Penelope was having a hard time preparing for the trial. The root of the problem was that she was redefining the whole of the judiciary system for orc-kind and it was slow going. With no resources and her only experience with law being under authoritarian control, it was like carving a bust out of a mountain. Using a spoon.

“Ok, from the top,” she said. “What are all the things we’re trying to prove?”

Salander was sitting cross-legged on the floor to his cell opposite Penelope, who was sitting similarly but just outside containment. He counted on his fingers as he listed them off again, Penelope nodding contemplatively for each.

“One, you are an orc.

Two, you are not a changeling.

Three, Justafar and Eleruse are your parents.”

On some vellum she borrowed from the guards, she itemized and circled each point with a borrowed quill in borrowed ink.

Salander said, “The first one’s easy. Just look at you. Green skin, jutting tusks, orcish nose. Plus, you ran all the way here from home. Hard to confuse that with anything else.”

“True,” she said wryly. She didn’t handle complements well. “But that’s kind of what changelings do, isn’t it? Mimic the looks of others?”

Skipping the first item, she drew a line down from the second number on the vellum. This one would take more effort, so she wanted to make some space to think.

“Evidence that I am not a changeling,” she said, emphasizing the words as she wrote them.

Salander spoke up. “Why are we proving both that you are not a changeling and that you are an orc, again? It seems redundant.”

“If we can’t prove one,” she said, “then we can try for the other.”

“Right,” Salander drawled. “So how do you prove that something isn’t something?”

“It can’t be difficult,” she said noncommittally. “Here, an example.” She screwed up her face as she looked around herself. She held up her quill, the only thing at hand.

“What is this?” she asked Salander. It sounded like condescension to him, but only barely.

“A feather,” he said warily.

“That’s one thing it is, I’ll give you that. Now, what isn’t it?”

Salander looked at it more closely. “It’s not a lot of things.”

“Right. It’s not a rock, for one. It’s also not a beast. It’s definitely not an orc.”

“But it doesn’t look like any of those things,” he said dismissively.

He was helping her, but she could tell he still didn’t like her. He also had a point.

“So, what do changelings have that I don’t?” It was half-rhetorical.

“You’re the expert,” Salander said, “I’d never heard of them until you showed up.” There was bitterness in his tone.

Despite Salander’s growing attitude, light dawned on Penelope. “This might be easier than we think.”

“How do you mean?”

“You’ve never seen one. How many do you think the people here have seen?”

“I’m not following you. If they don’t know what one is, why would they think you are one?”

“You’re getting it, actually.” Penelope was on a roll now. “It’s like you said. I’m the expert, aren’t I? Who else here knows more about changelings?”

Salander surprised Penelope by taking time to think about this. She filed it away for now.

“You were exiled on those charges, so someone must know something,” Salander said.

“This brings us to our third point,” Penelope said, drawing a line under it on the vellum. “When I was accused by my father, I wasn’t given much by way of an explanation.”

“What were you given?” Salander asked. There was no pity in the question, but Penelope was looking for none.

“Um… the boot,” she said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t know how serious it was until my mother even bid to deny me an honorable death.”

Salander, out of words, stretched his arms and put his hands behind his head. They had been talking for hours already, non-stop. He was feeling the effects of staying up this late with what little sleep and comfort he had already been afforded.

A silence settled between the two before Salander spoke up.

“Well, I guess as your agent and representative,” he said as he laid back on the cell floor, “I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

She looked back over her mostly blank piece of vellum.

“In the morning,” he added, without looking at her, “we can talk about my fee.”

****

That morning, Justafar arrived with his legal team at the arena. He had had more luck with finding connections than Penelope. With him were a collection of hunting buddies and a cloud of goblin slaves.

The arena was a large dirt ring defined loosely by sticks and segments of rope on the ground. At one side of the ring, a podium was being constructed. In the ring, there were two desks with chairs, several feet apart and both facing the podium-in-progress.

A crowd was starting to gather around the circle. Justafar and his team were milling about their desk in that anticipatory way people do when they are about to participate in a public event. The goblins were nervously adjusting their armor in small ways while the orcs tried out their best looks of confidence.

Penelope and Salander arrived shortly after. Navigating harsh glares, they made their way to arena and installed themselves at the desk. Penelope had filled sheafs of vellum with notes after Salander had dismissed her, and these she laid out neatly on the desk, along with a fresh bottle of ink and collection of sharp quills. She did her best not to look at the menacing weapons carried by the opposing team, while she carried only her goblin sword and Salander went unarmed.

“You’re both here! That’s wonderful,” Lord Kairon called to them. He was approaching the arena from the town hall, trailing several assistants like nervous puppies.

Justafar won the initiative, saying, “Yes, my Lord. It is a good day for bloodshed and honor. My team and I hope to impress you with our great ability in the arena.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Justafar. And you, Penelope?”

She looked up from her papers and tried to gush confidence.

“We are ready, my Lord.”

Kairon nodded. “I would like to inform both parties, however, that it will not be me judging you. I would like to introduce you to Judge Crawbrink Bonebruiser.” He indicated a short but serious orc in a powdered wig and trailing black robe. The Honorable Judge Bonebruiser regarded both parties regally through half-lidded eyes before marching smartly to the podium-in-progress.

