unabashedwriterandreader

[unabashedwriterandreader]

An Orc, A Human and a Wolf Walk Into A Bar

“Mix, I need your help.” The Scottish burr came through the phone.

Great, this was the last thing I needed.  It was one thing to do a favor for friends and family but when you OWED a wolf a favor there was no way out.  I rubbed my eyes and bent over continuing to try to wriggle out of my jeans.

“Mixie!” it was a demand.  I realized I hadn’t responded.

“Here Knox, I’m just waking up.  Where’s the fire?”

“No fire.  Young Russell is in trouble.  He’s too big for me to move, not without a Change ye understand.  Out at a human bar, drinkin’.  Need ye’ to come ‘n talk him off this cliff.”

Well, shit.  “Young Russell” was a five hundred (give or take) year old Orc who was a bakery regular.  At some point he’d developed a fondness for me and would blush every time he placed an order.  I, of course, hadn’t realized it until Knox, one of my closest friends and a dire wolf, had pointed it out.  Russell’s skin was a very pale beige green so a blush was hard to spot.

The favor I owed Knox went back at least five years when I’d first opened the shop.  He’d tangled with a ghoul who had taken up residence in the shops basement and kept anyone from buying the building.  And he’d told me after he’d cleansed himself of ecto-snot the ghoul had blown at him, that I owed him a favor.  Wolves didn’t do favors or make friends easily.  At least not with humans.  I think probably because we’re basically a food group to them.  Somehow Knox had seen past my status as a happy meal and decided I was worth doing a favor for.  And now he was calling it in.

“Tell me where to go Knox.  I need five minutes to get dressed.”  The wolf named a human bar in the central district of the city.  It was a meat market, and not in a wolfs- eat-the-human kinda way.  Well, I wasn’t there to find myself a sleep over so it didn’t matter.  At least I wouldn’t have that favor hanging over my head anymore.

I arrived at the Gilded Goat 30 minutes later, clean jeans and a sweater, hair in a clamp.  Hey, at least I combed it, it was past my bedtime as it was.  The Goat was popular tonight.  A ridiculous name for a disco-esque bar with glittering lights and lots of chrome and pink fuzzy pillows thrown round the place.  A bow to what humans thought of as bacchanalian excess. The name made as little sense as the foaming turquoise drinks that were guzzled by skinny human 20-somethings with too much time spent in Sephora.  

The bouncer, a large orc sporting gold hoop earrings that probably cost more than the bakery made in a month, spotted me and waved me to the front of the line.  

“He’s at the raised bar behind the stage.”  I threaded my way through the dancing’ drunken crowd, pinched once on the rear by what I was sure was a fae and groped from behind briefly by what could only have been a vampire since the hand that tried to glide its way under my sweater was cold as the ever lovin’ grave.  The things I did for my ‘friends’.

Knox was at the bar, leaning toward ‘Young Russell” talking in his ear with a determined expression on his face.  

Knox was big when in human form.  I’d never seen him in fur, but he had to top 6ft 5 and any girl interested would have been intrigued by his broad shoulders and large long fingered hands.  He wasn’t pretty by human standards, his forehead a little too high, his eyebrows in need of some manscaping.  But with the dark chestnut hair that waved around his head, shot here and there with silver and his trimmed van dyke he turned heads.  Always.  

Knox might be big but orcs were bigger than even some of the gargoyles I’d met.  Russell was enormous, probably two feet taller than Knox and had the huge, bulging muscles that I’d only ever seen on a non-human.  The strange thing about Russell was that while he had the heavy fangs and sharp teeth that all orcs were born with, young Russell had pale blue, gentle eyes.  It had occurred to me before that Russell might have an orcs body but he had the soul of a choirboy.  If orcs even had souls, that is.

Knox spotted me and moved back from the bar, giving the human on the closest bar stool a snarl until he bolted, foaming drink left behind.  I took the seat and looked over at Knox who had one eyebrow raised like I was supposed to know what to do.

We’d done this before, he and I, when an imp we both knew had lost her job as a receptionist because she got creative with the phone messages.  One fake phone message to a manager saying his wife was sleeping with the neighboring wolf (She was) and it was all over.  The imp thought it was hilarious until she was pink slipped.  Then she became suicidal over the loss of her job.  I’d spent three hours in the rain on a bridge trying to convince her not to toss herself over the side.  It wouldn’t have done any good anyway, there was troll who would have snatched her before she hit bottom but we didn’t go into that detail.  I’m not sure when I became Knox’s choice as a non-human’s answer to therapy but lately that seemed to be how we rolled.

