One Might Call It A Legacy

[Frank The Fairy]

"So I heard that elf's dead."
_"God's Bill, way to cheer up a lunch cha'. An' I was just startin' to enjoy these beans. Wha' bloody elf any'ow."[[/i:4861c35be5]
"You know. The one with the stuff on her face. Come by here sometimes."
"Ya' mean tha' one wi' the tatooes? That 'un were a strange 'un. Sail n'all."
"Gave my kid a doll once."
"F'real now? Loik I said. Bloody strange 'un. Any'ow I don' believe it fer a minute, hear. She's always goin' an comin' back. My da' knew 'er. Looked bloody just the same as she does now…"
"Yeah … I guess so."
"I know so… Oi, lookit over there. Fancy dressed halfling. Bloody nobles taking off now that ships be leaving regular n'all."

The expensively dressed hin paid no notice to the pair of dockworkers gossiping on the next pier. He ran his hand down the front of his coat to make sure it was all in line and clutched his little box of stationery to his chest. With his nose tilted up he took one last deep breath of the smell of the Peltarch fish markets. It was the first and last time he would be dressed in such expensive clothing in the city. He was carrying out his last job for his boss of the last twenty years and was never going to return to this place.

He lived as a scribe and tutor with the upper end of the lower class in the city. The elf had picked him out of an orphanage and tossed him into the care of an old kind hin who had taught him to read and right. He never asked how his new caretaker had known the elf or why he was so readily grooming him for this job, but he knew that his caretaker was her old errand boy and he would be the new one. He was taught to ask no questions in the course of his job and found out that he grew to be much more observant because of it.

Once he was old enough to take on the work himself, his caretaker left the city much as he was doing now. She payed him very well to insulate her from scrying and too many questions. He didn't know exactly why she was so paranoid, but he didn't ask questions and she would not have told him the truth anyhow. He could keep her safer if he knew very little about her. He had acquired quite some wealth working on the side in addition to the work he did for her, but it was safer to live under the pretense that he was barely getting by. He kept a scruffy beard and slightly tattered clothes and no one asked questions.

After several years in her employ she had begun to teach him how to smuggle goods past guard checkpoints and how to get into and out of places unnoticed. She dug up books on penmanship and forgery for him to learn from. She took what he was good at and made him better, and though she was always distant, she was rarely unkind. In the end he had grown quite fond of her.

It brought a tear to his eye to think of their last conversation together. She had been waiting beside his fireplace when he had come in that night, something that had startled him the first few times, but he had grown used to it by now. He was a little troubled though as his normally noisy bird was silent and shivering on the far side of it's cage even though it was on the opposite side of the room from where she sat.

She had not looked happy when she spoke, "I've left a box underneath your bed. It has money in it and one last delivery I will need for you to make once I'm dead."

Her evasiveness and confusing statements had always been hard to respond to but he was especially troubled that time and could barely find words, "I … what do you mean dead? And what's wrong with the bird? ... and don't your friends have the ability to b--"

"I won't be coming back this time. There's a caravan leaving tomorrow that's expecting your fiance. You may wish to stick around in the war so that you can write a book about it some day and make some money ... or just so you know when I'm dead for sure. I've taught you enough that you can survive this. You'll meet up with your fiance in Hoarsgate and I suggest heading out to Waterdeep. I know a wizard out there that always has use for a talented errand runner and scribe like yourself. There's information for you in the box."

"You can't come with us?"

She had smiled a sad smile and pointed across the room at the cowering bird, "I've done some terrible things. It's time to end this. Besides, you can stop pretending to be poor now and treat that pretty girl of yours right."

He understood she was not to be swayed. She was often so fickle, but it was clear he had no more say in the matter. He had just had one more question, "How did you know I was to be married?"

She had just laughed merrily, made her way to the window, and slipped out before it could even occur to him to say goodbye.

He never saw her again after that.

The hin straightened his hat, picked up his birdcage in his free hand, and walked up onto the ship. With the elf dead, there was nothing left for him here._