21. Brovish
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
brOVISH
Istood beside the sofa, my neck stiff from the angle I’d laid in for most of the night, watching Drogar’s grin spread wider.
“You could use my bed,” he said. “I’ll sleep outside. The weather’s favorable and the ground is soft enough.”
Traig, who’d just entered the break room, didn’t look up from his tablet. “I heard fillawigs hunting last night.”
Drogar huffed. “I can handle a fillawig.”
“Can you handle a pack of them?”
Drogar’s grin faltered. “That might present difficulties.”
Krem set the mug down on the table and quickly explained to Traig what had happened. “We could establish a rotating schedule. Each of us sacrifices one night in our own bed. The burden would be distributed equally across—”
“That does not create a solution,” Traig said. “It creates inefficiency in our sleep patterns, which will affect our work performance.”
“I offer only simple solutions.”
“Your solutions always require spreadsheets.”
“Go home tonight, Brovish,” Greth said. “She offered.”
Everyone blinked my way.
Going home meant sharing my bed. In my cottage and in my space where everything carried my scent and habits and the small pieces of myself I arranged when no one was watching.
None of that addressed what it meant.
When an orc accepted an invitation to share sleeping space, it was an answer to a question that hadn’t been spoken out loud yet. The person who offered their bed was saying, I trust you in my vulnerable hours. The person who accepted was saying, I will guard those hours as my own.
“I’ll consider it,” I said.
Drogar’s eyebrows rose. “Consider? She invited you into your own bed. What requires consideration?”
Everything. Nothing.
The bed was large enough, however. We were adults.
We’d slept beside each other in the cave with newborn twins and their mother. That had been necessity. This would be choice.
My throat felt too tight.
“The consideration is complete,” I announced. “I’ll return to my cottage tonight.”
Drogar’s grin could’ve lit the entire facility. “There. Was that difficult?”
More than he knew.
I left before anyone could say anything else.
Carol arrived mid-morning, her silver vehicle pulling into the lot. She got out and smoothed her jacket before striding toward the entrance.
Laina was examining the fizzlings while I tried to figure out how they’d recently escaped when Carol joined us at the gate.
“That one.” She pointed to the smallest fizzling, whose stripes glowed brighter than its siblings’. “Why is it separated?”
Laina crouched beside the enclosure, her tablet balanced on her knee. “She’s not separated. She’s choosing to be alone right now. Fizzlings need individual time after they discharge energy. If we forced socialization too soon, she’d build up static too quickly.”
“So the alone time is medicinal,” Carol said.
“It’s necessary.” Laina made a note on her tablet. “For her well-being and for the others’. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a creature is give them space to regulate themselves.”
Carol was quiet for a moment. “That’s remarkably insightful.”
Laina looked up, surprise flickering across her face before she could smooth it away.
I returned my attention to the mesh pinned between two posts that might have a small hole, but I’d heard the change.
Carol wasn’t questioning whether Laina knew her work anymore.
She was beginning to see what everyone else at the facility had recognized within an hour.
Laina understood creatures because she understood what it meant to need space to become yourself.
“How long is snugglethorn gestation?” Carol asked when we reached Abagail’s enclosure.
“Sixty to seventy days,” Laina said without looking at her mother. “Though they can delay birth if they don’t feel safe.”
“And the twins’ development rate?”
“Accelerated compared to many surface mammals. They could run confidently within a week.”
Carol pursed her lips and asked more questions. The mirrormoose’s stress responses. The fizzling grounding procedures. Each answer Laina gave came out with none of the warmth she used when talking to the creatures themselves.
I wondered what Carol was searching for. Whether she recognized her daughter in these answers or whether she was still trying to find the version of Laina she’d left behind years ago.
I went inside to handle some paperwork and didn’t emerge until Drogar called out that our midday meal was ready.
Traig had prepared lunch today.
The break room smelled like roasted turesh root and spiced meat. He’d set the table with the same care he applied to everything.
