Page 3 of That’s My Orc, Tusk Off

While I settled, he disappeared down the hall, returning with a second chair built to fit an orc that he set beside mine.

“I’ve prepared materials,” he said. “I’ll send them to the desktop.” He rattled off a login and password. I typed them in, and the computer gave me access.

A few taps on his tablet, and my screen chimed.

I opened the file and scrolled through it. Kept scrolling.

“This is…comprehensive,” I said carefully.

“It needs to be.”

He was watching the screen, not me, his expression unreadable.

“How long did it take you to write all this?”

“A few hours. I started the moment Brovish told me he’d hired you.”

Sixty-five pages, including a table of contents, subsections, and appendices. Wow.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re doing this.”

He frowned. “Yes, we are. You were hired. You’re here.”

“It’s just saying I’m ready.”

“Ah, good.” His frown didn’t go away.

He walked me through the document section by section. When he leaned over to point at something on my screen, I caught the scent of wildflowers and soap, the wildflowers more a hint of where he’d been outside than perfume. His arm braced close enough that I could see the fine grain of his skin, darker at his knuckles where his hand gripped the edge of the desk.

I refocused on the screen.

I asked a clarifying question about intake call protocols, and he explained again, slower, though not in a dismissive way, just careful.

“This is the intake form,” he said, pulling up a sample on the screen and pointing to the pile of forms underneath the rock.

The computer version had been color-coded and had drop-down menus and conditional fields that changed depending on what the person selected in the prior field. And a decision tree that branched into subcategories I’d need a glossary to navigate.

“This is really thorough,” I said.

“It needs to be.”

“Do people actually fill out all of this when they submit inquiries online?”

“They should.”

I tilted my head. “But do they?”

“No.” The admission seemed to cost him something. “They don’t. They…miss sections. We’re working on it.”

“Okay. So maybe we should start there.”

He made a note on his tablet with hands large enough to make the tablet look like an e-reader. He held it carefully, though.

I got the sense that the tablet wasn’t just a tool but how he processed things.

We went through his manual all morning, stopping when the front door banged open and another orc barreled in, carrying a crate.

“Got him,” he shouted. “Told you all I’d get him.” He spotted me and came to a halt, his face lighting up. “You’re the new human named Willa Enford. Brovish said you were starting today. Another human will be working with us soon. She has a van. I’m Drogar.”