I.
Laug Thauk was a patient orc. He crouched in the bush, watching the elk that were taking water in the trees. He didn't have a clear shot, but they would have to move eventually and he was prepared for that. His bow was practically a sapling stripped of bark and given a bend, rough wood that wavered and knotted where it pleased. His arrows were as thick around as a man's thumb, suited perfectly for a powerful creature like himself. Laug was a towering, powerful figure with broad shoulders and sinuous muscle covered with scars. His nose was broad and flat beneath yellow eyes and his jaw jutted forward, yellowed tusks protruding from the corners of his mouth. Whorls of red paint decorated his dark grey skin across his chest and arms. It was a warm summer night, so he had settled just for the dark pants he'd scavenged out of the ruins of a caravan. The Spine of the World was a dangerous place with bandits that stalked these roads, too distant for the patrols of the Silver Marches to reach. Every now and again, people tried to move through with too few guards. Simple clothing was not much of a prize and so it was often left ignored by the ambushers, which was a boon for his people.
After a quarter of an hour or so, one of the elk stepped out into the stream a little too far. Laug grinned and drew his bow back. It groaned ever so softly in protest, but the arrow was in flight before the elk could react to the sound. The animal let out a cry and took off with the others, but not well with an arrow lodged between its ribs. A very fine shot. It would die soon. The hard part would be tracking it and then packing it out. The animals always seemed to find the hardest places to reach, as if out of spite.
He started down the way the animal had gone but quickly found the obvious trail running dry. There was only the smell of blood and spatters against the leaves to track by. However, Laug had spent much of his life in the wilderness, so this was no insurmountable challenge. Once upon a time, of course, he had been part of the vanguard of the orcish hordes of the north, first into battle and last out of it. Now he was a hunter, though he retained his warrior ways when the bandits and other creatures came too close to the small orc village that was well hidden here in the mountains. They were a bit close to Westerwood—settlement of a handful of humans and fewer elves—for his comfort, but it hadn't been his decision. He commanded the war band. Sharn lead the fledgling tribe as a whole.
He heard a sound in the woods. Someone, very close, taking a deep breath despite themselves. Laug stiffened. "Who's there?" he said in his rough, heavily accented Common. He prayed to Tempus that it would not be a battle. He wanted no trouble. He turned his head, yellow eyes hunting for the source. He could smell them now. A woman, he guessed based on a clean smell that hinted of roses.
"Just me," a soft voice answered meekly in the same language.
The moonlight illuminated her as she stepped out from behind the tree, turning her into an ethereal alabaster and silver figure. A she-elf, he realized, one of the few things more dangerous than encountering a human. It surprised him that she wasn't armed except for with a small knife that wasn't drawn, but then again, it was past midnight. She had likely been expecting to be alone, just like him.
Blue eyes looked up and met his yellow ones. "Please don't hurt me." She sounded cautious, but not terrified.
"No, I will not hurt you," Laug said. He lowered his bow and gestured after his elk. "I cannot say the same to the game, though."
She laughed, surprising him. "Who are you?"
He had never heard of an elf asking that of an orc before. Normally the nature of things between their respective races was a great deal more…combative. "Laug Thauk," the orc answered. There was little harm in her knowing his name. After all, it was not as though her kin would go to his village and ask around for him. If they came, it would be with swords in their hands and blood in their eyes. "What is your name, lady of the moonlight?" Calling her 'elf' had seemed too coarse, particularly the orcish word for her kind which was no compliment.
To his enduring surprise, she blushed. "Valaina Eäryendë," she said.
"It's very late at night for a walk in the woods, Valaina," he said, sitting down on a fallen log. His elk wasn't going to go far so wounded and he had some time before the scavengers arrived, most likely. Laug was genuinely puzzled as to why she wasn't fearful. But then he saw it in her expression, that combination of youth and curiosity. She was certainly an adult, but he didn't think by much. That meant she probably had seventy years on him still, though. "And, there are orcs around."
The elf brushed a lock of blonde hair back behind one ear. "I would have never guessed," she said with amusement. "I've never met an orc before. I've only heard stories."
"Yet you haven't screamed and run," Laug observed. "And you haven't told me what brings you out into the woods so late."
"You're not a mouse. I only scream and run from mice," Valaina told him. She readjusted the basket sitting on her hip. He could see plants piled up in it, carefully arranged to preserve the white blooms. "There are flowers that bloom under moonlight that are very useful to healers. You cannot pick them during the day."
