Ramardo always had an inclination to human behavior. Now let it not be said that he wasn't goblin enough, he was goblin through and through but yet sometimes…
Of course being the only son of one of the highest families in the kingdom helped tolerance very much his father being the former military commander and his mother being the lore-master of war and military history as well as a one of the strongest elf-bloodlines they had. His first twelve years of life had gone well enough, spoiled slightly because of his rank and the fact that he was an only child. But on his twelfth birthday he was sent to become a page and actually had to learn discipline, at first he was an unholy terror. He never did his lessons, he shirked his duties, and gave nothing but snark to his mentors. "After his father's career and all-how could he be this way?!" he had overheard some of his teachers saying. He had shrugged it off for to the untrained eye he had two emotions: fiery and passionately angry, or bored and apathetic.
But when he turned fifteen things changed. He was busy not doing his elf math when he heard a rampant ascent up the stairs that led to his dorm. He flicked on his light and rolled over on his bed to see a short furry figure with a trunk for a nose come bursting in to inform him with a squeak that his father had had an accident at the construction sight for the new shooting range and he had to come immediately. He had sat up and using some recently acquired magic skills (which was one thing he excelled at much to his teachers chagrin) gotten to the sight in less than five minutes. His father had been demonstrating how widening a certain section of ceiling would improve the architecture when he had had a sort of spasm while performing the spell and a piece of the ceiling had come crashing down on him. Goblins and dwarves were surrounding him when he arrived. His mother sat stoically by his head unmoving. Ramardo just stared at his fathers' still form. He was so strong, so dominating, so…fierce. Commander Ectoron was known for his strong will, his shrewd mind, and his ruthless nature coupled with an explosive temper, which Ramardo had inherited. He recalled his fathers' words of frustration a while back after the report of his behavior had reached him. "Anyone!" he had yelled "who can act like this and feel no regret is no son of mine!" These words haunted him now as he saw the proud face white and still. Marak Harefoot had arrived with a healer elf woman who immediately began ministering to the stricken figure. Marak raised his head to meet Ramardo eyes and said something, which he didn't hear. "Ramardo! Can you hear me?" the goblin king shrilled. Ramardo lifted his eyes and looked blankly at him. "I said he's going to be fine!"
Ramardo felt a sudden lift in his soul but inferred nothing. He gave a sort of shrug and began helping the construction dwarves clean the rubble via magic. The crowd gave a collective sigh at the indifference of the commander's only son. But from that day he began applying himself ten-fold to his studies and duties. He slaved away at combat training, turned in every assignment smugly to his teachers, and his magic bloomed to astonishing scales. From that day on Ramardo knew he would never lose what he wanted.
When Gabriella turned 13 her father remarried. Of course it had been three years since her mother had died but the sting from it cut her deeper than anyone could know. She remembered vividly her standing in a sickeningly yellow frilled dress holding a bouquet of yellow and pink roses as the parson droned on. Her father was in his military uniform with a newly sprouting buzz cut looking so solemn and staunch it looked like he was at attention. Her new stepmother to be standing next to him looking dwarfish at her 5' 4" compared to his 6' 1".
She just couldn't shake the memory of another gathering when she had been dressed in a black blouse with jeans standing over a casket… the turnout then had been much smaller. She remembered wrinkling her nose a little at Gloria (the bride) and she dabbed away a tear. She was the complete opposite of her mother; Gabriella's mother was tall and slender (where Gloria was short and highly over weigh), with that dark brown wavy hair she had inherited. She had been quiet and soft-spoken unlike Gloria's constant pointless chatter she thought bitterly. Of course Gloria was a "damsel-in-distress" which is what her alpha male father seemed to like and, she admitted silently to herself, what her mother had been too.
The new life Gabriella led was often compared to that of Cinderella. Soon after the wedding her father got his baby hungry bride pregnant so he could go over seas on an afghan tour in order to leave Gabriella at home with peace. "You are just a little cinder-girl!" Gloria had gushed, "Only I definitely won't be a wicked stepmother". Well she wasn't wicked, Gabriella had thought. Maybe the self-absorbed stepmother, or the needy stepmother, or the emotionally immature stepmother instead.
Two years and two new little half-brothers later the unthinkable happened. Her father was killed in a training exercise when there was a malfunction in the helicopter he was in; it crashed. At the second funeral she had attended for one of her parents she had watched people crowd her stepmother who was sobbing hysterically. "But don't worry" she had choked out "I'm going to keep this family together no matter what!"
The truth of this oath was made known when three months later the state decreed Gabriella be sent over to England to live with her mother's sister and her family after her stepmother kicked her out in a panicking rage. The aunt and uncle provided the stability Gabriella had so long needed and she flourished in school. All who knew her there would say she was a smart confidant, and well-adjusted girl. Then on her sixteenth birthday she ran away from home without warning and disappeared off the system.
Gabriella's next most vivid memory was two weeks after she had ran off was of her walking down a dark alley in Liverpool. She was tired dirty and to be honest terrified. But a strong survival instinct that had had to develop suddenly pushed forward. So she grit her teeth and decided then that she probably would rarely get what she really wanted.