Talk with Claire then Sheriff's office.

You hold Claire for who knows how long. Eventually the crying subsides and her tight pained grip loosens. She doesn't let go though. She keeps her head right below your chin, and therefore you just keep holding her.

"I think you're kind." Claire softly cries.

"I think you're an idiot." you respond distantly but not coldly.

"Then why are you holding me? Why are you consoling me?" she asks.

You don't really have an answer. You just emit a non-committal grumble. She giggles at that.

"You're soft too." she laughs.

You groan and let go of her. Claire looks at you a bit worried. You give her a half-assed scowl. Her teary eyes locks with your glaring ones. Silence emanates from every corner of the kitchen as you hold eye contact for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Then... laughter.

Claire can't hold back her giddiness.

"What's so funny?" you bark.

"I'm sorry, Jess. I just... " she croaks in between bouts of laughing: "You're just so different to what I expected."

"What's that supposed to mean?" you reply, probably more offended than intimidating.

"I've heard a lot of things from the townspeople about orcs. As a kid I was told never to go northwest. They said that you are ruthless and cutthroat and mean-spirited."

"That's... not entirely wrong." you admit: "We usually don't fight just for the sake of fighting. We ensure survival. It doesn't matter what or who gets in the way of that. If killing and pillaging helps us survive, we do it. If killing and pillaging does nothing, we don't do it. There's no point."

"But that's not what you are." she interjects: "You don't do things just to survive. You gave me the money pouch, you hugged me when I was down. You saved the sheriff, and Farah, and me, when you really had no reason to."

"I had reasons to do all that." you point out.

"No you didn't. You're not cutthroat. Even in your condition you could easily overpower everyone here, take what you want, and steal a horse from the staples and be off. You haven't. You've spent your afternoon talking to a sad girl. You're nothing like the stories I've been told of orcs." she says before looking down slightly: "You're a lot prettier too."

You freeze. You've been called a lot of things over the course of the almost three decades you've been alive, but pretty has never been one. The stories she has been fed most have been really hideous to make you look good in comparison.

"What... what did they say about our looks?" you hesitantly ask.

Claire looks at you with a slightly perplexed expression subtly painted on her face. A glimpse of your vulnerability apparently takes her by surprise.

"They said that you were hideous and scary." she fidgets.

"And I'm not?" you ask slightly distrustful: "I do remember you running out of the room when you saw me awake."

"Yeah, I was scared, but I didn't know you. And I thought you were dangerous."

"I am." you defend yourself.

"Not to me." she admits: "And I wasn't scared because of your looks. I actually couldn't believe that you were an orc. I expected big fangs and piercing eyes and hideous scars."

"I have all of those." you continue to argue.

"They're not nearly as terrifying as they were in the stories." she say: "I thought your fangs would be upside down."

Your hand subconsciously move to your small tusks. They protrude only slightly above your upper lip.

"I'm not a bat." you reply annoyed. She giggles again. She clinks her fingernail on your right tusk. She then looks into your eyes.

"Your eyes are pretty. I wish I had green eyes." she says longingly.

"It's just a color." you shrug: "Gray makes you just as good at seeing as green does."

She sighs in defeat.

"You don't like compliments, do you?" she asks.

"I guess not." you look down.

"Do you not like how you look?" she asks.

"Never really thought about it." you admit: "I guess I've just gotten used to accomplishing things via intimidation. I like being that way, so don't call me pretty anymore."

"But you are pretty!" Claire shouts.

"I have ugly battle scars." you protest.

"Your scars are beautiful." Claire fervently disagrees: "The one over your right cheek that goes past your lip gives you a wonderful composition."

"I have messy unkempt hair."

"Your hair is really wild. It's true that it doesn't look like it's been brushed for a long time, but it suits you that way. Plus the black color really matches with your green skin."

"I have a threatening and unattractive voice."

"Your voice is calm, deep, and soothing. When you aren't yelling that is."

"My body is rugged. It's neither curvy nor lady-like."

"Your body is so strong. I don't care if it's ladylike or not. When you held me I felt protected. Like nothing could hurt me."

You've had enough of this farce. You get up.

"I'm heading out to talk to the sheriff." you say abrasively.

Claire doesn't really react. She just shakes her head a bit before looking up at you.

"Ok." she says not giving away what she is feeling: "Put on some clothes though. You've been wearing those cloths for too long. You can borrow some of my mother's clothes."

You head to the bedroom and look in the closet.

