(WP) A Quick Getaway
He had no idea how a human had been born from such darkness; the only thing he knew for certain was that he had to get the infant away from his brothers and sisters, who were raging blindly at the disturbance.
The child was wrapped in a thin, tattered blanket, and its squalls echoed throughout the caverns. The dark tufts of hair that crowned its tiny head blew as Sorin flapped his powerful bat wings, preparing to launch himself and the child through the hatch at the top of the mountain.
A tiny pinprick of light shone through the hole: he would have to shove them both through unforgiving, sharp rock before making it to the outside world.
The infant was clearly other, clearly human, and Sorin could not silence the questions inside of his mind. What humans would be so cruel as to leave one of their young in the heart of their kind? Few beings of their race were gifted true sentience and free will; Sorin had been lucky. Even as a child, he’d been certain that he wasn’t meant to live in a dark cavern, knowing naught but hunger, rage, loneliness and loss.
With the arrival of this child, Sorin was more certain than ever before of his purpose. No, he was not meant to waste away. He would live in solitude, raising this human child to adulthood.
With one beat of his powerful wings, he flew upward, toward that tiny point of light. The wrathful cries of his kin echoed through the emptiness, and Sorin felt a tiny whisper: of guilt, regret, he didn’t know. Nonetheless, it didn’t matter now.
Turning his body so it was curled around the child, he used the force of his body to break through the top of the sharp stone of the peak. Snowflakes beat down upon his head, and he clenched his jaw to keep from shivering in the sharp, cold air. The wind seemed to roar around him, obliterating all other sounds. Buffeted by the cold, he could hardly hear the child’s cries anymore, but he could sense his heartbeat.
Sorin remembered that a string of villages surrounded the mountains like dark beads, and though he was a monster, he hoped that at least the humans that dwelled inside would take pity on the boy. He had to try; he’d risked everything and betrayed his own kind so that the boy might live.
He couldn’t give up now. Whatever forces drove the elements had seen fit to make him different, and he had to do his best to use that gift. His kind loved violence, reveled in it, and it was something of a miracle that this child hadn’t ended up harmed, or worse.
Bolstered by these thoughts, he flew downward, the child tucked up against his chest. Its heartbeat slowed, and Sorin realized that somehow, in all the chaos, it had fallen asleep, burrowing into him for warmth.
He descended when he began to see golden lights and smoke from cook fires, drawing a hood over his face to conceal his true form. He walked toward the lights and the warmth, and left the child on a doorstep. Knocking sharply, Sorin did not leave until he heard the door creak open, a gasp of surprise, and the child’s answering wails.
He was a monster, to be sure, but it did not mean that he was truly evil.
**
