What it Means to Persevere

Hardship

Sixteen Years Earlier

Elementals were an interesting species. They were apart of the monster kingdom, unlike the Skeletons, but they still kept to themselves. Elementals were a dying species. They found difficulty in finding a mate because they typically never left their home and family. Elementals were tight nit like that. 99% of the Elementals were like this. But like any other species, there were outliers. Grillby was a outspoken flame when he was born, immediately setting off red flags in his parents minds. Any self respecting Fire Elemental was quiet until spoken to. Of course, he was a baby and didn't know any better. They didn't see it that way though. Grillby was left in his crib for 24 hours to learn his lesson, no contact from anyone. In these days it would be considered neglect, but back in the late 1700s it was a valid punishment and the little outlier named Grillby was given this punishment a lot by his parents. That's how he learned to become an independent monster, doing things for himself a lot earlier than most monster children would.

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Even when the baby wasn't being punished, he was still often ignored. He wasn't the son that his parents wanted, so they worked on creating a better one to replace Grillby. Elemental children were extremely hard to produce though, that's why most only had one child in their lifetime. It had taken well over fifty years to even have Grillby, and in their eyes he was a mistake so they took their chances. Grillby was already crawling and pulling himself up at six months. This way he could feed himself whatever was left out. More reasons for him to get in trouble. He learned early the effects water had on fire. He learned never to take when his parents were present and he never took to much so that it looked noticeable. Not after that experience. Sometimes he still felt like he was in agony as the (terrifying) liquid was splashed on him, making him scream and writhe. He would hold a reasonable fear of water for the rest of his life. He tried to actively avoid his parents after that as well, because that was abuse, no matter what the timeperiod was. Grillby's parents were not good people.

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Grillby was walking by himself by the age of nine months. He could get up to higher places to get larger food items and even pick his own produce from the garden. He could dress himself, speak words he'd heard from his parents and somewhat understand their meaning to a limited extent, and open things like the jars of jelly that his mother slaved over and he often stole so that if he was being punished he would have a food source hidden in his room. He could also use cutlery quite well. Grillby often thought about walking out the front door and never coming back, but where would he go? He was scared of meeting new people because what if everyone was like his parents? Grillby didn't take the chance. Not this time around. There would be other opportunities. For now he just had to survive his neglectful and frankly insufferable parents. All he wanted was their attention, and he would find a way to get it, one way or another without becoming an actual criminal because though he stole food to survive his parents, he knew stealing was a bad thing and he didn't want to get locked away longer than a measly day.

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Grillby discovered cooking at the age of one. He was in no way, shape, or form good at it, but a warm meal was nice for a change. It opened his mind to new possibilities for the future and would one day become his passion. He tried to learn the spices in his own way. Many of them tasted terrible alone, he learned. Vegetables that were once hard to chew became softened when heated. He learned quickly that in being a Fire Elemental, he could heat the food himself though though that had taken a lot of practice before he stopped burning the potatoes and carrots. His parents were never happy to smell something burning and often got Grillby in trouble. That led to him practicing outside away from the prying eyes of the monster's within his village. He was better off being alone anyway, nobody could hurt him that way. Someday he would learn that not everyone was out to get him, but for now... he was better off this way.