Pain of the Past (a Preminger fanfiction)

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A week had passed since Premingers arrival and he had grown reluctantly compliant to his new life style. Breakfast was at sunrise, school was at 7. Never in his life had Preminger been to school before and he did his best not to hate every second of it.

He was 10 years old and illiterate — there had been no need for reading on the farm and his own father had barely received any education himself.  Embarrassment suffocated him the first few days of classes as he, one of the older students in the class, stumbled through the alphabet and desperately tried in vain to string the letters into words. Eventually the embarrassment subsided and Preminger was able to solidify it into determination to learn.

All of his education took place in a small backroom of the orphanage. There was a class for those of the ages 8 and under to learn rudimentary skills such as reading and writing and maths. Ages 9-14 studied together in the art of trade and economics. Any older than that and they were of legal working age and had no further need of education. Most worked in the mills or the stables and the few girls that there were worked in the kitchens in the marketplace or as seamstresses in the local boutiques.

Most days, Preminger was confined to his shared room. He spent his days studying the alphabet in attempt to catch up with his peers who were greatly inferior in age.

He had no desire to see the outside world here. It was too different from what he knew to be home and the bustle of the city life frightened him. That was a reality he had a harder time groveling with. Preminger was afraid.

He was quiet to the outside world, shy in his speech and hesitant in his actions, terrified of what the future may hold for him. Fear was disabling. With every fiber of his being, he hated what it was like to be afraid. And so with every day that passed, he devoted himself to growing stronger so that there would be nothing deserving of his fear.

His father's words had welded themselves into Preminger's young soul. He obsessed over them, let them stream through his head during the endless sleepless nights and let them solidify in his heart every time he suffered the pang of hunger or of thirst or of exhaustion.

He heeded his fathers advice, but he heeded it alone. Until one day, as fate would have it, Preminger found himself face to face with a new adventure he had not yet explored; having friends.