Baconhands
The Traveller
It had not escaped Kayne’s attention that Owyn was being quiet. The young dwarf regarded the normally cheeky, energetic tiefling with a curious look, but Silver Tongue, as was the name the other orphans had given him, refused to look up from the bare wooden floor upon which he sat. He was picking at it with a clawed finger, scratching splinters up and discarding them with very little regard. The tiefling had flicked the fifth such splinter toward Wacko, a halfling boy who was the second youngest child at the Hopebringer Orphanage. The blow landed, despite the fact the eight-year-old had been sat on his bed.
“Hey!” the dirty-haired boy had protested, rubbing his cheek, “What you do that for?”
“Quiet Bearacb,” Kayne said, using the boy’s real name to great effect. The halfling fell silent. “Just for now.”
“Why don’t we just start without the girls? Father Bredon’s gonna be happy with all the donations I got today!” Owin, called Two Face, beamed, moving his fringe from in front of his calculating, hazel eyes. He was ten years old, another halfling, and his face was as dirty as Wacko’s.
“If you want to start, then you’re more than welcome to; but you know it will upset Numbers, and Needle won’t be too happy either.”
Two Face opened his mouth to continue. Then an intense look of thought struck his features and the brown-haired halfling shut his mouth, slowly. The fifteen-year-old dwarf smiled a bit at this, played with one of the plaids in his hair, and then flipped a coin nonchalantly in his hand.
The boys’ bedroom had started to feel more and more empty as time had gone on. Kayne recalled a time when there had been ten beds in the bedroom, each with their own chest at the end, but now there were only six, and only four of those were occupied. There was a stone fireplace on the wall opposite the beds; an orange and yellow flame threw warmth and light into the room, countenanced somewhat by the half-moon’s light that was eking through the two windows that were situated above the beds. Besides this furniture, it was a bare room, and remarkably tidy, with the exception of three of the beds which were yet to have been made.
After the tenth flip of Kayne’s coin, the fire dimmed dramatically and went out altogether. A rosy-cheeked halfling poked her head through the fire place. “We good?”
“Come on in, Smiley,” Kayne said, catching the coin and pocketing it.
The halfling obliged, the red-draconic scales on her forearm flashing intensely. She stepped aside to allow the other to follow after her. Once they were all through, the fire returned, and the girls outnumbered the boys by two, totalling ten children altogether. Kayne had greeted them all with a quiet nod; technically it was against the rules for the girls to be in the boys’ room and vice versa, but the children liked to talk all together out of the earshot of the adults, and so this system had been put in place. A perpetually burning fireplace that linked the two bedrooms was a small deterrent for one who could control fire, and ever since Smiley’s arrival, these meetings had become incredibly simple to arrange and execute: once a night, at nine o’clock precisely. Indeed, it was far more subtle than attempting to tiptoe along a corridor that was riddled with audio traps in the form of creaky floorboards that always seemed to alert Sister Lilleas, Brother Iden, or even the Father Bredon.
The three oldest children, Kayne, Numbers and Needle, took to one end of the room. Wacko was still sat on his bed to their left, and Two Face sat cross legged on the bed behind him, his arms folded over a weathered green tunic. Silver Tongue was the only boy sat on the floor, next to his twin sister, Five Fingers. They weren’t exactly the spit of each other: Silver Tongue had blue-purple skin and Five Fingers had pink-purple; his cambion-like horns had grown more vertically while hers had grown more at an angle, back over her head and resting against her hair before curling upwards into a point. What marked the twins as siblings was that they both had bright blue eyes, and platinum-blonde hair that he wore in a bun and she had plaited into a ponytail that fell half way down her back. Kayne noticed that they were both unusually quiet; the defiant, excited grins that normally decorated their faces were instead replaced by a disturbed, dead frown.
Needle had noticed this too, and the ashen-haired half-elf had broken away from the rest of the trio to sit with the twins, placing reassuring hands on their shoulders that had the effect of relaxing both of the tieflings a little.
