"Every day."
"Why did you leave?"
Another long pause. When he speaks,I feel the heaviness.
"I made choices that cost my clan political standing. Lost territory disputes. Failed to secure trade agreements that would have strengthened our position." He looks directly at me. "I volunteered for this show because success here might restore some of that standing. Prove that orcs can integrate successfully with human society."
"No pressure."
"None at all," he agrees dryly.
"What kind of choices?"
"The kind that prioritize individual conscience over collective benefit."
His deflection tells me there's more to the story, but I don't push. We've both shared enough painful truths for one evening.
"What about you?" he asks. "What do you miss about home?"
Home.The word carries so much weight.
"Sunday mornings at the bakery. Before we open, when it's just me and the ovens and the smell of rising dough. No customers, no stress, just... creation."
"You work Sundays?"
"I work every day. Have to." I pull my knees up, wrapping my arms around them. "Small-town business means you're always on. People know where you live, when you're open, what your family situation is."
"That sounds intrusive."
"It is. But it's also support, in a weird way. When my mentor died, Eleanor, the woman who helped me to bake, the entire town showed up for her funeral with casseroles and offers to help with the bakery transition."
"This mentor was important to you."
"She saved my life." The words come out more intense than I intended. "I was eighteen, just graduated high school, completely lost. My parents wanted me to go to college, get a 'real' career, but I had no idea what I wanted to do."
"And then?"
"And then I smelled Eleanor's bread from three blocks away and followed my nose like some cartoon character. She was this tiny seventy-year-old woman with flour permanently embedded under her fingernails and the most incredible laugh."
Korgan shifts slightly, angling toward me. "She hired you?"
"She fed me first. This massive cinnamon roll, still warm, with coffee that could wake the dead. Then she handed me an apron and said, 'If you're going to hang around my kitchen, you might as well learn something useful.'"
"Practical woman."
"The most practical. She taught me everything—recipes, business management, how to read customers, how to handle suppliers who think they can shortchange the naive girl with the failing bakery."
"Failing?"
"Eleanor's health was declining when I started. Arthritis, vision problems, customers drifting away because consistency suffered. I thought I was just helping out, but really I was taking over gradually."
"She planned this."
"Oh, absolutely. Eleanor never did anything accidentally." I smile at the memory. "When she died, I learned she'd beenrestructuring her will for months, leaving me the bakery and all her equipment. Along with her debts."
"Ah."
"Yeah. Ah." I laugh, but it comes out shaky. "Turns out keeping a small-town bakery afloat requires more than passion and good intentions. Eleanor had been borrowing against the property to cover operating costs, betting on me being able to turn things around."
