So I Lost My V-Card To An Orc, So What?

Prime Ministress Lamora of Clan Kignora walked into her dedicated office, her robes swishing with each step. Skott followed and gently closed the door in their wake.

“It’s been… sixteen years, two months, and twenty days,” Lamora said immediately. “Lucy… brought you back? By herself?”

Skott nodded. “Lucy. That… okay, let’s just cut the knot here. I noticed, ah, you named her after my grandmother.”

The office was not unlike a politician’s office back on Earth. There were legislative papers on a desk made of hefty, dense oak. Two secretary offices waited in the wings outside. The one otherworldly aspect was the stave hanging against the back wall. The same nature-magic catalyst she’d carried back in the day.

“You… assume correctly,” Lamora said, leaning against her desk, strangely casual for someone wearing statesmanly wizard robes. “The entire litter of five has your eyes. And… there have been no others.”

The orc-politician glanced away bashfully.

A jackhammer heartbeat pounded in Skott’s chest. Five children. Twins he could fathom. Triplets would be a shock. But five?!

Lamora leaned back against her desk expectantly.

Always with the lean. Leaning against things was apparently the purview of both Americans and Aeirunians. A shared commonality.

“So. I’m a dad.” Skott exhaled, suddenly dizzy.

“Our pairing begat a full litter.” Lamora nodded. “I named the eldest daughter after the paternal grandmother as is tradition.”

Skott’s heart skipped a beat.

“I, well. Five of ‘em.” He managed. “Whew.”

“As is typical for a she-orc’s first mating season,” Lamora said. “A full litter of five usually comes from the twenty-year fertility blooming.”

Skott ground his teeth together. “What, first time at twenty, then again every five to six years?”

She’d explained as much to him once. Ah, he was always a little dense.

“The humans of Aeirun also find this cycle curious,” said Lamora. “I suppose you can just produce your small litters of one or two any time you want?”

The Earther didn’t have a response to that.

“Have there been… others?” Lamora smoothed out some wrinkles on her robes. Her complexion was a flushed and healthy emerald.

“I, er, ah, about that.” Skott waffled about.

Ai ai ai, this is even more awkward than I expected, he thought.

“I… do not judge,” Lamora said. “It is my understanding that this is quite common among humans.”

A slow, hissing noise escaped Skott’s mouth. Whatever was he going to tell Nessa about this?

“If I’d known…” Skott took three quick steps to close the distance and gave a curt bow. “… I never would have left! I promise to help however I can. I… I want to be a part of Lucy and the other kid’s lives!”

Skott stood there, bowing, while Lamora looked down upon him. Silence reigned.

“At the time you left, I didn’t know myself,” Lamora admitted. “But you needed to leave. You had clan elders of your own to look after, yes?”

Grandma Lucy and his other older relatives. If he’d stayed in Aeirun he never would have been to their funerals. Portalmancy seemed to be a recently perfected technology. If he hadn’t taken that wayward portal to the Louisiana swamp south of Crossroads Ford, he might never have returned to Earth ever again. 

“I… would love nothing more than to have the children’s father involved in their lives.” Lamora smiled, revealing her two cute fangs.

A great weight lifted from Skott’s chest. His breathing evened out. Lamora was okay. She didn’t begrudge him for leaving. And… they had five beautiful, if rambunctious, teenagers!

The pair adopted a more casual demeanor. They were old friends after all.

“Was it… difficult?” Skott asked.

Lamora rested her hands at her midsection. “Most social problems come from the clan. The children are self-evidently not full orc. I was expected to wed a clan chief. Though as you can see, I have rebuffed all suitors at my twentieth, twenty-fifth, and thirtieth.”

“I see.” Skott pretended to understand the minutia of orc mating rituals. “So Lucy’s a professional adventurer, then?”

“That’s what she calls herself,” Lamora said with a smile. “Grognar’s the first male of the litter. He’s quite like his father. Currently, Grog is cloistered in the mage’s tower for his studies. Now, Skottson Lamoraborn…”

Skott did a double-take at the name and chuckled to himself. “Is that a common orc name?”

