Page 43 of The Orc’s Comfort

She looks across the room and finds me. Her gaze drops to the tunic and the ceremonial apron, then returns to my face. Recognition settles over her, followed by something softer.

I am seven feet of WarmHearth keeper in full ceremonial dress standing in a human library, and she is looking at me like I am exactly right.

For eight years I have been waiting to feel exactly right.

I incline my head slightly. She understands. She turns to speak to a colleague, and the professional distance settles back into place. We both understand what this is. Professional distance held by mutual agreement, for now.

Grulk arrives forty minutes after opening, which means he showed appropriate restraint by his standards.

He is, to his considerable credit, not in his coveralls. Instead, he has come in HammerFall clan colors: rust-red tunic with hammered copper accents at the collar and cuffs, the kind of garment that announces a man of standing rather than a man with a toolbox. He looks fully like what he is: a HammerFall craftsman of some significance who also happens to fix things in our building.

Surveying the hall with satisfaction, he spots me, spots Julia across the room, spots the matching colors of our clothing, and his expression becomes immediately insufferable.

“WARMHEARTH.” Heads turn from three displays over as he strides toward me. “You look…”

He stops, taking in the ceremonial tunic, the apron, the forearm wrappings. The mischief drains out of his face, and what’s left is younger than I’ve ever seen him.

“You’re wearing it here,” he says quietly.

“Yes.”

He looks at me for a moment. Then he claps me on the shoulder with enough force to move a smaller person and says nothing else, which from Grulk is the most eloquent response available.

When his gaze lands on Julia, his insufferable expression returns.

“Matching colors,” he observes. “Very traditional WarmHearth courtship signal. Accidental, was it?”

“Stand somewhere else, Grulk.”

“I’ll stand here and be supportive,” he says cheerfully, and does that for the rest of the afternoon.

The exhibition goes well. I knew it would. I prepared carefully. But knowing a thing in advance and experiencing it are different, and this is more than I anticipated.

People lean in. They ask real questions. A woman whose daughter married into HammerFall clan wants to understand the spice traditions. A teacher asks about the connection between food preparation and oral history preservation. An elderly man who I believe is one of the committee representatives takes three portions of stew and then stands at the edge of my station for twenty minutes listening to me explain the seven herbs. When I finish, he writes something in a small notebook, recording my words with focused care.

The knowledge is moving. Right here, in this room, through these conversations, the knowledge is moving.

My grandmother comes to mind. The urgency with which she taught me in those last two years, the way she made sure I knew everything: not just the recipes but the meanings, not just the techniques but the reasons.

I imagine what this room would mean to her. Her tunic in a human library. Her herbs being discussed. Her traditions met with genuine curiosity by people who truly want to understand.

She would know they had survived.

I remain with this thought when sound carries to me across the room. My hearing catches it before I consciously register I’m listening.

BRASWELL. That's the name printed in block capitals on his lanyard. A library board member radiating the dismissive confidence of someone unused to being challenged. He's speaking to another board member in what he clearly believes is a private tone. Privacy is impossible. Every word has carried to me since he began.

“I’m not saying it isn’t interesting. I’m saying the question is always allocation. Who are we actually serving here? Our core constituency has been very patient with the expanded programming.”

A beat. Then, lower, “Frankly, there’s a difference between cultural education and handing over a public institution to… well. The collection should reflect the community. The actual community.”

I am calculating the most appropriate response when Julia, across the room, goes still. She has heard it too.

She excuses herself from a conversation with her boss, Director Harrison, and starts across the room. Not toward me. Toward the man with the lanyard.

She moves with the focused calm of someone whose mind is already made up.

Whatever happens next, she is not going to let this pass.