How much for the Orc dick?

Journal of Rowana, daughter of Rowetha
19 / 02 / 2120 of the Fourth Age

I awoke on my stomach before dawn. That was odd, since I normally slept on my back or side. Azzie had stepped out, probably to answer nature's call. I scratched at my neural jack and found the dust cover was loose. That brought me awake and alert. As I secured it properly, I checked my memory. I didn't maintain too many files, mostly the journal, and...

The date was off for the last entry. My face went stony. For a moment I wondered if I had been talking in my sleep—subvocalized an addition to the journal entry. Yet the software I was using was basic; it shouldn't be possible. Which left the possibility that...that Azzie had rolled me over and plugged into my neural port while I slept. Jacked straight across. Again.

We hadn't done that, since that first night. We hadn't talked about it, either, but Azzie seemed to grasp that it had made me uncomfortable. She was good at picking up little cues like that, and it often felt like we had an understanding that went beyond words. But if she had accessed my memory while I was asleep.

It was an ugly feeling, and a knot formed in my stomach as I clicked open last night's journal entry.

Rowana,

I have no word in the Black Speech for what I feel, so I write in Westron what my stupid tongue cannot speak aloud.

We are bound together, our fates entwined. I feel it in my blood and bone. You are the first and only one to know me, and I wish to know all of you. Hurts and joys, toil and rest, feast and famine, illness and health. Through darkness and light. Until our final breath.

All that I am I share with you freely. All that you are I accept, without judgment, without reservation.

Though I have never known the Valar, I have felt the Shadow on my soul for all my life. So I swear this oath on this ring, and I write it here so you will know.

Ash Nazg

It is hard to be angry after reading that. I sighed, and rolled to my feet. The sun would be up soon, and when it was light enough out, I had to be on the road.

Supplies were low. What was left of the MREs, the .22 rifle, and all the ammunition went in the tent. What went into the Pathfinder was bags of garbage. Every empty beer can, every empty MRE pouch, every shred of plastic. I had no intention of littering the farm with crap; food scraps could be composted, bones burnt or buried, but glass and plastic would stick around forever. Long treks were much the same way, not wanting to leave traces behind.

Azzie watched me pack. Outwardly calm, but there was that unspoken gulf between us. What if something happened to me? What if I didn't come back? How would she survive, out in the wild, with a limited food supply? She could shoot hares with the rifle, but the ammo wouldn't last forever. A part of me wondered if I should teach her how to use the satlink, the cost be damned...but who would she call? Who would come rescue a SINless Orc, out in the wilds of Mordor?

I couldn't put it off any longer. Walked up to her, and Azzie stood, ears flat, black hair tangled and in need of a comb.

"It'll take me a few hours," I said. "Drop off the trash, fill up on petrol, buy the groceries and set things up with the Dwarf. I should be back by nightfall, but if anybody comes by...keep out of sight, and use the rifle if you have to."

The Uruk's hug crushed my ribs. Her hands grabbed my ass and lifted me up until only my boot-tips touched the ground.

"You will come back to me," she said, with utter conviction.

She watched me drive away. I watched her in the rear-view camera, using the neural jack. Just before she disappeared from view, She lifted up her shirt, to flash those great green melons at me. A hint of what I was coming back for, as if I didn't know.

It was lonelier on that drive away from my homesite than the drive towards it had been. I couldn't remember the last time I had been worried about someone else in that way. The last time I'd had someone to protect. Aedre had been as self-sufficient as I was, as every ranger had to be, far from home. We'd watched each other's backs, but I never had to worry about her gun jamming, or getting stung by a scorpion or bitten by a snake. We each had the training to deal with that.

Azzie didn't. She was strong, sure, but...

I thought about her more on that drive than I did when we weren't three steps from each other. A part of me wanted to turn around, stuff her into the Pathfinder, take the chance she'd be spotted. Instead, I drove on. Turned onto the highway, and pulled into Bardur's Rest before noon, the eyes of a dozen crows on me.

