Forging Family

by Bob Dattolo

  Crud, “Umm, I helped in a battle a few weeks ago. The castle was under attack. I also did a favor for the king.”

  Tara perked up, “You went to the between lands?”

  “Yeah? It’s pretty cool there.”

  “What was your reward?”

  Dang it, “Umm, some land, money, and a paycheck, pretty much.”

  Her eyes narrowed, “How much money? Land?”

  “Umm, 100,000 acres. About a billion US a year, and ten percent of the king’s personal wealth.”

  She cocked her head at me, “Ten percent? Billions, right?”

  “Umm, about 200 or so? I’m not sure about that. Mom has to gather everything. She’s controlling it all for me since I don’t know how to do that.”

  Tara laughed softly, “That’s just the craziest thing. I know a lot of supernaturals tend to have a lot of money, but that is just insane. You know that, right? I mean, I figured you had money because of your truck, but I never would have guessed the rest.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure what to say about that. At all. You have to remember, up until a month and a half ago, I never even had a ride in a car. Stepped foot outside of our compound. Nothing. This is all pretty new to me, and none of it was really built by me. I have a lot because of people I’ve killed and the gift…and that’s it.”

  Marisela finished chewing and put her pizza down. “You’ve said challenges a few times. Why does it sound like you’ve had more than one?”

  “Well, I have? Sort of? A lot can be taken as a challenge, you know? Mom basically treats every situation where I have to kill someone as a challenge that I won.”

  “And this all happened in the month and a half?” Tara asked.

  “Pretty much. It’s been busy that way. Actually, my first was from almost a month ago. Some kids at school thought they’d put me in my place. Then their families got into it.”

  “Families? What happened?”

  “It was a group challenge. Their five families against me.”

  Tara dropped her slice, thankfully on her plate, “And…you beat them?”

  “Yeah. It was pretty brutal.”

  She snorted, making me smile, “There’s a ton you’re not telling us, but I think I can let it go.”

  Marisela looked up again, “What…what was the between lands like?”

  I walked through what I’d seen, skipping the mountains of bodies and just talked about the land itself. The people.

  She had a wistful smile on her face, “Man, I wish I could see it. My grandparents had such amazing stories. Then it all fell apart.”

  “What happened?”

  She waved away my question, “Just stuff…so they left, and we ended up here…and it’s been downhill since then.”

  That sucks. Not that I know what to say about that. Probably nothing. It’s pretty much ancient history and not something that I should apologize for. Any more than they would need to due to my life growing up.

  My phone rang not even 20 seconds later. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hello again, daughter-mine. Did your friends agree to come over?”

  “They did. We’re eating pizza right now.”

  “Did your friend Tara bring her inventions?”

  Tara fingered her box, so to speak. Dirty minds.

  Yes, they can hear Mom’s side of the conversation.

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent. I do have some bad news, though. Director Fitzsimmons has requested my presence at a scene tonight. I am not certain when I will be able to leave. We may need to postpone my viewing until tomorrow or another day. Given that, can you pass my apologies on to your friends? And feel free to review everything as well. After all, while I have more contacts and access to things, you have plenty…and I trust your decisions either way.”

  Tara looked upset, but not over-the-top that way.

  “I’ll pass that on. Let me know if you need anything from me? I’m not sure how I can help, but I’m here if I’m needed.”

  “I will let Director Fitzsimmons know. I hope you all enjoy your night. I will see you as soon as possible.”

  I hung up and sighed, “I’m so sorry, Tara.”

  She looked down and bit her pizza, “It’s all right.”

  Her head jerked up when I smacked the table, “No, it’s not. Whatever they have going on must be important, but I know you’re upset. So…show me then what you have?”

  She fought her upset and finally nodded, “Okay. When we’re done? I need to be able to hook up to a computer? And a television, if at all possible?”

  “Okay. We can head to my room after this?”

  We finished up, with the mood turning a bit happier by the time we were done. I did convince them to bring more drinks with them as we left, then took Marisela’s from her, “Oh, go get your clothes?”

  She didn’t want to, but finally headed out, coming back in with the huge collection wrapped up in her sheet.

  “This way.” They followed me through the house, stopping in the laundry room, where we loaded up both of the washing machines. Yes, there are two of each in here. It’s not the only laundry room, either. It’s just that big of a house. “Feel free to wash the clothes you have on, too. I’m pretty sure none of us here care.” She bit her lip before stripping entirely, shoving it all into the machines. Not that she only has two loads to do, but she had some room to squeeze these clothes in.

  Again, she may be green, but she’s a pretty girl.

  “All right, my room is over here.” They trailed me to my room, gaping at the size of it as I escorted them in and shut the door. Not for privacy, but more with the idea of closing us away from the rest of the house. Maybe they’ll be less on edge with the solid barrier between us and the rest of the massive space.

  “Jesus Christ…” Tara moved in a few steps and stopped.

  “All right, my computer is over here. So is the TV. Do you need anything to connect?”

  Her mouth worked a few times, then she took a deep breath, “No. I should be okay. Just…set everything up?”

