Snippet #2693168

"Tell me your story, Who is Cole Black-Thorn, where did he come from... How did he get here...? What does he want?" Her voice was soft as her fingers worked their magic. He thought for a moment, unsure of what he wanted to reveal about himself. He then realized she deserved to know basically everything, as he knew so much about her. So, gathering his thoughts he began.

"Thomas Cole Smith Jr. son of Thomas Smith and his unwilling yet submissive wife Etka White-feather of the Apache born on the banks of the Missouri. His father was an abusive alcoholic ex-confederate soldier. His mother was a quiet native woman who was the light of the young mans life. She basically raised him and tried to shield him from his father. When the boy was 17 his father had a particularly bad outburst and pushed Etka down the stairs, snapping her neck and killing her. To give the father credit he realized his mistake and then, cradling the body of his murdered unwilling wife who took everything from him in her way, ate the barrel of his army service .45 colt." His eyes were drawn to his pile of gear, sitting on top of it were the tomahawk and the same .45 colt revolver, glinting darkly in the moonlight.

He sighed as he gathered his thoughts again. "Thomas Cole Smith Jr. had watched it all, from the push, to the pull of the trigger. Then taking the fated pistol and a few other items the 17 year old kid left. He became a translator, hunter, tracker anything he could do to scrape by in a world that would never accept him. But he tried, he tried so hard to fit in with the white mans world. He dressed in their clothes, talked like they did, he even got addicted to the fire-water, just like his father. He drank so much of the fire-water he felt like he would die without it. He spent years of his life spending each and every penny he had on alcohol, each and every minute of his life trying to please the white man and fit into his society."

Here he paused again, his hand going to the scar unconsciously again. There was plenty of things that had happened during those years, but he figured that she could guess what those were. And he didn't really want to relive those years of his past too much. "The young misguided man ran into a group of men who believed he'd do better in a cage than free. Ex-confederate members of the local chapter of that inglorious fraternity the Ku Klux Klan," the words dripping with a venom unaccustomed to his voice. "He was in a drunken stupor, and they jumped him from the dark. Beating him and dragging him behind their horses they took him out to a clearing in the middle of the desert. They tied him out on stakes and their 'colonel' stood over Thomas and slowly slid the blade of his sabre into his side, until it stuck in the sand beneath him."

His eyes had a far-away look, and he was barely moving, though there was no tension in his shoulders. He was recounting the past, it was a past he'd come to terms with, a past that had shaped who he was. Thomas had died that night, and Cole had been left standing in the ashes and blood. "He spent that night staring up into the sky, hanging in the balance between worlds. The alcoholic stupor having given way to pain and fever. Around him staked out much like he was were other people; native and black men, women, and children all splayed out around him already gone from this world. He started to slip, his consciousness slipping away. He saw himself drowning in a brown river, being dragged beneath by the bodies of his parents. Then as he was about to slip under a large black hawk plucked him out and deposited him in a nest of black thorns." He paused taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "Thomas died that night, and I, Cole Black-Thorn remained. That night was filled with fighting and blood, darkness and fire, but obviously I came out on top of that situation. Bloody, and shot several several times I stumbled across the desert for days, until I stumbled across a tribe. They took me in and breathed life back into me."

He smiled that easy smile of his, remembering the small village of the Nez Pierce. He had no idea what any of them had been saying except for the one that spoke Apache. "I lived there for the better part of a year, recovering and training and finding myself. Its where I got these," he said indicating his tattoo, feathers, and medicine pouch. "Leaving them clean of my addiction and with a firmer grasp of who I was, I made my way back to more familiar territory, this area. From there I did what I was best at, tracking, hunting, and translating, taking the odd job here and there. Did my fair share of outlaw and shady work, but mostly translation and tracking work. Met Ilyana two-leaves her little brother and her father, and stayed with them until Quinto attacked while their father and I were out hunting. The father was an old friend of my mothers actually, and he'd taken Ilyana and her brother Etu in after their own parents had been killed. I wonder where old Timberwolf is now," he mused, his voice trailing off.

He shrugged, "the rest you know I suppose. As to what do I want?" He thought on that a moment. "I'm not sure, I just kinda take things day by day. But getting rich could never hurt eh," he chuckled and turned his head to her with a wink. "I guess though that eventually I'd like to find a quiet place to live out my days where I'm not pressured to change who I am to fit into 'society'," the sarcasm of the word fairly dripping from his voice. "But until then, I'm feeling good right here."