10. Traig #2
But Krem yelled in the hall about the mossnibbles stealing the ingredients for the lunch he was making, and we got up to help him track them down.
By the time we’d found the mossnibble nest and taken back the food, thankfully still in its packaging, and returned to the conference room, Willa had moved on to discussing liability insurance.
I’d tell her tomorrow. Or I’d send her a message tonight. There was time.
We worked through the rest of the safety protocols, finalized the parent communication plan, and ate half the cookies between us.
The building was completely quiet now. Even the ventilation had cycled off for the night.
Rising, I went to the supply room.
The lights flickered on at my touch, flooding the space with brightness. Shelves lined three walls, everything organized by category, then alphabetically within each category, then color-coded by expiration date range.
I’d built this system, and it worked. But the labels on the second shelf were slightly crooked. That may have happened when Willa restocked earlier this week. They may have been dislodged.
I could fix this. It would give me something to do.
I pulled out the label maker from the top drawer of the supply cabinet.
The medical supplies shelf didn’t actually need new labels. The current ones were clear, properly placed, and specific.
I printed new ones anyway. These would be better. More thorough. I peeled off the old label and applied the new one, smoothing it until no air bubbles remained, and moved to the next.
Medical Supplies - Sutures - Absorbable - Size 3-0.
I was reaching for the shelf when a soft thump echoed behind me. I didn’t have to look. The puff from his fangs told me Fred was here. He hovered, his face a short distance from mine. Amanda clung to his back, her crown gleaming.
“I’m working,” I told them.
Fred bumped into a shelf, knocking a box of gauze onto the floor.
I leaned over to pick it up, but Amanda leaped from Fred’s back, landing on the label maker. She hissed at the screen, her tiny twig-legs dancing across the ‘Print’ button.
The machine whirred, and a long, thin strip of tape emerged.
S;lsdwoeurpS;lsdwoeurpS;lsdwoeurp
“Amanda, stop.” I ripped off the strip and threw it away.
Fred grumbled, the happy sound making the metal shelves hum. He floated toward the ceiling, bumped into the light fixture, and drifted back down to “help” me with the next label. He stayed so close I had to work around his velvety body, my hands brushing his fur as I tried to maintain my system.
I was an orc who prided myself on precision, yet here I was, printing my fifth label for the same bin while a floating toad and an irritating pinecone acted like my incompetent assistants.
The label maker clicked as I worked. Print. Peel. Apply. Smooth. Each motion was as carefully controlled as my life. This had nothing to do with the unopened letter in my desk or the potential adoption I still hadn’t told Willa about or that she’d kissed me.
Or the fact that I’d eaten multiple containers of her cookies and wanted more but asking would mean admitting I’d been thinking about her since the moment I met her.
I printed another label and kept going.
The labels got longer, so detailed they wrapped around the corners of some shelves. My breathing was too loud in the empty room. Just me and the fluorescent hum and the click of the label maker.
The door opened behind me.
Greth stepped inside the room and studied my work. He walked to the shelf unit against the back wall and sat down on the floor, his back against it, his legs stretched out in front of him.
I printed three more labels.
“I’m organizing,” I said.
“I see that.”
“The supply room needed attention.”
“Did it?”
I smoothed another label into place. “Systems require maintenance.”
I printed another label, this one for a shelf that already had four labels on it. This would be the fifth. My hands were steady. Steady hands meant controlled thoughts.
Except I’d just printed a label exactly like the one already stuck to the shelf.
I stared at it before ripping off the old one and throwing it away.
“You know this won’t fix anything,” Greth said.
“I’m not attempting to fix things. I’m doing my job.”
“You’re hiding.”
I set the label maker down on an empty section of the shelf with a bang. “I’m working.”
“At midnight.”
“The facility operates at all hours.”
“Why, Traig?”
I turned around and slid down the shelf unit beside him until I was sitting on the floor, my back against the metal.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
Minutes passed. Greth had never been bothered by silence. He used it the way other people used words to fill space with meaning.
“The letter?” he finally asked.
I nodded. Drogar must’ve mentioned it.
“Willa?”
Always Willa.
I tightened my jaw. “I received an adoption inquiry for Rue. I began the paperwork. It’s what we do here when applications arrive.”
“Without informing Willa, I assume.”
“It’s a preliminary review. There are multiple stages before—”
“Why not tell her then?”
