A dying human with a kind heart had been given a Wishing Stone. Clutched in the elderly hand, they made their wish. All children, especially infants, in their world abandoned in middens, abandoned in the forests, or otherwise left to die in would vanish from the place that would otherwise be their deathbeds, and reappear in a place there they could be safe and grow up cared for. That final wish, cost them their final breath, but they died peacefully knowing many would be spared. -- Anon Guest
He had spent his life trying to save the unwanted from a cruel fate. Now that life was at an ebb. One of his eldest rescues had come back to see him. Ze had been adventuring, and returned with a wish.
It looked like a river-stone, apart from the fact that it was softly glowing in every colour the world could contain.
"One wish, Da," said Falavor. "One wish to change the world. I couldn't think of anything better than to give it to you."
As it came to his leathery palm, it swirled into showing red and black for the most part. This wish would cost him his life.
Fair trade.
He closed his fingers around it, thought hard, and said, "I wish... for all the forsaken, all the abandoned, all the unloved children in the world... to be found in the places where they will be loved, cherished, and needed." His last breath left him, and the stone fell from his hand.
It looked like a boring and ordinary river stone, and would continue to do so for well over a century.
Falavor put it on the mantle with the other treasures, and set about the necessary duty of burying hir Da. Ze was done with adventuring, and the house of orphans would need a new parental to look after the little ones. Defend them from angry people and so forth.
The work would continue. If children were welcome nowhere else, they were always welcome here.
A wish can change the world...
A maid with a guilty conscience leaves a bundle where none should find it before it ceased becoming her problem. She turns her back and runs, never questioning how the wailing suddenly stopped.
At the same time, a humble farmer's wife wakes to wailing, only to find a newborn Hellkin on her doorstep. She promised the gods that she didn't care what the child was, so long as she had one. The gods were keeping her to her word. She never questioned it, and lifted the babe into her loving embrace.
A scrawny ragamuffin, just old enough to know to run away when the grownups were about to throw something, trips. They recover their feet in a completely different place. Instead of rough cobblestones that would have skinned their knees, they're in the middle of a field of tall sunflowers. Their new parents name them Sunflower, and under their care they become a great hero.
Half-elf twins, hated by their father, wake in a different bed, in the home of a Wudzgaad and a Bugbear. They never want for love again.
Kobold eggs, pushed off their nests by superstitious guardians, hatch in the fireplaces of blacksmiths, artificers, and even noble houses. They are grown in different ways, taught different things, and some even become heroes.
Some were found, blinking and confused, in various garden patches. All were taken in with love.
One wish to change the world.
One life at a time.
[Photo by GraphiDA on Unsplash]
If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me. Or share them with your friends!
Send me a prompt [59 remaining prompts!]
