Power Trio

Nick gives his latest snapped line a grim look. “I really cannot fish for shit.”

“Maybe not. But you’re giving the local trout population some real cool piercings.” Dee rests her head on his shoulder. “Your turn.”

Nick and Dee sit along the shores of the River Hasinalzk, which according to Thekla means Ox’s Vein. They’re playing their questions game again and pretending like Nick’s got a chance at catching dinner.

“Who was your first crush?” Nick asks.

“Real, or fake like a celebrity crush?”

“Real.”

“This chick Goza,” Dee says. “I was learning to hunt at the same time she was and she kept bagging all the best catches. She’d always give me these trophies. I got so goddamn mad at her cause I thought she was rubbing it in.”

“What did you think that for?”

“I was stupid and tangr’akky, is what for. How about you?”

“My babysitter,” he says. “I think her name was… Rachel? When she moved away and I got a different one, I was just about gutted. I went through a whole Byronic lovelorn phase about it.”

“That explains so much, Nicky.”

He finishes tying his lure, the one thing he’s actually good at in this whole messy process. “How so?”

“I’m your first babysitter in the O-Dub and you mated me.”

He scoffs, then thinks about it, then says “Shut up.”

“It’s my turn, right? Can I ask you one and you promise not to get scared off?”

“You drop heavy stuff on me with this game,” Nick says. “What about my favorite dessert, huh?”

“I’ll think about doing that one next if you do favorite song next,” Dee says.

“Okay, deal. Scare me off.”

Dee’s voice is quiet above the bubbling of the river as she looks across the water. “You ever think about kids, Nicky?”

She’s told him about the herb the packs call desire’s armor. It’s a natural contraceptive that was in the bonfire ritual wine. She drinks it on the regular, and he does too, now, mostly because he likes the taste. Very peppery and tangy.

“I haven’t, personally,” Dee says, and her hand lays on his. “Not really. But I wouldn’t mind having your cubs someday. I got birthing hips and an authoritarian streak. I’d do an okay job.”

Nick hasn’t thought about kids. Not once. But now he looks at Dee and imagines her cradling their baby in her strong arms. A little of him, a little of her. His two favorite people. She’s had Nick for a little over a month and she’s made him such a better, stronger person. What kind of badass kid would she raise with him? Would their cub have its mother’s milk-chocolate eyes?

Stay casual, Nicky. He clears his throat, shrugs. “Sure, someday,” he says. “Some 75 percenters.”

She titters. “Let’s just call ‘em orcs and agree to revisit this one a few years down the road.”

“Okay,” he says, then he hesitantly adds: “But the door’s not closed.”

Color rises in her cheeks. She beams. “No it’s not.”

Nick casts his line. “I never thought I’d want any back on Earth.”

“Why’s that?”

“Expensive. No room for them. No future I could see. And I wasn’t chemically bonded to a sexy warrior-queen.” He plants a kiss on her head as they watch his bait bob. “I was a bit of a philanderer. I can’t lie.”

“Philanderer. What’s that?”

“It’s Human for man-slut. Not that you have anything to worry about.”

She splashes him with one submerged foot. “I know I don’t, ya goof. That’s what the mate bond’s for. Your turn.”

“Favorite song.”

“Integration,” Dee declares proudly.

That’s a song they’ve been working with Anise, a slick street racer track with a dimed-out roar of a bassline. Nick had to double-check with Anise that his admiration for Dee’s playing is genuine and not a product of his bond. She confirmed it. Dee plays simple, but she plays well, meshing excellently with Anise’s unsparing rhythm. Primal, the elf called it.

Dee doesn’t do much in the way of fills, sticks mostly to the chord shapes he’s shown her. But when she finds herself a riff, she latches onto it like an attack dog and wrings every bit of juice she can out of it. She makes you want to shake your ass. Everything else about the instrument comes second.

“What about you?” Dee prompts.

“This is really cliche and basic,” Nick says. “But it’s Blackbird. By the Beatles. If only because it’s the reason I picked up the guitar.”

“Never heard it,” Dee says.

“You’ve never—oh my God.” Nick plants a hand on his heart. “I’m going to have to be the guy who plays Blackbird on acoustic for his girlfriend.”

“You and Anise, man. All these references I don’t get. It’s a good thing you guys are cute, you know that?”