We gathered around the table, all of us except Greth, who’d taken his portion outside to sit with Gerald while he ate. Carol sat between Krem and me, her expression neutral.
Traig set the serving dish in the center of the table.
He’d made kormek the way his father used to, slow-cooked until the meat fell apart and seasoned with the combination of spices that couldn’t be replicated with surface world ingredients.
We’d had three spice deliveries this month specifically so Traig could perfect this recipe.
He served Carol first, which was courtesy for honored guests.
She studied the plate like she was wondering if we’d just served her roasted fizzling.
I expected her to comment on portion sizes or question us about nutritional content or whether this meal aligned with current dietary recommendations.
Instead, she took a bite. Her eyes widened.
“This is excellent,” she said after she’d swallowed. “What’s in the spice blend?”
Traig looked up from his meal, his expression wary. “Ground vesh seed. Dried trilladon leaf. Salt from the deep mines along the Cassarian Sea.”
“The balance is remarkable.” She took another bite. “The meat is cooked perfectly. How long did you braise it?”
“Six hours on low heat.”
“That explains the texture.” She set down her spoon. “This is a skillful preparation, Traig. Thank you for sharing it.”
Drogar’s spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. He looked back and forth between Carol and Traig.
“Is this a claiming attempt?” he asked. “Are you trying to claim Traig through food praise?”
Carol’s mouth twitched. “I’m simply acknowledging good cooking skill when I see it.”
Traig stared at her like she’d announced she was moving to the kingdom. Krem made a note on his clipboard. I caught her surprised expression before she could hide it with her napkin.
We finished our meal in silence, but the quality of the silence had changed from stilted to relaxed.
Late-afternoon, Carol announced she needed to go to town to handle some things. She sent Laina a look holding a touch of longing.
Laina murmured something but didn’t offer to accompany her.
After Carol’s car disappeared down the road, I considered asking Laina what Carol was looking for or whether the space between mother and daughter could be crossed or if it had grown too wide.
I decided against it. This was between them, and my interference would only complicate an already delicate situation.
But the urge to fix it sat heavy in my chest.
After everyone had gone home for the day, I locked up and walked to my cottage, finding the lights on inside. Laina sat at the kitchen table with food waiting on the stove.
“I made dinner,” she said as I shut and locked the door. “I hope that’s alright.”
The tightness in my chest eased. “It’s more than alright.”
We ate together, the conversation light and careful. Afterward, we moved to the living area, both of us with books we weren’t really reading. Finally, I put my marker back inside my book and closed it, setting it carefully on the table beside my chair.
“Back where I come from,” I said, “when family members create distance between themselves, we have a specific word for it. Tavresh-mora. The space that must be walked.”
Laina closed her book and placed her clasped hands on the cover.
“That sounds very formal,” she said.
“It is, because the distance is acknowledged as real. Not pretended away or ignored. When someone has tavresh-mora with family, the expectation isn’t that they’ll cross the distance in one grand gesture.
The expectation is that they’ll take small steps toward each other, repeatedly, until the space has been walked by both of them. ”
“Small steps,” she said. “Walking in the other person’s shoes.”
“Yes. They seek a meal shared without judgment. A question asked with genuine interest rather than criticism. A moment where both parties exist in the same space without needing to fix what’s broken between them.”
Laina set her book down on the cushion beside her.
Sofia lifted her head, considered relocating, and decided the cushion she’d curled up on was warmer than either of us.
“My mother doesn’t do small steps. She wants—” Her fingers drummed on her thigh.
“I don’t actually know what she wants. I thought I did, but every time I think I’ve figured it out, she surprises me. ”
“Like today,” I said. “With the kormek.”
“Yes, like today.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
“She complimented Traig’s cooking. She asked real questions about the fizzlings’ stress responses.
She let the mossnibble keep her bracelet without demanding I retrieve it.
” Her voice went soft. “I can see that she’s trying.
I just don’t know what she’s trying for. ”
“Perhaps she’s walking the space,” I said. “One small step. Testing whether the distance can be crossed.”
