Nemo listened to Raiya quietly, he seemed to appreciate that she trusted him enough to divulge her story. "Thank you for sharing, Raiya." He replied with a calm tone.
Nemo's gaze turned to the ceiling as he seemed to be taking in everything she said. He closed his eyes for a few moments until his head cocked to the side. He used manalysis to make sure Travis and Artos were still out of earshot. Afterwards he opened them and turned back to Raiya. "Concepts like identity and family are absent to me. It's like this because I've never had any of either." Nemo began.
"I was always like this, the eyes, the pale skin, white hair. And to my parents that must have been displeasing, so I was abandoned as an infant... I never had a name, so I was forced to come up with my own later; Nemo is actually Latin for 'Nobody'."
"Being orphans seems to be one thing you and I have in common. However, my experience was a bit different from yours. I was never shown the camaraderie or companionship by anybody there, not even the adults. They were afraid of me, thought I didn't belong there, and I suppose they were right." He explained. "When I became old enough to speak and feed myself, I was cast off to the streets. From then on I wandered, here to there, the only comfort I had was with books. I learned to love reading during that time. I'd read about anything to pass the time, I found the knowledge it gave and things it taught me to be priceless."
"However I was constantly searching for where I belonged, where there were people like me. I thought I found that in the Arcanocracy. But once I made it to the front door I began to have doubts. A small group came out to evaluate me, and the way they looked at me, it reminded me of the way people looked at me at the orphanage. As if I wasn't a person, like I was a freak. I didn't like it, but not as much as I didn't like what they told me next. The group said I didn't have any magic potential." Nemo paused for a moment.
"Not that I just wasn't a talent, but that I was even less than the non-talents. I had virtually no usable mana pool at all. So they turned me away. I was a bit... upset by the news, but not totally deterred. So I got my hands on as many basic spell books as I could and practiced as much as I could. I gave it my best effort, but after several weeks I began to lose hope. However it's from that desperation I made my greatest discovery."
"I had a bit of a breakdown, but by the end of it when I opened my eyes I was a grasping a rose in my hand. But something was different about it. It had withered, become dull colored and lifeless. This was the first time I ever used my absorption magick. I was ecstatic, I had finally used a spell, I was told it could it could not be done, but there I was, doing it. I dedicated all of my time perfecting the ability until I was confident to go back to the Arcanocracy. However once I went, my euphoria over the discovery ran out. They didn't understand how I gained mana until I showed them my new trick on a vase of flowers they had... They didn't share the same enthusiasm that I did over my gift, in fact they thought I was a demon, and said my power was evil. I was rejected once more, this time knowing I couldn't go back again."
"But there was one thing important that I learned, that I had gained mana. With that I went back to the book of basic spells. And this time I began to make actual progress. I began to learn to harness the mana I had gained. But it wasn't nearly enough, so I consumed more until I could. During this time I traveled to one of the Academia's schools and demonstrated my talents to one of their leaders. I was met with another bad reaction. To a organization built on preserving and studying magic, my ability to destroy it threatened them... So once again I had to leave with my head down."
"As I grew older I even tried a witch hunter group, but even though my abilities aligned with their purpose, they saw me as a magic abomination to be snuffed out all the same..." Nemo added. "They all didn't appreciate my talents, nobody did. I didn't understand what I had done wrong, I did all I could, but they all still hated me, everyone always hated me. It came to peak when an assassin was hired to kill me by one of the organizations I had visited... That's when I began to feel hate too; I absorbed his spells, and then absorbed him as well. It was the first time I killed somebody." He explained.
"It was after that I became numb to it all, I started to feel nothing. But I did feel one thing, purpose. My victory over the assassin made me realize that there was something I was good at: The art of death. And through that I finally found people that appreciated my talents."
"You asked why I sounded upset when I talked about how I learned my spells. It's because I never had a choice. I learned by myself because I was the only person willing to teach me." Nemo finished.
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