🍇 : how would my muse describe their childhood? how much has it impacted the person they are now, or will become as an adult? around what age did they or will they start to mature, and why? do they wish to go back to their days as a child, or have they embraced adulthood?
let’s get fruity
okay so to better give context on my headcanons, i feel like i gotta give a smol timeline of where i saw haurchefant as having passed his childhood : with knowing his mother was a maidservant at the fortemps household before she got pregnant and likely got relieved from that service once the pregnancy was found out ━ and who it was from, moreover, i headcanon that haurchefant did actually spend his early childhood with his mother living in or close to the brume and only came to live in the fortemps manor with edmont when he was around 9 years old, after his mother fell ill and eventually passed away. i base this on the fact that haurchefant very much seems to remember his mother as a righteous, beautiful, but ultimately quite frail woman whom he seems to cherish in his memories a lot.
this just to say that there are two kinda separate phases to his childhood ━ the part lived with his mother and the part lived with his father, the latter of which definitely had the biggest impact on him, but the former of which he looks back on more fondly altogether.
so if he were asked to describe his childhood, he will largely go back to those earlier years with his mother and speak of his days spent playing with the other orphans or spent in the chocobo stables as his youth, or speak of the mischief and shenanigans he got up to with francel, estinien or aymeric ( who, in my canon were his second and third closest childhood friends ). in short, he will focus on the few positives he has from that time, rather than focus on the treatment he suffered in the fortemps household for simply being who he was.
that said, it is undeniable that the latter has greatly impacted haurchefant who he is today. it is written in canon that the lady fortemps, though imo never physically abusive, did go out of her way to make him feel as unwanted and unwelcome as possible in his own home. in his short story with francel is is very obviously implied that she would bar him from going to social gatherings or parties, or was made to wait outside or in the corner while the rest mingled. through dialogue with artoirel, it was made clear that she did her best to keep her own children from interacting with haurchefant and that she never really made it a secret that she despised him, made him feel lesser and didn’t want him around and that edmont did little to stand up to her in her behavior. in line with this, i also have the personal headcanons that she would not allow him to be tutored together with artoirel or emmanellain, that his chambers were in the servants’ quarters rather than with the rest of the family and that he would get smaller portions to eat, whenever she could get away with it. furthermore, he also got very little to no physical affection in those years and had to likely suffer a constant barrage of either the cold shoulder or passive aggressive remarks from her side.
the fact that edmont quite obviously favored him didn’t exactly help in this regard.
i have written a few headcanons on how this impacted him. we already know from the short story that haurchefant struggled with anger and resentment, a fact very clearly shown in how he completely went apeshit on the bandits that dared to kidnap and hurt the only friend he felt he had at the time. despite the desire to make his father proud, since despite their complicated relationship he did love edmont, he also rebelled quite a lot and was prone to losing his temper and getting into fights, especially once he started becoming serious about wanting to be a knight. and even though those outbursts of anger and aggression have very much mellowed in maturing in his role as commander and through the bond he formed with his men, i also believe the way he grew up has deeply impacted his sense of self-worth and the way he reads people ( tldr; he is good at reading and assessing people and people’s moods because his upbringing taught him to be hyper-vigilant of people’s motives quite early on, especially when it came to his stepmother ). it also caused him to mature far too quickly and push himself into this role as knight too quickly as well, imo.
lastly, he has definitely embraced adulthood. he is in a much better place now than he was, with all his experiences and the bonds he’s forged from childhood to adulthood, those that have stuck with him, having made him into someone who chooses, above all, to be kind and open to anyone, to be exactly the kind of person standing in diametric opposition to anyone who would treat a person the way he’s been treated simply because of his blood or inheritance.
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