Page 7 of Orc's Pretend Mate

Folding the cloth, I put it inside the basket I keep hidden in the counter for things I must wash. One last inspection of the kitchen to make sure it is neat and clean and then I go to the living space.

The couch is not comfortable. I know this from having fallen asleep on it many nights but normally I am drunk when that happens. Understanding from experience how uncomfortable it is in the morning when I awake to a throbbing headache and an aching body does not bring joy at sleeping on it now.

Grunting, I shake my head and go to the closet to get a blanket. Pulling one out of the stack I keep there, I return to the couch and lie down. I am too tall, which forces me to choose between lying on my side and curling up, or sticking my feet off the end. I opt for my side.

What am I doing?

The thought burns. I can’t sleep because of it. I should not have gotten involved. No one goes against the Maulavi. Their control is absolute. You either go along or become the newest candidate for the Shaman’s infernal machine. No one, no matter their crimes, deserves to die that way. I wouldn’t consign a lizard to that fate.

Yet I defied them. I intervened. I stopped them from doing what they wanted to do. Why? What was I thinking?

Perhaps I’ve gone mad. It would be understandable, I think, to be mad. It is, after all, the end of this world. What else is there to do?

The waiting for it to be over has drug on an interminably long time. Years more than I ever would have thought. Now, atlast, the Paluga is awakening. The acrid smoke filling the air is evidence enough of its inevitable arising.

Yet I am still here. Still waiting. And I do not feel like I have lost my mind. Though it becomes harder each day to find a reason to act. To do. To even get out of bed. Every day I find some reason to, even if it often feels like I do so more out of habit than out of any actual motivation.

No, I do not think I am mad, but intervening, that was stupid. Now the Maulavi have their attention on me. She already had their attention, the Shamans’ too it seems, so why did I get involved? I could have stood by and let them have their way and then tended her wounds after.

No. I couldn’t.

If I could stand by and let that happen then who am I? How far must we have fallen that we would act like this? She is scared. Terrified, and needs protection, not abuse.

Protection. How?

That is the crux of the matter. How do I protect this Star person? The Maulavi have already said they will return. No matter that, until now I have withdrawn and kept to myself. Followed my routines. Gone and sold my wares in the marketplace where you cannot avoid hearing the rumors. The stories. Every customer wants to gossip as do the other merchants.

Rumor says that some Urr’ki are claiming that the human females are their dragoste. I have seen others of these females wandering the market. One of them at least comes on occasion alone. Or she did before the quakes. I have not seen her since then, but then most people are either staying home or busy with repairs.

It doesn’t make sense, though. How can these aliens be anyone’s dragoste? Dragoste across species?

Uncomfortable, I roll over, fighting with the blanket to keep myself covered. I should have kept the bed. She would fit here better, but the couch is worn and lumpy, what kind of host would I be to not offer the more comfortable sleep space?

Now I’m responsible for her. The Maulavi will return, that is not in question. What will I do when they do? Stop them? How? The Shaman rules everything. He might as well be king since no one has seen the Queen in so long she has become little more than a memory.

They will return. They will question her. They will get violent. And I will what? Watch? Cheer them on? Stand idly to one side and let them degrade the last remnants of my soul?

That is the real question, isn’t it? The last dregs of who and what I always considered myself to be are what is at stake. Deep inside is a fire. A fire I thought had been extinguished, but the waning flames still burn. The remnants of honor remain, faint, but not entirely smudged out.

If I had let the Maulavi continue beating on her, it would have doused these smoldering remnants of who I was before the Shaman. Before we had lost everything. Before I gave up.

The memories of who I was surge. The feeling of what it was like to be proud. It seems as if I am someone else now, a shadow of myself. But a shadow is cast by the light of fire and that fire inside is burning still.

How can I protect her?

The fact is I shouldn’t do this at all. Shouldn’t be calling this attention to myself and I know it, yet it’s not a question I consider. I am not stupid. The thought does flash through, but if I am waiting for the end of the world, what better way to rush towards it then to die with honor? Is it not better to enter the next world with my head held high?

How? The only question is how.

I could try to sneak her out of the city. No. Impossible. The Shaman has put guards on every exit and every guard team has a Maulavi with them. There is no way to cajole or bribe my way out.

Rumors say there is an underground resistance but even if there is, which I doubt, how would I go about finding them? And what resources would they possibly have to protect her? No, that is little more than a fantasy.

My thoughts turn as I roll over again, almost falling off the couch. The lumps seem to be positioned in exactly the right spots to make comfort impossible. They dig into my ribs or set where the pressure slows the blood to my legs.

Dragoste.I snort at the idea, but… I sit up straight.

“Of course!” I exclaim, jumping to my feet.

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