4. Ris

Ris

"Are you going to let us pick our own dresses?"

Across the table, Lurielle's head raised from her phone, eyebrow arching.

Ris gestured to the bridal magazine open before her on the table. "Do you have a silhouette in mind? Is everyone going to pick their own or are we getting an assignment? This isn't a traditional ceremony, right?"

Lurielle's eyebrows drew together, nose wrinkling as she considered the question. "Definitely not, but I don't want it to look like a human ceremony either. What were the trolls wearing to their spring weddings three years ago?"

Ris grinned, shuffling through the stack, finding an issue featuring trolls and goblins.

She and Ainsley had gone to a sale at the library in Starling Heights the previous weekend, housed in a beautiful, turn-of-the-previous-century mansion. She had laughed at him initially, rolling her eyes as he put several empty milk crates in the trunk of his car before they left, but Ris had been glad for his foresight once they arrived back at his apartment, milk crates full of their purchases, along with most of the backseat.

He had exclaimed in excitement over a succession of reference books, insisting he'd always wanted to build her birdhouse as he brandished a hardback on woodworking, while she had cleaned up with several heavy, dog-eared coffee table tomes of high fashion photography.

She had picked through the several laundry baskets of old magazines somewhat halfheartedly, scooping up a handful of bridal publications, deciding the 10 for $1 price tag was more important than whether or not they were magazines geared for a specific species. As a result, they had several issues featuring human ceremonies, one featuring nothing but lizard folk, an assortment of goblins and trolls, and then paydirt — a single magazine featuring Orcish nuptials.

Lurielle had bitten her lip the first time they'd pored over the pages, eyeing the statuesque Orcish brides and the ornate cuffs placed on both their wrists and tusks.

"That looks really heavy," she had muttered, once they'd turned the page to find a full-spread advertisement for an Orcish jeweler, the cuffs on display.

"He'll just have to have one specially made for you," Ris had shrugged at the time. "Something lightweight and delicate."

"Ruffles," she said now, turning the publication so Lurielle could see the goblin fashion editorial. "Lots and lots of ruffles. It's a whole lot. Silva would like this, probably."

Lurielle snorted. "See, that's the thing. I would want to make sure everyone has a dress they love, and all of your styles are so different. But," she arched a blonde eyebrow in Ris's direction with a sharp grin, "it should be pointed out that once I watched you attempt to go to dinner wearing a fishnet poncho with your nipples sticking out, so I feel like some guidelines need to be established. Khash's grandmother probably doesn't need to see that."

"Well, that's just great. I'll have you know that was my number one pick."

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of what seemed to be half the accounting department, gossiping about one of their bosses with no small amount of zeal. Ris glanced at her phone, knowing they needed to head back to their respective departments soon. No matter. There would be ample opportunity to continue the conversation that evening.

They had plans to meet for dinner that night in Cambric Creek — her and Ainsley, and Lurielle and Khash — before she and Ainsley drove back to his apartment in Starling Heights.

At first, Ainsley had been aggravated over his week-long reassignment to the Bridgeton office, grousing about it every evening in the week leading up.

"You're going to need to transfer to Starling Heights if you want a promotion, Ainsley. You need to move out of your apartment, away from all your friends, move out of the city to the boonies. Kiss all that culture outside your doorstep goodbye. Oh, hey, we meant to ask — are you all settled in? Built a little life yourself out there in the suburbs? Reconciled yourself to regional theater and concert clubs the size of your closet? Cool, cool . . . well, we need you to come back to Bridgeton. We hope 30 cents a mile will be enough compensation for your two-hour daily commute!"

"It's just for a week!" she had exclaimed, shoulders shaking in laughter at his dramatic monologue. "You are the biggest baby. Also, I'm pretty sure you get, like, a whole dollar a mile. Do you need to bring a milk crate of your emotional support limited-edition vinyls? Will that make it better?"

"It's an hour one way, Nanaya. That's with no traffic, and there is always traffic in Bridgeton. Is my silver lining supposed to be that I can catch up on some podcasts during my ten plus wasted hours for the week? Well, great. Guess I'll be all caught up on Buried in the Backyard by Friday, risking life and limb to do so, with untold wear and tear on my only vehicle, which was not purchased with commuting in mind. Awesome."

She'd rolled her eyes, crossing the room to where he paced, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You're so silly. Stay with me for the week. At my condo, in my bed. Take the train. No Bridgeton traffic required and you can still catch up on Buried in the Backyard. And then at the end of the week, you can be a big spender and use that big, thick dollar-a-mile stack you'll be earning and not spending to take me somewhere nice. See? Everybody wins."

The notion of a weeklong sleepover had brightened his mood, changing his mind entirely.

They got up together each day, shared breakfast in her small condo or else left early enough to stop at the coffee shop, before she would drop him off at the park-and-ride, timing it so that they arrived a few minutes before his train each morning. He would lean over the center console of her car, kissing her deeply before gifting her with one of his beaming smiles.

"Have a good day, dear. Pork chops tonight for dinner, I think. Make sure my dry martini is ready when I get home to put my feet up."

Each and every morning, she drove away laughing once he'd boarded his train, her heart feeling too big for her chest as she drove to her own office, her cheeks as pink as Silva's, giddy over the easy domesticity of the week.

They cooked together in the evenings, or else parked at the municipal lot on Main Street and walked hand-in-hand to one of Cambric Creek's many restaurants. She'd been on the phone with her mother at one point the previous evening, watching as he shouldered out of the bathroom with her laundry basket, starting a load of towels before she'd even hung up the phone. Her condo was too small for him, and he was constantly ducking under doorways and snorting to himself over the shallow rise of the cupboards, but he had slipped into her Monday through Friday routine without a blip, as easy and comfortable as if he had been there all along.

Ris wasn't sure if she was meant to like how happy it made her, but she couldn't deny that it made her very, very happy.

The gossips from accounting didn't stay long, taking their turns at the coffee machine and microwave and then trooping out together, braving the early autumn chill for a modicum more of privacy outside.

"You do realize I'm not even engaged yet, right?" Lurielle reminded her once they were alone again. "But thank you for including yourself in the bridal party. Saves me the awkward buildup of asking you."

At that, Ris rolled her eyes, flipping the magazine closed. "It's a foregone conclusion and one of us needs to start thinking about the planning. What's he waiting for, anyway? Do I need to have a conversation with the big guy tonight?"

Lurielle cackled, finishing off her sandwich. "Oh, I would love to see you try. You can be treated to a dissertation on the historical importance of a bridal fire, the size of it, how long it needs to burn, which ancestor is in charge of poking it or something. Ainsley can ask his barrage of questions and if we get bored, we can leave to go to the movies. Khash has his plan and I'm not allowed to ask about it. But if you want to try and get some details, have at it."

Ris snorted. "As long as he's planning something, I guess. Better him than us. You know, we're probably the only two elves in town without a wedding binder. I'm kinda surprised your mom didn't go way over the top with that."

"Oh, she sure tried," Lurielle confirmed. "I have vague memories of her freaking out over floral arrangements and whether or not a sit-down dinner at the club would be considered passé by the time it was needed. I was still in primary school. And then my grandmother would tell her to stop being histrionic and that would send her even further into a tizzy."

Ris wrinkled her nose, annoyed on her friend's behalf. She and her own mother had made a halfhearted attempt when she was a teenager, but her parents never had the money for an elaborate budget, and it seemed as if everything involved in traditional Elvish matrimony cost a small fortune.

