Argibel The Orc : The Bitter Romantic Chapter 3

   The elf female ate the porridge she was given with relish. Argibel noticed this and wondered whether perhaps Gruby had not been feeding her enough again. Every time he looked at the elf female she appeared skinnier, more slender than she had been. It was as if she was wasting away in his captivity. And yet she was all the more attractive to him. Elves were skinny creatures, as were most orcs, but elf females, he thought were their most beautiful when they were small and beautiful.

    Soon after she appeared to be ill. She started retching, opening the contents of her slender stomach onto the ground before her. Awfully white! He had heard no elf could die, except in battle, or was that mere rumour, spread to make the orcs afraid of them. They were surely mortal creatures, much like any other in truth, he suspected. But after a long day or more when she lay unconscious she began to improve, returning slowly to consciousness, and the colour in her cheeks returning too.

   I suspected that Gruby, my wife might have put something bad inside the porridge to poison the elf female. Naturally Gruby was jealous of my beautiful prisoner, which is why I always took her out of the way when I wanted to use her. I expected her to want to be cruel to the elf, but I also expected her to realise that the elf was my prisoner, and I did not want her harming. The poisoning seemed severe, but luckily the elf creature was made of sterner stuff and she overcame it.

   I beat Gruby angrily until she admitted what she had done, and I told her in the strongest way that if she harmed the elf woman I would be so angry I might even kill her. I could see Gruby was frightened of me, and she took my words for truth. I did not really blame her for being jealous, or wanting to harm the elf, but I would not tolerate it. She grovelled to me and apologised, tears in her eyes, so I became satisfied she would never do this again.

    Gruby wanted me to herself, although I happened to know she was not above cheating on me when my back was turned. She did not know that I knew, but I had been told by more than one other little snitches in the past of some other exploits with rival orcs she had been with over the years. He had even been told by one of the snitches a few years ago that one or two of his and Gruby’s offspring were not actually his. That had made him angry, but he had kept his anger quiet, particularly from Gruby and the kids, because he realised he had nothing to gain from being angry with her over this, and he did not want to make relations with any of his young ones worse than they already could be sometimes. Besides the information was not even necessarily true. It could well be that the snitch had just told him to wind him up or pay him back for something. Orcs generally were not naturally honest, and they could all do things and say things just to upset each other. So you could not always trust what was said. Those kids were his kids regardless of the truth, he realised. He was the one who brought them up, with Gruby. They all called him Dad, most of the time, when they weren’t sometimes calling him other names. Besides his feelings for Gruby were not always that strong. Sometimes he hated her, sometimes he loved her, and often he just didn’t care either way as long as she still cooked his meals and looked after the runts, and let him mount her when he wanted it. Why should he care if she had it away with some other orc occasionally behind his back? As long as the whole clan didn’t find out who cared? Perhaps if it had kept her happy sometime then he could not entirely blame her. If it meant he could have it away with his female elf more easily then it wasn’t so bad. Although probably all that was in the past anyway. One of the main things an Orc could not cope with was being the butt of too many jokes by his fellow Orcs. So as long as they weren’t making him feel ashamed he didn’t care too much. It was all about saving face wasn’t it after all?

   The elf woman looked at him with her dark eyes, like the moon, ringed with tiredness, for he kept her working, and liked to interrupt her sleep when he had a mind. He felt uncomfortable at such times. What was she thinking? She did not only fear him, there was more and he did not like it. It made him feel uncomfortable. She seemed to be observing him, as if she wanted to see how he behaved, what his life consisted of. Why she did that he did not know. Didn’t she know that an orc’s life is not his own? There are masters at every place, every battlefield, in the woods, the high hills and the caves. In their own caves there were constant arguments between different orcs, some more powerful than he who he therefore deferred to, and others weaker who he tried to command. Often there were fights, because every orc, in his insides, wants to be a leader. Even Gruby, his wife, wanted to command him, although he usually hit her when she became too irritating. There were no secrets in an orc’s life. Life was a grind. There were those ordinary jobs which had to be done to stay alive, and there were orders from above, and those had to be obeyed, if you wanted to keep your head or your limbs intact. There was precious little of any pleasure in life. He did have one pleasure in life at this time, and it was looking at him, the elf. Even in the caves, putting up with the hard life of a goblin, the elf woman was beautiful. Her black hair sat pretty on her thin shoulder. Her skin was pure. He wanted to climb on top of her and join his lust with her beauty, whenever he saw her, but he could not. He had a life to lead, orders to follow, a wife and orclings to feed, a position in the clan to keep. He felt she was putting a spell on him. The spell was stronger than when he had at first claimed her. Repeated mountings had failed to tire him, unlike every other female of his own race, and even the human woman, although he had never completely tired of her. The more he had her the more he wanted to do it again. This obsession would be his undoing, but he did not wish to cast her out. His greatest, and probably only pleasure had to be protected at all costs. He realised he would fight at all costs to keep this elf, even against the orders of his superiors.