"Then it's settled." The leader gestured to the group of warrior orcs in the room, "pick one to be the boy's father."
I sat on the floor with my son, Max. He crawled into my lap as I whispered. "One of them is going to ... keep taking care of you. Can you tell me who the nice one is?"
The orcs in the room snorted with disbelief and laughter.
Max pointed to one with a shaved head and extensive tattoos.
"That one?" I asked. "Are you sure?"
He nodded before hiding his face into my neck.
"OK." I looked up in the vague direction of the leader. "That one, I guess."
He said something. They looked surprised, but the one Max had indicated came over and scooped him up easily.
"MOMMA!" he screamed and tried to reach for me.
I hung my head and wept. Then the warrior bent down and grabbed my arm in his other hand. He pulled me upright and led me away.
"What? What are you doing?"
"The boy is going to need a family," the leader said like it was obvious. "It is an odd move letting your child choose your mate, but you are an odd people."
ββ
A few years earlier there had been an invasion. Hordes of tall, grey aliens with tusks arrived in spaceships as big as cities. Before all the news went dark, humans named the creatures orcs. The human armies had fought and failed. War crimes were committed on both sides. Eventually, society collapsed and the government was overthrown when food supplies failed. The humans turned on each other. Nowhere was safe. The orcs had rounded up the surviviors and locked them away in refugee camps. In the fullness of time, some women had little grey babies.
Kari had watched the screaming and cursing woman give birth to Max in the field that had been converted to a prison. Afterwards the woman shakily got to her feet and left him there, as he cried. He was going to die alone, unwanted. Even if he was only half human and Kari was living as a conquered species in one of the many refugee camps on earth, none of that was his fault. He was just a baby. She couldn't bring herself to leave him there, so Kari adopted him.
Max wasn't the only grey child in the place. Kari and the others raising grey children had formed their own family group. Eventually that got them noticed. Suddenly all the kids were assigned an orc father and taken from the camp where they had been living. This asshole may be the official father, but, as far as Kari is concerned, if he thinks that means he's part of their family, he is mistaken.
One way or another, Kari has to figure out how to make this work. Her son needs her to keep him safe. When part of her extended family is brought to her new home, she has a couple of allies. Kari slowly starts to understand that the orcs maybe aren't as monstrous as they seem. She will have to face her past and come to terms with her new reality before she can face her future.