Monster
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All dialogue and written text within is completely original. Credit must be given to FireLizard, however, for helping to provide the loyal fans of Fire Emblem with his English translation of FE6.
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Keep walk…keep…walk…walk…walk walk walk…
Gonzales walked, ignoring the rocks pelting his unprotected head and neck. Some of them were rather large and made strong bruises; others were smaller and stung like welts as they caromed off. The large man's tattered shirt did little to protect his muscles and skin from anything, and his pants were worn and torn at the bottom, dirt-ridden and dull carmine-stained with blood. His bare feet were callused and scarred.
Gonzales, not understanding many of the raw words the townspeople slung at him, was only subjected to about a quarter of the verbal barbs—the obvious ones, such as "monster", "inhuman", and "beast". The passage of time had made the familiar feeling of rocks less hurtful, and he had become so accustomed to the slurs that he could recount in memory and recite them at will without pausing or stuttering. It was the other unintelligible words that bothered him the most, as at least if he had known their meanings he could have repeated them and been comfortable with their usage.
Every day, Gonzales walked through the small mountain village, one of the nicer rural settlements on the Western Isles, away from the mines where victims were sent to work themselves to death. Each day, upon arriving, Gonzales saw the faces of many people, each of which was new to him every day, even when each person was the same. In truth, he only ever saw half of the townsfolk at any time, as most of them hid away in their little houses when the big man was seen coming on the horizon. Most of the others stood near houses at shops at the sides of the cobbled road, piles of stones at their feet.
They derided his very being in the village, but at exactly what their spite was directed varied by day or perhaps by the way the zephyr happened to blow. Often they amassed their hate at his unsightly face, the way his wild brown hair was unkempt and unclean. Other times they threw their stones because of his hulking stupidity, at the fact this brutish fiend could barely form a coherent sentence. Sometimes they threw just because they could.
Every time Gonzales came walking through, the townspeople were always there; sometimes few, sometimes many, but they were always there, and never was Gonzales able to amble through without being confronted by the folk, most of whom wouldn't even stand close to him, many of whom trembled whenever he came near.
Sometimes Gonzales would reflexively mutter the words they were saying as he walked by, trying to better appreciate their meaning. The townspeople said many words, after all, and they all meant the same thing.
"Monster…m-monster…aah…mons-monster…"
Gonzales walked, his head hung low to stop the rocks from hitting his eye, as he had learned from experience that eyes were not good places for rocks. The medicine shop was just ahead. Gonzales sifted through many pieces of gold, which he held in his cupped, rough hands, and admired their slightly tarnished gold luster to pass the time as he walked along. This gold was the latest payment for his services, a stipend given by his employer, an Etrurian lord by the name of Nord. The job was to remove several potential rebellious louts wandering the area, none of whom could defend themselves from Gonzales' axe, and as such the task was completed quickly and silently. This particular job had earned the bandit a sum of four hundred, enough to buy some simple necessities; unlike the many other hired mercenaries of Nord, who were paid a thousand for every job, and often more for a job quickly done.
The townspeople stopped throwing rocks as Gonzales entered the medicine store. The inside of the apothecary's was modest and quite cramped for the burly man. The air was thick and filled with smoke that smelled of herbs burning over a gentle flame. Gonzales looked around the shop and stopped at the back counter, where the presiding apothecary sat reading.
"I come for buying," Gonzales announced, gently placing his cupped hands on the counter, the coins still jingling gaily. He fidgeted in place. From his seat, the apothecary looked up, realigned the glasses bearing on his nose, and stood up, robes trailing on the ground behind him.
"Yes?" the man said. "Can I help you?"
"How…what cost…what cost for vul…vul…vulney?" Gonzales asked, dropping his pile of gold onto the wooden counter.