"Mikog. Yes, I know it," he said with a new respect. Healers were valuable people. The chieftain of Westerwood would have had a fit if he knew his was alone and vulnerable in the woods.
"We call it asëa," she said with a pleasant surprise evident in her tone. "You have knowledge of the healing arts?"
He didn't find her assumption that he wouldn't know particularly insulting. He knew he was a strange orc in his fascination with the natural world. The followers of Gruumsh were more inclined to burn the forest than learn to live in time with its rhythms. "A hunter should know a little, if only because he needs sometimes bind his own wounds away from others." He almost said 'a warrior', but caught himself without pausing awkwardly. No need to frighten her off. The whole meeting was far too interesting to cut short.
"Very wise," Valaina said with a small smile. "I should go back to the village."
Laug knew they weren't far from Westerwood, but part of him wasn't comfortable with her making the journey back alone. Bandits sometimes roved uncomfortably close to the village walls. He needed a better excuse to see her there safely than her protection. She might object to that. "I have more meat than I need on that elk," he ventured. "You should take some." It would be a valuable gift to a villager who had little enough meat. A haunch could help fend off hunger. This was a chance to make friends with his neighbors, and befriending a healer was never a bad idea.
"That's very generous," she said in surprise. "What have I done to merit such kindness?"
Laug chuckled. "Perhaps someday I will have need of your healing skills, Lady Valaina of the moonlight," he said as he stood up.
She smiled at him. "I hope that day never comes, Laug Thauk," she said softly, and he knew that was a wish that he'd never be wounded.
"Come. I'll get the meat for you and carry it back to the village for you," he said.
II.
Those luminous summer days could not last forever, and slowly the leaves began to turn into autumn's riotous colors. Brilliant red and orange leaves drifted to the forest floor as Laug walked alongside the burbling stream with his elven friend. Their chance moonlight meeting had turned into many more over the course of the warm days. Now a chill was settling into the air and Valaina had her cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders. To him it was warm enough, but he was much larger and heartier. The autumnal sunlight gave a glow to her golden hair and illuminated her fair skin. Her slender hands, holding onto her cloak, always looked almost painfully delicate to him, like precious glassware that could break if you looked at it too hard. He always saw her as fragile, but there was beauty to that fragility. In fact, beauty was not a thing Valaina was lacking at all.
He thought about that probably too much, his mind straying back to her when he was at camp with the warband after battle with bandit or looking at the moon outside of his home. Part of him wondered what that delicate frame would feel like in his arms. Would she smile at him? Would she be frightened and pull away? Probably. He was still an orc, bestial and rough. Invariably, when his thoughts wandered there, they would stray further as he thought of bare skin and soft curves, the idea of which stirred other parts of him into wakefulness.
Laug doubted she would look at him the same way if she knew that, and so he did his best to curb those thoughts before they could really take flight.
"That is what my name means?" the orc said, pretending to be incensed. "Warm? What kind of name is that for a warrior?"
He could tell by the way she was laughing that she could see right through it to his own amusement beneath. "That's only what 'Laug' means in elvish," Valaina said with a smile once she'd caught her breath. He'd been making her laugh for the better part of an hour and now her ribs ached ferociously. Her face was sore from smiling, but she couldn't stop.
"And what does yours mean?" Laug asked.
Valaina blushed. "Divine."
The orc gave her an appraising look. "It fits," he said, grinning when she blushed deeper.
"You say sweet things," she said. It had surprised her at first, but now she almost took it for granted. For a warrior and a hunter, Laug had a certain charm. She almost never thought the words 'for an orc' anymore. "I wish Seamus would. Actually, I wish he would go away."
Laug growled deep in his chest. He didn't like the sound of the man trying to court Valaina. A good enough farmer, but not the best of characters. He offered stability and safety, but not all the things that Laug was certain Valaina deserved. There was also the more primal motive that he felt—he didn't want anyone else touching his lady of the moonlight. He knew he was jealous. He just hoped that she didn't know that.
"You need a prince," Laug said. She'd told him once some of the fairy tales she'd grown up on, the ones with orcs, by his request. It had made him chuckle at the time, particularly the idea of fanciful balls and princes. He wasn't certain what he would do if one of those stories came true for Valaina and some lord swept down from his castle to carry her away. What mattered, he supposed, was that she kept smiling.
