Work Text:
Back then, Vicious didn’t keep track of his age.
Maybe when one was a child, such ages, or milestones, should have held more meaning. But he didn’t know how old he was when he was moving from town to town, on shoes frayed past repair, on legs nearly whittled down to the bone. No one had given him an answer, not to the boy who just barely passed the knees of most adults.
Only what he was. What he was born for, what he was meant to die for. You shouldn’t even exist.
Just the red emblem on his stomach, that sometimes burned so bright it seared, that sometimes shone through the shirt no matter how hard he tried to keep it covered, tightly shut in the dark.
Great Transgressor, small and pitiful, with bruises on his sides and scratches on his cheek. It was too often to be chased out to the woods where at least when the monsters attacked him, it was for food and nothing else. Great Transgressor, where he will one day be eaten alive out underneath the sun, and no decent human being would ever risk the mark of sin to save him.
Wanderers in those days were not always decent.
There had been a monster, its wolf-shaped maw already clinging onto Vicious’ arm, until it was suddenly pushed to the ground. Something rang in his ears then – something loud – painful and making him hear a whistle that seemed to never end. Blood was dripping down his left hand, and he could only have a moment of consciousness to look up at the one who rescued him.
A shadow in the sun, with a voice that could be as sweet as silk if it wanted – and still it came out honeyed, yet it bit at the air with laughter.
“Heh. An ugly one, aren’t you?”
There were shapes held in the other’s hands, but Vicious couldn’t keep his eyes open. When he slept, it was rarely this peaceful.
The wanderer would not tell him his name, even long after he woke up. A bandage had been wrapped around his arm, yet already it seemed barely needed, the blood all but gone. Vicious expected questions even though none came.
“Got any parents, kid?” When the man spoke, there would be the fine tuning of a stringed lute that he’d carry in his arms. It was just slightly out of tune, the instrument badly needing replacing. But fingers would pluck at those strings all the same, despite that Vicious was not the most interested audience. “Shouldn’t be wandering off like this.”
He hugged his knees, hid his chin behind them, watching the adult play his discordant song. To this day, Vicious could never remember the man’s face, always shadowed by that sun that hung over his head like a lantern. Only the other details, such as the hat perched haphazardly on the man’s head, and the strange metal piece strapped to his waist – something that looked easy to hold, but what use they had, Vicious had no clue.
Once, he must have known what he looked like. But maybe memories should be forgotten for a reason.
“Not much of a talker, huh?”
He had turned away, hugging his knees tighter. He covered his guilt as much as he could, but the man must have seen it when he was asleep…
Yet nothing around his neck. Nothing that would catch the sun like the eye of a winking god. There was no vision orb in sight.
“That’s fine, that’s fine. I don’t care that much anyway.” Interrupting himself with a hum, the man continued playing his lute, his head inclined as he did so, the brim of his hat shadowing his eyes. “Me, I can’t keep my mouth shut, unless someone tries to slit my throat. A fascinating story, that. Remind me to tell you sometime.”
Vicious didn’t react. But he was careful to keep quiet, to huddle into the shadow of the tree he sat against, hoping to be unseen. The man’s eyes pierced through him, barely missing a chord in his song.
He could barely understand what the man was talking about anyway.
He was so used to seeing hate and anger in adults’ faces, to see their eyes widen and their teeth bared at him as they shouted. Such faces made an impression on him, imprinted into his memory. Their voices had always been rough and overwhelming, and it was only the sound of them he could retain. He did not learn to read, he could not learn to speak. Everything was only noise, noise, and noise.
But the one who hummed, who was on the cusp of singing, he could not remember his expression. Had he ever had one to begin with? And only his voice, dripping out words that didn’t try to dig inside his skin. They fell on him, they sunk, and they did not beat into him with the force of hate.
Yet even then, there were some words that Vicious understood from other adults, hearing it repeated to his face in a scream many, many times.
“Or is the Great Transgressor mute?” asked the man, the words lifted along with the notes that played.
Run, came the fear if not the word itself, more familiar to the child than anything else was. But he stayed rooted in place, struck by the notes in the air, by the movement of the minstrel who never let go of his instrument. Merely adjusting his arms, his crossed-up legs, his hunched form as he continued to play.
“Doesn’t matter to me. Though how’s a kid like you escaping those nasty Enforcers?” The singing man seemed to consider this very question, but then shook his head. And like a dancer, he moved to his feet in one fluid motion, forever playing, forever at the edge of fully belting out a song. “Sounds like you need to keep moving.”
The other walked off. Vicious watched before he followed, the bandages around his arm falling away. It was the first time a voice had ever pulled him along instead of pushed him out.
Still, no name shared. None. But back then, Vicious hadn’t had one either.
