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The child was born purple, much to everyone’s shock. Everyone except for the mother, that is. She looked at the newborn, caught between bitter laughter and sobs as the bundle in her arms blinked its inky eyes and began wailing its little lungs out. Beside her, the father stood, gazing in shock and puzzlement. He had expected a normal child, not a lavender-skinned monster.
It didn’t take all that long for him to realise that the baby before him was a tiefling, whereupon he snatched the child from its mother, hurling all manner of profanity at her.
“You demon-consorting whore!” he shouted, haphazardly stumbling away with the baby falling out of his arms at every lurch. “I should’ve known you’d bear hellspawn!”
A tub of water sat nearby, having been used to wash the tiny hellspawn in question. Tripping over himself in his desperation, he near about threw the child into the water, his own head almost following suit. He was in such a hurry to dispose of the baby that his balance was impressively bad.
“If we drown the damn thing before anyone knows, we can say-“
Before he could finish, a hand appeared and slapped him with the rage of a mother protecting her child. She picked up the purple child, staring him down defiantly. Her eyes were locked onto him, jaw clenched in quiet rage. Somehow the new mother, coated in sweat and looking awful, still had more dignity than her husband.
“Listen to me, Hiram. If you kill our child, I will ensure you are disgraced beyond redemption. You can hate them, you can disapprove, but you will keep them and help me raise them,” she said, her voice simmering with quiet rage. “If you are fearful of the child’s nature, we can use glamours. No one will find out as long as you keep your damn mouth shut.”
He could not muster a fitting retort, so he stayed silent and simply nodded. He knew something had been happening, although their marriage had never been the most stable, but for her to bear a demon child? It was disgusting, not to mention how the creature must have been conceived. He would know if either of their family lineages bore fiend’s blood, so that was out of the question. The only thing he saw left to deduce was how his simple wife had become a demon’s bitch.
She’d always had spirit, but he would never have believed she’d have the guts to achieve such a thing were it not for the creature in her arms proving otherwise. It wasn’t even his, yet she expected him to help raise it?
“If you’re going to keep it, I suppose it needs a name,” he finally conceded, his eyes trained firmly on the floorboards beneath his feet.
“Perhaps you should name them then,” she replied. “Maybe then you’ll have some connection to your own child.”
“So be it. A Virtue name, perhaps. Isn’t that the customary practice for these… things?”
His wife, Emelie, sighed wearily whilst setting the baby down in the wooden cot prepared for this moment. “Go on and choose something then, something fitting for this ostensibly joyous occasion”
“What joy could THAT thing ever bring us? Mark my words, it will only bear sorrow. In fact, I think that’s the perfect name: Sorrow, for the misery it will bring, for the look in your eye when everyone else has shunned you for what you did.”
“Fine. Just stop being so bloody dramatic and let me rest,” Emelie hissed through gritted teeth, her jaw clenched. Her face was set in stone for a moment, hard and sharp as flint,
until it slowly softened as she fell back upon her bed and retired to sleep.
Hiram never asked how she obtained the glamour potions and charms. She would simply bring them in the night and give them to the kid whenever needed. It was an arrangement that worked for all of them: she got to keep the child, he didn’t have to acknowledge them and the bastard got to keep its miserable life.
Even with glamours, it knew well enough to stay out of his way. He barely spoke to Emelie, leaving her to tend to the kid. She made sure it was fed and clothed, giving it a makeshift bed to sleep in and those goddamn potions to take. Whenever he caught a glance of the thing, it unnerved him to see it looking so human. He could almost pretend it WAS human, if it weren’t for the image branded into his mind of the dark pools in its face where eyes should be, the ghastly, unnatural skin. A repulsive creature. The demon was no child of his and therefore he felt no obligation to care for it or pretend it was human. All he did was come back home at the end of the day and hope the tiny monster stayed away. There were stories of demon children setting fires with their hellish magic, so he kept buckets of water everywhere in case the thing tried to finish him off.
Him and Emelie had been living this way for six years, barely talking, exchanging hard glances, never speaking aloud about the child she kept tucked away. It was almost intolerable to Hiram, but he struggled by as long as he didn’t have to look at the child living in his house. It was confined to the indoors, never setting foot outside for more than a few minutes at a time. That was why he stayed out of the house for as long as possible. As long as they weren’t in the same place, he could manage.
