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The orc was content with his life.
Well, as content with his life as any orc ever got. Existence was suffering; his shoulder pained him terribly, and the metal brace that let him use it hurt him worse. But there wasn’t an orc in existence who didn’t hurt. That was part of what kept them orcs. Made ‘em hard, made ‘em mean. And they had to be mean because…
Truth be told, he didn’t know. It had to do with the Boss, and the Boss’s old Boss, and some conflict that dated back to the day the world began. It was for the best that he had a back-lines job. Deep down inside, he wasn’t sure he really had it in him to kill stinkin’ elves for reasons he couldn’t even understand.
He was good at his job, anyway. It was a rare orc who had it in him to understand the complexities of true craftsmanship. Used to be the Balrogs who managed the deep magic, but there were fewer of them these days. The best orcs had to take up the slack, and - not that he’d say it where anyone could hear him - he reckoned he was the best of the best. He’d always been good at this. Even before…
No orc who had a “before” liked to think about the “before”. The ones who were born in were lucky that way. They’d never known anything different from this. He remembered…
He remembered enough to remember the screams and the flames. He remembered he was better off not remembering. The Boss had a talk with him every now and then - told him it was better not to think. Told him that had always been his problem - thinkin’ too much. That was why he was like this now. So he wouldn’t go thinkin’ too much, because when he thought, he got all stupid and disagreed with the Boss, and…
Anyway, it didn’t matter now. The Boss said anyone who’d known him before wouldn’t know him now. There’d been a body and everything - picked some poor bastard with the right build, roughed his face up enough there was nothing to recognize, and hoisted him up for everyone to see with appropriate signage. It was what he deserved. But the Boss had kept him around, and made him like this, because he was good with his hands and it’d be a waste to throw away good talent. And the Boss hated waste.
He’d seen the poor bastard, or what was left of him. This was better, he guessed. He didn’t really think about it, because thinkin’ hurt and too much thinkin’ might lead to him being the one on a pike.
He’d come close to that when the Boss had gotten hurt and… had to leave for a while. He didn’t understand too much about that whole thing, since he’d spent the eternity afterward scrabbling to prove himself useful to one warlord or another, but it had something to do with those stupid Rings.
(Stupid, stupid, thrice-damned Rings. Everything had gone wrong with the Rings… Everything had been fine before that, all had been well, they had been happy --)
Thinkin’ made his head hurt. He didn’t need to think. He just needed to smith. Smithing was what he was good at. It was why the Boss had kept him around. Smithing had never caused him any trouble. It was all the stuff afterwards that caused the problems.
So no one was happier than him when the Boss came back. He wasn’t as tough as he used to be, but he was back. And the Boss would fix that up as soon as he found his stupid Ring. The Ringwraiths were on the task, so it was only a matter of time.
(And how do you propose to have them find one when they couldn’t find three? shot through his mind like lightning, but he bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood. Last time he’d taunted the Boss like that, the Boss had torn his tongue clean out, and that was a long time ago; now, weary and weak as he was, the Boss might not be strong enough to regrow his tongue at all. Besides which, even he couldn’t remember where the stinkin’ things were now… or why he’d cared in the first place…)
Once the Ring was found, the Boss said, it would only be a matter of time until all of Middle-Earth fell under the Shadow. Then he’d hammer away its irregularities, cleanse it of its impurities, and reforge it into a good place, a wonderful place like they’d once talked about. (“Do you remember that?” “Uh, if you say so, Boss.”) A place without pain or ugliness or weakness, a world of beauty and order. A new world where all the necessary sacrifices of the old could be discarded, and all that was broken made anew. In that perfect place, even those who thought too much couldn’t disagree with the absolute rightness of his vision, and the Boss could put them all back right, the orcs and the trolls and all the rest who had been made different for the endless war, and…
The Boss trailed off, burning eyes fixed on vistas only he could see. The orc waited patiently for a while, trying to not let too much of the pain from his shoulder show on his face, then spoke up.
”Is there anything else, Boss? ‘Cause the forges need tendin’, an’ the workers don’t work ‘less I make ‘em, an’…”
A bitter sigh, raspy and ugly as a death-rattle. “No. You are dismissed, Greyfist.”