*Looks back into the past*
"Hey fat boy!" I turn around to see Michelinus, the most popular kid in this section of Iridine. "What now..." I replied. "When are you ever gonna get skinny, eh? You get bigger every time I see you." ANGER, I feel it swelling inside of me. Heat, from my very hands, yearning to grasp Michelinus' throat and pummel him to a pulp. Yet, I gaze at what he is laughing at, my plump exterior folding over itself, creating quite a disgusting figure. I sigh and say, "I don't know, Michelinus, I just don't know". Suddenly I am thrown into a thick puddle of mud. Clearing my face from the dripping mixture of water and dirt, I see Michelinus running away. RAGE.... the force of a hundred past experiences of humiliation and defeat, of running away from all the insults floods my mind, inundating my very being, until.... I burst. Watching as Michelinus stumbles over a rock, I run in his direction, without his knowing my chase, and tackle him as he began to slowly rise from his fall. The following moments pass as a minute blur in time, yet a momentous event in my life. And so - my innocence lost, my life a mess, I look down at my hands, and blood is caked underneath my fingernails, dripping down my arms. Michelinus lay in a heap of his own spittle and blood. "Bjer! What have you done!" I look up from my gory hands and see Nimbus running down the street, with my cousin, Luminae. "Cousin, did you do this?" she whispered. Tending to his wounds, she said to me "Quickly, submit yourself to the constable!" simultaneous to Nimbus' warning me "Watch out!". "What consta--" And I was knocked unconscious. I woke up in my cozy room, with my parents arguing next door. Their words are inaudible, but it was obvious they were discussing something terribly serious. But what? Were they going to beat me, or make me do chores? Were they going to force me to apologize to Michelinus in public? No, their punishment could not have been worse - I was going to boarding school.
*Snaps out of his reminiscing*
We were taught to behave, to act like gentleman. My father knew not what he was sending me to. I would rather not explain in detail what happened there, but I was taught discipline, one way or another - when to say sir or my lady, when to bow, and when to fight. Attending school became an everyday routine, until the day the letter came.... That letter declared my parents dead. They died peacefully, my mother after my father, only one month apart. The processions are said to have gone well. Also a part of the delivery was a note my father wrote in case he should die. It read:
Dear son, Bjergar,
If you are reading this note, I am already one with the deceased, one with the souls that are blessed by Ereal, on my way to a greater land. I must apologize for the night I sent you away, not giving you time to say your good byes to all you knew and loved. But know that I sent you away for your own good, to avoid any other problems like the one involving Michelinus. Know that your mother and I love you, no matter what. You are our son, our prize and joy.
Remember honor and Ereal,
Bjerran Hendel
I couldn't stay in boarding school any longer. I immediately packed the few clothes I could scavenge and ran out of the camp as fast as I could, never looking back, never paying attention to the barking dogs or the emergency bells resounding a student's escape. My once corpulent body had molded into a muscular body and my girth had lengthened, adding to my height. Away I ran, away from the hideous school and towards Iridine. Towards my home, to receive beatings for my crime, to make amends for what I had done, to apologize to Michelinus in public. Weary from the long run, I fainted in the grasslands. Hours later, I gathered my senses… living off of shrubs and wilderness plants, I walked to Iridine, to search for my friend Nimbus and my cousin Luminae.