Page 31 of My Orc Has Big Tusks
LAINA
The thing about working somewhere new is that you notice when you stop noticing you’re new.
I pulled into the lot Thursday morning, ten days after my first official shift, and realized I’d stopped reciting the gate code before I punched it in. It flew right out of me without thought.
My hands knew which cabinets held which supplies. My body had learned to reach up instead of across when putting things away, adjusted to orc-height counters that would never get shorter. I kept a new step stool beside the exam table now, and I filled my mug each morning at the community tea pot in the staff break room. Small adaptations that added up to belonging.
I cut Bertha’s engine and sat in the quiet while warm light spilled from the facility’s windows. Someone was already inside. Probably Brovish. It was always Brovish.
My phone buzzed.
Sofia has been sitting by the door for twenty minutes,Brovish texted.I told her you’d arrive soon. She didn’t believe me.
I smiled at the screen and texted back,I’m outside right now.
Good.
Just that. But it felt like more.
Inside, the warmth hit first. Then Sofia.
She launched off Brovish’s shoulder before I’d gotten my coat off, a bright streak of orange that collided with my chest hard enough to make me step back. Her claws latched onto my shirt, and she climbed to my shoulder, settling against my neck with a trill that sounded much too cheerful for this time of the morning.
Brovish stood near the counter, his hair tied back today, watching as I removed my jacket and hung it in the front closet.
“Good morning to you too,” I told Sofia, though my attention kept sliding sideways to him.
“She missed you,” he said.
What about him?
And I wasn’t sure why that question had popped into my head.
“I’m here now.” I reached up and stroked Sofia’s spine, and tried not to think about how Brovish must feel knowing she’d leave him the second I walked through the door.
“She’s a sweetie.” She didn’t bother me one bit.
I headed to the kitchen, Brovish following. My chipped mug sat on my desk, clean and dry, in the same place I’d found it when I arrived yesterday. It had been washed again. I still didn’t know who was doing my dishes.
I really needed to remember to do it myself. I didn’t want to be a bother.
After pouring tea in the break room, I made my own truncated version of rounds.
The medical bay had started to feel like mine, reorganized, labeled, and claimed. I’d learned everyone’s rhythms too. Drogar’s 2am creature videos. Traig’s determination to keep all of us organized. The difference between Greth’s happy and irritated grunts.
I fit here.
That shouldn’t be possible after a week and a half, but it was true anyway.
Sofia rode on my shoulder through morning rounds and while I checked on Cooper, who was healing beautifully. I tracked down a few mossnibbles, who’d escaped their pen and built a new nest out of Krem’s socks and someone’s left boot. The vellicharm, Duchess Filandra, tolerated my exam with regal patience before returning to her enclosure with a dismissive flick of her tail.
I made notes in my own small journal, the one I’d started keeping for moments that didn’t fit in the medical files.
Cooper stretched his wing today with apparent comfort.
Mossnibbles stole Traig’s stylus.
Duchess Filandra has opinions about breakfast timing.
