This was originally written as background for some other FE fic I wanted to write. I didn't end up liking how this came out all that much in the end, but I decided to throw it up here anyway.

Birthright

The first thing Muarim remembers, if he really thinks back, is the hot Begnion sun beating down on the back of his unprotected neck as he was hustled along the two-file line of laguz slaves in the plantation fields behind his master's estate. It would be months before he ever saw his master's face for the first time, but as long as Muarim could remember being aware of his own existence, he had known that he belonged to his master.

He didn't even learn his master's name until he was ten years old – or his best estimate, because none of the slaves kept track of birthdays, and if they were caught privately celebrating another's supposed birthday, they were punished for wasting time. He rarely heard his master's name being spoken; everyone just referred to him as Master. It was simply the way things were done.

For some reason, though – and Muarim couldn't quite place it – the first time he ever heard his master's name spoken, it stuck with him. It stayed in his ears and it bled into his tongue, and he spoke the name quietly to himself over and over again, tasting it as if it were an exotic food.

Lord Entellus. That was his name. When Muarim first heard it, his grasp on the beorc was poor –despite the fact that it was everywhere around him, it felt strange and alien to his ears and tongue – and he thought it was all one name, like Lordentellus. It wasn't until someone taught him beorc letters later on – in private, and he was under oath never to let anyone know – did he learn any better.

Lord Entellus was not a kind master, but Muarim would never have known the difference. He learned from the other slaves that his mother and father had both been slaves here too, but he had never seen his mother or father. The other slaves were the only family he knew – they were all family, in an unfamiliar, terse way, in a way that grew out of necessity and the desire to survive, in whatever cruel existence the goddess would grant them. Muarim was not a slow child, and when he was allowed to view the world beyond the slave barracks and the shoes of their masters, he quickly noticed that those without tails or wings were different in ways other than appearance. They were the lords, the masters, the keepers of them all. They were not kept confined, and it was an intrinsically understood fact that Muarim and those like him lived only to serve these creatures known only as beorc. Even those beorc that served their master were above Muarim and his ilk – he could never explain how he knew; it was as if it was instinctual knowledge. It was their birthright, and Muarim never once questioned it. He never even knew the word laguz until so much later. To Muarim, a slave was all he was.

Not even on the day that he received his first beating did he question it. He had erred somewhere, though he did not know where, and it was not explained to him when he was pulled roughly out of his work, or even when the whip met his back with a stinging lash. The beorc with the whip gave him ten lashes – ten sharp, savage beatings that cut into the calloused, sun-browned skin on his back. The beorc man's disgust for him was so strong that Muarim thought he could taste it. He made no sound save for the terse grunt of breath that hissed between his clenched teeth with every strike of the whip. He had seen other slaves get beaten before. He knew better than to make any sound. But the tears on his face glistened brightly in the afternoon sun, and he was sent back for five more lashes for being so foolish as to think he deserved his own self-pity.

It wasn't until later, when one of the older slaves tended to his bloody wounds with a crudely made salve in the barracks, that Muarim learned his transgression. He had been caught enjoying but one of the small but sweet fruits of their labor, instead of harvesting them like they were all supposed to. At the time Muarim hadn't thought that one small fruit would have made a difference. After that, though, Muarim quickly came to learn that he deserved to enjoy nothing for himself.

It was not the last of his beatings, despite his attempts to do his very best. Sometimes he suspected that the beorc with the whip simply enjoyed doling out lashes without much cause at all, but such was the lot of a slave. Still, Muarim's efforts had their payoffs. Before long, the estate's master had begun to notice what an exceptionally strong and dedicated slave Muarim was. Muarim might not have been the sharpest of the group, but even he had begun to notice that the beorc servants were beginning to treat him a little less harshly, that the beorc with the whip kept his lash away from Muarim for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Muarim merely observed it all in solemn, stoic silence, but never questioned it, because this was his heritage, the way it was meant to be.

Muarim was twenty-two when Lord Entellus made him one of his personal slaves – still young, but not so much by beorc standards, he learned. Muarim was no longer to work the plantations with the majority of the laguz. It was as if he were suddenly more important than those who worked in the fields, almost on the same level as the beorc servants themselves, but they still cast him looks of disdain every time he passed, and Lord Entellus treated him more like a prized pet than an equal. But Muarim could not seem to find it strange, because things had always been this way, and always would be.

Some of the slaves sneered at him as he passed, now, and some of them looked at him with resentment; others, envy. Muarim had to admit that it was nice not to have to spend the length of his days out under the sun, but the thought still made his ears twitch, because something in him told him that that very labor was what this strong and able body had been born to do. And some days, Muarim would have preferred the long hours and difficult work to those spent indoors among the lords of the beorc. The beorc, it seemed, had deeply complex customs that seemed to revolve largely around the telling of creative lies to one another, and it took Muarim many months and more to learn even the surface patterns of the intricacies of beorc noble etiquette. He was beaten for failing to act within its accordances.

Muarim quickly learned that his master fancied his blade, lavishing upon it the kind of care and attention one would a favored lover or child. Muarim had seen him fight other beorc with the sword, but it seemed to him that Lord Entellus's opponents never fought very hard at all, and went down shamefully quickly. This mystified Muarim, who could not imagine why one would ever forfeit a fight so easily, but he dismissed it as a beorc trait and continued on serving under Entellus.

But Entellus was grossly proud of Muarim's strength and physical development, the corded muscles and sturdy figure forged from years of grueling labor, and it was only a matter of time before he demanded that Muarim meet him in combat – in his beast form, no less. This baffled Muarim even further, because he had been allowed to transform only to perform the most difficult of physical tasks in his work on the fields, but he questioned not the orders of his master.

Muarim could not understand why he was beaten when he defeated his master in combat in less than two minutes. It was never explained to him, but Muarim, as observant as he was, gathered that Lord Entellus's ego was a fragile thing, and thus all were to fall before him, regardless of their level of skill. After that, Muarim was never pitted against his master again, but was instead charged with helping with the care of Entellus's sword.

Muarim can also remember the first time he came to question his life as a slave. It was one of the single most unsettling – and yet, at the same time, liberating – moments in his life. He heard one of the older slaves – the old cat who'd taken care of him after his first whipping – talking of the days of old, the days of Gallia. The name sounded strange to Muarim, but when he repeated it to himself quietly,it tasted familiar on his tongue. He remembers asking the old slave what Gallia was.

"Gallia," said the old cat wistfully, his limp tail twitching thoughtfully, "Gallia is our homeland, little one. It is the place where our brothers and sisters roam as they please, where all are free and happy."

Muarim's life had always been about slavery, about service. The thought that it could have been about something else sent his personal reality reeling sharply. He dismissed the old cat's talk as nothing but fairy tales – they were slaves, and they were laguz, and that was the same thing, wasn't it? – but he could not stop his dreams from showing him images of places he'd never seen before – thick humid jungles and endless grassy plains on which the beast laguz were free to roam in their beast forms, joined under one benevolent ruler…

Muarim knew his birthright, but he knew nothing of his true heritage.