I pulled my knees up and rested my forearms on them. “The family has experience with other creatures, though not bloombacks. They have a big farm. Good references. Their teenage daughter is excited to take Rue to country fairs next summer. Rue would fit in well with the family.”
“And Fern?”
“Fern had a temporary problem when we took Rue from the enclosure. Nothing abnormal. They’ve been together for months. They’re friends. It’s nothing more than that.”
“She stopped eating.”
“For two days. She ate again after that.”
“Because we put Rue back in with her.”
I dragged my hands over my face. “This is a good opportunity for Rue.”
“But?”
“Willa believes they’re bonded.”
And that was why I hadn’t told her. She’d be disappointed, and I didn’t know how to face that.
“What do you believe?” Greth’s face was as unreadable as always, but his eyes held a touch of understanding.
“I’ve spent most of my life building systems to keep everything controlled and organized and safe. Those systems work.”
“And?”
My voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. “Willa looked at them and understood something I’d missed despite working with them for months.”
Greth nodded. “So you’re afraid.”
“I’m—” The word stuck. “Yes. I’m afraid of being wrong about this. No, wrong about more than that. My filing system. My labeling. The way I handle everything. This is my job. I thought I was good at it, but maybe I’m not.”
Greth stared forward, giving me time.
“If I’m wrong about Rue and Fern, what else have I been wrong about?”
“Nothing,” Greth said.
I turned to face him.
“Your systems work,” he said. “The facility runs because you built it to run. You. No one else. Own that. The creatures are safe because you made them safe. None of that is wrong, but systems aren’t the same as understanding.
Data isn’t the same as seeing. You can study every aspect of a bond and still miss what makes it real. ”
My teeth met, steadying something that wanted to break loose.
“Willa didn’t just look at Rue and Fern and know. She also looked at you.”
My breathing sounded too loud again.
“I don’t know how to tell Willa about the application,” I said. “We’re handling the morning adoption meeting together. We could handle the afternoon one, too. She deserves to know. Instead, I—” I gestured at the over-labeled shelves surrounding us. “I’m doing this.”
“You’re worried about what she’ll think if she discovers you processed it without her. Of what it means that you want her input. You don’t want to admit you might be wrong.”
I wanted to argue. The words lined up, ready to defend myself. But he was right about all of it.
“You can’t control what she thinks when she finds out,” Greth said, standing. “But you can tell her why you did it. Or you can keep labeling things until the sun rises.”
He walked to the door, but paused with his fingers on the handle, not turning back.
“The label maker doesn’t fix things,” he said. “It just makes the broken parts look more organized.”
He shut the door.
I sat in the supply room, surrounded by perfectly labeled shelves that didn’t need labels, in a space that was already organized, and nothing felt fixed or in control.
The words came out before I could stop them.
“I need to tell Willa about the application.”
My voice echoed off the metal shelving.
“I’m scared to tell her.”
The admission made heat blaze in my chest.
“I don’t know how to stop being scared.”
I let the words exist in the space around me before I got up, placed the label maker on the shelf, and turned off the lights.
I stepped outside and checked enclosures that didn’t need checking. Adjusted gates that were already secure. Avoided the empty space waiting for me at home.
My cottage was dark and cold when I finally reached it.
Without turning on lights, I walked to the kitchen table and sat down in my usual chair.
The empty cookie container sat in the center of the table where I’d placed it. I pulled it closer and opened it. A few crumbs remained at the bottom. The scent of vanilla still clung to the plastic.
She’d made these in her kitchen with her hands because she’d been thinking about me.
“Tomorrow I’ll tell her about the application.” My voice sounded rough even to my own ears. “I’ll tell her I was afraid to ask her opinion.”
I stared at the empty chair.
“What if I’ve been missing things all along?”
Pulling my phone closer, I typed and sent Willa a message. Could you meet me before the adoption tomorrow morning? We need to talk.
She didn’t reply, but it was the middle of the night. She’d be asleep—like I should be.
I opened my desk drawer in my mind, the real desk back at my office, where a letter with my family’s crest waited under a stack of forms.
Some things I could control.
Some things I couldn’t.
But I could choose what I did with my fear.
I’ll collect the letter tomorrow and read it.
Then I sat at my kitchen table with a silent phone and a second chair that wouldn’t be empty much longer, if I could just stop being afraid and let someone sit in it.