Sins of the Parents Hot, moist air bellowed out from the snarling mouth and engulfed Vincent’s face. “Explain yourself traitor! What Human in their right mind would ever be caught dead hanging out with this group of beasts!? A dimwitted Ogre and a sacrilegious witch of an elf - Disgusting!! Were you not raised right? Did your Ma never explain to you that we are better, smarter than…than…those!” The Officer’s beady eyes glanced over at Vincent’s two comrades in arms, looking at his friends as if they were the slugs crawling under bags of rubbish. Vincent clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes to keep the rage inside from escaping and causing him and his friends even more trouble than they were already in. “My Ma explained everything,” he whispered to get the Officer closer…closer…close enough…”And she was the greatest bitch in the world for doing so! You sanctimonious crap of a man!” The Officer stumbling backward from the sudden attack on his auditory system was quite satisfying to Vincent until a rifle butt to the head ended his joy and sent him into a blackened void of memories from years past… A small fist ricocheted off a much younger Vincent’s face. “Take that you beast-lover!” It was five against one and Vincent was on the losing side. After several of these fights a week, he should have learned not to stand up for the original inhabitants of the planet, but the lesson never sunk in…unlike the boot to his stomach. “Oumf!” He groaned out as he toppled over and took in a face full of concrete. “BOYS!! Stop it this instant!” A stern woman’s voice broke through the raucous of the fight. To most children, the sound of their mother’s voice interrupting an ass whooping would be a welcomed sound, but not to Vincent. “Get off of him, Seamus! You too, Pauly! Go home you runts! GO!” Vincent, still on the ground in a protective fetal position, heard ten little feet scurrying off into the midday hustle of the Human only town. Slowly he raised his aching head only to see two larger feet obscuring his view. Then he heard the thing he hated most: That tone of disappointment that only a mother could convey. “Vincent Wallace! What on Tenebrus do you think you’re doing!?” Vincent looked up towards the clear blue sky and saw the scowling face of his mother. He wanted to tell her the truth, but he knew that would not help the situation. Unfortunately, his mother was his mother and already knew the truth. “You were defending the beasts again, weren’t you? When will you learn they are lesser life forms; that they are nothing more than the mold on the side of our house and need to be exterminated so we can live in the clean, peaceful society that we were promised and deserve? WHEN!?” Roughly she grabbed Vincent’s bruised arm and yanked him upward. “Here, take my packages. Looks like I’ll be cutting another day of shopping short to drag you home.” She shoved the heavy bags into his small arms and began mumbling under her breath. “God knows, if your father would actually raise you correctly I would still be shopping. No need to ask where you get your crazy ideas from…don’t know what I see in him anymore...that crazy old freak supporter …” The mumbles of insults to Vincent’s father and his views on the world lasted the whole trip home, where, upon entering the door, the mumbles quickly became yells as the object of the insults was found sitting in his chair reading the daily news pad. Quietly and quickly Vincent used the distraction of the now regular fights between his parentals and stole off to his room where he could still hear the insults and curse words flying out of both mouths. Even through the anger he felt at life and all its injustices, a strong smile grew across his face when he heard his father fighting back against his mother’s Human-centric closed mindedness with a yell of: “Well good for Vince!! At least one member of this family has a heart, unlike you, you sanctimonious crap of a woman!”