Those beautiful blue eyes looked over at him. "Why would I need a prince, Laug?" she asked with amusement. "I have you."
He was a little stunned by that, but recovered quickly as they sat down on the rocks here by the stream, so close to the water that his feet almost dipped in. She wasn't nearly as tall, so there was no such danger for her. "To love," he said to clarify his position.
"And why should I love a…what did you call them? Puffed up popinjays?" Valaina said. She reached out and touched his arm, slender hand pale against his dark grey skin with its red paint. She traced her fingers over one of the whorls, touch barely there. It made him want to shiver. "I don't need a prince."
Laug turned to her, his heavy brow furrowed. "I have a question for you," he said, trapping her delicate hand against his arm with his own rough, calloused one.
"I'm listening," Valaina said. He wasn't certain if he was imagining it or not, but her voice seemed somehow breathier than before.
"What is the elvish word for beauty? It does not exist in orcish."
"There are many," she said, looking up at him. He was certain he wasn't imagining it now. "Could you be more specific?"
Laug chuckled and leaned in to whisper in her ear. His pulse was thundering now. This would be the time he frightened her away, he was certain, but maybe he was wrong. "What is the word for a beautiful, special woman?" he murmured softly. "With hair like gold and eyes like summer skies?"
"Oh," Valaina whispered back, her blue eyes wide when she looked at him. He went to sit back, but those delicate hands caught his collar. "It's vanimelda." Then her lips were against his, soft and wonderful.
He wrapped powerful arms around that delicate frame and found that even though she was an elf and he was an orc, she fit perfectly there. Her arms linked around his neck as one kiss turned into many. When she had to catch her breath, she pulled back only a little and let those blue eyes flutter open. "I love you, Laug Thauk," she said softly, almost wondering, as she looked up at him.
The orc wasn't certain what she saw in his face that she could look with such warmth at. His yellow eyes, his heavy brow, his jutting jaw and tusks? "I'm yours," he said instead of voicing any doubt. That much he knew. His little lady of the moonlight had found a home in some softer part of him. Someday, he would find a way to tell her that properly, in her own language.
III.
Laug shrugged a little as he looked over at his younger brother. Sharn was smaller and less scarred, but he made up for his lack of physical prowess with one of the finest tactical minds to ever emerge in the orcish hordes. Had he stayed faithful to Gruumsh, Sharn's name might have forever gone down in infamy. But the lure of plunder and fire had tarnished to him when compared to the idea of honorable combat and the exercise of the mind that was the perfect war. He had spent his life at war in command and was the unquestioned reason why they had survived their exodus from the main body of the hordes: they had fought their way out, and none of that ever would have been possible without Sharn's strategic genius. They had lost battles, yes, but when it counted, they won the war.
Sharn laughed. "You smell like flowers," he said, scrunching his nose up. He threw a rough burlap towel and a bar of greasy lye soap at his brother. "Go clean up. The warriors will think you've turned soft on them."
"I need to talk to you," Laug said, catching the soap and the towel. He didn't want to wash off any of Valaina's smell that was still lingering, but he knew he would need to.
"Always good words," Sharn said with a chuckle. He blew his nose into the bowl of water standing on the large, rough table of the currently empty main roofed area. The village was rough, mostly tents rather than more permanent structures, but in some places the skeletons of buildings had been raised. The orcs were not good builders or farmers, but they could make enough of a living between hunting, gathering, and raiding the bandits that made their camps in the Spine of the World. Their human neighbors would never know the reason for the sudden paucity of attacks. "What is it, brother?"
Laug was quiet for a moment, contemplating how he wanted to broach the subject. Sharn hadn't laid down a hard and fast rule about other races since they arrived except for 'stay away', so it wasn't as though there was some great punishment resting over his head. That said, he couldn't imagine his brother would be happy if he found out how often he was in the territory of their blood enemies. "I have a woman," he said finally.
Sharn grinned and slapped his brother on the back. "Good! That why you're out so long? Looking for a real prize to bring her? Not that she'd turn you down—chief's right hand man, remember?"
Bravery had never been lacking in Laug's character, so he soldiered on right ahead. "She's not an orc, Sharn," he said, cutting off his brother before he could go on any tangent.
His brother blinked at him. "Not an…you've been chasing human skirts? What in the hells is wrong with you?"
"Worse, Sharn," Laug said grimly. This was going to get ugly before it got better, but he was confident that it would get better eventually. "She's an elf."
