Orc 4 - Would the real Orc chapter 4 please stand up?
Right. Considering the frankly ridiculous amount of time between chapters there is no possible way this will be worth the wait. That said I hope you still enjoy it! No promises for more frequent submissions, however I will say that I do seriously want to make this a more regular occurrence. I will try to keep my bio updated with the latest news.
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Misty had waited until night had fallen and, she hoped, her mother had retired for the night, until she made her way back into her house. She had found a few tattered scraps of her clothing in the woods on her way home, but not all. The girl prayed that one of the local poachers wouldn't find any lost items of hers and link them back to her.
Her house, like most of the rest in her town, was compact and functional.
"Where have you been?" a voice, Misty's mother's. The girl just managed to stop herself from jumping.
"More boys I bet." her mother hissed the word 'boys'.
"Yes and three at once this time, mother!" Misty knew exactly how to rile her.
She slipped into her room before her mother could reply and closed her ears to the banging and cursing as she tried to hurt Misty back. Once the peasant woman had let out her frustrations and returned to her own room, Misty let herself fall into her bed and sighed frustrated, wishing for the day the roof over her head was her own. Kentin took hold of her thoughts and not for the first time she seriously considered beholding herself to him. He was sensitive, learned, honest and surprisingly funny and she could not think of anyone else who she would ever become beholden to. But she was not ready, not by a long way to only ever have just one man in her bed.
She began to feel flushed and wetness. Her hand went to check between her legs, a worry that it may have been blood, not healed yet from the previous rough nights of sex. One stroke of her fingers between her nether-lips, however, and the resulting and the girl knew that it was liquid sex.
As she considered whether or not she wanted to scratch the itch, she passed out from exhaustion. She did not dream much, but when she did she saw Kentin armed and armored as a knight killing the orc brutally.
*
The following morning, across town, Kentin, the son of the town's priest, thought of Misty, the beautiful and malcontent peasant girl, and let out a long resigned sigh. He loved her. Utterly and painfully and remorselessly. He was well aware of her promiscuous ways and it confused and angered him how he could not really fault her for them. It was just a part of her almost unnatural charisma and who was he to wish her to deny herself? She certainly was not Kentin's betrothed nor had they ever slept together and in all earnestness he admired her strong sense of independence that would brook no chains. He sighed again, he could still dream of having her to himself though.
Picturing Misty in his mind he conjured up her round curves that seemed to melt into one another, her entire body defied the presence of the sharp angles more common in thinner girls. Every inch of her skin than he had ever seen, radiated softness and warmth. Yes, Kentin was completely smitten with Misty. The boy reminisced about the times he had spent with Misty. Mostly they talked.
He was the son of the town's most prestigious and popular preacher and as such was expected to behave exemplarily. For the most part, a part that the vast majority of others would have failed to achieve, he managed to live up to the burden placed unfairly upon him. That was, of course, until he crossed paths with Misty. Kentin had heard of her before, she had an unsavory reputation among his circle of peers and his father had categorically told Kentin that he was to have nothing to with her or her ilk. And as far as the boy was concerned that was that, his father's word was law. That lasted until the first time he met her.
To say it was love at first sight would be an understatement. Unlike Misty he had not grown up in this town, instead only moving there due to his father's calling, and so he had never seen her before even in passing. A friend had convinced him to accompany him to the town's most bawdy tavern for 'research' purposes.
It was an honest relationship with lashings of absurdity.
Presently, Kentin was sitting in Hen's workshop keeping extra watch on the children left there by parents with errands to run. Hen was a dwarf, called such due to his uncharacteristically, for your typical dwarf, motherly tendencies. Kentin had seen the transition on numerous occasions: left alone or with more mature company, the dwarf would revert to stereotype, grumbling and complaining over the smallest things, muttering about the 'good old days' and generally finding new and exciting ways to be stubborn. When in the company of children however; it was if the storm clouds parted and Hen would change from being incredibly surly and hairy to being incredibly sprightly and still hairy.
Hen was the town's Earth-shaper and 'workshop' is a very loose term when it comes to a craft based around magic. In fact, most of the workshop's contents were rocks and boulders of many different types of shape, size, color and consistency all stacked and supported carefully. What tools there were could be collected and stowed easily whenever the space was used as a makeshift crèche.
