The human found a nest of eggs that had been abandoned but were still very warm. The human had a family of ten young kobolds to raise, and they grew up very happily, even when older kobolds came, along with a kind wizard who helped the family learn to read and write. -- Anon Guest
Dorn found the Kobold nest the painful way - finding an unexpected weak point in the earth by falling through it. The rest of the warren was cold and empty, but the nest of ten eggs was still warm. A brief crawl through the larger tunnels revealed a warren ravaged and eliminated by disease.
There was only one thing to do.
They made a quick heating rune, packed them in everything soft and a basket, and took them home. Set the whole lot by the fireplace as well as under their broodiest hen. Then Dorn went to their nearest neighbour and asked what ze knew about raising Kobolds.
Dorn's neighbour, Kren, sent three of hir kids into retrieving foodlike items from the dead warren. Then, at least, Dorn would have a supply of what the Kobolds called food.
After that, it was the usual baby stuff. Let them sleep when they're tired. Feed them when they're hungry. Celebrate advancements. Teach them good habits. And be extremely patient and persistent with toilet training.
Generosity, the town butcher, stopped by to show Dorn how to fold tailclouts for creatures who -well- had tails. He had a few words about trusting Kobolds with shiny objects. Prejudice can happen from any source.
They took two weeks to hatch, and all ten of them were tiny. They couldn't consume solid food, and needed to take it mashed... with vinegar to help them digest because Kobolds didn't suckle like mammals.
Hatchling Kobolds emerged from their shells with their eyes sealed shut, and were that dependant on help for a week. Dorn named them alphabetically. Ade, Bol, Cab, Dee, Ed, Fir, Gam, Hin, Ing, and Jeg. Dorn talked to them, telling their new dectuplets what they knew about their people.
Everyone knew Kobolds instantly reincarnated, but... only if the eggs were ready to hatch. These ten could be reborn from elsewhere, but they could also be a rarity amongst Koboldkind... new souls.
You couldn't tell until they started to communicate the memories of their past selves.
At two weeks, their eyes opened and they started to babble. They remembered Yprak, and chattered amongst themselves before they learned the Trader's Tongue. But what they did do, alarmingly, was help.
When Dorn cut firewood, there were teams of tiny baby Kobolds hauling wood to the stack by the fireplace and the little shed made to keep the remainder dry. When Dorn dug rows in their farm, the Kobolds would dig rows in parallel to them. The planting went so much faster, and they were little devils against the weeds.
What they lacked in strength, they made up for in numbers.
And whenever the wandering school stopped in the area, Dorn took the entire pack to get some learning into their little draconic heads. There, they all met a Wizard who was also a single parent of a small pack of Kobolds.
The Wizard's pack ganged up with Dorn's pack and chattered about Kobold things. Dorn and Wizard Velith talked shop about parenting Kobolds. They were all almost ready to make a burrow and settle down. Velith inspected the old burrow and made certain the joined packs would not encounter the same woes as the last ones who fell there.
Dorn still worried about them and checked in on them regularly.
[Photo by Marek Lumi on Unsplash]
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