It was impossible for Helt to ever forget that he was different. It was a fact that was inherent as soon as anyone laid their eyes upon him. The way his sparkling pale-amethyst appearance shone differently from anyone he had ever met proved how different he was. And yet, despite how lightly coloured he was when compared to all the other krysthids, and no matter how much he would never be accepted by the others of his kind, he was still cursed in the exact same way as the rest of them. The krysthid race may have been blessed with amazing [Gifts], but they always came at a unique, terrible consequence.

Helt had been raised on the glorious myths of his race, even while that very same race treated him with disdain. Every night, before bed, his mother would tuck him in and sing him the tales of their ancestors. She’d sing of their adventures, of their deeds, of their [Gifts], and of the curses that came attached. Helt absolutely loved those stories, he always wanted to hear more and more of them. And yet, on the rare occasions that he was allowed to leave their house, their neighbours who shared the exact same amazing ancestors as he did would treat him as if he were dirt.

One night, when the bullying grew particularly bad, his mother suddenly packed everything up and left with him. When they were far enough away from the town to stop and make camp, his mother told him a different story than usual. She told him the story of the father he’d never met. Apparently he was a beautiful man, with an even more beautiful soul, and a very interesting [Gift]. He’d been an [Explorer], and had come to the town Helt’s mother lived in to learn the ways and culture of the Krysthids. Most of the townsfolk decided to treat the man like air, but in a twist of fate, he and Helt’s mother had fallen in love. She knew that she couldn’t keep him there, the others would never have allowed him to stay forever, and his [Gift] would have nagged at him to keep moving on. In the end, he promised to come see her again in 5 years when he was accomplished in his field and could settle down with her in a human town.

However, neither one of them expected that she would give birth to their child the very next year.

The townsfolk didn’t take kindly to the mixed-breed child. They found his oddly pale-amethyst skin to be a sign of the diminishing of their crystal-based ancestry, and feared that his presence would somehow cause his light colouring to spread. Basically, they saw him as a disease. His mother had done her best, trying to protect her child until his father kept his promise and returned for her. In the end, she had to choose between waiting for someone she loved who might never come back, and keeping the child she’d made with her beloved safe. The choice was obvious, but of course she’d been holding out hope all this time, until it finally became too much.

Helt and his mother fled to the nearest human town, stayed there for a few days, and after his mother learned which way to go for their destination, they left again. They wandered from town to town for months, slowly heading for the town that Helt’s father had once said he was from. However, an incident occurred shortly after Helt had turned 5.

One day, his mother went out to get them some food, and then didn’t come back for 3 days.

When she finally did come back, she looked scared, as if she was being chased by something. She snatched Helt up and ran through the streets as if they would die if she stopped. Eventually they turned into the door of a dingy building and stopped. As his mother slammed the door behind her and panted, even while she still desperately held on to him, a man he’d never met before strolled out of a back room to greet them. Amazingly enough it was another Krysthid, one who’d left the northern territories to start up a business here, amongst the humans. Helt’s mother put him down and started talking very quickly in hushed tones, not letting her son hear a word of what she was saying. She handed the man a big bag of crystals from their homeland, something that would have been worth a lot of money here in the human lands, lovingly kissed Helt’s forehead, and told him that this man would be looking after him for a little while. The tiny boy didn’t even get a chance to ask his mother what was happening before she fled, back into the streets.

From what he could understand, something bad was happening to his mother, and he was supposed to wait here with the other Krysthid until she dealt with it and came back. He didn’t know the man at all, and he was rather uncomfortable with others of his kind because of how they’d all treated him, so he was too afraid to ask him any questions about what was going on. And as Helt kept his mouth shut, a week passed, and the man arbitrarily decided that Helt’s mother wasn’t going to come back. In the end, the man did what most people did with unwanted children, and gave Helt to the local orphanage.

In the first bit of luck in his life, Helt quickly became friends with the quiet girl Jean. He could tell that she had a lot of the same wounds that he did, and they would sometimes slowly open up to each other about things from the past. However, no matter what, Helt made sure to never mention his mother to anyone. He didn’t know what danger she might have been in, but he held out hope against hope that she would one day return to him, and he wasn’t going to do a single thing to somehow sabotage his chances.

