[TheMHasSpoken]: 599.The Innocent Evil.Zoca's Youth

Yes, I knew Zoca. He was a friend of mine… now don’t you look at me like that! If you had met him in those years you would have not even bothered to think he would grow up to be a king! A mad man, maybe, he was always a mad man but in his youth he was a comical one! His sinisterness back then was merely amusing. You always could count on him saying something hilariously morbid. Then you could smack him. He was always abnormal in a way that was enthralling. He humored you and frightened you at the same time. Laughs were common yet uneasy around him, and he absorbed it all with his quick little smirk and glance at the sky as if sharing his mirth with the gods.

And by the gods, he was odd. For a Halamay he had height on him, but considering a tall Drocgugian has a good foot on a tall Halamay he still slinked around at our shoulders. Half of the time we were talking to the top of a bobbing enthusiastic head. He never did stop talking and his voice, dear gods, it didn’t suit the thin gangly hunched little man! His voice was a good octave or two lower than you’d expect from him, and so full of authority and intelligence. And always his hands were moving about as if conducting his symphony of words, which were all played by the rumbling of a deep drum. He would get into such rants sometimes, and we would ignore him, which I now see was a terrible error. What use it would be to understand his mind now! The mind that is slowly slithering its armies towards us like a great venomous snake! Who would’ve ever expected that gangly creepy Zoca would bring himself into such power? Then again, it was in his character. But we just couldn’t take him seriously.

I hear he is a cripple now… I wouldn’t be surprised if it was his own doing. He had a way of tripping over things, knocking over books and spilling wine. He would always pause with his nose flared, eyes darting about to see if anyone noticed. If he didn’t fall on a spear to ruin his leg I’m sure he did it to himself out of annoyance. His long thin legs were never much to look at and never did him a bit of good. As long as they were on him, they were short compared to everyone else’s. If we were running to catch a lecture he’d always come in last, standing and craning his neck to find a seat in whatever sitting place the building offered.

So weird it was to see a Halamay among us. We had Seprichals, plenty enough. Even a few lecturers were Seprichals, including a man who revolutionized medicine through his elaborate studies with herbs. But Halamay aren’t of the intellectual kind. Not saying they are stupid! They are as capable as anyone. It’s just their culture doesn’t focus on higher thought. They have no artists or philosophers or mathematicians. It’s just not important to them. But Zoca was a prince, third in line for the crown. When he was asked what he wished to do with himself while his brother ruled he requested being the royal scribe. In order to be most skilled at this task, he suggested he better be sent to Luminarium, the intellectual center of the north. He knew only a little Drocgugian and was rather comical with his grammar in his first arrival, but he caught on so fast some accused his first few weeks of being a prank of sorts. Yes, that should have taught us not to underestimate him, but alas, we did and here we are.

It always shocked people when he walked into a room, if they even noticed him, that is. He was usually concealed behind shoulders and elbows. But once he interrupted the lecture complaining that he couldn’t see, all were aghast to see the pointy little man crawl out from the crowd and wade to the lecturer. To have a Halamay out in the open was amazing. Lecturers who were interested in history yanked Zoca around by his arm and pelted him with questions about his race, which once ruled the northlands from sea to sea. Half of the time he lied just to get a rise from them. He would laugh about it later with us. Some things he said were ridiculous, some plausible and others just evil. The evil ones he preferred. He was not proud of his people. He seemed to hardly care, which is what confuses me to this day. He had no patriotic zeal, yet he leads his people on with a tale of their superiority. I know he doesn’t believe it. If anything it’s probably as humorous to him as the stories he told the teachers. He was always sick in that sort of way, but to what extent I could not have dreamed.

I liked him. I found him amazingly entertaining as did most people. He was invited to almost every house and he’d just sit there being his sinister self, getting more and more morbid as he slurped down his wine. But there were things about him I didn’t like. Most people often argue and criticize others for common irritating things. But Zoca, he would attack the basic fabric of thought. You could say the simplest thing and he’d roll his eyes at you and say you’re an idiot. You would have no idea why he came to this conclusion until he decided to explain (he always decided to explain). It was always so simple you wouldn’t even think about it. One time we had a ferocious debate on why murder was wrong. Then it seemed just like another one of Zoca’s attempts to scare us, but now I see he was serious. You wouldn’t think a debate on that subject would last for hours, considering the simplicity of the thing but it did, and I have no idea who won. He beat down what I said with his own interpretation, but I could not accept it. Though his logic had beaten down mine, I could not and would not agree.

Then Zoca had his more disturbing interests. Mainly the brothels, and in the brothels mainly Seprichal women. He was not human when he saw one, and it gave us all the jitters to say the least. To think of the queer little creature in sexual contexts was terribly awkward. The irony that he now kills Seprichal women by the hundreds. Maybe he sees it as a necessary sacrifice, considering that if he wins this war he’ll get all the Seprichal lasses he wants.

Yes… I very much wish I could go back in time and take him seriously. Looking back, considering who he was, if you realized he wasn’t joking… you see, he was manipulating the assumption that he was funny. If he talked about his philosophies among Halamay, why, people would have found him crazy and hated him. Here in Luminarium, people loved him for it. He could express his ideas, get helpful feed back and get a merry slap on the back for it. He was like a monster’s egg and we were what kept it warm. Really, Zoca is in part our fault. His mind was born dangerous, I think, and exposing it to such vast vaults of knowledge and other great minds, why, his threat increased 10 fold, if not a hundred. It is sick how easily he was forged. How he was outright evil yet lovable. How he tricked us without trying and laughed at every second of it. It was actually quite cruel of him leading us that way. But, it was more our fault then his. That he was a Halamay made us love him the moment we saw him. He was unique. That wasn’t his doing. He had no control over his race. He just took advantage of the situation and let us highly intelligent scholars laugh on with our stupidity. He is a very smart man. A very smart one. He has taken every step so skillfully. And now all we can do is hope he made a slip up somewhere. It’s the only way he’ll be defeated.