Arranged to The War Chief Ch. 02

Author Note: Hello and thank you all so much for reading! Hopefully you enjoy this story and survive the build-up to all of the lovely monster sex. Regarding the story, Loving Michael, which people do keep commenting about: that story was more of a warm-up I began when I was in a rut. I was developing this story, but had hit too many walls and needed to work myself over my writer's block. I do still have it up on my laptop, and I add to it every so often, but I cannot reliably give any estimate as to when, if at all, I might decide to continue with that particular story. Please forgive me for putting it on hiatus, but I never really expected it to gain the popularity it did with a certain amount of readers. Hopefully, gigantic green dicks and tusk cunnilingus will make up for withholding new chapters of my SCP fanfic from you.

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As we walked into the hall I was surprised to see it completely empty. I had expected the entire congregation to be waiting beyond the doors. The silence was practically deafening as I listened for voices, footsteps, anything. The Orc walked just behind me, and given how long his legs were, I knew well that this was deliberate as it required considerable effort not to pass me. Perhaps he feared that I would feign compliance and attempt to run, again. Maybe, as unlikely as it was, he was attempting to be polite and escorting me to the chapel. Only after we arrived in the foyer of the first floor did I see that all of the commotion had moved to the courtyard.

Outside, my red-faced father was arguing with an Orc who stood, arms crossed, looking quite bored of the animated disagreement. "You can't simply leave!" He shouted, gesturing up at the window of the billiard room, vaguely. "They're still in there!" He reminded him. It seemed our emergence from my impromptu barricade had not yet been noticed.

The orc, who had a notably yellow pallor to his skin, shrugged.

Father's face turned purple as he sputtered and spit and stammered. "You listen here--" He waved a finger at the behemoth and the monstrous man took an aggressive stance, a hideous snarl curling his lip.

"Pardon me," I called out lightly. A sea of heads turned, both human and not. With my wrinkled cloak and tear stained face, I felt just as much of a mess as I must have looked, and there was apparent shock amongst even the Orcs as they stopped in the middle of their efforts to ready themselves for departure. "Please forgive me for interrupting, but, I believe there is a ceremony to be finished within the chapel. Has anyone subdued the priest?" I asked, channeling every memory of my mother addressing guests in her home during her prime. She was a stoic idol, never lowering her demure mask to reveal her true feelings. If only I had an ounce of her constitution, I could have acted like a proper young lady and saved myself this odd humiliation.

Beside me, the Orc moved around my body and descended the stairs in two steps. I hated to admit that I was impressed. He spoke to the yellow beast in a language I had never heard before. It was low, guttural, and felt quite tight, as if one needed much discipline on their vocal chords to speak it fluently. They had a proper conversation as my father approached me. "Millie, little bird," He began. I looked away from him, my eyes scanning the gathered crowd for my mother. "You must let me explain all of this. We never meant to deceive you, only to spare you the pain of--"

"Where is mother?" I interrupted him, my tone as level and emotionless as my face.

He regarded me as if I were a two-headed pig. "Sh-she's retired to her room, the, er, excitement of the day has taken a toll on her." He replied. "Millisenta, listen to me--"

Turning on my heel, I strolled into the house and down the hall to my mother's new room. It had been the parlor, her favorite room, before her fit. Afterwards, we had lovingly renovated it into a room for her, while still maintaining everything she loved about it; the three pronged sconces forged from silver into the shape of elephants with raised trunks and tusks, the thick drapes of delicate blue velvet and white embroidery, the creme panels and French wallpaper her sister had sent as a wedding gift thirty years ago. Inside, she rested in a large four post bed of the same colors and accents, her hair laid out as her maid brushed it gently. Father had followed me down the hall, but I merely shut the door and turned the locks.

As I came around so that she could see me from behind the draped partition of her canopy, her eyes read a world of sorrow. "Birdie." Was all she said, the world lightly slurred.