You open the closet of Claire's parents. You look through the women's clothes, quickly coming to the conclusion that they're a bit too feminine and probably on the small side. You instead raid some of the father's clothes. You heave some black wool trousers up your legs and hold it in place with a primitive leather belt. It's nice to finally have something covering your legs for sand and dirt. You don a white cotton shirt, and put a black vest over it. You are a bit taller and sturdier than what Claire's dad was, and as such the clothes hug your skin slightly. Lastly you put on some wooly socks and some well-worn leather boots. Your soles looks beaten and gross, so even old shoes is better than nothing at this point.

"Well, well, well. You look good for someone who has been shot. Name's Aayesha."

The lamia girl's voice is comfortably slumped in a laid-back intonation. She has bandages on her shoulder, and you can see that she winces a bit in pain as she gets up from her chair to shake your hand. Her human upper body is dripping in sweat probably caused by the exhaustion of her job while in her state. Her chocolate skin is glistening in the afternoon sun.

"Jess. Same goes to you, I guess... although I was never actually shot." you reply, shaking her hand.

"Don't yank my shit. What's the hole in your abdomen doing if you haven't been struck by lead?"

"That's not from a bullet. That's from a desert killer stinger."

The sheriff looks at you, sizing you up to determine if you're bullshitting her. After a couple of seconds of unrelenting staring she shakes her head slightly.

"How the fuck are you not dead?" she asks.

"I've trained survival my whole life." you shrug it off.

"Well, that certainly came in handy for us." she nods: "You were extremely reckless to take on an entire gang of bandits yourself like that."

"If you expect me to apologize, then you're in for disappointment." you growl.

"No, nothing like that." the sheriff cockily shrugs: "After all that recklessness saved the town. I just wanted to make sure that you realize that all of these stunts will someday kill you."

"I think I can decide what I choose to do for myself." you reply annoyed. You're a bit frustrated at the sheriff's attitude. You feel like punching her in the shoulder... the one where she was shot.

"Of course... but you could choose to do that while being protected. The consequences would be less likely to bite your ass then."

"What is this about?"

"It's about a job opportunity. As you can see this town clearly needs some enforcement. Those kobolds might have back-up that they're sending our way. I want you to be my deputy." she suggests.

"I don't care much for law." you spit: "It's pointless."

"Pointless?" she cocks an eyebrow.

"Who makes the law?" you rhetorically ask: "Just another piece of shit trying to do more than survive. What you see as righteous or justice is another person's con. What is right and what is true is all in the head of the person who asked the question. We're just south of the big desert. We're on the border of your domain of law. Justice doesn't exist out there. Justice doesn't mean shit to the dying. Only survival does."

"These laws exist to ensure survival." she retorts.

"Survival for who?" you ask: "Is there survival for the ones who doesn't agree with what the law should be?"

"The rules were agreed upon by the people. The rules were made by good decent folk who wanted to make the best of it for everyone willing to uphold some peace." she argues back getting a bit more heated.

"You're full of shit. If you make the rules and you enforce them and you do it all for the benefit for survival, and anybody who disagrees can eat the dirt, then tell me, what the fuck is the difference between you and them?" you ask as you point towards the holding cells with the kobold bandits.

The snake-girl glares at you with fiery eyes, but you can see her inner cogs turn, struggling to find a decent argument. After a little while she sighs.

"So you think that law and justice doesn't exist in your head?" she asks.

"Something like that." you shrug: "I do what I can to survive. Nothing more, nothing less."

"If that's true why did you refuse to kill Emily when your tribe asked you?" she questions you with a slight smug grin: "You had everything to lose and nothing to gain by doing that."

Now it's your turn to struggle for words. You are getting kinda tired of people constantly questioning your motives for doing what you're doing. More so, you're getting tired of not having an answer.

"Whatever Emily's been telling you is not exactly true. She has a tendency to try and paint me in a light than I deserve." you bite. You're on the defenses now.

"No." Aayesha simply deflects: "You're a hypocrite. Are you seriously telling me that there is nothing you want in life? That there is nothing you wish to achieve? That there is no one you wish to be with?"

You dig inside yourself. Uncomfortable thoughts circle your mind, indistinguishable from each other, but so characteristic in their pain. You see mental images of Emily and Claire... dead. Corpses riddled with bullets at the bottom of a grave. They quickly flash and become the deer-man you killed. These thoughts are nothing new. These thoughts reminds you of someone you knew a long time ago. You expected this burden. You didn't expect the intensity of the pain that came with it. You see Claire hugging you. You see Emily laughing. You see the desert. You see yourself. You see nothing. Dark.

So this is what despair is.

You shake yourself free from the deep hole you were digging yourself in. You look back at Aayesha. Your lips tremble slightly. You speak.

"So, how's the pay?"