Jude

A bastardly child born to parents who did not love each other, who did not want children of their own. He would learn how to depend on no one but himself at a young age, taking on the task of tending to the farm animals his parents had been given when his Father’s family business was passed down to them with the hopes of them keeping it alive, only to be proven futile in coming years. He spent most of his days alone in the barn, as far from his parents as he could get until he would ultimately go up to the house to sleep.

He was there to witness the first time his Father put his hands on his Mother, to see his Mother fight back, being told he was too young to understand. He fled the house that night, scared of his Father’s true nature and fearing just how bad he could get. Days went by, and Judas found himself bouncing from place to place, scavenging for anything he could find, sleeping anywhere he deemed safe enough for the night. His parents didn’t notice.

On an extra bright morning, in a random barn he crashed in just hours before, he woke up to a pair of crimson eyes staring into his own. The boy was no older than he was, and he was kind, unlike anyone he had met before. He saw the state Judas was in, in his tattered clothes with his hair in knots, and offered him what food he had, which Judas took from him hesitantly. The young boy introduced himself as Vali, and soon Judas would be warmly welcomed into his family, treated as if he was just another Chrisanti child. Their relationship blossomed into something romantic as they grew with each other, and Vali would be the one to help Judas understand what that lingering feeling he had in the pit of his stomach for all those years was, albeit unintentionally, and would end up being the one to help him pick the name Judas when he told him he was a boy.

As the years came and went, the relationship he had with his parents only became more strained. He would stay at home for a night, the two of them would argue, Judas would be the one to break them up, rinse and repeat. Regardless, he would try to rekindle their bond, maintaining the ranch to the best of his ability and even taking up a bartending job at the old saloon in town just for extra cash, anything he could to survive. When that didn’t work, he would turn to thievery, unbeknownst to his own family and Vali’s. It bode well for him until he was caught up with the wrong people, ending in Vali finding out what he had been doing the hard way.

Following the rapidly spreading anti-monster movement incited by Mayor Fernand Trelawny, when the Chrisanti family decided they had no choice but to leave town, Judas would stay with his parents despite Vali’s pleas for him to move with them. He felt guilty even thinking of leaving his Mother with his Father, though she couldn’t care less for him, feeling as if he had to protect her. When their relationship came to its eventual end, Judas would disregard how badly it stung to no longer be able to see Vali and do his best to keep up with every letter he sent. He would stop writing back when things got to be too much, when he was sleeping in a different place each night in an attempt to hide from law enforcement and anti-monster townsfolk, unsure of his own safety. It hurt more than anything.

Judas would continue stealing whatever he could to get by, in time making a name for himself in neighboring towns, though no one really knew who he was. He would become closed off, careless of what could happen to him, back in that same lone grave he dug for himself once again.

Jude survives as best as he can, until he has a run in with the Mayor’s right-hand man, resulting in him being tied up and kept in a holding cell where Trelawny would make him a deal. He hesitantly accepts, putting his abhorrence for any Government officials aside in favor of being paid. He meets Ira Steele again a week later, wherein Mayor Trelawny pairs them together to work for him.