Sat in front of them was Silky, pruning her feathers and fiddling with her flute, and beside her was Smiley and the most recent orphan to arrive at Hopebringer, Blank, who clung to the fierce-eyed halfling with the terrified determination of a seven-year-old.
“Can we start? I’m tired!” Wacko complained.
“Wacko’s always shouting he’s tired,” Smiley snorted, lowering her voice a little to pretend she had meant to whisper to Blank.
“No I’m not!”
“He also doesn’t know how to talk normally,” Smiley added.
“I’m also tired!” Two Face chimed, perfectly mimicking Wacko’s voice.
Wacko leaned across to punch him, but Two Face dodged and the eight-year-old fell off his bed and went sprawling across the floor.
Two Face laughed. Smiley laughed. Wacko sniffed and Kayne was by his side, helping the now snivelling child up. The look the dwarf gave the two older halflings was enough to silence them.
“Sorry,” they both muttered.
“Anything new, Watcher?” Numbers asked, pushing her purple locks behind her ears with her air-blue coloured hand. The air genasi fixed him with a look that Kayne understood immediately.
“Nothing to worry a lot about”, Kayne responded to the name the other children had given him. “Father Bredon said the Templars have found a couple of newbies; when they get here, Father Bredon wants us to teach them how to collect donations properly so don’t be too mean to them.”
“When do they get here?” Needle asked, looking up from the twins in front of her.
“Two weeks tops. Apparently, the Temple has a lot on its plate right now.”
“Not your fault is it Silky?” Smiley injected.
The aarakocra stopped looking over her feathers. “Why would it have anything to do with me?” she asked, confused.
“Lyonesse,” Kayne warned.
Smiley hesitated, and then, like as what happened with Bearacb, fell silent altogether. Silky furrowed her grey-coloured brow into a frown and then turned away.
“Without further ado,” Numbers said, fixing her eyes on Wacko and producing a small book and quill as if from thin air. “Today’s donations?”
“I put them all in this pouch. There’s a lot in there. Watcher, can you count it?”
Kayne acquiesced, and as he did, the eight-year-old halfling regaled the assembled orphans with a tale about how he successfully convinced a wine merchant from a place called “the Conslay” to play a game of dice with him, and how he’d used his inherent magic to manipulate the dice so that he had won. Apparently, the merchant had been so angry that he kept playing and playing until Wacko had gotten bored and let him win most of his money back. The halfling was given a congratulating smile by Kayne who promptly told Numbers that Wacko had collected two gold Crowns, three silver, and four copper: this was a less than average haul, but for Wacko, who was still learning the trade it was impressive enough.
Similar stories were told by Smiley, and Two Face, though their methods differed: Smiley liked to challenge older, bigger kids to fight and then take their pocket money if she won, which she always did, while Two Face would use his magic to appear like someone else to trick his victims into giving him money. They’d both taken about eight gold pieces each.
Silky, meanwhile, had performed on the street with her flute, collecting a further seven gold and eight silver.
“I was commissioned to make a dress,” Needle said. “Father Bredon has already collected, but it came to twenty-five gold Crowns now and twenty-five on completion.”
Kayne let out a low whistle; Numbers stopped writing to make sure she’d heard correctly.
“Nicely done, Cara,” Kayne said, dazzled enough to use the half-elf’s real name. She blushed a little and cast her violet eyes downward.
“That just leaves you two,” the air genasi said after a moment’s more scribbling, her gaze settling on the tiefling twins.
They shared a glance; not once through this whole process had Owyn stopped picking at the floorboard.
“We got forty gold crowns off some halfling girl north of the river,” Five Fingers muttered. “Normal ruse worked; it was all going fine, Owyn was- I mean Silver Tongue was distracting her, but she grabbed his arm and pulled down his sleeve.”
“She saw my scales!” he finally wailed, his eyes bawling with tears. His shoulders heaved, and he cried heavy sobs.
