FE10(Radiant Dawn)
Warning: Contains Rape
It was times like this when he had to get away.
He couldn't be weak. He couldn't afford to be weak – not now, not ever. He always had to be strong. This is what you learn when you grow up on the streets, barely scrounging by. Because only the strong survive. This is what you learn when you take risks that you know could end your life, when you see your allies fall in battle without truly knowing them, who they were. When you watch the life fade from an enemy's eyes as his blood spills on you, and you realize he was more than just an enemy – an actual man. You realize you just made someone fatherless, or you've made someone a widow. You've robbed someone of a child, or a sibling. The strong survive and the weak perish. This is what you learn when you slit someone's throat and turn to stab the next man approaching you – the thought that he is a man no longer phasing you and making you sick to your stomach. If he was weak, he would die.
Crying was weak.
You never let anyone see you cry, living on the streets of Daein. Curled in the slums. The only friends you had would laugh at you and tell you to suck it up – life is tough. If you could call them friends. You live constantly on the edge – knowing that at any moment, you could be betrayed. It was to survive. The strong do anything to survive.
And he had lost her.
He had the lost the one true friend he had – the one person he considered family. She was his sister, his mother. She was the only one who had ever cared. They were alike. They were both abandoned by their parents and left to live on the streets, fend for themselves or die. He had often wondered if she, too, had stabbed him in the back. She, too, had wanted only to get rid of him. But she would never do that to him. Never. He knows this.
And he had never been happier when they were reunited and she apologized. And they swore to forever protect each other, to never let their family be torn apart again. And he stayed silent. He did not cry. He did not tell her of the hardships he had endured after she left. He told her of the war and how he fought, and she told him of how she had survived. And they bonded again. And they lived. He lived in silence, keeping his secrets. Remaining strong. And when the perilous riots finally settled in their country with no leader, life seemed to start to obtain some sense of normalcy. And when another war ravaged their homeland, she was determined to help fight back. He joined her, due to his promise, to a sense of duty, and helped her, envying her ability to communicate. Her friends.
He didn't trust anyone else. He just couldn't. But the orange-clad sage had always struck a chord in him. Somehow. His energy and his… Enthusiasm. His kindness. It made him want to trust him. Want to. He could never let himself, though. Trust was something too fragile. They were too different, in any case. They would never see each other again after the Mad King's War, would they?
But fate or chance or whatever it was seemed to love to prove him wrong. When he saw the familiar orange on the battlefield of the next war, heard a familiar Elfire spell leave his lips and witnessed the familiar batch of flames – if only more controlled and powerful – he couldn't helped the slight hope in his hardened heart. Three years. Would he remember him? Why should he? Why would anyone bother to commit to memory a thieving street urchin?
But yet again, the sage had surprised him. The sage joked as if time had not passed. He contradicted everything the thief had taught himself, that he knew about people. People didn't care. Yet the sage cared about him, shared stories with him, sparred with him. He had slowly broken down his walls and had become so very important to him. He had become… Much more than a friend to him, that was certain. He made him feel special, the way the sage kissed him and touched him and held him.
He was the last person that the thief wanted to have see him like this. He had to flee. He had to be alone when he was like this. When the demons came back to haunt him and tears stinging his eyes threatened to spill. He curls into himself behind barrels and crates in the supply tent, glaring down at his reflection in a muddy puddle from before the tent was placed. Golden eyes, filled with hatred at what they were seeing. Shaggy green locks falling into his face. Secrets. So much he knew he always had to keep to himself. He could never bring himself to burden someone else with his past. What happened, happened. This is war. The world is cruel.
Slut.
He thrusts his knife at the reflected boy, growling as the mud splashes his hand and boots. He clenches his eyes shut as a salty tear escapes its years of imprisonment. He pants as his wrist keeps twisting, grinding the knife farther into the ground, further into his own mental being.
"I-I hate you… You're worthless… None of them need you… Y-You know they all want you gone…" He growls out the words. He wrenches the blade from the ground, the mud sucking at it as it leaves its grasp with a pop. He opens his eyes to glare again, seeing an equally angry pair. Hurt. So hurt.
He buries the blade in the ground again, over and over. Relentless in his assault on the boy in the muddy water. The boy worth little more than dirt, if that. The mud splatters over him, reminding him for a split second of blood. But it was too cold.
It was then that he realized this wasn't good enough. While he's panting and his arm is starting to get sore, dagger buried to the hilt in mud. He pulls it from the earth once again, looking the blade over before holding it over his arm. He disregards the fact that it's coated in filth. It doesn't matter. He is filth. He holds it over his wrist, shaking a little. He's about to press down when his voice surprises him.
