Disclaimer: I don't own either Tales of Symphonia (as far as I'm aware Namco does) or the song, Not one of us. (which is disney.)

Deception
Disgrace
Evil as plain as the scar on his face

The soft, outraged, spiteful mutters were somehow so clear as the pointed and whispered at the little child's ears.

Deception (An outrage!)
Disgrace (For shame!)
He asked for trouble the moment he came
(See you later, agitator!)
As a teen it was easier to understand where a lot of the hatred came from. It was rather disgraceful for an elf-girl to deny her culture so fiercely as to marry a human.

Deception (An outrage!)
Disgrace (For shame!)
He asked for trouble the moment he came
(See you later, agitator!)

That didn't make it any easier to bear knowing that everyone hated you for no reason other than the fact that you were born. Knowing that no-one could wait for you to leave town

Born in grief

Even his own father hated him, blaming him for his mother dying in childbirth. Like anyone controls their circumstances that early in life.

Raised in hate

Every day was a trial with the continual bullying from all parties. Sometimes he was ready to kill every last one of them he hated them so much.

Helpless to defy his fate
You didn't have a choice once you were born a half-elf. You were just despised. You couldn't get a good job, a good home or even decent food a lot of the time.

Let him run
When they finally ran him out of town his father had the cheek to tell him they were being nice by giving him a chance.

Let him live
He'd barely left the town three days when an onslaught of royal guards came and beat him half to death because they could and it was fun. For them.

But do not forget
What we cannot forgive
Even Heimall, the fabled village of the elves didn't want him. They said they didn't trust half-elves anymore after an incident with them in the past.

And he is not one of us
He has never been one of us
He is not part of us
Not our kind
It was the same everywhere. No-one wanted him. No-one accepted him.

Someone once lied to us
Now we're not so blind

They said he was just like the last one who tried. The one who had taught them to be suspicious in the first place.

For we knew he would do what he's done
And we know that he'll never be one of us
He should never have given in to his frustration and hit out at them. He just proved their suspicions right. And next time when there was a half-elf who genuinely deserved shelter, they wouldn't offer it because of him.

He is not one of us
Even the other prisoners in the human jail they sent him to didn't want him.

Deception
He was too naive for prison life. Within the first month he had been conned out of his every privilege.

Disgrace
He was the wrong sort of person, too strange for the guards or visitors to like, too weak for the prisoners to like.

Deception
He hated church. Churches lied. They told you the Godess loved everyone. She sure as hell didn't love him.

Disgrace
After a while, being a disgrace stopped being a burden and became a freedom. No-one expected anything from a disgrace. They could do what they liked.

Deception
A/N: My first (and probably only) songfic. It isn't about a specific character, just a half-elf growing up in Tethe'alla. I was listening to the song and it seemed to fit the half-elves situation, so I was inspired to write this.