"You mean a vulnerary?" the apothecary enunciated. He looked over at Gonzales, the man so much different than he was. The shopkeep was an intelligent man with a pensive, thoughtful face, soft skin like the softest of feathers, soft blue eyes hidden behind smoothed-glass spectacles. Gonzales was less an intellectual than this man was, uneducated, lacking in the refining of mannerisms learned by the apothecary in the royal halls of Etruria, with a hard face and a mouth of disarranged teeth, some broken, some lost, some jutting aimlessly outward. Only the heady air of musk and herbs masked the burly fellow's unwashed scent, the apothecary mused, now infinitely thankful for his gravitation to incense. Gonzales squinted to see the shopkeeper's face through the smoke, etching his face into memory even as parts of him remembered seeing this particular shopkeep before.
After a time of being lost for words, Gonzales nodded and said, "Yes. Vulnery".
"That would be three hundred gold for three," the apothecary said.
"Ah…tree…"
The apothecary rolled his eyes. "Here, let me look." He quickly sifted through the pile of gold on the counter. "You have just enough here," he said with a detached face, removing a bag with three small potions from a back shelf and dropping them into Gonzales' hand from a reasonable distance away.
"Ah…get…vul…nice…you nice. I happy." Unable to think of any words to repay the man, Gonzales just smiled a toothy smile and left with his potions cradled in his hands like a precious bundle.
As he left, the apothecary smiled a terrible smile and laughed heartily. He put three hundred gold in a storage place behind the counter, and the remaining hundred he put in his pocket.
-
The last thing Gonzales always did before he left the village to return to Nord's castle was walk over to one of the village's small back alleys. Some time ago, wandering around through the town's streets, Gonzales chanced upon a small animal, a tiny furred creature with vivid blue eyes that mewed when he picked it up. It was a "cat", Gonzales knew, as he had seen many happy children playing with them in the streets. This one was a baby, a "kitten", and it purred contently whenever Gonzales stroked its head. The little animal never spoke, never called him bad names, and it always seemed so carefree and delighted whenever Gonzales came to visit.
The little kitten fit so perfectly in the cradle of Gonzales' large hands, it often chose to fall asleep there, where it was safe and secure until it awoke hours later and Gonzales let it run free. Day after day after day, without fail, the large bandit came to the alley where the kitten lived, and without fail, the little cat came running to the large man instinctively, often without a single sound. Never once did anyone even approach the alley, not a single time did anyone give a second thought, Gonzales noted. In fact, he wondered if maybe no one else knew the little cat was there.
Without anyone else, Gonzales made it a habit of his to visit his little friend every day. The man was ugly, he was a monster, but the little kitten was a cute, innocent thing that didn't run upon seeing his face. It never did anything to hurt anyone, and it seemed to understand what Gonzales felt when he felt too ugly to be with the cute, sweet little creature. The kitten slowly began to grow up, and not once did it every shy away from his hulking form, even when it became old enough to hunt and roam and find its way on its own.
The last thing Gonzales did before he left the village was to go and check up on his friend. The day before, the cat had seemed bit ill, so Gonzales drank one of his vulneraries to tend his own wounds, and carried two in his satchel to give his friend. When he reached the small alley, he squinted to see the cat through the draping shadows.
"Cat? Cat? C-cat? Where cat?"
Halfway through the alley, Gonzales saw the cat slumped against a wall, immobile. He rushed to the creature, dropping the two remaining vulneraries, spilling their contents against the ground. He took the cat in its hands and held it, and it neither stirred nor purred nor looked up at its custodian.
"C-cat?" Gonzales said, and he fell to his knees. Squinting his eyes at the creature in his hands, he began to see the blood completely soaking its fur. He tilted the cat's head toward him with a finger, and its eyes were lifeless and shut. "G-guh? Wh-what? Cat? Cat? Why you hurt? Who…who…" He shook the cat and petted its back again, trying to open one of its eyes with an over-large finger.
"You!"
Gonzales rose and spun around in the direction of the voice, still holding onto the dead cat for dear life.
A clean-shaven man with a clean shirt stood framed at the end of the alley, glazed by the orange of the setting sun. He pointed a finger, trembling in anger, at Gonzales, lips trembling, voice raging.
