Chapter Text
On the road, just on the outskirts of Rivington, in a clearing separated from the rest of the heavily wooded surroundings, there lay a house.
According to any who saw it, the house didn’t look like much. The exterior painted a faded sage green and the roof made of aging wood, it was a quaint, unassuming building.
The occupants of said house were not much of note themselves. The home housed the Briarwood family, which consisted of only two members.
This was about to change.
— ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ —
If asked, Sariel Briarwood would call herself a pragmatic woman. Her husband Sebastian would be inclined to agree. Of the two of them, she was the sensible one in the relationship.
That is why, when she heard a knock on her door in the dead night in the middle of winter, she was not inclined to answer it.
The snow was thick and the air was heavy with the chill, and any who were out in this weather only had themselves to blame, in Sariel’s humble opinion. She had no interest in opening her door to the chill for a stranger who lacks the good sense to stay indoors on the coldest day of the year.
She did throw up a quick prayer to Lathander for them, she was still a paladin, after all.
The knocking quieted quickly, and Sariel thought that was the end of it, breathing a sigh of relief at the resumed quiet.
Her husband Sebastian looked up from his book at the sound of her sigh. The book in his hands was some absurdly thick wizard tome, or something to that effect. It all went right over Sariel’s head, so she would leave that to him.
His curious look at her clued Sariel into the face that he had completely missed the sound of the knock. She honestly couldn’t say she was surprised, he tended to be a bit air headed sometimes. It was part of his charm, in Sariel’s humble (and correct) opinion.
She settled herself next to her husband on the sofa, leaning on him as he reads. She was unreasonably comfortable for the position, and she soon found herself dozing off.
Just as she was about to succumb to blissful sleep, she was jolted awake by a sudden noise. She couldn’t exactly tell what it was at first, but after listing for a moment, she determined that it was coming from outside their front door.
Listing longer, she became more confused. Was that… a baby? Because it sounded worryingly like the cry of an infant.
Sariel was on her feet and at the door before she could process her movements. Throwing open the door, she didn’t see anything until she looked down, and her eyes widened.
There, nestled in the snow, there was a bundle of a deep red fabric, which Sariel could swear was silk. (Why would it be silk? Who would just leave what Sariel strongly suspected was a baby wrapped in silk in the snow in the middle of the night?)
That was where the crying was coming from, she could tell. Sariel scooped up the bundle, bringing it inside as quickly as she could. The crying continued.
Once she was inside, she finally breathed. Sariel finally fully looked at the bundle. It was indeed a deep red silk. It squirmed slightly.
Shifting one of the folds in the fabric revealed a small, scrunched face. It was pale, almost a gray shade. On the face, there were the were scales that appeared gray but shone almost blue in the light. Sariel could see what looked to be the beginnings of horns on the child’s forehead.
“Darling? What is that?” Sebastian sounded concerned. Sariel couldn’t blame him, she likely looked like she had seen a ghost.
“A baby.” Sariel said, breathless, looking up to meet her husband’s eyes. “Someone left a baby at our door.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened more than Sariel had thought was possible, truly it was a marvel of the feats the human body could achieve.
After some debating between the two, the Briarwoods decided to keep the baby with them for the night, and turned to tend to the little one.
Upon unwrapping the child, the couple discovered a few things.
First, the child was definitely born within the last week.
Second, the child was thinner than expected. If she had to guess, Sariel would say they hadn’t yet eaten in their short life.
Third, the child was likely male, though it was a bit hard to tell.
Fourth, the child was definitely a Tiefling, his thin tail whipping the air as Sariel held him up. She could feel the beginnings of little claws digging into her arms where she held him.
As the boy opened his eyes, Sariel was met with a stunning red. The red irises seemed to glow against the dark scleras, and Sariel was almost sure they were producing a faint light.
There was a bit of hair in the top of his head. It was dark, but almost looked like a dark red in the light.
Looking at the fabric the child had been swaddled in a bit closer, Sariel noticed a few things. What stood out the most to her was the faint wet feeling of the fabric. Sariel had just assumed that it was some melted snow that had clung to the fabric, but she quickly ruled that out when she touched it and her hand came away red.
Why was there blood on the baby? Was it his blood? A quick check of him revealed no wounds, so where did the blood come from?
Sariel pushed that out of her mind, deciding to focus on other matters. The fabric itself seemed to be a red and black silk brocade, with the faint patterns of flowers and what looked to be skulls. It was an odd thing to wrap a newborn in, or any child for that matter, but this whole situation was odd then, wasn’t it?
Sebastian decided to head to the kitchen to figure out what he could give their unexpected guest, retrieving some goat's milk that Sariel didn’t even know they had, setting about heating it up.
He started feeding the newly heated milk to the little one.
Sariel set about finding an appropriately sized basket and a clean, dry blanket for the little one to use throughout the night, promising herself that it would all be over in the morning.
— ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ —
It was not all over in the morning.
The guards knew nothing about a missing tiefling infant, and they wouldn’t take the child. They said that he could be from anywhere, and they had neither the time nor the resources to go around asking anyone who would listen if they happened to have lost a newborn. The guards also made it a point to emphasize that he had been left on their doorstep, and therefore was their responsibility.
Their offer to take him to an orphanage would not stand, and so Sariel and Sebastian had a decision to make. Sariel never really wanted children, but that boiled down to the fact that she didn’t want to get pregnant. She honestly wasn’t even fully sure that she could, even if she wanted to. Sebastian, on the other hand, seemed to be all in favor of taking the boy in.
No words needed to pass between the two as they decided to adopt the little one. Though they had never intended to have children, neither could complain as the Briarwood family expanded by one.
— ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ —
What to name the little one was the next big decision Sariel and Sebastian had to make. For the first few weeks that he was in their care, he simply didn’t have one.
Sebastian insisted that they needed to name him quickly, lest they get too used to just calling him little one, but Sariel was in no such hurry. She believed that the name would come with time.
Sebastian had a hobby that Sariel considered rather frivolous, though she would never say so out loud. Sariel couldn’t claim to know much about origami, she just knew how happy her beloved husband got when he successfully folded small squares of paper into intricate shapes.
This evening, Sebastian sat in the chair he had placed next to the fireplace, the little one in his lap as he delicately folded a clean white square of paper. He hummed as he worked, and the little one watched the motion of his hands, absolutely transfixed by the smooth movements.
Tiny hands grasped at the air in front of them, the little one doing his best to liberate the half done paper craft from his father’s hands. His wide eyed wonder never wavered as the pristine paper took the shape of a crane.
— ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆ —
It started as a joke between Sariel and Sebastian, at their son’s wonder at the small paper bird, but before long the name stuck, and their little one became Crane Briarwood.
Young Crane seemed to approve.