Chapter Text
Mumbo had just aced his recent exams. With a bountiful excitement that was only found in a child that had not yet learnt the cruelty of the world, he threw the door to his mother’s study wide open.
His governess had just left, congratulating him with small smile and a gentle pat to his shoulder. So next, as any child does, Mumbo went to seek validation from the people he sought to impress the most – his parents.
The door slammed harshly into a bookcase. Even now, Mumbo would think back on that and wince, thinking of how expensive both the bookcase and the doorknob were. Obviously though, as a child such matters were of little consequence to him.
“Mother!” Mumbo shouted enthusiastically, climbing up onto the ornate chair that sat opposite her desk. He all but slammed the report down on the table. It was creased and torn from the careless way he had clutched it in his fist.
“Mother!” he repeated, “Look!”
His Mother didn’t even move. A fountain pen was balanced between her fingers and her eyes remained trained on the papers in front of her.
A moment of silence passed.
Slowly, she lowered the pen, marking a few lines onto the papers, before laying the pen down. Propping her elbows on her desk, she took the report into her hands and looked down on it.
“Eighty-three percent?” She read. Her tone portrayed nothing. Mumbo was too proud of himself to notice.
“Yep.” He said, popping the p. His legs swung in the air. Technically they could reach the floor as he had always been tall, however he enjoyed the feeling of swinging them as he sat. It almost felt like flying. It was a habit that his Mother and Father hated, but that had yet to be enough to break him out of the habit.
“Mumbo.” His Mother said sternly.
Mumbo’s legs stopped swinging. That, was a tone that he knew painfully well.
“You’re ten, Mumbo. You are not a child anymore,” she said, “I must have been too lenient with you if you think that an eighty-three percent is something to be proud of. Much less, to barge in here with all the decorum of a mutton-monger.
Mumbo did not know what a mutton-monger was, but he did know that he was not happy to be called one.
“But Mother-“ he began to protest.
“No, Mumbo.” She snapped. “I expect you to be putting an extra hour into your numberwork every evening.”
Conversations with his Mother ending in tears was nothing new to Mumbo. So, when his eyes began to sting, he bawled. He sobbed and internally screamed, wished that he could yell how it wasn’t fair, and she was bad, and that he wished he could go somewhere where somebody would actually care.
The sharp pain that flared across his cheek was new.
For a moment, it paused his noise. Shock filled his every sense until it was replaced by a burning sting. It hurt. Mumbo just cried harder, this time not making an effort to conceal his tears.
At some point, his Mother left.
Once his throat began to hurt and his nose was full of snot from crying, he quietened. His cheek still hurt, but the pain was lessened now to a rather predictable ache. It almost felt like a constant pressure, or warmth on his skin, just slightly too intense to forget about.
After a few minutes, the door opened slowly.
“Master Mumbo?” A voice called softly.
Mumbo turned. In the doorway stood their hybrid. Mumbo knew that they weren’t allowed in the study, so was not surprised when their feet didn’t ever cross the boundary of the room.
“Hey Exia.” He replied quietly.
“Master Mumbo!” Exia hissed, looking frantically down the hallway.
“Right, right, sorry.” He hissed back. Mumbo wasn’t supposed to know Exia’s name. Exia themself wasn’t even supposed to use their own name. It had been a few years ago that Mumbo had made a friend in Exia. He had just finished his first political biology lesson and had subsequently pottered down to the kitchens to talk to the one hybrid that he knew.
He had had so many questions. Thinking back once again, they had been incredibly insensitive, but Exia understood. They had watched Mumbo grow up, after all. He was a good kid. Sheltered, yes. Misinformed, yes. But beneath it all, he was good.
Before that lesson, Mumbo had never quite put together the hierarchical disbalance in their home with the differences in Exia’s biology to his. Exia had been glad to sit him down and explain things to him, under a solemn oath to never let his parents know. Eager for knowledge, Mumbo agreed.
Even now, years later, Mumbo still often thought of the great personal risk Exia took back then. Of course, their secret was never told. Even to this day, it was something that Mumbo had never uttered to another soul.
In the years that followed, Exia had become a close friend. His only friend, really. That friendship, however, was only behind closed doors. Exia had explained to him that his parents were old fashioned in their thinking and wouldn’t be happy if they thought Mumbo was distracting them from their work. Of course now, Mumbo knew that they would have been more than upset, but he was also grateful to Exia for protecting the little childhood ignorance that he had still possessed.
