My mouth's gone dry. "Absolutely not."
"Good. That means it matters." She kisses my cheek, quick and fierce. "Go show them who you are."
I step into the center, feeling every eye land heavy on my skin. The doctored clip plays in my memory, my face twisted into something I'm not, and I have to shove it down, swallow the fear that this will just give them more ammunition.
"Thank you for coming." My voice booms too loud in the small space, and I dial it back, aiming for something human-friendly without losing myself. "I'm Stone. I write bad poetry and cook decent food and I broke Lacy's awning the first day I got to this city."
A few chuckles. Not many.
"I've been thinking a lot about stories lately. How they get told, who tells them, what gets cut out to make them fit a shape someone already decided on." I hold up one of the chapbooks, the clear cover catching light. "This is my story. Not edited, not made scary or safe or convenient. Just what it's like to be orc in a human place, to fall in love across a gap people keep insisting is too wide to bridge."
I open to a poem I wrote the night after our first time together, when I could still feel her skin against mine and didn't have words big enough for the feeling. "This one's called 'Learning Gentle.'"
The words come halting at first, self-conscious about the clumsy rhymes and obvious sentiment. But I push through, reading about wanting to touch without breaking, aboutdiscovering tenderness isn't weakness, about how her laugh sounds like permission to belong.
When I finish, silence holds for a long beat.
Then Aunt Rene starts clapping, slow and deliberate, and others join until the sound fills the space with something close to approval.
"We have other readers tonight," I continue, emboldened. "Orc and human both, sharing food and stories because that's what people do when they're not being scared of each other."
Mara steps forward with her drum, settling it between her knees. She taps out a rhythm, low and steady, then begins a traditional orc tale about the first bridge, the one built between mountain clans who'd warred for generations. Her voice carries the sing-song cadence of the old language mixed with human words, a bridge itself.
People lean in, listening.
A human woman reads next, a teacher who talks about her orc students and how they've taught her patience, how their directness cuts through polite evasion in ways that help everyone learn better.
More follow. Stories and poems and one orc man who just talks about missing his homeland while building something new here, his voice cracking with honest emotion that needs no polish.
Between readers, people drift to the food tables. I watch humans try the berry bread, their expressions shifting from cautious to surprised-pleased. Conversations start, awkward at first but warming, orcs and humans finding common ground in complaints about city transit and the weird spring weather.
Lacy reads last, choosing not a poem but a passage from that pulp fantasy she loves, the part where the orc warrior and human scholar finally admit they're stronger together thanapart. Her voice steadies as she goes, and when she looks up, she finds me in the crowd, her smile private despite the audience.
By nine, the room's packed beyond fire code, people standing in corners and spilling into the bookstore proper. Someone starts buying chapbooks, then others, until the stack dwindles to nothing and I'm scribbling IOUs for print orders.
A journalist from the city paper approaches, the one who's been fair in past coverage. "Can I ask you a few questions?"
"Sure."
"The viral clip showed you as aggressive, potentially dangerous. How do you respond?"
I consider my words careful. "I respond by being here. By showing what I actually am instead of letting a three-second edit define me. I'm big, yeah, and orc, and sometimes I'm loud because that's how I was raised. But I'm also someone who loves books and bad puns and a woman who took a chance on me when she didn't have to. People can decide which story fits better."
She scribbles notes, nods. "And the program? You think events like this can save it?"
"I think people fear what they don't know. So we're making ourselves known. Really known, not the edited version. Whether that saves anything, I guess we'll see."
More questions, more photos. Tess orchestrates with practiced ease, making sure the coverage captures the full scope: mixed crowds, genuine smiles, orcs and humans sharing space without catastrophe.
Near eleven, people start drifting toward exits, calling thanks and promises to return. The bookstore empties slow, leaving just the core crew and the pleasant debris of a successful gathering.
Lacy collapses into a chair, exhausted but glowing. "We sold out of chapbooks."
"And all the berry bread," Darius adds. "Mara's already got orders for catering."
Tess scrolls her phone. "Early social media looks good. Real good. People posting about the event, sharing photos, counteracting the clip with actual context."
I sink down beside Lacy, taking her hand. My heart's still racing, adrenaline and relief mixing into something almost euphoric. "Think it worked?"
