Page 60 of Orc Me, Maybe

“You belong here.”

Something warm curls in my chest. “Thanks. That means… yeah. Thanks.”

The last investor is a problem.

Not because she’s mean. Or skeptical. Or hates goblins—which, believe me, we’ve had that.

No, Faelin Strongreed is just… precise. She’s been watching the camp’s progress for weeks from afar, and now she’s finally come to see if it’s worth the pledge she’s been holding back like a carrot on a stick.

She arrives dressed in crisp linen, with a pen that looks like it could write someone out of existence. She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t frown, either. Just watches everything like she’s seen better and expects worse.

She tours the buildings. Asks smart, brutal questions. Side-eyes a griffin with hay stuck to its tail. Spends exactly five seconds looking at the waterfall meditation deck before turning to me and saying, “You’re new.”

“I’m not new. Just efficient,” I answer, offering my hand. “Julie Wren. I’m the new operations lead.”

She doesn’t shake it. Just raises a brow. “And why should I trust you with my money?”

There’s a pause. The kind of pause that stretches just enough to give doubt a foothold. But I’ve learned something in the last few weeks, something Torack taught me without saying a word. People trust conviction. Not polish.

So I smile. Steady. Sure.

“Because I know what this place can be. And I’ve seen what it was.”

She narrows her eyes. “Go on.”

So I do.

I tell her about the day the storm knocked out the wards and we had to reroute a whole construction crew by torchlight. About the goblin girl who cried when her dorm got a compostable art supply cabinet. About how Lillian braided my hair once and then decided I was family. About Groth crying at the harvest feast because the dryads sang a lullaby from his homeland.

I talk about peace, not as a theory, but as something you build every day with mismatched materials and people who don’t always speak the same language.

And when I finish, Faelin studies me for a long, long moment.

Then she nods once and says, “I’ll triple it.”

I blink. “Sorry, what?”

“My pledge. Tripled. On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“That you stay in charge.” That night, we light the big central fire. It’s part celebration, part ceremony, part excuse to burn too many marshmallows and let kids sing off-key under a starlit sky. I’m exhausted and covered in paint glitter, but happy.

Genuinely, deeply happy.

Torack finds me leaning against a tree, watching Lillian teach a centaur kid how to play freeze tag with the wisp lanterns.

“You did it,” he says quietly.

“We did.”

He shakes his head. “No. This was you. I was holding on too tight.”

“Because you care.”

“Because I was afraid.”

I turn to him. “Of what?”

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