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The sound of crashing cookware and scattering rocks made Tristan wake up with a jolt. But the moment his eyes opened, he froze, straining to listen for what might lay beyond the bounds of his tent before he drew its attention to himself. He heard a grumbling voice curse, and a higher-pitched voice sneer something back at it.
“Nice going. Now every bloodthirsty thing in these hills knows we’re here—likely including our quarry.”
“You’re the one who said we should investigate this abandoned camp!”
Then, someone else cut in. “I don’t know about abandoned… that campfire looks too freshly put out, and that tent looks a little too well-maintained, don’t you think?”
Though Tristan was no less soothed by the knowledge that these people, whoever they were, had been intending to raid whatever caught their eye from his campsite and apparently were after some sort of target, he at least could believe that it was unlikely they wanted to harm him specifically. If they were after some ‘quarry,’ they likely wouldn’t bother wasting time on him, even if they turned out to be the kind of people that loathed a tiefling.
He nervously cleared his throat. He heard more scattering stones and more curses after he did, no doubt from surprising the travelers . “You know,” he started, weakly joking, as he reached for the flap of the tent and began to unzip it, “you could have asked before traipsing into my camp. I don’t mind visitors. Could at least give me a chance to show some hospitality.”
He peered out through the new gap in his tent’s side, intending to flash them a practiced grin that would hopefully put everyone at ease and then they could laugh about the misunderstanding over some drinks, but he found four sets of eyes staring back at him, and his blood ran ice cold as he realized just what one of them was. Sharp, clear golden eyes looked right back at him, their stature taller than the rest of their companions, a set of unmistakable wings folded against their back. They looked equally as taken aback by the sight of him, given the way they started and took a half-step back.
“This is your camp?” the same gruff voice from earlier asked, breaking the tension indelicately. Tristan’s gaze flicked sidelong to the source. A dragonborn man with scales that matched the night sky overhead and a set of horns that put Tristan’s own to shame, and his gaze gleamed, as if he were eyeing a prize. Or perhaps prey.
“We didn’t mean to intrude,” another, some kind of elf, interjected. She cut a sharp glare at her companions. “We were just passing through.”
The last one, a human, scoffed. “You were the one that suggested we rifle through his stuff. Don’t act all high and mighty now.”
“Yes,” Tristan replied to the Dragonborn’s question, paying no mind to his companions. It sounded a little meeker than he intended it to, and he had nothing to follow it up with. Looking between them all, eyes lingering on the Aasimar, Tristan didn’t feel nearly as confident anymore that they might just laugh this misunderstanding off and learn one another’s names over wine. He knew that feeling twisting his stomach into knots was misleading; like him, Aasimar were descendants of greater beings, beings that would naturally oppose those he descended from, but that didn’t necessarily mean Tieflings and Aasimar had to be enemies.
But the instinct was there, eating away at him, and he wondered if the Aasimar felt anything similar.
The Dragonborn was still staring at him, to a point Tristan thought his gaze might bore holes in him if he wasn’t careful. “You mind if we stay here with you, stranger? For the night? We were just looking for somewhere to make camp ourselves, y’know. And you being out here all alone… you look like you could use some company, anyway.”
The E lf blinked at her D ragonborn companion, but then shrugged, turning to Tristan. “Well, if you’ll have us, I wouldn’t mind the company, and you could certainly use it. You’re lucky we found you, in fact. There’s clearly been some misunderstanding. We were hired to hunt down an, uh… monster roaming these hills, but... ”
Tristan felt a flicker of apprehension as she trailed off. “Monster” wasn’t very specific; depending on who he was talking to, they could mean anything between an owlbear and an orc. The way the Dragonborn was fixated on him discomforted him as well. And quite frankly, the Aasimar had his heart riding up into his throat. But… when was the last time he had so much as shared passing words with another person? When would he get another chance? Did he want to ruin this chance on paranoid assumptions?
