Chương 39: The reason for my hatred

FLASHBACK Eleven years ago, Year 749 The village was small and poor. Its houses leaned like tired old men, roofs patched more times than anyone could count. The roads were dirt, packed hard in summer and swallowed by mud every spring. Food ran short more often than anyone liked to admit. But to ten year old Hogsthawts, none of that mattered. This was the only home he had ever known, and he loved it the way children love things without needing a reason.

He sat outside a small wooden house with his two closest friends, a boy and a girl, kicking a smooth grey stone between them in the dust.

"You missed," the girl said, grinning like she had already won something.

"I did not," Hogsthawts shot back, though the stone had rolled clean past his foot.

"You absolutely did. I saw it happen with my own eyes." Hogsthawts laughed and threw his hands up.

"Okay, okay, fine. You got me. Happy now?"

"Very," she said, puffing out her chest. For a moment they just sat there, the three of them, listening to the wind move through the thatched roofs. Hogsthawts looked out over the crooked little houses and felt something warm settle in his chest.

"You ever think about it," he said.

"The three of us. Orphans, all of us, and this poor little village still took us in. Fed us. Gave us beds." The girl nodded, kicking her feet against the dirt.

"Everyone here is kind. I mean it, genuinely kind." The other boy, quieter than the two of them, only gave a small nod.

"I suppose so." Then Hogsthawts noticed a stranger walking down the road, someone none of them recognized. His smile faded a little.

"Who's that?" His friend's face changed immediately, the color draining from it.

"That is a Dough Demon." Hogsthawts shrugged, unbothered.

"So?"

"You don't know what they are?"

"Should I?" His friend lowered his voice like the stranger might hear him from fifty feet away.

"They're dangerous. Bloodthirsty. All they want is to kill." Hogsthawts looked the man over, watched him help an old woman lift a crate onto a cart.

"He doesn't look very dangerous to me."

"Don't get close to him."

"Maybe I'll go talk to him."

"Hogsthawts, don't." But he was already walking, his short legs carrying him straight toward the stranger before his friend could grab his sleeve.

"Hey there," Hogsthawts called out, waving like he had known the man his whole life. The stranger turned, clearly caught off guard.

"You talking to me, kid?"

"Yeah. What's your name?" The man studied him for a second, surprise written plainly on his face.

"You're not scared of me?"

"Should I be?"

"I'm dangerous, you know. Really dangerous." Hogsthawts tilted his head.

"I just watched you help that old woman carry her crate. Dangerous people don't usually do that." The stranger laughed, a real laugh, warm and a little surprised at itself.

"Guess you've got a point there." He held out a large hand.

"Name's Donur."

"I'm Hogsthawts." He shook it, his small hand disappearing inside Donur's grip. Another year passed. Donur never left. Slowly, without anyone quite noticing when it happened, he became part of the village. He fixed roofs, hauled water, taught the children how to whittle. Hogsthawts grew close to him, closer than he expected to grow to anyone, and somewhere along the way he stopped believing a single word he had once heard about Dough Demons. Even his two friends, wary as they had been, came to like him too.

One afternoon Hogsthawts sat beside him on a low stone wall, swinging his legs.

"So you're really staying here, Donur? For good?" Donur smiled, looking out over the fields.

"I think so. It's peaceful here. Quiet in a way that doesn't feel empty."

"Better than where you came from?"

"Much better." His gaze drifted toward a woman drawing water from the village well.

"Because I found somewhere I belong." Hogsthawts followed his eyes and grinned the moment he understood.

"You like her, don't you?" Donur laughed, a nervous sound.

"Maybe. Just a little."

"You definitely like her. Go talk to her." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Donur rubbed the back of his neck.

"You think she'd even look twice at someone like me? A Dough Demon?" Hogsthawts nodded without hesitation.

"I'm sure of it. Everyone here likes you, Donur. We're a family. That's just how it works." Donur was quiet for a moment, turning the word over like he wasn't used to hearing it applied to himself.

"A family, huh." He stood, brushing off his trousers.

"You're a smart kid. I'll trust you on this one." The woman was carrying a heavy basket of vegetables when Donur caught up to her on the road.

"Need a hand with that?" She looked up, startled, then shook her head quickly.

"Oh, I'm fine, thank you."

"You sure? That basket looks like it weighs more than you do." She hesitated, glancing at him sideways before finally holding it out.

"Well. If you insist." He took it like it weighed nothing at all. She watched him with open curiosity.

"You're not at all what people say you'd be."

"And what do people say?"

"That Dough Demons are dangerous. Vicious, even."

"Nothing but warriors who crave bloodshed and violence.." Donur huffed a laugh.

"Most of us are like that, if I'm honest. But I don't think being born a certain way makes a person good or bad. That part's up to you."

"I think I agree with that too.." She said, and they walked the rest of the way in an easy silence.

"I never got your name," He said as her house came into view.

"Kaitlyn. And you?"

"Donur."

"It's nice to meet you, Donur."

"Likewise." At her door he handed the basket back.

"Thank you," she said.

"That would have taken me twice as long on my own."

"Happy to help... Really." She studied him a moment, like she was reconsidering something.

"You know, you're actually quite nice."

"So are you," he said, and meant it.

"It was good meeting you." She paused at the door.

"Maybe we could talk again sometime." Donur smiled, the kind of smile that felt like it surprised even him.

"I'd like that a lot." From across the road, young Hogsthawts watched the whole thing with a grin plastered across his face. Donur and Kaitlyn married within the year. And one evening, as the village gathered for supper, they made an announcement that sent the whole square into cheers.

"We're going to have a child." Hogsthawts nearly dropped his bowl.