"So soon?" Bardur asked, great hairy eyebrows raised above his sightless sockets, after I'd filled the tank and dropped off the trash. Two crows in the store kept an eye on me.

"Been working hard. Need some provisions...and I was hoping we could make arrangements for regular grocery runs. Set up a post box for deliveries."

We talked as I shopped. Every piece of fresh fruit he had went into the Pathfinder, pounds of dried compressed krill flavored like beef and bacon, sacks of protein-enriched oatmeal and macaroni, a couple sacks of potatoes, along with several cases of beer, an extra medkit, a spare blanket, three pairs of socks, shoes that looked like they might fit Azzie, a couple t-shirts and jeans, and...luxury of luxuries...a toothbrush and a couple tubes of paste.

It was tricky. I had to make it look like I was buying things for me. Didn't want to give the impression I was eating for two, either. Bardur, if he was curious, feigned indifference well. He smiled as I placed my thumb on the pad and the credits transferred. Out here, my monthly retirement pay went a bit further than it would in the White City.

"You get lonely at nights, yes?" Bardur said. "Look! Look here. Fresh shipment, from Umbar..."

I looked. In one of the display cases, Bardur had laid out a series of sex toys. A dozen phalluses of different lengths, thickness, and anatomical accuracy. Most seemed to be made of silicone, but one looked like it was carved out of ivory, almost boomerang-shaped, or like two tusks joined together.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Replica traditional Orc female phallus for simulated mating rituals, strengthen bonds between Orc warrior women, or defile captives of either sex, just like in Man Slaves of the She-Orcs series! Bone powder in resin matrix. Those Orc girls, they kinky bitches. You like Orcs? I got great Orc cock," he pointed at the far end, where an impressive specimen stood. It had to be ten inches from the rounded tip to the carefully sculpted balls. "Neural interface. Adjust speed, vibration, level of hardness. Easy to clean, easy to recharge, synthetic cum substitute reservoir, comes with free bottle of water-based lubricant. Dishwasher safe! Use mild soap."

Bardur had listed off the spiel as though reading the selling points from an online salespoint, which he probably was. I hesitated. Strictly speaking, I didn't need it. Then again, it might help alleviate any ideas I was with someone else if I did buy it. Plus, I had no idea if Azzie liked toys.

"Alright. How much for the Orc dick?" I asked.

I had just loaded up the Pathfinder again when I saw it, out in the distance. The black shape of the inflated bag. A lighter-than-air cargo drone, from the direction of the Morgul Vale. It seemed almost suspended in the blue sky, but it moved in the breezeless air.

"Shit," I muttered. "They're a day early."

Isn't that just like delivery people? To show up when you aren't there.

Tires squealed as I ripped out of Bardur's Rest. The two-lane blacktop was empty, not even a lizard skuttled across the surface as I bore down full-speed toward my turn-off. Once I got offroad, I had to slow down. It wouldn't do to break an axle or bust a tire out here. My eyes were fixed on the cargo-drone. Heading across country, not having to bother with roads or lack thereof, it was making better time towards its destination.

The sun had begun to dip and my stomach growled as I pulled up. The cargo drone was almost exactly overhead. Azzie was in the tent, with the rifle in her hands, teeth bared.

I got out, all grins and relief. Heart in my throat. Some part of me had been afraid she wouldn't be there. That something would have happened to her in the few hours we were apart. She looked from me to the drone, and back again.

Around the space we'd so carefully picked clean and flattened out, the geomarkers blinked. Sent out precise coordinates. The zeppelin zoomed in low, its underside opened up...and a bone-white skeleton of a Hobbit hole lowered down on metal cables, with infinite computer-guided precision. Azzie and I watched it sink down, the weight of it compressing the earth slightly. It would sink more once we piled dirt on top of it, to add to the insulation.

Once it had settled, the cables released, retracted above like a great big jellyfish. The household goods that came with it, the small prefabricated erect-it-yourself storage shed, the pipe-weed seeds and solar pans...all of that was inside the round door.

"Hey Precious," I said at last, as the cargo drone began to retreat the way it had come. "We're home."