"A child has survived! Dear god, what the fuck is all this??? Is that a Demon's corpse?", an armored figure leads a group of people into the ruins of Bleak Manor, the havoc that had persisted left them dumbfounded as they came upon but a single living person. A whole town razed to shambles, yet this singular infant stayed alive, surely fate plays a horribly one-sided game, to have this child see such horrors and have to live with memories of them...
"Young child, you will never have to remember this day, never again will you have to witness this kind of slaughter...", a rough male voice, comes through to Isaiah, who could barely hear it, exhaustion plagued every pore of his body, he felt incomplete, missing something he would never get back, the weight of the entity known as Pride no longer loomed at the edge of his conscious. He felt nothing but ordinary now... and a dull, perpetual headache persists...
'What kind of fairness is this... I barely lived before everything was forcibly taken away... and that bastard demon... he just left me like this... Death should have been my end, but here I am...'
Two years later...
"Keep moving forward my boy...", a woman's voice invaded the silence of his thoughts, he recognized his mother's voice encouraging him, the image of her golden eyes and fair, ever-smiling expression surfaces, before morphing into to the mortifying scene of her getting torn limb from limb, all the while crying out her beloved son's name, startling awake Isaiah into a crying fit, this was but one, among the myriad nightmares that continue to plague his sleep... "Urie! What happened? Another nightmare?", came the voice of a slightly older child, "Mama!", was all that this boy got as an answer, panicked, he ran out of the room and returned with a lady in tow. "Yves! It's the middle of the night! At least tell me what you want instead of- oh... Urie had another bad dream?", she said, as the boy named Yves dragged her into this room, 'Poor child... the adventurers were too late to assist Bleak Town, yet they found this child amongst a scene of cold-blooded murder, it's no wonder what the child had to witness', she picked up the sobbing young boy in front of her and started calming him down, "It's alright little Urie... you're safe now", she patted his back gently and kept doing so till he eventually fell back to sleep...
Three years ago, when the adventurers brought this child in to the orphanage, he was bleeding from a deep cut on his left eye and covered in blood, none of them knew his name and so the nuns named him Urie... for these three whole years he has never stopped waking up in the dark of the night, crying, only ever calling out for his mother... It was an extremely pitiful situation, this child hardly ate, and never spoke, let alone interacted with the other children in the orphanage, the nuns worried about him even more as two faint bumps appeared to frame his temples, they worried that this child's horrific past was far from simple... He barely moved around even, such they believe is due to his trauma inducing severe weakness...
Next day...
"Demons have, since the beginning of time waged war against the races", said Greta, one of the nuns, she was currently teaching the older children about the history of the world, a blonde haired boy raised his hand carefully when she drew an image of a demon on the board in the makeshift classroom, "Madam Greta, doesn't Urie have horns like those?", he asked nervously, "Yves! We don't know what to call those bumps on Urie's head, dont go around saying such things!", he was instantly scolded, he didn't understand what made her react like that... Demons are definitely bad people and he did not intend to liken his little brother to one, but he was simply curious, he too, knew that the bumps on Urie's head may just be an unfortunate defect that he was born with... he felt he was smart enough and had already come to this conclusion.
The other children in the class also sympatized with the boy they knew as Urie, but since he never spoke to anyone, they never bothered with him, plus, the bumps on his head would eventually lead to him getting bullied, and since the nuns punished the bullies severely, even they chose not to bother with him... They soon abandoned this train of thought and the class continued as normal, giving way only to the bell at lunchtime.
'What am I doing... I just can't seem to get myself to move... why do they call me Urie?', Isaiah opened his surviving eye, 'Where is this place?', he scanned the room he was in spotting a sign hung up above the arch of the doorway to the room he was in, it read, "Madam Greta's House of Lost Children", he read it out in a low voice, after which he heard a rush of feet moving, catching a glimpse of a blonde haired boy running out of the room.
Soon that blonde-haired boy returned, with a similarly frantic woman following him, "Yves, are you sure that you heard Urie speak?", she asked, "Yes madam Greta! He read that sign above the door fluently! I heard him clearly! Even though he was practically whispering!", the woman named Greta looked over to Isaiah, "Urie, can you please repeat what you said?", "My name is not Urie", came a barely audible yet indignant voice, surprising Greta, "Very well then, what is your name?", she chose to ignore that the boy before her was not even three years of age, yet he spoke fluently without pausing, he might be a genius, to have picked up these things without even being around the other children, she thought, "Isaiah", he replied, "I'm... hungry", Greta was elated to hear him asking for food, as he would routinely turn away from the meals sent to him unless he was forcefully fed.
