at mourning." I told him, letting the body fall to the floor. "But you are right... and thanks." We ventured deeper, hoping to escape the beast and the imperials alike. Ralof called it a dragon, though I still clung to my doubts. Doubt could be a hope. The dragons were dead, and what attacked Helgen, what brought such fire and blood, surely that was some other manner of monster? Something that could be killed.

The imperial soldiers were monsters enough. And unlike the dragon, I knew how they could die. The tunnels went deep beneath the village, a warren of barracks and prisoner cells. The torturers still trying to ply their trade even as the town was being evacuated above. Even with their magics, we made short work of them. We even found a few more of Ralof's comrades here. Though I was no Stormcloak, they welcomed me still, or at least welcomed the aid of my axe arm.

The headman had made brothers of us all. This war was new to me, I had left the Legion after the defeat at the Imperial City. But there were bad signs below Helgen. They had kept cages with prisoners left to rot until no flesh remained. Despite this, Ralof and his brothers seemed cheery. The cheer was out of spite, enduring despite the predations of empire and beast.

"This place should not be." I told Ralof as we scouted deeper. We had hoped the complex had some back exit, a way we could sneak past beast and Imperial alike, but it seemed to go deeper still. As we came upon an underground stream, the world collapsed around us, stone crashing down. Perhaps Lokir was looking over me even now, as the rocks spared my head, I took enough blows to bruise, but nothing broken.

Ralof was stuck under rubble. I considered, for a time, leaving him there and running. I waited, too long, perhaps.

"I've got you." I said at last, starting to dig away at stone and dirt, finally pulling him free, and administering what healing potions we had to his wounds. He made the occasional cries of pain. Enough to make him almost adorable, despite the gruff demeanor. The healing was enough to save his leg, though not enough to mend it fully.

"I thought you were going to leave me behind for a moment." He finally brought up."So did I." I admitted with a sigh. "But this place has enough corpses. And you deserve more than Meade's hospitality." I licked my teeth a moment, a habit of doubt and thought."I'm a coward, not a monster."

"Whatever you were. I'm glad for the help." Ralof said before a wince. Walking was still difficult.He was too stubborn to be carried. But he would lean upon me at least. It made for slow-going, a journey that might have been done in an hour, took hours, more than with the spiders, with the bear. It was clear that the imperials never had full control of the place. With the skeletons we found along the way, did they leave prisoners to die to the beasts? There were webs, full of food the spiders had taken. Even as I crushed the spiders with my axe, I didn't dare to pry their webbing apart. I wasn't ready to see what was once men or mer.

Finally, we reached the cavern's end, a narrow passage leading up towards the sky. As we pushed through, the world was cloaked in shadow. The beast flew overhead, seeking out more prey. I grabbed Ralof by the collar and yanked him back into the darkness.

"We should go find my sister in Riverwood.""No Ralof... that beast is still flying ahead, and the tree cover is too thin. It's likely picking off survivors as they flee even now. We should wait for it to pass.""But Riverwood is in trouble, we should warn them.""Riverwood should already know. The dragon, if it is one, was not subtle." I paused, looking Ralof up and down. "Nor was it particularly merciful. If it comes after us, you can't run... it will pick you off first. And I'd rather not watch more die today."

Ralof was still worried, Ralof was still braver than I was. But Ralof needed me to get back to Riverwood, and so he agreed. We went back into the cave, hiding in the dark, eating stolen rations as I tried best to butcher a bear.

"The spring water should be good... if need be, we can hide out five days at least." I offered."I'd rather less... a day or two, a chance to walk better." countered Ralof."Fine. We can see tomorrow.""Tomorrow." I agreed.

I looked over Ralof again, his hair almost looked amber in the dim light.Why did I have to have a weakness for injured men? A relic of my time in the legion, perhaps. Men and mer put on the bravest of faces, and the ugliest of masks, yet when that falls, there is often tenderness underneath. Fear, humility, warmth. Even need.

