It was a night like any other. The tavern now never truly closed, but with added employees and ever-growing income from the inn itself, the family of kobolds had more leisure time and they usually spent it at night on the roof.

The days were getting shorter and the nights cooler, but Grace, Kalindra and Night loved the freedom of the roof. It had become their playground, and their parents welcomed the luxury of allowing them free reign without having to monitor their every moment. The parapet was a solid wall around the roof, and neither Kreet nor Kallid had considered their son’s increasing ability with his wings.

“Kreet,” Kallid was saying, “They barely even can speak in kobold! Do you think that’s right? If ever they do meet with others, they won’t even be able to talk to them.”

“Kally, they can barely speak at all yet. And they’ll certainly need to learn Common living here. Don’t you think it will confuse them more to have to learn both languages?”

Kallid considered that. “I’m not sure really. I grew up with both languages and didn’t have a problem with it though. I just… knew which was which from as far back as I can remember.”

“Oh, I guess you’re right. Okay, how about this… we’ll stick to kobold when we’re alone as a family. They’re going to learn Common anyway.”

Kallid laughed as he stood and stretched his legs. “Well first, you’ll need to learn to speak in kobold! You speak terribly!”

“Really? I’m that bad?”

“Pretty bad Kreet. Let’s do this - while you’re teaching me martial arts, I’ll teach you kobold. I mean, teach you better. Sounds good?”

Kreet looked over at her children. They were playing hide-and-seek again and Grace was covering her eyes and counting. In Common, she noticed. The other two were waddling around, looking for places to hide. It was a game that Kallid had taught them, though they were really too young for it and they often got into fights over it. But then, they often got into fights over anything.

Kalindra waddled over to Kreet and began trying to crawl under her back.

“Kalindra!” Kallid laughed. “That’s no place to hide!”

“Shhh!” Kalindra said, poking her head out from behind Kreet’s back and with a finger over her mouth like the human children did. The three were learning from their human playmates obviously too.

But Night was struggling. He obviously didn’t want to hide in one of the usual places, so he was searching for someplace different. He fluttered up a couple of feet, turning his head around as he scanned for someplace new.

The top of the low cover that his parents had built on the roof was his typical choice, since the other two found it difficult to climb up. But it had the disadvantage of being the first place they looked for him. Kreet could see he rejected it.

Then he looked at the top of the parapet wall.

Suddenly Kreet felt a pang of fear run down her tail. Surely not.

“Kallid?” she said as she stood up.

“Mom!” Kalindra complained as she was revealed.

“Kallid, look at Night. He’s not going to…” she began, but as the words left her mouth her son did exactly what she was afraid of. He fluttered up to the top of the wall.

“NIGHT!” she screamed, and he turned around to face her, a proud smile of accomplishment on his face.

“Night,” Kallid said, low but with a seriousness of tone that the youngster couldn’t mistake. “Get down off the wall. NOW!”

Though sturdy, the parapet was only a few inches wide - and none of the children save Grace were particularly well balanced.

It was likely he would have fluttered back down to the roof without a problem, had he not looked behind him. But Kreet saw her son’s eyes go wide when he saw the drop under his tail. He overbalanced in his reaction and slipped from the wall.

Kreet was frozen like a statue, her arms out as she watched him go over, her eyes locked for a millisecond on her son’s - he in a desperate wail for his mother, her in pure helpless agony.

He disappeared, screaming his small thin scream. For a moment she saw him again, his wings furiously beating the air to regain the parapet - but they were too small and too undeveloped. And then he truly fell.

“Kallid, stay here with the kids,” Kreet shouted, then without waiting for a reply she was down the stairs.

As she raced through the Inn, she had a momentary image of her actually beating Night to the ground as he fluttered slowly down. In other circumstances it would have been funny. But now her adrenaline-boosted muscles were tearing through the hallways and down the stairs as they’d never done before.

Some people undoubtedly shouted at her, but she didn’t even waste a breath on them. She flew out into the street almost in a rage, wanting to blame the gods if the worst had happened.- and knowing she would only be blaming herself in the end.

She turned the corner and immediately saw him, dark in the night on the hard ground. He wasn’t moving and one wing was twisted badly. She dropped to her knees and closed her eyes, reaching out with a power she’d not used in quite some time to assess his condition.

