Chicken entered Auntie’s tent carrying a heavy earthen jar.

“Where do you want this fermented root, Auntie?” he asked, straining against the thing which was about the size of his torso. She had sent him to dig it up, noting this one was ready for the next stage of the process for the sanitization liquid it was used for. A clear, strong beer sloshed about in the sealed container.

Auntie didn’t tell him, merely pointing to a collection of pots of similar make and size.

“Put it at the back, please, Chicken. I don’t want to disrupt the order in which these have arrived.”

There were at least a dozen of the jars arranged like bowling pins. He would have to move several out of the way to place this new one. Chicken sighed, or rather would have if the weight of the jar hadn’t compressed it into a grunt on its way out. He set to the task.

Chicken liked helping his Auntie, if only for the sense of pride that came with her comments about the shortage of any real help nowadays.

As he crossed the room, he skirted the sleeping orc delicately. She had been here, sleeping, the whole of the three days since he had returned to Very Small Numbers from his excursion and the ordeal with the goblins and the mushroom. She still had that forced scowl on her face due to her tusks that so unnerved him. He had never encountered an orc himself, but he knew them to be an aggressive, short-tempered, direct kind of folk who put others at risk of doing work they didn’t particularly like or elect to do. In the brief glance he took at her as he passed, he imagined her eyes opening suddenly. Horrible gimlets struggling to support an angry, furrowed brow.

That wasn’t his imagination. Her eyes really did open. He felt pinned beneath the glare of the formerly sleeping orc, the first of however many living nightmares the stories had led him to imagine. Startled, he convulsed, flinging with sudden super-kolboldian strength the heavy earthen jar above his head. He yipped, but only heard it the instant it came back to him from across the room.

Auntie turned from her macrame to catch most of the action, involuntarily calling to Chicken to stop him from tossing the jar, which had already been tossed. It hung in the air in a perfect moment, directly above Chicken. The orc was no longer looking at Chicken, but the pot above him. The shift of its gaze dragged with it Chicken’s attention. He too was now looking up at the heavy pot hanging precariously over him in this single prolonged moment, the one before which Chicken would be squashed like a bug beneath the massive ballistic jug of primitive alcohol.

Chicken felt the impact.

It didn’t come from up above, but rather from below. And the thing that hit him didn’t shatter and splash like one would expect a clay pot of fermented root juice, but rather wrapped around him and sent him sprawling backwards.

The pot shattered on the hard dirt floor of Auntie’s hut.

Chicken looked up into the face of an orc. It was contorted into a look of concern.

“It takes three months for a batch to ferment properly,” came Auntie’s voice sullenly. “Not to mention how long it takes to make the pot.”

The orc rolled off of Chicken and got to her feet, at first hitting her head against the relatively short roof, before standing awkwardly in a half bow.

“Get up, Chicken,” Auntie said. “We need to prepare some tea for our guest. There is a pouch sewn into the wall over there in that shadow. Bring me a fistful of what’s inside.” She looked up at the menacing figure standing like an adult in a playhouse. “And you, have some sense and sit down. I don’t need a skylight in here.”

Miraculously, her words had immediate effect. The orc sat cross-legged where she had stood. Chicken was still only leaning on his elbows, half sitting up. Auntie rounded on him with the voice that commanded the orc.

“I said get up and get the tea, child. Now go.”

With a glance at the silent orc, he did as he was told. Was she seething? Her breaths were deep and rapid, but she made no other sign about her emotional state.

Chicken retrieved the dried tea, which he recognized by smell as Auntie’s stash of the good stuff, a blend of rare aromatics, dried. He also picked up a container of filtered water nearby and set it on the embers burning in Auntie’s fire pit. Before long, it would start boiling, and the brew would be ready to serve. He set out three small cups and distributed the tea among them.

In that time, Auntie had stored her macrame and arranged a cushion with herself on top, facing the seated orc. It looked at the shattered pot and said, “I could clean it up. It wasn’t my intention to startle that one.”

Auntie waved a hand. To Chicken she said, “Get the blanket I’ve got rolled up, and the broom from by the door.”

Chicken went to work sweeping the larger shards off to the side. When that was done, he put a rug down over the larger part of the spreading alcohol. When the tea began boiling, he prepared three cups. After serving the first to Auntie, he approached the orc hesitantly, glancing to the matriarch for security. She nodded, and he held out the cup.

The orc took it gently in both hands. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Chicken picked up his own cup and sat next to the two of them, forming a kind of three pointed circle. Silence reigned as Chicken waited for either Auntie or this guest to talk. The scowl returned to the orc’s face now as she stared down into her tea. He wondered if she didn’t like it. He hadn’t seen her take a sip, but his back had been turned as he got his own cup.

Blowing on his own tea, he started to drink. The flowery and earthy flavor drowned out the mineral sting of the spilled alcohol that filled the room. He finished, finding the orc glaring at him again, but she looked away.

“Is it soup?” she asked with a face like a battleaxe.

