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You are born to Damara And Cronus Ampora, landlords in a small town in the south of France. In these days, your parents are well off, living on money from your mother’s first marriage – a man who swung on a rope in the attic of his mansion three months after the wedding.
They name you Eridan, Eridan Ampora.
The inn you live in is not quite as spacious as a manor, but significantly larger than many other houses in your part of town. In the daytime, it is filled with the snores and rank odours of those who stay, but at night, the inn is alive. Roaring laughter and a roaring fire, cheap mead and cheap whores, the smell of food and wine and piss and vomit. Guests stride in and stumble out, solemn townsfolk dance the jig and sing drinking songs, and you’re sometimes allowed a sip or two, a merry waltz with your mother or father. You grow up with all the citizens of your town around you, but you hardly ever see them when they’re not rip-roaring drunk.
You are naïve, happy, free. You can’t imagine ever living any differently, and you don’t want to.
Then, when you are two sweeps old, a law is passed to allow humans into your part of France, and the inn receives a new resident.
His name is Sollux, which you find ridiculous. Your mother tells you he is the son of a human prostitute and an unknown troll, a combination everyone is only now finding out is possible. He has dirty yellow hair, four spiky horns, and large blinking eyes – one blue, one brown. His skin is beige, with a sickly yellow tint from his blood. You decide that you dislike him immensely.
Over the years, you torment Sollux. You pull his hair when he isn’t looking; you hide his clothes when he bathes. You tear apart each new doll he fashions out of rags. You pinch him when he talks at you, because you are a troll and he is a human. He has no right to talk to you.
You parents give you pretty dolls and fancy clothes and good food and they give Sollux rags and scraps. You feel very satisfied with it all. Sollux reminds you that you are not him, not something to be ignored or degraded. You are worth every pretty gift your father gives you, and so much more.
It is only an hour til the sun will creep over the horizon. You are woken up by noises downstairs at a time when the house is usually silent, bar the swish and sweep of Sollux cleaning. You tiptoe out of your room, through the maze of guest bedrooms, until you can see what is happening in the hall.
An unfamiliar woman is there, with tall horns and a soft smile on her face. She is dressed beautifully, finery that is elegant but not extravagant. Her tailored jacket reminds you of many businesspeople you have seen, and you think she must be here for money, but then you see what she is cradling to her side.
It’s Sollux. Sollux, pressed up against her fine clothes, touching them, and she isn’t pushing him away in disgust but holding him, almost shielding him from your view. He is looking at the woman like she is the Sufferer come again, or something out of a fairytale. And when you see her tilt her head down to meet his eyes, she smiles, and you cant even see any falseness in her lips.
You’ve never seen anyone treat Sollux like this. Your parents seem just as shocked as you, all wide eyes and open mouths as they stutter out words like “debt” and “costly” and “repayment”. Your mother looks almost sober, and your dad looks so much less sure of himself.
You crouch behind the rail of the balcony and watch as the rich-looking woman hands your parents money, and leaves, her arm around Sollux. Your parents stay in the hall for a long time after, talking quietly and seriously, gesturing to the money, to the bar, in the direction of your bedroom. After awhile, you fall asleep, you face pressed into the bannister.
You are woken for the second time in the early hours of the morning by the sounds of horses and loud voice calling for your parents. You are too tired to wake fully, but maybe some of what happens works its way into your dreams, because that night they are filled with policemen, and they are looking for a woman who dresses very well and looks at Sollux like he is even better than you are.
Over time, things go downhill. Your mother’s inherited money runs out, and it turns out the income from the inn is simply not enough. The building falls into disrepair – after Sollux’s arrival, your parents became less used to housework – the wood rots, the rugs fray. Your father starts cooking animals you never thought anyone would eat, and is, more and more often, weary and dejected. Your mother has a much shorter temper, and is looser with her fists.
Also, not that you would ever admit it, Sollux’s absence disconcerts you. Your mother has no one left to take out her anger on. You have grown out your pretty clothes, have no money to afford more, and there is no one wearing something even scruffier to make you feel better about it all. There is no yellow hair to pull, no pink skin to pinch. There is no one below you anymore.
When you are six sweeps, your parents sell the inn and you move with them to Paris. You are moving with the tide, the ebb and flow of people finding themselves poorer than they ever expected to be, and you try not to cry as you share a house with humans. You are as low as them, now.
