Page 21 of Brotan

"It's okay," I hear myself murmuring to the mutt. "Almost done."

Maya works efficiently, cleaning each paw with antiseptic before applying a thick layer of ointment. Her hands move with the same precision she used on my knuckles, gentle but confident. The dog gradually relaxes in my arms, resignation replacing fear.

"You're good with him," she comments without looking up from her work. "He fought me like hell yesterday."

"Animals can sense fear," I say. "And weakness."

She glances up, eyes meeting mine. "So can people."

The moment stretches between us, uncomfortably perceptive. I look away first.

"There." She finishes wrapping the last paw in fresh gauze. "You can put him back in the pen while I get his dinner ready."

I carry the dog back to his makeshift enclosure, setting him down carefully. He immediately limps to the furthest corner, collapsing with his back to the wall, eyes fixed on me with lingering suspicion.

The defensive posture strikes a chord so deep it physically aches. I know that stance—the calculation of threats, the positioning that protects vital organs, the desperate attempt to appear stronger than you are. I perfected it by age six in the camps, where showing weakness meant becoming prey.

Without consciously deciding to, I step over the low barrier of the pen and sit down inside. The dog retreats further, ears flattening against his skull.

"Easy," I say, voice dropping to a register I never use with humans. "I’m not gonna hurt you."

I extend my hand, palm up. The gesture stops me cold—these hands have cracked skulls, broken ribs, left men gasping in their own blood. These hands know how to destroy, not comfort. They've never been used to offer safety, only to take it away.

Yet here I am, offering them to a creature that can't possibly understand why it should trust me.

Minutes pass in stillness. The dog watching me. Me watching him. The camps taught me patience in the cruelest ways—how to wait for guards to pass, how to endure pain without making a sound, how to bide your time until survival becomes possible again.

Curiosity finally overcomes the dog's fear. He inches forward, nose twitching as he scents me. Orc. Predator. Danger.

"That's it," I murmur, the gentleness in my voice foreign even to my own ears.

Another hesitant shuffle forward. Then another. His breath warms my fingertips, and I fight the instinct to grab, to dominate, to control—all the reactions beaten into me by humans who saw my kind as animals to be trained. Instead, I remain motionless, letting him choose.

When he pushes his head under my palm, something fractures inside me—a wall I've maintained since the first time I had to fight another orc child for the guards' entertainment. His fur feels coarse under my fingers, matted in places from surviving on streets that offered no kindness. The warmth of living flesh against my palm sends an unfamiliar current through me. The contrast is jarring—my calloused hands built for violence against this creature's vulnerability, his rough but delicate fur catching against the hardened ridges of my palm. Something in this connection feels both foreign and somehow right.

I scratch behind his ears, movements tentative and unpracticed. The dog leans into the touch, eyes half-closing.

Before I can process what's happening, he's pressed against my thigh, head resting on my leg, a deep sigh escaping as tension visibly leaves his body.

Trust.

Something so simple it seems impossible. So easily destroyed, it's rarely worth the risk.

For a disorienting moment, I imagine a different life—one where creatures come to me for safety instead of running in terror, where these hands are known for comfort instead of combat. The fantasy fades when I glance down, seeing green skin marked by scars and old wounds, a permanent reminder of what I was built to be.

Yet this animal doesn't see those hands the way humans do—as weapons. He sees only what I've offered: gentleness where he expected pain.

The warmth spreading through my chest is unfamiliar, uncomfortable. Is this what normal people feel? Those who weren't shaped into weapons by human cruelty? This instinct to protect something smaller, to offer safety without expecting blood in return?

In the camps, they taught us trust was weakness—the vulnerability that gets you killed. The military reinforced it through betrayal and exploitation. The fighting circuits cemented it in blood money. Trust is the luxury of those who never had to fight for survival.

Yet here sits this burned, abandoned creature, choosing to trust me—a monster that makes children cry and grown men reach for weapons.

"Looks like you've made a friend."

Maya's voice startles me back to reality. She stands in the doorway, bowl of kibble in hand, watching with an expression that sees too much. The dog's ears prick up at her voice, but he doesn't leave my side.

"He was just scared," I say, suddenly defensive, as if admitting to gentleness is admitting to weakness.

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