Do you think, to prove it is love, not just an infatuation, he stays there? He learns to make musical instruments and presents to them to her for her approval or not? He starts to take singing lessons and asks to do duets with her? Maybe even introduces her to others as lovers and helps take care of tiefling children, all the while making it clear that he believes he owes HER, not her owing him, for the gift of her music in his life? Maybe she's willing to give him a chance, at least, for friendship to begin with?
@internutter/challenge-03021-h098-the-lengths-gone-unto -- Anon Guest
No. Not for nothing. There was still the music of her voice. The possibility of knowing the person. Of course Tieflings turned out to be assholes, or part-time assholes. Just look at what the world had done to try and get rid of them. Just look at what the world had done to them before that.
Melody deserved better. He knew it. He thought he was better, but her pinpoint accuracy regarding his thoughts and motivations had made him think. Perhaps for the first time in five years. So he dragged himself away from the lure of her voice to take a look around and work some things out.
One of the most obvious things about this kingdom of the forsaken was that there were so many more children than adults. Far too many baby Tieflings for the adults to care for properly. There were found families at capacity, and not enough accommodations for all of them. Babies, children, and even teenagers were sleeping three or five or more to a bed. Well. He was a carpenter. Dan could do something to help.
He had tools. He had knowledge. He had an abundance of teenage potential students to enlist as prentices. He had a great need for bedding. They had -astonishingly- a system of parley with the Orcs, Goblins, and Trolls. He could make things, and through barter chains, he could obtain good wood and other materials. Seasoned wood, too.
The first cribs came out in less than a week. Room enough for two tiny people, because babies didn't prosper if they were alone. After that, the cots and the bedframes. Other industrial sorts were working on the mattresses, though many of them were grateful to not be sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
In his spare hours, Dan researched musical instruments. Just to learn how they could work. Melody had said she had plenty, and ignoring that statement was wrong. It would be ignoring her. Which was rude. She had gained his attention, the least he could do was maintain it so he could focus on her wishes.
Melody was a person. Just like the rainbow assortment of jumpy kids half-afraid of what he, a 'normie', might do to them. Dan maintained a gentle manner. Half of the stuff his master had done to him would have all of these kids running for the best shelter they had. He never told them they were doing something wrong, he made sure to say, "There's a better way to do that, do you want to see?" or, "You get more leverage if you hold it this way." Sometimes, it was, "Whoah! Careful, you could cause an accident like that!"
The kids responded to positivity, so he made certain he was positive. Yes, they had a crude sense of humour and a casual way of insulting each other, but Dan knew he was not allowed to follow that lead. He was a regular human being who had come here on his own, not one of the ones carried here by the Wishes. Therefore, he was a potential harbinger of greater forces that would one day come to destroy them all.
Paranoia was very much a learned skill in any Tiefling old enough to understand how it aided their survival.
Whenever he saw Melody, he had a friendly wave for her. He would say 'hello' or even ask how her day was. She thanked him for the cots for the kindergarteners, and even brought him news of how well accepted all the cribs were. He even took in a few sprites who had nowhere else to go. After all, he needed runners to take messages and others who could organise the shop. There was, after all, always sawdust and shavings to sweep away, and patting a head with horns was no different to scruffling any other child's hair.
Then, one day, the raiders did come. Paranoia had once again helped, as some of the more determined xenophobes had mounted an expedition to do more than the Wishes had. Dan's first sign of it was screaming from Pommel, one of his leading lathe-workers.
There was no time to think. Just to act. He screamed, "You get the hell away from my kids!" He had a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other. He ran towards the well-armed soldier wearing the symbol of the sun and smacked them with one, then stabbed them with the other.
He kept swinging, even when a sword bit through his leather apron and into his guts. He kept swinging, even as a metal glove slammed into his face. He kept swinging, yelling for the older ones to get the little ones out, yelling for someone to sound the alarm. yelling for the village guards. Someone lit something on fire. Someone else was yelling something in Infernal.
Dan had learned enough of it to know that it was a curse.
He kept swinging, even as his world came to him at the end of a long tunnel. He had to protect his kids. He had to keep them safe. He had to teach them...
...he needed to get little Harrow the soft dolly she wanted for her birthday...
...the one with the bright purple yarn for her hair, in the pretty pink dress just like hers...
Darkness.
Then he came back to a world of pain and a song. Ow. Living hurt.
On the other hand, he knew that voice. He risked a peek. Skin the colour of royal robes. Pitch-black hair that fell in luxurious curls. Eyes the colour of emeralds... that had tears in them.
He was not yet enough of a friend to reach up and soothe those tears from her cheek. Boundaries were important. Dan reached for his pocket, only to discover that he was in bandages and braies[1] and nothing else. "..'d offer you m' kerchief, but I can't find it," he managed. "Hi. Did the kids make it?"
"Half of them helped fight," said Melody. "They're scrappers, the lot of them. You taught them a lot of what not to do with woodworking tools and... well... it's shockingly effective."
"The littles? They're all right?" He struggled against the appealing lure of gravity. Moving hurt, but not as much as his other concerns.
"You're an idiot, you know that, right?" said Melody. "You do not try to get up after two Spare The Dyings and a Mass Cure Wounds. Stay down, you lunkhead."
"But the kids--"
"The kids are fine. Especially your prentice-adoptees who joined the battle."
Another thought rose to the fore. "Harrow's birthday. Have I missed it? I was going to buy her the dolly, and then..." OW! Melody's firm shove back into the hospice bed hurt more than it should have. "I can't disappoint her."
"You can't die either, you maniac. Those kids all want you as a parent now that you've claimed them. You have to heal up first. Then worry about the damn doll."
Nevertheless, he persisted, though he did stay down. "Mistress Cross-stitch has her. Purple hair... pink dress with the little flowers on it. Just like Harrow's favourite dress. Make sure she has a navel and underpants[2]. Harrow's obsessed."
"...and so are you. I'm sure Mistress Cross-stitch knows the one you want. Way I hear it, you've been in her store about the specifics like... daily." This time, she held him down. "If I promise to get it, will you promise to stay right there and not move until one of the Clerics says it's fine?"
He could barely salute. "Yes'm. Promise." He crooked his pinkie finger for her.
"You have been around kids too long." She, too, crooked her pinkie and shook his with it. Deal struck. "You're an idiot, but I'm starting to think you're an idiot worth knowing."
He'd take that as a win.
[1] Medieval underpants.
[2] Trust me, kids get concerned about these things.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / esperanzacarlos]
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