He was resting under the window when she had to leave. Gone like a light being snuffed out.
“Not for long,”she’d muttered as she left. By the time she came back, it was too late.
A loss of control, he called it. The child had been sitting in a corner tying knots with a piece of rope when he came in.
“Your mother had to go for a while,” he choked out, avoiding its eyes.
Gazing at the child, its form looked hazy and flickery, juddering slightly. Something was beginning to appear. A hint of purple there, a black shape above it, the point of an ear. It seemed to realise at the same time at him what was happening, its face registering first shock and then fear as it realised who was standing in the doorway. Up on its feet in mere seconds, it scrambled towards a door, looking to find a hiding place. But Hiram wasn’t going to let it slip away again. He cornered the thing to block it from escaping. Six years of pent-up frustration boiled to the surface as his arm steadily rose. A harsh noise escaped as he struck the child’s head. Its face went slack as it fell almost in slow motion, dropping to the floor like a rag doll.
Then it was done.
Carrying a bundle out into the woods, he felt no remorse. After all, wasn’t he merely cleansing the world of another abomination, an unwanted, illegitimate curse? The glamour had faded completely, revealing features he’d never seen before. A similar face, yet far more suitable for the atrocity he held. It had small, stubby horns. He didn’t know when that had happened - not that he cared.
A branch broke under his feet, then another, then another, the snaps seeming to ring louder than alarm bells. If someone caught him, he’d have a hard time explaining himself even with his considerable influence, although he supposed he could manage if he just told the truth about the abominable child. The woods were deep though, and he doubted anyone would find him in time.
Rushing through the forest, foliage clumping beneath his feet, he felt an odd sense of exhilaration. Once he’d purged the world of this evil creature, he could go home and repair his relationship with Emelie. Yes, she’d been unfaithful, but he was sure he could repair things with her once the brat was gone. They’d be a couple again, without the hiding and tension. Maybe they would even have a child, a real one this time. He relished the idea, thinking about how nice it would be to have a complete family and to have his wife under control. She could barely look him in the eye when that creature was around.
Panting now, he looked around warily. There were no paths in sight and the sun was getting low, casting long golden rays through the trees. Soon it would be nightfall and far harder to find this place deliberately. As good a spot as any for his purpose.
With no hesitation, he dumped the bundle in his arms onto the ground, the demon’s limp body spilling out from the rough sackcloth he had wrapped it in. Despite the marks and scratches that had appeared over the past few hours, it looked almost peaceful, as if it had simply drifted off to sleep.
On the other hand, he thought with some glee, it also looked dead. He supposed it would be a couple more hours at the least before it actually WAS dead. If the animals didn’t get it, hunger and thirst would kill off the emaciated little vermin.
Gazing at the small form strewn across the ground, he was filled with a wave of hatred. This creature was the source of all his problems - maybe even half the evil in the world - yet here it lay completely at his mercy. In a month, there might be a pile of bones right in that spot, picked clean by proper, real nature. Not that the demon was all that far from it already. He’d seen to it himself, stopping the thing from running down their food supplies whenever he could. Now the effects were clear in its hollow face and the way its skin draped over its skeleton. No natural creature would ever let themselves fall into such disrepair, but of course that didn’t apply to diseased creatures.
Since it was swiftly headed back down to where it came, whatever he did to the thing wouldn’t really have consequences. This was the only punishment he could give, a mercy on the rest of the world.
Loath to touch the grimy aberration, he nudged it with the tip of his shoe to check it was unconscious. He didn’t want anyone to hear it shout or scream.
Then he began. Stomping, kicking, grinding it into the dirt. He knew that there was no practical reason for him to bother, but he wanted the closure and the relief that came with it. This hellspawn represented all that had wronged him and ruined his life; it was the very personification of his wife’s sins against him. He was panting now, full of rage, hatred and every ugly feeling he’d been harbouring for six years. The child looked broken, marks and scratches blooming across its visible skin. Its face had been pressed into the dirt and twigs on the forest floor - he hoped it choked on them.
The sun was low, so he decided it was time to leave it to die and return home to his own warm hearth. He turned, walked away steadily and didn’t look back.