Was Lokir's body even cold? Would I ever see his face again? I shook my head. I had always hated mourning, and had been its companion too many times.

"We should clean you up." I told Ralof, looking at the stream. "The healing potions will do little if an infection sets in, and I don't know the nearest shrine." Ralof chuckled at that, no true laughter. "Whiterun perhaps? If they even let us in." Whiterun. It's where I had been going with Lokir, Sable-Hilt was still expecting two fresh horses from us. I doubted that he would accept a dragon as an excuse for failure.

"Whiterun..." I shook my head. "Right. Let's try to avoid it if we can." I took in Ralof again, trying to ignore the appealing aspects of his form and focusing on his leg. While he had healed, his armor was still matted with blood and debris, sticking to his lower leg. "I think I need to cut you out. Hold still." I told Ralof, drawing a knife I had stolen from the captain, slowly carving through the boiled leathers, and finally peeling the armor back, like the shells of a mudcrab. What lay underneath would have sickened a younger orc, though beneath the muck was fresh skin, newly healed and regrown.

"It's mending well, but needs tending still, I think." Ralof nodded, looking up at me from the ground. He looked so small. "I trust you Narzol."I shook my head, trying to dismiss the errant thoughts, my gaze from lingering on Ralof's lips... they were not altogether different from Lokir's. I fixed my gaze on Ralof’s leg for a time, reaching to the stream. With cupped water, I tried to rinse off the blood and muck, the water cold to my hands. If only we had grabbed some of the stronger boozes from the barracks, this might have worked better. Still, slowly, I cleaned, until Ralof’s mending flesh was largely clear.

"I think that's as clean as we are going to get it down here." I told him, finally daring to look up and back into his eyes."Thank you Narzol... I think I should be ready to walk come morning."I nodded but said nothing. Was this his way of showing kindness to my fear? Giving me an excuse to hide from the dragon a little longer."Yes. Morning."I settled down on the stone and mosses as best as I could find comfort, and then, almost from instinct, pulled Ralof up to lay next to me, manhandling the Nord to lay at my side. He didn't protest.

"We could have died today." I said, looking out to the shafts of fading sunlight, leaking into the cave."Same as any other day." Ralof replied, but then softer. "Though... today was worse."

Chapter 1: Ralof

I closed my eyes, hiding from memory and basking in Ralof's warmth. I let time pass, circling around that hope of detachment, until I finally felt Raof's hand on my chest. I was still wearing what was left of my traveling rags. While we had found armor on the corpses of Stormcloaks and Imperials alike, I still stood a head taller than the Nords, and my shoulders wider still.

Between the flames above, the falling stones, and the knives of the imperials, my outfit had seen better days. So had I.

I opened my eyes, looking down at Ralof's hand. He had removed his gloves, his hand still calloused, but slid between layers, resting against my bare skin."You don't have to panic." Ralof said, feeling my heartbeat even now. It wasn't entirely from panic.

I grunted and took a deep breath, looking down and sniffing Ralof's hair."...You mentioned Juniper berries. And a girl you were sweet on."Ralof paused. "A long time ago. You?"I said nothing. Lokir would understand. Or he wouldn't. He wasn't here to judge. After today, I didn't want to be alone.

I reached my hand down at last, running through Ralof’s hair. At this point, neither of us could be considered glamorous, soaked through with sweat, grime and blood, some of it our own. We smelled of battle, of death, of two people taken far beyond what they ever should have. But there was a glamour in survival, if not in victory.

“I guess we are all the children of shit.” I said with a grunt, a religious reflection. Ralof looked at me with confused eyes, but I silenced any pending questions with my lips, pulling him up across my body, hand along his back, eyes looking into his. Lips brushing across his, not perfect, calloused, full of texture. The slight prickliness of his beard scratching across my well... at this point unshaven face likely returned the same.

A moment later and I could feel his tongue against mine, probing, seeking, wanting that connection here at the end of the world. His hands moving across my body now with urgency. He was strong, stronger than Lokir, stronger than I was used to. Yet, I was stronger still. I pulled my lips away from his, my tusks tracing shallow lines across his skin, the lightest of cuts, followed up by a drag of my tongue.