"You! What have you done, you monster? What did you do to that poor little creature?"
"I-I- C-cat…" Gonzales stammered. More people began to appear at the end of the alley as if at the ringing of a bell: Men, women, and even children, held by their parents' arms. The more people that came, the more Gonzales began to feel alone again.
"How could you?" the first man said. "What did that creature ever do to you?"
"You monster!" said one woman. "How could you butcher an innocent little creature?"
The voices began to accrue until they cascaded upon one another.
"Mama…what happened to the little kitten?"
"You murderer? How could you?"
"You've done it this time, you ugly inhuman scum."
"Get out of the village and never come back!"
"Mommy, I'm scared of the big bad man…I don't know what he'll do."
"Go away. We have no place for you here. Go away!"
Gonzales clutched the cat tighter to his body and cradled it as he did when it was alive. The townspeople continued to yell, some of them stepping forward through the alley, brandishing fists and swords and warning the large axe-fighter to leave or else. He turned to the people and growled, his bottom lip rumbling and his roar bellowing.
"Ah," the crowd murmured, "listen! He really is a beast!"
Gonzales looked around, his brow rumpled in rage. He shook his head around, whipping his hair violently, helpless and anguished. At his core he was a feral beast, and the instinct was the life. At last, Gonzales' trembling lip burst and he began sobbing violently, uncontrollably, without warning and without sign of ceasing. His arms fell to his side and his shoulders sank submissively.
"What's this? Oh, are you crying now, you poor pitiful wretch?" The clean-shaven man, well-dressed with a clean silver sword sheathed at his belt, stepped forward, keeping a healthy distance but straying close enough to see the anguish on the bandit's face. "Stupid filthy bandit! Why do you keep coming here, anyway? To kill cats?"
"Yeah," another man said, leaning against a wall. "Now that you've butchered your little friend like the monster you are, you have no reason to be here." The warm glow of the sun settled on his face in such a way as to light his cold sneer, and his eyes were lit orange and black. "So why don't you get out of here before you go mad and hurt someone, mm? Go to the mines and work yourself to death. Make yourself useful, at least."
"A-ah…" Gonzales wiped his eyes and choked back a barrage of tears.
"Maybe you didn't hear me," the other man said. The rest of the villagers waited in the setting sun with bated breaths. Some of them crossed their hands, and some of them prayed that the bad man would leave.
"I- I-"
The man walked towards Gonzales, stood at a distance of two full arm-spans, and leaned in, his face jutting out towards the larger man.
"Go. Away." His lips bubbled and jumped around the words, and his perfect row of teeth echoed his sentiments with a terrible grin.
"Go. I…I go."
Gonzales left the cat behind as he walked and then ran in the other direction, down the alley, away from the village, away from the people who followed behind, away from the larger and larger and larger rocks pelting him repeatedly in the head and neck.
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Gonzales was melancholy as he crossed the bridge over the river. He didn't question any orders his employer gave him; he performed them. That was why the order to destroy the village bothered him so greatly. The village had to be burned to ash, the goods confiscated, the townsfolk slaughtered. Gonzales couldn't remember the reason why. It didn't matter.
Gonzales tightened his grip on his axe, the one his employer had given him to sack the village with. Even for the great bandit it was too heavy to carry comfortably, so instead it rested on his shoulder and weighed him down. The edge of the axe was large, sharp, deadly—practically demonic in its design—and terrifying. But again he resigned himself, because there were no other alternatives. There was nothing else, no other reasonable path his conscience could pave for him, no other place to turn. Only one path led up, this one winding over the flats, across the hills and to the village near the peaks.
These were the times when he did not speak. Only in great Gonzales' mind was there a simple world, one where there were no tyrannical lords and where villages never burned away. His was a mind with gentle notions conceived with pictures where nothing moved and nothing bled. But maybe this would be the last, he thought, and that when this village was gone there would be many more to take its place and they would never have to burn down, ever. Until then, there was a job.
