red, district four | CB [finished]

There was a scream at birth — and then silence.

A loving mother and an absent father, he's grown used to making exceptions. A moon without the sun; a sky with no stars; dead bees and wilted flowers and a forest where all the birds have stopped singing. His childhood was not a happy one, but he had been more content than most, so he’s never had any right to complain. There’s always been a sturdiness to him that he's left unnoticed.

An iron will that lines the foundation of his spine; steel between his teeth spreading them wide — and he can fake a grin right with the best of them. A voice too quiet to share - too anxious and too paranoid and too human to let others get close enough to risk breathing in his insecurities - he was told once that silent men must learn how to speak with their fists in order to survive. He's not sure how he feels about becoming a machine in his entirety. Give him a metal heart, but at least let blood be its fuel.

He just wants to be more than he is. More than a lonely boy from an average home, smiling with a curve in his cheek that shows just how hard he's trying to push forward against all his hardships. He wanted to be a hero when he was a kid, a Peacekeeper to guard all the lost boys and girls that were much like himself, but 'saviour' has never tasted right on his tongue. Neither has damnation ever felt right when brewing beneath his fingertips. He just wants to be something. Anything. A lighthouse out at sea when the storm comes.

He throws a punch and swings a glaive and that's when he feels most alive; and he knows those who are more privileged than him will never consider him a true career - that he'll never truly belong anywhere - but he still gives his all. Private lessons and a challenge to be the best, he just wants a distraction. Something louder than whispers; an existence beyond contentment. "A rival would be good for you," Sam Braun had said once, and with time, Red will come to agree. There doesn't need to be an exception. Maybe a young man from a half-home can become part of a pair. ( Red and Blu; fire in the water. ) He'll take a possibility over certainty.

His throat is too tight and his hands are shaking,
so he taught himself how to sing with a blade.