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Growing up in Lordaeron was, and is, like trying to get your foot out of the ground and ending up falling on your face and right into a slew of problems that smell distinctly like human feces. While excluded the last part for future deathly virtues of the cities grim fate, the city was beautiful. Breathtaking. You couldn't walk ten feet outside your home without choking on a breeze riding rose petal, or slipping on someone's carpet crafted from some gods lavish hair. It was like walking on gold bricks, oh would you look at that, it is gold bricks. The horses that galloped in the streets pulled wagons of exotic cargo, shops had salivating scents and even the beggar on the corner would have a damn fine hat.
Except where there's fancy things, you must act fancy.
I was the unfortunate bastard son of my dear old mom who would dearly like to take our neighbors machete and cleave my pops head clear off into the ocean. She would have too, if he hadn't up and ran. It was all a big scandalous event that featured my mother, red dressed and fine, my step dad who was stereotypically away most times than not to note if my mom was having an affair (she totally did and I totally don't think she fully regrets it), and my step sisters who would all claim I had someone switched my butt with my brain when I was born. At least the dog still remained the same.
I was born Aiden Demond, some early spring of some year that would have been important if my mom gave a shit. My father would have a name, but everyone just calls him 'deadbeat' so I've moved on with that cheerfully. My step father, who took the whole fiasco with enough grace of a lawful divorce, treated me like I was a stray cat he'd found and would greet me like he was seeing me for the first time. My sisters, two twins, were far to invested on being each other's rivals to give me the time of day, much less stop rambling about their paladin training.
Once again, our dog remained the only normal thing in this damn new life.
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Acting fancy. Being fancy. Smelling fancy.
I was only five freaking years old when my mom sat me down on her knee and said, "Aiden, you are a grown man."
Wow. I hoped the stare I was giving her gave off the best 'you fucking moron' vibes I could muster. My mother was sweet, prickly, but I'm certain I got my stupidity from her side. I must have been too obvious, because her pleasant smile turned downwards and she gave me a fleeting glare.
"Don't give me that, young man." She wagged her finely manicured finger at me. Her hair was once again done up into the tightest bun that was practically ripping her face upwards from the pull. Her elegant red dresses almost swallowed me into its puffiness, and I swear if she keeps me long enough that I start smelling her last affair on her clothes I was going to re-introduce her to baby vomit.
"Now," She reached across the table where parchments and inks were set up like some demented satanic worshipping bullshit. "Take this pen in your hands- no, properly- and make this character."
I did so. The process was about as simple as chewing gum and burping. While inept in about everything but potty training, I could write English (or in this world Common) just as about as fine as ever. Cursive wasn't invented and if I had anything to say about it, it never will. The only problem was the motor function to grip something with pudgy little hands with flailing arms.
Accidently smacking my mom in the face was always the highlight of my day.
"Aiden." She sighed, eyebrows pinching slightly. "You'll be admitted to the academy soon. You do want to learn, don't you?"
"Yes." I said, because if I said no I'd end up stuck in this house with her forever.
She smiled, some of the stress lines fading away, "Good boy. Can you do me a favor and write all the characters right there? If you do it three times, I'll let you go play with Apha and Phila."
She gets 'play' out of 'holy smiting wood' and that is hilarious.
Apha and Phila were what you'd find under the definition sarcasm. Sometimes I'd be absolutely floored at the amount of sass they threw at each other along with barbed insults and scathing words. Any outsider would have taken the two as arch enemies ready to claim each other's head. I would have to go through the painstaking process of putting the two under the category 'sisters'.
Apha got me a 'how to be intelligent' book for my birthday, if that helps.
Phila was the oldest of the identical red heads from hell. They both were tall, long haired and emerald eyed girls that practically radiated tom boy confidence. Dresses were hissed at and being dolled up had them groaning and complaining to the point dear mother looked ready to break a window with her face. Their moods switched around when it came to training. They'd scream, shout, pray, and generally be annoying to anyone with ears while they threw around their swords and bashed their faces in with their shields.
(I loathe the nonexistence of cameras- there was so many broken noses to use as black mail)
Father, while ignoring my presence with the finesse of someone pretending they couldn't see down their own mustache, would instruct them daily through moves and stances. Being identical made it look hypnotic to my eyes, the way the twins would dance through fighting and poses.
(It only took a bold remark from Apha to turn grace into hair pulling and shrieking but by then I was already running away)
The twins, that morning, were already fresh out at training. I could see them well enough in our backyard, a small inlet between multiple buildings that had enough space for a tiny hill. The twins were avidly starting the day by beating the ever living shit out of the straw dummies there. It was by far the most satisfying and stress relieving thing to see.
"You're hitting that like a child." Apha would hiss under her breath.
"You're hitting yours like a drunkard." Phila would retort, nearly sending hers flying with a double bash of her shield. I sat on the sidelines, chin tucked behind my fists in amusement and awe at their strength. While shrieking at each other like banshees, they were somehow their own footholds. Apha would get stronger, which would make Phila angry and more determined to surpass. Phila would get stronger, Apha wouldn't stand for it. Apha gained one, Phila gained one. They were their own personal motivators and it was sort of inspiring to watch.
I was also going to invest in ear plugs the first chance I got.
"You cheat!" Apha swung her sword, the cut through the wind sending a woosh through the air. Phila ducked, shield up and ready and she pressed against her sisters. Her own sword thrusted forward, jabbing alongside Apha's shield with a screeching hiss.
"I do not!" Phila snapped. "You can't parry at all."
"I can too!" She aptly followed this up by banging unceremoniously on Phila's shield three times in rapid fire aggression. "You long faced pig!"
"My face isn't long!" Phila was practically frothing at the mouth, shoving her shield into her sister's face with gusto. "I'm your mirror, you oaf!"
"As if I like looking like you! Deadbeat!"
I pinched my lips to stop from whistling, because on the wide scale of insults Apha had, some were just damn savage. Sometime I felt I was going to need to sit down and write them all out. Some were creative enough to sell for.
Phila's face bloomed crimson before she devolved into incomprehensible screaming. Swords and shields were forgotten in a mass tangle of limbs. I watched them roll down the hill, and sighed happily.
It was a good day.
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