“It’s just a very… overplayed song, is the way I’d describe it,” Nick says.

“Well, not to me. And I like when you sing to me.”

“Yeah?”

She scoots her leg on top of his. “Yeah.”

As she wriggles into his lap, he briefly considers reeling his line in, then props it aside. The rock it’s sitting on has a better chance of pulling in a trout than he does.

A scant minute into their makeout, Dee sits back, away from Nick’s suddenly deprived lips. “Who’s the hottest person in camp besides me?”

“What the fuck!” Nick smacks her butt. “That can’t be your question. What happened to favorite dessert?”

Dee bites her lip. “Maybe it’s the same question.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying.” Dee shrugs. “Lotta people who wouldn’t mind a taste of the packmistress and her mate. I never been one to sleep around, but you make me feel...” She shifts. “I dunno. Secure.”

“This isn’t a trap, right?”

“Why would I be trying to trap you, ya goof?” Dee blows a raspberry. “I’m just saying. Like. If you wanted to…”

Nick’s second-in-command cancels its retreat and stands cautiously at half-mast attention. “Is that something mates do?”

“Sure. Some mates shut the door, but not all of them. We’d just… share. Rarek’s mated with Tamor, and they share people. And, I mean, if you wanted to talk about sharing anyone ever…”

A light turns on in Nick’s head. This is not out-of-the-blue. “Did you, uh. Did you have someone specific in mind?”

“Well, it would have to be the right person. Right?” Dee walks her fingers up Nick’s chest. “And they’d have to be down to let two big ol’ orcs throw them around.”

“Dee,” Nick says, carefully. “Are you thinking of the person I think you’re thinking of?”

Dee is likewise careful. “You thinking that makes me think you were also thinking of her.”

“I was.” Nick runs his fingers through the cascade of chestnut along Dee’s back. “Dalma Kamiyon.”

She punches him in the arm.

“I’m fucking with you,” he says.

“But you do know who I mean.”

Nick leans his head past Dee’s shoulder. “That dessert you’re talking about. You’re thinking a banana split, aren’t you?”

She giggles. Nick’s hand ventures south. “Maybe I am,” she breathes. “Are you?”

“We shouldn’t.” Nick’s hand rounds the curve of her hip. “Right?”

“We definitely shouldn’t.” Dee undoes the top clasp of his shirt.

He slides his palm up the inside of her shirt. “It’d be all kinds of inappropriate.”

“She’s our boss, after all.”

“You’re my boss, babe.”

“Hmm. That’s true.” Dee presses her soft weight against Nick’s chest. He eases down onto his elbows. “Your boss thinks she may have an assignment for you.”

“Oh yeah?”

The fishing rod skids and jumps. “Oh, shit,” Dee cries, and rolls off him. Nick grabs for it just before it hits the drink and reels desperately.

A thrashing form twists from the water as he coasts the line in, and with a terminal tug there’s a flapping trout suspended over the river.

“Holy fuck! Nicky! Is that your first fish ever?”

“It is.” Nick stares agog at the animal thrashing on his line. “Man, it’s a big one, huh?”

Dee seizes the trout and plucks it from the line. “It’s big as hell. Bonfires, man.” She slots a hooked spike from her belt. “Looky here. You want this to go right in the brain, like bop.” Nick flinches as Dee sinks the spike into the trout, which stiffens and relaxes. “No stress, no acid.” She underhands the trout into a cooler behind them.

“There was a period in my life when I wasn’t mated to a tomboy orc,” Nick says. “And now I ask myself how I lived.”

“There’s a difference between surviving and living.” Dee rinses her hands off in the river. “I survived without a hunky pink wizard-thief. Now I’m out here living.” She slides over to the cooler and peeks inside. She whistles. “Beautiful, Nick. We’re eating good tonight. I was getting ready to be all kinds of demanding.” She crawls back over with a little extra wiggle in her hips and climbs onto him. “But you just earned yourself something.”

* * *

“Anise.” Dee tosses a pebble at the yurt fabric.

“Aaaaniiiiise.” Kell tosses hers.

“Aah-nise. Aah-nise. Aah-nise.” The she-orcs start it but Thekla, Evan, and Nick pick it up, until the elf sticks her head out of her tent flap.

“What the hell?” she demands.

