by Liam Lawson
Tibs’ website was the most commercialized. Trorm was willing to bet that sales of his records, videos, and other merch had skyrocketed after last night. Bananas Eating Monkeys was doing very well for itself.
The stuff about Winnie was a lot less detailed. Mostly it was just pictures of the Stallion’s cheerleaders with captions pointing her out.
Lilian though, now she had some interesting things about her. Too much to give a thorough investigation. It seemed she’d been a paladin for a few years now and had already made a name for herself locally.
Finally, he looked himself up. The webpage about him had been created by an amateur and depicted a hastily thrown up screenshot of him using Lilian’s divine energy to power his shield spell. He couldn’t tell whether the site was meant to be a tribute to his spellcasting or football prowess. Either way, it didn’t seem to have much on it yet, though it did have an active comments board.
The top comment was: Damn. Now orcs can cast spells? Fuck my life.
There was a link in the commenter’s profile. Orcwatch. With trepidation Trorm clicked on it. Orcwatch was essentially like Elfwatch in function and performance. It’s audience however, was anything but. Humans were tracking him, and they were doing so in order to either avoid him or catch him in the middle of committing a crime. The comments were all derogatory, hateful, or outright stupid. Several were actually threatening.
Trorm bared his tusks. If those assholes wanted to come after him or Winnie he’d take them on. Slamming his laptop shut with more force than he intended, he stood and stormed out of the room, throwing open the door to find Trisha Madden, standing there, looking surprised to suddenly find herself face to his scowling face.
NERVOUS. Schooling his expression took more effort than Trorm would have cared to admit, but he did it. “I apologize if I startled you, Ms. Madden.”
Trisha Madden
Gender: Female
Emotion: WORRIED. FRUSTRATED.
Interest Level: 3
Frozen hells. She had an interest level too? What had Abigail done to his sunglasses?
Trisha held up something. It took him a moment to recognize that they were the bloodied and tattered clothing he’d put in the laundry. He’d been instructed that his laundry was to be included with everyone else’s and that he’d take his turn washing it and hadn’t given putting his dirty clothes in a second thought since.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“My clothes from last night, Ma’am,” he said.
“I can see that, Trorm,” she said slowly, visibly restraining herself. “Why are they like this? And more importantly, where were you last night?” FRUSTRATED. CONCERNED.
“The party I went to was attacked by those same things that attacked your tavern,” he said. “Lilian didn’t tell you any of this?”
She scowled. “Lilian was at a party?”
“I have no idea what I’m supposed to say right now,” Trorm admitted.
Remarkably, Trisha chuckled and brought a hand to her forehead. AMUSED.
“And I’m not sure what I’m allowed to tell you.”
Her head shot up and her eyes met his in a glare. ANGRY. “What did Lilian say to you?”
Trorm opened and closed his mouth several times, looking for the right words. This was honestly never a situation that he’d been in before. “I stayed the night away last night to keep you and Abigail from being in danger.”
There. Not a lie. Not an answer to her question, either.
Trisha scowled. “Lilian stayed here last night.” She lifted a finger and planted it in his chest. “Alright big guy, next time you spend the night out, you tell me first. I was worried about you. And the next time Lilian tells you that you have to—yeah, I know she put you up to that—tell her that it’s my house and my rules and you are supposed to be here.”
With that she turned and walked down the hall, leaving Trorm very confused. And feeling oddly warm in his chest. He was supposed to be here. That had felt really good to hear after that shit he’d read online.
Gathering up his staff, he left for Nymal’s apartment.
He found it fairly quickly. It was a complex frequently used by students and more concerned with making everyone who wasn’t a resident pay for parking rather than keeping people out. Nymal was located on the first floor of a building beside a pond hidden away in the back. It was about as private as could be had.
Trorm had no idea what he was going to say, but he knocked on the door anyway.
A moment later it creaked open, revealing Nymal. His face looked grumpy, but the sunglasses read EAGER. Had Nymal been expecting him?
“Hey,” Trorm said. “Tibs said that you’re way more advanced than most of us and I was hoping I could get you to check something out for me.” It sounded really dumb when he said it like that. He should have called ahead or texted. He had Nymal’s number now.
Nymal didn’t seem put off at all though. He tossed open the door, revealing that he was dressed in baggy jeans and a t-shirt with a superhero on it. “Come on in. What do you need me to look at?”
Nymal Torquinal
Gender: Male
Emotion: Excited. Eager. Anticipatory.
Interest Level: 2
Nymal had an interest level? That was odd. Trorm hadn’t met a guy yet who didn’t register as 0 when viewed through the sunglasses. At least the gender was right this time. What was the elf so excited about? Working together after his blunder last class had been awkward and fraught with undercurrents of frustration. Nymal hadn’t seemed willing to believe that Trorm’s insult had been accidental.
“Well?” Nymal asked, crossing his arms. “What have you got?”
Something was wrong. Nymal’s body language suggested impatience but that wasn’t what the sunglasses were reading at all. In fact, the only person they’d ever had trouble with had been Nymal. They’d really have been useful the other night with Clare before she vanished.
