Pain. Pain was the master of those mountains, a lord even Marluxia was in awe of. He never forgot the first time he had been whipped- there was no mercy between blows, not even for a child, and he'd passed out in agony only to be woken by a vicious cut down his leg that left him limping for months. The crime he had committed to earn such a vicious beating was hoarding food: he'd smuggled a husk of bread in the folds of his clothes to stave off starvation that could never be predicted. He still had the braces on his legs.
Marluxia shuddered, tugging the hem of his black coat up over his leg. The scar was still there, one of the only reminders of his life before. That, and his tattooed green fingers.
He'd been stolen for a reason, he found out. Stories of his prowess in the soil had reached the leader of the clan he'd been abducted by, and he was turned into the rough gravel outside of the cooking area under the supervision of an armed guard, left with a single word: Grow.
And grow he did. Even in the dead land that had never known a fertile touch, Alrumia's hands coaxed stubborn seeds into bloom. They thanked him with solitude and safety and slender green tendrils of hope that twisted around his fingers like loving pets. In the garden he forgot to crave escape, as green and white and vivid orange grew together in the small plot, a feast of colour and flavour that raised Alrumia from slave to soldier. Greed drove his ascension, too: their leader, an unnamed and unknown entity for all of Alrumia's life, wanted more.
He was seized from his small garden one morning as he ushered a beanstalk from the ground, crying out as he was bundled under the arm of the burly, smelly cook. Although he immediately fell silent, well aware of the beating he'd get for screaming, he shook, gaping around with wide eyes, memorizing their path. He didn't ask any questions: he was scared of the answers, despite the cook's relatively gentle grip. Through the winding caves they marched, stopping at a set of steel double doors, one held open with a pile of rusted armour as a doorstop. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of hashish and incense, the savoury, heady scent rushing to Alrumia's brain and leaving him reeling.
The cook set him down outside the door, urging him inside alone, closing the door behind him. The small boy was dwarfed by the size of the cavernous room that was lined with mats and cushions and heavy religious books, hugging himself in nervousness. At the far end of the hall waited a huddle of three men in clean white robes, each with a pipe of hashish and, much more alarmingly, spiked metal tools. One of them barked an order for Alrumia to approach: he did, his feet feeling as though they were weighed in concrete blocks.
The West, one of the men said, seated comfortably and speaking between thick clouds of intoxicating smoke, believed green fingers would grow great harvests. The two other men moved silently to Alrumia's sides, taking the trembling boy's arms and gently leading him to the floor. It hurt to sit with braces on his legs, so they lay him down on his stomach and covered him with a linen sheet, before handing him a pipe.
Alrumia sucked greedily on it. Hashish was a painkiller here, as well as a sacred drug: if he was being offered it, something religious or painful was about to happen, probably both. He wasn't disappointed-as soon as he started growing dizzy and light-headed the pain began, a slim row of needles dipped in green ink hammered into his skin, making him jolt. He was held down as he struggled against the slow, steady tap-tap-tap of the needles sinking into his skin, dying his fingers from tips to knuckles a deep, mossy green. Blood and clear plasma leaked from his tortured skin along with the ink, mixing with his tears as he cried in helpless torment. The pain was excruciating-the needles spared nothing, sinking under his nails and into the tender webbing of his hands, burning like fire and searing through his arms and to his chest. His heart lept in his chest as though it wanted to break free, tense sweat soaking his back and face as the radiating agony overwhelmed him.
It lasted only hours. The hashish made time crawl to days. Alrumia lost track of how many times he drifted in an out of consciousness, the tap-tap-tap haunting him in his drugged dreams, his fingers feeling as though they were being held in a fire. It was only when the needle finally lifted away that he dared open his eyes, whimpering as the seated sage roughly massaged a cool oil into his weeping hands. He was too weak to sit up, shivering as he stared at his hands: the fingers were painted a permanent green in slim tendrils of vine, every inch of the plants etched into his hands drawn in meticulous detail. It would have been beautiful if it didn't hurt so much, if the vines weren't blooming in blood.
The pain would last for a few weeks as his hands scabbed and grew new skin, he was told. No one warned him how badly it would itch, though: the desperate need to scratch drove him half to madness at night and he was forced to wear thick, hot woollen mitts to protect his hands. He chewed at the drawstrings to get them off, and was whipped for it with a knotted rope that left him bruised black. He couldn't garden with his hands cracking and bleeding constantly-instead he spent his days chewing hashish for the pain and pouring over the only books available to him, great religious tomes that he couldn't possibly read.
The sage who had tattooed him would sit with him and read the stories to him, sometimes. Alrumia was enchanted by the tales, listening in fascination learning more about God than he'd ever heard about back in his small village. Tales of revenge and murder were balanced by promises of love and justice, a side of the Lord he had never known. Those nights, before he slept, he would pray for the love and kindness God had shown in the holy texts. He prayed until it hurt. His only answer was his healing hands, soon smooth and soft with new, green flesh.