Ren of Atikala Page 36

MY RELUCTANCE TO HAVE ANY aside, I have always loved children.

  Children, wyrmlings, little ones, younglings…in whatever tongue you call them, the meaning is still the same. They represent the future, the next generation, the continuation and growth of the species. Their importance goes beyond an individual merely passing along our genes. In a sense, they are everything a society must treasure and nurture if the society is to continue to exist in the future. The next generation is everything we fight for every single day, everything we work towards, everything we sacrifice and suffer for. They are us.

  Killing an adult is a terrible thing, yes, for this act robs a society of its present. To take the life of a child is to rob it of its future. It is a universal constant in almost all civilisations that to harm a child—physically, mentally, or sexually—is an abhorrent act punishable by the harshest means available. It is the worst of crimes.

  Kobolds are not too dissimilar to any other humanoid in that regard. The community, the society, is all they consider with their actions. To damage the future of that community is to rouse from my people a terrible, unquenchable anger that demands revenge as disproportionate as it is terrible.

  However it has been my observation that when a child of the surface races, such as a human or elf, is killed their societies treat it differently. The anger, the outrage, the pity is shared by all who know of it, but the grief is personal. Grief and mourning is limited to the parents, the family, the friends. The occasional stranger may be sympathetic, but rarely will they truly grieve.

  For a kobold, with our communal and selfless mindsets, if a wyrmling is harmed, the grief is shared amongst all. It is a crime against the species. Against the entire community. It is an act that fires the blood, spurring one to violence, but also to shared anguish. The parentage of the child is irrelevant. The community was robbed of a piece of its future, and the future of all were harmed by this act, so everyone grieves for this loss in equal measure. The pain of that loss is the pain of all.

  What could have happened to the egg Khavi sired? What potential lay within it? Would the hatchling be as I was, a maker of its own destiny, or would it be as its father, simple minded and cruel?

  It does not matter. The potential was there for either, and that was the true source of my grief. The loss of the potential. It died without even having a chance to prove itself.

  I do not say this often, but perhaps the surface races could learn from the kobolds, and make heinous acts a tragedy of the people, where grief and outrage are shared by all.

  — Ren of Atikala