  “Yeah?” Marisela was still near the door, so I got behind her and pushed her in. She has a cool birthmark that looks like some sort of bird with its wings spread across the back of her shoulders. I hadn’t noticed that at all in gym class. No idea how that happened, although I hadn’t been behind her much at all from what I recall. “We can put our drinks down over here and get a seat.”

  The much larger girl finally started forward, hesitating before barely sitting on one of the couches.

  Her reaction had me laughing, “Stop acting like I’m human. Sit the heck back already.”

  She frowned and moved back, “It’s just so hard to remember that you’re not…that you’d be okay with this.” She glanced down her body. “You should have seen some of the girls in gym the first time I changed. You’d have thought I was killing in their name.”

  “I can imagine. I was like that when I first went to school. My roommate was a bear shifter. The first time she stripped, I thought I was going to hell. Then she called in some others to talk to me and they showed up naked. I was beside myself.”

  “What happened?”

  “They convinced me to hang out naked with them until dinner.”

  She laughed, “You did it?”

  “Yeah. Baptism by fire, you know? My parents came down hard on being naked in front of the other kids. Once you weren’t being potty trained by someone any longer, that was it. My sister…one of them…she was accidentally seen by some of us while she was in her bra. My parents made her take a white-hot cattle prod, basically, and seal her vagina shut. It was horrific. You can see why I might have had a problem with it before. Now? Not so much.”

  Both girls stared in shock, with tears starting on Tara’s cheeks.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m beyond it. My sister is dead. My parents aren’t, but there’s a kill-on-sight order from the FBI, so it has to just be a matter of time.”

  “Damn, man…” Tara turned back
to her box as she emptied it.

  I hopped up and grabbed some of the items I picked up earlier, “Besides, I found these, Marisela. I’m pretty sure these should fit you. They don’t fit me at all.”

  She gaped as I dropped the clothes I bought for her onto the couch.

  She touched the sports bra that fell on her lap, “What? You…what?”

  “I figured these might fit you? They don’t fit me, so it doesn’t seem worthwhile keeping them around here.”

  She looked through some of them before letting her hands fall, “I can’t accept these from you.”

  “Umm, why not?”

  “Because they’re not mine?!?”

  “Well, yeah, not if you don’t accept them. You don’t have to. I thought about throwing them out, but then I remembered your messed-up bra today and your t-shirt. I figure it made more sense to give them to you if they’ll fit.”

  She continued to stare at everything for a long minute before Tara called out, “Just accept them, Marisela. We all know you need them. Besides, if you don’t, then she’ll be throwing away perfectly good clothes that she just bought.” She smiled at my look, “We can both smell the Goodwill store on them, you didn’t think of that, did you?”

  I blushed, “Dang it. No. I should have washed them first.”

  “That would have worked. You could have played off having them laying around easier.”

  I grabbed the bags that they came in and handed them to Marisela. “In that case, since I don’t have to hide it, you can carry them home easier this way.”

  She took the bags, but just held them. “I can’t…I can’t accept these.”

  “Umm, why not?”

  She glared through her budding tears, “Because they’re not mine?!”

  “Yeah, they are. They seriously don’t fit me. Besides, if you don’t accept them, then you sure as heck won’t accept these.” I grabbed the two other items I picked up and tossed one to each of them. They both caught them, thankfully.

  “What the fuck is this?” Tara asked.

  “Phones? I hope you guys like them.”

  She cocked her head and growled, “Don’t fuck with us. What is this?”

  “Umm, they’re phones? Just like what they look like?”

  “We’re not stupid, we know they’re phones. Brand new ones too, in the box and everything. Just…why are you giving these to us?”

  “Beeecause you both need a phone? Otherwise, how will I know if you’re ready for me to pick you up in the morning? Or hang out?”

  Marisela was staring at the unopened box in her hands, “I don’t have electricity, Ceri. How can…”

  I smiled again, “Ahh, I got you these!” Two more items came out of the bag, and I held them up. “These are battery packs! Each one can charge the phone twice. I’ll keep one here charging then we swap them out. Boom, there we go, charged phone.”

  “I can’t accept this, Ceri. I just…you see my life! I can’t accept this from you! The others in school…they’ll tear you to pieces if they ever found out that you entertained this as a thought!”

  My magic surged forward, battering through the pain inside of me, letting fire and light play all around me as I growled. The much larger girl pushed back on the couch, trying to get away from me. “If they think they can take me, they’re welcome to try. Before I turned 17, I slaughtered five entire families in a group challenge. Five. Rhinos, wolves, mages. Every single one thought they were going to own me for what I did to them in retaliation for what their kids did to me. Every single one of them died. Most of them screaming.” The me that revels in pain and bloodshed floated through me, making my skin bulge in odd places. I’ve seen it do that before, but it hasn’t stuck out at me quite how freaky it looks.

  “The kids at school are welcome to try. Could they beat me? Maybe. Then again, like I said before, if they kill me…Mom will fucking destroy them in ways they can’t even begin to comprehend. That’s assuming it’s not me doing it. I have to rein in what I want to do most of the time…I’ll just simply stop doing that, and then they’ll understand why the king of the fey paid me ten percent of his wealth and gave me 100,000 acres of untamed land.”