That day in the study, after his Mother had properly hit him for the first time, was the day that Mumbo began to doubt.
Although at some level he had always known that his parents weren’t good people, he had never once thought of them as bad.
That night, at ten years old, Mumbo learnt the whole honest truth of the world. He heard it from Exia, and then his parents (both taking pretty opposite angles on the whole thing, but that really spoke for itself). The next day he asked his governess, but she stuttered around the subject so much that she didn’t even need words for Mumbo to understand what she truly thought.
He spent the whole weekend in their extensive library, searching through the history books. Books were piled on top of each other, discarded, lying all over the floor. Some were open, others thrown face down in frustration.
You see, Mumbo had grown up being told prejudiced, cruel views as if they were facts. He felt like pulling his hair out in a battle between his heart and brain.
A sudden anxiety swarmed over him. What else was enforced into him that wasn’t true. What else was he accustomed to that he really shouldn’t be? He thought back to the rough slaps he received as correction. He thought back to the head of his Mother’s cane across his cheek. The skin was bruised a mottled purple and right through the centre was a thin red line where it had broken skin.
“What is going on in here?”
Mumbo jumped, startled so bad that he swore that his heart actually skipped several beats.
“Mumbo?” His Father’s voice was stern and cold in the way that it got when Mumbo got out of control.
“Father.” Mumbo said, hastily pushing himself to his feet, “I- um- I ah. That is, I mean to say-“
His Father raised an eyebrow and Mumbo closed his mouth so hard that his teeth clacked together.
His Father pointed to the empty self and Mumbo’s hands shook as he stared at his Father.
“You know that a boy such as yourself should never conduct himself in this fashion, Son”.
Mumbo nodded shakily. “I’m sorry, Father. I-“
“Enough.” His Father snapped. Mumbo swallowed. His Father’s quiet anger was so much worse than his Mother’s loud rage. At least he could predict her better.
“You know better than to protest a correction, Mumbo. We just want you to be a respectable asset to this family.”
“Yes, sir.” He whispered as a subdued response.
“Trashing the library like this is totally unacceptable.” His Father continued, “Asking your governess about hybrid rights in society, as if they were people,” his Father sighed heavily, “I thought we raised you better than that.”
His Father nodded to the shelf again, and Mumbo just drew his hands closer into his body as he recoiled away.
“Mumbo.” His Father’s voice was low and dangerous.
Mumbo shakily extended his right hand and placed it on the shelf.
His Father watched intently. He waited for Mumbo to still before he moved, stepping gingerly through the piles of books until he found a relatively new, leather bound one. Mumbo remembered discarding that one with disgust as he read through the section detailing ways one should declaw an aggressive feline hybrid. Personally, Mumbo thought the book’s description of aggressive sounded remarkably close to afraid.
Lost in his thoughts, the moment the heavy book dropped on his hand came as a surprise. He couldn’t help the small whine that emerged from him, nor the instinct to pull his hand away. His dad tutted, grabbing his wrist.
“You’re lucky I’m not in the mood to deal with you today.” He said. The hardness in his eyes were more than enough to convince Mumbo that he meant it. “Don’t let anything like this happen again.”
“Thank you, Father.” Mumbo heard his voice tremble.
The next months were spent with little to no incidents. Mumbo worked hard to try and be the son that his parents wanted. But, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quieten the pounds of his heart that screamed that they were wrong.
Small punishments that were once denied meals, or a slap to the wrist became worse. The still healing welts on his back were a sore reminder to stand up straight. The bruising on the back of his hands reminded him not to fidget. The added weight to the sole of his shoes reminded him not to swing his legs as he sat.
The child in Mumbo died when he was ten.
If it hadn’t been for Exia, then the soul in him might have died too.
Mumbo began paying close attention to Exia’s routines, mannerisms, reactions. He did everything he could to help them. He kept his room tidy and clean. He began wearing an apron and gloves to stop getting redstone dust embedded in his clothes. He began positioning himself in the room so that he blocked his parents view of them.
Exia was Mumbo’s best friend in the world. They meant everything to him, and he didn’t even know anything more about them than their name. He barely even got a chance to speak to them.