An Alkhemy of Dragons

Of Brawling and Ogres

Ola was not supposed to exist. In fact, according to anyone that mattered, she did not. And to anyone that happened to matter slightly, she was a phantom.

At present, she wished that were true.

The morning saw her crammed in a narrow stretch of a pathway tunnel in the Venalier system, along with sixty or seventy fellow miners, standing shoulder to shoulder with pickaxes and hammers and chisels, waiting to relieve the current shift that was still picking away in the caverns. Ola was suffering comfortably toward the middle of the crowd, and she preferred it stay that way.

But alas, her name was boomed over the mass in a voice so familiar she had no choice but to resign herself to being reprimanded in the near future. She stayed right where she was, of course, but like the cowards they were, the miners around her banded together and shoved her to the front, so forcefully that she was nearly flung into a forest of chest hair.

Gaspar loomed over her, his thick, dark purple arms crossed and practically bursting at the seams. He was not pleased. He was never pleased— that just wasn't the kind of ogre he was— but seeing as his displeasure was pointing right at her, she was determined to play innocent.

"C'mon, Gas," said Ola. "You're holding up the line, eh?"

"I'm your superior," he grumbled. "The line holds when I say it does. And don't think you're getting away from me without an explanation, Ola."

She craned her neck to get a better look at his bulging face. "An explanation, you say? I'd like an explanation too. What's in that slop they serve us twice a day? Anyone got an answer for that?"

"Rat guts," supplied a dwarf standing behind Ola.

"Come again?"

Gaspar gave a mighty huff, seized Ola's wiry arm and marched her away from the mass of waiting miners in a vice-like grip. Ola didn't struggle; she didn't particularly care for a broken arm on the menu next to rat gut stew.

"You know, you're looking very handsome today, Gas," she said as she struggled to keep up with his impossibly long strides. "And is that an extra large wart I see on your nose? I bet the missus finds it dashing, and if it were me I'd really take advantage of that—"

"I don't pay you for your fat mouth, Ola; stop running it," Gaspar snapped, letting go and flinging her in front of him. She stumbled into place. "You either take this seriously or spend unpaid hours in the scrap pits.

"Ouch," she murmured. "What have I done this time?"

She straightened her posture to show him she was born serious, subtly rolling her shoulder where he'd come close to yanking it out of its socket.

"Don't play dumb," Gaspar deadpanned. "It's not a good look. See, there's a certain ogre getting bandaged for a broken arm and fractured fingers right about now, and he is pointing those crooked fingers right at you."

"Snitch," muttered Ola.

"What was that?"

"Which!" she said loudly. "Which miner is throwing around such wild accusations?"

"Ban," answered Gaspar. "He's been very insistent about it."

"Ban is also insistent about thinking he's above the Imperator Magistrate herself."

"What'd I say about your mouth Ola?"

"That it's very lovely and— To keep it shut." She pressed her lips together.

His withering gaze could have made a giant's knees shake, but the giants were too big to fit in the caves, so there was no danger of that; only Ola, nearly two feet shorter and half as broad, struggling to stretch her neck to meet his remaining eye.