Guest: thank you, I'm so glad you're liking it.

PS: Well I was very happy to see a review from you, and I'm so glad you didn't just bail on the story; a lot of other readers would have after missing a few chapters.

XVIII. I'll walk in the rain by your side/I'll cling to the warmth of your tiny hand/I'll do anything to help you understand/I'll love you more than anybody can./And the wind will whisper your name to me/Little birds will sing along in time/The leaves will bow down when you walk by/And morning bells will chime.

Her little orc was sleeping against Daisy, his hand holding tight to her fur as his grotesque mouth pursed and sucked as he dreamt. When Azog returned to the tent, several minutes after she had, he found her laying against Daisy as she stared at their son. Even with her well, no threat of death near, he could not find it in him to look kindly upon the orc he had made; perhaps if the times were dark, the threat of falling in battle etched in the rising of each sun, he might have wanted a sire; as it was, he did not want it.

He laid down beside her, her back to him, and he wished to lie with her; listening as he beheld her surprising strength, her cruel words growling from her lips – he had never wanted her as much as he had then. But it would be many weeks before he could again, a thought that saddened and frustrated him for it had been months since he'd had her as it was. With a sigh he held himself up on his elbow and leaned over her to look at their babe.

"He is so ugly," she said softly and he chuckled.

"It will be worse when he is older," he told her amused, for she was right; to the eyes of a human he was almost vile, even to Azog he was far from beauty. Though in all fairness, he would never find another thing beautiful save Calla, she had tainted him, ruined his cruelty. And he loved her, for what all he knew the word love meant; and what all his twisted black heart would allow.

He laid on his back when she turned to him and he held her against his chest. "We should name him," Calla said softly, wishing to have something to call him by.

It was upon seeing her eyes looking at him expectantly that he realized it would be him to think of a name. And so he thought, long and hard, about what he wished his son's name to be. "Bolg," he said at last.

Calla looked at him with a small smile. "What does that mean?" she asked.

He shrugged before answering. "Strength," he answered. "Or a form of the word."

Her smile widened slightly before she laid back on his chest, breathing deeply as she settled for sleep. "It is a good name," she told him as she yawned, before drifting toward slumber.

…

It was not when Bolg woke hungry in the night that stirred Azog, it was not the little cries for his mother's milk, it was the feeling of Calla leaving his arms that always woke him. And so most nights Azog sat with her against his chest as she nursed. It was honestly the most boring thing he'd ever had to sit through, unable to do anything but speak and at such an early hour neither one of them wished to think of something to say. She would sit with her entire chest exposed, having pulled the sleeves off her shoulders so it gathered on her lap, Bolg suckling one breast and Azog had at first teased the other; only it did nothing but draw milk for her, it seemed her desire had all but vanished.

And the weight she had gained quickly disappeared as well, within three months she was smaller even than when he had first gotten her with child. She was not eating much, and added with Bolg having a never ending appetite, he seemed to be sucking the life out of her. Azog forced her to eat, and when he was with a small party raiding a village Yazneg forced her. But even then she didn't eat it all, she could not find her hunger.

Her time was devoured by Bolg, and Daisy for only two months after Bolg was born she had her pups. And Daisy laid in the corner of the tent as the pups either fed or crawled on shaky legs everywhere. Bolg loved them, he squealed and laughed like a normal baby when he felt their wet noses on his face, or when Daisy licked him having decided she liked him. And Calla sat with Daisy's head in her lap and Bolg laying by her hip, happy and content.

As bland as Azog found Bolg feeding, she treasured it. He demanded milk at least every two hours, including through the night keeping her from sleeping, and she would sit with him cradled to her chest where he would wrap his little muzzle-lips around her nipple and suck. He laid happily in her arms, a small hand resting on her breast, and he would let out a burb big enough to frighten him and then make him giggle before he would suckle the other. She was as content as he to let him feed, tracing his chubby pale cheeks with her fingers making him smile with her nipple in his mouth, milk running down his face. As ugly and hungry as he was, she loved him. For other than whining for milk he hardly fussed at all, either sleeping or now sitting up happily as she sat with him. He never left her side, she carried him on her hip when she walked around the camp, or he was beside her as she sat in the tent.

As happy and content as Calla was Azog was displeased. He wished to lay with her, but she had no desire he could see, he wished for a full night's rest when Bolg did not demand to be fed, he wished for life as he'd had it before Bolg had been born; and his mood was so foul his orcs tiptoed around him in fear. He was horrid company, yelling for what he wanted and striking whoever was nearest when it did not happen fast enough. And when he and his orcs raided a village he'd fuck the first woman he'd see, laughing darkly at her cries and screams as he raped her mercilessly; and then he killed her. It was never until he returned to the tent, seeing Calla staring in awe at their son, looking at her beautiful face as she smiled up at him and asked him how his night was, that he drowned in shame. The fires of self loathing licked at his soul and he would tell her it had been well, lying by not telling he had been with another, and then he would lay restless all night as he held her to his chest. Being forced to bear witness to how much she loved him, by how much she trusted him to love her; though he did not know what love meant, but it was on those nights he understood that love meant he could not lie with anyone other than her. And so he had stopped raping the women in villages or camps, and he let his desire grow and fester until his mood was so dark he killed any orc who dared displeased him.

…

It was six months after Bolg was born that he cut his teeth and first bit her nipple, and it was barely even a day before Calla couldn't stand it any longer and she was left not knowing what to do to feed him. Azog had been waiting for this, for Bolg to not feed from her breasts; he had already staid with her far longer than any of other orc did with their mothers.

"You cannot take him, what will he eat?" she asked him almost near hysterics at the thought of leaving her son in the hands of another.

Azog placed a hand under her chin to make her look at him. "You knew this was coming. He is starting to grow, he is already moving on his knees. Soon he will start to walk and then we will train him. You cannot coddle him, Calla," Azog told her sternly, though looking in her tear filled blue eyes he wished only to relent and let her keep Bolg at her side. But he could not, for her love would make him weak, and his son would be strong.

She clenched her jaw to keep her chin from quivering. "But he's my son," she said desperately, feeling as though her heart were being torn.

"You can see him as you like," he said, though he knew it was not much. And even before he spoke the words he hated himself for having to say them. "But you cannot hold him, he will be treated as every other young orc. You are his mother, but you cannot mother him."

All the will in the world would not have kept her from crying, to have to imagine not being able to feel Bolg in her arms again, to never again see him smile as he laid secure in her arms, his hand reaching up for her cheek and his mouth opening as though to say mamma, for she could see in his pale eyes he knew who she was. And now he would forget her, and it tore her apart.

Azog got to his knees before her and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders as she wept, her tears hot against his skin, her sobs a sword in his heart as he held her feeling her shake against him. Though her son would remain in the camp, though she could see him as much as she wished, though she loved him so much she wished him to crawl back into her womb to never part with her, and though if he were able to think and speak Bolg would say the same, though she was his mother she could not show him her love. And in this way, she was losing him.

Song is For Baby by John Denver - and I'll be honest, writing that last scene hurt my hearet.

I wasn't sure how orcs age, cause once they get to adulthood they don't seem to age at all after that. So with the threat of dwarves coming to save her, I've decided that since orcs are twisted mutations of elves that their genes would be mutated and they'd age faster. So about ten years they'd be adult size, cause that's really the only way she'd see her son grow. I hope no one is too put off by that, or thinks it too much of a horrid idea.