He was alive. His head had taken a nasty bump which was probably what had knocked him unconscious. Skull intact though. The wing was dislocated, but no bones broken there either. All in all, a lot better than it might have been.

The power within her shifted to healing, but she also had learned something of physical healing in her training as a cleric. Though the structure was unlike any she’d learned about, with her sense of his body through the power, she knew where the wing bone had to go and she pushed it back into place as gently as she could without opening her eyes.

Her son groaned, and she willed the pain away as best she could - though it would only work while she was actively drawing on the power. She couldn’t spare him the pain later, but she knew of a tea that should help.

She refocused her attention on his head. He’d have a bump under his scales, but his brain wasn’t damaged. A good thing too. Her mentor had warned her about trying to repair the brain. Touching it with the power could be devastating and was only recommended in extreme cases.

Finally she did an overall scan to be sure she didn’t miss anything. Bruises also on his hand, but those would need to heal naturally. A scrape on his knee, but that had been from Grace pushing him down when they were ‘playing’ earlier.

No, to the best of her ability, he seemed to be alright.

She opened her eyes and saw the small crowd around her. She felt the power leave her and she looked up at the wall. Only three stories, but from here it looked so very high. A waxing moon hung overhead, and she wondered if Eilistraee might have helped her son to minimize his fall.

“How is he?” Kallid said beside her. "Marge is watching the girls."

“He’s going to be okay, Kally. He bumped his head pretty good, and a wing was dislocated. I’ve fixed the wing though. A few other minor bruises. But Kally, he’s going to be fine.”

Kallid hugged his wife, and Kreet suddenly realized what it must be like for him without any ability to help. It was a terrible feeling - like when she’d looked into her son’s eyes as he began to fall. But she had this ability from Pelor, and he didn’t.

She looked at the faces of the crowd around her. None of them did. They had their doctor, but even he didn’t have this ability.

Kallid picked up his child and carried him back into the Inn. The crowd followed him back in, talking quietly to each other.

“You need help, Kreet?” asked a woman Kreet didn’t know well.

She took the woman’s hand and stood up. “Thanks Doreen. No, I’ll be alright. Just takes a lot out of you.”

The woman held Kreet’s shoulder for support till they got back to the door. It was at that point Kreet realized she had been making a terrible mistake.

She had been so focused on making a home for her family, she hadn’t taken advantage of the powers she had. She’d spoken with Doctor Stevens briefly, but she’d never visited him after that. She’d been wasting her talents at the Inn. Sure, she could wait tables - and being waited on by a cute kobold in a waitress outfit obviously had its appeal to her patrons. But her new waitresses did a much better job.

As for running the inn, Marge was much better at that as well. But Kreet could do one thing that they couldn’t. She could heal - and she’d been completely wasting that talent since she’d had the children.

That would stop. Even as she climbed the stairs back to her room behind Kallid, she knew what to do. She would go tomorrow to Dr. Stevens’ office and start to help. She knew next to nothing about most potions and medicines, but the doctor could help her learn that. But with physical injuries, she could do so much more than he could.

Back in their room, her daughters were standing around the bed where Night lay moaning with Kallid tending him.

“Night hurts,” Kalindra said.

“Night okay?” Grace asked.

Kreet nodded. “NIght is hurting, but he’ll be better.”

Her daughters cocked their head in the universal sign of misunderstanding among kobolds.

Kallid turned away from his son and smiled at her. “She’s speaking in kobold, girls. You should learn it. She said ‘Night hurts, but he’s going to be alright.’”

And so Kreet began another apprenticeship under Doctor Stevens during the day before the Tavern opened. Within a few days, Night was as good as new, though he complained about the string that his parents insisted he wear on his foot when he was on the roof.

They also began to take weekly trips outside the city to a wide open field where Night was allowed to take off the string and really practice with his wings while the rest of the family had a little picnic or went fishing in a pond nearby.

In time, these trips paid off. While Night was no bird, he eventually had gotten skilled enough with his wings that he could master hovering and lowering himself gently to the ground. A full year passed before Kreet felt confident enough to let him loose again on the roof, though he’d protested often that he would be more careful. But that night had been so traumatic to Kreet that she refused his every effort, until his prowess out in the field had proved too significant to ignore.