“More...” I growled at him, earning a suddenly sheepish nod from the proud Nord. I reached down, flipping him over, setting him on his back, laying across my chest, one arm wrapped around his midsection now, I unhooked his belt while he squirmed slightly in my grasp. “Going to try and go easy on you with your leg.” I whispered to him.

“Good... it’s been a little while.” He admitted, looking around with wider eyes, his hands running over me. I’ve seen it before, those who aren’t used to bottoming, they never know what to do with their hands. “Just relax” I told him, finally starting to tug his tunic up. Ralof lifted his arms up to help, though it took more wiggling to finally get him free of the padded armor.

I took some time to admire his form, running my hands along his chest, that mixture of muscle and softness, a worker’s build even before he became a soldier. But marked with more recent bruises and scars, many of them from before tonight. Some earned me little winces, and I touched with greater care in response.

Finally, I reached my hands down and tugged down his pants, the furs and padding thick enough to hide much of his form. The breeches went with it, they would only get in the way. Once pulled down to the knees, Ralof shook them off the rest of the way. His leg was doing better, to only earn a slight wince from the action.

“You going to get undressed too?” He asked, shivering a bit in the cave.“Soon enough.” I told him, my hand tracing along his thigh, before finally, I brushed across his cock, already drooling precum. “How long did you want this?” I asked him curiously, coating my hand in his wetness and shifting to a loose grip, slowly running my fingers up and down his cock, testing him for whatever spot was most sensitive, rubbing just before the tip.

“...after the first few kills.” He admitted. I nodded. The heat had been rising too. There was an old story of Boethiah, sire-destroyer of Trinimac. Two of her worshipers prayed at her shrine. She asked who they were, even after their sacrifice and fervent devotion. The first worshiper was confused and insisted that Boethiah must know who he was. The second worshiper then murdered the first. They whispered then “Ask the dead who I am. Ask the dead if I mattered.”

To a cultist of Boethiah, we only exist when we write our name in the world with blood. It was a story I thought of often, and Ralof and I had written our name a dozen times over this night. But... I found that there was more than one way to make an impact, more than one way to be heard and felt.

My own hunger had risen, pressing against my threadbare outfit, warm and demanding, stressing the fabric and already prodding against Ralof’s bare ass. “Do you know that I exist Ralof?”

“...Yes?” He said, confused, but trembling. I had that effect on women and men alike.
Sometimes, a sword isn’t a sword.

I tugged down my rags, finally letting my cock swing free, pushed up along Ralof’s thighs, the girth of it pressing against Ralof’s sack, and further against Ralof’s own cock, large and terrible enough that for a moment, it looked like Ralof had a second member sprouting from his groin.

Good.” I said, as I started to thrust between his thighs from below pushing past muscled legs and across his crotch, enjoying the heat of his loins against mine, the slight dread of anticipation across his face, and the tremble of his flesh. I reached into my pack, grabbing one of the stolen potions, magicka I think? We would make other use of it tonight. I pulled the cork off with my teeth, and poured the thick liquid down across Ralof’s cock, and then down further, letting it spread across his thighs, and finally across my own member, soaking myself in cool slickness.

“I had heard stories, but never quite believed them.” Ralof said quietly. I gave a shrug, enjoying myself, but trying to hide my smugness. “Oh? I thought you were one to believe in legends.” Ralof snorted at that. “What... are you the Dragonborn now?” I shook my head. “The what?” But my interest wasn’t on his words, even as he stumbled to explain. I opened another magicka potion, coating my hands in the blue liquid, rubbing my fingers against each other making sure to get them thoroughly soaked, and finally, I started to press two fingers against Ralof’s ass, eager for more than just his thighs.