Besides, if there was something actually monstrous worth knowing about in these hills that he had happened to miss thus far (not inconceivable, considering he was only one person and these were rolling, extensive hills), he’d be remiss to not at least hear them out.
Finally unzipping the tent all the way and stepping out, Tristan nodded stiffly. “Sure, sure thing, uh, let me just get the campfire going again, and…”
He trailed off, skirting past the dragonborn. Picking up a bundle of sticks from behind his tent, he then hunched beside his mostly ashen firepit and dumped them atop it. Then, in a practiced motion, he scraped the edge of a stick across tinder. A spark of flame lit up, and he dropped the newly flaming stick, which quickly gave rise to a proper campfire. When he looked up, he noticed the human and elf giving him curious looks, while the Aasimar appeared to be keeping her distance. He realized that, perhaps as a tiefling, they might have expected him to merely start it with an ember from his fingertips or something, and he could have, but he wasn’t about to risk letting errant wild magic ruin this chance to chat with some travelers, either.
The awkwardness of the silence was starting to feel suffocating, so Tristan cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders, putting on a practiced, easygoing tone that would make others feel as if nothing was wrong at all. “So, a monster, you say?” he began idly. “What kind of monster? I know this area pretty well. Maybe I can give advice.”
The Elf opened her mouth to speak, but the Dragonborn cut her off. “A fiend. A creature that has escaped the hells,” he announced. Then, he stared, as if to study how Tristan responded.
Tristan couldn’t help the way his tail flicked or the way his heart thrummed a little faster as the Dr agonborn said that. “Is that so?” he dryly replied, trying to hide the displeasure that wanted to find its way into his tone. Was the D ragonborn just trying to get under his skin? Was this some kind of sick game to him? Or… had they truly…?
“Well… yes,” the Human interrupted, clearly uncomfortable, given the way her voice shook. “But…”
“But all we have found is you.” That was the first time the Aasimar had spoken. She was still staring intently at him, still keeping her distance. Her voice was rich and smooth, and should have been calming at worst, alluring at best, but it made Tristan’s spine crawl. “And you are clearly no fiend.”
A mote of panic fluttered in his chest as he realized his anxiety from before hadn’t been unfounded, and that it seemed even the travelers themselves believed they had been sent on a mission to hunt him down. He was the monster they spoke of. Upon seeing him, it seemed they had changed their minds, but… the thought was still terrifying. Was it anything he had done that had changed their minds, or was it just blind luck that they had decided against it?
Unfortunately, it took only an instant for the situation to change completely.
In a flash, faster than what Tristan believed should have been possible for such a bulky, stocky man, the Dragonborn lunged across the campfire, and wrapped a powerful hand around one of his horns, wrenching it down painfully. Forced into something akin to a bow, tail swishing behind himself to maintain some form of balance, Tristan grunted and instinctively struggled, and he felt his panic begin to manifest as a crackling of magic at his fingertips—but he hesitated to let it fly.
“What in the hells are you doing?” the Human shouted, drawing some kind of weapon. Tristan couldn’t quite see what it was from his position.
“Don’t you see?” the Dragonborn insisted, a sickening glee in his voice. “Those people are fools! It’s no damn Devil! It’s just some Tiefling! But they don’t know the difference!” The Dragonborn shook his head, then threw it back, and laughed. “You saw what all they offered if we slew the thing! We wouldn’t have to go hunting monsters for another decade, at least!”
“What, if we slaughter this Tiefling?” the Aasimar incredulously pressed. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Look,” Tristan nervously started to stammer, “I-I don’t have much, but if it’s gold you’re after, I have—”
“Shut it!” the Dragonborn snarled, snapping his teeth uncomfortably close to Tristan’s face. He flinched, and instinctively pulled against the painful grip holding him down. Innate power surged at his fingertips, but he clenched his jaw, and adamantly refused to let it go. The others were arguing for him. He didn’t understand why they would, but what if he made it worse by attacking the Dragonborn? What if he lashed out, and they changed their minds? Worse—what if they would have been sympathetic if he lashed out, but changed their tune about him if they saw his magic misbehaving as it so loves to do during inopportune moments like this? A million possibilities ran through his head about how the others could react to his magic, instilling a fear in him nearly as great as that he felt while at the Dragonborn’s mercy. He wasn’t confident he could handle the Dragonborn alone in combat, forget his entire party.
