6. Grath
GRATH
The phone screen glows blue in the gray morning light. Too bright. Harsh against my eyes.
But I can't look away.
The photo stares back at me. Blurry. Deliberately blurry. Shows Pebble. Or what looks like Pebble. Small. Gray. Alone on wet pavement. No collar. Eyes wide and scared.
The caption reads: Orc "hero" abandons kitten. Café owner left to pick up the pieces. Where's Grath now? Probably ran back to wherever he came from. #SaveTheKitten #FakeSavior #OrcsAreLiars
My stomach twists. Cold. Tight. Like someone's wrapped iron bands around my ribs and is pulling them tighter with each breath.
I scroll down. Can't help myself. Watch the comments multiply. Faster than I can read them. Hundreds appearing in the seconds it takes me to blink. Each one sharper than the last.
Knew he was too good to be true.
Orcs don't change. Arena trash stays arena trash.
Poor Maris. She trusted him and look what happened.
Someone should report him. Animal cruelty.
Typical. Uses a sweet story to get famous then disappears. Probably sold the kitten.
Once a fighter, always a fighter. Bet he hurt it.
The words blur together. Become a single roar of familiar venom. The kind I heard shouted from arena stands. The kind that followed me through every town I tried to settle in before Weldbend.
I stop holding the phone. Carefully. So carefully. Like it might explode if I'm not gentle. Like my hands might crush it into splinters and glass if I let the rage win.
My hands shake. Big. Scarred. Worthless for delicate things. Exactly the kind of hands people expect to break things. To hurt things.
The kitchen smells like coffee and rising dough. Warm scents. Safe scents. But they don't touch the ice spreading through my chest.
Pebble meows from his perch on top of the fridge. Loud. Demanding breakfast.
He's right here. Safe. Fed. Curled up on a blanket Maris embroidered with tiny fish.
But the internet doesn't care about truth. Only about stories that feel right. And apparently an orc stealing a kitten feels more right than an orc saving one.
I thought I'd left this behind. The assumptions. The instant suspicion. The way people see my size and skin and decide they already know what I am.
Stupid. So stupid to think a viral video and some good press would change centuries of reflex.
Footsteps on the stairs. Light. Quick. Maris.
I shove the phone into my pocket. Try to arrange my face into something that doesn't look like rage and shame wrestling for dominance.
She appears. Hair still damp from the shower. Wearing that oversized sweater that makes her look smaller than she is. Soft.
"Morning," she says, and there's a smile starting to form at the corners of her mouth, the small, private one she saves for early hours when it's just us and the cats and the kitchen settling into wakefulness.
Then she stops. Really looks at me. Her eyes sweep across my face, cataloguing every microexpression I'm trying desperately to smooth away. "What happened?"
"Nothing." The word comes out too fast. Too clipped.
"Grath." Just my name. But she loads it with enough skepticism and concern to fill a whole paragraph. Her arms cross. She's not moving from that doorway until I answer properly.
I force my shoulders to relax. Let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.
"Just internet nonsense, that's all. You don't need to worry about it.
" I try to inject dismissiveness into my tone, try to wave it away like smoke, but even I can hear how hollow it sounds.
How the edges of my voice catch on something raw and bleeding.
She crosses the kitchen in three strides. Takes my hand. Pulls the phone from my pocket before I can stop her.
I watch her face as she reads. Watch the warmth drain out of it. Replaced by something sharp and furious.
"This is fake." Her voice is flat. Hard. "Pebble's right there. Anyone with eyes can see that's not him."
"Doesn't matter if it's fake. People believe what they want to believe."
"We'll post a correction. Show he's here and safe."
"That'll make it worse. Look like we're defensive. Guilty."
She scrolls. Reads more comments. Her jaw tightens with each one.
"They're calling you trash."
"Yeah."
"Saying you used the café for publicity then abandoned everything."
"Yeah."
"Saying I was stupid to trust you."
I pull away. Move to the window. Stare out at the street. Early risers already passing by. Normal people living normal lives. Not worrying about their past crawling up through pixels to strangle their present.
"Maybe they're right."
"Excuse me?"
"Maybe I was using you. Not intentionally. But still. I needed a place. Needed acceptance. And you gave it. Now your business is suffering because of me."
"My business is fine."
"Is it? How many people saw that post? How many will stop coming because they think you're harboring some. Some kitten thief?"
