There are various explanations as to why someone would leave a baby on the ground in the middle of a very dangerous forest, for so far, there are two that happen to sound the closest to my predicament.

The first was that I was the son of a highborn lord and due to the fact that my mother was strangely fertile, there were too many children to worry about. I was quite the hard baby to get out and so to ease the pains and costs, I was whisked off to a trusted advisor that would care for me with a stipend sent every month. They would train me in all the royal affairs and if there was a need for me, I would be sent for.

As beautiful and poetic as that is, it's not likely or highly.

The second (and more likely) scenario, was that my mother was either a prostitute or someone who was taken advantage of, and because they had no room for me in their lives (for whatever reason), I was left in the forest to die.

Whatever the case may be, I didn't need them anyway. I was found by a good man named Garrett and he took me in as his son, teaching me to have a respect for the strange forest that I was found in as well as teach me the ways of the world. I learned to fight, hunt, and read the stars from him. No one could have asked for a better teacher. Not only was he learned in ways of combat and strategy, but he knew about the strange forest that I lived in and how to navigate through it's strange and discombobulated ways.

This forest wasn't like any of the others in the vicinity and had a vicious way of turning on the people who entered it, unless one knew its ways. Garrett knew how to navigate the forest well, hardly getting lost and not getting turned around.

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I asked him once why he was living in the forest in the first place and he said that it was because he was falsely accused of murdering someone in his home town and had a large bounty on his head. If anyone found him and turned him into the authorities, he would be killed and they would gain a big sum of money for finding him. I wasn't too happy about that but Garrett just smiled.

Even though he had a bounty on him, he always kept himself inconspicuous and made money by competing in underground boxing matches in various towns that were along the edge of the growth. I always went with him and he won most of the time. The money he earned was enough to sustain us but he always gave me a bit of his earnings, which wasn't much but to a seven year old, I was pretty content. Garrett didn't have to give me anything but he always told me that he wanted to, which made the gesture even more special. In his spare time, he taught me to box and fight with my hands, telling me that one day, if I ever had to be in battle, I may not have weapons. 'Your body can be the most dangerous weapon you ever have. When you have nothing but your skin and bones, learning how to use it is just as important as using a sword or a bow and arrow.' He told me. I always kept that philosophy with me.

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Even though Garrett was as careful as he could be, being a good boxer and earning as much money as we did seems to attract a lot of unwanted attention. Because of this, the bounty that was on Garrett's head was met when some bounty hunters came to our little hut in the woods while I was away and killed the only father I knew. I came back home later that day, thankful that I was able to catch two rabbits, when I found Garrett's body lying in the puddle of his coagulated blood in the middle of the hallway. I don't remember much during that time but I remember feeling a scream leave my body and then I felt strangely calm. It was like something took over my trauma and led me away, storing away all my sorrow and fear and anger. Since I had no one in my life anymore to teach me, I decided to lean into the feeling of freedom and savageness. It wasn't soon after Garrett's death that all the hard work he put into me to be a somewhat decent man went to shit as I let the forest take me over.

I was a beast and beasts have no need to remember.

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All that happened when I was on the brink of eight summers. During that time, I resorted to stealing food from traps that people left while they were hunting, not caring if it kept them from their food. No one cared to think of the consequences they unfolded when they attacked Garrett while he was all alone, so why should I give a damn if I steal bait? Even so, sometimes the traps would already have the animal in it and sometimes I would steal that, depending on the animal. Garrett taught me how to hunt and in my state of insanity, I knew that I needed to bleed the animal to eat.

I usually didn't have to hunt for my food though because the poachers and hunters had food laying out and dangling for me. I was smart enough to outdo the traps that were laid out for dumb animals to step in or fall into, and I liked to watch the looks on the hunter's faces when their 'perfect traps' were bested by me, a spunky, deranged eight year old child. Though my pride got the best of me in the end because in the middle of my ninth year, I stuck my hand in a leg-hold trap and got my fingers caught in the teeth. They smashed into my middle and ring finger so hard that they snapped and were rendered useless if not cared for soon. Due to them being broken, it caused the jaws of the trap to close harder, further trapping my fingers. Of course I didn't help anything by trying to tug and pull on the trap to get my fingers out, pretty much tearing the muscles in my fingers and making it impossible for them to be fixed at any time, future or not.

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The hunter who put the traps down found me later that evening still growling and snarling in pain as I tried to release the trap with my foot. It took him and three other people to calm me down and allow the man to open up the teeth so I could pull my hand out of the trap. I had lost a pretty good amount of blood and the top halves of my fingers were dead. I now had two fingers, two half fingers, and a thumb to work with. I wasn't very happy when the hunter took me to the infirmary in the country he was living in and they cut them off. The doctor had a time with me in that area and I almost lost a third finger for fighting so much.

The hunter didn't want to put me back in the forest with a wounded hand, though I would have preferred he had and would have been perfectly fine. He decided that he would adopt me into his family, but no one could replace Garrett and I was too far deep in my savage ways to be anyone's child at the time.

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The huntrer tried his best but my savagery and beast-like nature was just too much for a man. Before long, he was sending me to the 'best orphanage in Abram'. I assumed Abram was a city or a country. I didn't really care what it was. All I could see as we drove in the carriage was that it was a long way home from the forest I had called my home for eight and a half years. I didn't like the vacancy of smells: no trees, no dirt, no animals. Well... there were animals but not like it was in the forest. There it was thick and heavy, but the city was so light and smokey. It doesn't make sense, but I guess there was nothing else that impressed me.

I didn't really understand what was going on at the time. All I knew was that the grew fond of the hunter, but I guess he didn't grow that fond of me. In the end, I was given to the orphanage and they took me into their fold.

I didn't really like the orphanage either. There were too many sniveling and weak children and the adults weren't much different. After a few days, I was bored out of my mind and tried to find ways to entertain myself. I usually ended up being told to sit somewhere quietly because I took things too seriously or I was being hauled back by the 'guards' of the orphanage. I wanted to go back to my forest, apparently named the Forest of Illusion, but I guess it was supposed to be dangerous. I never felt like I was in danger while I lived there and Garrett didn't act like there was something to fear. I'm sure there were reasons, but I didn't really care.

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The orphanage wasn't that bad, but it was still annoying to be around people. The children were stupid and thought they were better than me because they were raised to 'read' and 'write' and all that fancy stuff. I heard the headwoman of the orphanage tell one of the servants or something about some sort of royalty coming through as well as her not antagonizing me to do anything to embarrass her. Due to my slow ability to read and write, I was labeled a dunce and usually made fun of all the time for my lack of literacy. I learned from Garrett that strength is what made people strong, not reading and writing.

Besides, if anyone actually wanted to adopt me from this hellhole, then I would have all the time I was with them to learn how to speak properly and learn proper etiquette. My years in the forest away from people and things made things hard.

Not all old dogs can learn new tricks, but all dogs can be trained. But I wasn't a dog, and even though I was a crazy little savage boy with two missing fingers and a temperament that reviled the most angry beast in the forest, if they tried hard enough, I would learn things from them.

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At least that's what they thought.

I wasn't exactly making it easy on them and so the orphanage ended up having to get a little... creative regarding their training. They could try to keep me caged, but I wasn't going to let them. I was going to get out of this place no matter what, but something ended up getting in the way of my freedom before I even had a chance to try and gain it back.

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Something that was going to change my life forever and for the better.

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sorry for the lack of dialogue but there's a lot of setup to be done. should have some speaking parts coming up soon.