The kindness in her voice makes something tight in me eases. I've been avoiding everyone since yesterday's laundry room conversation, too afraid to hope that Maya's offer of help might actually mean something. Too afraid of making another mistake.
"I ordered extra spring rolls," she continues, unpacking chopsticks. "They travel well, and I know you like things that don't fall apart when you handle them."
A laugh escapes before I can stop it. "Is that your subtle way of commenting on my motor coordination?"
"Nothing subtle about it. I've seen you with coffee cups." She grins, nudging a container toward me. "Eat. You look like you haven't had a real meal today."
She's right. I've been subsisting on vending machine coffee and the sandwich I brought from home twelve hours ago. The pad thai tastes like actual food, complex and satisfying in a way that makes me realize how hollow I've felt.
"What are you working on?" Maya peers at the open manuscript, careful not to lean over the delicate pages.
"Middle High German poetry. Specifically, translations of courtly love verses into various dialects." I flip to a page marked with several bookmarks. "This particular collection includes some remarkable examples of cross-cultural romantic expression."
"Romantic expression?" Her eyebrows rise. "As in love poems?"
Heat creeps up my neck. "Academic interest only. The linguistic patterns reveal fascinating cultural exchange between?—"
"Ursak." She sets down her chopsticks. "Are you blushing?"
"Orcs don't blush. We experience temporary circulatory adjustments."
"Right. Temporary circulatory adjustments." Her smile is soft, teasing without malice. "Show me one."
"Show you what?"
"A love poem. Read me one of these fascinating examples of cross-cultural romantic expression."
My hands still on the manuscript. "Maya, these are academic texts. Dry translations of historical documents?—"
"Humor me."
Something in her tone makes me look up. She's leaning forward slightly, chin resting on her hand, eyes bright with genuine curiosity. Not the polite interest people show when they're trying to be supportive, but real engagement.
Stone warms slow,I remind myself.But some stones are worth the wait.
I flip through several pages until I find the piece I've been working with all afternoon. A twelfth-century verse originally written in Old High German, later translated into Latin, then into Middle English, and finally rendered into modern English by three different scholars.
"This one," I say, clearing my throat. "It's attributed to a minnesinger, a German courtly poet, but the original shows influences from orcish verse structure. Probably picked up during trade contacts along the Rhine."
"Just read it."
The words hover on my tongue, familiar from hours of analysis but suddenly weighted with new meaning. In the quiet of the archives, with Maya watching me across the desk, they transform from academic exercise into something much more dangerous.
"When first I saw thee walking, light-footed through the hall," I begin, my voice dropping naturally into the rhythmic cadence the verse demands. "My heart became a drum that beats against my ribs. The bards sing of love's arrows, swiftand silver-bright, but love came to me heavy as a stone, slow as mountain streams in spring, deep as roots that crack foundations."
Maya's expression shifts, softening around the edges. She leans closer.
"Thy voice echoes in chambers I had thought were sealed. Thy laughter breaks the silence I had built for protection. In thy presence, I am fortress and siege both, crumbling walls I spent years raising, stone by careful stone."
The words resonate in the quiet space, seeming to hang in the air between us. Maya is very still, her gaze fixed on my face rather than the manuscript.
"I would learn thy language, every word and gesture, would speak thy name in all the tongues I know, would write it in the margin of every text, would carve it into bark and stone until the world itself remembers?—"
"Ursak."
I stop, suddenly aware that my voice has grown lower, more intimate. That Maya has shifted her chair closer to the desk. That her hand rests near mine on the wooden surface, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from her skin.
"That's beautiful," she says quietly. "Is there more?"