You don’t see much of your mother anymore, and your father is whiny and grumpy. You understand. He’s sad about losing the inn. You’re sad too.
You make a friend on the dirty streets of the slum you live in. She is orange-blooded, with a narrow, flat face and a wiry figure. Her name is Lomiel, and she speaks softly to you, telling you about her mother’s death, her father’s disappearance. When she asks you where she sleeps and how she eats, she smiles, takes your hand, and shows you everything you need to know.
Before long, Lomiel and you are eating quite well – fruit snatched from carts and then carried to the rooftops; cheese from a house with a broken window; hot pies from a bakery you smuggled when the cook had his back turned. You even risk breaking into a tailors, just to find something like you had in your younger days – you leave the store as fast as you can, racing down the cobbled streets with a fat tailor running after you, a beautiful violet vest clutched in your hands. You find happiness, again, running free with Lomiel. You feel good when you have food in your belly, when she takes your hand and smiles, when its late, and quiet, and you take out your stolen jacket and press your face into the fabric.
Then your best friend, your smiling, cunning Lomiel, gets sick. You don’t what it is, but she wont stop coughing and sweating and telling you she feels too hot. You feel so helpless, so impotent, as you cradle her in her fever and whisper things you don’t know the truth of – you’ll be okay, it’s just a little fever, you’re going to be fine.
Lomiel dies in your arms, and you are the only one who cries. You toss her body into the Seine and watch the splash. You say goodbye to your first friend, to her glittering, sunny smile and all the dangerous, exciting things you did with her.
You still steal, but it isn’t fun. You learn that your mother is doing much the same thing, and are taken along on trips with her gang sometimes, but you feel… wrong. You cry at night, not quietly, but no one comes to see if you are okay.
You clutch at your jacket, feel the fabric against your face, and remember those days of your youth. The singing, jolly patrons, dancing a jig and spilling mead all over themselves. Your father’s carefree laugh and your mother’s satisfied smile. Sollux, with his dirty, wrong-coloured hair, mopping the floor and singing softly to himself.
Three months after Lomiel’s death, you think you see a ghost.
In truth, she doesn’t look much like Lomiel at all. Her hair is sleek and clean where your friend’s was a mess; her chin is too pronounced, her eyebrows too thin, her nose too pointed to be your friend.
The sight of her sends ice into your heart anyway, because upon her lips there is a smile, wild and full of adventure, and it’s Lomiel all over again.
She is dressed too well and looks too healthy to be poor, but when she catches you staring, her smile grows and she holds out her hand, uncalloused but dirty.
You shake it, still shocked, and she speaks. “Hello! You’re staring, just a little. My name is Aradia!” And she shakes your hand so energetically it hurts a little.
You hesitate, just a little, and then an answering smile grows on your own face. It’s been very long since you’ve grinned. “I’m Eridan. You look real rich, Aradia, if you don’t mind my sayin’.”
Her smile falters a little. “Well, I suppose.” She looks dejected for a minute, then brightens. “But I’m not nasty! When I’m older, I’m going to leave my house, leave all the money, and live like you!”
You are very confused. “Why? If you’re rich, why would you want to live like me?”
Her face softens, less excited, but no less earnest. “Because I don’t deserve it any more than you.”
And, just like that, you are thrown back to those days with Sollux, all that time you spent convincing yourself that you deserved your luxury, and he his misery. And here is this woman, so many years later, seeing you just like Sollux, down and out and clothed in rags, and she doesn’t tell herself she is above you. She wishes she were with you, suffering and struggling, because she thinks you and her are equals.
You think it’s so beautiful. You think she is beautiful. You think, maybe, you could fall in love with Aradia.
When you are seven sweeps and she almost eight, your best friend Aradia Megido leaves her family and her wealth. She takes a house in a poor district, eats less and less, and her smile never, ever falls flat.
You visit her as often as you can, and walk along the streets of Paris by her side. When you aren’t with her, you are dreaming of her – you see her laughter in the sunset, her eyes in the cobbled streets. You are deeply, profoundly in love with her, and she changes your life every day.
It is during this time of your newfound happiness that Aradia finds a certain small café, and joins a society, and this happening is the beginning of the next phase of your life.