Het had no mother, but Het had an aunt, and she was plain and fat and good. She lived in a small hut outside a small town on the edge of an ancient forest. The town had no name and the forest had so many that if one knew half of them, there would be no more room in their head. The aunt had a name. It was Gerde.
Gerde cared for Het, even though he had killed her sister in birth. It had been done without malice, after all.
After a few years, Gerde fell ill and Het was left to amuse himself much of the time. He went months without speaking to anyone. He invented entire worlds in the pool behind his house, filling it with all manner of creature and god from out his head. He began to sing along with birds and hum with the flies. As Gerde wasted, Het lost his grip on his mind.
He was a pleasant enough fool as a young teen. Gerde was dead, and Het begged for the bit of food he could each day. The people of the town thought him an idiot, and though fearsome about the face, he was also thin and frail looking.
When Het hit his teens in full, he became more and more erratic, dangerous even. Paranoia gripped him. Hallucinations clouded his vision and filled his ears with terrible voices. After a horrid little bout of raving, he was chased from the town, deep into the forest.
Where he was found by another aunt, this one much more sinister, and, in some way, more loving. She came to Het and made a deal with him, one he could not resist.
He emerged from the forest years later, quieter and colder and less insane. Still insane, but with purpose.
His aunt had told him that she had plagued him with those thoughts as a test, one he had yet to pass. She was curious whether that little child who sang with birds could weather the storm and so had thrown one at him, for years and years. He was not doing a good job. So she would help him. If she would help her. Now he serves her the best he can, no slave, but eager to find a way to know a moment of peace before he dies and so willing to do her bidding for that chance. She sent him west, because that was where the sun set, she had said.
Het travelled far, begging his way across the land, doing the odd job here and there, using his abilities learned from his aunt to earn his bread when no one would give him any. And the farther west he travelled, the less willing the people were to part with their bread.
When the chance at guard work came along, he took it gladly. He was frightening, and that was worth a little coin on the road.
