1. Chapter One
Chapter One
Rhazgar
The key to perfect rushka isn’t the ingredients or even the proportions.
It’s attention. I lower the flame beneath the cast-iron pot by a single increment, coaxing the heat into something steady and patient, not the aggressive boil humans seem to prefer, but the kind of warmth that persuades rather than forces.
I inhale. Almost right. The barley has absorbed the spice correctly, and the parsnips have softened without losing their structure.
The volcanic salt substitute is still slightly off, as it’s been for eight years, but I’ve learned to compensate.
My grandmother would have noticed. No one else here would know what they were missing.
Eight years since the portal opened. Eight years of adapting WarmHearth clan recipes to Earth ingredients. Eight years of carrying the weight of preservation on my shoulders. As the only surviving member of my clan’s culinary lineage, the responsibility falls to me alone.
The cultural center pays me to do what I would do regardless: prepare traditional meals for clan gatherings, teach what I can, and keep the knowledge moving. It is not a burden. It is the only work that makes sense.
I grab the wooden spoon and stir the thick mixture counterclockwise exactly seven times, as tradition dictates. The rhythm turns almost meditative, muscle memory older than I am, a connection to ancestors who made this same dish for generations on another world.
A sound from the other side of the wall catches my attention. The human woman’s voice, soft but clear to my sensitive hearing. She’s on the phone again, discussing plans for the library where she works. Julia Whitaker.
Six months of silently observing her from a respectful distance, since the evening I overheard her correcting a delivery driver who’d asked if it was “safe” to leave a package with the orc in 1D.
She didn’t raise her voice. She simply told him no one had asked that question about any other neighbor in the building, and he should consider why he was asking it now.
She didn’t know I could hear her. I’ve been paying attention since.
Six months of noticing small details: how she always greets elderly Mrs. Craft with genuine warmth, how she’s volunteered to run the condo association’s cultural inclusion committee, and how she defended an orc child being teased at the community picnic last month.
I stir once more. My mind goes, as it so often does, to Julia Whitaker. She moves with quick economy through the world, sparrow-swift, always a stack of books under one arm. She has what humans call laughing eyes. Eyes that crinkle when she smiles, which is often.
Except around me.
The wooden spoon cracks in my grip, a sharp sound in the quiet kitchen. I set the pieces down and retrieve another from the drawer. That’s the third spoon this month.
When Julia encounters me in the hallway or parking garage, her usual easy confidence falters.
She presses herself against the wall to maximize distance, her eyes widening slightly, her heart rate accelerating.
I can hear it: the uptick in her pulse, the subtle catch in her breathing.
The reaction I’ve catalogued a hundred times: humans confronted with seven feet of tusked, green-skinned orc.
My clan counselor’s voice surfaces in my mind, patient and infuriating in equal measure. Integration progresses at different rates, she’d say. My size alone is intimidating, regardless of species.
True as that might be, the contrast between how she treats other orcs and how she responds to me specifically is…
discouraging. I’ve seen her chatting comfortably with Grulk when he was doing maintenance in the building, and she seemed perfectly at ease with the elderly orc female who sells vegetables at the farmers’ market.
Perhaps it’s my reserve. WarmHearth stillness reads differently than HammerFall noise, and not everyone has learned to tell the difference. Or perhaps it’s my attention; when I focus on something, it doesn’t look casual. It never has.
“—food exhibition at the library. I’m hoping we can feature cuisine from multiple cultures, including orc dishes. The community needs more opportunities for cultural exchange,” Julia’s voice drifts through the wall again, clearer now as she seems to be pacing her living room during the call.
My hand stills above the pot. A food exhibition? Featuring orc cuisine?
“No, we don’t have any orc presenters yet,” she continues. “I’ve reached out to the cultural center, but haven’t heard back. It’s important to have actual orcs presenting their own traditions rather than humans interpreting them.”
I allow the smallest nod. At least she understands that much.
“There’s an orc in my building who might know more, but…” Her voice drops. “He’s… a little intimidating. I don’t know how to approach him without making things awkward.”
My shoulders lower. There’s no shrinking a body like mine, no blending in. Even with her evident respect for orc culture, I still frighten her.
The timer chimes, a welcome interruption. I remove the pot from the heat, setting it on a trivet carved with traditional protection symbols. The stew needs to rest now, allowing the flavors to settle and the spirits of the ingredients to harmonize, or so my grandmother would have said.
Thoughts of my grandmother bring a familiar ache.
She was the clan’s master chef, responsible for both celebrations and healing, her hands always smelling of spices even when she wasn’t cooking.
She survived the Emergence only to pass two years later, her body unable to fully adapt to Earth’s atmosphere.
Before joining the ancestors, she made me promise to preserve our culinary traditions.
“Food is memory, young warrior,” she told me, her once-powerful voice reduced to a whisper. “When we cook as our ancestors did, they live again through our hands.”
I cross to the window and watch the sun drop behind the treeline. There is nothing here even vaguely reminiscent of the jagged spires of home, but in certain light, if I squint just so, I can almost pretend.
Through the wall, I hear Julia ending her phone call, followed by the soft thump of what must be a heavy book being set down on a table.
She hums to herself, a habit I’ve noticed at the oddest times.
The sound is pleasant, musical in a distinctly human way, with none of the deeper resonance orcs naturally produce.
I cross to my desk and pull out the sketchbook I tell myself I keep for botanical reference.
The last page holds an unfinished study: the graceful angle of a woman’s wrist, holding a book against her chest. I add three lines to the shading and stop myself before I can add more.
Someday I will either finish this properly or throw the whole book into the recycling.
I have told myself this for four months.
I return to the kitchen and remove the lid from the stew. The aroma is right now. Everything in its correct proportion. Everything harmonized.
I ladle stew into the blue ceramic bowl my grandmother somehow brought through the portal. The same portal carried the seeds for the handful of true WarmHearth plants that still grow in my window boxes, tucked into pockets and hems by refugees who had no idea they’d need them again.
“Grath’ak moro vashna, krell’vor thanak shu. Duur’im sokka vezna, morvak thal buru. Shamar vikoth draal’nak, krell’vor ethna tu.”
After speaking the traditional blessing, I eat in contemplative silence, considering Julia’s food exhibition.
Should I volunteer? The thought is appealing and then immediately terrifying. If I already intimidate her, approaching directly only makes it worse. A written offer would give her time to consider without the weight of my attention bearing down on her.
Perhaps an opportunity will present itself. Or perhaps I’ll let it rest, as I have every other impulse toward her for six months.
I turn back to my work. Recipes to review. Notes to prepare. Order and purpose, same as every night.
The condo goes quiet around me, the ordinary sounds of a nearby life carrying faintly through the wall. Not listened for. Simply there.
Two separate lives, divided by a wall that feels as vast as the portal that brought my people to Earth.