Being a dwarf, Hen also had a magnificent beard. It was lengthy and grey with its dozen or so braids threaded through small lumpy rune stones that glowed dimly, each in a different pastel color.
At first, Kentin did not notice when Misty entered, engaged as he was stopping children attempting to climb onto to work surfaces and tamper with the secrets upon them.
Ever watchful Hen, however spotted her immediately, "Hello, Misty. You're looking nice and fat today." Hen beamed in mock, but not unkind sincerity.
"Good afternoon, Hen. Might I say your expanse is looking positively effulgent?"
Hen feigned ignoring her and turned to Kentin,
"What did I tell you about teaching Misty new words?"
The boy smiled at the familiar exchange.
She gave Kentin a quick smile, then pulled Hen aside to speak in hushed tones with him.
His heart lurched painfully as the familiarity continued to the part where she acquired contraceptives off the dwarf. Apparently she had been busy. Kentin took a long deep breath and dealt with it.
After what seemed like a longer time than usual, Misty pocketed all that she needed and walked over to the priest's son.
"Hey, how are you?" he asked.
"Been better," she replied getting close and resting her head on his chest.
Kentin stroked her hair and left the matter alone.
*
It was not long until the children's restlessness began to reach a crescendo. There was only so much fun you could glean from play-clay and Kentin was finding it increasingly difficult to chase the young ones and keep them from causing damage to the workshop and each other whilst Misty was more intent on curling up against him. Hen soon realized he was needed and set down his engraving tools, retrieving a set of ten small rune-stones, hollowed to fit on each of his fingers and thumbs.
One particularly alert overly enthusiastic child noticed this and practically screamed, "PEBLEMS!"
The youngsters dropped whatever it was they were doing and scrambled over each other to gather around Hen. "Mister Hen, are we going to play with the peblems?"
"I don't know. I don't see any do you?" the dwarf played ignorant.
"But you're wearing the stones!"
"What, these things?" he waggled his fingers in the air, "these are just for scratching itches."
The children laughed, moaned, hooted and complained until finally Hen raised his hands placing the bases of his palms together and began tapping the runes together rhythmically, "Right you young hoodlums, sit down and shut up."
The kids did as they were bid, hushing in apprehension for the show to start. All around the shop small smooth stones started to levitate from where they lay, off the floor and work surfaces. Dozens of pebbles coalesced over the heads of the rapt children, forming a swirling bubble. They quickly formed into four loosely humanoid shapes each around twelve centimeters tall.
"In the old days there were four gods." Hen began,
"They were the gods of the elements; Earth, Wind, Water and Fire. Earth was stoic, Wind was mischievous, Water was restless and Fire was angry. They were the best of friends and the worst of enemies. They loved each other and they hated each other."
The peblems danced around and through each other creating pleasing clattering sounds as they did so. As each individual pebble collided, multicolored sparks shooting off them as they did so, they became imbued with an element; the earth peblem leaving traces of fine sand in its wake, water formed an occasionally dripping mist, each stone that fire consisted of burned a match sized flame and wind bobbed on its own little gusts.
Then they scattered apart, dashing to opposite sides of the workshop. "Yet, they were but four in the world and often went hundreds of years alone. They grew bored and restless, sad and mopish."
"So they gathered together to decide what to do," the peblems continued to act out the story faithfully.
"Water sighed, 'What if we flood the world?' Air cried, 'We could create a city in the sky!' Earth boomed 'Great riches lay underground!' Fire whispered 'Could we create life?'"
The peblems stopped, going absolutely still.
"'Could we?' they asked themselves, 'Should we?'
'The world will be forever changed.'"
The fire imbued peblem took center stage as the other three circled around it. "'Imagine', said Fire, 'countless people swimming in the ocean, digging in the mountains, gliding through the air!' The gods were romanced by the visions Fire offered them."
"And so, first Earth lay down, then Water slid down on top, Wind encircled them both and Fire began to dance all around. Their passion was so great that the Earth shook and lightning tore up the sky!" The peblems mimed the drama faithfully, transfixing the children as the pace of the story picked up.
"And so the four gods split themselves apart becoming the first of the mortal races with the will to multiply and cover the world so that they might never be alone again." the small rock golems scattered into their individual parts mixing and swirling together, discernible only by the elements they still displayed.
