Soren was just a simple man.
A commoner by birth, orphaned at a young age yet burdened with a gift that never seemed to belong to someone like him.
An exceptional healer where people said it with awe, sometimes even envy but to Soren, it had never felt like a blessing. Not when his life had always been shaped by suffering long before anyone ever noticed his talent.
His childhood had not been filled with warmth or laughter. What he remembered instead were fragments of pain. His father's drunken rage, the suffocating fear that settled in his chest whenever footsteps grew too loud and the familiar sight of his mother stepping between him and the next blow.
She would take it without hesitation, as if shielding him was the only thing she could still do right.
Soren had learned early on not to cry not because he was strong but because it made no difference. Misery came whether he resisted it or not so he endured quietly and patiently.
Like it was the only way to survive.
When his mother died, something in him broke in a way he couldn't quite name. At the time, he thought that was the worst it could ever get, that losing the only person who had ever protected him was the deepest kind of pain a person could feel. The world had felt empty, hollow, as if everything meaningful had been buried alongside her.
But he was wrong.
Her death had not been the end of his suffering.
It had only stripped away the last thing that made it bearable.
Without her, there was no one left to stand in front of him, no one left to soften the blows and remind him that he was still human. What followed was not a single moment of despair but a slow, dragging continuation of it.
Day after day, the weight of his existence pressed down on him until it became something he simply carried without question.
Then, as if mocking him, his talent began to show.
At first, it was small and almost unnoticed. Over time, it became undeniable and thought that maybe this could be his way out. Not something grand or impossible since he never dreamed that far but at least a quieter life.
A place where he wouldn't be looked down on, where his existence wouldn't feel like something to be tolerated.
Perhaps, if nothing else, he could be respected.
It was a fragile hope but it was enough.
And yet, even that was taken from him.
The Imperial family had no interest in someone like him. No matter how skilled he became, no matter how many lives he could save, it didn't change the fact that he was a commoner.
To them, he was nothing more than a tool at best. Useful when needed, discarded when not.
The temple, which should have been the one place that valued healing above all else, proved no different. They saw his abilities, yes but they also saw his lineage. And to them, that was enough to diminish everything else.
A commoner touching something sacred was no different from dirt staining something pure. His presence alone was enough to lower his worth in their eyes.
It didn't matter how much he worked and endured.
No matter where Soren turned, the answer remained the same.
Doors stayed closed and opportunities slipped past him. People looked at him and saw not his skill and effort but the circumstances of his birth. Something he had never chosen and could never change.
And so, slowly, quietly, Soren stopped expecting anything from life.
Kindness, fairness and not even acknowledgment.
He learned to accept things as they were, just as he had done as a child. If he was looked down on, then that was simply how it was. If he was treated as lesser, then he would endure it the same way he always had.
There was no point in resisting something that would never change.
No matter how he looked at it, no matter how many times he tried to convince himself otherwise,
Life had never been on his side.
At some point, Soren came to a quiet conclusion that perhaps, this was simply his fate. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he could never escape the kind of life he had been given. It was as if everything had already been decided for him from the very beginning.
He was destined to be mocked, discriminated against and to be looked down on.
After years of enduring stares and whispers, Soren had learned to read people without effort. He didn't need words to understand them. A glance, a slight curl of the lips and the way someone avoided or dismissed him was enough.
He could always tell when someone belittled him.
And they almost always did.
All his life, Soren had never asked for much. He didn't dream of wealth, nor power and recognition. He didn't even know what kind of future he truly wanted. The idea of having a dream felt distant, almost unfamiliar to him.
All he ever wanted was something simple.
A quiet, peaceful life.
To live day by day without having to cry. Without having to hear insults thrown at him as if they were nothing. Without having to brace himself for the next moment of humiliation.
He just wanted to live like any other human being.
To be normal.
To laugh freely like everyone else. To speak and interact without hesitation, to share moments with others without fear or restraint.
It was such a simple wish, something most people never even had to think about.
And yet, for Soren, it had always been just out of reach.
Seeing the way the knights and his own employers looked at him, or whispered about him with those calm expressions that barely hid their disdain, Soren knew he could no longer hope for a quiet life.
He understood it well enough.
What awaited him would be no different from the life he had always known. The same looks and whispers. The same quiet humiliation that followed him wherever he went.
Still… he found himself wishing, just a little, that it wouldn't be too much.
That perhaps it would be bearable.
That he could endure it again, the way he always had by ignoring it, by letting it pass through him as if it meant nothing.
After all, physical pain had long since lost its meaning to him. He could take it, endure it and survive it. If it was only that, then it wouldn't be a problem.
But even so…
There was still a dull ache in his chest.
Because no matter how numb he had become to pain, Soren was still human,
just like them.