The prospective bride and groom were to barter with each other, setting terms for their marriage and division of assets before an engagement was even official. The families exchanged elaborate gifts, a sign that they approved of the marriage and the joining of their houses, and then the coup de grace — the mothers of both the bride and groom gave each other's children some ornate piece of jewelry to wear for the ceremony. Ris had never understood the significance of that tradition when she was a girl, but she did now. The mother's seal of approval, the only one that mattered. After all, they would be the ones left to deal with each other.

All of that was in addition to the ceremony itself, a reception for friends and family, alcohol, food, more flowers than anyone could possibly ever need, all of the little details and entertainment that went into outdoing the last wedding one had attended. It was expensive and exhausting to even contemplate.

By the time she had left for university, Ris couldn't have cared less about planning for nuptials in some hazy, far-off future scenario, and her feelings hadn't changed much since then.

Lurielle only shrugged in response, seeming unconcerned. "I used to think they were planning my deb party. It wasn't until I was older that I realized she was planning my wedding. And by then she was too wrapped up in all the ways I didn't match up to the picture in her head, so it never went very far. Can't pick out wedding dresses when you're putting your tween on a diet, you know?"

"I want to go back to three minutes ago when I hadn't brought up your mom."

"And yeah, you're right," Lurielle went on, ignoring Ris. "I have no idea where to even start. If we're going to do this, we're going to need to call in a pro. Where is she, anyway?"

"Working from home," Ris confirmed. For the past several months, Silva had been taking advantage of the company's flexible hybrid work schedule, spending several days a week in Greenbridge Glen, in the apartment above the Plundered Pixie. "Although, not from her home, I'm guessing."

"Well, she needs to get her ass back in the office. She is going to be our ringer. You know her family probably has a whole filing cabinet of reservations that were made when she was a baby. Can you imagine? We might actually look like we know what we're doing. Because no offense, but between the two of us, we're as useless as a steering wheel on a mule."

Ris blinked. Waited. Lurielle gathered up the remains of her lunch, blithely unaware of the blatant Khashism that had just unconsciously fallen out of her mouth. There was never a moment when the big orc didn't have some syrupy bit of Southern wisdom to add to the conversation, and hearing it from Lurielle was the clearest sign that this marriage needed to happen posthaste. Ris snorted, nearly choking on her water as she began to laugh.

"You're talking like him now. Holy shit, this is the most adorable thing in the world! Pretty soon you're going to be telling me not to go burying my bones in someone else's garden —"

"— when there's still pruning to do," Lurielle finished, nodding, brushing crumbs from her sweater. "Hey, it's good advice."

She was still bent over laughing when Lurielle's phone timer chimed, announcing the end of their break, and the stitch in her side lasted all the way to her desk, when she pulled out her phone.

Just a reminder that we are meeting Lurielle and Khash after work.

She tapped out a quick text to Ainsley, groaning at the state of her inbox. She'd been away from her desk for less than an hour, but the column of unread messages seemed as if she'd been gone for a month.

It's going to be an email chain between the same four people all arguing over whether or not they have the right to change the office floor plan without checking if it's accessible . . . and their manager, who bcc'ed me instead of doing his job and telling them no.

She was gratified when her phone buzzed within seconds, Ainsley's quick response a welcome distraction from the aggravating minutia of her day.

I cannot wait.

Who knows what invaluable nuggets of Orcish wisdom I will glean from this summit of culture and meeting of minds.

I've been tapped for an end-of-day meeting, so I'm going to need this to look forward to.

Ris grinned, rolling her eyes. Ainsley treated time in Khash's company like an anthropology lesson, attempting to catch up on all he had missed by not growing up in an Orcish clan, badgering the bigger orc with one question after the next. Fortunately, Khash was a good sport about it. She liked Lurielle's boyfriend enormously, loved how well he treated her friend, how luminously happy Lurielle had been since they got together . . . but she would have been lying if she pretended double dating with the two of them was stress-free.

You will be allowed five (5) questions for the night

Start thinking about them now

And no two-parters!

I know you think you're sneaky, but you're really not

It was a very strange space she occupied, Ris considered as she brushed her teeth that evening, listening with half an ear as Ainsley narrated his day from the bedroom — caught in the center of their little spider web of relationships and friendships, at once separate, yet interconnected through each other.

The Plundered Pixie's owner — like Khash, ironically — could be a smooth-talking charmer when he wanted to be. Some people were just naturally gifted at maintaining easy small talk, and Tate was one such individual . . . when it suited him. Otherwise, Ris found the half-orc to be as mercurial as the weather in June, his cheerful congeniality hardening to icy coldness in the blink of an eye. Tate vacillated between an unassuming easygoingness and being so easily offended that it was nigh impossible to pick around what topics to avoid. Ainsley's comparison to a switchblade was apt, she'd decided. Harmless one moment and deadly the next, and the night of that curtailed bar fight, the night she and Ainsley met, would live rent-free in her memory forever . . . but Tate was, somehow, Ainsley's closest friend.

Then there was Silva.

Ris was a full decade older than their younger, wide-eyed co-worker, although, over the past two years, she had begun feeling even older. Everything seemed slower to her, even if the world buzzed around her at its normal, breakneck speed. She understood the why and tried not to dwell on the implications too deeply, for with the slowness came clarity.

Silva had not yet reached that place in her Elvish existence when time felt like tiny grains of sand. She lived each moment as it arrived, and there had been more instances in the past six months when Ris had struggled to relate to Silva's time-pressed relationship woes . . . but she was still enormously fond of the younger elf.

Watching Silva push back on the expectations of her family and their community was gratifying, even if Ris quietly held the position that Silva was spinning her wheels with Tate and would never find the sort of partnership she craved. Tate didn't share much of himself and seemed entirely content with their in-limbo status, not that it was any of her business. Lurielle was right — Silva was testing her emancipation from the rigidity of Elvish culture a lot earlier in life than either she or Ris had. It didn't matter if her independence was wasted on this dead-end relationship — she'd come out the other side stronger for it, and that alone made Ris want to cheer.

What was her business was Ainsley's bitter dislike of her younger co-worker.

"When your friend magically transforms into the sort of guy she can bring home, you get to voice your shitty opinions about my friend," she'd snapped at him one night after meeting Tate and Silva in Starling Heights, a night Ainsley had spent pointedly not speaking to Silva at all. "I don't really care about their relationship, Ains. I care about the way you're acting."

"How am I supposed to not care about the people I care about?" he countered, missing her point entirely. "Do you think she wouldn't treat me the exact same way if she'd met me first on your little weekend fling? You don't think she'll ghost you the second you don't fit into her perfect little world? The second something better comes around?"

It had been the first true fight they'd had. In the past, her blood would have sizzled and she would have met his hot tone, but at that moment, all Ris had felt was another grain of sand slipping away.

"That sounds like the sort of projection you should be exploring with your therapist," she'd shot back. "Not taking it out on a twenty-five-year-old who doesn't know you from fucking Aemmon. Particularly when you know nothing about Elvish culture. All the documentaries in the world won't give you even an ounce of the reality we grow up with. I don't care if you don't like her, Ainsley. I don't give a shit if you think she's a spoiled brat. And guess what? I don't think Tate gives a shit about what you think either."

"I've known people like her my whole life, Ris," he'd sneered. "They're users. They only think of themselves, their happiness, their own lives. They use other people like dopamine dispensers, and the second they don't get the validation they're craving, they move on to someone new."