Eventually Jean and Helt found Ren, and they knew she needed their love and support, so they adopted her into their group. Helt could sense that Ren was a little bit afraid of being in her own house for some reason, so he often recommended to Jean that they go and fetch her to play. The trio grew closer and closer to each other, made promise after promise, and then one day they all went to receive their [Gifts] together, just like a family would. When he first met them, Helt could tell that Ren’s parents were a little bit odd. He knew what it was like to have a parent who truly and deeply loved him, so he could easily spot when those feelings were absent. But they were his friend’s parents, and he didn’t want to start anything on such an important day, so Helt kept his opinions to himself.

Jean went first, and came out looking confused and unsure. She told everyone what [Gift] she’d gotten, but they were all quite skeptical about it. Sure, Ren and Helt loved her like family, but it’s not like they were blinded because of it; They could easily see how plain the girl was. Perhaps her [Gift] meant something different than what they thought? Some of them could be a little cryptic in how they were named.

Helt went second, and the only thing he could think of when he left the back room was that yes, he was right, [Gifts] could be named quite crypticly. He’d been told his [Gift] was something called [One Who Hears Things] by the priest, but nothing else. He hadn’t even been told what the curse that came with it was, like was supposed to happen in the northern territories. How was he supposed to know what his curse was?! He mentioned what his [Gift] was to the others, but no one seemed to have any idea what it might be, which didn’t bode well for anyone knowing what the curse was, either.

Helt could tell right away that something was different, but it took him a little longer than it should have to notice the voices he could now hear. Sometimes while they’d been waiting for Ren and looking around the church, the boy could hear some very soft voices whispering to him. They were never the same voice, and they were never from exactly the same spot, so he didn’t think it was just one person following him around and messing with him. Was this his [Gift]? It made sense, after all he was in fact hearing things, but how was this beneficial in the slightest? Perhaps if he could manage to make out what they were saying he'd hear something important? He tried his best to listen more closely to what the voices were saying, and although he would sometimes miss some of the words, he could hear them just the tiniest bit better. However, after a little while his head started to hurt, almost with the same sensation you’d get when you strained your ears.

But his test had been successful!

Helt had been able to sort of make out what the voices were saying when he tried, and when he looked around and listened in on some of the conversations going on around him, he realized that he was hearing the thoughts of the people around him. It was amazing! He really did have a [Gift]! The small boy started to giggle happily to himself, excitedly imagining what he could do now that he had such an amazing ability. His friends would be so impressed when he explained what it was that he could do! But his happiness quickly faded when he realized… that he could still hear the voices. In his excitement he’d ignored them, but the voices had never actually left. In fact, they were just short of the volume that they’d gotten to when he was straining himself to listen. What happened to the whispers from before? Now they were stuck at a mumble. No… It couldn't be.

Helt made a dour face and focused on using his [Gift] once more. After a few minutes of desperate concentration, the voices once again grew the tiniest bit louder. Now they sounded like the softest of murmurs. He could even hear a passing thought from Jean a handful of feet away, as she poked at her face while studying it on some reflective surface. She was thinking that maybe the priests had gotten her [Gift] wrong, and that she’d never be a beauty. Helt turned his head away from her and stopped trying to use his [Gift], hoping that he could give his friend some privacy. But of course things wouldn’t be that easy.

Helt was a Krysthid.

Krysthid [Gifts] always came with a curse, and Helt had found his.

The voices were now stuck at a just barely understandable level, unceasing no matter what he tried to do.

And Helt knew that if he tried to use his [Gift] again, they’d only get louder.

Louder and unending.

Yes, this was indeed a curse.

As Helt stewed in the hopelessness of his newfound hell, Ren’s parents returned. The fact that they weren’t with Ren and quickly left without her was immediately alarming to the child duo, and as the adults strode past, Helt heard something. He hadn’t wanted to. Perhaps their voices were a little bit louder because he’d been watching them so hard as they left. But one thing was for sure, Helt hated what he was hearing.

Ren’s mother was thinking about what a waste of her time Ren had been.

Ren’s father was thinking about who he could go to to sell the disgusting girl so she’d finally do some good for the family.

Helt couldn’t understand a mother treating their child like that, sure, but if that’s what a father could be like, then maybe he never wanted to run into his own.

Helt was deeply worried for Ren after hearing those thoughts, and when the girl came back looking like she’d just gotten the worst news in the world, his heart felt horribly shaken. Even if he didn’t want to, he knew what the poor girl had been told; It was all she could think about, besides the fact that her two close friends might just abandon her too.

