"Everyone has weak points." The elevator dings. Third floor. The doors open and I stride out, but his voice follows. "Finding them is how you know where to apply pressure. Or support. Depending on what is needed."
I lead him down the corridor, past cubicles where people peek over dividers to stare at the massive green figure following me like some kind of fantasy bodyguard. Rebecca from Accounting drops her coffee mug. It bounces, spills, creates a beige puddle that I automatically calculate the cleanup time for.
"This is your office." I stop at the corner space. Open the door. It's empty except for a desk, a chair, and a filing cabinet. Standard issue. Soulless. "You'll need to coordinate with IT for computer setup and Linda can provide you with?—"
"It smells like sadness."
I pause. "What?"
"This room. It smells like the dreams of corporate workers come to die." Thraka sets his briefcase on the desk. Looks around with the expression of someone evaluating a battlefield. "No windows to see the sky. No space to move. No glory."
"It's an office, not Valhalla."
"Should be both." He turns those amber eyes on me. "Work should have glory. Purpose. Not just the slow extraction of soul in exchange for currency."
"I'll have Linda send you the onboarding materials. Please review the employee handbook, specifically the sections on workplace conduct and property damage." I gesture vaguelytoward where Conference Room A presumably still contains one cracked mahogany table. "We have protocols."
"Protocols." Thraka tests the word like it's a new weapon. "I have protocols too. When someone challenges you, you fight them. When someone needs help, you help them. When someone is broken, you fix them."
"I'm not broken."
He steps closer. Not threatening. Not aggressive. Just closer. I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact because I refuse to be the first one to look away.
"You are held together with willpower and caffeine," he says quietly. "This is not strength. This is the moment before collapse. I have seen warriors fight on broken legs. I have seen leaders command with arrows in their backs. They fall eventually. Everyone falls."
My throat tightens. "I don't fall."
"Then I will teach you to bend." He smiles, smaller this time, almost gentle. "Bending is not weakness. Bending is how you survive the storm."
I should leave. I should turn around and walk out and send him an email with bullet points about acceptable behavior and proper meeting etiquette. I should retreat to my office and update my contingency plans to include "What to do when HR hires an orc who thinks he's a life coach."
Instead, I hear myself say, "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you care if I'm stressed? You just got here. You don't know me. I'm just another employee to brief and forget."
Thraka tilts his head. Studies me the way I study spreadsheets, looking for patterns and variables.
"Because you are interesting," he says finally. "And because when I walked into that room, everyone else looked away. Youlooked at me. Met my eyes. Calculated whether you could take me in a fight."
"I did not?—"
"You did. I saw it. The same look warriors get when they assess opponents." His grin returns. "You decided you could not take me in direct combat. So you would use tactics. Strategy. Weaponize the environment."
He's not wrong.
I absolutely considered whether the fire extinguisher in the hall would be effective against someone his size, and the answer was "maybe as a distraction."
"I will fix you," Thraka says again, but this time it sounds less like a threat and more like a promise. "Not because you are broken in a way that needs discarding. But because you are a blade that has been sharpened so many times there is almost nothing left. And blades deserve to rest sometimes."
My Fitbit buzzes against my wrist, the gentle vibration an unwelcome interruption to this surreal conversation.
I glance down at the screen. The message glows with its usual passive-aggressive concern:"Heart rate elevated. Deep breathing recommended."
Of course my heart rate is elevated. There's an orc in my office telling me I look like an over-sharpened blade while somehow making it sound like a compliment instead of an insult.
I press the side button with more force than necessary, silencing the notification before it can escalate to its secondary alert about sustained cardiovascular stress.