“He’s hardly had a chance to even introduce himself to us, and you want to bag him as a trophy,” the Elf sneered. “You’re pathetic, Zagri. Put that poor Tiefling down, for gods’ sakes! Before Millie puts a damn bolt in your mouth!”
“Really? None of you are even interested in entertaining the idea?” the Dragonborn—Zagri, Tristan supposed—incredulously demanded. Then, he changed his tactics in trying to get them to agree, and Tristan felt a pit of dread open up in his stomach as he realized how convincing his words sounded. “Well, why do you think he’s out here alone? You think any right-minded creature is going to hang out in the wilderness all on their lonesome, with nothing more than this dingy camp to offer? Don’t you think that seems suspicious? Only a fool or someone really confident in their abilities would do that. What if he is planning something? A raid of his own, perhaps? His kind aren’t exactly known for being the most scrupulous, are they?”
“And yet, you haven’t lost your arm,” the Aasimar irritably pointed out. “If the Tiefling was some secretly terrible monster, Zagri, I’m certain he would have ripped you a new one by now after all but declaring you intend to use him as a payday. And you’d deserve it.”
Anxiety flared in Tristan’s chest as he heard the Dragonborn snort in anger, his grip tightening on his horn. Once again, Tristan tried pleading his case. “Look, I won’t say anything to anyone, I-I don’t even know anyone, a-and if you want to look through my camp, by all means, I won’t stop you. I don’t want any trouble.” A nervous laugh that was verging uncomfortably on the precipice of tears escaped his throat. “At this point, I just want to go back to bed, and forget this all happened, alright?”
“Gods,” Tristan heard the Human curse. He swore he heard pity in her voice.
“Let him go, Zagri, or I’ll put a bolt down your throat,” the Elf said, more conviction in her voice this time.
There was a long pause where Tristan saw nothing but the ground he was being forced to stare at, and heard nothing but the sound of Zagri’s incensed, rapid breathing. “Fine!” the Dragonborn suddenly roared. “Fine, pass up on an easy payday that’d probably last us each ages!”
With that, he pulled Tristan’s horn toward himself, forcing Tristan to awkwardly stumble closer, and then threw him—and he lost his balance, landing face-first in the firepit. A burning stick caught his cheek as he did, and he yelped when he felt it split his flesh. Scrambling off the flames, he jumped back, wiping wildly at his face to try to fight the few embers that had caught the edges of his hair. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a sudden shower of rain come down on his head, and found the Aasimar looking at him with furrowed, concentrated brows, her fingertips crackling with visible power.
“Shit, are you alright?” the Human was anxiously asking, reaching toward him as if she intended to cup his cheek. He flinched away from her, and she instantly withdrew her hand, grimacing.
“Zagri, what the fuck?” the Elf was shouting at the Dragonborn now. “None of us signed up for that kind of shit, you prick!”
“It’s a fucking Tiefling!” Zagri snarled back at her. “Who would even notice? Why do you even care? All they do is steal and set fire to shit, anyway!”
“So do you,” the Elf retorted, curling a lip at him. “Maybe I should sell you to the highest bidder.”