The words taste like rust. Old blood. Arena dirt.
Maris sets the phone down. Comes up behind me. Doesn't touch. Just stands close enough I can feel her warmth.
"You're not responsible for what strangers decide to believe."
"I'm responsible for being here. For being visible. For making myself a target and dragging you into the blast radius."
"Dragging you? I invited you in. Remember?" Her voice cuts through my spiral of guilt, sharp and sure. "I offered you shelter. A place to stay. I made that choice myself."
"You didn't choose this," I counter, gesturing vaguely at her phone, at the invisible mass of strangers deciding what I am. "You didn't choose a smear campaign. Didn't sign up to have your café associated with some... some accused thief."
"No." She crosses her arms, plants her feet. That stubborn set to her jaw I've come to recognize. "No, I didn't choose the campaign. But I chose you. And I don't regret it. Not for a second."
The words slam into me like a fist to the sternum. Not painful, exactly. Just... overwhelming. A physical weight that makes breathing difficult in a different way than fear does.
I turn slowly from the window. Look down at her properly. She's still in yesterday's clothes, hair escaping its bun in wild wisps, exhaustion shadowing the space beneath her eyes. But her gaze is steady as stone. Certain in a way that makes my chest ache.
"You should regret it," I say quietly, the words coming out louder than I mean them. "Would make things simpler for you."
Her mouth quirks. Almost smiles. "I don't do simple, Grath. You might have noticed."
Despite everything—the post, the comments, the creeping dread—my mouth twitches in response. The ghost of a smile trying to break through.
She doesn't wait for me to speak. Just reaches up, slow and deliberate, until her hands cup my face. Her palms are cool against my skin, small and steady, and I freeze under the contact like something wild learning trust.
"We'll figure this out. Together. Like we figured out the developer and the fundraiser and every other disaster that's landed on us."
"This is different."
"How?"
"Because it's about me. What I am. What people think I am. You can't fix that with a plan and a color-coded list."
"Watch me."
Her confidence should be reassuring. Instead it makes the knot in my heart tighten.
She doesn't understand. Can't understand. What it's like to be reduced to assumptions before you even open your mouth.
I've spent years trying to be small. Quiet. Unthreatening. And one viral moment made me visible again. Made me a story people could tell.
Now the story's changing. And I don't know how to control it.
"I should leave." The words fall out before I can stop them. "Just for a while. Let things cool down. Give you space to distance yourself."
Her hands drop. Her expression shifts. Hurt. Then anger.
"That's your solution? Run?"
"It's damage control."
"It's cowardice."
The word stings. Sharp and accurate.
"Maybe. But it's also practical. You built something here. I won't let my past destroy it."
"Your past isn't destroying anything. Some internet troll with a fake photo is. And if you leave now, you prove them right."
"Or I prove I'm not interested in dragging you down with me."
"Stop deciding what's best for me without asking."
Her voice cuts. Clean and furious.
I open my mouth. Close it. She's right. I know she's right. But the urge to bolt, to protect by absence, is overwhelming.
It's what I did before. When the arena threatened people I cared about. Disappeared before they could be used as leverage.
Kept myself free by keeping myself alone.
"I'm not asking you to stay because I'm noble or self-sacrificing." Maris's voice softens. Just a fraction. "I'm asking because I'm selfish. Because I want you here. And because we're better together than apart."
"You don't know that."
"I do. You're the one who doesn't."
Pebble meows again. Louder. Insistent.
Maris breaks away. Scoops him up. Buries her face in his fur for a moment. When she looks up, her eyes are wet but her voice is steady.
"Feed him. I need to open the café. We'll talk about this later. When you've stopped catastrophizing."
She sets Pebble in my arms. The kitten purrs. Tiny motor vibrating against my chest.
Then she's gone. Down the stairs. Leaving me standing in the kitchen with a kitten and a phone full of poison.
I don't feed Pebble right away.
Instead I sit. Let him knead my arm with needle claws. His purr fills the silence. Relentless and soothing.
The anger is still there. Coiled tight under my ribs. Hot and familiar.
I hate this. Hate the helplessness. The way words on a screen can undo weeks of careful rebuilding.
My whole life I've been too big. Too visible. Too easy to point at and categorize.
The arena capitalized on it. Made me a spectacle. A monster for people to fear and bet on.
I thought I'd escaped that. Found a place where size didn't matter. Where I could just. Exist.
Stupid.