Alright, then. *takes a deep breath*
I first felt the Thrill when I was twelve years old. In retrospect, I wonder why it was present that day. Perhaps there were no real battles to be had. Perhaps Odium sent it to give me my first taste when I was at my most impressionable. All I know is that I was fighting with three older boys at the time. They were passing through our lands on their way from another princedom, and so Gavilar was... forced by rules of propriety to let them stay for a handful of days.
He mostly kept me out of their way, of course. I was a wild child. Uncivilized. An embarrassment to the Kholin name, had I not been so uniquely talented at violence. It was that talent for violence that made the sparring grounds the only place you could reliably find me at some point on any given day. And so those boys did. They were your typical metropolitan lighteyes, looking down on us for our simpler way of life, removed even from the capital of our own princedom. I'd heard all of their comments before, and I'd always answered them in kind. With my fists, or my teeth.
... I had one of them bleeding on the ground before the other two even had a chance to stop laughing. I remember... that I was clumsy about it, fighting more like an angry animal than the son of a highprince who had been trained in combat his whole life. It was always like that, then. One of the other boys pulled me off and pinned my arms behind my back. The third began punching me, over and over. They were both at least a foot taller than I... but I was not scared, even for a moment. Only furious.
I remember losing my last baby tooth that had been loose for a long while. I spat it right back at the other boy. He grabbed my hair and leaned in close, and I wrenched my head out of his grip and... tore out a chunk of his nose with my teeth. It felt exhilarating. The Thrill embraced me like I was its lost child finally come home. None of the pain mattered anymore. I managed to fight myself free, and I was on top of that boy... he was screaming and bleeding underneath me. And I kept going, until he stilled. I wasn't... consciously aware he had died, but I think I sensed it.
Both of the other boys ran away before I could pay any attention to them. No one approached me. I remember wanting them to, so I could keep fighting. I remember Gavilar arriving, and I remember grinning at him. I must have been a sight, twelve-years old and covered all over in blood and fresh bruises, standing over a corpse.
I wonder what he thought in that moment. If he was scared of me, or worried for me, or if he looked at me and saw the asset I would be to him in the future. Either way, he managed to keep the situation under control until the Thrill faded.
I... ran. *he pauses, focusing hard on the fuzzy memory being brought forth* I remember running. I remember the nausea. I remember cowering outside and hiding from search parties. Gavilar finding me just in time to bring me home as the highstorm hit. It must have been multiple days... but after I had slept and eaten, I know I stepped out into the sparring ring, and I made myself feel proud of having attracted the Thrill at such a young age. I swore to myself that I would chase it down, that I would make it my closest friend and ally going forward. And so I did. And it came back to me over and over until we were dancing like lovers on the battlefield.