"Seriously? You're serious?" Donur laughed, pulling him into a rough hug.

"Dead serious."

"Does that mean I get to be like an uncle or something?"

"If you want to be, sure."

"I do. I really, really do." For the first time in years, Hogsthawts fell asleep that night believing everything was finally going to be alright. But nothing good lasts forever. And this was the night everything fell apart. Hogsthawts woke to screaming. He bolted outside, heart already pounding before his eyes had adjusted to the dark.

"What's happening?" His friend grabbed his arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

"We have to go, now."

"Why? What's going on?"

"Dough Demons. They're attacking the village!" Hogsthawts froze... Beyond the fence line stood an army, torches lighting up armor and blades, and at the front of it, unmistakable even in the firelight, stood a man he never in his life expected to see there.

"That's..." His voice caught in his throat.

"That's Donur."

"Why would you do this?" he screamed into the night, though there was no way Donur could have heard him over the chaos.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?" Donur's expression did not change. If anything, it hardened.

"You were a fool to think Dough Demons and humans could ever get along, Hogsthawts. We were never meant to be compatible." Hogsthawts clenched his fists so tightly his nails broke skin.

"Did you feel anything at all? Was any of it real, or was this always the plan? Was Kaitlyn just part of it too?" Donur said nothing. He only turned away. Hogsthawts shouted back in rage"ANSWER ME DAMN IT! WAS IT!" His friend hauled him backward by the collar.

"There's no time for this, we have to run, now!" The village fell into chaos around them. Buildings caught fire one after another. People screamed names into the smoke, searching for children, for parents, for anyone. Hogsthawts ran through streets he had known his entire life, streets that no longer looked like anything he recognized, until he found his other friend crouched behind a collapsed cart with Kaitlyn beside her, heavily pregnant and shaking with fear.

"We have to get her somewhere safe," Hogsthawts said, and the three of them pulled her up between them and ran. But there was nowhere safe left to run to. By the time the sun rose, the village was gone. Bodies lay scattered through the wreckage, men, women, children, people Hogsthawts had known his entire short life, people who had fed him when his own family could not. He stood among the ruins with his hands shaking, unable to make sense of what his eyes were showing him.

"My home," he whispered. His friend was sobbing beside him.

"They're all gone. Everyone is gone."

"Why would Donur do this?" Hogsthawts said, his voice cracking.

"We trusted him. He took everything we gave him and burned it to the ground." He looked around at the wreckage. Everyone he had ever known was dead. Everyone except the two friends beside him. And Kaitlyn. She cried out suddenly, doubling over, one hand pressed to her stomach.

"The baby," she gasped. Hogsthawts rushed to her side.

"Kaitlyn, what's wrong, what's happening?" She clenched her teeth against the pain.

"I think it's coming. I think it's coming now." The three children panicked, looking at each other with no idea what to do... But they did what they could, piecing together half remembered lines from books and following Kaitlyn's shaking instructions between contractions, working through the night among the ashes of everything they had ever known. Eventually, a baby's cry cut through the ruined village. Hogsthawts stared down at the small bundle in his arms, hardly able to believe it.

"He made it," he said softly.

"He's alive." His friend laughed through her tears, wiping her face with a dirt streaked sleeve.

"A cambion. Half human, half Dough Demon. He's actually alive." The other friend let out a shaky, disbelieving laugh of her own.

"We did it. We actually did it."

"We actually pulled off a childbirth!" But Kaitlyn did not smile. She stared at the baby in Hogsthawts' arms, and slowly her expression shifted into something colder.

"No," she said quietly. Hogsthawts frowned, confused.

"What's wrong, Kaitlyn?" She pushed herself away from the child.

"He has their blood in him. The same blood that burned this village to the ground."

"He's a baby," Hogsthawts said, disbelief creeping into his voice.

"He didn't do anything. He didn't choose any of this."

"His father did this to us," She said, tears streaming down her face now.

"His father did this to everyone."

"That's not the same as him doing it." She was sobbing openly now, her whole body shaking.

"I can't. I'm sorry, I just can't look at him." Hogsthawts stepped closer, desperate.

"Please, Kaitlyn, please don't!." She looked at the three children, at the exhaustion and horror on their young faces, and something in her seemed to give out entirely.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I'm so sorry, all three of you." Before anyone could move, she grabbed a knife from among the wreckage and drove it into her own chest.

"NO!" Hogsthawts screamed.

"KAITLYN, NO!" She collapsed to the ground and did not move again. One of his friends stood frozen, staring in horror.

"She just... she just ended it. Right in front of us." Hogsthawts clenched his jaw, his whole body trembling with something that was no longer just grief.

"It's because of them. The Dough Demons did this."

"We trusted them..." he said, his voice rising, cracking, hardening all at once.

"We were too trusting, and it cost us everyone we ever cared about."

"Every single Dough Demon needs to die for this." He looked down at the crying infant in his arms, something dark settling behind his eyes.

"Scratch that. None of the other races can be trusted either. Not after this."

"I believe humans should be the only ones left standing on this earth. Who's with me?" His two friends, tears still wet on their faces, answered almost in unison.

"We're with you."

"We won't let what happened here go unpunished." Hogsthawts looked down at the small hybrid child in his arms, watched tiny fingers wrap around his own.

"We'll raise you ourselves," He said quietly...

"You'll become the strongest there ever was, or you'll become nothing at all."

"And when you're strong enough, you will wipe every last Dough Demon from this world."

"You will make certain humanity survives. That humanity rules over every other race that dares to exist." The baby only gripped his finger tighter. Hogsthawts looked down at him and smiled, and there was nothing kind left in it.