Page 24 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc

GARRUK

S ome mornings, the orchard is too quiet.

Not the bad kind of quiet—where the roots tremble and the trees moan like they’re bracing for something—but the deep, breath-held silence of a place watching you a little too closely. It’s not judging. Not exactly. But it knows me. And knowing means it remembers.

And that’s the part that gets to me.

I drag the axe across my shoulder, not because I plan to use it but because the weight helps settle me.

It’s grounding. Familiar. Something to hold when the rest of me starts getting ideas I’m not quite ready for.

Ivy’s still sleeping when I slip out. Her hand was curled around my arm when I left, her fingers twitching in dreams I hope are quieter than mine.

I don’t like to admit I’ve been waking up like this lately—restless, breath tight in my chest, heart pounding like something’s chasing me even when there’s no threat in sight. Not anymore. Not really.

The house is half-finished, frame solid, roof waiting for shingles. Ivy picked the paint color, something soft and dumb like "moss-washed clay" which, if you ask me, just looks like mud. But I didn’t argue. I liked the way she said it. Like she was naming a future.

I’ve built barns and bunkhouses, fence lines and fire pits, but I’ve never built anything that asked me to stay.

And now... I don’t know how to.

That thought’s still circling when I hear her footsteps. Light, deliberate. Ivy doesn’t shuffle like most people. She walks like she owns the land beneath her feet and dares it to argue.

“You’re brooding again,” she says, holding out a mug with steam curling up into the chilly air. “And I was enjoying the rare moment of silence.”

“Could say the same about you,” I grumble, but I take the coffee. Her coffee is always terrible—burnt and bitter—but it’s hers, and I’ve grown to expect the taste the way I expect sunrise.

She stands beside me, her body close but not crowding, and pulls something from her pocket. It’s small. Carved. A pendant, maybe. She doesn’t say anything at first, just hands it to me like it’s obvious.

The glyph on it is familiar. Not just because I’ve seen it in the orchard—drawn into bark and burned into soil—but because it’s the same shape that marked my skin during the bond ritual. It hums faintly when I brush my thumb over it, warm even in the cold.

“Made it from the heartwood,” she says. “Don’t get excited. It’s not enchanted or anything. I just thought you might want something to... carry.”

I turn it over, hold it up to the light. The grooves are deep, precise. The lines sharp. “You carved this?”

She shrugs, looking almost embarrassed. “Lettie lent me her whittling knife. Said it’d be good for my nerves. I don’t think she expected me to actually finish anything.”

I thread it onto the leather cord she offers, slip it over my head, and tuck it under my shirt without another word. The weight of it settles against my chest like a promise I didn’t realize I’d been missing.

“I didn’t think you’d wear it,” she says softly.

“I didn’t think you’d make it.”

Her smile is small but steady. “Guess we’re both surprising ourselves lately.”

The wind picks up, rustling the leaves in a way that makes the ridge behind us feel farther than it is. It’s been quiet up there since the storm, but I know better than to trust silence too long. Ivy knows it too.

“We need a campaign,” she says suddenly, turning toward the rise in the land with a tight jaw and a fire I’ve seen before—usually right before she does something reckless.

“We need to anchor that ridge. Protect it before something worse slips through. The bond holds the orchard, sure, but it’s not infinite.

And that stone line is fading faster than it should. ”

I grunt. “What do you have in mind?”

“A perimeter,” she says, eyes narrowing. “New wards. Natural reinforcements. Plants that respond to intrusion. Stone circles carved with glyphs. We anchor it the old way. The right way.”

“And who’s going to fund this?”

“Council approved a co-op, remember?”

“They approved you not blowing up the trees. That’s a long walk from perimeter glyphs.”

She smirks. “Then we fund it ourselves. Maybe Brody wants to pitch in. Maybe Lettie’s got some leftover powder from her ‘magical wart cure’ she won’t shut up about. Maybe we get our hands dirty.”

I stare at her a long while, the coffee cooling in my hand. “You’re not scared?”

“I’m always scared,” she says. “I just learned to keep moving anyway.”

She turns to walk back, but I catch her wrist, just for a moment. Not to stop her—just to feel the pulse there, steady and strong, a rhythm I’ve come to trust more than my own instincts. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Build a ward perimeter?”

“Stay.”

Her expression softens. She doesn’t laugh, doesn’t tease, just leans into me and lets her hand curl against my chest, over the pendant, over the place where the bond thrums quiet and deep. “Neither have I. But we’re doing it anyway.”

We start marking the ridge that afternoon. Brody shows up halfway through, chewing on a reed and pretending he didn’t overhear us from half a mile off. Ivy sketches glyphs in the dirt. I dig trenches. Brody hauls stones. We don’t talk much, and that’s fine. The work doesn’t need words.

What it needs is faith.

And for once, I think we’ve got just enough of it between us to make this hold.