Chapter 6: Part 6:

So, the militia was paying me. That was nice. I just had to do an hour of archery practice five days a week and two hours two days a week. It was easy, and they were giving me enough to live off of.

Ok, so I also had to be ready to fight if the town got attacked, but that was already expected from everyone, and, as an archer, I’d be pretty safe. Well away from the brawling melee.

Really, it was good pay basically for just staying in shape. Who was I to argue?

Much better than the gardening I had to do, which paid nothing and took at least as much time out of my week. At least Kessica had been right about things growing easily. Especially when I got some of the sisters to help me with gardening.

Well, ‘some of the sisters’ meaning Zago or Eka nine times out of ten, but Y’suk had helped once or twice. 

Either way, though, it was all getting a little repetitive, and I was glad for when Eka took me to pick up my first payroll after a month of militia membership. I was finally going to have a little spending money. Especially since, after having given enough time for my accounts to be transferred up here, my banking guild informed me my mother had indeed drained my accounts dry. So it was good to have new money flowing into my life.

“We should celebrate your first pay,” Eka said, bouncing her own coin purse in her hand a few times. “What do you say we visit a tavern?”

“I suspect good wine is hard to come by up here, and that whatever you do drink here would try to kill me,” I replied.

“Ok, now I need to get you to try some Orcish Screech, but I was more thinking we’d get food,” Eka said, smiling down at me.

“Ah. Sure. Don’t tell Bikra, but… I would not mind some different cooking,” I replied, while still trying to ignore what Eka’s smile was doing to my composure.

When had I started finding fangs and tusks so appealing?

“Pfft. She’s certainly a prolific cook, but definitely a long way from an expert. Mum doesn’t need food and dad was an adventurer, so she’s always had limited feedback,” Eka explained as she led the way to the tavern.

“Oh…” I replied, now feeling a bit guilty about my judgement.

“She could have taken cooking classes in school, but no, she’s stubborn and insists on learning herself,” Eka added.

“Ah,” came my intelligent reply.

At least the guilt faded about as quickly as the embarrassment moved in. So I didn’t feel any worse. I decided to focus on finding out what the meal options would be as we headed into the tavern.

Meat.

Obviously, it was an Orcish tavern. So all three meal options they had listed on the door were some sort of large chunk of meat in sauce.

“Maybe we can get them to make something special for you?” Eka said as she read the menu over. “They make halfling sized meals, so if we get you one of those and then some salad leaves…”

“I can probably handle one meal with Orcish meat proportions,” I replied, feeling a bit self conscious. Or competitive. One of those two.

That competitiveness wavered slightly as I entered the actual tavern and was reminded how small I was next to Orcish furniture. 

The size difference was further hammered home when the waitress gave us our meals and I saw the sheer size of the slab of sauce slathered brisket placed before me.

“There’s no way you’re eating that whole thing,” Eka said, as I stared at the hunk of meat the size of my torso.

“I’m sure I’ll give it a decent go,” I replied, before grabbing a fork and knife to dig into it.

I managed to separate a piece, pop it in my mouth, and be absolutely blasted by a stinging burning feeling that flared through my mouth and nose. A few sputtered coughs seemed to only succeed in spreading the stinging burning to my eyes.

“What in the world is in this?” I asked between coughs.

Eka took a mouthful of her own, chewing a bit before swallowing. “Mhm, radish… I think green dragon radish specifically?”

“Dragon radish… right, I guess that grows better in the north…” I mumbled.

I’d always been better with peppery spice than radish spice. I hoped my first bite had been an outlier as I made another, only to find that it was not.

“You doing ok over there?” Eka asked, while eating her brisket as if it wasn’t laced with ingredients that burned with the fury of a fire elemental.

I could only manage to cough in reply.

“You need something to wash it down,” she said, wearing a toothy grin that showed off how impressive her orcish dentition really was. “Two tankards of screech, please.”

The waitress gave a nod, and returned with two absurdly large metal tankards a few moments later. Well, they hadn’t looked absurd when she was carrying them, being a fully orcish woman even taller than Eka was, but once they were placed in front of me I realised their true scale.

I was too desperate for anything to wash burning away, however, and gulped down a generous mouthful without thinking. Only to find myself coughing and sputtering again, this time on the burn of the alcohol.

“I think you could strip paint with this,” I rasped, staring at the tankard.

“Hmmm… probably,” Eka replied. “Still, it got the burn of the sauce out of your mouth, no?”

As she took a casual sip of a drink that felt stronger than turpentine, I had to admit she was right.

“I’m not sure the aftertaste is worth it,” I mumbled, feeling like my tongue was going to shrivel and wondering what in the world they put in that drink.

“Well, it’s a good thing you have something with a strong flavour to cover that up,” Eka said, grinning once again.

I once again wondered at the sight of those teeth and how it felt like my heart was both aflutter from a crush and racing from fight-or-flight instincts not trusting a mouth that large with teeth that sharp.

