Discarded

Discarded…

He was too young to know what the word meant then, but understood the concept well enough. His father had thrown him away like an empty potion bottle, a worthless scrap of garbage that had served what little use it had. Pain and cold bit into his scrawny body as the rain started up again, this time with a sprinkle of lightning to add to his sense of doom. All he had wished for was to die, to sleep. He had served his purpose, let the torment end.

But alas, it seemed as if fate had other plans in mind. As the despairing child closed his eyes and dropped off to sleep, a wandering master-of-arms found him…

There were no bars of steel in this cage of his, or stone walls and roofs. Most would have considered the Lou-yang mountainside beautiful. Most were not forced to train day and night on the plateau by a ridiculously powerful asshole who thought ruptured lungs were only a step up from flesh wounds. Prior to the training, the boy had thought those silly bruises he had received from falling down a ravine were bad. Sticking around his mentor, he discovered what agony truly was. A wolf's savaging was like a love bite compared to the things he was suffering now.

How he wished to leave those mountains, to escape the inevitable death that awaited him there.

At last, when his mentor had passed out in a drunken stupor, the boy managed to escape. Leaving his accursed home behind and hitching a boat to Alberta, he was finally free.

It did not take long to find employment in Rune-Midgard. War was brewing in distant Prontera, where the king and several barons were in dispute over who had the better right to reign in this realm. Though young and inexperienced, the boy's skill with the sword quickly swept aside any doubts in his abilities. It did not take long for the boy to find employment as a mercenary fighting under the Purple banner of Geffen.

Had it not been for sense of purposelessness, he may have been content…

He had been arrogant, simply because he had beaten some careless fools twice his age. He began to think himself unmatched in single combat, a match for a veteran knight even. A foolish thought from a foolish swordsman, but he was a kid, and kids were ignorant by nature. He had seen was some little acolyte tending to a wounded archer, and had charge the two like a mad dog. Attacking the wounded went against his morals, but getting shot by a freshly-healed archer went against his common sense.

Five minutes later, he was down with a set of broken ribs and two missing teeth. He had heard more than once that hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned, but being beaten by an unarmed acolyte was as unmanning as being castrated in a riding accident.

The blow to his pride, however, was well worth it. He felt strangely attracted to the acolyte that had beaten the crap out of him, until it grew into an obsession that made him resign his contract with Geffen to join Prontera. Though his reasons were mildly disturbing, his employers let it slide.

He was only seven, after all.

A year passed before he saw the girl again, shuffled into the unit she served in completely by chance. The first thing he did when he entered the barracks was to challenge her to a duel. The second thing he did was to go to the infirmary with his bones re-broken. As she sat by his bedside and laughed at his foolishness, he swore that he would get back at her some day or die trying, the first oath he never fulfilled. They began sparring everyday when there wasn't a battle, and the boy went to the infirmary everyday with a new bone that needed mending.

Soon the monk-in-training and her young companion became a common sight together, like a mistress and her hound. The girl didn't seem to mind his presence, and the boy found this strange bond comforting. For the first time in his life, he felt that he had a reason for being, a purpose of sorts.

No one knew what had triggered Glasthiem's invasion, and no one knew where its limitless hordes had been hiding. They had simply appeared one day and swept aside the silly civil war like a flood, crushing the bulk of both side's forces and forcing them into an alliance. None of it matter to the boy, however, for he was purposeless once more.

Save for himself, his company had been annihilated in the surprise attack. He watched helplessly as the closest thing he had to a family was shredded before his eyes by ranks of emotionless raydrics, as people he had trusted with his life were torn to pieces. These new unwavering foes were too strange, too alien for him comprehend, and he had stood frozen, nearly pissing himself in fright.

It had been the sight of the acolyte being impaled through her center with a giant sword that had snapped the boy out of his daze. All conscious thoughts were wiped from his mind, and he threw every bone and sinew into a berserk strike at the Blood Knight that had slain her. It did little more than a scratch on the crimson-streaked helm of the creature, nothing compared to the bone-shattering punch that it retaliated with. How the boy survived, he never could say. Nor did he care. He was purposeless once more…

For the next couple of years the boy wandered aimlessly through every land, from Morroc to the south to Lutie in the north, all the way to distant Amatsu. At long last, he returned to his mentor's home in Lou-yang, partly because he had sunken into a depression and wasn't thinking straight, and partly because he was sick of living. He had fully expected to be beaten to death by his mentor for some obscure reason or another.

He was half right. The boy was nearly dead by the time his mentor wrung the entire story out of him. He felt completely dead when the man decided he needed "toughening up" and dragged him all the way to Lighthazen. Even a moron such as his mentor should have known the boy's chances against anything down there were next to none, but the man merely replied that he would be fine, handed him stone daggers, and threw him in.

He was eleven, and suddenly very against the idea of dying.

The demon that the boy would learn to call Seyren bit into his throat, drawing more blood than the boy was aware he had. Satisfied, the creature flung him aside like a rag doll. The boy's blood still on his lips, the demon spoke:

"…I have tasted your soul, and it has been most captivating… such anger… such hatred… all held back by this foolish rationality. A shame, you may have proven to be much sport."

Suddenly, an idea struck the demon. Grinning like the executioner at his victim, the Seyren stepped forward and placed a hand over the boy's chest. "Actually… you may prove to be an interesting toy after all…"

As the boy slipped into unconsciousness, he could feel something flow through the gaping wounds in his chest through his veins, coursing through his body like liquid fire. At first, it had felt vile…

But as the anger in his heart burned free, it started to feel good.

Two years later, the war against Glastheim was still raging. The boy returned to the battlefield, though none who had known him then could recognize him now. Now his swordsmanship was backed with years of experience and a lifetime of wrath, making him stand out against other swordsman like a Vagabond wolf among pups. He was knighted within a year, lorded in six, and forgotten soon after. For the saying "God and soldier we adore, in times of war, not before" also applied to after.

But he no longer cared. Cross Windsor looked up into the sky, where the setting sun painted everything in sight blood red. It all looked like a painting out of a nightmare, or perhaps by a deranged artist. Drawing his claymore out of the Blood Knight he had been standing on, the man turned his back to the battlefield.

"I don't need a purpose…"