AN: Warning #1: This is not a "poor boy, no one loved him, that's why he's such a jerk" story. And it's neither a "son of a bitch, he hates everyone, what's his problem?" story. At least, I honestly tried to avoid such extremes – in this story as well as in "Half of you, half of me". I really hope I succeeded.

Warning #2: Contains some spoilers for "Half of you, half of me", but… the Hells with it :-))))

Reviews are highly appreciated!

Whoreson

He was hanging on a beam. That's what he liked to do most of all. The beam was in the corner of the room, just behind the small fireplace, and he liked to climb on it, clutch at it with his legs and just dangle there, head over heels. It made the whole room turn upside down, which seemed funny to him. Besides, after dangling for a long time, he was a bit dizzy - which was funny too, the way everything around him reeled.

The boy wanted to giggle, but refrained from it. He knew he shouldn't make any sounds when Mom had a "guest". She usually brought them home from the pub – travellers, merchants, soldiers, sometimes even locals of Redfallow's Watch.

He knew what they were doing there, in the bedroom. After all, he was six already, he was no fool, and Mom had explained him everything about it long time ago. That was exactly how children were born. Sometimes he wondered if he would get a brother or a sister out of it – even asked Mom about that.

"No, not if I can help it, sweetie," she laughed.

He also liked it, when Mom was laughing.

The door, turned over in his eyes, opened, and a turned over man left the bedroom, followed by turned over Mom, who was adjusting the straps of her home dress. Both were sweaty and tired.

"The caravan is leaving only in the morning, you know," the man pointed out suggestively.

"Yeah, I'll come and wave you 'good-bye'," Mom grinned, pushing him out of the front door into the street. "Nah, honey, you've got all you've paid for. Bye-bye."

She shut the door, leaning against it and chuckling to muffled protests from behind it. Her long dark-red hair was disheveled and twisted, making her look a bit like a burning torch.

"They always want everything for nothing," she muttered, still grinning, and shoved the hair off her damp glistering forehead.

Noticing him hanging on the beam, she tilted her head to match his turned over stare. He stuck out his tongue at her, and she laughed.

"You little possum," she came up to him, grabbing the boy by his waist and taking him down. He tried to use the opportunity to climb on her shoulders, but she groaned. "Nah, sweetie, Mom's too tired. And hungry like an ogre. Are you?"

He just beamed at her, and, smiling back, she seated him on the chair near the dining table and moved to the kitchen cabinet. Their house was so small that they didn't have a separate room for kitchen. Not that the boy minded – that way they could sit at the table and still be able to watch the fire.

He liked fire. It reminded him of Mom's hair.

The boy watched her reach out to the shelf, grab one of many glass vials standing there and emptying it. He knew she drank those not to have any more children. She didn't want any. She didn't even want him – she had told him that when he asked.

"Not at first, sweetie," she had said that time. "But then you were born, I looked at you and thought like, hey, such a nice little fellow can't make my life worse. Only better," she smiled at him and tousled his hair. "And you did made it better."

He wasn't offended by her confession. That was the deal between him and Mom – you asked straight honest questions and got straight honest answers. No sulking, no foolishness, no lies.

Mom opened the doors of the cabinet, threw a head of cabbage on the table, lightly, gracefully, almost playfully – Mom always moved like she was dancing. Fetching a knife, she started chopping the vegetables, humming some tune.

"So," she grinned to some of her thoughts, "how was your day?"

He was thoughtful for some seconds, recollecting, then put up his hand, counting on fingers: "Went to the swamp. Found a coin. Had a fight with Jock."

"Ah, and here I was wondering where that bruise came from," Mom brushed her finger softly against his cheekbone, shook her head with a smile and returned to chopping vegetables. "Again. Guess that's what you men always do – fight and beat each other. So, what happened this time?"

"He said I am a son of a whore."

The knife slipped, cutting Mom's forefinger, and she hissed in pain, putting the point of her finger in her mouth to lick off the blood. He watched her beautiful face tighten a little, then she shrugged: "Well, sweetie… You are."