He proffered the cup, saying, “Tea.” He took another drink to demonstrate.

“It is not salty like a broth or stock. Where does it come from?”

“I don’t know. Auntie makes it.”

“But she just ordered you to make it.”

“All I did was finish it. She takes the dried flowers and bark and roots and stuff and mixes them up.”

“You drink stewed plants.” She said it flatly, her tone not reflecting the accusation in her expression.

Chicken didn’t know how to sort this comment, letting it go without a response. Who doesn’t drink tea?

“The plants are still in the water,” the orc added.

“Leave them in there.” This was Auntie speaking up for the first time. “I can read your fortune from the patterns when you’re finished.”

The orc looked at her briefly, then back at the cup. She swirled it slowly, watching the slow moving flecks.

“But I have the cup. I can control the pattern,” she countered.

Auntie smiled mysteriously. “Perhaps. But then perhaps fate intervenes. Do you know how to shape the leaves to get what you want?”

Unbeknownst to Chicken and the rest of Very Small Numbers, the fortunes depended heavily on the quality of the company drinking the tea. Interesting conversation tended to result in cloudy fates, requiring a longer stay and another cup of tea. Conversely, a clear reading, either weal or woe it didn’t matter, would see the visitor or visitors suddenly eager to find their fortune or prepare for a bitter encounter. This would see them out quickly.

The orc spent some time looking at the swirling tea while Auntie sipped. The flecks flowed in lazy circles. The patterns were predictable, but she only had minor control. She could orient the cup to change where the slower bits of tea would settle or move the cup to stir it into movement again, but she couldn’t control the formation of patterns along the bottom.

Chicken drained his cup. “Read mine, Auntie.” He held it out to her.

“It’s the same as always, Chicken. It’s some great destiny I can’t make out clearly.” She hadn’t even looked inside.

The orc tried the tea. She found it pungent and somewhat intoxicating. Nonetheless, it left a delicate flowery aftertaste.

“I’m not an orc,” the orc said suddenly.

She spoke to the cup, as though embarrassed, and tended to rub her palms together, as though drying them, or removing something sticky. The task required her utmost attention, making it seem very deliberate, before she resumed swirling her tea, alternating between the tasks at a regular cadence.

“I was exiled from my tribe for that crime,” she said.

Chicken opened his mouth to ask the obvious question but was intercepted by Auntie.

“A terrible crime among your people, not being an orc.”

“They’re not my people,” the orc said. It wasn’t spoken impatiently or sarcastically, but as a fact freshly stated.

“Of course,” Auntie said, “Please forgive us for being fearful. Orcs have a reputation, and my children are excitable.”

The orc-thing seemed miles away to Chicken, but she said, “I know. I don’t have a people I recognize. I don’t know what it is to be one of me.”

Chicken looked between her and Auntie, trying to gauge if his question was pertinent. He just asked it.

“So, what are you?”

He earned a look from Auntie, but no scolding. She must have wanted to know, too.

“I’m a cowbird.”

The cowbird orc sipped her tea, as though there was nothing more to tell.

A flip at the entrance drew her attention and distracted her. She had turned just in time to see a kobold snout withdraw and the flap close.

“They’re curious about you,” Auntie said, undisturbed. “I’ll admit I share in their curiosity. Do you have a name?”

The orc girl set the cup on the floor of the tent. The dry dirt gritted against the bottom of the cup as she twiddled it, turning it like a dial this way and that. Auntie could watch as her question was weighed.

“Penelope,” the orc said eventually. She pronounced it like “pen” and “elope”.

“Nice to meet you Penelope, I’m Chicken,” said Chicken. “I’m glad you’re not an orc after all.”

“Why is that?”

“Orcs are scary.”

She nodded, accepting his reasoning. She shared in the sentiment, despite, or perhaps because, of her upbringing. Orcs were powerful, in charge, and increasingly violent as a matter of pride, believing themselves to be the natural rulers of the world around them. It wasn’t a world view to which Penelope subscribed.

“I’m afraid the others believe as Chicken does. We will have to work to convince them that you are not as you appear,” Auntie said.

Penelope surprised them by asking, “Why?”

“Because if you’ll be staying with us, they’ll need to get used to you being around anyway.”

Penelope nodded uncertainly, staring into her cup.

“Have you finished your tea yet?” Auntie asked, “Hand it over so I can read your fortune.”

Penelope quickly finished it and held it out to the old kobold who impatiently palmed it.

“Let’s see now,” she said, peering into the cup. She made several thinking noises before saying, “That’s odd. Chicken, hand me your cup.”

He eagerly did so, and Auntie looked between one and the other.

“What is it?” Chicken asked, speaking for Penelope as well.

“You take a look,” Auntie said. She sounded irritated.

She put both cups on the ground, careful not to disturb the contents, and the other two bent over to compare.

“Woah!” said Chicken.

Penelope was more skeptical. “What does it mean?”

“What do you mean? They look exactly the same.”