Hephaestus Baer||D4 FIN

XX
Oh, where do we begin?
The rubble, or our sins?

My feet carried me across the surface of the slippery deck as yells and shouts echoed about the surface. Waves of near-frozen water batter the ship as I assist, dragging a massive net full of swimmy meat to the deck, taking care to avoid the great steel wench, and it's massive links.

We move together, many hands of a single arm, tossing the large fish into the bowels of the ship and hauling the too-small juveniles overboard.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I remember a white light, a burning pain in my leg, and the smell of iron across the deck.

When I woke, I was surrounded by a pale white light, and my four younger sisters, each with a look of concern on their faces. My left leg had been caught in the chain and pulled into the wench, torn to shreds. Both bones below my kneecap shattered, and the doctors told my parents I would be lucky if I could ever walk again.

Mother and father cared not about moving my things from the second story of our home to a storage room that became my bedroom, and the oldest of my sisters took my place on the vessel sorting through fish. The others helped me learn to walk once again.

The struggle put me through hell- I had to be withdrawn from my classes and taught with a private tutor from home. Only a year and a half later was I finally able to stand on my own, and walk with a combination of a metal crutch and heavy bracers on the offending limb.

I don't talk as much as I used to, and I tend to keep to myself, eyeing the clusters of friends from a distance. My hands have found a new talent- forging weapons from liquid steel and scraps of wood from the metalworking class. Everyone keeps to themselves in room 163, including myself. I'm not even sure what the professor's name is, simply that he knows what he's doing.

I specialize in swords, and tiny trinkets. Rings are my favorite things to make. Tiny circles framed by a mix of gems to catch the eye... Diamonds are a girl's best friend, and I can't help but wonder if that's how I'll attract a mate some time in the future.

I do wish I had friends sometimes, and I've taken to playing scenarios in my head of talking to the pretty, popular girls, or offering advice to the boisterous freshmen. While I'm not bullied or picked on, none fall out of their way to visit me or talk with me outside of group work.

I've changed and grown since I was young, since I shattered my left tibia and fibula. Where I used to stand at six foot two, I now rest at six foot five when I slouch. My muscles thankfully remain from metalworking. I limp at a slower pace than I would like. It takes me much, much longer to reach point B than it does for someone half my size with a perfectly good set of legs.

I used to keep my hair nearly shaved, to avoid it falling into my grey eyes during work aboard the ship, but I now let it fall wildly around my face in all its ginger glory. If school didn't require males to be clean-shaven, I would wield an impressive beard upon my jaws. An explosion of freckles dot my face, and most of the rest of my body. My skin, and hands especially, are calloused from multiple burns. I can barely feel anything against my fingertips now.

I'm also covered in hair- all of the Baer men are. I personally hate it- jungles, forests of fur cover my arms and legs. I hate to see what any of my four sisters look like when they don't shave.

The sea terrifies me. While I know and understand many of the district four men wind up working on some sort of fishing vessel, I myself would prefer to keep my feet on dry land, thank you. Maybe I can get a job making chains. That's... That's a thing, right?