The minstrel – a new word for Vicious to grasp, to understand – never ordered him to stand by close, or much of anything at all. The man would only sing, plucking at his lute, the notes traveling far, even if Vicious was far away. And sometimes he was, trailing after the traveling minstrel from a great distance away. A frightened animal that took days until he would get closer, closer, until eventually, he was walking along right beside him, wanting to hear whatever song he was singing, to watch how his fingers danced over the strings.
In one town, the minstrel bought him a cloak. It had been too big for a child, the hem dragging along in the dirt. But Vicious kept it tightly wrapped around him, covering all that he could; from just underneath his chin, all the way down to his legs until barely a spot of flesh showed. He’d even use the hood of the cloak, stuffing back his pitch-black hair within.
“You trying to hide away so much?” asked the minstrel once when they crossed from a marketplace, the people numerous, yet none of them seeing who he was. “I only got you that to cover up your mark, but you don’t need to erase yourself completely.”
Vicious tried to understand, and he got bits of it from the way the minstrel pointed at his cloak, the meaning of things slowly settling. Still, he could be safe if no one knew him. He could be safe if he kept hiding.
The minstrel tuned his lute, still not perfect, a slight tinge of discordance in the notes, but his voice gently lulled out of his throat. Not a song, not exactly… or maybe Vicious hadn’t truly understood what songs were yet.
“You let the world bite at your heels, boy, let it own your very soul… Will you not fight? Take the guilt in hand and make your place?” The face, he still could not remember to this day, but the grin from the minstrel was of a joy that he wanted to grasp as his own. “All men dream of times when we sing their very names…”
And the child thought he would continue to sing, but afterwards there was only humming, the playing of the strings, all as he walked on. The people around them looked to the minstrel with great suspicion, sharing the same with the small creature that scurried after him in its oversized shroud.
The man played his songs, but he did not play very well.
He would do so in the middle of town, dirty hat placed on equally dirty ground, for those who would spare a gald or two. And some did – if rarely. The child could hardly count, but from what they were given, it was barely that much, the coins so lonely and spread far apart from each other. Vicious would huddle near the minstrel, watching him play for virtually no one, many just passing by.
And then the minstrel would stop in mid-song, his voice halted on a note. He’d sling the lute back on his shoulder. “Watch the money, will you?” he asked of Vicious. Before the child could react, he slunk away, moving through the crowd that had barely noticed him in the first place.
Gald clinked against each other as they fell into the hat, Vicious watching them arc downward through the air. Familiar, as when he used to beg for scraps, before he would eventually get chased out of town…
The passage of time back then had been meaningless for Vicious – days and weeks would go by without him understanding it. Had it been hours or just minutes that he sat here in the streets? The color of the gald was the only thing drawing his attention, as he traced their edges with curious fingertips, looking like another lonely thing with the rest, unknowingly drawing pity from those who could not see the brand underneath his cloak.
The sun was eons below the horizon when the minstrel came back.
“So you didn’t run off with it?” And the minstrel sounded generally surprised at that. Vicious clutched to the few gald he had been playing with in the middle of his palm, but the other didn’t ask for it back. He only bent down, retrieving both money and hat with ease. “You’re a soft kid.”
Nothing about the other had changed, no hint as to where he had gone. Nothing except the quick way the minstrel moved on his feet, the way his constant grin remained a fixture on his face.
“You coming?” Nothing was urgent about his tone. Vicious was sure that if he remained seated on the ground, the minstrel would not look back. This would be the end of their short time together, as simple as that.
The cloak around him suddenly felt suffocating.
Even so, he kept it wrapped around his torso and chin as he rushed after the minstrel, who had already begun on another song. It was not unusual to hear music at this late hour, so few heads turned. And what a different air it is, to willingly leave a place without being chased down.
Still, wanderers such as they were not decent folk.
It would be many years later before Vicious would question just what exactly the minstrel had been doing in the places they passed through. A man who only played out-of-tune songs – and not even those that were popular – and who left the crowds before they would get filled up. A traveling minstrel does not play in one venue for very long, but he would be long gone from town before the dust from his journeys would even settle.
Vicious had only felt comfortable with motion, constant as it was, so he never complained. The minstrel would ask of him small favors; to watch their belongings full of supplies for their trip out, to keep close to the gates, and then they would be on their way once the stars appeared in the sky.
It didn’t matter to him what the man did, because after each time there would only be songs to grace the air, a meal to fill his belly. It was nearly routine, and Vicious found that he liked such routine when each night, the man would let him follow, always bringing him food.
Never had they once stayed at an inn, and Vicious preferred it that way, to be away from crowded streets and out by the glades, even if such places held monsters that would sometimes come skulking so close – usually to him. But the minstrel never seemed to mind, never at all, as he’d strike one away with the flash of a dagger, and also, a great noise. It was so loud it shook Vicious’ teeth once he heard it. The weapon had never been called by name, so he could only identify them by their noise and nothing more.