She shrugged, feeling entirely calm. Where once she would have thundered, now Ris felt only chilled. She wondered if this was part of their metamorphosis as an exceptionally long-lived species. After all, if one was to attain a great age, one must not be prone to flying off the handle or placing oneself in precarious situations. Besides that, his characterization of Silva was wrong. He's describing Dynah, not Silva.

"Ainsley, you're not hearing me. I don't care. I don't care if you like her or not. All I care about is the fact that you don't seem to care that I'm telling you it hurts my feelings when you're mean to my friend. And if you don't think the way you treat my friends is something I pay attention to, let me dispel that incorrect notion for you. You're showing your ass, and there's a big red flag sticking out of it. It's not a good look. I understand he's your friend. But she's my friend. So, you can be a grownup and suck it the fuck up, or I don't need to spend so much time on this side of town."

He was perfect ninety-eight percent of the time, she'd reminded herself after his shoulders slumped, after he'd groveled sufficiently. The other two percent of the time, he had a tendency to fixate on something arbitrary, something completely outside his influence, until it became a bee in his bonnet he couldn't shake loose.

"I didn't think about how it made you feel," he admitted in his lengthy apology. "I wasn't thinking past my own dislike."

She'd rolled her eyes as he buried his nose against her neck, dragging her nails down the stubbly side of his head. "Well, it's still pretty shitty to be mean to her at all. You're not considering her feelings. You're not considering Tate's feelings either, for that matter. But if you can only be nice to her for my sake, I'll take it."

After they were in bed, the weight of his arm draped over her like a sand-filled blanket, solid and grounding, she reminded herself that two percent in his cons column was a wash, when she considered how warm and considerate the ninety-eight percent was. The grains of sand of his life and the time they spent together was barely a vial, and it wasn't worth her fixating on non-existent issues either.

"You know," she'd murmured against him, "when I'm wearing you as a watch and jetting off to Monaco with my seventh husband, you're going to feel real stupid for wasting a single night sulking over Silva."

"I hope your seventh husband is confident," he'd laughed into her hair. "Because I'm going to be critiquing his technique on every thrust. Let's just hope he's open to feedback. Ooo, you can wear me to the oceanographic museum there! See? Now it's something to look forward to."

They'd not had a stupid fight like that since, and Ris had a mind to keep it that way.

But adding Khash and Lurielle into the mix was like a splash of oil into their already precariously sloshing bowl of water.

She and Lurielle had been friends first. They were closer in age, had known each other longer, had worked together and been friends longer . . . but since meeting the big orc on that first weekend trip, Lurielle's commonalities with the rest of them, beyond the superficial, seemed fewer.

Adult friendships take work to maintain. This is why elves belong to a club. So that we have the chance to build a community outside of our relationships. After all, they would be the ones left. Elvish women lived longer than their male counterparts, to say nothing about other species who measured their time in weeks and months and years, instead of jubilations and epochs. Like humans and goblins and trolls. Like orcs.

The reality of their situation had been lurking there at the corner of her mind often of late. It spoke volumes about the futility of dating in the Elvish community that all three of them had taken up with men of a species they would vastly outlive. It was why she let go of things quickly and was fast to forgive — none of these petty spats would matter at all one day.

She liked Khash. A good sport was the best descriptor she could think of for Lurielle's intended. Charming and full of Orcish swagger, Ris only knew what she heard from Lurielle and what she saw firsthand the few times they'd gone out together — he treated Lurielle like a queen and made an effort to get along with her friends, was exceedingly polite to servers, was a generous tipper, and seemed invested in merging his life with Lurielle's independence, rather than expecting her to conform to his existence. It was the best one could wish for a friend.

But for as much as Ainsley treated his time in the bigger orc's presence as a study in the Orcish clan traditions he'd grown up without, Ris couldn't shake the impression that Lurielle's boyfriend looked at the orc beside her as just slightly beneath him.

It could have been a combination of numerous intertwining factors, she would remind herself. Ainsley had a high-paying tech job, but one wouldn't automatically assume it from looking at him, his punk aesthetic being the first thing most people took note of. While Khash, on the other hand, embodied his lifestyle of white-collar luxury in everything he did. He would explain Orcish customs and traditions in the manner of someone tutoring the less fortunate, which, she supposed, Ainsley brought upon himself with his barrage of questions and no personal point of reference . . . but it rubbed her ever-so-slightly the wrong way just the same.

The clincher was that Khash had a near palpable dislike of Tate, a feeling she knew was entirely mutual. Ris had cackled in laughter every time Lurielle or Silva would narrate a play-by-play of one of their disastrous double dates — normally only drinks or dessert in the resort town where they'd all met, Tate begging off being pulled away from either of his businesses for longer than that and Khash flat out refusing an entire evening in Tate's company. The three of them would all laugh until their eyes teared, shaking their heads over their counterparts' collective inability to simply get along.

"They're like children," Lurielle decided. "We have to make playdates for them and ensure there are adequate snacks. And then they still don't want to share their toys."

Khash knew Ainsley was friends with Tate, and Ris had a feeling that was enough to prevent any true friendliness between the two beyond the superficial acquaintance. Guilt by association, coupled with all of the other little tells she'd picked up on over the months — she caught the slightest whiff of superiority from the big orc, one she recognized, having grown up in an Elvish community. It was a good reminder that no one was truly perfect, regardless of the image they projected to the rest of the world.

And there she was at the center of the web, attempting to hold her friends and their lovers at a safe, connected distance.

Why are you even trying to go out tonight? You should save yourself the headache.

"I wouldn't mind if I hadn't warned them this would happen," Ainsley ranted from the bedroom behind her, coming to stand in the bathroom's doorway, the buckle of his open belt bouncing off the side of the frame.

His mood was foul, and it had been since his end-of-day meeting at work. He'd been grousing from the moment his train pulled into the small park-and-ride station, throwing himself off the platform and loping across the parking lot to her car, his fingers snapping in irritation. He'd been informed that day that he would be spending another week working in Bridgeton the following month, and possibly the month after that, a prospect that had brought about this uncharacteristic discontent and agitated mood.

She reminded herself that his ire was with his company, but it was hard not to take his distaste over the news personally when she had enjoyed having him beneath her roof so much. See? This is why you're not supposed to be interested in anything super serious.

"I literally predicted this exact scenario, Nanaya. I told them if they moved everyone who'd built the program out to start the satellite offices, they'd wind up with a bunch of amateurs without the necessary experience in the home office and no one to train them. Here we are. I'd like to collect the interest on that prophecy, thank you very much."

She grinned in the mirror, forcing her hurt feelings down. "Earning your millions, prognosticating other people's fuck ups. Nice work if you can get it, babe."

Ainsely grumbled, shoving the hem of his shirt into his open button-fly with no small amount of aggression. Ris paused, wondering if this was the moment she'd look back on later that night as the point of no return; if this out-of-character tetchiness was her warning to call Lurielle and cancel.

She turned, stepping into his personal bubble, hand dropping to his wrists, holding them still. "Do you want to just stay in tonight?"

She wouldn't be upset if he said yes. It wasn't as if she wouldn't see Lurielle at work on Monday. Plans to get together could be scheduled for another time, when he wasn't in such a grumpy mood, when his week-long punishment working in Bridgeton and staying with her was over.

"We can go back to your place tonight, if you want." Ris forced her lips into a smile, kicking her bruised ego into the closet. "I know you're probably itching to get out of here. It's totally fine if you want to cancel. I can text her right now to let her kn—"

She felt the warm huff of his breath against her head as he scoffed, his giant hands twisting to reverse their position, capturing her own in his grip.

