Challenge #04461-L077: Where it's Safe

From those printed source books that helped Afro American's to safely travel to those real or mental lists of 'I know someone who has'. They are priceless and often weird. -- Anon Guest

[AN: I'm pretty sure the polite term was African American... back in the 1990's]

Resources are more than the base materials used to create something... or many somethings. More often than not, resources are sources of information. Secrets to relative success. Passed along by word of mouth, by sigils scrawled where those who need them will see. Meaning known only to those who need them.

Here there is food. This way to safe shelter. These people not tolerated here.

Sometimes, there's books. Maps. Lists of places where certain people can stay in safety. Or, more often, maps marked with places certain people were safer to avoid. Passed from Unwelcome Person to another. Copied carefully by hand or by magic. Passed on away from the prying eyes of the law, with the implication being very clear - don't get caught with this.

Those who would harm the Unwelcome don't like learning that the Unwelcome are avoiding them on purpose. That makes them 'unwelcome' and they don't like feeling that way.

They could have appreciated the perspective, but... people who make other people Unwelcome also mislike perspective. It might make them feel... bad about themselves. Can't be having with any of that. They'd stop feeling superior and that would be the end of their world.

This particular book of maps and locations was written in Voulspeak - the language of the devilborn. Only fellow Hellkin can read it, since they're born with the tongue. To anyone else, it looks like unsettling scrawls and scratches. Even the pictures within look disturbing. Those with the skill to create copies do so. Pass them into the hands of other devilborn they meet.

Stiw just got her hands on one. It was written on scraps of paper and cloth. Bound together with nails and thread and glue made from boiled bones. It was the only thing Stiw could read, and she read it by moonlight. Away from anyone who could get to her.

It was a thin version, spare of information beyond the realm. Yet it spoke in promises. Places beyond this town that starved her. Places that could take her in. Feed her. Give her work and pay her for it in more than a meal.

The book was the only thing Stiw took with her when she left. The town that had borne her never missed her. None within troubled themselves to notice her in the first place. She went from cache to cache, taking just enough to get her to the next cache. The book said to leave something for the next who needed it.

Stiw had no idea how to hunt or forage. Her food had come from the rejecta of the streets. She could leave sticks for a fire, and that did not seem like enough. It was all she had.

Finally, she found the secret hamlet. Tucked away in part of the landscape that was hard to reach, tricky to find, and impossible to see from the common roads. Stiw knew she was in the right place because there were grownup Hellkin just... making things.

One greeted her with, "Oh! A baby! Have you eaten, today?" The fact that they said it in Voulspeak was more welcome than anything else.

Stiw held up the stick she'd been chewing as she nodded.

"Let's get you something tastier," said her welcome party. They scooped her up and fed her warm bread. There was more than bread. Fresh milk, good meat, fruit, and vegetables. Good clothing and baths and a host of Hellkin greeting her as family.

The first chance she got, Stiw decided, she was going to learn to write so she could make copies of the book. She was going to find other devils like her and pass the knowledge along. She might even change her name.

Sanctum sounded like a nice one.

[Photo by Alberto Bigoni on Unsplash]

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