"I know," he nodded. "But he said it like… like it was something bad. I didn't like it."

She looked straight into his eyes, her dark brown on his bright amber, as if she wanted to see something there, deep in his head, then rapped out:

"Never think they are better than you. Because they are not."

"I know," he said almost in surprise.

"…Good."

He grinned: "Jock can't be better. I laid him down."

It was Mom's turn to grin, and she did, unwittingly. To make her smile wider, he added:

"And in the swamp I found rabbit trace. Wanted to catch him, but he ran away."

"You did found a trace, really?" Mom arched her eyebrow unbelievingly.

"Yeah. I often do. It's not hard."

"Wow. You are a little genius."

"You say that just because I'm your son," he stated seriously, but his words suddenly made her burst out laughing.

"Gods…" she breathed out, wiping her eyes. "Sometimes I think you are too smart for your age. For any age."

Before he could ask what she meant there came a loud knock on the door, and Mom's face flashed into a smile again:

"Ah, speaking of rabbits… It's about time."

She threw her knife on the table, drying her hands with her dress, and went to the door, sleeking her hair a bit. He watched her open the door and let in a tall man in dark cloak, with a bag on his shoulder.

"Knew you'd come," she pointed to the table and made off to the bedroom. "Got the money just now."

"Take your time," the man drawled indifferently, throwing the bag on the table and leaning against the wall.

The bag smelled of wood, leaves, wet fur and blood. The boy eyed it for some seconds, then shifted his gaze at the man. The man was a local hunter. Once in a while Mom bought meat from him, so he'd been to their house more than once. The boy was a little afraid of him, his silent dark figure standing in the corner, with all that hunting stuff of his, weapons and scars. And he had only one eye, surrounded by tired wrinkles despite his not exactly old age. The other eye was replaced by a strap of black fabric.

The man took a dagger out of sheath on his hip and nonchalantly began to clean his nails with its tip. The boy watched the moves of the sharp blade, glittering beautifully in firelight. Maybe, if he had a dagger like that, he could kill a rabbit. Then Mom wouldn't have to pay for meat.

He got so lost in his thoughts he didn't even noticed at first that the movements of the knife had actually stopped. The boy looked at the blade, then lifted his gaze. The man was looking right back at him, his only green eye sparkling in the shadows of his hood.

"What're you staring at, wolfie?" he asked in that chilly hoarse voice of his. His voice was always hoarse. Mom said it was because he had had a nasty wound in his throat once.

And he always called the boy 'wolfie' for some reason.

"The dagger," he answered simply.

The man's lips twisted into a humorless smirk: "Like it, huh?"

He had no chance to answer, as his Mom returned to the room, holding a small shabby purse and recounting coins in it as she walked.

"Shit…" she sighed, earning a knowing glare from the man. "Only fifty."

The hunter clicked his tongue, heading for the table where the bag laid: "Too bad for you. No money, no-"

"I'll pay the rest tomorrow," she smiled hopefully.

"Uh-huh. I'm no charity wagon, woman."

Her smile changed somehow, became warmer and colder at the same time.

"Or we can barter," she tilted her head a little.

The man snorted, but didn't take away the bag.

He stayed for the night sometimes. And Mom never asked for any money from him for that. When the boy asked her why she didn't, she smiled in a strange, almost happy way:

" 'Cause he brings us the best meat he can find," he remembered Mom lowering her voice to a whisper. "But don't tell him I've noticed that."

ooooo

He was sitting behind the table tying up a piece of rope into a noose. He figured that, maybe, with a right kind of noose he'll be able to try and catch the rabbit next time he went to the Mere.

The front door flung open, and Mom almost stormed in, a fair-haired man at her heels. The boy knew that man as well. He was a local merchant. He always smiled at the boy when they met in the street and patted his head. That made the boy wince. He didn't like being treated like a baby. Mom never treated him like that.

