Raids are almost a habit by now.
It's a familiar, comfortable pattern to them: the burning fields, screaming, the funny way some people are too scared to move and others shoot off like rabbits startled by gunfire. Not all of them relish in it—some of the newer guards among them still squirm when someone gets caught in the flames—but the older ones, the crueler ones like it, they like the pain it causes.
And in the shadowy underworld they inhabit, you can't afford to turn up your nose at work; work brings in money, money buys them supplies, which fuels their labor, which fuels their sacrifice; sacrifice that is vital to these men, incites a blood lust in them, makes them hungry, and most of all, makes them desperate. It's half desperation that drives them, and the other half is unarguably the loot. Bits of spare cash and jewels and stocks salvaged from the wreckage of the village fires; fair compensation, in their minds, for their trouble.
Except this time. Not this time.
This time their spoils consists of the following: ten sobbing children, a couple gold bracelets, fifty thousand jewel, and one blue-haired rugrat with a funny tattoo and a really bad attitude.
They consider just dumping the boy into the bay surrounding his village, but something holds them back. He's a little thing, this brat, scrawny and pale and barely eight years old, by the looks of it—the boss likes it when they run young, more energy to work—but there's strength in his bones, that much they can see, and a fire in his eyes. Defiance could be managed, with the right methods. Strength, however, strength is what they need. With strength came endurance, and with endurance came hard work; with hard work, the tower would rise taller, and after that...
"The boy stays," the fat guard decides.
"Hey. My name isn't boy," says the boy. "It's—"
"Do you really think I care what your name is, boy?" the fat one sneers. "Load him up now, before—heaven forbid—he starts biting again." He shudders and strokes his left palm: there's a bandage there, fresh but already soaked in red.
The boy smiles, just a little.
There's traces of blood on his teeth.
Guards take him by the arms and shove him into a wooden trolley with the other kids, but not before he manages to kick one in the crotch and elbow the other one in the gut. If they cuff him hard for it, if they make him bleed, the boy doesn't care. They bay is already tinged pink with the blood of his people—what happens to him doesn't matter anymore.
He just likes making those bastards groan.
Finally a heavy clout to the head does him over, and his flailing stills. They can't stop him from making noise, though. It turns out he has a knack for innovative insults. His names for the fat guard range from Bubble Belly to Beefy Baby to The Incredible Bulk. "Seriously, did you burn my village...or swallow it?"
"Burned it to the ground, boy, and by golly if I didn't enjoy it."
That is enough to make the child go silent. The fire in his eyes wavers.
But the man is not done.
"This raid wasn't even planned," the guard continued, smirk on his face. "You know that, brat? We were already piled high with kiddies in here. We stopped for a second, to fix a cart wheel, and we saw this shitfaced little dump over here. Hardly even a town, not worth raiding. What could you give us, a couple stupid bumpkins, a cow? Do any of you shit-poor savages even have a proper bathroom in your shit-poor little shacks?"
He says nothing.
"You're not even worth the trouble. But hell, the wheel would take an hour to fix, and me and my men, we got bored. Thought we'd have a little fun. There was room for an extra kiddie or two in the back, and we can always use a couple more brats, so I decided, why not? Life's short, kid. You got to live spontaneously."
The man's grip on the boy's arms tighten—a warning, as the child's fists clench, and his chin jerks and his eyes burn with a hatred like hot coals. An armored hand claps over the boy's mouth before he can reply.
"Hey...sir, shouldn't we stick him in with the others? It's getting awful late," one of the men ventures, nervously.
"Shut your mouth, Henwick, can't you see we're having a chat?"
"Y-yes sir."
"No one's even going to miss this place now that it's gone," the fat man tells the boy. "Oh, sure, I bet you think it's special and perfect and all that damn kiddie stuff, but it's a speck of crap on a world that's got enough crap in it already—honestly, we're doing the world a public service by burning this hellhole up."
"You jerk—"
"There's not a decent woman for a hundred miles around this place," he continues. "A pity, that. I could've used a good woman. Wish your mama was still here, kid, and I could have gotten her down on her knees and given her a long, hard—heh, by the looks of you, you never even had a mama. A sissie, maybe? Huh, kid? You got any pretty little cousins or sissies that I could screw till I'm blue—"
"Shut up, shut up shut up you bastard I'll kill you—"
"Hit him, Henwick," the fat guard yawns.