"Sothe…"
The said thief gasps and drops the knife, blinking up at familiar orange orbs. He quickly looks away again, hiding his tear-filled eyes, the dirty face. Still, the sage kneels next to him, cupping his cheek despite the mud and gently wiping it the best he can. "T-Tormod…"
"Micaiah and I have been worried…"
"… You don't need to worry about me. L-Leave…"
"… I think I do." And then the sage hugs him as the thief protests, but can't manage to truly push him away. He gives in as a sob racks his body, burying his face in his neck. The warmth of the sage's arms envelopes him, causing him to wonder if the fire magic attributes to his constant comforting heat. "… Talk to me, Sothe… I want to be here for you…" He shakes his head in protest. He doesn't wish to burden someone so special, so pure… "You don't have to be alone. Please…" A gentle kiss presses to his forehead.
He just keeps shaking his head, trying desperately to stop the tears. He can't be weak. Weakness is punished…
He ducked through the mass of people shouting, fighting, moving with no purpose. Daein was precisely as he expected it to be. Without a king, without order, its people had fallen into a state that was purely human. Barbaric, without order or punishment. Murder and thievery was rampant. Thus, the perfect cover to steal for himself. However, the mass was getting too vicious, so he slipped into the nearest building. Taking in the surroundings, it was a bar. There would be food. He snuck behind the unmanned counter, searching for anything edible – or valuable. He froze when he heard footsteps, moving immediately for the backdoor – petrified when it opened. He moved to back up, to run the other way, but he hit another body, the man trapping his wrists before the young teenager could grab for his dagger. His sack of the little loot he managed fell from his hand, one of the men picking it up as the caught thief growled his protest, struggling in his captor's tight grip. He managed to count them – six disgusting, very obviously angry, middle-aged men. They must've owned the place or something like that. Damn. There was one, and only one, all important rule to being a thief. Never get caught. Especially without access to your weapon. Sothe turned his head and bit his captor's arm. Hard. He didn't seem to appreciate that, cursing and throwing him on the floor, kicking him sharply in the stomach. The teen gasped as the air left him, curling in on himself, but managing to pull his blade from his belt. He heard one of the men snort and his defense was kicked from his hand. He internally cursed. He had never gotten caught before, not once. This was bad. "What should we do with the brat?" "We oughta teach 'im a lesson." "Heh, I've got an idea… Let's put him to use, then." He simply glared up at the men, making a move to retrieve his knife the moment he could breathe again, only to quickly be snatched up by one of them, seemingly unphased by his thrashing. He could smell alcohol on him. Well, what to expect from the workers of a bar. He grunted as he was slammed down onto the counter, gasping as he felt rope binding his wrists. He started to thrash, getting ready to finally open his mouth and cuss them all out when more rope was stuffed into his mouth, tied at the back of his head and gagging him. His eyes widened when he felt his pants being roughly tugged down, exposing him, and his heart got caught in his throat as it dawned on him what they had planned. He struggled again, growling over the rope. He wrestled with the poorly tied knot binding his hands, sitting himself up the best he could when he freed them and nailing the closest guy he could reach in the jaw. But there were just too many of them. Almost as soon as the man had staggered back from the blow, his arms hand been slapped back down on the counter. He was hurling muffled curses at them, stomach knotting in fear that he refused to show. He had absolutely no warning. Foul words became a muffled howl of agony, eyes wide as he blinked at the source of his pain. His own dagger was jammed into the back of his hand, all the way through his palm and buried in the counter. He could see the blood bubbling a bit along the edges of the wound and pain shot through him with each twitch. He could only close his eyes before another knife dug into his other hand, trying in vain to hold in his cry. He didn't want to give them that satisfaction. He gasped as a hand clapped across his bare backside, gritting his teeth as his body automatically jerked away, causing sharp pain to shoot from his palms. Another slap. And another. He was grinding his teeth to keep from making sound, face flushing at the laughter and sickening comments as it continued, at some point a palm being replaced by a belt. He could feel the blood trickling and bubbling from his wounds as they burned in his hands, screeching their own protest. Welts being beaten onto his enflamed skin. And all of a sudden, he felt the most terrible pain he had ever experienced in his entire life. He'd been poisoned, stabbed, hacked, cut, burned, and knocked unconscious. None of it compared. The shriek ripped from his throat, fingers and toes curling, the pain in his arms almost forgotten. He was being Sothe felt ready to pass out after they had all taken a few rounds each, finally ripping the blades from his hands. His throat was too dry and sore to scream anymore. He vaguely felt hands roughly pulling his pants up and pulling the rope from his mouth. Arms heaving him up and tossing him out a door. His body rolled, and then just laid there. He felt completely separate from it. All he could feel was pain, blood. Pure agony ripped through him with every slight movement, each breath. Millions of knives stabbing him, poison eating him from the inside out. But he couldn't be weak. After many tries, Sothe pushed himself up and stumbled along, leaning into the grimy walls as he walked, head swimming. And the thief set out again to find his lost family member, who thankfully had a gift in healing magic. The bleeding holes in his hands would be nothing more than ugly scars… Reminding him of the most important rules in life.
The sage sighs as he holds his thief, gentle fingers running through his hair. He kisses his forehead again before slowly lying back, letting the earth support him as he holds the teen on his chest. The thief simply hides his face in his neck, tears still streaming. Fighting to imprison the sobs. The weakness.
Never get caught. Only the strong survive.