Hi. I enjoyed the story, world building and ending. I get people's different views on it, and your response.

If anything, I think cutting the first paragraph opening, and starting from the orc seeing the smoke trail would have been a good option/technique of how characters are slowly revealed; ellowin introducing himself to grog instead of the writer to the reader. Then you could have had more word count for other bits that you mention. Just a thought, not criticism, for future jams or similar. :)

Aw, even if the encounter was somehow manufactured, I hope they became real friends in the end. That's my headcanon, anyway. I liked the worldbuilding of terms like Leaf Ear and thought the descriptions were vivid, too.

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I enjoyed the twist ending. I could see it become more of a true friendship if it were a longer story. You can only do so much with a single page. 

I liked the story (the homonym issues aren’t a distraction as time to edit would have sorted that and your intent was clear). Reading the comments below I think the problem about the ending is maybe the plant trap - neither the establishment of a reason that the orc (a very articulate take which is different) would intercede that the elf could know about was made to the reader (helping others gets him a boon on his ritual hunt maybe, he had always been chastised by his clan for being the nice orc, etc…) nor enough of a reason that the elf would have been willing to put their life in danger even for to help sell the NEED of the desired alliance (all the Elf forces would die without help, etc…). If the trap was more minor then it being faked might have softened the ending, or the ending pushed the point home that the elf’s life was worth the risk due to even greater gain. It feels like a minor quibble and I did enjoy the read so I hope this isn’t taken as being too critical. 

I would have cut the ending, it just felt really out of place and cheapened the story I feel. It went from being unlikely to manufactured allies. Also, the same issue with my story the scope of the story was entirely too large for 1000 words.

I don't love the ending. It seems to come out of nowhere, and it implies a frankly insane level of foresight. If you're able to engineer that encounter, you're definitely beyond the point of needing the orc's help.

Sneaky goddamn Elvses. I wonder if the Orc tribe have the ability to craft universal translators out of rock, dirt and spit, or if the Elf had one. Or maybe one or the other learned the other's language somehow... Or its like Star Trek wherever they land everyone knows Galactic Standard English. Heh.

As is common with many stories submitted in this jam, this story needed more space so things could breathe.

A second draft would’ve helped some too, as there were some grammar and spelling errors throughout.

Despite that, I had a really good time. Great story to start off with, nice twist at the end, and exquisite artwork.

The elf-orc dynamic is a good idea, I would have liked to see more contrast and tension between the two though. They just seemed to politely get along.