The rest of the orphans were stunned; even Kayne fell to silence. All of the children were lineaged – supposedly descended from the Divine and blessed with the ability to use one of ten Aspects, dependent on their blood, to create magic.
Kayne's thoughts swam: the Edict of Grey Point was still in effect for two more months - anyone so much as associated with magic or sorcerers could be arrested on the spot and after that, only rumours existed. And although that wasn't supposed to apply to the Free City, White Cliffs, popular opinion so often overrode written law.
Needle was first to act, bringing Silver Tongue and Five Fingers into a tight embrace. Arienh, Five Fingers' real name, was sobbing as well, and wiping bitter tears from her blue eyes. The half-elf shushed them both quietly.
“Did you tell Lilleas?” Kayne finally asked.
“No!”
“Bredon? Iden?”
“None of them!”
“Any guards see you? Were you doing magic?”
“Kayne, give them a moment,” Needle said quietly. Kayne obeyed.
“N-no,” Silver Tongue finally answered. “I m-mean… a little. Not enough to get caught. She did magic though, the Halfling. Teleported in front of me when I was trying to run away and the g-guard got so close! I don’t want to end up like Xander!” Owyn wailed.
That name stung everyone into a quiet that would have only been appropriate in a graveyard.
“Shush, shush,” Needle said rocking the whimpering twins gently, “It’ll be alright, won’t it Watcher?”
Kayne let out a sigh, thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay; the guards don’t know, the priests don’t know about the incident. If we all keep it to ourselves you won’t get in trouble. I’ll talk with Father Bredon – since you all did such a good job of collecting donations today; how much in total, Numbers?”
The dwarf had to repeat the question; the genasi’s blue skin had turned a darker hew and her thoughts had clearly been on what had happened to their comrade not two weeks prior. “Sorry. Um… Ninety-one gold crowns, one silver, four copper. With tax, eighty-two gold and two copper.”
On any other day such a total would have been cause for raucous celebration, but none of the orphans could muster even so much as a smile.
“Bredon will be happy with that; and we can probably all have two days off.”
“Really?” Wacko asked. The rest of the orphans looked to Kayne with hope glimmering in desperate eyes.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Watcher, the fifteen-year-old dwarf assured them with the authority that belonged to a Duke. “Nothing is going to happen to any of you while I’m here.”
“Hey!” the dirty-haired boy had protested, rubbing his cheek, “What you do that for?”
“Quiet Bearacb,” Kayne said, using the boy’s real name to great effect. The halfling fell silent. “Just for now.”
“Why don’t we just start without the girls? Father Bredon’s gonna be happy with all the donations I got today!” Owin, called Two Face, beamed, moving his fringe from in front of his calculating, hazel eyes. He was ten years old, another halfling, and his face was as dirty as Wacko’s.
“If you want to start, then you’re more than welcome to; but you know it will upset Numbers, and Needle won’t be too happy either.”
Two Face opened his mouth to continue. Then an intense look of thought struck his features and the brown-haired halfling shut his mouth, slowly. The fifteen-year-old dwarf smiled a bit at this, played with one of the plaids in his hair, and then flipped a coin nonchalantly in his hand.
The boys’ bedroom had started to feel more and more empty as time had gone on. Kayne recalled a time when there had been ten beds in the bedroom, each with their own chest at the end, but now there were only six, and only four of those were occupied. There was a stone fireplace on the wall opposite the beds; an orange and yellow flame threw warmth and light into the room, countenanced somewhat by the half-moon’s light that was eking through the two windows that were situated above the beds. Besides this furniture, it was a bare room, and remarkably tidy, with the exception of three of the beds which were yet to have been made.
After the tenth flip of Kayne’s coin, the fire dimmed dramatically and went out altogether. A rosy-cheeked halfling poked her head through the fire place. “We good?”
“Come on in, Smiley,” Kayne said, catching the coin and pocketing it.