Mom went deep into the room, wrapping herself in her old woolen cloak. She did it hastily, almost angrily, and the boy noticed a droplet of blood in the corner of her mouth.

"I didn't ask for that," she snapped at the man. "Why the Hells did you drag me out of there?"

"That soldier slapped you!" the man exclaimed in a tone like his answer was obvious.

"Yeah! Because he wanted to! That's what whores get paid for! So that men can do with them anything they want!"

The man frowned at her words and cast a short glance at the boy, lowering his voice a little: "Let's not talk about that in front of a child."

The boy pursed his lips in fret, caused by the word 'child'.

"Oh please!" Mom hissed snidely. "This child has more brains than you do!"

"I know all about whores," the boy nodded earnestly, and Mom grinned at him before turning back to the man:

"See? He knows! You don't, so it seems! You don't get it that I actually lost my money today because of you!"

The man was silent for some time, then reached for his belt pouch: "I'll give you money."

Mom blanched, standing in the middle of the room, stunned and motionless like a statue. The boy darted his eyes from her to the man, suddenly alarmed.

Something felt wrong. Very wrong.

"I don't need your money," she said, slowly, quietly and icily, narrowing her eyes. "I earn them."

"We both know you need them," he answered softly and took a step toward her. "Esther, please. Don't get humiliated for gold. There is another life. You have a child…"

"We are doing fine, thank you," she said in the same low, slightly trembling voice, trembling with anger… or, maybe, something else.

He sighed, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. Mom shuddered under his touch as if his hand was red-hot.

"Esther… You should think about your future… your child… Do you really think he enjoys being the son of… of a whore?"

Mom gasped, sharply, helplessly, and a few tears suddenly slid down her pale cheeks.

"I do!" he protested bluntly, swiftly jumping off the chair, feeling a strange intensive burning inside of him. Anger, almost fury, and fright, and terror, and despair and many… many other things he didn't know names for.

Because it was wrong. His Mom, always laughing, grinning and dancing around, now stood there and cried…

It was horribly wrong.

The man looked at him, calmly and sadly: "Please, sonny…"

"I'm not your son!" he snapped, landing a hating glare at the man. Oh, he hated him. He made Mom cry. Never ever anyone made her cry. Even her 'guests', even the hunter, scary and coarse, no matter what he was saying or doing, never made her look so miserable, so helpless… never made her cry. "Get out!"

"Esther," he said almost pleadingly. "Calm him down."

Mom blinked slowly, allowing a few more silent tears to slip down her face, and suddenly jerked her chin up a little, stubbornly, even with some kind of dignity, a small thin smirk arising in the corners of her lips.

"He does as he pleases," she answered coldly, and her smirk became more evident. "After all, he's just a child, isn't he?"

"Yeah, heard that?" the boy grinned at the man. "Get out!"

He sighed: "Alright, I'll just leave the money on-"

"We don't need money!" he shouted, planting a hard kick on the man's knee, and the man backed off. "Are you deaf? You want to pay her, you sleep with her and then pay, like everybody else!" the man's eyes widened in shock. "Don't act like you are special!"

The man was trying desperately to come up with some answer, opening and closing his mouth, mutely, like a fish thrown out of water – when suddenly there came a sound. From behind the boy's back there came a croaky choking sound.

Mom's throaty laughter.

"Exactly!" she threw her hands up triumphally. "Exactly!"

The man tried again to say something, but the boy left him no chance, shoving him hard towards the door. He kicked him again for good measure, then pushed him out to the street. When the man stumbled down the porch and his face was on the level of boy's shoulders, the boy clenched his fist and punched him right in the nose, making it bleed.

"And stay away from here!" he yelled at the man, not caring about astonished people gathering around.

"What's going on?" someone muttered.

"Hells know," another hushed voice answered. "I'm telling you, this boy of hers is fucking crazy."

He looked up at them, daring someone else to say something, and when no one dared to, shut the door. Mom was sitting on the floor, embracing herself and still laughing, laughing in a hard and almost scary way, and the tears still ran down her reddened cheeks.

