Chapter 113 –
The first time Patrice Francoise Benette used his healing powers was when he was four years old.
Coming from a strict, military family, his parents both demanded absolute obedience to rules and utmost respect to the highest authority, which was his father. As soon as he learned to talk, he was taught to call the Benette patriarch ‘Sir’, and told to act accordingly in a disciplined manner.
Toys were limited to practical educational materials.
Friends, or rather acquaintances, visited in a limited schedule.
Nurturing had a schedule as well, and coddling was prohibited, since it makes a child weak and useless.
But Patrice was already born weak.
His mother almost died when she gave birth to him as the youngest of 7 brothers, and he was so small and sickly since he came out two months before his time.
Due to this, his once, strict mother, decided to take extra care of him herself, and in the process, got quite attached to the little fighter who everyone thought wouldn’t last three days.
His father let it slide at first.
His wife was the only person below his rank that he ever respected, and at first he thought that it wouldn’t hurt to nurse a sickly child to health.
Now, it has been a family tradition to give a Benette child a pet when they reach the age of five. The pet was a mastiff puppy from their own kennel and would be weaned and raised by the child on his own. It would then be his companion for hunting expeditions to come, since a Benette needs to hunt their own food as soon as he is big enough to carry a gun.
It was summer that day, when Patrice heard a sickly kitten in the bushes while walking with his mother near the family’s practice hall which he was still too young to enter.
“What is that noise?” he had asked her.
His mother glanced down at the bushes, her noble face held high, and sighed.
“Just a kitten. Your brothers must have left it here after playing with it,” she replied as they passed by.
But Patrice couldn’t help thinking about that high pitched noise as he accompanied his mother in the main garden, so he slipped back towards the training hall and decided to look for it instead.
The cries were quite weaker when he found the filthy little thing on the ground. Its eyes were closed and its fur was patched with dried dirt and it smelled fishy, but he held it in his hands and cleaned it the best he could and brought it to the kitchens to give it some milk.
It drank a whole bowl full and even ate some scraps after he gave it a bath. He noticed that it was pure white and its eyes were as blue as the sky.
“I shall name you Sky!” he lovingly told it as he cuddled it to his chest.
He left Sky in the kitchen, a small favor from the cook who had a soft spot for him. He visited it daily and watched it grow and even gave it a collar from one of his mother’s old bracelets.
A week later, he found another kitten.
This one was orange and he found it sleeping near the compost heap behind the training hall, in fact he thought it was a fallen leaf since it didn’t moved.
“Hello little one, are you sleeping?” he asked as he scooped it up in his arms.
It seems the kitten was very tired indeed, for it took a while for it to wake up, and even spat at Patrice when it opened its yellow eyes.
“Don’t be scared, little kitten, you must be hungry, let’s go to cook to get you some milk.”
He called that one Leaf.
Soon, Patrice had four kittens in the kitchen. He also found two rabbits, five gerbils, and even a little puppy which he was so happy to raise as his own.
Now, he can have a pet dog like his older brothers.
He gave them all collars from his mother’s old jewelry and cut holes on his old socks to give them small sweaters to wear.
“Mother, when I grow up, I’m gonna be a zoo keeper!” he told his family once, while they were at dinner.
“Why would a Benette want to be a zoo keeper?” his mother asked him.
“I take care of animals like my brothers do, but it’s not just dogs I take care of!” he said proudly.
“What insolence are you saying?” his father asked in his cold voice.
Patrice was slightly taken aback, but his innocence got the better of him.
“I have a little zoo in the kitchen, Sir,” he said with a small smile. “I have cats and rabbits and mice and a puppy too!” he bragged. “Cook and the gardener even made me a small house for them to stay in, since the cats might eat the-”
The sound of his father’s chair scraping on the marble floor interrupted Partice’s story. The Benette patriarch went towards Partice and grabbed him by the arm.
“Sir, be careful of the child...” he heard his mother call from behind.
“Silence,” his father snapped at his wife. “It is because you care too much that such absurdities are coming out of this child’s mouth!”
He pulled harder on Patrice’s arm.
“Ow! Sir, you’re hurting me!” he cried, looking at his mother and six brothers who stayed seated around the table.
His father dragged him towards the kitchens.
“What is this child saying about a zoo?” he asked the cook and the rest of the maids.
“S-sir, it’s just a harmless little thing...” the cook replied, trembling. “Just some animals he picked up somewhere...”
“Where are they.”
The cook and the maids had no choice but to bring the kittens out. They showed the patriarch the small coop they made in the herb garden for the rabbits and gerbils, as well as the furry little pup that jumped around Patrice’s feet when it saw him.
“Take them all to the training hall,” he ordered them.
Patrice cried all the while.
His arm hurt so much it felt like it was broken, and perhaps it already was, as his father dragged him towards the hall after calling for his six older brothers.
They arrived with their huge mastiffs in chains, while the servants took his pets and placed them in a pen in one corner of the hall.
“I don’t know where you got your pets from,” his father told him as he held his youngest son’s head to face inside the pen. “But know that this is what such useless animals are used for.”
The Benette Patriarch signaled his bothers who placed their pets into the pen and took off their chains.
Benette still get nightmares about that day.
It was the first time he realized he was gifted with a healing touch.
He had rushed into the pit after the onslaught, crying, and picked up his bloody puppy who was gasping for breath.
His whole family was astounded when the puppy was nursed back to health, only to be taken away again.
“He is a healer!” his mother had argued. “We should send him to a magic academy or send for a medical magus to train him!”
But his authoritarian father would hear nothing of it.
“No son of mine is going to be a weak magus. If he wants to train, then it would be as a combat medic in the military, not some useless magician!”
Since then, his father did everything he could think of to toughen him up, but Patrice was a sensitive child who was just too soft to be what a Benette should be.
“We Benettes have long lost our capacity for magic, but that ability was replaced with our supernatural strength and endless stamina that even you posses,” he said. “I am not prohibiting you from using your healing powers, Patrice, but why do you refuse to use your strength to fight?!”
“I don’t want to fight, sir,” he answered.
“There is no such thing as a Benette that cannot fight!”
“But I don’t want to hurt others.”
And so, he ended up getting hurt instead.
His family’s unique constitution gave him unlimited stamina to live through all the beatings he got from his father, as well as his fellow cadets who oppressed him for being a ‘Yellow Benette’.
He was disciplined for days at a time, and it went on for years until Prof. Althea intervened and finally got him away from his family.
He was thankful for it.
Thankful that he was finally free.
Thankful that he found people who understood him and treated him as a friend.
Now, everything he’s been through seem nothing more than superficial flesh wounds that can easily heal without leaving a single mark on his skin.