“Woah... slow. Just slow yeah?” Ralof warned me. I slowed my approach, using just a single finger, wriggling it against that bud, finding that little bit of slack and pushing my way in. Just like picking a lock, slowly drawing the man open, getting him used to the sensation, to a bit of thickness. “Try and relax.” I told Ralof as I pushed my finger a few inches deeper, earning an appreciative sigh from the Nord.

Again, he moved his hands about, unsure. “Just relax. You can touch me if you want while I prepare you.” Ralof nodded, bringing his hands down, one to my cock, one to his own, running along them both as I slowly fingered him. The touch was nice, a bit of texture from him bringing a bit of distinction to it, and while he might have been less experienced with men... he had stroked a cock before.

I wanted to hold back for now, wanting more than just his hand or thighs to get me off, though the sight of a proud nord milking both of our cocks, looking ever so small on top of me was an enthralling one. Ralof grunted, but didn’t object as I pushed that second finger inside, though he would need to be ready for far more shortly. I twisted my fingers about inside of him, working him and stretching him out further... but also wanting to bring him pleasure before we truly began, brushing across that little nub inside of him, drawing even more lurid noises from his lips.

“That... that is new.” He grunted, trying to hide just how overwhelmed he was by the sensation. I twisted my fingers across each other. “I learned a few tricks in the Legion.” Ralof let go of my cock, moving to grasp my wrist instead, overwhelmed with sensation, his cock twitching, a moment of unhindered joy on the dark day, seed shooting across his belly, in one rope, then three, some of it even catching in his beard.

“Yer beautiful Ralof.” I said with a grunt. Perhaps not traditionally, but the vulnerability, the release, it did something for me in the dim light of the cave. “Never been called that before.” he mumbled, ass twitching around my fingers as I pulled them free. “Need a moment, or are you ready?” I asked him.

He inhaled a few times, taking the moment, before gulping down. “Ready... I think, go slowly.” I nodded, gripping Ralof’s hips, shifting him slightly. I nodded slowly, and then finally pushed my hips forward, pressing my cockhead against Ralof’s ass, coated in potion. At first there was only friction, pressure and resistance. But I could hear Ralof gasp as finally, with a short thrust, I pushed my glans inside, stretching him wider still.

He was warm and clinging... and he was here, warm and writhing in my arms. I waited a moment, listening to signs of protest, before giving a low growl and pushing a little deeper still. “Mine.” The words slip out, before I can stop them. I was nothing if not a clingy slut. Though... with the noises Ralof was making, and the way the man’s eyes had rolled back, he might not have heard the slip.  I kept going, trying to cover up my mistaken claim, working his ass over slowly, getting him used to what I was playing with him. Do others get embarrassed like this?

“More” He growled, pushing himself back down upon me, his bodies grip on me almost painful, his flesh yielding to me, earning my own words of eloquence back. “Nghhh.” I kept Ralof in place, pushing a little deeper still, and finding that same spot from before, running my cock along his prostate repeatedly... or crushing it beneath me. However rough I was, Ralof didn’t complain, groans only stopping as the man struggled to breath, finally releasing again, spurting out more seed across the cave floor.

I wasn’t far behind, making another few thrusts, before with a roar, I sheathed myself completely in Ralof, pushing deep into his guts and pouring seed out deep inside him, my whole body shaking from the force of my orgasm. For a moment, I thought of Lokir, but I shaked my head violently. This wasn’t a betrayal. He would understand. I hope.

“I... needed that.” I finally said, brushing what couldn’t be tears away from my eyes. “So did I.” Ralof responded, catching his breath at last. “..but too much now... out... please?” He said as he started to cramp down upon my cock. I nodded, pulling him free, letting my release pour out from his open ass and onto the cave ground.  “...Lets move a little bit.” I suggested, wrapping my arms around Ralof, and moving us to the side, away from our mess.

Ralof took a moment. “It’s okay.” He said. I looked at him with some confusion. “I think it was better than okay?” I responded. “No, not that. We have both had a long day. I don’t have to take anything seriously... if you don’t want me to.” Oh, he had heard me after all, my impulsive claim of the man on first meeting, right after my lover had died.

