Page 5 of Built Orc Tough
I’m halfway up the cracked stone steps of the town records office, the hem of my dress clinging to my shin from the damp morning fog, and I swear if one more squirrel makes eye contact with me likeI’mthe intruder in this overgrown storybook town, I might snap and start yelling at the wildlife.
The town clerk’s office is a crooked old building that smells like lemon polish and regret. It’s run by a woman named Delphina Millers, who is either two hundred years old or just cursed to look like it. She greets me with a smile so wide and practiced it probably squeaks when she turns it off.
“Miss Marlowe,” she says, drawing out the syllables like she’s tasting them. “We’ve heard you were coming. How’s the shop?”
“Cozy,” I say, too brightly, setting my tote bag down with an unnecessarily firm thunk. “Though I did recently discover it comes with a free orc. You wouldn’t happen to have the contract on file, would you? The one my aunt apparently signed while under some sort of herbal hypnosis?”
Delphina blinks, tilts her head, and produces a manila folder with all the solemnity of a death sentence.
I skim. My aunt’s handwriting, unmistakable in its flowery loops, stares up at me. And there it is, underlined twice in red ink:Joint tenancy agreement effective immediately upon death or permanent incapacitation of Maybelline Marlowe.
I close the folder slowly.
“So just to clarify,” I say, in the tone of a woman hanging on by dental floss, “the shop now legally belongs to me and an orc who thinks mint leaves are a personality trait?”
Delphina nods, either unbothered or completely dead inside.
“Lovely,” I mutter, scooping up the folder and shoving it back across the counter. “Can’t wait for the town mural unveiling where we hold hands and braid daisy crowns.”
Back at the shop, I don’t storm in, not exactly. Storming would imply passion, maybe even drama. No, what I do is worse. I open the door like it’s nothing, like I’m calm, like I haven’t just been legally shackled to a man who keeps jars of pickled bark on the same shelf where I keep ribbon spools.
Gorran glances up from whatever dried root he’s shaving into a mortar. He raises an eyebrow. Doesn’t say a word.
I don’t either. I just smile. Sweetly. Dangerously.
The petty war starts immediately.
First, I “accidentally” move his tool kit into the back hallway closet, stacked under two boxes labeled “Satin Bows – Winter Inventory” in glitter pen. Then I print a set of hot pink shelf tags in my most unhinged curly script and re-label all his jars.
“Snot-B-Gone.” “Toad Slime, Probably Not Poisonous.” “Forest Floor Mystery Mix.”
He doesn’t say anything. Not a single grunt. But Iknowhe sees them.
Two hours later, I come back from the greenhouse to find my arrangements moved—subtly, just enough that the colors areclashing. And the soil in three of my potted hydrangeas replaced with some dark, spongy substance that smells like wet leaves and bruised pride.
There’s a note sitting innocently on the counter.
In perfectly neat orcish script:“Even the most beautiful bloom dies in poor soil.”
I hiss under my breath like a deflating tire and vow revenge.
The next day, I bring in my Bluetooth speaker.
“You like drums?” I ask, too cheerfully, as I press play.
He doesn’t answer. Not even when the bossa nova kicks in at full volume, bouncing off the rafters and rattling his potion vials.
His customers blink a little harder during their sessions, but no one complains. Except him, silently, by repotting my begonias inmoss, which they hate, the passive-aggressive bastard.
Sprout, my wide-eyed part-fae apprentice, wanders in around noon, takes one look at our respective workstations, and mutters, “Yikes, this is tenser than the gnome zoning hearings.”
“I’m not tense,” I say, snipping at a stubborn piece of baby’s breath. “I’masserting boundaries.”
Gorran, who hasn’t spoken in thirty-six hours beyond a grunt and a suspiciously poetic phrase about ‘healing requiring stillness,’ says nothing. But I swear the bastard’s shoulders shake for a half-second like he’s laughing at me.
Which only fuels me more.
By day four, we’re not speaking. Not because we’re angry—no, anger would besimple. No, we’re in the high art phase of the passive-aggression gallery, and we’re both painting masterpieces.