Many years later another woman would be sitting the same way right on the ground, in the middle of the ruins of her destroyed home village, among the corpses of her slaughtered neighbors, laughing and crying at the same time, unable to stop, while her 'friends' would be standing around, confused and frightened by her hysterics. The stupid paladin would try to mutter something soothing to her, but she would only laugh and cry harder because of that.

He would walk up to her and slap her, hard enough to split her lip, earning indignant cries from her companions, but cutting off her laughter. And she would lift her tear-filled cobalt eyes at him and smile and say "Thanks".

But now he just approached his Mom, who drew in a deep breath to calm down, looked at him and chuckled.

"Think I broke his nose," the boy said.

"…Well…" she wiped her eyes. "Shouldn't have gone that far, maybe…" she was silent for some moments, then looked at him again, her gaze grave: "Do I make you miserable, sweetie? Honestly?"

"No!" he answered, almost frustrated.

She sniffed away the last of her tears and reached for him, putting her arms around his legs, dragging him closer and pressing her cheek to his stomach.

"Shows how much they all know," she whispered.

He stroked her hair, looking into space and still feeling cold rage bubbling inside of his blood. He had the best mother in all the Faerun – and some blasted merchant made her doubt that. Not that the boy wanted to break his nose or something – no, his desire was much simpler.

He wanted him not to be. Not to exist at all.

And the answer to that was just as simple.

I'll kill him.

ooooo

He hatched the idea for several weeks. The problem was that he had never killed anyone before. Sure, he could have had some practice on animals, but he didn't quite enjoyed the idea – he liked animals. Animals never made anyone miserable.

So he just loafed in the Mere or along the small dirty streets of Redfallow's Watch, hoping to come up with some answer to his dilemma. After the incident with the merchant all others – children and adults alike - kept off of him, which suited him just fine. Even Mom's 'guests' were a bit afraid of him, so he preferred to stay outdoors when they arrived – not to ruin Mom's business.

Absentmindedly he straddled into the tavern, small, warm and sooty. Not much customers were around, so he climbed on a bench at the far wall, looking around indifferently, deep in his thoughts. In the shadowed corner of the room he noticed the hunter. He was probably drunk, dozed off with his arms folded, legs flung on the table and his hood pulled deeply on his head. The boy watched him, wondering if this man could actually explain him how to kill somebody, then shook his head. The trapper wouldn't bother. The boy wanted to turn away, when suddenly his eyes froze on the man's hip – precisely on the sheath on it.

The knife.

How could he be so stupid! To kill somebody he needed weapon first!

Slipping off the bench, he silently crept up to the sleeping man and sat quietly near his chair, making sure no one paid attention to him. Then he licked his suddenly dry lips and carefully reached for the hilt of the dagger. His fingers were itching in anticipation as they closed slowly on the knife, and he paused, catching his breath. He bit the tip of his tongue not to make any sounds and began to draw the dagger free.

A hand, quick like a flash of lightning, caught his wrist in a shackle, and he flinched in fright, lifting his gaze. The only green eye stared back at him.

"And what in the Nine Hells you think you are doing, wolfie?" he growled, tightening his grip and making the boy wince.

"…I need a knife," he whispered. His throat was too dry to raise his voice.

"Figured that much," the man snorted. "Why would you need it, huh?"

"To kill," a simple and honest answer rolled off his tongue before he could think.

"Whom?" he asked in scoffing tone, that suggested he didn't believe the boy to be capable of something like that.

The boy licked his lips again. "…A rabbit," he lied finally.

"Really?" there was suspicion in his only eye. "And what makes you think I won't cut off your hand right now for stealing?"

"…Er…" he thought for a second, then shrugged and grinned. "Nothing."

The man grinned back: "Damn you right," the boy felt the grip on his wrist lessen a little. "Unless, of course, you are able to defend yourself. Which I doubt very much."

