#1: He hated everyone.
Regardless. Well, nearly. There was only one exception. It took a year or so for him to adjust to the family, even though he'd technically been around us his entire life. No, I understand; before he lived in the manor, he must have looked up at us as though we emerged from a book of faerie tales. We lived in two completely different worlds right next to each other. I would pass the stables and see him there, in his ragged clothes, dirty face and disarrayed hair, and he would stare at me wildly. Zalbag or Dycedarg never would have accepted such behavior, but it appeared to me that they were fond of him somehow, because through his seemingly rude outward appearance, he was very prompt in maintaining the chocobos and following orders, yet he did so with such a begrudging look on his face. Every time I saw him there, he stared at my family in a way that would make one think he had never seen us before—especially me. I couldn't decipher his look. For many months, while his parents were alive, I believed that it was because of the color of my skin—I noticed, eventually, that his skin pigment was much darker than ours, but it still puzzled me as to why that would have been an issue with our possibly being friends. I had always wanted to befriend him, and I attempted to do so one day by staring back, but I was ignorant and stupid to have thought that to be the correct initiator. When he became angry and hid himself farther back in the stables, I left almost startled, unsure of how to deal with such a reclusive child, for I had never met one quite like him before.
The next time I visited the stables with Father, he didn't stare as much, but smiled when Father greeted him verbally and patted him on the head. He saddled the bird, and before leaving, my father took out a handkerchief and lifted Delita's chin up, wiping away all of the filth that had compiled itself there. He then stopped on his way out, and turned to me, saying, "Ramza, why don't you stay here and acquaint yourself with Delita?"
I think that was the first time I had ever known of his name. My brothers had taught me that the best way to greet another man was to shake hands, but I was honestly too afraid of rejection to follow their advice. When I took a tiny step forward, Delita took a giant step back and grabbed onto the reins of another chocobo as some sort of protection.
In a way, it felt as though he saw us as monsters, but I couldn't understand why. Years later in our adolescence, I would ask Delita why he stared so much and what was passing through his mind as he did so, and I never would have guessed his answer as a child: "I was measuring a way to kill you and your brothers and perhaps make off with a chocobo."
"Why?"
"Because I hated you."
To me, as a youth, status had no place in my mind. There was no time for me to learn, I suppose. I hadn't the slightest idea of the word's meaning; I just believed that Delita's family was simply poor. Had I not asked him when we were teenagers, I would have never known that while I was constantly trying to figure out a way to be friendly towards him, Delita, at age seven, was plotting to sabotage my family's chocobo keep and slit my throat.
--
Within the next year, I did not make much progress with the stable boy called "Delita." From time to time, I saw more of him, though: eventually, he was permitted to serve the family inside the house (in addition to maintaining the chocobos), and his younger sister Teta was invited, too. My sister Alma was the same age as she, and ironically, they had an easier time getting along than Delita and I. Teta was a very shy child, yet not aggressive like her brother, and so Alma could approach her without much resistance. Yet, Delita avoided me or sneered at me as usual, whenever the opportunity came to him.
I was curious as to why the Hyral children were staying in the manor in the first place, but I dared not ask: in a matter of weeks, the answer came.
--
Nearly a year after we met, Dycedarg called me away from my Bible lessons early one Sunday to the front garden of the manor—with him, he had Delita and Teta, both bashfully standing before him with their hands clasped, looking at the ground. Behind us, in a small pond where we kept exotic fish, our nanny, Nurse Rebecca—a retired Priestess who had been the midwife to my siblings and myself—looked after Alma. She did not come when Dycedarg called out to her; rather, she remained splashing about in the water and waved to Teta when she saw her. Teta did not move, and when I came closer to them, it seemed as though she had been crying for days. Delita showed no sign of sadness, but instead of hardened will: his eyes were set on a fixed spot on the earth, and his jaw was stiff.
Dycedarg had called Alma and I up to inform us that the siblings would, from then on, be staying alongside us in the manor, but it didn't go as he had arranged: Alma ran up, soaked and messy, grabbed Teta's hand, and said, "Hi, Teta! Let's go play!" She dragged the poor girl off in the direction of the pond before Dycedarg could even say a word, and by that time, my father had summoned him away for something of a more important matter. Dycedarg left Delita and I alone, entrusting me to "show him that he's welcome."
At the time, I still had no idea that The Plague had killed his parents, nor was I concerned about why he was permanently staying, but I couldn't stop staring at Delita's feet. In the place of shoes was rough fabric, mostly likely attained from a burlap sack used to keep potatoes. After a few minutes, without either of us moving, I took him by his wrist, and wordlessly led him to my room.
I expected at any moment for him to wrench his arm away from me, but he remained only slightly resistant until we got there. Then, did he pull away from me and retreat to the corner of the room. Despite this, I remember being excited about having a guest, and the first thing I made sure to do was replace his makeshift shoes for a pair of decent ones that I owned, no more than three months old and thrice worn. I went into my closet and dragged them out in front of him, unsure of whether he'd like them or not or if they'd even fit. As expected, he didn't react immediately, but his eyes shifted from back and from me. Then, I mustered as much charm as I could, and finally managed to stumble out the speech I'd prepared some time before:
"Mm-my name is Ramza, and-and I hope you like it here, Delita, 'cause… this is your new home now, and I'll be your best friend for as long as you want me to, 'cause you might have other friends and not like me anymore."
--
Eventually, Delita did take the shoes, and he did thank me for them—though it sounded as if he forced the words through his teeth. Aside from that, it seemed that my gift to him was what finally opened the door to our friendship—he was surprised by my kindness, in fact; so surprised that I had to give him a pair of trousers, a fresh tunic, and three pairs of socks before he would ever truly call me his friend. Had I known any better…
Well, I would have given him the things he wanted anyways, I suppose.
/chapter two