“GIve me ‘nother”  Russell grunted at the barman who literally scurried away to bring another...cosmopolitan?  The big orc was drinking a bright pink cosmo in a martini glass with lights twinkling in the stem.  Wow.  I wouldn’t have taken Russell for a girl drink kind of orc.

“Laddie, you’ve had enough.”  The Scottish burr was back and I could tell by the tension in Knox’s voice that his temper was fraying.

The orc growled.

“Hey there Russell.”  I tapped him on his elbow, which was as high as I could reach.  

The green head swiveled toward me and the big pale eyes blinked twice.  

“Mitzi? My sweet friend”  Russell grabbed me with one big arm and drug me to his chest.  I was gasping a little, his hold was not light then I realized that Russell was sobbing.

I managed to pop my head out from under his grip, gasp for breath and squeak out “Russell, honey...a little air.”  Pushing against his chest, I gained an inch of space. I looked up to see giant tears rolling down Russell’s square chin.  “Hey, buddy, what is it?  It’s ok, I’m here.  You can tell me.”  I began to stroke and pat his arm, hoping he’d turn loose before I broke a rib.

“Thank you Mitzi.  My only friend.”  He gave a long drawn out sniff and I grabbed a cocktail napkin.  If whatever that was dripped down, I’d be drenched.  Russell held the napkin under his nose, thank the gods.

Knox stepped back but waved the barman away when he approached tentatively with another pink girly drink for Russell.

“She refused the chain.” Russell finally said, dragging in choked breath.

“She...who honey?  Who refused the chain?”  This was bad. Very bad indeed. My basic understanding of orc mating rituals told me that for lack of a better term, when one got engaged to an orc prior to official mating, it involved not many clothes, and a lengthy period of time spent chained to the beloved fiance with something that looked like it could it could hold the anchor for a luxury liner.  You had to be in it to win it to deal with that nonsense.

“Circe”

“You mean Shirley?  The witch?”

“She prefers Circe”  this was accompanied by another long sniff.

“Oh Russell.  I’m so sorry.”  The patting continued.

“She’s the first one I’ve ever asked.  Ever.”  This was momentous for a young orc.  Everyone had to get there heart broken at some point, at least that was my theory.  But this guy had just had his dished up on a platter and handed back to him.  Orcs were traditionalists.  Female orcs were rare on the ground.  As far as I knew Russell had never even met a female orc, other than his own mother.   And the poor guy had tried to hook up with a witch.

“She doesn’t deserve your chain Russell.  You know that?  Any witch, or orc or female would be proud to be your one and only!”  I made the pronouncement firmly, hoping I wouldn’t fall into the human in question category.

“Really?”  Russell turned his pale eyes back to me, a glimmer of hope showing.

“Really.  ‘Cmon, let’s get out of this meat locker and go get a pizza.  I’m starving and Knox and I will be your date.  I’ll tell you about the time Shirley signed up for the jello wrestling at the Orc bar.  It cleared the house.”

[unabashedwriterandreader]

Morning Coffee

“Jezus Kre-ISTE”  I hate serving gnomes.”

Kristi was muttering over the espresso machine again.  Her dreads were covered today, that was saying something.  Usually I had to make her bag it in a plastic hair net and even then the Health Department wouldn’t have liked it.  Still, it was hard to find good help, or any help for that matter this close to the Industrial Parks where all manner of fae, gnomes, gorgons, dwarves orcs and even demons worked.

“We live to serve.”  I pushed a stack of bourbon glazed cinnamon rolls into the display case, inhaling deep.  Sam, our resident Satyr and full time pastry chef had the touch.  Those rolls wouldn’t last two hours.  My mind was calculating price.  It was all supply and demand it was time to start pushing things up.  The shop needed the cash.

