To Wield Fate Itself: Zelgius
Chapter 1: The Branded Bastard
"You miserable, ignorant, useless child!" The words fell on broken ears. Ears that for years endured the vile utterances lashed upon his person by those amongst his own household. The people who were supposed to be his network of support and comfort, frequently reminded and persisted in affirming that he, this young man was unworthy of even the scraps of their table, the bones of their plates, and the smell of their waste. "Turd!" This was his name, not that it was his given name, a name placed upon a baby's person as a sweaty worn out mother holds her love in her arms and places in one word love. Rather, this was the curse hurled at him most frequently. When it was time for supper, it was hollered, when the adults wanted someone to beat, it was yelled. Never has this title, this name for the young man ever been softly spoken, with any semblance of love and care. Never has he experienced love.
You may wonder how such a fate may befall one so young, why a family would treat someone supposedly of their kin with complete disregard. Would a mother actually hate the fruit of her loins? Would a father look upon a son in disgust? While wicked people exist and neglectful abusive parents are a reality, the people who feigned guardianship for the boy were not his parents. Truly, he was unsure who they really were in relation to him, at times he even pondered the predicament, especially when other children seemed to have parents who actually enjoyed their existence, who toiled to give them joy, while all he got was laborious work and whippings. Other children received hugs he received foot stomps from an angry drunk man. Originally, he only knew the two heads of his household as Dominus and Domina, while this was a title reserved for a slave to address their masters. However, the boy lacked such knowledge. Others in his household referred to them by this name and he never thought anything of it. He once got up the courage to ask who they were in relation to him, the answer given him was three broken ribs and weak without rations. He never asked again, though the question always loomed large in his heart. Did he have parents? Were Dominus and Domina his parents? If they were, then why didn't they love him as other parents cherished their children? Though he refused to give voice to these thoughts, they rarely escaped his mind.
His world was the confines of the home he served. A smaller house of light nobility in the kingdom of Daein, one of the main sovereign kingdoms on the continent of Tellius, a peninsula on which people believed that all life on earth dwelled. Countless expeditions elsewhere to find life ended in complete failure and death. Dominus was a minor lord serving the king of Daein as steward of Terin, a small trading center in part of the kingdom. Despite the influence of Dominus, the boy never had left even the grounds of the home.
The world beyond the door of the house seemed a distance realm of infinite possibility and question for the young man. This was all he had his thoughts, with nothing else for comfort and affection in his world of torment, his one place of solace was the realm of wonder locked inside his head. This was where he desired to be instead of cleaning, tending the animals, or being beaten as a training tool by Dominus' children. This was the worst part of his existence, the training exercises. These were punishments for him alone to endure. With the other pains of serving Dominus the other slaves endured the hardships just as he did, yet with the training exercises, he alone felt the sting. Dominus had two children younger than the boy, but their appearance looked much more mature and older. War was a constant part of Tellius as brigand gangs, and rival nations incited conflict with little respite in between. Dominus, was a rather rotund man and lacked any skill in fighting or magic, yet felt it his duty as a father to teach his boys the "art" of fighting. His lessons were silly and lacked true form, yet the blows hurt nonetheless. Dominus forced the boy to stand still in the center of the common room of the house while the boys came at him and hit him repeatedly with blunt wooden practice swords. When the boy was finally unable to stand Dominus brought over two other slaves to hold him up so that the practice could continue. These happened often and today was one of those days. The smacks of the swords still hurt yet, with each training session the young man noticed the blows becoming less painful, less harmful to him. He was able to stand longer against the attacks of his assailants. This confused him.
He was a relatively handsome young man with the appearance of a 13-year-old boy, despite being closer to 20 years old. He was never fed well, so he was very thin. His body however thin was toned in his muscles from all his work and beatings. His hair was black and unkempt flowing wildly all over reflecting his status in the household. The sons of Dominus loved to break him; he was their favorite toy.
"Father, he isn't going down. Make him go down!" the youngest son said to Dominus.
"Just hit him harder." Dominus replied. The reply of his father angered the boys further. The older son had had enough. He swung with might toward face of the one they called Turd, smacking him straight in the jaw. The blow knocked the young man to the ground, he covered his mouth in pain as he prayed for mercy. "Stop it! Stop it, you stupid child!" Dominus yelled to his boys as he took away their wooden swords. "You know the rules of training, no face shots, you stupid child!"
"But Father, he wouldn't go down." The younger son replied.
"I don't care! You never hit in the face during practice." Dominus hovering over the boy writhing in pain on the ground with his left boot rolled him over. "Good, it won't left a scar." He walked away from the room, showing no further empathy. Dominus to the slaves told the boys never to hit the face, because it is classless to disfigure the face of his slave. This was the reason that the slaves heard, however the real reason for no face shots in any punish for his slaves is that it lowers their value. A slave with an unscathed face could be traded for more purposes than just labor, which gave them greater worth. This was the only reason Dominus cared about the face of his slaves. Without the monetary advantage of a smooth face of a slave, he could care less. They were his dogs, nothing more.
