Luck of the Orcish

Chapter 1 Ressa

RESSA

Ihear his boots on the porch before his knock.

Two raps, deliberate but not demanding. I know who it is before I open the door—Falla makes the same sounds every time he visits.

Same rhythm, same weight distribution across the creaking boards outside the small cabin they tucked me away in after I was brought to this place.

An orc clan.

I still can't believe it.

"Don't you have actual patients?" I ask instead of greeting him.

He stands there with a worn leather bag slung over one shoulder, green skin catching the pale morning light. His expression doesn't change. "I do. You're one of them."

"I'm fine."

"Then this will be quick." He waits, not pushing past me but clearly not leaving either.

I step aside because I've learned that Falla operates on orc time—patient as erosion, twice as stubborn. He's been coming three times a week for what feels like forever now. Checking my ribs, prodding at my shoulder, asking questions I don't want to answer.

The cabin's interior is sparse. Saela worries that I need more things, coming by frequently to see me. I don't tell her I prefer the solitude. She has enough to manage without my baggage weighing her down.

Falla sets his bag on the table that wobbles unless you know which corner to avoid. He knows. I watch him extract clean bandages, a jar of something that smells like pine and earth, and a small flask I recognize as the bitter tea he makes me drink.

"The cuts on your arms?" He glances up, blue-green eyes clinical.

I push up my sleeves without being asked. The movements pull at my left shoulder—a dull ache that lives there now, constant as breathing. The cuts have scabbed over, rough lines that itch more than they hurt. Some are fading to pink. Others are still dark red, raised against my pale skin.

He examines them with careful fingers, never pressing harder than necessary. "Healing well."

"That's what you said last time."

"Still true." He releases my arm and gestures to the chair. "Sit."

"I can stand."

"You can also make this difficult." His tone is flat, matter-of-fact. "But your legs still ache when you're on them too long, so sitting makes more sense."

I hate that he's right. I hate that he knows.

I lower myself into the chair, feeling the protest in my thighs and calves—that deep, grinding stiffness that appears whenever I've been upright for more than an hour.

The swelling has gone down significantly over the past few weeks, and Falla determined early on that nothing was broken in them.

Just badly dislocated, bruised to hell, damaged but functional.

"Your ribs." He moves to stand beside me, waiting for permission.

I lift my shirt just enough to expose the left side of my torso. The bruising there has shifted through a grotesque rainbow—purple to green to yellow. Two broken ribs, both healing. They hurt when I breathe too deep, when I laugh—not that I do much of that—when I move wrong in my sleep.

Falla's hands are warm despite the early spring chill still clinging to everything. He presses along the curve of my ribcage, pausing at the break points. I flinch once, can't help it, and his hands immediately still.

"Pain level?"

"Manageable."

"That's not a number."

"Three." A lie. Closer to five, maybe six when I first wake up. But I'm not about to give him ammunition to keep hovering.

I'm still barely tolerating an orc near me. It makes me uneasy to have him here, alone with me, his hands on me.

He doesn't call me on it. Instead, he finishes his examination and steps back, pulling my shirt down with an efficiency that somehow doesn't feel invasive. "They're knitting properly. Another two weeks and you'll barely notice them."

"Great. So we're done here?"

"Your shoulder."

I close my eyes briefly. The left shoulder—dislocated twice in the Stonevein camp, wrenched hard enough that Falla said I was lucky I didn't tear anything beyond repair.

It's the worst of my injuries now, the one that wakes me at night when I roll onto it wrong.

The one that makes simple tasks like lifting water buckets an exercise in gritted teeth.

"It's fine."

"Show me your range of motion."

I raise my left arm, feel the immediate pull and ache that starts deep in the socket. I get it about shoulder-height before the pain sharpens. Falla watches without comment as I lower it slowly.

"Better than last week," he says. Not a question.

"Maybe." I rotate my shoulder gingerly, testing. The joint clicks softly, a sound that used to terrify me but now is just... familiar. "It still hurts."

"It will for a while." He pulls out the jar of salve, unscrews the lid. The pine-earth smell grows stronger. "But the damage was extensive. You're lucky it's functional at all."

Lucky. The word sits wrong in my mouth. I don't feel lucky. I feel broken down and pieced back together, a patchwork person who used to be whole.