"Nanaya . . . when have I scratched a single time saying I wanted to go home?" His tusks pressed to her head as he moved, teeth nipping at the top of her ear. "I could quite happily play domestic sleepover with you every night of the week, laughing girl. I'm pissed off because of the principle of it. My office doesn't know I've been staying with you. They don't know I had a bed to sleep in this close. They were perfectly fine fucking with my schedule, knowing I was more than an hour away. Staying with you was an unexpected boon and a bonus, and the only thing that made this week bearable. The only thing I'm itching to do tonight is stuff myself with salt and pepper tofu and undress you with my teeth."

He turned her head with two fingers under her chin, catching her lips between his tusks. At the first press of his tongue into her mouth, Ris exhaled on a whimper, releasing her silly upset. His other hand had dropped to her hip, slowly dragging down to cup her ass, long fingers stretching to press between her thighs and scrape against her cleft.

"If you think waking up and licking your pussy every day before breakfast wasn't the highlight of my week, you've lost the thread. I am livid with my boss right now, but this still beats the hell out of being alone in my apartment, jerking off in the sink."

He released her abruptly, stepping back to finish bucking his belt. Ris swayed, grinning up as she grabbed the sink for support. "Now that you mention it, that has been a nice way to start the day."

"I'm furious with my company," he went on, "because this is their MO at this point. This is exactly how they snookered me into moving in the first place. ‘Ainsley, you sure would be helping out the team, we know you care about your co-workers. Ainsley, we're sending you out to the satellite for the week. Ainsley, you can transfer or be passed over.' This is exactly what they did to me then."

"Wait, why the sink?"

"The vital part of my overall well-being that you're overlooking," he went on, stepping around her to inspect himself in the mirror, "is that I have to be able to rail at the man every once in a while. Fight back against our oppressors. Fuck shit up for the one percent. Otherwise, it builds up inside me like black bile. That's how you turn dark."

"I wash my face in that sink!"

He turned, the silver rings on his tusks glinting as he grinned hugely. "Sometimes you just don't want to worry about clean-up."

"I brush my teeth in that sink!"

She was already laughing when he pulled her in against him. "Yeah, you have. Pretty sure you've dragged those same teeth over my cock. Don't worry. I always rinse."

She was still laughing as she slipped her shoes on a few moments later.

"By the way, I do think we should go back to my place tonight. It won't be that late. That is, if you still want to go to the selkie exhibit? It opens at eleven, and I think we should be there within the first hour if we don't want to risk getting shut out."

"Yes! Of course I want to go. Now who's being silly?"

After the Ice: The Evolution of Selkie Culture in the Pleistocene and Beyond was a brand new semi-permanent exhibit opening close to his apartment, owing partially to the success of a Minoan history exhibit they had visited in Cambric Creek several times already, and the considerable Selkie population of Starling Heights. It was exactly the sort of cultural experience that ticked all of Ainsley's boxes — his love of history and anthropology, plus the nostalgia kick of growing up spending his summers exploring exhibits like these at his leisure in the museum where his mother had worked. They were both eager to see this collection, and she bounced on her toes in excitement at the thought.

"It will definitely be an early night. Lurielle is the first person to admit she turns into a pumpkin by ten. We'll swing back here and grab our stuff after dinner then, if that works. And I promise I'll remember next time that you need to meet your ‘fuck the man' quota every month so you don't get too cranky."

"Seriously, fuck him. Fuck him so hard."

It had been a joke. A light joke referencing his earlier words, an acknowledgment that she had heard him and understood. But as they entered Grass and Grain and her eyes locked on Khash's broad, bespoke sport coat-encased back, his hair a voluminous bevy of twists and braids, neatly pulled away from his face and secured down said back, his contrasting pocket square arranged like a jaunty celebration of excess in his breast pocket, looking every inch the white collar, upper middle class, seven-foot-two banker that he was, she realized he was the very definition of the Man, and that the small amount of complaining Ainsley had done to her since getting off his train was likely not adequate in fucking anyone.

"Looks like we missed the notification on the dress code."

Ris tightened her fingers around his, ignoring his sardonic tone, knowing too well that her smile likely resembled a grimace. It's fine. It's going to be fine. Unsurprisingly, her mind skated back to that moment, when he'd stood sourly in her bathroom doorway, knowing her intuition had been spot on. She shouldn't have ignored it. She should have called Lurielle and canceled right then and there, saving herself from needing to stretch so far in the web that she was in danger of stretching her out completely. Sonofabitch.

"The construction north of the bridge has had the whole midtown area in gridlock for a month." Khash groused, earning Ainsley's snort of disgust. "I don't know how they even have y'all using your front entrance at this point, if you're right on Park End."

"They told us overflow parking is in a surface lot off Swansea, like that's supposed to be better. I never had a commute when I worked at the office before, I lived just a few blocks away. I don't know how people do this every day."

Khash made a sound of disgust at Ainsley's words, deep in his throat. "Well that's just goin' around your ass to get to your elbow. Swansea is nothin' but lights."

Khash and Ainsley had been discussing the finer points of how terrible the traffic was in Bridgeton for the last fifteen minutes, after Ris mentioned Ainsley's week-long stay with her. It was the most the two had conversed since they were seated, and she wasn't about to jump in and redirect the conversation, regardless of how little she cared about traffic in the city and no matter how many pointed, plaintive looks Lurielle tossed in her direction.

She was meant to be poking Khash about his engagement plans, reminding him that he'd been the one to claim that particular duty. Ris opened her mouth to change the subject, but lifted her wine glass instead, taking a small sip as the two orcs continued to bemoan the perils of commuting.

Ainsley had been rather restrained since they were seated, his normal cheerful smile mostly absent, cementing her suspicion that they ought to have stayed home. Khash, too, was full of work aggravation, although he used his genial smile and booming voice to mask his mood much more effectively than Ainsley, but the out-of-character temperaments of her and Lurielle's Orcish companions added a strange spark of tension to the night that normally would not have existed.

At least, not to this degree.

"The commute on the train was relatively stress-free," Ainsley admitted. "I know some folks are very attached to their vehicles, but I will take that over trying to get up Swansea at rush hour every day of the week. And the dinner company made the commute worth it. I lucked out with a good roommate."

Ris beamed at Ainsley's words, glad for the validation that he had enjoyed the week just as much as she had, despite his grousing.

Across the table, Khash chuckled. "See, now that's what I'm looking forward to. No lights, no gridlock. Just holding on tight and making train friends."

"Oh, stars save those poor people," Lurielle sighed. "They're never going to get to read their books in peace again."

"Hush. I'll miss some of my favorite spots in the city, but I am looking forward to the day when I won't have to make that crosstown commute anymore. Besides, it's not like there's a lack of good restaurants here. I probably won't even miss it."

Ainsley's eyebrows raised, piercings glinting in the restaurant's amber lighting. "You planning on making the move to suburbia permanent?"

This time, it was Lurielle's turn to laugh. "I think we technically discussed marriage and children on our first date. And I attempted to propose to him once already, but that was shot down."

She beamed up at the big orc, who was at that moment mooning down at her. Ris grinned. They really are perfect together.

"So now I'm just waiting for someone to build me a fire. Although, I still don't know where you think we're going to put all of your hair products. My little bathroom just isn't big enough."

"Is not big enough for any baby either, darlin'," Khash laughed. "I'm not sure who it is supposed to be big enough for. These architects must have all been single men with no aspirations for a family. It's a good little starter house and you'll have it as rental income once we buy or build something bigger."

