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"Karzog. Come here."
The field medic watched as Karzog's entire body tensed at being addressed. After an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation, the young orc did as he was told and walked over to her.
"Yes, m-m-ma'am."
Still the stuttering. Idra had thought she could beat it out of him after just a couple of weeks, but he still had that terrible speech impediment. It was grating on the ears.
With an annoyed sigh, Idra placed her hands on her hips and fixed Karzog with a stern expression. She eyed him over for a moment. Twenty years old, a constant nervous wreck, afraid of everyone and everything, avoiding eye contact if given the choice. Idra had him pegged as a coward. If it had been up to her, she'd have sent him back home a long time ago.
"I present you with a problem," she told him. "I want you to solve it."
She forced herself to not roll her eyes as a terrified look crossed Karzog's face. He managed to wipe the terror off his face and nod in affirmation.
"We don't have enough room for our new patient," she continued, keeping her gaze steady, unblinking. "Not enough room, not enough equipment, not enough anything. What would you do in this situation?"
"W-w-what? Me?"
"Yes, you!" Idra snapped, causing Karzog to flinch.
The young man began picking at his fingers as he tried to think of a solution to the problem. The field medic was a fraction of a second from slapping his hands to make him stop fidgeting, when Karzog spoke up:
"I-I-I don't know, ma'am."
Idra licked her lips slowly, still staring at him. She had expected this answer.
"Well, we have to do something, don't we, Karzog?" she said, syrupy sweet. "We can't just keep a whole heap of sick and hurt people in some tents and wait for them all to die, can we?"
Karzog shook his head, looking apprehensive.
Idra smirked. "Tell me what we should do."
By each passing second Karzog looked more and more nervous, more and more terrified. Idra was sure he'd begin crying any time soon.
"I-I-I genuinely d-d-don't know, ma'am," he eventually mumbled, averting his gaze.
"Look at me when you're talking to me!"
With a squeak, Karzog returned his gaze to Idra's. She could see tears forming in his eyes. He was shaking. A fucking coward. A disgrace to orcs everywhere.
She sneered at him and said: "I'll tell you what to do. You find the weakest patient. The one who's least likely to survive the night. And you--"
"No!"
Idra's eyes widened as Karzog protested. He seemed as shocked by his own exclamation as she was.
"'No'?" she hissed. "You disobey your superior?"
"I-I-I can't do something like that," Karzog stuttered, the tears finally rolling down his cheeks. "I-I-I can't just kill a p-p-patient. I-I-I'm supposed to save people, n-n-not kill them."
The smile that spread itself across Idra's face was all but pleasant.
"The thing is, Karzog," she said with a sweetness that could only be compared to that of mold, "You are saving lives if you do this. I'm telling you to take care of the weakest patient. If you don't, they will still die, and so will our other patients, because you're wasting time and resources on a lost cause."
Karzog's entire body was shaking at this point. His gaze fell for a moment, but he was forced to look back at his superior when she snapped at him again.
"P-p-please don't make me do this," he whimpered. "I-I-I can't."
Idra pouted in an exaggerated manner. "What's the problem, dear? Are you too good to do the dirty work? You want me to ask someone else so you don't get your hands bloody? So you can keep your goddamn innocence?"
There was no reply from the sobbing orc. He seemed to be concentrating on keeping eye contact.
"My five-year-old has more bravery and smarts than you, Karzog," Idra spat at him.
This seemed to light a fire in Karzog's eyes, because he snapped, "Then have your five-year-old do it!" He gasped as Idra smacked him across the face with the back of her hand.
Shaking her hand, which had gotten wet with Karzog's tears, Idra watched as the young man composed himself enough to look at her again.
"Look at you," she sneered. "Crying like a spoiled human child. Thinking you're so much better than the rest of us. 'Oh, I'm not like other orcs, I can't stand all that fighting and brutal stuff! I won't sink that low!'" Idra paused for dramatic effect. "That's what you think, isn't it? You think people pick on you because you like bathing four times a week and being clean, but in reality it's because you perceive yourself as better than everyone else. Such arrogance!"
The tears on Karzog's face kept rolling.
Also rolling were Idra's eyes. "And then you make yourself out to be the victim. And people fall for it because they feel sorry for you. They perceive you as helpless and you take advantage of that." She shook her head. "I'm not falling for it. I've spent enough time around goblins to recognise someone trying to sneak away from their responsibilities. And today," she added, "your responsibility includes making room for our new patient."
After a few sobs, Karzog managed to force out: "P-p-please... d-d-don't make me do this..."
"You do as I say and you do it now!" Idra snapped, raising her voice.
"Don't make me do this..."
"Karzog!"
"Don't make me--"
Idra slapped him across the face again. She glared at him, eyes wide and full of anger. This time she didn't wait for him to make eye contact again, letting him sniffle and whimper to himself.
Her voice was low: "The boy in tent number three. He's been unconscious for five days. He's not gonna make it. Take his pillow..."
"No, no, no..."
"... Take his pillow, place it over his face..."
"No..."
"... until he stops breathing. Until his heart stops. Until you can no longer sense his life essence. Then you take care of his body, and I'll make sure our new patient gets the attention he needs."
Karzog's expression seemed to have gone from utter despair to an unemotional stone-face. The tears still stained his cheeks, but his shaking had stopped. For a moment Idra thought that the entire entity that was Karzog had stopped working right there and then.
She was about to yell at him to get to work but she didn't have to, as Karzog turned around without a word and exited Idra's tent. She looked after him for a moment, licking her teeth thoughtfully. She shook her head. What a lost cause.
Later that night she knew he'd done as she'd told him to, because the entire camp heard the young orc wail in despair. One of Idra's subordinates had approached her and told her Karzog was unresponsive. He'd apparently walked away from the camp, huddled up in the nearby forest, and covered his mouth with both his hands to muffle his cries. It hadn't worked, and he had soon been discovered by the other healers-in-training.
When asked what they should to do with him, Idra had told them to let him stay there. "At least when he's in the forest, his goddamn crying isn't as loud."
The subordinate had cocked her head to the side, a bit uncertain.
"I saw that the boy in tent number three is gone," she said. "Why did you have Karzog do it? Of all people? You know how sensitive he is."
Idra had fixed her gaze on her subordinate, a look of disgust on her face. "Because I don't like him. He's a disgrace to what orcs stand for. He's weak. There's no room for weak orcs."
The subordinate had frowned at this. "I beg your pardon, ma'am, but... why do you care about what orcs stand for? You're not even--"
"Mind your own business."
"Yes, ma'am."
Zin'jalli awoke in the middle of the night to find the other side of the bed empty. Well, almost. Where Karzog normally slept, there was now a sleeping tabby cat of grand proportions. He gave the cat a couple of head scratches before getting up and looking for his husband, whom he soon found sitting outside the house on the bench. He sat down next to him.
"Can't sleep?" he croaked, wrapping a lazy arm around the orc's shoulders.
Karzog grunted non-committally. "Nightmare."
"The regular one?"
"Mh."
"I'm sorry." Zin'jalli took Karzog's hand and just held it for a couple of minutes. It was a small gesture, but he knew Karzog appreciated it. "We have a mission tomorrow. In the Hinterlands. That should get your mind off the nightmare."
Karzog smiled faintly. "Nothing quite like near-death experiences to take your mind off things, huh?"