TokiKlok: Toki's Childhood

Toki couldn't see why they couldn't have taken the Dethcopter straight there and brought this up to Judy as they stood in line at the airport counter. She much preferred the anonymity of taking 'normal' transportation. Thanks to her mother she was a little more down-to-earth than the members of Dethklok. She soon wondered if it was such a good idea as dozens of fliers kept asking if that was indeed Toki Wartooth, and excitement started spreading all over the airport. "Here, put this on," Judy told him before they began boarding.

Toki boarded the commercial jet with a woman's sunhat and purple sunglasses on. Even he knew he looked ridiculous, but it evidently worked. They had no more incidents. He was still pouty as the plane was taxiing down the runway. "Ohh, come on," the girl poked at him. "Hey, I got somethin for ya!," she pulled from her carry-on a big bag of candy and shook it at him. He tried ignoring her but it lasted all of 9 seconds before he was tearing into it happily. "Mom's gonna meet us at the airport and pick us up."

"You sures she won't minds me coming?," Toki asked her, his mouth full of candy.

"No, she loves visitors. She'll be pleasantly surprised."

"Do's those guys always follows you arounds?," He referred to the two suit-dressed burly fellows who were never more than a few feet away.

"Some o' Off's work, that," she responded. "Always has someone guardin' me either coming to or going from Mordhaus."

The guitarist fell silent, watching the ground rolling along under them. Houses looked like toys down there.

He thought about his model airplanes, and when he took it up as a child it was one of the lesser bad things he did, but an annoyance nonetheless. Aslaug smashed them when the mood hit him. It merely provided the boy with an excuse to make more. He kept his battered old guitar hidden and played it while his parents were asleep. Toki couldn't help what he was exactly as he couldn't help being born, and music became his life, his passion.

"Cans I gets some alcohols?," Toki whispers to his companion. "I really needs a drink."

"Sure can. Just don't overdo it, ok? Ask one of those stewardesses to bring you something." Judy was growing bewildered by Toki's behavior. Maybe he didn't like flying on jets.

After a few shots of whiskey he relaxed a bit, feeling the warm sensation spreading out from his belly. Still wearing the sunhat he peers around the cabin, observing all the people in his field of vision. Mostly singles, a few friends sitting near each other, a few couples. A few mothers with their children, most of them thankfully well-behaved, but one little boy who loudly complained about everything and his harried mother kept constantly trying to shush him. They were a few rows down from Judy and Toki, close enough for Judy to frown and ask for a magazine to read. The kid had to go to the bathroom. He was hungry. He was bored. He hated sitting there.

Toki snuck another drink while Judy was in the toilet and settled into his seat, smiling. If his parents were here they'd shut that boy up, he thought. He usually caught the back of a hand to the face if he talked out of turn. When he was allowed at the table he ate in silence, eating his coarse bread and thin soup with a typical kid's gusto, snatching glances at the stern figures of his parents when he thought they weren't looking. One time when he'd memorized a passage in the Bible and recited it perfectly Anja smiled, and he laughed, pleased he'd done something right. He bounced into her arms and she instinctively hugged him, her bony arms wrapped around his little body. It felt so wonderful, he thought. Then reality crept back, rested on top of the woman's shoulders, reminding her of the hell that little beast put her through and shall continue to do so. He was Satan's handiwork, no matter how beautiful he was, no matter that he looked like she did as child, no matter that he was her only son.

She thrust him from her, her face an expressionless mask again after stiffly telling him he'd done well. Confused and hurt he obeyed her order and went to draw water from the well. Toki didn't understand his mother and father's inexplicable behavior, and grew up with the suspicion he'd never understand the world in general.

Aslaug discovered the old guitar Toki had hidden while searching for some papers. He brought it out and stared at it, surprised that the seemingly simple-minded boy had managed to keep something from him for so long. The boy was currently at that dratted public school, which was probably where he got such dangerous ideas from. They were even teaching the young ones English, he supposed, to better facilitate the Norwegians' spiralling into sin and decadence. If there was ever a modern Sodom and Gomorrah it was America, sure enough. Well, maybe they should look into homeschooling the little heathen.

But first, there was the issue of this blasted guitar. Aslaug went to the kitchen and sat down, the instrument laying across his knees, and waited. His angular, lined face betrayed no emotion, his blue eyes blinking only rarely. He was in that same position when 13 year old Toki came home from school, searching for his parents. He entered the kitchen and beheld a long-feared scene, his father clutching his guitar. "Your mother," he informed the boy, "is upstairs praying, begging forgiveness for her sins and mine, which has been transferred to you. Sins of the father," he mumbled, almost to himself. "What is the meaning of this? This devilry?"

"Father, it's a guitar. The music store clerk gave it to me. It's not bad, it makes me feel good! Father--"

"Silence!," he roared, standing. "It is a temptation set before you, and you failed! We failed, you failed, and you'll burn in Hell, child! That music, if you can call it that, is rife with violence, lust and decadence!" He shook the instrument at him. "Would that I had more self-control," he went on. "I would be a revered man of God in a big-city church, and not here in this ragged hole trifling with you!"

Toki began to cry, wounded by the words uttered in bitterness and frustration.

"Well," the man stated. "The first thing to do is remove the temptation." Aslaug stepped toward the lad.

"No! Father, no!," Toki cried in panic. The tall, strong man pulled the boy with him with one hand, the guitar grasped in the other, dragging them both to the barn. He tossed the guitar on a small pile of hay and produced a box of matches. "Now we will burn it together, and seek remission of our wrongdoings," Aslaug told him.

"Please, Father, please!," Toki sobbed as he'd never sobbed over his own hide. His father wrenched his arm and forced him down on his knees. The boy's dark blue eyes watched as his love went up in flames. At that moment something in him snapped--no, he didn't attack his father or run away at that time, but something in him changed. He had half-believed the cruel, awful things his parents told him, and had assumed he deserved such ill treatment.

Not any longer. Now he was simply biding his time. His heart told him that he would have to leave his parents' home, leave this place, perhaps even leave Norway altogether before he could be happy and be himself. His eyes stopped their flowing and didn't tear up again, even after he was bodily dragged to the basement and subjected to the whips again. Aslaug tore the t-shirt from the lad's back and let loose, decorating Toki's back with welts. A few more blows and it began breaking skin. A few more still and his back was ribboned in scarlet. Toki bit his lip, no he wouldn't cry, he wouldn't, AH GOD the pain, please make it stop--

Toki awoke in his airplane seat screaming, flailing his arms. "Toki, wake up!," came Judy's worried voice. "Toki!"

His eyes finally cleared and he seemed to register her beside him. "Sorries, " he apologizes meekly. "I hads a bad dreams."