Not the cheery little fanfic you were expecting, eh? Well, things'll get better for our heroes... eventually...

(muahahaah...) :3


Just two weeks after his thirteenth birthday, Cody was accepted into Vareth Institute. His test scores proved him to be clever and very well rounded in his studies: the professors were quite impressed by his diligent spirit and his eagerness to be taught, and Cody was awarded with quite a few scholarships. What the scholarships didn't cover Cody paid for in cash: he'd been going on the nightly raids with his mother and Flau for quite some time now, and even did a few jobs on his own.

Shortly after his acceptance into Vareth Cody, with the help of Flau and Rynka, saved up enough money to buy an old fixer-upper in the Town of Fanaticism & Insanity. Rynka was proud of her son, who'd truly become the man of the house, and the four of them—Rynka, Cody, Flau, and three-year-old Olivia—lived happily in downtown Radiata, building a life of love and prosperity, a family of sorts. Things were peaceful for them. On some nights they'd all sit up on the roof to watch the stars, and Cody would wonder where his Uncle Ganz went.


For three long years, Ganz wandered the countryside, trying to forget everything he saw in Dysett. He'd spent most of those three years in the deepest parts of Tria, in the darkest regions of that old mountain range.

Where he was, there was nothing to be seen of the Human's fertile vineyards and gardens. Everything around him was shrouded in darkness, under the heavy mantle of twisted beech and oak branches. The air was always thick with the sweet scent of dead leaves. At first, that was the only thing that Ganz could smell. In the warm seasons there were giant ferns and bracken, which bore tender young fiddleheads, and in autumn there were nuts and morel in abundance. But it took poor Ganz a few weeks before he started to see the rich bounty of the forests for what it really was.

He hated gathering food in the beginning. He couldn't recognize any plants at first, except for a few berries he'd seen in Radiata's markets, and it took him some time to realize that he had to bleed his game before butchering it.

He also hated the cold, a constant chill that his armor was powerless against. He dreaded the perpetual gloom, dimness so overwhelming that the forest and her denizens were like a living silhouette. The creeping fog was thick at times, soaking his clothes, hair and skin so that he was always covered in either sweat or condensation.

His skin became pale and ashen, but he didn't notice. He didn't even realize how many years it'd been since he'd spoken to anyone—even himself. He no longer stank of civilization. He shaved only out of habit, and only because he still had his old razor: his skin was nicked and cut, but he didn't notice, nor would he have cared about, how crazed he looked. His bleached locks grew out: he'd hacked them off one day with a disgusted snarl when he'd happened to see his reflection in still water. His hair grew darker and darker as time passed: he was a stranger to the sun and the warm fields now.

After a while the local creatures stopped attacking him when they saw him on the mountainsides: to them he was just another animal—an animal that could rip them apart with his bare hands. The only sounds he made anymore were the ones he'd heard from the beasts around him. He spoke like a beast, ate like a beast, lived like a beast, and slept like a beast. He shared a cave with an old bear that'd learned (the hard way) to let him be.

After only a few months of such isolation Ganz ceased to think of himself as "Ganz." In fact, he'd stopped deliberately thinking of anything other than his immediate surroundings. He simply existed, and his aspirations were no higher than those of his four-legged neighbors; his dreams were of making a good kill and of protecting his territory. When later he'd try to remember those days, he'd recall nothing but obscurity and clouded memories.

Two more years of such Hellish isolation would go by, two more years of psychological numbness before he'd again see one of his own people.

Tsuzuku…