13:03, Rotation 264 / 365, 232 AE, -67.569965, -68.128225, Reath
An impromptu game of football – the orcans’ very own favorite team sport – had formed on the hard asphalt. The rules were simple. You kicked the ball with your foot, or where it made sense with your head, with eleven orcans to a side trying to get the ball through their opponent’s net.
The teams were simply the youths who lived on East Rothera versus the youths who lived on West Rothera. To visually recognize teammate or foe was simple: the East Rotheran youths wore tops, the West Rotheran youths did not. No structured club or league system had developed in Orca yet and only youths played it for now for all the elders had previously been too busy in labours and had no time to develop a hobby for football. Only now with an abundance of time for leisure could the ancient sport be pursued again.
The East and West played every fortrote, on the ninth of ten rotes, and the West were by far the dominant team. They played a cautious and fluid 4-2-3-1, with Hrojath Bakror, an especially precocious trequartista of only sixteen revolutions often guiding the ball with patient playmaking into the brilliant finishing touch of his striker Zhube Wrenwrath. The East had tried an aggressive style with a 4-4-2 last fortrote which failed miserably because they gave away too many chances, and so now they gave 3-4-3 a shot with an emphasis on attacking exposed flanks with their wingers.
Surprisingly it was working! The crude bamboo poles shoved into the ground to demarcate goals showed that they were at an even 1-1. The Thraxes were not partial for living on a boat, they were neither residents of East nor West, but Zhak especially loved to root for the underdog. And so, at Zhak’s bidding – “Hey let’s go watch the game!” – Githarie could only respond with a shrug and a “Why not?” because she found herself naturally enraptured just like her little brother. They were drawn to it because these were their friends after all.
“EASTSIDE FO-EVA!” Zhak whooped for Gruker Plagmerk, a boi he admired that played for the East.
“WESTSIDE!” Githarie hollered without hesitation, for Lawrah, albeit one of the four fullbacks, was the captain of the West. And also, it just felt appropriate to support Zhak’s team’s opponent, for what was the fun in cheering on a competition without opposition?
Zhak’s eyes darted back at Githarie with annoyance.
“Dinnae be a glory supporter.”
“Whatcha talkin’ about, nakaz bru.”
And with that, Zhak and Githarie began to compete to see who could bellow and roar for their team the hardest.
Urghen Zurgast, the East’s right winger, had surged too far forward to try and receive a pass and went offside. The referee’s shrill whistle put a halt to the proceedings.
And so begrudgingly Urghen kicked the ball to Rhatag Vungar, the West’s goalkeeper.
Rhatag had transmogrified extremely long arms for he rowed for the Rotheran sampan ferry service, it was a tad bit unfair for his wingspan touched both posts of his goal. With both hands he hurled the ball clear to the other side of the field, where the East’s goalkeeper, Yewnah Porlwort, had to stop it with her breast, though it was still far wide of the target.
As the ball sailed high across Lawrah’s head when Rhatag yeeted the ball, Githarie’s attention couldn’t help but waver. But Zhak’s eyes were glued to the game. Githarie noted this with curious bemusement for Zhak only seemed to care about football earlier this revolution, he had never bothered to watch the games before.
Gruker received the ball and by trained repetition passed it to Hrojath, as this was his part to play in the system. Githarie, following Zhak’s gaze, noticed that her little brother did not take his eyes off of Gruker even after he passed, but that was also because Githarie was desperate to observe anything other than a pointless sport that she found boring. To her unseasoned eye, it was just a bunch of globs lokking back and forth. She could not read their formations.
But for the seasoned eye to the beautiful game, Hrojath’s touches were uncannily precise, and he kept possession even as he was boxed in by three defenders at once. Pressed in, he had to dance dangerously close to the line to try and set up for a pass to Zhube.
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Before she knew it, Githarie’s attention was rapt upon the ball for out of nowhere Lawrah burst in suddenly for a sliding tackle.