“Crawbrink will be the neutral party to weigh both arguments and assure fair-play over the course of the trial,” Kairon explained. “The actual outcome will be determined by a jury of your peers.”

At his gesture, three orcs came forward. The two noble-looking orcs were dwarfed by the third.

Jusafar took this moment to raise objection.

“My Lord, these are the Marrowcrack and Boldbreak chiefs!” His voice was verging on insubordination. Kairon took no notice.

“That’s right! Yes, they were some of the few volunteers to preside over your case. We needed someone with Penelope’s level of experience. Penelope, you will also notice that the Boldbreak chief is about your age, which is a happy coincidence. I’m not sure if you have been introduced. Finally, there’s Dillard.” The reasons for Dillard being on the panel went unspoken, though Penelope felt a kind of kinship to him.

Justafar didn’t risk further outbursts. If this was the lay of the land, he was determined to be adaptable.

An official got everyone’s attention with a deafening “Shut up!”

With a crowd of angry eyes on him, he continued, “Please stand for the Honorable Judge Bonebruiser.” A short period of confusion followed as everyone realized they were all already standing. Crawbrink took the time to climb the rickety podium.

“You may now be seated.”

Everyone continued to stand.

The jurors assembled beside the podium, the earth shaking slightly at each of Dillard’s steps. Content that things may get underway, Judge Bonebruiser raised his mallet. With a few brisk whacks he brought court to session and the podium desktop to the ground.

After a quick reassembly, he addressed the court.

“Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to swear you all in.”

An arena attendant, a formal looking goblin slave, trotted out from behind the podium carrying a collection of slabs and a small obsidian knife.

“Please swear in blood, before Ogg and these witnesses, that you will not lie during the course of these proceedings.”

Justafar sliced his good hand and pressed it onto the stack of inscribed slabs, leaving behind a handprint.

Penelope did likewise, and the attendant hopped back from whence it came.

“We are here today to address a claim by the officials of clan Skullcrush that the individual identified as Penelope Skullcrusher is actually a cowbird and did maliciously trade identities with the child of one Justafar Skullcrusher and one Eleruse Skullcrusher with intent to deceive.”

His attention turned to Penelope. Her mind was racing. She wasn’t physically leafing through her notes, but she was certainly doing so in her head. Suddenly her evidence seemed less compelling.

“How do you respond to these charges?”

She saw her father out of the corner of her eye, cool and collected.

Maybe I really am a cowbird, she thought.

Salander tugged at her arm. When she bent down to listen to him, he whispered to her, “Remember: you’re an orc first and foremost. Just do what comes naturally and we’ll make it out of this.”

She straightened up and faced the judge. She calmed her roiling thoughts.

“I am my father’s daughter. I am the orc Penelope Skullcrusher and am not and have never been a changeling. I will defend to the death my honor and the truth of this claim.”

The judge’s gaze turned from stone to a look of appraisal.

“Very well. I will now allow both parties an opening statement.”

He indicated to Justafar. “Chief, you may begin.”

Immediately he pointed at Penelope, staring the jurors in the eye.

“This monster stole my child,” he said passionately, his natural chieftain charisma suffusing his words. “It stole my child and twisted its form to deceive us, to make us think it’s one of us.”

He turned to address the crowd around the arena.

“One of a lesser race lived among us as a parasite, taking what food and water and Ogg knows what else from me. For years we housed it. For years we educated it. For years we clothed it and cleaned it and gave it a position of honor.” Here he spat. The crowd murmured, responding to the indignity.

“I thought I had washed my hands of this creature, the thing I received instead of offspring, when I banished it to the wastes,” his voice dropped an octave and came more quietly, “but here it stands again.”

He held the silence for several beats.

Turning to face Penelope, he said, “I say we send it back to the wastes. Let it crawl and beg. Let it suffer.” Here he finally let his arm come down, clenched in a fist. “Let it die with no honor.”

With a crack, the judge disappeared below the podium. An “oof” followed immediately, and several curses sputtered out from behind the rickety pile of wood.

When the podium platform was repaired, the judge restored to his proper presiding position, he addressed Penelope. She noticed his wig was slightly askew, poorly framing his annoyed face.

“Do you have anything to add to your earlier statements before we address individual points?”

Again, she avoided rifling her notes.

“Your honor, I have only this to say,” she turned to address the crowd. “Justafar Skullcrusher is my father and Eleruse Skullcrusher is my mother. I have sworn an oath to you witnesses and Ogg himself that I would not lie, and yet I tell you all this.”

She rested a hand on the hilt of her sword in a relaxed pose.

“This is because it is the truth. My first trial, for what it was, addressed surface level facts. That I was different from my peers. That I held strange convictions. That I had unnatural interests. But I was not sent as an infiltrator. I did not kidnap Penelope Skullcrusher from her parents. I am Penelope Skullcrusher, and I am an innovator. I am compassionate. I am an orc unfettered by convention, but I am an orc.”

The emphasized her words with her off-hand, manually twisting feeling into them.

“Today, if justice is served,” she continued, “we will find that it is not a crime to be different. We will find that we are a people capable of progress.”

She turned back to the jurors.

“When you decide today what I am,” she asserted, “consider where you are drawing the line. Not just for me, and not just for those like me, but where you’re drawing the line for all orcs.”

She held a gaze with each of them in turn, before the walls of the podium fell away with a thump.