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The first time Cor Leonis gets into a fight that results in blood-shed, he is not Cor Leonis. He is Marie Tigris and he is ten years old. Dayla Meer is a thirteen-year old soon to be high-school student who has marked Marie as her new target on her conquest to cause the younger students as much suffering as possible before moving schools. Dayla breaks Marie’s nose and Marie breaks four of Dallas’ fingers in return and gives her a black eye. That day Marie is expelled and comes to the realization that fighting feels really good.
The next fight is the day after and involves a yelling match between Marie’s parents who have different ideas on what is the proper behavior for a ‘young lady’. Marie asserts that she is not a lady, she is a peasant. Marie’s mother is not fond of this remark, though her refugee father, who had served in the Galahad freedom fighter movement, is in more than agreement with the statement.
A year later Marie comes to a personal understanding that she is most certainly not a lady and is a hooligan of sorts and as such finds himself posing as a boy. It takes another year to decide that the posing had at some point been realizing he was one. This time both his mother and father are against him and the fight results in two bloodied noses, a stream of tears, and a young man screaming that he wouldn’t be coming back home. Cor Leonis was born, and he lived on the streets of the Insomnian slums with a bite worse than his already quite awful bark.
“What’s your name?” A rather snooty looking police officer with an ugly snarl stood over Cor with his hand firmly on his nightstick.
Cor snorted, “What’s it you, pig?”
It wasn’t the first time Cor had been in a scuffle with the police, the first time he had yet to be Cor Leonis. Of course, Cor Leonis did not have all the benefits Marie Tigris possessed, as it turns out when you’re not a girl, the officers are not so sympathetic to petty thievery.
Luckily this didn’t matter much as Cor was adept at handing the cops their asses and sending them to the station with nothing to show but bruises and broken bones. None of them wanted to admit to a superior officer that a twelve-year-old boy in three T-shirts and sagging jeans had knocked them flat on their backs and left them to nurse their bruises with spit on their face.
Of course, it wasn’t long before the higher ups noticed his presence, once Leonis decided to start collecting the badges of officers he roughed up. It also did not escape notice that the boy had swiftly become a notable feature in the more shady parts of the Insomnian nights cape. Being spotted fairly often with known drug developers, fencers, and the occasional Gouda.
It was in a seedy bar that the law unknowing caught up with the quick-to-punch ruffian. As it were, a game of cards was the down-fall of Cor Leonis. Though, in his defense, he would not have cheated in that round had he known the large man that had just been dealt in was the Shield of King Mors. He also might have thought twice before starting a bar brawl with the man and brandishing a broken beer bottle at him. Foresight is 20-20 as they say and Cor had a clear vision of being hanged as he was shoved into the back of a sleek black car that drove at speeds he’d been unaware vehicles could move at.
Being shoved into a holding cell at the citadel was not on Cor’s list of life-goals, nonetheless he decided that he survived the ordeal, it should be added to his list of accomplishments. Sleeping off the few beers he’d down — and had perhaps fogged his memory of what the Shield looked like, in the holding cell was decently comfortable in comparison to walking them off late at night while he hunted down an empty building to squat it for the night. Perhaps he should get arrested more often, assuming he could find a certain way to get out of it in the mornings.
However, the morning after did not provide him with any escape from the cell and his few attempts at fiddling with the lock had landed him with bloodied knuckles as it seemed the crownsguard was more competent than that of the Insomnian Police Department, keeping a keen eye on the boy.
Sitting in the cell left him with very little to do, antagonizing the crownsguard who had charge of him did nothing as they failed to raise to any of his bait, including making lewd remarks about their mothers, sisters, and even brothers. There was no one else in any of the other visible cells and there was a distinct lack of sound beyond his own breathing. Cor came to the conclusion they were going to kill him of boredom, he frankly would have preferred a hanging.
After an unknown number of hours, King Mors himself arrived in front of the cell and Cor found himself for perhaps the first time in his life, intimidated. The man was more imposing than his Shield and had sharp eyes that bore into Cor with a fire that he had not known until that moment. Any doubt Leonis had about the Lucis Caelum line being Monarch by divine right of the Astrals was removed from his thought process.
“So, you’re the boy who struck my Shield,” It was not a question and so Cor did not answer, instead pulling his lips tight together and st righting his back. One did not slouch in front of royalty, not even a hoodlum.
King Mors paced the hall of the holding cells few times before once again landing his sight on the boy, who had not moved an inch, but kept himself from shrinking back as the King marched up to his cell and leaned down, so he was face to face.
“What is your name,” he asked sternly
“Cor Leonis, your majesty,” while not one for titles of respect, Cor was fond of his head and while the last beheading had been nearly four decades ago in the reign of the prior king, Leonis would not be taking his chances. Besides, hanging was still an option and boredom, on second thought, seemed a better killer.
“Cor Leonis, did you know that in the past fourteen years not a single man in Lucis has managed to strike my Shield? The last man to do so fell in that battle swiftly after”
“No, your majesty. I was not yet born at that time,” Cor wondered if they allowed for final requests to be as strange as ‘Bury me in the clothes I’ve died in’.
The King pulled himself back up into a standing position, “How old are you, Cor Leonis?”
“I’ll be thirteen in a month’s time,” Thirteen was the age of majority in Lucis, though there were talks of raising it to sixteen in Insomnia. Childhood was becoming longer as the standard of living raised in the past century and the law while slow was starting to pick up with the times.
King Mors nodded once, “Are you a loyal citizen to Lucis? I know from accounts of the Police force you are not a law-abiding one and that is not what I am asking. Are you proud to be a citizen of this Kingdom? Do you declare it your home and would you protect it, if asked?”
Cor Leonis stood in a cell before the King of his state and did not answer for several minuets. His interest in staying alive pleased with him to assure the king he was nothing be a loving servant of Lucis. However, he paused to consider the questions.
“I would fight to protect the people of Lucis,” he answered, “But Lucis has yet to be a kingdom that has shown me kindness and I do not see it different than that of any other state,”.
“Would you like to help change that, Cor Leonis?” The king gestured towards one of the guards who handed over the key to his cell.
“Sire?” the boy questioned.
“The crowns guard protects The Royal Family of Lucis. The Royal Family is tasked with protecting the people in return. If the Kings of Lucis fail to do this adequately, than the crowns guard is no longer tasked with protecting them. In this way the crowns guard has great power over the way which things our governed. They are the people of Lucis and have the right to speak directly with the council on issues of the state upon request to do so,” King Mors unlocked the cell gate and held it open.
Cor began to walk out the cell only to be stopped by the King’s hand on his chest. He looked up at the stern face that stared down at him with a curious look.
“Joining the crowns guard would mean putting that fire in you to good use. It would mean the chance to speak to the consul and myself on matters of the state that trouble you. In one month, I invite you to come back to the Citadel — this time without handcuffs, if you please — and make use of that information,".