In her respite of his recovery, she half-dragged him down to the kitchen and called out to the Chef, "Daisy! Urie wants food!", she said, "Kitchen's closed!", came the reply, "I said Urie asked for something to eat!", Greta persisted, upon which a stout red-haired woman in a maid's uniform with a large chef's apron over it, "This bugger? Didn't he thought there was something wrong with the food I cooked?", she sneered, when she heard that one of the children refuse to eat any food that she had cooked, she became livid, as she was immensely proud of her cooking and everyone else told her so too. 'So why', she thought on, quickly dispelling it with, 'Bugger'im! He wants to starve? I won't force him to eat my food!'
"Can I please just have some bread even?", Isaiah spoke up, startling the three around him, "Sure, there's some vegetable soup left as well you'd best have the bread with that", Daisy was the first to recover. Minutes later she brought out a tray which had a few slices of a soft white bread, and a nice hot bowl of fragrant vegetable soup, Isaiah could not help but salivate as the smell of food invaded his senses, seeing the child before her drooling over this meager serving, made Daisy even more proud, this was the child who had actively refused to eat food she had cooked that was just as good if not better than some Bread and Vegetable Soup.
At first, Isaiah had tried to get used to the weight of the spoon in his hand, and he spilled more soup than he had gotten into his mouth, finally, Greta fed him. The bread was just as soft and apetizing as it looked and together with the warm savory soup it reached another level of deliciousness. 'Such a simple meal tastes so good!', he thought, as the bowl emptied out and his belly filled up. He felt like he could fall asleep right then and there, so he did.
"Oh this spoiled little brat", said Greta with a slight smile, after which she carried the sleeping boy to his bedroom and tucked him in.
...
One year later...
Isaiah had started interacting with the other children around the orphanage, managing to make at least one good friend amongst them, his name is Nikolas, a 4 year old dogman with light brown hair, he would happily listen to Isaiah as the latter shared the fairytales that he heard while at his home. Isaiah himself was much healthier than before, the bumps on his head were a tiny bit more prominent, but none of the children paid it any mind, as this boy shared wonderous stories of the world beyond the orpahnage, stories about historical heroes, heroes that they had been taught about in class, and even those that they hadn't yet heard of. Yves was now 5 years old, he loved to take care of Isaiah, and despite mistakenly calling him Urie every once in a while, the two got on like brothers should, and the orphanage seemed more livelier than before. Despite these changes, the nightmares hadn't stopped, instead, Isaiah had grown numb to it, he found it sufficient to remember his fondest memories of his mother, completely ignoring the gruesome scene that would play out with every detail magnified, just pushed aside to keep his happiest memories above it all.
It was now closing in on winter, and despite tensions with the neighboring country to the north, the orphanage was peaceful, life was moving along steadily for Isaiah, he had learnt that the human territory is divided among three kings, the king of this part of the continent, the North-Eastern Valley Kingdom of Klein, Darius Klein was supposed to be the greatest ruler that this nation has seen, he was extremely welcoming to the beastman race that his neighboring Northern king, King Alfred detests, calling them the offspring of demons. King Darius also kept the nobles of this region under his thumb, corruption was at an all time low, and he had the power to stand by his words. None dared to oppose his rule, and his most fanatical citizens called him the most likely next Emperor of the human continent. He was good friends with the king of the Southern Frontier Kingdom, King Connor and the king of the Beastman Territory of the East Coast, King Hart, also a close ally.
As for the Southern Region of the entire continent, that was the Kingdom of the High Elves, an extremely proud race, they were neither allies, nor were they enemies with any of the other races, they mostly kept to themselves, and to the West is what's known as the Cursed Lands, said to be inhabited by Demons, the cursed race. The Dwarven Mithtril Kingdom sat between Klein and Bestia, which was the name of King Connor's country. The dwarves were allues of the beastmen, and so, when King Darius and King Hart became allies they too, allied themselves with the former.
Isaiah had tried multiple times to cast the magic he knew the chants of, yielding nothing, he could not even feel any mana gather around his body. This left him depressed as this was one of the things with which Pride has kept his word, 'Tsk, that bastard, I bet he's looking at me from some hidden corner and laughing his ass off, one day, one day I will find him and make him pay', as he thought this, he would often have a slight headache. He hated this feeling of weakness, but he could only persevere until he was old enough to train himself, especially if he wanted to at least use a sword to defend himself. In these days he has actually grown quite fond of this place that was now his home, here he had a brother and many friends, and many motherly figures among the nuns, Madam Greta mostly, she fawns over him, praising him for every little thing that he achieves.
Nikolas and he are the same age, and he also enjoys to hear the numerous fairytales that Isaiah has to share, loving to play the roles of those incredible mythical heroes.