Entry Eight
--You knew it. I know you did do. In fact, I'd bet my whole
bounty, assuming I had it, that you knew I'd get bored and start
scratching away in this book again. Yeah, I'm still hiding out in my room
here, just waiting. I know, I know. Well, foolish or not I'm going to stay
here until Freya leaves to go back where she belongs. And I'm not
going to write any more about her. That means more talking about myself and
telling you things I couldn't tell her when she asked. So get ready. Gotta
look back and see what the last thing I said was.
Okay, so I guess from everything else I've said before
about me being Caleb's property, it seems like I would have never stopped
being a mindless animal, never turned into what I am now, which I'm sure
isn't perfect but is better than being that. And I probably wouldn't
have, if it had just been up to me alone. But actually I owe myself to one
person, since most everything I know I got from him.
See, Caleb wasn't always a noble but a merchant's son,
and before he came into money he was a normal kid like you can find anywhere,
like all kids cruel and kind both unwittingly, and when he was a boy he had
a best friend named Sust. When they grew up they went their separate ways
and while Caleb got rich Sust became a monk and learned to fight and meditate
and all that stuff real monks learn. I was about nine or ten, as far as I
can guess, when Sust came back to Treno and visited his friend.
I can't sit here and tell you exactly when I realized
that I had thoughts, control - humanity. It's not as though someone just
flipped some damn switch and all the lights went on upstairs. It must have
happened slowly, and I don't know how he did it. I do remember, though, looking
at my hand, moving my fingers, staring at them as I moved them and thinking
'this is me and I am here'. And when that happened, Sust was there. Somehow
he must have come across me in my cage while over at Caleb's and took it
upon himself to wake me up, you might say. He's the one who gave me my name;
I don't even remember what Caleb called me, probably just variations on 'him'.
He left a lot but always came back to teach me something
new, first speaking and then writing and reading. It took me a long time
to learn but then again I had a lot of time to practice that stuff, since
I was mostly locked up unless Caleb decided he wanted to parade me around
or make me fight someone stupid enough to bet that he could beat me. And
it got so that I didn't want to do that anymore, when I could feel people's
stares in my skin and feel ashamed, embarrassed, angry that the fucker
could do this to me, that I could let him do that to me.
As you might expect, Caleb was none too happy that his
beast had become an actual person who fought against his imprisonment and
was now too much of a rebel to lead around on a chain. He made a deal with
Sust which did make me a slave (rather than a dog), but at least it
let me move around freely. The cage was gone, but too late, the damage had
already been done. I could go around his mansion, though his wife hated that
and was probably scared of me, and eventually I was trusted enough to go
into town on errands. I didn't even think of running away - where would I
go? Besides, if I went away I knew Sust might not be able to find me again,
and at that moment in time he was the only thing that mattered to
me.
The last thing he taught me over those years was to
fight with control, without that animal rage, like a monk does with his hands
and body as his weapon though I did pick up the claws later on. He taught
me ways to use my ki, my life force, as a way to heal and hurt my enemies
with sheer force of mind. This self-control is, well, my most prized possession
I guess you could say. There's no way in hell that I'm ever going to go back
to what I was, even for a moment, though saying that's really just wishing
it was true. There have been times it's happened and I hate myself all the
more after each one.
And the more I learned, the more I started to hate Caleb.
But Sust made me promise not to attack him, so I didn't. Since I couldn't
kill him I just refused to listen to his orders. I'm not going to talk about
how he punished me for that, some things I just don't want to go into, even
with a stranger like you. Naturally none of it was very pretty. But this
more than anything taught me that no matter what, I had to win. Losing meant
worse than death, even against the bullies that lived in Treno and all they
wanted was to strut around after knocking you down. You let them walk over
you even once and they will keep doing it, and I wasn't going to let anyone
else do it even though Caleb did. I couldn't help that but I could make sure
no one else messed with me, that no one else was good enough to mess
with me. With Caleb it was just a battle of wills I guess, since I'd promised
not to fight him for real.
This all got Caleb real mad, I guess he felt that Sust
had just stolen his property right out from under him since I was no longer
his pet half-breed monster and could pretty much leave whenever I wanted
to. I'm sure other nobles laughed at him for this, that he owned me but not
for real. All that gil wasted, and all that. I guess I can understand that
but I can't ever forgive him for what he did about it.
So one day when I went to the house where Sust stayed
when he was in town, he wasn't there. I thought he'd gone on one of his trips
around the Mist Continent and I waited and waited, but a month passed and
he never showed. I knew right away something was wrong because he hadn't
said goodbye. He turned up finally bobbing in the canal, his face purple
and his eyes open wide, bulging, very dead. He'd been dead that whole month,
and the sucker-plants that eat flesh, that live under some of the bridges
in Treno, especially where the common people live, had held him under for
that whole time and ate away at him. I like to think that he was dead before
the sucker-plants got to him; it's the only thing I can do, as if thinking
it made makes it so.
Some city guards hauled his body from the water, it
looks so peaceful in the lights that are always lit since it's always so
dark, and they laid him on the stones as all these people gathered around
to gawk. You could see the water pooling around him, and there were stars
in it. I stood and watched too, got as close as I dared, and before a moment
was over I knew what to do.
I dunno why I did it, it's not as if he could have heard
me, but before I left I told him I loved him. He's the only person I've ever
said that to. No one's ever said it to me.
Of course I knew who had Sust killed, and you do too.
So did everyone who knew about the situation and they all waited to see what
would happen, what I would do. That very minute I went straight back to Caleb
and challenged the little shit, as you might have guessed, since I didn't
have anyone to hold me to my promise anymore. He was a noble, not a fighter,
so he didn't have much of a chance. I splattered his blood all around his
office and it was the one thing I've done I regret the least in all my life.
I still keep his last name, you know, as my own, kind of like a trophy. I've
never bought into things some criminals do, like some guy I knew who kept
a bit of hair from each person he killed. But I've got his last name now,
Coral, and taking it was the best thing I could think of, the most fitting.
Of course everyone knew I'd killed him, when they found
out about it, but either they were afraid to try and arrest me or they just
hadn't liked Caleb enough to bother with charges. Nobles, who knows. Sure
didn't stop them from putting that bounty on me years later for 'stealing'
from the Auction House, but that was probably a whole different generation
of the bastards in charge too.
Anyhow, I went out on my own after that but came back
to Treno every once in a while, mostly before I even knew I was going there
just like it is for me now. I mostly ended up wandering around looking for
fights, until I met Zidane, and later joining up with him. And so there you
have it. What a sad sack of shit I am, hm? Well, I'm not going to apologize
for anything - what happened is what happened. I'll let you think of it what
you will, as if I could stop you anyway.
So, now what? I've done what I said I'd do and wrote
about myself. There's nothing left to say that the history books won't cover
for you. Well, nothing left that I want to tell you. I'm not under
any contract to tell you my secrets, after all. So I guess this is it.