"So, you would stay in Cambric Creek?" Ainsley looked between Khash and Lurielle, his eyebrows still raised. "Or will you be looking, uh, somewhere else?"

"No, I don't want to move," Lurielle answered for both of them. "I moved here for my job, and my job hasn't changed. And I really do love it here. I love the inclusivity. I love that I can be an elf here and not be ostracized for not living in the Elvish community and being a member of the club. The community is great, the schools are excellent, there's no shortage of entertainment. The house is big enough for the two of us." Ris joined her in laughing at Khash's dubious look at her words. "It is! And we have plenty of time to either find something bigger or build before we have to worry about a tiny roommate, once we take the next step."

Once we're married. Lurielle's unspoken words hung in the air above the table between them, nearly shimmering in their pointedness. All that was missing was a blue Elvish dress and an Orcish bridal cuff. This is it, that's your cue. Ris cleared her throat, but sudden movement in her periphery stopped her.

Ainsley had sat back in his chair, arms crossed, considering the couple on the other side of the table appraisingly.

Ris had grown up in an Elvish community, attended an Elvish school. She'd not been in the thick of club culture, not the way Lurielle and Silva had been, the way Silva still was, but she was no stranger to the superiority complex of her kind. She saw it mirrored in orcs. She had considered, not for the first time, that it surely had something to do with the cross-species attraction between them. Orcs and elves were the exact same flavor of exclusionary, possessing the same streak of superiority. There weren't many other species who lived in their own, separate communities, their own schools and clubs and businesses. Orcs said clan instead of enclave, but the principle was the same.

That they each thought themselves above it was comical.

She was no stranger to Elvish and Orcish superiority complexes, nor was she unfamiliar with a self-satisfied attitude of comeuppance, and she didn't need to stare directly into Ainsley's eyes to know that was what he was currently exuding as his head cocked, considering.

"We're going to a museum exhibit tomorrow in Starling Heights that I'm really looking forward to," she exclaimed with a manic note of false cheerfulness, abandoning Lurielle's engagement conversation in an effort to cut off the comment she could practically see forming in his head, the shape of it, the smugness of it.

Across the table, her friend's blonde eyebrows drew together, seeing the easy opening she'd given Ris, closing with the rapid subject change.

She'd never before been so upset not to possess the power of telepathy. Ainsley was still sitting back, arms folded over his chest. Don't do it. Save it for later, I'm begging you.

"The evolution of selkie culture from the Ice Age" Ris went on, wondering if she sounded as much like a cartoon character to the others as she did in her head. "It sounds so interesting!"

"Oh, we went to the Minotaur exhibit here in town like that," Lurielle said, her smile a bit thin, oblivious to Ris's panic. "My neighbor was so insistent; he finally wore us down. But I'm glad he did!"

Instantly, Khash rolled his eyes. "Oh ho, he did indeed. Comin' round with that hangdog expression, acting like I was personally putting my hand in the Minoan Society's pocket by not buyin' tickets. Made that sweet little human of his go through it over and over. Finally, I said ‘Bluebell, enough's enough. Bully boy isn't gonna give us a moment of peace until we go to this museum.' I'll admit — it was very interesting."

Lurielle was laughing before he'd finished. Ris sighed in relief at her friend's recovery. I'm sorry. I didn't think everyone was going to be in a bad mood tonight!

"Oh, you are so ridiculous! He only mentioned it twice! And the second time was to invite us to go with him and Violet! I swear, between the two of you, I don't know who's worse!" She rolled her eyes as Khash huffed. "Anyway, it's very cool. Have you been to that one?"

"We have," Ainsley answered, "twice, actually. The first trip through, there was a school group right on our heels and I felt like we had to rush past the statuary, and we missed the movie. I didn't care that it was available on the website, I'm like a little kid. I want to sit on a miniature bench and then get dumped out into the gift shop."

Ris laughed gaily, hoping she sounded natural as she latched onto one of Ainsley's hands, forcing it down into a less petulant pose and squeezing hard. That's it, good job. Talk about museum shit. You love that and it's not going to offend anyone.

"I wonder what it would take to get an Orcish exhibition like that," Khash mused. "We don't want those minotaurs gettin' too big for their britches. There are certainly enough of us around the area to fund it."

"Can you imagine?" Lurielle gave an adorable, ladylike snort. "Rourke would never stop insisting that you copied him!"

Good, good. Museum shit. Perfect.

"I wonder what it would even be about, though," Ainsley mused. "There's no one real defining creation event in our history, right? Not like the Minoans. Evolution of the culture, maybe? The history of clan living and our gradual, collective leaning away from it, leading to the modern orc? That would be interesting if they do it right."

Ris held her breath. What the fuck, it's like you're not even listening to the very clear thoughts I'm telepathically sending you! Keep it light, inoffensive. Un-fucking-believable!

Across the table, Khash blinked slowly.

"Well, I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think an argument can be made that major metropolitans have led to a watering down of the culture, but the same can be said for every species." He shrugged, a magnanimous gesture, but his words were too careful for her to relax. "If you live amongst humans, humans make the rules. They're the majority and the rest of us are just window dressin'. But that's true for everyone. I don't think Orcish culture has shifted away from our roots that much at all."

Ris squeezed as hard as she could, but the hand she was death gripping slipped away like a wriggling fish. Ainsley leaned forward in his chair.

"I'm not sure I understand how you can say that? I agree, assimilation leads to a breakdown of community culture if the community isn't given the opportunity for expression. But modern orcs are choosing to move away from the concept of clan living. Are we better or worse off for it? What does the evolution of our culture look like in the next few generations with more orcs leaving that environment?"

Ris closed her eyes. You should've stayed home. You should have stayed home and gone back to his place. You should have stayed home and cleaned your closet, read a book, taken up jigsaw puzzles. Anything but this.

"Orcs who grow up in clans are able to retain their identity in the larger world, they learn the language, they learn values. You have the benefit of your elders and the community." They were matched in stubbornness, neither willing to concede their point. "I know you didn't have that benefit, but it's not as if—"

There it is. There it fucking is.

Ainsley spread his hands expansively, eyebrows shooting up. "Wait, you literally just got done talking about staying in Cambric Creek, raising your family here. We all love the inclusiveness, go team. Isn't that community as well? So, all that about the immeasurable benefits of clan living and values, that's what? Something you can do on weekends? Or is that just for other people?"

Ris felt her mouth drop open at his audacity. Across the table, Lurielle's blue eyes widened. Khash, for the first time ever, at least in the time she had spent in his presence, seemed speechless. Ris knew it was only a handful of seconds that passed, but it felt like a small, silent eternity before Khash responded.

"There is strength in your clan," he recovered at last, his syrupy drawl just as sticky, although his tone possessed a coolness it hadn't at the start of this ill-fated conversation. His words were once again careful and measured, the tone of reasoning with someone intent on being unreasonable. He's not completely wrong for that. "And that community won't turn their backs on children who happen to grow up elsewhere. You'll always be a part of the clan, connected to who you are and where you came from. So, I know my kids will have that connection as well, no matter where they grow up. Because I'll make sure they do. I can't speak to anyone else's family or their choices. So, I suppose you're right. Our kids will have to get that on the weekends, when we visit."

Beside her, Ris could tell that Ainsley was bristling. "My parents moved away from their clan for better opportunities," he began, an edge of heat still there in his voice.

