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> The king was cruel and bitter, his heir, was gaining a hard heart. The heir got lost, was badly hurt, and and yet tried to boss around the person who found them. But soon learned the life of that "peasant". When the heir returned, they realized, under their reign, kindness and warmth needed to rule, or they'd never survive. -- Anon Guest

It hurt to be alive. The prince Tarabaya couldn't move without more pain. After the fall from the upper highway. After the bandits rolled him for everything he had on him, he was lucky to still be breathing. He did not feel so lucky.

Alone. Unattended. He could die here, unremarked. Unburied. Food for the scavengers.

He couldn't even form the words to pray to the gods for their mercy. All that came out of him was an unintelligible garble. At a volume he could barely hear above his own rasping breaths. He could not bemoan his fate. Only moan weakly.

That was why it was such a miracle that Dawn found him.

Tarabaya saw his rescue in a series of blinks. Blink. The shifting sun and treetops. The sound of humanoid footfalls in the underbrush. Blink. An upraised arm with a common wood axe, and a reddish-brown blur beyond his own tears. Blink. Crackling twigs under his back. Itchy wool over his body. Hard ropes holding him on... something. Dragging. Bumps and jolts. The treetops moving above him. Sticky things on his wounds.

"Sorry. Sorry," said a voice. Rough with extended silences. "Ain't no roads out here. Just deer paths. Ain't got much for you neither. Sorry."

Blink. Sky. The sound of chickens. The rumble of wood dragging over dirt. The steady trudge of wooden clogs. "Nearly there," said his savior. "Nearly there." It sounded almost like a prayer.

Blink. Soft bed. Clean sheets. Crackling fire. The dim smoky interior of a hovel. Sticky things on his wounds. The smell of stew over the fire and leavening bread somewhere beyond his vision. Approaching clogs and a humanoid shape eclipsing the doorway.

Reddish-brown skin like ochre. Plain hempen clothes and a wool cloak. Dark hair under a plain headscarf. A yolk that carried two terracotta pots. The contents of those went into several glazed pots lining the wall, and a kettle moved over the fire.

The dress told Tarabaya that this was a woman, but she wasn't the delicate example of maidenhood that he was used to. This was a woman worn hard and rough by life on her own in the middle of nowhere. And as for _why_ she was in the middle of nowhere...

The smoking eyes like the coals of a dying fire were a give-away. This was a Hellkin.

"Don't try to scream, you'll bust my good stitches, and I can't buy no more guts for sutures." She stowed the yolk and its pots in a corner. Reached up into the rafters for the hanging branches. No. Not branches. Bundles of drying herbs. "Didn't go to all the bother of dragging you here and patching you up to start on hurting you."

That... made sense.

Up close, she looked almost human. The eyes gave her away, and when she spoke, there were missing teeth where her canines should have been. Her touch was gentle and her manner brusque.

There was no linen for his wounds. Just leaves patched together with balms. She washed the wounds with tender touches, re-applied the balms, and then stuck them over with new leaves.

The fact that he was naked didn't seem to bother her. She just finished her work and covered him back up.

"Who are you?" he croaked. "What do you want?"

"Name's Dawn," said Dawn, busying herself with a crude teapot, the boiling water, and more herbs. "All I ever want is some help. Don't expect none, honestly. So I'm blessed if I see another dawn."

Tarabaya learned much as he healed. Every hour of Dawn's day was filled with attempts to survive one more day. When she found herbs, she gathered them. When the hens laid eggs, she collected them. She took in sewing and tatted lace when the daylight failed her. Her ability to see in the darkness saved her a few coppers for candles.

And someone had burned her horns when she was a baby. He saw the lingering scars when she ran a comb through her hair at the crack of dawn, Hair that she compared with her forearm every time. When it was long enough, he learned, she'd "get shorn" and sell the locks to wig-makers.

The lace she made was sold by the foot to passing merchants. The eggs paid for flour to make her bread, which was 'muddlmeal' - the sweepings from the mill at the end of the day, and required fishing grist out of one's mouth when they were encountered. Her crops were meagre, and her meat was either whatever she could catch or, on special occasions, a chicken that had gone off its lay.

Her taxes were paid in coppers. Saved for the entire year between the times the tax officer arrived.

And she put up with random people taking the time and using the energy to try and destroy what little she had. His presence cowed them a little. Not often.

Father had taught him that people like Dawn were lazy. That all they needed to do was work harder. Watching Dawn as he healed, Tarabaya couldn't imagine _how_ she could possibly do that.

When he _could_ finally help her out, he had to learn quickly. Dawn was a woman of few words, most of them disparaging of his capability.

"I know you got soft hands, Tar," she'd often say, shortening his name based on his speed at literally anything. "But did you _really_ never chop your own firewood?"

Just as he could never conceive of a peasant going hungry despite everything they did to survive, she could never conceive of anyone _not_ working to keep themselves warm.

It was eye opening. It certainly kicked him square in his complacency. It destroyed his preconceptions.

And made him re-evaluate all of Father's assertions.

When the kingdom's guard finally found him, he defended Dawn from their wrath. "This woman saved my life, gave me shelter and succour when none other knew I was here. She had no reason to do it, therefore she deserves _gratitude_, not grievous bodily harm."

Dawn insisted she'd be grateful to be left as she was, thank you very much. She never tried to be a bother to nobody.

Tarabaya made certain they all knew it was _their_ heads if any harm came to her or her farm. And when he returned to his place in the palace, he sent a covert letter off to the Lutemen. Asking for advice on making a better kingdom for people like Dawn.

He could only pray he'd do well.

[Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@knipszimmer?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Marc Zimmer</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-cabin-beside-green-grass-on-hill-w8fDRpYU5oQ?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Unsplash</a>]

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