Swipe for Orcs

You need a mate. You’re getting old.

My father believed orc females had three main purposes—marry a good orc male, have many orc babies, and run a good orc household. Too bad I didn’t want those things. Well, I wanted to have a mate and a family, but I wanted other things too. So I made a deal with my father. I would find my own acceptable male of worth before my birthday and get married. How hard could it be?

A universal orc rule dictated that an orc who is a clan leader must have a wife.

Not that I was a clan leader, not yet. The Orc Council was blocking me at every turn, particularly High Councilor Ironspike. But I would fulfil this last requirement, find an orc wife then he would have no other grounds to oppose me. Being an orc raised by humans, many orc clans avoided me. How would I find a wife?

Enter Love Bites, the most popular matchmatching agency in the tri-state area, and their cutting edge dating app. When our initial matches fail but somehow throw us together, it seems like a match made in heaven. Then my father finds out and threatens to keep us apart. Only by winning the Forging Competition at the Orc Games can we be together. But there is mischief afoot, and witches and other orcs out to sabotage us.

Can we ever be together?

“You have to get mated. You’re getting old, Dura.”
I winced at the words bellowed at me as I walked in from the kitchen carrying my latest creation, a cheesy stuffed Italian bread recipe. My entire family sat at the rectangular dinner table, staring at me with varying degrees of sadness, disapproval, and, in my younger brother’s case, glee that I was on the hot seat and not him for once. I swallowed hard, but regained my composure. Years of hearing versions of the same lecture from my father had given me strategies for dealing with it. It all started with a good meal. My mother always said, the way to an orc’s heart is through his stomach. Or through his weaponry, but since a female was never allowed near his weapons, she’d have to settle for a good meal.
I laid the platter with savory bread in front of my father, then quietly stepped to the side and to my seat on the left, across from my younger brother, who smirked.
My father eyed the platter. “What is this?”
“It’s something new, Father. An Italian bread stuffed with garlic, cheese, and meat. You pull it apart.”
One bushy eyebrow slowly rose as he considered the dish. Orcs had come to the Earthly realm a few generations ago when war had broken out in our home realm. Orcs lived for war. It was our main reason for living. Our entire culture was built around war. Making weapons, training for war, going to war. Despite the capabilities, we had been driven out by political machinations and landed here on Earth. Once we got here, we tried to carry on as we always had—making weapons, training, and looking for how to serve in the wars. Only, humans fought very differently and orcs thought that distance fighting was dishonorable. So, we clung to our old ways, making weapons, training, conducting Orc Games every four years to determine clan status, and slowly were becoming obsolete.
We were forced to live a more civilized life, but there was nothing an orc loved more than a feast with ale, and food we could tear into with our hands. No forks and knives required. Giving my father bread he could tear apart was a small part of home. Maybe it would soften him and make him forget about his absurd statement.
He tore off a piece of the cheesy bread and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Then he nodded and slammed a fist on the table. Everyone jumped. “This is good. This is why you’ll make an orc a fine mate, though a well-born wife rarely cooks for her husband. She instructs the staff and raises little orclings.”
“But I love to bake, Father. I’m good at it,” I protested.
My younger brother, Zarod, frantically shook his head and moved his hand across his throat to get me to stop talking. I ignored him. I’d done everything my father had asked. I did the books at the forge. I baked breads and pastry for his business meetings. I hid my work at the local bakery, so no one knew a noble orc’s daughter worked for a living.
“By the time your sister Sora was your age, she was married with two orclings and another on the way.” Sora beamed at me from across the table, nursing orcling number four. Our father smiled. “A true orc wife. It’s time you did your duty.”
I could almost feel my freedom slipping away from me. Orc fathers arranged their daughters’ marriages. That’s how Sora’s marriage happened. I had avoided that thus far, playing on my father’s affection for me, and my usefulness at the business and my bread. But clearly that favoritism was running out.
“You promised I could pick my own mate.”
My father tore off another piece of bread and chewed. “Yes, I gave you until your twenty-fifth birthday, which is in two months. Do I see a potential orc husband on the horizon? No. Have you brought anyone home to meet your family? No. I have to ask myself. Maybe Dura needs help. So your mother and I, we start to ask around the families, gather a list of orcs.”
I wanted to sink through the floor. The horror of being talked about at all the orc tables like a commodity, like a piece of meat to be sold at auction, for I had no doubt that he was soliciting offers for my hand in marriage, judging who was giving the most, who was deserving of my hand, depending on their worth to him. I hoped he would take my happiness into consideration, but he mostly considered wealth and status as criteria, whereas I had other standards by which I judged males.
Sora leaned forward. “Father, I’m sure you’ll pick a wonderful male, as you did for me.”
She gave her husband an adoring look, and I barely suppressed my eye roll. Sora was happy, but she had always wanted to be a wife, unlike me. She was happy popping out orclings. She loved being lady of the manor, running her house like our mother. I thought I might die a slow death if that was my fate.
I had to think fast to counter his plans. “You promised me that I had until my twenty-fifth birthday. You always said an orc was nothing without his word.”
My father scowled at me, clearly not liking that I threw his own words back at him. “It’s a good thing you’re not on the Council or I would have a solid opponent. Fine, you can have until your birthday, in two months, to present to me an orc of good standing as potential husband material. During the Forging Contest at the Orc Games. If you do not, we’ll use the contest to find you a mate. Are we clear?”
I sighed. It was the best compromise I was going to get. “Yes, Father. Thank you.”