Page 45 of Orc's Little Human
Selene's attention sharpens, though she doesn't turn to look at me directly. Ahead of us, Thali has discovered a fallen log that bridges a particularly wide stretch of water and is using it as a balance beam, her arms spread wide for stability.
"My mom died in childbirth, as many orcish women do. It took Thali’s mom a long time to conceive, and she, too, died in childbirth. But my father had two children, and even as young as eight, he wanted me to go on raiding missions. I just didn’t know he’d be killed while I was on one." The memory tastes like copper and ash in my mouth. "The Ironfang clan invaded while many of the warriors were away. Thali was barely a year old, couldn't even walk yet. The elders were arguing about what to do with us—whether to split us up, send her to a nursing mother in another clan."
I step carefully around a patch of ground that looks suspiciously soft, my boots squelching slightly in the mud. The physical discomfort feels appropriate somehow, a small echo of the pain that memory still carries.
"I couldn't let them separate us. She was all I had left of family, of... anything that mattered." My voice roughens despite my efforts to keep it steady. "So I cut my palm with my father's hunting knife and pressed it to the stone floor of the longhouse."
The magic had responded instantly, hungrily. Power flowing through my blood into the earth beneath our feet, reshaping it, making the ground itself tremble with barely contained force.
"The stone cracked from wall to wall," I continue, watching Thali reach the other side of her makeshift bridge and punch the air in triumph. "Split right down the middle like the earth itself was choosing sides. Every orc in that room felt it—felt my power claiming territory, demanding recognition."
Demanding they acknowledge what I was willing to do to protect her.
"They let us stay together after that. Gave me the resources to raise her, train her, keep her safe. But the price..." I flex my left hand, feeling the familiar ache in scars that never quite healed properly. "Blood magic always demands payment. Every time I use it, it takes something from me. Strength, blood, pieces of myself I can never get back."
Selene stops walking, turning to face me fully. Her gray-blue eyes are soft with understanding, with recognition of shared burdens.
"But you kept using it anyway," she says quietly. "To protect her."
"To protect her. To lead the clan. To survive." I meet her gaze, seeing my own history reflected in her careful attention. "Myentire life, my magic has been both gift and curse. The thing that saved us and the thing that marked me as different, dangerous, not quite trustworthy."
Until you.The words want to spill out, to give voice to the truth that's been growing in my chest since that first night she responded to my power.Until the magic found something it wanted to heal instead of harm.
"I understand," Selene says, and the simple statement carries weight beyond its words. "Carrying something that makes you necessary but never quite welcome. Being useful but never truly safe."
Yes.She does understand. The brand that marks her, the way it amplifies magic while making her a target—it's not the same as blood-forging, but the isolation is familiar. The burden of being needed for what you can do rather than who you are.
Thali's voice breaks through our shared moment of recognition, bright with discovery and completely unconscious of the heavy conversation happening behind her.
"There's a whole family of brox here! Come look, they're so fat and funny!"
I watch Selene's face transform as she focuses on my sister—the careful attention, the genuine warmth, the protective instinct that's become as natural as breathing. She moves toward Thali without hesitation, kneeling beside her to examine the three-eyed amphibians basking on a moss-covered log.
"Don't get too close," Selene warns gently, but there's affection in her voice rather than sharp concern. "Brox can jump much farther than they look like they should be able to."
Thali giggles, a sound like wind chimes in the summer breeze. "Everything in this swamp is sneaky. The flowers that look pretty but hurt you, the ground that looks solid but isn't, the brox that look fat but can probably leap over my head."
"Exactly like people," Selene murmurs, and something in her tone makes me wonder if she's thinking about herself. About how she must look to others—small, fragile, broken—when the truth is so much more complex.
She isn't just survival.The thought crystallizes as I watch her with Thali, patient and protective and utterly without the self-pity that would be justified given what she's endured.She's strength. The kind that bends without breaking, that finds ways to grow even in impossible circumstances.
Like these swamp plants that flourish in conditions that would kill anything else. Like Thali's laughter echoing through a landscape that could swallow us all without trace.
Like the warmth building in my chest as I realize I'm not just bound to Selene by magic or attraction or even gratitude for her acceptance of my sister.
I'm falling in love with her.
The recognition hits like lightning, sudden and illuminating and impossible to ignore. Not the desperate claiming of that first night we came together, driven by power and proximity and the animal need to possess. This is something deeper, built from watching her choose kindness when she could choose bitterness, protection when she could choose self-preservation.
Built from the way she makes Thali laugh, makes my sister feel safe and valued and heard. The way she's become not just my lover but my partner in the most important responsibility I've ever carried.
"Korrath?" Selene's voice pulls me back to the present, where she's standing with Thali's hand in hers, both of them watching me with expressions of mild concern. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost."
I've seen the future.The thought whispers through my mind, dangerous and hopeful in equal measure.And for the first time in my life, it doesn't terrify me.
"Just thinking," I reply, moving to join them beside the brox pond. "About how far we've come."
Selene's smile is soft, understanding flooding her eyes as though she can read the truth written across my face.
