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The Tale of Beowulf: Lonesome Child
Before he met Reis Duelar, Beowulf had never truly had a friend.
He had playmates, and children who shared his interests. But he burned through these would-be friends almost as quickly as he could make them, eager to join them in make-believe games with make-believe swords only to discard them when they did not share his boundless enthusiasm to keep playing pretend. Hours he spent, first with sticks (broken to kindling every time), then with wooden swords (also all kindling, though a bit slower), then with blunted training swords (never made into kindling, though not for lack of trying). No matter his daily routine, from the age of 4 onward, he practiced sword strikes (briefly stopped by a broken arm at age 6, though his attempts to keep practicing kept the arm broken three months longer than it should have been). Hours he spent in his father's ornate training room, no matter how often or severely he was punished when his father discovered he had once again stolen the key and broken in somewhere he was not supposed to go.
What time had he for friends, when he had his destiny ahead of him? He was content with his loneliness. He had his dreams, and his father. When he was a little older, he had Reis. But then one day, quite without meaning to, he had friends, too.
He was as exhausting an Academy student as there had ever been, exasperating his fellow students and frustrating his professors. He had no regard for the usual order of classes, nor the ranking system for the cadets. He was a fury upon the training ground, challenging and defeating his fellow cadets at every opportunity, regardless of their age, their skill, or the punishments he received from the Academy's Instructors (not least of all his father). Ten years of relentless training had not dulled his passion, and none he met could match it.
But when he was not terrorizing his classmates, he would saddle up the lovely purple chocobo his father had given to him for his 13th birthday, and gallivant across the outlying hills surrounding Gariland, laughing in the breeze. In his mind, he was not a cadet out for a quick ride: he was a hero, searching the land for his next adventure.
One day, he crested a wide hill not far from the Military Academy, and found the two cadets training in a lea between the hills. Each fought with only a single sword, the air thick with the clanging of their blunt blades.
"You can do better than that, Ramza!" barked the red-headed man on one side, as he knocked aside his blonde opponent's blade and rushed in to finish the fight.
Ramza? As in, Ramza Beoulve? Son of Balbanes? The Finest Knight Beneath Heaven?
Beowulf gave them warning—a wild "whoop!" of exultation, as he urged Violet down upon them, drawing his training swords from their places sheathed on either hip, steadying himself with his thighs on his chocobo's back. The son of Balbanes and his red-haired companion looked up with a mix of confusion and terror, and Beowulf whooped again, and raised his blades to strike. If they could not defend themselves, they deserved to hurt.
The two older boys met his training swords in a furious clatter of blows, but they were driven back before him, and Beowulf laughed wildly as the blonde boy tumbled to the ground and it was just the red-head, unleashing a desperate flurry of strikes to keep Beowulf back, just barely holding him at bay. Even a Beoulve could not stand against him, the Academy was too small for him, the world was too small for him-!
Violet jerked to one side. Beowulf's thighs tightened against her back, but he was off-balance, his lethal strikes now whirling comically against empty air as he struggled to keep his seat, and the blonde boy had Violet's reins in his hand and was pulling her to one side, and there was movement from the corner of his eye, and Beowulf turned his head in disbelief to see the red-headed man, leaping towards him with his sword discarded in the dirt and his hands outstretched.
Tackled from atop his chocobo, to land with a winded thumph against the grass. Gasping for air, as the red-haired boy panted on top of him, and the blonde boy fought to control Violet as the confused chocobo warbled in the spring air.
"Who the fuck are you?" Delita Heiral asked, staring down at Beowulf.
They were firm friends by the end of Beowulf's first semester at the Academy, even inviting him to their Saint's Day Celebration in Igros during the school summer break. That day, Beowulf, Ramza, Teta, and Alma ran like mad creatures about the grounds of Beoulve Manor. And that night, Beowulf lay in Reis' arms in the darkness of the Templar Dormitories, and found he was crying.
"What's wrong?" Reis whispered, as one long-fingered hand traced a path down the curve of his spine.
"I'm so happy," Beowulf whispered, and kissed her.