“We’re going to North Third Balsam.” Nick holds up his gig bag. “We’re doing a show. Quillbear needs its drummer.”

Anise balks. “Right now?”

“Right now,” Nick confirms. “We’re opening.”

Anise scans their faces. “Guys—”

“Whatever you’re about to say about schedules,” Kell says. “Pretend like we listened and absorbed all of your points, but then we were reeeeally annoying about it until you said yes.”

Anise bites her lip. Her eyes dart back into her yurt. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, one second.”

Legendary and two-thirds of Quillbear whoop and cheer into the bright two-mooned night as Anise ducks back into her yurt and emerges with a canvas backpack. “Let’s get out of here before I change my mind and go back to calculating my EBITAs.”

They load the trailer up with the drums and the backline. Dee and Nick take the rhinos. They offer Anise a ride out in the evening air, but she timidly fobs them off.

“I just think nobody’s made her feel desired in a long time,” Dee whispers. “And it’s a fucking shame because now this sexy woman thinks she’s some kind of expired merchandise.”

“I know. She has the second nicest ass in the camp.”

“Who’s number one?”

“Me, obviously. And you. Tied.”

“Nicky.” Dee looks back at the trailer. “It feels like this is becoming less of a joke the more we joke about it.”

Bastriani’s is an exception to the Tarounese adoration for order. In this geometrical concrete basement, the straitlaced citizens of North Third Balsam leave their civility at the door by tacit agreement.

It’s open draw night, and two O-Dub bands share the bill with them. Vicious Rout is an orcish two-piece, a drummer and a handgrinder, who engage excitedly with Dee about the pack life she comes from. The other performer is a reedy ash elf with an unearthly voice accompanied by a thickset hobgoblin on the synth. They expect something of a negotiation with the sound guy about bringing their backline in, but as soon as he realizes he’s going to be micing up Legendary, he loses his mind and insists on putting them in the money slot for the evening.

The green room is a utilitarian conversion from what must have been some kind of electrical closet, much longer than it is wide and furnished with peeling posters and overstuffed sofas. As the gorgeous strains of the ash elf’s voice filter through the drywall, Quillbear warm up for their first show. It sounds like a typical bar crowd on the other side, sparse but rowdy. They’re cheering for just about everything. A good first-timer’s crowd.

Anise emerges from the bathroom in a slinky leather top and a pair of torn black jeans. Nick misses a note on the riff he’s running.

“Bitch, look at you!” Thekla wolf-whistles. “Where did those come from?”

“Nowhere,” Anise says. “Um. My daughter lent them to me.”

“You are such a MILF it’s crazy,” Kell says. “Isn’t she such a MILF, Ev?”

Evan is doing his meditation thing. His wife’s pronouncement cracks his composure into a grin. “Very much, yes.”

“I wish I was an elf,” Thekla says.

Evan scratches her ginger head. “Babe, you were just wishing you were an orc.”

She nudges into his scratch. “You’re just jealous cause I never wish I’m a human.”

Anise does a half-turn. “Could someone zip me up back there?”

Nick puts aside his guitar. He steps up behind Anise and pulls the half-done zipper on her top the rest of the way.

His hips are a scant inch from hers. His knuckles align with the curve of her spine. She looks up at him, the back of her head brushing his chest. He looks down at her.

“Thanks, kiddo.” Her smile shows the little laugh lines at the edges of her plump mouth. The urge to rest his hand around her delicate neck makes his fingers flex.

The applause from the songstress’s final ballad breaks the spell. Nick glances at Legendary. Thekla is whispering something into Evan’s ear as they watch him. He refocuses on Anise. She’s blushing a very pretty shade of coral. “Ready to rock?” he asks.

“I’m nervous.” Her attention flits to the floor. “All this time playing, and this is my first audience.”

“Mine too, girly.” Dee rests one hand on each of their backs. “And I’m new as hell. Everyone’s gonna be so focused on my fuck-ups, they won’t notice yours.”

“You are both way more ready than you think,” Nick says. “I promise. You’re gonna go out on stage and you are going to blow them away. You hear that, Ani?”

“I hear it.” Nick can see by the minute bouncing of Anise’s head that she’s already playing the first number in her mind.

“Ready and raring.” Dee gives Nick a quick kiss. “Now let’s make like a quillbear and fucking kill out there.”