Word travels fast in the enclave. We've always been good at sharing information, warnings, threats. Survival skill from harder times.
I nod, swallowing another mouthful. "Blair's pushing to end the program. Says we're too visible, too disruptive. That human businesses shouldn't be forced to accommodate our cultural differences."
"By which she means we exist too loudly." Darius takes a long drink from his cup. "Saw the coverage. They're making you the poster child for dangerous integration."
"Because I'm with Lacy."
"Because you're happy with Lacy." He returns the cup. "Can't have orcs looking too human. Makes it harder to keep us in our designated spaces."
Mara snorts. "You think this is new? My grandmother fought the same battles when she opened the first mixed-language school. They called her dangerous then too."
Around the fire, heads nod. Stories like Mara's thread through every orc family in the city. Battles fought, ground won inch by bloody inch, always against voices saying we're too much, too different, too dangerous to trust.
"So what's the plan?" Darius asks. "Besides showing up and hoping testimony sways the fence-sitters?"
That's why I came back tonight. Not just for comfort, though I need that too. But for this. Strategy. The way orcs have always survived.
"I need help," I say. "We need to show the city a different story. Not orcs as problems to solve or exotic additions. Just orcs living here, contributing, being part of the community."
"Demonstrations?" Mara's already thinking, I can see it in her eyes.
"Cooking demos, maybe. Story hours like I've been doing at Lacy's bookstore. Joint volunteer work with human organizations." I lean forward. "Blair's counting on fear. On people seeing us as fundamentally incompatible with human life. We prove her wrong by just being visible and normal."
"Nothing about us is normal to them," Darius mutters.
"Then we redefine normal."
Silence falls. The fire crackles. Someone's drumming soft rhythms in the corner, background pulse like a heartbeat.
Finally, old Greth speaks from his corner. He's been here longest, weathered three human administrations and more discrimination fights than anyone can count.
"You want to perform," he says. Flat. Not quite accusatory but close.
"I want to exist," I correct. "Visibly. Unapologetically. Doing the things we already do, just where they can see us."
"And when they take pictures? Make us spectacles again?"
"Then we control the narrative. We don't perform orc-ness for their comfort. We just live, and let them watch." I meet his gaze. "You taught me that. Be orc, be proud, be present. Stop apologizing for taking up space."
Greth's mouth twitches. Might be a smile. Hard to tell with him.
"Alright," he says. "What do you need?"
The planning starts immediately. Mara volunteers to coordinate cooking demonstrations in the market district, showcasing orc cuisine not as exotic spectacle but as regional food traditions worth preserving. She's got connections with human chefs, people who've been buying her spice blends for years.
Darius offers to organize a joint reading event, mixing orc oral storytelling with human literary traditions. Show the overlap, the shared love of narrative.
Others chime in. A crafting circle willing to demonstrate traditional metalwork. Young orcs who've been teaching human kids traditional games in the park, happy to make it official and photographable.
We plan for an hour. Then the poem circle begins.
This is older tradition, something most human city-dwellers never see. We gather tighter around the fire. Pass the speaking stone, smooth river rock worn soft by generations of orc hands.
Greth goes first. His poem's in Old Orc, rhythmic and guttural, about crossing mountains to find new home. About carrying ancestors in your bones.
Mara follows with something lighter, playful verse about her niece's first hunt, the comedy of youth and eagerness.
The stone makes the rounds. Some poems funny, others aching. All honest in ways orcs only are with each other, when human eyes aren't watching and judging.