The halfling obliged, the red-draconic scales on her forearm flashing intensely. She stepped aside to allow the other to follow after her. Once they were all through, the fire returned, and the girls outnumbered the boys by two, totalling ten children altogether. Kayne had greeted them all with a quiet nod; technically it was against the rules for the girls to be in the boys’ room and vice versa, but the children liked to talk all together out of the earshot of the adults, and so this system had been put in place. A perpetually burning fireplace that linked the two bedrooms was a small deterrent for one who could control fire, and ever since Smiley’s arrival, these meetings had become incredibly simple to arrange and execute: once a night, at nine o’clock precisely. Indeed, it was far more subtle than attempting to tiptoe along a corridor that was riddled with audio traps in the form of creaky floorboards that always seemed to alert Sister Lilleas, Brother Iden, or even the Father Bredon.
The three oldest children, Kayne, Numbers and Needle, took to one end of the room. Wacko was still sat on his bed to their left, and Two Face sat cross legged on the bed behind him, his arms folded over a weathered green tunic. Silver Tongue was the only boy sat on the floor, next to his twin sister, Five Fingers. They weren’t exactly the spit of each other: Silver Tongue had blue-purple skin and Five Fingers had pink-purple; his cambion-like horns had grown more vertically while hers had grown more at an angle, back over her head and resting against her hair before curling upwards into a point. What marked the twins as siblings was that they both had bright blue eyes, and platinum-blonde hair that he wore in a bun and she had plaited into a ponytail that fell half way down her back. Kayne noticed that they were both unusually quiet; the defiant, excited grins that normally decorated their faces were instead replaced by a disturbed, dead frown.
Needle had noticed this too, and the ashen-haired half-elf had broken away from the rest of the trio to sit with the twins, placing reassuring hands on their shoulders that had the effect of relaxing both of the tieflings a little.
Sat in front of them was Silky, pruning her feathers and fiddling with her flute, and beside her was Smiley and the most recent orphan to arrive at Hopebringer, Blank, who clung to the fierce-eyed halfling with the terrified determination of a seven-year-old.
“Can we start? I’m tired!” Wacko complained.
“Wacko’s always shouting he’s tired,” Smiley snorted, lowering her voice a little to pretend she had meant to whisper to Blank.
“No I’m not!”
“He also doesn’t know how to talk normally,” Smiley added.
“I’m also tired!” Two Face chimed, perfectly mimicking Wacko’s voice.
Wacko leaned across to punch him, but Two Face dodged and the eight-year-old fell off his bed and went sprawling across the floor.
Two Face laughed. Smiley laughed. Wacko sniffed and Kayne was by his side, helping the now snivelling child up. The look the dwarf gave the two older halflings was enough to silence them.
“Sorry,” they both muttered.
“Anything new, Watcher?” Numbers asked, pushing her purple locks behind her ears with her air-blue coloured hand. The air genasi fixed him with a look that Kayne understood immediately.
“Nothing to worry a lot about”, Kayne responded to the name the other children had given him. “Father Bredon said the Templars have found a couple of newbies; when they get here, Father Bredon wants us to teach them how to collect donations properly so don’t be too mean to them.”
“When do they get here?” Needle asked, looking up from the twins in front of her.
“Two weeks tops. Apparently, the Temple has a lot on its plate right now.”
“Not your fault is it Silky?” Smiley injected.
The aarakocra stopped looking over her feathers. “Why would it have anything to do with me?” she asked, confused.
“Lyonesse,” Kayne warned.
Smiley hesitated, and then, like as what happened with Bearacb, fell silent altogether. Silky furrowed her grey-coloured brow into a frown and then turned away.
“Without further ado,” Numbers said, fixing her eyes on Wacko and producing a small book and quill as if from thin air. “Today’s donations?”
“I put them all in this pouch. There’s a lot in there. Watcher, can you count it?”