Looking up, Gonzales saw a group of people heading in his direction, down towards the castle where his employer lived. Closer and closer they passed, until he cut to the east through a short patch of dried grass towards the eastern river, and further on, towards the village. The next time he looked up from the ground, one small figure had diverted its path from the rest of the traveling group. It was a small girl, dressed quite fancily, with pure blue hair and a cute red headband. Gonzales did not remember ever seeing her in the village, and he wondered why an innocent-looking girl like her was walking alone on the battlefield.
"Um…hello?"
Gonzales stopped, and looked up. He had to look down again to see the girl standing in front of him, her hands folded into each other.
"You came out here all by yourself," the girl said. "You don't look like you're part of the enemy force."
"I…mission. Out alone today."
"Oh my goodness. You have bruises all over your neck and shoulders…they're all blue and black and red…" the little blue-haired girl said, looking up at the great bandit. She stifled a gasp at the extent of his injuries. "Are you all right?"
"I…I good. I…I fight. I have b-bruises in fight."
"Why are you fighting?" the girl said, now seemingly oblivious of the battle staged around her.
"I…I a monster." Gonzales' voice was empty, faraway. "I hurt people. I ugly. I stupid. I…a bad person."
"Why do you say such things about yourself? You don't look like you want to hurt someone."
Gonzales shook his head. "Uhh…no, no, I bad. I only trouble."
"Well, if you wanted to hurt me, wouldn't you already have swung your axe? What's your name? My name is Lilina."
"Uh…ah, my name Gonzales."
The little blue-haired girl, heir to the throne of Ostia, looked up closely at the great wild bandit. He was such a different person than anyone in the royal courts, little Lilina noted, but his eyes were—his eyes were so innocent. And his eyes, they looked so genuinely sad that they were impossible to overlook and impossible to ignore. He didn't belong in the courts among the nobles, but he didn't belong here either. His eyes said he wanted to escape, Lilina thought—they were her mirror's eyes, as well.
"Lil-Lilina. You tell people in village to leave there."
"What?" the girl said. She turned to look at the village nestled in the mountains behind her and folded her hands under her chin. "Why?"
"I…must destroy village. Don't want…to hurt people…"
"Why must you destroy the village? Destroying villages is a bad thing!" the girl said.
"I…I only a monster. All I good for is…to hurt people." Gonzales shut his eyes and bit his lip. His grip loosened on the handle of his axe.
"No, that's not true! You're not a monster. Please. Oh, please don't cry!" the blue-haired girl stepped forward and Gonzales looked up, startling her.
"No, no…I a bad person. Go away…I only hurt people."
"But you have a good heart! I can tell. Why else would you care about the villagers? You don't want to hurt anybody."
"But…they all throw stones and yell at me. I hurt cute things…I too ugly." Gonzales clutched his head in both hands and let loose a hurt scream. Before he could realize what was happening, his hands were wet and his eyes had become red and puffed like strawberries.
"Don't say that about yourself!" Lilina said, now teeming with insistence, shaking her head. "That's not true. Don't call yourself ugly like that! We are no different, you and I."
Gonzales sniffed, and his eyes looked around, like an animal trapped in the snare of a chariot. His blubbering tapered off. "No different?"
"Just because you look different doesn't mean you're different inside. Both of us want peace, right? See, we're both the same!"
Gonzales bit his lips and folded his hands, his mind a twisted labyrinth of complex windings and musing beyond his comprehension. An entire life of playing a certain role, and now a sweet little girl was telling him he was free? Gonzales was utterly speechless, stupefied, struck dumb, awed. He stuttered, and tears simmered in his eyes again. Here was someone who didn't want to harm him. Here was someone who cared.
"Gonzales, why don't you join us?" Lilina said. Her eyes looked at him firmly and her voice was soft. "We're trying to defeat the bad people who want to hurt others."
"R-Really?"
Lilina smiled, and Gonzales felt the funniest feeling. Suddenly, the welts and bruises where the stones pelted him hurt less, and the axe in his hands felt lighter, and he began to feel less like a monster and more like someone's friend. He smiled.