Page 28 of Lost to the Orcs

“Like what?”

“Cheese for one.” The boy starts to laugh. At my frown he laughs harder. “What?” I growl.

“We have cheese! Who doesn’t have cheese?” As he holds his sides he begins to wheeze.

“It wasn’t that funny.” I feel my lips purse in a pout.

“You’re so strange.” He continues to laugh.

Placing my hands on my hips, I mock glower down at him. “I’m betting you guys don’t have fridges though so how do you keep it cool?”

After wiping his eyes of tears he’d spilled, “Inside of course. We keep it cool and dry.” He chuckles as he stands. Shaking his head in bewilderment. “Cheese.” He nearly giggles and continues curing his leathers. “Ys’ari, why don’t you see if the chief can get the lady some cheese?”

The boy hopped up from watching the show on the grass and took my hand. “Com.” He grins. If I have a baby that is half as cute as thislittle Orcling I’m going to be one lucky momma. I wave at some of the Orcs around and the one or two humans who have been eyeing me as the little child takes me to my mates.

~~~~~

I get my cheese. In fact, I go straight to the kitchen (with my dearest U’snar, who had come back to check on me while Jaedason continued with business) because I needed to ask around and see what kind of foods they actually have. Because if they have cheese do they have tortillas? Flour? Bread? Buns? Can I teach these people how to make burgers? Burritos? Do they have pepper? Salt?

What I find includes, flour of a kind. I don’t think it’s wheat flour. It could be corn or some other plant that they use. We have bread, I’m not surprised with that one because what people do not have bread in any sort of era? No buns and no tortillas. So burgers are out. For now. But because we do have cheese, bread, and butter or well, maybe it’s fat, I get to at least make U’snar and me a grilled cheese sandwich.

I’ve never seen an Orc, or well, anyone, so happy over a simple dish. But U’snar scarfs down his portion and looks longingly at my own. I tell him to back off and that if he wants more, I can show him how to make it. Which eventually turns into teaching the cook and Jaedason who comes to investigate U’snar and my whereabouts.

“Where did you learn this delicacy?” Jaedason asks. Licking grease off his fingers. I’m enraptured by the movements of his tongue and when he notices, he starts to lick slower. It ends up with me imagining something completely different being licked and having to be snapped out of my day dream. “Little Lost?” He smiles indulgently at me. Indulgently wicked because he knows exactly why I’m so ‘lost’.

“I—” My voice cracks and is husky, so I clear it. “I learned from my mother. Really anyone and everyone learns this where I come from at a young age. It’s usually the families that aren’t well off though, as it’s easier to procure some butter, bread and cheese than it is meat stuffs. Unless you go for the really cheap, ‘you’re not sure where this comes from’ kind of meat.Thenthere’s that in abundance. But really, you should learn about where your food comes from and what exactly is in it.” I stop the word vomit with a bite of my food.

“You trade for these items? You do no’ make them yourselves?” Jaedason questions, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Well, some people make them. But really, we have other focuses. Iwas an artist. But not traditional. It was like…”

“The strange metal boxes with ‘he clicking an’ strange magic?” U’snar asks. I forget that he’s ‘been’ to my world and can sort of describe some things.

“Computers. But yes. I was super good at it. I could sell my art and live off of it. Pay for my house, all my bills, and food.” I shake my head. “I digress. There are so many occupations as there are people. So, we didn’t have to trade items for other items so much as we paid for them with a currency decided by those in charge. We didn’t need to make the items because we could buy them.” I shrug. I polish off my third grilled cheese. Damn these taste so good.

I feel two pairs of eyes boring holes into me. When I open mine, entering reality from my bliss filled world, I see U’snar and Jaedason’s golden gazes blazing and beautiful as they stare at me. I smile at them and lick my fingers.

Jaedason harrumphs as if he hadn’t been doing it to me not that long ago. Payback, she’s a bitch. I wink at him and he shakes his head. U’snar shoves his shoulder playfully and he shoves his brother back, a look of begrudging amusement adorning his lips.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: BURGROL

“Burgrol this is my mate,” Jaedason introduces me. I smile and wave at the cook I’d met the other day when I’d taught everyone how to make grilled cheese. “She wishes t’ learn moar about how we cook. U’snar an’ Ay are—

Burgrol waves Jaedason’s words away with his massive hand. He is a large Orc. He’s got wide shoulders and a big barreling chest. He doesn’t wear a shirt and although he doesn’t have abs like my men do, he looks like he could bench ten of me. He’s got short black hair pulled into a bun at the back of his head and the closest to hazel eyes I’ve seen in these mountains. His skin is a grey mottled with blue and one of his ears looks like someone bit the tip off of it.

When I first met him in the kitchens, I thought he was going to be an asshole. He was scowling at something or just lost in thought. He looked scary. But then, he’d noticed my hovering, and smiled. If I wasn’t mated I’d have fallen for the big burly male in heartbeat. He then had let me into his kitchens without a single word of protest.

“Worry no’ chief. She learns good.” He smiles widely, flashing the largest tusks I’ve seen. If they think of tusks like mating rituals or virility, I’m pretty sure this Orc gets quite a bit of requests. “Go.” He shoos his chief with more waves of his hands and turns away to hisstoves.

Jaedason looks at me, hesitating like he wants to say or do something but eventually shakes his head before waving goodbye.

Burgrol shakes his head also.

“What is it?” I ask the Orc.

“Chief is smitten.” I blink. With how he talks, I wasn’t expecting a large vocabulary. Smitten I feel would be on the bigger vocabulary level. He laughs. “I ken many things. Family comes from far north. Always cold there.” He pulls out a couple of loaves of bread from his stove. It reminds me of those old timey stoves in brick walls. Or like old school pizza ovens you can only find in a mom-and-pop shop. “But accepted. Humans donnae attack oft. If we fight, we die. No’ from fight. From weather. I am,” He pauses when putting more dough into the oven. These actually look more like the buns I was describing to him last time. He counts on a hand. “Twice more human.”

“Two thirds human?”

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