Page 59 of Mountain Orc Daddy

Blair looks over them. “Great, these are called spaghetti noodles. This is a ham. Do you know how much you’ll pay for these?”

Rogar tilts his head. “Pay? But I found them first.”

“Yes, but here we have to exchange money to have it. For example, if Aghed wanted your hunt, he’d have to exchange something of equal value.”

Blair takes out cash from her pocket. The rest of the group returns with their own items. Some I recognize as cleaning tools, others are just eating utensils, and others are just boxes of food.

“Instead of exchanging food for food, we give them dollar bills. They go from one dollar to a hundred. You have to be careful not to spend everything all at once or else you won’t be able to get food.”

They all nod in understanding. While Blair explains more of “bartering” a fellow shopper passes by with their cart. An orc reaches in and takes out what I remember being bananas. The woman looks on with disgust.

Quickly, Blair intervenes. “I’m so sorry.”

She places the item back in her cart. The woman says nothing else and leaves quickly. Blair sighs and turns toward the group.

“That’s one thing you have to remember. You can’t just grab things that aren’t yours because you like them. Here we respect people’s property. You have to make sure if something, anything, doesn’t have an owner first. It can get you in trouble.”

Blair shoos them off again with instruction to check the price and mind other people’s presence. It’s finally just the two of us on this chaotic day.

“How do you think they’re doing?”I ask her.

She laughs. “Better than I thought. I’m glad there aren’t any fights. I’m glad they’re as curious as you were.”

“I have you to thank for that.”

She looks up. “What for?”

“You were the one that made me interested in all of this. It just started with your shy expression and willingness to teach me everything.”

“But it’s thanks to your willingness to be open minded. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

I chuckle and caress her cheek. “Then I guess we both came really far, haven’t we?”

She takes my hand and nuzzles it. “We sure did. I can say now that I’m happy I’ve met you, Uzul.”

“Me too.”

I lean in for a kiss. However, it’s greatly interrupted by a series of crashes followed by yelling. Blair goes off running to fix whatever happened.

It was, of course, a destroyed display and carts, which Blair is able to help negotiate her way out of, and I watch with a smile on my face, pleased to see that now she is the strong leader she was always meant to be.

36

BLAIR

“What to do now?” I pace back and forth in my apartment. Every waking moment since we returned to the city has been spent helping out Uzul’s tribe adjust to their new life here. This is the first bit of down time I’ve had in a while. I have no idea what to do with myself.

“What to do… what to do…” I continue to pace back and forth. It feels weird to be doing nothing. I should be doingsomething. Right?

After everything I’ve been through, how can I just sit down and watch TV or read a book. There has to be something else for me to do. Another task to be done.

Uzul is out there right now on an outing with his tribe, teaching them something. I was so exhausted I didn’t even hear what he said. Maybe that’s why he suggested I hang back, and not go on this outing? Could he tell I was tired? I hope he wasn’t disappointed.

Should I have insisted on tagging along anyway? Uzul himself is still pretty new to all this, I should be there to help. But God, this has been such a long few days. It’s been so non-stop since Gideon showed up. Maybe I do need the rest.

As I pace, I catch my reflection in a mirror on my wall and it almost makes me jump. My hair is a mess, there are bags under my eyes, and my skin looks pale. “Yeah, let’s get you to bed.”

First, I hop into the shower. Again, with everything going on, I haven’t had time to enjoy a nice shower in a while. I let the hot water wash over me and try to clear my head. Instead, my mind keeps going to Uzul, and how I wish he was here with me now.

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