The sons spat on the boy still pained and on the ground. "Turd! Stay down." The call of Domina rang through the chamber, dinner for the family was about to be served. The boys' attention shifted to the smell floating through the air. They no longer cared about punishing their plaything and ran off toward the dining room to feast after a beating well given. The two other slaves standing near meant to hold the boy in place now moved toward him. "Quick get his head!" One said to the other. "Let's move him to our room quick." The two grabbed boy who was paralyzed by the pain in his jaw still throbbing. The two slaves moved him to their quarters. These two like the other three slaves in the household had no formal name. However, each slave enjoyed the others and they still could communicate even without a name. They were friends and these two hated how Dominus' sons treated this young man. Once in the shack of room the older looking of the two gave the lad some water while the other made him comfortable. "I'm tired of this. They treat us lower than dogs." Tears were welling up in his eyes. "Last week those two brats kicked me in my groin three times a piece because their mother made them eat rice. We cannot stand for this!"
"But what can we do?" the older one said to the younger. "This is our life."
"We escape. We kill them and escape." The older man leaned back in disbelief. "Hear me out. Here at the house there are only two armed guards at the door to the house and the four members of Dominus' family. There are six of us slaves. We could do this, we could escape." The older one was confused, it had been years since he had been outside the walls of the house, he was nervous about this. "Friend, this town has few soldiers outside the house, I've heard Dominus complain about the lack of soldiers often. In addition, he has rarely ever brought other soldiers inside the home. So if we killed them and escaped, who could recognize us as runaways? No one that's who!" The older looked on to the young boy as if to lay his choice on the hands of the younger ones. Still holding his cheek the boy, wondered if it would work if they could really do it. Could they be free? Could the pain stop? Fear ran over his body, the younger slave now looked upon him also, hoping he would agree.
"Let me think about it." The young man said to the two. Disappointed at the hesitation by his beaten comrade, the younger slave ceased to press issue as they awaited their evening tasks.
As the meal ended, Domina rang the hand bell for the slaves to come clear the table and clean the dining hall. The young man, now with a swollen cheek was tasked with scrubbing the table while all five others were to clean the table and wash the dishes. The family went and reclined near the hearth one room over while Domina left to go meet with other wives of some social standing for evening drinks. Dominus pulled from the shelves a bottle of free whiskey, much to the delight of his sons. "Drink up boys, but don't tell Mother!" Their cheers drowned out the sound of the labor in the house, all the slaves could hear was the reckless spouting of the drinking men. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
"Father why do you have us beat Turd, more than the other slaves?" The drunken question rang throughout the house, perking the interest of all the servants. "Father why him?"
Dominus had always evaded the question before this moment, yet he had been sober when it was asked of him. "Well I'll tell you boys a story about that Turd!" He howled with the aid of whiskey. "I once had a sister and a better seat in the court of Daein, before you were born. At the time I also had a sister who was very pretty….so pretty, men offered my father when he was alive mounds of money for her hand. Of course the idiot refused them all." Dominus gulped another deep swig from the bottle. "So one day my sister brought home a man to meet me a few years after our father died. Saying they were in love." At this point in the story all listening were confused. How did this relate to Turd?
"However he was a filthy laguz from Gallia." The boys grew angry, the slaves perked up even more, one of the slaves was from Gallia.
The world of Tellius had two major races, the beorc or humans, and the laguz, humans who had characteristics of animals and transformed into certain animals for combative reasons. Both races had a natural disgust for the other races nations. The Beorc hated the laguz because they saw them as feral creatures unworthy of civil life. In addition, the laguz hated the beorc for being pompous slavers of their kind. Most wars fought on Tellius were between the two races. When this was mentioned all understood, even the most uneducated of the slaves. The sister in the story had upset and disgusted Dominus.
"So.." The drunkard continued. "He keep harping about how he wished to marry her, my sister, how wanted her to be his sub-human trash bride." Rage filled his voice. "So I told him that if he fought in the military that I'd allow it. However….HAHAAH!" Dominus had broken out in laughter much to the surprise of everyone including his sons who were very interested in the story. "I arranged for him to be executed in the army camp. Filthy Trash!" Everyone tensed up and the slaves ceased working completely, keen to hear the end of this story. "I thought that end it, however, that stupid wench had laid with him and conceived a baby with that trash. That filthy trash had laid with my sister!" His fist punched the mantelpiece above the hearth. "I asked to kill that baby in the womb, but she refused. She bore the baby, but in the birth….she died from the child birth. That baby was half laguz half beorc, a branded with a brand on his back forever making him different and weird. That baby is Turd. That's why I love to see you beat that bastard son of a sub-human."
The sound filled the halls. The young boy dropped his cleaning tools; he clenched his fists in anger. Rage filled his soul. Dominus is my uncle, and this whole time he has treated me as a dog, no worse. He killed my Father as well. These thought flooded this mind. The young man stood up and went to the kitchen where the other slaves were standing; they too were shocked and disgusted by the actions of Dominus. The young man went straight to the younger slave who had helped him earlier. He looked across the room, and saw the laguz who was tired of being the "house pet", the two female slaves who feared for their physical safety nightly, the old man who in 50 years had never tasted freedom, and himself a branded, a person who could never fit in truly with either race. He reached out his right hand and placed it on the shoulder of the younger slave who helped him earlier. "I'm in." He glanced around the group sensing the mixture of fear, anger, and unease. "Let's kill them Now!"