Page 40 of The Orc’s Comfort

“The Scarred Peaks of home weren’t like this,” he says quietly. “But the bones of it are right. The way the stone sits. The altitude.” He’s quiet a moment. “My grandmother used to say the land has a language. If you’re patient, you can learn to read it.”

He sets me down on a flat boulder near the edge and makes sure my ankle is elevated. Then he shrugs off the pack, spreads the blanket, rich WarmHearth geometric patterns across the stone, and lifts me onto it before turning to the food.

Small containers that have apparently been keeping things at precise temperatures emerge in an order that suggests considerable forethought.

“You packed an entire mountaintop dining experience.”

“I packed lunch.”

“Lunch does not usually involve textiles.”

He glances down at the blanket. “The stone is uneven.”

“And the tea?”

“The wind at this elevation causes rapid heat loss.”

“Uh-huh.” I narrow my eyes at him. “You read articles for this, didn’t you?”

A pause.

“Some.”

“Rhazgar.”

“Some were lists.”

“They’re called listicles.”

He nods. “Yes.”

“Did any of them contain the phrase romantic picnic essentials?”

“The phrasing was similar.”

“Did Cosmopolitan plan this picnic?”

“In part.”

I look around at the blanket, the warm tea, the carefully packed lunch, and the valley spread out below us.

“I am never making fun of your research methods again.”

We eat in the kind of quiet that doesn’t need filling. Occasionally our hands brush reaching for the same dish. I let myself notice the jolt of awareness that arcs through me each time.

“After the Emergence,” I say eventually, “when you were looking for a place like this, was it just about the landscape? Or was it about surviving the grief.”

“Both.” He gazes out at the mountains. “Many of us didn’t survive the transition. Not physically… in spirit. They couldn’t find enough of their homeworld to reconstruct themselves. I had my grandmother, and after she went to the ancestors, I had her recipes. Her voice in my head when I cooked. I had purpose.” A pause. “And I had this place.”

I reach over and put my hand on his. He goes very still.

“You’ve done more than not fail her,” I say. “Whatever you think you owe her, you’ve given it. And then some.”

His fingers turn and fold around mine. The difference between his green skin and mine has stopped registering as contrast. It just looks like his hand and my hand.

“I spent six years preserving what she gave me,” he says. “Carrying it. I think I forgot that living things aren’t meant to be preserved. They’re meant to be passed on.”

I feel the weight of what it cost him. And what it might mean that he’s finally set it down.