The boy was going to make absolutely sure that that fear would never come true.

For now though, they had to hide her.

~~~

After a week of pure torment and little sleep, Helt finally found out what Ren’s parents had done. He’d tried to warn the two girls before the thug had shown up to kidnap them, but he’d been just a little too late. And as the three of them were tied up and taken over to a vehicle, the small boy had to resist his fury at the new information he was learning.

Ren’s parents didn’t only try to sell off their daughter.

They’d also been busy adopting Helt and Jean during the week, so that they could sell them off, too.

It made perfect sense; Didn’t the two children tell them about their wonderful new [Gifts]?

They’d know exactly how valuable such children would be to sell off.

The icing on the cake was how he was also constantly hearing his first friend Jean fighting with herself about if she should use her [Gift] or not. He’d heard countless times why she was apprehensive about it, but he couldn’t really understand why she’d hesitate to use it even in such a horrendous situation. But just as she finally seemed to be resolving herself to use her abilities on the man, someone else showed up and easily saved them.

During the past week Helt had heard many things, whether he wanted to or not. He’d grown used to the constant prattle from his friends; At the very least he liked them and he cared about their feelings enough to hope that his unbidden eavesdropping might somehow be beneficial. But Helt had also heard countless other voices constantly. Anyone who strayed within 10 feet of the boy would start broadcasting whatever inane thoughts that would happen to cross their minds. Because of this, the boy had learned a large amount of random useless gossip and trivia, enough to make his head hurt.

One of those bits of trivia was about the Earl who ruled over this particular region; Earl Kieran.

He’d heard odd little tidbits about the man from passersby, but he knew for a fact that the man was at least in his early 30’s by now and was a [Superior Warrior]; There’s no way that he could be the effeminate teen in front of him. The teen clarified that he was the Earl’s son, someone that Helt had heard practically nothing about. Then he even went on to claim that he had an angel! How absolutely crazy a claim. Helt couldn’t possibly believe such a thing. He passively tried to listen for the teen’s thoughts, hoping to verify whether or not all he’d said was a lie… and yet he couldn’t find a single thing. In an act of confusion, Helt even tried to actively use his [Gift], regardless of the consequences, and even then he still couldn’t find a single one of Noth’s thoughts. In fact, he couldn't find anyone's thoughts at all.

Helt should have been put off by the sudden revelation that his abilities weren’t working on this person, but after a week of constant and unending noise, the fact that there was someone who only produced quiet was comforting.

~~~

Noth had taken the kids home to live with him.

Helt was immensely pleased with how everything had turned out.

Sure, he’d heard the nasty and awful thoughts of everyone in that dungeon, and he knew some of the absolutely vile things that occurred when Noth had come to save them. Luckily for the boy, however, his pain had dulled his senses a good bit, so he didn’t have to hear the whole story. He only knew that the awful slave owner had been tortured and killed. Anything else he’d learned wasn’t really new, considering he’d seen what Noth was capable of in that alley from before.

Besides, the fact that he was brought to such a nice and quiet place in the end really skewed his thoughts on the whole ordeal.

Somehow, after the rescue from the slavers, Noth’s quieting effect on Helt had grown stronger. Now if Helt was within 15 feet of Noth, all of the voices would just stop. It was so very peaceful. Helt didn’t care what was making it happen, all he knew was that he was finally free, at least for a majority of the day. Of course, he still could use his [Gift] if he wanted to and negate the effect, and if Noth left the villa for whatever reason then Helt would just have to deal with the bombardment of voices again, but it was certainly better than nothing.

And even the voices weren’t so bad here!

So long as Helt didn’t stray too far from the villa, he wouldn’t get close enough to most people to even have to hear very many voices at all! It was true that there was the occasional maid who’d come along and relay some information to Elillith, who’d been staying there with them, but even that only happened maybe twice a week. Elillith was quiet even in her mind, oddly enough, so it was rare for her to have a passing thought unless one of them started talking to her or brought up Noth. And even then, somehow her thoughts were noiseless, just appearing as pictures or scenes in Helt's head instead of words. Jean was overjoyed by the fact that her worst fears didn’t have to come true, so her gloomy thoughts from the past month and a half had all but cleared up.

That only left Ren.

Ren was acting strange.

And her thoughts were turning even stranger.