He was once...a boy of 7.
He can't remember his home, or his Father. But he can remember his mother. Her scent, the scratch of fabric on a cheek too young to know pain and fear.
He remembers how soon he learned those things, when they came. And tore into his family and tore his mother apart in ways he did not know were possible let alone comprehended.
They took him, he knows not where, so hazy and the baying of wolves. And silence in between the beatings and the hunger.
Something in his mouth that tasted like the bitter ends of grass and pine needles. His stomach churned and his bowels ached.
He remembers fighting when he was hungry and there would be blood on his knuckles and in the back of his throat and he wouldn't be hungry anymore and the other boy is bleeding but he doesn't care.
He remembers when they tore into him, like they tore into his mother. The anguish and the blood making him curl into himself and sob, wanting the scratchy comfort of his mothers dress, the crush of her chest against his face.
He remembers when he stops crying long enough to realize that he can be free if he takes the shiny glinting pointed edge from his jailers belt.
This time, holding the cutlass in his hand, a weapon too big for him by far, he realizes he can tear into them.
He does.
"!"
Garuda, no...not his real name...wakes.
He shakes his head but he wonders why. He can feel the ghost of pain at the back of his wooden skull, but it's merely that, a shadow of what it means to feel. And he can't for the life of him remember his [******** name.
Slapping the heavy weight of his wooden hand across his face, Garuda curses himself properly for sleeping. He should be awake, but the girls are so far away, the presence of the other one the only thing keeping him conscious.
And now, he is wide awake. And he wonders,How the ******** did that happen so fast..
Lumis former vassal springs to his clawed feet and carefully watches the door
Jazz?