The maid excused herself to prepare the nightly lavender milk wash for her bed bath, and I took her seat on the duvet by her right hip. We sat in silence for a while. "I read your diary, once." I told her softly. She smiled slightly, as if she had always known. "You never wanted to leave France and marry father, but grandfather convinced you with a new wardrobe and pearls." I laughed, because I had thought this story was so romantic. "It was when you were bedbound after Clarice that you realized you loved him. He lay with you every night and held her to your breast to nurse. He would always fall asleep, and you'd be stuck with both of them on your chest. But, after she was sent to the nursery, and he left for Germany on business, you couldn't sleep without their familiar weight." I recalled, the lovely cursive writing moving through my mind so clearly.

I looked down when I felt her grab my dress. Moving the fabric through her fingers, she smiled at me. "September third." Mother said softly. Laying down beside her quite gently, I rested my head on her shoulder and allowed myself to cry.

"I'm so scared." I whispered softly, my voice cracking.

"Scared and excited," Her voice was becoming slower, less clear. "Are twins."

"I know." I sighed. "You were scared when the physician heard two heartbeats." The story of my birth was always accompanied with tales of my parents' worries that my mother, as petite as she was, would not survive.

"But still excited." She insisted. I could feel her hand softly moving over my hair. Unlike in my youth, she could no longer stroke my hair from the crown of my head, but the feeling of her hand, as light as a butterfly, drifting over my shoulders, was the most comforting thing I could have asked for. "Always excited." She sighed.

Like a child, I turned my face into her neck and shook as I was wracked with sobs. "I'm going to miss you." I admitted. "So much, mama." Sniffling until my head ached horribly, I tried to compose myself while she hummed a familiar tune.

"Miss you always." Mother agreed. The church bells were ringing, and I took a wavering, deep breath. As I lifted myself from her, she laid her hand on my arm. "Set a place for you at Christmas." She promised me, and I nearly began weeping all over again. Instead, I forced a smile and nodded.

"I have no idea what sort of gift to bring home for you." I laughed. No human ever came back from the mountains where the Orcs claimed their territory. Perhaps they were killed and eaten, or maybe they simply lost their way. I would know their fate, soon.

Mother thought it over for a moment, pursing her lips quite dramatically. "Furs." She finally told me.

"The finest furs I can find." I assured her, and laid a kiss on her cheek. After a few breaths, during which I committed the scent of her hair and linens to memory, I rose from the bed and returned to the hall. Father was standing outside, pacing back and forth. "Are we ready to resume the ceremony?" I asked him.

Snapping to attention, he came over and cupped my face in his hands. "Millisenta, please know that I never wanted to deceive you. Your mother and I just wanted to give you as close to a normal life as possible." He told me.

I wasn't certain that I believed him. Perhaps he intentionally chose for me to be given to the Orcs instead of Clarice, knowing that I was less outspoken, more agreeable. With such a reputation for being cooperative, wouldn't I be due a fair warning? Truthfully, I knew I could never believe him, no matter what he told me. All trust between us had been lost, and I wasn't certain that it could ever be rebuilt. "Of course, father. The ceremony?" I pressed, refusing to speak on the matter. I wanted him to simmer inside as I was, to suspect that he would not be forgiven. Perhaps that was cruel of me, but it helped settle the ire threatening to bubble over inside me.

"Right." He nodded, eyes searching my own for any hints as to my true emotions. "To the chapel, then." He offered his arm, and looked distraught when I walked ahead of him without accepting.

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Khurag's POV

My jaw and throat hurt, I was exhausted from traveling three weeks for this useless human ceremony, and, now, I was well aware that my wife was not aware of my race until she arrived at the altar. As if that wasn't enough to deal with, I had a band of men itching to get back on the road.

"You look like shit." Varak so aptly observed as I approached him. The home of my soon to be wife was larger than the feast hall in our village, and there was a length of stone meticulously chiseled and perfectly laid out in a circle that surrounded a large garden. My men had set up to camp here, but then the Duke had complained. According to Varak, it was about the fire being stoked by some of the women to prepare for the feast.

Glancing over my shoulder, I grunted. My betrothed was walking quite calmly back into her home, the Duke on her heels. "She is stronger than most human women." I told him simply.

