The birth of a child named Lakan was a tragedy. He was born from a mistake, his first cries echoing through the cold stone walls of a prison cell. His tiny body lay in a pool of blood, the warmth of his mother fading beside him, her lifeless form still clinging to the remnants of love that had brought him into the world.

  In the kingdom of Ardenhold, where slavery was law and freedom a distant dream, a beastman slave and a human noble dared to defy fate. Their love, forbidden and doomed from the start, led to a child who was never meant to live yet against all odds, he did.

  Lakan’s story did not begin in the comfort of a cradle but in the depths of despair, born into chains before he even had the chance to walk. As he grew, he was exposed to the cruelty of a world that saw him as an abomination. His freedom was limited to the confines of his cell, his existence a reminder of a mistake his parents had made.

  He bore the curse of his mixed blood a beast man’s fangs, cat-like ears, and patches of fur marking his body. Neither fully human nor fully beast, he was something in between. Within the prison he called home, he was not alone. The other prisoners beastmen, dwarves, demon-kin, orcs, terrakin, witnessed his growth. Though trapped in chains, they coexisted, bound not by blood but by the shared fate of the condemned.

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  Fate had already been decided for Lakan shaped by the expectations of those who saw him as nothing more than a mere pawn in a world that thrived on control. Yet in his heart, he longed to break free from the shackles that bound him.

  "Father, don’t you also wish to be free?" Lakan asked, his voice carrying the weight of a dream he refused to let go of.

  Panday, the man who had raised him at his mother’s request, let out a weary sigh. His eyes, once burning with the same fire Lakan now carried, had long since dimmed.

  "I once dreamed of freedom too," he admitted, "but that dream faded long ago."

  Among the beaten and the broken, hope had become a distant memory buried beneath the weight of chains. Yet, amidst the despair, one boy still dared to believe.

  "Father, I will end the suffering of the oppressed. I will shatter the chains that bind us."

  And in that moment, as Panday looked into the boy’s eyes, he saw something he had long forgotten an ember of defiance, refusing to die.