Scruffier the Elefriend was a very hungry man. He always ate well and downed his food with rich pomegranate juice, so much that his cheeks became Perpetually Pink.

Legend has it that Scruffier was born without an ear. Worried about his hearing, his mother had immediately decided to leave him with the elephants, big-eared giants whose ears were said to be magical. In the summer, when leaves stuck to skin and dirt stuck to everything, the elephants would fan their ears gently into each other’s faces, instantly cooling themselves down.

Scruffier’s mother believed that it was around these Magical Ears that her son’s ear would grow.

She visited him and nursed him every day, but the ear did not appear. As he grew older, he learned the language of the elephants. He walked, slept, bathed, and played like an elephant, and he ate all day.

Over time, Scruffier grew and grew, and became stronger and stronger, until he came to be known as the Strongest of Elefriends. He could always feel what the elephants felt, and turned out to be a great listener, even though his ear never grew.

At the ripe young age of twenty, he left the jungle to make a living in a town at the forest-edge. He looked wild among civilized people, but he could carry a hat brilliantly. He drew eyes everywhere he went, because anyone different-looking usually invited staring.

He let his hair grow past his toenails, and he let his nails grow past his balcony. If he ever wanted to jump from a building, all he had to do was somersault while balancing on his nails, and he’d land on the opposite side of the road like a ninja.

His roommate, who hated to cook, wanted to practice witchcraft. She couldn’t light a stove, but she got a fire running before he could finish turning his head. He just knew she was going to burn his hair and nails in his sleep.

His pet rat had the disgusting habit of killing bugs and presenting them to him as presents. They were never where he left them the next day. He knew they could fly; bugs could always fly, dead or alive. Out on the edge of the forest, fireflies were his only friends. Yellow-bodied and bulb-shaped, the little shimmering creepers never lost their way. They never let Scruffier get lost either.

Whenever he sank down in despair, defeated by civilized life, he always ran back to his old forest home. Elephants would swarm around him, braid his hair and fashion his clothes, until he looked smart enough to pass for an Elephant Prince himself. His sorrows would be forgotten, his comfort restored, and he would be back to eating and drinking in bliss for a few hours more.