Unique

Hello, all.

This week's prompt was one I took from a notebook of mine, which has a bunch of prompts I wrote down in it. Well, to be accurate, it was two prompts. They were "Unique" and "Family".

Enjoy!

~~

They called you unique.

You had always been different. You were the half-blood child of two races that did not get along. How your parents managed to fight off the hatred that seemed to be ingrained deep into their very souls long enough to create a child, you never knew. But you were their only child. Your mother made it no secret that shortly after, they’d fought, and she’d come out triumphant. 

From childhood, you had endured the bullying. From your mother’s family, from your older half-brothers and half-sisters, other children, even some of the adults. When they called you different, they meant it as an insult. They meant it to crush your spirit, to destroy your confidence. To them, you were just something that they could unleash their hatred on, without fear of repercussion; without a battle, a war, death.

You ran away from home when you were still young. Your half-brothers followed you, to try and drag you back - because they believed you did not deserve freedom. You did not deserve to be happy. You were a mixed-blood monstrosity, whose only purpose in life was to be constantly beaten down by those you were forced to call “family”. 

You evaded them all for years. They set traps, tried to corner you. You were never able to settle down in one place before they found you and destroyed any chance you had of living a normal life. 

Eventually, the youngest of them cornered you. Of all of your half-siblings, he had been the nicest to you. That wasn’t to say he’d been kind, but he hadn’t been as bad a bully as the rest of them had been. Maybe it had been because he’d been the victim of the bullying before you’d come along, and he knew how much it had hurt, to be looked down upon, no matter how hard you tried. 

But there was no kindness in his eyes anymore. He was angry and frustrated. Without you there to endure the bullying, it had been turned back onto him, and all the respect he had earned had disappeared like it had never existed at all. 

He didn’t give you much of a choice. In his anger, he’d forgotten that he was only meant to capture you. That your family had wanted you alive, to keep you a captive victim of their cruelty. Instead, he’d come at you with a dagger, intent on torture and murder. You hadn’t been able to see the boy who’d once given you kindness when there was no one else around to see it.

You were the one who killed him. He’d been too fixated on getting revenge on you, and he’d failed to consider the fact that going straight for the kill was a bad idea. You’d disarmed him quickly, grabbed the dagger before he could recover, and slit his throat when he came at you again. 

Your other brothers had followed. One by one, they’d come at you; no longer seeking to capture you, instead determined to kill you for murdering their brother. And one by one, they’d fallen to the same blade that had ended the youngest’s life. By the time the oldest of them had confronted you, it hadn’t been him leading you into a trap.

It had been you leading him.

They’d arrived, soon after. You never even knew they were coming. You just woke up one night, and there they were, settled around your little camp in the woods; stoking the campfire, digging through your pack, and calming your horse. It was like they’d always been with you, even though you’d never met any of them in your life. 

And they’d called you unique. 

They’d offered you a proposition; to forget who you’d been, and become someone new, as a member of their order. A new name, a new family, a new life. You had the natural skill to become something great, you just need the right hands you guide you. 

You had agreed. They became your new brothers and sisters, your bonds forged in the blood of those who’d wronged, and the gold of those who’d been the victims.