Too Big to Hide

Chapter 1

STONE

The shuttle doors hiss open and I step out into what humans call progress.

My coat hangs too long on one side. The left pocket's torn, stuffed with a rolled-up apron that keeps slipping.

I shift my grip on the two crates. The duffel strap digs into my shoulder.

Everything I own, balanced in a configuration that seemed reasonable ten minutes ago and now feels like a physics problem I'm failing in real time.

The landing platform smells like burnt rubber and someone's breakfast pastry. Sweet. Yeasted. My stomach growls loud enough that a passing gnome glances up, startled, before scurrying away.

Human cities always surprise me. Not because they're big.

Orc encampments sprawl. Not because they're loud.

We're louder. It's the layers. Everything is stacked.

Signs pointing to signs pointing to more signs.

Shops squeezed into buildings that squeeze into other buildings.

Like they're afraid of leaving space between things. Afraid of silence. Of gaps.

I love it.

The heaviness of both crates makes my biceps sing but I keep my grip steady.

Useful orcs don't drop things. Useful orcs carry their share and then some.

That's what I am. What I'm trying to be.

A bridge. An orc who can crack eggs without shattering the shells.

Who can dice an onion into perfect little cubes.

Who belongs here without pretending he's anything other than what he is.

Green. Big. Scarred across the knuckles from a dozen cooking accidents and one truly stupid bar fight.

The crowd flows around me. I'm a boulder in a stream. People adjust. I try to make myself smaller but there's only so much tucking-in a seven-foot frame allows.

A vendor shouts something about roasted nuts. The smell hits me. Cinnamon. Sugar. My mouth waters.

I make it three steps before my boot catches the curb.

The physics problem solves itself. Badly.

The top crate tips. I lunge to catch it. The duffel slides. I twist. My knee buckles. The crate of books, the delicately bound books that cost me two months of wages and a promise to my mother that I'd actually read them, goes airborne.

Time slows.

I watch them tumble. Spines cracking against pavement. Pages fluttering like startled birds.

Then time speeds back up and I'm on my knees, grabbing at scattered volumes. "Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry."

No one's listening. Or everyone is. A kid points. An older woman makes a wide detour.

I scoop up three books. Four. A thin one with a cracked cover that might be poetry. Might be a cookbook. Hard to tell with the title smudged.

My hand closes on the last book just as my stomach growls again.

There's something in my other hand.

I blink.

A sandwich. Thick bread. Some kind of meat. Cheese oozing out the side. Still warm.

My brain catches up a full second after my mouth. I've taken a bite. A big one. The flavors hit. Salt. Char. A tang that might be mustard or might be something fancier. Humans love fancy condiments.

"Hey!"

I freeze. Chew. Swallow.

A human stands three feet away. Shaggy hair. Paint-stained fingers clutching a guitar. His eyes are wide. His mouth is wider.

"That's my lunch."

I look at the sandwich. Half of it is gone. My jaw still works on the evidence.

"This is yours?"

"Was mine."

"Oh."

We stare at each other. His face does something complicated. Cycles through shock, disbelief, annoyance, and lands somewhere near resignation.

I hold out the remaining half. "You want it back?"

"You bit it."

"Just the one side."

"Your teeth are in my sandwich."

"Technically the sandwich is in my teeth." The joke lands like a brick. His expression doesn't shift. I clear my throat. "I can buy you another."

"Can you buy me back the last ten minutes of my life?"

Fair.

I stand. The books are crammed under one arm now. The duffel dangles. The second crate sits crooked where I dropped it. My coat pocket's ripped further and the apron is definitely on the ground somewhere.

"I'm Stone." I offer my free hand.

He stares at it.

"I'm new here. Just arrived. Didn't mean to eat your food. Thought it was..." What did I think? That sandwiches appear in your hand when you're hungry? That the universe provides mid-stumble snacks?

"A gift from the pavement gods?"

"Something like that."

He takes my hand. Shakes once. His grip is stronger than I expect. Calluses on the fingertips. Musician hands.

"Rafe."

"Good to meet you, Rafe. Sorry about the sandwich."

"Sorry about your books."

I glance down. The spines are scuffed. One cover is bent at a corner that'll never quite flatten. But they're whole. Readable. I tuck them tighter against my ribs.

"They're fine," I say, shifting the books more securely against my side. They feel solid, reassuring. "Books are tougher than they look. They can take a beating."

"Unlike sandwiches."

