31. Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

Calliope

As I settled onto the soft bed, feeling the smooth sheets against my skin, I admired my hair, meticulously brushed and intricately braided into stunning designs. The room filled with laughter, echoing off the walls, as Valpar, a master storyteller, weaved his tales. My sides ached from the sheer hilarity, and I couldn't recall a moment in my life when I had laughed so hard.

Thorn, Valpar and Sugha were troublemakers as children. Their age differences were large, and Thorn became the leader of their brood. Thorn told Valpar what to do until he was old enough to understand. Each respective seeded father took care of that child, ultimately, but all the fathers took care of each orcling. They worked as a team because apparently orclings have a lot of energy, and his mother had to spend time with each male.

I couldn't imagine going to another cabin to spend time with another male and leave your baby behind, but Valpar said when the babies were young his mother took the babies with them. Once they were no longer feeding from the tit as Valpar said , the seeded father would take over while his mother spent time with another male.

No male felt jealousy toward any orcling when she had to take care of it. They all loved the little babies that came into their home. When they got older, though, once they went through their change to become adult males, there was a shift. They had to fight, earn their keep and move out of the cabins, but that was much later after their mother had passed on.

Thorn and Valpar were older, had spent a lot of time together and knew their mother very well. How she smelled, her likes and dislikes, they remembered the foods she would cook and the desserts she would make.

Valpar remembered that his mother would often sleep when he was a child, while Thorn said she didn't sleep as much when he was young. Then, when Sugha was born, it was like it was too much for her body to handle. She wanted that baby so much for Eman, though. He wanted an orcling for him as much as she wanted Sugha for herself.

Once she was done feeding Sugha from her body, she got worse until she went to sleep and never woke again. It had me in tears to hear the story, as he finished my bath, but he didn't once cry. He told me it was how the gods wanted it, that she was one of the stars looking down at all of them and helping the Moon Fairy find mates for her children.

I did my best not to cry after that, especially after he said he was the one in charge of taking care of Sugha's hair.

Valpar was apparently good at braiding hair. He proved it just fine after doing mine. It wasn't too tight, and he even made it so it would stay without the help of any bands or cuffs. My hair was in its own wrappings. All he used was some oil in his bag and a comb and brush to make me feel like an orc princess.

I guessed if I turned green, the braiding part wouldn't be so bad.

Valpar loved to braid, which I found a complete surprise. He would do Sugha's hair every day. Sugha got so sick of it that one day he chopped it all off and shaved the sides. Valpar was so upset, he said that was when he started to get really grumpy.

I bit my lips and tried so hard not to laugh, as he told me the story about how mad he was at Sugha. It was an intimate thing to braid someone's hair. A mother or a father would do it to an orcling. To help him get over the grief of losing his mother, his fathers had let him do theirs, but when it was over he was just devastated because he had no one else's hair to braid. To demonstrate how angry he was, he never braided his own hair.

Talk about a grumpy orc.

I asked if he ever would braid his hair again and he grunted in reply, crossing his arms.

Which he doesn't. He learned how to do it on others, but not himself.

"What if i braided your hair?" I asked him.

He narrowed his eyes at me and looked away.

"Maybe."

I touched my hair again, feeling how soft the ends were.

Valpar braided my hair.

The rest of the afternoon I asked him to tell me more about his life as a child. I became obsessed with it. I wanted to know, not just about the life of an orc in the Wood but, what it was like to have a family at a young age.

Because I didn't know mine.

Why didn't I know it?

I've never thought about it before. I didn't care to, didn't want to know because part of me felt like it hurt.

From time to time, as he told me the tales of when his fathers took them on hunting trips, giving them life lessons on how not to get your foot chopped off or not to get sick by eating the wrong fruits or roots in the forest, a pang of hurt would hit my chest.

I—don't think I knew my real father.

There was no image that came to my head, there wasn't a warm feeling that flooded my chest. There was emptiness when I tried to search inside myself, and the more I looked the more disappointed I grew.

I listened, though, I listened whole-heartedly because I liked the stories he told. He was different when he was small. he would smile when he talked about his mother and how soft she was and different from his fathers, and I tried to remember what my mother was like.

Theresa said that my real mom was not a very good one. I trusted Theresa, because she had always taken care of me. She fed and clothed me and, overall, tried to keep me safe. I'd known nothing else.

But that was it. I know nothing else.

Valpar's hand cupped my cheek. I felt his warm hand pull me closer and sighed when he pulled me into his body. "Where did you go, little fairy?"

I blinked several times before I stared up at him. "I'm sorry. I was thinking about my mom."

Valpar hummed and played with one of my braids. "Yes, I must meet her and your father."

