Chapter Text
Jaheira had been High Harper for five years when Harper Mellon arrived at her doorstep in the middle of the night.
“Good evening,” she said cautiously. Mellon shifted awkwardly on the doorstep, then produced a small gnomish child who had been hiding behind her leg.
“Um,” the other Harper said. She flushed. “This is Aston.”
“Hello, Aston,” Jaheira said, offering a hand. “It is nice to meet you.” The boy’s fear faded slightly as he peered up at her with bemusement. He took her hand with his much smaller one, shook it gingerly. Jaheira gave him an attempt at a gentle smile before raising an eyebrow at Mellon. She didn’t know of any troubles at the Mellon home, but this wouldn’t be the first time a Harper had come to her seeking safe harbour for the night.
“Trouble?” she asked.
“You could say that,” Mellon agreed. “Aston here was caught earlier today by the Fist for theiving.” The boy’s eyes widened, betrayed, and then his expression sunk to a sullen glare. But Jaheira was watching Mellon more carefully. There was disappointment in her face, yes, but it was outweighed by desperation.
“I understand,” Jaheira said, not sure she did.
“The orphanages won't take ‘em once they’ve got a charge,” Mellon added in an undertone. Jaheira blinked away a murderous rage and managed some kind of acknowledging grunt. “The landlord said if I took in another, he’d throw me out. But I can’t turn him loose on the street. I’m sorry to come here like this, I just- I didn’t know where else to go.” She wanted Jaheira to take him in, Jaheira realized with a cold shock.
“My home is not safe for children,” she said, more bluntly than she ought. Mellon flinched, then nodded.
“Right,” she said. “Sorry. I’ll figure something else out.”
“Neither will I turn you away,” Jaheira added. “Come in out of the cold, and we will discuss your options.”
Two weeks later, Mellon and her wife were the proud owners of a sturdy new house of their very own, bought and furnished with a hoard of wyvern gold that by rights was only 1/6th Jaheira’s.
“Come back and claim it then,” she told the ghosts cluttering her imagination, and got back to work.
It was many years later when she opened the door to see Mellon again, looking shaken. She was splattered with blood and holding an eerily still bundle of blankets in her arms.
Jaheira pulled her in off the street, questions already forming, but Mellon shook her head and held a finger to her lips. She slowly lowered the bundle to the table and twitched aside a corner of fabric to reveal a young half-elven girl, pale and similarly covered in blood. Jaheira’s heart skipped a beat, but the girl was breathing with the slow, even breaths of sleep.
With her hands freed, Mellon cast the Message cantrip to allow them to conduct their conversation silently.
“Your family?” Jaheira asked first.
“Fine,” Mellon responded quickly. “I wasn’t at home. I was on an observation run and found a Bhaalist corpse outside one of the shacks by the river.”
“She was inside?” Jaheia was a professional, so she was prioritising her questions in order of urgency and not by which ones made her feel dizzy and sick to her stomach. Bhaalists.
“Holding a knife,” Mellon said. “I’m pretty sure the Bhaalist killed her family and then she killed him.”
“Pretty sure?” Jaheira asked. Mellon winced.
“Not sure enough to take her home this time of night,” she admitted. “If she was in training, if this was some kind of test…”
A child who would live the waking nightmare of Bhaal’s slaughter. Jaheira could see why Mellon didn’t want to put her in a room of sleeping children.
“She can stay here tonight,” she replied briskly.
“You’re sure?” Mellon asked.
“She would not be the first Bhaalist to make an attempt on my life,” Jaheira said, with a tinge of amusement. She eyed the small dagger still clutched in the girl’s hand. “Nor the best-armed. Tomorrow, we’ll call the cleric to do some divining. Find out the truth.” A weight seemed to drop off Mellon’s shoulders.
“I’d thank you,” she sent. “But I know you aren’t doing this for me.” Jaheira gave her a quick flash of a smile and shook her head.
“Go get some rest,” she said. “See your family.”
After she closed and locked the door behind the Harper, she settled in a chair by the dying fire and pitched her voice low.
“You can stop pretending to be asleep now,” she said. “There’s water in the bath, if you want it, though it’s cold. And there’s a bed upstairs.”
There was only stillness for a moment, then the child slipped down off the table to watch her with wary eyes.
“How’d you know I was sleeping?” she asked.
“Your breathing was right,” Jaheira said. “Good and slow. But I could see your heartbeat was too fast.” The girl bit her lip and nodded.
“I killed him,” she said.
“I assumed,” Jaheira said. She tilted her head. “Are you going to kill anyone else?”
“I’m not sure yet,” the girl responded. “Someone might have sent him.”
“I appreciate the honesty. How about this: if you decide to kill someone, will you give me a warning?”
The child eyed her suspiciously.
“Are you going to stop me?”
“Yes,” Jaheira said. The child watched her for a long moment more in silence.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I want to help you,” Jaheira answered. “And I cannot do that if you are killed on a misguided quest for revenge.”
“You aren’t very nice,” the girl observed. Jaheira pretended to consider it.
“No,” she agreed.
“I’m going to the bath now,” the girl finally said. “If you come upstairs, I’ll kill you.”
“Noted,” Jaheira said. “There is a clean towel in the cupboard.”
The girl vanished without answering.
Jaheria stayed awake, busying herself half-heartedly with disciplinary reports and listening closely. She heard water splashing in the tub, then the bathroom door creaking open. The child opened Jaheira’s creaky wardrobe, then went through it, going by the rustling of fabric. The clothes she had arrived in were bloodstained and dirty, so Jaheira didn’t begrudge her the forwardness.
In the small hours of the morning, when Jaheira finally got up to replace the guttering candle stub on her desk, she realized she hadn’t heard anything in a while. She climbed the stairs halfway and listened carefully. Slow breathing and soft movements against fabric from her bedroom. Good.
She went back to her office and lit a new candle, pulling the next stack of reports closer.