Shaking his head, starting to tremble, Tristan felt his tail curl around himself almost instinctively, and he retreated to his tent while they were busy arguing. He didn’t know if they would leave; he didn’t feel it was his place anymore to tell them what to do. He felt an immense sense of gratitude toward the rest of the Dragonborn’s party for stepping up in his defense, but he didn’t understand why they had done so, and he feared that they could change their mind. All of a sudden, as he clutched his forehead and curled up in the corner of his tent, Tristan was five years old again and had inadvertently set someone’s carriage wheel ablaze, or coated someone’s home in mud while on a playdate, and he was cowering behind his father’s leg as he exchanged screams with someone that had just told him he should put his mistake of a son down. Now, in the present day, Tristan was a little bigger, but no less afraid, and instead of his father, it was random people he had never met before in his life exchanging screams. What did they have to gain by going to bat for him?
Some time later, all fell silent outside, and Tristan hoped that they had all just left. But he was proven wrong when he heard the zipper of his tent and nearly leapt out of his own skin. The Human was peering inside, and she held up her hands in a show of peace when she noticed him gawking at her so nervously.
“Sorry, I know it’s rude to just unzip someone’s tent like that,” she meekly half-joked, “but… I wanted to check on you.”
“I’m fine,” Tristan stiffly replied. Even he could admit his attempt at being standoffish was rather undercut by the realization his face was wet with tears he hadn’t even realized he’d been shedding.
“Really,” the Human insisted. “Please? Can I come in for a minute?”
His tent was big enough for several people to comfortably sit at a distance from one another. But after what all had just happened, some part of him feared the idea of being in an enclosed space with another person, even if that enclosed space could be escaped fairly easily. He was certain that even if he couldn’t reach the flap, his horns or nails could do the trick and rip the meager fabric apart, but he also hoped it didn’t come to that. This was his last tent for the moment, and losing it would mean taking a trip into the nearby hamlet that had apparently put out a fucking hit on him, claiming him to be a Devil, or spending the arduous time it would take to make one himself.
“Sure,” he defeatedly replied, flippantly waving his wrist to indicate another corner of the tent.
She entered and zipped closed the flap behind her, sitting across from him in the tent, on some ragged blanket of his. “I know… it doesn’t really make it better. But for what it’s worth, I am sorry for what Zagri did. None of us… well, none of us knew he was… like that.”
Tristan stared at her for a moment. She was leanly built and had soft, wavy hair that reached to her shoulders. She wore light, leathery armor that was modestly decorated with some carved designs. Her eyes were kind and brown. It was hard to imagine her behaving anything like the way the Dragonborn had, and it made him feel more trusting, yet, he couldn’t shake a sense of shame for wanting to trust her so readily. It was giving others the benefit of the doubt that had nearly gotten him killed and tagged as a Dragonborn’s trophy this evening, after all.
“It’s alright,” Tristan whispered, wiping his face. “I believe you.” Then, dryly, he added, “It’s hard to know what… people will really be like.”
She nodded, then looked down for a moment. An awkward, short pause stretched between them.
“I know it’s not my place… and forgive me, for it might be rude,” she started again after a few moments, “but… why didn’t you try to free yourself?”
Tristan felt as if he were bracing himself for some reason. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… not to make assumptions,” she quickly elaborated, “but… I thought most Tieflings had some fire magic, even if they’re not a true mage. If nothing else, I would have thought you’d try to wrestle away from him. Hells, I was expecting you to bite him if you truly had no other way of trying to get free.”
“Bite a Dragonborn?” Tristan deadpanned. Half-jokingly, he added, “I fear all that would have done is lost me my teeth on his scales.”
She smiled a little, then rolled her eyes. “Well, you understand what I mean, right?”
He stiffly nodded. “I do,” he mumbled. “I feared doing so would only complicate the situation. Maybe upset the rest of you.” He faltered. “I don’t… know.”
She frowned. “Upset the rest of us? You should have heard the tongue-lashing Elara gave him after you holed up in here. I’m pretty sure she’s still considering carving his horns off when he sleeps and selling them before he wakes up. Point is, I think we’d have all forgiven you pretty much instantly no matter what you did to him.”
Sighing, Tristan felt a twinge of impatience. “I didn’t know that, not for certain,” he curtly replied. “For all I knew, if I lashed out, you would believe he was right, and I would be on someone’s wall by tomorrow morning.”
