Page 51 of Orc'd & Loaded

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"Strongest grip I've ever seen on a human. You stopped twelve pounds of falling iron with one hand. At temperature. That's not normal."

"I knead bread dough by hand. Every morning. Five a.m."

"That explains it."

"It explains nothing. It was reflex."

"It was insane."

"Your foot would be shattered."

"I would have healed. Orc bones reset in four days."

Her jaw tightens. The water runs. The reduction bubbles softly on the stove behind us, untouched, unburnt, patient.

"Four days," she repeats.

"Four days."

"My hand won't heal in four days."

"No."

She pulls her hand from the water. Studies the blisters. Each one a perfect, fluid-filled dome mapped across her palm like a constellation of terrible decisions.

"Then you're going to have to be my hands."

"Your hands."

"My hands. Both of them." She flexes the injured right, winces, tucks it back under the stream. "I can't plate with my left. I can barely hold a pen with my left. You're going to execute my techniques under my direction."

"I don't do tweezers."

"You will do tweezers."

"My fingers are much smaller."

"Then we'll get bigger tweezers."

She's already pivoting. Already recalculating. The reduction behind me gives a soft, insistent bubble, and I cross back to the stove in three strides, lowering the flame by a fraction. The liquid shimmers. Dark, glossy, concentrated. Exactly where she left it. I don't touch the broth.

"Boris."

"What."

"Stir it. Clockwise. Slowly."

I pick up her wooden spoon. The handle is delicate, worn smooth from years of her grip, and it disappears inside my fist like a chopstick. I stir. Clockwise. Slowly. The reduction coats the back of the spoon in a velvet sheet.

"Slower."

I slow down.

"That's too slow."

"You just said..."

"I said slowly. Not glacially. Match my breathing."

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