With a start, I sit up, accidentally making the little girl I rescued jump, and fall off her seat, "sorry about that, are you alright?" I ask and she then gets to her feat before jumping onto me and hugging me with tears and the kind voice bleeds into my own.
"Hey, what's the crying for, are you hurt, did something happen?"
She shakes her head against my chest and I start to pet her as I suddenly notice she has small canine ears hidden under her hair and I recall seeing fangs when she spoke, and realized she's similar to me, part vampire, part warewolf, but I can tell there's more in her bloodline and that these two are simply dominant genes.
Pain and drowsiness wash over me as I move to get up, causing me to fall out of bed instead and the girl panics and runs out of the room, quickly returning with two men, Gram and Fenrir, both as humans, Gram speaks first with a greatly concerned look and voice, "dad, are you alright?"
I wave my hand as a reply and use the bed to get to my feat, but pause when I realize what he said, "dad?" I question and Gram covers his mouth before, but before he can try to explain, Fenrir speaks first, "when Mr formal gets concerned he reverts back to when our consciouses were growing up, you were the ones who made us, so we were a family."
"'Ones'?"
At my question, Fenrir claps his hands over his mouth, "Me and my big mouth..." He mumbles through his hands.
Under my stare, Gram cracks first, " On one of the few times you were willing to talk about the past, you had a wife, half human, Half fay, a hybrid, her family forced her parents to get rid of her when she could barely survive on her own because she was born of lust, not love. You told us that she helped in designing and imbuing us with life, she was killed before we could meet her by traitors that ambushed you two, they failed to kill you, but they did kill your unborn child, according to you, the aura the child gave off in the last stage of pregnancy was stronger than you at your peak, a perfect hybrid of you and your wife's bloodlines, just like you both, but that's what the traitors feared. In the end she lost the child and the toll it took on her would have killed her too, so she begged you to take her experience's, you gave in and eventually made Alette in memory of her, Alette looks like her if she was a fairy and had white hair."
As I sit on one knee, taking this in, the girl I had somewhat forgotten in the moment, hugs me and I feel my chest getting wet, probably sad after the story, honestly, I am too, but am too proud to show it, instead I just start petting the girl to comfort her.
I stand up, still holding Sophie to my chest, I look to the bed and see Alette, passed out near where my head had been.
Frowning I pick her up and get an idea, lightly bouncing Sophie, she looks at me, still a little teary eyed, and I say, "I have a job for you, think you can handle it?" She perks up a bit and I show her Alette, "mind taking care of her for me?" I get a nod and slight smile, smiling back, I hand her Alette and set them down.
Looking over to the others they seem to understand what I intend to say and nod, I hold out my hand to Sophie and we follow the others out of the house, but I pick up Sophie and hold her to my chest so she doesn't have to see the destruction as we leave the city.
When out of city I let Sophie down as we walk a few hours to a nearby village. Exchanging the news on the destroyed city for info on where the next large city is and are told about a merchant city almost one and a half months away, staying in the village for the night, we left early in the morning, and had an uneventful trip excluding the bonding time with Sophie and a single bandit attack, but Fenrir handled it swiftly and ruthlessly.
Arriving at the new city and picking a place to stay, the next day me and Gram went to the blacksmith shop to try and get hired, due to the shop being short staffed, we were hired on the spot, after a week, Alette woke up, not for long, but enough to have a meal and explain to me that she used her magic to supplement my recovery, in other words, she's why Sarah was awake and why I now remember my parents faces. I thank her before she slips unconscious again, I patted Sophie's head and congratulated her on a job well done for taking care of Alette, the small smile I got was the largest I'd seen from her since meeting her.