And it was once, during such a fight, that a bottle slipped out from the minstrel’s vest as he was preoccupied. It slowly rolled towards Vicious’ feet, and the running and dodging from monsters had made him so thirsty suddenly that he didn’t think twice. He reached down to take it, sipping from it like it was fresh water.
It…wasn’t.
It stung his throat, made him cough and hack so loud that even the monster jumped at the sound. It gave the minstrel enough opportunity to strike at its side with a dagger, making the creature run off with a yelp. Vicious kept trying to breathe in air, eyes tearing up as he struggled with what exactly he had been drinking.
The bottle was snatched from him, and then a hand patted his back, dredging out the last of the burn still lingering in his throat.
“Not old enough to be drinking that stuff, kid.” The voice wasn’t angry. The minstrel was never angry, and there was always amusement at the edge of his voice. “Some drunks can take it and handle themselves in battle, but I doubt you’re one of them.”
Vicious was slowly grasping language as the weeks passed, and he grasped enough of this. It sounded like an insult.
Shaking his head, Vicious held out his hand, eyes directed to the bottle, half-drunk, its labeling on it nearly falling off, looking dirt cheap.
Because after the burn, the taste had not seemed half-bad.
What he was met with was a grin, then a short laugh. Even when the minstrel didn’t give it back to Vicious, he said, “Then when you’re older, we can share a drink. Like a birthday present!” A wave of the hand, the shrug so plain in his voice. “Whenever that is.”
Even after months out on the road, the minstrel never shared his name.
They were both nameless beings, devoid of vision orbs, walking blindly out into the roads with barely a gald on them. Time still passed by strangely for Vicious, but not in blurs of color and visions of bared teeth. Just the imprint of the sun in the sky, the lilting melody of the songs the minstrel would play and then flub with the notes, the words falling over his head as he slept by the fireside, wrapped in his cloak.
The closest thing to peace he had ever truly felt.
Of course, it can’t last.
It had been in early afternoon when they arrived at the next village, smaller than the rest that it wasn’t even marked on any map and had no giant Vision Central at its plaza. It had barely more than one shop to restock their supplies either. Vicious still stayed wrapped up in his cloak as they went in, huddled even as the heat of the day bore down and made him feel like he was being overcooked.
In the middle of it all, the minstrel had silently vanished again. So Vicious had waited and waited. And when he heard a familiar sound break through the quiet, far off just past one home and near a tavern – instinct rushed through him like waves.
The minstrel usually went to these, where the lights were too low and where barrels were stocked near the walls. Vicious left the gate that he had been standing in, ran through empty streets to what he knew to be an inn. The door was already half-open. He rushed inside, nearly tripping on the hem of his cloak.
Someone grabbed him by the neck instantly, pulling him into the air until he felt he would choke.
Decent folk did not have to worry about such things.
He only caught the flash of the minstrel’s back, all as hulking shadows loomed around him in a large room. Tables were thrown to the side, chairs had been broken to bits, and shards of glass scattered across the floor – and a body, fell over on its side, blood staining around it.
It was a tragedy for Vicious that only those faces were the ones he remembered, for they all had the same expression he was used to seeing; widened eyes and bared teeth, a rage so deep that it seemed to eat away at its wearer from the inside.
The minstrel turned, saw him hanging from a stranger’s grasp, and then moved towards him.
The fist around his cloak tightened, making him gasp.
“Who’s this?” spoke a voice much too close to his ear. “Your kid?”
The first time, an edge in that sing-song voice. The minstrel smiled, but it held nothing warm in it. “Careful now.”
The cloak around him lifted just around his waist, so Vicious struggled with keeping the fabric in place, while also gasping for air. The fear was too great, even as he struggled and grunted at the one who held him tight.
“Kid did nothing to you. Your beef is with me.”
“Should have thought of that before you scammed me out of my money.” Vicious couldn’t count how many there were. All that his mind screamed was to leave, to move, get out. “Put down your pistol and then we’ll talk.”
The minstrel shrugged, the lute still strapped around his back. The weapon he held still burned off smoke from its end. His thumb ran along the side of it, along with a click. “I only came here to play a game. Nothing more than that.”
“Put it down.” There was such hatred in that voice, so much of it that Vicious was surprised that it wasn’t directed at him, but to the singing man. “My orb caught you shooting. Do anything else and you’ll be hanged or worse.”
Sinners don’t last long, and Vicious had always known he had lasted far too much with all the words everyone would throw out at him. Like bile, acid or worse, it seared through him, left him shivering and unable to grasp anything else from the meaning of their words except for hurt.
He didn’t understand how the minstrel could stay standing through it all.
“Let the kid go first,” he said.
In answer, the hand let him go – only to shove his face into the floor, cutting his cheek against the crushed glass.
