Born in the harsh wastes of the Vacuan desert, Durian was brought into the world needing to constantly adapt and overcome his surroundings. Even within the relative comfort of his tribe, danger was always around the corner. Would the oasis they had traveled to be occupied by bandits? Would a sandstorm wipe away the hurriedly built structures? Animals? Grimm? His parents did little to dissuade his fears with his father dying before he was born and his mother having gone missing in the desert when he was only a toddler and the tribe had to leave another settlement, forcing him to be raised by his grandmother. She did her best to raise a child she never asked to be handed, teaching Durian and letting him learn to fight with some of the village’s “hunters”.
They were by no means true huntsmen, not someone who could hunt the likes of Grimm, they were simply people who knew how to fight and defend themselves and their village as well as being able to take down lone mole crabs for food. From time to time that included Grimm, yes, but they were far from specialized in the field. They taught Durian and the other children how to survive, despite his natural clumsiness in a fight. It was apparent from a young age that, while not skilled in combat, he was skilled in tactics. He stayed there, learning from the hunters when he wasn’t out with the rest of his village gathering supplies, learning lessons with the other children, maintaining fruit harvests or simply surviving.
Of course, in a world like this, a tribe in the desert being swept away by the sand is all too common. The attack came quickly and was over in a flash. The bandits came bearing superior weapons and abilities, killed everyone who fought back, and stole away with those who didn’t. Durian’s grandmother ordered him to hide under his bed and the bandits, not caring or not noticing him, went on sacking the village for anything worth their time- food, water, valuables, ammunition. Anything that could be taken and sold or used. Durian was 16 at the time and unlike many other would be huntsmen who would have found their lives cut short at the blade of a bandit, he did what he was ordered.
He hid under his bed, cowering with his hands covering his mouth and his back to the wall as he could hear his friends and family being killed, his grandmother being struck down from trying to defend the home she’d raised her grandson in. He could feel something inside of him wrench around with each short yell that cut through the utter quiet of a desert night and he continued to hide. He hid as they stormed into his house and stole away with his things, he hid as he could hear them laughing around a small fire outside, he hid as the moon fell and the sun rose and he hid until he could bear the hunger and thirst no more.
Cautious and afraid, Durian slid his way out from under the bed, only to be met with a session of dry heaving as he saw his deceased grandmother, the person who’d raised him in his parent’s absence. He avoided looking at her and made his way outside into the harsh sun, trying his best to tiptoe around the corpses that littered his home. He shuffled to the small oasis that the makeshift village had surrounded and collapsed into the water, staying there for a moment too long and contemplating never leaving before bursting out and inhaling a deep, shuttered breath. He drank the water and at the scarce fruit too ripe for the bandits to bother taking as he both tried to think about his situation in order to come up with a plan and avoid thinking what was just behind him entirely.
Eventually, the small amount of resolve within him won over and he made his way back to the village and waited for the shifting sands to cover the bodies of his tribe, praying for the gods to be good to them in the next life like his grandmother taught him.
He stayed there in the village for several days, drinking the water of the oasis and eating the bitter ripe fruit. What choice did he have? He couldn’t just brave the desert, that was just as useful as staying under the water. The Vacuan desert was enormous, teeming with Grimm, bandits, and other hostile wildlife. There wasn’t any food, barely any water, no markers to show he was going the right direction and the sands constantly shifted around him. As far as he knew, he would just stay until the food ran out and then… well, he didn't want to think about what would come after. The choice to stay or go was forced on him on the third day.
On the horizon, as he was gathering the last of the fruit, he saw an enormous, shifting cloud of pitch black. It was something he’d heard about only in whispers and warning around the tribe, The Shiru. A monsterous grimm that stopped at nothing to destroy settlements, bringing with it a horde of other grimm to kill any who try to escape. There was one, and only one, plan if that thing ever made its way toward the village. Everyone packs up and begins moving in the exact opposite direction, so that’s what Durian did. He collected the handful of fruit that was left, he found a small container for water, and he began to book it across the desert.
In some ways, The Shiru saved him. Had he left a day earlier or later, even an hour, he wouldn’t have had the good fortune to run into a small caravan of traders making their way back to Vacuo from another village. Had he not caught them, he wouldn’t have been able to do the only thing he knew he could do when he arrived in Vacuo, take Shade’s entrance exam. He’d never met a huntsman in his life, never knew their lifestyle, but he’d heard tales and he was taught to fight. That was enough. They were strong, they were superhuman in their own right, they could be hit by a train and get back up again. They would be strong enough to fight back against the bandits. The Grimm were a problem, of course, but they were far from the primary problem in Durian’s mind.
By all rights, Durian’s tactical mind was the sole savior when he took the exam. His combat skills were mediocre at best and even though his tribes hunters had given him lessons with the other village kids, it was far from a formal education. The examiner told him that if not for his ability to work through and organize some of the tougher questions he would have had no chance of getting in.