She only glanced upon the ball, which spun up into the air by the counterforces, and did not even touch Zhube, but Zhube seized the opportunity. Rolling her calf upon the ball as it shot up to keep it convincing, Zhube threw herself into a triple backflip flop awkwardly on her neck – and then started crying and wailing and since she was one of the most popular orcan gurls in the village she usually got her way. She really hammed it up. The ref blew on her whistle and shoved a yellow card into Lawrah’s face.
“Aw c’mon! Call is nuk!” Lawrah threw her arms up in frustration. There was no way the prim Chief’s daughter, loved though she was, would find favor against the gurl with the highest Rotheraboi body count.
“Sha suck, ref!” Githarie was livid. What a clear dive! “Skai, she’s getting away with breakdancing on the pitch!”
Lawrah got into the ref’s face, hands on hips. She towered over the ref.
Another shrill tone from the whistle still perched on the ref’s lips before she pulled out… the red card?!
But it went flying away when the ref received a running tackle from behind by Rhatag the goalkeeper. Lawrah put a palm to her face.
Then Rudeesha Yagyag ran up and slammed into Zhube’s still mock grimacing face with a headbutt, no small feat for Rudeesha was much taller and would have to double over forward in a ramming charge to sucker-headbutt poor Zhube.
And with that, all havoc broke loose. The football field became pandemonium.
There were no governing forces to stop the chaos. No referee for the referee’s poor refereeship. For who watches the watchmen? And so, the brawl would continue until all participants were either unconscious or finally made aware of the silliness of their fighting. Either way, it was too late - the fight would hold up the round robin by another fortrote, the sole goal per team they worked so hard for disqualified.
Zhak abruptly stopped cheering, for they were no longer playing football, and he detested stupid fights.
Githarie roared, “FUCK ‘EM UP, LAWRAH! MARTELO DE CHAO!”
He tried to cut her off, “Sis, this is turning into a bit of a wagh-”
His sister ignored him completely, “KICK ‘IM IN THE NUTS, LAW!”
“GITHARIE!”
Lawrah wasn’t nearly as vicious as Githarie encouraged her to be, indeed being one of the more responsible orcan youths was trying her best to pull her teammate Rhatag off the ref. Although she was also hoping that saving the gezzno ref’s sorry ass would make him reconsider her red card, so she could keep playing.
Again, Githarie paid Zhak no mind and was already halfway to scrambling over the hedge of rudimentary stone bleachers separating them from the field, so that she could hopefully give Lawrah an assist. A sucker punch maybe. No, a sucker kick. In the nuts!
“Rie Rie, stop being a glob! Stop!”, and Zhak, while surely the scrawniest of the Thraxes pham, summoned his untapped inherent orcan strength, pulled Githarie back before she did something really gezzno. Skai, they’re not gonna have any time to check in their books at the library before school at this rate.
“They’re waghing out! Are sha orc, O orcan?”
Reason won out. “Sha! Orcan. Aight, Zhak, let’s gul.” – Let’s ghost.
“Lok leeroy! Right behind sha.”
Their second favorite sport, as it came to be eventually during the Million Wars period, was pickleball.
Now there were other types of ‘football’ in the Lost Age, such as Morquarran Football, or Oceanic Rules Football, which oddly enough didn’t involve the feet as much as would be inferred. But post-Eucatastrophe, football was football. No one called it soccer. Why? You kicked the ball with your foot. It was simple.
She had been practicing breakdancing a lot and had just picked up the windmill so she was confident she could roll on her neck without injury.
Zhube had bagged thirty-six. She was a bit of a skank, but she owned it.
Suddenly she was a football expert.
Or what might be called a ‘Naruto Run’.
‘Wagh’ - orcish for shitshow, specifically some sort of chaotic brawl between many orcans, or used as a verb- to berserker rage. Taken from the lexicon of Warhammer 40,000.
‘Gul’ orcish for ‘ghost’, in this instance meaning to bounce, to leave, to Irish exit, as in the Godlike manner of expression, ‘let’s ghost (out of here)’.