Trorm froze. He hadn’t had his sunglasses with Clare. And she hadn’t remembered being with him that night. How would she have heard about what he was doing? The location had been texted, not spoken aloud.
He glanced back at the gender reading on his sunglasses. Why would that have suddenly changed, even if it had been incorrect before?
“Hey, you okay?” Nymal asked. FRUSTRATED.
“I think I’m going to find somebody else to help,” Trorm said and turned to go.
A sound like a muffled scream came from behind a closed door. He glanced at it and Nymal struck him across the face.
The diminutive elf struck with the force of an orcish linebacker. Trorm staggered back, sunglasses flying from his face.
Nymal swelled before him, muscles contorting as they bulged and gained definition. Clothing stretched as the elf grew taller and broader. Soon, Trorm had to look up at whatever this thing was. Because it sure as hell wasn’t an elf.
He barely got his staff up in time with a shield spell as the creature attacked. Hands elongating into talons that struck against the invisible barrier. It moved with preternatural speed, like an apex predator, darting around behind him to strike again. Trorm hadn’t been able to throw up a full sphere in the time he’d had, instead opting for a concave wall of force.
He tried to swing the staff around but was too slow. The creature’s claws raked over his back, tearing cloth and flesh alike in a spray of blood. Trorm staggered forward, shield spell evaporating in his sudden pain.
The thing didn’t stop attacking. For all that it had the speed of an animal it fought like an expert martial artist, delivering a swift series of kicks to Trorm’s legs to keep him off balance. Trorm tripped and fell back to the floor.
The thing lunged at him. No, not him. At his satchel, where the damnable paperweight was still held.
Instead of trying to catch himself, Trorm spun the staff around so that it was between him and his attacker and let fly a lightning bolt. It took the attack
er in the chest and sent them airborne with a shriek. Trorm hit the floor and the spell died as the air was driven from his lungs.
The apartment was filled with the sound of shattering glass. Pulling himself upright, Trorm saw that the combination of his lightning bolt and the creature’s own momentum had carried it through the balcony window. There was still a ripple from the pond where it had presumably hit the water.
Warry of a return attack, Trorm pushed himself upright, brandishing his staff at the water and mentally reciting a series of spells for quick casting depending on how the thing came at him again. What had it been? A doppelganger? That would make sense. He’d heard that they could assume the shape of anyone they chose. Could they also enhance themselves with claws? It stood to reason. It also stood to reason that one going on the offensive could make themselves incredibly strong, fast, and durable. He doubted the thing was dead.
After several moments of another attack not coming another muted scream came from behind the door. Trorm shuffled over to it, not turning his back on the water, and eased it open. He blinked, not sure what he was seeing.
It was a bedroom. Tastefully furnished and distinctly feminine. The closet was open revealing dresses and jewelry. More decidedly feminine clothes were strewn across the room, a few tattered. And there, tied up and gagged with stockings in the center of the bed and wearing a pale pink sundress, was Nymal.
Chapter Thirteen
Trorm hurried to Nymal’s side and tore the stockings binding his—her?—wrists free. Nymal rolled over putting his or her back to Trorm, hands going to his or her face, both hiding the makeup he or she wore and removing the stocking gagging him or her. Trorm had no idea what the appropriate pronoun to use was and it was giving him a headache. The headache became very real an instant later when Nymal let out a high-pitched keen that sent him staggering back.
“Don’t look at me!”
Trorm spun around. “I’m not looking. Are you hurt?”
Nymal sniffled. “I-I couldn’t even get to my wand. It just came into my home and…and…I couldn’t stop it!” Nymal wept.
Trorm stood there awkwardly for a moment, then reached back and found Nymal’s back, placing his hand there.
“I said don’t look at me,” Nymal snapped.
“I’m not,” Trorm said.
He felt Nymal shift under his palm. “Oh. Th-thanks.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked again.
“I…a few bruises. Nothing serious.”
Trorm wasn’t sure he believed Nymal. “We should get you to a doctor.”
Nymal didn’t say anything for a moment. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to ask for your help,” Trorm said. “I need to know what…it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have come.”
“I’m glad you did,” Nymal said quietly. “Who knows…I’m glad you came.”
Trorm shook his head. He didn’t know if Nymal could see it or not. “I think…Nymal, I think that thing was here because of me. Because of what I wanted to show you. I’ve put you in danger.”
But how in the frozen hells had that thing known to be here?
“That’s…” Nymal must have shaken his or her head because Trorm felt silky hair brushing over his wrist. A moment later, Nymal began shaking.
“I’ll leave,” Trorm said. He didn’t have any right to be there. Lilian had been right to not let him take the object to Abigail. Whoever and whatever that thing was, it clearly wanted the object and didn’t care who it hurt to get it. Would the monkey-things attack next? Were they even on the same side as the shapeshifter? Trorm hated not knowing who his enemy was.
A hand grabbed his wrist. “No!”
He glanced down. The nails were pink and glittered. A woman’s hand.