  Minor magic flowed out and her clothes floated into the air and went into the bags. I thought about leaving her with stuff to change into but figured she didn’t really care. Then the magic unpackaged the phones and floated them to them, where they fell into their hands as the magic went away.

  I let everything fade into the background as I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I get triggered just a bit by stuff like that. As for the phones? They’re literally ten bucks linked to our plans. If your parents want one, I can get one there as well. It’s ten bucks a line to add them to what we already have.”

  Tara leaned back against the desk where she had been working, “Jesus…what the fuck are you?”

  I smiled at that, “Well, as of right now I’m a very curious possible angel investor. So…” I motioned with my hand, “I’m pretty sure you said you were going to wow me?”

  Marisela broke into a smile, “She never said that.”

  I laughed and plopped onto the other end of the couch, “All right, true, you didn’t. I’m still prepared to be wowed, though.”

  Tara took a few deep breaths, “Okay, give me…15 minutes, maybe? I have to set this all up first.”

  “Take your time.”

  That left me staring at my orc friend as she fumbled with the phone in her lap. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  She finally looked up, “Yeah? I mean…I guess so?”

  “Feel free to not answer, but…why the tusks?” I motioned to my mouth, where hers extend up. An orc’s face is wider than a same-size human, and their mouth is wider, with a squarer jaw. Her tusks are about the thickness of my pinky towards the bottom and come up to a wicked point. They extend up to just about the bottom of her nose, so they’re maybe an inch and a half long? Possibly two inches?

  She smiled and plinked them just as additional supplication came in from my friends. I hit them with a shaft of golden light as I waited for my new friend to talk. “You sort of got that they’re not really teeth, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I recall from the book we got in school? They sort of come out from below your teeth and are anchored right into your jaw? It’s why your jaw bone is thicker and why you have more muscles attached to them than a human or…most others, actually.”

  She patted her jaw, “Yeah. I’m not sure where it came from, either evolution or some sort of magical thing, but everything I’ve ever heard says we’ve had them since history started getting tracked.” Her smile reminded me that her lips are on the outside of the tusks, which means she can’t really close her mouth. Not lip to lip, at least.

  “They’re pretty much for fighting and finding a mate.”

  “Umm…a mate?”

  She nodded, “Yeah? They’re considered attractive to another orc. Or, the older ones, I guess. When we’re out mixing with others, we tend to have our horizons broadened. So, I can see someone that’s a straight human and think they’re hot. Not that most humans do that in reverse. Like I said, we’re like talking animals to them.”

  I grunted at that, “That’s funny. I have a talking animal, but she’s with Mom at work.”

  They both froze, “You…what?” Tara asked.

  “I have Sumi? I’ll introduce you when she gets here with Mom. I’m not kidding, either. She talks. It’ll make more sense at some point.”

  Marisela shook herself and then spread her hands. “Anyway, they attract others, like bright feathers on a bird, maybe? In a fight, we can use them to gut someone. They’re far sharper than they look. Like a boar’s tusks, from what I understand.”

  I moved my head back, “You stab someone with your teeth, basically?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Can you use them for eating? Or…no, because they’re so long?”

  She opened her mouth, extending it far, far beyond what
I would have expected.

  Tara laughed and stopped working. “I love when she does that. It’s always a shock.”

  “Jesus…you’re telling me!”

  “It’s like a hippo’s mouth, or close to it. Just don’t call her Hungry Hungry Hippo. She doesn’t like that.”

  Marisela’s mouth closed and her eyes narrowed, “Someone started that nickname freshman year. I was not amused.”

  Huh, I can see that. “You won’t be getting that from me.” She smiled again. “So…mostly attracting someone and fighting? That’s pretty cool.”

  She shrugged, “It is what it is. Nearly everyone I meet finds them a turnoff, so it’s not like they’re doing anything for me. There aren’t a ton of orcs in the area, and Alan and the others in school aren’t interested in me.”

  “Well, can’t say they’re a specific turn-on for me, but they’re not a turn-off. I wouldn’t be against having some fun.”

  She raised an eyebrow, “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Any chance I can…” Tara sounded so hopeful.

  “You know it. I wouldn’t leave one of my friends hanging that way.”

  We spent the next three and a half hours working through her inventions, playing with them, and washing and folding clothes. As the last shirt went into the pile, I laughed at the screen, where Marisela was using the software to see what it’s like being a human.

  “Seriously? They can’t lift this?” She kept trying to pick up a box, but the software wouldn’t allow her to do it.

  “No.” Tara shook her head, not that our orc friend could see it since she had a headset on.

  “Why not? It’s only 200 pounds?!”

  I patted her on the back, “Seriously? Most average-size humans weigh under 200 pounds. You picked being a girl that’s my height? If I were human, I should probably weigh in at 140 pounds. Maybe. That might even be overweight to a doctor. The chance of me being able to pick up that box and have it be that much heavier than I am? I never could have done that before my stuff came in at 17.”

  She took off the headset. “That’s messed up. No wonder people seem so shocked when I lift something!”