FicWad

So somewhere way up north in the World of Balance there’s this little village called Kohlingen. They’re actually just a bunch of hicks, they don’t even have electricity, but whatever. One day this guy selling shit came to town and met this little blonde chick named Marian. Well, you know what guys and girls do when they get together - so they did it, and he left, and then she figured out she was pregnant, and realized she had no clue where this guy went or what his last name was or anything.

Real shitty luck, if you ask me.

Anyway - it was a tough pregnancy, let me tell you. They don’t cut you much slack in Kohlingen, that’s for sure. For one thing Marian was all skin and bones to begin with - real frail, and so she didn’t do too well carrying a baby. Secondly, everyone was calling that kid the village bastard before he was even born. She got a lot of crap for being a slut or young and stupid or for just not getting married, and so she didn’t really have a lot of moral support, if you know what I mean. Sure, she had her mom, but when the whole village is against you and you’re just relying on the one person, it gets shitty. Believe me, I know.

I guess you probably saw this coming, but the actual having-the-baby part was even worse then the pregnancy. Nearly killed us both - I was born a month and a half early and she just hadn’t been eating her vegetables, I guess, because in the end she went and I didn’t and that just left me and Grandma to tough it out together.

You’d think Grandma wouldn’t be real happy about this. I mean, I was trouble before I even really existed. I was the main reason her daughter got bullied and then the reason her daughter died besides that, and to top it off I was a bastard to boot. But if anybody ever loved me, Grandma did, and I’ll go ahead and say right now she was the toughest, meanest, strictest, best parent in the world. I guess she kind of had to be - I’ve always been pretty much nothing but trouble. Grandma told me when I was a little kid the first thing I learned how to do with a spoon was throw food with it. (I’m still pretty good at that, by the way.) When I learned to walk, she hardly keep up with me, and when I learned to talk, I wouldn’t shut up. Grandma wasn’t exactly young, so she finally just let me go and get into my own trouble - she said as long as I didn’t piss anybody off or leave the village, I could do whatever the hell I wanted.