"Unlike sandwiches," I agree, nodding solemnly. "Sandwiches are fragile. Delicate creatures. No structural integrity once an orc gets involved."

He huffs. Not quite a laugh. Close enough. The corner of his mouth twitches upward for half a second before settling back into that flat, unimpressed line.

"You said you just got here?"

"Off the shuttle about five minutes ago." I glance back toward the station, somewhere beyond the market stalls and the crush of bodies. "Still have that new-arrival smell. Confusion. Mild panic. Sandwich theft."

"And already making friends."

"I'm very efficient," I tell him, deadpan. "Set a personal record, actually. Usually takes me at least ten minutes to alienate someone."

This time he does laugh. Short. Surprised. He picks up his guitar case, props it against his hip.

"Where you headed?"

I recite the address from memory. It's a sublease. Third floor. Shared kitchen. The landlord said something about 'cozy' which I've learned means 'your elbows will touch both walls.'

Rafe's eyebrows climb. "That's six blocks north. You know the way?"

"I have a map."

"Where?"

Good question. I pat my pockets. The torn one yields the apron. The other produces a bent spoon and a half-finished poem about rain that doesn't rhyme and probably never will.

"I had a map."

"Uh-huh."

He sighs. Not angry. Tired, maybe. Or just resigned to the fact that the universe has handed him a seven-foot disaster in an oversized coat.

"Come on," he says, adjusting the strap of his guitar case. "I'll walk you there."

I shift the nearest crate, feeling the bottles clink softly against each other inside. "You don't have to do that. Really. I'll figure it out."

"You ate my sandwich," he points out, and there's something almost playful in the way he says it. "You owe me."

"I offered to buy you another one," I remind him, though the words come out more defensive than I intend. "With actual money. Real compensation."

"And I'm collecting," Rafe says, already turning north. "Just not in sandwich form. I'm taking it in tour-guide services instead. Consider your debt transferred."

He starts walking. I gather my crates, my duffel, my dignity. Follow.

The street opens up ahead. More vendors. More noise. A tram rattles past, bell clanging. Rafe moves like he knows every crack in the pavement. Every shortcut. I lumber after him, trying not to knock into anyone.

Trying to be a useful orc in a city that hasn't decided if it has room for me yet.

But the books are safe. The sandwich was good. And I've made one friend, even if the introduction involved accidental theft.

It's a start.

The building squats between a laundromat and something that might be a tattoo parlor or a very enthusiastic art supply shop. Hard to tell. The windows are covered in designs that could be flash art or abstract explosions of color.

"This is it," Rafe says, gesturing at the narrow door wedged between them. Numbers above it match the ones I memorized. "Third floor. Watch the railing on the second landing. It's loose."

"Noted."

He shifts his guitar case. We've been walking for twenty minutes and he hasn't complained once about the detour. Hasn't asked why an orc needs three different spice containers in his personal belongings or why my duffel clanks when I set it down.

"Thanks," I tell him. "For the directions. And for not calling security when I committed food crime."

"Food crime." He grins. Actually grins this time, wide enough to show teeth. "That's what we're calling it?"

"Petty sandwich larceny?"

"Better." He steps back, one hand raised in a casual wave. "Good luck with the unpacking. Try not to eat anyone else's lunch."

"I make no promises."

He laughs and disappears into the crowd.

I stand there with my crates and my torn pocket and the feeling that I've just passed some kind of test I didn't know I was taking.

Then I haul everything up three flights of stairs that creak like they're personally offended by my weight.

The apartment is exactly as advertised. Cozy. Which means my bed takes up half the room and my desk takes up the other half and there's a sliver of floor space where I can stand if I don't breathe too deeply.

The kitchen is shared. Down the hall. I passed it on the way in. Smelled like burnt toast and someone's failed attempt at curry.

I drop the crates. The duffel. Sit on the edge of the bed and it groans.

This is it. My fresh start. My chance to prove that orcs can integrate. That we're not just warriors and laborers and cautionary tales parents tell their kids at bedtime.

I lift out my ledger. The one I've been keeping since I left home. Half budget tracker, half journal, half terrible poetry. I know that's three halves. Math was never my strength.

The margins are full of scribbled lines. Observations. Feelings I don't know how to say out loud.

I write: Day one. Ate a stranger's sandwich. Made a friend anyway. City smells like possibilities and exhaust.

It doesn't scan. Doesn't rhyme. But it's honest.