Coal Stone | 12 | FIN

You have always had a hard time trying to fit in haven’t you?

A quiet demur boy, nothing like your siblings, all of which had told you multiple times that if you do not step out of your comfort zone, the people here would eat you up alive.

They would pluck your skin from your body and feast on your soul and then help you up and send you on your way.

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People weren’t kind here in twelve, and of course, you were taught to never expect it. It was tough here, mostly because coal had never been the most lucrative of business. Most people had large families for that reason. The more kids you had, the more people bringing in money. That was how it was explained to you. 

However, your mother had been different. A crafter by hobby and a seamstress by trade, she had always had a focused eye on the finer details. Maybe you attributed your meek personality to her tutelage. She always claimed that you had her hands but your fathers smile. A daft exterior that did not match the other boys that grew up here in twelve. 

By the time you had come to life, you had been the fifth boy in the family. Known well as the youngest boy of the Stone pack, you had been destined to do nothing but work your life away in the coal mines. Your brothers had done it before the rebellion, and your brothers would go on to do it after. A legacy that would be thrusted onto you, if you liked it or not. 

However, when growing up, you always preferred to be around your younger sisters more than your older brothers. You did not share their rough hands and tough mindsets. Sometimes your father attributed this to the fact that you always spent time around your mother. You always hid in social surroundings, and when you name was called, you always hesitated. 

Because that was easier.

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Easy didn’t mean it was the right thing though, and sometimes your father would tell you how disappointed he was when you were caught playing with a sewing machine rather than roughing it with your brothers. Sometimes they would come home covered in mud and dirt, cuts adorning their bruised skin like they were birth rights, and then there was you. Pristine and whole, not even a small streak of smeared charcoal on your face. 

This expectation always followed you. Like a curse laid on you from the moment one would be deemed to be nothing but trouble. You were young, and therefore, didn’t understand what it meant to not be like everyone else.  You knew you liked spending time with your mother more than any other person in your family, and while you might not have understood the connotations that inferred, but you were old enough to know that you had no interest in whatever society, or your family for that matter, labeled you as. 

Sometimes you would hear your father use the term soft, and other times he would speak words that you had never heard before. Your mother had always protected you, even when the world had been going to absolute chaos. In that maelstrom, you found the feeling of lush fabric to hold you through. You created things with your hand that allowed you to make a little keep for the family. It was never anything that had broken boundaries, but your mother always told you that you had an eye that most people didn’t. It was always the finer details that you had focused on, and the small things that you listened too that had always scared the men in your family, and sometimes without even being provoked, you told them exactly how you felt.

They always had a way to stick a hot knife in you though, and whether it was calling you a sissy or slamming their fists into your face, you never yielded.

Youre mother always told you to be brave in the face of uncertainty, and sure, your face had not been riddled with scars. At least not ones that could be seen by the human eye, but the ones that laid under the skin, those were the ones that made you stronger.

The ones that gave you armor made of diamonds.

---

However, chaos found a way to rear its devastating head into your world, and even through the rebellion, you turned to art. Still young, in every sense of the word, but that didn’t make you hide. Where there was destruction, you found a way to create instead. You were too young to fight, but some of your brothers weren’t. Even though you had fundamental disagreements with your family, you still wanted to show your support. You would stitch up their clothes when they needed it, tell them about how scared you were for them, and even spend time just far enough from conflict, hoping that somehow, someway, this would all come to a halt.

And it did.

Not all your family had survived though. The shop your mother had owned had been burned to the ground, with her inside of it. She hadn’t been quick enough to get out of the blast radius, and all that was left of her was burnt pieces of fabric and a memory. You ignored any gristly details that had been mentioned, because that was not what you wanted to remember. 

Only the good.

Like the gentle boy you were.

And even when the rebellion had ended, your family had been spared by the grace of some higher power. However, with your mother gone, your father had no clue how to raise a boy that did not have a backbone.

He was not kind to you, but the world wasn’t kind to you either, so what was new. 

You did not blame him for not knowing what to do with a boy that would rather stand on the sidelines and create with his hands. You and your sisters had always been around the woman that taught you how to be soft in every facet, and now that had to change.

Whether you liked it or not.

---

Soon your uniqueness had been tested more than you wanted to admit. A pickaxe in your hand and your father instructing you on what to do exactly. Of course, you hated every bit of this, but at the end of the day, you had nowhere else to go. You didn’t want to be on your own, especially when it could have been so much worse. 

Maybe you really were too soft for the coal mines. 

You had always been an observer anyway.  Even on your first day, you didn’t want to engage, because you always found it easier to stand on the sidelines. While this angered your father, he let it go, and instead picked up his pickaxe and started to harvest his own way of life.  

Even though you had never wanted to be here, words your mother spoke played like a record player in your mind. She always told you that she would understand you, even if you didnt understand yourself. She always told you to take your time. 

And after watching your father, and then your brothers, you realized that this was just how it had to be now. If you didn’t want to be here, you could have ran. The district had still been in shambles, slipping out would have been the easiest part. 

This is where you wanted to be though, which meant you had to put your differences aside, save them for another time. Lock them up somewhere safe, because you had a feeling that you were going to need them again someday. 

And you did nothing but grow from there.

---

And even now you found the perfect balance between your pride and your will to live, there came an understanding. One that didn’t come easy, but as long as you kept up, there had been weight lifted. 

Where there was once doubt in your relationship with people, you built trust, and losing your mother had been the hardest blow you had ever faced, but even in ashes, you made something beautiful.

Until you heard your name called.

Then everything went sideways.