A hellkin in a dark uniform stumbles into a ramshackle old hut in the middle of a bad winter storm. Inside are several children, human, hellkin, and other races, all huddling together in terror of them, all the while trying to keep warm as they didn't know how to make a fire. This was a place where those poor and destitute, or the very arrogant, abandoned children expecting them to die in this cruel wilderness. -- Anon Guest
In the time before anyone knew the words, Thrice-Sworn King, there were only a few occupations for Hellkin lucky enough to survive to their majority. They often had 'wandering' prefixing it, because Hellkin were generally Unwelcome everywhere. Wandering sellsword. Wandering entertainer. Wandering huckster...
Bliss was a wandering assassin. Technically. He'd been a Rogue initially, because thievery meant food; but his most frequent money-spinner had been sneaking into places and doing murder.
At least until the latest asshole with a crown decided to declare him criminal and drive him out. Which was why he was here, in the middle of hellfire-nowhere and the worst storm the forest had seen in a century or so. Bliss found the little hovel by feel more than sight. Even darkvision couldn't see anything in these conditions. But inside... where the rain couldn't blind him. Inside...
There had to be at least a dozen of them. Hellkin, halfbred, deformed and disabled. Not one of them in their teens. Scrawny, bedraggled, underfed and overtaxed. Battling hypothermia, exhaustion, and starvation.
A decent half of them cringed as they saw his relative bulk. Expecting brutality.
"You can't light a fire where the rain's coming in," he said. He had rabbits in his pack and a boar over his shoulders. He let pack and pig drop so he could gather up kindling and wood that hadn't got wet from the hole in the roof. Even that was damp.
Bliss splashed the sad pile with some of the rotgut he had in his pack, and lit his finger aflame with a spell. The alcohol burned enough to dry some of the wood, at least enough to catch. He could pay his way out of all the hells with the sigh of relief that happened when they saw he was one of them.
Unwelcome together.
He sat the cauldron properly, and was glad the rain had done something to fill it, then made sure nothing had fallen in that would make anyone sick. After that, it was a simple expedient of processing the meat he'd hunted. "Any of you got herbs? Vegetables?" He did not dare ask for fungi. Not in this light. He didn't expect much.
No Hellkin ever did.
This lot had a surprising bounty of edible plant life. Bliss added them all to his preparations. Sometimes explaining what good they may do.
There was a heaping cauldron full of rabbit and pig stew, and a dozen and a half lost little souls. Bliss shared his warmth with the coldest of them, and prepared the hides to become tanned furs. All his former plans to shelter for the storm and move on elsewhere were flying out the hole in the ceiling along with all the smoke.
He learned, once the eldest - age ten and a half - started talking. He learned that they'd all been left in the woods as weanlings. Wandering, lucky to even have clothes on their back, and expected to die. The oldest risked journeys into the nearby villages to steal what they could. The middling ones looked after the youngest, and the youngest helped however they could.
This house... was a bairn-midden. A place to throw unwanted children and feel slightly less guilty about it because they allegedly had a chance.
Babies, in baskets or out, would just die because none here knew how to care for them. Nor were they capable.
Someone, clearly, needed to do something.
Bliss had already made a good start. And by the gods, he was going to finish it, too. Or, at the very least, see it to a better end than the one these waifs were facing.
He didn't know much, but he knew a lot more than these wild children. As soon as the storm ended, he'd begin by fixing the roof and the fireplace in this old hovel. Then he'd teach the strongest how to use a bow. He'd dig them a decent privy and try his hand at farming and definitely hunt for them.
And gift them with a hope of becoming grown and having a life.
[Photo by Anastasiya on Unsplash]
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