Falla doesn't wait for me to argue. He scoops salve onto his fingers and approaches. "This will help with the deep ache. May I?"

I nod because refusing seems pointless. His hands work the salve into my shoulder with practiced pressure, finding the knots and tight spots without me having to direct him. The warmth of the salve sinks in, and despite myself, I feel some of the tension release.

"You don't need to keep doing this," I say after a long silence. "Coming here, I mean. I can walk to the healing house if you actually need to check on me."

"I'm aware you can walk."

"Then why—"

"Because you won't." He doesn't look up from his work, fingers still kneading the muscle around my shoulder joint. "You'll decide you're fine enough and stop showing up. Then in a month, that shoulder will seize completely because you didn't do the stretches or apply the salve."

Heat crawls up my neck. "You don't know that."

"I know patients." He finishes with the salve, wipes his hands on a cloth, and caps the jar. "Particularly stubborn ones who think suffering in silence makes them stronger."

"I'm not—" I stop. Arguing feels like proving his point.

He hands me the jar. "Twice daily. Morning and night. The stretches I showed you—do them even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts."

I take the jar because it's easier than fighting. The weight of it is solid in my palm, grounding.

Falla begins packing his bag with the same methodical care he applies to everything. "Your legs. Any numbness? Shooting pain?"

"Just the aching. Stiffness in the mornings."

"Expected. Keep moving, but don't push it. The walking you're doing is good." He pauses, glances at me. "Though I notice you avoid the main paths."

Of course he notices. Everyone probably notices.

I take the routes that skirt the edges of the settlement, paths that don't cross the training grounds or the communal areas where orcs gather.

Where Shae might see me and try to have another conversation about trust and safety.

Where I might have to pretend I'm adjusting.

"I like the quiet."

"Mm." A noncommittal sound that could mean anything.

He closes his bag, shoulders it. The visit has taken maybe fifteen minutes, efficient as always. He moves toward the door, then pauses with his hand on the frame.

"You're healing well, Ressa. Physically, at least."

The qualifier hangs in the air between us. I know what he's implying—that bruises and bones are the easy part. That the other damage, the kind that doesn't show up in examinations, takes longer to mend. Maybe doesn't mend at all.

I don't have a response that isn't defensive or dismissive, so I say nothing.

Falla seems to expect this. "I'll be back in three days. Unless you need me sooner."

"I won't."

"The offer stands anyway." He steps onto the porch, boots announcing his departure the same way they announced his arrival. Then he stops, turns back. "You're not a burden, if that's what you're thinking. Checking on you isn't a chore I resent. It's my job. And even if it wasn't, I'd still do it."

The words hit harder than they should. I stare at him, at this orc healer who has been nothing but steady and calm since the moment Kai and the others brought me and Saela back.

Who set my shoulder while I screamed, who cleaned my wounds without flinching, who keeps showing up even when I make it clear I don't want him to.

"Why?" The question escapes before I can stop it.

His expression doesn't change. "Because someone should."

The door clicks shut behind Falla, and the silence rushes in like water filling a hull. I stand there, jar of salve still in my hand, listening to his footsteps fade across the porch and down the path. Always the same rhythm. Always steady.

I hate how steady he is. How calm. Like the world makes sense to him in a way it hasn't for me in—

I don't finish the thought.

My fingers tighten around the jar until the glass edges bite into my palm. The pine-earth smell rises up, mixing with the musty scent of the cabin's unused corners. I should put it away. Apply it later like he said. Do the stretches. Be a good patient.

Instead, I set it on the table too hard. The wobble corner protests, and the whole thing rocks before settling.

Because someone should.

The words loop through my head, unwanted. What kind of reason is that? What kind of—

The memory hits before I can brace for it.

Hands. Too many hands. Green-skinned and rough, grabbing my arms, my hair, dragging me backward through the underbrush. Saela's name tearing from my throat, raw and desperate, not knowing if she'd made it out. Not knowing if she was already dead like Nia.

Nia.

The ground disappearing beneath my feet as they hauled me up, my shoulder screaming as they wrenched me forward.

The sound of their laughter—that's what I remember most clearly.

The laughter. Like capturing a human was the highlight of their day, better than a successful hunt, more entertaining than whatever passed for Stonevein recreation.