Trorm’s eyes followed the hand to the slender wrist and arm it was attached to all the way to Nymal’s face. Her—this was her, he decided—makeup was messed up by the crying. Even so it accentuated her features nicely. Nymal was an attractive young woman. For an elf.
“I don’t want to be alone right now,” she said.
Nymal Torquinal
Gender: Female
Emotion: AFRAID. TRAUMATIZED.
Interest Level: 3
Trorm nodded. “Okay. What do—"
A pair of dinging noises sounded. Phone alerts. He reached for his own automatically to shut his phone off, only to realize that neither ding had come from him. He spotted a phone on the nightstand next to the bed and picked it up to hand it over to Nymal when he saw what the alert was.
The Orc Watch website had an app. It had just sent an alert out that the area he was in had just had a disturbance.
He set his jaw and handed it over to Nymal, whose already red face turned a deep shade of crimson.
“I-I can explain this,” she said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I got it after you called me a girl,” Nymal said in a rush, heedless of his words.
Trorm shook his head. “I don’t need or want an explanation.”
The last thing anyone needed was him getting mad right now. Cops would probably be here soon and if they came in and found an angry orc in the bedroom of a clearly traumatized elf in a damaged apartment…actually he should probably get going sooner rather than later. Even if he wasn’t angry, this was not going to look good for him.
He started to move but the little hand on his wrist tightened its grip. “Please don’t leave me. I-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You saw right through me and I….” Nymal’s head fell.
“I didn’t see through you,” Trorm admitted.
Nymal looked up, eyes wide. CONFUSED.
Trorm took his sunglasses off and handed them over to her. “These are an aid I’ve been using to help me understand expressions and emotions.”
Nymal accepted the sunglasses and put them on. “These tell you gender. Oh. OH…that’s. You really didn’t mean to insult me.”
Trorm shook his head. “I did not.”
“Interest level…” she muttered. “What’s that—wait, why are you nervous?”
She pulled the sunglasses down her nose to look up at him. “Is it because I’m dressed like this?”
Trorm shook his head. Maybe handing those over to her was a mistake. He glanced at the living room. “That thing and me, we broke a window. If the cops come…it doesn’t look good, me being here.”
Nymal tilted her head and her ears cocked slightly. “Why would tha…” he eyes widened in understanding. “You think they’ll blame you.”
He nodded. “This probably isn’t a good place for either of us right now. If that thing comes back…” he trailed off. “There were two.”
Nymal furrowed her delicate brow. “Two what? Attackers?”
“No,” Trorm said. “Two dings. Two phone alerts and one of them wasn’t mine.”
“There’s another phone in the house,” Nymal said.
They both started moving at the same time, scouring the floor.
Nymal suddenly bounced upright. “I’ve got an idea.” Her fingers flew over the screen over her phone and a moment later there was another ding.
Trorm found the phone tossed under the coffee table in the living room. It was an older model and beat up. Turning it over he found another alert from Orc Watch. This time a user had listed him as being on the opposite side of campus.
He glanced from the phone to Nymal, who blushed. “About a dozen people will swear they saw you nowhere near here now. And it stood to reason that it might be how…how that thing knew where you’d be.”
Trorm gave a slow nod. Not sure whether to feel disgusted, horrified, or relieved. At least he had an idea how that thing was tracking him now. Along with half the university it seemed.
Hesitantly, Nymal handed over the sunglasses. “I-I signed up after our class together. I didn’t know if you were just been being mean or…but I had to avoid you.” She gestured at her dress. “I couldn’t risk
letting…I’m not ready to let the world know.”
Trorm shrugged. “That’s your business.”
Nymal nodded. “It is. But…” And suddenly she was holding onto Trorm’s torso, face buried in his sternum and weeping all over again. “I can’t—I can’t let the other elves know. That’s…it’s not just my business. It’s not.”
Trorm awkwardly patted her on the head. “I don’t understand.” Did he need to understand? This really wasn’t any of his business. It seemed to him that whatever was going on with Nymal had been building up inside of her for some time now and it was ready to explode out of her.
“I’m taking hormones,” Nymal said, voice barely above a whisper. “I’m…they’ve made me infertile, Trorm.”
Definitely not his business. “Okay.”
“Elves, we aren’t like humans and orcs. We reproduce slowly. Every child…every child is a gift. And now I can’t give any.” She started shaking harder. “My people will hate me for this.”
“So, let them,” Trorm said.
Nymal looked up at him. Her makeup had run even more and now she had dark streaks running all down her cheeks.
“I don’t know about elves, but among orcs, the warrior who stands his ground against a superior force is respected. Especially if his cause is just.” Gods above he hoped this made some kind of sense. An elf probably didn’t want to hear anything about orcs. What was he doing? “Is your cause just?”
“I-I don’t know,” Nymal said, seeming to shrink into him. “I worry that…that I’m being selfish.”
Trorm shrugged. “Magic and medicine have come a long way with fertility. Will one elf not committing to spreading their seed make a difference?”
