Orphans

  

    2.   Orphans

we are walking on the street toward the place where the orphans are living. The buildings in the outer city are far from luxurious and the people here are mostly poor or shady people, also everyone who is of a different race usually lives in the outskirts of the city.

Even though the people are not any nicer here, they will still sell to and buy from you and there have been stories that if you insist on living in the center area of the city you will be dealt with quickly.

Of course, it all depends on the city and race but the general way is that all the undesirables live in the outskirts but as the adventurers` guild is also built in the outskirts of the city it is good for the people that they can have a place where they can feel a bit at ease.

“You are going to shop before going to the orphans’ place, right?” Sarah says while looking at me.

“Yeah, you should not come with me as the shop keeper really doesn’t like me and it would affect your business with him.”

“Yes, I thought about just going ahead as you go buy things.”

“All right I’ll see you there.”

Sarah walks to the left to go straight there as I keep walking down the path to the store, I need to go buy some food for me and for the orphans. If I didn’t get them food they would have to start pickpocketing, join a bandit group where they would have to do horrible things for very little compensation and the treatment would not be good for weak being in a group like that or just starve to death.

I get to the shop that an elderly lizard man is keeping, the shop is made from green wood and it has holes in places and the construction is done shoddily. I walk inside and start grabbing the things I need; bread, green apples and I notice that there is some new meat that is cheaper than I have ever seen meat be.

I take some lump of meat and take my things to the shopkeeper.

“That will be thirty silvers.”

I pay the price and leave the shop without saying anything, the amount he makes me pay is always a lot higher than it is supposed to be but he is the only real shopkeeper around here and even though he treats me like this he normally treats people from other races well so I don’t mind it, he probably has had bad experiences with vampires.

I walk down the street while getting a lot of bad looks from the people around me, most of the people are lizard people but there are few from other races and even they are giving me bad looks. If I was weaker than I am they would have probably formed a group to get rid of me but they know that they cannot beat me so all they do is look at me with hatred.

I arrive at the place where the orphans live, it is a ruin of an old church so it is made of rocks instead of wood but it is old and the roof is gone, there are few places where the second floors floor is still intact and they give a bit of shelter from the rain and snow.

I go inside and the orphans notice me, they break into a smile and run toward me.

“It’s uncle Leopold.” The kids yell as they jump to hug me.

“Now, now, settle down I have my hands full with the food.”

The children calm down and start staring at the food, sparkly eyed. There are twenty-one children here with half of them being lizard people, five of them are cat people, three of them are bat people, one lynx person and one whose race is unknown to me and to her as well.

I look up and see Sarah in the corner crouched talking to the new kid, she was brought here yesterday and she was lifeless and didn’t react to anything.  

I start distributing the food among the orphans and they happily take it, some of the kids are very quiet and doesn’t come to greet me when I come, they just take the food and eat it. They are mostly the older ones who remember their families before something tragic happened to them or before they did something tragic.

Especially the three-bat people, they have been here for a year now and I haven’t seen them move from that corner, they had their entire village raided by vampires and they saw their families being killed in front of their eyes.

I hand them the food and they take it and start eating with slow motions, at first, they hated me and refused to eat anything I gave them but the kids here convinced them to eat and after that they have been like that.

I go to Sarah and the new kid, she keeps talking to her but she isn’t reacting at all, she sits there with dead eyes showing no emotions or signs of hunger even though she is looking malnourished with her scarce and dry fur, she is thinner than she is supposed to be and her dirty clothes are starting to smell.

“Are there any improvements to her state?” I ask Sarah

“No, I think she need more time but I am worried that she might starve before she gets better enough to start eating.”

“Well, let’s wait a bit before doing anything drastic, I hope she gets better on her own though.”

“Hey Leo.” voice behind me says.

I turn and see its two of the cat girls, Anna and Emma. They were left here years ago when they were just infants so they have no memories of their parents or other people from their race besides the three other cat people that live here.

“We tried talking to her yesterday but she didn’t answer at all.”

“And when night came she didn’t even go to sleep on the mattresses, so we took a blanket and slept with her the night.”

“Really? That’s really nice of you, can I ask you to take care of her until she gets better? She experienced something awful so it might take time before she gets better but if she has friends like you she would get better faster.”

“You can count on us Leo!” they say while puffing up their chest.

I hand them her share of the food and say bye to the children and walk outside with Sarah.

 “Why don’t you just let them live at your place and adopt them? You take full care of them already so why not? It would be much nicer at your place even if it would be a bit cramped there and with your money you could just get a bigger place if you wanted to.”

“Yeah, I could take them in and I would really like that too but I do not want to ruin their future with my selfishness. They would be discriminated against just because they live with me and people might even try to harm them because of it and after they grow up they wouldn’t get any jobs around here because of it except the guild work that is dangerous.”

“But I don’t think they would mind it if they could live with you.” She says quietly

“It is fine this way.”

After that we parted ways and I went back to home.  

Chapter one. Chapter three.