"AN ELF?!" Sharn bellowed, rounding on his brother. "Are you insane? If they find out you've put a hand on one of their women, we'll have so many arrows in us that we'll have feathers enough for birds! Whole birds!"
"She doesn't know where we are. The village is safe," Laug said with confidence. He knew that Valaina wouldn't tell anyone anyway, but this would reassure his brother at least a little bit.
"Whole birds!" Sharn shouted emphatically. Laug was grateful that the village was empty at the moment between laundry, hunting, scouting, and gathering food. It was early morning still. Come full day, people would be back. "Gods know I don't back down from fights, but I don't charge into unnecessary ones, Laug!"
"I'm not charging into a fight, Sharn," Laug said firmly.
His brother took a swing at him, an impulsive move born of frustration that Laug had anticipated. The bigger warrior dropped almost to one knee to dodge the hit that would have slammed into his jaw and punched out, hitting Sharn in the gut. Laug was the better fighter, even if Sharn was a better commander. The air left the orc chieftan's gut in a whoosh of air and he staggered backwards. "Gods be damned, Laug," he sputtered out once he'd regained his breath. "An elf?"
"An elf," Laug confirmed, holding out his hand to his brother. Sharn slapped his hand away and bared his teeth as he got up.
"She'd better be a damned good fuck," Sharn growled. "I'll think about it. I'm not happy, but I'll figure something out. No one hears about this until I say so, understood? If you plan on keeping your elf around, that ain't gonna look good."
"Yeah, yeah," Laug said, relieved. At least his brother was contemplating it rather than categorically forbidding him from seeing Valaina. He wouldn't have listened, but he appreciated it all the same.
IV.
The first snows fell softly as they met again in the woods, as they had on so many autumn days. Valaina liked to walk beside him with her delicate hand intertwined with his own, an arrangement that Laug had quickly warmed to. At first he was worried that he might somehow hurt her hand and she had chided him gently for thinking of her as so fragile. Laug led the way through the woods, headed towards one of the caves his people used as shelter from the cold. He had a small camp there so that he didn't have to trudge back to the village in the darkness. He could see in it, but it would be colder then.
They built a fire in the pit, the smoke drawn up a natural sort of chimney in the rock. The walls were marked with ochre handprints and rough orcish letters that Valaina studied with interest for a few moments. She walked along part of the circumference of the cave, running her hands over the painted script. "What does it say?"
"It is the story of my tribe," Laug explained with a chuckle at her girlish curiosity. "That part is when we broke from the great horde. You should come over here and I'll tell you the story."
Valaina smiled and returned to him, settling down into his arms as he laid down in the cavern. It was warm in the cave where they were with the fire burning and the orange light played across her face in a particularly enchanting way. He brushed golden hair back out of her face and leaned in to kiss her. Orcs weren't really big on it, but it had a great appeal for this particular orc. His body was beginning to remind him that he wasn't as familiar with Valaina's body as he wanted to be. He pulled the elf against his chest almost reflexively and growled into their kiss. Instead of freezing when she realized his arousal, however, his lady of the moonlight pressed a little closer. "Laug," she whispered in his ear before looking at him with those beautiful blue eyes. "Mela amin."
It was an invitation he was very, very happy to take.
Laug had enjoyed the company of females before, couplings that were usually rough and casual, though not since a full year before Valaina. This was not that. Well, not rough by orc standards. He tried to be careful with his elven lover, but the moment carried him away a little bit at times. Valaina made no complaint, her nails digging into his flesh and moans coming breathily against his ear. Her smiles were all it took for him to know everything was alright. Laug knew how to make things enjoyable. An orcish woman might not allow a male back around if she didn't like it, so even the warriors had an inkling if they knew what was good for them…or if they weren't inclined to force the issue, whether because of temperament or inability.
It had been more than a few rounds before Valaina stopped him gently, bringing his lips back to hers. Laug was actually feeling fairly sated, so he was content to lay down on the furs with her and just rest. He tucked her head under his chin and pulled the blankets over both of them.
"Why did I wait so long?" Valaina whispered with a soft laugh.
"Does it matter?" Laug asked, smoothing a rough, calloused hand down her soft back. He touched his forehead to hers, then grinned when she kissed him softly on the end of his flat nose. He wasn't certain what he had done to earn something so beautiful, but he was grateful. He wanted to sweep her away back to the village, but that wasn't really a viable option. They would be no kinder to an elf than her people would be to an orc, even if they did like him. Well, they wouldn't kill her, but they wouldn't accept her either. That much he knew. He could certainly not go to Westerwood. But a healer and a warrior of his mettle, they would be valuable. They could find a place.
