Duke Friendly [wanderer]

Caliban Friendly (goes by Duke)
Wanderer
35 or so, it's kinda blurry when ya don't got a calendar



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He’d become crepuscular, rising with the setting sun and traveling under the twilight of dawn, watching the sky between gaps in the lush, expansive canopy of the lush, expansive forest fade from gold to azure, watching the moon fade as the sun claimed its kingdom, watching fireflies glow luminous reds and greens in the murky dark around him. He’d nest in berry bushes or hollows in trees midday, and in winter he’d borrow empty burrows from migrated owls, the rare cave with slumbering bears not twenty feet deeper than he dared venture.

He was already braver than anyone ever believed. He was already braver than he’d ever believed.

The cycle was easy to stick to, easy to maintain when self-preservation was his main concern. Often travelers crept along at night, trusting the shadows to protect and shroud them from stolen freedom. He found that riskier than necessary; it was this that troubled him most in his travels with the merry men years before, when the lot of them trampled leaves and twigs underfoot, wheeling their wagons at their heels. He could never be sure if they were being followed, and he was not of the mind to lose what meant most to him, to lose his voice now that he finally had it, finally knew how to wield it like sword or shield, like leather or lace. His life was mute until he fled.

It was his sixteenth birthday, and he spent it crying in the bath again, hiding from his brother, hiding from their father, hiding from his destiny. He clung to his knees like a dearly missed friend, one squeezed so tight their bones crack and their lungs crumble, and his teeth bore down into his own flesh to keep from whimpering. His breaths were light, eyes bloodshot and manic, glancing back and forth at either end of the shower curtain, waiting for an attack from either side, waiting for the sixteen punches that would always end up doubled, tripled, waiting for the bruises and soreness that followed for weeks, for the mocking at school, for his brother to sit behind him in class and jab his pen into a particularly tender spot that only he could know was susceptible, was soft enough to make him squirm in his seat. And he’d be scolded by the teacher, why can’t you be like your brother, and Ferdinand would beam at her and she’d remind the world what a joy he was to everyone.

If he was such a joy, no one would need reminding.

But by the time the bigger twin ripped back the curtain, he was gone and out the window, down the road out to the end of the district, where he’d run numerous times and collapsed at the fence and cried, where he wanted to climb over or dig under or cut right through and escape the hell he faced day in and day out, to be able to truly breathe for the first time his whole life.

He’d been born the runt, the weaker one, whose twin had overpowered him in development and taken his nutrients and stunted his growth. He’d been virtually nothing, a tiny, frail thing with feeble lungs and delicate bones, while his brother was a hefty mass on impact. Their mother took to her baby immediately, fingertips brushing over his sunken eyes and flattened legs; their father scooped up his first son, his only son, held him in the air and cooed, “he’s gonna be a strong man, yeah? Just like his papa, yeah?” A glance sideways at the thing his wife held, and he returned to - “Ferdinand.” He smirked, “that’s your name, son.” He handed him to one of the nurses and added, “and that’s Caliban. Take him, too.” They did, and his mom’s arms remained outstretched until she drifted off to sleep and they dropped limply beside her.

He spent years inside, doted on by his mother who cared so deeply for her baby, her baby who barely grew, whose legs stayed flimsy, who couldn’t make a sound. His dad would come home from work, ruffle Ferdinand’s hair, and walk past his wife and son sitting at the kitchen table and flexing their toes, mumbling “monster” and “waste” as he stripped off his work clothes and sulked back in with a grease-stained wife-beater and a pair of loose boxers. Ferdinand leapt into his dad’s lap and he’d push him away, “where’s my fucking beer?” spitting from his mouth. It never got better, for any of them. Caliban was never held by the man, never loved by the one who fathered him, only beaten and battered and belittled, only equated to dirt on the floor; Ferdinand was awarded the effects of favoritism, but still pushed around and made to feel inferior, made to feel the same anger their father wore like foundation, and he became a replica of the violence and intolerance out of spite, out of reverence, out of fear; their mother sank away, doing her best to protect her baby but unable to protect herself from the vitriol he spewed and the fists he swung. She exercised Caliban, worked on his breathing and his stability, helped him to walk his first steps when he turned four, and when her husband came home he beat her senseless for it, and the twins listened from the kitchen as she cried.

Now he walked for days on firm legs and never gave his dad a thought. Now he breathed in the open forest air, and felt the wind fill his lungs.

Now he performed for shitty taverns and other wanderers, performed memorized monologues from the scripts he’d stolen with the merry men. It was just another rich family, another someone whose wealth was nearly untouchable, and they’d broken in and ransacked the place. The others made out with jewels and chains, silk throws and gowns fit for the capitol, but he left empty-handed.

Besides the scripts.

He’d stuffed them in his pants and fled from the group, taking his own road away, devouring page after page, scene after scene while he walked. It had been years since he’d read, and it reminded him of home, of sitting at the kitchen with his mom, stretching his legs and reading the news. Slower things, easier things. Theft was not his forte, and he couldn’t pretend he expected to remain with thieves forever. That was more his brother’s alley. But he read, and he read, until he recited the speeches as he traveled, until he wandered into a bar and, with a few whiskeys down, got on stage and performed.

It was exhilarating.

It was captivating.

It was more life than he’d ever afforded himself.

And so he traveled, and performed, and traveled, and performed, and kept himself alive and safe as best he could. He adopted new patterns of sleep and search, to combat his anxieties of losing his freedom, to stay out of harm’s way, and he performed as much as he could whenver he could.

He’d become someone else entirely after leaving the gang and journeying on his own. He’d become the person he always wanted to be - loud, and proud, and brave. The person his brother could’ve been, had his power not been channeled through their father. The person his mother wished he could be.

If only she could see him now.

ooc: hi this is my traveling thespian wanderer boi pls be gentle with him he's had a hard time