Pityingly, she furrowed her brows only deeper at him. “Is there… anything we can do, to try to help you out, before we leave? It’s the least we can do, after the stunt Zagri pulled.”
He looked up at her and shook his head, somewhat in disbelief, though to her it would have just looked like ‘no.’ Did she understand, even a little bit, what had just happened? She had defended him from Zagri, yes, but did she understand? How terrifying it was to feel your life at the mercy of another, at a whim? Every time he spoke to another—even now, speaking to her privately like this!—he had to take that chance, because the options were to simply never interact with people and go mad in the sorrow and loneliness that would follow, or take the chance and play his facade of kind and cool and collected on the mere chance that the other might be receptive to interacting with a Tiefling. If his luck ran especially poor, something like tonight would go down, and one of these days, he was certain he wouldn’t be so lucky to get away with nothing more than a stinging, half-burned scratch across the bridge of his nose.
But… she had helped him. She didn’t understand, but even without understanding, she and her other two companions, the Elf and the Aasimar, had aided. Was it right for him to split hairs over some mild insensitivity, when she had likely saved his life?
Resignedly, he swallowed that anger, let it fizzle into a mild ember somewhere down inside of him. It was no point in being angry. Being angry did nothing more than make his magic more unstable and make people more likely to fear him. He felt he should have been grateful this Human and her companions had bothered to say anything for him, and he felt he should make sure she knew that.
“No, I don’t want to trouble you that way,” Tristan hoarsely replied. “Thank you, though. You’re most kind.”
She was still looking at him with that pitying gaze, and he wished, privately, that she would stop staring at him like a kicked dog. He felt like one, but it was so unpleasant to see that feeling reflected in another’s face. He felt at her mercy in a whole different way than he had felt at the Dragonborn’s, like he couldn’t dare show a hint of dissatisfaction with her, for fear she might declare that she should have let Zagri have his way with him.
“Well, if you’re sure…” she murmured. “Still. If you change your mind, we’ll be outside.” She awkwardly paused. “I’d… offer for us to leave your camp, of course, but… we all agreed it’d be best if we stuck around so we could take turns keeping an eye on Zagri, to make sure he doesn’t try to pull anything stupid while people are asleep.”
“I appreciate it,” Tristan acknowledged with a tiny, forced smile.
And he did. Despite the bitterness he felt that they wouldn’t just leave, he was grateful for the measure they were taking. Perhaps he was just too sensitive; he was grateful that people like this Human and her two other companions existed, who would stand up for people like himself when they couldn’t. It was the least they could do, but that didn’t make him any less grateful.
But being grateful didn’t make him feel less shame about how the night had gone. Not only was it humiliating and frightening to come face to face with someone like Zagri, but the forced vulnerability with those that were more sympathetic to him felt awful. They saw some wounded, broken creature, even without catching a glimpse of his busted magic, instead of him. There was no chance at getting even just the casual laughter and conversation he craved from encounters with travelers on a night like this; everything was suffocated by the emotion of what had just happened, and would be until their party left.
Maybe on another night, had they found his camp without this Zagri fellow, he would have even been sitting outside by the campfire, cozying up to this Human, sharing wine and watching embers from the campfire rise into the night sky. She would have told him about some past endeavors of hers, and he’d swap stories with her from vague recollections of what other travelers had told him. Gods, maybe he’d have even figured out her fucking name.
Instead, she shot another pitying glance at him as she exited his tent, and he wished he could just snap his fingers and instead of summoning godsdamned mud mephits or creating localized fog condensed around himself, he could just magically change the night to have been one better. He didn’t realize how much he didn’t want her to actually leave the tent and leave him alone until she was gone, but he feared Zagri or causing another scene too much to dare step outside and follow her.
He would have listened to a thousand grating apologies and let her stare at him like a kicked dog all night long if it had just meant she would have talked to him a little bit longer.