Varak sniffed and scrunched up his face. "Still not as pretty as Orc women." He remarked. When I gave him an unhappy look, he shrugged. "Pretty for human women, but I prefer our own kind." That was the closest I'd get to an apology from him. Any other man, I would have laid him out flat. But Varak was another son of my father, and we shared blood and war stories.

"Not many bastards were born in the war with the trolls," I reminded him pointedly. "Far fewer were female."

With a roll of his yellow eyes, he snorted and turned to walk away from me. "You know what I mean." He said. I helped him hoist a large log towards the fire. Many were already laid out for the caravan to sit on and eat, later. When we dropped our contribution to the circle, it was complete. Dusting off my hands, I saw how he eyed Varunga as she squat by the fire and blew on the flames to coax them higher. Her long, lean legs glistened in the light of the flames, and the curves of her body were always pleasing to see. "Human women are too fat, too hairy. When they fall down, their skin splits open and they bleed red." He continued. "Orc women are far superior." The tone of his voice held a certain finality, as if he expected me to agree with him.

Varunga tilted her head and gave us a tusky grin. "They are beautiful, but marrying this ugly human woman will keep the human men off our land." I reminded him. The arrangement had been made thirty years ago, when I was still young and my own father owned this territory. When men suddenly began to appear with hatchets and torches, we ran them off and burned what they built to the ground. Then they tried hunting us like beasts, and when we found them rebuilding their village, my father forced his way into Duke William Seymour's estate and demanded he leave our lands. According to him, the Duke's wife was the one who was polite enough to serve him, and his men, tea while encouraging Seymour to discuss politics and territory with him. My father, the Chief at that time, was so infatuated with the level-headed human woman that he agreed to sign over the lands to Seymour, but only if he agreed to marry his firstborn daughter to me, his oldest son. The title to most of these lands came as her dowry, therefore circling them back into the possession of the Orcs.

Naturally, this did not go over as smoothly as he'd anticipated. Seymour was outraged at the mere thought, but, after being presented with the only other alternative, which began with the Duke's death and ended with the destruction of everything he had built here, he reluctantly agreed.

I still remembered how I felt when he informed me of this. "Human women are fat and weak!" My child sized axe had hit the tree mere inches from my father's bicep. As he leaned against it, watching me process this, he said nothing. "I will never marry her." I told him proudly. "When I am chief, I will burn their village to the ground, kill their men, and take back what is rightfully ours." The promise I made to him had brought a deep scowl on his face, and an even deeper line between his brows. The long black hair of Corgak the Wise was struck through with silver and white, and the scars on his face that only a bear could make had become faded over time, leaving him with less of a mawed visage, and more of a misaligned countenance of wisdom. Although my mother had told me that my father had once been a jovial man, smiling and laughing the most in our village, I could never believe her, given how limited his expressions had always been in my memories. Because of the way his flesh had healed after receiving sutures, it was a perpetually stoic mask that gave away no hints to his true feelings. She was the one to teach me the secrets that the eyes keep, but I was still young and learning to read the endless depths of emotion housed within one's very soul.

Still, when our eyes met at that moment, I saw disgust masked by disappointment. "You have not ever met a human woman." My father had reminded me.

"I see them in their fields, harvesting the copper plants they grow." I told him, ripping the axe out of the tree. Sap wept from it's bark and I smeared it on my cheeks like the blood of my enemies. The farmers at the base of the hills by our village were in the fields almost every day, and I would watch them sometimes, confused by their soft language and high pitched voices. My childish mind had only recognized that they were different, and I'd thought they were inferior. "They have big, ugly noses and no tusks. I will never take one of them to be Chieftess." This was a vow I made that I wholeheartedly intended to keep. Perhaps he could see that, or he may have known that the opinions of children can not be so easily swayed by logic or morals. So, instead of telling me that I was wrong, he surprised me by asking questions.

"Why must a Chieftess be beautiful or strong?" My father asked me.