The boy grinned at him again – and then in one swift motion wrenched free his hand, still grabbing the dagger, drove the blade deep into the man's leg and, before the hunter could take time to come to his senses from pain and surprise, dashed out of the tavern.

He ran through the streets, taking turns, out of the village, up and down the hills, into the swamp, jumping from one mossy hummock to the other, instinctively picking up directions, not stopping for any coherent thought to make its way into his mind. He was running with wind's speed, his heart pounding in his chest so hard it made the ribs hurt, pulse throbbing amuck in his throat and temples. His one hand shoved off the branches that appeared in his way, his other hand clasped the dagger to his torso. He was still grinning, feeling some strange delight, almost rapture sparkling in his blood.

He had the knife. He got it.

He laughed aloud happily at the fact – which was a big mistake, because immediately he lost control of his breath, gasped, stumbled against a tree root, fell on the ground and fainted…

…When he woke up, it was already dark. Not that he was afraid to be in the Mere at night – it wouldn't be the first time. Mom allowed him to stay in the swamp for days if he wanted to. She knew he didn't like being in the village – there was usually nothing to do there.

His fingers were white and cold from the way they grabbed hold on the knife, never letting it out even as he was unconscious. They even crunched when he undo the fist. He got up to his feet, swayed a little, but managed to keep his balance. Looking at the knife, he grinned again, put it in his belt and went straight on, hoping to find some edible plants or roots. He knew a lot of them, so it wouldn't be hard to wait for sometime here, in the Mere. He didn't want to come back right now, figuring the hunter would be looking for him.

The boy smiled, rubbed his nose and started to whistle quietly.

He slept on the trees, ate some plants and finally decided that he could use the time he had to try and kill the rabbit. He found a trace and followed it for some time already.

Maybe he'd even get lucky to find a rabbit-burrow. He had done that already several times…

Someone grabbed the scruff of his neck, jerking him off his feet into the air, and the boy whirled wildly, snatching up the knife and slashing the assailant, but the next instant he was slammed into the nearest tree hard enough to make the stars twinkle before his eyes.

"Smartass, aren't you?" the hunter hissed at him, holding the boy in his stretched out arm - and by that staying out of reach.

The boy groaned in frustration, trying desperately to kick or stab him, but all he achieved was another hard struck against the tree, and almost blacked-out. Hanging feebly in the man's grasp, he clasped the dagger back to his chest.

"I need it," he muttered. "It's mine now."

There was silence, then the hunter suddenly chuckled darkly: "Guess it is now. Earned in blood, huh?" he shook the boy once more. "Are you that smart or that stupid, wolfie?"

"I'll kill him…" he answered quietly, as the man glared at him expectantly. "The merchant…"

"That guy?" the trapper winced in mild disdain. "Why would you bother?"

"…He made Mom cry…"

"Did he," the man growled coldly. "Just can't leave her alone, huh?" again there was silence, and then the boy felt that he was placed on his feet. "Well, don't trouble yourself, wolfie. Jerks like him are not worth the effort."

The boy blinked, leaning against the tree tiredly and looking up at the man.

"Why?" he asked.

"Eh, let him be. His own stupidity is fine enough punishment for him."

The boy contemplated that statement, staring into space.

"By the way," the hunter smirked, "you don't kill rabbits with dagger. You need to trap 'em in a noose first."

"Ah," the boy nodded thoughtfully, then looked up at him again. "Will you teach me that?"

The hunter stared at him appraisingly, before twisting his lips in another smirk: "Know what…? Maybe I will. Now get moving home."

The boy did, and the trapper followed him. Turning his head a little, the boy noticed that the man limped – and his eyes slipped to his hip, wrapped up in a bandage. Noticing his glance, the hunter frowned:

"Yes, yes, you've got me," the boy grinned at his displeased, nearly miffed tone. "You little whoreson."

There was no insult in his words – no, it sounded almost like an approval.

The boy grinned wider, realizing - quite out of the blue - that he wouldn't mind if this man called him "sonny".