Chapter 8: Just A Peasant

Teus fell to the ground as he came closer to acquiescing to the pain. Through the throbbing pain he barely managed to squeeze out words.

“...Wait…don’t… ”

Raud snarled again, looking at him with unadulterated contempt before interrupting him.

“Still talking are we? Looks like you never learn. The day peasant swine like you finds the King’s Crest is the day hell freezes over.”

The eyes of the Beast Breaker narrowed with a cold glare.

“Looks like not killing you was a mistake…”

As the child raised his foot to Teus' head one more time, a firm hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up to find the serious and slightly angry expression of his leader,  coldly glaring at him.

“That’s enough, Raud.”

At a loss for words, the breaker quickly resigned himself from the area and took a step back, but not without shooting Teus one last ill-tempered grimace. The captain looked at Teus in his dirty and damaged condition with a pinch of pity.

He threw the dragon core he had collected earlier back to him.

“I’ll be brief. I apologize for the impertinence of my subordinate… But understand that his sentiment is not wrong. I’m under no obligation to, but I will answer part of your question.” He pointed to the blue gem next to the boy.

“To use the core, you must first awaken it. In order to do that you must have the resolve necessary and the intuition in order to tame the beast within and keep it under your control. Such volition tends not to exist among you peasants. It’s clear that you're no exception. If you had it for a while and you still cannot manage to get it to awaken for you, then chances are, it never will. Any more information would be a waste to you.”

He watched the blood drip from Teus’ nose and his sullied face as he coughed.

“We were not born the same. It’s time you let the breakers do their part and you do yours.”

Teus grabbed the ground with his shaking fists as he bit his lip so hard it began to draw blood. The captain continued unbothered. The demeanor of the boy seemingly, not being of his concern.

“You’ve likely heard this saying before, and I’m sure you don’t like it. But it’d suit you well to remember that you’re just a peasant, nothing more, nothing less. Don’t let meaningless dreams delude you. Life gets easier when you accept your role.”

Without missing a beat, or another word, the lead Beast Breaker turned around and began to walk away with measured strides every step of the way. This time with more finality. Raud promptly followed closely after his departure. Although not without giving Teus one more chastising glance, almost to say: You got lucky. 

Teus barely supported his body weight with his one arm. His knees pressed deep against the ground and his free hand was holding his stomach. His eyes lingered on the breakers, he struggled to keep them open as he watched them saunter off into the distance. His blood, still dripping on the ground.

“Damn you! My scarf… I want my scarf back!” 

They left him in a pool of his fluids and quiet, unrelenting rage.

His eyes were fixated on his lost scarf, watching as it waved in the wind, off with them. His eyes burned with fury. His body was shaking as he struggled to contain himself, yet was incapable of speaking. Disgruntled gruntings caused him to cough even more as his arm gave out from underneath him, causing him to fall to the ground. His eyes still fixed on the people who had just humiliated him.

“I swear I won’t… let you leave with my scarf, damn it…!”

His vision progressively got more blurry.

The anger stirring in his chest only grew.

An intrusive light interrupted his line of thoughts from the corner of his eye. A familiar azure glow that he knew before, this time way more intense. He shifted his gaze to the dragon core beside him, boldly flashing to the rhythm of his heartbeat. His eyes shot wide open briefly.

“Will…you help me get it back?”

Darkness enveloped his sight.

Before he could contemplate it for long he succumbed to his pain and fell unconscious.

“Teus!...Teus hang in there!”

The shopkeeper and the new hire in hurried steps rushed to his side, but there was no response.

From afar the captain, still marching, spared one last glance at the broken boy, almost as though he were looking for something. After a short pause, his face showed a gleam of recognition. A slight smirk began to tug at the corner of his lips as he noticed the flashing of Teus’ dragon core had begun.

****

Soon, the night sky fell on Thorinhil.

An uneasy stillness fell over the town, the streets were quiet and the sound of the street lamplights flickering resonated throughout the air with a calm whistling of the wind.

Inside a nearby hospital was the shopkeeper and the new hire, patiently waiting for Teus to awake from his deep slumber. The boy was laid out in a dusty, old cot. A thin linen blanket covering his battered body.

“We can’t keep him forever.” The shopkeeper said over the chatter in the background of the halls.

“The nurses said he should be fine.” The new hire chimed in.

“That statement has been said moments before plenty of people here have died…” The shopkeeper quickly interjected. “I just hope whatever this is, it has nothing to do with that dragon core he picked up.” He looked on the counter next to Teus where the blue gem was placed, now nowhere near as radiant as it had been before.

“This feels wrong, we’re using his money to pay for this and on top of that it still looks like he’s in critical condition.” The new hire protested.

“Yeah? Well, welcome to Thorinhil. Do you have enough money to cover this visit and still put food on the table? It’s the best we can do for him. It’s his fault he went to go talk to them anyway! We ended up using every coin that he had too and after that dragged out bargain, we couldn’t even get him for half a night. He needs to recover soon. Otherwise…”

The heavy breathing caught the shopkeeper off guard.

Teus’ face looked bothered as his chest rapidly rose and dropped, his face red with agony. The new hire grabbed his jaw out in panic.

“What’s going on…? Is he dying?”

“No, he’s still breathing, he’s probably just having a bad dream. If anything, it looks like he’s remembering something.”

“...I see, I wonder what he’s remembering then?”

The two stood over the child while his breathing steadied, although just barely. His mind completely slipped into a different state of consciousness.

****

The winter breeze howled ruthlessly throughout the town while snowflakes attacked relentlessly, a snow storm took over Thorinhil. An inn was lively with chatter and carried an atmosphere of warmth to it. Inside the inn, people enthusiastically talked, sang songs, played music while drinking and eating. While they kept each other company during the blizzard.

The door to the inn burst open as the host carried Teus by the collar of his shirt, holding him so that his feet would dangle from the ground, and threw him into a fresh pile of snow.

“There’s only room for paying customers, kid!” He bellowed.

Teus' body hit the snow hard as he collapsed into the ground. The cold wind bit into his skin, the snow compressed beneath his bare feet as he stood and tried to get into the inn again. The door violently shut in his face with a loud thud. He heard a muffled voice through the hardened wood.

“Just get out of here!”

Teus’ numb knuckles knocked on the door to the inn.

“Please…I won’t be long, I- I’ll even pay!... I swear… I’ll pay!”

Silence.

“When I find a big enough treasure I’ll pay…”

He slowly sulked before falling on the ground and letting the winter cold beat against him. He looked at the ground as tears began to form from the corners of his eyelids.

“Damn, I got kicked out again. Looks like even my pity is good for nothing.”

It was only a matter of time before his actions had caught up to him. He indeed, had no money to purchase a stay at the inn and his act of pretending like he had any to get shelter would only go on for so long. However, that did not make it any less painful for when he was thrown out…again. 

He hated it all.

He hated that he was in the cold. He hated that he was poor. He hated that he was helpless. He hated how people looked at him. He hated how people talked about him. He hated his torn and dirty clothes. He hated how he smelled. He hated that the only idea he had to survive was to become this compulsive liar.

If he was being honest, in this moment, Teus hated every single aspect about himself.

He broke down into more tears as he held his face in anger.

“I hate being a damn peasant!”