"And I did the same," Khash interrupted with a note of finality. Unlike the orc beside her, Khash was visibly unperturbed. Probably shocked as shit by the turn the night took, but he hides it well. She had a feeling it was an act and that he would be giving Lurielle an earful the whole way home, but he put on appearances better than Ainsley. "We are all adults and we've made our choices with our eyes wide open. Cheers to that."

He raised the remains of his whiskey glass, and Ris quickly scooped up her wine glass to clink against his. Lurielle and Ainsley were slower to get moving, but she was relieved when all four of them tapped glasses, the awkward moment hopefully set aside.

Lurielle was apparently not willing to leave it to chance.

"I can barely keep my eyes open," she announced, managing a pretty genuine-looking yawn as an accompaniment to her words. "And we still need to pull in the stuff that came this morning from the garden center. Well," she went on, matching Ris's false brightness. Leave it to the women to hold shit together. I didn't even get to bully him about the engagement. "I hope you two have fun at the museum tomorrow! You'll have to tell me about it on Monday."

Ris didn't remember that they were meant to stop at her condo until they were more than halfway to Starling Heights. Ainsley had kept the radio on for the duration of their drive, just a titch too loud, making conversation virtually impossible. She couldn't tell if his unwillingness to converse with her was meant to be a silent treatment, a sign of his continued petulance, or a clue that he was, perhaps, feeling a bit foolish over how overblown the conversation had ended up being. In any case, Ris didn't mind. She was exhausted and annoyed with herself, more than anything. She'd known before they'd even left her condo the dinner was a bad idea. Next time, trust your instincts.

I'm sorry dinner turned into an episode of my orc is a bigger baby that your orc

Just can't take him anywhere

She tapped out the text to Lurielle silently, watching the lights of houses in the distance grow further and further apart. The response came almost immediately.

??

They are literally the worst.

Babies. Big, giant babies.

Ris grinned down at her phone, relieved Lurielle wasn't upset over the turn the evening had taken.

SO big. It's a wonder they're not still in diapers!

But he was in a bad mood when I picked him up, so I should have just canceled

Sorry for whatever that was

They had reached that point on the rural highway where the big, isolated houses ended and nothing but farmland began. The lights beyond the car were almost nonexistent now — nothing but the glow of Ainsley's headlights on the pavement and the glow of her phone, lighting up once more.

It's fine though

We're all going to take turns, probably

And Khash only gets defensive when you strike a nerve

Salvage the rest of your weekend, don't let him be a grump

I'll see you Monday

She was unsurprised when he directed his car down a bucolic-looking road off the interstate, nestled amidst the rolling green hills of Greenbridge Glen.

The barriers that normally blocked access to the inner road around the lake were gone, a sign that the resort's tourist season was well and truly finished for the year. It allowed them to pull all the way through Greenbridge Glen's small downtown business district, parking on the street, just a few yards away from the Plundered Pixie's front door. Good. Who needs to walk on a night like this?

She had been back in the black bricked pub on what seemed like a hundred different occasions since meeting Ainsley, but there would never come a time when her stomach didn't clench as she stepped over the Pixie's threshold, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end at the memory of that very first night and the peril she'd found herself in.

Rukh was behind the bar. The grizzled old orc was deep in conversation when they walked in, his eyes raising as the door groaned, announcing their entrance. He nodded in greeting, not pausing whatever he was saying to the orc before him, head bowed over the polished bar top.

Ris made a move towards the end of the sparsely populated bar, assuming they were going to sit in their usual corner, but Ainsley kept walking. Past the row of stools before the gleaming hardwood bar, past the bottle-strewn high tops, to the crowd of orcs at the back of the pub.

Ris felt a strange ripple of déjà vu. This was exactly the sort of night she'd first visited the Plundered Pixie — the chill autumn air necessitating a jacket, the action around the pool tables the main draw of the evening . . . until voices raised and huge bodies began brawling, bottles smashing around her, the threat of being crushed beneath one of them seeming imminent. Until the fight had been ended with a few mildly spoken words, and the real terror began.

Strangely enough, the details of whatever had transpired after Tate's arrival were hazy in her memory, only that she'd never before been that frightened, and hadn't been since. Ris thought she understood a part of the attraction between Tate and Silva, at least most of the time, but she would never be able to forget that suffocating feeling and how frightened she'd been.

Unlike that ill-fated night the previous year, Plundered Pixie's owner appeared to be in a jovial mood as they approached.

"That's the spirit, lads," Tate called out, his voice ringing like a bell over the din of orcs as he moved through the press of bodies around the pool tables, the crowd parting for him like the sea. "Don't let him forget it. You cunts are shooting like a bunch of old women tonight."

His grin stretched when he saw her and Ainsley, barely sparing a nod of acknowledgement as he made his way to the bar, never slowing.

"You're doing a fine job holding up the counter, boyo," he told Rukh, slapping the older orc on the back as he moved behind him. "Who knows how it would manage to stay in place without you." Ris grinned when he pulled several of the lightly carbonated Elvish drinks she liked from a cooler behind the bar. "I trust you'll be able to take care of your own self the rest of the night?"

"I'll be glad to see the back of you," Rukh huffed in annoyance, earning a laugh from his employer. "I'll be sure to call just in case I need help wiping my ass."

Tate paused, turning to pull a whiskey bottle off the shelf, sparing a withering look over his shoulder to where she and Ainsley stood. "I'm not a bleedin' octopus. Make yourselves useful or go back to wherever it is you came from."

Ainsley sputtered, moving to take the bottles that had been pulled from the cooler, cold and not yet beading in condensation, passing Ris the whiskey as Tate hit something beside the POS station with his elbow. It wasn't a bell, but it reverberated all the same, catching the attention of a handful of the orcs around the pool tables.

"You lot had me uncask this glühwein, so you need to start drinking it. Draft pricing until it's gone. If I come back tomorrow to see a single drop, you'll be drowning in it."

Rukh scowled as several orcs left the tables to hustle to the bar, their big bodies shoulder-to-shoulder. "Aye, you did that on purpose."

Tate beamed at the old bartender, giving him a winsome wink as he pulled four rocks glasses from behind the bar. "It's a fine night for makin' money, lad. I'll be in the back if you need anything."

He paused again at the end of the bar, setting down the glasses to pull out his phone, quickly tapping out the text with the side of his thumb before returning the mobile to his back pocket and glancing back to Ainsley.

"Well? Have they tricked you into going back to the city, then? I'll warn you now, I'll not be breaking my back again moving those fucking books of yours. Have a sale or make a new friend."

Ris laughed as Ainsley sputtered again, following Tate through a doorway at the back of the bar, into another room that was seldomly used in the off-season. Several low sofas and four top tables normally populated the space, but they'd been pushed to the corners, the floor taken up by several more pool tables.

"League play," Tate answered her unspoken question, noting her raised eyebrow. "Tuesdays and Thursdays. You're lucky it's the weekend, otherwise you'd not have fit through the door."

At that moment, Silva appeared in the darkened doorway on the other side of the room, squealing in excitement when she saw Ris.

"How fun! I didn't know you were coming by tonight!"

"I didn't know either," Ris said pointedly, as the bottles and glasses were deposited on one of the remaining four top tables, clicking her tongue as Ainsley made a face in response. "I would have brought my wedding magazines if I'd known we were coming."

"Well, I'm glad you did. I was just upstairs reading my book. This is way more fun, though."

She watched as Tate pulled out a chair for Silva. Her younger coworker hadn't even made a move to reach for one herself, simply waiting for it to be done for her, secure in the knowledge it would be. Ris looked down to hide her smile. Silva might have been a decade younger, but damn if she hadn't figured out how to get her way in every scenario. She's better at this than you and Lurielle ever were.

