Page 48 of Mountain Orc Daddy

A tall figure dark as obsidian glides forward from the blood and the dust and the fear. I know who it is.

Aisling.

“Stop her!” Remus and Phineas scream. They are not yelling at me.

Phineas and Remus are yelling in the direction of the witches closest to Blair.

Aisling is going after Blair!

I don’t have to think. I move. I am fast. I am the wind. I am hummingbird quick.

The success I want more than anything is to reach that space between Aisling and Blair.

An orc falls before me, and I leap right over him.

Two minions materialize in front of me, and I run right through them.

What horrid ball of fire and electricity forms between Aisling’s hands I have not seen anywhere except from Aisling’s foul self. I watch this ball form and launch forward.

I am moving like the wind. I turn to my side to make my Aisling facing side wide. My chest is to shield Blair.

Unto my chest said ball of fire lands.

As young orcs we would have sparring matches. Plenty of times I have been rattled hard. The few times I was really knocked out never hurt. What would happen is I would get hit, then the next thing I knew I would be looking up at the rafters, and my father would be laughing. Or I would be on my back and looking up at the trees, if said pugilism match had been outside.

This is exactly what happens after the robust ball of fire that Aisling surely summoned from the fiery entrails of hell hammers into my chest.

I am on my back. I can see the trees above through the dust and smoke. I cannot hear anything. Not a sound, but I can feel screaming. I feel the scream of someone who is watching the best friend they have ever had fall, fall the way things fall when they won’t be getting up again.

I know the scream.

The scream is Blair’s scream. Blair is screaming for me. I will get up again, is what I want to tell her. Do not cry or scream for me!

My legs do not move. My back is still pinned to the ground.

“Do you dream of me the way I dream of you?” I scream back. I know nothing comes out of my mouth. I want Blair to know that I dream of her every night. I dreamt of her before I knew her. Does she know this? I loved her before I knew her, I want to tell her. My mouth moves, no sound comes out. My hearing is still gone.

Orcs clamoring against witches and minions is still happening on all sides of me. Balls of fire and electricity sail back and forth above me. A silent chaos.

The strangest thing. I can see my body is still on its back. Blair is close and screaming. Orcs and witches are fighting, stumbling, and falling over me and all around me.

I am not in my body. I am over here. Not there. I feel great. Yet I am heartbroken.

If I am over here, and my body is over there, how do I tell Blair that I love her? How do I tell her that she mirrors back to me the inexhaustible love that flows through all creatures great and small? She kissed me that first night, and I thought the moon rose in her eyes. And I knew the joy we shared would fill the endless starry skies. This is unfair. I need to tell her all of this.

I am here. Not there.

30

BLAIR

The whole world stops for a moment. I can hear everyone’s breathing stop, just as my own. My body doesn’t respond to what I’m witnessing right now. It just can’t or it doesn’t want to.

The orcs are behind me, closing in on the inflicted area. They stop right where I stand. There’s a series of gasps.

“Uzul?” I croak out his name, terrified that he won’t hear.

But of course, he doesn’t. It’s just even more of my foolishness to believe that my words will wake him up. My stupidity is the cause of this.

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