Underwater Orc Name Generator

The story

On the first departure, Korga forgot the appointment token. On the second, Zun remembered that the storage shutter was still open. By the third, both were in the mood to say that doing something splendid together had been the other person’s idea. They left anyway. Thirty years seemed worth a portrait, and the old one had begun to lose its color around Korga’s left ear. She wanted a formal new plate at the luminous reef, with their wedding rings visible and neither looking as if they were about to correct the other.

Their village stood below the shelf in a world of water-breathing people. Korga and Zun were aquatic orcs; they did not carry air or visit the sea as human divers. They were residents with errands, stiff opinions, and a cupboard that needed closing before an outing. The rising current made the outward journey unusually easy. Korga let it carry her around the familiar turn and felt almost youthful until Zun asked whether she had brought the rings. They had taken them off while packing a food reserve. Both were still beside the cupboard.

Korga said they could turn back. Then she looked at the route ribbons streaming outward. Reversing direction was not the easy opposite of arriving. The way home during this flow took a sheltered circuit that ran around the shelf, or a wait for another confirmed interval. They reached the waiting court below the studio, where a travel notice set the outward and return times in separate columns. Korga had seen the notice before. She had remembered the convenient number twice. Zun took a long time to refrain from saying so.

If they started around now, they could still reach their prepaid supper at the appointed hour. If they kept the portrait appointment, the return circuit would bring them home after the restaurant closed. Waiting for a changed flow would be later still. The court had a resident attendant, places to sit, and ordinary access to the longer home route. It was a real place to remain, not a dangerous perch that forced two people to agree. Zun could take the circuit and use his supper place while Korga continued. Her wish for a shared photograph did not remove that option.

“Without the rings, what are we repeating?” he asked. Korga said the rings were metal and they were the people. He said she had been very particular about the metal while planning the day. She had. She had described the angle of their hands at breakfast, which now seemed an unnecessarily detailed way of spending a morning. Zun wanted an ordinary outing instead of another formal image. Korga wanted to use the appointment she had arranged and paid for. Neither preference was a secret diagnosis of the marriage. They were tired, mildly embarrassed, and still allowed to want different things.

She asked him to stay for the picture and accept the lost supper as its cost. This time it was a request, not a prediction of what a good spouse would certainly do. Zun considered the waiting court and the long circuit. He said he would stay if she stopped arranging his expression before they reached the studio. Korga agreed. He added that the next outing would involve a destination chosen for lunch rather than for improving the record of their faces. She agreed to that too, without pretending it sounded equally splendid.

They opened the carried food in the court. Korga had packed two little crisp portions and several softer pieces she liked less. Under her household’s Food sharing duty, the reserve had to be distributed before she chose for herself. She offered Zun a portion and waited for him to select it instead of hiding the crispest piece beneath her own cloth. He chose exactly the piece she would have chosen. She ate a softer one and decided that being generous would be easier if people occasionally made disappointing selections. Zun said it was good. She said she knew.

The studio attendant was named Oble and had seen enough anniversaries to treat solemnity as a possible pose rather than an admission requirement. Their fee covered one exposure on a polished fictional image plate. He could make another, but another would cost another fee. He adjusted the light cloth, asked them to settle, and told them when the image would be taken. Korga placed her hand where the old picture showed its ring. The bare finger annoyed her more now that she had argued so thoroughly for its unimportance.

Zun’s collar floated at an angle. She reached to straighten it. He reminded her of the expression arrangement. She said a collar was not an expression. He began to reply that it became part of one when somebody tugged it while telling its wearer to look natural. Oble gave the announced final cue. Korga pointed at the offending fold. Zun’s mouth was open. The plate took its image. In the result her pointing hand obscured part of his cheek, and both looked as though they were explaining something unsuccessfully to an invisible third person.

Oble offered another exposure at the stated price. They looked at their remaining outing money and declined. He did not call the picture secretly perfect. Korga thanked him, with more dignity than she felt. They wrapped the poor plate and began the sheltered circuit they had knowingly chosen. The restaurant booking went unused. By the last turn, Zun was carrying the plate because Korga’s bag strap had rubbed an uncomfortable place, and Korga was carrying his empty food pack because he had put it somewhere he could no longer reach without stopping. Neither found this distribution romantic. It was simply easier.

At home, the rings remained exactly where they had left them. The restaurant had closed and gave no refund for an agreed booking they chose to miss. They ate pantry noodles, put the plate beside the old portrait, and inspected the damage. Zun said the first portrait day had also involved three departures. Korga said she remembered two. He said she had forgotten the comb. She moved the new plate slightly so its edge did not cover her old left ear. On its wrapping she wrote Round-Par: the return route and the shared choice. “It can stay,” she said. “But I am not calling it our best picture.” Zun, for once, found nothing to correct.