Silva leaned over, kissing Tate's smooth, lichen green cheek as soon as he was seated beside her, before straightening in her chair and smiling prettily, completely content in the control she had over her little world.

"Are you reading The Fire War for the book club? I don't know about you, but I'm having a hard time getting through it."

Silva blinked, her expression freezing as if her grasp on the common tongue had suddenly vanished at Ris's question. Blinked again.

"Oh. The Fire War. I . . . I read the reviews. Some of them were very thorough. I think I got what I need for the meeting." She ignored Ris's outraged laughter, gracefully accepting the orange blossom-flavored drink Tate passed her. "I just finished the Highland Governess series, with the selkies?" She sighed with a dreamy smile. "It was wonderful. I really think we ought to take a vote on how the books are selected for the club."

"I left my copy at home, where we were supposed to stop before going to Starling Heights." Ris emphasized each word, looking askance at the orc beside her.

Meanwhile, Ainsley threw up his hands in defense.

"I will be apologizing to you once we get home," he told Ris, earning Tate's preemptive laughter.

"Sure look, that's the mark of a guilty man. You've fucked yourself arseways for sure, boyo."

"But first," Ainsley went on, glaring, "I need validation like a child. I'm sorry, but that's all I am. A little child. And I need to be agreed with. And there's no one who will agree with me harder."

"Oh, I can't wait for this."

Ris shook her head as Tate hooted, and Silva continued to smile, closed-mouth, the good humor not quite touching her jewel-green eyes. Here we go again. New location, same old web.

"So do they have you moving back or don't they?" Tate directed the question to Ainsley, pouring each of them two fingers of whiskey and opening the other two bottles of the carbonated spirit with a practiced twist of the wrist

Ainsley shook his head, scowling. "They don't. They seem to think I'm supposed to be happy about needing to commute one week a month." He held up a hand to stave off Ris's objection. "Fortunately, I have a beautiful, generous, kind, funny, talented, sexy girlfriend who lives at the halfway point between my place in the city. So, my commute is easy enough. But it's not the fucking point."

"I knew we should have just stayed home tonight. You're in a foul mood. You have been since you got off the train, probably have been since you found out about your schedule. We didn't need to go anywhere. You could've stayed home and sulked instead of taking your bad mood on the road."

Silva was too well mannered to roll her eyes in Ainsley's direction, but Ris could see the impulse there, just beneath her dignified veneer. Tate merely raised an arched eyebrow, waiting.

"We had plans with Khash and Lurielle tonight," she explained, watching as Silva's eyes widened, her shell pink lip catching in her teeth as Tate snorted, stretching his legs out.

"That fucking cunt. Say no more. You deserve a medal for the attempt."

Ris drove her elbow into Ainsley's side as he basked in the validation he'd been seeking, stretching his arms out wide as if he could hug it. Silva, unable to hold it in for another moment, rolled her eyes at last.

"I was treated to a dissertation on why orcs who grow up in clans are so much more connected to their heritage and their history than the rest of us. With better values."

It was Ris's turn to roll her eyes, shaking her head again at Ainsley's far-from-accurate version of events. "It was hardly a dissertation."

"Such a cunt."

She and Tate spoke almost simultaneously, and then Silva did laugh, quickly covering her mouth with both hands, as if the unladylike squeak shocked her.

"It wasn't!" Ris insisted, her shoulders shaking with her own laughter. "And what the fuck is wrong with you?! Didn't you hear me telepathically trying to tell you to shut the hell up? You started down a dangerous path almost immediately and you did nothing to tap the brakes."

"Nanaya, you heard him! He said in one breath that he was raising his kids in Cambric Creek and then in the next was talking about how important clan values are. I am sure there is probably a folksy saying about hypocrisy and opossums or something, but all I know is that he is the fucking definition of a hypocrite. So obviously I'm less of an orc because I grew up in the city with no clan to speak of. Don't pay attention to the fact that both my parents were from clans, that's apparently inconsequential. My value system is clearly missing."

"That's not at all what he was saying," she continued to laugh, as Ainsley drained his glass. "You started it by saying modern orcs have moved away from living in clans. How did you think he was going to react?! That would be like me starting a conversation with you and announcing that all men raised by single mothers are incorrigible mama's boys. Of course you're going to be defensive."

"Except in his case, that's absolutely true." Tate was completely deadpan and Silva choked out another half-swallowed laugh, burying her face against Tate's shoulder as she shook.

Ainsley threw up his hands again. "I am being attacked!"

"No, let me tell you what it's really like," Ris cut in once more, the whiskey warming her insides. She drained her own glass, chasing the burn with a long sip of the icy cold carbonated drink, already feeling a bit buzzed. "Orcs and elves are exactly the same. That's the problem. Like, with all of us. You're all the fucking same. Elves think they are better than anyone else. Well, guess what? So do orcs."

Ainsley raised a finger, sucking in a breath to interrupt her, but she cut him off.

"No, you got your chance to talk out of your ass earlier. Now it's my turn. Elves build these insular little communities away from humans, with their own schools and their own clubs. They're all super invested in each other's lives and being judgmental assholes twenty-four hours a day. The whole culture is basically just living up each other's asses. Hounding your kids until they have a baby and then hounding the neighbor's kid until they have a baby and then forming an alliance so that those babies will get married to continue the tradition of hounding kids until everyone's miserable in an endless cycle of generational trauma. And what do orcs do? The same fucking thing. Build their own insular little communities. Their own schools. Their own fucking towns. And somehow, everyone wants to pretend that their way is better even though it's exactly the same playbook. It's like looking into a godsdamn mirror."

"But that's my point! Modern orcs have moved away from the notion that we have to grow up in these places, that we have to raise our kids a certain way, that you're locked into this way of life forever. And it's hypocritical for him to claim the clans are so important to retaining culture and values, whatever the fuck that means."

Tate scowled across the table as Silva wrapped her arm around his. Ris was tired. She envied Silva, being able to wander away from this circular argument and fuck off to bed anytime the fancy might have taken her. Beside her, Ainsley wasn't done.

"So he can raise his kids in a mixed species community and it's all going to be hunky-dory because he's going to bring them back to visit his clan, because the clan takes care of their own and will make sure they're raised up right, but how is that any different than someone like me? Are his kids going to magically be better orcs than their schoolmates just because they go back to visit the clan once a month?"

"Does he think those half Elvish children of his are just going to go strolling up to his nan's house without blinking an eye?" Tate scoffed. "That they'll be welcomed with open arms?"

"Do you think elves are any better?" Ris asked, her turn to arch an eyebrow sardonically.

"Oh, I happen to know for a fact they're not," Tate shot back. "You girls aren't the only ones here with the benefit of an Elvish education. I grew up in an enclave. I know exactly what elves are like."

Ainsley ignored Ris, going back to Tate's question. "Yeah, actually. They'll visit and still get the benefit. That's what he said. The clan takes care of its own. What I want to know is how is that upbringing any different from any orc who didn't grow up in a clan anywhere else. I really don't see the point."