Kayne acquiesced, and as he did, the eight-year-old halfling regaled the assembled orphans with a tale about how he successfully convinced a wine merchant from a place called “the Conslay” to play a game of dice with him, and how he’d used his inherent magic to manipulate the dice so that he had won. Apparently, the merchant had been so angry that he kept playing and playing until Wacko had gotten bored and let him win most of his money back. The halfling was given a congratulating smile by Kayne who promptly told Numbers that Wacko had collected two gold Crowns, three silver, and four copper: this was a less than average haul, but for Wacko, who was still learning the trade it was impressive enough.
Similar stories were told by Smiley, and Two Face, though their methods differed: Smiley liked to challenge older, bigger kids to fight and then take their pocket money if she won, which she always did, while Two Face would use his magic to appear like someone else to trick his victims into giving him money. They’d both taken about eight gold pieces each.
Silky, meanwhile, had performed on the street with her flute, collecting a further seven gold and eight silver.
“I was commissioned to make a dress,” Needle said. “Father Bredon has already collected, but it came to twenty-five gold Crowns now and twenty-five on completion.”
Kayne let out a low whistle; Numbers stopped writing to make sure she’d heard correctly.
“Nicely done, Cara,” Kayne said, dazzled enough to use the half-elf’s real name. She blushed a little and cast her violet eyes downward.
“That just leaves you two,” the air genasi said after a moment’s more scribbling, her gaze settling on the tiefling twins.
They shared a glance; not once through this whole process had Owyn stopped picking at the floorboard.
“We got forty gold crowns off some halfling girl north of the river,” Five Fingers muttered. “Normal ruse worked; it was all going fine, Owyn was- I mean Silver Tongue was distracting her, but she grabbed his arm and pulled down his sleeve.”
“She saw my scales!” he finally wailed, his eyes bawling with tears. His shoulders heaved, and he cried heavy sobs.
The rest of the orphans were stunned; even Kayne fell to silence. All of the children were lineaged – supposedly descended from the Divine and blessed with the ability to use one of ten Aspects, dependent on their blood, to create magic.
Kayne's thoughts swam: the Edict of Grey Point was still in effect for two more months - anyone so much as associated with magic or sorcerers could be arrested on the spot and after that, only rumours existed. And although that wasn't supposed to apply to the Free City, White Cliffs, popular opinion so often overrode written law.
Needle was first to act, bringing Silver Tongue and Five Fingers into a tight embrace. Arienh, Five Fingers' real name, was sobbing as well, and wiping bitter tears from her blue eyes. The half-elf shushed them both quietly.
“Did you tell Lilleas?” Kayne finally asked.
“No!”
“Bredon? Iden?”
“None of them!”
“Any guards see you? Were you doing magic?”
“Kayne, give them a moment,” Needle said quietly. Kayne obeyed.
“N-no,” Silver Tongue finally answered. “I m-mean… a little. Not enough to get caught. She did magic though, the Halfling. Teleported in front of me when I was trying to run away and the g-guard got so close! I don’t want to end up like Xander!” Owyn wailed.
That name stung everyone into a quiet that would have only been appropriate in a graveyard.
“Shush, shush,” Needle said rocking the whimpering twins gently, “It’ll be alright, won’t it Watcher?”
Kayne let out a sigh, thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay; the guards don’t know, the priests don’t know about the incident. If we all keep it to ourselves you won’t get in trouble. I’ll talk with Father Bredon – since you all did such a good job of collecting donations today; how much in total, Numbers?”
The dwarf had to repeat the question; the genasi’s blue skin had turned a darker hew and her thoughts had clearly been on what had happened to their comrade not two weeks prior. “Sorry. Um… Ninety-one gold crowns, one silver, four copper. With tax, eighty-two gold and two copper.”
On any other day such a total would have been cause for raucous celebration, but none of the orphans could muster even so much as a smile.
“Bredon will be happy with that; and we can probably all have two days off.”
“Really?” Wacko asked. The rest of the orphans looked to Kayne with hope glimmering in desperate eyes.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Watcher, the fifteen-year-old dwarf assured them with the authority that belonged to a Duke. “Nothing is going to happen to any of you while I’m here.”
