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He walked out, and just like that, it felt as if the world opened up to him.

The sky was a pale yellow still, light itself still too mellow to sparkle against the gaps in the canopy. Almost without thinking, Ferrucio broke off from the beaten track, hopping over a ditch into thicker vegetation, before plunging headlong into the brush. These were Kaides estate lands, protected forests for the pleasure of the noble-blooded to hunt and fish as they please, but he couldn't actually recall if he had ever strode through such lands before. His heart thrummed, the anxiety of unbecoming slipping away as he continued to scramble through forest trails. Birds took flight in the distance, a chorus of chirps warning their winged kin of the bumbling fool trampling over bushes and roots. Critters scrambled up trunks and observed with curiousity and distrust, at this cloaked figure that ran without purpose, without even a desire to conserve energy.

His basket banged against his ribs as the bastard child continued to run without purpose, without direction. His lungs heaved harder than it did yesterday, and yet each breath drawn felt so [i]full[/i], the world brimming with a beauty that wiped away all past thoughts. It was a small thing, such a small inconsequential thing, just being able to go somewhere without fearing what was behind him, without worrying about what was before him. And yet that alone had been denied of him his whole life.

Strange, that the best thing in his life was dying.

The incline grew steeper and he scrambled on all fours, ascending the hill that he had wanted to find. Dirt clumped beneath his nails, a sharp sneeze accompanying the pollen from kicked up flowers. The earth was cool against his hot palms and he let his cloak fling off his shoulders, lost in a patch of grass behind him. Already, Ferrucio was imagining the view once he crested the hill, something that would take his breath away. Perhaps a view of Collegem Yllustre, bathed in daybreak. Perhaps just a clear view of an expanse of woodlands, a verdant bliss untouched by flame and devil-magic. Soil smeared against his face as he pushed his hair out of his eyes, the end of the hill in sight!

And when he stood there, at the top of the hill, surrounded still by trees that cut off his view of his surroundings, Ferrucio looked upon his foolhardiness and the futility of his actions, and managed to laugh regardless.
[hr]
The guards found him there, in his nightclothes, sitting upon a hill with the crumbs of a savagely devoured meal around him. Perhaps they thought him mad.

His 'father' certainly thought him mad. Whether childish whimsy or adolescence rebellion, there was no room for either when their connection with one of the Patriarch's most promising branches were at risk. He had to sharpen up, had to remember all that he owed the House, mongrel that he was! The rant would have continued for much longer, would have likely incorporated some physical discipline, if not for the fact that Ferrucio was already slated to be running behind schedule.

The carriage awaited, as did the Collegem, and there was simply no time to get the youth into a fully-presentable state after his impromptu run through the woods. The servants scrubbed his face clean, got a pair of black gloves for his hands, and followed up with an outfit of browns and greens.

Then was the ride, a trip spent with his eyes wide open, absorbing the world behind the windows.

Then was the orientation, eyes wandering still, matching his 'present' with his 'past', seeing faces that he had thought he'd never see again, faces unmarked by the colossal loss during those years of a losing war. Perhaps a part of him despised them even now, despite what they would become in the future. But what he felt in the morning persisted still, a pleasant warmth thrumming within his person as he kept his head up, drawing in his surroundings with fresh eyes, a new perspective. This Collegem, that Estate, those lands, were never a home for him, a place that allowed him to belong...yet they were still a part of him, even now. The years spent here, how much could they have changed if he had kept his head up?

Presumably, it could change a lot, considering the sheer number of upsets that were occurring back-to-back-to-back. Even to someone like himself, it was clear that something was different. He had his memories of how people were in the past, and how they were just yesterday, and when matched together, it was clear as daylight which one was which. Back before her stagnation and the string of failures that haunted her, there was no way that Sherry could have lost so handily against Ophelia, and yet, here they were, positions swapped in an instant. Vincent, Lucas, Rodin, Isana, they all displayed something so alien to their childhood selves that there was no looking away from it.

This was a [i]shared[/i] paradise. This [i]had[/i] to be.

He would confirm it.

As murmurs of the 'rising of the failed generation' continued to buzz, as others of the Commoner Class wondered if they too ought to shoot their shot in these challenges that were becoming far less a noble affair and far more a desperate one, Ferrucio pushed through the throng of students to reach Rodin, all for the purpose of asking a single question.

[b]"Did you fight the Demon Lord yesterday?"[/b]