They had been born, and abandoned. This small child, a babe in the woods, taken in by others who found their odd appearance undaunting. Who did not care about appearance, all they cared is that they were a child and needed someone to love them. They looked like a tiefling, but had the white, soft, wings of an angelic. One eye a beautiful sky blue, the other flaming red. They projected strength, and kindness at the same time. They had horns, and yet, at the same time, a golden halo, a ring of magic, drifted between the two horns upon the child's head. -- Teachers
There are those who hold that the product of a Tiefling and an Aasimar should be merely Human. Most of the time, they are correct in that assumption. Once... they were wrong. Well. They could have been wrong. Nobody knew whose hands put the babe in the basket, nor the basket in the river, but it and its passenger wound up in Merrivale, where Dellaise Baumkyn scooped them up and became a mother.
Halflings are renowned for their hospitality, and any otherwise unwelcome soul finds themselves a warm welcome in their lands. So it was that the infant with both horns and downy wings had a new home and a new family. Dellaise named him Amatu, and loved him as thoroughly as any of her more natural children. She taught him well, fed him well, cared for him and worried as any mother would... and it was not very long at all before the child realised how different they were.
Being the tallest in the house at age eight will do that to a person. So when Amatu asked, Dellaise told the story of the luckiest day of both their lives. How two lives were made better with a simple discovery.
There was no note, and his infant self had escaped his swaddling, which was so generic and impersonal that Dellaise sometimes had dark thoughts about the person who had initially set him adrift. There may have been no choice. It may have been an act of desperation. There was no way to tell, and it didn't truly matter, as the important part was the love and family he had found.
On the day Amatu came of age, the ring of light between his horns changed to show runes circling around and around. That was the day his magic became manifest.
Previously, his wings were only good for gliding. Now he could fly. There was a sort of... aura... around him. Those in his vicinity found their courage bolstered, as well as their conscience. Every healing salve or potion he made had that little extra kick. He could cure a fever simply by blessing a forehead with his kiss.
Of course they sent for a hedge-witch or wandering wizard to read the runes. Some shysters came, and found their tongues unable to say anything else but the truth. Finally, though, someone did read them.
This child born of heaven and hell shall ring the end of all unwell.
That, they agreed, was one heck of a prophecy. It could mean anything. It could mean everything. It meant very little to Amatu, who was the son of an orchard-keeper and only went to market to keep the dealers and the traveling merchants honest.
But prophecies have a way of making themselves known. Adventure finds the prophecied whether they seek it or not.
Two weeks after the words were read, Amatu found a bell in the river whilst tickling trout. That was the beginning of a world of trouble.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / paulrommer]
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