 There was a gargoyle that came in every morning at 10:00 and bought half of a tray for his breakfast.  He was a nice guy but he tended to drop the temperature in the room at least 10 degrees.  I had nicknamed him Chilly but wouldn’t have told him.  Nice is as nice does but you don’t want to piss off a gargoyle.  There were stories of people being smuggled out of their beds at night and a pattern of dusty rock footprints left after the body napping.  I think his name was Mason or  Marble or something like that.  Chilly was easier to remember.

“He brings in his own mug and makes me wash it.  Because he wants it sparkly when he drinks his morning Chai.  Seriously.”  Kristi, still complaining.

I reached over and snatched the mug.  It was actually a goblet, some kind of hammered metal with what looked like a giant ruby in the center.  I washed it quickly and was turning it over to examine it while I dried when the gnome piped up.

“Careful with the goods there Human.”  I smiled over the counter an looked down.  Fully bearded with the traditional red cap lagging to one side, the customer was very short and obviously grumpy.

“Beautiful workmanship on this.  One second and we’ll have it ready for you.”  I increased the wattage on my smile while Kristi poured the Chai into the gnomes go cup.  Or go goblet.  The gnome narrowed his eyes but the right side of his lip curled under the massive white beard.  Gnomes were easy, admire their craftsmanship and you were home free.  Cousins to the dwarves, although you weren’t supposed to point that out, they were skilled craftsmen with all manor of metal and swords.  They also made great landscapers but preferred their own design to keeping customers happy.  A tough sell in suburbia but a few of them survived.

“Have a great day!” Kristi received an extra buck on the tip for that but I noticed lately I was the only one playing nice with the customers.  Didn’t matter, I needed to keep her.  Even part time this shop didn’t run it’self.  We did well until after the lunch rush but for all intents and purposes we were a bakery and after 2:00 business was done for the day.  

Lately I’d worked myself into exhaustion.  Getting up at 4:30 to get the dough started and prepping for whatever meager servings we’d have for lunch.    I was going to have to cut the menu to one offering and hope the customers didn’t take it to hard.  THey’d have to placate themselves with pastry because I was running on fumes even with Sam doing everything he could to help me.

“I am NOT waiting on that Volva anymore either.  She smells bad.”

I sighed.  It was going to be one of those kinds of days and I was already tired.  “It’s not her fault she’s been dead over 500 years, that’s just the way volvas are made.”  I, personally, liked Karen even if she was mildly odiferous.  Personally, I thought the pixies were worse because they always broke something before they left what with all the racing around and chasing after each other.  

Kristi began to pout and tug at her dreads under her doo rag.  THey probably itched.

“Good morning ladies, any chance of getting a hot chocolate to go?  Extra whipped cream?”  The voice was so deep the glass in the display case began to rattle.  I turned and looked up into the glowing red eyes of Nick, a demon and a regular.

Nick scared the hell out of Kristi so she hustled back to the kitchen to hide.

“What else can I get for you Nick?”

“Mixie, I’ve told you before, don’t make offers to the underdwellers.  Some day I’m going to tell you what I want and you, my dearest human, will run screaming from the room.”

“You can’t have my soul Nick, I owe it to the landlord here and the bakery so it’s already taken.  And I”m maxed out on my credit cards so unless you want a pair of heavily used nike’s or my grandmother’s grocery store china, I got nothin’.”  I smiled at him and handed over the hot chocolate.

Nick, who was seriously good looking in that red skinned demon fashion, flashed fang at me and growled.  “Your soul is a pure as the driven snow Mixie and I would love to spend some time ruining it for you.  Face it.  You’d love it.”

I swiped Nick’s credit card and gave it back, still smiling.  “Not today Demon Spawn, not today.”

We had this conversation regularly.  And while Nick was ever so tempting, he was just that.  A Demon, so therefore, tempting.

By the lunch rush hour Kristi had gone home ‘sick’ with a case of the “I can’t wait on orcs, they stare at me like I’m fresh meat.” and I had to make do.

By 5:00 I was dead on my feet and the shop was wrapped up for the evening.  I walked up the stairs wearily to my loft over the bakery glad, once again, for the short commute.  I was asleep on the sofa 30 minutes later still smelling slightly of flour and espresso splatter since I’d made most of the drinks that day.

The phone woke me at 7:00 and I crawled to it trying to kick both shoes off and wriggle out of my filthy jeans knowing I needed a shower and something real to eat before I headed to bed.  At 8:00.  Like a good little human.  Ugh.