“And if I don’t meet her halfway?”
“Then the space remains. But you didn’t create it alone, which means you don’t have to cross it alone either.”
Laina was quiet for a long time. Sofia’s breathing evened into tiny snores.
“Your people are very wise about family,” Laina finally said.
“The kingdom has had thousands of years to be wrong about it first.” I shifted forward in my chair. “We have a saying, The distance your family walks away is never as far as the distance your pride will maintain. It means—”
“That sometimes staying angry is easier than trying again,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That’s very wise.”
“It’s just an observation.”
“That’s the same thing sometimes.”
When it grew late, she disappeared into the bathroom and emerged wearing a nightshirt that hit mid-thigh, her hair loose around her shoulders. She walked into the bedroom and sat on the edge of my bed, her hands folded in her lap.
I stood in the doorway, uncertain about the space I’d lived in for years.
“The bed is large enough for four orcs,” I said.
“It is.”
“We’re adults.”
“We are.”
“We already slept together in a cave.”
“We did.” Her mouth curved. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Both.”
She patted the quilt. “This is your home, Brovish. Come to bed.”
I washed up in the bathroom, my hands moving through the familiar routine while my mind stayed with what we’d discussed in the living area. Tavresh-mora. The space that must be walked.
I’d told Laina about kingdom family wisdom, but I hadn’t told her what I’d observed. Carol was taking steps. Small, uncertain ones, but steps toward Laina. And Laina was standing still, waiting to see if those steps led somewhere safe or somewhere that would hurt again.
I didn’t know which it would be. But I knew that Laina didn’t have to decide yet.
I undressed, leaving only my loincloth in place, and opened the bathroom door.
She’d turned out the light and laid down. I settled on the side opposite. Sofia launched herself onto the bed between us and snuggled into the blanket with a soft trill.
We lay in the growing darkness, neither of us sleeping.
My hand found hers, our fingers weaving together.
I shifted closer, putting my chest to her back and wrapping my warmth around her. This felt different from the cave. This was my space, my bed, and we both knew it meant something neither of us had named yet.
“My mother said things about my father yesterday,” she said. “About how he’d run from difficult conversations. Disappeared rather than deal with what he should’ve.”
“What did you say?”
“I was angry. I told her I hadn’t thought of it that way and that I’m not him.
” Her fingers tightened around mine. “But the thing is, I think I saw it sometimes. Not often, but enough that I should’ve remembered.
He’d go out on a late-night call that could’ve waited until morning.
Or he’d work in the barn for hours after a heated discussion with her. I never thought of it as running.”
“It may have been the only way he knew how to process difficulty.”
“Or perhaps he was running, and I inherited that too.”
I pressed my forehead against the back of her head, breathing in her scent. “You could be anywhere else, but you chose to be here. That’s not running.”
She turned in my arms, her face close enough that I could count her eyelashes in the dim light. “What is it then?”
“Staying even when it’s uncomfortable. If you were someone who ran, it would be much easier to leave.”
Her lips found mine, and I kissed her back with all the things I couldn’t say yet. About how she fit in my life and in the small corners I’d thought would always be empty.
When we pulled apart, I understood something I hadn’t before.
Laina wasn’t running from her mother. She was terrified of becoming her father, of disappearing into work and distance when things got hard.
Carol’s arrival hadn’t threatened Laina’s new life.
It had forced her to face whether she’d truly chosen it or whether she’d only run to the nearest exit.
But she was still here.
In my bed. In my arms. Choosing to stay even when staying was uncomfortable.
That was everything.
Laina’s breathing evened out and deepened, her body relaxing against mine.
I stayed awake. I’d been yearning for this woman for weeks, and now she was here, safe in my arms.
She fits here, I thought, the words forming like a notebook entry. She fits in a way I didn’t know to hope for.
Sofia’s wings fluttered in her sleep, and somewhere outside, a creature called into the darkness.
I held Laina close and let myself believe that morning wouldn’t change anything at all.