I shook my head. "No, my real one. The one that gave birth to me."

He stopped playing with my hair and dropped the braid. "What about her?" His voice grew hard, his body stiff.

"I was thinking what she was like. Why don't I remember her? Why I don't remember when I was little." I rubbed my finger across my lip. "I remember nothing of when I was little."

Thunder rumbled outside, as it'd been doing it all day. This time it was closer, louder and I swore it shook the cave. As I closed my eyes and scooted into Valpar's side a little closer, another vision of that woman I saw yesterday came to mind She wasn't yelling at me. Her dark hair covered her face, and she had a stick in her mouth that lit up at the end. Smoke came pouring out of her mouth, and when my eyes opened again, the vision was gone.

She looked so sad. Not as scary as before, but if she was a connection to my mother, I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Call me a scared little chicken for it, but I just found my happy place with Valpar, and I wasn't ready to see it, yet.

I let out a shuddering breath and listened to the thunder roll away from the cave.

"Little mate, do you want to know who your mother is?" Valpar's hand touched the top of my head where a loose braid sat on top

I shook my head. "No, no, not yet. I just—I guess I was just wondering why I didn't know."

Valpar cleared his throat. "I know why you do not know. I have the answers you seek and if you want—I can give them to you."

I pulled away from him. "You know why I don't remember my past? How?" I lifted my brow in question and made to move away. He didn't like this and wrapped his arms around me to pull me back.

I grunted in response, but he growled and pulled me into his lap.

"Why do you know?" I demanded.

Valpar buried his nose into my shoulder and took a long whiff of my scent. "Your uncle told me. He told me the day after I brought you to the cave."

"He knows too? How many more people know?"

Does everyone know why I don't remember everything? How could everyone just not tell me?

Because you never wanted to know, you dumb butt. You never asked.

My mouth hung open as Valpar told me Mom and Dad knew, too. That seemed to be all, just five people. I guess that is not so bad.

I wrapped my arms around his neck. "And how is it I don't remember?" I whispered in his ear.

"The king and a sorceress put a spell on you to forget your past."

I squeezed my eyes shut and that woman appeared again. She was angry and yelling at me. This time, she was waving her arms at me, shooing me away until a door slammed in my face and it all went dark.

My eyes popped open.

"Do you want to know why—"

"No." I snapped. "I don't want to know." I shook my head violently. "Not yet."

Valpar held me in his arms and rocked me. "If you ever want to know, I will tell you." His thumb rubbed under my cheek. "I will help you and always be here. You know this, don't you female?"

I nodded my head, not verbally answering.

Happy thoughts, cheerful things, that's all I want to have. No more thoughts of bad things.

Simon leaped onto the plush bed, causing a gentle creaking sound to resonate through the room. Valpar released a deep sigh, his voice carrying a low growl as he expressed his frustration. "Off, animal."

Simon tilted his head, and his mischievous gaze fixed on me. With a sudden burst of energy, he shot out his tongue and blew a series of playful raspberries. The air filled with the sound of his silly antics, making me burst into laughter. I couldn't help but feel a warm sense of joy as I extended my arm, inviting Simon to come join us.

Simon turned his butt around and planted his rear end right into Valpar's lap.

Valpar grunted. "What is he doing?" He went to shove off Simon, but he let out a loud bleat.

I smiled and scratched Simon behind his ears. "He's trying to be friends with you. Even if you tried to eat him. He knows he's going to be coming back to the Monktona Wood with us, so he's trying to make amends. Which is weird because he doesn't forgive people very easily."

Simon yelled again and licked me on the cheek.

Valpar's eyes widened and his jaw went slack. "You mean he's coming with us? To live with us?"

I tilted my head. "Yes, why wouldn't he? I'm his support companion. He'll start fainting all the time if I'm not around."

"Bassza, this cannot be happening." Valpar fell back onto the bed, letting Simon and I stay on his lap. "He cannot sleep in the furs. He will sleep in his own space."

Simon and I both groaned, and I scratched his ears again. "Sorry, buddy. It was a good try." Simon lifted his butt off Valpar's lap and he let out a little toot.

I waved my hand in front of me and stifled a giggle. "No more dairy for you. Your tummy is getting upset." I turned to Valpar. "He's lactose intolerant. You don't have a lot of cows over in the Monktona Wood do you?"

"Female, you make me want to drink." He laid his arm over his eyes, but I see the big grin on his face stretch over his big teeth.

I just needed to remember life can be like a wiener… it can get hard, but it can't stay hard forever. I just hoped my life from now on wouldn't be super hard like Valpar's wiener because his seemed to stay hard all the time now.