Either way, I gave the brisket a few more bites, glad it covered the flavour of the Orcish Screech. Until the burning was too strong and I found myself turning to the drink to rescue me.

The rest of the evening turned into a gradually foggier cycle of changing the suffering I was inflicting upon my mouth. 

I sort of remembered having to give up halfway through the brisket, though Eka was thrilled I ate as much as I did. We’d also talked about various things. Games from our childhoods. What school had been like. Growing up somewhere where you aged differently from those around you. It had been nice.

After that… I could vaguely recall her carrying me home, piggyback style, as I drifted in and out of sleep. I also remembered staring up at her profile, lit by moonlight, and thinking how beautiful she was. And thinking how I kind of wished I could marry her.

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I kind of wanted to break my head open when I woke up. To let whatever demon or dark spirit had taken up residence in there out of my skull. 

Of course, I knew it was a hangover. That it was my own fault. But I wanted an external force to blame.

“Uuggghhh,” I groaned, not feeling ready to get up.

“Oh, you’re awake?” Zago said, from outside my door, but loud enough to anger the hangover spirit.

“In theory,” I replied. “I might also be dead. Weighing the possibilities.”

“I’ll go get you some honey water!” she called out, before I heard the sound of footsteps hurrying away.

Honey water did sound nice at the moment. I had to admit that.

A few moments later she returned, knocking on my door. I told her to come in, and gladly accepted the large cup of sugary sweet hydration she offered. It didn’t completely slay the headache, but it softened it a little. It also reminded my body I should probably hurry to the washroom.

Once that was done with, I was drawn to the kitchen by the smell of something cooking. It smelled mostly nice, though perhaps a bit well done as I wandered over. To my surprise, it wasn’t Nekra cooking, but Eka. 

“What are you making, then?” I asked, watching her stir something up in the frying pan.

“Um… well, it was going to be an omelet with cheese and mixed greens, but… I think it’s more scrambled eggs with fried mixed greens and cheese,” she replied with a slight grimace. “Sorry.”

“What for?” I asked.

“It’s supposed to be your breakfast.”

I blinked. “You’re cooking for me?”

“Nekra had to do laundry, and I was in the kitchen anyway to make my own late breakfast so… uh, well… I thought I’d try?” she replied, looking a bit self conscious.

Was she blushing?

Did she realise what that was going to do to my heart? How was she allowed to be so cute?

“I’ll… I’ll have to cook something for you as thank you,” I replied, only for her to blush more.

“That… that sounds ni—oh gosh, your food is starting to burn!” she yelped, pulling the pan away from the fire.

It was still pretty good in the end, though. A bit charred, but mostly just nicely crunchy.

Somehow I ended up spending most of the rest of the day with Eka. We went out to do some archery practice, where I showed her some Elven techniques I’d been taught. And tried not to get too flustered by the size of the arrows she liked to use… Elven archery had always gone for accuracy with smaller arrows, while Orcs seemed to be happy to just fire a small tree trunk into an enemy’s breastplate and let the weight of it punch through.

After archery she helped me with gardening, which was nice. It was quieter, and… slightly less tiring than archery. 

Then Nekra roped us both into assisting her with hanging the laundry to dry.

All in all, it proved to be a rather delightful day. A delightful day that further proved the feelings I’d finally admitted to myself last night. I did want to marry Eka. She was kind, beautiful, delightful to be around, and… and made my heart race in ways it had never done before. I was certain I’d fallen for her in the last month and a bit.

But, well, there was a slight issue with that. One I wasn’t sure how to deal with.

So, having retreated to my room for the night, changed back into a nightgown, I pulled out my messaging journal, to ask for advice from Rolick. He was older and at least a bit wiser than me, so I figured he might know.

However, his reply to my question confused me. 

‘What’s the issue, exactly?’ his message read, causing me to stare.

‘I told you. I’m in love with one of Grolog’s daughters,’ I scribbled back.

‘Yes… and?’ came his reply.

‘She’s a girl? And I wish I could marry her?’ I wrote.

‘… ok?’

‘That’s all you have to say? ‘Ok’? I’m hopelessly in love with another girl, who I’m living with, and so can’t avoid or anything, and you just say ‘ok’?’

There wasn’t a reply at first. I was left worried my message had come across as too aggressive in text, and began wondering what I could write to show I was confused, not angry, when, at last, his message appeared in the journal.

‘What do you mean ‘another girl’?’

‘I mean she’s a girl. I’m a girl. So she’s ‘another girl’. And we can’t get married,’ I wrote back.

‘… did the apporting turn you into a girl? I didn’t know it could do that. Freaky.’

I wrote ‘What do you’ as the start of a reply, before it hit me. As I watched my message fade to be sent the facts slipped into place.

I wasn’t actually a girl.

I wasn’t.

I’d just been pretending. Had gotten so lost in pretending to be a girl, and living as a girl, and enjoying all the benefits of it, that I’d forgotten the truth.

The realisation hit like a punch to the gut.

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