She dropped her head back, groaning. "But it is important, Ainsley. All I'm hearing is a lot of projection. Again. Do you even hear yourself? You are the first one to admit half the time that you know more about other species' cultures and histories than you do your own. So I'm sorry, I understand you don't want to hear it, but he does have a point! We all wind up assimilating to the human majority and we lose those bits and pieces of where we came from along the way. I grew up in an Elvish community, I went to an Elvish school. And that was it once I left for university, but now in the past six months or so? I'm wondering. I'm wondering if I'm doing myself a disservice by not joining the club. If future Ris is going to look back when everyone she knows is dead and wish that I had set her up better. So I don't know if I can say that it's not important to have those communities. I don't think they're all necessarily run the right way, and I don't know what ‘Orcish values' are, but—"

"Let me tell you what Orcish values are," Tate interrupted.

There was an edge to his voice, one that hadn't been there just a few minutes prior, one that made her stomach flip-flop. He looked perfectly calm sitting beside Silva with one long leg stretched out, his heel resting on a chair back from the next table . . . but he had been perfectly calm that night as well. Ris shivered, and she wasn't sure if the room had actually changed temperature or if it was simply the drink going to her head. Or maybe it's because Tate is half feral and you think he maybe almost killed you once before. Take your pick.

"When I was a lad, I got it into my head that I would go live with me da'."

Beside him, Silva straightened up, her eyes widening.

So much for Tate doesn't share of himself. Why do you get the feeling you're going to regret thinking that in the first place? Should have never put it out into the universe. He probably heard you and is sharing this out of spite.

"I was no more than twelve or thirteen, having trouble at school. I was the trouble at school. So I convinced myself that all my problems would be solved if I went to find my father and live with the orcs. I didn't know him. He'd never taken responsibility for me, not once. Never took responsibility for the baby he got on a teenager, never once. But I was a fucking gobshite little idiot, and I thought since I didn't fit into my Elvish school or with anyone in my Elvish village, I'd do better with the orcs. After all, that's why I didn't fit in, yeah? And all I knew about orcs was what they said about themselves."

Tate's lip curled in a sneer as he spoke. Beside him, Silva looked as if she were holding her breath. Ris could only imagine what his experience at an Elvish school had been like. He had the arrogance of an elf and there was something decidedly un-Orcish about him in general, but Tate was undoubtedly an orc. I understand why he went to live with them.

"All the talk about the values of their clans, how close knit they all were, how they took care of each other. Well, I thought, fair play. That's the right place for me. So, one day I left. They took care of their own, and I was one of them."

Ainsley, for the very first time since the night she had met him, was silent beside her. All three of their drinks were forgotten — all but Tate, who filled his rocks glass to the brim, sloshing a bit of the amber liquid to the table as he lifted it to drink.

"Did you meet your father?" Silva asked in a hushed voice, laying a small, lavender hand against his arm, preventing him from draining the glass in one. He gave her sardonic smile in return, his mouth stretching back farther than it had the right to do, ear to ear.

"I tried, dove. There I was, this runt compared to the two thick-headed bruisers who met me at the gate. I've never been anywhere outside our village before, I've never talked to anyone I didn't grow up knowing. And here I am, practically pissing myself, asking these two strangers if I can come onto clan grounds and look for my father. Orcish values. They take care of their own, after all. But that's not what they told me. 'You don't belong here, lad. There's nothing for you here.'"

She got the impression his words were a recitation, likely the exact phrases he'd been told. That's not the kind of thing you forget. And that's why you go to therapy.

"‘You've got no kin that will claim you. Be off with you now, before we help you away.'"

Tate paused, smiled widely, his crowd of jagged teeth making Ris feel as if she were trapped beneath an overturned glass. Silva lifted his glass to her lips, draining the remainder before pushing it to the center of the table, out of reach.

"I'm clearly their fucking kin. I'm clearly an orc. There's no other Orcish village around within two day's ride. There's nowhere else I could be from. There's Castlemartyr and Dunmaragh, and a human town a good distance away. That's it. 'You don't belong here, lad. You've got no kin that will claim you.' So there's your fucking Orcish clan values. Fucking nothing. They'll take care of each other as long as it benefits them, and the second it doesn't, you're on your own in the world. So I hope your pretty blonde friend has a contingency plan in place for her children, because that's all their father's promises will be worth. Fucking nothing. Faic na fríde."

When they left a short while later, Ris let her head fall back against the seat in Ainsley's car, closing her eyes. She wished for the hundredth time they had just stayed home that night.

Tate had left the table shortly after his uncharacteristically personal disclosure, the good mood they'd found him in thoroughly evaporated. Just making himself visible, he told Silva as he rose, his thumb stroking the apple of her cheek as her slim eyebrows turned down in one of her disappointed kitten-like expressions.

"We need your help this week at work," Ris told her, watching Silva's eyes follow Tate's back out of the room. "Wedding planning. You need to be our Pro. I'm hopeless, and Lurielle doesn't even know where to start."

"Oh, um, okay! I can do that. I'll bring in one of my binders, we can look over it during break. Has she already booked—"

"She hasn't done anything yet, Silva. She legit doesn't know where to start. We need need you. I already dropped the ball tonight. I was supposed to pester Khash about his proposal plans, but someone railroaded the evening," the last said with a pointed, narrowed look at Ainsley.

Silva nodded decisively. "Okay, count me in. We can girlboss this until it's perfect. I have a whole filing cabinet drawer full of options."

Tate and Silva walked out the door with them a few minutes later, and as Ainsley's car pulled away from the curb, Ris waved from her window. Silva waved back, standing beneath the security light just outside the Pixie's doorway, haloed in white. Beside her, Tate was swallowed up by the darkness of the building, invisible in the shadows, the orange glow of his cigarette the only sign he was there at all.

Now her head was heavy, woozy from the alcohol and the aggravation the entire evening.

"Nanaya, we're home."

Ainsley's voice was warm huff against her skin, his long arms curling around her back and under her legs, scooping her up. It didn't seem possible, for they'd only just pulled away from the Pixie.

"C'mon, Sleeping Beauty. You were out before we even made it around the lake."

"Yeah, this is the least you can do," she murmured sleepily against him, feeling the vibration of his laughter against her side as her arms snaked around his neck, holding on as he carried her. She didn't open her eyes until he was struggling with his key at the door, letting herself tumble from his arms and pirouetting over the threshold. "I am completely exhausted from this night. My capacity for other people has been sucked dry. I don't want to be woken up tomorrow until breakfast is made, got it?"

"Heard and understood."

When she was stretched out in bed beside him, Ris replayed their conversation in the Pixie's back room. Tate's confidence left her discomfited, the same way she was left feeling upset anytime she read a news story about children being mistreated. Something he'd said niggled at the back of her mind, forcing its way out. "What does two day's ride mean in this context?"

Ainsley said nothing for several long minutes. Ris wondered if he had fallen asleep. Her supposition was proven wrong when he turned, enfolding her in his arms and rolling onto his back, keeping her pinned against his chest and tucked under his arm.

"Nanaya, the first rule of Tate is don't ask questions if you don't really want the answer. That's one of them."

"What if I do want the answer?"

"You don't," Ainsley answered flatly. "You think you do, but then the next chapter is just as depressing as the one you just finished. Trust me, it's a terrible book. It's better not knowing some things."

"I want to go back to this morning before I got out of bed. Before I knew that you jerk off in the same sink where I brush my teeth."

His laughter was a rumble against her and her eyes closed. His long fingers walked down her spine, his palm settling against her hip. "Tomorrow, you're not getting out of bed until my tongue has an indent from your clit, I'm going to make you the best breakfast you've ever had, and we can start all over again. And I'm sorry."

She breathed him in, keeping her eyes closed. "I know you are."

He was perfect ninety-eight percent of the time, she thought, her breath evening. Two percent was negligible for such a small vial of sand.