Valaina's face grew a little more serious and she swept her fingers across his brow. "What are you thinking?" she asked quietly.
"About us," Laug said. "Where we could go, where we could be together. Not Westerwood, not the village, but somewhere."
His lady of the moonlight pressed a kiss to his lips. "I don't know," she said softly. "I've never heard of an elf and an orc in love except us. Maybe Waterdeep? Stranger things have happened in a city that size, surely." She sighed. "I know people aren't going to like it, but…. I have a friend who lives there. Let me write to her and see what she thinks. And trust me when I say that she won't judge us."
"I trust you," Laug said even though he felt a faint pang of anxiety. He curled a lock of blonde hair around one of his rough fingers. If this was what waiting looked like, he would gladly do it. "I love you, vanimelda, my lady of the moonlight."
She blushed.
When the morning sun rose, it revealed something that surprised Laug: bruises. He had accidentally left quite a few on his lover, particularly her hips. Valaina didn't say anything, but she moved like she was sore. He drew her back into the circle of his arms and kissed the side of her neck in his clumsy way. Tusks did not make for a graceful lover. "I'm sorry," he murmured.
She laughed and turned around. "Don't apologize, Laug. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of last night and I plan on doing so again as soon as possible," she said before pulling him into a deep kiss. When they pulled back, he focused on those honest, bright blue eyes and felt his worries evaporate.
"We should wait until you heal," he said firmly. He had forgotten how fragile his lover was. Judging by the faintly put out look she was giving him, she had forgotten too.
"You worry too much," she said. "You're not going to break me, Laug."
He gave her hip a gentle squeeze, pointedly reminding her about her soreness without having to say anything.
"So carry me back," Valaina said playfully, linking her arms around his neck.
The orc chuckled and scooped her up easily in his arms. It was like barely carrying anything. He trudged out into the bright light and the first of winter's snows with a grin.
It was the first of many winter meetings, following autumn's naturally.
V.
The village was gone.
Laug had been out with the war-band rooting out bandits at the time. Sharn was dead, the main defender of the camp when they were away. He had been able to smell the brimstone as they walked in—this was not the work of men or elves. Fiends. Loose fiends. He had a duty to warn his kin, even if they did worship One-Eye. Orcs did not grieve well, and so he had flown into a rage at the village's ruins. The others had managed to restrain him without injuring him as he frothed at the mouth and roared, though he'd given some of the others wounds to nurse. They understood, though. They all felt it. Now, with everyone dead, what did they have?
He had Valaina, and Westerwood was not safe. Not with fiends around and certainly not with a child of the Spider Queen walking the surface.
It had taken Laug some agonizing, but he decided finally that he needed to part ways with the others. Brag would make a good leader, at least in interim. But what was he going to tell Valaina when he swept in to take her to Waterdeep, where she would be safe enough that he could go warn the others?
The orc warrior didn't have a good answer and every speech he rehearsed was different as he struggled to outline his own reasoning. He didn't give himself much time to think as he hurried to Westerwood. He knew her house because she had the good fortune to live out on the fringes of the village where he could occasionally sneak as he walked her home at night. Laug took no chance that she might encounter trouble in the woods and he liked being able to kiss her goodbye. She didn't live with her family any more—she'd taken up residence in the old healer's place as autumn turned into winter, ostensibly to settle in on her own even though she was expected to take a husband and live with him.
Now, as the orc stopped at her back door, he wondered what would happen next. All the same, he knocked.
"Laug?" she said softly when she answered the door, sensing something wrong.
"We need to go," he said. "The Spine is not safe."
Those sky-blue eyes were worried when they met his, but they also seemed to understand. "How long are we leaving for?"
"I don't know," Laug admitted. "A time."
She reached out and took his hand in both of hers. "You'll stay with me, though," she said quietly, lifting it to her lips. "Please stay with me."
"Valaina—" he started to say, thinking quickly of his kin. Brag could warn them, yes, but he had a brother to avenge. He didn't understand when her eyes filled with tears.
"You have to stay, Laug," she said softly, smiling through her tears. "You're going to be a father."
Laug scooped her up into his arms, stunned. "I'll stay," he promised. He meant it.