Those Who Dream of Orcs

Cicada and Rugorim

            The days were becoming colder and growing shorter. The musky smell of leaf piles and pine danced across the crisp clear blue sky and a cool breeze gave way to red and brown leaves that were beginning to rain from the treetops.

Cicada could begin to make out Erywood coming into view.

The petite gray-eyed brown-skinned half-elf was along with her mistress lady Yrlissa Valiana Seaton, the only daughter to the Seaton house. They left Selse Lenora by carriage in haste before dawn. It was about a two-day journey to Erywood and Yrlissa wasn't happy.

"What is that disgusting smell," Yrlissa rolled her emerald green eyes. "It's almost unbearable," the light-skinned red-haired beautiful elf wrinkled her nose.

"I like the smell my lady," Cicada smiled. " I find it rather refreshing,"

Yrlissa rolled her eyes. "Whatever, I hate this, I want to go back to Selse Lenora. I don't know why my father insisted on sending me off to some disgusting backwater town forcing me to live in some loathsome orc village? Me! His only daughter. He has no right!"

"I can't pretend to know what the Lord Mayor was thinking," Cicada said. "But we can't go against his wishes,"

"You can't go against my father because you're a servant," Yrlissa said. "But I was happy and comfortable in Selse Lenora. I don't know why he made me leave in the first place. I mean I'm his daughter, doesn't he care about my happiness."

"I hear Erywood is beautiful,"

"Whatever you twit , you've heard nothing, you know nothing," Yrlissa hissed. "Orcs can't make anything beautiful. They probably live in smelly pig pens. I already miss the elegant buildings and the fine living of Selse Lenora,"

"I'm sure the orcs will go about their business and pay you no mind, my lady,"

"Cicada, a half breed like you will never understand. What orc wouldn't want me." Yrlissa groaned. "You have no idea what it's going to be like for someone who looks like me to be surrounded by orcs. Once they see me they'll dream of doing this and that with me. Orcs are huge and forceful. Why do you think they are best suited for war? It's who they are, aggressive, violent, warmongers with the will to constantly war, and I am being forced to live among some inferior beast, all because my father wanted the position as Lord Mayor so bad he didn't care where it took him,"

"Maybe it won't be so bad my lady," Cicada insisted.

"I should just run away. Anything is better than living with disgusting orcs."

"But elves and orcs have always gotten along -."

"I know that Cicada, I don't need to be told that by a half-breed like you. You may be tiny and petite with the beautiful soft features of an elf but you're still just half-breed. And not every elf hails the orcs as the saviors of the elven people and besides whatever the orcs may or may have not done was a long time ago and it has nothing to do with me." Yrlissa hissed.

Cicada turned her head and glanced out the window once more. She never understood why Yrlissa always felt the need to insult her.

"I've heard the stories, just like you and every other woman in Selse Lenora have. The stories of what orcs do to women. I'm being forced to endure a lifetime of unhappiness," Yrlissa hissed. "Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? No, you don't, so stop trying to comfort me and pretend that things are not as bad as they are. I shouldn't be forced to live among these barbaric orcs."

"But you've never even seen an orc, you know nothing of them."

"Ha," Yrlissa laughed. "I don't have to meet one to know they are all ignorant violent savage beasts."