“Oh.” I paused, words hard now. “Thank you.” I finally managed.Ralof pet my head tenderly. “We should get some sleep.” I nodded, holding Ralof tight. Despite the cold stone floor, I rarely slept so peacefully. What felt like days of rest, our minds and bodies trying to recover. We had survived certain execution, we had survived the betrayal of our Empire, we had survived... if Ralof could be believed, the ending of all things.

I stirred sometime later, light was filtering down into the caves yet again. “Hey you, you’re finally awake?” Asked Ralof. I blinked a bit, looking around. Everything had still happened, nothing had been a dream. Ralof had cleaned himself up some. “We should get moving here in a bit.” He said, looking me up and down.

I had never pulled my pants back up, or at least what was left of them the whole night. My cock had risen to prominence and need over the long rest. It captured Ralof’s gaze. “Never should have let that thing in me.” He teased, taking a wet rag and running it along my cock, cleaning off some of the night’s exertions.

“I didn’t hear any complaints.” I seldom did. My cock twitched in response to his touch, in response to the cleaning and seeming dedication that he showed. “Well... I don’t think I can take anothe round this morning... and I do want to make it to Riverwood today.” He said, giving me a look. As much as we had enjoyed ourself in the cave, there was an entire world out there, ravaged by that flying beast. And Ralof still had people that mattered to him out there.

I nodded. “Well... this is nice.” I responded, before giving a slight groan as he ran the rag along the underside. “Good. But lets try for a little better than nice.” He said with a handsome grin. His beard was growing on me, I liked the way it framed his face, the wrinkles of his smile retreating into the blonde forest.

“...No objections from me.” I grunted, as Ralof worked that rag... and finally his bare hand as well, up and down my cock. While he still seemed inexperienced with other men, he understood the basic principles, and now, without the urgency of the evenings lust, he was willing to take his time, willing to learn. “Just right there.” I said, as he brushed along that line of skin. He nodded, and twisted his fingers around that sensitive spot, before ducking down and giving it a kiss.

“Oh... um more than I was expecting.” I stammered out surprised. “Same.” He chuckled, before redoubling his efforts, laying kisses in sequence along the underside of my cock, making a lazy spiral towards the base, before inhaling fully, the scent of me apparently inoffensive. His eyes even suggested pleasureful. He finally drew back, opened his mouth, and took in as much of my cock as he could. Which... wasn’t much, but it made for quite the look. He used his hand on the base of it, working in concert. I reached my hand out, petting him, running my fingers through his long hair.

Despite his inexperience, it didn’t take him long to reach my peak. “Cumming...” I tried to warn him, but he didn’t pull back, he just pushed his mouth further, as deep as he could, but it wasn’t far before he started to gag and choke, and then my seed erupted inside of him making it worse. He pulled off then, coughing and spitting and drooling cum. Looking like a mess... but perhaps in this moment, my mess.

“You did good, Ralof.” I told him, grabbing the rag from before and cleaning off his face. “More than I expected.” He muttered but did not seem upset. We got dressed again, as best we could, my rough spun clothes fraying all the more. It would have to be enough for now.

“We should get moving.” Ralof warned as we finally breached the surface, the light blinding. “The imperials are sure to respond, and while we aren’t a dragon... they won’t hesitate to take us in.” He looked about, not seeing any immediate threat of patrol or flying beast. “My sister Gerdur runs the mill in Riverwood, just up the road. I’m sure she’d help us out.”

“We should stick together.” I offered. If nothing else, I was still worried about Ralof’s leg. That... and the awkward shuffle to his step this morning that might have been my fault. He didn’t complain or object. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to let go quite yet. We walked through the hills, the trees vibrant, the sun peaking through the clouds. Snow glistening on top of a Nord ruin.

If this was the end of the world, I could get used to it.

https://preview.redd.it/rkjdsa5mpazd1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d5d749655a600789d2121489b5bc31b10ebe38c

From my original comic project "The Orc Squad"

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.

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

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.”

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

“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.

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

“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.”

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

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