This had perplexed me, and I grew even angrier. In the heat of rage, his calm demeanor and logical questions only served to stoke the flames burning me up inside. That might have been why he continued speaking with me, driving me to reveal my truest thoughts in the privacy of our small spot in the forest. This was where he had taken me to teach me axe throwing, swordsmanship, and how to fight with only my bare hands. Every time we came here, I grew into more of a man he could be proud of and rely on to take his place when the time came. However, I was still just a boy. Beyond the art of fighting, I had so much more to learn, and so little patience for his dueling of wits. "If a Chieftess is not strong, she cannot protect our people. If she is not beautiful, I will not want to have her in my bed." I finally answered, facing him confidently. A mere twelve years of age, and still two heads shorter than him, I knew I could never best my father in a physical fight, but I had high hopes of my chances when it came to debating with him.

Corgak pushed up off the tree where he had rested his weight and slowly stepped towards me. I took no steps back. "What defines her strength?" He finally asked.

A slow, deep breath filled my body with enough oxygen to keep me from saying something stupid, and allowed me time to think. "Something she does better than anyone else." I told him. "She must be fierce, relentless, and powerful. An Orc woman can defeat a man in combat. She can stand up to him and raise her voice to match his, but human women submit to their men. I must have a Chieftess who does not break under the pressure of any man who may question my authority as Chief. When I am away with the hunting party, she will be unable to protect the village from the human men she is inferior to, and Ar Kibogh will fall in my absence. If she is to be the second pillar we depend upon, she cannot crack so easily." My little speech left me almost breathless, flushed with the vigor of my ideals and the vision of the village I wished to lead when it was my time.

Father waited until my breathing settled, our eyes locked. I hadn't understood why he waited so long to speak each time I said something, but now, as a grown man, I knew that he was permitting me to feel my emotions before speaking. It was an ingenious tactic that I now hoped to perfect. In doing this, he had not diminished my own beliefs or feelings, never dismissed my valid concerns, and only continued the conversation when I was receptive to his own. Finally, just as I was about to turn and walk away from him, feeling satisfied that I had won this argument, he gave the lightest chortle and crossed his arms. "If your wife cracks so easily under the presence of another man, then you have failed in your duties as her husband and Chief, son." His words had me spinning on my heel, my hand tightening into a fist around my axe that had the wood creaking in protest. I stalked towards him and debated whether or not I truly wanted to deliver the first blow in a fight against a man such as him. I was of age to duel, but it was unheard of for a boy to challenge an Elder. I convinced myself that the only thing stopping me was the knowledge that, should I lose the challenge, I would not be able to become Chief. That right would fall to one of my brothers. However, deep down, I knew that I could never swing on the man I respected most in my life.

"I will be a husband she can depend upon, and a Chief she can rely on, never failing her. In return, I expect only the same." I told him.

Father brushed his beard with his fingers. He twisted the coarse curls into long strands and watched me as I stood before him defiantly. "When I met your mother, I was already Chief." He told me. I groaned and turned away from him, an act of outright disrespect. If he struck first, there would be no dishonor in losing against him. "Maghera the Meek, She Who Does Not Speak." He recalled, and I paused. When I looked over my shoulder, he was smirking. "Not once had she ever sat in on the gatherings in the Great Hall. She never joined the feasts, had never fought, did not know how to wield a sword. I had never seen her before but, once I noticed her, she stayed on my mind." He told me, relaying a part of their story I had never heard.

"That doesn't sound like ma." I said in a flat voice.

Corgak planted himself on a log. The wood splintered under his weight but he simply settled into the groove he had created over time. "No, it doesn't." He agreed. "When I asked after her, no one knew her name. They did not recall the she-orc who never spoke, but she knew every villager. I tried to find her for months, but it was like hunting a ghoul at midday; all I found were bare bones." He chortled, as if recalling something that humored him. "In the end, it was she who found me. One night, I was sharpening my axe by my hearth, and the next, I was holding it to the throat of an intruder. Imagine my surprise to see your mother at the tip of my blade. Instead of pleading for her life, she handed me a map she had drawn, detailing every camp and trench the trolls had built on our northern border, while we all focused on the nuisances of goblins invading our territory from the south. It was a distraction, but Maghera was not easily fooled. Never has been." He smiled, though it looked like a grimace, given his scars.