The she-orc rolled her eyes affectionately. “But of course. Skottson and Sethset are the two other males. They’re both part of the coalition military far up north.”

“Elvwood?” Skott guessed. He grimaced, worried about the safety of two sons he had never known.

“They are part of a major regiment. They should not be in any danger.” Lamora stepped towards Skott. “Sara is part of the merchant marine.”

It seemed weird for their final child to be named just Sara. Still, Skott didn’t raise a fuss.

“Like, a sailor?” he asked.

Lamora nodded. “It’s a natural calling.”

None of Skott’s ancestors for a good two hundred years went anywhere near the sea. Not sure where Sara-Kignora would have gotten this knack for naval adventure from. Still, if she was anything like Lucy she’d inherited both parent’s boldness and brashness.

“Ah, raising children was nothing compared to the political situation,” Lamora said, stiffening out a crick in her neck.

They’d defeated the combined might of an oppressive Elvan regime handily a decade and a half ago. The defeat had been so total that no elf-army could ever assemble to march on the new capital. Despite having won the rebellion so handily, now the coalition appeared at risk of losing the peace.

Lamora described the intervening years. How the coalition of free humans, orcs, goblins, and the occasional dwarf had established order over the land of Aeirun. Elvan tree manses burned, never again to lord over the plains and jungles of the land. The oppressive feudal system that kept tribute and indentured manpower flowing to the masters of these manses had been dismantled, replaced with an early-modern sense of republicanism. The coalition used a unicameral Senate model, which Skott had half-remembered from some government textbook. Each settlement received an equal number of Senators. This reduced the number of representatives required and prevented the lowlanders, orcs, and goblins from commanding a supermajority of over eighty percent of the legislature. But it also meant the goblins received relatively low representation relative to their numbers.

Elvan were granted seats in the legislature equal to their elvan-majority provinces, but had never once in fifteen years sent a single member to take their seat.

“Keeping the realm together. Raising the litter. It was… difficult, I admit. But now you’re here to help with both!” Lamora exclaimed. The glee on her face made her look much younger, not unlike their daughter Lucy.

“With both,” Skott promised.

For the next two weeks of vacation time I have stored at least, Skott mentally kicked himself. These weren’t the kind of problems that could be solved in two weeks! Still, he had weekends… yes, something told Skott he would be splitting his time between Earth and Aeirun a great deal now.

“So, we’re doing this?” he asked. “Almost like we’re… coparenting across worlds or something.”

“I suppose so, Skott,” Lamora said, and sighed. “Shall we inform Lucy?”

Skott repositioned near Lamora’s desk. “Okay. No time like the present.”

His heart raced. Lucy didn’t seem to know. Dragging her own father back from Earth was just an elaborate serendipitous string of coincidences! However would she react?

“Lucy,” Lamora called. “You may come on in.”

The door swung open as if Lucy-Kignora had kicked it.

“Yes, Mother? What have you discussed with the hero from the other world?” she asked expectantly.

“Skott and I simply grew reacquainted with each other.” A dainty hand rested on Skott’s elbow.

For an orc, Lamora always had very gentle hands.

“Lucy, dear.” Lamora leaned towards Skott. “Skott is, well, father of your litter.”

The young half-orc adventurer looked at Skott, then at her mother, then back again.

“The brave hero?”

“You are half human, yes. Not of Aeirun.” Lamora nodded.

A silly smile adorned Lucy’s face.

“Aaaaaaah! I mean, who else could it be? But Waaaauugh!” the half-orc let out a very orcish grunt of pure excitement. “Waaaaugh! My brothers and sisters simply must know! This is so… this is so… I’ve been talking to my father this entire weekend?!”

“Indeed.” Lamora could barely contain her excitement as well.

“Wauuugh!” Lucy yelled out. “Heheh. Allow me to reintroduce myself. Greetings, Father! Ah, I bet you’ve never heard an orc grunt before.”

“Eh.” Skott shot Lamora a sideways glance. “Your mother was prone to waughing. In… different context.”

Lamora elbowed her shorter human paramour, and the trio quickly became acquainted properly as mother, father, and daughter.