Passing Friendship
Part I
Rain again. Dampe rolled his eyes at the sound of it drumming on the roof of his little graveyard shack. This was the third night in a row.
It wasn't as if anyone would notice if he took a night or two off from his gravekeeping duties, but he took his job very seriously. Rain, snow, hail—it didn't matter. He would go out and see that things were done. Flowers needed to be groomed, gravestones needed to be kept free of dirt, and he knew the grass was due to be trimmed along the edges of the cemetary. So as soon as he was done with his evening tea, he threw on his coat, grabbed his lantern and hobbled out into the chilly, wet night.
Like every other night, he started down at the far end near the entrance to the Shadow Temple. It seemed important to him that he make sure the royal gravestone was well tended first and foremost. While working in the dark of night only made it more difficult, he preferred the quiet and solitude; A lifetime's worth of people's disgust and horror at his appearance had left him favoring the life of a recluse.
As the night wore on, he started to work his way closer and closer back to his own hut. It wasn't until a couple of hours before dawn that a soft blue light caught the corner of his eye. Startled, he turned and peered in that direction, but the light had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Dampe squinted, raising his lantern up slightly, and began to hobble over in that direction; while he didn't see the light anymore, there seemed to be some kind of dark mass that he couldn't recall being there. The closer he got, the more he realized he wasn't imagining things. The orange glow of his lantern fell on a young boy, lying on the ground. Eyes wide, Dampe slowly moved closer, lifting his lamp higher to get a better look.
The child wasn't moving, and from the looks of him, he'd been there most of the night. Blond hair was soaked and plastered against the pale skin of his face. He wore nothing but a short sleeved tunic that was drenched and sucked tight to his skin, boots and a kind of long cap.
Concerned, Dampe slowly reached forward, unable to help fearing that the boy was dead, when suddenly a blinding blue light came from nowhere and started flying crazily around him.
"Stay away from him! You leave him alone!" The voice was small, feminine, and very upset.
Dampe rose his free hand in a gesture of peace as he stumbled back. "Now now, settled down, I ain't gonna hurt him. He'sa gonna catch his death bein' out here though, if he innit dead already."
The fairy seemed to understand and backed off, though she continued to hover protectively over the still form. After a moment or two, Dampe edged forward again and reached toward the boy. "Is'e breathin'?"
"Yes…" The fay sniffled. "Please, can you help him?"
"I can try." The old gravekeeper set his lantern down just long enough to carefully heave the boy over his humped shoulders before shuffling his way back to his hut.
T.B.C.