The man called Henwick casts a nervous glance at the blue-haired little boy, and then back at his superior, and he doesn't move.
"I SAID HIT HIM, HENWICK, NOW!" the fat man roars.
Henwick gulps. He walks towards the kid, who glares at him with large, green eyes. The left eye is bordered my some red kind of face mark, spanning the length of his left cheek. He's scowling.
He's tiny.
"On Zeref's bones, you idiot, if you don't do it now you're out of a job, you hear me?"
With a final look at the kid, the man nods, slowly; he raises one armored fist and with a quick, sharp swing smashes it into the side of the boy's head, hard as he dares.
The kid whimpers and sways, blood glowing in red rivers down the side of his cheek, mixing with his red tattoo until his whole face is a mess of reds and blues and green, angry eyes. He tries to kick at Henwick but he's too hurt, or too tired, or too sad, Henwick's not sure—and the kid falls. He hits the ground and lies with his bloody face pressed to the gravel, like roadkill. Like something they scraped off the broken wheel of their buggy.
The kid doesn't move.
"Did that teach you to keep your damn mouth shut, boy?" the fat guy crows.
Henwick trembles, just a little—his gauntlet is stained from the boy's blood. He tries his best to discreetly wipe it off in the grass.
The kid says nothing.
"Knocked him out, did we? Huh. Men! Load him up before he comes to."
"Should we...do something about that cut, sir? It's bleeding pretty bad."
The fat superior dismisses it. "No, no. It'll be fine. He'll be in working condition by the time we reach the R-system, and if he's not, well, you're just going to have to take another punishment, won't you, boy?"
Henwick takes the kid's feet, and a younger guard with a chipped tooth carefully lifts him by his head. They carry him to the wagon and drape his limp body inside, with the other children, who by this point have mostly cried themselves to sleep. The wagon doors slam shut, and it's dark as night within.
"Stupid brat," the fat man mutters.
He and the other guards climb back into their position at the driver's seat, and they set off. Guards whistle. Some of them play cards to pass the time.
.
.
.
Within the wagon, green eyes struggle to open; the child's lids are crusted over with blood, and blood is dried to the entire left side of his face. When he does manage to look about him it does no good—he can see no better with his eyes open than he can when they're closed. He blinks a few times to make sure he's really awake.
There's other bodies, stuffed in there with him. He can feel them. A girl is still crying in the corner, and the sound of her sobs settle like clammy fog onto the boy. He starts shaking.
"It's going to be okay," he says aloud to no one. "You hear me?"
No one responds, and the girl's sobs get louder.
"I said we're going to be fine! It's...it's like an adventure. We just need to beat the bad guys."
"Bad guys?" a voice echoes, whisper-soft.
"Yeah," he says, gaining confidence. "We'll beat them. And we'll get out of here. You'll see."
"We will?"
"Yeah. We will. I promise."
The voice doesn't respond.
"Hey—what's your name?"
"I—I don't wanna say—t-they told us not to talk and I don't want them to hear me—"
"It's okay," he says quickly. "No, no, I understand."
"Thank you," the voice sniffs.
A beat. Then, hesitantly, "W-what's—what's your name?"
He smiles into the darkness. "Shh. You're right, we should keep quiet."
"O-okay," the voice—it sounds like that of the crying girl—whispers back. "Yeah."
.
.
.
They pass what could have been hours, could have been days, in complete silence.
Then at last, the buggy stops.
.
.
.
"My name," he says suddenly, "isn't brat, and it isn't boy—I'm Jellal."
"H-hi, Jellal," the crying girl says shyly.
"Hi, crying girl. Wow, it's so dark in here. I can't even see my own hand in front of my face."
"M-me neither."
"So what's your name?" he asks, curiously. "I can't just keep calling you crying girl in my head."
"Well, m-my name is—"
But before she can finish, light floods the wagon and he's pulled out into the sunshine, blinded by it's brightness—
—and by the time his vision clears, he's in a cell. Alone. The crying girl is probably in one of the cells near him, because he can faintly make out the sound of her sobs still through the thick stone walls.
It's too bad, Jellal thinks ruefully. I didn't even get to see her face. I won't even know her if I see her later.
The cell is bare except for a straw pallet on the ground, filthy and covered with fleas, and it can barely be called a bed, but Jellal is suddenly so tired.
He crawls in and sleep, blessedly, overtakes him.
notes: hi.