The rain fell in slow, steady curtains across the valley that night, the kind of rain that hushed the fields and softened the lantern glow spilling from the windows of scattered farmhouses. Maren Duskvale pulled his cloak tighter across his shoulders as he trudged the muddy road homeward, his boots sinking with every step. The storm had caught him out longer than he'd planned, and though the ache in his knees begged him to hurry, there was a strange tug in the air that slowed him.
"Elira will skin me if I don't get back before the stew burns," Maren muttered under his breath, though even he knew she'd do no such thing. His wife was gentler than spring rain, always waiting with patience even when worry knotted her brow. Still, the thought of her pacing by the hearth pushed him along.
The wind shifted. Over the patter of rain came a sound he couldn't place at first—thin, quivering, fragile. A cry.
He stopped. Listened. The sound came again, clearer now: the cry of a child.
Maren turned, lantern raised high. The road stretched empty behind him, and the trees swayed like dark sentinels. Yet the sound pulled him, insistent. He followed it into the brush, heart pounding with a rhythm that had nothing to do with age or the weather.
There, beneath the twisted roots of an old oak, lay a bundle of soaked cloth. The wail came from within it, piercing and desperate. Maren knelt, fumbling with calloused hands until he uncovered the child's face—green-tinged skin, small tusks jutting faintly from the gums, eyes of molten gold blinking up through rain and shadow.
A half-orc.
Maren's throat tightened. Orc raiders had plagued the borderlands for years. Villagers whispered of their brutality, their savagery. But this was no raider—this was an infant, shivering and abandoned to the storm.
"By the Light…" Maren whispered, his voice caught between awe and dread.
The child reached toward him with tiny fingers, wailing louder. Against every instinct born of caution and old fear, Maren scooped the baby into his arms. The small body was frighteningly cold, fragile in a way that made his heart clench.
He turned toward the road, toward home. Toward Elira.
---
Elira Duskvale was stirring the stew when the door burst open, Maren dripping and wide-eyed, cradling something against his chest. Her first words died on her lips when she saw the bundle.
"Maren… what have you done?"
"Not done. Found," he answered, setting the child gently on the table near the fire. The baby whimpered at the sudden change, and Elira leaned close, brushing wet cloth aside. Her breath caught.
The tusks. The green hue of the skin. The unmistakable mark of an orc's blood.
Elira's eyes flicked up to her husband's, full of questions, full of fear. "The neighbors won't accept this. They'll say it's cursed. That it's dangerous."
Maren shook his head, his weathered face hard but not unkind. "It's a child, Elira. Left to die in the mud. What danger lies in that?"
For a long moment, the only sound was the rain beating against the shutters and the bubbling of the pot. The child's cries softened, as if sensing the fire's warmth, as if waiting for the choice to be made.
Elira reached out, hesitant, and touched the infant's hand. The fingers curled around hers with surprising strength. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, there was resolve behind the worry.
"Then we will raise him," she said quietly. "And the world can think what it will."
Maren exhaled, relief loosening his chest. He smiled, faint and weary, and placed a hand over hers. "So it's settled."
Elira nodded, looking down at the child who had already stolen her heart. "What shall we call him?"
The baby squirmed, loosing a soft sound that might almost have been a laugh. Elira glanced at Maren, the flicker of humor breaking through her solemnity. "If the world insists on cruelty, then let's make a shield of it. Let them call him what they will, but in this home, his name will be spoken with love."
Maren tilted his head. "And the name?"
Her lips curved, tender despite the weight of it. "Shithead," she whispered, shaping the strange syllables as if blessing them. "Pronounced Shi-theed. He will grow into it, and one day they'll choke on the laughter they mean it for."
Maren barked a laugh, deep and warm, surprising even himself. He kissed her brow. "Then Shithead it is."
The baby quieted, eyelids heavy, as if at peace for the first time since the storm. Elira drew the cloth tighter around him and lifted him close to her chest, humming softly.
The rain still fell. The world outside still held its harsh judgments. But inside that small farmhouse, by firelight and gentle song, a new story began.