On the edge of the city sat the Blessed Spirit Orphanage, one of the largest orphanages in all of Gabrealle and home to dozens of children that have nowhere else to go. It wasn't always so big, though. When it was first built it was a much smaller home that could only hold a few kids and three or four caregivers. But after the fall, there number of orphaned children in the city grew, and so there arose the need for places to take care of the lost children. Blessed Spirit had been one of the more fortunate buildings in Gabrealle, having only suffered minor damage. As such, it was decided that Blessed Spirit would be one of the buildings that would be repaired and expanded to help care for the orphans. A year after Gabrealle's fall, the renovations were completed and the orphanage took in its many new residents.
Behind the orphanage stood a lone, large, old tree, and in that tree sat one of the kids who lived in Blessed Spirit. His name was Sho, although around the orphanage he was often called Mr. Clumsy. He'd earned his nickname over several years of trips, slips, and falls. The patch over his left eye was further testament to his ability to accidentally hurt himself: a week before he was chasing a butterfly around with a stick, but then tripped and poked himself square in the eye. It was a painful experience for the young lad, and the doctors said that it would be a few weeks before he could take the patch off.
About the only thing that Sho wasn't clumsy with was climbing trees, and did he ever enjoy climbing trees. In fact, he climbed trees so often that he was begging to get a new nickname for it: Monkey-Boy. Nonetheless, Sho kept on climbing trees. He had always been a shy kid, and climbing trees was just a way for him to easily hide away when he didn't want to be seen.
On that particular day, Sho was up in the tree just to relax after a long day of play. His best friend, Jerico, came by to play. Jerico was the one person that Sho never felt the urge to hide from; unless they were playing hide-and-seek, of course. Sometimes, though, Sho was jealous of Jerico. Jerico was the son of one of Gabrealle's heroes. More importanly, Jerico had a loving, caring family to wake up to every morning and go home to every night. On top of all of that, Jerico also had wings!
Sho had grown up in the orphanage, being one of the many babies taken in by the renovated Blessed Spirit. But while most of the "original batch" had gotten adopted, Sho had not. For whatever reason, no one had yet to take him in. Not that he wasn't happy for the other kids, though; they were all in it together, and in a way they were their own family. But they all wanted to be adopted, to become part of a "normal" family again, and Sho was happy to watch his brothers and sisters find new homes.
Despite how his luck with adoption had been so far, Sho was hopeful. He knew of older kids that got adopted by happy families, so he was certain that it was never too late. Besides, he knew that there was one person that was always there for him, even if Sho sometimes forgot. With a huff and a soft smile, he reassured himself that everything would be okay and proceeded to climb back down the tree. With the sun slowly setting over the horizon, it wouldn't be long before the headmistress called the children in for supper...
***
Stone Brother
Some people have guardian angels watching over them. Sho, on the other hand, has a guardian golem, a mighty creature called Stone Brother.
Stone Brother first appeared to Sho when the boy was four-years-old. Sho had misplaced his scarf somewhere outside and was crying by the tree behind the orphanage. With the other kids busy playing, no one noticed Sho, and the boy was too shy to ask anyone for help. Suddenly, Sho felt a light tapping on his shoulder. When he turned to look beside him, he saw a giant stone hand sticking out of the ground. At first the boy was shocked and a little scared, but he quickly noticed that the hand was holding something out to him; it was Sho's lost scarf.
Since then, Sho always had a helping hand when he needed it. Just like with the Scarf, anything that Sho ever lost always seemed to be within arms reach for Stone Brother, and so Sho never had to worry about misplacing his belongings ever agin. Sometimes Sho needed a boost, and so a stone hand was glad to be of assistance as a rising platform for the kid. And still other times, if Sho knew that Jerico wasn't coming over, Sho would run off to the woulds and play some games with his Stone Brother.
It was during a few of those occasions when Sho was alone in the forest that Stone Brother would fully appear to the boy, towering over the small child and nearly standing higher than some of the trees if it didn't remain crouching all of the time.
Needless to say, the two became great friends.
Sho doesn't know where his Stone Brother came from or exactly what Stone Brother is. Stone Brother isn't even the creature's real name, just what Sho came to call the gentle giant over time. It sometimes scared Sho to think that maybe Stone Brother wasn't always so nice. After all, Stone Brother wore what appeared to be a helmet and some wrist guard things, and those were what some fighter-people would wear...
But in Sho's presence, Stone Brother had shown nothing but kindness. In return, Sho kept Stone Brother a secret, that way no one would ever come to try and make Stone Brother ever do something bad.
Sho [Art by pyromaniac]
Stone Brother [Art by erickenji]
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Swift's Journal
This is a journal of anything that has the balls to creep out of my head: personal thoughts, overviews of my day, and even a couple of stories every now and then.
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