Then came the loud, familiar sound from before. It broke the air, made Vicious’ teeth hum from the power of it. The man next to him screamed in pain.
“You cheating bastard!”
Vicious had only turned enough to see the minstrel still hold his own. He dodged from one man’s grip to then strike him in the back of his head with his instrument, with no inkling of regret. He outstretched his arm to aim a shot at another, right through the chest. He moved fast, and it would make sense, for how fast had he been when he rescued Vicious from the monster, giving no thought to the blood that must have flowed so much and so overwhelming?
The same overly large hand gripped Vicious by the cloak, ripped it away so violently that if it had been his very skin, it would have torn off just the same. The guilt on his stomach burned, and in his fear, the anger stirred from where he had long buried it.
Eyes saw him, and sometimes, that was enough to start it.
His own fingers stung as they elongated into claws, his tongue seared inside his own mouth along with teeth that pierced his very lips. Something long and slithering slipped out of his back like a snake. He was not used to this, for the Great Transgressor was still so very young.
Black fire engulfed the hand that had held him down. There was the scream of rage and fear that he was so used to hearing. Wood caught fire, spread across to other bodies that had just been freshly killed.
In the end, it had been all over, so very quick.
The child lifted himself off the floor, kicking away the leg of the now dead assailant, the strange fire flickering and swallowing up the light that filtered through the windows. Vicious clutched his stomach, waiting for the overwhelming rage to simmer, as much as it could. Blood seeped into his eyes from the cuts of the glass – and he waited.
Claws faded, along with teeth and tail, but the felt the shape of them still. Unforgettable. Like phantom limbs that wouldn’t leave him alone.
He looked up at the minstrel, waiting for a change in his eyes, in his smile, to hear the words he had so often heard, so many times.
Instead, he was caught up in arms, slung over a shoulder like a satchel, and they rushed from the tavern, from the town that held so few as the fire continued to spread. In the other man’s hand was his lute, fingers still idly tapping against the strings, even as it lay half-broken in his grip.
“You’re vicious, little one!” Laughter that rang and sung at the same time. “But then, you’d have to be, wouldn’t you?”
Miles off, all as smoke burned in the distance, Vicious still lay across another’s back. His cloak was gone, leaving him in battered clothing. The cuts on his cheek had already been healed up.
He thought back on that word the minstrel had said then. Vicious.
He couldn’t grasp the entirety of that meaning just then, his throat half-sore, and his hands shaking. But back out on the roads, the minstrel moved as if it was just like any other day, walking along with both broken instrument and nearly broken boy.
“A second longer, and I would have shot him through the head, but you beat me to it,” spoke the man as they walked. “Fool I was to have missed the first shot anyway.” Another chuckle, and in that chuckle was the mixture of a hum. Even now, he couldn’t stop singing. What else would he sing about, leaving all these bodies behind, for the trees to cover up as they all withered to ash? “But you’ve got heart, kid.”
No blame. No anger. The Great Transgressor listened to that voice, that only held melody, along with a scent of what he later learned was whiskey.
He thought on the word again before he fell asleep on the minstrel’s back. He liked the shape of it, the way it sounded, the way it punctured the air like that pistol did. Vicious.
If there was one thing worthy enough to keep from his past, it was this.
.
.
.
With a light step, he left the room for Kanata and Aegis to argue among themselves. It had been genius to mention the peach pie bit, but now just the mention of it made him hungry – or thirsty it was more like.
Barely a step down the hallway before he saw Yuna was by his side, a smile so devious it made him wary.
“What’s got you all perked up?”
“Oh Vicious… you need to work on your lies a bit more.” It was never above her to eavesdrop, as with most things. “Especially when zey aren’t really lies.”
At that, Vicious grinned, snickering through sharp teeth. “Still works, doesn’t it? Now they can at least get off my back about some dumbass books.”
“My poor barbarian friend. If you wanted some private tutoring to help with your reading, all you had to do was ask.”
He waved it off, leaving her in the darkened hallway. “I’d rather take a nap. Give it those two instead. Tie ‘em both up like you’ve always wanted to!”
She’s too good, he thought, and just when he was about to turn the corner, he heard another call from her.
“Oh, and happy birthday, Vicious. Isn’t it today?” The smirk in her voice was gentle, somehow. “Your special time alone, iz it not?”
“That’s the idea.” Vicious shrugged, walking down the stairs to the bar floor. “Later.”
It didn’t matter what he’d drink – as long as it was alcohol. Cheap beer, expensive wine vintage, anything would do. When he’d ask the barkeep to give him the whole drink menu (and to charge it on the knight’s tab in their group), Vicious would down each one in a gulp, all until his throat burned.
He had no real birthday. He just chose it to be the day that the minstrel had died.
“Here’s to you, old man,” he said to nobody, a grin lifting his face. “Would have been nice to share it with ya.”